Textual Relations: A Wildwood Society Short

By Roxie Noir

Sadie Bell is polite, modest, and well-behaved. She sends thank-you cards promptly and teaches middle school math, two things that might make her eligible for sainthood. Sadie knows better than to send nudes, ever, and she's certainly not the kind of girl who'd have a secret fling with an anonymous stranger online--no matter how hot it might be.

 

Which makes all the dirty texting and super x-rated video chats with Max--not his real name--extra-scandalous.

 

James Farrow is a perfect gentleman. He helps children and elders cross the street, and he brings his neighbor's groceries in from the car. He teaches middle school English, loves a good sweater vest, and has a huge crush on the cute new math teacher.

 

He's not the kind of guy who'd ever have a secret fling with an anonymous stranger online--which makes the nights he spends telling Lola (not her real name) all the filthy things he wants to do with her really out of character.

 

But it's not like they'll ever meet in person. Right?

 

Textual Relations is a very short story--about fifty pages--that's also very, very steamy. If you like dirty talk via text message and epistolary spice, this book is for you. It's loosely related to the Wildwood Society series but is a complete standalone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clever Capybara Press
• Release date: Jul 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223585176

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

JAMES

My phone goes off at 4:45 with the special, sparkling ringtone that’s just for her. I lose my place in a sentence instantly.

That was— I say, and then it chimes again. There’s a sheet of paper in front of me. It says something, and dragging my mind back to it feels like a physical task. "Sorry, Wuthering Heights was by Emily Brönte. Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre."

Crap, mutters Clark, who scribbles down this fact in his notebook. At desks on either side of him, Jessica and Toby glare at him for losing their quiz bowl team the point, all braces and acne and hormones.

"Everyone knows that," someone on the opposing team says, and someone else snickers.

Hey, I say, mildly. Everyone makes mistakes. Come on.

There are several exasperated sighs. Clark is staring at his notebook like he can make it levitate with his mind, lips moving. I think he’s muttering Wuthering Heights was Emily over and over again to himself.

Next question, I say, and glance at the clock. It's 4:49, which means in ten minutes I can take the kids downstairs to wait for their parents to pick them up from Quiz Bowl Team practice. Hopefully, Amanda's dad will be on time today. He's been better lately. Which king of England famously had six—

The buzzer machine lights up before I finish the sentence.

I have a whole set of rules and special configurations for her texts: I never look at them in a room with other people. I never respond to anything inappropriate while I’m at work. I never send anything with the barest hint of impropriety from work. I never use the school’s wifi to read her texts.

I shouldn’t read her texts during the day at all, because there’s always a risk: accidentally leaving the screen up between classes, or somehow broadcasting my phone screen to my computer screen, or some asshole thirteen-year-old stealing my phone as a prank. It’s locked, but I can only imagine kids these days know how to get around that shit.

But usually, during business hours, it’s safe. Those texts are the funny, charming, flippant ones I’d get from any friend, a mixture of work sucks and I need ten more cups of coffee and Schitt’s Creek gifs. It’s the texts I get after the sun goes down that have to stay secret.

Lola has her own ringtone. Her texts don’t pop up on my lock screen, the way others do. They stay hidden, making my whole body buzz with anticipation until I’m alone in a room where I can look.

Amanda’s dad makes it to the school by 5:07, Hallelujah. By 5:08 I’m back upstairs in my classroom, straightening the rows of desks that the kids put back sloppily, erasing the chalkboard where I wrote the date and time of our next Quiz Bowl tournament.

Then I close the door before I read her text, just in case.

I just think Twilight is better than Dracula, okay?

Dracula is all letters and dumb women and very weird ideas about sex. Nightgowns are on point though

I lean back against my desk and grin to myself.

You’re seriously saying that the reason Twilight is better than Dracula is that Dracula has too many dumb women and weird ideas about sex?

AND NIGHTGOWNS. Bella’s not out here swanning around in enough fabric to make sails for the whole English navy

Hey, has anyone told you about this neat new thing called the internal combustion engine?

1850 called, they want their sails back

They better talk to Mina Harker, then

Or write her a letter since that’s more her style. She’d be more than happy to respond at length, I’m sure

I’m perfectly aware that Lola’s just saying Twilight is better than Dracula because she wants to argue with me about something for fun, and she knows that I know, and I know that