My first submission...Here goes...
Leila told herself it wasn't a cliché. Seeing her professor—her married professor. Meeting at a hotel not far from campus. At least she wasn't his student anymore, she rationalized for the hundredth time since it had become clear that the fascination she had been unable to suppress had come out into the open. Why she didn't know, but he had claimed to regard her with a similar interest, and then they had concocted this god-awful plan. Her hands shook as she attempted to insert the key card into its slot.
She had wanted this from the very first day of class with her organic chemistry professor. In a large lecture hall, there usually isn't much interaction with professors and students. But as her physical attraction and intellectual admiration for him grew, she worked up the courage to attend his weekly office hours. She couldn't help but be one of the sharpest students at these small group question and answer sessions—partly because of her attraction and partly because of her love of the subject, she had hung on to every syllable with rapturous attention.
Accompanying this desire was a cavernous consciousness of guilt. He had made mention of a wife, a son, and a daughter in various anecdotes. She knew it was wrong to want to come between him and his family. She knew she was young and inexperienced and couldn't possibly give him anything he wanted or needed. He had twenty-five years on top of her virginal twenty, and she was not more than four years older than his daughter. Any relationship that might come of the affair would be reviled by her own family as well. Plus, of course, he was her teacher, her mentor—she could not break the sacred bounds of education. For all these reasons as well as the fact that she had no seductive bone in her body, she never ever would have acted on her fantasies, no matter how badly she longed to do so.
No, it took a very awkward, chance conversation at the semester's end, in which he asked her outright if she had a "crush" on him. She had blushed furiously, only too late realizing he was joking. And then he had surprised her with his own admission. He then suggested the hotel and she couldn't help but shyly accept his offer.
She had gone up first in the elevator to the room because although they could probably have passed for father and daughter, both were too jumpy to risk being seen together. She didn't have any hopes of getting a relationship out of the affair, not that her conscience would have allowed much of a relationship. Her desire ultimately outweighed her misgivings, however, and she steadied her hand to enter the suite.
Perhaps what scared and spurred her on at the same time was the fact that she was still a virgin. She had no idea what he expected from her. She saw herself as a fairly introverted nerdy girl with very average looks and hoped he did not somehow imagine her to be a goddess in the bedroom. Again, she began to doubt herself but couldn't help her wishful thinking again. She had never been more acutely attracted to someone before, nor had anyone she liked reciprocated her feelings before.
As she fumbled to turn on one of the bedside lamps and then questioned whether or not to turn it off again, a soft knock was made at the door and in came Dr. Heller. Despite the notice he had given, she still managed to jump a little.
"Sorry, I didn't want to startle you. How's the room?" He was easing her through this, almost like he'd done it before.
"It's...great," she managed. He walked past her to the armchair and set his backpack on the coffee table. Leila then awkwardly sat on the bed. She knew she had to tell him, even if it risked the chance of being with him. "I...have to tell you something, Dr. Hel—"
"Ben, Leila, call me Ben." When it's just us, of course, she noted he didn't bother to add.
