Teaching Her a Lesson Pt. 18

Yelling at the girl probably wasn't the best way to impose calm, I considered belatedly. By the time I returned with a glass of water, Tabitha was full-blown hyperventilating. I almost dropped the glass in my haste, grabbing one of the throw pillows and fanning her. Tabitha's fist gripped the arm of the sofa white-knuckled. She fought to regain her breath, and when it didn't go away after the first couple minutes, I hastily googled what to do for someone having a panic attack on my phone and followed the advice as best I could. That WebMD assured me she'd be fine did little to bolster my anxiety as I watched her tremble and gasp.

After about twenty minutes, she was finally calm enough to manage more than clipped monosyllabic answers. Afraid to send her condition back the other direction, I waited for her to speak first. Eventually, though her breath was still shallow, she at last did.

"Sorry, Mr. Canon. I have an anxiety disorder. I don't really tell many people. My dad says when people know you have a weakness, they see you as weak."

"You're not weak, Tabitha. You're human." I wanted to reassure her with a squeeze of the hand, the shoulder, but I didn't dare touch her, just in case.

"See, every now and then I have these panic attacks. Technically only about four times ever, including that, but the anxiety does lots of other things, too. That's why I joined speech and debate, because I was always terrified of it and my parents thought conquering my fear would be good for me. It's gotten better. Mostly. Anyway, I'll be OK." She patted her chest as if it would force her heart into a steadier rhythm.

"I'm glad for that, at least. Thought you were going to faint on me for a minute there." I leaned down so I could meet her eyeline. "You're not, are you?"

"I'll give myself a few before I try standing up, but I should be OK. The water helps, thanks." She took a long sip. "Is this well water or something? It tastes... blergh."

"My apologies, on behalf of the water conservation office."

Tabitha at least seemed to grasp her ingratitude and made a face. Or maybe the water really was that bad. I didn't like it either, frankly, but I hardly ever drank it straight out of the tap. Again, I waited, afraid that if I posed the obvious question, it might trigger a relapse.

(I'd had time to think about what might come of an ambulance call to my house to pick up a panicking eighteen-year-old student. I was pretty sure I could arrange for her to be picked up at Megan's, but it seemed like it would be rude to dump her off like that. Happily it hadn't come to that.)

Tabitha, however, sensed my lingering apprehension. "Go ahead. You can ask."

"Hey, you've been through way more than enough today. If you want to talk about anything, I'd be glad to listen, but I'm not putting you through that. It wasn't fair of me to pressure you like that in the first place."

She didn't respond right away, taking some time to force down the rest of the water, then a bit more to let her body calm back down to normal levels. I had all sorts of questions, but more than anything, I wanted my student to feel safe and well. Maybe another day I'd get to grill her on the rest of it. For tonight, it would be best if we let the subject drop and just--

"Did I really do that bad, with the... you know...?" she asked, her voice so soft that even in the quiet house I barely heard her.

"The what? Oh, you mean... before? Um, yes. Yes, you did just fine." Why wasthat on her mind?

"Don't placate me. You said I wasn't first rate. I know I didn't get to make you... you know. Honest answer. Did I do a bad job?"

The sincerity in those piercing blue eyes of hers bade me take her request seriously. "It was... decent. Not the best, not the worst. The teeth thing was sort of rough. It gets pretty sensitive down there when... yeah."

"Thank you. And I'm sorry." Tabitha looked down at her lap contritely.

What the hell was this? Had the panic attack fried her brain? "You're making me dizzy, Tabitha."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Canon," she said meekly. No more, though.

"Help me make sense of this. You come over here for a made-up study session that you had to know wasn't real. Somehow they convince you to join their little game, and you play along. But after, when I explain how it came to this, you come at me with a slew of righteously indignant accusations -- not unfair, but still. Then I ask why you went along with something you find so distasteful and you have a panic attack, and then on the other end of it you're apologizing for not giving a satisfactory blowjob? Are you all right? I'm starting to worry Serenex really did something weird to you."

Her eyes flicked up. "I suppose it's been a weird night for both of us."

"Putting it mildly. Come on, Tabitha. Talk to me. How are you feeling? Can I help? If we need to get you medical help--"

"Fine. You win." She sighed in resignation. "It's... it's what you said. One of the things I always liked about your teaching style is that you're good about steering discussion toward an end point, guiding it along. Some teachers let kids just blurt out whatever idiot things are on their minds like it automatically has value, and then not take it anywhere."

"I've said a lot of things tonight..."

Her hands fidgeted in her lap. "My dad used to say when I was studying for my driver's license test that just because I did a good job washing the car didn't mean he trusted me to drive it. Like you said, approval of one deed doesn't extend to approval of all of them."

I held up my hands, already seeing what I'd done. I'd just had to hit that damn button, hadn't I? "No, sweetie. That was wrong of me. I only said that to get you to satisfy my curiosity about how tonight got put together. I was angry with the others and since they weren't here for me to interrogate them, I looked to you. I was being selfish, and I'm sorry."

Tabitha shook her head, though, and reminded me that she was on GHS's varsity debate team with her swift, cool analysis. "You were being selfish, true, and so was Taylor when she sold me on her reasoning. She told me that maybe you approved of me as a student, but not as a woman. She was only trying to play me, too -- and I'll deal with her later, believe me -- but that doesn't mean she was wrong."

"Please don't start taking your cues from Taylor Stern. Really, Tabitha. You have absolutely nothing to prove to me."

"Respectfully, I disagree." Her legs crossed once more, and when I let myself notice too pointedly, a thin smile appeared on thick lips. "In a way, this is an opportunity -- for both of us. I'll get to learn things about relationships, about satisfying a partner, about my own wants and needs. And you... well, it's pretty clear what you get out of it."

I blinked. "Wait, now you're talking yourself back into being my brainwashed sex slave?"

"As if I have a choice in the matter," she said snidely. "Intellectually, yes, I know it's the Serenex, but in my heart, itfeels right. Wasn't that the rationale you gave us for all those journaling exercises? I always found them a bit tedious myself, but I do remember some of the lecture side of things. You said they were to help us understand what's inside of us so we can bring it to the outside in the way we want. Something like that, anyway. I was sitting too close to Taylor and her idiot friends to hear it all."

"This is definitely not what I meant by that!" I insisted, standing. Just once, it would be nice if anything Serenex-related made sense or went according to plan! And of course, it had to be with a young woman who had near eidetic memory for every damn word I'd ever said in front of her damn class!

"Obviously, but since what was inside you was a desire to have sex with your students, now that you've made that your outside, maybe you shouldn't look the gift horse too closely in its mouth either, hmm?" Her smile broadened. "Wow, I feel better. Trying to fight this down. All this past week, ever since that party, I've found myself thinking I'm not doing enough to earn your approval -- and every time I got it, it felt so...good."

The way she said that word... that was dangerous.

"Mr. Canon, I've been to rationalize this away, but it just... bleh. It was eating at me all week. Then tonight when you explained it all, I tried to keep being independent, to not worry about what a man in a position of power thinks of me -- like you said you respected -- but I just can't ignore how I feel. And that teeth thing! You have no idea how much that bothered me -- that I couldn't even apologize!"

"It was really not a big deal, Tabitha -- it could happen to anyone, especially on their first time."

Before I could add that it was also to be herlast time, she cut me off, taking to her feet and stopping right in front of me. "Justin didn't usehis teeth on what I can only assume washis first time," she pointed out. I winced at the reminder. "I'll practice. I'll get good at it. I'll get good ateverything. You just have to show me how, OK? I realize I put you on the defensive earlier, but that was my fault. I get it now. Look at this guy, huh?" Tabitha playfully nudged my shoulder. She was standing much too close, though. "Teaching me, even outside the classroom."

I stepped back, but she pursued. Was this the same girl who'd recovered from a panic attack not ten minutes ago!? "Not exactly what I had in mind when I took the job."

"What about now?" Her carefully manicured hands found my stomach, caressed it. She smelled good, this close. Perfume? Shampoo? Whatever it was, she was pressing it up my nostrils like some sort of pheromone assault. "What do you have in mind now, Mr. Canon?"

I pulled her hands down, but she still managed to curl her fingers in and tease my wrists with her nails. "Tabitha, no. I know today's been pretty wild for you, but I assure you, I'm not having my best day either. Let's sleep on it, OK? We can talk later on once we've had time to think it over. Monday, after school."

"Maybe I could help take your mind off of it." My back hit the wall. She didn't stop. Her chest pressed against mine. "Please let me help, Mr. Canon?"

"I shouldn't.We shouldn't."

The girl's slender neck craned up. I twisted my head to the side to forestall a kiss. I'm not sure if that's what she intended, though; her soft, pink lips instead brushed against my ear as she whispered into it. "Teach me to be as good at being your brainwashed sex slave as I've always been as your student."

"Tabitha..."

"I want to learn. Teach me, Mr. Canon."

Foolishly, I turned back to face her. Damnit, she was beautiful. My taste ran to women with more curves on their bones, but with Tabitha's face right in mine, there was no trace of any lacking element. The perfect student.

Why was I hesitating? I'd already crossed the line -- that acre-wide line -- between student and sex partner several times over. Not merely crossed but trampled, then gone back and set fire to it. Hell, with Cassie and the Sterns, I'd barely thought of the distinction except in how it spiced things up.

Tabitha might be a better student, but it wasn't like we were close. The girl needed next to to minding in class; I'd expended ten times the energy trying to corral Taylor and Justin this year than I ever could providing enrichment for our resident brainiac. Perhaps her name had come up in Abbie's fantasy probing, though if it truly had (and this weren't simply the bitch seizing an opportunity to drag an uptight honors student through the mud), it couldn't have netted much substance.

Tabitha was my fantasy the same way she would be nearly anyone's fantasy in my place. Gorgeous, unattainable, easily fetishized given our relationship, but I had never fixated on her the way I had, say, Taylor. It wasn't to say she'd never been on my mind when I was jerking off. (Oy, the day she wore leggings for a group project, decorating posters on the floor with her partners, the hunching and the squatting and the bending...!) It was incidental, though. Occasional.

Only now, that occasion was caressing the bulge in my jeans.

It was stupid to say no. There was no justification for it -- at least, none I hadn't already long since discarded. She was hot and willing, and if it was only because of Serenex, the same could be said for myself and every other woman I'd fooled around with in the past month. There was nothing about this scenario that was unappealing in any way.

So how on earth could I not be in the mood?

My eyes squeezed shut. There on the backs of my eyelids were burned the image of Justin on my TV screen, Abbie and Taylor broadcasting their amusement. The laughter, the howls, the finger as they drove off.

Evidently betrayal wasn't much good for my libido.

Gently but firmly, I removed her hand from my crotch. "I'm sorry, Tabitha. I'm just not in the mood right now. Sort of in my own head a bit right now."

"Oh." Her smile withered. "I see."

"It's not you." I tilted her chin up. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with you."

Her lips pursed. "Can I ask what it is then? You didn't seem to have a problem being sexual with those other girls."

"Well for one, I just found out one of my favorite students got roped into this whole mess I created, and then it gave her a panic attack."

"In my defense, that was part of an adjustment period. I'll be more proactive from now on, I swear."

"And for two," I went on, "I just came in the mouth of another man, one I very much dislike, and two people I thought I could trust made that happen. So I'm just in a shitty mood, and I can't stop picturing... fuck Fuck! Sorry. Just not in an amorous frame of mind."

"Oh. Yeah, I can understand that. So, um, I guess I really will get out of your hair this time. But... we'll talk later, right?"

"Sure."

"Oh and before I go -- geez, this is so weird to ask a teacher, but... can I have your number?"

I entered my number into her phone as she did the same with mine, then exchanged our phones back. Tabitha gave me a brief hug, a nervous smile, and left out the back door. I peered out from between the front blinds as she settled into the driver's seat of a luxury car I'd noticed parked across the street when I got home from work. The car started, she waved, and then she was gone.

Abbie sent me the video. Not a single solitary word accompanied it. Only the video. I considered for a fraction of a second, then deleted it. Then googled to make sure it wasn't still there, lingering somewhere in cyberspace to ambush me.

Fucking Justin. Fucking Taylor. Fucking Abbie! Fuck fuckfuck!

After quickly realizing sitting around at home with nothing and no one to distract me was a losing proposition, I took a jog around the neighborhood to burn off some energy. A shower was necessary after. Normally I liked to dawdle, relax under the stream of my deluxe shower heads, but that evening, showers made me think of Cassie and how much she liked to join me in here. Which made me think of what all we had done in this shower. Which made me think of her blowjob this afternoon. Which made me think of...

FUCK!

I was in and out in under five minutes.

Call her. Just call Abbie, demand to know what the hell she was thinking, and make sure she wasn't going to do it to anyone else, at least until we had a chance to talk face to face. My fantasies definitely did not entail this sort of bullshit. Maybe she'd refuse to pick up, or maybe she'd put on a show of throwing it in my face to impress the others, but I at least deserved the satisfaction of a redress of grievances, damnit!

Four beers later, I pressed the call button. Fuck it. I could at least leave a scathing voicemail, right? It was pathetic, but it might be therapeutic. I tapped my foot impatiently as it rang in my ear. Was I ever going to give that bitch a piece of my mind. She couldn't stop me from--

"Sup, C-dawg? Ready for round two already? Ow ow owooooooo!"

Justin's voice.

My words caught in my throat. I hung up. Then I threw the phone across the room. It was dumb luck that it didn't shatter on impact. Replacing the thing after cracking the screen a few weeks ago when Megan had shocked me with her blackmail texts had cost a small fortune.

My phone buzzed only moments later. I stalked across the room, ready to delete whatever taunt Abbie and Taylor and Justin had sent, sight unseen. That'd show 'em.FUCK!

It was from Tabitha.

So other than the teeth, was my first blowjob at least halfway decent? (How's that for a first message in a new text log...)

I stared for a long moment at that text.

You did fantastic, I replied. I downed the rest of beer five.Can't wait for round two.

O rly? she replied with an attached bitmoji of herself stroking her chin, eyebrow raised in curiosity and intrigue.

Really.After a minute, I added a second reply.Not to try to pressure you or anything. Don't wanna have you driving back and forth all over town like the doordash of blowjobs. ;P

Her next text came with an attached image, this time a photo. It was Tabitha sitting in the driver's seat of a car with leather interior, lower lip stuck out petulantly. Anlol followed a moment later, I presumed at my quip. That was more the Tabitha I knew from school, quick to laugh at my jokes, even the third-rate ones. She was a born suck-up. No wonder I hadn't noticed anything different about her behavior this past week.

Were you really about to drive back over here? I asked.

Yes. Only that single word, sent almost instantaneously.

I didn't need any more time to think it over. I was fucking done thinking things over. Right then, I wanted a distraction. I wanted civil company. I wanted every trace of this afternoon hoovered off my cock forever. I wanted to live out a fantasy that included nothing of Taylor or Abbie Stern.

Can you stay the night?

Yes.

"Don't get up," Tabitha said as she strode briskly through the back door. She hadn't changed clothes, I noted, still the vibrantly colorful schoolgirl in her pastel skirt and thin, form-flattering pink sweater. Pink and yellow - more girly than one might expect from such a woman, but it only highlighted her vibrance, her loveliness.

I held my place in my chair. Without fanfare, Tabitha sunk to the floor at my feet, immediately going after my jeans. I'd taken them off before my run, but having considered her reaction to them in class, I'd put them back on during her drive over.

They didn't stay on long, and occasioned no comment. Tabitha was on a mission. I may as well have waited for her naked.

She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and said something else. "What's your preference for dialogue?"

"Dialogue?" I repeated, too much of my blood flow already redirected. I'd stopped after that fifth bottle, but I was a bit tipsy as well. Good. My level head had only been getting in the way.

"Chatter. Talk. Vocalization. You like some chit-chat, all business, what?"

"Oh. I don't have a strong preference. If you have something to say, you should say it. Communication is good."

Her hands found my twitching shaft jutting up toward the ceiling and, after a lick on each palm, began stroking in both hands. It looked surprisingly natural to her. "What about dirty talk? Like, dislike?"

"Like." Cassie's fumbling efforts notwithstanding.

"Style-wise: Slutty? Aggressive? Obsequious? Dominatrix?"

"Explain the difference?"

She tapped her chin with one hand while continuing to jack me off with the other. "Oh my god, I fucking love your big fat dick, Mr. Cannon. Is all this for me? I barely know what to do with a monster like this. God your cock makes my pussy so fucking wet." One slow lick up my shaft followed her fawning compliment.