Creative Writing 103

"We have to stop!" she said. She said it very sharply.

"Um, okay," I said. "We can stop."

I held her by the waist and tried to make eye contact, but she wouldn't look at me. She pulled my hands off and flung them away.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, withdrawing arms. "Have I hurt you?"

"No," she said, her voice breaking. She buried her face in her hands in obvious anguish.

"Oh God, I have," I said. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

When she didn't reply I started to get up, but she wouldn't let me.

"I'm okay," she said, finally making eye contact. "I mean we can't keep doing this. You and I. You understand that, don't you?"

I did. We had pushed things too far for too long. I remembered our "easy out" agreement: just say those two words and the relationship dissolved, no questions asked. But I didn't want it to end.

"I'll go," I said, starting to get up again.

Once again she placed hands on my chest and pushed me slowly back down.

"Not right now," she cooed, caressing my pecs.

One moment in anguish, the next with the sultry voice? I didn't understand her, but I understood her dilemma.

I drew a deep breath and exhaled, afraid to touch her. Reading my face, she reached out and took my hands. At the same time she moved her legs till her knees met on my chest. Her feet cupped my hips, her soles soft and warm. She sighed and I felt her squeeze me inside her.

"God you feel so good," I said. "You are so very beautiful. So kind. So warm. So perfect."

Her eyes sparkled above her smile while our hands played the equivalent of footsies. I was manipulating her and I knew it. Unable to accept the fact of her own beauty, she liked being complimented on her looks; she had once said holding hands was more intimate than anything else; and in her opinion, a man who maintained eye contact had nothing to hide. At that point I used all three on her, trying to keep her from saying those two little words.

"This has to be the last time, the absolute last time, okay?"

"Okay," I replied, not believing it. Each of the last three times she had said exactly the same thing, but kept initiating contact, wanting another rendezvous. Fine with me.

"I'm serious this time. Really."

"I haven't forgotten our agreement," I said. "I won't stand in your way and this will be our secret forever. I promise."

"I... I can't see you anymore," she sighed.

An alarm went off in my head. She never made "I" statements when speaking of our affair. She used words like 'we' and 'us' and 'our' and 'this', but never "I" anything unless she wanted something specific.

"You've met someone!" I said, almost happy for her. "You wouldn't believe the kind of men I pick up in bars," she once told me, then shared some of the more colorful (if not sexual) details. "It's the worst possible way to meet men." I got the picture: she was looking for Mr. Goodbar in the bars when she needed one who didn't hang out in bars.

"I don't have time to meet anyone," she sighed. "You're eighteen. I'm twenty-five. You're a student. I'm your teacher. If they find out I'll lose my job. I'll never teach again. That's what's wrong. We have to stop."

At that point she tilted her hips back a bit, changing the angle of me inside her sex. A pleasurable sensation, it made her eyes close and her breath catch. Her grip on my hands tightened a little, but she didn't start moving. Her breasts jiggled for one brief moment, stopped while she held her breath, then began swaying as she breathed again. I loved watching her and discovering these subtle responses. For an eighteen year old neophyte, every moment in her bed was extraordinary.

I hoped she'd get lost in the passion and forget what she had just said, but she opened her eyes and resumed the look which said, "we have to stop doing this before I get caught."

"There's no way I'll ever testify against you or cooperate in any investigation," I said. "This is your private life. And mine. We're consenting adults. It's no one's business but ours. If anyone asks, we deny it. If we're accused, we remain silent."

I loved that little speech. I didn't have to use it very often, but it must have been less reassuring to her as time went by. I can't even take credit for it. She brought it up two months earlier when we first began seeing each other, wanting my full cooperation. After that I played it back to her whenever she wavered or panicked. We even discussed scenarios of being dragged to a police station and questioned separately they way they do on TV, where police say different things to suspects in different rooms to coerce confessions. We decided that, since police are allowed to lie to us but we aren't allowed to lie to them, we would say nothing at all. Let them make their case.

"They'll think we started when you were underage," she said.

"We didn't. I turned 18 before we started."

"Either we'll hang together or we'll hang separately," she sighed, which was THE joke of my alma mater, Benjamin Franklin High. She spread her legs, moving her knees off my chest and onto the bed. I loved the way she hooked her feet over my thighs and moved the smooth skin of her legs against mine. When we were naked together, it seemed like her whole body became prehensile.

"Listen. You are not going to lose you job or get into any trouble for this," I whispered in my most reassuring voice. "Ever. It'd kill me."

She lowered my hands to her thighs and let go, but I took hold of hers again, readjusting my grip, liking the way she smiled when I did. We had had the usual fifteen minutes of foreplay on her couch, but now I was on my back in her bed with her mounted on my cock and I if could keep making her crazy by holding her hands, so be it. We smiled at each other and she shifted her hips again, exploring small movements I knew would soon lead to much more athletic ones.

"You don't have to worry," she said, closing her eyes. "I'll take the fall for this if I have to. I deserve it anyway."

"No you don't," I said, almost panicking inside. She never spoke like this. We had never talked about it during sex before. In fact, we rarely said anything while coupling. I had to do something. I drew a breath.

"I love you and I'll never do anything to hurt you. It'd kill me."

"You don't know what love is," she replied, eyes closed, still making slow, tiny hip movements. "You're too young."

"Tell me," I said, "is the love you feel at twenty-five any different than the love you felt at eighteen?"

That stopped her. She opened her big brown eyes and looked into mine. Coupled or uncoupled, we hadn't ever spoken of love before. Forbidden subject.

"No, but it's more informed," she said. "There's a big difference between love and infatuation I didn't know about when I was eighteen," she replied.

"I know the difference," I said. "It only took a couple crushes to realize infatuation is a projection of my own desires. Real love takes time, but mine has begun. For you."

With that she let go of my hands and lowered herself to me. For the millionth time I loved her soft breasts flattening against my chest as we kissed. She laid her head next to mine on the pillow, looking point blank in my eyes. Her fingers traced my brow, jawline and lips, then explored my hair. My hands moved slowly up and down the length of her back, over her butt and down her thighs to her knees then back up over her shoulders again.

"I can't get over how mature you are for eighteen," she said, still moving her hips a little.

I couldn't get over the fact that I was eighteen and coupled to my writing teacher for the twelfth time. Thirteenth? Fourteenth? It happened often enough I had already lost count.

"I can't get over how beautiful you are," I replied, sweeping luxuriant dark hair off her face with one hand while caressing her back with the other.

"God I love your hands," she said, pressing her left hand to my right, matching fingers. "You make me feel like a girl again."

I cupped her jaw in my hands to pull her in for a kiss, loving her tongue in mine. Then she pushed herself up and began the athletic movements I loved so well. We had plenty of time before my Friday night curfew.

Later I pressed her against the inside of her front door, kissing her goodnight. She loved it when I pinned her to things like doors, walls, refrigerator, couch, shower stall and her bed. She held onto me for a long time because as soon as we opened that door and left her house it would be a week before we'd touch again. Neither of us wanted to let go.

"We really need to stop seeing each other," she said again, still pinned to the door, my lips on her neck.

So it was back to "we" again. Good.

"Just say the words," I whispered in her ear, gambling she wouldn't. Two words and it'd all be over.

She opened her mouth, but held her tongue, then did it a second time. It felt like I was standing on the very edge of the world.

"I can't," she said, burying her face in my chest. "I think I love you, too."

There it was, the first time she ever said it. My heart leapt. Was this why she kept taking me back to her place and pulling off my clothes week after week?

"I love you, too," I said. I was eighteen and already knew to say it right back or face dire consequences. But it wasn't a lie. I really did love her.

"Can we meet again?"

"I'd like that," I said.

"Same time tomorrow?"

Whoa. In a little more than two months we had managed to meet more than once a week only twice and had never risked two days in row. Was it because we had spoken of love for the first time?

"Okay," I said. "Meet at the mall again?"

"Sure. Only let's use the entrance down by Sears this time."

Meeting at the mall was the way we got together without drawing attention to ourselves. Just a few miles from home, I'd drive over at a prearranged time, go inside and find her where she sat waiting on a bench. Without saying anything, I'd make eye contact as I walked by, then go out and get in her car, which she parked in one of two rows, and she'd follow a few minutes later. It was all very James Bond, and like him the secret mission involved a high-speed drive in a sports car to a destination where we pulled each others' clothes off.

The next day I found her on the bench by the fountain near the ground floor entrance to Sears, right on time. She looked so perfect sitting there and her face lit up when her eyes met mine. I walked past, went outside, and sat in her car. Several long minutes later she opened the driver's side door and climbed in. She had stayed on the bench a little longer than normal, then went inside Sears and used a store exit instead of a mall exit, just in case. Investigators look for patterns, she said, so it was important to vary our movements from time to time. Doing it two days in a row heightened the sense of danger and adventure, which revealed itself in her bed. Our first-time expressions of love spilled over from the night before, also contributing to heightened passions. We met an unprecedented third day in a row. Then a forth.

***

She taught grammar, lit, composition and creative writing and, at twenty-five, was one of the youngest and prettiest teachers at school. An attractive, petite woman of five-four who had gone to college on a soccer scholarship, she had a fit, athletic body and coached the varsity girls team. Fourth generation Italian-American, her long dark hair was cut to feather in the style of the late 1970's. Her hourglass shape, luxuriant hair and large penetrating brown eyes made high school boys squirm in their seats. And her smile? God! It could knock you out at fifty yards if you weren't careful.

She rarely wore a dress, choosing instead an array of attractive casuals which suited her athletic frame. On days she did wear a dress I was half out of my mind. It wasn't common, but occasionally teachers wore jeans to school on Fridays and seeing her in tight Levi's made me even more crazy. Every time I interacted with her as a student, I had to work hard to maintain eye contact. She was a fox.

There were rumors that someone asked her to senior prom the previous year, but I didn't believe it until she confirmed the story one afternoon while we rested in her bed. She politely turned down the guy who asked, confiding that she still felt some regret flirting with him so much in class. It wasn't that kind of flirting, she said, but of course he didn't know the difference. "No one ever knows the difference," I said, until one flirter asks the other out."

Modern enough to support the Equal Rights Amendment for women, she maintained some traditional ideals as well, preferring Miss over Ms and believing a wife should take her husband's surname. Like many Catholics she was morally opposed to abortion, but supported a woman's legal right to choose because no one should be put in prison for it. With the sexual revolution in full bloom, she certainly embraced her own liberation with me.

My interest in her began when I had her for creative writing at the start of senior year. I discovered immediately that she liked flirting with male students, especially jocks. I didn't know why she singled me out. I wasn't a jock, but she called on me regularly to read aloud in class. Second week into the semester, she smiled and interrupted me to gush about how much she loved my voice, admitting that she called on me so frequently because of it and would continue to do so. Surprised and embarrassed, I thanked her and continued reading.

I liked her extensive eye contact and the way she smiled at me, which seemed to say so much more. I even caught her looking at me a few times during class when everyone was bent over their desks writing. When we passed in the hallway, she waited until I made eye contact before letting her eyes run down my body. If it had happened only once, I could ignore it, but it happened several times.

Emboldened by her attention, when I turned 18 at the end of September I decided to do something about it. I wrote a note asking if her interest was more than academic. If so would she meet me at a certain restaurant at a certain time that weekend. If not, no reply was necessary and I wouldn't bring it up again. Sealing the note in an envelop, I attached it to the back of a short story assignment and left it on her desk.

A whole week went by without a reply. Each time I made made eye contact with her in class I wondered if she had read my note. She even graded and returned the assignment without comment. It was torture. I assumed she had read my note and had decided to ignore it. I felt like a fool for thinking she'd go out with a student. I was just glad she didn't embarrass me by mentioning it in front of class, or worse report me to the administration.

After last period that Friday I stood organizing my locker in the crowded, noisy hallway when she walked up and handed me an envelop.

"I was hoping I'd catch you, Mr. Flynn," she said. "You left this in my classroom."

"Where did you find it?" I asked, feigning surprise. "I've been looking everywhere."

"Someone found it in your desk."

"Thanks. I thought I had lost it," I said, still feigning. "You are a Godsend. Thank you."

"Okay, okay, you're welcome," she smiled. "Take it home and keep it in a safe place, okay? Have a good weekend."

"Thanks. You, too," I replied.

"I will," she said, walking away.

One look at the envelop and I knew instantly she had responded. The one I left on her desk had her name on it. This one had my name neatly typewritten in the middle. My heart jumped in my throat. A response and her warm smile must mean yes! My optimism waned as I realized it could be a rejection and enough demerits to finish me. Either way, I couldn't risk opening her letter at school. It had to wait until I got home.

"What did you lose?" asked Beth-Ann, from her locker to my right.

"A letter of recommendation for college applications," I lied. "I'm lucky someone found it."

"Which schools are you-"

"God, is she a fox or what?" blurted Cliff, from his locker on the other side of Beth-Ann.

"She's an attractive woman," I admitted.

"She's a total babe," Andy said from the locker to my left, lowering his voice and adding: "I'd like to get into that."

A look of irritation creased Beth-Ann's face. Never mind the interruption, she was put out that Clifford and Andrew weren't talking about her, their eyes on the body of my departing visitor. I turned back to my locker, pulling books required for weekend homework.

"We're surrounded by beautiful women," I said, giving Beth-Ann a sideways glance. Her frown melted into a smile. She was a fox, too: the kind who dated only seniors even though she was only a sophomore. Younger boys were, she often said and I quote, way too immature for me, unquote. Don't ask me why I bothered to inflate her ego at that particular moment. Oh wait, I remember now: to get her off the subject of the letter in my hand. It worked.

The bus ride home seemed like an eternity, as did the walk down the street of our suburban neighborhood with friends. They teased me for being lost in my thoughts again. 'Space cadet' was the moniker they liked to use. Or just 'cadet'. I laughed with them, but returned to my thoughts. Even with the possibility of a rejection waiting in the envelop, my mind raced a thousand miles a hour, wondering if I could pull off the rendezvous I had suggested in my note to her. Once home, I poured myself the usual after-school glass of milk and disappeared into my room. I wiped the mustache on my sleeve, opened the envelop and pulled out a formal, typewritten letter on Franklin High stationery.

"Mr. Flynn,

Yes, I would be happy to tutor you. You already have excellent study habits, but I'm glad you realize how important it is to take advantage of every available resource to get the most from my class. It takes courage to ask for help and to push yourself to excel. No one succeeds alone and I know I will help you prepare for the SAT and your college entrance exams. I realize it's short notice, but I have an opening in my schedule tomorrow if you can make it. Be at my house at 3 PM Saturday. Bring pen, paper and your text. We will focus on creative exercises. Please call me today to confirm or to schedule a different time. My rates are in the student handbook.

It is a joy to have you in my class."

Confused, I read it again. Had she mistaken me with someone who wanted help? Or was she saying yes and her letter a cover? Encouraged that she wanted to meet me the next day, I hoped it was a cover. A second page had a hand-drawn map with directions to her house, her address and phone number. Wait. A third slip of paper hid in the fold of her directions. It was handwritten.

"Tell no one where you are going or what you are doing. I am relying on your complete discretion. Call me. Destroy this."

I could not believe my eyes. Was it really that easy? Dropping a note on her desk asking if she was interested and suggesting a rendezvous? I tore up her handwritten note and dropped it amidst egg shells and coffee grounds in the kitchen garbage. I had caught Mom fishing through the contents of my trashcan before, but she never inspected the kitchen trash.

I dialed my teacher. No answer. She wasn't home yet. She wouldn't be. I lived a mile from school while she lived the next suburb over, some ten miles distant. I dialed three more times in the next half hour without making contact. Answering machines had just come on the market, but were hugely expensive and only a few people had them. For the rest of the world a ring-no-answer meant try-again-later. Then my folks came home from work and I could no longer risk calling from the house, not with mom's habit of listening on the extension.

After supper I borrowed dad's car, stopped at a nearby greasy spoon called the Firebird Inn and reached my teach from a phone booth in the lobby. She arranged our first mall meeting, but was most relieved to learn I hadn't told anyone that she would be "tutoring" me. That would be our cover story. Still, she gave me instructions to bring schoolbooks, making double sure I understood this was purely a physical thing. We couldn't ever be a couple. I agreed and pledged absolute discretion. We said goodnight and I slipped into the men's room and bought two ribbed, lubricated condoms from the machine.