Women in Lust by Rachel Kramer Bussel

TEACHER
    Rachel Kramer Bussel
    M eredith straightened her skirt, settled herself beneath her desk with her crisp new notebook and set of her favorite black pens before her, feeling, in many ways, like she was back in high school, with all her nervousness about her outfit, teachers and what her classmates would think of her. Whereas some of her peers could barely remember what they’d done last week, memory wasn’t a problem for Meredith; in fact, a surfeit of memory might have been her main problem. She couldn’t stop herself from replaying the same old daunting images, and when she should have been paying attention to the equations being written on the board, all she could think about was the fact that Professor Arthur reminded her, in style if not in looks, of her very first real boyfriend, Geoff, in college the first time around, the one she’d given her virginity to, the one she’d thought would be forever. He’d also been adorably nerdy, jittery and hopped up on coffee and optimism. She shook her head to clear it of the memory of him sliding off her panties under their picnic blanket
and getting her off while their friends sailed Frisbees and kicked soccer balls around them.
    Meredith fiddled with the simple turquoise and silver ring she’d bought to cover the deep grooves on her fourth finger, the one she’d worn her wedding ring on since that first time around in college, after Geoff, when she’d decided it was time to get serious—right after she’d found out she was pregnant. It was a groove she feared would be forever etched into her skin, the way those pesky memories seemed to play on permanent repeat in her mind. She looked around the room at the kids young enough to be her sons and daughters, some of them younger than her actual son and daughter, with only a handful in their later twenties and thirties. She was forty-two, solidly middle-aged, and determined to get her bachelor’s degree and reclaim some of the youth she’d lost when she stepped away from academia to go on the road with her sexy new band member boyfriend-turned-husband. Following Clay had seemed like the right thing to do; she didn’t want to be one of those women who sat around all day and complained about every pregnancy ache and pain. Instead, she’d watched show after show, then after party upon after party, where Clay had proceeded to flirt with every girl who walked by, as if she were nothing more than another groupie. Eventually, but only after giving birth twice, Meredith realized that’s exactly what she was. They’d tried to make it work, with Clay setting up an in-home studio, but the kids had been little when they’d finally called it quits.
    She’d worked a series of office jobs, but after this latest round of layoffs, she knew something had to change. She’d never given herself permission to chase her dream, but with the severence, and both her kids out of the house, she knew she had to do something for herself or she’d go mad. Meredith soon realized that there were other dreams she’d neglected over the years, too;
other needs she’d figured were for younger, hotter women. Who had time to get her hair done, to dress up, when she was working sixty-hour weeks? Men had asked her out and she’d even taken one or two up on their offers of overnight visits, quick rolls in the hay that did little more than stoke her passion and make her wistful for what might have been.
    The sad truth was that she couldn’t remember being as raw, as wet, as wanton as when she’d been with Clay. Until now. Her professor was far from a Clay-like bad boy, but still, he did something to her that made her want to either be the best student he’d ever seen, or the worst, if it meant detention and the chance to get properly punished. She bit her lip as a highly irrelevant, not to mention irreverent, giggle threatened to burst from her lips as she pictured herself in a schoolgirl skirt, white cotton panties, white kneesocks and pigtails