Power Relationship

I sensed Andrew's disappointment as his penis deflated. I drew myself off him, wrapped my arms round him, and kissed him in an excess of affection. I was by no means satisfied, but I felt grateful to Andrew for being around and sharing intimacy with me. I got out of the bed, ready to go to the bathroom and finish the job with my fingers.

As I was about to open the door, I felt hands around my waist as I was propelled back to the bed. Andrew held my head down then bent my knees slightly until I was stooped over the bed, my head pushed onto the mattress. I felt fingers exploring between my legs, then the hand kneading my clitoris, slipping fingers inside my still sticky pussy. I whimpered and arched my back, so my protruding buttocks stuck out still further. Then I felt something bigger and harder easing its way inside me from behind. It gave a few experimental wriggles, withdrew itself almost completely, then I was thrown onto the bed with a grunt of surprise and delight as Andrew's penis rammed itself inside me.

He was kneading my buttocks, tightening the pressure on my hole, which was glistening with semen and juices, and thrusting faster and harder. Each thrust flung me into the bed, each withdrawal dragged me backwards, the better to push me forward again. I was groaning and grunting, my inside on fire with pleasure, building up to a climax of desire.

In my passion I tried to twist around, grab hold of Andrew, look into his eyes and clamp our mouths together in a tight embrace, but he had got hold of my breasts, squeezing them and pinning me down. My nipples tingled and stood to attention like hard frozen boysenberries. Then I came, with a massive orgasm that shook me to the core and caused me to scream aloud. Just before I felt Andrew's ejaculation explode into me.

The two of us lay where we had finished up, Andrew on top of me, panting, my face glowing red with exertion and happiness. Then Andrew got back into bed beside me and we kissed each other tenderly, totally spent, but enjoying the relaxing sensation of holding each other. "That was so neat," I mumbled, just before I dropped off to sleep again.

The next thing I noticed the sun was high in the sky, its winter warmth creating patchwork patterns on the carpet as it filtered through the blinds.

I shook Andrew. "Wake up," I said. "You will need to have a shower and get ready for the interview."

Andrew got out of bed, had a shower, then put on a hotel dressing gown. He started to make some breakfast, muesli with soy milk, which he handed me in bed. "You're a great lover, Maxine," he said. "Very sensual. I don't know why other men don't stay with you, but if they don't appreciate you they don't deserve you."

"What about you?" I said. "Do you deserve me?"

"I'm almost old enough to be your father," I said, "And I thought maybe that was a problem for you."

"It is a problem for me, but I don't know why. It's something I will sort out with my mother next time I see her."

"Your mother is nice," said Andrew. "And I must thank her for supporting me over this interview. I hope I get the job. Then I'll be able to see more of you."

Andrew and I left the hotel room together. We had arranged to meet at my flat after the interview so Andrew could return my mother's clothes.

I spent the afternoon cleaning up. I had been out for a whole night, but my flatmate had not once texted to ask where I was. It was not that sort of relationship. She was presently at work, so I knew I would have Andrew to myself until the evening - and possibly longer if things work out. I started singing as I moved the vacuum cleaner around the carpets.

I checked my text messages and found one from my mother. "hope u had good time with Andrew." I think she suspects something. I hope it helps him get the job, but I also knew my mother had her own work cut out with the very conservative men she works with. For the first time ever, my mother approved of one of my boyfriends.

I thought of Andrew as I changed into a slinky clinging dress. The cold immediately assaulted my skin and caused goose bumps to form. Not very sexy. Sod the bill, and sod Clarissa. I turned the heater on to full.

Andrew arrived at my flat at three, giving me a kiss on the lips as he came in. He handed me the clothes and stayed for tea while we snuggled on the sofa and talked about absent friends. Afterwards I took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. We had engaged in two forceful sex bouts that morning, and this time I wanted to make love gently. I felt a tingling below as Andrew unbuttoned my dress, slipped it off my shoulders and then undid my bra strap.

My breasts burst from their bonds, the nipples already hard. I groaned quietly when Andrew ran his tongue lightly over them, while I struggled to remove his trousers. Andrew stood before me in naked splendour, his penis pointed at attention, his hand rubbing my pubic mound through my knickers. A wet circle appeared on them and started to spread, and the pungent smell of sexual juices wafted into the room. Andrew yanked down my knickers and guided me to the bed. I so wanted him inside me right now, but Andrew instead was stroking the inside of my thighs, rubbing the wetness into my pubes, stimulating my clitoris so that I gave continuous whimpers of pleasure.

Now he was running his tongue over my groove, and the pleasure was becoming so intense it was like a physical pain. Andrew entered me so slowly that I hardly noticed at first, and then it was like a flower blossoming as his penis swelling inside me filled my whole consciousness, and I screamed aloud. Andrew moved slowly and rhythmically, his arms clasped around me, kissing me gently. The kisses provided a different but complementary pleasure to the fire in my vitals, a glowing romantic affection, like a rhythmical counterpoint to the erotic melody playing between my legs.

"I love you," I gasped, in the intervals between kisses. "I so love you, love you so much, Oh, GOD I love you." This last gasp was pushed out of my mouth as I came in a massive orgasm that caused my entire body to shake and my breath to come out in pants. As I started to relax, Andrew pushed harder, working towards his own climax.

I was now in the same situation I had been with Brian, two evenings ago. I was too spent for any erotic pleasure now the orgasm had seeped from my body; I was just a bonk-bag for Andrew to discharge into. Yet the sensations could not have been more different. The feeling of Andrew inside me was pleasant and sensuous, like an affectionate hug, and when he gave his own shout of pleasure, the warm liquid seeping into me warmed me to the core.

I felt a glow of happiness thinking of the pleasure I had given Andrew. The difference is I love him, I thought, as we lay side by side cuddling, and stroking each other's hair.

We started to talk more about our lives, and I mentioned my outdoor camping trips with my mother and sister and how this had engendered a love for the environment. I told him how refreshing it had been to travel to tech, to study, go on field trips, social events and other excursions with my classmates, people I worked together with for three years and got to know and love. Then how it all ended when I dropped out.

I had kept up with my ex-classmates on Facebook and occasionally met up with one or two of them socially but it had not been the same. I had been sad and miserable back in Opotane, and the aseptic imitation for collegiality fostered at my work place through the team 'bonding' sessions set up by HR had been no substitute at all for the genuine camaraderie of my classmates.

"I know what you mean," said Andrew. "What you are missing is not so much your friends - who you can still see after all, but something holistic. All your friends together, sharing a common vision and working towards it, interacting with you, the vision and each other."

"You have such a way with words," I said, "You have described it exactly." I wrapped my naked body around his in delight.

"It's true what you say about your workplace too," Andrew said, though I sensed the way he hesitated a bit before speaking.

"Calling a group of disparate individuals a team doesn't make them one," he continued. "True team work comes from the sort of bonding only a shared vision can inspire. And most workplaces don't have it."

"Mine doesn't," I said. "My boss is not a bad person, just rather a clueless one. He does his best to pull us together, but when all of us get commission for individual sales, how can that not set up a competitive and hostile atmosphere?"

"Teaching is one of the few careers that still allow scope for teamwork," said Andrew. "Part of my work was always looking at ways to help you work together and teach each other. I know what you feel about the loss of your congenial times together. I feel the same. Every time a class graduates I feel sad knowing that I will not see them in that setting again. But I'm compensated by having a new fresh group come through."

Andrew paused to think again. There was definitely something worrying him. He was not usually tongue tied when discoursing on his favourite topic, and I felt his body tense beside mine.

"I'm just as much a power freak as the bosses who like to see their workers jump to attention," he said eventually. "In my case the power I enjoy is being appreciated and admired. Less harmful to others but maybe just as damaging to my own soul."

"I don't know what you mean," I replied. "I love you very much."

I waited for the conventional reply. It never came. Andrew remained silent. In the end I had to take the conversational gambit myself. "Do you love me, Andrew? Just a little bit?"

"I could get to love you," he said finally, stroked my hair. Most boys would just say yes, but I had to remember Andrew was scrupulously honest and had no idea how to stroke egos. That was as good a profession of love as I would be getting - at least for now.

"But we will have plenty of time to get to know each other," I said. "Especially if you get the job with mum's company.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," said Andrew.

"What do you mean?" I jerked up, my heart thudding, my boobs squashed into Andrew's chest. "Have you been seeing another woman?"

"There is no other woman," Andrew said, and I relaxed. "I have had no other woman but you since my divorce four years ago. My wife and I were virgins when we married, so you're only the second woman I have slept with."

Andrew lapsed into silence again, seemingly groping for the words to say to me. I extricated myself from his embrace and leaned on one elbow staring at him.

"Soon after I left the interview with your mother I got a call from a new university near Boston that specialises in teaching about animals and the environment," he eventually blurted out.

"I had a skype interview for that job a few weeks ago, but when I never heard back I assumed I was unsuccessful. It appears they've been unable to make an offer until now because of some sort of internal political wrangling. But now they want me to start working for them as soon as I can get to the States. Their immigration consultants are sorting out my visa, and that shouldn't take long. I could be off to the States in a fortnight."

I felt a thumping in my head. Of course my dreams for a future together would be too good to be true.

"So you would leave me. After I've only just found you?"

"I.. This is important to me. It's a dream job, teaching what I'm passionate about."

"But I'm passionate about you too."

Andrew bit his lip. I stared at him, eyes wide. I noticed he avoided eye contact.

"Then come with me," he said. "You can get a visitor's visa easily enough then if we find we want to stay together we can get married over there, and you'd be able to stay on my visa."

Now he was frightening me. Leave Opotane? It was a boring provincial town to be sure, but it was my boring provincial town. I was familiar with its streets, buildings and a considerable number of its people. And Boston... America... it all seemed so... so foreign. It was full of brash, gum-chewing Americans, driving big cars down the sprawling streets, toting guns. And I wouldn't know anyone. Except Andrew, and he would be at work much of the time.

"You could get to know people," Andrew said, when I mentioned my concerns. "I'm sure an outgoing and attractive person like you would have no difficulty making friends."

"If you love me, you would stay." I was surprised how petulant I sounded. "Why not at least wait until mum calls you back about the job here. It's not a bad job, and I'm sure mum wouldn't be a bad boss. We could stay here together. Dating the boss's daughter wouldn't do your career prospects any harm."

"Unless we fell out," he said. "It wouldn't work, Maxine. I don't want to leave after I've just found you either. But I could just as easily say if you loved me you would come. We both want something else more than we want each other at the moment. Can we stay friends?"

I got up off the bed and started getting dressed. "Why did you sleep with me if you knew you could be leaving?"

Andrew started clenching and unclenching his hands. Something I remembered he did in class on the odd occasions when he felt nervous.

"I didn't know you wanted a long term committed relationship." he said. "I thought you just wanted fun. You were unhappy and wanted to enjoy yourself. Would you have behaved any differently last night and this morning if you had known?"

I paused in the action of zipping up my dress. He was right. I had fallen in love with Andrew this afternoon, but last night all I had wanted was comfort, and this morning all I had wanted was sex. It was foolish to think Andrew could care enough for me for us to live the rest of our lives together.

"I meant what I said about your coming with me." Andrew seemed to know what I was thinking. Surprising for someone so dense he didn't know how to tell untruth to power. "I think you're a wonderful person. Someone I would be proud to be seen with.

"Just not in Opotane. I don't blame you for not coming with me, and you mustn't blame me for not staying. We've had a wonderful time. Let's remember it with affection and not leave on a sour note."

"When will you start for America?" I asked.

"I'll drive down to Wellington today, and sort out a few things, then I'll fly to Boston as soon as my visa comes through." Andrew was getting dressed, fumbling at his shirt buttons. "Can I take you out to dinner again to thank you for a wonderful time," he said.

I shook my head and turned away so he would not see my tears. "If you're going best make it quick," I said. "In fact I'd like you to go now."

"But Maxine, I don't.." Andrew bent towards me to kiss me goodbye, but I pushed him away.

"Very well, then Maxine," he said. "I hope we stay in touch. My offer to come with me still stands if you change your mind." He stood by the door and looked straight at me. I turned my head. I heard the door slam and he was gone.

I threw myself on the bed and sobbed; letting out the tears that I had been holding back when Andrew had been in the room. Yet unlike the blank despair I had felt before Andrew sent me his text, my tears were based on hope as well as sadness. I mourned the loss of a man I loved even as soon as I had found him, but with it there was hope and reassurance that I had the capacity to give and receive pleasure from another.

Andrew had seemed cold and unemotional to me, and there was also a great deal of nervousness there. I smiled through my tears. As a teacher he had always been totally in control. It will do him good to know that love is not as predictable as his scientific models.

It was not long before I had finished my cry, blown my nose, taken a shower and then thought about what I needed to do next. I had taken the whole day off work, anticipating a romantic day with Andrew, and I still had most of the day to kill. My mother would be at work, but I decided I had to see her. There were a few matters that needed sorting out. I called the operator at Stonkins and asked to speak to Jenny. The receptionist on duty knew me.

"She's at a meeting with the Chief Executive, Maxine," she said. "Can I get her to call you back?" I told her that would be okay, and then, for something to do while I was waiting, I pulled my old tech notes and text books out of the book cases and started to read.

The phone rang half an hour later. It was mother. She first of all told me the bad news. She and one other man had supported Andrew's application, but the chief executive had overruled them, saying he was not a "team player."

"He didn't do very well at the interview, Maxine," she said. "The Chief Executive asked him if he was familiar with the nitrogen loading software we use and how much experience he had with it, and he told them one year. Our CEO then said 'that is hardly sufficient time to get to grips with it,' and Andrew said 'on the contrary, it's easy to use for someone with any knowledge of chemistry and I mastered it in six months. It's hardly rocket science.'

"Which is actually true, but the CEO, who's not that bright technically, had been struggling with the software for several years and still had difficulties. Andrew could have answered the question in a more tactful manner that highlighted his own ability without showing up our CEO's inadequacies in such sharp relief."

"It doesn't matter now anyway, mum. He's just received an offer for a teaching job near Boston. He left this morning. He offered to take me with him, but I refused."

"You refused! You must be out of your provincial little mind. Whatever for? You finally find yourself a man who would fail an audition for the Frankenstein monster, he makes a pretty serious offer to you and you let him go? And you've never been abroad. Not even for an OE. Boston's an exciting city. Much better than anything we have round here."

"Yeah, but Andrew's emotionally constipated. Colder than a fish on a slab."

"Yes I got that impression too," she said. "But I think he really loves you. You could get him to open out."

"What do you know about him, mum? Have you been chatting him up?"

My mother laughed. "Good Lord, no. No, I spoke to him earlier. I had to, just to let him know he didn't get the job."

There was a pause in the conversation.

"Do you want to know what he said?" my mother continued.

"Go on."

"He said he was sorry if he hurt you, but he was just trying to cheer you up."

"Yes he told me that too. I think he was using me."

"It's a bit more complex than that. If there was any using, you were using each other. Men like Andrew, used to power relationships, like to play around with flirtation. Their female students flirt with them, and they act up a little - because they know the students are not taking them seriously."

"But Andrew's never made a pass at a student. Not like some of the other tutors. He was so upright some of us said he was boring."

"I never thought he had. I wouldn't be encouraging you to see him again if I did think so. But it's just because he would never try things on that his students thought it safe to flirt and laugh about it. It must have been a shock for Andrew to find someone who took him seriously"

I paused. Mum had given me a bit to think about, and she was certainly more experienced than I was at sexual matters. Which reminded me of why I was calling.

"Mum, I need to talk to you about dad."

"I've told you about your dad. He left for a younger woman. He died five years ago and I'm disappointed you didn't go to the funeral. I don't know what you had against him, but I think..."

I interrupted. "No mum, you listen. I need to have a serious talk. I want to know what went on when I was a girl. I don't remember much and I think you've been less than honest in telling me."