My name is Marcus Veovin. I’m a guy with a lot of stories to tell and all the time in the world to do so. In my time, I’ve done a great many things including – but not limited to – bagging groceries, attending college, writing and reporting, supervising at a shipping company, and even seeing the horrific underbelly of the world from a perspective people would never believe even if I did tell the entire story in graphic detail. Lately, I find myself sitting back and doing a lot of reminiscing. For starters, I was raised by a loving family and had plenty of friends growing up. Unfortunately, most of my family has passed on and I’ve lost contact with ninety-nine percent of my old school buddies, but the memories remain and will always make me smile. I’ve had many good years in my lifetime that I wouldn’t give up for anything, and it’s times like those that one can never get back.

I’ll never forget how back in the “good ol’ days,” we used to go “cruisin’ for chicks.” I had one friend who was always hornier than a flock of rams. Huh. Funny I should think of rams since he always talked about the many different ladies he wanted to “ram.” He even had a fascination with a lady from history who was quite fond of wearing a tiara with ram horns, but before I digress too much, I can officially say that Midtaune was something else and always succeeded at making the rest of us laugh.

I should probably back up and explain myself a little better. We weren’t a group of guys looking for a bunch of fast and easy chicks – well, with the exception of Midtaune, of course – but no, we were far from it. Most of us just wanted to have a good time and didn’t need to find a woman willing to “go all the way” just to have our fun. “Crusin’ for chicks” was usually just code for going out and driving all over the city to kill a boring weekend night. Rarely did our adventures end with us actually meeting anyone whom we stayed in contact with in the long run. Looking back on those days, one might think we wasted a lot of time in our youth on those goofy drives, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Back then, I always considered those misadventures to be bonding time with the guys…even if we did fall out of touch over the years. I’ll always cherish my time with my old buds.

In those days, I can truthfully say that if one of our adventures had actually borne fruit, I don’t know how much it would’ve mattered. I knew at an early age that I liked girls very much and I’ve appreciated the female form since I learned how to walk. While growing up, I had always dreamed of finding the perfect woman to marry and lose my virginity to, but sometimes fate has a weird way of countering our plans. Sometimes, we have to work with the cards we’re dealt in an abstract way in order to come out on top.

I turned nineteen during the summer before my final year of school. At the time, I was actually looking forward to the coming school year because knowing it was my last one made me feel like I was a big fish in a small pond. Even though it’s been years, I still remember our silly slogan: “One and done: It’s our last year!” I still laugh at it because it sounds like something a bunch of smartass teenagers would say because they thought they had life all figured out. Guess I shouldn’t laugh too hard since that was exactly the case, but it is ironic to look back on that time and think about where people are now. As I previously mentioned, I fell out of contact with most of my friends, but with the “blessings” of modern technology and the internet, it doesn’t take much for one to go online and discover what became of most people. I can honestly say I rarely use those web pages and platforms, but when I have, it’s brought me nothing but pain and misery. It really sucks to see what befell some friends…and to discover that some ended up passing on at early ages without my ever being the wiser. I think it’s sometimes better to remain blissfully in the dark.

In spite of everything, over the summer before my final academic year, I was hanging out with one of my older female friends quite a bit. She was this beautiful, busty blonde woman by the name of Freya. She had graduated a year ahead of me, and we had been friends throughout most of our time in school. Some people were even under the assumption that we had dated at one point since we could so often be seen together, but I honestly saw her as a close friend instead of a girlfriend. Looking back on it now, I realize we probably could have made more of what we had if I hadn’t been so oblivious around members of the opposite sex and simply asked her out, but I just never saw Freya in “that way” at the time. It would be something else to be able to speak to her nowadays, but I’m not sure that fate would be so kind.

Anyway, when I was younger, I had no sense whatsoever for when a girl was being flirtatious. About ten years after graduating, one of my closest friends, Welch, used to tell people that I was a “babe magnet” during our educational run and that the girls were always fawning over Marcus Veovin. He would tell people that I could’ve had a date every single weekend with a different girl every night of the entire school year, but I thought he was crazy. When I called him and some of my other friends out on it one night when we were out reminiscing, the others all agreed with him. I had simply retorted by asking, “Where the hell was I?” Their response: “You were just oblivious.” Wow. Some friends. Had they told me back then, maybe it would’ve opened my eyes a little more and things would’ve turned out differently. Who knows. Life is full of “what ifs” and “might have beens,” I guess.

Getting back on track to the summer before my final year of school, one of those oblivious moments took full swing when I was hanging out with Freya one evening. We were at her parents’ house just watching TV in her bedroom in the basement. She lived in a nice house because her dad had hit it big with some invention that did something beneficial for local sewer systems. I know that doesn’t sound glamorous by any means, but he just invented the damn thing…he never had to actually go into the sewers. Whatever the apparatus was, it made their family a boatload of money. Had Freya wanted, she probably wouldn’t have had to work a day in her life because she was technically on easy street, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to head off to college miles away to go to school for nursing. She had a big heart and wanted to help people.

Freya was about a month away from leaving for college on the night when she interrupted the movie we had been watching to tell me that she was going to miss all the times we had hung out with our large group of friends. I responded by telling her the same, but she kept cutting me off while trying to reiterate that what she was going to miss the most were the times we had spent together. Like I said…oblivious. It took me a few minutes to realize that she was specifically talking about our one-on-one time that I had no idea she had enjoyed so much.

I could go into much greater detail about what happened next, but that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say, the wonderful woman I had known for the last several years of my life had told me that I was going to make some lucky girl very happy one day, and she wanted me to be prepared for that. We didn’t end up going all the way on that night, but she did do a few things to me that I had never imagined possible…and I’ll just leave it at that.

I’ll always thank Freya for that incredible moment not just because the memory is still vibrant in my mind all these years later, but also because it did prepare me better for things to come. It’s funny how she was able to instill such confidence in me over the course of a single night, and I think it really helped me to open up to the opposite sex over my final year of school. When autumn rolled around and the new school year started, I met a couple of girls right off the bat in my Astronomy class whom I simply adored. Their names were Cassandra and Rosalind, but I called them Cassie and Rosa for short. In my eyes, they were two of the most beautiful girls I had ever had the honor of knowing…but they both fell victim to a lot of verbal bullying in school.

Some of the nastier kids in the school referred to them as “fat and flat.” While Cassie was just a little overweight, I saw her as “pleasantly plump.” She was by no means fat, and the few extra pounds she carried made her adorable in my eyes. I thought she was a real stunner, and after I got to know her better, I had nicknamed her “Cutie Cassie.” It goes without saying that she appreciated the moniker.

Rosa, on the other hand, lacked much of a chest. Now, this may sound weird, but flat-chested women have always kind of turned me on. Like any red-blooded male, I love boobs. I love boobs of all sizes. I don’t care if they’re big or small, round or saggy, shaped like papayas or pointed like torpedoes…I adore and appreciate them all. When it comes to boobies, I’m not picky. Rosa, of course, hated the fact that she couldn’t sprout a chest like all of the other girls surrounding her in our school…but when I started drowning her in compliments, she finally forgot about the jibes from the other kids and became a lot more confident in herself.

I should probably back up a bit. As previously stated, I met both Cassie and Rosa in my Astronomy class on that first day of the new school year. I didn’t know it at the time, but they had both been picked on throughout their entire scholastic lives, and on that first day of class, the insults had been no different. In the years we had gone to school together, I had never taken any courses with either one of them, so I hadn’t met them until that first day of Astronomy class. I’m not trying to sound arrogant or anything of the like, but I had always been fairly popular in school due to the fact that I had friends from every walk of life. I guess that’s what changed things for both of these wonderful girls in the long run because on that afternoon, I entered our classroom and saw the two of them sitting in the back of the room alone at one of the science tables…and that’s when I walked over and asked if I could join them.

They were both a little shy at first, but they seemed genuinely delighted to have me with them…and we ended up turning the heads of quite a few other kids in the class. I would find out later that my associating with them and befriending them made the bullying stop since our other classmates saw me with them, so I was glad I ended up doing something good for the duo when it was all said and done.

Again, this story is going off on a bit of a tangent. I could say a lot more about both Cassie and Rosa, but again, that’s a story for another time. Let’s just say that we became the best of friends, and I actually spent a lot more time hanging out with them than most of my male friends. We were pretty much inseparable by the end of the first semester of that year, and we tried to plan out having some of our classes together for the spring term.

It was the first month of a new year when we were working on a group project for one of our classes when another girl happened to become a part of our studying entourage. I could go into better detail about what happened on that cold, winter afternoon, but again, that doesn’t have much to do with the story I’m trying to tell now except for laying the foundation of what happened next. Let’s just say that things suddenly became a little weird between all of us…and I found myself not hanging out with Cassie and Rosa nearly as much anymore. I still adored them to no end, but we didn’t see as much of each other after a somewhat awkward incident.

I was depressed for a while since losing their comradery was not something I had been expecting, but life must and always will go on. I had plenty of other friends to associate with, but I tended to keep to myself when I wasn’t in school. I found myself alone on most weeknights and even on the weekends because I had taken up a new hobby to pass the time: Writing. I don’t know why, but I suddenly became fascinated with the idea of creating my own worlds and jotting them down on paper. I had always enjoyed reading fantasy novels and comic books, so it was easy for me to brainstorm and create my own little realms that were far from reality in every sense of the word. I even started writing a few short stories that I would lend out to friends for feedback, and every time I received a response, I was always told the same thing: “Marcus, you have talent!”

I figured some of the compliments were just my school chums being kind, but the more people read, the more they seemed to take to them. I’ve always said that sometimes you can just tell when a person is being truthful by looking into his or her eyes, and I was noticing quite a bit when my works would be returned to me.

And it wasn’t just my fellow classmates that noticed my talent for creating.

It was a particularly cold day late that winter when my Creative Writing instructor, Miss Mia, asked me to stay behind in class one afternoon. Creative Writing was my last class of the day that semester, and since I drove myself to school, I was in no rush to fly out the door like some of the other students. I simply nodded when she had asked me to do so and said that it wouldn’t be a problem. There were still twenty minutes left in the period that day, so I spent most of the time wondering what she needed to talk to me about. I was always very attentive in class and never caused disturbances, so I knew I wasn’t in trouble for anything. I’ll never forget watching the hands of the clock slowly move toward three o’clock as I pondered what our meeting could be about.

Perhaps some context is in order. Most people would probably think nothing of being asked to remain behind for a few minutes after class, but again, I was an impressionable youth with a love and appreciation for beautiful women…and Miss Mia was exactly that. She was probably in her early to mid-twenties. It was her first year teaching at our school, and it wasn’t hard to tell that she was still trying to get the hang of things. She was a little under five and a half feet tall with fair skin and dirty blonde hair that bordered on making her a brunette. She had eyes that I describe as “breen” because they were this amazing mixture of brown and green – creative, I know – and I thought it was adorable how she was the oldest person I knew who still had freckles. She was a truly marvelous female in every sense of the word…and she had two of the largest natural breasts I had ever laid eyes on.

Again, I’ve never been fazed by breast size in the way some guys are. I know nine out of ten guys love oversized, heaving bosoms, but I don’t care how big they are. However, on Miss Mia, her chest was truly a sight to behold. Her breasts didn’t go overboard, but they were certainly evident…and when a bunch of teenage boys are sitting in class trying to pay attention, well, it goes without saying that said bosoms become pretty noticeable.

Anyway, my desk happened to be situated near where Miss Mia’s sat in a corner of the room, and I’ll admit that on more than one occasion when she had given us an assignment to work on during class, I had lifted my eyes ever so slightly to sneak a peek. One time, I even noticed that she was nipping out…and if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, I could only guess as to how big her incredible teats truly were. I think I may have been caught peeping once, but she simply smiled and went back to whatever it was she was doing. I had quickly lowered my head on that occasion so she wouldn’t see me turn bright red.

It was pretty evident that most guys in my school had a thing for the new Creative Writing teacher. I had one day overheard a group of guys I didn’t normally associate with talking about how hot she was, and one of them said something to the effect that she needed to go out and get a tan. He claimed she would look much better with a darker shade of skin…but as I continued down the hallway, I thought about it and totally disagreed. I thought her fair flesh was one of her most stunning characteristics, and I thought it also made her lovely freckles sparkle and her eyes appear all the more prominent. I’m not sure how better to explain myself, but let’s just say that I thought the kid who had mentioned her needing some sun was a complete idiot.

So, going back to the day I was asked to stay behind, I simply sat at my desk and watched the seconds tick away until the bell rang and signified that not only another day was done, but also another week of school. The weekend was upon us, and the other kids in my class were ready to get the hell out. I don’t think it took the other twenty-something students even a minute to filter out of that room after Miss Mia said her goodbyes and waved to everyone.

I nervously sat at my desk until that gorgeous woman turned to face me. I hoped she didn’t see me fidgeting, but I was truly skittish to be alone in her marvelous presence. I had been going over in my head for nearly half an hour what it was that she wanted to see me about, and regardless of what it was, I prayed that I didn’t come off sounding like an imbecile when it was my turn to speak.

“Thank you for staying behind, Marcus,” the kind instructor told me as she made her way over to her desk and picked something up. “I know you’re probably anxious to start your weekend like everyone else, so I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

“No worries,” I told her, trying to sound confident. I wasn’t known for having my voice crack, so I had prayed it didn’t start doing so in that moment.

When the dazzling teacher had what she was looking for in her right hand, she walked over to the desk next to mine and sat on top of it instead of on the chair. She crossed her right leg over her left and continued to smile as she held out some papers stapled in the upper left corner for me to see. I quickly noticed they were one of the assignments I had handed in earlier in the week. In plain pencil lead, there was an “AMAZING!” written at the top in excellent penmanship. Miss Mia continued to smile as she told me, “I didn’t have the heart to write on this masterpiece of yours with red ink. I didn’t want to mark it up any more than necessary!”

I was pleased that my teacher apparently appreciated my work so much. The funny thing was that I didn’t even think it was one of my better pieces. We had been asked to write a short three to five-page children’s story, but maybe the fact that mine had ended up being twelve pages was what impressed Miss Mia so much.

“I always look forward to your work most of all, Marcus,” she told me as she started to flip through the pages while glancing down at them. “I always leave them for last because I know I won’t have any errors to correct and will actually enjoy what I’m reading at the same time.” She stopped what she was doing and made eye contact with me as she went on, “I obviously don’t want word of this getting out since it would look bad for me as a teacher, but you can’t imagine how much I struggle with reading through everyone else’s papers! And it’s not just this class, but all the others I teach as well! Of all the students I have, you seem to be the only one who takes my class seriously! I’ve been making the length of the assignments shorter recently just based on the fact that I’m getting a little tired of reading through such trash from the others! That’s horrible to admit, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. I was proud of the fact that Miss Mia enjoyed my writing so much, but at the same time, I wondered if she was trying to tell me in a nice way to cut back on the length of the work I handed in to her. I tried to think of something witty to say since I was on her side and could only imagine how long she sat there correcting the papers of a bunch of teenagers who didn’t give a crap about her class. All I could come up with was, “You’re a better person than I am, Miss Mia! I certainly wouldn’t be as good at your job as you are!” What a kiss-ass.

The lovely woman’s head fell back as she laughed in a deeply feminine manner. Her chest heaved as she did so, and I was glad I was sitting down. “Oh, Marcus! You’re too much!”

I could feel my face getting warmer. Geez, I hope she didn’t think I was a moron.

“Marcus,” Miss Mia then spoke my name as she grew serious once more and turned her full attention toward me, “I don’t mean to come off as a nosy teacher or anything, but do you have any other writings or projects off to the side by any chance? I’m sure you have better things to do in your spare time since I’ve noticed many of the other students have taken quite a liking to you, but I couldn’t help but wonder if you happened to do more of this in your free time?” As she asked, she held the stapled papers up a bit to put emphasis on them.

“Um, actually I do,” I responded as I looked down to the simple satchel I carried with me to all my classes. I reached into it and pulled out a few other things. “Most of them are just my version of doodles, but I actually have a larger project I’m currently working on.”

“Really?” Miss Mia asked in an intrigued tone. Her eyes lit up the moment I handed her a few of the papers I had retrieved.

“Yeah,” I casually answered as I grew more comfortable with our conversation. “These ones are just smaller pieces of a larger work, but I’ve actually been working on something that I have a lot of plans for.”

I could see my Creative Writing teacher’s eyes voraciously scanning over some of the sentences on the pages before her. She was eating up every word, and at one point, I think she even licked her lips. I won’t even begin to describe what was going through my mind when I witnessed that.

After about thirty painstakingly long seconds, the bountiful teacher glanced up from what she had been perusing and asked, “Marcus, would I be imposing if I asked to read your larger piece of work in my free time? I realize it might not be something you want to share with someone like me, but if you would be willing to let me look it over, I would be honored to read through it and give you some feedback.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. My mind was racing a mile a minute as I tried to find the proper response. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve loved sharing my work with anyone willing to read it…especially someone as intelligent as Miss Mia. The thing was, though, was that the larger work I was so engaged in creating was the basis for a fantasy novel grounded somewhat in reality. It was a spellbinding tale of a made-up world, but I was doing my best to make the characters as lifelike and believable as possible…and there was also sex in it. That’s right, sex. I had given a few characters different romantic angles in the story that became rather “steamy,” and I wasn’t shy about the grammar I utilized. I certainly didn’t want to offend Miss Mia with my colorful vocabulary…but at the same time, she honestly came off as the type of person who wouldn’t have been offended. I’m pretty sure she would’ve read it for the art I believed it to be, and I truly think she would’ve enjoyed it from start to finish. So, if that was the case, why was I being so hesitant? Well, I had a pretty good reason. It was actually the best reason of all.

It was because my female lead was based on her.

Yeah, I’m sure people are having a good laugh thinking about me sitting there with perspiration forming on my brow as I tried to think of a way to tell my gorgeous teacher how I couldn’t let her read through my work because the voluptuous babe who would get boinked near the end of the story was based on none other than her. There was no way she could read it and not realize the abundant description was totally mirroring her, so I tried to think of how to respond since I had been put on the spot. I’m sure I looked like I real buffoon as I searched for the right words.

“Well, I would love to let you take a look at it…but…”

I could see that she was leaning forward ever so slightly while waiting for my explanation.

Honesty is the best policy. I decided to come clean with my Creative Writing teacher as I told her, “I…I don’t think you’d like it. You see, there are a few parts that get a little…well, a little ‘spicy…’”

“Oooh, erotica!” she exclaimed as she sat back with a huge smile on her face. “Marcus Veovin…I didn’t know you had it in you! The way you describe things in your assignments you hand in to me, I can only imagine what you come up with in your spare time!”

Saying that I wasn’t the least bit excited in that moment would be a blatant lie, and if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a liar. The fact that someone as beautiful as Miss Mia was open to the idea that I had written something erotic sent my blood rushing through my veins at a high velocity. Still, I knew there was no way I could hand the work over to her without changing a few things first. The minute she realized my female lead was based on her, I knew she’d be either angry, weirded out, or both. I tried to come up with any excuse I could as I muttered, “It hasn’t really been edited or anything yet…”

“I would love to do that for you!” she exclaimed in a vigorous tone. “It would be an honor to see some of your more personable works and be the one to say that I read them first!” She paused for only a second before saying, “Unless, of course, you’ve already had someone else read it?”

I wasn’t sure if she was questioning me for a further explanation or if she was just being nice. Regardless, I shook my head and told her, “I’m the only one who’s seen it.”

Her perfectly lined teeth became visible again as she smiled in a way that would’ve knocked me off my feet had I not already been sitting down. “Excellent! Do you happen to have the story with you right now? I would love to take it home over the weekend and get started!”

The funny thing was, I did have it with me; at least a part of it. Most of it was at home on my computer, but I did have the first fifty pages printed out because I had been doing a little rough editing during my spare time in some of my earlier classes. I tended to get through schoolwork rather quickly, so to pass my time in my other classes, I would either write or edit my already completed work. And since I just happened to have some of it with me, I knew I had only moments to come up with an answer. I could’ve taken the easy way out and told her that the only copy was saved on my computer at home…but then I would’ve been lying. As previously stated, I have a hard time lying. People see right through me if I even attempt it.

I hoped the vibrant teacher didn’t notice my hand shaking as I reached into my black satchel and pulled out the pages I had printed. I could see happiness overtaking her face as I handed the stack to her. She had the look of a child receiving a birthday present he/she had asked for as she took the papers from me.

“I’m so excited to read this, Marcus!” My beautiful instructor told me as she placed her right thumb on the side of the stack and flipped through the pages. There was a fire behind her eyes that I had never seen before.

It wasn’t too late. I could’ve reached forward and snagged the stack back from her and made up some other kind of excuse about why she couldn’t possibly read my story yet. I would’ve looked like a complete moron for doing so, but I’m sure it would’ve been better than the alternative.

“I’ll read through this and give you plenty of input, Marcus!” Miss Mia excitedly told me as she stood up. “And don’t worry: I’m not a prude! This kind of writing doesn’t bother me in the least!” After making her way toward her desk and taking out a large folder that looked important, the lively teacher filed my papers into it before lowering her voice and telling me, “Again, just between you and I…sometimes I find that erotic literature is the only way I get my share of excitement in life, if you know what I mean!” She laughed at her own joke as I had a hard time believing her. There was just no way a woman as drop-dead gorgeous as Miss Mia could possibly have trouble finding a date for the weekend.

To say I was nervous at that point would have been an understatement. I thought about saying something on the lines of, “All of my characters are made up and don’t resemble anyone remotely real,” but I figured doing so would just make me come off sounding all the more suspicious. Miss Mia was one of the smartest people I knew, so there was absolutely no way she wouldn’t put things together and figure out that my main female character was based on her. I didn’t want things to become awkward between us since we had started off the semester with a good student/teacher relationship. It made things even more difficult since I had found out over the course of the last few minutes that I was more than likely her favorite pupil. Depending on how fast of a reader Miss Mia was, it wasn’t going to take long to ruin that bond.

I hate to admit it, but my mind was in such a whirl as I tried to think of what would happen once she read my story that I didn’t realize she was actually talking to me. Thankfully, she was chatting about things that didn’t require me to answer, and when she finally spoke her final sentence, I was actually snapped back to the real world. “Well, I’ve probably taken up more than enough of your time and should let you catch up with your friends so you can start your weekend! Thank you for giving me your time, Marcus, and if you do any more writing over the next couple of days, let me know how it goes, all right? Stay warm out there!”

“I will, Miss Mia. You have a good weekend, too. And you stay warm, also!” I hurriedly gathered my things so I could rush toward the door that led into the hallway of lockers. I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

“Oh, and Marcus?”

I stopped dead in my tracks and slowly turned to face the stunning instructor. I swallowed a lump in my throat before asking, “Yes?”

“Marcus, when we’re alone like this, just call me Tessa!”

END OF PART ONE OF SIX