Teach Me(48)

“ ‘Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers deify / Until I labor, I in labor lie . . . ’ ” My voice grows steadier and stronger with each word, and the rest of the classroom fades away. Every time I glance up from the lines I’m reading, all I see is Jack’s face, that fire still bright in his eyes, a faint smile lingering at the edges of the lips I kissed just hours ago.

At first, there are still titters from the back of the classroom. I ignore them and speak louder, completely absorbed now. “ ‘License my roving hands, and let them go / Before, behind, between, above, below / O my America! My new-found-land . . . ’ ”

By the time I reach the final stanza, the classroom has fallen quiet, listening.

“ ‘To teach thee, I am naked first; why then / What needst thou have more covering than a man,’ ” I finish into complete silence. For a moment, we all sit still, so unmoving that I almost imagine I can still hear myself speaking, confident and easy, in a way I’ve never read in public before.

Then Jack claps his hands, and half of us startle again, followed quick by more nervous laughter. “Right,” he says. “What can this poem, which was likely written in the early-to-mid-1600s, tell us about the more contemporary work we’ve been reading? What are some themes that we can see in the twentieth century that arose from the wit and metaphors that Donne was known for? Keith?”

Jack moves around the room, starting a spirited discussion on the topic, while I still sit there half-stunned, my heart pounding out of my chest.

I don’t read in public. I never read in public. Not well, anyway. I stammer through other people’s poetry, and nearly choke to death if I need to read my own.

So how the hell did I just read aloud the smuttiest poem ever, without freaking out once?

A smile touches my mouth when Jack launches into an explanation of the very contemporary metaphors Donne used. “ . . . Likening an exploration of his mistress’s body to sixteenth-century explorers charting the Americas.”

Ironic, to talk about Donne’s wit and metaphors, when he just made me read a poem about a guy stripping his beautiful and presumably secret mistress naked before bedding her, complete with American and British references.

When Jack asks us to take the last ten minutes of class to work on essays about the use of theme, motif, and symbols, I’m sorely tempted to start in on an essay about corrupting your students with dirty talk. Instead, I sneak my phone under the desk for a quick rebuttal. When you threatened to discipline me, I have to admit, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

My phone lights up only a minute into our writing time.

Oh, don’t worry. There’s far more to come. You, however, won’t be coming until I’m good and ready to make you . . .

My lip curls. Is that a challenge?

No, my dear. That is a promise.

By the time the last student files out, I’m already wet. I stay in my seat, eyes fixed on Jack, until the door shuts behind the final person. Then I can’t hold back any longer. I practically launch myself toward the front of the room.

He meets me halfway, catching me halfway up the stadium seating of the classroom, and pushes me down into a chair, bending me backwards over it as his lips crash into mine.

Our hands find one another, mine slipping under his belt buckle, his sliding up my skirt to brush against my damp panties.

“Someone has been behaving even worse than I thought,” he murmurs. “We’ll have to make this really last.”

His fingers circle me in ever tightening circles, so close I can’t help thrusting up against his hand, wanting him to make me come, to hit the release I’m dying for.

Finally, his finger hits my clit, strokes me hard once, twice, and I’m rising toward it, so close I can feel my whole body clench in anticipation.

He pulls his hand back and smooths my skirt down, before dropping a gentle, chaste kiss on my lips. “You’re late for your next class,” he says, grinning.

I scowl up at him. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I told you.” He taps my lips with his finger—I can smell my scent on his skin, and it’s driving me fucking crazy. “You’re going to have to wait for it.” He grabs up his bag and starts toward the exit, waving over his shoulder. “My office hours start at 4:00 p.m. today. Don’t be late.”

And then he’s gone, and I can’t decide if I want to fuck him or strangle him later.



#



The rest of the day is pure torture. I spent most of Professor Butler’s class zoned out completely, my mind still stuck on Jack in an endless loop.

It doesn’t help that about 30 minutes into class, my phone buzzes with a message from him. I hope you’re behaving, and not touching yourself in anticipation of what I’ll be doing to you later.