I sat there in the office with my heart in my mouth. I knew the story she meant, of course. It was a toss-off—no real plot, written for a BDSM site: a teasing college cheerleader is abducted and tied up in the deserted gym by the football coach who slowly strips off her clothes and does all sorts of thoroughly rude and nasty things to her, which she of course loves. It wasn’t my greatest piece of work, but the parallels to our current situation gave me chills.
I graded the other tests quickly, hardly concentrating as I turned over various responses in my head. By the time I got to Emma’s test, I went to her little message, and where she’d written, “Is it for real???” I wrote in red pen, “As I’ve been telling you all semester, one writes what one knows.”
It was a good test but no better than a B. I gave her an A minus and, with my hand almost trembling, wrote. “This grade is negotiable.”
I left the tests outside my office where the students could pick them up
The next class she came in wearing a short sleeve blouse that was a bit snug and opened perhaps just one button too low, revealing the slopes of her breasts. She was wearing a skirt too. That wasn’t unusual—a lot of the kids came to class straight from work, as did Emma. Maybe I’d just never noticed before?.
She didn’t sit in her usual place either, high up near the aisle. The lecture hall was a miniature auditorium that had seats and tables bolted to the concrete floor, rising in steep tiers, and Novaslid into a seat in the center of the fourth tier up so that her knees were on a level with my eyes.
Her placement was so blatant it was almost comical, and I might have laughed had we been alone or further along in our relationship, but at this point there was nothing between us, and when I’d look up from my lecture and see her knees casually apart and the hem of her skirt up as she idly scratched her thigh, I’d actually start to stutter.
She wasn’t taking notes though she pretended to be. I could tell. She’d doodle on her pad, or lean back and stretch and push her shoulders back, straining the buttons on her blouse. She’d cross her legs and pull her skirt up, and her knees and the bottom of her thigh seemed to itch a lot. Whenever I’d look up at her, her head would be down, but she did everything except fellate her pen and put her hands between her legs.
When the class ended, I said, “Emma? Could I see you for a few minutes?”
She had to wait while I explained some other students’ grades to them, and then she gathered up her books and slid out of her chair and came down to the podium. Maybe my description of her behavior and clothes made her sound cheap, but I assure you, she didn’t look cheap. She was beautiful—perfectly made up, just the faintest hint of perfume.
“Yes, Mr. Frank?”
I collected my notes. “So you read that story?”
Her eyes lit up with a smoldering glow. “Yes. I read more too. You have a lot. That beach one and the one about the girl in the basement, and the clothes, and the one with the girl who gets kidnapped…”
I nodded, then looked her in the eye. “You know, I only told you about those stories because I trust you.”
As I said, people tell me I’m an intimidating guy. I didn’t notice it. I’m big and strong, and I know I have a lot of anger inside, and maybe that shows when I’m being serious. But I’m not mean, and I don’t mean to scare people. But something inside me felt Nova Starting to respond. I couldn’t say what it was—whether her breathing changed or something in her eyes or the attitude of her body, but she seemed just a little bit scared.
“Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t tell anyone else, Mr. D. I mean, I don’t think anyone else would understand.”
“No. They wouldn’t.” I snapped my briefcase closed and gestured for her to follow me. “But you understood, Emma? What did you think of them?”
We walked up the stairs of the lecture hall. She was just behind me. “Well, they’re very good stories. I mean, you know. They’re very good. I just wondered… I mean, they’re not real, are they? Those things the men do there, the things they do to the women…”
We were at the head of the stairs now, at the exit. I snapped off the lights, leaving just the spotlights shining down on the empty lectern.
“They’re real enough, Emma. They’re all based on things I’ve done. Things I do. I’ve changed the settings. I’ve changed the characters—their names, their ages. But why do you ask?”
We were standing by the open door to the corridor. It was late, almost ten o’clock and there was no one around. Even the parking lot was deserted. Nova Was standing with her back to the cinder block wall, not knowing where to put her eyes.
“Darkness stirs my soul,” I quoted.”Desires whose name I cannot speak. His flesh is within me, his raging lust upon me. I am his anger and his joy, his sickness and its cure. He shames me with my pleasure and tames me with his rage, till all dissolves between us and he sees me as I am.”
“Who wrote that?” she asked nervously.
I ignored her question. “Is that how it is?”
She didn’t answer. In the darkness I saw her breasts rising and falling.
“Is it?” I repeated.
Again, no answer. That was enough to answer.
I put down the briefcase and swung the door closed. The hydraulic door-closers hissed softly and then the lock caught and clicked firmly shut. I knew no one would be coming in here till after midnight, and suddenly we were in this enclosed space together, a magical circle of sexual threat. Things began to work in our bodies we had no control over.
A certain amount of light still spilled from the glass panel in the door into the darkened auditorium, but that just made the real world feel that much farther away. I put my hand on the wall next to her head and leaned over her. I had no doubt about her now, and I knew my eyes were glowing as I stared at her. A knew who she was like a fox knows a rabbit.
“You’ve been like this all your life, haven’t you?” I asked. “The things that were in those stories, they’ve been exciting you since before you even knew what sex was.”
The rabbit looked at the fox and saw there was no point in lying. “How did you know?”
“Because I’m the same way.”
I took the books from her hands and tossed them on a table.
“Come here. Away from the door.”
I led her a few feet into the auditorium, away from the square of light from the door. She was still standing with her back to the wall and I leaned over her again, keeping her trapped. Her eyes were shining with something between fear and excitement, her lips parted and glistening.
“Lift up the front of your skirt,” I said.
“What?! Mr. Frank—!” She looked shocked.
“Just do as I say. Lift it up and hold it at your waist.”
There was a moment where our wills collided and we just stared at each other, but I knew in my heart that she wanted this. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. I felt my will overcome hers and felt her give in, like a fist closing over her. Her hands went to her skirt and she began to gather up the fabric.
“All your life you’ve been dying for someone to know,” I said to her. “You’ve needed to tell someone, you’ve prayed for someone to treat you like this. You’ve ached for it, Emma, haven’t you?”
Her skirt was gathered above her panties now, and my right hand made contact with her bare thigh, midway between knee and groin, smooth and warm as the summer sun. She closed her eyes. Her nostrils flared.
“No,” she said. “No.”