Her Teacher's Temptation

by Vos, Alexandra

  I'd written a different piece for my mum to read, which involved someone coming home from war, so that she wouldn't be suspicious about my drug use. I figured it was safer that way. She'd been impressed with it even if it hadn't been my actual entry. “Thanks mum.”

  “See you tomorrow evening!” I called as I slipped into the passenger seat of Ollie's car, giving her a small wave.

  “See you soon,” she replied, waving back and blowing a cheesy kiss. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  I grinned as Ollie started up his engine and pulled away from the kerb. These two days were either going to be really good or horribly bad. I was surprisingly optimistic it would be the first one.

  “You have got everything, haven't you?” He checked just before we reached the end of my street. “I'm definitely not coming all the way back to Sheffield if you've done something stupid like forgotten your writing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I've got everything. Do I really seem that clumsy to you?”

  Ollie glanced at me sceptically. “Yes,” he deadpanned. “Mind you, with that suitcase I don't think it'd be possible for you to have forgotten anything.”

  I refused to comment on that, in case he sniffed out my plan. I had to hope everyone else at the competition wasn’t as studious as I was imagining them to be. “I've never been to Newcastle. Have you?”

  “Yeah, my sister goes to uni there. She's in her second year, so I've been quite a few times. It's nice up there.”

  “I'm glad I'm getting to go now, I'm thinking of putting it down as one of my uni choices,” I explained. “What's she studying?”

  “Journalism.”

  “Oh cool,” I beamed. “That's what I want to do too. Does she like it?”

  “Yeah, but she failed her May exams because she went out drinking too much and had to resit in August,” he told me with a chuckle.

  I smirked. “We both know I'm more sensible than that, though.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

  “I don't think I'll end up going there anyway.” I figured I may as well explain my reasoning, since we had two and half hours of driving time to pass. “I think I should stay closer to home, though, to help out my mum if she ever needs it. I definitely don't want to stay in Sheffield. But Nottingham looks pretty good. Or Leeds maybe.”

  “If you want to go further away from home, you should just do it.” Ollie gave me a serious sideways glance. “My parents really wanted me to stay closer to home, even when I got into Oxford, but I really wanted to just have some time away. I definitely made the right decision. You should just do what you want to do.”

  I considered this. “Maybe. I really like Nottingham anyway, though.”

  “Are you thinking of applying to Oxbridge? Because I'm fairly sure you could get in. Especially with this writing competition and stuff. You've got more to put on your CV than I did.”

  “I used to really want to do maths and Cambridge,” I admitted with a slight chuckle. “But then when it came to A-levels I way preferred the English side of things. And in terms of Oxbridge, I don't like the whole posh thing they have going on. Formal dinners and stuff really isn't my thing.”

  He shrugged. “Me neither,” he admitted. “I think I was pretty lucky to make friends who had the same kind of interests as me and weren't bothered about the posh stuff. I can see what you mean, though. Sometimes I wish I'd gone to a bigger city; especially since now I'm not supposed to go out and stuff.” Then he snorted. “And really, are you just good at everything?”

  I flushed slightly. “I can't draw,” I offered with a small smirk.

  Ollie rolled his eyes. “You could definitely get into Cambridge.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Wow,” I commented to Ollie when the man lecturing us finally finished talking. “You weren’t kidding, huh? Damn. If this is what uni is going to be like then maybe I'll just not go at all.”

  Ollie smirked. “Don't worry, they're not all this terrible.”

  The lecture felt like it had been going on forever, even though the clock told me it had been an hour. His monotonous voice had been enough to send anyone to sleep and if it hadn’t been for the fact there were only about twenty of us in the hall, I probably would have drifted off. What astounded me more was how everyone else seemed completely absorbed in him. Maybe I was just misreading their boredom.

  “I'm assuming you brought something to entertain yourself with in that ridiculous suitcase. Because I really did bring loads of marking to do. You should probably rehearse your reading or something.”

  “Yeah, I brought some work to do.” I figured we were probably going to eat dinner first, though. “So what, do we have tea like just us or with the whole group?” We were all filtering out of the hall now to go to the hotel. We wouldn't be really doing much else with the university until tomorrow.

  “I think we have to eat as a group,” he complained, keeping his voice low as we hung around the back of the group of people. “I'm not sure if there's like a students’ and teachers’ table, though. I really hope that's not the case. We have to be at the restaurant for six, according to this email,” he read the document he’d printed off before coming. “So that gives us like half an hour to do whatever.”

  “We don't have to dress up for dinner, do we?” I really couldn't be bothered with that. Plus, I'd only brought two nice outfits and I didn't want to wear the same thing for dinner and the reading – the first outfit wasn’t appropriate for anything other than a club. Ollie probably could have done a better job of explaining exactly what was happening this weekend before we came.

  “I don't think so.”

  Mine and Ollie's rooms were next to each other, as I presumed all the teachers and students were, along one long corridor. I supposed it was a good idea to practice my reading until it was time for dinner. It wasn't necessary to know my piece off by heart, but the judges would think it was better if I wasn't staring at my notes the whole time. Plus 2,000 words really wasn't that many and I'd practised it plenty over the last week.

  When it came to dinner, I pouted as I realised that it was indeed separate teacher and student tables. The people sat around the other table were all sat in silence, looking a bit awkward, and I wasn’t going to be able to deal with that.

  These weren’t going to be my kind of people, I could already tell. I was being horribly judgmental, but their groomed appearances and branded clothes had me feeling uneasy. I wasn’t one of them. I was never going to be one of that group.

  Another reason Oxbridge hadn’t been in my considerations for university.

  Mr. Wright and I shared a look of distaste. I suspected it'd be particularly bad for him since all the other teachers I'd seen looked at least twice as old as him.

  Our tables were just out of earshot of each other and we all introduced ourselves and said where we were from. Five girls and one boy; everyone except for a Scottish girl sporting accents similar to Ollie’s that were somehow nowhere near as attractive.

  After we'd picked from the limited options for food, everyone leant forward slightly as the girl beside me asked a question they apparently all wanted the answer to. “That guy is your teacher?” Brenna, she'd said her name was, inquired not even bothering to hide her surprise.

  I nodded. I supposed at the private schools these people went to there were no teachers under the age of 40 since they probably required lots of experience. “Yeah,” I admitted. “He was new this year.”

  “I wished we had teachers that handsome at our school.” Another sighed wistfully from the corner of the table. “Is he as nice as he looks?”

  I almost snorted. Yes, Ollie was nice, but I doubted they'd expect a lot of the things I seemed to know about him. “He's pretty nice,” I assured them, my eyes flicking to his bored expression for a second. “And he's a good teacher too. He graduated from Oxford.” I wasn't sure why I felt the need to big him up in front of these people, but whether it was for my benefit or Ollie's, it s
till made me pretty smug when they were impressed.

  “So unfair,” Rebecca whined. “What's your piece about?” She inquired as everyone broke into their own conversations with the people next to them.

  “Tripping on acid.” May as well be blunt about it. I wasn't really bothered whether she judged me or not, I still thought it was a pretty clever interpretation of the prompt, like Ollie had said, and I'd done it more for my own benefit than thinking I'd get anywhere in the competition.

  The girl raised a surprised eyebrow. I'd already gathered from her accent that she was Scottish and it was kind of hard to tell whether she had a posh or common Scottish accent. “Did you do loads of research, or did you like, actually do it?” She inquired, glancing away to stare intensely at her glass of water.

  “I did it before the competition came up. Then when I saw the prompt the idea just came to me.” Her eyes widened at that. “What's yours about?”

  “Someone coming back from war,” she explained, causing me to hold back a smile. It really was just that I'd picked an idea for the prompt that wasn't completely generic as to why they'd put me through to the final.

  Thankfully the meals came fairly quickly, which meant I was given an excuse to not make uncomfortable conversation. Unless I was drunk or high, I found it really hard to make conversation with people who I didn't know; especially people in groups. I didn't really have anything interesting to say most of the time, at least, not things I didn't think people were going to judge me for.

  I'd always hated the sound of people eating and now was no exception. It just had to be that Rebecca was one of those people that ate with their mouth open. I had to really bite the inside of my cheek to prevent me snapping at her to have some basic manners.

  Luckily we were given the option of whether we wanted dessert or not and I'd already decided that I was leaving this table as soon as I could when Ollie appeared behind me. "You don't want dessert, right?" He checked.

  I shook my head. "Absolutely not," I assured him, not really caring whether the people at my table took that as an offence or not.

  "Thank God, because if I have to hear another word about Downton Abbey I think I'll scream." Ollie had been the only male on a table of middle-aged women.

  "Not your thing?" I teased as I stood up from my chair. "I imagine Jemma being really into it." Just from the way she acted and from what I'd seen of her, I couldn't pretend to actually know anything about her.

  "Don't even joke about it." He grimaced as I said goodbye to the other contestants, who were gawking slightly at our interaction. I wasn't sure whether to be smug or worried that I was so casual around him. "She tries every week to put it on. That's when I do my marking."

  I chuckled and followed him out of the restaurant. We were the only ones who hadn't stayed, but I didn't think it really mattered. It may not have been entirely polite, but we weren't ever going to see them again.

  "You're doing work now?" He inquired. "I hope you're going to work on the essay I set." He hinted with a small smile.

  "Actually, I've already finished it," I replied smugly. When it came to writing essays, I either finished them almost instantly, or left them until the absolute last minute, depending on what the topic was.

  He raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He checked. "What did you think? It wasn't too easy, was it?"

  It was almost cute how he wanted to be really good at his job. "No, it was a good question. I thought, anyway. I've only finished it this quickly because I had loads to write, so you must be doing a pretty good job of teaching it." I told him with a small chuckle.

  I grinned when his cheeks turned slightly pink. "Okay, thanks."

  "I have got some maths work to do now, though." Which was true, it just wouldn't take me that long. It was around half seven now, and I wanted to go out around ten, so that town would be in full swing. "I'll probably just do that and go to bed early so I don't end up falling asleep through everyone else's readings tomorrow."

  I wasn't decided whether I was just going to attempt to sneak out and go to town by myself, or to try and persuade Ollie to come with me. It was obvious the other contestants weren’t up for my wild night. It would be more fun going with Mr. Wright, but there was a chance he'd stop me altogether. I'd decide later, though I was already pretty sure which one I'd end up going with. So much for resisting temptation.

  We said our goodbyes and I entered my room. I was surprised that there was a double bed, but I supposed we were just on a corridor where all the rooms were doubles.

  Collapsing down on it, I was almost tempted to just have a nap. It was incredibly comfortable.

  I resisted, though, and dug through my suitcase to find my homework.

  When it came to half eight, I decided it was time to start getting ready. It wouldn't take me long, since I'd already had a shower today, but I did need to curl my hair and re-apply my make-up.

  I poured myself a glass of vodka and coke in one that I found in the bathroom and set to work making myself look presentable.

  Checking myself in the mirror, I grinned. My high-waisted short shorts and blouse were just sophisticated enough to not look completely slutty and that was complimented by my strappy black sandals, which were surprisingly comfy considering how high they were. My hair was curled and sprayed enough so that I knew it wouldn't go flat as the night went on, and my smoky eyes did a pretty good job of being seductive.

  During the time I'd spent getting ready, I'd downed two glasses and so I had a steady buzz which spurred me on to what I did next.

  It was only half past nine, but I figured if I was going to persuade Ollie to come out with me, then I'd have to offer him some of my vodka.

  I hoped my appearance would be enough to sway him, since I'd made a special effort, but I doubted it would work. Especially after the last time we drank together.

  Biting my lip and checking the mirror once more, I decided I'd better just get it over and done with. It was worth a try and I could probably sneak out and party if he wasn't coming with me anyway.

  I knocked on his door and was surprised when he opened it wearing only his pyjama bottoms. I had to really stop myself from staring at his chest, but I knew my face had heated up.

  He grimaced when he saw my appearance. "What are you doing?" He demanded, opening his door and gesturing for me to come in. It probably wouldn't be good if anyone else saw this.

  "I'm going out," I told him seriously, leaning against his now shut door and appraising his physique as subtly as I could. There were several essays spread across a desk in the corner and I realised he actually had been marking. I wasn’t sure what else I thought he might be doing.

  "No, you're not," he corrected me. "We're at a school thing. You're under-age. And why are you even telling me you're going out?"

  I bit my lip and glanced up at him hopefully with my smoky eyes.

  "No," he denied. "No way."

  "Oh come on, you know you want to," I tried to coerce him. Ollie wasn’t meant to sit inside being boring. He was a rule-breaker, I was sure. "Marking essays surely isn't your ideal Friday night."

  "Maddie, you know I can't go out with you, no matter how much I want to." I was surprised he'd even admitted that, but it just assured me that I had a real chance of convincing him. "I'm supposed to be professional, don't you think you've jeopardised that enough already?"

  I frowned, my bubble bursting. He was right, of course. It was completely selfish of me to go out at all, never mind to actually try and get Ollie to come with me, but I’d been too busy imagining our fun night together to really think about the consequences. Mr. Wright, I reminded myself. He was my teacher, not my friend, and certainly not anything more than that.

  "Right," I agreed, my excitement waning. "Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I just wanted to see what it'd be like round Newcastle, I know it was a stupid idea. You'd probably get into trouble if anyone found out I'd gone anywhere."

  Ollie ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry to be a joy kill," he apologise
d. I decided it was probably worth having dressed up just because I got to see him stretch with no shirt on. He must have noticed my widened eyes because he smirked slightly.

  "I'll go and do some work," I told him, trying not to flush in embarrassment. It irritated me that he knew what an effect he had on me.

  "You can come and help me mark some essays if you want." He offered. "They're from the year below, but the mark scheme is the same as yours. It must help you out with learning it."

  I pretended to weigh this over, though I was sure we both knew I was going to accept. "Can I bring the rest of my vodka?" I finally asked.