Moonlit Surrender
Chapter Four

Three weeks into the semester Lucy had learned many useful things, except hardly anything pertaining to philosophy. All she seemed to retain was the way Professor John Wright's hands moved like poetry when he taught and that his gray eyes seemed to darken to an even stormier shade when he was impassioned. She continued to replace her seat in the front row, ignoring the compulsion to hide away in the back, but sitting closer only seemed to distract her more. He was leaning casually back on his desk with his arms crossed over his dress shirt and tie discussing the nature of truth with the class, but Lucy found her eyes wandering over the breadth of his shoulders and down to the shiny buckle of his black belt looped through his slacks. She bit her lip and wondered things she knew she ought not to, but just couldn't help herself. Was he just as deliberate and confident in bed? If she touched him, would he be cold and recoil, or would he be warm and lean into it? What kind of kisser was he?

"That's all for today. I expect you to return next week having finished the chapter so we can delve into this more," he announced, startling Lucy out of her fantasies. "Ms. Beckett, please speak with me a moment."

Her breath caught in her throat. She nodded and finished packing away her books, then sheepishly approached his desk where he was seated and waiting for her. In front of him, she saw the first essay he had assigned with her name at the top of the page, her words covered in red pen marks. "I'm disappointed," he stated sternly.

Her heart plummeted to the floor and she swore she heard it shatter.

He looked down at the paper and shook his head. "I anticipated the artist who chose to stay in my class to take it a little more seriously. It's obvious you understand the material. The issues I found in your paper were careless, rushed. You're better than this."

She nodded, doing her best to blink away the couple tears she couldn't explain welling up at the backs of her eyes. "I'm sorry, Professor."

"John."

She looked up at him surprised, sure he had written her off as just another slacker with such a shameful performance thus far. She was shocked he had not rescinded the privilege of speaking on a first name basis.

"Is there something else going on?" He looked up and let out a disapproving tsk at the sight of her trying to discreetly swipe a tear away. "There's no need to beat yourself up, dear. Take a seat and tell me what's wrong." She blushed in embarrassment, but pulled up one of the desk chairs and set her bags down.

"Was it just a simple case of procrastination?" he asked gently.

"No, I started working on it after you assigned it, I swear. I had everything all outlined and my sources bookmarked and ready to cite." Her hands fidgeted nervously in her lap.

"What happened then?"

Every time I sat down to write, all I could think about was you.

"I-I guess there were a lot of distractions. I work full time during the day, and then try to take my classes at night, and my fiancé works a lot too, and when he's home he likes to game loudly with friends or sometimes coworkers come back to our place for drinks, but..." She trailed off, mortified at her rambling. "I guess... yes, it was procrastination."

"I didn't know you were engaged." He motioned to the bare finger that should have a diamond wrapped around it. "Congratulations, but it sounds like your environment at home is pretty distracting. I hate to see students do less than they're capable of over such trivial issues. I see a great deal of potential in you, Lucy. We need to unlock that together. Would it help to stay behind after class sometimes and do your homework here?"

She hesitated, thoughts running through her head.

No! Then you'll definitely never get anything done! Say no!

There's a fucking library in the next building. Don't inconvenience him.

Shut up! He's the one that offered it.

"That would be really great, thank you."

He smiled. "Good. Consider the issue resolved. At this rate, we'll have world peace solved before morning."

Lucy let out a delighted laugh, but shifted awkwardly, sensing a hint of how dangerous this man was to her.

"You still seem troubled." The note of concern in his voice lowered it to a deeper, more intimate rumble. "Is there anything else I can help with? If nothing else, I have two ears I can lend."

She thought about divulging more. It had been so long since she had opened up about anything since her best friend had moved away to pursue her own dreams. Communication had slowly waned since high school and Lucy was beginning to feel more and more alone. She was stranded in the sleepy town with no one to turn to but Ben and his less than sensitive touch. She meant to decline, but then all at once the words flooded out of her like a dam bursting open. "I guess I'm feeling a little lost,” she sighed heavily. "I feel like everyone around me has their shit together and has started their lives while I'm stuck here at the starting line unsure of which way to go. I always wanted to pursue art and either have my own gallery or just a super cool job in some big city, but my fiancé really wants to settle down. He has a good job and wants me to quit everything and just shoot out a thousand babies for him," she snorted derisively.

John gave her a sympathetic smile. "It's always difficult to choose when life is pulling us in multiple directions."

"I mean I don't know why I'm even bothering with getting a degree. All I'm doing is burying myself in debt for no reason." She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, fighting back the headache threatening to start up as all of Ben's arguments came to mind. Was he right? Did he have a point? Was it all useless just to end up in the kitchen bouncing babies on her hip?

"So quit," John replied coolly as he rose from his chair to join her on the other side of his desk. He leaned his hips back on the lip of the desk with an unsettling potency to his stormy eyes, as if he could see through every wall she had ever built around herself.

"Quit? Just... quit?" she asked dumbfounded. "That's your grand advice?" She laughed as she rose to her feet in a vain attempt to meet his gaze and crossed her arms with an offended glare.

"Life is what you make it, dear. If you aren't enjoying what it is now, then change it. If this path, working double shifts and hours of overtime to spend the rest of your time buried in books and papers is too much, then quit. There are many that replace a happy and fulfilling life as a spouse and parent."

Lucy uncrossed her arms and sighed heavily. "I love books and I love art. I don't know if I could live without them, but I don't know where I should be and I feel so inferior to everyone my age. They all seem like they have it figured out." She paused, thinking of her first night in class. "I don't know why I'm here."

John chuckled empathetically, "Few of us do, sweetheart. There's no shame in that, and even fewer of us have everything figured out, trust me. It's a trick question because there is no answer. Why are we here, where do we belong, what do we do with the time that's been given to us? These are all questions no person can answer definitively."

"Then why did you ask it?"

"Because philosophy isn't about the right answers; it's about the right questions."

Lucy looked back up at him thoughtfully as they lapsed into a strangely comfortable silence. Her eyes wandered down to his soft mouth without thinking. It felt like the most natural place in the world for them to fall. The subtle action was not missed by him.

Lucy swore his arms had begun to flex to push himself off of his desk and to her, surely for a torrid, stolen kiss, but they were interrupted and he returned to his resting pose against his desk.

"Professor Wright?" a middle-aged woman started to ask as she entered the classroom. She stopped when she saw Lucy standing there like a deer in headlights and noticed how close she was standing to her professor. "Forgive me," she stated suspiciously. "I did not expect you to be tutoring this late."

"Good evening, Professor Pemberley," John answered in his usual professional way now that another person was in the room.

Professor Doris Pemberley was a frail and bony creature, average in every sense of the word by height and appearance. She moved with an awkwardness as if even she didn't know what to do with her lanky limbs. Her light brown hair looked faded, like fabric left out in the sun too long, and was dusted in thick patches of gray. Her green eyes looked a little sunken and tired, but sparkled like gems when they rested on John. It wasn't hard to deduce she was attracted to him. Lucy backed away some from John, fearful he knew every naughty thought she had ever had of him.

Professor Pemberley walked closer, noticing the young girl's retreat at her entrance.

"I can come back when you two are finished," she offered, but smiled slightly as she watched Lucy begin to gather her bags.

John looked something very close to annoyed, but hid it away quickly. "It's no trouble at all, Doris. We were just finishing up. What can I do for you?"

"I-I wanted to go over your opinion for midterms. Would you care to join me for a late bite to discuss them?"

Lucy felt embarrassed for ever thinking there was the slightest chance of kissing this handsome man. He was her teacher and she was very much engaged, and it was obvious there were plenty of women attracted to him so that he could have his pick. Lucy felt sorry for Doris thinking she could possibly have a chance with him too. Neither woman was good enough for him. It was all too easy to imagine a tall and curvaceous model cozied up under his arm, not an awkward middle aged woman with the fashion sense of a ninety year old, or a plain young girl who had to use layers of black eyeshadow and provocative fashion to look more interesting.

"In a bit. Let me finish up here. I'll meet you outside," he agreed, much to Lucy's surprise and confusion.

Either way, this ruled out any future between the two of them, however fleeting or wrong it might have been. Maybe Doris was the underdog Lucy always dreamt of being and, despite everything stacked against her, had captured John's heart. She had the woman for algebra and had gathered so far that she was incredibly intelligent if nothing else, enough that she taught at the university not too far away in addition to her position here and was very respected there. Maybe that was something John needed in a partner.

Professor Pemberley smiled wide with a soft, "Wonderful," then made her way out to the faculty parking lot.

John pushed forward off his desk and Lucy silently drooled over the sight of his forearms flexing beneath their sprinkling of dark hair exposed from his rolled-up sleeves, but those strong arms did not push him into her embrace. He turned and reached over his pens and papers and plucked his black suit jacket off his chair and slung it and his satchel over his shoulder. He stood still, close to her again as they had been earlier.

His hand reached up and took her chin between his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger to bring her eyes up to meet his. "You've nothing to feel inferior about. You are a beautiful and intelligent woman. Make your life what you want it to be, sweetheart."

Lucy thought her heart was supposed to leap out of her chest or something terribly romantic at something so sweet, but all she felt was a fire kindling between her thighs from his touch. The fire grew when his thumb absentmindedly stroked her bottom lip for an unintentional breath of a moment before he realized it and withdrew his hand with a quick, "Good night."

She stood there in a daze as she watched him leave, playing the moment over and over in her head, memorizing the way the pad of his thumb felt on her lip: surprisingly cool, rough, as if he had a history working with his hands before his academic career, and a firmness that contradicted the appearance of an accident. It had been as sure a touch as any of his other movements.

Lucy hurried out of the classroom and passed a custodian making his way through the halls as she slipped into one of the empty restrooms in the building. She locked herself in the stall farthest from the door and dropped her backpack and purse to the worn tile and leaned her back against the door. In a frenzy, she lifted up the hem of her black skirt and pushed her tights down. Her fingers glided past her soft folds to replace a warm pool of her desire that had gathered in her panties.

She closed her eyes and imagined that cool thumb of his slipping between her lips for her to suck on, imagined his strong hands touching her, groping her, prodding her, his strong arms holding her down.

Lucy's fingers rubbed furiously and her hips arched up and rocked against the air instinctively, begging for more, for the man she was so infatuated with in spite of everything telling her to move on.

She gasped louder than she meant to and came hard, harder than when she had touched herself while thinking of him weeks ago alone in her bathroom, so hard her knees buckled and she almost fell. She moaned softly to herself and licked her lips again, wishing she were tasting any number of the delicious parts on his person.

"Fuck," she whispered to herself, taken aback by whatever had possessed her. She pulled her tights back up and straightened her clothes as she tried to push these infectious thoughts from her mind, reminding herself she was engaged. Her soulmate had been found. She should be focusing on wedding plans when not studying or working. Her upcoming nuptials should be consuming her, not this ridiculous crush she was developing.

She gathered her things and exited the bathroom as casually as she could, trying to hide her shame and embarrassment like a teenager who had just discovered their body for the first time. She passed by the night custodian on his way to John's classroom and blushed a deep shade of vermilion as he eyed her strangely, positive he somehow knew what she had done, but he said nothing and she gratefully hurried out to her car.