Hey, folks! Bit of a darker one here. (I mean, that should go a bit without saying, because we're in "NonConsent/Reluctance"...) I considered putting this in Fetish because it's pretty pretty darn Fetish-y, but I feel the "NonConsent/Reluctance" warning is the more-important one to come in here with full knowledge of. (
Which
fetish? Well, I hate saying for spoiler reasons, but the tags will let you know, and if you think of the intersection of "sex" and "biology," you're probably there.)
This is the first of three parts.
All characters participating in sexual activity in these stories are 18+.
* * *
And there it was.
C-
Katie stared at the two red lines that dispassionately threatened to upend her life forever. The single line of the red-curved "C" was bad enough — devastating, really. But the red line of the minus made it all the worse. It meant her grade was not the mediocre 75% of a straight C, but the 71.25% that the minus conveyed. And, in fact, it was
worse
than that; her actual grade had been a 71.
15
%... Dr. Voss had apparently been generous in his rounding. Her heart sank, the implications became gravely clear, and she felt sick in her soul.
Other students in the Hall Five corridor darted to the side as Katie sprinted to the restroom. She flung herself into a stall and started violently vomiting.
"GRLGH...
grlgh
...grglgph..."
Her stomach still tied in knots, Katie wiped her mouth and splashed cold water on her clammy skin. Her breathing was ragged, but she began trying to come up with any way out of her predicament.
The hesitant words from weeks ago of some upperclassmen guys echoed in her ears. "Dr. Voss? It's... a very hard class. Can't really recommend it." Still, Voss's was the only Introduction to Biology class that fit the rest of her schedule; no matter how she jiggered her other courses, there was always some other conflict, and the path of least resistance in all cases was just to take Voss's class.
Besides, it couldn't be
that
difficult; the RateMyProf website said that the average grade in the class was a solid
B
– a little below the
B+
average that other Intro Biology classes at Hatherton University gave, to be sure, but not
that
beyond the pale; surely the difference between a
B
and a
B+
couldn't be enough to torpedo the entirety of her schedule.
Furthermore — Katie told herself at the time — a
B
is the
average;
that
must
mean some students do better, others do worse. That is literally the way averages work. And Katie was never shy about classroom difficulty; she was the valedictorian at Centerdale High, and never earned anything less than an
A
previously. It was literally inconceivable to her as she submitted her class-request form that she would have a problem with
any
of her classes.
Sadly, that was not the case. Objectively, on paper, she was doing fine at the university. She had an
A-
in every other class... a perfectly respectable range of grades. However, the Melnik Scholarship she was enrolled under — the only way she could afford Hatherton, or
any
university — was very strict. In addition to maintaining full compliance with the student code of conduct, she had to maintain a GPA of no less than a 3.7... an
A-.
Anything less than that, and the funding goes away. And since Hatherton is a high-five-figure annual tuition bill (not to mention room/board and books), no scholarship means no university.
But the
C-
? That changed everything, and threatened to destroy her life. The classes at Hatherton were already unusual in that most of them were not a single semester, but
two
semesters graded as a single unit. This allowed for greater continuity in the education: "An Unparalleled Opportunity to Be Your Best Self!" the promotional literature proudly proclaimed. It also ensured the class could come together as a whole for the full nine months of the year, with only a three-month summer gap apart. That's the theory, at any rate.
But that also meant the stakes were higher. Biology, in particular, only had four tests the entire year. They were oddly spaced, too; the first test had been after four weeks; she got a
B+
on that one, which sent her into tears. But — she told herself at the time — she didn't have to worry; if she could just get three
A's
for the remaining tests, then she'd have an
A
in the class. However, the second test had been just four weeks after that first one, and the
C-
(which she was now looking at) changed everything. It meant that even if she got 100% on the remaining two tests, she couldn't have any higher than a 90%... a
B+.
And if all her classes were
