I also hate when she says that because she knows that I’ve had the biggest crush on Professor Mitchell all semester. She even teased me last night as we rehearsed our poems together and I commented that I hoped he’d like it. But he is very sexy. He’s got a little bit of gray flocking through his dark brown hair and he’s just so very distinguished.
Plus, he has kind of flirted with me in the past. Not super overtly, mind you. The man is a professional, after all. And student-teacher relationships are forbidden on our campus.
Plus-plus, he’s over 40-years-old and is old enough to be my father, as I am 19. Which is just another reason why I don’t think Jessica’s theory has much factual basis.
“Oh, please...” I say when no one else comments on her theory.
“No, I’m serious this time!” Jessica digs her heels in.
“This time?!” Brandon asks. “Is this a dirty dorm discussion you two have when no one else is around?”
“She might be right,” Bri agrees as she ignores Brandon. “I mean, just think, he probably just doesn’t want to give her praise so he doesn’t get in trouble for acting like a creepy old predator or showing her favoritism.”
“Omigod!” I say. “I thought it was a good poem?”
“It was, but he can’t say that if that’s how he feels,” Jessica says.
“Where is Professor Mitchell?” Dr. Myers asks as she approaches our little Breakfast Club.
“He got all moody during Caroline’s poem and left,” Brandon says with a cluck of his tongue and a raise of his brows right back into his hairline. “Cause he’s hooooot for herrrr.”
Dr. Myers clears her throat and says, “Or maybe it just wasn’t all that good.”
All our heads snap toward her and you can almost hear the clicking of our jaws coming unhinged as they drop out of their sockets.
“Wow...” Brandon says as he gathers his things to leave. The others start to do the same. Dr. Myers is notoriously cranky and even though I can tell they all want to come to my defense, we all know arguing with someone who literally teaches us English is not a good idea.
It takes me a minute to gather myself and my things. The others are already gone when I finally get packed up as Dr. Myers turns to look at me and says, “I was just trying to do you a favor.”
I stop packing up my things and look at her.
“Oh?”
“Darling, you’re a talented writer. The last thing you need are rumors like that— and of only being good because of that— flying around a tiny private school like this.”
Huh. I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.
Chapter Two
Trenton
It’s afternoon and I’m holed up in my office, using my otherwise free afternoon to do some editing on a poetry chapbook I’ve written. Only, unlike most days where I would normally be able to compartmentalize all the feelings invading my mind and heart, today I can’t seem to focus on anything at hand besides these intrusive thoughts. Especially not after her poem. Isn’t it bad enough that I have thoughts of her when I shouldn’t?
At least then when I was thinking of her, it was only in objectification, as terrible as it sounds. But it’s not… it’s really not. That objectification is just a degree of separation that keeps us both safe. Before today she wasn’t anything more than just some pretty young thing.
Now she’s got a heart. And a heart that’s bled. And her blood is as dark and red as mine and it’s just as thick— so much so that if the two spilled together like they almost did today, one might not be able to tell them apart.
The clock’s ticking on the wall now, and that’s the only sound louder and more painful in my head than my own thoughts. I look up at it and realize I haven’t been able to get anything done at all in the last hour and that I have to be home in yet another hour. I can’t spend it thinking of Caroline like this. I can’t keep picturing how I’d like to keep her after class to discuss her beautiful words, and locking the door, and asking her if I can listen to her recite more poems to me while I put my face between her thighs and pleasure her until those words become lyrics to a song she sings in ecstasy.
I can imagine that tight sweater coming off of her chest one button at a time. I can imagine how hard her nipples would stand as she massaged them while I flicked her clitoris with my tongue. Before long, I’m so deep in the fantasy that I find my cock has slipped out of my slacks and my fingers are running along it. Only I’m fantasizing that it’s one of her tiny, gentle, teenage hands rotating up and down the shaft and turning in almost a 360 degree circle as she does so.