by Jamie Knight
I had to fight the urge to scream, much like I had had to for most of my life. I was the youngest of my four sisters and I felt every bit of my parents’ overprotective smothering for years.
I think that it was just part of the reason why I had buried myself in my school work. I wanted to get away from the smothering and felt that leaving for college could help me do that. It paid off academically, because I was able to finish high school early and start college when I was sixteen.
It didn’t pay off as well, though, when it came to my goal of moving away. Because of my overprotective parents being too afraid of me being on a college campus, I started taking classes online. I had begged and pleaded with them to let me go, but they kept telling me that only adults belonged on college campuses.
So, I kept on studying hard, counting down the days until my eighteenth birthday. When it finally came, and I asked them to help me get into a good college where I could study on campus, they still said no.
“Why do you need to go to a campus?” they asked. “You’re doing perfectly fine taking your classes here where we know that you are safe.”
Then came the barrage of newspaper clippings citing rapes happening at college campuses all over the country. It was like they found a fresh story to leave taped to my dresser every day. I was starting to think that I would never leave their house.
But I refused to give up. I started investigating colleges on my own and showing my parents that I was an adult capable of taking care of myself.
When it came time for me to leave, my mother cried so hard that she couldn’t even manage to say goodbye. My father made me promise to always carry mace on me and answer my phone when they called.
I knew that biting my tongue during his phone calls was part of me keeping my end of the deal.
“Yeah, I talked to Mom earlier,” I told him, irritated that she had only given him half of the story and made it seem like I wasn’t doing as I had promised. “I was in class when she called at first. I’m good, though.”
“Oh, good,” he said, his voice lightening.
I could tell he liked talking to me, even though he was annoyed at my mom for making him call me. At least my parents loved me, and that was the one thing that allowed me to keep my sanity when they started freaking out with their worries. They were only doing it because they cared. It could be much worse, and I could have neglectful parents, I guessed.
“How are you liking your classes so far?” Dad asked me.
“I like them a lot,” I said. “You know me. I’m always up for a challenge. Speaking of challenges, in my organic chemistry class, my teacher gave me an application for some sort of internship.”
“Really?” he asked, sounding interested. “Are you thinking about doing it?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “It would look really good on my resume.”
“And your professor?”
The question almost caught me off guard. I definitely wasn’t about to tell my dad anything about the fantasies that I had had about Dr. Rivers, but I did wonder what had made him ask about him.
“H-he’s nice…” I stammered. “I think I was the only student in the class to even be offered a position.”
“Of course you were, Superstar,” said my dad, calling me the nickname that he had called me since I was born.
He said that out of all his children, my eyes shone the brightest, like stars. Plus, I had always been an overachiever. So, the name just stuck.
“I figured this professor would know a smart cookie when he saw one,” Dad said, clueing me into the fact that he had just wanted to know more about the professor who would give me such an opportunity.
In my paranoia, or maybe as a result of my guilty conscience, I had taken his question to mean something different. Now, I tried to stay focused on the academic aspect of things, like my dad was doing – rather on the fact that I wanted my hot teacher to pop my cherry, even if I knew that could never happen.
“I’m pretty excited,” I told him.
“You sound like it,” he said, with an edge in his voice. “And you know that I am proud of and happy for you. I just want to make sure that you aren’t taking on more than you can handle. Stress is a major cause of many crimes.”
I hadn’t expected that response. My dad could be so strange sometimes.
“How so?”
“Well, you know… you could be so stressed out from having to work too much and not get enough sleep. And are you eating? Well, that’s what criminals wait for. They wait until the moment you are too stressed out to pay attention and then bam! That’s when they go in for the kill.”
I hit the mute button on my phone and screamed. I shook my head, hardly believing that my dad was serious about what he was saying. But I knew that he was, in fact, as serious as a heart attack. Those were the kind of things my mom and dad sat around thinking and talking about.
“You’re still wearing your mace necklace, right?” he asked.
“Of course,” I lied, remembering that I had tossed it in the back of my closet of my dorm room as soon as I had gotten the chance.
“Good,” he said, sighing. “Well, I’ll let you get back to studying or whatever you were doing. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“I know, Dad. And I am. I love you. I’ll talk to you later.”
We hung up and I went back to filling out the application for the internship.
I could handle the responsibility and then some with flying colors. I wasn’t going to miss out on a golden opportunity all over a silly crush.
Sure, I fantasized about my teacher taking me for my very first time, but I would leave it at just that: thoughts. I didn’t have to act on them.
I was much too smart for that.
Chapter 5 - Jace
“Do you think she’ll show?” asked Trent, echoing the question that had been bouncing around my head all day.
“Who knows?” I said, shrugging as nonchalantly as I could.
The truth was that I was struggling to even breathe, as I waited to see if Izzy was going to show up. Tonight was the first night of the internship and Izzy’s application had been the only one that I had handed out.
In all fairness and honesty, she was the only student who stood out as being able to handle something like this. No other student had even come close. And being a little more transparent, the fact that she was more than mesmerizing made me excited about the idea of her being the only student getting my undivided attention.
“Well, I know you have high hopes for her,” Trent said, meaning high academic hopes, since I hadn’t exactly told him about my ridiculous crush on my student. That would be fucking stupid. “But if she doesn’t show up, she’s throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. And if that’s the case, she probably isn’t the stellar student that we hoped she would be.”
I gave a vague reply, only half paying attention to him. My attention was fixed on the door. I moved around the room, fixing random stacks of paper and getting things set up for our experiment.
When the door finally opened and Izzy walked in, I felt like the air could finally return to my lungs. In fact, I had to sit down for a minute because all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head all at once. I had no idea what had gotten into me, but I guess it was just raging lust for this sexy student of mine.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” said Trent, to Izzy. “We were starting to think that maybe you weren’t going to show up.”
“No, I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, glancing at the clock. “I got caught up on the phone and completely lost track of time.”
“Well, don’t let it happen again,” said Trent.
He was trying to be stern, but that was only because he had gotten a reputation with the students of being a softie.
“It’s okay,” I said, smiling cheerfully in Izzy’s direction. “What matters most is that you are here now, and we can go ahead and
get this show on the road.”
“And hopefully it’s a show that goes well,” said Trent, winking and smiling at her.
He laughed, and I began to wonder if this was his attempt at flirting. I had never seen him act like this and would be shocked if he meant this as some off colored joke. Maybe he was just nervous because she was so smoking hot. I tried to ignore it and move on. I definitely was not amused.
“Now, I’m glad that you decided to do this internship, because it will give you an idea of how organic chemistry can be used in the real world,” I began explaining to Izzy. “Sometimes, a lot can be lost in boring lectures and books with words that just seem to swim all over the page. Speaking of swimming, our first project will be to help make the aquatic home for many animals a better place. We will be synthesizing and improving a bacteria that eats plastic.”
“Why is that a good thing?” asked Izzy, who was visibly confused.
Before I had a chance to answer, Trent slithered up next to her.
“Because it can help our environment,” he said. “ I, for one, am sick of how wildlife is being destroyed because aquatic animals are being overrun by plastic garbage being thrown into the lakes and oceans. Don’t you want to save the wittle sea creatures, Izzy?”
Trent made a silly face, puckering his lips and putting his hands next to his face like he was a fish. Izzy laughed.
“Well, I guess that does make sense,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
Trent rubbed his hand across Izzy’s back and she bristled as if she ha been burned with fire. I felt the heat rushing through me, too.
What was it? It couldn’t have been jealousy. I barely knew her, and she was a student at that. Either way, I knew that I was going to have to talk to Trent about flirting with the students or else he could land himself, the school, and me in a world of trouble.
“Trent, may I have a word with you in the hallway?” I asked, heading toward the door and holding it open, waiting for Trent to follow me.
“Sure,” said Trent, walking toward the door slowly, a look of confusion on his face.
Once we had both stepped into the hallway, I closed the door gently behind us.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice a raspy whisper.
“What do you mean?” asked Trent, scratching his head, dumbfounded.
“I mean with all the flirting!” I hissed. “It’s embarrassing and could be seen as sexual harassment, the way you are laying it on so thick. That’s not what we’re here for at all. We’re here to teach a student how to synthesize and improve a bacteria, not for Trent’s love connection. If you want to pick up girls, do it on your own time. Not now.”
He still looked confused, so I elaborated. “What happens if this girl mentions to the dean that you were all grabby hands with her in here? What do you think that they will do to you? To me? Can we just focus on the project so that we can all get out of here and on with our lives?”
“She didn’t seem like she really cared,” said Trent, almost under his breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” came my icy reply. “We are here to do our job. Let’s just stick to that and leave all the funny business out of it, okay?”
Trent looked at me for a moment as if he were trying to read my mind.
“Sure thing, boss,” he finally said after a while, in his best attempt at a Southern accent.
His European accent threw it off, though, but I could hear his sarcasm as clear as day. I ignored it, opened the door, and motioned for him to walk through it. I followed closely behind him, listening to our footsteps echoing across the floor of the mostly empty classroom.
“Trent’s going to show you the next step in the process while I get a test set up,” I said, walking toward the desk at the front of the room where the Petri dishes and slides had been set up.
Trent moved methodically and robotically, his lips pressed in a tight line. Izzy stood next him, carefully watching his every move. She kept looking at him as if she expected him to explain what he was doing. When no explanation came, she contented herself with just looking on.
He handed her equipment from time to time as he moved things around, setting up slides and squirting dye solution on them so that they could be seen better. They worked peacefully like that for about an hour.
I had gotten so preoccupied with setting up the test and being sure to record data in real time that I didn’t even notice that our time was up before I had the chance to finish the test.
“Welp, that’s our time,” said Trent, heading towards the door.
“Wait. You aren’t going to help clean up?” I asked Trent, surprised to see him leaving so quickly.
Usually, it was the other way around, with me hurrying to leave and me having to drag an excited Trent out of the lab. This time, I was met with a self-satisfied smirk on Trent’s face. He didn’t even glance in my direction as he hurriedly gathered his belongings, sidestepping anything that might have been part of the experiment that we were working on.
“I wish that I could,” he said. “Tonight is a big night for me. I have been planning this for ages. I have some friends leaving to go back to Europe tomorrow, so we planned a huge send off celebration and it’s happening tonight. And besides, I want to get to my life so that I don’t run the risk of being brought up on charges or something.”
His last statement made my eyes widen with surprise. I had never seen this side of Trent and I hoped that it wouldn’t be a side that I saw of him very often again. I rather enjoyed our paraprofessional relationship, where we locked arms and worked together in the class and had somewhat of a friendly relationship outside of the classroom.
We weren’t exactly best friend, but we were friendly enough that he could obviously drag me out on double dates, and what we did have in common made it so that I got more joy out of my work. My shoulders slumped at the thought that one conversation in which I asked him to get a grip on his hormones could potentially ruin all of that. But I decided to just play it cool.
“That’s okay, Trent. I understand. You two have done some great work here tonight. You can go ahead and enjoy your night. I’ll see you tomorrow in class.”
“Okay,” said Trent, disappearing out the door without so much as a glance back.
Izzy stood waiting, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do.
“You can go ahead and take off, too,” I said, pretending to be preoccupied with the experiment.
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay and help you,” she said, her sweet voice sounding like music to my ears.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, stunned by her suggestion. The thought of being near her again made me happy that I had thought to offer her an application for the internship. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite, after having just chastised Trent for being too friendly with a student.
But this is different, I couldn’t help but think. She and I were just going to be working on an experiment together.
“Okay,” I said, stepping to the side so that she could stand next to me in front of the long black lab table.
I could smell her shampoo. It was fruity and wonderful.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, turning her round, eager face toward me, her pearly white smile beaming at me.
I had to keep telling myself not to stare, but she was really beautiful. Now that we weren’t standing in a dark club and I could actually see her face, I could see how much more beautiful she was in the broad daylight – or at least lab lights of the classroom. It made me wonder how the rest of her looked…
She stood there, waiting for me to say something. Honestly, there wasn’t much left to do other than to clean up, but I wanted to make this moment last forever. Plus, I wanted to show her how great of a professor that I was, so that she could see that we both shared academic excellence.
“Well, the first thing we need to do is to mix this solution with the bacteria itself at regular intervals. Why don’t y
ou try doing that?” I asked her, deciding to start over what I had already been doing.
I handed her a vial with a light blue solution that would help to create more bacteria. She took the vial and began slowly pouring it into the Petri dish.
“Like that?” she asked, her voice taking on a deep, throaty texture.
I had to swallow a lump that was climbing up in my throat. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be suggestive or if this was just how she was naturally.
Whatever the case, right now, she was fucking turning me on.
I almost felt guilty, considering I had just chewed out Trent for this very same thing not moments ago. But I couldn’t help myself. She was just so damn seductive that I was drawn to her.
I was deep in thought as I turned to grab another vial of solution and spilled it on myself.
“Oh my gosh! Are you okay? Here, let me help you,” she exclaimed.
Before I knew what was happening, she had grabbed a cloth that had been sitting on the table and started dabbing at my crotch, where most of the solution had pooled. She put the cloth on me over and over again, making contact with my cock. I could feel myself starting to grow hard and I knew that I would be in trouble if she kept on doing it.
So, I reacted without thinking. I pushed her hand away from me quickly. She looked at me as if she were stunned, almost like I had hit her. Then, she had the saddest look on her face, as if her feelings had been hurt. I thought she was going to cry for a minute, until she looked down at my crotch, then looked up at me, smiling.
I looked down to see why she was smiling, and I spotted it.
My penis was standing at full attention, pointing straight at her.
I angled my body away from her, embarrassed, but knowing that it was too late. She had already seen me. She covered her mouth like she was trying to stifle laughter.
“Uh… you know… we really don’t have to keep doing this,” I told her. “The experiment is pretty much done at this point. I’ve recorded all the data that we need. Feel free to go ahead and call it a night.”
