Chapter One
She stopped at the mirror just inside her front door to check herself before her students arrived. Monica's shoulder length, dirty blonde hair was neat and tidy with no hair out of place as far as she could see. Her thirty seven year old face showed no signs of wrinkles. She could no longer pass for a woman in her twenties, but she still looked much younger than she actually was.
Until a couple of years ago she had run the art department at Lakehaven College, a local educational institution. The people running the college never seemed to care about her department and she had to fight for everything and anything she needed for her staff and students. After years of frustration she had finally decided to resign her position and teach privately out of her own home. From the beginning she had somehow always been able to attract enough interest to allow her to make a decent living. She wouldn't describe herself as being spectacularly rich, but her current career path paid the bills and let her have a comfortable amount of money in her bank account.
She ran her classes every weekday afternoon and evening, two separate classes per day. Mornings were spent doing the boring, but sadly necessary book work; she loved teaching, but what she was currently doing was also a business and she knew it also had to be treated as such. Sometimes she would run a class on a Saturday or a Sunday, but those were rare; she liked having the weekends for herself.
The class she was going to teach this Wednesday evening was a special one to her. The six students in it had been the first class she had taken on after leaving Lakehaven. All six had enjoyed the class so much that they had collectively asked her if it was possible to have it become a permanent thing. At the time Monica had been unsure if that was something she wanted, but her private teaching endeavor was so new that she didn't feel she could turn down the money.
It was a decision that she was happy she had made. The six of them were now people that she considered to be friends; more than friends actually. So much more that the course of action she was now beginning would have shocked her a couple of years ago. She had fooled around with one or two life models while at Lakehaven, always discreetly, but even then she would never have thought of attempting to seduce an entire class.
With these thoughts in mind Monica waited by the door for her students to arrive. The first was nineteen year old Mark Forest. His father ran a florist shop in town, a business Mark's father expected him to takeover some day. Mark showed every sign that this was something he wanted as well. When the class first started he had only been seventeen and had shown up on the first day with a permission slip from his parents. He told Monica that he knew that some of the planned classes were scheduled to have life models and he was unsure of the exact laws governing life model classes with legal minors present. Monica smiled as she remembered the look of disappointment on his face when she explained that she would only be using life models for advanced classes and not beginning classes involving students such as himself.
When he got to the now open door he said his usual greeting with a quick, "hello" and a smile before casting his glance downward in a shy manner. Despite his shyness Monica had often caught him shooting looks of interest at the three female members of the class with the looks lasting the longest on Ellie. Mark ran a hand through his always rumpled, short, brown hair and adjusted his glasses before taking a seat and preparing for the evening.
As Mark was getting his drawing equipment out of his backpack a second car drove into Monica's driveway. Two people got out and began make their way up toward the house. Lenora Allen, and Dennis Cristos, both twenty years old, had known each other since childhood. They were now roommates and Monica had suspected for some time that they both wanted to be more. Lenora came first, her large breasts bouncing inside her white belly shirt as she bounded up the front steps. She had short blonde hair with blue eyes and always came across as being absolutely adorable; the kind of person you could never be angry at for very long. Dennis walked more casually behind her. He was a short, stocky man with a thick, muscular torso and a complexion that revealed his Greek heritage. He kept his head shaven, a look everyone told him didn't suit him. His bald head, always seeming to be topped with a fedora, combined with the wife beater shirts he always wore made him look like a thug, an image that was the complete opposite of his warn personality. Lenora was a secretary for a local businessman and Dennis was a mechanic.
"Hey!" Lenora cried out. She hugged Monica before running into the house to grab a seat.
As Lenora was racing inside Dennis reached Monica. "How have you been?" he asked as he embraced her in a big hug.
"I'm fine," Monica laughed, "but you can let go of me now."
He laughed as he released her from his hug. With smile and a nod he entered the house and began to get himself ready in the chair right next to Lenora. The chairs and the easels were arranged in a semi-circle around a large black rug in the center of Monica's living room. Lenora and Mark were seated toward the semi-circle's far end with an empty chair between them.
Monica was just about to shut the door again when three cars pulled into her driveway at the same time. After parking the three students waved and smiled at each other before making their way up to Monica's two story house collectively.
Up front was the twenty-two year old Shawn Jackman, a running back for the football team of Sparhawk University, just an hour long drive away from Lakehaven. His blonde hair, blue eyes and farm boy good looks fit into the stereotypical jock look, but his tweed jacket and bow tie did not. Shawn's football scholarship was allowing him to study physiotherapy. Taking art classes and dressing up to give what he himself described as a "bookworm look" were ways that he used to prove that he was "more than just a dumb jock;" his words exactly as far as Monica could recall. Of the men in the class Shawn was the one that Monica had to admit she was the most attracted to.
Walking behind Shawn and talking were the twenty-eight year old Angel Douglas and the twenty year old Ellie Black. Both women had similar looking shoulder length hair, with Angel's being light brown while Ellie's was the darkest shade of black Monica had ever seen. Angel worked as a hostess in her husband's restaurant where Ellie worked as a waitress. Shawn stepped out of the way to allow the two women to reach Monica first.
Both women said hello to their teacher. While Angel held back to talk to Monica, Ellie's gaze turn to the doorway and through it to the living room where most of the group was getting ready for the night's activities. She focused on Mark, the all too obvious object of her affection. She let out a squeal that Monica assumed was supposed to have been under her breath, but was louder and intended, and charged forward to take the still empty seat beside Mark. Ellie could come across as an empty headed bimbo at times, but she had a quick mind that could surprise you as well. It wasn't a good idea to take her too lightly.
Monica, along with Shawn and Angel, shook her head at Ellie's antics. They all smiled as Mark looked shyly at Ellie for a second before turning his eyes back to his sketchbook, which he'd set on the easel in front of him. Ellie grinned and looked pleased with the short bit of attention Mark had given her.
Shawn stepped forward and gave Monica an envelope. "Here you go," he said with a smile.
"What's this for?" Monica asked as she opened it.
Inside was a white greeting card, its front covered in pink flowers with the word "Anniversary" centered prominently. She opened it to see written inside the words, "Thank you Ms. Yost for all of the enjoyment in your classes over these past two years."
"I knew it had been two years that I've been holding these classes," Monica said, trying to remember the exact date that they started, "but I didn't realize that the anniversary was so close."
Shawn laughed at her reaction and hugged her. "Aren't women supposed to be the ones who remember these things and men the ones who forget?" he asked with a wink, the tone of his voice teasing in nature.
"It's not the exact date," Angel said, her voice filled with laughter.
"No," Shawn replied with a smile, "it was a couple of days ago, but this is the first day I've seen Monica since then."
