At the breakfast table, his teenage kids ignore him when he tries to engage them in favor of staring at their phones.
He drives a car that’s seen better days to a small picturesque college. He walks into class looking as weathered as his car.
And then he sees her.
A coed sitting in the middle of the very front row.
She’s wearing a tight, red sweater. Red lipstick.
His eyes zero in on her. The music changes. Everything slows down.
It’s a bit cinematically obvious, but still effective. And the chemistry between the two actors makes it work.
A slow smile creeps over her face when she notices him staring. She bites on the tip of her pen coyly. He clears his throat and turns on his laptop connected to the projector. He begins the lesson on Renaissance literature. She listens with rapt attention.
All throughout class, not-so-subtle glances are exchanged.
It’s a slow, tension-filled build up from there. By the time they actually kiss thirty minutes later, my hands are clenched together in my lap and my stomach is tight.
Then, for all the slow build, it explodes. The professor shoves everything off his desk and slams her down. Seconds later he’s shoved up her skirt and his pelvis slams back and forth against hers.
My breath hitches in shock.
I mean, I suspected the pair would eventually… but…he’s her teacher. It’s so…
I blink, unable to tear my eyes away from the actor as his face contorts in pleasure and determination.
It’s not pretty or romantic like I’ve often seen sex depicted in movies. He’s just sort of jamming himself in and out of her. The coed looks just as shocked as I feel. For all her bravado in seducing him, now that it’s actually happening, she seems, I don’t know—unprepared. Or maybe just blown away by it all.
God, it’s just a movie, Sarah. Stop thinking about it so hard. They’re just really good actors.
But… things like this do actually happen in real life all the time. You always hear about teachers and students. Scandals in the news. My legs shift and I twist them together, feeling that strange liquidy feeling at my apex that happens when I think about sex.
I all but jump out of my skin when Dominick reaches down and grabs one of my sock-clad feet.
“W-what are you doing?” I hiss. My voice is barely audible above the grunts and pleasured gasps coming out of the surround sound speaker system.
Dominick looks up at me with the most innocent expression—like almost intentionally or mockingly innocent. “What? You told us you were on your feet chasing those little monsters around. I know how much my feet hurt after being on them all day. You cooked. Let me do something nice for you.” He starts massaging my feet. The protest dies on my tongue when he rubs my arches in deep little circles with his thumbs since God, that does feel amazing.
Then I just have to close my eyes. Watching the sex scene while Dominick touches me? That’s too many things to compute at once. After a few minutes I hear the characters on screen start to talk normally again and I open my eyes.
Only to find that the man has brought the girl back to his house. None of the rest of his family are home. They stop by the kitchen before heading upstairs. At first I’m confused because they bring what looks like a bag of groceries with them to his bedroom.
I quickly figure out what the groceries are for. Whipped cream, chocolate sauce, strawberries, kiwi, and one very strategically employed banana.
Pretty sure my jaw is permanently dropped open for the next thirty minutes of the movie. At one point I have to tilt my head sideways because I didn’t know the human body could contort that way. The actress must be a ballet dancer or some kind of contortionist in her other life.
The mild-mannered professor has completely disappeared and in his place is a dark, commanding presence. The tables have completely turned from the beginning of the movie.
When he takes her to a sex club, I can barely breathe.
And then suddenly the movie pauses.
I turn to look at Dominick who has my calf in his hand. “Why’d you stop it?” My voice is high-pitched, half-panted.
It’s dark in the den. Dad turned off all the lights for the movie and with just the light from the TV, I can’t make out the expression on Dominick’s face.
“Your breathing was getting a little strained,” Dad says from the other side of me. He puts his hands on my shoulders, massaging like he did earlier in the kitchen. Except his whole body is at my back now, and with what we’ve all just spent the last hour watching, my lower body jolts at the contact.
“And you’re so jumpy,” Dominick says, running one of his hands up and around the bottom of my calf, squeezing as he goes. My eyes jerk open wide as he rubs and kneads my flesh between his two large hands. “I thought maybe the movie was getting to be too much for you.”