The Different Girl

It's difficult to talk about this; I'm not sure what's happening to me. It feels a bit like some sort of mid-life crisis, but something about that doesn't ring true. If that's all it is, it wouldn't be her, I'd have gone to pieces over some dopey teen tart, God knows there are enough of them around. But I haven't. I find myself...well, affected I suppose...by one of my students, for the first time ever, and I'm appalled at myself- mainly because it's not just a physical thing.

Now don't get me wrong- it is a physical thing, for sure, it's just that it isn't the only thing. Nonetheless, I'll take a moment to indulge myself in thinking about her...I met her at our department's social thing that we have for new students, in fresher's week. I didn't really get chance to talk to her much, in fact I didn't even find out her name until later. I know I struggled to keep my eyes off her at the pub, though. She's quite tall, about five foot eight, with black bobbed hair and a blunt fringe. Her eyes are a piercing grey-blue, and she's got a beautiful mouth, with soft full lips. Her skin is pale and clear, her legs long, her arms strong and lean, her breasts full, her hips curved, and her stomach gently rounded. She laughed a lot that day, talking with my colleagues in an unselfconscious, engaging manner. I remember thinking how confident she seemed, for a student. It came to light eventually that she is thirty- I couldn't believe it. Barely ten years younger than me.

I should point out that stunning beauty is something I am normally able to take a detached view of. I've been a lecturer for some time, and universities are full of good-looking young women, some with questionable boundaries, but I'm not that guy, and I never have been. I'm obviously old enough to be the father of most of my students, but I'll admit that finding out that Ella is closer to my age than the average age of her undergrad peers made a difference to how I started to think about her. Finding out that her phenomenal attractiveness was merely the packaging for her astounding intellect and her sparkling personality...that was what truly did it. From that point on, I was lost.

I finally got talking to her in transit, as it were- we travel on the same route. There's part of me that regrets sitting down beside her on the bus the first time. I'd spotted her and I won't say I made a beeline for her, I was just pretty certain she'd seen me too, and I didn't want her to think I was rude. By this time we were some way into the semester, and we'd exchanged smiles (she'd been to every one of my lectures) but little else. She'd submitted work in other parts of the course, and it had become apparent that she is truly, breathtakingly bright, with a command of the subject that is most unusual in an undergrad of any age. Ella is so absolutely cut out for academia, and there was no way I wasn't going to do my best to ingratiate myself with her, but I'd be lying if I said that resting my eyes on her pretty face wasn't a pleasant way to pass my commute. We chatted about her hopes after graduating, and I realised after parting ways that I'd listened in a happy haze, and my face was hurting from smiling. I couldn't look my wife in the eye that evening, and retired to the study to work the evening away.

Many a lecturer has his favourite students. It may be that they are pleasant and engaged with the subject (all lecturers are geeks; they love it when young people are as geeky as they are, it stops them feeling as old!), they may be wonderfully intelligent, or they may be bloody gorgeous. It's rare for a student to be all these things, but Ella has everything. I'm the most educated guy in my department, but I stumble over my words when I talk to her. I feel my ears redden at the mere mention of her- and she gets a lot of mentions amongst my colleagues, she's a real star- and I end up changing the subject for fear of giving myself away. Even an email from her is enough to brighten my day, but that's nothing compared to how I feel when she says my name. Just innocently, while getting my attention in passing or just saying 'Hi', but...dear God. She quickens me. It's honestly jarring how strongly and viscerally I react to her, and it comes from somewhere much, much more instinctive than the paternal interest I take in some of my students. Yes, I like her immensely, and yes, I appreciate her intellect, and yes, I find her enchanting company- but...I wanted to fuck her. I'm not the type of guy to think like that, not usually; I make love to my wife but even at our happiest, I was never aching for her, physically. And she and I are really not at our happiest right now. No, I wanted to fuck Ella. Really fuck her, like the woman she is, not the gangly neurotic teen the rest of them are. She's as real as they get and she dominated my fantasies, right up until last week, when something only went and fucking happened.

Ella needed to talk to me about an assignment. She was having a completely unjustified crisis over it, and wanted me to read the draft- she'd sent it by email and it took me less than a minute to establish that it was, as ever, brilliant, and she had nothing to worry about. I wrote a reply, telling her not to overthink it and it was fine, and hovered my finger over the mouse button, the cursor on 'send'.

I didn't send it. I didn't think too hard about why, but I thought if I didn't tell her otherwise, she'd maybe come by to see me during my office hours. I had no-one to answer to that evening, as my wife had gone to another one of her supposedly-very-important-but-actually-not-really conferences for the weekend, so I was planning on spending the evening alone in the office, in my boredom, reading journals and pretending to design my summer research. Ella's beautiful face would console me for five minutes, and refresh my memory for some luxurious onanism later on. I waved the thought away (I'm the sort of guy who can get embarrassed with no-one else there), and tinkered with some lecture slides, trying not to watch the clock.

Office hours came and went. I sat there, feeling stupid for thinking she would actually come by, on a Friday night when beautiful young women like her presumably have a million places to go and people to see, attractive young men (younger than me), who were not stuffy university lecturers and would take her to a gig or a restaurant, and they'd get drunk and maybe she'd screw them, or maybe she wouldn't...a knock at the door jolted me from my masochistic train of thought.

"Hello, yes, who is it?" No way it was her. Nah. One of my bloody colleagues with some unjustifiable favour to ask...

"I'm so sorry, James, is it too late? It's Ella."

I simply couldn't believe it was her. Hearing my name fall from her lips was almost too much; my blood rushed so fast I could hear it in my ears, so loudly that I was certain I replied too loudly and high-pitched, "Come in, Ella." As she opened the door, I held my breath, for fear I would gasp out loud- I was right to do so. She looked incredible. It wasn't that she was provocatively dressed, far from it; she was wearing drainpipe jeans, a white vest and some heeled pumps, a chunky wrap draped casually around her shapely shoulders. It was her face- a beautiful mix of concern and attentiveness, her smoky eyes shining, her shiny raven hair swinging as she dropped her head, then raised her foxy eyes back to mine. She was obviously so worried, she'd been afraid to come by sooner. I felt guilty suddenly; how selfish of me not to put her out of her misery sooner. Poor fucking sexy angel. She bit her lip gently as she looked at me and I nearly passed out with longing.

"You look so worried! Are you alright? It's not too late at all. Your assignment is fine. Are you ok? That draft is great, the work is in good shape. I'm sorry I didn't email. Are you alright?" I realised what an utter idiot I sounded, and shut the hell up for a moment. Ella looked at me askew for a second, then collapsed into the chair opposite me and dropped her head into her hands.

I was taken aback somewhat. It was warm in the small office, and now dark outside- the room was lit by my small desk lamp and my PC monitor, by now displaying the stupid university screensaver. In the low light I could see her eyes shimmering with the beginnings of tears, and my concern for her was conflicting with my arousal at the smell of her perfume, emanating warmly from her deep cleavage. I felt like the world's biggest bastard.

Ella sighed deeply, her chest heaving; I twitched. "I'm sorry. I'm just really struggling with so much right now", she began. "I know I may be overreacting, but my grades are all I have at the moment."

"How so?" I enquired, shuffling my chair a little nearer. Our knees were nearly touching.

"I'm just...well, it's hard to explain", she sniffed. "I'm a grown woman, after all, and university life doesn't present me with the...opportunities I'd hoped for." She laughed suddenly and looked up at me. As she raised her face, I realised just how close we were actually sitting. Her face was only inches away. I recoiled, suddenly aware of how absolutely, ridiculously hot I was for her in that moment, and how much she would hate me if she realised it. Ella seemed oblivious, and just smiled. I retreated a little; before I could go any further, she seized my hand, and I jolted like I'd been plugged in. She dropped it hastily, but put her hand on my knee instead.

"Anyway", she said, with a tilt of her head. "How are you? You've seemed down recently."

How was I? I was fighting every muscle and nerve and tendon in my body, which all seemed to be working together to overthrow my mind and make pull Ella on the floor and give it to her. It didn't seem a good idea to enlighten her to this. I told her about my problems at home, that my relationship was suffering, that I was stressed at work. I rummaged out the bottle of red I'd been planning on taking home with me, and that smoothed the edges out- the tension seemed to abate somewhat, and I relaxed. It felt good to talk. But I forgot that wine loosens my tongue a little too much.

"And then there's you, of course...shit." I paused for too long to invent a plausible way to end the sentence. And Ella, being no kid, saw my eyes and suddenly, she knew the score. The tension poured back into the tiny room like a tsunami. I'm going to get fired, I thought. She will never forgive me for this, and she's in my office drinking after hours, it's enough. Her voice seemed to come from miles away.

"You want to fuck me, don't you?" Her voice, far from incredulous, was warm and soft. I closed my eyes.

"Yes." That's it, you've done it now. "Forgive me, you should go, right now. I didn't mean anything. I'm not a bad guy, I swear."

"Not even a little bit bad?"

I opened my eyes and she was right there in front of me, soft wine-stained lips inches from mine. I closed my eyes again, expecting to wake up in my bed, cold and alone. Instead I felt pressure and parted my lips just slightly, before letting out a low moan as Ella's warm tongue slipped gently along my lower lip. She bit me gently and I growled wretchedly, grabbing her thighs and pulling her roughly into my lap, her legs astride me.

More to follow...