AN: This is a one shot in response to a Tumblr prompt. It was Andrea and Merle as teacher/student. The requester specifically asked for Merle as the teacher.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Merle wiped his hands more than was absolutely necessary on the thick paper towels that were standard in the shop. It was something to do. It kept his hands busy. Unfortunately, it didn't do much to keep his mind busy and that was something that he really needed.
It was a late night and he'd lost a couple of coin tosses to be stuck here. He had to teach the "class" and he had to do it late at night because the woman had to work late doing whatever the hell it was that she did—she was something special, apparently, and must have earned a lot of money, or else she wouldn't have agreed to stay so damn late at work that it would make her have to do her own things so late at night.
For some time now his shop had been offering "classes" to women—or really anyone who wanted to take them, but it was most often women who did—to learn about the basics of their cars. Everyone who worked there took turns "teaching" the classes.
The basic classes were simple enough. You could come in and learn how to pump gas—something rarely needed, but every now and again there was a need—to change a tire, to check the oil and every other liquid in the car, and how to change windshield wiper blades. The basic classes were just that, basic. They'd started offering the classes some time back when one of the churches had been raising money for a guy that they all knew—some kind of real bad deal with a heart surgery and not enough savings to cover the costs—and they'd been asked to auction some shit off. They couldn't get away with auctioning off actual auto repair, since they had bills to pay too, but they'd offered these basic packages as something some house wives might want. It had sold, and from there? It had become a service that they offered to bring in a little extra cash.
It was a chance for anyone who wanted to come in and learn the basic shit that maybe they didn't have someone to teach them. They got all kinds. They got widows and single women. They got married women whose husbands figured they didn't ever have a single need to know more than how to operate the washing machine and the stove.
Then the little thing had snowballed when some of the people who had come for one class wanted to come back for another. That's when they'd started the more "individual" packages. That was simple enough too. The person paid a set fee—not that much to most—and they were taught what they wanted to know. They got to practice what they wanted to learn.
It was simply the job of the "teacher" to find out what the student wanted, and teach it.
To date? Merle had taught a woman with a particularly tricky window how to fix it every time it came out of its track. He'd taught another woman how to wash and wax her car so that it looked like a professional did it and didn't scratch and dull the paint the way that most at-home washes did. He'd taught how to change spark plugs and batteries. And once? He'd taught a woman how to install a new stereo system into their car.
People wanted to learn all kinds of shit. And what was most surprising, perhaps, was that they'd rather pay to be taught how to do it themselves than to pay to have it done. Merle supposed it was the satisfaction of knowing they'd done it—but he'd have just as soon paid someone to do it.
Tonight, though, as an after-hours and "special" class, he was teaching the blonde the basics. Andrea was her name. She hadn't asked for anything special, but she'd paid extra to make sure that everything went according to her wants. And Merle had lost the coin toss to land himself in the position.
But that wasn't the worst part, really.
The worst part was that the damn blonde was a hot piece of ass and Merle was caught there, after hours, with her. He was teaching her how to change her tires, and how to check her oil—and all he could think about was the inspection he'd like to give her.
He'd like to check out just about everything she had. And he wouldn't mind taking her for a spin around the block a few times—though it had nothing to do with the sensible car that she drove.
When she bent over the damn thing, trying for herself for the third time to find her oil, check it, and return the stick to its proper place, Merle had to go to praying that his cock would pay him just a little damn attention and not force its damn way right out of the pants he was wearing.
Because wrapping his hand around hers? And hearing her laugh about the fact that it took her twice to line the stick up well enough to slide it home? It was too damn much for him after he'd been staring at her ass the whole time she'd been changing the tire—bad enough, in fact, that he'd had to check the tire later to make sure that she got the damn thing on right because he hadn't been paying attention.
Andrea didn't seem to notice though. Andrea didn't seem to care. Andrea seemed, as far as Merle could tell, truly one hundred percent focused on what the hell she was doing. Andrea really wanted to learn how to handle basic maintenance on her car.
And he could tell because half the damn women that came in there? Even if they were coming to do some dirty ass job like change their oil? They came in with their hair done as nicely as they could get it. They came in with at least two coats of make-up and trail of cologne. They came in dressed in clothes that had no business entering a shop unless they were coming to square up a bill. They came to flirt and tease and bat their eyelashes.
And once in a while? They wanted really private lessons from someone requested specially.
But Andrea?
Andrea had come with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She'd come with make up on, yes, and cologne, but it was clearly what remained after a long day of having worn it. She came dressed in gray, jersey material pants, an oversized navy t-shirt, and sneakers. She came to learn about the car.
Merle would have given just about anything, at the moment, to find out she'd come for something more.
"So—wait—is that the full line?" Andrea asked.
Merle almost slapped himself to try to come out of the stupor. He felt like he needed to go outside and douse himself with frigid water from the hose, but he wasn't going to do that. He leaned over her again to see what she was looking at. The oil stick again. If it was a test? She'd have failed it a few times already, but she was determined to get it right.
Merle might as well do his job because, up to now, it had almost been a self-taught class. That might be why she was failing so damn bad.
He handed her the paper towel that he'd been wiping his hands with repeatedly.
"Gotta wipe your stick off," he said. "Don't show a clear read if you leave it messy like that."
Andrea accepted the towel, looked confused because he'd failed to mention this so far, and then she wiped the stick off with the paper towel and looked at Merle with question on her face.
Those lips—he wanted to bite them.
Instead, he gestured with his head and looked back at the car.
"Stick it back in," he said.
He knew he made it up, but he thought he saw something of a smile on her lips. She did what he told her to do.
"Pull it out again," he said. "Then—look at it."
When she pulled it out, though, and held it up to catch the light enough to read where her oil actually was, she gave way and snorted before the snort broke into a laugh.
She shook her head, but the laughter only intensified. Despite himself, Merle laughed with her.
"I'm sorry!" She declared. "I'm sorry! I just—it just sounded...I'm sorry. I'm tired...and I'm—delirious? I'm just sorry."
She shook her head again and Merle felt other parts of his body asking for permission to speak. The voices in his mind told him this was perfect. It was the perfect moment. It was the perfect damn scenario. It wasn't getting any better than this.
He could make a move, lay it out there on the line. There were only two options. Either she accepted—in which case, he decided, they both won—or she rejected him. Rejection, honestly, didn't sting Merle all that damn much. And he could excuse himself for his transgression long enough to get her back on the road and sign her up to take the class with someone else.
Merle reached and wrapped his hand around hers. He flexed his muscles enough to squeeze her hand—to massage it.
She looked at him, her mouth slightly open and her eyes wider than before—but there wasn't a fear there. She was looking at him simply like she anticipated his next move.
Like the damn bitch was waiting for it.
Merle smirked at her.
"Look at it, sugah—what's it say?" He asked.
She looked at the stick in her hand, turned it a little despite his hand on hers, and then she wet her lips with her tongue.
"Full," she said.
Merle growled in his throat.
"Damn sure is," he said.
She dropped her eyes for a moment—two beats, three—and took a shallow breath before she looked back at him and tossed her head ever so slightly like it was a habit she carried from normally wearing her hair loose from the ponytail.
"Are you—still talking about the oil?" She asked.
Merle smirked and hummed in his throat again.
"Are you?" He asked.
She didn't say anything. They stayed like that a moment longer. She flicked her eyes toward the car, to the floor, back to him.
"Put it back," Merle said.
Andrea nodded and moved to do just what he'd said, returning the oil stick to its proper place.
"Back in," Merle suggested, his throat a little drier now than it had been the first time he'd made that combination of the words.
The smile returned to her lips, but she swallowed it back, obviously wishing to hide it from him. He heard a catch of sound escape her. It was a stifled laugh of sorts.
She straightened up, put one hand on her hip, and smirked at him. She shook her head.
"No," she said, her voice different than before—different than when she'd been so damn focused on the tires and everything else. She raised her eyebrows at him. "You put it in," she said.
As she waited for his response, she bit the tip of her tongue between her lips, slid it back and forth across the back of them. Merle watched the lips he wanted to bite between his own teeth.
Merle smiled, laughed softly to himself.
"It's your class—whatever you wanna learn," Merle said.
Now she looked amused. Some challenge and a little bit of cockiness registered on her features. Good—that's the way that Merle liked them best.
"You think you've got something to teach me?" Andrea asked, her voice channeling that challenge that her eyebrows and the crease of her forehead already showed.
Merle smiled again. He nodded his head.
"I do," he said. "But—this is one damn situation where, if you reckon you're up to it, it ain't not shame if the student surpasses the damn teacher."