Passing Grade 4

It had been a good year for Ivy Zhang. The graduate science teacher had been fortunate enough to land a position at a prestigious girls' school, and she was hugely popular with the staff and students. She was young, beautiful and exotic to the students, and didn't shy away from taking on extra responsibility in the school. Unlike her older, conservative colleagues, she was a big pusher for new computers and interactive whiteboards, and encouraged her students to make use of the internet for their projects. Ivy would learn, however, that the warnings of her old-fashioned peers weren't just ignorant fears of modern technology. She had her first lesson in the pitfalls of her progressive style of teaching.

Her 9th grade science class had completed a unit covering geology and had just submitted PowerPoint presentations on a topic of their choice. She was especially looking forward to one of her best students, Sara. Sara was an interesting case. She was hard working, but she wasn't as academically inclined as her older sister, who was in her final year. Her parents were traditional and conservative and expected to either study to become a doctor, or marry a rich man. At times she showed signs of the overburdening pressure, and her high grades seemed to come with an undertone of "please, don't let me fail my parents". Ivy rewarded Sara for her effort, but there was no skirting around this project.

Ivy waited in the classroom. Sara turned up slightly late, having come from an after-school assessment she had to catch up with. After sitting her down, Ivy opened Sara's file and took a breath.

"I've read through you work," Ivy began, delivering the typical teacher lines she had rehearsed for years. "There's something I'm concerned about." Sara sat quietly. To her, anything less than an A was reason to be upset, but this was something much worse. "Sara, the project you submitted was quite...inappropriate. I'm afraid I've had to send a report to your coordinator."

The young student gazed at her teacher, mouth slightly open, but with no words coming out, allowing Ivy to explain. "You chose to do your project on quicksand. Your research seems good and you explained the concept well, but this part..." Ivy moved through the slides, "is quite...disturbing. You've stated that quicksand is a fetish and that people get turned on by being in quicksand."

"That's what I read!" Sara protested, breaking her silence.

Ivy continued. "You then included several images of...women...posing in quicksand, and you even included a video clip. Sara, this is pornography."

"No, Miss, you don't understand," Sara interjected, close to tears. "There were forums full of experts and I joined one and asked them about quicksand. I found links to these stories and pictures and videos and..."

"Sara, the sites you referenced are adult sites. You lied about your age to sign up. These are strangers...disturbed people...who you were talking to. Did you tell them where you lived? Do you realise they could be pedophiles? This was meant to be a simple science project and you've decided to talk about people making sick home videos with models getting off by getting stuck in quicksand? What were you thinking?"

Sara was speechless. She looked down. Even Ivy was burning with anger and embarrassment from her own outburst. Her hands were gripping her desk. She honestly felt terrible for Sara, who was only doing her best to get a high grade without realising what she had stumbled into. Ivy really didn't want to do this, but she was professionally bound to report these incidents. It was school policy.

"The school has decided to suspend you for a week. You will also receive counselling. This assignment will be reported as an F on your report and will go on your record. I'm sorry Sara, but this is for your own safety and wellbeing."

* * *

"That's a shame," Chantelle said, lying on the bunk bed. "There are good kids that turn bad."

"She didn't turn bad," Ivy replied. "It's the expectation her parents have on her. Her sister got into university, her younger brother is a jock, and she's being expected to live up to her parents' standards. It's unfair for her. Besides, that happened three years ago. She's gotten over it since."

Chantelle grunted and sipped from her bottle. It felt relieving to hear Ivy open up like this. Though they had done well at the school for the past three years together, the environment wasn't exactly conducive for frank discussions about the students and staff. Chantelle and Ivy had been asked by the school to supervise the students on a week-long camp for the senior students. They were chosen not so much because they were keen, but because they were young and, according to the school leadership, young people have more time and energy. It was that kind of attitude that frustrated the young teachers, who had to bear the burden of running the extra-curricular activities and sports teams. It was also for that reason that the two teachers were lax on enforcing the school's disciplinary policy. The students were in their final year. They were stressed and wanted to relax before the final term, and their final exams. The teachers were stressed too. The camp nearly failed to happen because the school wanted to keep the students focused, and Chantelle only managed to compromise by only bringing a dozen students.

Though they had specifically told the girls not to bring alcohol, they were all over eighteen. There was certainly bound to be a few drinks, and as far as the young teachers were concerned, they were going to turn a blind eye as long as the girls didn't carried away. With that in mind, the teachers switched off their cabin light and went to sleep.

A few hours later, they were disturbed by a knock on the door. It was one of the girls. Chantelle and Ivy got up and did a spot inspection of the girls' cabin. They saw what they expected - a few bottles of spirits, clothes strewn about, and no one asleep. But it wasn't because of the spontaneous birthday celebration. Sara was missing.

She had wandered off and the girls had forgotten about her. None of them could remember when she was last seen or where she went. It was only when they agreed to stop the celebration and head to sleep that they noticed the empty bunk. Ivy had the shaky, sick feeling in the back of her throat, but with only her and Chantelle in charge, she had to restore order. There was a large area to cover - the cabins, the road, and the path to the beach were the first places she could think of. The problem was that it was the middle of the night. The moon was obscured by the clouds, offering little ambient light, and as they hadn't planned any night activities, no one had thought about bringing a torch. The last thing they wanted was to lose someone else while looking for Sara.

It was a tough call for the young teacher, but she figured they had to work together to find Sara. If anything, being involved in the search kept everyone calm. She divided the group into pairs or threes and sent them to different areas, and kept Chantelle and one other student at the cabins to act as the home base for the others to check in routinely. Even with this deployment, it was impossible to cover every possible area. This could be a long night, and Ivy was already dreading the worst.

The cabins were located a kilometre away from the beach. The direct route was a heavily overgrown path that took them through thick vegetation. The path wasn't forgiving, having several steep sections and patches of waterlogged sand. It was already challenging to navigate during the day. At night, it was almost a death trap. Ivy was only able to follow the track based on memorising her steps from earlier in the morning, but with the night forming shadows everywhere, she was honestly afraid of the tall, spindly trees that surrounded her. A wrong turn would mean she be lost as well. The only thing keeping her head clear was Mary, one of Sara's friends who volunteered to come with Ivy down this treacherous path.

The searched seemed to go on forever. Ivy was beginning to wonder whether Sara had made it all the way down to the beach, which would have taken half an hour and involved following the dangerous trail until it reached the vehicle track, eventually joining with the road that led to the beach. It sounded too far-fetched for a midnight stroll, but from what she remembered, it wasn't that hard to get a sense of direction once the vehicle track was reached. It was the swamp-like terrain between the camp and the beach that was tough. The sediment deposited in the shallow area was prone to forming sinkholes, and even the walking tracks turned into sticky morasses during wet weather. With the dark clouds and the sound of distant thunder, it looked like it was going to be a rainy night.

Then, Ivy heard her voice. As Ivy had been chatting to Mary to keep her calm, Sara had overheard their voices and called out. Ivy felt her way through the vegetation until she found her lost student. Sara had fallen into what looked like a deep pit, formed by the dry sand collapsing, trapped Sara into a hole she couldn't climb out of. It was too deep for Ivy to pull her out, so Ivy sent Mary back to the camp to report to the others while Ivy stayed with Sara. Mary hurried off, but it would take nearly an hour to reach the camp and assemble everyone.

Sara was awfully quiet. Ivy decided to reach Sara by herself. It was a treacherous drop - a missed step and she might even break her neck. Ivy contemplated her move. She realised how dark the place was, and that the others were likely to miss Sara's pit even with Mary's guidance. Ivy was wearing a white singlet that could be sighted even in the low light. She could hang it from one of the trees and use it to point the rescue team in the right direction. The problem was that Ivy wasn't wearing anything underneath, seeing how she had just gotten out of bed. Between being found topless and saving Sara's life, she decided that she could explain her tits when she got to it.

Shredding her top and leaving patches on several branches in a line, she returned to the hole. The night was rather warm, but despite that her nipples were already hard from the exposure to the night sea air. Sara was still down there and responded meekly. From what Ivy could see, there was a small ledge that stuck out from the otherwise sheer drop. Holding onto an overhanging root, she began to shimmy her way down. It was a very nerve-wracking climb. The roots came loose several times, and the ledge she found crumbled as soon as she put weight on it. The sand wall began to dissolve, taking Ivy down with it. She clawed at it to slow her fall, but fortunately she touched the bottom of the hole a second later. Winded, she looked up to see Sara kneeling over her. Sara had a few scratches on her face and arms, and her pyjamas were torn up from walking through the vegetation and falling into the hole, showing off my skin than school policy would allow.

"Sara," Ivy said in her teacher voice. "You look like you got into a fight with a tree."

* * *

It's said that just one line at the right time is enough to know that you're on the same side. Getting that connection was essential for both of them. With the storm clouds closing in and the rain drizzling, the teacher-student pair huddled together, unfazed by their half-nakedness. Rather than feeling awkward, their predicament brought them together. They talked, waiting out the time it would take for the others to find them, if they could even venture out in the downpour and find their way, signposted by Ivy's shreds of cloth.

Sara, as she revealed, had been going through a rough patch. The suspension she received years ago from Ivy had turned her life around. Her parents were ashamed and suddenly the expectation went to impossible heights. No matter how hard she worked, how well she did, her one mistake was brought up time and time again. She couldn't live it down. Now, on the eve of her finals, she couldn't take it. She wanted time off, time by herself, away from everyone. Having fallen into the pit and realised that she might never get out, she went through that humiliating chapter in her life. It had been her mistake, and she realised that her teacher was only doing what was right. She apologised to Ivy, and they hugged to make up for years of contempt. As if to acknowledge their reconciliation, the rain stopped. The humidity made the rain sticky and uncomfortable rather than cold and wet, and it turned the sandy in the pit into a sloppy, slippery good that made it impossible to get a hold.

"Damn it," Ivy muttered, "my feet keep getting stuck."

Sara stopped. She looked down at her feet and noticed the sand creeping over her ankles. "Miss Zhang, wait..."

She could hear the faint gurgle of water moving through the ground, bubbling as it seeped through the wet sediment. Her mind went back to the research she had done - that got her suspended. The movement of moisture through the sand caused liquefaction. Liquefaction meant one thing.

"Quicksand!"

Ivy looked at her student, then looked down to see that she was up to knees in the semi-solid sand. The entire floor of the pit glimmered and quaked. The sand felt like it was suddenly alive, sucking at her legs.

"Don't move!" said Sara, also sinking past her knees. "It makes you sink faster. The water's coming from underneath us. If we keep still, we'll stop sinking."

"You're the expert," Ivy replied, breathing deeply to calm down, and glad that Sara at least sounded like she knew what was happening. She was still worried though. Even if the pit wasn't bottomless, it would make getting out much more difficult if they sank too deep. The shifting sand forced Ivy to keep her arms outstretched for balance. Her bare breasts bounced freely with her twitchy movements. Her nipples were fully erect. Ivy only just realised that she had been grunting and groaning, and that Sara had stood silently, fixated on her. Then, as the quicksand reached Ivy's upper thighs, she felt something else surge through her body. A soft tingle; a familiar warmth. Ivy began to feel another moistness through her shorts as the quicksand touched her crotch. Her eyes fluttered. She began to feel light-headed.

Sara, seeing her teacher in trouble, stepped forward into a soft spot. Her legs slid through the soft quicksand until she reached her crotch. She too felt the warm sand oozing into her shorts and between her legs. She let out a soft moan, carried forward and down by her movement. Her hips moved on their own will, twisting her lower body deeper and allowing more of the sand to press against her young body.

Ivy was feeling hot. The quicksand was bubbling right on her sensitive spot. As inappropriate as it was, she could not stop herself from enjoying it. The danger only amplified the intensity. Restraining herself only made it worse. "Ugh!" she moaned. "Didn't you...ugh...say that people get turned on by this? Ugh...how...?"

"I'm not...ugh...sure...," Sara gasped, "something...something about trapped, like bondage..."

"Oh god," Ivy stifled another moan, caught off by her student dropping the image of bondage. She had settled down past her waist and the quicksand wasn't stopping. She watched helplessly as her torso slipped into the warm, quivering sand. It was only when it began to cup her breasts that Sara called out.

"I've stopped sinking!" she said, up to her waist. Ivy reached out for her. Sara got hold of her hand and began pulling her towards her little island. The sand slurped around Ivy's body, sending shivers as it caressed her breasts. With some struggling, the both stood on the tiny solid piece of ground, holding each other by the waist, bodies pressed together. Though they were no longer sinking, the sand continued to flow around their submerged bodies.

"Oh...oh god!" Sara screamed. "I...I'm sorry...I think I just came..."

Ivy resisted her arousal, but only barely. "Just concentrate," she gasped. But now that they were practically rubbing against each other, lubricated by the sand, it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back. Ivy's mind flashed back to the video Sara had attached to her project. It was something like this - the female model being trapped in a pit, moaning loudly, unable to get out. She didn't recognise it then, but she realised why the video had piqued her interest. It wasn't the nudity or the sexual moans that got her. It was the feeling of being trapped; unable to escape from the living sand that embraced them.

She felt something against her chest. Sara's hands were placed on her ample bosom, massaging them. Ivy would have said something, but she realised that in her intense reflection, she had been caressing Sara's buttocks. This was the taboo situation, the very item in the news that heralded the teacher-student relationship that tainted her profession and got people fired. She could tell Sara to stop. But there they were, trapped in a pit of quicksand, hanging on for dear life. In that moment, it was all they could do to stop themselves from panicking.

They didn't know how long they had been trapped in the pit, or how many times they had reached orgasm. The sand had settled enough that it formed a solid seal around their bodies, pinning their arms against each other. Amazingly, the sky was beginning to light up. It was dawn. And with dawn came the sound of voices calling their names. Finally, they had been found.

* * *

The pile of exam papers looked like a mountain to Ivy. She decided to call it a night. Yet, she couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the stress, or maybe it was the late coffee. Lying in bed, she opened her laptop and opened up a bookmark. She clicked through a few pages. Her hands slipped into her panties and she smiled softly to herself as she found a quick source of pleasure.

Her eyes caught sight of something else. A new thread on the forum. The username was unfamiliar, but she recognised the style of writing, and the story itself - something about going on a school camp, being trapped in quicksand with a hot science teacher, and fingering each other until the sun came up. Ivy grinned with approval. She clicked on the username and sent a private message - to thank Sara for introducing her to this new interest.