“Are you drunk?” I blurted out.
“No.” She grinned. “Why?”
“I wouldn’t want to exploit you.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Stephen, but I’m a big girl and I know what I’m doing,” she replied, sitting up on her elbows.
“What are you doing?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“Well, by the looks of it, I would say that I’m about to get fucked by my hot professor,” she said, smiling mischievously. “What are you doing?” she added, raising an eyebrow.
I have no clue. I should leave and yet I can’t move my feet toward the door.
“I don’t know,” I told her, running a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You want to sleep with me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“And I want to sleep with you,” she said. “What’s there to think about?”
Oh, I don’t know—my career as an educator, your reputation, the fact that you will be in my class again on Friday annoying the hell out of me…
“Look, Stephen, I can tell that you’re nervous,” she said, and sat back up on the bed. “But you really shouldn’t overthink this. It’s just sex. It’s supposed to be fun, remember?”
Sex had never exactly been fun for me. It was supposed to be the most natural thing in the world, but I had never found that to be the case. I had no physical issues and everything worked as it should, but I was never able to figure it out beyond the sheer mechanics of the act. The few women I had dated in the past had never been satisfied by me. Ever. This girl was clearly used to enjoying herself sexually, and that only made me more apprehensive. What if she laughed at me when she discovered that I didn’t know how to touch her? All my academic knowledge and achievements wouldn’t matter at all in her bedroom, where I was a novice. She was looking up at me, obviously waiting for me to do something. She held up her hand in invitation and gave me a smile.
Stay or go? Stay or go?
I wanted this. I needed this. Feeling resolved, I took her hand. She moved backward until she was situated in the middle of the bed and then pulled me down on top of her, wrapping her legs around me. I wasn’t going anywhere, apparently. She felt so good underneath me. My gaze darted between her eyes and her lips.
“You can kiss me, you know,” she said. “I want you to.”
Swallowing my nerves, I sought her lips with mine, kissing her gently. After a few tries, I grew bolder and deepened the kiss, and she responded eagerly. She tasted sweet, like honey from the tea, and I felt myself become even more aroused when she moaned. I pulled back and looked her.
“You won’t tell anyone?” I whispered.
She shook her head.
“I don’t fuck and tell,” she said with that lopsided grin of hers. “I swear.”
I didn’t know how much her word really meant, and if she would betray the trust I was about to put in her. But I couldn’t see any deception in her eyes and I needed this badly. What we had done earlier was more than enough to incriminate me, and I couldn’t do anything about that now. I also couldn’t bring myself to regret it. I had never known pleasure like that before in my life.
“Just forget that I’m your student,” she said. “I’m Julia and you’re Stephen. We want each other and that’s all there is.”
That wasn’t all there was and I knew it. But I supposed I could try to forget that she always had a smart comeback for everything and didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated by me. I could probably also overlook the fact that her clothes looked like something out of the awful music videos I saw on TV and that her makeup was smudged beyond belief. I focused on her eyes and realized that she wasn’t wearing any right now. She must have removed it while I was sleeping. She looked so much better this way. Her hair was loose, her face was clean, and the red satin robe she was wearing made the color of her lips stand out.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said out of nowhere.
Her eyes widened and then she smiled. “Thank you. No one’s ever called me that before.”
“Really?” I asked, finding that hard to believe. I was sure that plenty of young men were into her particular look.
“Hot, sexy, smoking. Never beautiful. You look insanely hot with your messy hair and your body is amazing,” she said unabashedly, running her hands down my naked back. “You should show it off a little more.”
“You should cover yours up a little more,” I countered, playing with a strand of her hair.
She snorted. “Why would I do that?”