Charlotte 1
After 12 years of teaching at a community college, I finally crossed the line.
There have been young women every year that drove me crazy. Sweet, quiet girls ripening into womanhood. Self-assured fashionistas who knew exactly how sexy they were and did their best to drive every guy nuts. In between those poles, I was surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of nubile young women or girl-next-door beauties. The casual flirting that went on all day was a careful balance of respect and professionalism. My wife was often the beneficiary of a day-long backlog of horniness when I got home, even if I sensibly didn't share the underlying cause.
Flirting is one thing, though, and following through is another. As much as there have been moments where I wondered if something might happen, it took an earnest freshman to slip past my defenses.
Charlotte wanted to do well in class. I know that sounds like a well-traveled path, but it didn't play out like some "extra-credit" exchange of favors. Instead, she simply asked for help. After a middling grade on her first essay, we met regularly through the fall to go over her written work while it was still in process. She made great progress and seemed both proud and happy. When she earned a B+ on the final essay, she was over the moon--she knew the average was 10 points lower from some of our conversations, and she was proud of her success.
Sadly, though, that success didn't translate to her other classes as much. She worked hard and did her best, but her Trigonometry class was kicking her ass and her East Asian History essay was a disaster of confused paragraphs and undeveloped ideas. I couldn't say much about the math, but she and I did meet to go over her history essay as a post-mortem. Her professor didn't see the point of meeting with students--he let his TA's handle his office hours; tests were made to measure performance, according to him, and everyone should know how to write by the time they got out of high school. If a student did poorly, it's because they didn't have the skills and knowledge to do well. I'm okay with a little old-school attitude, but he was too callous to see the effect it had on his students, especially when they wanted to do well and couldn't quite figure it out. These weren't kids anymore, but they were young and vulnerable to the criticism of the adults in their orbit.
January was unseasonably warm for New England this year, and the students made the most of it. Boys came to class wearing shorts and T-shirts, and the girls seemed happy with leggings and scoop-necked T's that showed off a dazzling range of cleavage. Charlotte was petite, lanky, and kind of conservative, so her T-shirts didn't go too low. Also, she was less developed than many of her peers: her small, perky breasts didn't lend themselves to creating a lush display, but they went well with her sweet little ass, slender legs and arms, and the fine bones of her face. To complete the picture, she had chestnut-brown hair that fell in long waves to her shoulder blades and light brown eyes. The combination made her look younger than the other freshmen in her class, but still very attractive.
Charlotte and I fell into a pattern of meeting during my office hours or in the library to work on her writing. After a while, I agreed to help her with the East Asian History class since it was mostly tests and essays. Because we weren't focused on my class anymore, she was more open about how frustrated she was with the teacher and I gnashed my teeth frequently as she told me what his classes were like. The young men got away with murder because he liked athletes. The girls who flirted openly with him seemed to do better than those who didn't. He was never lecherous, but he definitely played favorites, and Charlotte was not in that category.
One afternoon after getting another savage grade on a research paper, she was almost in tears in my office. Her frustration leaked out more than usual and she snapped at me when I asked her about it.
"It doesn't matter!" she said sullenly. "It's not like I have tits to show him, and I'm not a lax bro!"
Without thinking of anything but reassuring her, I grabbed her wrist.
"Charlotte!" I said quietly but urgently, "you're as sexy as any girl in that class! He's just playing favorites like you said, and even if that isn't fair, it's the reality you have to deal with. He's a college professor and no one is holding him accountable. Now let's take a look and see if we can figure out what to work on this week."
She seemed to calm down with that plan in place, and we worked on deciphering his scrawls in the margins and I had her take notes on what she could change to meet his requirements. Later that week, she was assigned another paper that would make up a large part of her semester grade. By that point, she knew I had minored in History, so she asked if I could help her through the process more than usual. I hemmed and hawed because that was getting close to being her tutor, which I wasn't supposed to do as her professor and definitely couldn't do on school property!
The following week on Monday, Charlotte and I worked in the library on reviewing everything but English. At 3:30, we had to get out when the cleaners showed up, but we were ready to wrap up. As we walked out, she whispered, "Thank you!" with a very sincere smile. I thanked her back for her hard work and surreptitiously admired the slender curves of her legs and ass as she headed for her car in the student parking lot.
On Thursday, Charlotte asked in class if we could meet that afternoon because she had a Trig test and an outline for the history paper due and she wanted to go over both. I thought about my schedule and quickly agreed. At 3:30, though, we were deep in the weeds of calculating angles and the vacuums started up in the main room of the library. I looked around, but the library aide was packing up herself, so I suggested we move to another space. I packed up my laptop and she stuffed her things into her monstrous backpack.
My building was only across the street, so we headed there to find a non-private space to work in. Along the English hallway, however, I could see that the cleaners were at the far end working their way back.
"I guess we can't use my office or the conference rooms," I said ruefully, "but maybe we can find one they're finished with and keep going."
Charlotte smiled hopefully and nodded, falling into step behind me as I started down the hall. There was an L-shaped open-use room that I thought would be a good spot down at the far end. There are all kinds of rules about being alone with a female student, and I wanted to keep this as public and as visible as I could and still have some time to work. There was a big window in the door so we would be in plain sight and professional even if we were in a closed space together. I shut the door because of the noise, and we sat down at the round table just inside to get started.
Half an hour later, the math was done. I took a break to refill my water bottle, and when I came back, Charlotte wasn't at the table. Puzzled, I looked around the corner of the L and saw her perched on a tall stool, her ankles crossed. She was holding the edge of the chair and leaning forward a bit, her hair falling in front of her shoulders to frame her face. She looked oddly nervous and her eyes were locked onto mine.
"What's up, Char?" I asked as casually as I could. "Do you need a break?"
She shook her head silently, then let it fall forward so that her hair obscured her expression.
I took a step closer, conscious that we were out of sight from the hallway now, but concerned. Without touching her, I tried to be comforting. I did notice as I approached her that the shades were tilted so only a little of the afternoon light filtered in.
"Hey..." I said lightly. "I know this is a lot. We're spending all this time playing catch-up, and I know you want to do your best, but don't worry...you'll get there!"
"It's not that," she said softly without raising her eyes.
I stepped closer again and put my hand on the back of her shoulder. I was still trying to be reassuring, but I knew I was in dangerous territory if anybody happened to see us. I tried not to concentrate on the feel of her shirt or the warmth of her body. Being this close, I could even smell the floral notes of her shampoo or conditioner. Whatever...she smelled good.
"Whatever it is, Charlotte," I said quietly, "you can tell me. I'm here to help."
She took a deep breath that I could feel under my palm and spoke again, her head coming up so that I could see a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
"You said that I was sexy," she said softly, holding my gaze.
Stupefied, my mind raced back over the preceding weeks. Had I really said that? Holy shit, I realized, I DID say that! I was trying to make her feel better, but I definitely told her she was as sexy as any of the girls in her class. Oh, shit.
Her eyes were searching mine still and she drew a deep, shuddering breath that told me how nervous she was, how hard that had been to ask. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was deny it, but that was a huge mistake on my part and a huge breach of student-teacher protocol. Still, I could tell she needed to hear the truth. I took a deep breath myself and jumped over the line, holding her shoulder firmly.
