Chapter 1: Concenstraighting

It was a boring class as usual, a Monday afternoon, and I was almost tearing my eyes out. The teacher was going over the marks we'd gotten on our most recent essays, droning on in his thick British accent about how we could have made them better. I knew all the shit back and forth and inside out and was almost ready to fake a brain aneurysm just to get out of there. I was lost in a daydream, thinking about how the big red 'A' on my paper looked a lot like an upside down thong, when he suddenly called on me.

"Mr. Mitchell did fairly well. Perhaps he would be kind enough to assist you with your next draft."

"Huh?" I said.

"Miss Lawsen failed the assignment, my dear boy. Would you be a gentleman and go through her work with her, assisting her in the areas wherein she's having trouble?"

"Sure," I said, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

"There you have it then."

And then he went back to his lecture, but he glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow that seemed to say, "I just did you the biggest favor of your life, kid. I hope you're thankful."

Teacher's pet indeed. Thank you, Mr. Ericson.

When class was finally over, Charlotte stopped me on my way out.

"Anthony! Wait up!"

She quickly gathered up her books and said goodbye to Gerri.

I waited, willing myself not to shake in my shoes like a little boy. She hurried up to me and threw an arm around my waist, as if we were life-long friends. I was about a half a foot taller than her, I realized, being that close to her for the first time.

"Whatever can I do for you, Miss Lawsen?" I said, doing my best impression of Mr. Ericson's British accent.

"I'm so absolutely delighted to make your acquaintance, Awnthony," she responded, doing an impression of her own.

Wow! What a rack she had on her. It was dazzling. Her voice was sweet and giggly too, when she spoke.

"So we're study buddies it seems."

"We are. Though I don't know why he picked me."

"So how ya wanna do this?"

"The library? After school?"

"Sounds awesome! Meet ya there. 3:25."

Then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and I felt her soft wet lips for the first time. I was instantly slain inside. But I managed somehow to give her a cool smile. She walked away, her ass swaying in those skin-tight jeans of hers.

Then she was gone around the corner. I went straight into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, trying to calm myself. What the fuck was I gonna do? I could barely even look her in the eye! How was I gonna tutor her?

Two classes later, I met up with her in the library. The place was empty except for a bookish-looking girl who picked out a couple of hard covers, checked them out, and left.

We grabbed a table near the back and she sat quietly while I read over her essay. I could see why she failed it, but I could also see what she was trying to say at least, and she did have some good points.

"You've got two different essays here, Charlotte. Do you see what I mean? It starts out talking about one thing, and it ends on a whole other topic. They're both good points, and well stated, but there's no consistency. And if I know Mr. Ericson, he's all about consistency."

"I was so tired."

She sat staring at me. Her feet were up on the rung between the chair's front legs, her chin was on her hands, her elbows on her knees; she was painfully distracting. I lost my train of thought. I just wanted to do nothing but stare at her all afternoon.

"You just gotta make sure that you end with what you started out to say, and you'll at least pass."

"Can I read yours?"

"Sure, if you want."

She picked up my paper and began reading it.

"A, of course." I almost shuddered. That frickin' smile of hers was deadly. "Looks like I landed the right partner." Then she continued reading.

My essay was about how romance is slowly dying out in our culture as a result of increasing focus on material possessions, how the divorce rate is so high because everyone's working themselves to death just to get more possessions and not spending enough time on the things that really matter—love, romance, friendship.

"This is absolutely beautiful!" Charlotte said.

"Well that's supposed to be how it's done: topic paragraph, listing three main points, then explaining those points, then-"

"No, I mean what you wrote here. It's so true! There's not enough love in the world."

"Nope."

"And you're right, in the end, it's all gonna be just a bunch of people, owning just a bunch of stuff, but no one will be happy. The more possessions we have, the more lonely we become."

"Anyway. Let's look at your essay and try to figure out what your main idea is, and then we'll come up with three points to prove the argument, and a nice tidy conclusion."

"Let's do that, sexy. But I have to run and phone my mom. She's probably wondering why I'm not home yet. I'll be right back."

She got up and I watched her walk away. Her ass gave my intellect another pummeling. I was reduced nearly to a drooling Neanderthal. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught me looking. She grinned and blew me a kiss.

Now I was painfully hard, and my cock was bent sideways in my jeans. The librarian was pouring over an old reference manual behind the counter by the main doors. Other than her, I was alone. I slouched down in the chair and let it breathe for a few minutes. Then I adjusted it again into a more comfortable position.

Charlotte came back, humming happily to herself. She parked her cute little butt down in the chair and just stared at me with a sweet dreamy smile on her face. Her cheek was tilted down across her palms and her hair spilled off her shoulder down into her lap.

"I'm back, sexy."

"I noticed. How's yer mom?"

"Awesome."

"Cool."

"How's yours?"

"I don't know. I haven't called her. She works in the evenings sometimes. I never know when she's gonna be home."

"Cool."

Charlotte grabbed up her essay and looked down at it, flashing her eyes up at me from over the top edge of her paper. Another circuit fried in my head. Those eyes! They were enough to nearly stop your heart, I swear. How much more of this could I take?

"So where were we?" she said.

"You're gonna have to stop that, dear Miss Lawsen. I'm having trouble concenstraighting here."

"Concenstraighting? Oh my god, you're so cute!"

"Sorry. I meant to say thinking straight, but then my mouth went into concentrating at the last second. You're messing with my head."

"Sorry," she said, with a coy little smile. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

We got down to work. We talked. We laughed. We doodled. We made jokes about Mr. Ericson. She was so much fun. At one point we got up and walked over to a book shelf to grab some reference material on the various costumes of different cultures.

"Anthropology: the study of men. Sounds like that's right up my alley."

I grinned like an idiot. "Is there a section on the study of women?"

"That would be gynecology."

I laughed. She smiled.

I scanned across the book shelf as well, trying not to stare, not to leer. But she was so screamingly beautiful—her hair was a golden blond color, interwoven with darker streaks, some honey-colored, some amber, some almost sorta pinkish when you looked closely. It was dazzling. It flowed down her back, almost down to her ass in long wavy strands that ended in angelic little curls. Then there were her eyes. All I can say is wow. Looking her in the eyes was like trying to stare directly into the sun. I couldn't do it for more than a few seconds. They were just too intense.

I was about to bring the conversation back to the essay, but she suddenly reached out and grabbed my hand. It was the first moment of intimate contact between us and it was intense.

"Anthony."

"Yes?"

"I gotta tell you something."

"What's that?"

"You make me nervous, and giddy, and shaky. I'm usually strong and confident and carefree. But I gotta admit, I'm seriously messed up here for some reason. Why do I feel like a nine-year-old girl standing next to her first crush? Why do I feel so naked?"

Silence. Dead silence. I was struck dumb by the softness of her voice, and the touch of her hand. Finally, I looked up from her delicate little fingers caressing mine and stared back into her eyes.

Chapter 2 »