Beneficial | ANTHONY VAUGHN

013

The SLTs class had been full of the usual chatter and gossip until four figures entered the room. The first two were the usual Woodsy and Jojo, but the second two caught the student's attention.

"Oh, shit. Five-O. Shelve your pingers, Cash." Spider yelled as the police officers walked in. "Shelve your kiddie porn, rock spider." Cash yelled back.

"Okay, thank you. We have two very special guests speaking with you all today." Jojo explained. "I'm told Mr. Peterson is a regular visitor at the school and will run you all through some workshops. Whoo!" Mr Peterson stepped forward smiling at the crowd. "Thank you. Uh, hi, everyone, I'm Kurt Peterson."

"And I'm Constable Paul Perry. But please, guys, just call me PP." The other guy stepped forward, making a joke that got only a mild reaction from the class.

"So I'm a former police officer. And believe it or not, many moons ago, I was a student here at Hartley High." Mr Peterson described "So after I graduated, I decided to join the police force where I served for over ten years until injury forced me out." Darren raised their hand and the man smiled. "A question. I like it. Go ahead."

"Did you injure yourself from over-policing a marginalised community?" This comment got a reaction from the class, some laughs and some cheers. Peterson's smile faded slightly. "No, I tripped on a fence...Right, so, um, we're going to split the class in two. The girls are going to come with me and the boys will stay with Constable Perry."

Darren raised their hand again, this time Woodsy answered. "Darren, you can choose whichever group you like." Darren smiled, before collecting their stuff like the rest of the girls. "Thank you, Miss. I can tell this is going to be very problematic." As Tori left the class, she felt Ant's eyes on her, who gave her a cheeky grin when she looked over at him.

The girls and Darren were filed into the hall, where Peterson held a sign. "This program is a young woman's guide to survival. We call it Rack Off." He turned to sign over to make a big reveal of the title. "Sexual assault is a sad reality for far too many young women. You would know. And Rack Off is designed to equip you with the tools and the knowledge to assist in preventing it." Tori really wanted to listen, she did, but as the man dragged on she felt her attention being pulled. For a bit she believed her was her usual lack of attention, but from the wandering eyes of the other girls it seems she was not the only one bored.

"Right? So now you know the psychology of an offender, their selection process It's time to learn how to get them to.." Peterson waited for the group to respond. "Rack up?" Darren questioned and the man let out a sigh. "Rack off. Uh, so now I'm going to demonstrate some simple self-defence moves that you can practise on each other. So who wants to be a volunteer?"

Tori instantly felt Darren's hand on hers, keeping her form volunteering at all. She frowned slightly, before losing too much interest to fight it. "Come on, guys," Peterson called, looking for someone to volunteer. "How about you at the back?" He gestured to Harper who looked up surprised. Harper slowly moved to the front as Peterson tried to give her an encouraging smile. "Right so" He grabbed Harper's wrist "A man has a strong grip on you. Hey, you can't pull down or back, but the weakest part of the grip is the thumb. You need to cross-grip." Peterson began, to demonstrate moving his arms when suddenly Harper swung her hand up, hitting the man with the lighter she had.

He let out a yell in pain, letting go of the girl. There were gasps in the crowd. "Did you just burn me?"

"Got you to rack off, didn't it?" Harper spoke tensely.

Darren clapped for the performance, while Jojo stepped forward. "Uh, okay. I think that's a really great point to finish up. Thank you so much." Harper grabbed her bag storming out of the hall, while Missy chased after her.