Teach Me (18 page)

“To
His Mistress Going to Bed,”
I read, my voice faltering only slightly on the word
mistress
.

You
can do this, Harper
.

I
clear my throat and imagine myself in Jack’s
room, the way we were last night, our naked bodies wound tight around
one another. I imagine I’m
reading this to him, in the private, safe space of his townhouse, no
one to hear me except the man I’m
starting to fall for.

“ ‘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.

I
squirm a little in my seat.
What
if I’m
not behaving?

Hmm.
Not sure these handcuffs will be sufficient, then . . .

He
is evil.

It
gets so bad that the fourth time Butler calls on me and I have no
idea what to reply, she actually sighs and pushes her glasses up her
nose. “Harper, can
you stop by my office after class? Thanks.”

Great.
Just what I need.

For
the rest of the lecture, I manage to follow along well enough to take
notes, though I’m
not sure I’ll
understand the full context of them later. To be honest, I’m
struggling in this class—I
expected medieval history to be interesting, like the poetry I’ve
read from that time period. Full of stories and factual tidbits about
life in the middle ages.

Instead
it’s all memorizing
dates and trying to decipher medieval English, which is about as
comprehensible as that one guy from Glasgow in my dorm when he gets
totally wasted. I’m
not even sure whatever it is he’s
speaking should count as English.

So
it’s with a sinking
feeling that an hour later, I approach the office door of
Professor
Hannah Butler
,
according to her nameplate.

“Come
on in,” she calls,
and when I open the door, she’s
pulling her long, blonde curls into a perfectly disordered topknot
that makes my hair on a good day look like utter trash. “Hey
there.” She flashes
a smile and yanks a stack of paper off her spare chair.

Hannah
Butler’s office
looks like the complete opposite of Jack’s.
There’s stuff
everywhere, and none of it looks particularly organized. Stacks of
manuscripts are piled on every flat surface (most of which is the
floor, so I tiptoe around them to the chair). Books are piled
haphazardly on the shelves in no particular order, and with weird
odds and ends stuffed between them, like the snow globe from Austin,
Texas jammed in between a compendium of ornithology and an English
translation of an Icelandic saga.

“Sorry
about the mess,”
Professor Butler says as she leans on the corner of her desk, just
high enough to tower over me. “I
just got back from a sabbatical, so I’m
still in the middle of reorganizing.”

I’m
not quite sure how to respond to that, so I just nod.

Her
friendly smile falls a little, which makes me feel guilty. Then she
hitches it right back into place. “So.
Your course grade.”

My
stomach sinks, if possible, even farther. “Yeah,
I know, I’ve been
struggling a little here—history
isn’t my strong suit
I guess.”

“You’re
a poetry major, right?”
She’s still smiling
in an almost too friendly way.

“Yeah,
I needed an elective, so I thought . . . ”
What the hell did I think when
I signed up for this?
“Well. Actually, I
thought this might help inspire some poetry,”
I admit with an apologetic grimace.

To
my surprise, that makes her nod emphatically. “I
completely understand.”
She lowers her voice to a knowing-smirk kind of level. “I’ve
dated poets.” She
winks. “I know all
about the hunt for inspiration. And you know, you’re
actually right, there’s
a lot of interesting content we’re
covering, if you look closely . . . ”

She
spends the next half hour talking about the texts we’ve
been going over, including some elements I completely missed while
struggling through the readings on my own. Like in a lot of the
heavily Christian texts, where we can deduce some of the things
people actually believed at the time (for example, that fish
reproduced asexually, and therefore, since they weren’t
“tainted”
with sex like other animals, they were okay to eat on holy days).

After
our conversation, I leave her office with a new spring in my step,
and a fresh appreciation for what I’ve
been struggling to read all semester. If I could make myself pay
better attention in this class, I decide, it might actually be worth
more than just an elective after all. I make a silent vow to try
harder, if not for my sake, than for Professor Butler—Hannah,
as she insisted I call her. She seems really sweet, and like the kind
of professor who truly cares about her students.

Now,
if only the rest of my afternoon will pass this quickly, I’ll
be set . . .

#

Check
your mailbox before you get here
is the last text I receive from Jack, half an hour before I’m
supposed to meet him in his office. I stopped at my dorm to change
into spiked stilettos and a skintight dress, since with my winter
coat on overtop, no one in the halls will be able to tell how I’m
dressed. I don’t
have any more classes after this. Nothing but me and him, and the
whole night ahead of us.

Well,
me and him and whatever’s
in my mailbox.

I
shuffle through a couple of reports and letters (mostly junk mail)
until I spot one particularly fat envelope at the bottom. I undo the
flap, and a single silk length of fabric falls out. At first, I
mistake it for a tie.

My
breath hitches when I realize what it really is. A blindfold.

I’ve
never done anything like this. The most adventurous I’ve
gotten in the sex department before meeting Jack was occasionally
hooking up in the empty library with Derrick.

But
I’ve always wondered
what it would feel like. Total surrender.

My
heart beats louder as I reach the hall leading to his office. There’s
a note taped to the door.
Report
season—Do
not disturb.

I
rap twice and wait, my breath trapped in my lungs. We’ve
done this before, of course. But it feels different now. Purposeful.
Another student passes me in the hall, and I bunch up the length of
silk in my fist, flashing her a nervous smile.

I
didn’t think about
this last time. Last time, at the kind of early o’clock
in the morning when hardly anyone was around to begin with, we didn’t
stop to think about anything much. Not about people overhearing us,
or passing in the hallways. Not about who might see us, what they
might think.

I’m
talking myself into an endless loop of nervous when the door in front
of me clicks open.

“Ms.
Reed?”

I
sidestep into the office, and wait for the door to shut behind me,
the subtle click of the lock turning. I’m
facing the empty room when he comes up behind me, his body pressing
against mine, and wraps his hands around my wrists. “Did
you bring what I left for you?”

Wordlessly,
I lift my hand with the silk trailing from it. He plucks it from my
fingers and lets the fabric trail up my arm to my shoulder. I shiver.
Then the world goes dark as he wraps it around my eyes.

“I’ve
been thinking about the filthy things I’m
going to do to you all day,”
he murmurs against my ear, before he licks his way down my neck. I
let my head fall to the side and stifle a groan. “But
only if you’re a
very, very good student. Do you think you can do that for me, Ms.
Reed?” His hot
breath scalds my skin where he’s
just tasted me.

“Yes,
Professor,” I
whisper.

His
hand wraps around my neck. “Good.
First lesson.” His
other hand travels up my chest, his fingers pulling at my nipple
through the fabric of my clothes. “Be
absolutely silent.”
He tugs hard, and I gasp out loud. That only makes him tighten his
grip, and I clench in anticipation. “Do
you understand, Ms. Reed?”

I
open my mouth to reply, then think about what he just asked, and
close it again. My only answer is a nod.

Even
with my eyes covered, I can hear the smile in his voice when he
replies. “Good.”
His knee slides behind mine, nudges me until I get the idea and take
a step forward. One, two, three. My leg bumps the desk, and I lean
forward, expecting him to bend me over it again.

Instead,
he pulls me upright again, one hand coming down firmly on my ass as
he does. “Ah ah. Not
there.” I try to
count steps and get an idea of where I am in the room, but I give up
in a few more.

Then
his hands grasp my waist and my shoulder and dip me suddenly
backwards, like a tango, only farther, because after a moment I feel
something soft against my back. A carpet? No, too soft. A blanket,
maybe?

I
stop thinking again, because his hands catch mine once more, draw my
arms up and over my head, his fingers pressing gently into my skin,
hot as brands. His mouth dips to my ear, and his breath scalds my
skin. “I’m
going to make you wish you could scream, Harper Reed.”