Creative Writing

She walked out the door at Terry's carrying her dry cleaning just as I arrived on foot. Worried that other teachers or students might be there, I scoped out the parking lot, but it was empty. Through the plate glass I could see there were no other patrons inside the shop. We made eye contact, I walked around back, and she drove round to collect me. We held hands and talked all the way to her house, but this time we coupled on her couch, love seat, and floor before we reached her bed. I don't know how else to say it, but she just went crazy on me our last hour together. I showered and dressed in a hurry and she dropped me off a few blocks from home. I walked in with my schoolbooks just in time to sit down for supper, claiming to have been studying at the library, which I did often enough that no one questioned it.

It was business as usual in class the next day, but at one point in the middle of her lecture she caught my eye and gave me a searching look. Not knowing how I could possibly communicate, I took a deep breath and sighed, letting her see my chest swell for her. She looked down and smiled a little, then continued with the lesson without missing a beat. A little diagonal mark in the upper right corner of the chalk board told me she wanted a call, which concerned me because it was Wednesday and we had already agreed that I would call. I sat in the phone booth at the Firebird that evening, loving her voice as we chatted and confirmed our Friday night rendezvous. There was no problem, she said. The mark on the board was just a reminder for me, but I think she wanted to see if I was paying attention.

When we got to her house Friday night we found one of her girlfriends waiting. Too late to drive around the block, we pulled in and dealt with it. I carried my books inside and spread them on the kitchen table, trying to pull off the illusion that I was being tutored on a Friday night. While they spoke briefly in the living room, I worked on a writing exercise she gave me. Her friend called her Asia, obviously short for Anastasia, and tried to get her to go out for drinks when she was "finished with me". The inflection in her friend's voice told me she knew our game.

After her friend left, my tutor came in, sat at the kitchen table and looked at me.

"She knows, doesn't she?" I said.

"She suspects, yes. She doesn't know for sure."

"Are we busted or what?"

"No. She's a good friend. There's no danger. Come on. Come sit on the couch with me."

I loved holding her in my arms again, but she wasn't the same. Our secret was out in our first week together and it scared her. We made out for a long time on her couch, but only did it once each in her bed. Before we left her house, she informed me we would not meet again. We had really pushed it by meeting three times that first week and it was too risky to continue. Always the obedient student, I did not argue and we kissed goodbye for the final time before leaving her house. Just before climbing out of her car at the mall, I told her I didn't want it to end, and if she wanted to talk to me she knew what to do. I left before she had chance to reply.

School returned to normal. A week-and-a-half later I saw a diagonal mark in the corner of her chalkboard. On the phone that night she said she wanted to see me again. When I asked if she was sure, she replied that she had to see me again. So the following Saturday she resumed "tutoring" me. Up to this point I had mostly just laid still beneath her while she moved any way she wanted, but that Saturday she began teaching me how to dominate her. It involved a lot of lifting, wrestling and pushing her around, controlling her every move and taking her without hurting her. She loved it, even when I didn't know my strength and got a little too rough. It reminded me of the pink-covered dime romance novels that girls liked to read. Mom called them bodice-rippers.

***

We continued meeting once a week that first semester, usually on Saturdays, breaking only when she had her period, then risking it twice the next week when she wanted to have sex again. And that's the way it stayed for ten weeks until the day at the beginning of this story when we said we loved each other for the first time. That happened on a Friday and we met an unprecedented four days in a row, finally taking a break on Tuesday. When I called her Wednesday night with the news that my folks would be away the following weekend, she immediately made plans for me to stay with her all night Friday.

Up until this time, all our trysts had lasted an hour or two at the most. Freed from the clock for the first time, we relaxed and enjoyed each other even more, if that was possible. My first all nighter, it was completely different from our "tutoring" sessions. We spent hours naked together, relaxing and slowly exploring each others' bodies. We showered together, bathed together and coupled everywhere in her house: on the couch, loveseat, coffee table, floor and reading chair in her living room; on the kitchen table, kitchen counter, and every chair at the table; on the vanity and toilet seat in the bathroom; on the dining room table and credenza; on the futon in the spare bedroom; on her writing desk; and up against the wall in every room. I remember thinking naively that this is what it must be like to be married.

Our relationship continued on and off the rest of senior year. She invoked "easy out" on two occasions when she had a suitor, but always asked me back. I bought my first junker, which eliminated secret pick ups and drop offs at the mall or borrowing one of the parents' cars. When we wanted to get together I simply drove to her place, and we managed to hook up once or twice a week. She still went out to bars and partied with her girlfriends, a few of whom knew she was sleeping with me. I don't know if she ever brought other men home or dated anyone on the side and I never asked.

We talked about how graduation would be the end, but managed to get together several times over the summer before I ran off to college. Then I moved away and we never saw each other again. The last time we hooked up we agreed to meet one more time before I left, but she canceled. Perhaps it was best that we never said goodbye.

Decades have passed and my hair and whiskers are turning gray, but still I am amazed we never got caught. Other than her girlfriends, I know only one person who suspected us. If anyone else did, I never heard about it. College, career and life have taken me far away and I have no idea what happened to her. Sometimes I find myself wondering where she is and whether she found her Mr. Goodman. I hope so. I like to think she is alive and well and still teaching kids to how to write and play soccer.

Friends and family questioned why I didn't have a girlfriend senior year, and I'm sure there must have been whispers that I might be gay, but no one said it to my face. No one did back then. When pressed on the matter, I said I was young and there would be plenty of time for dating later, and that I wanted to focus on my school work.

What they didn't know is that senior year I had the woman I loved, and she had me.