Forbidden Fruit Ch. 02

(Author's Note: All characters in this story are at least 18 year old.)

* * * * * *

That week was the longest of his life and none was even half as maddening. Such was his desire for her that it was feverish. He could not stop thinking about her. She was there in the pale morning glare of the sun when he opened the curtains and dancing in the motes of dust and there again when he made himself breakfast, just sat at his kitchen table, helping herself to a slice of toast from his cupboard, his house, his life. When he washed his face in the sink she was there, too, perched delicately on the edge of the bathtub, legs crossed in just such a way that he could not see up her skirt even if he got down on his knees and tried.

He could not escape her. Like some anomalous djinn she held possession over his every waking moment. She was in his house and there in his driveway and waiting for him in the store at the end of the street and she was in the bed he had shared with his wife for twenty-two long years, the bed he knew one day soon he would fuck her in.

He burnt for her, the flame hot inside him, a boyish sort of lust he had not experienced since his early teens. There was something about her that was magnetic, that drew him to her as if by sorcery. Was it her looks, the slenderness of her waist, her soft hips and pale skin and short blonde hair? Was it her rebellious tomboyishness, her amusing and fiercely independent charm, or her wicked intelligence? Or was it something simpler than that? The feel of her cunt, the way she rocked herself gently against him, the quiet, subdued moans when he fucked himself into her? He thought it was none of that. It was something he could not properly come to grips with. Something about the very way she was constructed he could not understand.

By the time his holiday was over and Monday came he had convinced himself in some small manner that whatever had happened would not happen again. A minor and yet not totally insignificant part of him believed it had all been some sort of dream, out of which he would wake to find that Phoebe had never existed at all, had been some way to channel his most indescribable urges into a vessel that would have no ill effects on the corporeal world. And it was not until Monday afternoon that this delusion came crashing down around him.

She was the last one into history class for the final period of the day. He watched them funnel in, Phoebe right at the back, taking her time, as if taunting him. It was hot enough outside that she was not wearing her jumper -- only her white long-sleeve polo shirt -- and she wore her skirt prim and proper and he could not gaze at her for more than a moment for fear he would grow hard. Today's topic was England in the 1860s. He read to them the history of William Gladstone and the Irish Church and the enfranchisement of the working class and upward mobility and the position of the landed nobles and she would not make eye contact with him even when he called on her to answer one particular question about the election of 1868, which she did with a sort of flat obligation, scribbling idly in her notebook as she spoke.

This unnerved him. Not because he believed her to be ashamed of what had happened, but the opposite. She was clever enough and cunning enough to understand that sex in any form was control, and sex with someone in a position of power was, in one direction or another, leverage. Her refusal to make eye contact was a way to tease him -- to deny him what she was very aware he desired. This set his heart to racing. Here sat a girl thirty years his junior -- four years younger than his own daughter -- who was more powerful than his wife or his ex-girlfriend from university or any girl he had coupled with in the past. He read to them from the textbook and scribbled on the whiteboard and probed them for answers to questions that might appear on their exam and Phoebe sat there doodling idly, eyes never leaving the page, pen constantly in motion, head resting against one hand, slowly and surely driving him mad.

An hour became ten, became ten days, became years. When the bell rang he stood and coughed and said, 'Alright, see you all on Wednesday. If any of you are coming to history club tomorrow, remember that Miss Noble will be running it for the rest of term.'

They shuffled out of the room slowly, muttering among themselves and laughing. When he glanced at Phoebe again he imagined how she would look on one of the desks with her legs spread and suddenly he was growing hard. 'Phoebe,' he said, 'can you stay behind for a minute, please?'

But Phoebe, the last to enter and the last to leave, looked at him for the first time since that Friday evening and smiled politely and said, 'Sorry, sir. I have somewhere to be. I'm running late.'

When she turned again to leave her skirt was hiked up at the back and if this was a deliberate move to make his head spin it had the intended effect. Then without another word she left.

* * * * * *

On Tuesday he passed her in the corridor just before lunchtime. They were all filtering down the hall and still his eyes went to her, picking her out of the crowd like a target, her blonde pixie cut so easy to spot. She was wearing that same polo shirt. This time her top button was undone and the collar opened slightly and he swore her skirt was a slight higher, about to her knees, and her socks too, pulled almost halfway up her legs. If she saw him, she never made a show of it.

Wednesday he could barely think straight. Whatever spell she had cast on him from the depths of her teenage wickedness had him entranced to the point of torture. He saw her again in the hallway on the way to lunch. This time he knew for sure. Her top button was most certainly undone and her skirt was above her knees and when she saw him she smiled and winked and then disappeared down the hall and was gone before he could do anything.

I wonder what would happen, he thought, sat behind his desk, ham and cheese sandwich opened and uneaten in front of him, pencils yellowing in the boiling sunlight, cock throbbing uncomfortably in his slacks. I wonder, he thought again. What would happen if I just fucked her right here in this room? In front of everyone. In front of the whole class. What then? He could not bear it much longer. With a sigh he shuffled awkwardly to the bathroom and locked himself in one of the narrow stalls and pulled down his slacks and began to masturbate.

He had not jerked off to the thought of someone for more than twenty years, but now he did. He fucked his fist wildly, cock so hard it was painful, desperate to be inside of Phoebe, to feel her tight, lithe body riding him, to bury himself in her warmth again. He came groaning, spilling all over himself, throbbing to the thought of Phoebe pressing against him, her breath and her beautiful cherry scent and her cunt and her everything, all the time, forever.

It was only during final class of the day, when she entered last of everyone again, that he began to feel a tiny pang of guilt. This time she glanced at him before he had even settled them to begin. And this time, she smiled. A faint smile, barely there, right on the corner of her lips, but a smile nonetheless. Was she aware? Did she, in some bizarre form of telepathy, know he had stroked himself into a panting frenzy just hours ago while fantasising about her? He was not entirely convinced that this was beyond her. If anyone could do it, it would be Phoebe.

Class droned on. He could not think about anything else but Phoebe and it took a Herculean effort not to spend the entire hour staring at her, at her ever-shortening skirt and ever-widening collar and her alabastrine skin and the tiny bead of sweat on her forehead in the summer heat. She crossed her legs and uncrossed them again. Crossed them. Uncrossed. Crossed. Was she playing with him, tormenting him with what he could not touch, not here in public in front of everyone?

While they worked, Tom studied them. Twenty-eight students in his class and he had grown fond of almost all of them. One desk over from Phoebe, on the front row, Jessica Collins -- Jessie to her friends, Jessica to her teachers, Jessica Elizabeth Collins to her parents -- the brightest academic of the bunch, a soft-spoken brunette with a knack for textual analysis and inference and an enthusiasm to match. Behind her, Rupert Burrows -- not as smart, but with a cheerfulness that was infectious. In year ten he'd constructed a 1:2 scale model of a Roman ballista out of balsa wood and now he co-ran the Tuesday history club with Miss Noble. In the back right corner, Craig Somers and Dom Harding -- a classic pair of do-no-gooders, but with a mischief to them that was endearing and a grit for learning when they truly needed to. Lucy Hardcastle, Eloise Weaving, Mohammed Abbas, Sophie Shaw, on and on.

Why were none of them like Phoebe? None with the same façade of unassuming grace, none with that pretence of innocence hiding something darker, none with her magnetism. As far as eighteen-year-olds went, they could not be more normal. But not Phoebe. Phoebe was different.

When class ended he could not stand up. He sat there watching them file out again. 'Phoebe,' he said. 'Phoebe.'

She never even turned to him.

* * * * * *

Thursday the lust turned to anger, turned to desperation. That made for a treacherous coupling. He was not sure how much longer he could go without surrendering to his basest instincts and he knew Phoebe was aware of this as well and that angered him. How could she tease him like she did? How could an eighteen-year-old hold so much power over him? Concepts of right and wrong and good and bad and power in relationships and maturation passed him by like string adrift in the wind. All he could think was: Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe.

Thomas Lisowksi, 48. Married once, still married, for twenty-four years, to one Janet Lisowski nee Lovegood. Never cheated. One daughter. Neighbours call him Our Tom, or Sweetheart, or Great Guy. Loyal, dependable, upstanding. How much longer could he keep it up? His world was crumbling from the ground up.

He only saw her during class. This time she was wearing her jumper so he could not see whether she had undone a second button or not -- this, of course, was deliberate -- but her skirt was hiked a slight higher and the paleness of her beautiful legs made his mind wander and his cock tent. Crossing her legs and uncrossing. He was in such a state he had them read from textbooks for most of the lesson but Phoebe never did. She doodled in her notebook, she watched him, she smiled, she doodled again. A masterclass in seduction the likes of which Janet had never given him, even during her best days, when they would make love twice or even three times daily, back when they were young and in love and unmarried and Rose was not born yet. And it came so easily to Phoebe. She didn't seem to even be trying.

'--Lisowski. Mr Lisowski?'

It was soft-spoken Jessica Collins, hand raised in the air, calling him. Had he been staring? Did they know? Phoebe didn't seem to give it away, but had he? Had it made it so obvious?

'Yes, Jessica,' he said.

'Where it says, "Gladstone was premier in the early 1870s" on this page, does that mean he was Prime Minister?'

Tom cleared his throat. 'Yes,' he said. 'Premier means the head of government, so in this case, the Prime Minister.'

She smiled and nodded and hurried to write something in her book. Tom was not paying attention. In the back corner the do-no-gooders were snickering over something. Did they know? Jessica was none the wiser but were they? Had they seen the way he stared? The way his cock grew stiff and painful in his pants whenever he so much as glanced at Phoebe? Did any of them know?

Such was the extent of his paranoia that he could not ignore it any longer. With a sort of pathetic, incompetent urgency he worked up the courage to say, 'Phoebe, can you stay behind class for a couple minutes, please? I still have to talk to you about the chapter you asked me about last week.'

Phoebe gave him that same look of innocence. 'What chapter?' she said, and to anyone else it would have sounded like a genuine question, but to him it was a threat, a carefully considered insult to his control of the situation, warning him: I could ruin you with a single word and we both know it. We do this on my terms. Always.

Tom fought down the urge to throw up. 'Chapter three,' he said. 'You were asking me about Disraeli's rise to power, but I never got around to answering.'

The reply was a long time coming. In the awful silence he could hear a pin drop. As if everyone outside his and Phoebe's immediate conversation had coalesced to listen in, to await her reply. If she feigned ignorance again, if she played coy and shrugged and told him she was confused, it would all be over. Instead, she said, 'Okay,' and went on back to writing.

Okay, he nodded, to nobody in particular. His cock felt fit to burst. Time passed inconsequential. When the bell rang and they began to filter out of the room he could not stop his trembling hand, his rapidly pumping heart, the swelling in his pants. Phoebe remained seated, eyes wandering idly around the room, until the last of the class were out of the room and down the hallway and out of sight. Then, with the grace of a woman twice her age, she stood and came around and leant on the desk, legs folded one over the other and stretched in front of her, skirt riding high on her thighs, so high he could almost see what she was wearing underneath.

'Phoebe,' he said, voice barely above a whisper. He did not know what else to say. The past thirteen days he had played back their lovemaking in a thousand different ways -- he would fuck her on the couch, he would fuck her in the Lisowski marital bed, he would fuck her in the classroom on her desk, on his desk, in the supply closet, in the bathroom riding his cock in a cubicle, in the gym changing room with her mouth around him taking him deep, in the common room with her spread wide for him like an eager slut, in his car with her cum staining the seats -- but he had never rehearsed talking to her. In an all-too-common failing of the male sex, he had skipped unceremoniously past the need for discussion or explanation first.

'Have you been thinking about me, Mr Lisowksi?' she said, voice high and faint, teasing the words out, that sheen of eighteen-year-old purity still there.

'Phoebe--'

'Have you been thinking about what happened on that Friday? About how you let a student into your house? About how you fucked her in your own home?'

He did not know what to say. What could possibly be said.

Phoebe uncrossed her legs and stood upright and continued. 'I have,' she said. 'I've been thinking about it every day since. I can't get it out of my head.'

She took a step closer to his desk. It occurred to him very suddenly that she was even smaller than he realised. A hair over five foot and not a hundred pounds soaking wet. Then another step closer. It was clear now that she had drawn her skirt up deliberately, first on Tuesday, then Wednesday, and now again. 'I liked how it felt,' she said, almost purred. 'You inside me. Your hands on me. Your lips. I liked it a lot. Did you?'

'Phoebe--'

'Did you, Mr Lisowski?'

Here lay the trap to end all traps. She was so close now he could smell her, the faint scent of cherry and sandalwood and other fruits on her perfume, as odd as any fragrance he had ever smelt before. Everything about her was an enigma. And now from so close he could tell from the hint of collar that at least two buttons were undone under that jumper of hers. Maybe more. 'Well?' she said. 'Do you want to do it again, sir? Do you?'

'Phoebe, I can't...'

'Can't? Can't what? Can't fuck me again? Can't use my mouth?'

She leant across the desk to where he was sitting, so close he could lean in and kiss her and draw her in and put her right in his lap and fuck her until they were both spent. And for a moment however brief, he almost did. Phoebe smiled faintly at him. 'You're hard,' she said. 'Did I make you hard?'

'Phoebe, stop this.'

'Stop what?'

'This. Stop it.'

'Or what?'

Or I'll fuck you until you stop. Only he never said as much. He took a deep breath and bit his lip and was silent. Any longer and he would do just that. And if the janitor walked in or another teacher or god forbid Jessica Collins asking him about Gladstone and Disraeli and premiers and everything else then who would care? Not him. Not Phoebe.

Then, as if answering for him, Phoebe said, 'I have to go. I'll be late for dance recital.'

Was that a lie like everything else? Could she be this cunning, this willing to wind him up like a string and never give him what he needed? He had never known anybody like this, eighteen or otherwise. Phoebe was already by the door before he could muster a response. She turned just long enough to say, 'I'll see you in class tomorrow.' Then she was gone, and all he could do was groan.

* * * * * *

That night was the first time in years he had denied his wife sex.

'Headache,' he said, and it was partially the truth. The other truth he could not tell her was that deep inside him was the fear that he was so obsessed with Phoebe he might mutter her name during climax and what then? Twenty-two years of delicate, perfect adult marriage down the drain, all for a teenage girl. For his own student.

He could not ever tell her that. Admit to her that even as they slept the very foundations of their idyllic middle-class suburbia were being uprooted. What it would do to her, to Rose, to their neighbours and the postman and Jerry from the corner shop and the other teachers and the students and everyone else. It was perfect so long as it remained firmly hidden away.

Friday was torture. The hours whittled away, the day yellowing and the sun hot enough to draw a certain ire out of him or anyone else, an irritation at having to deal with the heat alongside the usual annoyances. He would not eat lunch with the other teachers for fear a sudden outpouring of Phoebe-induced fantasies would have him throbbing hard in front of them. At dinnertime he relieved some of the pressure by locking himself in a cubicle, releasing his stiff cock, and imagining himself deep inside Phoebe.

He did not masturbate though he wanted to. Instead he embarrassed himself by pretending that Phoebe was there with him, legs either side, her warmth in his lap, and there in that cubicle he raised his hips off the cold porcelain seat and fucked the air so desperately he almost came from just the thought of her. He had not done anything like this since he was a teenager when, in all his adolescent horniness, he had cut a hole in the bottom of a rooster plushie and fucked his cock into that, relishing the idea of fucking something, of feeling something around his hardness, of shooting his cum into a willing hole.

Now, some thirty-plus years later, he was doing the same again. He did not climax, easy as it would have been to do that. Instead when he was finished he fastened his slacks and wiped the sweat from his forehead and went on out as if nothing had happened at all.

When final period arrived Phoebe was the first into the classroom. This time her skirt was so high he could see the faint outline of her ass when she turned around and she wore no jumper and two buttons were undone and if she were wearing a bra underneath he could not see it.

This is it, he thought. This is the moment I lose it all.

There was no way to contain his stiffness. Even without turning to her he could see her from the corner of his eye, a wicked nymph come to taunt him from some other life and then returned to it once out of sight. Come to ruin him. She never asked questions but today it seemed was an exception. Today she wanted to know all about the crisis of the 1860s and the East India Company and Victoria's friend Abdul and Disraeli's foreign policy and the Suez Canal.