Corruption by dampersandspoons

Chapter 24: Cast Thee Out

“Sister Margaret,” Father Caleb said with a smile as the nun entered the room. “Have a seat.”

She blinked rapidly as she looked at Buffy, her fingers wringing each other as she tentatively sat down beside her. “Is…everything all right?”

“Right as rain.” He clicked the end of his pen repeatedly as he smiled at the sister. “I have a few questions for you and I hope I’m not taking you away from anything important. I know how you girls like your morning prayer.”

“No,” Sister Margaret said nervously, looking at the young girl once more and ashamedly looked away when she saw that Buffy’s eyes were welling up with tears.

“All righty then. Now, let’s see here,” he said, scanning the form with the tip of his pen until he landed on the spot he was searching for and raised his eyes, letting out a little exclamation of triumph. “Would you be willing to give a statement about the behavior between Buffy Summers and William Giles during the course of the first semester in 2007?”

“I…don’t understand.” Sister Margaret wasn’t looking at either of them now.

“Sister Margaret, do you or do you not deny having knowledge of their relationship?”

“What do you mean by relationship?” she said with a slight smile. “If you mean that he was her priest and she was her student, then yes. I will admit to knowing about that.”

Buffy turned to look at her, wondering if she was going to defend her, wondering what the hell was going on in the first place and if things were about to get really, really awful.

Father Caleb chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “I guess I have to spell it out for you, then. Do you admit that you had knowledge of Father William having sexual relations with his student, Buffy Summers?”

“What is this all about?” Her voice had turned commanding and she sat straight in her chair, locking her gaze with his.

“Well,” he said, rubbing his chin, “I am the authority here and as such, I’m taking a few matters into my own hands. There really is something to be said for the rules in a private school and the…leniency towards bending them.” He chuckled, instantly frowning when the sister didn’t seem to understand what he was getting at. “Are you not following me?”

“I think I am.” She scowled.

Buffy fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, wishing someone would clue her in to what was going on. God, her cheek still stung.

“Now that’s settled, would you answer the question?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you will answer it or yes, you admit it?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “I knew something was going on.”

A slow smile spread across his face and he nodded once. “Thank you, Sister.” He wrote something down, biting his lip in mirth like he was about to propose to his high school sweetheart.

Buffy clenched the arms of her chair and glared at the nun. “How could you?” But she didn’t say anything to her, couldn’t even look at her.

“No time for cat fights,” Caleb said raising his hands innocently. “We have a lot to go over and I’m already worn out from the ordeal so let’s get this rodeo hog-tied.” He turned to Buffy. “When would you say this started?”

“I don’t have to answer you. I don’t have to say anything to you!”

Smirking at her and clicking his pen again he said, “No, I guess you don’t. Dates don’t really matter in the long run. I just like things to be neat and tidy, but if you want to make a mess of things, be my guest. The outcome’ll be the same no matter how you slice it.”

“What is the outcome?” Buffy asked.

“Ain’t you a spoil-sport? Here I had all these questions and suspense planned…”

“Just tell me! How did you know about my mail? How did you know any of this had happened? And why weren’t you keeping William’s letters from getting to me?”

Upon hearing the last part of her frantic rambling, Caleb frowned and looked at the nun. His jaw tensed as Sister Margaret gave him a saccharine smile. “I…didn’t know you were receiving them. I guess you got lucky,” he said pointedly, looking at the Sister. “Doesn’t matter. Your behavior at this school has been unacceptable. Aside from the usual trouble you’ve caused this school, the fact is, you had sex with a priest. You blasphemed in the house of the Lord. It shows disrespect to God, to this school, and to yourself.”

“There was nothing disrespectful about what happened between William and me. And I can’t believe you told him!” she shouted at Margaret, turning all her rage onto her. “I confided in you!”

“Buffy, I’m sorry,” she said honestly, pleading with her as her eyes started to sting. “I can’t lie to a father, I cannot. He asked me and I had to tell him. I’m sorry.”

“You see, Miss Summers,” Caleb chimed in, “there are some women in this world who know their place.” Margaret stiffened, but said nothing. He continued, “When a woman makes her vows to Christ, she has become his bride. To deceive him is wrong. I am his vessel, and deceiving me is just as wrong. Sister Margaret has been punished for hiding the truth for so long and she will be forgiven in time, since she came clean.”

“What did he do?” Buffy asked her worriedly. The feeling intensified when Margaret shrank in her chair, an internal battle evident on her face as she tried to remain impassive.

“That isn’t why we’re here, Miss Summers. We’re here to save me time going to the board so let’s cut to the chase. It’s the last day of the month and we haven’t received your tuition from your parents. I know Father William was lax with their tardiness, for reasons we are all well aware of, but I won’t turn the other cheek so quickly, no matter how tempting. You’re no longer a minor, which makes this much easier. Brass tacks, you’re being expelled, effective immediately.”

“What?” she shouted, standing up and walking over to his desk. “There’re only four months left of school! You can’t expel me!”

“I can and I will. Sit down, Miss Summers.”

“No!”

He slammed his fist on the desk, successfully scaring her into submission. “I said sit down!”

She did, but she wasn’t happy about it, letting him know when she plopped down in her seat and folded her arms with a grimace.

“You’ve deceived the Lord, lain with a man of the cloth, conspired with a nun to keep your secret, forced her to lie for you. You continue to correspond with him, sending him your dirty underwear, writing out words of sin! How many more people will you deceive and lie to, Miss Summers? In my opinion, you are corrupting this school by planting those black seeds of yours and I won’t tolerate it from you, my Sisters, or anyone else that steps through those front doors. This expulsion is not up for debate. You have until tomorrow morning to be gone.”

“Father Caleb,” Sister Margaret interjected, “you can’t send her out into the streets! Her parents are still in Paris.”

“She’s an adult now. I’m sure her mommy and daddy left her with enough funds. None of these girls have anything to worry about, nothing to work for. Here, I already wrote you a list of public schools in the area.” He haphazardly tossed a folder across the desk towards Buffy. “I’ll even pay your cab fare out of here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, standing up and lifting her chin. She snatched the folder off the desk. “I’ve always taken care of myself.”

She walked to the door and paused, daring a glance at Sister Margaret. Whatever he’d done to her, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about anything but the fact that yet again, she was tossed aside, forced to go it alone. It was for the best, she figured, being away from the likes of Caleb. At the same time, she had no idea what she was going to do. William was gone, had no idea what was happening to her, and by the time a letter might reach him, who knew where she’d be? She never felt more abandoned in her life than she did then.

And because of that, she clung to the last vestige of pride she had left. She was fueled by anger, channeling the girl she’d been before any of this happened, the troublemaker, the impudent girl she’d always been, the farce she’d created when she couldn’t deal with the world around her and she turned to Father Caleb, bent over, lifted her skirt and flashed him her ass. “Take a good long look, pervert!” she shouted, patting her butt as she craned her neck to look at him, smiling victoriously.

“Get out of my office, right now!”

She placed the folder in her mouth and flipped him the bird with both hands and slammed the office door behind her. As soon as she was alone in the hallway, she started trembling. The shock of everything that had happened finally settled and she sniffled as she walked towards her dorm room, casting shaking hands through her hair as she avoided the curious glances of nuns and fellow classmates. It was none of their business, if they didn’t know already. Fuck them.

“Fuck this school!” she suddenly shouted, standing in the middle of the hallway and startling a few people as they stopped to observe the tiny blonde girl who was two seconds away from a nervous breakdown. “Fuck you!” she pointed to a stranger, “and fuck this door!” She pointed to the Geometry classroom door. She ripped off a poster that was taped to the door that read, “He Died for Your Sins. What Will You Sacrifice?”

“Ha! Fuck this poster!”

“Miss Summers,” a nun said, emerging from a classroom and approaching her carefully, clutching the rosary around her neck like pearls on a southern belle, “lower your voice right now!”

“Am I shouting? Am I being too loud?” she yelled, flailing her arms in the air. “Oh, I’m sorry. Wouldn’t want to disturb any of your lives!”

“You will go to your room at once!”

“Gladly!” She glared at the nun and marched down the hall, shouting a myriad of curse words just to drive it home that she was pissed off. Once she’d arrived at her room, she pulled out her suitcases and started packing. She didn’t know where she was going to go, didn’t know what she was going to do, all she could think about was getting out. Now. She still had her parent’s credit card and since they weren’t in the mood to be parents in the physical sense, she’d decided for them that they were going to be parents in the monetary one.

She picked up her phone and called for a cab while she zipped up her suitcase. Once the cab was ordered, she hung up the phone and pulled the sheets off her bed and tossed them on the floor. Not satisfied, she flipped her mattresses over, smashed the reading lamp against the wall, stubbed her toe on the dresser when she kicked it and howled. “How do they do this in the movies? Fuck! Fuck!” She was shouting and growling, wishing she were stronger so that she could cause more destruction but as it was, the only thing she could achieve were a few broken pieces of a lamp, a mattress that was easy to put back in place and a wad of sheets on the floor.

It was time to go.

Buffy hauled her luggage outside and there was quite a bit of it, but she was so angry that it wasn’t as difficult to move, and waited for her cab. She knew there were people coming outside to watch her, could practically feel the eyes on her back but she wouldn’t look at them. Never again. Never, never, never. The cab finally pulled up and the driver helped her with her luggage.

“Where to?”

“Uh…” Well, shit. She hadn’t thought that far. “Take me to the nearest hotel. A, uh…a nice one. Really expensive,” she said with a wicked smile. Fuck her parents, too! They had the money.

“All right,” he said with a chuckle.

 

---

 

As it turns out, you couldn’t rent a hotel room without proper identification, no matter how shiny and golden your credit card was. Her cab was gone, her luggage stacked outside the hotel and Buffy finally lost it. She sat on one of her suitcases and started crying. This was awful. She had no cash, no family or friends in the near vicinity, and from the looks of it, no place to stay. All anger and pride had washed away and she was left feeling completely helpless.

“Ma’am?” Some young guy with pimples and wearing the hotel’s required suit had come up to her.

She raised her puffy red eyes to him. “I’m sorry, I’ll go.”

“Are you, um,” he struggled to say, stopping her as she rose to her feet, “do you have a place to go?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “All I have is my parent’s credit card and they won’t take it without I.D. I can’t even use a payphone.” She hiccupped pathetically.

He sighed and nodded, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s twenty bucks and some quarters.” He was an angel, an angel sent to her from the powers of the Four Seasons to tell her that all hope wasn’t lost. “There’s a payphone just two blocks from here. I’ll watch your stuff.”

Smiling and crying harder, she hugged him, ignoring the grunt he emitted when she squeezed him a bit too hard. “That’s all right, ma’am. You just go take care of yourself.”

She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “Are you a bell boy?”

“Worse. Valet.” He smiled. “But don’t worry, I won’t let anyone touch your things.”

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and turned around and walked towards the payphone. She didn’t know who she was going to call, who could possibly help her. All she could think about was that William would know what to do: William would help her. But he was gone, on the other side of the world, probably hating her because he’d never received her letters. And then, she smiled, picked up her pace and ran to the phone.

“Thank you for calling 4-1-1. Say a city and state, please,” an overly cheerful electronic voice sounded out from the receiver.

“San Diego, California.”

“Ok, what listing?”

“Kamat and Vijay Bachchan.”

There was a series of clicking noises and then the electronic voice said, “Please hold while we transfer you to an operator.” Terrible music chimed in, some synthesized cover of Man on the Run, playing at a level that even a deaf person would be forced to pull the phone from their ear, and then a real, live human ended the music with the sweet, helpful sound of her voice.

“Can you spell that for me?”

“Oh, uh…which part?”

“All of it.”

Buffy laughed nervously. “Ok, the last name is uh…B-a-…um. It’s kind of a hacking noise there. Like Hannukah,” she said, making the appropriate phlegm noise to accompany the first syllable.

“That doesn’t help me.”

“Well, here goes nothin’. B-a-c-h-a-n. Try that.”

Needless to say, there was much debate over the proper spelling of Bachchan, even after offering the name Chaka Khan as a helpful tool, which of course didn’t help at all. Then there was even more debate on Vijay, whether the j was an h or a ch or a vast combination of letters that Buffy had never thought about before. Kamat was the winning name and she was finally connected, at no additional charge, with thanks from AT&T. She almost squealed in joy when Kamat answered the phone.

“Kamat? Kamat?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“This is Buffy. Um, remember? From Christmas?”

“Yes! The errand girl. How did you get this number?”

“Information. Look, I need to know how to find William. I figured since he was with Vijay that you’d know how to reach him. It’s really, really urgent.”

“It is very late there.”

“I don’t care, I have to talk to him now.”

Kamat sighed into the phone and said, “Ok. Let me go get my book.”

Buffy waited impatiently for her return, digging through her purse for a pen and opening the palm of her hand to write the number down. Once she’d procured the number, she almost forgot to thank Kamat as she hung up but quickly remembered, and abruptly ended the call. She dialed out the incredibly long list of numbers that ended up wrapping around her wrist and waited impatiently for someone to pick up the phone.

All the emotions from her day suddenly crept into her throat and she let out a loud sob when someone finally answered in a sleepy voice.

“’Lo?”

She cried even harder at the sound of it. “William?”

“Buffy?” God, it was him, his voice, his wonderful, thick, raspy voice that had lulled her off to sleep time and time again. The voice that shouted her name, whispered it, mumbled it. The voice that made everything ok. He was so far away but hearing it for the first time in almost two months was like a beacon. She was sobbing too hard to reply and she heard him rustling on the other line and finally, “Buffy, is that you? Please tell me it’s you.”

“Yes,” she choked out, sitting down against the tiny partition of the payphone as she was flooded in relief. “I miss you so much.”

“Oh, God.” His voice was strained, partially from sleep but also something else. He made a choking noise and then he cleared his throat. “God, I thought you’d…never mind. How did you get this number? Where are you? What happened?”

She let out a bubbly, tear-laced giggle at his worry and then swallowed, trying her best to convey everything that had happened without losing it. “I got expelled.”

“What? What do you mean?” He was already pulling on pants.

“Father Caleb knew about us and…and he kicked me out. And—” her voice was cut off by an operator.

“If you’d like to continue this call, please insert fifty cents.”

Growling in frustration she slammed two dollars in quarters in the slot. “William?”

“Yeah, I’m here, keep talking.”

“He threatened me and then he hit me and then he kicked me out and I don’t know where to go or what to do and my parents are gone and I don’t have any money and the stupid,” she paused to shakily inhale as she started sobbing again, not even caring any longer that she sounded like a blubbering baby, “hotel won’t let me get a room without I.D. and I miss you so much.”

William was dressed and tossing things in his suitcase, frantically pacing his tiny room and trying to get rid of the murderous thoughts in his head. How dare someone touch his girl? Someone had hit her. A man of God had hit her! He’d left her to it, to him, to whomever that bastard was that dared touch his girl. Swallowing those thoughts so as not to cause her any more stress he said, “I miss you, too, love. God, I’m so sorry I’m not there. Fuck,” he cursed, trying to think of what to do. “I-I can get on a plane but it’ll be tomorrow for you by the time I arrive, and that’s assuming I can get a flight right now.”

“You…you’re coming home?” Her chin quivered and her chest tingled and her fingers curled around the metal cord of the phone with hope.

William’s heart lurched at the sound of her voice and he closed his eyes with a happy sigh. “I’m coming home, love.” He could almost feel her smile on his cheek as he pressed the phone to his ear. “But you need to stay somewhere until I can get to you. Where are you now?”

“The Four Seasons by the school.” Oh, please, please, please…

“Ok, I’ll call them and arrange a room and tell them that you’ll be staying there. I’ll call you if…fuck, how can I reach you?”

“There’s a number on this pay phone!” Solutions! Answers! God, she loved him.

“Yeah, give me that.”

She was shifting her weight from foot to foot in excitement as she told him the number, her heart beating faster at the thought of seeing him. She’d anticipated his help, maybe some guidance on what to do but this was so much better. He was coming home. William was coming home.

“Buffy?”

“Yeah?”

“God, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.”

“Yeah I do,” she said, smiling into the phone, unable to stop. She probably wouldn’t for hours. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me, neither. Just hang in there, kitten. I’m coming.”

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