Professor Head Ch. 02 - Bubbles

Bubbles

I give notable students nicknames. I don't always use them publicly, mind you, so I never actually called a given sorority princess, "Lady Skanks-a-lot," but, after the thirteenth Precious made her way through, somehow their names seemed less important to me. I can't remember a single Precious, but I'll never forget Lady Skanks-a-lot.

Bubbles definitely fell into the unforgettable category. After the first class of the semester, a Wednesday that winter, she bounced her way up to the lectern (no it isn't a fucking "podium" and this mistake WILL cost your paper a letter grade) with a huge smile pasted below the devious eyes of an experienced, near professional, liar. She patiently waited for me to finish with, well, the subject of another story named Esther, but suffice it to say that Esther was asking for some accommodations, and given her situation and her willingness to work around her situation, I had no problem accommodating her. Bubbles, though? No. Bubbles was looking for a target to exploit, and she was only starting her second semester. I made a mental note to check her first semester grades before I agreed to anything she asked.

"Professor, I'm REALLY looking forward to your class, a lot!" Oh good. A steaming helping of bull fucking shit. First, had she listened or read anything related to the class, she wouldn't have used "really" or "a lot" with me even in casual conversation. Second, she was deeply engrossed in her phone for the entire class. I'm too old to have been born yesterday, and the bullshit wears thin quickly.

"The syllabus and grading looks very doable for me..." Yeah. Very this time. Swell. At this point I didn't tune out, but I began listening for key phrases which indicated substance amongst the ubiquitous flattery, the reframing of the contents of my syllabus as somehow optional, and the denigration of my class as less than necessary. I'm a fucking wordsmith as well as a teacher of wordsmiths, and this moronic teenage child was trying to double-talk me. Only one other student patiently waited, and before long he caught my eye, rolled both of his, and then pulled out a folder to write a note about what he needed. Young master Kyle had participated in class, and his patience with Bubbles had ended long before mine. After he packed up his folder and pocketed his pen, he caught my eye and handed me his folded note before inclining his head and heading for the door.

Bubbles kept prattling on and on...

Turns out she's on some sort of dance team that takes up a significant amount of her time, "socially and professionally," whatever the Hell that means, and she wanted to make sure she could make up any absences she accrued. I gestured to the syllabus and opened my mouth to explain the policy, but she kept right on talking. So I closed my mouth and continued to listen with both my amusement and irritation increasing by the minute. I didn't have back-to-back classes that semester, and I figured this unequal exchange qualified as the day's Office Hours.

When she finally took a break to breathe, I suggested we head for my office so she can explain, specifically, what she needed from me in order to satisfy all of her campus obligations while still participating in my class. She literally bounced as she replied with a giddy, "Okay!"

Bubbles stood about 5' 4" with a slim dancer's body, and when I rarely saw her that semester, she always wore tights, sometimes with a skirt, but always with a short top of some sort that showed off her toned tummy. As the semester grew to a close in the spring, her jacket disappeared, and she replaced her tops with hankies and strings instead of shirts. Sometimes she wore bicycle shorts instead of the yoga tights. I like to think I didn't overtly keep my eyes on her when she graced the class with her presence, but there's no denying she's attractive. She had long, straight, and shiny yellow blonde hair that gave her a presence beyond her athletic body and high cheek bones. She was striking, and she knew it. Also, she clearly put her assets to use.

As we walked to my office, she kept going on and on about the dance team, and she told me way too much. It's not a school activity. It's a club. This is fine, but where I have to make accommodations for football and volleyball players missing class due to games, I don't have to do shit for the Dungeons and Dragons club, the local Moose Lodge, the Shriners,...or some dance club. I let her go on, though. The whole thing was getting funnier to me by the minute, and my irritation waned once I could sit in my big comfy chair.

"...So I just HAVE to be there on Wednesdays, there's just no way around it, and if there's any work at all, especially if there's a lot of it, then it might be Monday instead of Friday when I can get it to you, and we have four competitions on Fridays that we have to travel to during the day and I can read or whatever on the trip but those four days I won't be able to come to class Friday either, but maybe it could be made up with a character outline or something? Oh, you should come see our routine at the mall on Thursday -- our practices are so intense, but they're nothing compared to a performance like that..."

I honestly haven't got the foggiest fucking idea what this dance crew was, but I think it was a bunch of 18-19 year old girls with showbiz delusions in the East Coast middle Atlantic states. The upshot of it all was that she would be able to attend class on Mondays, but not Wednesdays, and she would find it difficult to impossible to attend most Fridays, as well. Class work, particularly discussion, she would make up. And when she got to missing the mid-term and asking for a make-up date, I began chuckling.

".................what?" Her facial expression screamed an absolute lack of understanding.

"Miss..." I glanced down at the class list, "Jones is it?"

She nodded, "call me Brandi!...with an I."

"Alright Brandi with an I," I smiled at her, but she was more taken aback at my response than anything else. "It sounds to me like you have far more pressing matters than my class."

She blinked. It never occurred to her that I might suggest my class wasn't a good fit for her.

"You should probably drop CW201 and not worry about the mid-term, class work, or attendance. This class will require a fair amount of writing, not only reading, though reading good books will help you become a better writer, and reading on trips cannot make up for creative brainstorming sessions during class time. Those are meant to inspire ideas in my students. I want to hear what you think. I want to hear what you think about. I want your dreams adorning paper, and I want that adorned paper to express some part of who you are. Think of it as dancing with language."

She nodded, still utterly befuddled by my response.

"If you stay in my class, you will need to abide by the policies laid out in the syllabus. If you cannot, then I highly recommend you not stay in my class. Add/drop is in two weeks, so you have some time to think about it and make a well-considered decision. It's up to you."

Bubbles finally found her voice again, "but what about Esther?" I raised an eyebrow. "Well, you told her you would accommodate her schedule, but you won't accommodate mine? That's really not fair."

"Well, I'm not telling you someone else's business, but Esther has significant responsibilities elsewhere-..." she opened her mouth to interrupt, but I raised my hand to stop her, "and Esther was asking to make accommodations that allow her to DO the work rather than to get out of doing the work. So there's quite a difference between what you are asking and what she asked."

She looked mutinous for an instant before quickly hiding it, so I pressed her. "If you'd like, you can file a complaint with the department. Professor Blake's office is one floor up. I'm sure he'd love to hear this." He would. He'd send me a thank you note for the opportunity to chew her a new asshole. Verbally, I mean. As far as I knew, he didn't partake of the coeds.

Bubbles returned to bubbling. She would be in class, participate, do the work, she her ideas with me...yeah. Okay. Well, I can't control whether she drops the class or not, so...

You know what happened.

*******

Spring sprang. I enjoyed that semester tremendously. The students shared a wealth of engrossing ideas, they built towering skyscrapers on each others' ideas, and they blew away their own expectations. By the end of the semester, six of them had nearly finished books and some had outlines for several more.

Bubbles made a token effort to begin with, and she had at least warned me that she'd be gone for most of the classes, but she skipped the mid-term, she never even asked me for a make-up time, and by the last three weeks of the semester, I didn't see her in class at all.

She wasn't dead, mind you. After her invitation, I took an afternoon to see her dance troupe's performance, and, poof, they had a new fan. As you might have figured out by now, I like a nice lady ass. One might even say I'm a connoisseur thereof, and the dancer figures these young ladies maintained were profoundly impressive -- stimulating, even. So on instafacepagetwittergrambook...I followed that crew on all of them. I knew where she was for every class, exam, and assignment she missed or skipped. Her dance crew's social media coordinator kept on top of everything remotely related to them, so I easily followed their progress, but I still had zero idea of their ultimate goal.

Bubbles greeted me enthusiastically after that first performance, and she thanked me again for coming at the next class she attended, but then she promptly ghosted. After reaching out the standard three times via email, and getting Silent Casper as a response, I shelved her as Not My Problem.

********

During the last week of the semester I sat at my desk while grading their final projects; I preferred doing actual work during my office hours, and for that semester, I skipped the final exam entirely and let their final creative project be their final grade. It gets us all into our break a smidge quicker, and this particular class had done such spectacular work that I figured they didn't actually need a formal exam. Bubbles seriously missed out.

As I read the violent and racy exploits of Space Pirate Perkins and His crew of Tentacular Aliens, a soft knock on my open door pulled me from a particularly amusing naked wrestling match between, no shit, First Officer Desiré Morehead and a Jello Creature from Alpha Centauri who clearly longed to dehydrate her with orgasms.

My ongoing chuckles continued as I glanced up to see Bubbles looking far less Bubbly than the last time I saw her.

I smiled. "Miss Jones! Long time no see! How's the dancing career going?" Her eyes blew wide open in surprise as she expected hostility instead of friendliness, and she clearly preferred to discuss her dancing over whatever brought her here. She perked up a bit before replying.

"Really good." I smirked at her phrasing. "Er...very well..." My countenance slumped a bit more as my chuckles restarted. "It's...glorious, invigorating...meaningful..." She hadn't learned much in my class, but she apparently noted that the words REALLY and VERY were both really very fucking verboten.

"That's better. Tell me about how dance is so meaningful."

She paused for a moment to ponder. "It's like..." her eyes popped open at yet another nothing phrase I professionally despise, but I motioned for her to continue. "When I dance the world makes sense. Even when we work a fast beat, the world slows down. I feel like I fit in existence."

"So it organizes the chaos of the universe itself for you..."

"YES!" She leapt to the edge of her seat with wide eyes since I apparently understood her so well.

"Yeah, writing does that for me. There was a musician who said something along the lines of, 'if nothing else could demonstrate it, music proves to me that God exists.'" Her eyes went wide with recognition as she nodded.

I placed the Space Pirate Perkins story back on the to-be-read pile, leaned back in as relaxed a manner as I could muster, interlaced my fingers across my belly, and calmly focused on the wayward dancer. "What can I do for you, Miss Jones?"

Her glorious, invigorated, and meaningful countenance dropped into despair. "I hoped to speak to you about my grade."

"Okay, well, here's your big chance. Speak to me about your grade to your heart's content."

She remained silent for a solid minute before murmuring, "it can't be good..."

"No," I laughed, "it really can't, can it."

She didn't like my laughing at her, but I've always had an infectious belly laugh, and her indignance broke into some chuckles of her own. "How bad off am I?"

I contained my chuckles and with a bit of a paternal grin I replied, "Well, really bad. Verily. A lot." She chuckled at my self-referencing joke -- that was nice of her -- as I tapped on my computer. "Yeesh, yeah, 24."

Her eyes widened in profound fear. We both knew this wasn't something a little extra credit work could possibly overcome.

My grin morphed into a rueful one as I ceased chuckling. "Honestly, Miss Jones, I'm surprised you care. I figured when you didn't drop that maybe you actually wanted to be in the class, and I'm always happy to have students who want to be with me. This semester blew my mind, too. Your classmates worked hard and developed significantly. I'm in such a good mood right now because I was in the middle of reading their final projects when you knocked."

I paused as her face contorted into something close to regret and confusion.

"Then you ghosted us." She looked at her feet. "You didn't even reply to my emails asking if you were okay." She squeezed out a crocodile tear over that one. "After that I figured you wanted nothing more to do with me or the class, so I kinda put you out of my mind."

She nodded, and took a deep breath before answering. "I have so many responsibilities with my dance team -- they got in the way of school this semester."

"Mine's not the only class, eh?" She kept studying her feet as she shook her head. "When you have a 145 credit hours, you can afford to fuck around on a class and it won't hurt your GPA. When you have 14, well, that's a different matter." She nodded again and looked up at me. Two more tears slowly dripped down her face. "So just how fucked are you?"

Bubbles registered surprise every time I said fuck, but she answered fluidly. "If I don't pass your class, my mom said I have to stop dancing."

"That would be a shame." She looked up hoping for leniency. She also leaned forward which allowed her spaghetti strap rag masquerading as a shirt to droop forward and give me an excellent view of her hanging tits. They weren't all that big, but they drooped slightly into a tear drop shape I could possibly get my mouth around...and maybe bite...hmm... She caught me looking down her shirt, and she wore a self-satisfied smile by the time I returned my eyes to hers.

She quietly said, "D'you want to see them?"

I let silence linger for two full minutes as I stared her down without expression. "Is that really the direction you want to take this?" She shrugged. "You need to answer me. Are you trying to swap a quick glimpse of your tits for a better grade?"

"I guess..."

"You guess?" She shrugged again. "Let's say I give you an 80 because you showed me your tits. What would that say about the 80 Pamela earned by working her ass off and improving her writing by about 1000% this semester?"

She shrugged once again. "I dunno."

"Doesn't that sound deeply unfair to you?"

"...not necessarily..." I scowled at her, and she began reexamining the toes of her shoes.

"So basically if I give you an 80 for showing me your tits, we're both giving Pamela a good fucking over without her even realizing it. It's certainly against her will. So you're asking me to metaphorically rape your fellow students. Is that what you want?"

Bubbles met my eyes at that; she looked shocked, astounded, and mortified. She blinked repeatedly as she tried to mentally reframe what she wanted so that it didn't sound outright evil.

"What kind of a teacher would I be if I taught you to screw over other people just to benefit you and me...especially for things we didn't earn?"

She slowly closed her eyes and slumped in her seat in dejection. "I guess a bad one...but you'd be a kind one..."

"Hrrm..." Time for another pause. I'd be kind, huh? "Would it be kind to Pamela if I did that?"

"I guess it wouldn't, no."

"But it would be kind to you."

She nodded silently but hopefully.

"Well, in that case I think Pamela and the rest of the class shouldn't get fucked over for your grade; I think you should." I remained in my chair and leaned all the way back. "What do you think?"

"That..." she paused, "seems...fair..."

"Okay. "What are you doing tomorrow morning at 6am?"

She twitched in surprise. "six a-.........sleeping?"

"Until when?"

"I don't have anywhere to be until after noon."

"Alright. Here is your option." She now watched me with wide eyes and rapt attention. "Be here at 6am. You will be awake, and you will be ready to do literally anything I want you to do." She leaned back in her chair as the realization hit her. "This isn't fucking Mardi Gras, and a quick flash isn't going to accomplish anything. If I invite an entire frat house to come through here and systematically fuck you over like you wanted me to fuck over the rest of your class, then you will entertain them willingly even if you don't necessarily want to." Her face dropped into horror. "I'm not going to do that, but I want you to understand the extent of what's going to happen tomorrow morning. You. Will. Be. Punished. Are we clear on that?"

"O...kay..." She hesitated in every movement, every thought, and every word.

"Don't tell me your answer now." She slunk into a confused grimace. "Think about it. Decide after giving it all due consideration. Talk is cheap. You will tell me what you decide by showing up in the morning...or by not showing up. Now, are we clear?"

She remained frozen for a few more moments before finally saying, "Yes, Professor," and she gathered up her things and left. I chuckled and picked up the Space Pirate and the Jello Creature where I left off. I figured there was pretty much zero chance Bubbles would show up in the morning.

*******

I arrived early to prep in case she showed, but, after the office setup, I settled in to read more of the delightful creations my students gave me that semester. They were a joy that time around, and I savored every single one.

At 5:59, a knock sounded on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened gingerly, and Bubbles padded in with all the presence of a titmouse. She held a coffee cup with both hands after shutting the door, and I waited for her to take a step away from it. When she did...

"Lock the door, Miss Jones."

Except for us, the building was completely empty, but I wanted her to experience obedience from the moment she set foot in my office. It worked. She stepped back, locked the door, and turned to gaze at me with fear. She didn't move.

Her flowing hair shined in the early morning sun, and she wore a jacket over whatever flimsy top hung in front of her chest like a bib that day. Her standard yoga tights showed off her incredible dancer legs, and she even wore heels. She watched me with wide eyes as she waited for...something. I enjoyed the view. As many stories as I have, there aren't many where I get a tight and toned 19-year old coed presenting herself for my inspection.

Part of room prep means turning up the heat, and it was over 80 degrees in my office by then. Without thinking about it, she set her coffee down and pulled off her jacket. As she turned and hung it on the coat rack, she turned her lower half slightly more than necessary to give me a good look at her ass and thigh. Mmmmmm...delicious.