Do Not Touch!

un-beta'd sorrys. Tell me what you think:)

DO NOT TOUCH!
-by eroburn

Chapter 1

Edward Frederick Theodore stared out over his noisy class. This year was going worse than all of the ones before. He had assigned them busy work so that he could think while he graded papers. He was close to turning thirty years old. He disparaged over his life. He reflected over the last fifteen years or so. Somehow he managed to make it almost to the age of thirty still being a virgin. It wasn’t that he was asexual although sometimes he questioned it. He had desires or at least he thought he did. Edward rarely masturbated and often it wasn’t intentional. At twenty nine years of age he should have been above such foolishness as ejaculating in his boxers as he slept but he wasn’t. Edward sat as his desk wondering why he bothered to get up in the morning.

Edward contemplated the reason he had stayed a virgin this long. It was quite simple really. Edward wasn’t remotely attracted to any females. It was almost unheard of in his strict catholic religion to even whisper of the things he thought about daily. His family was constantly trying to set him up with females. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The only thing that he could see that they had in common was their firm religious beliefs. His family had tried begging, bribery and even had resorted to blackmail at one point, but Edward would have none of these women.

Edward wasn’t interested in the least in the female form. He actually got quite sick when thinking about it. His family considered him asexual due to his celibacy. Once they had given up on him ever being married, they had firmly tried to persuade him to become a priest. He wasn’t interested in joining something with so much temptation. Priests left and right were being arrested. Knowing his luck he would be found out and become one of the priests on the news. Edward wasn’t the least interested in choir or altar boys but he was interested in their fathers. Edward was sadly very gay, or at least he thought it was sad, pathetic really.

Due to his strict upbringing he wasn’t even allowed to have such indecent thoughts but he was getting to the point where he just didn’t care anymore. He thought about how to lose his virginity before his thirtieth birthday.

“Mr. Theodore” One of his high school students said. Edward taught English to some of the brightest and some of the most dimwitted people he had ever the fortune to meet. The majority of his students was seniors and still had problems with basic grammar. He rubbed his temples and looked menacingly at the student. It was a short, small boy who judging by his size shouldn’t have graced his class. He rarely paid attention to students’ appearances seeing hundreds a day. His overstressed brain failed to analyze why he had noticed this one’s.

“Yes. Why are you interrupting my class?” Edward said snidely to the small student. He was getting a headache and hated to be interrupted. He wasn’t usually so mean spirited he just didn’t have any patience today.

“Can I go to the nurse?” The small student said. He never bothered to learn most of his students’ names. He only taught most of them for one year and then they would never bother him again unless they wanted something. Students only came back for letters of recommendation and the like. He rarely gave them and it was an honor. Edward nodded his head to the student. It was just one less student for him to watch over. He never told the students that he didn’t care if the skipped his class. He never marked a student absent unless they were on the official absentee list. The student started walking up to his desk for the hall pass but didn’t quite make it. The scrawny teenager passed out in front of his desk and just avoided a nasty concussion by a hair’s breath.

Edward jumped up from his desk assigned one of the blonds in the front row to watch over class. He picked up the student and carried him to the nurse which was much too far away in his opinion. It was an odd sight to behold. It wasn’t often that students got to see a teacher cradling a student in their arms. Luckily most students were still in class, but there were always those stray slackers around.


He wondered what had made the small boy faint in his class. His head was sweating and he moaned in his arms as he carried him. He wasn’t that heavy; it was just a very far walk. Edward finally made it to the nurse’s office. It was unfortunate that she seemed no where to be found. Edward laid the frail student on one of the examining tables as close to the wall as possible so that hopefully he wouldn’t roll off. It was turning out to be a rather wretched day. This morning he had gotten a message from his loving sister saying that the whole family was gathering on his birthday for a party. His whole family included his other eight siblings, at least six aunts, eight uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, cousins and nieces and nephews. For some reason they thought it was brilliant to always convene on his birthday. He thought it was poetic justice for him hiding what he was from his family. He had accepted years ago that he wasn’t what his parents believed in. He just didn’t want them to deal with the pain of having all of their beliefs thrown in their faces. He loved his family but sometimes their expectations were a bit much.

He went to the office. The secretary was out of the office that day and one of the office aides had to page the nurse. There was no one left to watch the sickly boy. He waited on the nurse over twenty minutes, ten minutes after the bell. It meant that unless the blonde had stayed after the bell then the next class was in complete havoc. He rubbed his temples and tried to see if he was getting grey hairs in a reflection he saw on the glass of a picture. It wasn’t clear enough to tell. He waited around long enough to see she had everything under control and went back to his class.

Roughly two minutes after class had ended and all of the students had filed out he was once again interrupted in his thoughts. This time by two police officers sporting stern looks. It was usually the look he wore when everything that could go wrong in his class did.

“Mr. Theodore?” I looked at the stockier one of the two. His badge said Jones. Edward smirked at this. For some reason it brought to mind smith and Jones investigators and pictures of them talking like wise guys had him barely containing a chuckle.
“Yes?” Edward said wondering if this day could get anymore stressful. The only day that could be worse would be the party that was looming in the horizon much to close for comfort.

“Do you have a one Jack Sutherland in your class, Mr. Theodore?” Edward paused then began looking through student rosters. He finally found it on a seating chart. It was a bit outdated and he had yet to get around to making a new one yet.

“Yes but I have hundreds of students. What is this all about?” He wondered briefly if they knew his secret but he knew that was very unlikely since he hadn’t even spoken it out loud, nor confessed it to his priest. The police had a way of making you feel guilty even if you were completely innocent. They always meant drama, whether it be speeding tickets or getting arrested for something.

“Did you bring a student to the nurse’s office this morning?” Edward shook his head yes. He hadn’t known the students name at the time nor did he try to enquire it later. He had too many of his own problems to deal with a sick teen.

“Well we don’t usually divulge this information to non family members but this time we are making an exception. Mr. Sutherland’s parents have been severely starving him. We had wondered if this was because they were poverty stricken but there was plenty of food in the home. Mr. Sutherland has extensive bruising and belt marks. Due to the severity of the case and his age we do not feel it would be in his best interest to be taken from everything that is familiar,” said the second cop quietly. His name was Daniels. He was much friendlier than Jones.

“What has this got to do with me?” Edward said quite displeased with more stress being heaped upon his already pounding head.

“You’re the only person that he knows that has a foster care license. It would just be for temporary care until the hearing. You would only have him for three days.” Edward sighed. Three days wasn’t that long. He rubbed his temples. His parents were very family oriented and somehow he had been talked into having foster children. He had acquired the license and kept it updated but he had never got around to having the foster children. It was just something he did to keep his parents happy.

“Yes, that’s fine. Will he need to be in the hospital or is he well enough to go home?” Edward asked the officer. Daniel’s burst out in a grin.

“He is waiting outside the door. Make sure he eats and get him some muscle rub cream. Drop him off at the courthouse at the front desk at seven AM. It’s good that the students have a teacher like you.” Daniels said as he left the room. Edward rubbed his temples. He needed aspirin and preferably lots of it.

Edward left the classroom looking at the floor. This was going to be one hellishly long weekend. He nearly tripped over the rail thin boy. He wondered why he had never noticed his diminutive size but he honestly had not been looking at anyone.

He looked at the boy’s hazel eyes and was entranced. He wasn’t anything special by modern society’s views but he was interesting, compelling and more importantly his eyes displayed rare intelligence. Jack’s dark brown hair was disheveled from him running his hands through it. It itched to be touched and Edward put his hands in his pockets to keep just that from happening.

“Mr. Mr. Mr..,” the boy stopped as he stuttered. This was going to be one very long, long weekend.


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This story is dedicated to my awesome beta Teeta.

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