“Mr. Berger,” a student said, distracting me from the sight of this one and only female individual, “what is meant with use the Euler-Lagrange equation to prove the problem in exercise 2?”
“First, well... Danny, right? (He nodded his head in approval) Please call me Dave. And um.... For the problem...”I turned to the blackboard and wrote a few notes while still talking. “First, you set the boundary conditions for the variables. Then you fill these conditions in the Euler-Lagrange lemma, and finally you just solve the resulting equation. That's it. Pretty easy.”
While saying pretty easy, I remembered my freshman year and the exercises I had to solve. They had been much like the ones I was handing out hints for. It had often taken me far beyond one hour to even solve one single problem tagged as easy. Speaking of four or five problems per assignment, it had usually taken me a good ten to fifteen hours to get through a whole assignment. But in retrospect, these problems were manageable with the right goodwill to do so.
“As for problem number 1, it is pretty similar,” I said turning towards the class again, “As it says in the exercise: you need to prove Euler-Lagrange. It's pretty much done in the script on page 25 already. You only need to finish the last two steps on your own. I can't tell you how because I would finish the job for you. Let me tell you that it can be pretty bitchy. But if you don't prove Euler-Lagrange first, you're not allowed to use it to solve problem 2, and you won't get any points for it. Sorry, but it’s the rules. I’d suggest you check it on the internet, you should probably find some good derivation of Euler Lagrange. Wikipedia or forums like mathboard or mathplanet usually have tons of previously solved problems. Any more questions?”
I had to answer to half a dozen more questions. Every time I looked around for any raised hands, my eyes automatically found the eyes of that girl. For some reason, I couldn't recall her name. She seemed to be a very serious and attentive student. I also noticed her fleshy lips, and caught myself wondering how they would feel on mine various times. These red lips... So eye-catching, so sexy, almost pouty. Too many were the times I seemingly lost myself for hours in their luscious shape. For the first time in my life I had the feeling that I might come into serious struggle not to fall for the charms of a young girl that was not my girlfriend.
After I had answered to all the questions, everyone left the room, save for her. She slowly packed her stuff, and came to me right after.
“Um... Dave?”
I tried my best to recall her name. That was the moment I saw the tattoo on her left forearm saying “Marilyn” in a nicely ornate writing, framed with apparently randomly oriented rose petals. Although the design appeared to be absolutely arbitrary, it was perfect. You couldn't take away the slightest amount of pigment without destroying that piece of art's beauty. And there was no way to add more either.
“Yes, Marilyn,” I replied.
“Please, call me Marry, I rarely use my full name,” she paused, “um... If you allow me to ask you one question... I've got some troubles with that topic. It involves complicated differential equations I'm not really familiar with. I was just wondering if you could stay here for a little while longer – let's say for about an hour – and give me a hand?”
I quickly checked my wristwatch while shuffling through what had remained of my agenda in my mind, and agreed.
“So an hour it shall be,” I said, my eyes still following the second hand of my watch, “so... Why don't you write all you know about differential equations on the blackboard? I suggest this topic isn’t all that new to you, right?”
She self-confidently took the chalk, and started writing line after line of everything she knew about that topic, and commenting on it. She knew very much already. Quite often, she only lacked in the very last step. I helped her finding the missing bits to the solutions, but she basically did everything on her own. She was a very bright and interested student. I could see that. Every time she turned to the blackboard to complete her notes, I couldn't help gluing my eyes to her butt. For some reason, my eyes were examining every inch of these two roundly shaped pieces of flesh covered by a thin layer of fabric. My mind was drooling from the imagination of squeezing these exquisite buns with my fingers.
After about fifty minutes of me mentally cursing myself for my uncontrolled post-juvenile avalanche of hormones, we had pretty much elaborated all the answers to her open questions.
She turned to me, and said smiling: “Wow, thank you, Dave! Thank you for taking your time for me!”
“ Well, that's my job, you know,” I shot back, “hey... um... Would you like to have my phone number if at any time you need some more help?”
“ That would be great!”
As she had left the room, I took a quick glance around. No one there. My feet led me to the sink where I splashed my face with water. I felt the need to wake up from a dream. My face was dripping with water as I looked at myself in the mirror, my thoughts circling around the last hour. What was it that made me so uncomfortable around that student – Marilyn?
That evening, my girlfriend Karen noticed a certain change in my behavior too: We had the most intense and passionate sex since quite some time that night. And also did I last much longer than usual. After her fourth orgasm, she had to admit that she was too exhausted to continue, so she finished the job by using her hands. She was truly amazed by the sex we'd just had, and so was I. Of course she asked me what had occurred to me that had turned me into the sexual beast I had just been for the past two hours. Of course I only came up with some lame excuse. Luckily I got away without having to elaborate a whole building of invented alibis.
While lying in bed, questions flashed through my head, keeping me from falling asleep. What was it that made Marilyn so attractive for me? What was it that seriously made me think of cheating on my girlfriend? She was perfect for me, and gave me all I had ever dreamed of. She made me feel loved and needed. Who was I to think about jeopardizing our relationship? Yes, it is true that I had never thought of cheating on her ever since we started dating three years earlier, and that it would have been perfectly normal to actually do so. But in this case... My desire to ravage Marilyn was growing so intense that it was frightening me. How would this be possible after seeing that girl one single time only?
For the rest of the week, I tried my best to get distracted from any thoughts about Marilyn. Considering my very dense schedule, it wasn't very hard. The next time I gave my tutoring class, I was prepared to face my sexual instabilities. I had mentally processes every possible scenario whatsoever.
It appears that the events of the week before reoccurred: Again she stayed on the room after class was over for another intensive Q & A session. Just like last time, she would write all she knew on the blackboard, and I’d help her complete the rest. This time as well, she was so close to the answer so many times that I was almost ashamed of myself not just telling her. The only difference to a week before was that I wouldn’t let any of her charms influence my perception of this very hard-working student. But still I recognized her talent for logic. She was like a raw diamond waiting to be polished and brought into gleaming shape.
Even though I made my best efforts not to get distracted by the steadily growing stimulus that she was giving me – obviously not on purpose – my concentration subsided towards the end of her extra lesson. The more time passed, the more I caught myself tracing the curves her body offered to my sight instead of following her scribbling on the blackboard.
After we had finished our private session, I asked her if she hadn’t told any of her fellow students about this extra lesson. In fact I was seriously starting to think about offering this lesson to anyone interested. She replied that some of her colleagues sure would drop by some time if ever they had any troubles. But from what she told me, I understood that most of her fellow students were victims of the renown mañana-phenomenon. The phenomenon that makes people always postpone their job to mañana, and finally accomplish it on the last possible occasion only. Of course the devil on my shoulder fully enjoyed having private classes with that one particular girl. But the other part of me was trying its best not to fall for her. Besides, my conscience just didn’t allow me to refuse this service to a dedicated student. My situation was becoming precarious.
Our private lessons went on for a while. Occasionally, someone else showed up to participate, but usually it was just the both of us. One hour was just enough to get over the major problems of basic understanding. Whenever I wanted to go any further than the basics, Marilyn would stop me, for she wanted to understand it all on her own. Every time she kept me from telling too much, I got even more amazed about how ambitious she was. She made proof on an iron will – an indispensable skill in the world of natural sciences. And hers was particularly strong. It almost reached stubbornness, but it wasn’t as displeasing.
Then one day, the inevitable little twist occurred: We couldn’t finish our session in a single hour, so she asked me for another. Since my schedule was very tight during that time, I told her that it was only possible if she came over to my place after class some day. We spent another five minutes to agree on the coming Thursday evening. I was to be alone at home until 10 pm, for my girlfriend would have dinner at her parent's that night. Don't ask me why, because I can't even recall why I came up with the stupid idea to invite Marilyn over for dinner that night. To my resentment, she responded to my offer.
So there I was, facing the probably hardest challenge for my honesty in my entire life. Cheating on my girlfriend was out of the question. However, my mind was already picturing all kinds of possible scenarios.
Suddenly I felt like coming to senses. Who was telling me that she was attracted to me at all? She didn't send any signs of sexuality. At least not that I was aware of. Anyway, what were the odds of such a hot chick lusting after me? Mathematically spoken: They converged to zero. The chances that she might find me as appealing as I found her were evanescent; I would have even said infinitesimally small! So who was I to worry about some unrealistic scenarios surging from the fantasies of a young man gone wild and loaded with hormones? This point of view seemed to offer the solution to all I was afraid of. Or was I just being blind?
Time passed by very quickly. I was busy as hell, evaluating the results of my experiment series for my doctoral thesis. I didn't really find a moment to think about what to prepare for my special guest for Thursday night. The moment I realized that I hadn't really thought about it, was half an hour before Marilyn would knock on my door. So I decided to prepare pancakes. What other alternatives did I have, considering the lack of any suitable ingredients for any other dish apart from blank noodles? So pancakes it was.
Apologizing for not having prepared a real dinner was the first thing I did right after welcoming Marilyn to my apartment.
"Are you kidding me? I love pancakes, and haven't had any in ages! What do you have to smear on them?” was her reply.
I found some leftover bacon and some cheese in the fridge just enough for tonight, as well as a glass of jelly and chocolate powder.
