The bar's back room was empty, the pool table unused. Our morning class had ended an hour ago, and I was confident the front room had been emptying except for the bartender, a casual friend, as the girls came in. I'd had them leave their phones and bags in over on the pool table. This was a townie place, too low class for faculty, too early in the day for the regulars, the students didn't come in because they were scared of the locals. The girls had followed my instructions and come by after class and found me sitting with a cup of coffee and a book.
"You know you're an asshole" the words came out with anger and something else, something closer to disgust, from between the perfect pink lips. I'd just explained to them what I thought I could do to help.
"Of course, I know I'm an asshole, what kind of person wouldn't realize it?" I asked in haste. Almost immediately as the words left my mouth... I laughed at myself. Most of the assholes in the world probably thought they were heroes and not villains, thought they were nice, but not me. For a moment my brain started to be drawn to considering what the worst thing I'd ever done had been but seeing the looming list of my asshole accomplishments in my mind's eye, I shook my head and refocused.
Still laughing I looked over at the girls' faces, mouths hanging open agape, confusion winning over the anger that had caused the one on the left to say I was an asshole. I tried to stop laughing but was still smiling and chuckling as I answered my own question. "Okay, I take that back, most assholes are too stupid to realize they are assholes. But I'm not stupid, just an asshole. So, what will it be?"
The girls looked at me in that mix of confusion, surprise and the one on the right, her name was Katie, had closed her mouth tightly, and her face radiated outrage. She had been the one to call me an asshole, she had the most perfect lips in a coral-colored lip gloss that reminded me of something a child would wear. The other girl, on the left, who seemed to not be able to wrap her idiot mind around the situation was still more confused than angry and was sputtering, making incoherent noises as her mind tried to process a response or plan.
"I'm not doing that" said Katie through clenched teeth.
I smiled broadly and was about to reiterate the effects of refusing ultimatum, the one that had clarified for Katie that I was in fact an asshole, when her friend managed to make words come out of her mouth. As she spoke, I tried to remember her name.
"Okay. I don't want to fail the exam...." She still looked confused, but she didn't look angry or disgusted the way Katie did.
"You can't be serious Becca!" Katie laid the disgusted angry look at her friend, and I was glad for the reminder of Becca's name, Katie had been in a class of mine before, but her friend hadn't.
"Don't get high and mighty with me, you've sucked worse looking guys off for no reason at all" Becky's face had shifted from the confusion to a defensive anger at her friend.
"Okay" I interrupted, that's cool, the problem is I can't give one of you the answers to the exam and expect you not to share?"
They both looked at me, and at each other, angry. Becca seemed ready to admit defeat, but Katie wouldn't.
"Okay, let me tell you again, you're both failing the class, as your Teaching assistant, I can't just give you good grades, the grades are checked by the professor, but you asked if there was anything you could do to up the grade, and this is it. I'll give you the exam grades for the Final Exam for a blow job from each of you..." I paused..."or you can do it together, more time efficient that way?"
"Fuck you" Katie managed to retort. But she drew more response for the outburst from Becca than from me. I continued to maintain my detached calm.
"But you promise we'll pass, interjected Becca before Katie could explode again" her voice was hopeful, and confused still, she couldn't quite do the calculations of what to do in her head, and I could watch her prior experience relying on other people winning inside of her. She had always accepted direction from those of us in positions of authority, to make what she never really felt were her decisions.
I pause a moment, deciding what to say and putting on a carefully practiced condescending look, adding a tone one would use talking to a child as I reply.
"I can't promise you anything, once you've got a copy of the answer key, you'll have to memorize it, or try to cheat, and if you cheat and get caught, I won't be able to help you." I'm careful, I have very few limits to being an asshole, but I don't break a promise, I had sworn to my mother never to break a promise. I may sort of hate everyone else, but I still love my mother, god rest her soul.
"But with the answers we'll pass, right?" Becca had a tone of desperation in her voice, Katie was just glowering at both of us. I could see Becca wanting reassurance of which path to take.
"A high grade on the exam is a prerequisite to passing most classes, you know that. As for you passing...." I paused for effect. "You should be able to guess, you know your average, get an 80 or above on the final and you'll have managed a D+/C- in the class, course credit, and you won't have to repeat. You'll be done with your humanities requirements and you can get back to... what is it you study?"
"We're both going to be nurses" stuttered out Becca, her face betraying the difficulty she had in processing what I had said about numbers and causing me to wonder for the future of medicine if this girl could be responsible for someone's life one day.
"I'm sure you'll be great at giving people comfort," I said it to Becca, and she smiled, maybe halfheartedly. I was picturing her in a porny nurses outfit giving me a sponge bath, and it must have shown on my face because Katie interrupted.
"You're so fucking gross." Her scowl did more to arouse me than the fantasy did, somehow, I liked her distress.
"Becca, don't let Katie make the decision for you, if you want to pass, you have a choice, maybe you can study between now and Friday and make up a semester's worth of work, or you can take my offer." I turned to Katie, "Katie, you are in the same position, only you need to think about your friend too, I think she needs your help."
"Fuck you" Katie said, she seemed even angrier.
"Katie, let me tell you something, you're angry because you're in this situation, but you chose to blow off the class all semester, you skipped the tutoring sessions I offer every week, you didn't do extra credit, you ignored my email offer to help after you failed the midterm, and when I asked about your record, you're scraping by in your other classes too. If you fail this class, you can basically forget graduating on time, and you'll just see me Professor Hines next semester, because you know that this will still be the easier class than the alternatives then." I was smiling, smug, but I solidified my tone, the tone I used for serious issues in the classes I covered for Dr. Hines, and she didn't say anything. "Look, Becca, she's here to meet a guy, get married, and you know what. It'll work, Tri Deltas are in demand. But you're not a sorority girl, and you are on the verge of losing your scholarship. You need to pass. So, you have the same choice. You can try to study a semester's worth of rhetoric, meaning and linguistics theory before Friday, or you can do what you have always done, take the easy way out. And it won't be so bad, I bet. As Becca has said, you know you've given head for less important reasons."
She sat silently, trying perhaps to kill me with her eyes.
I'd decided to push it with Katie after seeing her profiles online, Initially I had hate-scrolled through her Facebook after she had given me bad evaluation comments, I was apparently arrogant and terrible at my job with no backbone and no authority in the classroom.
She'd mentioned her Facebook in one of the weak little writing assignments she occasionally deigned to turn in over the fall semester. That'd been in Dr. Hines' other class in the fall. Her longest paper, nearly a half page, had included a story of how easy it was in high school because she was such a natural communicator. And she had passed the Communication and Writing class, taking it pass fail. But She didn't know that in the end Dr. Hines had let her pass by the skin of her teeth. She had convinced Becca to join her in the more advanced class, because it would be easy. She had said it would be easy to pass with no work, because Professor Hines was a pushover and graded anyone who showed cleavage. That wasn't entirely wrong, he had let her pass because she was cute and her fifty eight average, 50 points for participation, were so close to the sixty she needed to pass. She had said we were a joke, and she had talked, openly, about the fact that she hadn't written anything in college, didn't give a shit, and was smarter than us.
The silence was getting to Becca, who I saw was beginning to tear up, and quietly sniffle, Katie stared at me. But it wasn't the Facebook that pushed me over the edge, she had posted something about someone in the local fetish scene as being a pansy, and I'd recognized her thinly veiled reference. It took me less than ten minutes of checking on Fetlife and another site to find her profile, claiming she was a badass submissive, with experience and a better domme than any man around here, claiming she had bigger balls than anyone in the small college town. She talked about herself very proudly, and I wanted to take her down a notch. But after asking covertly about her among friends in the scene, apparently she hadn't actually done much, hadn't played, never came to a munch or any events, just talked shit online.
The silence finally cracked Becca's sniffling into louder balling, and Katie finally was distracted from our staring contest.
"Sorry Becca, It seems like Katie isn't willing to do what it takes, she's too proud, but I'll tell you what. After you both fail, you can just retake the class and work harder next time." I stood up.
Becca tried to wipe her face. And I could see her make up smear, Katie's anger wasn't diminished but she looked less prone to violence in light of her friends tears.
"Katie. I understand you won't do it because you need the grade..." I was looming now, and rolling up my sleeves. "But in the end I think you want to do it, because I bet being powerless has made you wet."
Becca hadn't really heard me, she was too busy crying, as Katie went pale and her mouth fell open she looked at her friend, to see what, to seek support, to check if she had heard me. I don't know.
"Oh, are you surprised I said that." I slipped my belt out of the belt loops of my jeans, the broad black leather belt rasping as it came free. "I'm going to tell you what, you think I need to ask you, or give you the answer sheet, I could bend you over that pool table and fuck you, because you're too weak to say no. You know, you can call me an asshole, you can say fuck you, but you haven't said no."
I straightened my tie, and then folded the belt over into a loop, and wrapped most of the length around my fist. I slapped it hard against my other open hand, spanking it.
Becca watched me trying to make words come out of her mouth, sputtering, at first pale and then red faced, before saying again: "Fuck You."
"Like I said, you are having trouble saying no."
I turned to Becca, and smiled. I reached out and handed her a neatly folded handkerchief I pulled from my waistcoat pocket, and she looked somewhat confused before she took it and started to wipe her nose, she wasn't paying any attention and with my open hand I stroked her hair gently.
"Becca's going to be okay." I lifted Becca's chin and she looked at me, "Becca, go to the bar and have Tom get you something to drink, on me, you need to calm down. Everything will be okay."
Becca took a long second to react but she got up and walked to the front room leaving Katie alone with me. Katie looked at me face reddened and eyes glancing around her.
"I have a confession to give you Katie, I don't like you, I'm of the opinion you've never worked hard for anything, and you skate by, but what really bugs me is that you badmouth people online in a world you don't know anything about."
