Higher Learning

Sweat covered both of their bodies and breaths had become labored. Two hearts pulsed as one, at a rate that increased with each passing beat. Words were impossible, but none were needed. Only the goal mattered and without warning, it was upon both of them.

Their bodies exploded from within, the difference in timing too small to matter. It was like a thunderstorm had been released in both of them, shattering all the walls of civilization and leaving only the most animalistic of passions.

An eruption that was overwhelming as Annie felt herself fading to black. It was the first time in her life she had actually passed out from an orgasm.

-=-=-=-

Annie stretched out on her bed and opened her eyes. The digital clock on the nightstand had just turned to eight forty-five. She had been asleep for almost fourteen hours, having spent all of Saturday night and the better part of yesterday with Camille, and there wasn't a part of her body that didn't still hurt to some extent. But it was a glorious hurt, the kind that makes you glad to be alive. Glorious because it was a reminder of how much fun it had been getting that way.

"Shit, are you still in bed?" a loud voice yelled from behind Annie.

The brunette rolled over to see her roommate, Karen, fully dressed and standing in the doorway of their shared dorm room. The blonde was an early riser and usually left before seven in order to use the study hall before her first class of the day.

"Go away!" Annie yelled back, pulling her head under the covers.

"It's a good thing I forgot one of my notebooks and came back and get it," Karen said as she pulled the blanket off Annie's head. "You do remember that we have a psychology class in fifteen minutes?"

"Screw psychology," Annie said as she reached for the blanket that was no longer there, "old man Jennings won't even know if I'm there or not. Just take notes for me."

"Shit, that's right, you cut out early Friday and don't know," Karen said.

"Know what?" Annie asked, finally lifting her head up and loosening the sheet she had wrapped around her.

Karen didn't answer right away, too taken by surprise as the sheet dropped and she saw her roommate had been sleeping in the nude. Something she had never seen her do in the eight months they had shared a room.

"Doctor Jennings had a heart attack on Friday afternoon," Karen said finally.

"Fuck, is he dead?"

"No, but they say that he's gone for the rest of the year," Karen explained. "It was up on the bulletin board all weekend that Professor Funicello was taking over all his classes."

"Who is Professor Funicello," Annie said, unable to place the name among the faculty she had met at the freshman seminars last term, "I never heard of him."

"Her," Karen corrected, "and from what my sister told me, she's the original bitch from hell. Evidently she was on sabbatical last semester. They say she picks some sorry ass who pisses her off the first day of class and makes them her whipping boy, or girl as the case may be, for the rest of the year. If we weren't already so far into the year, I think half the class would be looking to drop psych. I know I would."

"Well screw Professor Funicello then," Annie said, not really caring about what her friend had said. "I'm staying in bed today."

"Do I have to remind you what your father said was going to happen if you failed one more class?" Karen reminded her, playing her hole card. "Blowing off her first day is not going to be a good idea."

"Double fuck," Annie said as she finally threw off the last of the sheets and got up.

All too clearly now she remembered how her father had gone unreasonably ballistic when she failed a class last semester. He laid down the law, saying that if it happened again he was going to have her move back home and go to a local college where he could make sure she applied herself.

"I have to get going," Karen said as she grabbed her missing notebook, "and you better get your ass in gear if you know what's good for you."

Try as she could, there was no way that Annie was going to get washed, dressed, and across campus in fifteen minutes. As it was, the clock on the wall read nine ten when she tried to quietly sneak into class through the back door. The new instructor had her back to the class and was saying something as she wrote a few lines on the whiteboard with a marker.

She had just about made it to the seat next to Karen, when she realized that the Professor had stopped speaking and the room had just gone quiet. Hesitantly, she stopped and looked in the direction of the front of the classroom.

"Fuck!" Annie said under her breath.

"Nice of you to join us, Miss..." the Professor paused as she looked down to consult the picture coded student roster on the desk. " ... Velez."

Annie opened her mouth to say something, but the words just wouldn't come out.

"No excuses, Miss Velez," the woman in the front of the room said. "You've wasted enough of the classes valuable time. You can come by my office this afternoon and explain your lateness to me around four-thirty. Now take your seat and we'll try not to take up any more of the rest of these ladies and gentlemen's time."

Closing her mouth, Annie took her seat. All around her, students let out a collective sign of relief. They had all heard the story Karen had told Annie, and all were glad to know that it hadn't been them.

"Damn, Annie," Karen whispered in the softest voice she could find. "I warned you."

"It's okay, Karen," Annie said as she looked again to the front of the class and Professor Camille Funicello.

She didn't think she was going to mind being the Professor's whipping girl for the term, but somehow, she didn't think Karen would understand that.

END