by Anthology
I make the first mistake of many, and reach across the table taking hold of his hand. I don’t even think about the ramifications, because I feel this overwhelming need to comfort him. My unfamiliar movement startles him and his body jerks to attention. However, his hand remains under mine, unmoving and warm, and our physical connection remains.
“I’m here if you want to talk about it.” Maybe this is what’s troubling him and why he’s struggling in my class. A horrific past has resurfaced to haunt him. I wrap my fingers around his hand and grip them in mine.
The depth of feelings I have for this scarred and beautiful young man overwhelms me, and I make the second biggest mistake of the day. I forget he’s my student. Instead I see a young man who needs a friend, and I willingly transform into one.
“I’ve not talked about what happened with my brother to anyone. My parents won’t let me mention his name. It’s as if my brother never existed and his death never happened. He’s been erased.”
He slumps against the table and begins to unravel before my eyes. The weight on his shoulders disappears with three short sentences as he speaks to me. As if they’ve been on the tip of his tongue waiting to be spoken. Damn, I know it’s wrong, but I want to be the one he leans on and helps him heal.
“But he can’t be erased in your life, because you loved him. That kind of love never stops no matter what. It’s unconditional.” He looks up at me with tears in his eyes. His blurred eyes blur the ethical lines between us even more and I rise out of my chair. I walk around the table and pull the chair out beside him.
“I’m sorry. So sorry, Daniel. You can’t keep this bottled up inside of you. It will keep you from living a real life,” I say.
I place my hand on his shoulder with my body turned toward him as I sit beside him in the chair. I feel him shaking beneath my touch, and I know he’s crying. He buries his face in his hands but there’s no hiding the deep emotions pouring from this sweet young man.
I try to soothe him by rubbing his shoulder and uttering words that tell him everything will be all right. I keep telling myself lies. Ones that say it is okay to comfort him like this, and that I’m just being a “concerned adult.” A laughable term at this point.
My rationalizing ends when he raises his head and looks into my eyes. Tears are flowing from his eyes and begin streaming down his beautiful face. I’ve never seen a person with such raw pain. His pain breaks my heart in half. Splits it down the middle leaving it open and bleeding.
I place the palm of my hands on his tear-stained face to wipe them away. But he brings his large hands up and engulfs mine in his.
We stay in this position for long moments. Dangerous ones like we’re perched on a cliff and one small movement will push us over the edge into a free-fall.
He blinks first and glances at my lips. He inches closer to me. His shallow and fast breaths breeze against my face.
His nearness, the look in his eyes, and the touch of his hands against mine are paralyzing, making me ignore the still small voice that says, “Stop. Move away. This is wrong. So terribly wrong.”
Instead I fall into the black abyss of his eyes. A dark place where wisdom and reason are silent.
Then he brushes his lips against mine with a light touch that burns me whole. My resistance is nowhere to be found, so I close my eyes and submit to the darkness drawing me down.
He brings his hands to my waist, and pulls me to him as we kiss. I taste his precious tears as I glide my lips along the shadowy skin of his cheek. Wrapping my arms around him tighter, I feel his shaking hands cup my breast.
I whisper a moan of surrender as he presses my hard nipples between his strong fingers. The pain radiates through me as a punishment I deserve. I whisper “more” to him. In a wave of motion, I find myself on his lap with my legs straddling him. Our position is deadly. One that could end and destroy me, but I’ve never felt so alive and willing to submit to what I know is wrong.
Chapter 6
I’ve walked through my life numb for so long, and lived only for my parents. My focus was being their perfect football-playing son. The one that might redeem our family from my brother’s scandal and shameful death.
But instead I have my hands all over a woman that could fuck up our family even more. Headlines again would scream the mistake their son made. How a woman pushed him over the edge and took advantage of him. Fear of exposure should stop me, but only a gun to her head would get me to move my hands from her body.
I’ll gladly accept the punishment of my crimes, because with her hot breath against my skin and legs wrapped around me, I don’t care about anything else right now. Right and wrong can go to hell, because the thoughts I’ve buried, the lust I’ve fed my mind for her can’t be stilled. It’s out of control.
She starts to move against my dick. We may have layers of fabric between us, but I feel the warmth of her pussy pressed against me and want more. Cupping her ass, I force her harder against me, wishing the heat between us would melt away all the clothes.
She breaks away from my lips and I want to push her back against them. “We,” she says in between pants. “Need to stop this.”
“It’s too late.” My words are final. The line has been crossed. There’s no reason to retreat and step behind it again. A safer place can’t erase what we’ve shared and will continue to share if I have my way.
She must agree with me, because she continues to swirl her hips in my lap. My dick hardens beyond what I thought was even possible.
“Have you ever been with a woman?” she asks while moving in my lap.
“No,” I say and look away from her exposing stare, because I bet she knew the answer before she asking.
“Don’t be ashamed to admit the truth.” She lifts my chin up with a delicate finger.
“Okay,” I mutter and find her eyes again. Their look burns me. Scalds my skin, and tell me to continue.
I slide my hands up her body and grasp her tits. They’re soft but firm. I’m amazed at the feel. I take the hard nipples peaking at me between my thumb and forefinger, and pinch them to a point.
I watch her eyes close and her mouth open in a silent sigh as she throws her head back. It’s an invitation to me. I lean forward and kiss along the length of her throat, feeling her quiet moans vibrate against my lips.
“Where did you learn to do this?” She asks while raising her head. Her body presses against my dick. I meet her with an upward thrust, again and again, as I curse our clothes.
“Long hours alone on my computer.” There’s no need to mention my porn watching focuses on blondes with blue eyes.
“We shouldn’t….” I silence her lips with mine.
I don’t want to hear the truth. Rules that are manmade when I know any man sitting where I am, feeling this woman in his arms, would deny them too.
Each thrust and desperate moan from her brings me close to coming. I don’t know what to do, so I decide to ask her.
“I’m going to…”
“Me too,” she says before I can finish.
I’m aching to get my hands underneath her shirt and touch the softness of her skin. Her legs and arms are covered. Her neck and hands are the only parts of her exposed.
I inch my hand underneath her tight sweater, but she grabs my wrist. It’s the first movement she’s made to stop me.
“Nothing under our clothes. It helps me lie to myself that this isn’t wrong.”
I pull my hand away but do so in a slow motion across her skin. Her stomach flinches and her breath hitches while I take my time.
Her movements speed up as she keeps her hands on my shoulders. Round and round she swivels her hips over me. I push her against me and meet each turn.
All talking ceases since we are nearly breathless. I am so close to exploding that my body begins to shake like a rocket before takeoff. All the momentum is building.
“Ohmyg…” She covers my mouth with hers and bites my lip to keep me from shouting. The force of coming raises me
a few inches off the chair.
As I finish and collapse back into my seat, she arches away from me. I wrap my arms around her waist to hold her tight and watch her come apart in my hands.
Chapter 7
I pull myself up from Daniel’s lap with only one thought in my sexed out head. We are beautiful together.
There’s no guilt or shame hovering over us when I look into his coal-colored eyes, yet I can’t help worrying about where we go from here.
I’m his teacher for fucks’ sake. He has college and likely a career in professional football down the road. His life is just beginning even if I’m only a couple of years older than him.
My future is entangled with my past since I’ve returned back to my old high school to teach. Each day I walk down the same concrete pathway I did as a fourteen-year-old with braces. Now I’m a teacher who’s crossed the forbidden line with one of her students.
I run my fingers through the tight waves of his hair. “Daniel.” My voice is a whisper. “We should…” I can’t find the words to finish.
“Don’t,” he says. “You’re all I think about. It’s why I’m failing this class.”
His confession shocks me, and at the same time gives me the missing piece to the puzzle I’ve been searching for.
“I had no idea,” I try to pull myself off his lap, but his arms tighten their hold on me.
“Let me ask you a question, Ms...” He trails off, and I know the reason. The formal sounding Ms. Tillman would be ridiculous to use after what we’ve just experienced together.
“Call me Staci,” I say. He smiles at hearing my name.
“Staci.” He speaks my name slowly. Letting every phonetic sound roll over his tongue. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“What a loaded question?” My laugh mixes with anxious nerves and comes out a little too high-pitched.
“Gotcha,” he says with a wink, and I exhale the long breath I am holding. “But I do believe in lust.”
He runs his hands up my sides to lace them behind my neck. He pulls me forward and presses his lips to my ear. “And I lust you.”
My eyes widen when I realize sweet, quiet Daniel might be a hot dirty talker. He’s a man; yes I’m calling him a man now, whose buried passion is being freed.
I bend to kiss his swollen lips when I hear the clicking sounds of heels from somewhere down the hallway outside my classroom. Usually the noise would go undetected, but the hallways are abandoned right now and the sound bounces off the walls.
We both still and glance at the clock against the back wall. “How could an hour have gone by?” I say.
“I bet it’s my mother,” he says in a rush and we react quickly to the possibility. I wonder how he’s endured his parent’s paranoia as their captive son.
I scurry over to what had been my side of the table, and straighten my clothes. I try to soothe down the locks of my hair, hoping I don’t look as disheveled as I feel.
“She probably wants to meet you. I’ve never been allowed to be alone with a girl.” He looks away from me.
“Oh shit, “ I say before a quick knock on the wooden door echoes throughout the room.
I feel my back straight as I watch the doorknob turn. Daniel faces me across the desk with his back to the door, but he can see what’s happening in my eyes.
“Good afternoon,” a woman says as she steps into the room.
“Good afternoon,” I respond in kind while rising out of my chair and walking toward her. “We were just finishing up.”
Daniel may have inherited the color of his mother’s skin and eyes. But the coldness I see in her stare chills me. There is no warmth or depth, just judgment and scrutiny.
“So you’re Ms. Tillman?” Mrs. Johnson says with her head cocked to the side. The disdain in her question can’t be missed either.
“Yes, I’m Daniel’s teacher.” I fiddle with my hands and stuff them inside my pant pockets. The very hands that ran through her son’s hair, and held onto him as I came only minutes ago.
“I see.” She taps her chin in thought.
A quick scan over me from head to toe and she moves past me toward Daniel. I panic when I realize he didn’t have a chance to clean up. I’m praying there isn’t a telltale sign exposing us.
I see he’s thrown on his jacket and zipped it up, so we are in the clear. But I still can’t keep from shaking. This woman is no fool and Daniel is not a deceiver.
“Hi mother,” Daniel says.
“Pack up your things, Daniel.” She points to the papers still scattered on the table. “We are finished here.”
What does she mean by that? And her tone sounds ominous. Daniel and I glance at each other. I can tell he’s nervous too.
“Okay,” he says. He starts putting a couple papers into his backpack, but most of the work on the table belongs to me.
“I’ll get the rest,” I say. His mother pivots on her respectable heels and faces me. The blood in my veins turns cold. She appears ready for a fight.
“I think we need to chat.” From her position with her hands on her hips, I don’t believe our chat will be friendly.
“Okay,” I say, realizing I sound just like Daniel. A scolded child.
“Daniel, wait for me outside the door.”
Her orders must concern Daniel because I see his eyes widening as he glances at me, and then back to his mother. I want to tell him not to worry, but I can’t because she scares the shit out of me.
“How old are you Ms. Tillman?” she asks while circling around in front of me. I feel caged in now.
“Twenty-two.” Her brows rise as I try to stand taller than my five-feet-two frame. “I was young for my class.”
“Convenient,” she quips, walking to the desk and taking the seat I used. I feel a power play beginning.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” I say to a frowning Daniel as he walks by with his shoulders slumped. “Good luck in the game tomorrow.” I add as he reaches the door.
“Close it behind you,” Mrs. Johnson says in a commanding order.
I’m still facing the door with my back to her. I can’t find the strength to turnaround.
“Join me, Ms. Tillman.” I spin around and watch her pat the table in front of her.
“Sure.” I smile, hoping to appear like this sort of meeting with her happens everyday.
I take my place at the table across from her and put all the loose papers into a pile. I lay my hands on my lap under the table when I finish. I don’t want her to see them shaking.
“Let me make this quick.” She leans over the table and I lean back in my chair. “I don’t want you teaching my son. He was way too excited last night about coming here today to be tutored by you.”
“Not teach him?” I ask.
“That’s right. I know my son. And I know women like you. You’re not like us. You’re lethal to my son. I’ve seen your kind at work all my life.”
I don’t have an answer or comeback to defend myself. Nothing I say will make a difference at this point with a woman like her. My words will only dig me deeper into the imaginary hole she’s placed me. One marked, dangerous.
Chapter 8
“What did you say to her, mother?” I ask her as soon as we start heading down the hallway outside of the classroom. I tried to hear the conversation through the door, but I only caught a troubling laugh from my mother.
“Nothing that concerns you,” she says as if the matter is closed.
“It does concern me.” I stop where I am in the hallway to get her full attention. I want her looking me in the face.
She turns to me after stopping a couple of steps ahead. “No it doesn’t. As of now, she’ll no longer be teaching you. During and especially not after school.”
Seemingly finished she heads back down the hall. But I don’t move. I stay planted.
She senses that I’m not following her and comes back to me with fury in her eyes. A day ago I would’ve backed down and apologized but not today.
“See. That blond woman has made you forget who you are and what happened to your brother. Remember what his girlfriend did to him?”
“Of course I do,” I yell. “I remember it every Goddamn day.” It is the first time we’ve spoken about my brother like this. “But you’ve forgotten something?”
“Oh please, enlighten me Daniel.” She spits.
“I’m not my fucking brother. He was sick mom. Mentally sick. That’s why he kidnapped that girl and killed himself.”
At first she’s immobile, completely frozen in her spot. I think she finally may understand, and then a hard slap across my face tells me otherwise.
“Oh my god.” She throws her hands into the air. “I had this same conversation with your brother about his girl. He’s dead now. DEAD.” My mother buries her face in her hands and begins to sob. It’s the first time since my brother’s funeral that I’ve seen her cry. Her tears sting me more than the imprint of her hand on my cheek.
“Excuse me.” A voice down the hall interrupts our scene. It’s Mr. Dorsey, the school’s principal.
I walk over to the wall of lockers and lean against them. There’s going to be a showdown. I can sense it.
My mother wipes her cheeks, straightens her hair, and prepares to face my principal. “Good evening, Mr. Dorsey.”
He’s walking toward us while glancing between my mother and me. His face is filled with concern and questions.
“Is everything okay here?” The words linger in the air waiting for someone to grab them and I know who that someone will be.
“No. I want to log a formal complaint against Daniel’s so called teacher, Ms. Tillman.” I stare down at my shoes and curl my hands into fists. I want to pound them into the lockers. “And I don’t want Daniel stepping foot inside her class again.”
“What happened?” Mr. Dorsey looks toward the door of the classroom. “Did something go wrong with the tutoring session? Maybe I should get Ms. Tillman to join us?”
