The Grade-Whore Ch. 02

Jan could see I had serious doubts, so she used her best weapons. She slowly removed her clothes. In moments she was standing in the bright sunshine on my porch, completely naked except for her shoes. The sight of her perky breasts and golden triangle of pubic hair made me dizzy.

"Well? Aren't you going to join me in a walk? Didn't you tell me last year that you'd put in another trail? I'd love to see it. But take off those clothes! I feel silly standing naked all by myself" Then she laughed and began to undress me.

We held hands and skipped and danced along my new trail. We frequently stopped to kiss and hug, then moved on. We made love next to a little rocky stream, standing up as we had done our first time since there was no soft place to lie down. Once again she bloodied me as she climaxed. After a long shower and after she took care of her scratches on my back, we made love again in my bed. We shared of usual TV dinners, then made love all night long. After breakfast we built each other as high as we could stand, and once again Jan bloodied my back as together we exploded in orgasm. Afterwards we held each other as closely as we possibly could.

The rest of the day is a confusing blur of making love, crying, and making love again. Just before supper she kissed me goodbye. She pushed something hard into my shirt pocket. I pulled it out and saw her birth-control pills.

"I took the last one this morning, Doc. Bill and I are going to start a family as soon as we can. I'm just sorry that's something that you and I will never share." Jan began to cry, and I held her until she composed herself.

"Are you both . . . Is he . . .?" Somehow I couldn't ask the question.

Of course Jan understood. She nodded and smiled. "Yes, Doc. As good as we just were. That's how I knew. Not the first time, but after we got used to each other. I taught him everything you taught me, and then we learned some things together. He's a good student!" She didn't mention the book, but I knew they had read it together. She blushed because she realized I knew.

"So were you! My best ever! Student and lover!" I whispered. She kissed me and turned to leave.

"I almost forgot. Izzy. You always wanted to know." She said with a shy smile.

I had absolutely no idea what Jan was telling me. She laughed at the expression on my face. "Isia Isabella. Izzy for short. That's the scientific name for the wooly bear caterpillar! Remember how I laughed when you said it looked like I had a caterpillar between my legs?"

"Your Golden Lamb of Love!" I exclaimed. "Your fuzzy, golden pussy! Your wooly bear!"

Jan giggled. "But she's Izzy no more. Bill calls her his Golden Fleece. He's like you! He won't let me shave it, either!"

I knew my mythology. "And you call his penis 'Jason?'" I asked.

Jan blushed deeply. "You're too damned smart, Doc!" She pressed herself against me and we kissed for several minutes. I thought the pet names were cute, but possibly ominous. As I recalled the legend, Jason and Medea shared the golden fleece, and their marriage didn't go all that well.

As I held Jan, she suddenly shuddered in my arms. "You know I didn't do this . . . come back to make love to you . . . to hurt you. I just had to . . . " She paused and was silent for several seconds. "It's like that old song. I'm torn between two lovers. I'd stay with you and never leave you if I could. I'm not strong enough, Doc! I want more than the few years you and I could have together. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Jan. Life tricked us. But we shared more than most people ever know. Live your life. Completely. Just remember me from time to time, okay?"

"You know I will! I'm out of time. I've really gotta go. Goodbye, Doc. I really want to see you at my wedding." She gave me another quick kiss and then she was gone. I heard her sob as she jumped into her car.

I stared into the distance long after her car disappeared. "I've never been quite certain, Jan. Were you the better student? Or was I? I love you!" I whispered. I stood on my porch for a very long time, thinking, remembering, and wishing. It didn't make me feel any better. Later when I looked in the mirror, my eyes were red and there were tear- streaks running down my naked body.

JAN'S WEDDING: EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE

I was almost numb at Jan's wedding. I watched and heard everything, but my emotions were in turmoil. It didn't feel real. I didn't want it to be real. I listened to their vows, and I remembered Jan's words. She promised to be faithful to Bill and I knew she would be. The only way she would ever make love to me again would be if something happened to their marriage, and I didn't want that. Or did I? I realized I probably did, and I felt ashamed. Was the curse of the Golden Fleece real? I secretly hoped so.

I waited with the other guests so that we could greet the people arranged in the receiving line Jan's father seemed to be incredibly young as he shook my hand! He didn't even have any gray hair! And Kim, Jan's step mother, was pregnant again and looked younger than Jan. Meeting them and seeing them in the flesh made me feel ancient.

As I approached the radiant bride, my heart began to pound in my chest and I felt faint. Jan surprised everyone when she kissed me passionately on the lips. "Thanks, Doc! I love you! I always will!" She quietly whispered in my ear so that nobody else could possibly hear. I felt the pressure of her perky breasts against me, and then she released me and greeted the next guest.

I shook Bill's hand and congratulated him. He gave me an intense, penetrating stare, and I felt a moment of guilt, knowing I had made passionate love to his bride a few days earlier. "Thank you for coming, Professor Davis. Your being here was important to both Jan and me." Was all he said. His handshake was firm and strong.

I continued through the receiving line, meeting and forgetting stranger after stranger. I found a place to sit down, and I tried to carry on several conversations during the reception banquet. I failed. I could still taste her lipstick and I could feel how her breasts had pressed against me. Even her bridal dress couldn't conceal their firmness, their shape, and . . . I thought about her sensitive nipples and lost myself in my own world of memories and dreams.

Suddenly Bill tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could talk to him in private. I didn't even know him, and I wondered what he wanted to say to me. I followed him to another room. As he closed the door behind us, I began to panic. Did he suspect how deeply I was involved with Jan? Was he angry? What would he do? A quick memory of Jan's bouncing breasts as we had recently made love appeared in my head, and I began to tremble. I was still lusting after this young man's new wife!

"Professor Davis, Jan told me all about you. I want to thank you for what you did for Jan. And ultimately for me as well." I was both shocked and relieved. He obviously had no idea of the true nature of my relationship with Jan! Clearly he only knew about the seven classes she had taken with me!

The expression on my face must have given me away. "No, I mean it! I know all about your love affair. How she planned to fuck you for a better grade! How you fell in love with each other and made love several times over the next three years. But if you hadn't helped Jan to learn how to love and to make love, she would never have become the woman I also fell in love with. I promise you that I'll always treasure her as much as you have." He shook my hand, and I nodded. For once in my life I was speechless. Of course I had known that he and Jan were making love, but having him state it still bothered me. And more than I cared to admit. He was so damned YOUNG!

I followed him silently out of the room. Just before we reached the rest of the guests, he turned. "And I know about her trip to be with you two weeks ago. Jan didn't tell me, but I know that you and she. . . . Well, I could tell when she came back after that day and night with you that she was finally . . . well, completely ready to begin a life with me. Thank you for loving her enough to let her come back to me. You're a better man than I am. Perhaps when I'm older I'll understand how you could . . . be so selfless. Jan has never said this, but I know she would never have married me if you had been a younger man. Or if you had asked her not to marry me." He shook my hand again.

Bill's words sounded and felt sincere, and I knew that Jan had chosen well. But his words still rocked me. I liked Bill. In spite of my sense of loss, I was happy for Jan. I fought back tears. I was an emotional mess. Should I have asked her to break up with Bill and marry me? Doing it would have been wrong, but the idea stuck in my head and wouldn't go away.

I stayed in the background as the reception worked its way to its conclusion and the newlyweds finally got into their car and departed. I was no longer any part of Jan's life, but memories of our love made everything almost too poignant to bear. Intellectually I was happy for Jan, but I still felt like crying. Perhaps I could have married her, not Bill.

About three weeks later I received a thank-you note from the new bride. "Doc, I can't thank you enough for your gift. Only you and I know how you wrote it. It's the only secret I'll ever keep from my darling Bill. Every time I read it I'll remember the love we shared. Yes, I'll always love you. Don't forget me! Jan."

I had given them a pewter serving tray engraved with the following untitled poem: When I awake holding you with you holding me, I am reborn whole again. Your very touch tells me of your love for me, As I pray does mine for you. We begin another day and share our love together, A gift from God we scarce deserve. We dare not waste our love this day nor any other. Each is precious; each is delicate. We know not what tomorrow brings, but surely Today is love. We need no more. Leo Davis

That Monday morning after my grade-for-a-fuck weekend with Jan, I had made love to her as the sun rose. Then I had grabbed a pad of paper and a red pen from next to the bed. With my half-erect penis still lodged inside her, I had placed the pad against her wonderful breasts and I had written those words. When I had shown them to her a few minutes later, tears had streamed down her face. "God, Doc! That's so wonderful! It's exactly how I feel!" She had said.

Jan had set the poem aside and hugged me. After several minutes of squeezing me with her vaginal muscles, I had become erect again. We had then made slow and gentle love until she climaxed, and I ejaculated into her for the second time that morning. "Even if we don't have much time, we haven't wasted today, have we?" She had said as we cuddled. Just over two hours later I'd dropped her off at her dorm so that her parents could take her home for the summer.

REFLECTIONS

I have to accept that this is the way things must be. But in spite of my wonderful memories, the thought of Jan and Bill making love still brings me pain. I should be the man with my penis inside her! My love for her isn't strong enough to put that aside. Dammit! That's what WE did so well together!

Sometimes I'm just a silly old man. But I do have some terrific memories, not to mention the photographs. I hope they'll be enough to sustain me when I retire in a couple of years.

Something in my demeanor must have changed because of my affair with Jan, and I managed to date several of the women who had previously turned me down. Two took me to their beds, but our coupling, although competent and reasonably exciting, was contrived and artificial. They both seemed desperate to find a man to share the final years of their lives. Somehow I couldn't settle for something so shallow. Before falling in love with Jan I would have married either one, if only to have a woman to hold and caress.

Nobody ever talks about the REAL price we might pay if we fuck our students. Losing my job or my marriage would have been easier to bear. But of course Jan and I didn't only fuck, we made love. Bart will never know the difference. But I do. I think about Jan all the time, and I'm truly grateful that we had the opportunity to explore our love together. But it still hurts to be alone without her.

Bart was wrong. Sometimes they're not grade-whores. Sometimes they're the true loves of our lives. At least that's how mine still is. I miss her every day, particular when I wake up alone. Sometimes I think I can feel her body against mine, and when I wake up I start fo weep when I realize she's really gone.

In moments of weakness I wish Jan had been a grade-whore. That would make it easier to endure. I wouldn't know that another man was enjoying precisely what I was pretending I still had.