Pit shuffles under the covers, clutching at his boxers gracelessly caught around his ankles. They fumble loose and he tosses them beside the bed. He examines the room in a desperate effort to look casual. She didn’t see him, did she?

Whew, good, Mrs. Henderson is still in the bathroom. What is it girls do in the bathroom that takes so long? Maybe she’s trying on negligee or adding a fresh coat of make-up or putting up her hair. Or maybe she’s just taking a piss.

Yuck, Pit can’t think about that. It’ll steamroll his boner. He continues to scan the room for something to refresh his mind after the gross image of Mrs. Henderon squatting over her toilet letting out a mondo-shit.

Stop it, Pit. Calm yourself, bro.

It’s hard for him to see anything with only the flickering light of a Glade scented candle, but Pit, eyes squinted, makes out the geometric silhouettes of unframed Impressionist posters, likely the very ones he sold Mr. Henderson that day she visited him at Hobby Lobby. Beside them, a fishbowl full of condoms and packets of lube that look like body condiments. Mrs. H can sure set a scene.

How did Pit get here? Has so much changed since that first class of Theatre 1, Mrs. Henderon treating the young man like all the other meatheads taking drama as a Mickey. (A few no-brainer courses these and even a soup for brains goober would have the arbitrary number of extra curricular credits required for graduation. Plus Mrs. H wasn’t half bad to look at with her mature waist and fat tits.)

Pit wasted hours, days, gazing longingly from the back of the classroom, occasionally stealing time alone with her after class. His method was a simple but direct strike of flattery. He would wait for the class to make their exit, and then cajole her to stay behind a few minutes to discuss the deeper, recurring themes in David Ives’ oeuvre. Still she looked at him like a plebian. (“The monkeys are writing Hamlet, you fool!”)

The War turned life on its ear, particularly for Pit. Medusa and Palutena, the Godesses of his land, had a feud, which had erupted senior year, boiling into an all out battle for control of Sky Kingdom and tangentially Sky High. Taking away many of the town’s strongest men, it devolved into a youth’s war. And Pit asserted himself as the strongest new recruit, not just physically, but mentally.

He returned months later with Medusa’s head to a parade in his honor. And attention. Loads of it.

Mrs. Henderson wasn’t the first to make a move, sexually. Ms. Viola had filled his locker with naked Polaroids, close-up pictures of her nether-regions trimmed in the shape a Mirror Shield. Mrs. Shipman casually opened her desk drawer each time Pit handed in a test or collected his homework. Inside, her dildo, generally wet, along with furry handcuffs, a candy penis and a picture of Pit the Hero clipped from a local newspaper. Even Mr. Dyer had begun watching him during those long walks from gym shower to gym locker.

Pit never took any of the suitors up on their unspoken offers. He never wanted to. Here, though, here is where he’s waited to be. In the bed of Mrs. H. The young, voluptuous, seductive theatre teacher who taught him the greater parts of Neil Simon; the women whom visited him at Hobby Lobby, his place of employment, often asking where they kept the Krazy Glue for her Shakespearean dioramas; the maiden whose mere utterance of “diphthongs” made his lip quiver, is now changing in the bathroom. Or pissing. Or shitting. Ugh, there goes his hard-on.

She’s taking her time, but he can wait. If there’s one thing Pit learned from his arduous adventure, it was patience.