“Good Day, Ms. Faria.”

I watch as she blushes and flusters. My cock turns hard as iron. The scent of her perfume has filled my office, and it’s set me off. I can barely hold myself back.

Nicole Faria—or Weissman—has grown up. She’s lost some of the youthful innocence in her face and eyes, but she’s grown into a woman. Even if it’s against the rules now, I no longer care. Despite any university rules, I know in my heart that it wouldn’t be wrong now to take her as mine.

Her breasts are fuller and larger, and her legs even seem longer, though I’m sure I’m imagining that. Those little freckles on her nose are still there. She stands up, and I take the view of her body in again. I have to squeeze the drawer below my desk to keep myself under control.

When she turns around, my eyes lock onto her ass. I can see her panty line through the tight fabric, which is almost enough to send me out of my chair and onto her, but I restrain myself.

Restraint will give me the biggest reward. The greatest release.

She smiles at me over her shoulder as she opens the door, and when she shuts it, I’m alone. Her scent lingers, as does my erection.

I lean back in my chair, and I put my hand on my throbbing, hard cock. I can feel the warmth radiating through my trousers, and my eyes roll back in my head as I close my eyes and smell her. I imagine her on her knees, begging me, and then I force my hands onto my desk. I flex all the muscles in my body, trying to get the blood to flow everywhere and not just through my dick.

Even though I’m not going to rush things, I’ve decided I won’t cum again until I’m inside of Nicole Weissman.

The rest of the day drags on. I’d been excited about starting somewhere new, but now I can only think about Nicole.

After my contract at Oxford ended, I did a few one-off, year-long contracts in Germany and Austria. When the University of Pittsburgh reached out to me, I decided going to America would be a nice change of pace. I remembered that Nicole had been from Pennsylvania, but it was a type of background awareness. It was not intentional.

I’d thought about her again from time to time. I’d never obsessed about it, or thought of tracking her down. Looking her up on Facebook would have felt wrong, like I was some kind of pathetic stalker. I knew I could have had her, but I chose to let her go. The decision was made.

Still, I have to admit that when I made a woman scream, and I closed my eyes, I sometimes pretended it was Nicole instead. Like a ghost of something I could have had, taunting me for making the wrong decision.

Now that I’ve seen her again, it’s all different. This is a new decision. Fate has brought her back to cross my path, which could only mean one thing. I must act this time.

* * *

When I get onto the elevator to go home, just as the door is shutting, a woman shoves in. “Hey, trying to race down without me?”

I look up to see Cassandra. She’s a professor in the French department, and I suddenly remember that I agreed to have drinks with her. That was before Nicole.

I look at her and force a smile, but I can feel my lips curling down, like she is some kind of food that’s been left for too long in the refrigerator.

“Are we...still on for tomorrow night?” she asks, giving me her widest smile.

“On second thought…” I try to think of an excuse, but I decide to not bother. “No, I’ll have to cancel.”

“Oh,” she says. “Maybe another time, then?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, thinking of Nicole in the garden six years ago, my tie wrapped tautly around my hands, looking down at the soft skin of her neck.

* * *

“This one,” the man says, holding up yet another tie.

I sigh and show him my phone again. It’s a picture of me wearing the tie from the garden, the one I almost used on Nicole. “Too light, it needs to look just like this.”

As soon as I got home, I checked through all my clothes and couldn’t find it. I must have lost it during one of my many country-to-country moves. I wouldn’t have intentionally gotten rid of it, as that memory of the garden is one that’s never left me. I can still feel her heated breath on my neck, and see the glassy expectation in her green eyes.

Still, I somehow lost the tie.

“Let me see that,” a woman says, craning her neck over the man’s shoulder to look at my phone.

“Huh,” she says. “I think we’ve got one in back like that.”

The man glares at her, then smiles at me as he stomps off.

“It’s on clearance,” she says. “He was just trying to get you to buy a pricier one.”

She tells me to wait, and then she disappears into the back. I’ve already given up hope. I’ve resigned myself to not finding the same tie. She’ll bring me the one from the back, and there will be some slight difference that ruins it.

If Nicole remembers that night as vividly as I do, the tie has to match exactly. I want her to see it and remember, and I want to watch her reaction. If the white stripes are even a few millimeters too thick, it might not trigger her subconscious to take her back to that night.

“Here we are,” the clerk says, holding the tie out to me.

I tear it from her hands like a starving caveman being presented with a fresh cut of meat. I pull it up under my nose and flip it over. It’s a Gucci, and—

“The style is a wee bit dated,” she says, laughing.

Yes, by about six years. It’s a bit thinner than most ties are now. I flip it over and look at the front side. The white lines are thin, and cutting across the light blue at just the right angle. It’s the same tie. It could—somehow, though incredibly unlikely—even be the exact same style as my tie from before.

“I’ll take it,” I say.

“No charge,” the woman says. She leans in closer and says in a low voice. “We were about to throw it away. That’s why Steve wouldn’t show it to you.”

* * *

The weekend is long. So very long. I’d normally relish the chance to explore this new city, but I can think only of Nicole.

I’ve rented a house in Highland Park, a burb on the northern end of the city. The roads are lined with older houses—none as old as in Europe, of course—but it gives me a comforting feeling compared to the suburban sprawl of many American cities. There are no cul-de-sacs lined with identical houses and white picket fences here.

I decide to walk to the nearby bar on Sunday night, and on the way, I hear jazz in the air.

I follow the music, and I find myself in the park. Live jazz is blasting from a makeshift stage, and people have pitched up tents and lawn chairs to listen. There’s shaved ice and barbeque, dogs and kids playing, and the first winds of fall are sweeping across the grass.

I close my eyes to take it all in. The bass and saxophone sound like they are dueling each other, trying their hardest to overtake each other. Meanwhile, the thump of the drums acts as a mediator, keeping the other two instruments in check.

I feel my chest swell, and rather than distracting me, it just sets me off. With my eyes closed, I see Nicole’s seductive stare, her long legs, and her tempting breasts.

She is my music and my muse, and the time has come to take her for myself.

* * *

There’s a knock on my office at seven forty-five Monday morning. She’s early.

“Come in,” I say.

I look down at my tie. Will she remember?

The door opens, and it’s Cassandra.

“Hey,” she says. “Sorry to interrupt.”

I look at her with visible disappointment. She’s wearing a low-cut blouse and tight jeans, though I don’t really even look at her.

“Yes?” I ask, agitation lining my voice.

“I, uh,” she mumbles, “just was wondering what happened. We were on for...drinks...and then you just kind of did a complete three-sixty.”

“A one-eighty,” I say. “A three-sixty would imply that I came back around to you, which I most definitely didn’t.”

“Jesus,” she says. “You’re an asshole, aren’t you? Forget it.”

She turns her back on me and stomps away, slamming the door behind her.

Cassandra only ever wanted one thing from me anyway, and she’d not have satisfied me for more than a night or two. She feels angry now, but this is the least painful path for her. Not that I’m actually rejecting her for her own benefit; I need to keep the table immaculately clear for Nicole.

At eight o’clock on the dot, she comes in. She doesn’t even knock.

I look up at her, thinking of chiding her for barging in. Then I see her black mini-skirt and her fresh white button-up shirt, barely containing her breasts. Her strawberry blonde hair spills across her shoulders. I look up at the freckles on her nose, and I watch as her eyes lock down onto my tie.

I bite my bottom lip, as I reach up to adjust my tie, drawing attention to it. I watch as her mouth drops open, her eyes staying enraptured and locked on that pale blue tie.

“Take a seat, Ms. Faria,” I say.

I see her cheeks flushed red, and she scrambles awkwardly for the chair. She smooths her skirt and sits down, sliding closer toward me.

I’ve simply swiveled my own chair around to face her, my desk behind me. She crosses her legs, and I see a large portion of her thigh exposed. I struggle to keep my breathing smooth, to not let her gain the upper hand over me. If I’m to dominate her, I can’t let something as tame as a calf and thigh throw me off balance.

“Nikki,” she says. “Or Nicole, if you have to. I changed my name because things soured between my father and me...I don’t like Faria anymore.”

“Of course, Nicole. So I thought we’d go over your syllabus today.”

The first class is at ten o’clock. I’ll teach it with her present, and starting next week, I’ll be hands-off while she teaches alone. Hands-off with the teaching, at least; hopefully very hands-on with Nicole.

“Okay,” she says, reaching into her bag. She pulls out a neatly laminated folder and opens it.

“You made your own?” I ask.

“I...we didn’t discuss it. I thought I should,” she looks down at it, and I can tell she’s worried she wasted her time.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I didn’t want to force you to use mine as is. I wanted to discuss it now with you so you could make it your own. Let’s compare mine against yours. Let me whip mine out.”

I give her a small smirk at that comment, and she nods with wide eyes.

I’ve decided to be both completely professional and completely unprofessional as a challenge to myself. I’ll do the best job possible as her mentor, treating her with the same standards and attention I’d give to any mentee, but I’ll also pursue her with equal force until she submits to me once again.

Without saying anything, I slide my chair up beside hers and turn to face in the same direction as her. This way we can both look at the syllabi together. I can smell her from here, too, and her arm grazes against my shoulder as she turns the page on my syllabus.

“You’ve put Steppenwolf on yours,” I say, laughing. “You always liked that one.”

“You really opened my eyes to it,” she says.

“Did I?” I ask. “As I recall, you were arguing with me more about it than agreeing with me.”

She turns toward me and meets my eyes. “That’s how I learn.”

“Hopefully you won’t have too many students with the same learning style,” I say. “It can be draining.”

She laughs. “Are you saying I was draining?”

Only because I couldn’t touch you. Only because I valued my career over you. You drained me because I had to think of you constantly without being able to act. No longer.

I reach up and stroke at my tie, running my fingers across it. I pretend to do it absently, but it’s very calculated.

“It’s fine, Nicole,” I say. “You were a good student.”

She laughs and looks back down at her syllabus.

The time passes quickly. I lose myself in the combination of work and pleasure. I don’t let her distract me from hammering the two syllabi together, but her presence keeps me awake like no drug could. My blood feels like it’s on fire the whole time, and I decide I need to turn things up a notch sooner rather than later.

We finalize the syllabus, and I type it all up, then print it.

“Let’s print fifty of them,” she says.

“The copy room is three floors down,” I say. “I should show you how to use it.”

We proceed to the third floor, make the copies, and by the time we are done, it’s nearly time for class. We get into the elevator, where she leans against the rail. She looks up at me with what must be an intentionally seductive glare. Her lips appear almost pouting, and she throws her hair over her shoulder, and then sticks her chest out.

I pretend not to notice and simply adjust my tie. I notice she almost starts trembling as I touch it.

The elevator stops twenty floors before the classroom, and a large group of students with backpacks starts to pile in. I move all the way to the back of the elevator, right next to Nicole.

It gets so crowded that I can barely see her. I decide that now is the time to start having some fun. I reach across the rail, until I feel Nicole’s skirt brush against my finger.

I wait just a moment to judge her reaction. She doesn’t move, and I don’t even look over at her. I just stare straight ahead as if it was an accident.

A second or two later, I feel her body shift, and suddenly the soft fabric of her skirt presses completely over my hand. I feel the thick flesh of her ass completely press onto my hand. It’s warm and soft, and my cock goes rock-hard in nearly an instant. I can feel her eyes on me, but I don’t look over at her.

I decide, instead, to turn my hand around even as she presses against it. I turn it all the way so that my palm—rather than the back of my hand—is pressed against her ass, and when I hear an audible moan from her over the low drone of the elevator and the hushed conversation of the students, I squeeze.

I grab the flesh of her cheeks in my hand and I give it a firm squeeze, and then I massage with my fingers and palm. I look up and see that we are only two floors from our destination, so I slide my hand away from her and put it into my pocket, as if I’d done nothing at all.

The only remaining evidence of our exchange is my raging erection, but my suit jacket is covering it.

The elevator beeps, the doors open, and the students flood out. I step out with them to avoid being left alone in the elevator with Nicole.

I want to distance us from what just happened. I want it to be awkward for her to talk about it. Since it just happened, she could easily bring it up to me now and ruin all the fun. She could simply say, “Did you just…?” and it would be painfully clear what she meant.

If I can wedge the two-hour class between us and what just happened, she’ll have to ask, “Back in the elevator, did you…” and it will become that much harder for her to bring up.

I don’t want to talk about it; I want to watch her squirm. I want to force her to beg me for it.

I look back over my shoulder once I’m clear of the elevator, and I see her, red-faced and breathless. She looks up at me with parted lips, and I simply give her a “come on” hand signal. “The classroom is this way.”