“Hey, who left their hairbrush here?” asked Ding, the other graduate student who worked in his lab.
“Who do you think?” Ryan said.
Ding looked blank.
“Who has long hair around here?”
“Lucy?” Ding asked, picking up the brush. “Is this yours?” he said politely, bringing it back to her.
“Oh yeah, thanks,” she said. She didn’t look at him, but a tiny smile played around the corners of her lips.
He wanted to take her by the elbow, lead her into his office and test that brush out on her sweet little ass. But of course, he ignored her antics.
The following day, she did even better, bringing in two ping pong paddles and a ball.
“What’s this for?” Ryan asked, picking them up. Before long, he heard the sound of the plastic ball bouncing through his room as the boys played a wild game of lab pong. He buried his head in his hands for while, but eventually joined them, making a show of whacking the paddle against his leg and his palm to make a loud slapping noise.
The flush on Lucy’s face made it worth playing her game.
On the fourth day she left a change of clothes neatly folded beside her workstation, with a wide leather belt loosely laid across the top.
She pushed it way too far on Friday evening, though, when she popped in his office while he stood in the lab, saying she needed to change her clothes. “I have yoga tonight,” she said, flashing a wide smile as she ducked in without waiting for his answer.
Of course her antics had their intended effect. He stared at the closed door and imagined exactly what her tight little body looked like while she changed in his—yes, his office. Pert little breasts? Check. Juicy ass? Check. Lean, muscular legs? Check. The resulting hard on made him gnash his teeth and he strode to the door, ready to throw it open to turn the tables.
She chose that moment to waltz out in her tight-fitting tank and yoga pants.
The lab empty, he grabbed her wrist and bent her arm behind her back, pressing her against the glass window of his office. With his other hand, he tugged her ponytail back, lifting her chin toward the ceiling. “All right, little girl,” he growled in her ear, “I’ve had enough of your torture.”
She gasped and gave a strangled giggle. He saw her round breasts straining beneath her lycra top, the nipples beading up.
“Is it funny?” he asked in a low voice, his lips nearly touching her neck.
“Yes?” she ventured.
“No, Miss Larson, it is not. I did not hire you to prance around my lab in tight-fitting yoga clothes, leaving paddles, brushes and leather belts around for my temptation. And after I took my time to meet with you last week—when you agreed to act professionally, by the way—I’m disappointed I have not seen a fresh draft of your proposal.”
Lucy’s body stilled. He had just taken it out of flirty fun and into real. She could not see him because of the way he held her head. When she did not answer, he continued, “I expect to see you in this lab, sitting at your desk working on it, until it’s in my inbox. If that means you have to work all weekend, then you’ll work all weekend.”
She shifted, her eyes wide, her expression worried.
“What do you say to me, Lucy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir when we’re alone. Yes, professor when others are around. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He released her ponytail. “Thank you. You may go to your yoga class—if you really have one, that is,” he said.
She swallowed. Her hand trembled as he relaxed his grip on her wrist.
“Do you have a yoga class?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
He spun her around, pressing both her upper arms to pin her against the window. “Did you just lie to me, Lucy?” he asked in a dangerous voice.
Her breastbone lifted and lowered rapidly. She met his gaze with pleading eyes. He made his face even more stern, lifting his eyebrows expectantly.
“Well, there is a yoga class I could go to right now,” she said, looking slightly desperate.
He had to work hard to keep from showing his amusement.
“Then you’d better get to it. And then get yourself back here, either tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, and get busy on your proposal.”
Color spotted her cheekbones. “Yes, sir.”
“Now.”
She jumped, springing into action. She picked up her bag with her clothes and hurried out, giving him one nervous glance as she left.
As soon as she shut the door, he chuckled.
Adorable.
And so incredibly easy to make squirm.
What he wouldn’t give to have her as his own.
Chapter Three
Lucy arrived at the lab early Sunday morning.
She had walked out of Dr. Todd’s office Friday with her panties soaked. Not sure how serious he was about her going to yoga, she had gone, loving the idea of taking orders. She had spent the entire hour replaying the scene outside his office in her mind. By the time she left, she needed to go home and take a cold shower.
She spent all day Saturday in the lab, tending to his cultures and revising her thesis proposal. Daniels had not shown up at all, to her great disappointment, but she had high hopes of seeing him that day.
She flicked on the lights and walked over to the incubator. She immediately had the sense of something amiss, but could not place it. She looked at the chart to see if anyone else had been in since she left, but her initials were the last on it, saying she had fed the cultures with her cell counts from the previous morning.
She opened the incubator and peered at the cell dishes.
Oh God. She grabbed one and picked it up. The color of the cells seemed off. She opened the dish and took a sample with the pipette, looking at it under the microscope. Nothing moved. All the cells looked deteriorated to substandard. Effectively useless.
Her mouth went dry. She rushed to pick out another cell culture dish and took a sample. Same thing.
No.
She looked back at the chart again and tried to remember exactly what she had done the day before. She had checked all the cultures. Had she changed the carbon dioxide tank?
A memory of locking up the night before came to her. She’d been about to change the tank, as it had been nearly empty. As she’d walked to the storage closet, she’d been thinking about Dr. Todd pressing her up against that window, imagining instead of releasing her, he had dragged her into his office, with her arm behind her back and her ponytail in his fist.
She remembered leaning against the closet door, her fantasies arousing her. She had decided to go home and take another cold shower. But had she left without changing the tank? She checked the chart. No record of her replacing the tank.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She had just destroyed the culture and subcultures that took three weeks to grow, which would be a significant setback for Professor Daniels, who planned to submit his research for publication at the end of the month.
Her belly clenched. She had ruined everything.
The door swung open and the man she had been on pins and needles to see walked through it.
She cursed inwardly, not even remotely prepared for how to break the news to him.
“Good morning, Lucy,” he said, walking to his office.
She managed an indistinct noise in reply. She stood at the incubator, her body trembling.
Stop being a coward, Larson. Go in there and tell him.
She took a breath and somehow made her feet move toward his office. “Professor?” she said when she reached his doorway.
He looked up absently.
“I, uh...something happened. Something bad.”
She had his full attention now. “What is it?”
She swallowed. “The cultures are dead. I, um, forgot to change the carbon dioxide tank last night.”
He stared at her, his eyes widened in horror, his face turning pale. “What?”
> She nodded miserably. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head, not believing it. “But why—? You were here but you didn’t change it? How did that happen?”
If she could have shrunk into a small beetle and skittered away, she would have. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Is this a joke?”
“I wish it were.”
He narrowed his eyes, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “If you did this to try to get me to punish you, I will never forgive it.”
She stumbled back as if he had punched her in the gut. Of course she hadn’t done it on purpose. But then she remembered her thoughts as she’d leaned against the closet door. Had she subconsciously dared him into action?
A sob of despair choked her and her eyes and nose burned. “I swear it was an accident. I know how important your research is, and your deadlines. I would never jeopardize it.” Tears fell freely down her cheeks now. “But maybe it was some terrible subconscious ploy. I’m so sorry. I will resign and never set foot in your lab again,” she said.
When he said nothing, she turned and walked toward the door.
“No,” he said slowly.
She looked over her shoulder, trying to get her tears under control.
“You will stay in my lab. I need you to grow the new cultures so we can re-start the study.”
A wave of relief and gratitude flooded her chest.
“Is anyone in the lab?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Go and lock the door.”
Her heart gave a double pump. Was he actually going to…? She walked to the lab door and locked it, then returned to his office, although he hadn’t given her that specific instruction. He had cleared his desk of all papers and was closing the blinds.
“Lock my door, too,” he said without turning.
Half thrilled, half terrified, she did as bidden. When she faced the professor again, he held one of the long plastic rods used to open and close the blinds. Her bottom clenched.
He tapped the desk with the rod. “Bend over.” He did not appear overly stern, nor angry. In fact, his expression was largely inscrutable.
She stepped forward, sweat trickling down her ribs. Folding her torso, she lay her belly on his desk.
He walked around behind her, taking his time. “Do you want my punishment, Lucy?”
“I’m sorry,” she moaned.
He whacked the rod on a diagonal across her buttocks and she yelped. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes, sir,” she said immediately.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes...I want you to punish me,” she said in a tiny voice.
He laid the rod lengthwise on the desk in front of her face. “Hold this with both hands,” he instructed. He lifted her short skirt up to her waist and slid his fingers into the waistband of her panties.
She shivered in anticipation, the knot in her belly tightening.
He peeled her panties down, somehow making the act as humiliating as possible. When he’d lowered them to her mid thighs, he gripped one of her legs and pulled it outward, widening her stance to keep her panties in their mid-thigh position.
“I’m going to warm you up with my hand and then you’ll count twelve with the rod,” he informed her in his most matter-of-fact tone. He might have been talking about how much reagent to apply to the cultures.
He pressed one hand on her lower back, pinning her in place and began to slap her bared flesh with a flurry of spanks. It hurt more than she expected, the sharp sting making her catch her breath. Within moments, she’d had enough and tried to twist and angle her bottom away from his punishing hand.
“Push your bottom out for me, Lucy,” he said calmly, pausing the spanking.
She panted, trying to catch her breath. She automatically obeyed, with a natural instinct to follow directions and please the authority figures in her life. She rolled her sit bones back at him.
“Thank you.” He began to spank again, and it stung even worse, the fire from the previous slaps just beginning to set in.
“Ooh...oh,” she whimpered.
He continued, slapping first her right cheek then her left over and over until she thought she could not stand it.
She wriggled and squirmed, tried to tighten her buttocks or find something to lessen the pain, but he did not slow down or stop. He simply continued spanking as if he could go on for hours.
“I’m warm, I’m warm,” she exclaimed, hoping to end the terrible “warm up.”
He spanked even harder. “No, Lucy. You’re warm when I decide you’re warm. You’re warm when your bottom has turned bright red and your legs are shaking.”
She let out an involuntary whimper, hoping he could see her legs had already arrived at the shaking stage before they even started.
“You are not in control of any part of your punishment,” he said, continuing to beat a steady rhythm on her upturned ass. “Not whether or when I choose to spank, not how long, or what implement I use.”
She moaned as he continued to torture the same area of her cheeks, just over her sit bones. “Yes, sir,” she gasped, although she wanted to plead amnesty.
He stopped and ran his palm over her heated flesh. It pulsed with her heartbeat, the fire only seeming to grow hotter with his more gentle touch. She had stopped crying before the spanking started, and the pain hadn’t brought her to tears, but she wanted to give up all her fantasies about spanking and run for the hills.
He rubbed her reddened bottom, knowing she needed a break. For a first spanking, she was taking it remarkably well, but he had expected no less of her. He did not spank her out of anger or for retribution or even because he thought she needed to learn a lesson. Her remorse had been obvious.
He didn’t know what had come over him to break his resolve never to cross the line of teacher-student boundary, except the fact that they both needed it to move forward without resentment or guilt.
He continued to rub her bottom, listening for her breath to quiet. When it had, he took the rod from her fingers. “You’re going to count for me,” he instructed, tapping her pretty little ass with the plastic implement.
“Yes, sir,” she said in a small voice.
He brought the rod down evenly across both cheeks, just below the start of her crack.
“One,” she whimpered.
The air whistled as he whipped the rod down again, laying a second stripe neatly below the first.
Lucy gasped and the word, “two” sounded strangled.
He struck her again, the third line following below the other two.
“Three.”
He thought he heard tears in her voice and doubted she would make it to twelve. He didn’t use safe words when spanking, because he believed as a good top, he should know without being told how much his sub could take. He laid the next weal and the next, listening as her voice turned desperate and she began to snuffle.
He brought the rod down once more at the base of her buttocks, where cheek meets thigh.
She cried softly.
“Six,” he counted for her.
“Six, aah,” she repeated, gasping as he applied the seventh stroke on a diagonal.
“Seven,” he said, “and eight.” He gave her one more right across the middle of her quivering buttocks.
The welts stood out pale against the rosy blush he had already brought to the surface with his hand.
He laid the rod down beside her to signal the end. She did not seem to notice, her back shaking with sobs. He pulled her panties up, taking care not to touch her swollen cheeks more than necessary. Even the soft cotton made her hiss and tighten her little bottom. He flipped her skirt down.
“Stand up, Lucy,” he said softly. “I think you’ve had enough.”
Still crying, she obeyed, lifting her torso from his desk.
“Turn around.”
She rotated, but kept her chin tucked to her chest, so she did not meet his eye. He pulled
her against him, smoothing his hand down her back.
She gave a little whimper of surrender, her hands coming up to his shirt, where they balled into fists, gripping him as if he might try to run away. She pressed her face into his chest, her tears dampening the fabric of his shirt. He held her, rubbing slow circles on her back and brushing his lips over her hair. He wanted to kiss her mouth, but he remembered when she’d asked him to be her disciplinarian, she had asked for a non-sexual relationship. So even though he had certainly crossed an ethical line by stepping into the requested role, the greater violation would be to take advantage of her at a moment like this. No matter how much he wanted to claim her as his own.
When her tears stopped and she began to shift on her feet, he eased away from her. “Come on, Lucy. We have an experiment to set up.”
She sniffed and nodded, rubbing her red eyes with the back of her hand. He waited for her at the doorway like a gentleman, putting his hand at her back to escort her as if they were on a date. He knew, from years of experience, how vulnerable and humiliated she probably felt and even if he couldn’t offer her love or the tenderness of intimacy, he would never abandon her emotionally. They walked together to the incubator and began to work side by side in silence, dumping the dead cultures in the biohazard bin and washing the cell culture dishes.
When everything had been washed and dried and laid out again for fresh culture, Lucy went to the freezer to bring back the vial of cells.
“It’s been contaminated,” she said in a small voice.
He snapped his head to look. The seal had been broken and the vial must have not been stored upright, because the contents had oozed out and frozen on the surface. He closed his eyes, calling on every ounce of patience he had.
“How did that happen?” he asked in a tight voice.
“I don’t know.”
He sighed. Getting new human cells could take weeks. He tried to keep the disappointment off his face, knowing Lucy already felt horrible.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice, her eyes roving across his face.
“Me too,” he sighed. “Well, we’ll have to call Monday to find some.”
“I’ll do it,” she said. “And you can take the expense out of my pay. Or you can fire me and I’ll keep working here without pay. It probably costs thousands of dollars.”
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