High Marks

The hard wooden chairs in the professor’s office weren’t comfortable under the best circumstances, and Rebecca Hall was not under the best circumstances. She had still-healing bruises across her ass from the last time Professor Grant had corrected one of her writing exercises. She watched him as his red pen made her crisp white pages appear to bleed. The hand that wasn’t tearing her writing apart rested on the end of a worn, wooden yardstick balanced on the edge of his desk. In her short skirt, she sat with her legs crossed, trying not to squirm as she squeezed her thighs together. Watching him reminded her of the first time he’d handed her back a slaughtered paper with the note:

What you write is brilliant, but how you write it is unsatisfactory. I expect more of my students.

Rebecca had a keen mind. She excelled at science, math, and literary analysis. Still, when it came to written communication skills, the otherwise brilliant young woman lagged behind the rest of her peers. Growing up, she’d always relied on her father to read over her assignments and help her fix them before she turned them in. Now he was halfway across the country and had his own life to live.

Rebecca wasn’t only intelligent but beautiful as well. Her clothes always flattered her athletic frame. With flaming red hair, emerald eyes, and cream-colored skin splashed with freckles, it was impossible to deny her Irish heritage. When she couldn’t think her way out of a situation, she’d come to rely on her looks to get what she wanted. So when she started failing her English Comp 101 class, she tried to convince the professor to give her a better grade. She was shocked when he turned her down, especially given all the untoward things she’d offered to do to pass the class.

“As tempting as that may be, I don’t have sex with any of the students I’m teaching.”

His use of the present tense made her wonder if that meant things might be different if she passed the class. It was one more incentive. Professor Grant was handsome. Rebecca would have fucked him even if she didn’t get higher marks in exchange.

He was tall with broad shoulders, and he often rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt to reveal his well-muscled arms. Even in the winter months when everyone had been inside, his skin maintained a bronze quality to it. He had close-cropped black hair and a tight, well-maintained beard. Then there were his eyes. They were startlingly blue and had a way of looking at her like he was assessing her, and she didn’t measure up. It made her feel like she needed to prove herself to him.

She wanted to be a doctor and couldn’t let a freshman English class get in the way of that. When she burst into tears and started begging, he said, “Miss Hall, if I just give you the unearned marks, everyone will know you didn’t earn them once they read anything you wrote. I won’t sacrifice my reputation as a teacher for a desperate young woman. I recognize that you are trying hard. Maybe we can make an alternative arrangement — private lessons.”

He began tutoring her, though he chose an untraditional method of doing so. Since they started, Rebecca had learned a lot, and not just about past perfect continuous tense and the Oxford comma. She’d learned things about Professor Grant and about herself.

He put his pen down when he was done and let out a sigh.

“Miss Hall,” Grant’s voice was stern. “You had forty-five errors. That’s fifteen more mistakes than last week.”

She swallowed. Her face flushed, and her nipples pebbled as he stood, picking up the wooden yardstick.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at the floor, “Sir.”

“You’re beginning to make me doubt my abilities as an educator. Am I bad at my job?”

“No, Sir.”

He moved until he stood in front of the desk, the yardstick propped against his shoulder like a soldier’s rifle.

“Now, Miss Hall, you wouldn’t be purposefully making mistakes, would you?”

Her breath caught. Professor Grant was an excellent tutor in so many ways. She was learning the rules, figuring out how to break them so she could feel the delicious sting of the yardstick. It did something to her that she hadn’t expected. The euphoria after one of their lessons was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

She looked up at him with her green eyes and a look full of all the naive innocence she could muster and said, “I would never do that, Sir. You are an excellent teacher. I’m just a very, very bad student.”

His face was like stone, though there was a gleam in his eye.

“Stand up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She stood. He stepped aside and motioned her forward.

“Bend over the desk and lift your skirt.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said as she followed his directions. He looked over the healing bruises on her backside. From this angle, he could see how wet she was.

“Forty-five is quite a lot, Miss Hall. Are you sure you’re ready to receive your marks?” he asked, raising the yardstick.

“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was shaky.

“Let’s begin.”