Adrienne groaned in frustration. The professor walked through the classroom passing out the rest of the tests. The big, red, 52/100 mark glared up at her from the paper on the desk. Another F. With only two more weeks until finals, there was no way that Adrienne would be ready to pass the big exam in her grammar class. Maybe she should just drop it and switch her major, that way she wouldn't have to take this stupid class. But she wanted to be a journalist so badly. Why did the school have to require so many stupid classes??
She flipped the first page of the test over, scanning over her many errors. Who cared what the predicate nominative was, anyways? Certainly someone could read a newspaper article and learn something new without the reporter knowing which word was the object of the preposition. Apparently the University didn't see it like that, though, and if Adrienne didn't make it through this class with a C or higher she wouldn't be graduating for an extra year. She felt like ripping the test up, and thought she might just do that as soon as class was over. She flipped to the third page and sighed. At the bottom was a scribbled from her teacher.
"See me after class," it said.
Professor Johnson wasn't exactly a favorite teacher among the students. He didn't have any special tricks to make going to class fun, and this was definitely the least fun you could have in class, even counting math. Ogling him was the only reason half of the women, and a few of the men, attended class. Adam Johnson was, for lack of words, hot. His long dark hair was always pulled into a ponytail at the back of his head, and Adrienne had heard girls whispering about what it must feel like to run their hands through it. His face was large, with chiseled features, a handsome nose and perfect red mouth. When he talked it was impossible not to look at those lips moving. His shoulders were large. It was hard to make out his chest from underneath his cotton shirts, but the snug fitting pants the shirts tucked in to left a good impression of a small waist, tight buttocks, and muscular legs.
After an interminable lecture on the use and placement of gerunds, during which Adrienne amused herself by watching his lips move seductively, Professor Johnson excused the class and began to gather the papers at his desk.
Adrienne put her books inside her backpack, along with the despised test, and walked up to the front of the room.
"Ah-hem," she said, standing behind the teacher.
"Ah, Miss Courtalaine," Professor Johnson smiled warmly while his eyes roamed up and down Adrienne's body. "I've noticed that you haven't been doing very well on your tests. They aren't very important in the long run, not worth much of the grade, and I'll be dropping the lowest score. I was thinking maybe you could benefit from some extra study time."
Adrienne flushed, color rushing to her cheeks as she furiously blinked back her embarrassment.
"It's not that I don't study, sir," she said curtly, "Sometimes I just find it so hard to understand what the book is talking about. I don't know the difference between subordinating conjunctions and correlative conjunctions. I think that if I could just sit down with someone and have that person explain the concepts to me, then I could at least pass the tests. But just reading about it isn't doing enough."
"Well," said the professor, "Maybe we could work something out. There are tutors available between noon and two o'clock on Thursdays, do you think going over to them might help?"
"I have class," she muttered. "Plus I'm afraid that two sessions aren't going to help me too much."
"Hmm…that does make it a little more difficult…Well, Miss Courtalaine, maybe we could work something out. Are you free after four o'clock?"
"My last class ends at three thirty."
"My office hours end at three forty-five, but I could open my services up to you after that, before my five o'clock class, to help you study, if you would like."
Adrienne's eyes lit up. Spend time alone with this professor? She would love to!
"That would be wonderful, sir!" she exclaimed. "Thank you so much!"
After flashing him a beaming smile, Adrienne turned and walked out of the classroom as though floating on a cloud. This was going to be great!!
**
"Alone with Adam Johnson? Just the two of you? Oh my god Adrienne you are so lucky!" Adrienne's friend Carly jumped up and down in her seat with excitement. "Do you think you two will get it on?"
Adrienne gave Carly a friendly shove from across the table. The dim bar was filling up rapidly. The club was the closest bar to the university and it was busy, even for a Saturday night. Groups of students sat around tables laughing with each other as one person or another told drunken jokes about blondes walking in to bars with hilarious consequences. Music blared over the shouting throng of students, and through all of this Adrienne and Carly strained to hear each other from the opposite sides of a table.
"How can you say such a thing?" she asked. "We're going to be talking about, uhgh, grammar. Can you think of anything that's less of a turn on?"
"You're going to be alone in that man's office and thinking about grammar? Puh-leeze, you're only human! I bet verbs are the furthest thing from your mind." Carly gave a tipsy hiccup.
The two girls giggled.
"We're going to start meeting Monday," Adrienne took another long drink of her long island iced tea. "I feel like I'm going on a first date. Do you think I should dress up to meet the professor?"
"Oh my god, yes! You should wear that black dress you bought last weekend." The dress in question was a tiny, flimsy bit of fabric hanging off of two spaghetti strings. There was such little fabric to it that it could hardly be called a dress. When Adrienne had tried it on, she'd had to pull it down to keep her thighs modestly covered, and had purchased it exclusively for parties.
"I couldn't wear that, it's practically lingerie, for god's sake!" Adrienne shook her head uncertainly and watched the ice clink around in her glass.
"Honey, I'm serious. You should really give this guy a go. When else will you have a chance to show off to a man this hot?" Carly rolled her eyes back. "He is drop-dead sexy. He teases us all day, for gods sake, why don't you give him a little of his own medicine?"
"But he's the teacher! I doubt he's driving us crazy on purpose. And what do you think he would think of me showing up in more leg than skirt? He'd probably tell me to go home and get dressed."
"Not if he's human, girl. I think it's more likely he'll invite you over to his place to get undressed."
"I don't want to seduce him, I just want to pass the class." Adrienne propped her chin in her hand, elbow resting on the table. "Of course, nothing says I can't get learn in that black dress."
"My opinion is 'Go For It Girlfriend,' do what that lust of yours tells you to do! I promise you, nothing bad could possibly come of it!"
"Maybe he'd ask me out," mused Adrienne.
"Maybe he'd fuck you!" laughed Carly. "Maybe he'd bend you over that big desk of his and fuck your brains out, so that you couldn't study no matter how hard you tried!"
"I bet that would be some wild ride," giggled Adrienne, rolling her eyes. "I can just imagine him pounding in to me, chanting 'A transitive verb is an action verb, it requires a direct object to complete it's meaning into the sentence.'"
Carly burst in to fits of laughter.
"Honesty, Adrienne, if you can joke like that how could you have failed another one of the tests? Are there any opportunities for make-ups?"
"No, but maybe there's some extra-credit I could do," Adrienne joined in her friends laughter.
"So are you going to do it? Are you going to wear that dress?"
"I don't know, I really don't know if I should…I want to, I really, really want to…maybe a couple more drinks will help me figure it out."
Carly squealed in delight as someone placed their hands over her eyes and whispered/shouted "Guess who" in her ear.
Josh Kilgore slid into the booth next to Carly.
"What're you two kids up to tonight?" he asked.
"Not much," answered Adrienne. "Just having a good time."