CHAPTER 4

Friday. I managed to get the rest of the papers graded the night before. After I talked to my girlfriend for a bit on the phone. Now that was an awkward experience. Not for her, but for me. I’ll admit I was feeling pretty guilty for the duration of the evening. It’s not like I’ve never jerked off to another woman before… But my own teenage student? That was a little different.

I tried to keep it out of my mind. I didn’t do so well. My anxiety inched over me, little by little, as my Creative Writing period approached. I was nervous to see her. Nervous to give her paper back. I felt silly, but hey, emotions are emotions. Keep in mind I had a pretty restless night previously; thoughts of Autumn’s story haunting me.

When the time finally arrived, I nearly scoffed when I saw her enter the room. She had on this little plaid skirt. And no, we don’t have a uniform at this school. She still had on a reasonably conservative sweater, even if it was a little tight… It wasn’t nearly as outrageous as other tops I’ve seen the girls wear. But the skirt… Ouch. It was short. Not so short as to be inappropriate, but short enough to say ‘Look at me.’

And the boys did look at her, eyebrows rising in double takes at her legs. The girls noticed too, a little bit of envy flashing in their eyes. I did my best to not look at her and remain impassively neutral, occupied mind of a teacher on his work. I wonder if she is wearing that for me… I admonishingly bit the back of my tongue. Don’t be an idiot.

Class proceeded normally. Autumn sits in the back, and so thankfully I couldn’t be distracted by her outfit under that desk, even if I wanted to be. As the bell approached, I gave some generic feedback about the stories and began to hand them back. Up and down the rows I walked, passing them out one by one. When I got to her, she was sitting sideways in her seat, knees pressed together and she bent down and rifled through her backpack.

It forced me to glance at that smooth skin again, tantalizingly leading up to some bare thigh, then finally hidden underneath the fabric of her skirt. I only looked for a second, but that’s all it really takes for a girl to notice, isn’t it?

“Oh, sorry.” She said detachedly, swinging her legs back under the table and letting me walk by. For my part, I pretended to ignore her and began instructing the class with another reminder that ‘a lot’ is *two* words.

The room was mostly silent except for the shuffling of papers flipping back and forth as they read my comments. I already expected at least one or two of the more anal perfectionists to come and either complain or kiss ass to improve their grade. Such is life.

The bell rang.

Everyone piled up at the door to escape as I wished them a good weekend. I casually sunk back into my desk; one student already waiting there for me. Meet James C. A classic example of a student who thinks he is smart, but is sadly only very well-educated. Each assignment to him is not a chance to learn, but a chance to achieve perfect marks that will send him off to the next and best station in life.

We talked for a few minutes. I won’t bore you any further with it. As he left for lunch, my chest tightened to realize Autumn was still sitting in her seat. I quickly surveyed the room; everyone else was gone. “Are you so hungry that you forgot to leave for lunch?” I joked out to her.

She looked up from her table and held up her paper. “Could I talk to you about this?” she asked flatly.

My heart both sank and jumped at the same time. “I suppose I could arrange that,” I smiled weakly. Well shit, I can’t just say *no*.

She got up from her desk and walked casually over, paper in hand. She waved it around in front of her waist, pointing at it. I instinctively looked, but my eyes had a mind of their own and looked beyond the contents of her hand and right to her skirt. Goddamnit. My eyes snapped up at the sound of her voice.

“I told you it sucked!” she protested suddenly.

“Whoa!” I put my hands up, defensive. “Let’s not get carried away.”

She dropped the paper in front of me. “You want me to start over!”

“Well, um, I think I said there were a few problems… Mostly you kind of side-stepped the actual prompt…”

I reached over to point at my main comment. She shot her hand down, finger jabbing onto the top of the page. Her soft skin grazed mine and I reactively jerked my wrist back. “It says chapter one!”

I brought my eyes up from the paper to her gaze. “This is true, but it is also a short story… You may need to dive in to the actual encounter a little faster.”

“There was an encounter! Just because they didn’t, like, come out and shake hands right away doesn’t mean… doesn’t mean there wasn’t an encounter!”

I leaned back in my chair and took a breath. I wasn’t expecting her to be so confrontational about it. “Autumn, you just told me it sucked. And now you are defending it rather passionately?” Ah, sweet misdirection.