by Cassie Cole
“Where was I?” I asked nobody in particular.
“The years we will be covering?” Melanie said.
“Right. The years. Many scholars mark the end of the Roman Empire differently, but for the purpose of this class…”
As I tried to continue my lecture, one overbearing thought pulsed in the back of my head:
I fucked one of my students.
7
Zack
I fucked my teacher.
Finn and I stripped for all sorts of people around Des Moines. Every age, occupation, and appearance you could imagine. Occasionally we stripped for DMSU professors. It was rare, but it happened. Our booking agent always made sure ahead of time that none of the professors were in our departments. That way there was no uncomfortableness or conflicts of interest.
None of the women we stripped for last night were in the business department. Our booking agent even cross-referenced their classes with our specific schedules for the fall semester. Everything was good.
Except somehow Jessica had slipped through the cracks.
I needed a history credit for my degree. Most business majors picked one of the easy classes. American History 102, or European History 114. But those were all full by the time I picked my schedule. So I searched the catalog for something else for me to take, and I found one that was interesting. I loved Roman history. I took Latin as my language in high school. I didn’t care that it was a dead language. Speaking it reminded me of Harry Potter spells being cast. Sectum sempra, a spell that cut someone, derived from the Latin words sectum (which meant to cut) and semper (which meant always).
I thought that shit was cool.
Because it was an upper-level class, only people in the history department were allowed to enroll. But after explaining my situation to my academic adviser, they lifted the restriction. Sweet.
Except Professor Morris ended up being Jessica Morris, the woman I had fucked last night.
And now I was sitting in her class, listening to her explain the decline of the Roman Empire.
I was fucked.
Jessica was totally flustered. Her skin was fair, so the way she blushed made it look like someone had thrown red paint on a white canvas. Last night she had been cool, calm, and totally collected. Even when we fucked. Now? She was stumbling over her words and forgetting what to say.
I pulled out my phone and started texting the only person who would understand.
Me: Dude
Me: I fucked up
Me: I fucked up SO BAD
Finn: Late for your first class?
Me: I fucked my professor
Finn: Why didn’t I sign up for THAT class? Right now I’m learning about supply chain logistics.
Me: It’s my Roman History professor.
Me: Professor Morris
Me: She was one of the women we stripped for last night
Finn: The one you were eye-fucking all night? Hold on while I find the right gif.
A GIF of a guy falling on the ground laughing appeared in our chat.
Finn: If I had known you were going to stick around and fuck the clients I would have given you a ride home
Me: She was in the same UberPool as me. And she lives in Hillside. We hit it off on the way home.
Finn: Not fair
Finn: The only action I got last night was when Braden smacked my ass after playing beer pong
Me: Dude
Me: I’m freaking out right now
Me: I could use some support
Finn: What’s there to discuss? Take the L and drop the class
Me: I think Jessica is freaking out about it. She’s trying to give her lecture and she’s kind of a mess.
Finn: All the more reason to drop the class.
I put my phone away and returned my eyes to the lecture stage where Jessica was speaking. “…differ on their definition of when the Roman Empire really fell. Some point to the crossing of the Rhine in 406. Others mark it as late as Julius Nepos’s death in 480, or as early as the Third Century Crisis.”
Her eyes swept across the front row, not pausing on me.
“For the purposes of this class we will use the sacking of Rome in 410 as the end point for a variety of reasons…”
She was totally nervous. A completely different person than she was last night. She was very carefully not looking at me. Like I was a black hole sitting in her classroom and her gaze might get sucked into it if she looked in my direction.
I thought about how much fun we had last night. Eating out her delicious pussy on the table, then bending her over it while fucking her from behind. Shooting my load all over her tits and watching her lick it up with whipped cream. It was the best sex I’d had in a long time. I spent the rest of the night and all morning thinking about all the fun that was still to come.
But there was no way that was happening now.
I opened my laptop and checked the DMSU Blackboard site, which had a list of classes available this semester. Every history class was full.
I would need to talk to my adviser and see if she could move me into another class. Maybe put me on the waiting list. She would ask why I was switching after getting special approval. What would I tell her?
Regardless, I had to drop the class.
I fucked the teacher.
I felt like a prisoner for the rest of class.
8
Jessica
I felt like a prisoner in my own class.
I wanted to run from the room and hide in my office. I wanted to find a time machine and go back twenty-four hours to undo the mistake I had made. I wanted to visit Brandi in her American History class and blame her for inviting me to the bachelorette party in the first place.
But I couldn’t do any of those things, so I tried to get through my lecture.
It was the longest hour of my life. I went over the syllabus, then began reviewing the first chapter of our textbook. Even though the air conditioning was on full blast, sweat rolled down my neck and pooled along my bra strap. It was the worst lecture I had ever given.
No matter how much I tried to focus, I was distracted by Zack. Even when I avoided looking at him I could still see him in my peripheral vision. I was bombarded by images and memories of last night. The way his thick cock felt when it sank into me. His tongue swirling in my mouth while we were joined together. His hot come landing on my chest while his sexy face twisted with pleasure…
I tried to shake off the intrusive thoughts, but Zack’s piercing blue gaze was right there in the third row, watching me.
Eventually it became too much for me, and I ended class ten minutes early. “The reading for Wednesday is chapters one through four, so be prepared to discuss that next class,” I said. Then I went to my desk and pretended to arrange the papers in my bag.
Melanie got up from her chair and walked over to me. “Professor Morris?” she asked in a low voice. “Are you okay?”
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You seem… distracted. Like something’s wrong.”
Over Melanie’s shoulder I saw Zack leaving the room, head down and not looking at me. “I’m fine,” I told Melanie before quickly following him out into the hallway. My heels clopped as I caught up to him, grabbing his muscular arm.
“Hey,” I said.
Zack stopped and looked at me. For a moment it was the same look he had given me last night when we first embraced, pushing me back into my apartment and lifting me onto the table. Hiking up my dress…
But then he looked at the ground, embarrassed and awkward. “Hey, Professor Morris.”
I looked around and whispered, “You said you were a business student!”
“I am. I need three history credits for my degree.”
“Only history students can take my class!”
“My adviser lifted the restriction.”
Panic gripped my chest. The magnitude of my offense began to sink in. Zack was one of my students, and we had slept together. There were a hundred tho
usand men in Des Moines and I had managed to fuck one of the few who were off limits.
My fear must have been obvious because Zack put a comforting hand on my arm. “It’s okay. I’m going to drop the class. You won’t see me again.”
Relief washed over me like aloe on a sunburn. But we weren’t out of the woods yet.
“Nobody can know what happened,” I insisted. “If anyone finds out we… you know, then I’ll lose my job. You can’t tell anyone.”
He winced. “Well…”
“What?” I demanded. “Who have you told?”
Before he answered, a crisp voice called out behind me: “Jessica?”
I turned to see Dominic approaching. He had a warm smile on his face until he saw that I was talking with a student.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” he said. “We can talk later when you’re not with a student…”
The words with a student stung with unintended meaning.
“Thanks again, Professor Morris,” Zack quickly said. He gave a wave, shouldered his backpack, and hurried down the hall. I turned back to my fellow Associate Professor.
“Dominic! It’s good to see you.”
His face lit up again with that smile. “And you as well. How was your summer?”
“Too short,” I said with a chuckle. “I see you’ve worked on your tan?”
“I spent a week in Cabo,” he said happily as we walked together. “I wish it had been an entire month! The scuba diving alone could have occupied me for weeks…”
It felt stupid to make small talk with someone while my career was in crisis. Especially since that someone was my crush. But it was nice to see him after three months apart. And the more I talked to him, the more I forgot about Zack.
“I wish I had gone somewhere exotic,” I said. “The most exciting thing I did was visit my parents in Tampa for a long weekend.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a staycation,” he said with a smile. God, that smile could melt glaciers. “Was that your first class I saw you come out of?”
The female students walking in the opposite direction all swooned when they saw Dominic. That wasn’t an exaggeration: they literally swooned like characters in a Jane Austen novel, nudging each other and giving him sultry looks. That shouldn’t have surprised me. The other women in the history department all called him Professor Hunk behind his back. Naturally his female students would be attracted to him too.
I bet he’s never slept with any of his students, I thought.
“Decline of the Roman Empire,” I confirmed. “Bright and early on a Monday morning.”
“I love that period of history,” he replied. “The fall of an empire, unrest spreading throughout Europe as the Goths and Visigoths begin to spread. And the way you lecture? I’m certain it’s quite stimulating for your students.”
He didn’t mean it as a double-entendre, but the word lodged in my head like a wrench thrown into an engine. I tripped over my own feet and flew forward.
Dominic leaped forward to catch me. His strong arms stopped my fall right before I hit the ground, holding me just above the floor like a dancer who was in the process of dipping their partner. Once again I was reminded that he was nothing like the other professors in my department. Dominic was a former football player who filled out his dress clothes with bulging muscle. His rugged face looked like it had been chiseled from stone. The only thing out of place was a lock of his wavy brown hair, which had fallen over his eyes as he held me off the ground.
He lifted me back up to a standing position and smoothed back his hair. “They wax the floors early in the morning. I’ve slipped many a time myself.”
“The wax, right,” I said. “Thank you.”
Dominic was still holding my forearms in his fingers. He let go and said, “Forgive me for being forward, but would you like to get lunch together tomorrow?”
Butterflies flew in my stomach. My crush was asking me out. “I… um…”
“Or Wednesday,” he quickly added. “I don’t know what your schedule looks like this semester.”
“Actually, Wednesday works better,” I said. “I have a long lunch break then.”
Dominic gave me his winning smile. “Excellent! Until then, watch out for these floors. I won’t always be there to catch you.”
As he walked away, I wondered if this day could get any crazier.
9
Jessica
I taught another class that morning—a class where I had slept with none of my students, thankfully—then I was free for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. Rather than go back to my office I visited the student advising department in the administrative building on the other side of campus. Zack’s adviser was a student named Lori. She was meeting with someone so I waited in the hall until her door opened.
“Hi, I’m Jessica Morris,” I said.
She squinted at me like she was thinking hard. “History. Right? 314 and 414? The Roman Empire classes?”
“Good memory,” I replied while walking into her office.
“When you arrange schedules all day they start to stick in your head. How can I help you?”
I put on an apologetic face. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I had a question about a restriction you lifted for one of my students. It’s for my History 414 class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
She sat down and typed on her keyboard. “Zachary Tupelo?”
“He’s the one,” I said in an even tone.
“I lifted the restriction last week.” Lori frowned at me. “Is there a problem with him? Your class had one slot left, and there weren’t any history students waiting to book classes for their major. But if someone is trying to enroll…”
“It’s not really a problem,” I quickly said. “I was just curious why the restriction was lifted for someone in the business school.”
Lori leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Honestly? He made a convincing argument. He loves Roman history. You should have listened to him go on and on about it. He even knows Latin. I was sold after just a few minutes. If I had known it would be a problem…”
“It’s not a problem,” I repeated. “Not a problem at all.”
Lori leaned forward and lowered her voice. “If I’m being totally honest with myself? The fact that he’s a cutie probably helped! Mmm hmm. It definitely didn’t hurt.”
I hardened my poker face. “That’s inappropriate.”
I was projecting my own behavior onto her, but Lori didn’t know it. “Yes of course. I didn’t mean—”
“Next time you make an exception, run it by me first, please.”
“Of course, Professor Morris.”
Later that night, after I had finished dinner and was preparing for bed, I decided I needed to tackle the problem head-on. I took the elevator to the tenth floor and knocked on the door to apartment ten-nineteen.
But it wasn’t Zack who answered.
The man who opened the door wore only a pair of athletic shorts. His body was covered with muscle, at least as much as Zack’s, and everything glistened with a sheen of sweat. He had a tattoo sleeve on his left arm, and on the right side of his torso was a tattoo of angel wings.
“You’re the other stripper,” I blurted out. “From the party the other night. Finn.”
He didn’t hide the fact that he was checking me out. His eyes raked my body to the ground and back up again. He grinned as if he liked what he saw.
“You’re the professor,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. “Come back for more?”
I stood up straighter. “I wasn’t the one who hired you two. That was my colleague Brandi.”
Finn’s sweaty black hair swayed across his eyes as he shook his head. “I meant you’ve come back for more of Zack.”
I gasped. “He told you?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
I pushed past him into the apartment. It was the same layout as mine, with the kitchen and living room blending together. The only difference was this apartment had a
second bedroom off the hallway.
“Zack!” I called. “Where is he?”
Finn walked back into the kitchen. “He’s in the shower. I can send him down to your place when he’s out.”
I imagined Zack knocking on my apartment door and knew that was a bad idea. I sat on the couch in the living room and said, “I’ll wait.”
Finn shrugged and fiddled with something in the kitchen. A hissing sound came from a pan on the stove, and soon the room was filled with the smell of grilled chicken. The tattoos on his left shoulder blade danced as he wielded his spatula to move the chicken around in the pan.
“You have a good time last night?” Finn asked after a long silence.
“That’s none of your business.”
He turned to look at me. “The bachelorette party.”
“Oh.” I swallowed my embarrassment. “It was fine.”
“You seemed like you enjoyed it.”
“It was fine.”
“We don’t normally work together,” he went on. “But your friend hired both of us. Kinda fun. Makes me wonder what other stuff would be better with the two of us instead of just one. Maybe if Zack and I had both come home at the same time…”
He turned to give me a pointed smile.
He’s talking about a threesome.
My gut reaction was a tingle of excitement. After seeing Finn dancing last night—hell, after seeing him shirtless right now—I couldn’t help but imagine him with Zack and I last night. His lips were full and curled in a permanent sneer, like the world was one big joke. I wondered what those lips would feel like on my neck, on my chest, on my pussy…
I forced the thought away and replaced it with anger. “You realize this isn’t a joke, right?”
“Wasn’t joking.”
“My career is on the line.”
“Don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” he told the stove. “I’m not the one you slept with.”
A door in the hallway opened and Zack appeared with a puff of steam. A white towel was wrapped around his waist, and his body glistened with moisture. He blinked his blue eyes when he saw me.
