My workshop teacher waited for me in the empty classroom

It was a Wednesday in midmorning and the writing workshop had just ended. Almost everyone had gone out to the academy’s inner courtyard to smoke and stretch their legs, but I stayed in the classroom. I had two exercises overdue and preferred to get them done in silence before the chairs filled up again.

I wasn’t alone. Mariana, the teacher, was still seated at her desk, reviewing a stack of papers with a red pen between her fingers. She must have been around thirty-two, maybe a little older, and she was one of those women it’s hard not to stare at without making it obvious.

I looked up just as she did. We exchanged a quick smile, the kind that means nothing and everything at once. I lowered my head back to my notebook, but I wasn’t reading anything anymore.

I’ve been pretending for weeks that this doesn’t happen to me with her.

It had all started a couple of months earlier, when one rainy afternoon she offered to drive me home because I didn’t have an umbrella. She repeated it several times a week, always with some convenient excuse, until it became a habit. Then came a stretch when I would leave with my classmates and watch her drive away alone in her car, and something in me would feel unsettled every time.

—You didn’t go out today —she said all of a sudden, without getting up.

I set the pencil on the desk and looked up.

—I always see you wandering around the courtyard during break —she went on—. And this time you’re here.

—I have exercises pending —I replied—. I preferred to get ahead while there was silence, teacher.

—Mariana —she corrected me, with amused patience—. I already told you: when we’re alone, you can call me by my name.

I smiled, a little embarrassed, and felt the heat rise to my cheeks.

—Sorry, Mariana. I just got used to calling you teacher.

—It’s fine. —She set down the pen and pushed the papers aside—. Put that away for a moment and come, keep me company. I was going to eat something and I don’t like doing it alone.

She nodded toward her desk. Without thinking too much, I dragged a chair closer to hers and sat down. She took out a small container of fruit and another with a salad, and offered me half as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

—You look very good today —she commented, glancing at me as she opened the container.

—Thanks —I said—. You do too.

I returned her a brief smile and she held it a second too long. The classroom was in one of the building’s older wings, far from the main courtyard, and I knew no one would show up there until the bell rang. That certainty made me nervous in a new way.

Mariana kept talking about random things, about a book she was reading, about a trip she planned to take in the summer. I nodded and ate slowly, paying more attention to her voice than to her words. Then I felt her hand settle on my leg, just above the knee, and my whole skin prickled.

—You know something? —she said, lowering her tone a little—. From the first day, I thought you were a beautiful woman.

—Really? —My voice barely came out.

—Of course. It would take a very distracted person not to notice.

She let out a soft laugh and let her fingers trace a slow path along my thigh, over the fabric of my pants. I didn’t pull my leg away. I didn’t want to. Our faces found each other almost without deciding to, and in an instant her mouth was against mine.

It took me a moment to react. Then I kissed her back, and it was like releasing something I’d been holding in for months. Her lips were warm and precise, and she kissed without haste, as if we had the whole morning ahead of us.

—I’ve been imagining this for too long —she murmured against my lips.

—Me too —I confessed, and the word escaped me almost out of breath.

I stood up from the chair and sat on top of her, astride, without breaking my mouth away from hers. Her hands slid down my back until they gripped me, and she held me with a firmness that made me tremble. I clung to her shoulders, feeling our bodies find their own rhythm.

—What if someone comes in? —I asked, more out of habit than real fear.

—No one comes to this wing —she replied, smiling against my neck—. I know it by heart. That’s why I choose this classroom.

That answer made it clear: she had thought about this before I had. She began kissing my neck, slowly, and I let my head fall back to give her more room. Each kiss left me with a heat that spread all through my body.

Her hands guided my hips in a slow sway, rubbing me against her, and my moans were smothered against her skin. I could feel her breathing quicken at the same time as mine, and that excited me even more than her caresses.

—You’re much bolder than you seem —she said, barely biting my earlobe.

—Only with you —I replied, and it was true.

I fumbled with the first buttons of her blouse and slipped my hand inside, feeling her chest rise and fall beneath my palm. She did the same, opening my shirt just enough to reach my skin, and the touch of her fingers on my breasts drew out a sigh I had to swallow.

The classroom smelled of old paper and her perfume, a mix that stayed engraved in me forever. Through the half-open window came the distant murmur of the courtyard, the others’ voices, and that distance made everything happening between us seem even more secret. I closed my eyes every time her mouth found a new place on my neck.

—Relax —she whispered—. Slowly. We don’t have to rush.

But we both knew we did have to rush. The bell could ring at any moment, and she knew it better than anyone. Maybe that’s why, when her hand slid down my belly and slipped under the waistband of my pants, there was no more pretense.

I stopped for a second when her fingers reached between my legs and found me wet, and I moaned her name before I could stop myself.

—Look at you —she said, her voice rough—. You’re soaking. Is all this for me?

—Yes —I admitted, breathless.

—And are you going to behave? —she asked, grazing me with a slowness that drove me crazy.

—Yes. I’m going to behave.

I was breathing so hard the words came out with effort, but I said them anyway, because she seemed to need to hear them. She began to move against me, gentle at first, with a rhythm that made me dig my fingers into her shoulders. Each caress was a promise of the next one.

I knew I wasn’t going to last long. My stomach was tightening, the heat was concentrating in a spot she touched over and over, and all I could do was cling to her body and bite my lip not to scream. She noticed and sped up, reading every reaction of mine the way she read our texts: with an attention that let nothing slip by.

—That’s it —she murmured against my neck—. Let go. No one can hear us here.

I couldn’t hold back anymore. The orgasm ran through me and I moaned her name against her shoulder, trembling, while she held me with a firm arm around my waist. I stayed leaning on her for a few seconds, weak, feeling her kiss my temple with a tenderness that contrasted with everything before.

—You’ve been an excellent student this morning —she said, smiling—. I hope we do this again.

—As many times as you want, Mariana.

She left a short kiss on my lips and, slowly, brought her fingers to my mouth. I accepted them without looking away from her, tasting myself on her skin, and saw her eyes darken again.

The bell rang right then, far away, as if it belonged to another world. I got off her lap reluctantly and started straightening my clothes with still unsteady hands. She buttoned her blouse with enviable calm and gathered the papers we had set aside, as if nothing had happened.

—Go back to your seat —she said in a low voice—. And wipe that smile off your face, because it shows too much.

I couldn’t wipe it off. I went back to my chair just as the first classmates came in talking about the break, oblivious to everything, and I lowered my head over my notebook so no one would see the color in my cheeks.

***

When we left, Mariana offered to drive me home again, and this time no one had to insist. Instead of going straight there, we stayed talking for a while in a small square a few streets from my building, with the windows down and the afternoon falling slowly over the trees.

We talked about things that had nothing to do with what had happened in the classroom, and at the same time about nothing else. She told me she had been wondering for a while whether to say something to me, that she had almost done it on every one of those rainy car rides, and that only the fear of getting it wrong had held her back. I listened to her while looking at her hands on the steering wheel, those same hands, and thought I wished she had dared sooner.

Before getting out of the car, I handed her my number written on a corner of paper and gave her a short kiss, different from the one in the morning: slower, less urgent, more mine.

—See you soon —she said, putting the paper in her pocket—. Next time I want it somewhere we don’t have to be watching the bell.

—I hope so —I replied—. I’m going to be counting the days.

And, with nothing more, I got out of the car and walked home with a smile I couldn’t shake, knowing that what I had kept quiet for so long finally had a name, and that name was hers.