When It's Love (9 page)

The ding alerting me to a new message breaks my chain of thought.

If I told you to take off your pants, Sydney, I assume you’ve done so. You wouldn’t dare send me messages with your pants on, would you? Now take off your shirt, too. Do as I say, or I’ll get angry with you. I have a little paddle that I use on my students who don’t do as they’re told.

OMG! Is he serious? Has Professor Sparling done this before? Is he really a spanker, or worse, a paddler? The thought of bending over his knees in a schoolgirl skirt and having him yank down my panties and run his hand across my ass is very appealing. That is exactly what I write in my reply.

My pants are off because I’m wearing a skirt today. A tiny plaid pleated skirt that barely covers my ass. Since I’ve been disobedient you bend me over you knees, and slap my ass with your left hand. “Does it sting?” you ask.

It does. A lot. But, I’m gasping and I can’t catch my breath quickly enough to answer you. Before I know it my little white panties are down, and you’re roughly rubbing my ass. I can feel the dampness forming between my legs. Your hand is so close to that part me. I want you to move your hand there. I want to be touched, and I’m silently begging for it. You slap me again with your left hand and when I yelp you shove your right thumb into my mouth. I close my lips around it and moan.

Hello there, sassy slut inside of me. Writing like this is turning me on. A lot. It’s not as though I’ve ever been spanked before. I’m really not writing from experience. Jake and I did our fair share of lovemaking back in the day, but it was all very sweet and conventional. I was only a teenager, after all. I guess my long, dry spell has changed me into someone whose imagination runs wild. And now here I am acting like I’m the kind of woman who casually bends over a man’s knees for a spanking. I close my eyes for a second, inhale, exhale, and send. I’m too aroused to worry about embarrassment now, and it amazes me that my excitement has the power to turn off any sense of shame in me. I want to get off more than I’ve ever wanted to before. Period. How can this be happening to me? I’m glum girl, not sassy slut. I don’t recognize myself. And I don’t think I care. The change is so welcome. My body is buzzing with good sensations and vibes. Given my past, and the way I came to be in this world, it seems strange that I’m wildly interested in a relationship with a man who has a kinky edge. Shouldn’t someone like me need love, tenderness, and security? Shouldn’t someone like me be terrified of this?

The ding of Professor Sparling’s answer arrives so quickly it’s difficult to believe he had time to read my message.

Sydney Morrison, you really are a bad girl, much worse than I thought. I like it. As your professor, I reserve the right to give you some homework. So, if your shirt is off as it should be, turn on your camera, take a self-portrait of your breasts and send it to me. I want to see those perky nipples. Show me those hot tits of yours. I suspect you’ll get a very good grade on this assignment.

What. The. Fuck? Professor Sparling wants me to take a picture of my breasts and send it to him? Where did this come from? The glum girl in me may have been temporarily usurped, but even with my hormones firing out of control, and my desperate ache for Professor Sparling, I know this is something I need to think about. Spontaneity is out of the question.

In my earlier musings about sexting, I’d concluded that writing was more revealing than stripping. Now that I’m faced with stripping, however, I’m not sure I agree with myself. I don’t want to stop what’s happening with Professor Sparling, but I know have to slow down for a bit and think. Now the pressure is on to figure out what I should say to keep him interested in me. If I don’t do as he says, maybe he’ll blow me off as some prude. But what if he’s some kind of perv who has a collection of his students’ tit pics? What if he has a website? Anything is possible. I don’t actually know the real Professor Sparling at all. I rest my head in my hands. My mind is wracked with indecision and I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a rope bridge that sways with each and every move I make. There is no steady path to the unknown and the threat of falling is palpable with every motion, even something as minute as the blink of my eyes.

Suddenly, the memories of today’s events are flooding my brain and I can’t believe it was just this afternoon that I was mostly naked in front of Marina. I haven’t even had the chance to mull over that. And now Professor Sparling wants to see me topless! It’s all too much. As much as I wish I could be uninhibited enough to just send a pic, I have to calm down and steady myself first. I don’t want to lose my chance of being with Professor Sparling, but I also don’t want to lose my mind.

Dear Professor Sparling,

Believe me, I want to show you my tits and I want you to roll my nipples between your fingers until I’m begging you to stop. And oh, God, to feel your lips on my breasts … but I need to think about things before I send a picture. Please be patient with me. I promise I’m not dodging my homework assignment. I’m just getting my bearings. I hope you’ll still give me an A+. Good night.

Topless,

Sydney

With that I close my computer and plop into bed.

I toss and turn in my bed, disturbing the cats with every move. Every time they readjust themselves into a comfortable position, I roll over again. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fall asleep. My body is exhausted, but my brain is racing a million miles an hour. I’m a combination of aroused, elated, perplexed, hopeful, and nervous. For someone who hasn’t felt much more than crappy with a capital C for years, it’s a lot of emotion to deal with. It’s no wonder I can’t relax. I finally give up on sleep, drink a glass of water, and take my laptop into bed with me. I can’t shake the thought of taking a picture of my breasts. Will it be different than seeing myself in the mirror? I can’t recall ever getting excited about seeing the reflection of my body. The idea of a picture, though, is titillating. Is it the act of taking the picture in and of itself, or the fact that Professor Sparling told me to do it? Or is it the idea of Professor Sparling seeing me naked that is such a turn on? It’s no secret that men like to look at pictures of naked women. And I’m certainly not the first woman to bare her breasts before a camera. Is it really such a big deal?

As I’m asking myself that question I pull my t-shirt off over my head and I look down at my breasts. I’m too thin to be called voluptuous, but I’m ample, much more so than your average skinny girl. I run my fingers over my nipples so they harden. And then I do something I never in a million years expected myself to do. I lie down on my naked belly and prop myself up on my elbows with my breasts hanging before the computer. I move my laptop in front of me and click on the webcam icon. It opens and there I am, staring at myself on the screen. My eyes look tired, which makes sense. It’s the middle of the night after what was an absolutely exhausting and exhilarating day. I’ve had more action in the last 24 hours than I did in the previous three and a half years.

I tilt the screen of my laptop forward until my cleavage comes into view. Then I push the laptop a few inches away so I can get more of me into the picture. And there in front of me, live and onscreen, are my round breasts and dark pink nipples. Oh my gosh, I whisper. I push the computer back a bit more and change the angle of the screen so my face is in the frame, too. I arch my back to raise my breasts a bit higher and then I hold my breath as I reach forward and click to take the picture. My computer makes a little snapping sound. And voilà. I’ve done it. I sit up, barely aware that I’m still half-naked. I’m staring at the screen and somewhat mesmerized by the image of bare breasts. If I didn’t see my face above them, I’d never believe it was really my body.

For a moment I cringe and slam the laptop shut. What have I done? Could I ever send that naked image of myself to Professor Sparling? I get out of bed and open my closet door to look in my full-length mirror. I put my hands on my hips and stare at my breasts. I turn from side to side looking at them in profile. I’ve got good tits, dammit. Or at least I think I do. I haven’t seen another live set of breasts since my high school locker room.

Back in bed, I grab my laptop and slide under the blanket where the world feels warm and safe. Perhaps because of the suggestive exchange I had with Marina this afternoon, or perhaps because I’m rediscovering myself after all those lackluster years, or perhaps because I want to know how nude pictures are really done, I feel profoundly intrigued by the female body. I do some quick Google searches, hoping to find pictures of beautiful naked women. I want hot and sexy, but not hardcore. Not surprisingly, the first sites that come up are very hardcore. Finally, though, after making my way past 101 ejaculating cocks, and vulvas so pink and close-up that their definitions are blurred and they look like nothing more than silly putty in its red egg, I find a site that has what I’m looking for. Before my eager eyes are pages and pages of stunning women who look tasteful, even in the dirtiest of poses. One image in particular stirs me: a woman whose full breasts have deep tan nipples. She’s sitting cross-legged on a white floor wearing nothing but a short black skirt. Her dark hair falls to her shoulders, her lips are slightly parted, and her eyes are a rich coffee bean brown. She looks like a young Penelope Cruz, with a very naughty side. And that combination of pure beauty and exposed pussy says ‘hot sex’ like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I don’t know whether I want her or whether I just want to be like her.

I do one more quick email check to see if there is anything from Professor Sparling. I don’t expect anything, but I know I’ll never fall asleep if I don’t check.

I’m right. Nothing from my professor, but … I see the name Jake Tennenbaum, my high school sweetheart, in my inbox and I get a chill down my spine at the sight of it. I wonder if lack of sleep has made me delirious. Am I imagining this? Jake hasn’t written to me since sophomore year of college when he started dating a lot and I was still picking up the pieces of my shattered self. What on earth could he want? I open the message.

Dear Syd,

I know it’s been a while since we’ve been in touch. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately and was wondering if you’re going to be in Clarksville for Christmas. Can we meet? I want to talk to you face to face.

Miss you.

Jake

I cannot believe this. Why does he need to see me face to face? What the fuck is going on in this world? With everything that’s happening now, suddenly Jake is in the picture? I know a part of me still loves him, and he’ll always have a place in my heart, but I’ve got enough on my plate and I’ve hardly thought about him at all this past semester when all I’ve done is lust after Professor Sparling.

I write a quick reply to tell Jake I’m not going back to Clarksville. He answers immediately (at 2:00 a.m.!), asking if he can stop by Addison in the morning on his way back to Clarksville. “I know it’s out of the blue, but will you please see me?” he writes. I give him the address of Kuki’s and tell him to meet me there at 10:00 a.m. That’s just eight hours from now. I hope he won’t be too tired to drive.

I’m so consumed with Professor Sparling right now I don’t even know how to make room for Jake in my mind. The first year after I ended things with him, we still talked a lot. Jake would call to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t, but I didn’t tell him that. Theoretically I could appreciate his kindness, but I was too numb to process it. Over the following few years we spoke less and less. I assumed he’d moved on. So what could he want from me now after all this time? I flash back to the first time Jake kissed me. We were outside Sandy’s Hardware where he’d just purchased supplies to help his dad build a deck outside the back door of their house. We were talking about how nice it would be to sit out on the new deck in the spring, when he let go of the shopping cart and pulled me close to him, letting the cart roll away. He kissed me gently, a kiss full of sweetness and tenderness. I knew then that he loved me, though it would take some time before I understood how much I loved him back.

My head is spinning. I collapse onto the futon, pull my blanket up to my chin, and decide not to stay up waiting for an email from Professor Sparling. Forgetting that it’s the middle of the night, I text Henry to tell him the crazy news.
Having breakfast with Jake my ex tomorrow.
And with that, I drop my phone and go to sleep.