An Unlikely Encounter Ch. 02

Her eyes narrowed at me and I stopped myself. "I gotta go. Like I said, no trouble." There was an underlying sarcasm there that admittedly stung a little. She wiped at the eye-black on her face to try and tidy it up, straightened her shirt a bit, and then let herself out.

I stood there alone, my throat completely dry. Involuntarily, I clenched my jaw and took a huge unsteady breath through my nose. And that made me think. Oh fuck, it's going to smell like sex in there… A glance at the clock told me enough time had passed that I was probably screwed. My only hope was that Heather would be having a good time and run late with her friend. I burst into action; I had to try.

Back in the bedroom, I threw all the windows open. Fresh air, I need to air it out… I looked at the rumpled sheet on top of the bed, still a damp from our sex. Some areas worse than others. Should I wash them? There's no time. I pulled up the comforter at the foot of the bed to cover the entire mattress. Then I found some other folded up blankets and put them on too. I had to cover it up. Plus it would help dry it out. If she asked, I'll just tell her I was just making the room look nice. It'll work. It'll be fine.

Then there was me. I knew I smelled like her. I was all over her. Inside of her. I had to take another shower… But I had just taken one before Heather left. It would look suspicious. Shit shit shit! I had no choice. I would rush it and towel myself the fuck off as fast as I could. So I jumped in to at least rinse off. No sooner had I got in that I quickly jumped back out and grabbed some toothpaste. I had to get the smell of teenage pussy out of my mouth at the same time.

And so I rushed, my heart leaping every time I heard the slightest noise, hoping my girlfriend hadn't come home yet. I was out of the shower; I had toweled off. She wasn't back. I might just fucking make it. It was going to be okay. I mean, at least for right then. My mind hadn't caught up to the fact that I just consummated an affair.

I was back in the living room, trying to make myself look comfortable on the couch and watch TV. The images flashed on the screen, but my mind was blank. I was just breathing slowly, trying to get myself under control. I think another fifteen minutes or so actually went by; so I was totally fine. I couldn't believe my luck. Sort of. In spite of this, I still jumped a little bit when I heard her outside, turning the door.

"Hey baby, sorry I'm later than I said…" she started off with an apology. An apology!

I forced a smile. "Maybe I'll find a way to forgive you."

I watched her go into the kitchen to put her things down. And then my heart dropped. I saw the open jewelry case on the table. She never took anything. I leapt up from the couch, peering into the kitchen and hoping Heather wasn't paying any attention. My eyes darted over the table; I had no time to think about it. I grabbed a few pieces that I guessed they had talked about and shoved them in my pocket.

She came out of the kitchen. "Oh! So did that student finally pick some stuff?"

I looked over her, swallowing down a huge lump. Did she notice? Did she catch me? She looked at me casually. Another forced smile. "Uhh, yep! I tried not to let her completely clean you out!"

"Ha ha," she gave a sarcastic laugh, walking over to me. "Well I had to donate something! What would they say if their finest teacher was romantically involved with a student-hating scrooge? There would be a scandal in your school!"

A scandal. You have no fucking idea. "Wouldn't want that," I agreed with her. "That would be bad."

"Very bad," she smiled and reached in to give me a playful swat.

III

I don't know where I was for the rest of the day. My brain was completely jammed up. Half of me could not stop thinking about every fucking moment of being with Autumn. Her body. The sex. Her orgasms. But the rest of me… Just couldn't even fathom it. I was in denial. I mean, what did this say about me? I've always considered myself a decent guy. I just… didn't know how to cope. Not yet.

At some point, I was back in my own home. The second I was inside, I closed the door behind me, leaned my back against it, then sank down to my ass on the floor. My body began to shake and I almost felt like I had to wretch. My life is over. My relationship. My job. Everything. I threw my head back in defeat and hit it soundly on the door. Fuck.

I probably sat there for an hour at a complete loss. Could I get out of this somehow? My mind tried to churn, but there was nothing. I wasn't even sure if I was able to maintain a coherent thought after awhile. To hell with this right now. I need to do something else. I went by the kitchen to get some water, then decided to splash it on my face, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. Then I went to my desk and dropped into the chair.

Work. I'll just do work. There were grades to be uploaded into the school database. That was tedious work, but that's just about what I needed right then. So I pulled out a stack of essays that were ready to be given back to the class and flipped on my computer. Two minutes later, I logged onto my faculty web account to access the school records. I noticed I had a few new emails.

Normally it isn't ever anything important; just run-of-the-mill announcements. The first one was from our assistant principal- a brief memo about a spirit drive that the seniors were doing to raise money. I cringed. Not gonna open that one. The next was from Lara, an elderly sociology teacher. She sent all the staff pictures of dogs dressed like people. Enlightening.

The third message looked like spam; only in that I didn't recognize the email address. But we have pretty good filters, so I opened it up.

There was just one line at the top. 'Something to remember our first time by…'

Then an image started loading under it. I stared helplessly as Autumn came into focus, wearing the same sexy softball outfit from earlier that day. She was clearly taking a picture of herself with a digital camera in the mirror… Her body was tilted to the side, her legs pressed together and knees bent, one arm raised with the camera, the other folded behind her with her hand on her ass. Her lips were pursed in this fucking adorable way, like she was concentrating on the picture. She wasn't even looking at "me".

I scrolled down to the bottom of the email. 'I can't wait to make more memories with you! See you in class, your favorite student.' A shiver went through my body. 'P.S. You can send me a pic if you want :)'.

My hand twitched to close the email. No, no, no, no… She can't send that. She couldn't have sent that. To my fucking work email. What the fuck was she thinking! Jesus, I need to get rid of it. I opened message back up. I had to see it again, to really believe it. I started to feel lightheaded. I moved the mouse to delete it, but I stopped myself at the last second. God, I shouldn't do this… Right-click. Save as. I made a copy of the picture and put it on my computer. Then I nuked the email.

I pressed my fingers into my forehead, shutting my eyes. Okay. It's okay. She's young, she made a mistake. She's not out to screw me over… She could have done that by now if she wanted to. I mean, she likes me… Somehow. Wait. Did she like me? *Like* me? God, I sound like a teenager. But if she did… I could reason with her. She wouldn't try to hurt me.

I felt my heart flutter. That was weird. I told myself it was just my nerves. I mean, it couldn't have been because the thought of her having feelings for me was… God, shut *up*! I didn't let myself finish the thought. I pushed myself out of my chair and paced around the room. Somehow, all this time, I barely registered that I had class tomorrow. Need sleep.

I stripped down to my boxers and slid into the bed. I don't know who I was kidding, thinking I'd be able to fall asleep so easily. I tossed and turned for hours. My mind played the potential scenarios of the next day over and over. In some, I would get in trouble. In some, she would ignore me. In others, she would try to talk to me. In more, she would try to fuck me. It was this last setting that I finally settled into. At least I can take away the edge if I jerk off… There was some guilt as I imagined her coming onto me again, telling me how amazing the sex was. I guess the real guilt was in me imagining that I responded to her that, yes, it was the best I've ever had too.

At least I fell asleep after that.

Next day. Let's face it… I don't remember anything except waiting for the class. Hell, I can barely even remember why I even decided to go. I had to see her though. If nothing else, than to tell her to not fucking send me pictures of herself to my work email.

I was probably bleary eyed from my lack of sleep and stress. I had this feeling that it would make it even more obvious to her that I couldn't stop thinking about it… But what could I do? I mean, we fucked for crying out loud. The time for pretending I wasn't interested in her was pretty much over.

She was wearing tight jeans, a bit frayed around the waist, and a sleeveless black tee. The first thing I noticed about the shirt was that it was tight. It was stretched against her skin, like she picked a size too small. It rode up her tummy just a little bit, which was made more obvious by her fashionably tattered pants. And it wrapped around her chest like… God. I knew I wasn't the only guy who noticed. I'm just the one who shouldn't be. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was a pink skull designed on the front, drawing your attention right to her.

And her hair was up in a ponytail again, but this time strands of her bangs fell over her face. She walked in with one of her friends who was talking with her. For a moment, she turned away to face me, and the faintest smile danced across her lips as she pushed some hair away from her face to get a look. I felt myself grow hot, and hoped I wasn't blushing.

My lesson plan called for a discussion in class that day. Typically, I take excerpts from the students' stories that they'd been working on and share them with the class (anonymously of course!). Then we have a talk about why it's good, and what we think the story is going to be about. But I just didn't get to it this time around. Not yet anyway. Gimme a break. I'd been… distracted.

Anyway, I wanted to go ahead with it regardless. The less actual teaching I had to do, the better off I'd be. I already knew that my previous classes that day were pathetic in my available attention. For obvious reasons, this was going to be the worst of them all. She was at her desk now and I glanced over at her. She noticed and looked back at me. We both panicked briefly and looked away… Then looked back. She broke into a little smile, maybe embarrassed? Then she mouthed a quick 'Hi!'

My heart did a little flip and I dropped my gaze. Not in class. Nobody can know. But I was inwardly pleased at her attention anyway. Fuck, am I addicted? The bell rang.

I instinctively dropped into teacher mode. "Okay class, today we're going to get in touch with our inner child and have a little show-and-tell. Since I know you all have copies of your papers with you at all times, go ahead and pull them out now. Let's get a few volunteers to read an interesting snip of your work and we'll have a discussion." About a third of the students started actually rustling for their papers, the rest were hesitant. "And keep this in mind. If we don't have enough to talk about to take us through the period, then I'll just be forced to assign you more writing so you can be better inspired tomorrow!" More rustling this time.

The first volunteer was Sam. A fairly creative kid who wrote his story about meeting a ghost in his closet who actually was supposed to be the haunting monster feared as a child. The ghost, however, was rather morose and they ended up just having a lot of discussions about life. He read a passage from one of these conversations and the class got fairly involved in talking about his setup.

This got the ball rolling and several more students got jazzed to share their work. A teacher's dream, right? Normally I'd be thrilled. But each time I had to call for a new volunteer to share, I was secretly dreading that Autumn might want to. She had her paper out, and she looked like she was on the verge of piping up. I stole glances at her and she looked back, her mouth screwed in a hidden grin, like she was contemplating whether or not go for it. Please don't… Don't make this any harder than it is…

"All right, we've got time for one more… Who wants to finish the class off today?" Nobody was jumping at the opportunity. I surveyed the room and saw Autumn flipping the pages in her paper. She took a breath and began to raise her hand. Oh *shit*. I know she saw me notice, and time slowed down for an instant.

"Fine, I guess I'll do it!" a male voice in the back said. It was Jake, something of a slacker but still a decent writer for his age.

"Great!" I blurted out, jerking my eyes away from Autumn. I caught a slight shrug from her small frame and felt a twinge of guilt. Like I could feel her disappointment. "Um- so let's just get started. You have a specific part you'd like to read?" Act natural.

He read a somewhat ambiguous section of his story, which I'll give him credit for. Having previously read it myself, I knew that it was about an older woman who turns out to be a witch. However, from his excerpt, he made it sound like a young man was seducing her. It was clever, and it got the class speculating some wild things.

"I know it's just fiction, but be real! No woman is going to go after such a younger guy. She would want a real man!" one girl laughed.

"Oh come on, that's totally unfair!" came a reply. "What a stereotype!"

"Yeah! Older guys get younger girls all the time!" another cracked.

"Only 'cause they're gold diggers!"

I was about to end this back and forth and try to get the discussion back on track to something more constructive, but then Autumn chimed in, "What! Now who's stereotyping!"

Some more laughter in the class.

"Seriously! It's, like, those kinds of stupid attitudes that make girls want an older guy in the first place."

"Oh, and girls are immune to being immature, huh?" came a male retort.

"That's not what I meant!" Autumn defended. "It's just that… I dunno. It's so stupid how society treats relationships with, like, any kind of age gap. I mean, there's all kinds of amazing examples where, like, actual love isn't so neat and tidy…" There was an edge of seriousness in her voice that quieted the other students. They were joking; she wasn't. "Isn't that right?" she concluded, staring at me for a reply.

I was a little lost in her words, knowing exactly what she was trying to say. Knowing she was really talking to me to make some kind of point. I stammered, "Uh, heh… Well, there are lots of examples in literature where love 'spans the ages', so to speak…"

"Yeah!" she agreed enthusiastically. "But what do you think about it?"

Now the class's interest really piqued up. I felt my skin start to grow hot. They don't know. They can't know. They just like seeing the teacher put on the spot for anything remotely unusual. "What I think is that…" a brief pause, "Jake has hit upon a very interesting theme and has managed to capture all of your interest!" Nice. Good diversion.

I could see Autumn's complete irritation and dissatisfaction with my answer as she slumped back into her chair. Several students groaned at my response, but Jake laughed and congratulated himself, "Yeah yeah, I'm the next big thing in English!"

Small pockets of friends broke into the argument about age differences in relationships again, and I realized I had completely lost control of them now. There was only a minute left in class anyway, so I just let it go. "Okay everybody, great discussion today. Thank you to all the volunteers who braved your peers…"

The bell rang and everyone began to shuffle for lunch. Okay, not bad. I was inwardly pleased with how well I handled the class. Hell, even how I handled myself. But as I snuck another glance at Autumn packing up her things, my demeanor began to crack. I had to talk to her. My heartbeat began to pick up, and the events of the previous day came flooding back to me. She was simply picking up her backpack now, but I suddenly saw her nude, lying back on the bed, eyes clenched in orgasm. Christ. I really fucked her. The day's denial began to shake away all at once.

Students filed out the door, and I cautiously watched her, waiting for her to get near the front of the class. I wanted to casually ask her to stay, as if I just remembered. I didn't want anybody else in the room to even notice. But she was engaged with the same friend she came in with, chatting away. Damn it. As she began walking to leave, she barely even looked at me. She's upset. Shit.

As she came closer, I second-guessed myself and almost let her get by. Finally I worked up the courage, "Oh, Autumn. Can you stay back for a minute?" Her face shot back over her shoulder and gave me an… interesting glare. One that I could not interpret for the life of me.

"Um, okay… What's up?" She turned and faced me. Her friend stopped too.

I didn't think someone else would actually wait around. "I wanted to speak with you about…" my mind churned, "…the questions in your email. I thought the answers would be more clear face-to-face."

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a little smile. "Ummm- I don't remember any questions. It was mostly, like, my own comments."

She's challenging me in front of her friend. "Ah, well I wanted a chance to respond to them. If you have a couple minutes." I threw a glance at her friend, trying to hint that she might get bored. Go away!

Autumn made a little show of looking at the clock. "Sure, I guess." She was trying to be nonchalant, but I could see the anticipation in her eyes. She turned to her friend, "I'll catch up in a minute, kay?"

She tried not to roll her eyes, "Okay, okay." With a sort of perplexed glance, she let the classroom. I think she was confused; she doesn't know. Good.

Autumn waited until she was out the door and then crossed her arms over her stomach. "So?"

"About your email," I stated flatly.

"Did you like it?"

Yes. "It was, uh… inappropriate."

She made a show of a sigh. "Aren't we past this?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you just going to pretend yesterday didn't happen?" Her stare was penetrating.

I was put on the defensive. "It- it isn't about that. I mean, you can't send that kind of thing to my email. My work email. Do you have any idea…"

"Okay! Give me your home email then!" she interrupted.

I stood there staring back at her, coming up with nothing to say. My only reply was a look of dubious confusion. I can't do that. I can't encourage her.

"Umm- otherwise I'll have to just keep using the same email I know, right? I mean, I want to be able to talk to you. You're always, like, hiding at school. I mean, I get it. So let's just talk after class..." She had loosened her shoulders a little and didn't seem so tense.