by Remi Grey
"Who's he? He's hot," she said, taking my phone into her hands and swiping. "Hm, how old is he, though? He looks like he could have a wife and three kids. Hold on, hold on...I know this face." I held my breath for her reaction. "This is that professor. This is…" She started snapping her fingers in the attempts to rev up her memory. "Professor Jamison! Fuck. I knew I knew this face. And those eyes. And that body."
"Okay," I said, snatching my phone from her hand. "That's enough."
She started laughing. “Wait, are you upset because of him? Did you forget to turn in an assignment or something?” She snorted, pouring another shot for us to take.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Oh, I know! You were crushing on him--like every normal woman does when they meet him--and then you found out that he’s married.”
"Casey, is he married?" I asked, considering it was her second time mentioning it.
“I don’t fucking know,” she said with a laugh. “But why wouldn’t he be? He’s-he’s Neil Jamison for crying out loud.” The liquor was hitting her like a truck, but she still pushed the glass toward me. “Come on. Let’s take another one.”
I wanted to refuse, but with the image of him holding out the door for me to leave, I also wanted to get a little wasted and forget for one night that it ever happened. I raised the glass and clinked it against Casey's before throwing it back, wincing at the sharp taste, but enjoying the lightness, I felt overtaking my body.
***
Alcohol helped take my mind off of things, but it also made me feel another thing. Horny. As I laid in my bed with my head pulsing and the weight of the day pushing me into the bed like I wished Neil would, my mind wandered. It wandered to a place where he was on top of me, kissing me, sucking on me and licking me.
I thought about what it’d be like for him to whisper sweet nothings to me while he let his hands travel all over my body. Down he’d go, loving me as much as I loved him. Below my waist and up again before he’d slide into me and give me what I had been asking for all along.
I bit my lip as my hand moved down my body, and underneath the skirt, I was too tired to slip out of. I let out a breath while I pleasured myself, letting the thoughts play in my head. The memory from his office, which at first pained me to reflect on, now turned me on.
We had been inches apart. His gray eyes, with the glowing lamp on his desk, revealed their depth. He wanted me; I could tell. The way he felt under my touch couldn’t be made to make me feel any other way about it.
I felt the cum dribbling down my fingers as I continued to work, strumming it just right and making myself finish with the thought of Neil resting on my mind. One thing was certain, I wanted him badly.
***
11 o’clock. I was seated in the first row fifteen minutes earlier in preparation for class later that week. Front and center. Much like my breasts in the black slip dress that I had chosen for class. After the night I had after the bar, I trusted myself to focus. It was him I worried about.
As soon as he walked in and greeted the class at the podium, his eyes found mine and then shifted downward. I smiled at him, wishing him luck for the next sixty minutes. He cleared his throat and turned on the projector. I could see him sneaking glances at my breasts as he began the lecture after failing to completely ignore me.
"Okay, so when it comes to conditioned learning, a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus. For example, a fork--a tuning fork and a meal for dogs. The food. Um, the food and the tuning fork become associated. Thus, the food that would initially result in no response from the dog. I mean the-the tone that would, um, from the fork…" He struggled through his slide before accidentally changing it to the next one. "Nope, not done with that one. The tone from the tuning fork that would initially produce no response from the dog would now promote salivation, much like the food would have, um, after conditioning..."
He wrapped up what he wanted to say, then changed the slide. After a brief scan of the room led his eyes to mine again, he quickly averted them and fumbled through the rest of the presentation from either side of the room, clearly avoiding the center.
“Professor Jamison,” I said, walking up to him after class.
He looked up from his notes, and when he saw me, scanned the room for any other students. Given that I waited until everyone was gone, there weren't any to be found. "Miss Morris," he replied in acknowledgment.
“I wanted to apologize.”
He sighed. “You don’t have to.”
“I was completely out of line. It’s just kind of hard to, you know, focus," I said, taking a jab at his jumble of a lecture today.
"I can't see why," he said, straightening up and really looking at me. "There's nothing exactly distracting about me.” A jab at my dress.
A smile pulled at my lips. He arched an eyebrow at me and fought back one of his own.
“Yeah, well, I can name a few things,” I started. “For one, no matter how hard you try to sound professional while presenting, it’s your voice that drives me mad. No matter how many dress shirts you throw on, it’s your body that I imagine underneath it. No matter how many times you try and avoid eye contact during a class, it’s your eyes that make me fall for you.”
He said nothing. He did nothing except for stare back at me with a blank expression. Then, “What do you want from me, Leyla?” I was excited that he had actually said my name, but wary about his tone.
“You,” I confessed.
“Me?” he questioned. “I’m your professor. You’re my student.”
“Okay, and?”
“And I’m your professor,” he repeated. “You’re my student.”
If he thought saying it twice was going to help, he was wrong. I couldn’t stop wanting him, but I could play along until he realized that he wanted me, too.
“I am sorry then, sir,” I said. He shifted slightly at the sound of the ‘sir’ but nodded.
“All is forgiven, Miss Morris.”
Silence fell on top of us as we stared at each other, challenging the other.
Chapter 4
Neil
“But I am still confused about conditioning,” she said finally. I refrained from replying for a beat, attempting to understand her motives for requesting more help on the topic. Even though I had butchered the lecture and probably left a few students confused, I couldn’t help but think that this was just another ploy to blur the line between us.
I pulled out some notes from my folder without taking my eyes off of her. If she thought this was some sort of game, we could play. I handed her the papers. "Here. I was going to copy these papers and put it online for you guys, but since you asked, you get to see it before all your peers."
She accepted the papers. "Thank you." She flipped through it, becoming growingly confused as she scanned the papers. "And this is all chapter three stuff?"
“Three, four, and five. I know we haven’t reviewed five yet or even finished four, but that study sheet happens to include it all. You should be all set for the exam we have in a few weeks."
“Yeah, but,” she said, glancing up from the papers. “I don’t know. I don’t want to bother you or anything, but this whole thing with the bell or the fork--the tuning fork…it’s all so confusing.”
“What’s confusing?” I asked in an attempt to remain calm, despite her now making it clear that this was more of a ploy than a learning experience.
“The concept. The vocabulary. Unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response... If you could save me some time with going to tutoring and breaking it down for me now, that would help a lot.”
I took a breath, realizing that saying no to her was impossible, and nodded my head. “Okay.”
She beamed at me and put her finger up, “Let me just grab a pen.”
“Just listen first,” I urged. “Then, you can take notes. I think you’ll understand after this.” She nodded. “So, think of the word ‘conditioned’ as the word
‘learned.’ A stimulus is something that provides for a reaction while a response is just that reaction. Do you get that?” She nodded again. “Okay, let’s do an example that the textbook doesn’t talk about. An unconditioned stimulus triggers a naturally occurring response, your unconditioned response. Think when you see someone you like, your heart speeds up. What would be the unconditioned stimulus?”
“The person you like.”
“And the unconditioned response?”
“Your heart speeding up.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a natural reaction to the stimulus.”
“Right.” She seemed proud of herself. Maybe this wasn’t just some ploy… “Now say the person you like always walked around with keys in their pocket. You knew they were around because the jangling always came before they did. What would be the conditioned stimulus?”
“The keys jangling.”
“And the conditioned response?”
“Your heart speeding up?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a learned reaction to the stimulus.”
I nodded my head. "Even though the heart racing is both your unconditioned and conditioned response, they are named different because different stimuli cause them. One is learned, and one is natural. Do you get that?"
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“Do you feel you have to write any of this down now?”
She shook her head. “No, but I still am…..”
“Of course, of course,” I said. “But listening first is always better. Now, your notes will reflect what you actually know and not just what I told you.”
Her perfume was starting to hit me softly. Sweet vanilla. Looking at her and at her lips that were pulling into a smile, I started to wonder if she tasted just as sweet. I felt the heat rushing through me, my heart speeding up along with it. I wanted to kiss her, I realized, but the view of the classroom was enough to discourage me.
“Thank you, Professor Jamison,” she said with a smile. She held her eyes over mine for a beat, drawing out the thoughts I had tried to cast away to the forefront of my mind, before turning away and taking my breath along with her.
Chapter 5
Leyla
The look in his eyes after class was enough to make me smile at random times of the day. Thank you, Professor Jamison. I laughed just thinking about how crazy I was making him. It had been two weeks since I had done anything out of the box to get Neil’s attention. As much joy as I found tugging him along as I played the ‘student’ he so desperately wanted me to stay, I found myself yearning for him even more now. I thought that he would’ve given in before I did again.
Casey settled beside me with a bowl of popcorn before picking up the remote to set up the movie. After she had gotten sick, she dropped the idea of going to her friend’s loft party and had been settling with popcorn and a movie. I knew that wouldn’t last long, however.
“Leyla,” she said as the movie loaded up on the screen.
“Mhm?”
She was flipping through her phone while the credits rolled. "The school is having this thing for alumni this week, and I was thinking of going. Come with me?" she asked. "Oh, shit, wait. I mean, come with me. I have a dress for you in my closet that you could wear and some cute heels."
I groaned at the thought of going out. After two weeks, the idea didn't excite me at all. "It'll be at a hotel by the school, and guess who'll be there?" I raised an eyebrow at her, daring her to impress me. "None other than Neil Jamison. Ring a bell?"
My eyes widened, but I tried to contain myself. “Okay…”
She rolled her eyes hard. “Shut up, you’re going. And you’re going to look amazing for that exact reason.” Now, I was really confused. “Don’t play dumb, Ley. I know how you get when you like someone.” I could feel myself blushing. “And turns out, he’s very single, so we are going to get you some of him. Got it?”
She didn’t know the half of it, but I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay.”
***
According to Casey, the event was a gala theme and required me to dress as such. Later that week, I found myself in my bedroom standing in front of the full-length mirror, admiring the dress that she had put me in. The navy blue of the fabric falling off my shoulders and cascading onto the floor made it look like the ocean came alive.
“You look like a fine glass of water, babe,” Casey noted from the corner of the bed.
“Damn, I just know you’re gonna get some dick tonight.”
I rolled my eyes, but deep down hoped I would.
Casey stood up, letting her gold dress sparkle in the light as she walked and then took my hand. “Alright, let’s go.”
Chapter 6
Neil
It was the annual alumni dinner. During the four years that I had taught at the university, I had attended two with this being the second one. I entered the venue with a few of my peers from the psychology department, one of which being the chair, Doctor Quinn Peroy. He was an older man, about sixty, with a thin-lipped smile and graying hair.
After I helped myself to a glass of champagne, I looked out over the crowd, noting the collection of professors and students merging together. I thought about the line that I had created as a boundary between Leyla and I, then found humor in the way it was being personified before me. A blurred line.
“Neil,” Quinn said, placing his hand on my upper arm. A slight smile made its way to his lips. “I am so glad you made it this year. Everyone in the department seems to have something good to say about you.”
I laughed softly, turning my attention to my two other co-workers who were nodding in agreement. “I mean, he has the best candy in his office. ‘Nough said,” Anna Walker, a fellow psychology professor said. The crowd laughed. “You think I’m making small talk, but really I’m just here for the sweets.”
Another laugh from the crowd. "And more relevant is the passing rate and reviews from your students," Quinn explained. "Not even Oliver here can boast that percentage, and he's been here a decade. Isn't that right, Professor Glascoe?”
A man to my right in a brown suit and round glasses looked up and laughed at his mention. “I think we all know why Professor Jamison is popular around the department,” he said with an eyebrow raised.
“My accreditations from Princeton?” I questioned despite knowing what he was getting at. “Oh, wait, it was the research I did for Harvard over the summer.” I shot them a crooked smile while they all laughed.
“Whatever, Neil,” Anna said.
“What am I missing?” Quinn pondered as he scanned the group with a curious look on his face. “I’d say it’s both of those things that make you popular around the department.” I smiled at him.
“Why thank you, Quinn,” I shot a look at Anna and Oliver.
"That, and you're quite handsome." My eyes widened while Anna and Oliver started cackling at my expense. It wasn't that I couldn't take a compliment but more that my work in psychology was put at an equal playing field as my looks. "It helps students find you easy to look at." Quinn, although a frail old man, was having too much fun. A few professors from another department walked up to Quinn. They pulled him away, leaving me alone with Oliver and Anna.
“I bet you’ve had your fair share of students wanting to score extra points, huh?” Oliver asked.
I tried not to choke on the champagne I was sipping. “Excuse me?”
Anna interjected. “He’s joking. I think what he’s trying to say is that freshmen girls can be, well, how do I say? Motivated.”
I choked even more at his mention of freshmen girls. “That has not been a problem," I said, taking a sip of champagne.
"If it hasn't, it will be. Look at me. I've had a girl try to pull something for an A in the class. And if it can happen to me…"
"He's talking about his mom," Anna clarified with a laugh. "You know damn well no one's trying to get with you, Oliver. But on a serious note, that whole dating a student thing--which ma
kes me sick to my stomach honestly--it's very much so prohibited."
I took a sip of my champagne at the thought of Leyla but said nothing. She was a grown woman, but still, Anna's words fought any sense I could make for Leyla and I to work out. The crowd was getting tighter as more and more people began to fill the room. From a distance, I saw a woman enter, the dress falling off of her while at the same time holding her up. She looked as if she were floating in my direction. Leyla. Her eyes found mine and seemed to smile. Instantly, I could feel my mind starting to wander to a place where the room was empty, and it was just her and I. Except there was one big problem.