Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
I should have been more careful, I thought, walking out of the lecture hall. I should have realized that winking at a student in front of the entire class was a mistake. I hadn’t been thinking. Just feeling. She was so beautiful. She’s surprised me like a bouquet of roses, sitting there in her pink blouse, with lips vibrantly colored and cheeks flushed. I felt sure she was there for me. I was so excited to see her. I wanted to speak to her right away, to tell her I was glad that she was there.
I only taught one other section of my class, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My office was located on the third floor of the business school. I hadn’t posted office hours yet. I decided I should do that. I should start working on getting to know all my students well, forging good friendships with many of them. That would help dispel any rumors about Ellie I might have accidentally started.
I climbed one of the broad stone staircases, looking out through the windows at the view of the campus. Wide lawns covered in oak trees ran down to the sea.
“This has got to be the most beautiful campus on the planet,” I thought.
I reached my office and unlocked the door. It was small, fitting only a couple of bookshelves and a rolltop desk, but it offered a spectacular view of the ocean.
I set my bag down on my desk and sat down in the swivel chair. I spun around a couple of times, thinking.
Ellie. I realized that the tightness in my chest wasn’t just from embarrassment or concern. It was an ache. I was seeing her every time I closed my eyes. Her large eyes, looking up at me. Fragile. Worried. Flushed with color like a rose in full bloom.
I rubbed my temples and tried to focus on a task at hand. I had no homework to grade yet. I’d already prepared the content of my lectures in detail for the next two weeks. I felt restless. I knew that soon I’d be overwhelmed with work I still had to run my businesses on top of teaching part time but right now the lack of work felt like a curse.
I wrote up my office hours and posted a print-out outside my door. I emailed my class lists the information. I wondered if Ellie would think I was hoping to talk to her in private again. I wasn’t hoping to talk to her in private again.
The feeling of being near her seemed to be lingering on my skin, like a perfume that hadn’t been washed away yet.
Two weeks passed. Ellie showed up to class every time. She never wore lipstick again. She always sat in the same place in class, in the back of the lecture hall. When class ended, she would put her notebook into her backpack and walk out of the room.
During class, however, she was my muse. I made sure to hold eye contact with other students just as much as I did with her. I made sure she was never the first hand I called on. But when she did answer a question, it was always insightful. She had a mind that worked outside the box. And when she was speaking, I got to look at her. I watched the way her soft mouth moved when she spoke, and the endearing way in which she would glace at the ceiling while she was searching for the right words.
One Friday night, there was a choir concert on campus. I love music. I was impressed that the women’s choir could have learned a whole concert full of songs in such a short amount of time. I decided to attend. Secretly, I was hoping that Ellie was in the concert. I ached for an opportunity to look at her without forcing myself to look away again after a few seconds.
I stayed on campus after my class, waiting in my office. Two students came to ask me about “the homework”; but what they really wanted was to talk with me about my life and ask me for advice on how to get started in business. I was happy to oblige. I ate dinner at the little sandwich place attached to one of the campus coffee shops, and then perused the library until it was time for the concert.
I walked into the auditorium. The high ceilings were shrouded in shadow; the lighting in the concert hall was dim. Only a few people were here. Choir concerts weren’t all that popular, I guess. Not on a Friday night when it was still warm outside.
I was about to take a seat in the back of the auditorium, when I noticed a girl walk into the room.
Ellie.
She was by herself, wearing a long blue sundress and a white sweater. Silver hoop earrings glistened on her ears. She was a silhouette of beauty against the light in the doorway.
I froze for a moment, and then approached her.
“Ellie,” I said.
She glanced at me, her eyes a little wider than they had been before. “Hey, Professor Steele,” she said.
“Would you like to sit with me?” I asked.
I shouldn’t have asked her. I shouldn’t even have walked up to her. But I found that I couldn’t help myself. She drew me like a moth to a flame.
She hesitated, glanced around the room, and then smiled. A real smile.
“Sure,” she said.
We walked to the front of the room and sat down. I guessed that Ellie had also noticed how few people were there. Most of them were probably music students. People who were unlikely to gossip about us if they saw us together. They wouldn’t recognize her. They might not even recognize me, in that dim lighting.
The concert began. The lights in the auditorium went out completely as the lights went on onstage. A low, mellifluous melody of flute began to play as the choir stepped out onto the risers, their black folders gripped in sweaty hands.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my whisper barely audible. I leaned closer to her as I spoke. She smelled sweet. Geraniums? Pomegranate? Some floral, warm scent that I guessed was due to her hand lotion rather than a perfume. But I was close enough to smell it and react. My ache intensified.
She pointed to the performers. Her friend Jasmin was in the second row.
“Annie and Cynthia couldn’t make it,” she whispered back. “I wanted someone to be here for her.”
I smiled and sat back. The choir began to sing. A dreamy, haunting melody with lyrics about trees and flowers and other sentimental things. I closed my eyes. I could feel how close I was to Ellie with every inch of my being.
The concert lasted for an hour. I became swept up in the music the high, haunting melodies seemed to be a manifestation of the ache in my soul. I felt every note. The passion, tenderness, and longing of the music filled every particle of my being. I was humming with it. I was alive with passion, so close to Ellie, and unable to touch her, or even look at her outside of a few stolen glances.
When I did glance, I could see her profile lit by the stage lights. Her lips were painted a dark red tonight. They were parted slightly as she listened, as if she was as enraptured as I was.
The fifth time I glanced at her, her eyes were closed. Her head was tilted back as she listened intently. I stared at her. My eyes traced the outline of her face. The way her hair was curling in wisps around her ears.
She opened her eyes and turned to me. She froze.
My heart was pounding. She was staring at me. I’d been staring at her. It had been as good as a confession.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed.
She turned away from me and looked back at the stage. Her body was tense, rigid. Her head was motionless as she stared straight ahead.
The concert ended. We applauded. The choir trooped offstage. The lights in the auditorium came on.
Ellie stood up.
“Goodnight, Professor Steele,” she said.
She walked away without looking at me. I stayed in my seat until everyone else in the concert hall had left, staring at my hands.
A
utumn kept deepening.
My crush on Professor Steele kept deepening.
The night after the choir concert, I dreamed about him. I dreamed we were dancing on a moonlit beach, with the stars blazing above us. And then he kissed me; his lips were warm and soft. And then he placed his hands on my body and began to stroke me with them, all over. And then the dream changed, and we were in a bed, and we were naked…