by Karis Walsh
Tina listened to Jan’s stories about her students and was surprised to find she was interested in the unique projects Jan had devised to teach them about geometry and how it applied to architecture. She had really only asked to be polite, but she liked hearing how Jan tried to reach each student as an individual, to understand their struggles and triumphs. Tina knew firsthand from her orchestra experiences the difference a teacher like Jan could make.
She felt strangely comfortable with Jan today, quite a change from their first tension-filled meetings. She was accustomed to forming quick connections with women, but those relationships tended to be fairly shallow. Half an hour of sex was fine—or at least a good start—but the same amount of time stuck in a car with nothing to do but talk? Tina could only come up with a handful of people with whom she’d willingly take a long, sexual-agenda-less drive.
She attributed much of her newfound easy rapport with Jan to her research for the DVD project. The boxes in Jan’s dad’s apartment were stuffed with documents and pictures, giving Tina an intimate look at Jan’s whole life, from babyhood to graduation. Shuffling through the large stack of orders to report to various air force bases had given Tina a more concrete sense of the itinerant life Jan had spent as a child. And there were plenty of photos of Jan standing next to animals, taken in zoos or next to horse-drawn carriages or at fairs, but none of her with a pet of her own. A dog or cat would have been a logistic impossibility for such a mobile family.
Tina had laid out all the pictures of Jan’s birthday parties, in chronological order. Jan, her dad, and two or three friends. A pink-frosted cake in front of them on the kitchen table. But the kitchen was different in each one, and so were the friends. She could understand why Jan wanted to find some stability after growing up like she had, but Tina wanted the opposite for herself. While Jan had been traveling the world during high school, Tina had been traveling between home and hospital. She would never regret the time she’d spent with her mom, but she no longer had any deep attachments to another person, and she planned to take full advantage of her freedom.
“I have a question about your dad’s career,” she said when the conversation about school ended.
Jan flipped the windshield wipers to a higher setting as the drizzle turned to a heavier rain. “Sure, what is it?”
“I don’t know much about airplanes, but I’ve noticed that all of the prints on the apartment walls are of a fighter, but all the pictures of your dad in uniform show him next to a bigger plane. What did he fly?”
“He was a KC-135 pilot,” Jan said, with the easy familiarity of someone who had grown up with military designations. “But he always had a thing for the F-15.”
“Okay, it’s all clear to me now,” Tina said sarcastically.
Jan laughed. “The 15 is a small fighter jet, the one in all the prints he’s collected. The 135 is a large tanker. So fighter pilots can refuel midair and don’t have to land when their tanks are low.”
“Like a flying gas station?” Tina asked. Jan nodded. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It is, even though Dad always joked that he just had to fly in a straight line, and the fighter pilots behind him were the ones who had to do the real tricky flying. He had a lot of respect for them.”
“But he flew fighters before the tanker, didn’t he? I couldn’t find any photos of him doing that.”
“No,” Jan said with a slight frown. “I’d have remembered him telling me about that. He started flying 135s the year I was born.”
Tina’s frown matched Jan’s. She’d have to go back through the papers because she must have read them wrong. She moved to the next topic on her list. “So, tell me about this seminar you’re teaching.”
*
If the weather had been more cooperative, Tina would have sat outside and read while Jan taught her two-hour seminar. But beautiful as the University of Idaho campus was, Tina didn’t feel like sitting in the rain with a soggy book. She had no interest in learning how to teach math to high school students either, but at least the auditorium was warm and dry. She had expected a small room and a handful of graduate students, not tiers filled with over a hundred people. She chose a corner seat and started to read as soon as Jan started to talk.
For about ten minutes, she alternated between pretending to read and actually listening to Jan’s lecture. Then she closed her book and concentrated on the completely transformed woman at the front of the classroom. Jan’s voice was clear and authoritative, where before it had been conversational. Her whole demeanor reflected the same confidence. Not just her words, but her body language and expression revealed her love of teaching, her belief in the importance of her job. She leaned toward the class, open and relaxed, slowing the pace of her lecture when she came to points she obviously felt were important, taking her time to explain them, as if sharing the knowledge she had was something special and vital. Tina had seen hints of the professional side of Jan in their earlier conversations, but she seemed to belong in front of a class.
Tina just watched at first, mesmerized by Jan’s conviction and passion. There was nothing stuffy or boring about her, and Tina felt such a strong attraction she decided she must have a latent teacher fetish. It had to be a general interest in teachers and not a particular interest in Jan that was capturing her attention. Eventually, Jan’s words started to penetrate her consciousness, reaching beyond her libido to her brain.
“We can’t simply offer our students chunks of knowledge,” Jan said, pacing back and forth and gesturing, as if to emphasize the importance of her words, “learned in isolation and discarded after the final exam. We need to connect each lesson to the whole subject and then draw lines from there to the rest of the world. To art and music and sports and literature. Geometry is everywhere, and it’s up to us to open our students’ eyes to the shape of their universe.”
Riffs on a theme. The same thing Tina tried to do with her music. Take a simple melody and make changes to connect it to other genres, to emotions, to life. To her own life. And it was also what she was doing in her PR work for Peter’s nursery. Finding a general theme and applying it to all aspects of a company’s image. Jan started talking about how she organized her lesson plans, and Tina’s thoughts continued to flow. She could tweak Jan’s organizational methods and use them to present her business proposals. Take her own fluid ideas and give them shapes. Pyramids, squares, circles, spirals. Whichever best fit the business model of each potential client.
Tina desperately looked around for something to use to take notes. She leaned forward and tapped one of the grad students on the shoulder. “Hey, can I borrow a pen?” she asked when the girl turned around. “And paper,” she added.
“Anything else you need?” the student asked in a suggestive voice as she handed Tina a pen and a piece of paper ripped from her notebook.
“This’ll do for now,” Tina said. She wanted to capture her ideas before they faded away, but old habits made her stop long enough to smile at her benefactor. “But I’ll let you know if anything else comes up.”
“Then you might need this.” The student wrote a phone number on the torn paper on Tina’s desk.
Jan cleared her throat, and Tina realized she had stopped lecturing and was watching the exchange. She sketched a wave of apology in Jan’s direction before she turned her focus to pouring the inspiration for her newborn business plan onto the page in front of her. She wrote in tiny print, not daring to irritate Jan further by asking for more paper, and by the time the session was over, she had filled both sides with notes.
She waited while the class filed out and Jan collected her supplies. “Great lecture,” she said when Jan finally came up the stairs toward her. “You’re a very stimulating speaker.”
“I didn’t think you noticed,” Jan said. Her carefully modulated professional voice had disappeared, and her tone held an edge of anger. “You seemed too busy flirting.”
“I needed a pen to take notes.”
“Because you’re pla
nning to be a geometry teacher?”
“No. Because your method for creating lesson plans got me thinking about my business,” Tina said, her voice sharp, echoing in the empty room. She had figured Jan would be happy to hear she had inspired Tina with her lecture, but Tina had planned to share her news with Jan in a friendlier, more grateful way. Not by yelling it at her. Jan had been the one to spoil the mood, not Tina.
“Oh, I see.” Jan tapped at the paper full of notes. “And this phone number with a heart around it? I suppose you were doing some networking for your business?”
“Hey, she was flirting with me,” Tina said. She was standing too close to Jan and speaking too loudly. This wasn’t personal. Jan was simply angry because Tina had been talking during her class. She took a deep breath but didn’t move away. She felt the tension between them as almost a physical connection. An arousing connection. She lowered her voice. “But I didn’t discourage it. Sorry.”
Jan waved her hand. “Chat with all the pretty grad students you want, just don’t do it on my time. If you were in my class I would…” Her voice faltered, and Tina only had to take a small step to move into Jan’s personal space.
“You would…what? Have to discipline me?”
Jan laughed and pushed Tina gently in the chest, forcing her to take a step back and breaking the thread of electricity between them. “You can turn off the charm now. I’m the only one here.”
“We’re the only ones here,” Tina corrected, gesturing around the room. “And I deserve at least a spanking after talking in class.”
“Somehow, I doubt you’d consider it punishment,” Jan said. She cleared her throat and stepped away, her attention focused beyond Tina’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, but what was the name of the art book you recommended?” One of the grad students was standing by the door. Jan went over to talk to him, and Tina busied herself by folding her page of notes into a tiny square and putting it in her back pocket. She flirted and spoke in innuendo out of habit, but usually it was only a game. Every time her conversations with Jan carried a double meaning, she couldn’t seem to erase the resulting visuals from her thoughts. She was trying to decide whether she’d want to be teacher’s pet or class troublemaker—or both—when Jan interrupted her dangerous musings.
“What do you want to do now? There are restaurants and lots of shops in town. And I know a couple of places to get awesome cupcakes. We could try one of those.”
“Definitely both,” Tina decided. “I mean, both cupcake places. We should do a taste test.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jan said, leading the way out of the classroom.
“To me, too,” Tina said quietly. In fact, it sounded much too good.
*
Jan suggested they take their boxes of cupcakes to the marina. The rain had eased up, turning to a gentle mist, and she desperately needed to be outside in the fresh air. The anger she’d felt when she saw Tina chatting up the grad student had nothing to do with her rules against disruptive talking in class. She had felt a fiery possessiveness, unexpected and unacceptable. And when Tina gave her such a sexy smile and asked to be disciplined? All of Jan’s energy—her possessive anger and frustration—had turned immediately to lust. Inappropriately and completely. She clearly was attracted to Tina, a fact proven by repeated fantasies. Hell, she was beginning to accept her inevitable surrender if Tina ever made even a halfhearted attempt to seduce her. But any relationship between them would be fleeting, temporary. And, of course, Tina would run for the nearest escape route at any sign of affection beyond the physical. Leaving Jan heartbroken unless she could get control of her feelings.
Tina opened one of the boxes as they walked. Jan watched her take a huge bite of a red-velvet cupcake before she handed the other half to Jan and licked cream cheese off her fingers. Oh, to be a cupcake. She had a feeling Tina would approach sex the same way she devoured the treats, the same way she played her fiddle. Wholeheartedly and with gusto. Jan wanted to be devoured. To be played like a fine instrument. But Tina’s appetites, except for music, appeared to be short-lived. Maybe a dip in the frigid lake would help her cool off. Instead, Jan sat on one of the tall blue stools arranged around a snack bar, still boarded up for the season. She wiped the table with her sleeve so there was a dry place for the pastry boxes.
“You’re going to have wet jeans,” Tina said. She made a funny coughing sound and sat on the stool opposite Jan. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sure they’ll dry off. Eventually,” Jan said. She laughed when Tina looked at her with a quizzical expression, as if she wasn’t quite sure what meaning to take from the words. Jan pushed one of the boxes toward her. “Eat,” she demanded.
“Gladly,” Tina said with a smile. “Where’s the peanut-butter one?”
“Here,” Jan handed it over and chose a raspberry-and-vanilla cupcake for herself. She moaned in delight as she bit into it, fending off Tina’s attempts to take it from her before she finally gave in and traded for the half-eaten peanut-butter and chocolate treat. Fun. She had to acknowledge how much fun she had with Tina. But only because she offered a change of pace, a short and pleasant break from harsh reality.
Jan forced herself to focus on the differences between them, and they weren’t hard to find, even in such a silly context. Out of habit, Jan tried to organize the picnic, coming up with an elaborate rating system for their taste test and methodically working through each flavor. Tina refused to play by her rules, though, and her favorite cupcake always seemed to be the one she was eating at the moment.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jan said after they had finished off the last rich cupcake. “Didn’t we buy six so we’d have a couple to take home?”
Tina reached over and brushed her finger against the side of Jan’s mouth. Jan sat perfectly still, not even breathing, as Tina licked her finger. “Marshmallow,” Tina said. “That one was my favorite.”
“Let’s walk,” Jan suggested, gesturing at the U-shaped boardwalk. Without waiting for an answer, she got up and tossed their trash in a garbage can before she set off at a brisk pace. Damn. One gentle touch and she wanted to devour Tina like one of the sweets. Tina trotted to catch up to her, and Jan launched into a monologue about the lake, the world’s longest boardwalk, the natural history of the area, and a description of her favorite local hiking trails. She sounded like an overly enthusiastic tour guide, but she didn’t care. She had to keep her mind off sex, and off the nearly irresistible desire she’d had to suck Tina’s finger into her mouth.
The water was calm in the marina, painted with the reflections of boats and bright blue awnings. Jan, running out of words before they ran out of boardwalk, stared out toward the lake, where small waves lapped against the floating footpath. “There’s a grebe,” she said, barely making out the silhouette of the bird rocking gently on the waves.
“Where?” Tina asked, squinting in the direction Jan indicated.
Jan stepped behind her and put her arm over Tina’s shoulder, pointing so her finger was directly in Tina’s line of sight. She realized she had rested her free hand on Tina’s hip, and she had started to shift away when Tina grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t move,” Tina said. She eased back until her body came in contact with Jan’s. Jan couldn’t move, didn’t want to move. She inhaled the citrusy aroma of Tina’s hair, like satin against her cheek. The feel of her breasts pressed against Tina’s back, legs and hips joined. Tina slid her hand along Jan’s and intertwined their fingers.
Jan dropped the arm she had used to point out the bird and wrapped it around Tina’s middle. She felt Tina’s sigh, felt her lean into the hug. So quiet. Too quiet. After the morning full of sexual tension, Jan wouldn’t have been surprised to feel a desire to kiss Tina, rip her clothes off, make love to her right there on the boardwalk. She had been anticipating such a reaction and was fully prepared to suppress it. But this gentle intimacy, the almost-chaste touch, was too unexpected, too intense. The turmoil tha
t had lately taken up residence in Jan’s stomach settled under Tina’s touch. And settled wasn’t a word she should be using in relation to Tina. She stepped away so suddenly Tina stumbled back a couple of steps before she righted herself.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tina asked, moving toward Jan.
Jan gestured between them. “This is wrong.”
“Oh my God, we actually touched each other,” Tina said in a tone of mock horror. “I’m sure your reputation is tarnished beyond repair.”
Jan crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t act like I’m some sort of prude. I just think we should avoid any physical contact.” Jan winced. Okay, she sounded like a prude.
“Lighten up,” Tina said, with a brief shrug. “So two friends hugged each other. What’s the big deal? Besides, you started it.”
“And you didn’t discourage it,” Jan said, echoing Tina’s earlier statement. “Must be nice to have women throwing themselves at you constantly.”
“You won’t hear me complain about it.”
“Well, I’ve never been one to follow the crowd, so why don’t you just move on to your next conquest,” Jan said before she turned and walked away.
Tina ran her hands through her hair in frustration as she watched Jan leave. Frustration, because Jan was obviously overreacting to a simple hug. And because her own body was betraying her by doing the exact same thing. Tina hadn’t felt anything more than the contours of Jan’s body pressed against hers and the weight of Jan’s arm where it draped around her waist. Nothing overtly sexual, but Tina was wet, her nipples were hard and aching, her breath was short. Hands still, layers of clothes between them, no kissing. She had no reason to feel so exposed and vulnerable.
Tina slowly started walking along the boardwalk after Jan. She had to ease the tension between them, but first she needed to get her self-control in place. She had never reacted to another woman’s touch that way. She had sex, she had orgasms, she took control, sometimes she bit. But she never melted against a woman like she had with Jan. Never sank into an embrace, without feeling a claustrophobic need for space. Even knowing how different she and Jan were didn’t help. Jan’s life was bound up in place, family, work. Her future was filled with obligations and plans and structure. Tina wanted freedom and variety. Or, at least, she usually wanted those things, when her hormones weren’t in overdrive. She either needed to have sex with Jan and get her out of her system or find another woman to do the job. The second choice definitely seemed safer.