Part one of what will hopefully be a series. My first submission in a long time so feedback is welcome!
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She sat at the back of the lecture hall, her legs crossed at the knees, bent at a right angle to her upper body to allow her knees to poke up next to the arm desk. She wore similar clothes most days, a collared shirt and a warm but flattering sweater to combat the permanent chill of the over air conditioned school buildings and either comfortable jeans or a flirty but not outrageous skirt. She was a normal, pretty but not remarkable college student. Her one concession to absurdity tended to be her shoes which varied wildly with her mood, from neon pink Chuck Taylors paired with a skirt from the Gap or ridiculous high heels in brightest cherry red with ratty old blue jeans. Today she wore a conservative black skirt that flared out at the knees and a blue silk blouse under a loose sweater vest. When she had sat down her skirt had ridden up exposing a long line of skin on the top leg, slightly pink and angry looking from a recent sun burn. About half way through the lecture she had reached down to straighten her skirt, realized there was no skirt to straighten, and glanced up at him quickly, a faint flush of embarrassment spreading across her face. But then she had seen his eyes focused glassily on her thigh while his mouth lectured on auto pilot and, after hesitating for a moment, had left the skirt where it was.
Twenty minutes later he was starting to feel lightheaded from all the blood rushing south. She was sitting in the back row giving her the perfect opportunity to tease him without being seen by anyone else. She had worn the red high heels today, probably celebrating the fact that spring had finally arrived in upstate New York, and he was starting to realize why those types of shoes were called fuck me pumps. She had shifted in her seat right when some little jerk in the front row had asked a question which forced him to turn and write on the board for a few minutes and when he turned back to the classroom he almost swallowed his tongue. He had assumed that the shift she had begun when he turned away was merely going to be fidgeting her knees or some such but instead she had stretched both impossibly long legs out over the arm of the chair next to her and was writing on the flimsy little arm desk sideways. She was taking up both seats and he felt the sudden irrational urge to call her out on it, to chastise her in front of the entire room, both for behaving inappropriately and for taking up both seats. He thought better of it and tried to focus on explaining Medieval barter economies and tried desperately to ignore the shocking red shoes crossed over slim ankles lurking in the back of the room.
He got to the end of the lecture, barely, and was chugging his water bottle as the students filed out, already excitedly talking about whatever fun they were planning on the suddenly green and summery quad. He firmly resolved to be extremely busy with very important papers as the students left so that he would not have to look at the shoes clicking down the steps from the back of the room. But he could hear them. They tapped along, dawdling down the steps, getting louder and louder as the other noises diminished with the rapidly emptying classroom, until they were the only sound at all. They moved across the room and stopped in front of the podium. He was still standing on the ledge behind the podium, placed there to give inexperienced young professors like himself extra height and an added sense of authority, and she had stopped at exactly the right distance that he could see just a bit of the red shoes over the blank papers he was so busily shuffling. After what felt like an awkward eternity he had to look up and almost swallowed his tongue for the second time. She had taken off her sweater and her shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cream bra. Her hands were clasped behind her, forcing her chest, and the gaping shirt as well, out towards him in a posture that was both provocative and innocent. He stepped down from the dais and put his bag on the table beside it, turning his back on her, desperately tucking papers into folders, anything so that he wouldn't have to see the red shoes and the open shirt behind him.
He did pretty well ignoring her for about 15 seconds and then he froze as he heard the heels tap towards him once, twice and then she was standing next to him, in front of the table, her shoulder a millimeter away from his, so close that he could feel the warmth of her body. He was breathing hard, wondering what she was going to do next, when she turned quickly and hopped up onto the table swinging her legs off the edge like a kid but with those incongruous, murderous, blood red high heels. The only thing he could hear was his own pulse and the only thing he could see was her fingers as she fiddled with the bottom button of her blouse.
There were seven, tiny pearl buttons, he realized distractedly, as she fiddled the bottom one open.
Now only six.
