Erotic Series
A, the Hard Way 1 — Earning the E
You can’t get a passing grade without first submitting
Academia involves far more paperwork than I expected, but the opportunity to influence young minds is sufficient reward to compensate for the extra hours I put in.
I’ve nearly finished for the evening when an excellent opportunity comes knocking.
“Enter!”
Emily Rogers marches into my office. I’ve only taught her for half a semester, but I know her well; her type, anyway. She’s a party girl, naive enough to think she’s smart enough not to work hard. Many male students know her better than I do, and she has enough videos of her exploits online that anyone can become intimately familiar with her for the price of a small monthly subscription.
Emily owes me an essay, and from the way she’s dressed I suspect she’s here to explain why she can’t pay her debt, and persuade me to let her make other arrangements.
She drops her bag on my desk and pulls a letter out of it. “Professor Deacon, I’ll need more time to write that essay. I have a doctor’s note.”
She hands me the letter. It’s obviously forged: the university clinic would have emailed me a copy if it were genuine.
I make a show of reading it anyway, then tear it in half and drop it in the bin. “Take a seat, Ms Rogers.”
I imagine she anticipated that possibility, which is why she’s wearing a plaid skater skirt and a tight white crop top. They’re the back-up plan. She sits, knees wide apart, and crosses her legs, slowly, so I have time to see just how much planning she’s done. When I look back up at her face, she’s smiling. She thinks the plan’s worked.
It hasn’t. “Emily, you seem to believe you can drift through life, doing as little as possible, relying on your looks and your overly friendly manner to see you through. You prioritise partying over studying, and now you imagine if you flash your perfect teeth and your pretty pussy at me I’ll be putty in your hands. I’m sorry to disappoint you, young lady, but you’re not special: there are a lot of easily available undergrads at this university. I’m up to my elbows in them most nights.”
She’d looked shocked when I started lecturing her, but I raised a fist when I made that last comment, and the image that evoked added a rather attractive blush to her open-mouthed stare.
“Professor! You can’t expect me to let you— ”
“Hush! Of course I don’t. On this occasion, you can make up the work with a short tutorial on the personal qualities needed to be an effective student. Do you have the next hour free?”
She visibly relaxes, her shoulders no longer pushed back to make the most of her breasts. Her ease only serves to make my own job easier, but it does rob me of the sight of thin cotton stretched tautly over nipples so prominent she must have tweaked them before she knocked on my door. If she put as much planning into her academic work as she did into her crass attempt at seduction, she wouldn’t be in this predicament.
But she doesn’t know it’s a predicament, which is why she agrees to my suggestion so willingly. “Yes! I’ve got time.”
“Excellent. Your mark for this tutorial will depend on how much of it you complete. Just let me know when you’re happy with your grade and we’ll stop. Now, fetch both volumes of Hewson’s Principles from my bookshelf, they’ll be a useful base for our exploration. Bring Blakemore’s introductory text as well.”
She’s eager to get this hour over, probably because she has a Tinder date later, and she practically bounces over to the shelves.
Two of the books are thick and quite heavy, so she doesn’t bounce back, but she does start to return to her chair.
I stop her. “Put the Hewsons in front of the window.”
“What?”
“This hour will go much more smoothly if you don’t question me, Emily. Stack them on the floor, in front of the window, then stand on them. Face the Commons.”
She does, then looks at me cautiously.
I join her, and pull the blind down so it’s level with her shoulders. “There’s rarely anyone on the Commons this late, but just in case, we should give you some privacy. We don’t want everyone to know you’re a silly girl who needs extra tuition.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, if someone did pass, their eyes might be drawn to the lit window. That has the potential for embarrassment, given that you chose to take off your underwear. Would a passer-by be able to see up your skirt, do you think?”
Her brow knits as she tries to imagine the angle from the path, five metres away. “No.”
“We’ll carry on, then. Effort is an important factor in academic work. If you make an effort, you should get an E at least. Give me the Blakemore.”
She hands over the slim text book.
“Now, hold your hands out in front of you, palms down. I’m going to rest this book across your forearms, and you’ll make an effort not to drop it. If you can manage that, I’ll give you an E for your non-existent essay. Do you understand?”
She nods. “I think so.”
“One more thing, before we begin: grasp the hem of your skirt, with both hands.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Not yet, you’re not. Hold your skirt and raise your hands.”
“But — ”
“You made no effort to write the essay I required, Ms Rogers. If you want a grade for work you didn’t do, you’ll need to make a real effort here.”
“But someone might see!”
“And that bothers you? How many men have seen you naked, Ms Rogers?”
“That’s different! It’s my choice, and I’m in control.”
“If you were in control you would have an essay for me, and you wouldn’t be at risk of failing my class.”
She considers her options for a second. “I’ll pass if I do this?”
“No. You’ll get an E, which is still a failing grade but does record that the student actually submitted work. An E can be improved, but you can’t get a passing grade without first submitting.”
Emily looks from me to the window, up to the blind, then back at me. I imagine she’s making a probability calculation: the chance of anyone passing multiplied by the chance they’ll recognise her from something other than her face.
Remarkably, she must consider the odds are in her favour because she raises her hands, her skirt, and the spirits of anyone who does walk past.
I rest the textbook on her arms. “Excellent. The key to personal improvement is not being afraid to expose your own weakness. Now, I have admin to complete. If you manage not to drop the book before I’ve finished, we’ll talk about how you get the D. That’s going to be harder work than it usually is for you.”
“Ha, ha. I don’t suppose you’ve ever had a D, have you, professor?”
“Only once, in my last year at school, and I didn’t enjoy the experience. I decided I could do better.”
Emily’s lesson continues in A, the Hard Way 2 — Deserving the D
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