The Lab Assistant (6 page)

I had to admit, though, that I wanted more than just something casual--even something as intensely erotic as this. I wanted something with substance, something long term. I needed that. Maybe I was just deluding myself. I found it strange, while suddenly thinking about it, that this young coed would want an uninteresting professor like me. What could I possibly offer her? Did she need a daddy figure? Did she think she could use a relationship with me as leverage to obtain something?

I knew myself well enough to know also that I'd fallen for Sonia.

End of story.

I was in love.

So, now what?

Sighing, I eased my way through the cafeteria crowds, with my lunch tray and several bundles of academic papers balanced precariously in my hands. Finally, I found an empty table.
Perfect
, I thought. It was small, so at least if a student accosted me, there wouldn't be much room to hang out. They might get a couple of stupid questions in, but they couldn't stay long--not without looking like an ass standing there, and not before they'd get swept along by the steady stream of traffic through the cafeteria. And the table was in a corner of the cafeteria complex. I might actually get some time to think.

I made it to the table before anyone else, sat down, let my bag slide off my shoulder and onto the floor, and spread my lunch and papers out in front of me. Suddenly, a quiet gnawing feeling sank into me--I was forgetting something.
Right
, I thought.
Julie Merryweather's e-mail from last night. Fuck.
I realized that I didn't have my laptop with me.

I looked momentarily down the length of the cafeteria. The idea of walking back to my office didn't appeal on any level. I'd just have to wait until later to see what she needed. I hoped it wasn't about our research project, or worse still, about a grant issue related to our research project.

Having opened a can of soda and a bag of chips, I leaned back to study a paper on DNA microarrays and
Drosophilae
splice junctions. I wasn't feeling this right now, but I needed something else on my mind besides Sonia. I didn't really want anything but her on my mind, and probably couldn't have concentrated on anything had I tried. But...

And then: "Hi, Daddy."

It was Sonia, carrying her books. "Can I sit down?"

I dropped the paper and sat staring at her for several long seconds. My face bore a wide, stupid grin. Finally, I snapped myself back into the moment and waved my hand toward an empty chair from the adjoining table. "Yeah, of course," I stammered. I pulled the chair over to my table and shuffled over to clear some room. "Please."

She sat down and quickly slid her chair even closer. Without thinking, I dropped my hand under the desk and guided it up her inner thigh to the silky front of her thong. Her skin was electric to the touch. I withdrew slightly, feeling self-conscious, given our exposed position, but left my hand remained on her knee. I had to touch her.

"I've missed you," I told her sweetly.

"Have you been thinking about me?" she asked.

"Are you kidding? All day. You're all I can think about. I almost ran over a kid while parking today. I swear to God, I was looking straight ahead and he was standing right there but I didn't see a thing. All my mind could focus on was you."

She smiled widely. "Me, too." Then she leaned in a little closer, and said in a quiet voice, "My pussy is so raw I can barely touch it. You worked me over, Daddy. Damn, you worked me over. But, this morning, after you left, I lay in your bed, thinking about us, and I could smell you on the pillow."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh." She was still leaning in to me. Her breasts pushed up in her bra as she pressed against the table. "I got so horny, I had to get myself off. My kitty was so sore, it stung, but with you in my mind I had to get myself off."

"With your fingers?"

She nodded.

I wanted specifics, and my cock raged in my pants at the thought, and at the thought of her telling me about it right here. "How?"

She licked her lips and tilted her head coyly to the side. "I rubbed my clit." She said this with an amazingly sexy, throaty exhalation of breath. Her voice was almost a sigh as it rained down around me. "And I pinched and squeezed and pulled on my pussy lips. And then I rubbed my clit some more. A couple of times, I pushed a few fingers inside me. Mostly, I teased and rubbed my clit, though. I didn't want to wait for it. I just needed to come."

I breathed in deeply and smiled, shaking my head. "Sonia, we have got to stop. I mean, talking about this now. I'm getting a furious hard-on. I won't be able to get up from the table. I'll be knocking people over left and right trying to get back to my office. I've got tenure, yes, but that'll probably be frowned upon."

She giggled playfully.

"Can we meet later?" I asked.

"Yes. Definitely." But then a gloomy cast fell across her face. "But, fuck, I can't, tonight, Daddy. I've got class at six and then I've got a study session at the library with some friends. I can't really get out of it. How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow isn't tonight," I said, but then immediately felt guilty for trying to manipulate her. She was in college, after all, and she was here to learn, not to fuck her professor. I took her hand and squeezed it gently in my own. I didn't even look around to see if anyone was watching us. I didn't care anymore. "But, tomorrow is perfect. You wanna do dinner?"

"Sure," she said immediately. "But I wanna fuck, too. A lot."

I laughed and she laughed. "I think the chances are better than not that you'll get that chance," I said.

"And you're gonna eat my asshole again?"

"There is absolutely no doubt about that."

"Good." She leaned back in her chair and looked me over. After grinning like idiots at each other for a few minutes, she said, "I like you, Cooper Corbis."

"You know, I have to say that I'm pretty fond of you, too, Sonia Simmons. Oh, hey, I almost forgot." Reaching into my leather messenger bag, I pulled out two thick, soft cover books. "I brought these for you. They're GRE prep books. I know it's getting to be that time, and I wanted to do something to help you--something to show my support."

"Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you, Daddy." She took the books and leafed through them. "This is going to be great."

"To be honest, I've had my head in work--and, well, now you--so I don't even know when the next exam is. I don't know if we've missed a deadline or what."

"Not a problem, Coop. It's adaptive now. I can sign up and take it any time. As long as I take the computer-based version, I don't have to wait for a test date."

I shook my head, embarrassed. "Damn, I need to get out of the lab more."

She laughed. "I'm gonna do that, but I don't think it'll help you much. You're getting out of the lab, but into my bed."

"Yeah?" I blew her a kiss. "You little slut."

"You're a trip, Coop," she said. "That's why I like you so much. And that's
your
little slut. Don't you forget it."

"As much as I like my little slut, as your professor, I must tell you that we do have to set aside a bit of time to study."
And where was this coming from?
I suddenly wondered. I'd never felt quite so conflicted by a woman. Not that I found my feelings conflicted--I knew what she meant to me, and what I wanted from her--but conflicted in terms of my senses of priority and right and wrong. Nothing felt better than the thought of whiling away endless hours in each other's sex, but some previously suppressed aspect of me suddenly spoke out and reminded me that, again, Sonia was here for an education, not a fucking.

"I know, Coop. I
am
studying tonight. Don't worry. It's all under control." She looked at her watch and sighed. "Damn, I gotta go. Class."

I smiled and nodded. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. All kinds of tomorrow, K?" She eased her chair out and stood up, bending to gather her things. Her round, wide ass-cheeks strained against the fabric of her pants. As images of that ass, naked and sweating, coursed through my mind, my cock hardened uncomfortably against my pants.

I looked around quickly and then, surreptitiously, reached a hand over and placed it firmly on the twin globes of her ass.

She sighed, and I felt her ass get heavy in my hand as she leaned back against my touch. "So it's definite for tomorrow," she said. "I like that."

"I like this," I said, squeezing her.

"Well, you think really hard, and get all creative and stuff, and decide just what you wanna do to it tomorrow." She pushed back harder against my hand, wiggled herself into me, and I desperately kneaded the flesh with my fingers.

"I know what I want to do right now," I whispered. I drew my fingers along the soft arc of her cheeks, down the steep curves, and then rubbed the moist heat between her legs. "If we were in my office right now... "

"Yeah?" she giggled.

"Bye, angel." I said.

She turned her head and blew me a kiss. "See ya tomorrow."

And she was gone.

My office, situated on the third floor of the Biosciences Building on the west side of campus, featured a single large window overlooking most of the campus. As I leaned back in my chair and turned away from my desk, I could see students milling around outside. The sky was an intense cerulean blue, mottled slightly, with fluffy white clouds that seemed to hang motionless in the air. The bright sun angled wide, white rays that flitted through the window and fell around me like a bright halo. It was surely a beautiful, beautiful day.

Sighing, I felt both incredibly good, euphoric even, and incredibly lonely at the same time. Good, for the way things were developing; lonely, because Sonia wasn't here and I seemed to have grown to require her constant attention. The more we did together, the more time we shared together, the more time I needed from her. Not very healthy, I had to admit to myself, but that realization didn't change the facts. I was getting completely obsessed with this girl.

Outside, beyond the students moving
en masse
like little armies of colorful ants, I could see the water tower and the upper ramparts of our football stadium, with large green and yellow banners and flags waving in the breeze. Apparently there was a conference game this Saturday. Beyond the stadium, my eyes followed the gentle curve of the basketball dome. Round. Smooth. Bulbous in a vaguely sexual way. And I could think of nothing but Sonia's ass again. Again I sighed.

"Fuck," I said aloud, and then self-consciously looked behind me to see if anyone in the department had heard. They hadn't; my door was closed. Another hard-on pressed painfully into my pants. I laughed, and then looked at my watch impatiently. I felt strangely like a teenager again. Past my sexual prime, apparently, according to the health magazines, yet somehow still virile as a Brahma bull. It was as if I'd saved up all this potency--all my years locked up in the lab and not out there, in the world--
doing
things, doing people. I'd been saving it all up for release. Now.
With Sonia.

But she was off studying.

Swiveling around in my chair, I finally decided that I had to get to work. I had no classes today, but I was due in the lab in a couple of hours. There were things that needed tending to first.

My desk was a mess of crushed and bent papers strewn in every direction. Everything was scattered and out of sorts. A wide grin formed across my face as I looked at the mess and thought of last night. Sonia borne open on my tongue. The cheeks of her ass grinding into these very papers. Her hands, arms, elbows flailing uncontrollably at mid-orgasm.
Yeah
, I decided,
working today is going to be a bit of a challenge.

Prior to meeting Sonia, this office had been my sanctuary: my sometimes-literal home away from home, where I spent a large portion of my waking hours. The rest of my time had been split between my lab and the classroom, with a little bit of time left over for travel in between. I'd spent even less time at home. Cliched, yes, but that was my life. Now, strangely, I felt anxious and impatient, keenly aware that I was waiting for something, wanting for something. This room that had been such a familiar comfort to me for so long now felt stifling and oppressive. I imagined myself a caged animal of some kind, pacing frantically in this office/cage. My heart pounded in my chest and I began to wonder if I'd actually be able to get any work done.

All I could think of was Sonia.

There was nothing to do but to start, I decided finally. I pulled my laptop in front of me. Having opened the screen, I waited while the machine woke up. Out in the hallway in front of my office, in a long bullpen of low cubicles, I could hear students laughing. Their sounds made me feel better.

Then I immediately thought of what it was that they did at night--of what their lives were like. They were college kids. In my mind that meant they'd be partying, getting stoned, getting drunk, dropping E's, fucking like rabid badgers. Of course, my own college experience was the antithesis of this. But meeting Sonia had changed me. I realized that it wasn't just the years that had changed the Cooper Corbis of my college days, the guy who had spent all day and all night studying and working. I chuckled to myself, thinking
If I knew then what I know now, things surely would have been different.

When the laptop finished cycling up from its hibernation, I launched my mail client. I also opened my word processor and brought up a draft abstract for a paper that my graduate assistant, Julie, and I were submitting.

Shit
, I thought.
Julie!
I hadn't read her e-mail last night.

When the client finally loaded, a long string of unread e-mails cascaded down the screen. Spam--penis enlarging drugs, college coeds with brand new webcams, Mexican pharmaceuticals sold real cheap, hot Deal of the Century stock tips--as well as messages from students, administration, and colleagues. I scanned down through the list and found Julie Merryweather's e-mail. The subject line was ominous: Important. There was a fat, red exclamation point to the left of it as well. No other text in the subject line. I clicked on the e-mail to open it.