The Tutor

"Hey, you all ready for finals?"

"No!" She laughed halfheartedly.

"Well let's get you ready, come on."

I led her up the stairs and to my room. I'd made the bed, and watched as she unpacked her things and laid them out carefully on the covers. She was glancing at the bathroom door which was wide open.

"I really liked your stories," I told her, picking up the pages from my desk. She looked startled, like she'd forgotten them. "I especially like the second one."

She blushed. It was about an older girl named Katherine McNamara, who had teased and bullied Sarah. In the story Katherine had caught Sarah masturbating, had made her finish, and mocked her while she did.

"I just-"

"The ending is really intense," I told her. "I didn't see it coming at all. Your descriptions are great Sarah. I made some notes, but I think it's some of your best writing. You need to channel that attention for detail and description into your other prose."

She looked surprised by this, surprised that I liked the story, that I was talking about it this way.

"Thanks," she said, her time unsure. I know it's weird. I'm not even sure why I showed you. I just-"

"Is it true?" I asked. "Did this happen to you?"

"No! I mean, no... not at all. I mean Katherine is true- well, real... She's a real person, but no, that never happened..."

"Well the way you describe it, it feels real, feels true," I told her. I was sitting at my desk, turned to face her. She was standing at the end of my bed looking more awkward and embarrassed than I'd ever seen her. I thought of holding her by the hair as I came. How she had held me tight sucking me and licking me until I'd started laughing and almost fallen off the bed. She had kept her arms wrapped around my legs and her mouth against my pussy while I squirmed, licking until I calmed down again, until I surrendered, and laying on my back with my head and arm hanging off the bed she had kept licking me, licking me until I'd started to moan again, licked me until my hips had begun to buck and jerk, licked me until I came calling her name. Licked me until I passed out.

I thought of how she had looked. Her face had been flush and damp with sweat, the corners of her mouth curled in a feral grin, her eyes had shone in the dark. I touched my stomach thinking of the way she'd gripped me; clawing at my belly and flanks; the scratches she had left.

'Superman.'

It was hard for me to believe I was looking at the same girl, so withdrawn and unsure of herself.

"Look," I started, staring her in the eyes, waiting until she was looking back, and holding her gaze. "I'm going to leave you for about twenty minutes. Do you understand?"

"Yes?" She told me.

"OK, and you can take care of yourself?" I asked.

"Yes, I think-"

"Good," I said. "Twenty minutes."

I made no move to leave, I just stared at her. She blinked and shuffled and looked around in confusion, but I made no move to leave.

"Are you-" she started, but faltered. I gave her nothing. Finally after a very long pause she took a step towards the bed and for a moment I thought she was going to sit and start studying, but instead she started fiddling with the waistband of her shorts.

Again I gave her nothing, just watched; holding her gaze. Her face was bright red. She took a deep breath and began to push her shorts down. I felt a jolt of excitement and couldn't stop myself from opening my knees as she pushed her shorts off and stepped out of them.

She watched me for a reaction, but my lack or response was enough. With shaking hands she pulled the hem of her tank top up over her head, and dropped the shirt on my bed. She looked away as she reached behind her back to undo her bra, but looked back at me as it came loose and she reached around to cup her breasts in her hands. Something she saw in my expression or how I was sitting or in the way I was breathing seemed to encourage her. She shrugged the straps off her shoulders and pulled her bra off, exposing her breasts like she was presenting me with treats; sweeties.

Since Sarah had left my room that Sunday morning, eyes down cast, mumbling excuses, I'd been angry and heartbroken and confused. I'd written her a half dozen emails, some wrathful, others loving. But at that moment, watching her drop her bra to the floor I was simply adoring Sarah, basking in her beauty, luxuriating in the stillness of the moment.

She swished her knees back and forth as she pushed her panties down with her thumbs, a shy smile curling the corners of her mouth.

I opened my legs further showing her my cunt, smoothing the bald flesh with my hands as she kneeled between my feet and bent her neck to kiss my open wet pussy, a charge blew through me as she put out her tongue and licked me.

I woke up gripping myself hard, jerking with an orgasm that cramped my feet.

I met with Sarah that afternoon. She did take guilty looks at the open bathroom door and I did give her back her stories with notes but then we sat across from each other on my bed and studied. We worked together for two hours, going over her final essays and drilling her on her test material. Afterwards I invited her to have dinner with me and asked her if she wanted to take over Hill House. I told her that I'd decided to stay for part of the summer, but she and her friends could have it in August - that that was when Don and the others were moving out as well. She almost fell out of her chair when I told her how cheap the rent was and that she could have all my furniture, even my bed.

"But won't you need your things?"

"I'm moving to Santa Clara."

"Where's that?"

"Near San Francisco... a little south?"

Her face crashed.

"But that's so far away..."

"We'll, it's not the moon," I laughed.

"I just thought- I thought you'd stay around, that you'd be... nearer."

"Yeah, I don't know. My friend Zach - he graduated before you got here. He moved out there last year and is starting this thing and wants me to come work on it. He says the money is crazy and we can do anything we want. I'll be writing!"

"Wow, that's great," she agreed, but I could tell she was still absorbing the idea, that it had shocked her.

"You could always come visit," I joked. "Me and the hippies!"

Sarah checked in with me a lot during finals, with updates, with little questions, but mostly I think just hoping I'd invite her over or something. I didn't. I was too stung. She came to see me walk at graduation, afterwards I introduced her to my family but she started crying so hard I had to take her aside and comfort her. I sat her down on two abandoned folding chairs on the edge of the lawn and let her cry, rubbing her back and whispering to her.

"It's ok Sarah, everything is going to be fine."

"But it's not," she'd protested, her cheeks wet with hot tears, snot running over her lips. "I love you so much Rebekah."

The last words were almost unintelligible; lost to the heaves of her sobs. I held her and kissed her feverish brow and told her I loved her too, that we'd stay in touch and that we would always be friends.

"You made quite an impression on her," my mother said after Sarah had collected herself enough that she could make an awkward exit.

"She's really sweet."

It was as I was packing the last of my things when I found Sarah's panties under my bed. At first I thought they were mine, but when I stretched them out and looked at them I didn't recognize them. And then I did. I remembered Sarah kicked them off, remembered the wet mark on the crotch of her shorts, how wet she'd been as she'd masturbated. I brought them to my face and held them there and I fumbled with my shorts, and started fingering myself, frantic and fast, like Sarah.