Chapter 28: Quixotic Ideal

The sun was just beginning to set on the warm, South Texas evening. Tim Murphy sat on a stool in his backyard staring at his phone. He was still trying to figure out what had just happened to his brilliantly-conceived plan of apologizing for past indiscretions and possibly obtaining a transfer to a new English class, preferably at the same class period.

He was also a little worried about what was going to happen next. He slowly began to realize his English teacher and masturbatory fantasy, Julianne Holmes, was on her way to his house to pick him up for a frank discussion about their future. He walked back to his room purely on instinct since the rest of his brain was busily replaying the phone conversation to try to find where the conversation went completely and tragically askew.

“Hi, Ms. Holmes, it’s me, Tim Murphy.”

“Hello, Tim. Thanks for calling and, please, when away from school, please call me Julie.”

“Okay ... Julie. I wanted to apologize for what happened today in your class. It was out of line for me to do what I was doing.”

“You mean you want to apologize for moving a few strands of hair away from my face? I didn’t see anything wrong with that, Tim. I often do the same thing when I’m talking to someone and hair falls in front of their face. It’s just an OCD thing with me -- if I see hair in front of the face, and I’m talking to you directly, I gotta move it out of the way,” she declared while nervously laughing. In her mind, Julie was screaming, “Stop sounding like a silly girl, and tell him how you feel!”

“Oh, okay then. I just wanted to say that I will not do it again since I thought, um ... I thought it was getting a little heated between us, and I was worried. Um. I was worried that, um ... I um...” No matter how hard he tried, he just could not get any other words to come from out of his mouth.

Julie interrupted Tim’s incoherent blabbering before he made an even bigger fool of himself. It excited her to know she had that kind of effect on what she considered the specimen for the perfect man. “Tim, what are you doing tonight?”

“Um, tonight,” he repeated.

“Yes. Tonight. What are you doing tonight?”

“Well, not much. I mean, no plans. I was gonna do a little bit of homework I have, and then watch TV, and later go to bed.”

“I tell you what. I think this is a conversation we should have face to face.”

“Face to face?”

“Yes. Face to face. Where do you live? I can come pick you up, and we can go somewhere to talk. How does that sound?” she asked. Out of nowhere, a frightening thought made its way to the forefront. What if he said no? The thought was almost too much for her to bear. She was ready to begin hyperventilating, but she just barely managed to keep her control. Besides, she could freak out later if he said no. There was at least a 50/50 chance.

“Well, I guess I can go out for a bit.”

Julie was on top of the world. “Great! Ooh, just a sec. I can get your address from the original roll for class. Hang on a sec.” She mimicked going through some papers. She already had his address typed into the GPS app on her phone. “I have your address, and I’ll find the way with the GPS. See you in about thirty minutes?”

“Okay, then. Thirty minutes.”

They both said their goodbyes and ended the call. Julie felt like she was over the moon, yet Tim was shell shocked, wondering what happened to his great plan to apologize to his teacher for flirting with her and asking about maybe transferring to another class.

After a quick shower, Tim was dressed in a plain white, form-fitting t-shirt that tightly traced every muscle of his sculpted body and a simple pair of baggy pants. He made sure these were not the tight, body-contouring version his father had bought for him and that he normally wore. When he went to sit on the front porch and wait for his ride, he watched a red Toyota Corolla slowly make its way down the street, coming to a stop in front of the house. Julie smiled through the opened window and waved Tim over to the car.

“Where are you going, Tim?”

Tim was slightly startled by his mother’s voice coming from behind the gray mesh of the swinging front door. “Just going to go and help a friend out with his homework. His sister is picking me up so we can try to make sure he doesn’t fail Algebra.”

“What, no books for you?”

“Nah, I didn’t have Algebra homework so no book for me. Besides, I’m in a higher class.” Tim knew he needed to get away quickly, so he started walking backward down the sidewalk to the street. “I’ll be back before ten at the latest.” He turned and jogged the final few steps toward the car and waved goodbye in his mother’s direction while getting into the car.

Except for initial greetings, barely a word was spoken between the two the entirety of the ride. Tim realized he was not even really paying attention to where they were going -- he spent the whole ride trying to get his story straight on how he had to get out of her class so neither of them could be tempted again. “Um, Ms. Holmes, where...”

“Please, Tim! Call me Julie. We aren’t in class.”

“Okay, sorry. Um, Julie. Where are we going?”

“Well, I figured we had a couple of things to talk about, and I’m sure you would not like for us to be interrupted, just like I don’t want us to be interrupted, so why don’t we just go back to my place, and we can talk without any interruptions.”

The blood flow to Tim’s brain was suddenly cut in half, while the other half of the blood flow redirected to his penis. For a split second, he actually felt dumber.

Julie may have been exuding confidence with her logical plan to take Tim back to her apartment but, in fact, she was definitely not confident. All Tim had to do was say he did not think it was a good idea to go to her apartment, and the image of her perfect life would crash around her. The fear of that possible outcome forced her to see the idea of smashing the car into a brick wall was not out of the realm of possibilities.

“Um ... okay. If that’s what you think is best.”

Julie’s smile lit up the car’s interior.

Apparently, the nanites were a little confused and, with another lull in the conversation, they made their confusion apparent to their host. “From all indications, we believe she wants to initiate sexual intimacy with you, but we have not released any of our pheromones. Do you believe the pheromones we released earlier today are still overpowering her will?” printed across Tim’s vision.

He looked out the passenger window and quickly shook his head no.

“It is completely possible this woman does, in fact, want to initiate sexual relations with you. From the information we have gathered regarding pair-bonding in human society, we believe you have hooked yourself a good one.” Tim had to close his eyes and stifled a laugh before it could even think of escaping his mouth. “We will not release any pheromones until we are safely within Ms. Holmes’ apartment. That way no one else is overpowered by the chemistry, and no one else is witness to the joining.”

Tim was still looking out the window when he nodded his head affirmatively. “Excellent.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

A few more minutes passed, then they turned into the parking lot of what had to be an upper-class apartment complex, as revealed by the well-kept lawns and quality-maintained exteriors, not to mention the many upper echelon cars parked throughout the complex. “I’m sorry if I’m out of line, but I was just wondering how can you afford a place in this complex on a teacher’s salary?”

“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind you asking. My parents passed away in a car accident while I was in college, and I got a nice settlement from the lawsuit as well as with their life insurance. I only use some interest from the money to live here. While I love my job, it is not what I want to do with my life, and it is a good way to keep me involved with the outside world. If I didn’t have some place to go every day, I’d just sit on my ass in my apartment trying to think about what I would write,” she emphasized the statement with a cute giggle that seemed to start at her mouth and slightly shake her body down to her toes. It did a lovely number on her cleavage, and Tim was, once again, having trouble with the tightness of his jeans, even though they were baggy and a couple of sizes too big.

A few moments later, she pulled up in front of a building featuring luxury apartments.

“Aaannnddd, here we are,” she said after pulling into a covered parking spot. “Come on up.”

She parked, unbuckled herself, and got out of the car. Tim followed. The swaying of the curvaceous English teacher as she daintily made her way up the open staircase forced Tim to follow. In all fairness, he was following the pleasing bouncing going on underneath the summer dress adorning the blonde-haired girl right in front of him. He was having more and more difficulty remembering she was his teacher. He was simply seeing a beautiful woman.

Out over the balcony, at the top of the stairs, he could see three beautiful women sunning themselves in the late summer sun. They looked like they were posing for a photo shoot of some men’s magazine. The untied bikini top of the girl in the middle was hanging lazily off the sides of her ample bosom. She was easily twice as voluptuous as the other two girls but was obviously fake. She was the mouthier of her three friends. “Hey, girl, throw on a suit and come down here so we can get some nice color before we go out to the club tonight!”

“Maybe another time.” She reached her hand back to Tim, and she almost presented him as a hunting prize. “I got some work to do.”

She smiled at Tim, then down to the girls, and finally pulled him toward the apartment door. She got the door unlocked quickly, and he followed her when she entered.

Tim’s enhanced hearing focused on the hushed conversation between the three tanning girls, “My god, where did she find a hunk like that?” he heard right before the door closed. That secretly helped with Tim’s self-confidence.

“Here, have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

“Um, no thanks. My parents wouldn’t like it if I came home with alcohol on my breath.”

“No, silly,” she giggled. “I didn’t mean alcohol. I’m your teacher after all, and I’m still responsible for your education and well-being.”

“We won’t even point out the irony,” printed across his vision.

Tim laughed and said, “No, we wouldn’t want anything like that to happen. I’ll take a Coke if you have it.”

She was still smiling when she pivoted to the kitchen. He went to the sofa and, while stepping around the coffee table, told his nanites to cut out the commentary. Luckily, Julie did not hear the mumbled, one-sided conversation. “Sorry.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

Julie returned from the kitchen, stopped at the small dining table to put down the two Cokes, removed her tight yellow sweater, and hung it over a chair. Now, with her shoulders exposed around her halter top dress, Tim got an even better look at his English teacher. Her alabaster skin was reminiscent of a fine porcelain vase, but a pronounced sprinkling of freckles made themselves known, too. Tim had, of course, noticed the freckles on her cheeks and connecting over her nose but did not think about if they were all over. The dress was as flowery and flowing as the pattern on it.

She also kicked off her heels and was now handling the two cans of Coke. She gave Tim his and sat on the chair next to the sofa where he sat. He immediately opened his and took a couple of large drinks.

“Tim, I have something to say to you, but I don’t want you to interrupt until I finish. Can you do that for me?”

Tim could tell even that statement was very difficult for her to get out so, rather than speaking, he just nodded yes.

“I don’t know exactly what happened today between us after class, but I felt something, and I have not been able to think of anything else but those few moments ever since you left my classroom.”

Julie nervously grabbed a coaster from the holder in the middle of the coffee table where they were seated. She placed the coaster in front of her and then placed her unopened Coke can on top. Tim mimicked her actions, but he had already drunk nearly half of it. He was thirsty!

“Now, normally, what you did would have been grounds to at least get you kicked out of my class.”

A worried look flashed across Tim’s face, so she immediately responded, “Oh, no! I’m not going to report you or anything. I will just say that I understand your hormones are all out of whack and, yes, I do know my looks can affect the male students of my class and, not to toot my own horn, probably a few of the girls as well.” She leaned forward and gave his knee a small, quick squeeze.

“Now, I have never done this before. I have never brought a student to my home. In fact, I would like for you to not tell anyone I even brought you here because I could get into a lot of trouble, but as I said, I felt something, and that threw me for a loop. I have never felt that before and, really, I’m going into uncharted territory for myself because I don’t know how to react to those feelings from the class earlier today.”

Tim did not want to sound stupid, so he wisely kept his mouth shut and let his teacher figure out what she wanted to do or say.

“I think you are, without a doubt, the best looking man I have ever seen in my life. My carnal instincts tell me I really want to see what it would be like to be with you,” Julie explained.

“But, if anyone found out ... we’d both be in for a world of hurt. Hell, I could end up in jail and not be allowed to teach anymore. I’d be labeled as some kind of sex pervert. I’d never find a real job again,” she anguished. Julie was working herself up into a lather when the nanites made their “voice” known.

“Apologies, we suggest taking control of the moment. She obviously wants to engage in a physical relationship with you, and we know you are more than willing to comply. Just make the choice for her and show her you are a man worth having and a worthy partner with whom to forge an honest and complete relationship, regardless of age or social norms.”

Tim was looking at Julie as she continued expounding on the positives and negatives for their having a physical relationship. “At the very least, the sex should be satisfactory.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

Julie suddenly stood up and started to ramble while shuffling across the living room floor. “Oh God! I can’t believe what I’m doing! I’m actually contemplating sleeping with one of my students. I must be going nuts or something!”

Her shuffling turned into pacing as she seemed to be making a decision one way or another. She decided to stop this now and get him transferred out of her class to remove the temptation. Then she collected her purse and walked toward her car keys to take Tim back home. “Yes. I don’t need the complications a relationship with this student could create – not only to me but to him. Yes. I will nip this in the bud before anything gets started. Heck, nothing happened, and no one from school saw us together. We can call this a student getting tutoring,” she thought to herself.

She grabbed her keys off the counter, facing the kitchen when she was turned around to face him. Her eyes were filled with fear and desperation, and she started to cry. It was a look Tim had never seen before but, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, knew how to fix it. Tim hugged her close for a few moments, whispering soft, sweet nothings to calm her mind.

The nanites made themselves known and, across his vision the closed captioning, asked:” Shall we let loose a small amount of pheromones – just enough to get her over her sudden bout of fear?” Tim pressed her head a little harder into his chest and nodded yes. “Acknowledged.” A moment later, “End of message.”

After a minute, the crying subsided, and he looked down into her blue eyes. With his thumb, he reverently swept back a few strands of her blonde hair that had fallen in front of her face back behind her ear. He lovingly stroked his thumbs across her high cheek bones. Their red blushing was deepening as he took the time to memorize each millimeter of her face.

The brilliant light show in her eyes were easy-to-read indicators of her fears dissolving and the nanite-introduced pheromones amplifying her lust. A stray tear fell from her eye, and Tim cleared away the tear.

“I want this, too,” he said, both earnestly and passionately.

She pushed herself deeper into his arms and kissed him, putting as much passion and devotion as she could get across to the new man in her life. She looked up to Tim, and the need and desire in her eyes, intertwined with the palpable fear, painted her question. “Will you take me to bed?” Tim gave his answer by just picking her up, like a groom carrying a bride across the threshold, and made his way to the bedroom.

A small smile showed from his mouth when he noticed the condition of the bed over her shoulder. She turned to see what caught his attention and also saw the bed was still unmade. She turned back and blushed in embarrassment but, when she started to apologize, he stopped her by returning to their deep kissing.