Erin had been struggling with her college course. She had a hard time organizing her thoughts into a good paper. She noticed one student in particular, named Cody, seemed to always get praised by the professor. He was sometimes even asked to stand up and read passages from his exemplary essays and research papers.
Erin decided to approach him and ask for his help.
After class, she walked up to him. "Excuse me," she asked, "Your name is Cody, right?"
His eyes widened as he looked at her. "Um," he replied, "Yeah it is."
"I'm Erin," she said warmly as she extended her hand to shake his, "I wanted to talk to you about something."
Cody's face started to redden. He had seen Erin around class but always felt too shy to really talk to her. "Of course," he said, "What's on your mind?"
"My papers are not very good," she said, "I was hoping you could help me out by reviewing them and giving me some feedback."
"Totally! I'd love too!" he exclaimed. His eyes widened when he realized he had been a bit too eager, and his face grew redder. "I mean; Sure. No problem."
Erin giggled. "That's great thanks," she replied. It became obvious to her that Cody had a crush on her. She looked him over slightly as he walked away. He was tall, thin, with short brown hair. He wore a pair of glasses. He was cute, but nothing special in her opinion.
She started to send him her papers. Cody was a bit taken aback by how sloppily written they were. The substance of them was not bad. She had good ideas, but her execution was very disorganized, and she had far too many unnecessary, repetitive sentences. Cody, being such a perfectionist, couldn't stand the sight of them. He initially redid one of her papers, intending it to just be an example to show her how she could do better. Over time, his proofreading became redoing her papers.
Erin was ecstatic about how good "her" papers were becoming, but she feared Cody might grow tired of doing so much of her work for her. She began to send him texts and emails regularly, sometimes containing little flirtatious compliments. She told him how smart he was and how he was her favorite person to talk to from the classes. In truth, she did think him highly intelligent, but only in matters of "book smarts." He did not seem to understand people very well, and she knew he wouldn't realize that she just wanted to keep him on the hook to help her.
At first, Cody was thrilled that Erin seemed to have become enthralled with him. As months went by, he began to notice that there was no real change in their relationship. Nothing seemed to be going beyond the occasional flirtation or compliment. When the professor began to offer her the same kind of praise for "her" work as he got, he began to realize that he might be getting taken advantage of.
Soon, he began to ignore her texts and emails. Erin felt herself starting to panic. A major paper was coming up and she needed his help if she wanted to get a good grade. She decided to go by his apartment. As she went over there, she thought about what she needed to say to get him to do it. She made a point to wear a tank top and some tight shorts, hoping attraction to her might cloud his critical thinking.
She knocked on his apartment door, and he answered.
"Oh," he said, "Hello Erin." He noticed her outfit and immediately tried to lock his eyes into hers.