The Stud & The Slave Pt. 01

I was just a girl, living at home with her parents. Trying to study for college. A red belt in karate. I really enjoyed karate, and I went at least 4-5 times a week. For the past roughly year or so at this point, I noticed that one of my 18 year old karate teachers, Mr. Christopher / Chris had some sort of crush on me.

Now he never outright said it, but I could just tell. It actually started off quite weird. Back a year ago, when I was just a blue belt, I came into karate one day. I had been out for the whole Summer because I had a mycoplasma and mono infection. It made me extremely fatigued, nauseous, and have an asthma flare up from it. So after I finally had it treated, I came back. I specifically checked on the calendar if it was "stripe testing week" because if you didn't wear your gi top during stripe testing week, you owed the instructors pushups. The calendar said it was not stripe testing week, so I didn't show up in my gi top.

The first thing he says when I walked in the studio was "Where's your gi top? It's stripe testing week." I frowned out of confusion and said "That's not what the calendar said??" Mr. Christopher instantly took what I said as back talk.

"Um, okay??" Mr. Christopher retorted back to me.

I simply responded "Well I'm sorry, I didn't know." Mr. Christopher said "Ok. Well, go get lined up."

After class ended, Mr. Christopher pulled me aside and said "So you do have a point, I checked the calendar and it doesn't say it's stripe testing week on here, but you weren't here last week when we gave the announcement that it would be stripe testing week this week. So you still do have pushups to do, but since the calendar didn't say it correctly, I'll only give you 30 pushups."

I didn't even bother trying to explain why I wasn't in class the previous week. I just replied with "Ok, well do you want me to do them now?"

Chris then said "No, you don't have to now. You can wait until after sparring class."

I ended up never doing them, but after that, Chris seemed to have something against me. He'd glare at me whenever we'd meet eyes. Then about a month later, that all changed. I'd notice random times where he'd approach me and say hi to me, ask me questions, and start playing around with me. When this past Summer rolled around, he started fist bumping me, high fiving me, and calling me his "home slice". They even made a nickname for me. "Home slice Harper".

Fast forward to now. I always liked Chris back. But this time, I decided I wanted to try and pursue things and see how it works out. I mean we're both close in age. I'm 20 and he's 18. He's my teacher but it's just karate. He's hot, he's sexy, super tall (like 6 feet tall at least), he's super assertive as a teacher, a little overly strict, but always knows how to teach us and get to the point. He's amazing as a Martial Artist. A 3rd degree black belt, but has the fighting skills of practically a 5th-6th degree black belt. He competes in sparring, and as a result he's great at sparring and boxing. I've watched him beat a 4th degree black belt in sparring once. He admitted to us as a class that he has broken 12 different people's ribs from competing in sparring for so many years.

But I had to think how I was gonna pursue him. I was very shy in person and very socially awkward. When it came to guys I liked, I could never tell them to their face that I liked them. I feared embarrassment and rejection. After talking to several friends and my therapist, it was determined I should try a secret admirer note. Big mistake. I had no idea how big of a mistake it was, and I wished someone would have told me.

I slipped this secret admirer note into his cubby. It wasn't anything creepy or inappropriate. All it said was "Hi Mr. Chris :) I just wanted to take the time to point out how cute, handsome, and amazing I think you are. You're a great teacher who's assertive, you're kind, and you're funny. I think you and I should get together sometime. Can you guess who I am? ~Signed your secret admirer"

The first time he saw the first note, I saw him smiling with a look of shock on his face, as he began talking to his co-workers (the other teachers) about it. By the time class ended, all the teachers were huddled up in the staff room with the door closed having a discussion about it. As my sister and I walked past to leave the studio, everyone from inside the staff room looked at us wide eyed. That indicated to me that they knew it was me. I was wondering what to expect the next time I went to class.

The next time class came, he didn't say anything or do anything. I was confused. They knew it was me, right? They all looked straight at me like deer caught in headlights. But nothing was said or done.

I decided to go with a second secret admirer note that hinted who I was and had my phone number included. I included my age, hair color, and eye color. This time around, Chris took one look at the note, then started scouting the studio for who wrote the note. He walked around and back to standing and staring at the entrance of the classroom at least 3 times. Then I saw him walk toward one of the Masters / higher up staff of the studio. My heart and stomach dropped. I thought for sure I was about to get in trouble.

I went home and cried my eyes out, fearing that I was gonna come back to class the next Tuesday and have a serious talking to. I felt like I did something wrong by using the notes now. A week passed, and still no word from Chris or anyone. I decided to ask a staff member if dating Chris was allowed. They told me that while it wasn't against the studio rules, it was heavily discouraged.

Another week passed, and still nothing. I noticed Chris had started acting weird around me at this point. He went from talking to me and looking at me normally, to staring at me, gawking at me, standing close to me, walking up to me then walking away, "accidentally" brushing his shoulder up against mine several times to cut through me in lines, but he avoided interaction with me and would hardly look me in the face unless he was staring at me from a distance.

I was confused. Was I right about him liking me, or not? He's giving these weird mixed signals. Why is he practically stalking me during class, but doesn't wanna talk to me or treat me normal at all? I know the notes made things a bit awkward but... still. And I wasn't even 100% sure that he knew the notes were me, but based on his changed behavior, it seems as though he did.

I watched as during games he would avoid interacting or playing with me at all, I watched him greet everyone and talk to everyone but me. Friends of mine and people I knew were so buddy buddy with him. He was practically the face of the studio. He was everyone's favorite teacher, he was involved in a lot of the karate events and announcement videos the studio posted on YouTube, and on top of all of his responsibilities, he competed. And he was an outstanding competitor at that.

I started finding myself getting jealous and envious of the people he was talking to. My anxiety made it to where I was far too scared to just ask Chris what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was scared. My whole body tensed up and I could feel myself having an anxiety attack just trying to strike up one conversation with Chris. The one time I went out of my way to do so as of recent, it went super awkwardly which is precisely what I was afraid of. I just felt so insecure around him.

More months passed. Finally I was tired of this bullshit, and I wrote Chris another note asking if we could talk. Next couple of days that I saw him, he never approached me about it. I was just about ready to give up, when he finally motioned me to come and talk to him one night after class. I went into the office with him and shut the door behind me.

"Oh God, you're shutting the door." Chris said. I turned back at him and said "Yeah, I just don't want other people hearing our conversation." I sat down beside him and let out a big sigh.

"So... this is gonna be hard for me to say but... you know about the secret admirer notes?" I said.

Chris answered "I kinda figured that was you. I talked to Master Dave about it, and he pretty much said no to the idea of us dating. So we can't have a relationship. I would rather you keep learning self defense, and for us to keep things professional. I don't want anything stopping you from staying in karate."

I said "I understand. Well, nothing like this would stop me from doing karate."

Chris then said "Right, but rules are rules."

I said "I understand. It's fine."

Chris said "Now, are there anymore questions, anything else you need to ask about or talk about?"

I said "Well, I just feel things have been a little awkward between us-"

Chris replied "Well, I'll try to work on that, see I'm an awkward person, soo like"

I replied "Me too"

Chris continued "I'll try to work on that to the best of my ability. Is there anything else?"

I said "Can we just go back to being friends at least?"

Chris replied "Oh absolutely! Absolutely. Is that it?"

I then said "Yeah, that's everything I think."

Chris got up from his chair and said "You're great, you're awesome, you're an amazing student, just keep being awesome."

I smiled and said "Thank you. You too."

Chris then thanked me back, then said "Have a good rest of your night, Harper."

I said "You too!" and said bye to a couple more people before I left. I felt disappointed that Chris and I couldn't be together. But I was at least glad we got this whole unsure and awkward crap out of the way after so many long months.