The Devil’s Rejects were ten minutes into their set, before Sylvia Steele recognised her former student Jared. By that stage her second Black Russian was seeping its way through her bloodstream and her body was swaying rhythmically with the band. Her gaze had strolled over the lead guitarist’s tightly-muscled body several times before she made the connection.

“Oh my god. That’s Jared Morgan!”

“Who?” asked Gretchen, her fellow teacher at Glen Lake High School.

“Before your time,” Sylvia replied, leaning in to her friend’s ear without breaking her gaze from her grown-up student. It was the grin that gave him away when he flicked back his long hair. “Thorn in my side ten years ago. Skinny, cocky kid, used to drive me nuts. God, it’s hard to believe he’s—”

“Turned out so hot?”

“Oh god, lady, don’t even go there,” Sylvia laughed above the pounding drum-rhythm. “Ex-students—don’t ever stoop that low.” She turned away and stared back at the tall filled-out guitarist, his chest and stomach glistening with perspiration under his creased leather vest. Her eyes were particularly drawn to the exotic network of curved spikes which had been inked into his upper left arm. “Just haven’t seen him in so long and he’s … grown up. He was one waste of my teaching time.”

“Seems he’s done okay. He’s got major stud-status in a band.”

“Are you joking?” Images of high-school Jared’s insouciant posturing at the back of her class sprang to Sylvia’s mind: Leaning way back in his chair, sketching on his file pad when he should have been studying the Founding Fathers. It had galled her more than harassing comments about her figure from the dumbest of the jocks.

“Have you even heard of these guys before?” she demanded of Gretchen. “He’s not exactly taken the world by storm, he’s playing ten miles from where he went to school.”

“Maybe,” her friend said, “but I’d still do him.”

“Don’t want to hear it.” Sylvia knew Gretchen was all talk, but even the articulation of the thought made her cringe. ‘Ex-student’ still equalled ‘off-limits’ in the history teacher’s book, whichever way the gender equation worked. It stemmed from being—it was hardly vanity to admit it—one of the hotter teachers in the school. How did you deal with hormonally-crazed young bucks hitting on you, whether their approaches were brazen or covert, while you were teaching class? By drawing lines. Clear lines. Ones with proper consequences when crossed, which extended far beyond the classroom.

She couldn’t deny it though, within her limited knowledge of the rock genre, young Mr. Morgan seemed to have turned into a pretty damn good guitarist. He’d most certainly developed in other ways too, ways which had taken her by surprise.

A drum-crash and jagged swipe of Jared’s guitar strings brought the song to its end and the lead singer, a shaggy-haired guy with a London accent, signed off for the first part of the band’s set. “We love you already. Go drink and we’ll sound even better. See you in half an hour.”

They departed stage-left towards a back room in the bar, to a raucous burst of cheering from the hundred-strong crowd, when he saw her. She’d been tucked away in a shadowy corner next to a stair-railing, but had moved into the light when leaving for the bar. Jared’s glance stayed a moment on her and there was no mistaking the recognition on his face. She looked away hurriedly. His expression called to mind a moment she hadn’t thought of in years. She caught her breath just like she had done all those years ago. When she looked back, he had vanished along with the rest of the band.

“So you’re not going to say hello? Take an interest in his progress?” Gretchen teased.

“That guy has no use for my interest, trust me. Didn’t back then and won’t now.”

“God, why’d he drive you so crazy?”

“What? He didn’t. Forget him. I want another drink.”

Drinks acquired, they jostled among the pre-Christmas weekend throng, scanning about for that Yuletide scarcity—a place to sit. “So tell me about Jared,” Gretchen insisted.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Was he hot back then? Did he have a mad crush on his history teacher? Fixating on you from his—”

“Jesus Christ, Gretchen, what is this? Am I with a work colleague here or one of the students? For God’s sake, let it go.”

“You’ve gotta talk to him later on. He’s turned out so frickin’ gorgeous.”

“You’re unbelievable. Who is this person I go out with, Fridays? I mean is your home life with Walt so mundane right now that you have to torment me with—”

“We’re not talking about me and Walt, we’re talking about you.” Gretchen said. “And for the record, I can’t remember the last Friday night we went out. Like we had one celebration night after you filed for divorce and since then there’s been nothing. You’ve just buried yourself in work. You’d rather grade papers on a Friday than come out to play. What were you planning on doing tonight?”

“I’ve got progress charts to finalize for the tenth graders, the principal’s expecting—”

“It’ll get done, Sylvia. All your work always gets done. Don’t be so anal about it. Staying in weekends to do admin. Geez, time to get your life back.”

“I am.” Sylvia tried to put some conviction into her protest. “It’s not all been work. I’ve redone two rooms in the apartment. I’ve been going to the gym a lot.”

“That’s good. And it shows, it really shows. Well, it’s Christmas now, so it’s time to get that sleek perfection out there. Start living some, you’ve earned it. Or do you want to spend the entire holidays back with your mom, thinking about Chester shacked up with his little accountant?”

“That’s below the belt.” It stung, more than Sylvia felt it should. The marriage had been dead in the water long before anything had arisen between her husband and the damned Theresa after all.

“It had to be said.” Gretchen’s tone was unrepentant. “Look, I won’t mention it again, but let’s just say that Walt’s going to be on babysitting duties a few nights over the break. ‘Cos you and I are hitting the local hot spots. Now drink up. I want to catch the second part of the guys’ set. You can ogle your ex-student some more.”

Sylvia glared at her friend but decided that sucking it up was the best policy. She drank down her sweetened vodka with the low-key bitterness of her marriage’s latter stages refusing to wash out of her mouth. That’s what came of clinging blindly to a college romance which, when faced up to, had never really taken flight. As you followed your chosen career path and work slowly consumed you, it was just easier to stick with who you knew. Until you were mired in lowly misery with someone whose company added to your exhaustion, and whom, appallingly, you seemed to have the same effect. Maybe the ‘little accountant’ at Chester’s firm ignited some spark in him that Sylvia had long since given up hope was possible. Hell, if that were the case, maybe she should be happy for the idiot. Thank Christ she hadn’t had kids with him.

She stared at herself in the restroom mirror, caught by surprise at the svelte and glamorous woman looking back at her. God, I’m still here. Still young… Ten years might have passed by her in a haze of lesson plans and curriculum development, but at thirty-five Sylvia Steele was just hitting her womanly stride—physically at any rate.

Both her professional pin-stripe and weekend sweats had been abandoned, thanks to Gretchen’s pestering, for something rather more on-the-town. Considering the grungy venue, she had opted for her long-time mothballed rock-chic. Her slim-fit jeans would have pinched three months prior, but now they outlined the dramatic swell of her hips and her long legs’ graceful curves. She was almost tempted to spin around and check out how the denim primped her firm ass. The swish of her white vest showed off the briefest glimpse of

tight mid-riff, and rather more of her breasts’ impressive roundness; the dangle of her Claddha necklace highlighted the effect.

Her ash-brown hair was worn down and had been flounced into loose curls, another departure from the classroom. She made sure it remained swept back, however, so that those dark eyes and killer cheekbones (she’d heard that compliment more than a few times in her life) were on full display. Well, Gretchen had made a good point, she supposed. She hadn’t put in all that gym work for the endorphin-rush alone. Now that she was out, she might as well look the part. There was minimal risk of bumping into students in Delaney’s marginally older crowd; she inspired enough adolescent boners as things stood, without encouraging them outside of school. However, if she did meet any of her male charges, she would glance briefly, then divert her eyes with an air of aloofness, as if to say, “Yes, I have a life.”

Not that she actually did. With divorce looming but not yet official, she had forbidden herself even the first of that luxury. Or maybe that was an excuse. The legalities of the separation were so much in her favor that no amount of partying could touch her when it came to the settlement. Maybe she was just scared. A decade of professional slog with nothing much at home to provide release from her responsibilities should have made her desperate to let go a little, and yet she could not quite do it. Not yet. Sometimes she wondered if ever.

“Here to have fun?” Gretchen inquired, checking to see if they were following the same plan.

“Hell with it. Here to have fun.” Settling herself from a brief bout of alcoholic wooziness, Sylvia braved once more the melee of the bar.

The Devil’s Rejects hit their groove at a sprint in the second half of their set, surging into a number that Sylvia guessed was entitled “Halcyon Days” from the repeated phrase. The lyric, what she could pick up, dealt with how their teenage years and young adulthood had been anything but ‘halcyon,’ blighted as those days had been by forces of authority, a.k.a. ‘the Man.’

God, naïve adolescent bullshit, get over it …

She found all cynicism overridden by the rootsy power of the music, however. It was impossible not to be swayed, literally, by the grinding blues-rhythm of their songs.

The lead singer had an intense shaggy charisma, but undeniably it was Jared who stole Sylvia’s and others’ attention. He wasn’t even trying to claim the frontman’s limelight, he was just loving the hell out of what he was doing, adding a hard yet unshowy musicianship to the four-man outfit; he’d join in on vocals at intervals, mutually appreciative glances shooting back and forth between him and his buddy.

Then twenty minutes into the crowd-pleasing set, the singer handed over to his fellow bandsman. “I’m a long way from my roots here,” he said, “but for one of us it’s a homecoming. On lead guitar I give you Jared Morgan!”

Whether or not many in the crowd remembered the long-haired son of Maple City, they cheered as though to greet a local hero. “Don’t you love that accent?” Jared yelled in response, indicating the singer. “Makes him sound like a real rock star!” His buddy flipped him the bird in good-natured response. “It’s good to be home in beautiful Kasson Township, Michigan … That makes me sound like a rock star!” It got a laugh from the crowd and even Sylvia could not resist smiling. “But one person’s presence here tonight makes it especially worthwhile …”

Sylvia’s gut lurched. Oh no, he wouldn’t.

“The woman who rocked my world and broke my heart when I was a tender teen. She did her level best to teach me, but I couldn’t get past her ungodly beauty. I give you the greatest, hottest teacher in all of Leelenau County, Miss Sylvia Steele!”

There was no follow-spot to pick her out, but Jared’s pointing finger and Gretchen’s gleeful clapping drew all eyes to her. The crowd burst into cheering applause on Jared’s vocal cue and Sylvia’s cheeks burned with the sudden focused attention. “Go Sylvia! You are hot!” Her friend laughed. Sylvia did too, but in a reflex of embarrassment, covering her eyes with her hand in laughing shame. She glared up at her ex-student in reproval and he looked right back, a smile the cheek of which she had never seen bettered in all her years teaching.

“Sylvia,” he told her before the audience, “this one’s from me to you.” The drums kicked in and on his opening guitar riff she recognised the song with an inward groan. Of everything he could have picked to sing, it had to be The Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle.” And any technical deficiencies in his vocal performance were more than compensated for by the raucous verve with which he delivered it.

That cocky bastard. He was leaning into his microphone, head raised, daring her to break his gaze as he sang. She and the rest of the house knew that his vocals were aimed squarely at her with the song’s gleeful come-back-to-mine-and-I’ll-fuck-you sentiment, but was she going just to stand there looking mortified? Hell no—she swung her hips into it and danced, singing along with some of the most proudly cheesy lyrics in the history of macho rock. Hands raised and clenched, grinding into the music like nothing could scare her, Sylvia met his challenge and raised it.

Gretchen was cheering her, other members of the crowd laughing and giving her space to let herself go. There was no room here for anything less than total dance-floor commitment for the song’s duration. At first it was all front, a mask for her anger at the presumptuous shit on stage who had drawn attention to her and made such a bold musical pass. By midway through, however, her feelings had transformed into something else—a kind of pride in her momentary status as sex symbol, the buck on stage singing and playing just for her. She never let herself be openly sensuous, did she? There was something freeing about going along with his ‘hot teacher’ taunt and demonstrating that the diehard educator still had it in her to be a little bit raunchy. So what if some current student in the crowd saw her let go? She was swaying and writhing into a sexy song, not flashing her tits. If it were to show up on YouTube the next day, it wouldn’t spell her ruin …

There was another thought which floated in her mind as she danced. That moment again—the one almost a decade ago where for a few spare seconds all her professionalism had been rattled to its centre. She had sublimated the memory a very long time, but Jared clearly hadn’t. God, to let her guard down even for a moment, with an eighteen-year-old school-kid … Screw it! So she’d flattered his ego for one tiny moment; no doubt he had burned with the recollection the rest of the year, while she just got on with her job. He could have his little joke at her expense tonight. She even applauded him at the end of the song.

“Miss Sylvia Steele!” he proclaimed again, before The Rejects ploughed on with their set, and he fixed her with a look that made her forget all about Jared the boy. It was a look which might have burned her had he held it any longer. Like the same magnetic force she had felt in that moment ten years prior, only intensified by time and circumstance. Or maybe that was just the vodka …

“My god,” Gretchen’s eyes were alight. “You are so letting him buy you a drink after.”

“What? He tries to show me up and I humour him some more for the privilege?” Sylvia gave her friend a wry grimace, which she hoped covered up her sudden heart-pounding unease. “Well, the asshole had better make it a double.”

She stuck around at the end out of sheer curiosity, unable to help herself. Who exactly had Jared Morgan become in the intervening years? Sylvia hoped Gretchen wouldn’t make it unbearable if she chose to get reacquainted. Any further glances from the long-haired guitarist she’d ignored, drifting upstairs as the crowd filtered post-gig into the main bar area. If he wanted to make liquid restitution for embarrassing her, he could seek her out and do it. She was halfway through a self-purchased soda water, trying to quell her dangerous alcoholic buzz, before he arrived on the scene.

To her annoyance she found that Gretchen had harnessed both him and the lead singer. Her slight, fair-haired colleague was chatting animatedly with the two, eyes flicking back and forth between them and her friend. Snatches of Gretchen’s conversation to Jared—“She doesn’t embarrass easily, but you got her good.”, “If you’d been my student, I’d have been in so much trouble.”—floated her direction. Sylvia sipped her drink, swallowed her cringe and adopted an air of rising above it all.

Then the trio arrived at the table and she had to rein in a shudder at Jared’s sudden proximity. Gretchen was either unaware of her discomfort or did not give a damn. “I can’t believe you never told me about this guy.” She was beaming in merriment. “You weren’t going to come thank him for devoting a song to you?”

“No thanks required,” Jared said. “It was a privilege I never thought I’d have.”

A privilege to show her up in front of a crowd of people …

She shot a wary glance up at her one-time student and just about recognised the schoolboy within. There was a quality of lean, hard strength to his stomach, chest and shoulders; the film of sweat from his stage performance showed off that finely-etched upper body to particularly good effect. The fingers which had found their crafty way about the fret-board of his Fender were curled easily around a bottled beer. He had tied his dark hair into a ponytail, a few loose strands still falling about his face. His long angular face, that was, with those strongly sculpted features. Adolescent gaucheness had been replaced with something more lived-in, but he still had those piercing blue eyes which threatened to bore through every facade.

“Miss Steele,” he said, reaching out a hand. Dangerous amusement danced behind his polite expression. “Good to see you looking so well.”

“Jared.” She shook his hand and couldn’t repress the smile which came to her lips. It was something she’d never allowed herself to do in his moments of student daring.

“I’m sure you two have so much catching up to do.” Gretchen’s eyes sparked with fascination. She had the lead guy by the arm and looked as though she was prepared to draw everyone around the same table so she could listen in on the catching-up.

“I’m teaching in the same school in the same small town as ten years ago,” Sylvia said to Jared. “Hardly much updating required on my part.”

“Well, reminiscing then,” Gretchen insisted. “I hear you were quite a handful, Jared.”

Sylvia sublimated the impulse to throttle her friend. “Gretchen, maybe you and your new friend here,” she indicated the singer, who introduced himself as Max. “Maybe you and Max would like to take a seat while Jared and I fetch some drinks?”

“Good idea.” The scruffily bearded singer took her cue. To Gretchen he asked, “Why don’t you and I take the time to get better acquainted?”

“God, charmer … Did I mention I’m married?” Gretchen said, flashing him her wedding band, but sitting down with him nonetheless.

“Not a problem,” Max assured her. “I like married ladies.”

“Bad-boy!” she scolded with a giggle. “I’m only letting it go because of that accent.”

Sylvia was only too glad to leave her garrulous friend behind and join the hoard at the bar with Jared. “She’s all show. Your friend will get his hopes up and be cruelly denied.”

“While you, Miss Steele, are much too classy a lady to pull that kind of stunt,” he replied, throwing her a casual glance. “Or you would be if you still had a husband at home.” The first occasion on which she’d gone out minus her ring and he’d noticed already. “What are you drinking?”

“Soda and lime,” she told him, backtracking on all her post-gig bravado.

“No, you’re not.” The cock-sure attitude of old caught her off-guard. “Proper drink.”

The laughing protest died in her throat. Something about his attitude—its frankness or lack of guile—disarmed her. Without the old teacher-student relationship to fall back on, she floundered. “Eh, okay, whatever.” God, she never used that term. “Whatever you’re drinking.”

“That’s more like it.” His stare lingered on her with a liberty she was sure she should discourage. “Double Bourbon, twice—Jim Beam if you have it—and two Millers,” he called to the bar-girl. Double … Good god! That would do some serious undermining of what control she still had. “Now there,” he said, eyeing her crown-to-toe and all in between, “is a drink to match the look.”

Sylvia shuddered. To get me drunk quickly, more to the point. Everything about this encounter was wrong. It was so entirely what she didn’t do. And for that exact reason it caused her lower belly to flutter uncontrollably. But she tried to quash her concerns: Hell, I’m having a drink with a flirty ex-student. He’s a good nine years out of school. As long as I know there’s nothing slipped in my drink, what’s the big deal?

The final phrase she made her mantra, till Jared had delivered Max and Gretchen their beers and secured a separate table where he could shoot the breeze with his ex-history teacher unimpeded.

“You know I really should be mad at you for that performance earlier on,” she said before slinging an arm around the back of her chair and eyeing him as coolly as she could manage over her substantial glass of neat bourbon.

“Oh, I don’t know. You seemed to embrace the spirit in which it was intended. It was good seeing you let go like that.”

She imagined from his enthused expression that it was quite his fantasy to see her ‘let go.’

“Well, what else could I do without looking an idiot? Much as I might have wanted to give you a slap.”

“Like you fantasized about doing all those times in school?”

“Jared, don’t flatter yourself. I’ve had plenty of work-shy students over the years. You weren’t going to drive me to corporal punishment any more than the rest.” She sipped her drink, absorbing the sour, foreign taste without flinching. “Just one more lazy-ass teenager whose work I had to do for him.”

“And yet you rode this lazy ass harder than all the others, Miss Steele. It’s not like I actively disrupted any of your classes, did I? Glenn Jacobs and his kind trying to roast you and yet I did way more Saturdays than any of them.”

He wasn’t lying. Jared had never actually disturbed a lesson, while Jacobs had been the worst of the jocks in that class, requiring a swift slapping-down on more than one occasion. Embarrassingly Jared had done it once for her.

“I’ve got some maneuvers saved up just for you, Miss,” the smug quarterback had muttered one day, borrowing the word from her discussion on General Gould-Shaw’s military tactics. “Oh yeah,” Jared had chuckled, “like that maneuver where the line-backer took you out in Sunday’s game.” The class had erupted into laughter at Jacobs’ humiliated expense, Sylvia feeling an uncharacteristic rush of gratitude towards her most infuriating student. She’d almost considered taking him out of the Saturday in which he’d already landed himself through a missed assignment deadline. But she hadn’t.

No place for such memories around this table, however. The whiskey was muddying her thoughts enough without recalling any misplaced affection or minor sources of guilt. “It’s Ms Steele,” she chided him. “And you can drop all the classroom bullshit anyways. I’m Sylvia.” She was sure she recognized a flicker of boyish gratification in his face at being put officially on first-name terms with her. “As for giving you a hard time, maybe it’s because despite appearances, there was a decent intellect there being wasted. And nothing galls a teacher more.” As in bygone days, attack seemed the best form of defense with this male. “Seeing one of her potential top students drawing his little pictures in the back of her class, coasting on a perception of his own cool with nary a thought to his SAT scores. You could have been anything you wanted to be …”

Jared swigged his liquor. “You can quote Bugsy Malone at me all you like, but I’m exactly what I want to be. And where. Like right here, right now. Sylvia.” His gaze was laconic, eyes homing in like a zoom lens. Check the drinks all she might, his presence was all the intoxication necessary to threaten her control. “You were a good teacher, that’s no false flattery. And I’m sure I irritated the hell out of you. Only there were some things about a student like me you couldn’t quite get your head around.”

“Oh really? What special requirements were there for such a unique student? Please, educate me.”

“Nothing special,” he said, having brought under control whatever base thought had clearly occurred to him. “The school system’s okay for some. I mean, the good state of Michigan needs its next generation of politicians and lawyers and no doubt you do your part in providing them. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that all I wanted to learn was going on outside somewhere.”

“You made it to college.” She remembered receiving the news that he had got onto a course at DeVry and entertaining a vague hope that he might have shaped up academically if he stuck with it a little longer.

“I gave it a shot, maybe even due to your encouragement. Stuck it a year—had fun there, not a lot of it about studying.” She had little doubt from his tone the type of fun to which he was alluding. “But I wasn’t a good fit there, Sylvia. There was too much else calling me. Sure I’ll maybe take some more classes down the line, but if I do, it’ll be on my own terms. Not because anyone expects me to.”

There was a taunt in his stare, but Sylvia refused to take this bait to her as an educator. “So what was ‘calling’ you, Jared? Tell me what wonders you found beyond the tedium of academia.” Despite the attempted mockery in her words, part of her was eager to know.

“Oh, I don’t know. Adventure, the open road, the four winds …” There was self-parody in his face and in his voice, but she knew at the same time he had followed all of the above and found that they led to exciting places.

“Ah,” she said with a knowing air that belied a jealousy she could not deny. “And yet one of those winds has blown you right back here.”

“Courtesy visit,” he said with a palpable sense of contentment. “And, it turns out, so I can swap stories with my absolute favorite teacher. All the punishments in the world couldn’t displace you as that, Sylvia.”

She hoped in the low-lit bar that her full-body flush wasn’t obvious. “God, Jared, you’re a piece of work …” Son-of-a-bitch was the phrase which came closer. “Okay then, Kerouac, lay it on me. Tell me about life on the road.”

Her invitation ushered in a host of anecdotes—ones she actively pursued, drawing out the detail and finding herself laughing steadily more at what he had to tell her. Like his failed first band and how a biker gang in Georgia had bottled them off the stage, so that they barely made it to their van intact. Or his hard graft and harder partying with his traveling-carnival comrades. Or how a construction job had ended abruptly when the site manager had discovered him in compromising circumstances with the client’s young wife inside the lunch tent. His nostrils flared slightly, as though it was a memory he particularly cherished. “Dirty job, but someone had to do it.”

“And I guess you’re that dirty guy, right?” She downed what she realised was the last of her bourbon and became conspicuously aware of how aroused she felt. It was an instinct which immediately connected to panic.

“Well, we can’t all take the route to white-collar respectability, can we?” Jared teased. “Where would be the fun in that?” His expression was one he had no doubt worn with God knew how many sexual conquests since his departure from Glen Lake High. She wouldn’t let herself be just one more conquest.

The fact that the thought had even occurred sent a shock of alarm to Sylvia’s brain. Her eyes darted to the other table and she saw to her added alarm that Gretchen and Max were no longer there. Her senses were muddled and she wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed in this ne’er-do-well’s company.

“It’s okay.” Jared’s tone was as droll as it was reassuring. “The only person whose trust your friend needs worry about is her own. Max is much more of a gentleman than I am.”

“God, Jared.” It must have been the drink. Sylvia felt desire quite at odds with her disapproval. “Didn’t I manage to teach you anything? Even a little civic responsibility?”

“I consider myself very responsible,” he chided her mildly. “Every carnival ride I attended was safer for me being there. Although the same can’t be said for the virtue of all the customers once the ride was over.” She resisted the allure of his innuendo. “Plus … You taught me one very important lesson, Miss Steele.”

“It’s Sylvia. What lesson was that?”

“That I can’t have everything I want, exactly when I want it.”

“Very true, Jared. If ever.”

If she’d just drawn a line, he promptly walked all over it. “Although you and I came close on one memorable occasion.”

Shameful occasion. His allusion to it brought the memory into sharp relief. She and Chester had been negotiating a rocky few weeks in their engagement when it happened. During one of Jared’s detentions, the student had been commandeered to help out with history department stocktaking, scarcely another student present in Glen Lake that staff-day. That was how the two of them had ended up momentarily alone in the stock room, Sylvia reaching to an upper shelf when the heel snapped on her shoe. An eighteen-year-old Jared close by to take hold of her as she stumbled, his hand inadvertently brushing her bosom through her silk blouse.

His apology had sounded sincere: “Hey, shit, sorry. You okay, Miss? Let me check that ankle.” She had suspected a sprain and thus allowed him to kneel solicitously before her as she leaned back against the shelves, cradling her stockinged heel in one hand and deftly searching for injury with the fingers of the other. There had been no pain beyond the initial dull throb, but he had tested thoroughly even so, staring up at her all the while. “That feel okay? Any sharp pain?”

“No, no, that’s fine, thank you, Jared.”

“Let me help you off with that other shoe.”

“No, Jared, it’s fine, it’s … Well, okay then.”

He had done it with minute attention, sliding the shoe from her foot, his fingers tracing her instep. She’d wondered as he did it just how many girls around his own age he’d already had the pleasure of undressing. “There. That’s better.” When he got back to his feet, it had been with a slight shortness of breath and the awkwardness of a skinny young guy with a huge hard-on tight against his pants. She’d become aware of the moistness seeping into her panties. “Anything else I can do for you, Miss Steele?”

With any other student she was sure it would have felt like harassment. But nothing in her response had been actively discouraging as he reached out and brushed the plunging neck of her blouse, following its silk from the collar down towards the base of its V and tracing the lacy hem of her brassiere as it went. She had only been aware of her accelerated heartbeat and of her hot breath answering his, as he followed a silky path from the collar down towards the junction.

“Jared …” It had been all she was able to say.

“Tell me you want me to stop.” She had been acutely aware of his arousal and wanted to see whether or not he had the gall to undo the top button of her blouse. “Say it …”

His eyes boring into hers, while she fought for the will to prevent anything further, captivated in the moment by his low-key arrogance …

“Sylvia? Miss Steele?” The erotic calm of the moment had shattered like a rock hurled into a still pond by the approach of Mrs. Harper, the assistant principal.

Sylvia had rushed out of the store room clutching her shoes, passing off her flustered appearance by referring to the mishap with her heel, while squashing down all her guilty embarrassment at the degree to which she had just compromised herself. Trying to ignore the extent to which her panties now needed laundering. The opportunist shit, who had all but been her undoing, at least had the grace to stay hidden until she had diverted her professional superior towards the staffroom.

Ten years had made him no less of an opportunist, she realised. And she was as treacherously wet now as she had been back then. “You know,” he said, having let the dregs of his bourbon trickle south, “I’ve always considered what happened that afternoon as unfinished business.”

“Jared, I’m sure I don’t remember what afternoon—”

“Bullshit.” He reached across and his fingers mapped out a similar trail on the neck of her vest as they had done on her blouse ten years before. “I can see in your face you remember every detail.” The garment plunged deeper than the one she had worn back then, towards more pronounced cleavage. However fuzzed with alcohol she felt, the public arena sharpened her focus and resolve.

“Stop it, Jared. There could be students here.” It expressed precious little desire for him to stop, however, and he knew it.

“Then come with me now.” He’d raised his hand from her vest and leaned in so she could pick up his low, insistent words. She was sure the innuendo in the phrase was no accident.

“We’ll grab a taxi outside and go back to mine.”

This was not what she’d planned or expected when she left home that evening, to leave the bar with anyone other than Gretchen. Ten years of impeccable conduct as a professional, most of those as a married woman, had impressed upon her certain codes of behavior, all of which were at war with alcoholically-enhanced sexual need. She didn’t go back to the home of some guy she’d met randomly when out for the evening. Not even if there was a certain history between them. “Jared, I’m not one of your little groupies or carnival-goers.”

“I know you’re not. You’re a grown woman, one of the most attractive I’ve ever had the fortune to meet, and more than capable of deciding whether or not she wants to come back where I’m staying. It’s not the Ritz, I won’t lie to you. Just you, me, a bottle of booze and the night ahead of us, to spend as we decide. Come on, Sylvia, I’m setting myself up to be shot down here. Now after the hard time you gave me in school, especially after our little moment in the store room, I think the least you owe me now is a straight answer.”

He timed his grin to perfection, breaking the tension which his controlled outburst had created and making her laugh. Damn him, he’d just made himself the most thrilling, forbidden prospect in her world. The antidote to everything in life which had been wearing her out. And hell, she wasn’t so drunk she couldn’t control the situation if she went with him. Damn, she could take a risk. Do something inadvisable, something downright stupid once in her buttoned-up life. “Okay, big-shot,” she said, ruefully returning the smirking gaze which taunted her, “Show me this rock-star palace.”

* * * *

The palace in question was a small rental apartment on one of the dingier outskirts of Maple City. “Friend of a friend got into real estate,” Jared explained to Sylvia as his key rattled in the front door. “And the friend convinced the friend to give me a cheap deal for the few weeks I’m here.”

“So you didn’t just return to the family home,” she said, quelling her trepidation as he flicked a light switch and ushered her into his spare living-space.

“Impose myself and my laundry on my poor grey-haired mom? Is that what you think of me?” He shut the door behind them. “I might not be chasing suburban respectability like some, but I have my pride.”

“Hey …” she protested, trying to stave off the fear that on his territory he would suddenly pounce. “Stop making fun of me.” She was banking on every ounce of character judgement she had that he would show a degree more respect. There had been a lightness to their repartee during the taxi ride, an easing-off on his part of the seduction routine. But then he could afford that, couldn’t he? Now that she had agreed to accompany him to his temporary lair, sealed within his low-rent dwelling, the sheer recklessness of her decision scared her.

“I don’t mean to make fun,” he said in that easy way of his, taking her by the hand and leading her into his bare-walled living room. It was an unsettling reversal of roles, him taking all the initiatives and her following along. “Hey, I’d provide the tour, but there’s not much to see. Take a seat, I’ll fix us a drink in my fabulous kitchenette. Let me sort some music first.”

Sylvia perched herself on the small corduroy sofa to which Jared had guided her. She watched tentatively as her host strolled through the modest habitat in his jeans and bashed-up leather waistcoat. His largely-exposed upper body with its finely etched muscle and correspondingly well-crafted tattoo-work only caused her qualms to multiply. He ducked into what she assumed to be the bedroom and a few moments later the opening bars of a Who song came floating out. The tune she couldn’t have named, but she recognised it as the intro to one of the CSI shows. Its raucous energy, complete with Roger Daltry’s long opening scream, seemed in keeping with the evening.

Then Jared was strolling past her into the kitchen, chatting amiably about the spartan condition of the place and its lack of suitability for guests, “ … least of all one as classy as you, Sylvia”. As though he gave a damn. She could scarcely focus on his words anyway, so level had her eye-line been with the clearly bulging crotch of his pants. It gave her a thrill to realize he was excited to have her back at his place. Did she know what she was doing here? Was she ready for whatever expectations he might have? She had no idea …

“Another shot of Jim?”

“I’m not sure if I should drink any more. I’m not exactly used to it these days. It’ll pack a hell of a hangover in the morning …” God, listen to yourself ... “I can’t keep up with your rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.”

“Oh, I think you should give it a shot just for one night.” He reached up into a cabinet for glasses.

“No, I’m …” She nearly stumbled in her heels and had another flashback to the stock room incident of old. “Really …”

“I’ll just fix you a small one.”

Her attention was diverted by the decorative pictures he had stuck to the wall around the stove. Photographs from gigs mostly—the other band members, draped with silly pretty girls—plus one hand-drawn cartoon sketch. The skill with which the latter had been produced did not distract from its blatantly pornographic nature.

“Jesus.” Sylvia studied the picture more intimately. It depicted two naked girls, one blonde, the other brunette, in process of being serviced on the same bed by some large anonymous cock. The blonde, hand-cuffed and blindfolded to the bed, appeared to have passed out post-copulation; she was stretched out on her back, fluid leaking from between her swollen labia, a string of comic book Z’s issuing from her peaceful mouth. The brunette, meanwhile, was positioned dog-style above her well-fucked girlfriend taking the same hard treatment from her rear-positioned paramour. There was a crude energy to the image—the topmost girl braced in position by the guy, his impressive phallus withdrawn almost completely in preparation for the next hearty thrust. The expression on the brunette’s mascara-splodged face was nearly comic, so overwhelmed did she seem by the experience. Suspended somewhere between fear and desire. Sylvia was getting familiar with that emotional state.

“Jared, what the hell is this?”

“What? Oh, that,” he laughed, slipping a glass of whiskey into her hand. “That was one crazy-ass night. Kind of night deserves to be memorialized. And I thought English girls would be repressed.”

“You drew this?”

“That I did. And you thought I’d never put all my sketching practise in class to good use.”

“And what … This represents a real event?”

“Certainly does. The blonde was Sasha, that’s it, and her dark-haired friend was Libby. Not that the blonde knew at that point it had turned into a threesome. You know, if I ever meet those girls again it might be awkward. God, really awkward …” He sounded terribly amused at something.

“So the guy in the picture …”

“Yeah, that’s me. Next question is whether or not I flatter myself, right?”

Scolding and detention was too good for this reprobate. Sylvia felt she should be running for the door. “Next question is whether you make a habit of recording your conquests.”

“Only the stand-outs. Little on-the-road hobby of mine, capturing those seminal moments of my misspent youth.” He had departed from her side into the living room, leaving her stunned before the salacious drawing, and returned a moment later with a slightly dog-eared sketch pad. “So far I keep all my stuff in here.” He flicked through a small sheaf of drawings. “Someday I might rework them, add colour, make some money off them.”

He proffered the book and she took it from him. A cursory flip through its pages showed her all she needed to know about one of her host’s favorite pursuits … and the degree of vigour and imagination with which he indulged it.

With any other ex-student Sylvia would have dismissed the collection as the fervid imaginings of the sexually deprived, but such doubts did not occur to her regarding Jared. She was sure these events were all drawn just as he remembered them. From his expression, she could see the delight he was taking in her reaction. She endeavoured to toughen up and prevent herself from adding to his satisfaction. “So you think it’s appropriate illustrating all your seedy exploits with these girls?”

“Well, it beats photographing or filming them, don’t you think? It captures the encounter without shouting anyone’s identity. So where’s the harm?”

She stared at him, trying not to be turned-on by his cheerfully brash sexuality. “It’s—”

“It’s a celebration, Sylvia. Of fucking.” He leaned against the cupboards next to her, eyeing her over his whiskey glass. “Now tell me what’s wrong with that.”

All the responses she grabbed at seemed hypocritical. However much she wanted to scold him for the carnal excess on display, she could not deny how excited it made her feel—this vivid pictorial contrast to the sexual desert which had been the latter years of her marriage.

“Is that what you expect from tonight?” she finally managed. “You planning on adding me to your collection, Jared? One more evil encounter you can draw on your artist’s pad?”

He leaned into her, drawing the book from her hand and throwing it casually onto the counter top. She was so aware of his hard upper body, of the locked-and-loaded contents of his jeans, that her heart tremored. It did not occur to her to move away. “Oh, you wouldn’t just be one more encounter, Sylvia. You’d have pride of place.”

The heat flared within her. “Oh, would I? And what would you do, spread it all over Facebook? Let the class of … what … 2000 know about your great conquest?” The thought chilled her.

“I don’t do Facebook. And I’ve no great desire to contact any of my old classmates. Haven’t really stayed in touch with the old gang.” She heard the cool irony in his voice and believed him. “This isn’t for bragging rights,” he told her, casually throwing back the rest of his whiskey. “It’s between you and me. Now drink up.”

He directed the words straight at her as though she would obey. Conflict raged within, the type which had begun the moment he first set eyes on her, between feeling flattered and patronized. The career teacher wanted to slap him for his presumption, but the frustrated wife desired him for that same attribute. Maybe her preoccupation with work had made her resistant to her husband. She just wished he’d had the skill or the desire or the balls to cut through it all the way this bastard was doing. After the briefest hesitation she gulped down her whiskey and set her glass rattling onto the countertop. Her head was spinning with alcohol and escalating desire and she knew she was toast. “God, Jared, you’re the same arrogant shit you always were—”

He seized her by the waist and pulled her tight to him. She stood limp in his grasp, her sex pulsing against the pressure of his, as she stared into the cool blue of his eyes. His expression barely flickered as he spoke. “And you’re the same red-hot sexy bitch, Miss Steele.”

Oh my god … She reached out with both hands and ran her palms over the taut skin of his upper arms. Then she stroked the contour of his cheekbone down to his craggy jawline. He continued to press his groin close to hers as she parted the waistcoat and teased the smooth tight-packed muscle of his chest with her free hand, letting herself linger on the rigid peak of one nipple. Everything she touched was forbidden by her self-imposed rules. So forbidden and hard and cunt-drippingly delicious.

He’s a student, okay, ex-student. Hell, I’m still married … He’s Someone Who’s Not My Husband.

Sylvia was hard-pressed to recall sex-before-Chester, thought fleeting moments at the drunken end of a student house-party fifteen years ago still surfaced when she masturbated alone. She seemed to recall that his name had been Daryl. Shit, she deserved this, didn’t she? To let go her unforgiving principles and just give herself to Jared fucking Morgan.

“Dammit, I’m going to regret this in the morning,” she moaned, her mouth homing in on his.

He shoved one hand into her hair and gripped. She gasped, restrained as she was from properly planting the kiss, and his warm breath flooded her mouth. “I don’t want you doing anything you’ll regret,” he said, his lips brushing hers.

“I don’t care right now,” she replied breathily, “just hurry up and kiss me if you’re going to do it.”

His fingers tightened into her curls and she bridled with frustration at being denied the intimate contact. “I don’t think so, Sylvia. It just doesn’t seem right for me to take advantage of you when you’re drunk.”

What the hell was he playing at? He’d won his game—made her admit to herself how much she wanted this, so that her whole body was demonstrating it to him. “I’m not drunk, not that drunk. I want you to take advantage, okay? You have my permission, is that what you want to hear?”

She tried again to claim his mouth, but he persisted in holding her back, so that the tug on her scalp hurt a little. She could see the smirk on his lips and feel his bone-hard erection. It was clear how much his body craved her, so why the hell didn’t he just get on with it? Irritation flared along with her screaming internal frustration.

“Goddamnit, Jared, just fuck me already!”

As she stared into his face, the bastard laughed. “Oh, I intend to, Sylvia, I intend to fuck you hard. Only I’m not going to do it tonight.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Jared! You can have me now or not at all. I’m not going to let you fucking play me.”

“Oh, I think you are,” he said with such galling self-satisfaction that she slapped him hard across the face. The bourbon had not slowed his reactions, for he grabbed her wrist just after the impact and gripped tight, mightily pleased that he’d drawn so much fire. She struggled against his grip, but could do nothing as he swung her around and pressed her hard against the cupboards, his other hand still clutching her hair.

“I think you are and I’ll tell you why. Because you know that when I choose to, I can make you feel things you’ve never felt before in your life. I can fuck you deeper and make you come harder than your husband could ever dream of. I can and I will, but I’m going to make you damn well wait for it.”

She stared into his face in raw disbelief, all physical struggle having ceased. “I’m not going to—”

“Shh …” He put a finger to her lips and it was enough to hush her. She watched, head reeling with confusion as he dug into his jeans pocket and withdrew a cell phone. It wasn’t the kind of item she had figured such a bohemian wanderer would trouble with. “They have their uses,” he said, reading her thoughts. He thumbed in a number and held her defiant gaze as he made the call. “Hi … One of your cabs dropped me off at Beulah Court, Corey Street. I’ve got one person needs picking up from the same address, name of Steele. Miss Steele.” He ground his groin into hers, keeping her wet and infuriated. “ … Just a few minutes? That’s great. Bye.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “There. That’ll get you safely home.”

“You fucking …” There were no words in her lexicon sufficient to express how much he had pissed her off. “You’re never going to see me again.”

“I’ll see you in three nights’ time.” He slid his hand beneath her waistcoat, seizing one of her full breasts so that she gasped. He kneaded her firmly as he spoke to emphasize his continuing words. “Eight o’clock, here. Ready and stone cold sober. When I fuck you, Sylvia, and I will fuck you, I don’t want you to be able to blame it on alcohol.”

“I’m busy that night,” she panted, aware of how erect her nipple was under his rotating thumb.

“You’re gonna be very busy,” he told her softly. “Trust me on that. Oh, and I’ve got another instruction for you.”

“God damn you.” It was almost a moan.

“You see, fabulous though you look tonight, I want you like I remember you from that day. You know the one. I want that teacher thing—hair up, high heels, all neat in your matching skirt and jacket, you still do that look, don’t you?” God, she did, every day of her working life. He saw the response in her eyes and capitalized. “That’s what I thought. Come here just like that. In your car. We can stay here or drive somewhere else of your choosing. I’ll let you decide that much. I’ll even pay for the room if you book one.”

She hated the cruel smug bastard, but when he reached out and stroked her face, she just stood there and shuddered under his touch. He released her long tresses and though she could have broken from him, she remained standing close. She did not even object when he reached between their bodies and unbuttoned the top of her jeans. “What are you doing?”

His palm, squirming down over her stomach and into her panties, answered the question. She released an urgent little moan as he cupped the wet place between her legs and slid his middle finger inside her.

“Monday night,” he said, his face hovering close to hers. “We’ll have an early Christmas, you and me, and I’ll be your fucking Santa Claus.” She clutched and spasmed around the invasion of his finger. “You’ll come here as soaking wet as you are now. You’ll give yourself up to me completely and in return I’ll provide you with exactly what you need.” She would have slumped to her knees, but for his crushing presence and that unblinking gaze. “I can tell what that is, Sylvia. It’s there in your eyes. Something that’s been denied you a very long time. Am I right?”

Oh god, he was. Like the bastard was fucking psychic …

The horn of a taxi cab blared briefly and he used it as a cue to withdraw his finger from her.

“Button up. Make yourself respectable,” he said with a wink, and but for her dazedness she might have slapped him again. She fastened her pants with trembling hands, unable to articulate a word. Her body was quaking with transparent need and it made her furious at herself. Jared meanwhile picked up the art pad and disappeared into the living room on sudden inspiration.

He returned moments later clearly pleased with himself, clutching a twice-folded sheet from the pad. “It’s kind of appropriate that you take this with you,” he said. “I told you my drawings were based on real events, but that doesn’t hold true for this one. Yet.” She reached for it in reluctant curiosity. He did not pass it to her, however. Clapping a hand to her ass he pulled her to him once more. She protested sulkily, as he shoved the paper into her back pocket, taking the opportunity to grope her. “It’s either an eternal reminder of what might have been, or a promise. But that depends on you.”

Anything she said would please him all the more, so she kept silent as he led her stumbling through the apartment block outside to where the taxi waited. Drink and surging emotion spun her head. She just wanted to be alone, so much like a little girl had he made her feel.

“I’ll pay my own way,” she muttered, when he reached into his back pocket.

“Anything you say.”

When she went to open the door, he pulled her to him and enveloped her mouth with his. She should have struggled, but she responded instead, kissing him fully, even though she knew she would curse herself.

“See you Monday,” he told her, just before she climbed into the car. “Eight o’clock. Make sure you’re on time. I won’t wait all night.”

Damn him and his fucking presumption. Only when the car was out of his sight did she extract the paper he had given her. It was all she could do not to gasp when she saw the sheet’s contents.

The school teacher in the drawing was without a doubt Sylvia. It was not at all a bad cartoon representation, rather flattering in terms of pure physicality. The identity of the schoolboy was equally clear—tall and lean in jeans and t-shirt, long hair slung back from his evilly contented face. The student in the picture had every reason to be contented in a scene which had occurred nowhere outside the artist’s devious imagination. Written repeatedly on an old-fashioned chalkboard in the background of the scene was the legend: “No more detentions for Jared.” But writing lines was the lesser part of the teacher’s ordeal.

Sylvia stared at a twenty-something version of herself spread face-down across Jared’s lap. Her pencil skirt had been wrenched up to her waist, panties similarly dispatched to her lower thighs, exposing every inch of taut flesh from her stocking-tops to the small of her back. Her ass, as the artist had imagined it, was truly not far from the reality—even her neglectful husband had always enjoyed her rear’s firm pertness. But bent over Jared’s knee so that it thrust ceiling-ward, it was receiving a form of attention which Chester had never shown it. His arm was raised high to let fall what would be, from the scorching-red palm prints on her right buttock and dynamic use of whizz-lines, the latest in a protracted series of hard blows. From the expression on the abused teacher’s face she was accepting her spanking with teary fortitude. As for the boy, there was no anger in his expression, just an understated joy at having his hot teacher’s ass at his mercy.

The drawing, Sylvia realised, had not been casually dashed off. Loving attention had gone into this fantasy … years back? Recently? Either way she realised how long she had figured in Jared’s thoughts. And yet mere moments earlier he had foregone the opportunity to have her. Staring at the drawing she knew why. He wanted so much more than to stick his dick inside her, however much that happy eventuality might feature in his thoughts. She felt a grudging admiration for his patience and his confidence. His willingness to gamble on the hope of her return. More so when she studied the words he had scrawled that night beneath the picture …

Her cell buzzed within her purse and she checked the text message, with no doubt as to its sender.

OMG I was so nearly a baaad girl tonight with Max! If I was single… Walt is about to get SO lucky :D How much have YOU been misbehaving???

Sylvia shoved her phone back inside her purse. God, she’d have to take off her panties before she went to bed, so sopping a reminder were they of what he’d already done to her.

Her eyes flicked back to the wicked encouragement on the sheet: Come and be punished. She wondered in which order he intended those two to happen. Well, she wouldn’t give him the opportunity to show her. Monday night she’d be going for eggnog and party games with that new couple across the way—she’d already accepted their invitation after all. It would be a fun, cosy way to put tonight behind her and hold onto her pride. And Jared Morgan could jack that great bulging hard cock on his own, thinking about all the despicable things he wanted to do to her helpless, naked, deprived body …

TO BE CONTINUED