Chapter Three
Tessa
I hurried out of his office, ran through campus, and didn’t stop until I got to the student parking lot and got into my car. I sat in the front seat, replaying the whole conversation in my head. Had I just imagined the whole thing? Did he really just say I want you to be my sex toy?
No. No, I must have heard him wrong, he must have said . . . something else. Anything else. He was a professor. A professor wouldn’t say that sort of thing to a student.
But he did. I could hear his voice in my head, clear as day, as though he were sitting next to me in the passenger seat, whispering in my ear.
Underneath my embarrassed disbelief, I was vaguely aware of feeling aroused by the whole interaction. Things like that didn’t happen to girls like me—things like that happened in movies, or soap operas, or to girls like Lindsey, who had no qualms about letting a guy know when she was interested in him.
I dug through my purse and found my keys, started my car, and left Benton. I tried to ignore the fact that I felt aroused. I wasn’t going to get involved with a professor. Even if he was really hot. As I drove away from the school, I pushed all thoughts of Professor Rochman out of my mind. I had a bigger problem to deal with, and that was the fact that I hadn’t gotten the A I needed to get in the class. The best thing I could do right now would be to tell my parents. I’d initially thought that I could keep this a secret from them, because I’d be able to turn things around and they’d have no clue my grades had ever taken a dip in the first place. But I was beginning to realize now that might not have been the smartest move. They wouldn’t be thrilled to hear that I wasn’t doing as well as they expected, but knowing my parents, they’d be even more upset that I’d tried to keep it from them in the first place.
Not that it was going to be an easy conversation to have.
I found a parking spot right out front of my apartment, which was fortunate, since I usually had to park at least a couple blocks away. I went inside, took the elevator up to my floor, and let myself in.
My apartment wasn’t anything grand, but it was certainly a lot better than living in the dorms, and all the bills were paid for by my parents, including rent. There was no way that I would be able to continue living here if they weren’t footing the bill, at least while I was still in school. Even then, I’d heard plenty of horror stories about recent grads who had been unable to find a job, or had only been able to get work at Starbucks or somewhere like that. So they’d had to move back in with their parents. The whole prospect of that was rather depressing.
I didn’t know exactly what my plan was going to be once I graduated college, but what I did know was that if I graduated with a 4.0 GPA, my parents would continue to help me out financially until I got a job and was able to take over paying for everything myself. If they cut me off now, that would completely derail everything that I planned to do.
I went into my bedroom and threw myself down on the bed. Now that I was in the safety of my own place, my mind started to wander back to what Professor Rochman had said. Sex toy. He wanted me to be his sex toy.
And even just thinking about it now, remembering how he looked, how his voice sounded, it made me feel turned on, even though I knew that hooking up with him was something I could never do. I just couldn’t. He was my teacher, after all, and even if he promised to give me an A, there was no way that I could do that—be his sex toy.
That night, I met Lindsey at Haymarket Café to study. We usually met up here a couple times a week, to do our homework, eat some food, and hang out a little, though tonight, I had no appetite whatsoever.
“Everything okay with you?” Lindsey asked, returning from the counter with her plate of food. Tonight it was an enchilada with a side of chips and guacamole, normally one of my favorites. Just seeing the food, though, made my stomach clench.
I hadn’t told her what had happened earlier. Part of me thought if I didn’t speak of it ever again, the memory would just disappear and I could pretend as if it had never happened. But as the day wore on, it seemed to be the only thing I could think about. I put my pen down and closed my laptop.
“Something did happen,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “With Nick? Is he still being a douche? I could go kick him in the balls for you, if you want. We’ll see how well he’s slam dunking the ball after I do something like that.”
“That’s kind of you to offer, but it wasn’t Nick.”
“What’s up, then?”
“Well . . . you know how I had to ask some of my professors for extra credit assignments? Because I’m totally falling behind and if I don’t get my GPA back up, my parents are going to cut me off?”
Lindsey nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s pretty harsh. I mean, my parents wouldn’t be psyched if I was failing or anything, but they wouldn’t suddenly stop giving me money. That’s so not cool.”
“You know how my dad is. Anyway. I really thought that I was going to do better on that article in Professor Rochman’s class.”
“I know you worked hard on it.”
“I did. And I thought I’d done a pretty good job. Maybe not A, but definitely A-, B+. So, after class, I went to talk to Professor Rochman about doing some extra credit. Just something so I could get my GPA back up.”
Lindsey took a chip off the pile on her plate and dipped it into the guacamole. “That’s cool,” she said. “I bet he had some good ideas for you.”
I looked around to make sure that there wasn’t anyone sitting close enough that they’d be able to hear what I was about to say. I shouldn’t have worried, because anyone within earshot had their headphones on or were deep in their own conversations. Still, I leaned a little closer and waited until Lindsey leaned in too before I told her.
“He said I could be his sex toy.”
She blinked, chip halfway to her mouth. “Excuse me?”
“Um, yeah, exactly! I thought I misheard him at first, or that it was a joke. But he said it again.”
“Shut up,” Lindsey said. She put the chip down without bothering to take a bite.
“I’m serious! I went in there, and I asked him if there was any way I could get my grade up, and he said yes, you can be my sex toy.”
Lindsey’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” she said. “That’s hot. I need to go talk to him about that. You don’t think he’d mind having more than one sex toy, right?”
“Lindsey!” I said. “Stop it!”
“What? Would you mind? You’d share, right?”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I am. Well, kind of. I mean, if he’s that open about it, hell yes I’m going to go see him about some extra credit of my own. That’s the whole reason I signed up for the damn class in the first place! He’s hot.”
“I didn’t agree to it,” I said. “There’s no way I could agree to that. It’s like . . . it’s like exploitation or something.”
“Not if you want it, too.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Aw, come on, Tessa. He’s hot. I bet he’s great in bed. It’d be fun. How could you not want that?”
“Um, because it’s probably illegal? Or at least immoral.”
“I don’t think it’s illegal for a professor to sleep with a student. It might be against policy or something, but I don’t think it’s something he’d go to jail for. It’s not like you’re underage.”
I shook my head. “Why are we talking about this like it’s something I’m going to do? Because I’m not.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “Suit yourself. But you know as well as I do that your parents are going to freak.”
“I know. But I’m hoping if I go to them and rationally explain that I am working on getting my GPA back up and that I will graduate with a 4.0, that maybe they won’t be so hard on me.”
She stuffed a chip heaping with guacamole into her mouth and nodded, probably just to avoid having to tell me that there was no way my parents were going to be easy on me.