Mr. Albert stood in front of the class, dressed in a purple wool sweater, as he explained the concept of the derivative. Emma watched the man write notes on the board and noticed as he spoke that his voice started to sound further and further away. It was like tunnel vision for her ears.
She strained to hear as the man spoke. His voice grew lower as he described their lesson, "The derivative can be approached in two ways. The first way is geometrical with the slope of a curve and the second way is physical with the rate of change." Emma was on the tip of her seat as she scribbled in her notebook trying to catch every word he was saying.
He continued, "Historically speaking, mathematicians have long debated on which approach to finding the derivative is best. Instead of giving you all the long back story that I'm sure no one cares about, our emphasis for this class is learning how to use the derivative as a tool." The old man continued to address the different concepts and Emma wrote page after page of notes trying desperately to hear his words. Her entire notebook was filled to the brim before the bell rang. She'd never taken as many notes in her life. Her hand ached and she felt dizzy from such deep concentration.
Popping out of her desk, she rushed to her locker, and fumbled to get her lock off. Knowing she was going to be late, she spared no time in checking her reflection. Instead, she exchanged notebooks and textbooks and walked down the hall passing by the freshmen students who were too eager to get to their class on time.
Getting closer to the classroom, Regina came into focus, and that's when she noticed what she was wearing. It was the dress. The one she wore the night she fucked Regina. Emma audibly gulped to herself as she walked passed Regina into the classroom and sat down and waited in an empty room. Confused as to why she was the only student, Emma dropped her back pack next to her desk. The bells rang and Regina closed the door to the classroom.
"What are you doing? Where is everyone?" Emma asked.
"Do you like my dress? I wore it especially for you. I remember how you watched me take it off that night. Do you remember what I wore underneath it?"
Looking around herself, Emma tried to figure out what was going on.
"Regina, we can't do this here, someone could walk in and see you." She said in a hushed whisper to the other woman.
"What do you mean? I thought you told me you wanted to fuck me?" Emma watch as the other woman slowly crept towards her desk. Her velvet ebony hair sashayed and waterfalled down her shoulders. All Emma wanted was to reach out and brush the pads of her fingers through the perfectly styled raven tendrils and kiss the woman's juicy lustful lips. It took every ounce of her strength to not surge out of her desk and push the woman against the chalkboard in her classroom.
"Reg..." Emma bit down on her lip trying to stop herself. She then corrected, "...Ms. Mills."
Breaking the skin on her bottom lip, Emma tasted blood in her mouth. Wiping away the red droplets, she looked at her teacher. Using every ounce of restraint in her body she said, "Do you see what you're doing to me?" Emma trembled.
She was doing everything in her power to respect that Regina was her teacher.
"Conflicted dear? I can tell all you want is me. Don't force yourself away from me. Just give in to what you're feeling. Accept it, Emma." Regina hovered above her.
Her resolve weakened and she admitted out loud, "They were red lace." She looked up and firmly stated, "You asked if I remembered, and I do. You wore red lace for Christmas. I remember dragging them down your legs between my teeth. I remember everything."
"What else do you remember?" Regina a breath away from her asked. Her scent was enveloping Emma.
"I remember the taste of your lips and how soft they felt. You felt like silk against my flesh. Not that I have ever had the luxury of feeling silk, but I'd imagine you to feel just as soft, if not softer. Then your hair smelled like apples and I spent the entire night memorizing your body and mapping the contours of your curves with my tongue. You tasted so sweet, Regina"
Emma stood from her desk and started to close the distance between the them. "I thought about you non-stop after that night. All I've wanted since was to kiss you again." Emma said in a sultry sweet voice.
"Just kiss me?" Brown eyes met green and Emma was unable and unwilling to move away from the gorgeous woman before her.
Taking a confident step forward she wrapped her arms around the other woman. "No, I want to do more to you." She sat her down on her desk and lips brushed together heatedly. Emma kissed down Regina's neck, up to her ear, and whispered, "I'm going to fuck you right here."
Emma pulled the familiar black dress off the woman in her arms exposing red lace.
The only response was a moan, "Emma." As the blonde ground her hips between the other woman.
Sucking on her flesh, Emma heard her name again, and again. All she wanted was to embrace the intimate moment and love the woman beneath her.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Pulling away from Regina, she saw fear in the beautiful obsidian orbs. Emma watched as Regina tried to preserve her modesty as her hands covered beautiful lace.
Turning her attention to the door, a freaked out Lily squealed high pitch,"I'm telling. This is so screwed up. You're going to get kicked out of our house and not graduate now!"
Emma saw her foster sister run from the now open door. "LILY WAIT!" She yelled in an attempt to fix the situation.
Emma turned back to Regina, who was angry and upset. "What have you done? I'm going to lose my job! You'll never go to Harvard now. You've ruined everything, my career, my life. I could go to jail now. Are you satisfied? Why couldn't you just leave me be? Do you not have any common sense. This is your fault."
Pushed away from the other woman, Emma scampered to her feet. Running from the room she cried out, "What's happening?" She felt like she had been dropkicked in the gut causing it hard to breathe. As she ran from the classroom, the hall stretched and stretched and Emma felt as if she was running in place twice as fast like the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland.
"EMMA! FOR CHRIST SAKES, STOP CRYING."
Emma jolted from her bed with Lily standing directly over her. Her shadow scared her and she screamed again. Her body was sweating and her heart was racing.
"Stop screaming. You'll wake Ms. Tremaine. You were yelling my name and woke me up from my sleep!" An obviously irritated Lily said.
"Jesus Christ it was a dream?! Oh thank god, it's just a dream." Emma started to rejoice.
Her moment of sheer relief ended too quickly,"You mean nightmare? What was it about, just curious since you screamed my name as if I was dying?"
"It was awful Lily, I was stuck in school and I was trying to leave and you were there and it was just so messed up and I'm so glad you woke me up." Emma blurted out in one long breath.
"Whatever, I'm going back to sleep." Lily slipped back into her covers and went to sleep. Within seconds a soft, comforting, snore came from the opposite corner of their shared room.
It was four thirty and Emma knew she wasn't going to be falling back to sleep anytime soon. She turned over and looked out her window at the snow falling, dreading the idea of having to walk to school in just a few hours.
Emma kept thinking back to her dream of Regina. Ruby advocated that she should go for it with her, but what if she did? What would happen if someone found out? On the other hand, what if no one did find out? Ruby really believes that Regina could be a good thing for her. There clearly wasn't a huge age difference to begin with.
But then the reality was that if something did happen and they were caught, Emma could get kicked out of her home and sent to juvie and Regina to jail. It would really ruin everything for not only Emma, but for Regina too.
Emma sighed to herself. As much as she liked Regina, or at least the idea of her, the risk was too big to take. Emma knew they didn't even know each other. All this was, was an attraction. An interest. They didn't know each other and it should stay that way. She cared enough about both of their futures to make the decision to not pursue anything.
The next few days at school, Emma dodged Regina and eliminated any sort of possibility of them being able to talk. She was last into class and first to leave each day. In each class, she followed along in lecture, wrote her notes, and tried desperately to not pay too close attention to Regina. Everyday Regina dressed in tight, form fitting, dresses that showed off her curves and assets. She was to die for, and Emma knew it. She kept her eyes glued to her notebook, diverting any gazes, trying to not be called on.
"Emma, can you please tell me what the twelve tables are?" Regina quized.
She didn't look up. She kept her eyes on her book. She refused to acknowledge the other woman. It was almost too painful. Whenever she looked at her beautiful dark eyes she was reminded of how captivating they were as Regina fell over the edge of ecstasy beneath her.
"I asked you a question, Emma. What are the twelve tables?"
Again she kept her eyes glued to her book and acted like Regina wasn't there.
"Can anyone tell me what the twelve tables are?" Regina asked the class.
Killian, sitting next to Emma's side answered, "The twelve tables is the first code of laws introduced in 450 BCE by the Roman Republic."
"Thank you Killian. Emma, I expect you to know this for your test on Monday. You can't fall behind."
Regina turned her attention to her chalkboard, "So in case no one saw, I have a bunch of cards assembled on the board. We are going to play a round of jeopardy to prepare for the test on Monday."
A commotion erupted in the class, Emma overheard things like how amazing the new teacher is. It's always something about how great she is. Earlier during her math class, Emma overheard a jock talk about how hot the World History teacher was.
"Dude, did you see her bend over her desk the other day? Her ass was perfect. All I wanted to do was to grab her from behind and take her." The other boy laughed.
"She's fucking hot. I heard she just graduated from Harvard. She's basically our age, maybe one of us has a shot with her."
"You're sinking in a sea of denial, man, she's way out of your league." The other boy said.
"If you continue to talk in my class I will write you up for detention." Mr. Albert interrupted them.
Emma was two seconds away from being out of her desk with her fist in someone's face. These guys had no sense of decency, talking about Regina as if she was a piece of meat. Stupid pigs, she thought.
Emma was frustrated, because it was one week into school and everyone loved the woman. She was beautiful, funny, smart and so young. There wasn't anything to not love. Emma couldn't be jealous that her classmates were falling for the new hot teacher, could she? Was it fair? In her mind, Regina felt like hers, but in reality, she really wasn't and it was best that didn't change.
The bell rang and Emma rushed out the door and headed home.
She stood in front of a dart board and studied it, aiming at the bull's eye, she whipped her arm back and forced the sharp object forward. Emma groaned to herself. Only five feet away and she still missed the target, by a lot. Darts were wedged into the wall and a few sat upright in the bar's floorboards. How those managed to get those there was beyond her. She snatched the darts up and went to her standing point and started over for what felt like the hundredth time.
A worried Ruby interrupted Emma's trance, "Don't you think you've tried long enough to hit that stupid bull's eye? Before I know it, I'll have to get the holes in the wall filled in, again."
"Rubes, if I don't keep trying, then I'll never hit it. Why would I give up now?" Emma reasoned.
"Shouldn't you be home studying for a certain someone's test tomorrow? I would think you would be home learning as much as you could so you could impress her with how smart you are."
"Look, I get that you support the idea of me going after Regina. Here's the thing though, I don't actually know this woman. It was a one night stand. Ever consider there was a reason I woke up early that next morning and left? I don't think you did. All you are thinking about is if this was you, what you would do, and that's fine Rubes, but I have more to consider than you did at my age. I could lose so much. I can't get distracted, which is the reason I didn't stick around on Christmas."
Emma paused. "I just think that you sometimes forget that I'm still in high school. I live with a foster mother that only cares I exist for the money and the chores I do around the house. One stupid slip up and she'll call my social worker. The who knows what will happen. I'll be for sure gone and I can't risk that."
Ruby grabbed a rag from behind the bar. Wiping down the bar's counter, she considered her friend's thoughts. "I get what you're saying more than you realize. How about you start working here at the bar in the evenings. You're practically here all the time anyways. This gives you a chance to save up and move out of your foster house. You're an adult technically now. You can do whatever you'd like. Then you're responsible for yourself and if you wanted to explore things with your hot teacher, you can because you're only depending on yourself."
Emma sighed to herself, Ruby still didn't fully understand. Emma didn't want to be distracted from school, she wanted perfect grades. She already had to volunteer at night at the town library. Trying to earn money, volunteer, and study at night would make staying on top of her work much harder. She didn't want an out to make her more comfortable to support the idea of being with Regina. She didn't even know if there was any chemistry between them. It could all be just sexual, nothing emotional, and Emma didn't want that.
"Look Ruby, thank you for the offer. I think I need to consider things before I just jump to conclusions. I need to go home. I have some chores to do before Ms. Tremaine gets on my case and do some homework. I'll catch up with you later in the week."
On Monday, Emma sat at her desk in World History, and looked down at her test. She chewed on her number two pencil as she read over all the questions looking for one that she knew. Of all the questions, she didn't know a single one.
Her heart raced. She couldn't remember anything. Dates weren't coming to the forefront of her mind and the names of important figures got all jumbled. She felt like a failure because what she desperately didn't want to happen was happening. She was distracted. The night before when she opened her book, all she could think about was Regina. Not whatever the twelve tables was.
Everything about the damn woman entertained the blonde's mind the night before. Regina was a tease. Something she wanted, but wouldn't allow herself to have. Instead of blocking her out, she daydreamed what it would be like if they ever kissed again. The feel of their lips together.
So when it came to recalling the names or dates of anything, the only thing she remembered was daydreaming about her teacher. Angry, Emma wrote her name at the top of her test, grabbed her bag and walked to the front of the room. She dropped the blank paper on the teacher's desk.
Regina's right eyebrow arched as she looked up at Emma. Before Regina could hand the test back to the school's top student, Emma had left the room.
Down the hall, Emma darted into the girls room, and stood in front of the mirror above the leaky sink. She stared at herself, she was angry. Her biggest fear was getting distracted from school, messing up her last semester and ruining her chances at everything. Well she did just that. She knew that this woman was dangerous. She was a snake that slithered right into her mind. She was a temptation that was so alluring and all she wanted was to have many more one night stands with the woman.
That night when she got home, Ms. Tremaine sat at her kitchen table filling her nails. "Emma, I got a call again from that teacher of yours. What did I tell you? I don't want to be distracted by you. I don't care if you flunked your test. Make her stop calling around here. Go upstairs and start your chores."
Emma nodded and sprinted up the steps and dropped her bag down on the floor. Of course Regina called. Emma grabbed some rags and walked into the bathroom and started cleaning around the toilet. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to find her confidence again.
Tomorrow she would stay after class and confront her teacher. She would lay down the boundaries and tell her that she's distracting her. Most importantly, she would ask for her to never contact her foster mother again. Calling home did nothing, but make her Ms. Tremaine angry because she had to act like she cared on the phone. The woman didn't even want to know she existed. Emma was a check and practically a house servant. Regina calling and trying to confide in a parent was useless. Might as well talk to her first hand. Emma realized she's never really given her that opportunity. Tomorrow that would change.
The next day the tests were handed back and Emma had in red ink at the top of her page, "See me after class to discuss making this up."
It made Emma flush with anger. What was she given special treatment now? She didn't want to feel favored. All she wanted was to be treated like the other students and be given fair and equal treatment.
The rest of the class period, Emma took down her notes and highlighted the key concepts from the book. She listened to the questions asked by other students and made note of them. She was going to prove to Regina she was an A student and that her test was a fluke.
At the end of class, Emma went to Regina's desk.
Regina looked up at her and exasperatedly asked, "Care to explain to me what that was? Emma you can ignore me, but not your work in this classroom. I expect better from you. I know you're the valedictorian. I think you really need to invest yourself in this coursework and not screw it all away."
"I applied to Harvard." Emma cut Regina off.
Regina took a double take, her eyebrows rose in unison, and she pushed back from her desk and considered the students proclamation. "Oh, okay. That's great Emma, I think that you have the potential to attend there. I know you are brilliant and I will support your endeavors. I can be a reference for you and call a few people if you are serious? I would like to help, but I need you to take this class seriously. I can't have you failing tests and running out of class the rest of the semester."
"You don't understand." Emma blurted out. "What happens if I give in, and someone finds out? I feel so distracted, like I'm being pulled left and right and it feels like the two angels are sitting on my shoulders telling me to do one thing and my body says another. I don't even know you. And I applied to Harvard. What if I get in, and then someone finds out? I could ruin my education and kicked out of my foster family's house. That lady doesn't even care if I even existed as long as I do the stupid chores and she gets her monthly check. By the way, you have to stop calling her. You're only making it worse for me. You just keep making her angry."
Emma kept going. Regina watched as the blondes cheeks grew red and her features showed her worry. All Regina wanted to do was to fix everything for the blonde. She had obviously balled all of these emotions up for days. Then it dawned on Regina, it probably was the reason she didn't do her test.
Emma was still going in the background, "What if I get kicked out of school and sent to Juvie, again, or to another bad home. I can't do that again! You have no idea what I dealt with and can't allow that to push back another semester of school. Ever wonder why I am the top student? It's because I am forced to keep taking the same classes over and over because they magically don't transfer to other schools when you are forced to move. That's why I'm nineteen and still stuck in this hellhole, for the most part. I just want to get out of this school and move on with my life and hope for the best. If I let my emotions steer what I want, then it could ruin everything for me and you. You could go to jail. Then what?" Emma blabbed out.
Regina started to smile because Emma talked herself into a wall, "Am I just supposed to give into my feelings and kiss you?" The blonde asked. "Is that what you want?" Her chest heaving as she took in oxygen finally.
Regina smirked, "So you do want to kiss me?"
Emma frowned. She word vomited all over the place. Again, her mouth got ahead of her brain, and she confessed her feelings, basically, to Regina.
Regina turned to her filing cabinet and pulled out her black purse. She pulled out her keys to her Mercedes and turned to Emma. "Let's go."
"What?" Emma shook her head in confusion. "What do you mean? I think I made myself clear, there's too much at stake."
"I think we need to talk about this, but not here. I think you need to vent and tell me everything that's going on in that head of yours and you can't do that here. As you stated, someone could walk in and there would be consequences."
"There's no way I'm going to your house. I think we both know what would happen if we went there together."
"Fine then. Where do you suggest we go?"
Emma considered all the options and there really wasn't a place in their tiny town for them to talk. Anywhere they could go, a student could be.
Then it dawned on Emma. "I have a place."