And of course it was hard not to notice a couple of the girls. They seemed to know the effect they provoked in him every class, despite his best efforts to disguise it. They seemed so confident in the way they teased the boys, flirting with them with no signs of being serious. But whether they were or not was slightly lost to Michael, as if the coded looks were not meant to include him. It was all so odd, viewing normal student courtship rituals from this standpoint. He felt out of place, between two worlds.
Michael wasn’t a student anymore. He didn’t belong to their world now he taught them for a living. But the world of staff meetings, course reviews and planning was so new to him that he felt like he was an imposter, that at any moment he might be found out and told to leave. Yet at the same time he knew that he was good at this, good at teaching. The students, for all their jostling for position and status within their year group, had actually begun to listen to him. He had slowly won their respect during the recent first few weeks of term.
Michael was still only 27, hardly different in age to one or two of the more mature students. He had left University fed up with being institutionalized and gone abroad almost straight away, using his English skills to teach as he travelled. After a few months he had got a permanent position in a school in Thailand teaching English to kids from rich local families. And he had found the lifestyle of a young expat – working and playing hard – a wonderful escape from school, from England and from his family’s expectations.
But after nearly two years of this rather disconnected existence, it had all come to a very sudden end. Michael had had to make a quick exit from his life in Thailand, leaving everything behind. When he thought of it now, it seemed obvious that it would end like it did. And bluntly, he was lucky to be alive.
He had begun an intense affair with the mother of one of his class. It had started simply and without fuss when he had been asked to give the boy extra tuition. He had offered without thinking of the cultural issues to go to the parents’ home after school. The extra money was good and anyway he liked the kid. The husband was something in local politics and always out at local rallies and meetings. It meant that he seldom met him on his visits. The mother was younger than her husband and was clearly taken with the way Michael related to her boy. Very slowly at first an unlikely, quiet friendship had begun between Michael and the boy’s mother. And that friendship had lead to sex. And from there to the almost inevitable rumours, discovery and subsequent need for swift flight.
When the husband heard neighbour’s gossip that the young English teacher was collecting a very intimate payment for teaching his son, Michael was in serious trouble. A Thai colleague at the school sat Michael down and laid it out for him. Given the politician’s connections in the area, and the disgrace Michael had brought to a local man of such standing, Michael would be dead and his body found in a gutter if he didn’t get on a plane within 24 hours. It was that simple.
So Michael had arrived back in the UK with no plan, only a little money and a backpack full of t-shirts and shorts. Clutching at the first idea that came to mind he decided to enroll in Teacher Training and then applied for his current job, junior lecturer in English and Drama at the University.
It felt like the first few weeks of term had been a bit of a blur but here he was, running his first drama workshop. And it was going pretty well. By the end of it the students seemed to be buzzing, realizing some of them [for perhaps the first time] what they were capable of doing on stage. One of the girls, Juliette, had been particularly good. She was already on her way to becoming one of the stars of the year. Beautiful with dark long hair, she had a way of cocking her head, as if to dare the world to contradict her. After a quiet start she had slowly gathered around her a group of the best-looking, most confident girls. But she seemed unaware that she had even done this. She didn’t appear to manipulate the group, people were just drawn to her. With such a position of influence she could easily have been disruptive in the classes. But instead she was attentive and worked hard. Michael found it difficult not to pick her out too often, and had to make an effort at times not to drift into a situation where he was effectively tutoring her one on one, forgetting everyone else in the room.
During today’s workshop he had a rare chance to admire the tight curves of Juliette’s figure on stage; her firm breasts, her slim legs and perfectly shaped arse. They were all clearly defined in the black leggings and t-shirt she casually wore. He eyes kept drifting to the triangular space between the tops of her thighs. He shook his head and tried to regain his concentration. He looked at his watch.
“Right everyone! For those of you in my tutorial group I will see you on Wednesday. For the rest of you, don’t forget that this afternoon I will be in my office available to you if you want to drop by and need any help with the assignment from last week. That’s it, see you all on Thursday and thank you for your hard work today”.
The students began to leave quickly, gathering their things and pouring out of the small college theatre. Leaving Michael to his thoughts about Juliette and what he would like to do with her if he ever got the chance. He sighed to himself and turned out the lights.
On and off the same thoughts of Juliette occupied him for the rest of the morning. Michael’s schedule was pretty full but even in meetings he found his thoughts drifting back to a fantasy of Juliette and the shape of her supple body. He imagined seeing her naked, her perfect tits, slim stomach and curving hips for the first time. He knew she would live up to every fantasy he might have.
After a busy morning and a noisy lunch in the student cafeteria, it was a relief to be back in his office. Michael shared his normally with a colleague but they had quickly worked out a routine that meant one afternoon a week he had the room to himself. Today he could run his student meetings without interruption or audience and in exchange he now worked in the library an afternoon a week so that his colleague could do the same.
Each week so far there had been a steady flow of students, bending his ear about their fears, about aspects of their new life at university, about the work and how best they should manage this unsupervised. It was all very different from the school environment most of them had just left. Michael quite enjoyed the process but today the flow was pretty slow. Most students were over the first few anxious weeks and had begun to settle in. Apart from one or two requests for an extension on their assignments, Michael found himself able to get on with some planning for the second half of term. He was even beginning to wonder if he could make a break for it early, when he heard the door knock again and called for whomever it was to come in.
It was Juliette. Still looking great but now with her hair loosely tied up and wearing a different top and jacket. It was almost a shock to see the focus of his fantasies again so soon and outside of the formality of the morning’s class. Michael wondered idly if she had changed her clothes after some sports session but immediately tried to get rid of the thought of her naked in the shower, that popped fully-formed into his head.
“Oh hi there Juliette, how can I help?” Michael said as she closed the door behind her.
