Page 20 of In Her Own Way
“Good to see you, Jessica,” Mistress Rikki said. “Can I get you a slice of lemon poppy seed cake? On the house.”
“Thank you for the gesture. I brought a bagel with me.”
“Next time,” Mistress Rikki said with a wink.
Jessica wanted to say something more but had no idea what. So, instead of embarrassing herself, she simply said,“Thank you” as she held up her coffee. Once back at her table, she carefully set the double-walled glass cup down.
Her papers remained ungraded while she enjoyed a few bites of bagel and sips of coffee. The place didn’t seem busy, but that could be because the space was so big, but Jessica liked the little living room configurations all around. It gave it a homey feel. And the old-fashioned hanging lights reminded her of the 1940s or something. It gave her a feeling of nostalgia.
Inevitably, guilt overcame her, and she pushed her half-eaten bagel off to the side, took a sip of coffee for strength, and pulled the period 1 papers closer. A mentor at her old school taught her to grade the earlier periods of the day first, so she could hand them back. Then throughout the day, she could grade later periods and still hand them back. Of course, one had to have enough unassigned periods in a day to do that, not encumbered by cafeteria duty.
She took a breath. She was the newbie at PUA and had to pay her dues. She knew that, so there was no sense getting salty about it. She went back to the worksheets. They turned out to be a breeze to grade. The students really understood the lesson on subject-predicate. All five periods did well, and she was done in no time. She was even able to put her grades in her laptop using the coffee shop’s free Wi-Fi. What an awesome perk. She smiled at her accidental pun. “Perk,” she murmured out loud.
“Now that’s a beautiful smile,” Mistress Rikki said, coming toward her table.
Jessica smiled bigger as Mistress Rikki approached. The woman was positively regal. She stood tall, with the best posture Jessica had ever seen. This woman did not cower to anything. This woman did not make herself small for anyone. Her copper-colored hair was pulled up into a chopstick bun, with an actual chopstick sticking out of it. Her mint-green blouse and dark-green skirt suited her hair color and pale skin tone perfectly.Jessica took a chance and said, “I was thinking what aperkit was having Wi-Fi here.”
Rikki burst out laughing and touched Jessica’s arm. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to tell Marta that one.”
“It was so nice seeing her last night,” Jessica said. “And meeting all of you. Miss—” Jessica caught herself again before saying the word ‘Mistress’ and modified it by saying, “MissStarr was actually the one who suggested I come here at some point.” She gestured to the coffee shop around her. “She gives me the nudge I need sometimes.”
“I’m glad you came,” Rikki said. “Refill? On the house.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”
Jessica knew she looked stricken. She couldn’t get actual words to come out of her mouth. Why was Mistress Rikki being so nice to her?
“What is it with you teacher types?” Rikki asked with a chuckle, gesturing to the papers Jessica was grading. “Always doing everything for everyone else and never accepting anything for yourself. My wife does the same thing. I’m going to go ahead and get you another, and you won’t owe me anything. Not money, not a favor, nothing. Okay?”
Jessica held back tears but knew her face showed her emotions.
Mistress Rikki sat down. “Tell me,” she commanded gently in pure Domme mode.
It was too much. Jessica’s breath hitched as she valiantly tried to hold back tears. She took the offered napkin and cried for five whole seconds into it. Taking a breath, she willed herself to stop looking like an idiot in front of the regal shop owner. “I’m not used to being seen.” Admitting that brought more tears. She waved a frustrated hand in front of her face to stop her nonsense.
A gentle arm went around her shoulder. “You’re okay, Jessica,” Mistress Rikki said. “I see you. We all saw you last night, and I’m so glad you came here this morning.”
“Thank you, Miss Rikki,” Jessica said. “I feel a fool.”
“Nonsense.”
“I just moved to Denton Heights, well, in August when I got a new job up here, and I have no friends. I just feel kind of lonely.” And why the hell was she telling all this to the busy woman who had a shop to run? O. M. G.
“Well, you’re in luck because,” she turned her head to look at the big analog clock on the wall near the front door, “in about ten minutes, you’ll have so many new friends it’ll make your head spin.”
“I will?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” Okay, that was really cryptic, but Jessica had time to hang around. Nothing was going on in her life, anyway.
“Okay, thank you, Ma’am,” Jessica said, wiping her tears with another napkin.
“I’ll send Kari back with your refill, okay?” Miss Rikki stood up.
“Thank you, Ma’am.” Jessica put the graded papers in her messenger bag and briefly considered working on some lesson plans for the Hamlet unit, but decided against it because in ten minutes, she was going to have new friends somehow.
She shored up her laptop and put her school stuff away in her bag. The young woman named Kari brought the latte, smiled, and headed back before Jessica could dig for a tip for the tall young woman. She took a sip. Mmm. It was just as good as the first one.
