Lia
Biology had never been my best subject. I had been passable at it in high school, it certainly interested me more than physics or earth science, but it wasn't the easy A that most of my classes had been. Of course I had put off the science requirement ā so minimal in my liberal arts college and yet I dreaded it enough to leave it to my junior year. Even worse, I had waited to register for one, hoping I could fulfill a minor class and leave science off another semester. I suppose it served me right that Biology 201 was the only open science class which fit my schedule.
By midterms I was scraping by with a C, and though my friends jokingly reminded me that "C's get degrees!" the blow to my ego was too much to bear. It was my roommate who first suggested I look for a tutor. She had been working as a receptionist for the Academic Resources office for the better part of a year and a half and swore by the advisors.
"They'll handpick someone for you, probably a graduate student," she had informed me. "They do it all the time! Trust me, no one is going to think you're dumb because you need a little help."
I knew she was right. It pained me to admit it but my desire to raise my GPA outweighed my embarrassment at sharing my abysmal midterm grade with a peer. So that was how I ended up sitting in the library at 3:03 in the afternoon, tapping my eraser against my leg as I waited impatiently for my biology tutor.
In the past few minutes I had grown dimly aware of the tall guy standing by the door. In fact, I had glanced at him more than a couple of times. He was cute. Maybe an inch or two shy of six feet, broad-shouldered and in shape, but not musclebound. He was clean shaven, with a nice jaw and high cheekbones under tousled dark hair which he ran a hand through habitually. Annoyingly, he seemed to be looking anywhere but at me ā maybe he was meeting someone? It occurred to me that he could be the tutor I was so anxiously awaiting and even if he wasn't, the mishap might be an excuse to start a conversation.
Finally I caught his eye and raised my hand in greeting. He gave a weak smile in return, adjusted his square tortoiseshell glasses, and made his way over to my table. He looked nervous.
"Hi," I began, in my most charm-the-panties-off-your-mother voice, "would you happen to be my biology tutor?"
"That depends," the guy glanced down at a scrap of paper in his left hand, "are y-you Amelia?"
"I am, but you can call me Lia," I gave a genuine smile, trying to ease his nerves.
"A-alexander."
Alexander smiled back and offered his hand. I shook it slowly, savoring the feeling of his big, warm hand enveloping my own.
"So, what have you been, uh, working on in class?" He asked as he sat across the table from me.
"Okay," I cracked open my textbook and flipped to a chapter a little more than halfway through, "we just finished the skeletal system, and I actually feel pretty good about that, and now we're starting, uh," I scanned the page, "the muscular system and nervous system."
"L-let's start with the muscular system, then. Basically, the b-brain communicates with the muscles through the spinal nerves. There are 31 sets of spinal nerves..."
My mind wandered as he explained the function of spinal nerves. I liked that Alexander went by his full name. 'Alex' had never been appealing to me, but
Alexander
was a name I could luxuriate in speaking. It suited his fine features and Mediterranean coloring, and I found myself wondering between his light brown skin and softly curling hair if he might be Middle Eastern. I tried hard to concentrate, but he glanced over at me through his glasses and suddenly it was difficult to think of anything but those mahogany-colored eyes. Had brown eyes always been so dynamic?
I snapped out of the daydream when he asked "Got it?"
Flushing, I admitted I hadn't got it and he patiently backtracked. "What do you know about neural impulses?"
It took half the lesson before I noticed that Alexander's initial stutter seemed to melt away completely when he was teaching. Truth be told, I had found the stammering sort of endearing, but when his gentle voice was emboldened with some confidence it made me squirm a little in my seat. When I tuned back in, Alexander was halfway through an explanation.
"So at the chemical level, Na+ rushes in - that's sodium - and K+ rushes out. Remember, the axon was negatively charged in comparison to it's surroundings before so an influx of positive ions changes the charge as well as the concentrations of sodium and potassium. When that change travels from one end to the other, it's called an impulse. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, actually, it does," I said gratefully, and meant it. His eyes met mine.
"Good."
Alexander
Judging by the number of times I had to remind myself to breathe, interacting with Lia might as well have been running a marathon. She was all green eyes, and full lips, and rich brown hair, and God, how did anyone get anything done with her in the room? My first mistake, if you didn't count stammering over pleasantries, had been to offer a handshake. From the moment her fingers touched mine, one thought refused to be shaken out of my head: if her hands were that soft, what did the rest of her feel like?
I couldn't tell if I was sad or relieved when that first hour was up and Lia announced that she had better go. Being around her was sort of intoxicating, there was something about her laugh that made my head spin in the most pleasant way. At the same time, I was happy she was gone before I could make a fool out of myself. I was used to stuttering a little, at least I hadn't spilled something, or sweat through my shirt, or gotten a poorly timed erection. The last hour had been spent calculating every possible way I could fuck up.
The next week dragged by at a snail's pace, and the week after that. Each time we met, it was a little easier to talk to Lia. Each time it felt like her shirt was a little tighter than it had been the week before, and her skirt a little shorter. I reminded myself that the change in wardrobe was due to the warmer weather but that didn't make it any less distracting.
She had started sitting next to me instead of across the table, and it seemed to be helping her understand the diagrams. For me, it was torture. A flick of her hair wafted lavender and vanilla shampoo scent in dizzying waves. Every accidental bump of the knee sent lightning bolts up my thigh. God forbid she had to reach across me and turn the page of the textbook or her full breasts would push together against my arm, affording me a glance at the lacy undergarments she apparently owned in a myriad of colors.
Admittedly, I overcorrected. I thought maybe if I tried to keep personal chat to a minimum it might be easier to see Lia as a student instead of a peer. It didn't work. She was a gifted conversationalist, the kind of person who could make you feel interesting even if you were nerding out about plants, which, unfortunately, I did often.
At the end of each lesson I would wish her a good weekend, claim I had some work to do, and concentrate on some horticultural journal until my cock went down. I didn't know what else to do. One wrong move and I would just be the pervy creep that had her requesting a new tutor. So I just sat and stuttered and tried not to ogle her and felt a little gross every time I rubbed myself off thinking about her.
Lia
My tutoring sessions had become increasingly frustrating. Most of the time Alexander was stiff and ultra-professional, seemingly impervious to my flirting. On the occasions when I managed to crack his business-like facade, I had learned a little about his life. He was single and only a couple years older than me, studying for a Masters in horticulture, and loved plants. I had even gotten him to talk about his family once; three older brothers who beat him up constantly when he was younger and skinnier, an Indian mother and Greek father who had taught him to cook, and scores of eccentric aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides. These conversations were my favorite part of our sessions. These seemed to be the only times I could coax a genuine smile or laugh from him ā lately these had been the only times he would fully look at me, though often he would blush and turn away.
I didn't like being on the receiving end of this hot-and-cold game. Sometimes it seemed like Alexander might be attracted to me, even put at ease. At other times I felt like I was back in fifth grade harboring a futile puppy-love crush on the homeroom teacher. He couldn't help it that his eyes sometimes sparkled, or that his soft voice was hypnotizing, or that his habit of looking down when he was trying unsuccessfully not to smile was so adorable. Nonetheless, I fantasized about catching him outside of the library, maybe at a bar, and fucking out our sexual frustrations in a dimly lit bathroom or back alley. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
I made my move at the end of our last session. At least if he rejected me there would be no awkward tutoring to go through afterwards.
"So my final is tomorrow morning..." I began, while loading my books into my shoulder bag.
"Promise me you won't forget everything," Alexander half-jokingly asked without looking up from grading my last practice quiz.
"No can do," I played along, "It's in one ear, out the other. Hold on, what subject are we studying again?" The corners of his mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. "Actually I'm going to celebrate the end of term with a couple of friends on Saturday. At Smoky's. You should come."
Alexander raised his head finally and looked at me with disbelieving eyes for a what felt like a long time.
"Yes. Yes, definitely. When?"
"9:00?"
"Sounds good."
Warmth bloomed in my stomach and spread to every inch of my body.
