Schooled (Taboo 101 #1)

by Havana Scott

  “Hi,” she says breathlessly.

  “Hey. Sorry that guy gave you shade, but good that you got him back,” I say.

  “Oh. Yeah.” She fidgets with her hair, pushing it behind her ears, then pushing it behind her ears again. “Some people don’t like it when I ask too many questions.”

  “Brilliant. Don’t ever change that inquisitiveness,” I say and mean it. Those questions are the difference between her and the average student. “How can I help you?”

  She exhales sharply. “I have a question for you.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “You mean, you don’t want to tell me how great my lecture was, how happy you are that I’m replacing Mr. Quackenbush?”

  She shrugs. “I figured by now you’d want to hear something different.”

  I can’t help but smile. Her attitude is refreshing. “Right you are.”

  Sabine smiles a wide grin with pretty white teeth. “I know you have to go, and this is purely a rhetorical question, but…” She checks around to see if anyone is listening. Nope. She has my full attention. “What if you’ve tried everything? I’m not talking about me. I’m just saying, theoretically. What happens if you’ve tried everything and still can’t have an orgasm? What’s the last resort for a woman in that case?” Her eyes are big and wide and so hinged on my answer. “I’m asking for someone else.”

  She’s asking for herself. Holy shit.

  “Of course.” I look down at my hand holding onto the desk, fighting the urge to soak in her whole aura, body, face, and all. “The person in question would have to go to sex therapy. The therapist may order clinical tests done.”

  “She’s done those.”

  “Your friend?” I look up. Sexy honey eyes torture me.

  “Yes, my friend. What else can she do?”

  “Well, there’s always surrogate therapy.”

  “Which is?”

  God, she’s killing me. Her breasts are small but tight, and she’s got this great crystal necklace resting on the smooth skin between them. As much as I’d love to explain how surrogate therapy works, I really have to get going.

  “You know what? I love your enthusiasm…Sabine, right?”

  “Yes.” She smiles, as though happy I remembered her name.

  “You’re the only student who seems to take this class seriously. And I wouldn’t be able to explain as thoroughly as you deserve right now, so why don’t we cover this next time? In the meantime, let me find you the name of a therapist who’s really great at what she does.” Whether it’s for her or her “friend.” Either way, I won’t be able to help.

  A flash of disappointment crosses her face then she sets down her stuff and takes out her phone. “Can you text it to me?”

  “Maybe it’s better if you jot it down.” That way, having her phone number won’t be a temptation. When I’m in bed tonight thinking about this moment, for example. Because I will be. Guaranteed.

  Opening up Notes, she jots down the number for Veronica Lin, an excellent sex therapist surrogate, a third party person who helps couples achieve intimacy.

  “She’s great, but remember, there’s no magic formula. I wish I had easy answers for you, but there aren’t any. Good luck to your friend, though. I have to get going.” I shove my phone in my back pocket and start collecting my stuff, doing my damnedest not to look at her, even though I can smell the vanilla body mist wafting off her flushed skin.

  “Thanks so much, Professor. I truly appreciate it.” She lingers a moment before finally leaving.

  I chance a glance at her walking away. Gorgeous, smart, and a great ass. Great combination. “You’re welcome,” I say to no one. The line is done. Time to go.

  My pulse races, though I have no idea why. She’s an undergrad like thousands of others on this campus. Yes, she’s hot in that youthful, naïve way, but so are the others. And if I’m going to do something stupid with an undergrad, there are plenty not in my class to mess around with. I can’t let this one get to me.

  As the last of the stragglers leave the auditorium, I sling my bag over my shoulder. Then, I see it—the notebook Sabine set on the desk while taking down the therapist’s phone number. I think about running after her to return it, but she’s probably gone by now, and I’m going to be late to class if I linger any longer. I could leave it here for her to find, but what if it contains important information?

  I scoop it up and open my bag to drop it in. I’ll see her on Wednesday anyway.

  But then, curiosity burns my fingertips. I’m dying to glance inside. I’m sure it’s only class notes, but suddenly, I need to see her handwriting, her words, phrasing, anything that might confirm it’s her notebook. Fine, I just want insight into her psyche. I feel guilty for crossing such a personal line, but I’m compelled.

  I open the notebook. It falls to the last written page, and I see it—her tidy handwriting:

  I JUST WANT TO EXPERIENCE A BIG FUCKING

  ORGASM FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!

  My cock stiffens so much, it hurts. I was right.

  I flip to the front of the notebook—Sabine LaFleur.

  Anorgasmia.

  The challenge-loving corner of my brain dares me. You can show her how. It’s easier than explaining it.

  No! the rest of my brain screams. I don’t have to be the one to help her. Let anyone else do it—a therapist, a boyfriend, anyone but me. But teaching people is my weakness, and Sabine LaFleur has just become my new obsession, thanks to what I just read in this notebook. Slapping it closed, I pack it away and take in what it feels like to be totally, irrevocably fucked.

  3

  SABINE

  My heart pounds to the rhythm of my footsteps, as I practically run out of the building.

  Breathe deep…holy shit.

  I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe I asked my hot, new professor those questions in front of everyone then pursued the conversation even more after class. Yes, I ask a lot of questions, because Mom paid a lot of money for me to go to college, damn it, so I’m going to get every penny’s worth. Still, the topic is so sensitive, so personal. Could he tell it was about me? I never said the anorgasmia thing was about me. They came across as very clinical questions.

  At least I hope they did.

  I just want to know the answers so badly! I want to feel normal, be like everybody else. Nobody understands how frustrating it is to only hear about how good it feels to come but never experience it first hand. Maybe I will give this therapist surrogate a call, whoever she is.

  As I research what a therapist surrogate even is on my phone, I think about Dr. MacKenzie up close, one on one. His eyes were clear blue with flecks of gray, his jawline sharp and lined with a close-cut beard. Sexy. And his smile would render any woman useless. But why does he get me all flustered? The man is probably over thirty and married. I never got to see if he had a ring on his finger, not that it matters. Most men his age are perverts who take off their wedding bands to attract younger women anyway. That’s what my dad did in the years leading up to my parents’ divorce. That’s what Mom says anyway.

  Whatever.

  Doesn’t matter. I can’t think about him anymore. He’s my new professor, no more, no less. One who’ll be talking about clitoral stimulation, orgasms, and penetration in the weeks to come. Ugh. This is going to be SO HARD. He’s so fucking handsome!

  Focusing back on my research, looks like a surrogate is a therapist who works with couples, forming a team of three. She talks and guides you during sex to make sure you’re doing everything right. Yeah, this won’t work. I put down my phone and sigh. I don’t have a boyfriend anymore now that Glenn dumped me for the most orgasmic woman in South Carolina. Anabellaaaa. Like I fucking care.

  Whatever, Part II.

  Spring is definitely in the air. Warm sunshine blankets the campus lawn, which is starting to grow in a lot greener than a week ago. I find a nice sunny spot to have my lunch and go over notes from class. But as I pull out my agenda and my highlighters, I r
ealize…it’s gone—my notebook.

  Where the hell is it?

  I check the other compartments of my book bag. Maybe in my flustered state, I shoved it into a different pocket? But then, I remember. I put down my books in order to take the surrogate’s phone number. Damn it, I’m going to have to go back to get it. Maybe Professor MacKenzie found it for me. I hope there wasn’t anything stupid or embarrassing in it, like my daily Law of Attraction affirmations. Ugh, yes, those. How dorky.

  What were they about again? My last one, written moments before he arrived in class, was about… Oh, God. No. No, no, no. My lungs sink into my stomach. Please tell me I did not do what I think I did. ORGASMS. I wrote about wanting a big, fucking orgasm. In all caps with five thousand exclamation marks.

  I’m on my feet before I can think any more about it, running across the campus green, down the sidewalk toward the Aarons Building. Please, Universe, God, whoever is out there…please let my notebook still be on the desk. I don’t care if some random, unknown person from the next class reads it, just please don’t let my HOT HUMAN SEXUALITY PROFESSOR read it. I would die.

  The headline will read: Student, 20, at Crofton Cliffs Explodes Into Shards of Humiliated Flesh – Campus Mourns.

  I yank the door handle to the Aarons Building so hard, it bounces against the brick wall. Someone tells me to watch it. “Sorry!” I yell. Can’t look, can’t think right now. My pride, my few scraps of integrity left are on the line.

  When I reach Room 17B, I pull on the door handle and enter the cold auditorium. The desk where Professor MacKenzie and I spoke is empty. No notebook. I check the floor underneath. I check the desk chair. Maybe he put it back where I sit? Nope, that chair is empty too, its foldaway tabletop tucked down and away.

  “Okay, it’s fine, it’s fine.” I bend to catch my breath. Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast. Think, think… Who else might have it? I don’t know anyone in the class personally. That’s one downside to being a loner. When you need something, there’s literally no one you can turn to. There was nothing in that notebook that I absolutely need for any class. All my notes on Quack’s lectures are basically regurgitations.

  Which means someone on campus is walking around with a window into my life.

  My soul.

  And that someone is probably Dr. MacKenzie.

  It’s Wednesday.

  I haven’t been able to do anything the last couple of days without obsessively checking my email to see if, by some chance, Dr. MacKenzie has messaged me to tell me he found my notebook. Part of me wishes anyone else in the class might’ve picked it up—anyone but him—but then I think about that asshole in the upper rows, his equally cruel friends, Tanelle and Juliana, and I revise my hope. I do prefer it be him.

  At least he’d understand.

  Because there’s something about Dr. MacKenzie…

  Besides being the most beautiful man his age I’ve ever seen, besides having a body and arms that could carry me straight to hell, he’s intelligent, not like the buffoons in my class who probably just took the course to see illustrations of naked women. He also seems like a good professor, one who cares whether or not his students learn, not one who shows up only for his paycheck.

  Let’s just say that he was the one to pick up my notebook.

  And let’s just say that he did read it…

  What would he think?

  In some fucked-up way, I might like that he finds out about my problem without me having to suffer the embarrassment of explaining it. I might like fantasizing that he’d want to help me. For the whole hour before class, sitting in my apartment, avoiding my roommates, I find myself dreaming about exactly this, growing so wet at the thought of him knowing about my sexual life, that I have to go and change my panties.

  Obviously, I have no problem with arousal. Never have. In fact, I’m interested in knowing just how wet other women get by comparison, because I think I get pretty damn wet. That has to be a good sign, right?

  But will he laugh at me for being naïve? Will he think I’m so stupid that I haven’t been able to figure something so simple out yet? I change my outfit to something more mature, something that doesn’t scream “child” as much—jeans and a black high-neck sweater since it’s chillier this morning than it was on Monday. And then I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I go to the bathroom and take out my contacts, opting for glasses instead.

  There.

  Not so young and dumb-looking now.

  I leave the apartment I share with Kristie, Tracye, and Leo, two girls and one guy from Crofton Cliffs. Only Leo seems to know I’m alive, but right now, he’s in class, so neither of the two girls says goodbye. I take off on my twenty-minute walk for the Aarons Building. Here we go. I will not feel humiliated, I will not feel humiliated, no matter what happens. I will impress Dr. MacKenzie with my stunning maturity and resolve.

  I’d hoped to arrive before everyone else, so I could breathe in the silence of the auditorium before facing the inevitable, but there’s a book fair going on outside the library all over the campus green. I have to fight crowds, even little kids apparently here on a field trip. Once I make my way through, it’s almost 9:30 AM exactly, class starting time.

  Arriving at 17B, I suck in a deep breath and open the door.

  Everyone’s here already, chatting loudly. In fact, there are more students than I’ve ever seen. Did more sign up for this course halfway through? It wouldn’t surprise me considering how popular Dr. MacKenzie seems to be. It’d be shallow of them, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

  The good news is, nobody stares at me when I walk in. That means the asshole in the upper row wasn’t the one to find my notebook, or he’d be staring at me right now. Everyone would know about it. The bad news is, Dr. MacKenzie is on time. He’s no Quackenbush. This gives me no time to mentally prepare.

  Dr. MacKenzie prepares his PowerPoint for today unaware that I’ve walked in. Today he wears jeans, a faded Captain America T-shirt, and a suit jacket. Right away, he looks younger to me, like late twenties, as if he decided to dress this way to appeal to the other undergrads in my class. He’s gorgeous no matter what he wears, but I did love the pants and buttoned shirt he wore on Monday. Fucking sexy as hell.

  When I was little, when my dad still lived with us, I used to love sitting on my parents’ bed in the morning watching him get ready for work. He’d come out of the closet wearing tailored pants, a long-sleeved shirt over an undershirt, fixing up his cuffs and tie. My dad is a handsome man—too handsome—and sometimes I think my mother just couldn’t hold his interest.

  I know it’s a messed-up thought. First of all, my mother is beautiful. But she doesn’t play it up, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about men so far in this life, it’s that they’re visual creatures. My brother disagrees. He says Mom couldn’t have done anything different. Cheating was a built-in mechanism in my dad’s psyche, but I will always think…what if? What if my mother had looked hotter, acted sexier? What if she would’ve talked politics less, wore pretty dresses more, let her hair grow long?

  A small part of me will always blame her for my dad’s departure.

  Suddenly, the professor’s steely eyes zero in on me, ripping—and I mean ripping—me out of my daydream. His gaze jolts me. As if I’m the person he’s been waiting to see, he comes around the desk, grabs a familiar object from on top of his briefcase and walks my way.

  Shit.

  He found it. Here goes.

  I’m a mature, self-motivated, curious individual. I am not an innocent sophomore, desperate for pleasure. I am woman. I embody dignity. I am…

  “Hi.” His voice sounds like caramel-filled chocolate sweetly oozing from his sexy lips. I want to eat his voice. “I think you left this last class. We were talking, and you took down that phone number, and—”

  “Why, yes, Professor. It is mine,” I say, channeling every older woman I’ve ever seen in movies, for some reason. “It’s nothing important, but thank yo
u so much for returning it. I deeply appreciate it.”

  He pauses to look at me funny. Too much? “That’s good to know. Sabine, would you have time to come by my office after class? I have to move on in the coursework today, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging.”

  Leave me hanging.

  Onto his beautifully sculpted shoulders, as he carries me dripping wet from the shower to the bedroom. Hanging, yes. Hanging sounds good. I mean, no! “About…”

  “About the surrogate therapy, remember? I gave you a number to call?”

  “Oh, that. Yes,” I breathe huskily. “How silly of me. Yes, I can see you after class.” I nod professionally and begin reading my notebook and textbook for today’s lecture, but inside I’m dying. Suddenly, I’m fourteen and wearing braces again. See him after class? In his office? Does that mean he read my journal and wants to tell me the various places around town where I can get a life???

  “Wait, where is your office again?” I ask.

  “Just down the hall. You can walk with me there.” He smiles, because I’m stupid. Of course that’s how I’ll find it. He said after class, which means we’ll be walking there together. “My name’s on the door, too,” he adds, in case I’m stupid and blind.

  The good news is, Dr. MacKenzie spends the rest of the period talking about statistics, peer-reviewed journals put out every year regarding sexuality, and where we can access them online. Good, because I don’t think I can handle another talk about orgasms coming from my sizzling professor’s mouth today. The bad news is, he looks so incredibly sensual talking about statistics, I can’t wait to see him after class.

  Yes, it’s a problem.

  Because I’m not supposed to be attracted to him, that’s why.

  So, because Dr. MacKenzie has another line of women waiting at his desk to talk to him after class, I don’t wait around for him to walk me to his office. I think I’d rather head there by myself, stand alone outside his door, and stare at his name on the brass plaque—Dr. Liam MacKenzie. Liam.