tutoring

The bell split the lesson in two, and Emma snapped her notebook shut as if the rest of the day were already decided.

"Come on, let's go get a coffee," Emma said.

I froze. Had she just asked me on a date, my thoughts raced. Well, as well as they could, given the acute lack of blood in my brain. I stared after her like an idiot.

Emma stopped at the door and turned back to me. "Are you coming?"

I stuffed the books into my bag and stood up carefully. The fabric between my legs was still uncomfortable, warm, too tight, and I just hoped no one could see it. Emma waited at the door, her backpack over one shoulder, her hair sitting perfectly, as if the day had barely touched her.

The hallway was noisy. Lockers, laughter, someone calling her name. She raised her hand but stayed beside me. The scent of roses and spring pushed through the corridor every time she stepped a little closer. I breathed in through my nose and regretted it immediately.

Outside the school she didn't turn toward the bus, but into the little side street. The café sat almost against the school building, with narrow windows, a chalkboard outside, and the smell of coffee and warm milk foam inside. The sun had long since passed its zenith and was drifting slowly westward.

"In the back," Emma said as a bell above the door greeted us. "There's space."

The waitress behind the counter looked up and grinned at once. One of Emma's circle, maybe even from our year, apron over her T-shirt, pen already in hand.

"Hey Emma, the usual?" she called over.

Emma just laughed and waved. "Two tables in the back, yeah?"

"It's free. You know the way."

It was quieter in the back. The music stayed up by the counter, and the big window seats at the front were partly taken, but in the back there was almost no one. Emma pushed two tables together as if the café belonged to her and spread out notebooks, pens, and the physics book. The sight of the physics book dampened my original euphoria a little, but what had I been thinking anyway, that Emma, of all people, would ask me on a café date?

I sat down diagonally across from her, close enough that our knees could find each other under the table, and tried to pull the backpack onto my lap so it would hide what the fabric didn't.

Then the waitress came out from behind the counter and brought Emma an iced coffee in a cocktail glass with a straw. She looked at me. I was sure she was from the year below us, but I didn't know her name. "What can I get you?" Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she watched me wrestle with my backpack.

"Just a water, thanks," comes out immediately.

She grinned and disappeared again. I put the backpack down beside my chair after all and looked over at Emma.

"Calculus," she said, sliding the sheet toward me while already taking the straw between her lips. "These ones. And please not at the pace from earlier. I want to understand it. Not just copy it down."

"Okay."

My voice sounded more normal than I felt. I straightened the notebook and started with the basics, as if the chain rule and derivatives could save me. For a while it even worked. I explained, she listened, her brow faintly furrowed, fully on the work. Sometimes she nodded, bit the inside of her lip, and copied down the step. When she got stuck, she tapped the pen against my hand and left the touch there a second longer than necessary.

In between she drew on the straw. Not hurriedly. Slowly. Her tongue pressed against the plastic, circled once, let the straw slide a little out of her mouth and took it back in, as if she were thinking about the problem. I should have looked away. I didn't do it in time.

"Again," she said on the third problem and tapped my knuckles. "But look at me while you say it."

I looked at her.

That was a mistake.

Her eyes were bright and attentive, too close for a café full of people. A few freckles across her nose. The straw gleamed wet between her lips. I repeated the formula and heard myself stumble. Emma smiled, just briefly, only a corner of her mouth, and in the same moment she pushed her knee against mine, so casually you could have taken it for a lack of space.

"See. There you go." She leaned over the paper and ran the pen along the line, her fingers almost brushing mine. "You can do this. You just always act like you're somewhere else."

"I'm not."

"Mhm."

We kept working. Outside, the sun drifted farther west. Up front someone I knew from class laughed. Under the table, Emma's knee stayed. Now and then she brushed my forearm when she shifted the notebook. Or she let the tip of her foot touch my leg while she drew on the straw and acted as if all her attention belonged to the next problem. Each contact was so slight you could have explained it away. Inside me it was still enough. My cock was so full, so heavy, that thinking felt like moving through cotton. I explained the same basic step twice and only noticed when Emma giggled quietly.

After an hour she exhaled as if she had set something heavy down and closed the notebook, but not all the way. A finger stayed between the pages.

"That one's sitting. At least for today." She looked at me, calm, almost serious. " John, that was good. Drinks are on me. What do you think about doing this again and making it a kind of regular tutoring? I know I'm not completely useless, but I want to study medicine and as you know you need a straight-A average for that. I don't have that in math and physics yet. You do. What do you think about twice a week?"

I turned the pen between my fingers and tried to find a clear sentence. Somewhere inside me the list was already pushing forward. Household. Training. The things Loona expected of me, plus cooking, cleaning, functioning. And in between twice a week Emma, that knee, that straw, that scent of roses.

"That's… a lot."

"Not for you." Her gaze stayed steady, and underneath it lay that familiar matter-of-factness with which Emma got things without having to fight hard for them. "You can do this in your sleep. I can't, and I'm not asking just anyone. I'm asking you."

My cock throbbed so heavily against the fabric that for a moment that was all I heard. The waitress called something toward the counter. Emma's straw clicked softly against the glass.

"Y-yeah," I stuttered. "Works. Twice. Works."

Emma's eyes lit up; she was practically glowing from the inside.

"Good." She bumped my arm playfully and left her hand there a moment longer. "Then put it in your calendar. As an appointment. Not as a favor you get to forget."

"As an appointment."

"Exactly." She drew on the straw again, her tongue sliding over the plastic. "Thank you. Really."

The hug came after that, brief, from the side, between two pushed-together tables and the smell of coffee. Roses. Warmth. Her chin on my shoulder. I held her loosely, because tighter would have been wrong, and still felt everything in me pull tight again.

Then she let go, waved to the waitress, and left me with the notebooks and a yes that would be hard to fit into a schedule that was already full. Twice a week, about an hour each. Fine. I would manage that. Whether I would manage it without jerking off was another question.

The waitress came to the back and checked on things. "Can I help you? Do you want anything else?" she asked me. Her gaze slid down me and caught on the bulge in my pants, which was by now clearly visible. Blood rushed into my ears and my face grew noticeably warmer.

"No, thanks. I'm fine, thanks." I stuffed my things into my bag quickly and left the shop.