Teacher

I knew Professor Aníbal watched my body every time I said goodbye. That afternoon I walked into his classroom ready to use that look to my advantage, whatever it took.

I spotted her in the back of the bar and my heart lurched: it was her, the teacher who stole my sleep when I was just a kid. And this time I was no longer that child.

That night, while I was correcting his exercises in the hotel room, I felt his gaze fixed on me and knew I could no longer be just his teacher.

I found my friend trembling in the bathroom at that dinner. When I asked who had left her like that, I never imagined she’d say the name of our most feared professor.

When I walked into that attic with the ropes hanging from the beams, I understood that night would no longer belong to me.

She trusted her blindly, which is why she didn’t ask where they were going when the car left the highway and headed for the coast with the professor in the back seat.

I thought the hardest thing of the year would be passing my English exam. I was wrong: the hardest thing was hiding how badly I wanted the woman teaching me.

I had been away from her for a week and, the moment I stepped through her front door, I knew that lesson wasn’t going to be about any exam.

I thought I had her cornered against the wall. It took me one second to understand that the only one trapped in that empty house was me.

For months I’d imagined that scene in her office, but I never thought it would be her who made the first move, with the lock clicked shut and her perfume filling everything.

When I passed the half-open bathroom door and saw her naked from behind, I knew that night at my place wouldn’t end with two old acquaintances drinking tea.

I thought I was alone correcting my texts, until her hand settled on my leg and I understood the break would last much longer than expected.

Each excuse she gave my fiancé was more elaborate than the last. I left that office trembling, aching, and with a smile I couldn’t hide.

A single photograph on the studio wall was enough for the professor to realize he could never look at her as just a student again.

I promised my friend I wouldn’t touch his little sister. What I didn’t tell him is that his best friend kept sitting next to me in every class, too close to focus on the numbers.

I thought I was the most disciplined man at the faculty. Then she leaned against the empty classroom door and made it clear she knew everything I hid.

We both wanted him from the very first class, but we never imagined he’d be the one to ask us to choose between forgetting him or moving into his house.

He offered him a drink with a mischievous smile and a wink, and in that instant the professor knew the distance between them was about to disappear.

For weeks I’d been admiring her feet from the back row. The day she slipped off her sandals and pinned me with her gaze, I knew there was no turning back.

She arrived in the arena like a semiprofessional with perfect manners. Three lessons later, she was the one putting the crop in my hand and telling me not to go easy.