Janelle finished doodling the cute angel who sat two rows to her left and dropped her pencil, resting her head on her arm. She drummed her fingers on the decade-old desk, cheap then, decrepit now.
Another glance won’t hurt. Yep, there she was. Two weeks in and still completely oblivious to the fact that Janelle was flirting with her.
The fuck did I get transferred to an Orthodox school for?Clueless religious nuts, all of them. Janelle had tuned out of the lecture as soon as Mr. Hopston had mentioned the word ‘abstinence’ and was yet to listen back in.
Don’t swear. Don’t get laid. Don’t be gay. And no sex ed until senior year? Her eyelids drooped.
I could’ve gone to Vulamera Protestant High or something and learned all this by the time I was done being a freshman, but I guess physics classes and pottery club are ok too. Thanks a lot, Logos. Toun. The Gods of Order were boring as shit.
At least it was marginally better than going to a Reformed Zephyrionic school and attending a four-hour mass on how great the Primordial Being was every Friday.
Hopston was going into how the mortal body was an engine of sin and should be kept private, and Janelle dozed complacently for a while, the words glancing off her limply. Until.
“Wait,
what?”
The students around her tittered, and conservative professor Hops froze before the blackboard as if the idea of being interrupted was completely new to him. “Janelle? Raise your hand, for goodness sake!”
A palm shot up.
“
Yes, Janelle?”
“What th-” She bit her tongue. “Can you please repeat that last bit?”
“Why, of course, you little heathen.” He shook his head slowly, infuriatingly, and gestured broadly to the black cylinder on the windowsill. “I said that to demonstrate the evils of the flesh, we’ll be taking a look through the telescope today.”
“Oh
bullshit!” Janelle’s hands slammed down on her desk so hard that the old screws rattled and she had to clasp her reddened palms. The class recoiled, stunned. This was the kind of drama only transfer students brought with them from the schools of sin. A rare novelty.
“What the sweet hell do you
mean, ‘demonstrate the evils of the flesh’? What are we gonna be looking at, our star signs? Trying to spot some dirty messages written on the surface of Periditus? Did the Gods of Order write their moral law based on a horoscope they tore out of the daily paper? Is that it? No? Can you please start making some bloody
sense for once, then?”
Janelle knew she was doomed as soon as the words started to spill from her lips.
And yet, in an uncharacteristically worldly gesture, the venerable Professor only smiled. “Well, girl, the matter of your impending detention aside, why not take a look for yourself? Maybe that’ll help you get over your little… Lapse of faith. Go on. It’s the right time of year, and I’ve already focused the lens. It’s tinted to highlight Jvanic powers, but I’m sure you of all people won’t have any trouble recognising
those carnal products of perversion and sin.”
Recognising that, whatever configuration of stars she was supposed to see, she’d only set herself up for embarrassment in front of her crush, Janelle lifted herself out of her chair and decided to get this over with. Hissing something vile, she lowered her face to the eyepiece.
Her breath caught.
“What the fuck,” she whispered.
As she returned to her seat and Hopston interrupted his own condescending remark to try and get the giggling class to pipe down, Janelle could only sit mutely before her desk and wonder what kind of fucking crazy gods must have gotten together to make such a fucking crazy world.
Cyclone
Vec
