Often she was stern. She was only about five-foot-five in height, but she was one of those people who projected such an aura of authority that they seemed larger than life. She was magnetic and whenever I was around her I found it incredibly difficult to take my eyes off her. So did many of her students.
I saw the way the hungry young men licked their lips at her in a wolfish manner, imagining themselves tainting her immaculate body with their slobbering kisses and clumsy fondling. It made me angry to think that they even considered themselves worthy of such a goddess. And yet Lucy handled them all with a delicate grace, smiling wryly at their ungainly attempts at flirtation, making it clear that they didn't stand a chance, and not only because she was their teacher.
I didn't worry about them so much because as far as I knew she had never expressed an interest in men. And that's something that tormented me even more. At least if she was straight then I could console myself with the fact that it was never going to happen but she was a lesbian just like me, and I was forced to gaze longingly at her, knowing that f we had met at another time in our lives things may have been different. I could have been the one sliding into bed with her at night. I could have been the one sitting opposite her at the dinner table, watching her lips press together as she ate, siding my foot up her slender calf, feeling the simmering attraction between us boil over as we give in to our lustful needs.
Some of the girls in her classes looked at her the same way I did. All fresh-faced with their perky breasts and innocent wide eyes. In a way I pitied them because we were a part of the same club, the lonely hearts that had had the misfortune of encountering the most beautiful, the most intoxicating woman in the world.
Chapter 2
You may be wondering why none of us stand any chance with Lucy, well, that's because on her finger sits a gold band. She's been married (happily, as far as I know) for about six years now. I've met her wife a few times, a pleasant lady named Wendy, and I was struck by how plain-looking she was. I know that sounds incredibly bitchy of me, and it's probably just my own jealousy talking, but she just seemed so... undeserving of Lucy. What had she done to win Lucy's heart? II asked Lucy that once and all she had said to me was that Wendy had been there for her when she needed her.
She made falling in love sound so simple but it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It's painful and torturous. Every day I feel like my heart is going to rip open and all the sadness is going to pour out and flood the world, sending it into years of darkness. Some nights I lay in bed and look out at the stars and feel the melancholy consume me. I stretch out across the empty sheets and close my eyes, imagining so hard that Lucy is in the same bed as me that I can almost feel my skin brush hers. But then I'm reminded that it's all make-believe and the illusion is dispelled. I sigh as I look around at the shadows that surround me and my body is wounded by the agonies of loneliness.
On those nights I curled up into a ball, wishing that I would disappear from existence because the pain of not being able to have what I wanted was just too much. Lucy plagued my thoughts. My mind raced with fantasies of us running away together. I thought endlessly off what it would be like to be scorched by a kiss from her, or even just to feel her warm embrace. Sometimes in class our hands would brush and I would feel a spark of electricity. Did she feel it too? Surely she must have... and there was often playfulness in her eyes. But she was married and she was too good of a woman to transgress against the promise that she made.
I didn't blame her either, because my love for her was of my own doing, and she wasn't malicious in any way. I imagine she was the type of woman that was used to people loving her, and she merely saw it as a natural way of life. There are people who love, and there are people who are loved. The sad thing is that most love in the world is unrequited, an impossibility dreamed by people who should know better and yet are powerless to struggle against the forces tearing them apart.
I have tried to forget Lucy and push her to the back of my mind, but it seems to be a futile endeavor. Lovers came and went. I tried to kindle a flame similar to the one that burned in my heart for Lucy, but they all just fizzled out. I even entered into a torrid affair with a student that led to a very disapproving lecture from Lucy. I almost lost my job because of it but Lucy stepped in to save me. Losing my job wasn't the worst part, it was the look on Lucy's face when she realized what I had done. I don't even know what possessed me to do it in the first place. I could see the way Mandy was looking at Lucy, the way she always went up to her after class and stood next to her, pushing her breasts together and letting her blonde hair fall over her face, always asking to see Lucy in her office. I burned inside and I knew that Mandy knew it. So I seduced her first, making sure that she wouldn't get into Lucy's bed. It was stupid and immature and the sex was angry, and it probably pushed me further away from Lucy but I was a wreck.