After 30 dedicated years as a much-beloved teacher, Mark was bored and frustrated. His second wife had divorced him three years earlier, and other women looked at him and his future earnings prospects and laughed. While young and idealistic he had chosen the teaching profession; now that he was nearing retirement age, that looked like a big mistake. Despite right-wing propaganda about generous teacher's pension funds, the reality was that he was likely to spend his old age alone, forgotten-and broke.

Mark hadn't had a serious date since his divorce; if you included the years when his wife ignored him, he couldn't even remember the last time he got laid. Was it any wonder that his eye should be drawn to the sweet young things who sat in his classroom every day?

As tempting as it was, Mark knew better than to cross the line and fondle the girls in his third-grade class. It was all right that they liked to hug him and even give him a friendly kiss, but he had never initiated such affection. He often relieved his lonely nights by imagining a sexual relationship with one of his pupils, but it never got beyond messing up his bed sheets.

That was to change as Mark prepared his weekly science lesson; Unit 4 was on the senses, and Lesson 3 was about taste. A note in the teacher's book suggested blindfolding one's pupils and offering them a wide variety of things to eat-and challenge them to identify each item.

At his own expense, Mark bought several yards of cloth and cut it into blindfolds for his thirty-four pupils. He bought crackers, tortilla chips, and cookies that he would use to serve the bits of cheese, jalapeņo peppers, apple, black olives, tomatoes, and onions that he planned to use in his experiment. He cut, chopped, and diced for hours on a Sunday afternoon, and the morning he brought it all to school.

"Children, what are your favorite kinds of food?" he asked as a warm-up exercise.

"Pizza!" "Hamburgers!" "Oreo cookies!" "Broccoli!" "Chocolate milk!" came the enthusiastic answers.

Broccoli? That could only be the choice of Max Robins, whose mother was a health food freak and the proprietor of a medical marijuana outlet.

"How important is it that you can see your food before you eat it?" he asked. "Do you think you can identify food just by the taste, without actually seeing it?"

Of course all the children assured him that they could. They knew what they liked and what they didn't like.

"This is what we're going to do," Mark explained. "It's called 'The Tasting Game.' I'm going to blindfold you, and then I'm going to give you something to eat. Let's see who can identify the most different tastes."

There were mixed reactions to Mark's proposal. Some of the kids thought it would be fun, but others were worried about being blindfolded. Others were afraid they'd have to eat vegetables. It took a while, but before long he was able to get the class to calm down and cooperate. Thirty-three little chairs were set out in a semi-circle (one girl was absent); the children sat down, and with a little help from him, all the children were soon blindfolded. (Mostly the children blindfolded one another, but Mark checked to make sure no one could see what was going on, and he took care of the last two personally.)

Then Mark took out a couple of trays and the boxes and bags of food he had so painstakingly prepared the afternoon before. He prepared crackers with cheese and peppers, or cookies topped by tuna fish and catsup, or apple and honey on a saltine.

Mark got all kinds of responses from his pupils. Some of the flavors were familiar ones, and the kids were quite pleased. Others were unusual, and the children rejected them. In a large number of cases, virtually no one could identify all of the tastes. Kids laughed, made funny faces, and made lots of comments.

Everyone removed his or her blindfold, and the class discussed the experiment. Everyone agreed it was fun, and several children wanted to continue it for a while. Mark was out of samples, and besides, he had to continue with the book part of the lesson.

When he got home that night, Mark thought about "The Tasting Game," and imaging the girls in his class blindfolded, he recalled the s/m bonding games he had occasionally played with his first wife. He often had occasion to think about his pupils as he lay alone in bed at night, and the image of a helpless little girl or two brought him to heights he had not known in years.

The following day, several children asked if they could play "The Tasting Game" again. Unfortunately, class time is limited; in any event, Mark had not prepared any taste samples, but he promised that they could play after school the following day. It so happened that the boys were in the middle of a very competitive intramural basketball tournament and no one wanted to miss it.

Mark told the girls who wanted to participate in "The Tasting Game" to ask their parents' permission to stay late the following day. He again bought a variety of foods and cut them up into servable pieces; he also bought some rope and cut it into two-foot sections.

In science class the following day, Mark discussed how the senses of taste and smell are closely related, and he showed his pupils a diagram of the tongue and where the different taste buds locate sweet, sour, salty, bitter, or umami (savory) flavors. The rest of the day was rather typical, although there was a buzz of excitement due to both the basketball tournament and "The Tasting Game."

Finally, the school day came to an end. The children who were going home left and the boys who were playing or watching basketball went to the gym. Mark instructed the eight girls who decided to participate to blindfold one another, and then he bound their hands behind them.

Mark prepared his goodies. The first round consisted of a Ritz cracker, Gray Poupon mustard, a slice of Swiss cheese, and a black olive. Three of the girls recognized the mustard and liked it; two girls expressed their dislike.

The second tasting round consisted of an Oreo cookie covered with grape jam and a Hershey's chocolate Kiss. While everyone seemed to like the ingredients, there was a general consensus that the combination was too sweet.

Mark cut two slices of white bread into quarters, and then he pulled his pants down. He had been saving himself for the past two days, so when he jacked off onto the bread, he came in propitious quantities and squirted the extra semen into a paper cup he had brought for that purpose. Then he served the semen-covered bread to his girls.

"Ew, what is this?" asked brown-haired Rebecca.

"That's awful!" exclaimed Mary, a skinny blonde.

"Too salty," cried Lawanda, a striking girl with café-au-lait skin.

By this time the other girls had been forewarned. "It smells funny," said Ming, the token Asian in the class. "What is it?"

"You'll have to guess," declared Mark as he passed out the remaining bread-semen samples. "Try it. You might like it."

"It isn't that bad," declared Juanita, a heavy-set Chicana. "I don't like it that much, but it's okay."

"Before you make your judgments, I'd like to give each of you another sample," said Mark. "Don't say anything until you've swallowed it."

He took out a plastic spoon and presented each of the girls with a second helping of his semen. "Mr. Brandt, I know what it is! Come!" declared Brenda, a nine-year-old with dark brown hair that she always wore in pigtails.

Mark whispered, "Tell me what you think it is, but whisper in my ear, and I'll tell you if you're correct. But don't tell anyone else."

"My uncle told me not to tell anyone about the game we sometimes play when he baby-sits me," Brenda whispered, "but I think it's okay. This stuff tastes almost the same as the white cream that comes out of his manhood. Is that what it is? I won't tell."

"Brenda is the winner!" Mark declared. "She says it's an exotic kind of cream. I still have a little more; Juanita, how about I give you what's left? You too, Brenda."

"Yeah, I guess so," Juanita agreed, and Mark served her the semen that remained in the paper cup.

"Okay," said Brenda, although she wasn't prepared when Mark stuck his penis to her lips. "Oh!"

Mark had already wiped himself dry, and he was not yet ready for a second round, so when Brenda kissed Mark's penis, she did not get even a drop of the special treat they were both anticipating. Mark reincorporated his pants and tossed the plastic spoon and the cup in the wastebasket, and then he unbound the girls. Everyone was enthusiastic about the game, but Mark had the girls promise not to tell anyone, even their parents, about being tied up or about the exotic cream they all had tasted. And he planned for a special session with Juanita and Brenda the following day at recess time.

End