Hey Professor! Ch. 01

"Sheesh, Jim, and I really thought you'd get through a term without another one of these."

I smiled and put the image away, nodding. "Whatever. It's become old hat." I shrugged. "But I know how crazy it's getting with the state, so I'm just doing the right thing here." I had to admit, though, the image lit me up in a way I hadn't felt since...I couldn't quite remember.

"You know who it is?"

Of course I knew who it was. Or, I had a pretty good idea. No face. Just a torso, naked, her hands above her head, arms stretched out, her breasts, barely big enough to cast a shadow. Interesting nipples. But there were distinguishing qualities that made it pretty clear who it was. "Hard to say since she was careful not to include her face, but I have a pretty good idea."

"You need help?"

I weighed the request, not wanting to respond too quickly. "I think I've got this one, but I'll keep you in the loop."

We looked at each other across his desk and I got up to leave. "What is it with these kids these days? It feels like I'm having this conversation almost every day."

I smiled and left for my office hours.

*-*-*-*

"Hey Professor!"

I looked up at the entrance. Two students were standing there, peeking into my office. The lighting was so bad I had to squint to see who it was. "Hello! Come in! Do you need some help?"

It was open office hours; I looked forward to these interruptions.

"Ummm..."

I couldn't make out who it was...a guy and a gal, it seemed. "Come on in. Which class are you here about?"

They came closer and I realized it was Tee and Carolyn, two young sophomores in my English Lit 201. I suppressed a smile. This was going to be fun.

Tee, whose real name had about 14 syllables and was almost impossible to remember (and if I didn't see it on the roster every other day, I wouldn't even have known), was so androgenous that I had to check what sex she had put down. I didn't bother to think about gender anymore. But she was cis-female so in spite of her appearance, she was a young woman. Thai mixed with Caucasian, her skin a golden brown, hair cut short with a designer style, colored with bright yellow highlights. She made a striking figure, short, slight and full of energy. She always wore loose fitting embroidered blouses, and even before the first class was out, I couldn't help but notice she wasn't wearing a bra. When she bent over to say something, the breasts I saw were practically just bumps with nipples. Every time I saw those beautiful bumps I felt a flicker of arousal.

I'm a sucker for small breasted women, so naturally I was intrigued. But sucker or not, I liked my job and just because a young woman teased me didn't mean I was stupid enough to take the bait.

Carolyn, on the other hand, was mid-western American through and through. Not heavy or overweight, but strong boned. Her breasts weren't huge, but compared to Tee's they looked pretty grand. The two were apparently inseparable. At least, I'd never seen them apart when walking the campus, and they always sat together in my classes. Maybe they were a thing. At least, that's what I had figured until I got the photograph earlier in the week.

They could tell I was more interested in Tee than Carolyn, and I think it amused them, or maybe it irritated Carolyn since she always seemed to get the attention of the young men they chatted up. But teasing a professor by flashing your breasts in class is one thing. Sending him a naked picture crosses so many lines. The picture showed up in my inbox on Monday night: the torso, a golden brown color to the skin, arms raised above her head, breasts so small they were muscles with nipples. But what nipples! Areolas bigger than a circle I could make with my forefinger to thumb...at least that's what it looked like in proportion to everything else I could see. Which wasn't much. Underarms slightly unshaven, ribs nicely delineated but not unhealthy. Head was cut off at the top, and just a hint of pubic hair, dark black, bordered the bottom of the image. Her hips beginning to widen; not an artistic shot, and probably wouldn't be any good on a voyeur porn site, but it did what it was intended to do: tease me and put me off balance.

I figured Carolyn took the shot. From her phone. Dean Thomas was impressed, that much I could tell, but probably more from the sheer audacity than the subject matter; he was a breast man and these weren't his type. Not that we ever discussed such things at work, but we'd known each other long enough that I knew what kind of woman he was interested in. What these two women had no clue about (and neither did Dean Thomas) was who they were trying to fuck with. I thought about how far to go and quickly reconsidered...although...something about Tee rang a harmonic chord deep inside me. Stop it, Jim! There's too much to risk.

I smiled avuncularly. "Tee. Carolyn. How can I help you today?"

"We were just passing by and thought we'd say hello. We don't have anything to talk about, class-wise."

Umm hmmm. Translation: 'How'd you like the note we sent you Professor?'

I nodded and waited, looking more carefully at what Tee was wearing. More of the same - jeans with a loose fitting top, but today it was cut short, above the mid-riff and my eye caught on a glint. I pressed my smile together and turned back to my screen.

"Hey," I said, pulling up the photograph and quickly cropping it. "Do either of you know anything about this?" I turned the screen toward them, the image showing just a naked abdomen.

They both looked at it, at each other and shook their head slowly, they raised their eyebrows expressing so much guilt that it was all I could do to keep from laughing.

"You sure?" I pointed to the belly button ring. "It seems to me," I said turning the screen around back toward me, "that if you're going to sext somebody anonymously, you probably shouldn't include such obvious jewelry." I nodded toward Tee's mid-riff and they both looked, blushing, embarrassed.

"Carolyn," I looked at her. "Please go down to the Union and wait for Tee. I need to talk with her."

"But anyone could..."

I shut her down with a stare and she turned, grabbing her purse a little tighter, looking to Tee to see if she'd be alright alone and then she left.

"Please close the door, Tee."

She had grown quiet, her usual provocations smothered by this shift in my tone.

"I'm not sure you understand what you've done, here. I suspect you think it was all in good fun. Teasing a professor, showing off your body. The thing is, Tee, this could cost me my job."

She reacted by bringing her hands to her mouth and shaking her head. "No, Professor, that's not right! Car and I were just fooling around."

I held up my hand and nodded. "I get it. I do. Would you believe I have this conversation every term?"

She just looked down and back up again, the thought that she wasn't anything special hurting more than being found out. 19, 21? What a great time of life.

"Yeah. Crazy right? Sometimes it's a guy. Sometimes it's two people." I stared at her to make sure she understood this wasn't any big deal.

"So, you should know that all of my email is monitored by IT. Every professor's is. You must know that Harleston hasn't had the best track record when it comes to harassment and the state's been getting involved. So, I had to go to Dean Thomas and show him this."

She freaked out a little, thinking maybe she was going to be suspended. She started shaking. Cute.

"Don't worry," I spread my hands on the desk. "He doesn't know it's you. He trusts I'll handle this and that nobody will be hurt because of it."

Her eyes had grown as large as the areolas in the photo, the lights glinting off the tears forming there. "Shit. Shit. Shit. I told her it was stupid to do it." She couldn't stop shaking.

I didn't buy it for a moment, but I let her make me believe she was duped by her besty. Not likely. I could just hear them: No! You've got to take the picture! It'll be sooo boss! He'll get a woody, won't he? I can't do a selfie! It's too close...etc. etc.

"So. We good?" I made it clear I was finished with the thing and our conversation.

She closed her eyes and nodded, getting up slowly. "I'm sooooo sorry Professor...I really didn't..."

"Please. We won't speak of it again. It was a silly mistake of youth. We all have them."

She left and I sighed. I couldn't shake the electricity her photo had started in me. I shook my head, trying to toss the image and the ideas it triggered.

*-*-*-*

"She's so your type, Jim"

It was too loud in the club tonight. I looked up and replayed what I thought Larry just said, pursing my lips and puffing out some air. I stared into my drink, pressing my mouth into a tight smile. I took the phone back.

"It's about the right timing, too, isn't it? How long has it been?"

I nodded, taking a sip. "Joanie graduated in December, so, four months? Five?"

"She stay in touch?" Larry sat back, smiling.

"Of course she stays in touch! But luckily less and less. She's found a new crowd. It took her a while. Nobody was good enough for her."

"You spoil it for them. We both do." He took a drink. "Those nipples look pretty ripe for the wire." He stopped and looked across the table. "You're hearing what I'm hearing, right?"

I looked up and stopped to listen, realizing too late what he was actually saying. "Fuck, Larry. It's going to blow up in my face one of these days. Maybe she's the one and I'll be fucked. I've got two more years and then pension-city, out of-there. Gone. I'm thinking I need to lay low."

"Pffft. It's never been a problem before, and once they're in, they're not interested in ringing any alarms or calling the cops. There something different about this one?"

I took a long swallow, thinking, avoiding the obvious - those breasts. It had been too long. Four months. I could feel the urge growing. She had made the first move, stupid little thing, and now she was on my radar. And now she was on Larry's radar. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to show her to him.

"Easy peasy to do, bud. She's practically done all the hard work. Happy to help. By this time next week, she'll be stripped naked, wishing she'd never fucked with you, and begging you to keep going."

My cock started to stiffen. Everything Larry was saying was true. We'd done it faster than that, not a couple of years ago. Nothing unusual about this one, even with the complication of Carolyn. Carolyn. Hmmm, an interesting twist. Suddenly I heard what Larry had been teasing about: Tee screaming and begging for release. The image of those nipples pulled away from her chest, her arms stretched above her, her feet barely touching the floor. I licked my lips and could taste her tears. I twisted my mouth and looked up at him, nodding. "Okay. Yeah. Let's make this happen. But let's talk about the girlfriend. I think she's important." Something wasn't quite right about this, but I couldn't get a handle on anything specific.

*-*-*-*

I looked up at a soft knocking at the office door.

"Professor?"

I didn't need to see her to know it was Tee. No Carolyn. Interesting. "Come in, Tee. Come in. Are you here about the mid-term, because I haven't had a chance to look them all over yet..."

"Ummm, no, sir. Sorry to interrupt, but...ummm...I..."

I studied her as she sat down across the desk. Her hair, usually brushed up and spiky was a little disheveled, her shirt looked like she'd slept in it. And no Carolyn. Hmmmm. "What's up, Tee?"

"Well, I know we talked about that thing last week, and how you had said it was over and everything, but, well, ummm..." She pulled out her tablet. "It's just that..." Her hands were shaking a little.

I waited for her to look up at me, keeping my face transparent, confused and curious what she was going to say. I knew exactly what she was going to say, but there was no sense in rushing it. I loved this part.

"Ummm, this came into my inbox last night, and I'm kinda freaking out. Did you send it?"

She turned the tablet so I could see the image of her that she'd sent not 10 days before, but this version included a message written across her belly: YOU WANT TO PLAY?

I looked at the image and then to her face and back to the image. "Who sent that to you?" I made sure to sound as if I was trying to control my anger. "That's horrible!"

She cowered a little, not knowing what to say. "That's the thing, Professor. It came in fully anonymized. I tried to trace it back and it goes to Singapore or someplace, so I know somebody's murking their trace."

That she even knew enough to back-trace the message startled me, but I hid my concern. Larry knew the stakes and didn't take anything for granted. Especially with the kids these days. You never knew what they knew or who they knew.

"Well, I can absolutely tell you it didn't come from me. But hold on a second - you can't be looking at this on the school network!"

"Dude, this is RSA encrypted VPN through my phone number. I'm not on the servers."

Shit this child was on top of it. I looked like I didn't have a clue what she was talking about and changed the subject. "Did you show it to Carolyn?"

She nodded, looking down, her color drained. "She got really pissed that I thought she might be pwning me. I..." She stopped, her throat stuck in a sob. "But I got this feeling..."

"Hmmm...that's pretty serious. Is she the only one who had a copy of the picture?"

She nodded, tears running down her face, her legs opening and closing. Nervous as fuck.

"So, I deleted my copy, and of course Dean Thomas has a copy, and the IT overlords, although I doubt they even know they have a copy. So, the only other possibility is that our email systems may have been hacked, or Dean Thomas's has...or..."

She looked up, eyes red-rimmed.

"Highly unlikely. But it's a possibility that Dean Thomas sent it."

I looked at her over the image on my desk. Before she could close it down, I reached across and covered her hands with mine. "Extremely unlikely, though. For lots of reasons, not the least of which is there's nothing in it for him to come after you. He's not into women like you."

She stopped sniffling and shot daggers at me. "Like me...how? Like, mixed-race, or foreign-born, or my hair, or..."

I interrupted her with a slight grunt. "None of that. He's into women with much larger tits." I looked straight at her. "And I'll deny I ever said anything of the sort. But it's true. He's a breast man, and those aren't the type to catch his eye."

She looked super-annoyed, but she'd stopped crying.

"So, they sent you this meme, but how are you supposed to answer them?"

She hesitated and opened a separate window. "It's a link to a chat room. I totally created an anonymous profile and went there. Fuck. I have no idea who's hanging there, but the pictures and videos and discussions are wayyyy more fucked up than anything."

I stared at her waiting. "And?"

"And, what? Fuck. That room is filled with BDSM and shit."

I shook my head. Patience, Jim. "I got that. But you didn't answer my question. How are you supposed to answer them?"

She looked at me from under her eyebrows. "He wants me to set up a profile with a specific name and he'll reach out to me again."

I pulled my lips back. "He? So you think it's some guy? What guy? How the hell did some guy get a hold of that picture?"

"That room is filled with creepsters and shit. I'm not going in there again."

I nodded. "Good idea. You think that's it then? They're just trying to yank your chain and they'll leave you alone?"

She looked up and grabbed the tablet. "Fuuuucckkk..." she exhaled and got up. "You're not fucking with me, right Professor? This isn't your shit."

I looked her dead in the eye. "When, or if, I want to fuck with you, Tee, you'll know it. But like I said before. I like my job. Let me know if anything more happens and I hope it all settles down. I'm sorry this is happening to you. It's pretty fouled up."

She nodded and screwed up her mouth, not sure whether to trust me, turning to the door.

*-*-*-*

"Excellent."

"Yeah. It was pretty spot on. She's freaking. A lot." I looked at my empty glass and nodded to the server for another round.

"Phase 2?"

I hesitated before nodding. "She's a sharp kid. Didn't avoid the room, but didn't walk in unprotected. You found her anyway, though, right?"

Larry nodded. "She hid herself okay, but we don't get too many newcomers and the VPN she's using is pretty lousy. I caught her identity without much problem. Weird, since she talks about anonymizing so much." He paused while the drinks were switched. "Her friend, Carolyn? She's not nearly as careful or as smart. Check this out."

Larry turned the tablet to let me see.

"Shit. Really? This is live?"

"Completely open. All her feeds. Check out the photos." Larry swiped and poked and a massive gallery of images popped up. "Check those out."

I let out a low whistle. The two of them, selfies, naked, smiling, in a pool, a sauna, in bed. A costume party? Both in leather masks with little else. Hmmm. It wouldn't be the first time I'd worked with a lesbian. My cock pulsed slightly.

"She doesn't seem too concerned about being outed..."

"No, that's not the tack," Larry took the tablet back. "I think you were right: we need to leverage Carolyn. Tee's already wondering who leaked that picture. Let's try a couple more only Carolyn would have." He was grinning, but the expression didn't fill me with delight. I knew that look; I felt my hunger lift a notch. "You were right. Carolyn's the lynch pin. I'm working on getting her out of the picture for a few days. You'll be getting a message she's requesting a short leave of absence." That grin again.

I took a drink and cocked an eyebrow. Do I really need this grief right now? It was going to take longer than Larry had suggested earlier, but he was always optimistic. So, what? A month instead of next week? The hunger was poking at my edges. In a couple of weeks its tendrils would be reaching up to stroke my spine and begin to envelop my brain. Better to be prepared for it than rush headlong into something. But the risks were getting higher. Tee? Her breasts flashed into memory; I swallowed. Fuck. They were nice tits. And then that something else wafting just below the surface. A red flag, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"How about this one?" Larry turned the tablet and showed off the two of them, legs overlapping and open, Carolyn's arm reaching toward the screen holding the camera. Her thatch of hair was wispy, blond and thin; Tee's was dark black, thick but trimmed to a small triangle. Their slits so different from one another. They were both laughing hard, heads thrown back, oblivious to the risk of voyeurs stealing into Carolyn's cache.

"Bingo," I agreed. "That'll be tough to explain." I looked around the room at the regulars, nodding hello to several I hadn't seen in a while. "You completely certain she won't find any trace of you?"

Larry stared across the table, his expression slack as he double-triple-checked how he'd hacked her phone. "There's always a chance, bud, but given Tee's demonstration of amateur security, I think we'll be fine. I mean," he took a drink, "if someone like me were brought in, I could identify theoretically how it could have happened, but I wouldn't find any evidence."

I nodded. I wasn't worried, mostly. "Do us both a favor, yeah? Get as much as you need and get out of there tonight. When we start the next round, I don't want anything of you left on there."

Larry nodded in agreement. "Makes sense." He stopped and looked down. "Holy shit! Take a look at this!"