The Housemistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

Besides those few things, there’s little else: a waste paper basket, a lamp, and a small mirror on the wall above the table.
    “It’s not much.” Carriveau reads Rylie’s expression of discontent perfectly, showing her to the third cubicle on the right. “But you can decorate it however you’d like. You’ll find some Blu-Tack in the bedside drawer. No pins, s’il vous plaît .”
    Rylie glances at some of the others, finding the walls cluttered with everything from shirtless male models to glitter hearts and unicorns. A smaller percentage of the girls have opted for tasteful magazine cutouts of their favorite actors and musicians, while fewer still have completely nude female pin-ups tacked to the walls beside their beds, bare nipples and vaginas covered by stickers.
    One particularly brave girl has even created her own personal masturbation material. She’s filled an entire wall of her cubicle with numerous hand-drawn pictures of a Carriveau-esque female: dark hair, green eyes, long legs. Many of them show her with an exaggerated, cartoonish bust, offering maximum cleavage, breasts threatening to burst out from the confines of tight clothing.
    “That’s Adel Edwards’ cubicle.” Carriveau catches Rylie gawping at the artwork and steers her back toward her own space. “She can be somewhat extreme.”
    Adel Edwards? Rylie lets the name percolate for a moment. Edwards, Edwards, Edwards … the girl Carriveau was talking to the in the lobby? The girl in last year’s Lower Sixth house photograph? Shouldn’t she be in the Upper Sixth by now? Unless …
    “She’s repeating Year Twelve?” It’s the only conclusion Rylie can draw. “That explains why I’m not quite the oldest girl in your dorm.”
    Carriveau tilts her head, one eyebrow raised, silently questioning.
    “I recognized her in last year’s Lower Sixth house picture,” Rylie explains. “She’s the girl I saw you with earlier, isn’t she? I heard you use her name.” She glances back at the boobie pictures. “Don’t you mind that she’s objectifying you?”
    “It’s a fantasy. It’s perfectly normal.” Carriveau shrugs it off as insignificant. “Have you never had a crush on a teacher before?”
    Rylie’s blush says it all.
    Her cheeks are burning with a fury more intense than the Great Fire of London, though not for the crushes she’s had in the past, but for the one she’s developing right now.
    Averting her eyes, she steps inside her cubicle, finding a duvet folded neatly on the floor, a pillow atop it, and her suitcase on the bed. Missus Bursnell must’ve had someone bring it here from her office. While she explores, Carriveau stands patiently at the cubicle entryway, still nursing the linens.
    Eventually, “Could you take these?” The patient Housemistress holds them out. “I can’t reach the bed.”
    Rylie looks down, finding the toes of Carriveau’s stilettos connecting with a strip of yellow electrical tape that marks the cubicle boundary.
    “Are you a vampire? Do I have to invite you in?”
    “Impossible, I’m afraid.” Carriveau shakes her head. “Your cubicle is the one place on school premises that belongs entirely to you. Within it, you have complete privacy, and I’m not permitted to enter—even at your invitation.”
    “That’s no fun.” Rylie takes the sheets and sets them on the bed.
    “Of course,” Carriveau adds a quick caveat to the rule, “if I suspect that you’re breaking school regulations and hiding contraband, I have the right to conduct a search of your cubicle in the presence of another staff member.”
    “Contraband?” Rylie heaves her suitcase up onto the dresser, moving it out of the way so that she can make her bed unimpeded. “What kind of contraband?”
    Carriveau shrugs. “Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, weapons, fireworks, pornography.”
    “Porn?” Rylie pulls a face. “Are you pulling my leg?” She shakes out the fitted sheet and lays it over the mattress. “What harm could