Hell’s Love Hotel

By Zoe

It was a magical night. Max and I went on our first date. When he walked me home, he came upstairs and we watched MythBusters. We snuggled happily, like we were perfect for each other. We were, too. After we finished watching TV, he came into my room and we snuggled more. We fell asleep in each other's arms, and I figured I had to be dreaming. My alarm clock went off soon afterwards. I sat up for thirty seconds before burying my face back into my pillow.

I felt something tug gently on my sleeve. "Seriously dude, come on. Class is over. Time for Hell's Love Hotel."
I sat up slowly and grunted. Hell's Love Hotel was what Desmonde called math. Our regular teacher had some health problem and had been out for a few weeks. During that time, we'd had a younger rocker sub who Desmonde developed a crush on. Disturbing as the image was, I could completely imagine her in one of those awful fantasy hentais where the teacher would keep her after school and…have his way with her. When I told her this, she blushed and said nothing. I didn't bother to ask anything about what she thought, as she obviously had thought the same thing.
"Hey, I found some bubbles we forgot to use on my birthday. After school why don't you come over so we can play with them?"
"Whoa, we actually forgot to use some?"
"I know, right?"
"Bizarre. Is Shelly coming?"
"Yeah, I asked in gym today. Why, would you not come if she wasn't?"
"Of course I would. I would feel kind of bad if she couldn't though."
"Sure. And I got a new Trough Pigs album, so we can listen to it."
"Are they your favorite band or something?"
"They have been for a while now."
"Whatever. Sure, I guess I could stand another three hours of you babbling staff about your "observations" of TP, with their music playing continuously…"
"Screw you. What was Math homework?" She and Shelly ragged on me and my stupid obsession all the time, like liking the Jonas Brothers was my butter.
"Why do you want to know?"
"So I don't fail math, duh."
"You never do your homework. Why would you need to now?"
"Because God sent me a message saying that I'd burn in Hell if I didn't start doing my homework. Seriously, what the hell is it?"
"Page 69. Your lucky number, right?"
"You're mean."
"You're incompetent."
Ah. She got me there.
We walked into the dreary classroom with nothing on the white walls and the random notes of music doodled on the green chalkboard. A young man, maybe in his mid-twenties sat at a cushiony spinny chair behind the most drab desk ever. He was tall and shiny, but in a healthy way, with smooth brown hair that sat just past his shoulders, and he was doodling guitars. He wore a black and white shirt that read, "RAMONES," in big white lettering, and plain blue jeans with a rip on the knee—we often wondered it that was on purpose or not. We sat at our boring wooden desk where whoever sat there in third period had engrained, "When it speaks, magic sleeping power comes from its mouth." True, actually. With Ms. Wang, you could fall asleep immediately. Mr. Nescon seemed to keep us awake though, miraculously. He always played some cool music in the background while we worked, and he even played Trough Pigs a few times. That was more or less the only reason I liked him. Generally, though, he just played Green Day and They Might Be Giants. He was into alternative rock I guess. When we passed by his class, he was wearing huge headphones on his head. But the jack never seemed to be connected to anything, an IPod or Walkman.