Untitled (and with far fewer embellishments than you’d think.)
I still remember her classroom, vividly. I remember the blinds drawn when class gave out, the rattling A/C only audible when we were alone together. I remember how I was always the first in, not for some possession of academic rigor (which I certainly did not exemplify,) but because I had leave from the first few classes of the day as a result of my work schedule.
I remember when I first met her, the new class of a new year which I was in desperate need of. She was younger than most of my other teachers, and clearly new to the school. She was also very pretty. Never wore makeup, nor anything particularly revealing, and still, she’d stopped my heart more than a few times via proximity alone.
She wore these thicker glasses with a nondescript drugstore style frame, black. When she sat at her desk, they’d reflect the light from the window directly into my eyes. One time, I mentioned it to her in the form of unimportant anecdote. After that, she’d remove them before sitting down at her desk. She’d find my eyes each time she did so, offering small smile as if she were still embarrassed. Every so often, I’d smile back, and she would blush and adjust her hair.
She was endlessly kind, and I was a consistent bastard. I never made trouble for her, but there were a fair few times I got into royal arguments with fellow students in the row of desks second from hers. She would shoot me warning looks as she eavesdropped, a slightly raised eyebrow, a cocked head, a half smile. Me being me, her silent warnings only fed my resolve to piss off whoever it was I happened to dislike at that particular moment. It sort of felt like putting on a show for her.
One time, she asked me why I did it so often. I answered honestly, that I was bored, that it was fun. That I liked a fight.
I said that last part in a tone bordering on flirtation. This time, she didn’t offer a warning glance. In fact, she couldn’t meet my eyes. She just stared at her salad. I was standing close, close enough to see her throat bob.
Later that night I pleasured myself to the idea of fucking her over that desk.
I’d felt a bit bad about it, admittedly, but hell, struggling to meet her eyes without that image in mind was another sort of self pleasuring. Couldn’t look at her without imagining it, and looking at her made it all the more vivid. Couldn’t look away because she’d know something was off, and if she knew that, she might investigate further which would be a bit painful. I resolved to stare, and my mind wandered behind my eyes.
It was quite difficult to treat her as I would anyone else. At the time, I was emotionally shut off. I now know why, of course, but back then it was like I was in a third person, someone I controlled from on high. I hated myself more than I felt anything else. I first saw her in the middle of a most intense spiral and she was, for some reason, able to see it. She was even able to bring me back to myself. No one had ever done that to me before, and it was without my permission that she had been the first.
I wonder if she knew exactly what she had done, then. On the first day we’d met.
I had gotten there early, looking like hell I’m sure. I drank coffee from a gas station to-go cup and smelled of cigarettes, work shirt open and undone, hair a fuckin’ tragedy. I only remember so well because she made me take stock of myself the moment she looked at me. I was all the sudden incredibly aware of everything I was.
She asked what my previous class had been, I told her she was my first. She asked what I meant, I told her I had work and a schedule modified by the school to accommodate that.
She looked to be so genuinely interested. Her eyes were incredibly intense and still so fucking soft.
She laughed about how punctual I was, I promised her it was pure coincidence. She told me not to sell myself short, I told her I was sure to disappoint.
I promptly buried my head in my arms and she kindly didn’t interrupt. She didn’t seem to mind that I stayed like that for the first ten or so minutes of her instructions, either. Though I could feel her watching me, as if checking in.
Her eyes were so incredibly warm. I could always tell when they landed on me, could feel myself come back to her as they did.
I remember her offering help with the classwork, math. I was, and still am, woefully incapable of keeping up in that subject. I tried, to the best of my ability. She knew, and she’d seen it. She went around to each student, did the classic over the shoulder lean, asked if they needed any help.
I became incredibly conscious of how incredibly lost I was as she drew nearer. I looked back at her and smiled with a shrug, preemptively ensuring she’d expect the tragedy on my paper. She smiled back with a nod as if she wanted me to know it was okay, that she understood already. When she came over to me, she lingered until I made eye contact. She then, in a slow and silly tone that mocked the line she’d repeated probably twenty or so times by now, asked “and do you need any help?” I couldn’t help but smile, nor could she. She had these lovely white teeth, her two front ones just barely visible under her top lip as she spoke. That’s what I grew lost in next.
I tried to follow, I truly did. Problem was, she was rather short and had just decided it was necessary to point at each component of the equation, and consequently had just leaned so low now that she spoke directly above and down past my ear. I am abnormally sensitive there, along with my neck. More so than most others I’ve met. Same with this one spot on my cheekbone, but that takes a very particular set of lips I’m not sure I’ll ever feel again, though I suppose that’s a story for another day.
Anyways, she’s started to lower her voice now. I’ve not stopped making little jokes at my own expense, though I am genuinely trying to follow along. It just happened to feel wildly good when she laughed quietly into my ear, telling me to stop and pay attention through giggles.
She was the highlight of every other day, the only thing that made me feel something interesting, I told myself.
Several times I had caught her just as her previous class had let out. I opted to let her have some time to herself then, a break. Until one time, when she noticed me in the hall and beckoned me in. I obliged. She asked how long I had been waiting, I told her I often just give her a few minutes to like- reorient. She told me she appreciated it, but that I “wasn’t exactly disruptive,” which was a line I couldn’t help but bite on. I asked in a tone feigning offense if she truly meant it, to which she rolled her eyes and smiled. Told me she might live to regret giving me permission to sit in with her.
I just drank my coffee quietly from then on, though the next day I came in, she looked so incredibly beaten. Her head was down on her desk with arms outstretched across it, and when I walked in she tilted just enough to peek up at me. I just smiled and threw my hands up, starting to walk backwards the way I came. She shook her head against the table (which was adorable,) then closed her hands around its edge, pulling herself into an upwards-dog style stretch, eyes squeezed shut. I set my things down and asked if she was alright. She gave an exasperated sigh, then said my name, then told me she wished she could sleep on her desk as easily as I could on mine. I told her I don’t sleep, not really. I just drift.
She asked me to explain, and it was awkward but I did. Explained all my little mental health fuckery, the meds, my insomnia, how they all coalesce into this fuckin perpetually exhausted puddle of me. I told her how I was always tired, so I understood how she felt. She looked so sad, listening along. I couldn’t be asked to meet her eyes, so I focused on her lips. She noticed. All of the sudden it was like she didn’t know what to do with them, first they parted to reveal that strip of white, then they drew to thin lines, then her throat bobbed, then they parted again. That’s when I looked her in the eyes again. She seemed as though she wasn’t thinking and was happy doing just that. Then someone spoiled the moment by walking past in the hall. She cleared her throat and returned to herself. I don’t recall much after that.
The days in between I had two classes. Unfortunately, they were separated by a lunch period. I didn’t have any want to socialize, so I often just wandered aimlessly listening to music or true crime. One day, I wandered past her classroom. It was dark, blinds shuttered. I didn’t think she was actually in there, until I passed the second door and saw her at her desk eating from a clear plastic foldable box of salad with a disposable fork. She looked like a bunny with a full leaf in her mouth, and it was adorable. She didn’t notice me then, but now I knew where I might find her on such a day at such an hour.
The next day in class I had started a hushed argument with some dumb asshole about god knows what. I could hear her falter in her cadence at the head of the class, clearly focused more on the two of us. I recall the kid telling me to fuck off and my reply being a sardonic “oh come on now, say it like you mean it.” The way she looked at me- Christ, it made me feel something I was entirely unfamiliar with and unprepared for. She initially signed disapproval. Knitted brows, slight pout- the kind of thing that drives me wild nowadays. Back then, though? I hadn’t known just how much an adult woman making that face would affect me. I couldn’t help but smile at her, wide and visibly cognizant of her disappointment in me, and unaffected by it. She broke. First with a straightening of her lips, then a twitch at their corner, then a full on blushing smirk. The strands of hair not held by her messy bun had fallen to her face as she looked to her feet, serving to partially obscure her smile. But I saw. Saw that line of white.
When she looked back up at me, I was made acutely aware of my own parted lips. So was she, I suppose. I swallowed air and looked away with a slight reflexive smile. I wasn’t often made to feel embarrassed, but I suppose she made me realize a great many things of which I had been convinced no longer lived within me. And so I had smiled and looked away, like I hadn’t ever before. The problem was, I had thought back to the way I had imagined her the other night, and her disappointment had mirrored the way I’d imagined the encounter starting. Me prodding her, causing trouble. Her, feigning disapproval. Me, undeterred and instead determined to get her up against the chalkboard. You get the picture. To put it simply, I had quite literally been eye-fucking her. And I’m sure my thoughts were all but transparent to her in that moment.
Eventually I looked up at her from my lap. She had since sat down at her desk and turned a shade of bright pink while scribbling into a book. Her eyes were locked to the center of the page, not at all following the trail of her dancing pen.
That night, I pleasured myself to the image of her pleasuring herself to the image of the two of us. It was incredibly vivid.
It remained vivid when I came to her room the next day during lunch hours. I had walked past, as usual, though this time, I was deliberately attempting to draw her attention. I had been flipping my car keys by the ring, into my hand, then back down. The key would strike the plastic fob just hard enough to echo through the hall. Yes, I was desperate. Painfully so. I had quite a shit day at work that morning and I just needed to feel her eyes on me, needed their encompassing warmth.
She waved me in the moment she laid eyes on me, a leaf of her salad still between her teeth. I walked in and laughed, I just couldn’t help it. Her eyes went wide as she brought and hand to cover her mouth. I laughed some more and she furrowed her brows, batting at me with her free hand. I threw up my own in mock surrender.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Shut up,” she said through a bite.
She swallowed but didn’t remove her hand from its place, covering her lips.
“Don’t- don’t call me that,” she spoke carefully and with a raised finger, as if she might be liable to shake it like a disapproving nanny, though her tone conveyed a decidedly dissimilar emotion.
I pushed again. “Then yes, Ms. _______,”
Even in the dark, I could see her face going pink.
I had said it slowly, drawing out each syllable in her name. She couldn’t possibly object, as my words were entirely formal of their own merit, and to warn against me referring to her in such a manner again would be to admit that my manner was untoward. Which, of course, it was.
So the name hung in the air, and I was keen to let it swing. In fact, I had just gotten comfortable with my back to the A/C unit next to her desk.
“Honestly? Fucking terrible.”
She sort of snorted, and then it was my turn to look away.
“I could have you in detention for that, you know.”
“Hey, you asked. But since you offered, I wouldn’t mind. Same room?”
I sensed the line, and was unwilling to fully cross it so soon. So, I offered substance.
“That doesn’t surprise me,”
“Yeah, well, it was his fault. Fucker said he wouldn’t schedule me past one on week days, and he did.”
She shot me another warning glance from behind her glasses when I uttered the “fuck” word, but otherwise kept listening and enjoying her salad.
“Doesn’t he know you have class?”
“Yes, and still he put me down for this Thursday till four.”
She frowned, unable to offer much more than that on account of her full mouth.
“Well, anyways, I might get fired. But hey, at least he took me off till Saturday.”
“Well that’s good, right?”
“Why yes, it is quite nice, for now. I just- I know he already sees me as a bit of a troublemaker, at least for him.”
“I can’t imagine how you’d earn such a reputation,”
That one stunned me, and she knew it. We both knew it. We held each other’s gaze just a moment longer than could be considered professional, and that served to reset something in me. I could feel myself radiate heat.
“Right, well- wait a minute, don’t you go on acting like you don’t enjoy a show every now and again, like it doesn’t at least keep things interesting,” my tone veered into what might be construed as flirtation, though she bit all the same.
“It can be- entertaining, yes. Though I hope you don’t act like that in anyone else’s class, they might not find it so palatable.”
“Oh, so it’s palatable, now? See, to me, that sounds like high praise,”
She gave me a look that said “watch it,” and a sly smile that betrayed the notion entirely.
She took another bite in lieu of a retort.
Our pattern continued, and eventually I claimed a seat directly in front of her desk. I was everything but a teacher’s pet in terms of academic and interpersonal performance, but, we were close. As an adult looking back on it now, I think this was the moment our relationship became entirely inappropriate. Not the first touch or kiss, but with me moving seats, and her not stopping me. Not that I mind, of course. In fact, I don’t fault her in the least, though I suppose that’s what makes me unfit to be an educator.
I wouldn’t take my eyes off of her for an entire hour and forty-five minutes, every other day, then for thirty-five in between those.
In class, I’d sometimes nod along like I was taking notes on her performance. Nodding along with intent and mouthing things like “perfect delivery,” and “oh yeah, totally.” She’d struggle to keep composure, and that was half the fun, watching her try not to laugh. Then of course she’d sit down right in front of me, scolding me soundlessly. I quickly became very good at reading her lips.
Of course, there were bad days. Not because of her or us, but because life isn’t the greatest and I wasn’t (and even still I’m not really) the most stable. Manic highs, depressive lows, you get the picture.
On one such depressive occasion, I couldn’t say a word. Just walked in during lunch hours and sat down where I always would. Didn’t even have the energy to support my head, just let it lay on the cold waxed desktop. She tried to ask what was wrong, I couldn’t answer. She asked again, then asked if I was okay instead. I hated hearing her like this, so worried. I felt I shouldn’t’ve come, that it was entirely selfish of me to want her right now.
I didn’t notice she had come to my side on account of my eyes being closed and her movements, silent. But she had.
She put a hand to my shoulder, I reached up and held it there, pressing it into me. Now, quite honestly, I have a thing about hands. I also have a history of coping with just about anything in a sexual or intimate manner. These two factors, when combined with my immaturity at the time, dictated my next decision.
I pressed my cheek into our hands, then removed mine. She tried to take hers back, but only for a moment. Then she grazed my collarbone with her fingertips. This put me in a position to exhale gently against them, to feel her twitch but not retreat. Never retreat.
I kissed her middle finger, taking it between my lips slowly at first, before moving up and down each joint. I languished in the intimacy, in her warmth, in her staying.
I explored gently, moving between her ring, middle and pointer. She stayed for each. I grew hungry, more animated. I could feel the heat rising in my chest, could feel all else fall away in the wake of whatever the fuck this was. I reached up to the top of her hand and held her palm in place, lifting my head from the table and working my lips diligently. I was breathing heavily now, and so was she.
She started to make these squeaking sounds, like something stuck in her throat. Perhaps a “please,” or a “please stop?” Either way, she kept them inside. I admit, I was also quite vocal. I hummed against her, sounds which would’ve been grunts she now held in her hand, reverberating up her arm, radiating throughout her body.
Misguided affection, that’s all this was.
Just an illy executed display of affection.
It devolved to me simply huffing against the back of her fingers, trying to catch my breath while holding on to her. Once she withdrew, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get her back.
“Sorry,” I spoke while recovering, still not letting go of her wrist, though my grip steadied and loosened as opposed to its prior desperate grasping hold.
She squeaked again, then corrected the sound until it resembled an affirmative hum.
I let go, she stayed for a moment longer.
That moment meant everything to me.
Just as I started to lean in to the back of her hand, she withdrew.
After that, I properly fell asleep.
She woke me gently, rocking my shoulders. Opening my eyes to those thick glasses, remembering in an instant what I had just done to her, hearing her whisper my name? It made for a hell of a start.
I shot halfway up in my seat. Mistake. Needed to steady myself, arms shot out, gripped the edge of the desk.
It was bright, she’d opened the blinds. I was lightheaded. Her salad was untouched.
She left her hand on my shoulder again, though the moment I looked towards it, she took it away. She rubbed it as if she’d just touched a hot coffee pot by the glass. Her face at least looked the part, given its newfound burning hue.
At first I registered only the cruelty of her withdrawal, then I determined I deserved it for what I had done, how I had abused her closeness. Still, I missed her warmth. There was a part missing now, a seeping wound that grew colder by the second.
She froze up again when I looked down at her, sitting on her heels at my side.
“Sorry, _____- I just- I have a class,”
Then she looked up at me.
I tried to look away, but couldn’t. My head moved, as did my eyes though only for halves of seconds, always returning to hers, locked as they were behind that glass.
I hadn’t really considered it until writing this, but I think there’s a chance she might’ve been the first woman I ever loved? Not that I was in any condition to know for sure or to even feel the extent of my emotions, but looking back, I think I truly did love her. Hell, looking back, I think she knew I loved her.
Following that day, our banter was a lot less childish. It grew reserved, quiet, explorative. Nothing that was said was without weight, not past that point.
It was sort of new to me, the whole ‘thinking before you speak’ thing. Regardless, she was worse at it.
She tripped over herself constantly, every verbal advance I’d make would be met with a stutter or a series of “oh,”’s. Once again, I didn’t mind. I had decided she was incredibly cute like this.
I told her that, once. I was of course emboldened by the bourbon in my coffee, and I think she knew that.
We were alone again, this time for some one-on-one after hours tutoring. Not either of our idea, just a curricular mandate. I thought it was bullshit and treated it as such. She actually gave a fuck and did her best to teach me until she noticed my inebriation, after which she offered me her water bottle. One of the big ones that tells you how much you’re supposed have in a day with praises written all down the side next to measurements and times.
So, me being me, I started making fun of it, and her defense of it.
“Wait, there’s no fucking way,”
“Oh hush,” I often threw that line back at her, and she’d listen each time.
“I mean, look at this, A: it’s fucking huge, and B, what the hell is this?” I motioned to the words along the side, she blushed again.
“What, I think it’s cute. And it helps!”
“Come on, you can do it,”
“Actually no, the next one says, keep going, don’t stop,”
She looked away, and I suppose now it was because of the incredibly obvious innuendo she was now going to have narrated by yours truly. I, however, didn’t anticipate just how dirty I might be able to make it until I read the next line. That was when I fully committed.
I hadn’t been a virgin for a long while now, and I’d used these exact lines before. I knew just how to deliver them, just how to curl the words at their tail-ends. I knew I wanted her to hear me read each one aloud so that she might always remember how I sounded when she drinks from it. I was selfish like that, possessive.
“This next one just says ‘keep drinking,’ I could come up with better, I’m sure,”
She gave a little squeak then, it came alongside a shudder.
I took the opportunity to lean over the table and pull her by the arm rest of her rolling chair next to me. She was breathing hard now, open mouthed, still faced away.
By this point I also knew the power of praise and the sensitivity of the human ear, and so I spoke into hers. Not a whisper, just my indoor voice offered at the right angle.
“How about, ‘that’s it, attagirl’ how does that sound?”
She was heaving now, and I half expected her to push me away, order me out. She didn’t.
“Or, and perhaps this is too explicit for a public facing item, but I’d offer ‘fuck, you’re taking it so well for me,’”
That was when she finally snapped towards me, though before she could say a word I took her hair in my hand and kissed her. I cupped her waist as I did so, as lips joined in slow.
My lips were just barely opened, hers were firm between them. Firmer than I had expected, though still soft texturally. Her cupids bow was distinct, as was the slightly thicker middle of her lower lip. Honestly fuck it, I don’t know why I’m trying to explain her shape when that’s not what even the very few of you who’ve made it this far want to hear.
She didn’t kiss back, not with her lips, not yet. Her chin moved first, up into mine. I had buried my hand in her hair in such a way that allowed me to pull it ever so gently at the roots, and so I did. That was the ticket. She opened beautifully, and then, I swear to god, bit me, bit my lower lip. Hard.
I was quite fond of that. Still am.
I kept at her to the best of my ability, and we did, at this point, sound like fighting animals. We exchanged the contents of our lungs and nothing else, growing lightheaded and frantic. I left my chair first, then rolled hers against the temporary wall. It shook with the impact, and so did she.
She tried to stand, only got half way before I scooped her up in my arms. She was lighter than I’d imagined, and it wasn’t much of a feat to set her down on the table.
She clawed at my back, raking what looked like wings into my skin. I just kept at her, couldn’t let go. We both went to take off her glasses at the same time, pulling them in opposite directions for a moment until we both relented at the same time and dropped them squarely on the top of her head, causing them to bounce to the table and then the ground. We laughed into each other’s mouths then, and I hugged her tight, held her to my chest and kissed her forehead. For the first time, she wrapped her arms around me properly.
Fuck, it felt so good. So goddamn good. She felt so good. Sometimes I wonder what we could’ve been had we not been what we were. Had she not had that ‘difficult conversation’ with me. Sometimes I think about reaching out. I could, I know. Perhaps I’ll just let this rest here, or perhaps I’ll expand further in fantasy.
I truly believe I loved her before I knew what love looked like.
I truly believe she knew.
There’s more, as always, but I’ll save that for another night. Besides, I’ll want to return to her anyways. It’d be incredibly hot to write a sex scene between the both of us, especially considering how often I teased her about the subject.
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