Usually, it was to complain the score was too low and start arguing over the essay, which unlike the formal questions, didn’t have absolute rights or wrongs and were more subjective.
On occasions if the student could push their points and explain how they came to them, Miranda and other professors would boost the final score a few points. In most cases that few points would help their GPA and Miranda was happy to do it, if they put up a good thought provoking counterpoint to her initial opinion.
Other times it was, as she was currently involved in, asking for a letter of recommendation for those continuing their education in professions that required additional years.
But for some, the reason for their visit, and the results of the conversation, had far more important implications. Miranda had a feeling Tristan’s was going to be one of those.
It would be far from her first, nor would it be her last, as University of Florida would be a new school, but the same job. Sometimes Miranda could help and work something out, even writing an appeal to scholarship foundations on behalf of the student asking for some leniency.
Other times the gap was too far, and the conversation ended with an upset student, and Miranda feeling as if she’d failed in her job. But this one would be far more difficult because there was more to it, than a simple yes or no on whether she could help. This time in the back of her mind there was another option.
“What are you willing to do for me?”
Just those words caused a wave of self-loathing to flow through her. What was the matter with her? She was a professor, a professional with a responsibility to her students to be the best teacher, and as fair and ethical as she could be.
Let alone the fact he was less than half her age, and the combination of the two issues made her feel like she was a reject from a porn remake of the old movie The Graduate.
Goddamn Susan sitting there in her office going on about sleeping with a student if you could get away with it. Worse, she mentioned Tristan specifically. Miranda had downplayed it, and Susan had caught on, pressing her for details.
She’d tossed her a bone, admitting she had thought about Tristan a few times, which was more than she’d ever thought of any student prior to this semester. After her longtime friend and co-worker kept pressing on the topic she’d held to the right response, that she never would.
Susan’s admission that under the ideal fantasy conditions, as in a guarantee of no repercussions, she would do it, should have made Miranda feel a bit better about her feelings.
That is if it were as simple as what she confessed to Susan, an occasional thought and the one time she’d shamelessly given him a view down her blouse. Truth was where Tristan was concerned fantasy had given way to infatuation, and at this point the word obsession wouldn’t be out of place.
Miranda blamed her situation. When the spring semester started, she’d been separated for two months, and although still heartbroken, her libido was making a comeback.
Due to her lack of sex before she threw Nick out, Miranda had herself convinced it was just sex. There was more to marriage, and to life, than sex. She was 45 years old; Nick was three years older, they weren’t kids, and maybe it was time she accepted that.
She’d shut herself down sexually. Tried not to think about it, didn’t watch porn, put her toys away so she wouldn’t be tempted to masturbate. It wasn’t easy at first, but after a while her goal had been achieved and she barely thought about sex.
With Nick gone, she was surprised to find her urges not only returning, but with a vengeance. Miranda’s nights were full of wet dreams and during the day she found herself looking at men like a starving woman would stare at a steak.
She began having waking fantasies of those men. The good looking guy who pumped her gas, bending her over the car and filling her up instead of the tank. The UPS guy fulfilling every big package joke right down to giving her a delivery in the rear.
When school first started Miranda looked at her male students the way she always did. Yes, some were cute, but they were kids to her, kids she was there to educate, not see as objects of desire.
Except for Tristan.
As Susan had noted, he was frustratingly sexy. Everything about him from his stunning eyes to a face that one could easily see staring at you from a magazine cover, and a body that was as close to perfection as she’d ever seen.
That perfection included an ass to die for, and as Susan had called out, he either had a sock stuffed in those tight jeans or was hung like a bull. He didn’t sit in front of the class so Miranda didn’t have a ring side seat every day, but just the glimpse she caught of him coming and going from class had her hot and bothered.
After a few weeks Tristan had not only begun starring in her increasingly vivid dreams but had quickly taken them over. Disturbed by an infatuation that was wrong in every way, Miranda struggled to keep her mind off him.
She watched porn, forced herself to think about the men she’d fantasized about before, and other attractive guys she saw during her everyday activities. Yet despite her efforts, once she began touching herself and her guard was down, her previous imaginary lover became Tristan.
Even jilling off watching porn, the male actor would become her student, and she, the lucky recipient of the good hard fucking on the screen. Miranda was self-aware enough to understand what was happening.
Tristan had become a focal point for her sexual frustration. At least two years of a minimal sex life, then nothing for the months after her separation. It was more than just her body craving a release, but there was also anger involved as well.
Susan’s ‘get even’ mentality had run rampant through her mind. Not that Nick would care, her friend was wrong about that, and she didn’t even need him to know. The ‘revenge’ would just be for her.
Getting laid, having great, no holds barred, panties off, skirt over the hips, fucked against the wall sex, would be good for her. Validation she was still a sexy desirable woman, satisfaction in knowing she was one hell of a lover that any man would appreciate being with.
Most importantly, her getting the sex she deserved. No hang ups, feeling wanted rather than the chore Nick had made her feel like sex was, and cutting loose and going wild. Pleasing and being pleased by someone who desired and lusted after her as a woman.