You'd think graduate students would be better behaved, right? I mean, we're adults, we've done the college partying thing. We're there to get our degrees, basically, and that's about it. At least, that's the theory. And while, for the most part, my experience doing graduate work was like that, there was one particular incident that veered so far off the path of "appropriate" it probably would have gotten all three of us kicked out if we'd been caught.
We were taking Human Sexuality that semester, almost our lastāone more semester and we'd all have a Masters in Psychology. There were three of us who missed one of the "audio-visual" days in the class. I happened to have jury duty. I don't know what Matt and Laurie's excuses were, but I had a feeling they were probably together doing something they shouldn't have been. They were both marriedāto other peopleābut we all knew what was going on between them.
Our professor was a typical California crunchy-granola type, very soft-spoken and sweet. I think we all found it a little disconcerting to be talking about vaginas and penises and erectile dysfunction with a woman who could barely speak above a whisper. I remember her always fighting with her long, frizzy brown hair, pushing it behind her ears, pulling it back into ponytails that hung halfway down her back. She fidgeted. She made me nervous, even if the topic really didn't.
I think that was the reason she insisted on the videos. She was in love with the videos as a teaching tool, or really, replacement was more like it. Matt and Laurie had passed notes through the erectile dysfunction video two weeks before, and I'd worked on the paper I had due for Marriage and Family.
Not that parts of the video weren't interesting. The last one had been intriguing. But it was shocking to sit in a classroom with fifty other people and watch couples practice techniques to prolong erection on the flat screen up front. They were real couplesāreal men, with real penises. Rather hard ones. And their partners were real women, learning how to squeeze the base of the penis just before ejaculation. Which meant watching these men get stroked off a lot, getting
thisclose
to coming. Over and over.
I admit, I was soaking wet after that one. I knew it was supposed to be clinical and a learning experience, but damn... The body responds, sometimes, involuntarily. I crossed and uncrossed my legs a lot during that class. Did a lot of wiggling in my seat. Wondered if anyone else was having the same reaction I was? I mean, how could they not? I know Matt and Laurie left together pretty quickly after class, and I saw his hand slip low on her behind, squeezing, as they went out the door.
The video the three of us had missed was about masturbation. "Normalizing Masturbation" was the title, she told us as she slipped the tape into the VCR. Laurie and Matt exchanged a look. I tried not to watch them and focused on the screen, thinking about the paper I had due in Ethics and wondering if I was going to have time to work on it if the prof left the room.
I didn't have to wonder longāshe told us we could go after the tape was finished, that she'd be in her office in the next building if we needed her. I actually considered leaving. I think Laurie and Matt did too. We exchanged a raised eyebrow sort look when she left, contemplating, and I probably would have gone. I think they would have, too.
But then the tape started.
And it started with a nude woman, lying on her back, hooked up to electrodes as if she were a science experiment. It was clearly a late seventies or early eighties videoāshe had short, dark feathered hair, and I don't think she'd ever even thought about any sort of depilatory process between her thighs, as was the current fashion. I was shaved completely smooth down there except for a small curly-red landing strip. I wondered briefly if Laurie was shaved, something that had never occurred to me before. She was stunning, impeccably dressed, always in short skirts showing off her long, smooth, tanned legs
But that we were watching a nude woman on a table hooked up to all sorts of machines wasn't the shocking part. That came next, when the narrator told us she was going to masturbate, and they would be measuring her physical responseāhence all the wires. Laurie leaned over to Matt and whispered something to him, her long dark hair hiding her face as she did. He gave a low laugh, his eyes skipping from the screen over to me.
It was a surreptitious look, something I could tell he didn't want Laurie to see, and that, coupled with the fact that the woman on the screen was now spreading her pussy open for all of us to see, made my pulse increase. It was a good thing I wasn't hooked up to any wires, I decided. Matt and Laurie were talking, their voices too low for me to hear, his shaved head bent toward hers. I found intentionally bald men incredibly sexy. They really made a handsome couple.
I took out the notes I'd made already for my paper, trying to concentrate, but on the screen the woman was using two fingers to rub her clit. The narrator was explaining that the clitoris was the female equivalent of the male penis, hidden behind a "hood" of flesh similar to the male's foreskin. The clitoris was extremely sensitive and felt good when touched, the narrator went on.
Well, duh. I crossed my legs, squeezing them together, feeling my own clit throbbing. The woman on screen was breathing faster. Hell, so was I. The words on the paper in front of me blurred as I listened to her masturbate, her fingers moving faster and faster between her legs. I glanced at the screenāmy face was almost as flushed as hers. High color dotted her cheeks, and her lip-glossed mouth opened with a soft sigh, a low moan. Christ, this was like watching pornāexcept in a classroom, where I wasn't supposed to be turned on by it!
Just a few desks away, Matt and Laurie were responding, too. Laurie slid down in her seat, her skirt riding up, and although her back was to me, I saw Matt leaning in toward her, and I wondered where his hand was. The thought made my heart race and I tried not to look like I was watching, but I wasāI was watching hard. Then Laurie's bare footāshe'd kicked off her heelsāfound its way to Matt's crotch, rubbing there. His hips pressed forward to give him better access and I stared at the bulge there.
When Laurie's head went back against the desk seat, I couldn't help but see the similarities between her flushed face and the woman on the screen. They were both breathing hard, breasts rising and falling, mouths open in soft "o's" as they got closer to climax. I couldn't believe what I was seeingāeither on screen or off. Matt and Laurie were paying no attention to me. I glanced at the door, wondering if someone might come in, my pussy aching between my legs. God, I wanted him to touch me like that. I could tell he was touching herāI couldn't see his hand up under her skirt, but I saw the muscles high on his arm moving, flexing with the motion.
"Almost," I heard Laurie whisper and my clit throbbed. I couldn't stop staring. The woman on the screen was nothing compared to the show going on right in front of me. The sight was irresistible, and so was the blissful agony between my legs. I had to touch myself. I had to. I wasn't wearing a skirtāI rarely wore them at allābut I pressed the seam of my jeans against my clit, moving it back and forth as Laurie pushed her hips forward, back. She was fucking his hand under her skirt, and I wanted to see. God, I wanted to see.
I lifted my eyes to the screen for a moment. The woman there was just as close as Laurie, her thighs shaking, her nipples hard. The narrator told us the obviousāthe woman was about to have an orgasm. When I turned my gaze back to the room, my eyes met Matt's and I froze. He was watching me, his arm and hand still working under Laurie's skirt. His gaze dropped deliberately between my legs, where my hand pressed against that ache.
"Take them off," he mouthed. Laurie's eyes were closed. She couldn't see me, wasn't aware of anything but her own pleasure. I flushed, shaking my head, moving my hand away. There was no way I could do anything so...
