Eros

Chapter 5

I walked through door in a daze, I was just completely in shock. It was even more beautiful on the inside, nothing like any other school I had seen. The classrooms didn't have chairs and desks, they had pillows. The classrooms themselves were amazing, they had high ceilings and stained glass windows. The first three floors were decorated around the same way, but the fourth floor  seemed to have been kitted out for flying lessons, an important skill.  They had added a board that stuck out from the wall, and had at least ten harnesses attached, I'm assuming to avoid injury. Its very different from where I was trained. They basically threw you off and it was Fly or Die. This seems much safer.

The best floor however, was the fifth floor. It had a hallway that was made of something akin to bamboo, actually, maybe it was bamboo. I don't know, I'm not a wood expert. on each side of the hallway there were doors, and if you far enough down it splits into two separate hallways. The most shocking thing however was the sheer whiteness of the rooms. The first four doors were a kitchen, with an attached dining room, and a living room with two doors leading into it. They were all pure white.  Then the hallway spilt into two and the two hallways seemed to consist of only bedrooms.

Charlie showed me to my room, that looked very similar to the others except with a computer, and all my stuff already in it. Excitedly I turned towards him smiling widely.

"DUDE!" I exclaim, "It's amazing!" I hold my hand out for a fist bump. Charlie however is too busy laughing to return the fist bump, slowly I lower my hand. "What's so funny?" Between laughs charlie manages to choke out his reply.

"Dude? I thought you were Canadian, not Californian. What's up with the dude?" I knew he was joking but it still stung a bit. I  hate being laughed at. Hate it. I don't really know why, I'm sure its some deep emotional issue or something but I don't really have time to figure it out right now. Maybe one day. Right now all I want to do is get mad.

"Well, dude,  at least I'm not the one that thinks California is a country." I knew thats not what he meant but I was gunna have to take it. I didn't exactly have a ton of options. I was waiting for him to protest, but it never came. "Charlie?" He was looking very confused.

"Wait... California's not a country?" 

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I was still laughing by the time we got downstairs, and Charlie's face was completely red.

"Shut up Jake, I bet a ton of people think it's a country" He said angrily. "You don't have to keep rubbing it in okay?" I tried to stop laughing, really I did. I just couldn't, and soon I burst out laughing, this time Charlie joined me. Thats how it happened that when all the teacher candidates came into the room to find us collapsed on the floor laughing so hard I thought my ribs would break. Charlie and I locked eyes and for a moment we calmed down. Once I had composed myself enough I stood up to greet the very confused applicants. There were maybe twenty, and only six jobs, two of which were already filled by Charlie and myself.   I called in the applicants based on the job they were applying for. To teach german we had four candidates, one was an old man, who threatened to hit me if I didn't appoint him. We had him escorted out. Eventually we chose a girl who seemed somewhere around 25 named Tanisha.  She was very pleasant and spoke eloquently and with grace we were both impressed by her poise.

Secondly we called in the applicants for French. There were six of them, and none seemed right until we got to the final applicant, Peter. He had a twinkle in his eye and made so many jokes both Charlie and I were nearly crying. He was the exact kind of person we were looking for, someone fun and happy. As he left he winked at me in an exaggerated way, and I laughed heartily. Charlie didn't seem to notice.

As Charlie was in charge on the hand to hand combat class, and I was going to teach weaponry we only had two spaces left. We decided to interview the candidates applying to handle administration first. Only two people applied for this job, a middle aged man with dark hair and dark eyes, and a woman in her mid thirties. The man, Derek, seemed happy and joked around a bit whereas the woman started straight ahead angrily the whole time. Guess who we hired? Derek.

Finally we had the applicants for the job teaching the students to fly. We had more applicants for this job than any other, and we were tired. the first four candidates seem to blur together. I was almost falling asleep when I saw her walk through the door. She was beautiful, and I may have stared. Charlie noticed and scowled at  her. She was hilarious, or I thought so at least, but as the interview went on I realized she wasn't someone I'd want to date. Too perfect almost. Charlie didn't even smile once, and by the time the interview was over he seemed to be in a fowl mood.

"I want to hire her." I said outright. "She's hilarious, and qualified." Charlie frowned at his lap, then shot up angrily.

" You only want to hire her because she's flirting with you! You can't hire people just cause you have a crush on them. Thats not how this works, all she is is a slut-" Charlie started to rant but I cut him off.

" Hey! How much or how little sex she has has nothing to do with her clothes, and its none of your buisness. It also has nothing to do with her ability to do her job. You need to grow up if you think I'd hire her for any reason other then her qualifications and ability to do her job. Being a woman who has a lot of sex isn't a bad thing, in fact why should't it be praised? Society sexualizes women everyday but as soon as a woman is comfortable in her own skin it's suddenly a bad thing? I'm hiring her and you should accept that." Charlie sent me an angry stare, but I could tell my words had gotten through because behind the glare was a look of apology.

"Fine." was all he said.

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