“I couldn’t cut it,” she said with the bluntness of someone who didn’t feel any regret or remorse. “It’s a stressful job, and the stress got to me. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. Fortunately, I figured it out after just a month. I dropped out of the internship and shifted gears. Now I teach instead, which is much more my speed.”
“It seems like it was a good change,” I said.
“A good change indeed,” she said, smiling. “If you don’t have anything else…”
“Of course.” I stood. “See you at the bar tomorrow night. First drink’s on the house.”
I left her office and glanced back. There was a warm feeling in my core as we locked eyes.
Yeah. I had a big crush on my professor, all right.
22
Lila
I settled into a nice groove over the next two weeks.
Jace and I had a new rule: we didn’t do anything during the week, nor on campus. And we actually stuck to it this time!
But that meant we were both ravenous with lust by the time the weekend rolled around.
Jace came over late Friday, after I had a nice buzz from my visit to Brock’s bar. We must have had sex three times before passing out together after midnight. Then we went for round four the next morning, Jace waking me with kisses down the back of my neck and spine.
And then, on Monday morning, we went right back to being professor and student.
I no longer felt guilty about violating the school policy anymore. We werewaypast that, now. We were too busy loving our little secret, going about our lives on campus while nobody around us knew what we were doing when the weekend hit.
I didn’t realize just howexcitingthis kind of relationship was! I’d never been with someone forbidden before, and it gave me a little thrill every time I thought about it during the day.
There was just one problem: breaking down that barrier with Jace had changed how I viewed other students, too.
Specifically, Brock Radley.
I really liked Brock as a person. I thought of him as a peer, not as a student. We started having deeper conversations at the bar when he wasn’t too busy with other customers. We discussed politics, places we wanted to travel, our favorite foods, and celebrities that we hated. He was beginning to feel like a genuine friend I could confide in.
He also came to my office hours almost every day. He had legitimate questions to ask me, always deep and nuanced in a way that let me know he was taking the class seriously. Despite that, I wondered if it was just an excuse to see me.
Deep down, I didn’t care.
When I was fifteen, I had a sex dream about a guy in one of my classes. I was never attracted to him, and honestly outrightdislikedhim prior to the dream. But after, I couldn’t look at him the same way. The dream had rewritten part of my brain, and I felt a sexy little shiver every time I saw him.
That’s how I felt about Brock ever since he came to my office while the toy was vibrating inside me. I liked him before that, but now my brain had been rewritten to see him as what he was: an attractive, charismatic guy who I had a lot in common with. The kind of guy I would’ve asked out if he weren’t, you know,my student.
But since I was already breaking the rules with Jace, it no longer felt wrong to think of Brock that way. Sometimes, I found myself fantasizing about that day in my office. Telling him about the toy, and then having him dramatically sweep the clutter off my desk and take me then and there. The former athlete could throw me around with ease, I bet.
These were just fantasies, of course. I had enough willpower to restrain myself. Especially since I was having amazing sex with Jace every weekend.
Putting those two men aside, I was having anamazingsemester. I loved all the classes I was teaching, and I genuinely cared about the students I was advising… even with the occasional sorority girl who didn’t care about her education. Unlike the previous fall semester, I felt like I knew what I was doing. My impostor syndrome was gone, replaced by a confidence that had me jumping out of bed each morning, eager to take on the day.
I also felt like I was bringing out the best in my students. For example, Cam seemed like your typical slacker type on the first day of class. Sitting in the back of the room, eyes glued to his laptop. But every day, he’d gotten a little bit more attentive. He listened during my lecture. He raised his hand and answered questions. Cam even visited my office hours to get clarification on one of the writing assignments.
He was very obviously a smart kid. I knew he would make a good analyst.
I felt a fondness for him that deepened with every interaction. I sympathized with his situation, getting in trouble and trying to turn his life around. Hopefully he would use his intelligence and talents to make the world a better place.
It was normal for professors to have a favorite student in each class. We couldn’t help it. One of my colleagues once theorized that it was because we wanted to feel like we were genuinely connecting with students, so we picked out the most promising ones and imbued them with our hopes and dreams for the future. All of that made sense to me.
But I knew it was also because he looked exactly like my teenage crush, Alex Holland. They had the same hair, the same goofy grin, even the same way of walking with a backpack slung over one shoulder. My brain was already programmed to be fond of him, even outside of all the unique things that made Cam himself.
