The Guidance Counselor - Chapter 18 (Patreon)

When Ms. Johnson woke me up with the light touch of her hand to my forehead, I bolted upright thinking I had overslept. She stood over me with a smile and then returned to her desk.

            “You’re good,” she said softly. “Don’t worry. It’s time to go anyway.”

            I had remained exactly as I was when I passed out, fly still undone and my cock still lolling around. Sleepiness weighed heavily on me. I could have slept the whole night there. My only other wish would have been to have her lay on me.

            Ms. Johnson sat at her desk writing in her notebook, just as though we were having a regular session. I zipped myself up and stood across from her. When she continued writing without saying anything, I shifted my stance awkwardly, wondering where we would go from there.

            “Are you okay?” she asked, without looking up.

            “Yeah,” I said smiling. I put some extra smirk into that smile, an attempt to show her that I was feeling like a man now, not a boy.

            Ms. Johnson continued writing. Otherwise, silence persisted and I remained standing there thinking of how to follow up after she had jerked me off. When she sensed my presence still looming over her, she looked up and, in genuine surprise, said, “Do you…need something?”

            “Uhhhhh.” I didn’t know how to articulate my thoughts. She gave me a fucking handjob. I would think we would start…I dunno…going steady?  “Well. I was wondering where we go from here.”

            She stared at me blankly.

            I shrugged. “I dunno like…if like…you wanna go have a milkshake or something now?”

            A milkshake – oh so 1950’s. Actually, there was a great diner that served milkshakes close to where I last went to town during that Heather fiasco.

            Ms. Johnson’s deadpan face made me more nervous the longer she held. The prolonged silence told me that I made a mistake. For the first time ever, she sounded upset. She even addressed me by my last name. “Mr. Gallagher, I think we have a misunderstanding. I’m not to interact with you like that outside of the school.”

“Oh. I see.” She must have been afraid that other people would see us together. Of course. Duh. “Well, maybe if we went to another town further away from the school--”

“Mr. Gallagher,” she shot back, “I don’t think you understand. This was in no way an invitation to anything. You signed an agreement that everything we do here is in scientific pursuit for your health.”

I stared blankly at her. She opened her drawer with a sudden rushed and angry pull to show me the document I signed. “Please tell me you actually read this before you signed it. Please tell me you haven’t mistaken any of our sessions for anything personal. This is all to better your mental health. Don’t mistake what happens in this room for a relationship. It is highly inappropriate to ask me out.”

 I stared down at the paper because my shame and embarrassment were too intense to look at her. It suddenly hit me why the wording was so vague. For the first time ever, I also started to have thoughts of dislike. Disliking Ms. Johnson. Imagine that. The rejection itself wasn’t what made me mad, of course, it was the sudden realization that I didn’t really know her. It was a growing suspicion that she tricked me, that she was capable of tricking me, of tricking people in general.

“Now, Mr. Gallagher, please leave.”

I could have left it alone. I was almost out the door. But I turned around with a fire in my chest and pointed at the paper I signed. “This was vague on purpose, wasn’t it? You led me on. There is nothing in here that specifies fucking handjobs, Nicole.”

Ms. Johnson reared a bit, eyes wide, both at me dropping the f-bomb at her and addressing her by first name. It just came out like that.  

             “I may have fucked myself over signing this but… is this really all for science and medicine? Or something else? I thought I was special. This treatment. Or did you do this to any of the other boys too?” When she didn’t answer, I let slip the dreaded words. “Are you like…a fucking pedophile or something?”

            Ms. Johnson rose to her feet. She barked at me with a voice I never thought I would hear from her, terse and impersonal. “Mr. Gallagher, everything I do here is for the sake of your mental health. You are an adult now. You signed the waiver. I asked for permission. EVERYTHING I have done is with explicit permission from you. This is work. Nothing more. I highly detest your accusation and find it offensive that you think I do this for fun. Now please leave before I call security.”

            I backed away slowly. She kept her stern gaze at me, looking unreal, looking alien to me. Like a cat that had gotten upset, she had puffed up and became a different person. Whatever pleasure I had felt hours ago now dissipated and formed into a well of frustration. Sadness too, because in her I suddenly felt like she was another Heather. The one person whom I thought understood me had led me astray.

            I left her office and did not talk to her for the rest of my school year.