Guidance and Discipline 1 (Patreon)

Mark Watson was not a particularly good man, and he made peace with that fact. 

He wouldn’t exactly define himself as evil. He, after all, decided to stop being a lawyer in his own violation, even though it was more about boredom than altruism. It was exciting to be the high-powered lawyer, winning cases through his pure charisma, playing the jury like puppets to protect rich assholes and criminal lowlifes, and earning a lot of money in the process. 

The fact that he managed to do that for almost a decade with a fake degree was the true achievement. 

But after the fifth year of his career, the excitement started to die, his life filled with paperwork and boring client meetings. He needed to move on, yet he was too lethargic to actually move. 

At that point, he started to get reckless, to a point that he started to drop hints around his fellow lawyers about his fake degree. At the moment, he justified that recklessness as a way to prove himself clever, but looking back, it was a cry to be caught, forcing himself out of his fancy career without him admitting anything. 

Too bad that his so-called rival Henry was a true idiot. 

If he had been honest with himself, he would have chosen that point in time to leave the firm, or at least, take an extended leave of absence to explore his life goals. Instead, true to himself, he chose to throw himself to the hardest cases available, the horrible pro-bono cases taken in on a contingency basis just to raise the firm profile, to be given to the new lawyers or worst-performing associates. Tim had been shocked when he requested him in a private meeting, while the rest of the firm led by Henry cheered from the side, thinking that Mark’s star was finally dimming. 

Then, Mark won his first case with impeccable preparation and a passionate closing speech that actually made the defense lawyer cry, shocking the firm, though their shock was nothing compared to when he had won the second case, or the third, or the fourth… The firm was silenced, his prospects were brighter than ever, his previous detractors trying to join his side… It was a certainty that he would be the next partner. 

And Mark never felt emptier… 

Ironically, the epiphany hit him in the middle of a moment that was supposed to be glorious, undressing two beauties that he managed to pick up from the bar, one redhead and one blonde, both beautiful enough to work as models. But just as they were being undressed, Mark was struck with a sense of Deja Vu, remembering all the times he had repeated the trick of picking beautiful ladies from the bar for meaningless one-night stands. He gritted his teeth and continued, but each moment turned his epiphany to the dread, making him realize the utter emptiness of his life… 

The worst way to end a delicious threesome…  

He hadn’t slept a wink for the whole night, looking at the ceiling while two sexy ladies slept next to him, naked, snuggling. Luckily, the ladies were acquainted with the bar pickup etiquette enough to know not to expect anything, and disappeared when he returned from the gym… 

As he looked at his empty apartment, there was only one thing in her mind. He needed something else… 

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In the end, even Mark could hardly believe the decision he had taken. After all, who leaves a law firm on the cusp of becoming a partner to join a shitty community college. Mark knew that if it wasn’t for his impressive streak of impossible wins, people would have assumed that his leaving was a poorly-thought-out excuse for firing him. Instead, people thought that it was a shallow excuse to stay away from the firm just enough to exhaust his non-compete clause before joining a rival firm to start his own. 

Mark didn’t care enough to explain —except to Thomas, of course, who was his only genuine friend, who understood him, but also offered him a blank check, saying all it would take a call to start a new company together. Mark nodded in understanding, even though he knew that it was unlikely. Consulting, maybe, but he doubted he could handle the workload of a full partner. 

Luckily, Ted —the leading partner of the firm— didn’t believe him either, and much to Mark’s surprise, offered Mark a ridiculously high severance package —which also prevented him from working for a rival firm for five years, just enough for his reputation to fade— after plying him with alcohol and good stories all night, thinking that he was hiding his nervousness. Mark signed without any hesitance, letting Ted think that he had managed to get one over him, while he made enough money to live the rest of his life decently without an obligation to work.

Or to have the most amazing midlife crisis in his life, but a voice in the back of his head —the one that was trying to make him quit— was telling Mark that doing so would end up him dead in the bathroom of a five-star hotel, doing drugs from the navel of a high-class escort. 

So instead, he enrolled in a small community college, North Star, hoping to use the silence to finally discover what he wanted. 

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North Star Community College was both better and worse than he had expected. Worse, because it was a dirty, overblown, under-budgeted mess. Better, because it was so horrible that he didn’t felt the slightest inclination to actually exert himself in the informal hierarchy of the place, even with a lifetime of conditioning in the law firm. 

Even without revealing the amount of money in his bank account, keeping his best Italian-tailored clothes in his wardrobe, and hiding the illustrious account of his unlikely case wins that shook the whole state, he was still on the top of the hierarchy, thanks to his looks and his quiet confidence. His silent charisma was enough to distinguish himself from the hopeless crowd. 

Which was a nice thing, he admitted, because even with the recent changes in his life perspective, he doubted his ego could handle being just another one in the crowd. So, even when he was scrunched in the back of the class, silent and dour, people watched him. Understandable considering he was six foot four with a spectacularly sculpted body that didn’t reveal his true age. 

People gossiped about him being a failed or disbarred lawyer, of course, but he didn’t bother to argue against it. First being he really didn’t care about what a bunch of losers said, the second being that any effort he put to deny it would further flame the discussion, making it rather unproductive. 

And since he wasn’t burning with insecurity, he didn’t try to cover it up by trying to hit the rare sexy girl that he shared his class with. Neither the aggressive opinionated blonde with a frantic pseudo-activist mentality, nor the brunette studious older beauty that tagged every single soccer mom cliche perfectly made him act. 

As a nice benefit, it helped him to stay away from their frantic lives, be it waving posters and signing petitions, or endless activities for the children. Without the burning insecurity that forced him to be someone he was not, he really didn’t want to act. 

Since he wasn’t distracted by trying to get in the pants of the beauties, he decided to waste his time in a different way. He observed the class with all the skills he had sharpened during his stint as a lawyer. 

It was the sixth week of the class when he noticed really noticed Laura May, a young petite brunette who was barely above her legal age. He was aware of her, of course. It was hard to miss an enthusiastic student that he had shared three classes with, doing her best to be seen in every single one of them, but Mark was ready to write her off as yet another enthusiastic yet incapable nerd. After all, with the clear enthusiasm she was showing, if she had been any good, she wouldn’t be in a community college. But since she answered roughly half of the questions asked to class —and half only because most of the teachers allowed the others to answer first if there were any volunteers, leaving only the hardest half to her— Mark inevitably continued to pay attention to her. 

However, as time passed, Mark was forced to update his first impression, because Laura was a smart girl, answering each question perfectly in all three classes. Moreover, he had watched enough fakers to know that she wasn’t coasting on preexisting knowledge while also showing an aptitude far above what was required by a community college, especially one as bad as North Star—or she was good enough in acting to actually trick Mark, which was even more unbelievable. 

With her intelligence and work ethic -proven by the piles of books she was hauling to every class including suggested material- she should have been able to get a seat in a real college, probably one in Ivy-level. He had certainly worked with fewer bright lawyers with degrees from those schools. 

It was possible that her family was not in a position to afford a real college, of course, but it was a bet, Mark wouldn’t have chosen that option. There was something deeper going on. Her relatively expensive but childishly conservative clothing and her innocent prude ways, however, suggested a conservative upbringing. In the end, he wrote it off as a likely fight with her family. He was intrigued, but only enough to get a fleeting part of his attention, with no intention of acting. 

When he noticed that she was actually carrying a gun in her handbag, he felt more curious, but once again not taking any action. 

At least, not until Thomas —the jock who clearly still thought of himself in high school, decided to respond to her poor attempts to keep him away from the football team by revealing a pill addiction in the middle of the cafeteria, when she tried to remind him that they were friends, before spitting a few more details like rehab and a breakdown that ended up ruining the classroom.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the students turned their gazes on Laura, some with judgment, some with pity, and but most with the excitement of finding yet another dirty little secret that would make themselves feel better about their horrible life choices. Laura’s perfectionism and pristine reputation worked against her at that moment, as purer the target, more enjoyable was to pull her down in the dirty world of gossip. 

Thomas just left, too childish to realize he had just revealed a big secret of hers, and probably ruined her social life for the rest of her North Star days. Laura stood there, frozen, with a tray of food in her hands. She stood there for a minute, until one of the more horrible students yelled. “Hey, pill chick, move!” 

That worked as a signal. A gasp escaped her mouth as her tray toppled off her hand, hitting the floor with a crash. She dashed away… 

Mark wasn’t a hero, so he didn’t plan to interject, nor he planned to follow her. But also, Mark wasn’t a heartless villain, so, when he noticed that she was running toward the parking lot, likely intending to drive away, he was smart enough to realize just how bad it might end up. So, he stood up and started following her. In her mood, a car crash was almost a certainty. 

She ran away frantically, but Mark was almost double her petite size, so he caught up with her easily, following her from a few feet away. She was too distracted to notice his presence, at least until she tried to pull open her car door, only to notice his hand preventing it from opening. 

“What do you want!” she exclaimed between sobs as she turned toward him. 

“Calm down,” Mark said in a kind tone, one he often used when he was talking with vulnerable witnesses during his trials, not wanting to alarm her, especially he noticed her hand dipping to her bag, the same one that held a gun. Her hand stilled, and Mark felt his heartbeat slowing down. It wasn’t the first time he faced the risk of being shot, but funnily enough, a hysteric girl half his size was scarier than a professional hitman with a gun —a nasty memory from the time he had been handling mob cases. Unpredictability was a dangerous thing… 

“What do you want?” she repeated, calm enough not to shout, but tears still spilling down her cheeks. 

“For now, I want you to keep away from the wheel, at least until I’m reasonably sure that you won’t have an accident,” Mark explained, still talking calmly. 

“Why do you care!” she said, once again louder, but the tenseness on her shoulders abated just a bit, showing his approach was working. When she turned her blue wide eyes to him, shining with tears, the residual lawyer in him wished that she was a witness he could play in front of a jury. Just a glance at her Bambi look would have been enough to win a case. 

“If we lose you, who’s going to distract teachers in class with their pointless bickering,” Mark answered with the slightest smile. 

“Hey!” she exclaimed, but Mark counted himself victorious when she let out a wet chuckle. He let his smile widen enough to comfort her and opened his arms invitingly. A moment later, she hit his midsection like a cannon, crying badly. 

“And my shirt is in ruins,” Mark said even as he patted her shoulder, earning another weak chuckle as she cried.