Mark Twain once said, "There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable." While, I don't know to what he intended in this moment, I'm now sure he knew what the hell he was talking about.
Falling for Penny was a lot like falling down the rabbit hole into Wonder Land. In all her glory she represented a newness of life, I'd almost forgotten within myself. I'd been too conditioned as I'd grown up, too molded by life and circumstance, that I'd almost completely lost who I was—Reed Thomas, the person. Of course, I didn't realize this until I became caught up in this forbidden situation.
Everything about our lives was completely different. I, an introvert, with a taste for Rock sprinkled in with the softer sounds of Bob Dylan and James Taylor. She, a bubbly extrovert, not yet desecrated by the world's desire for her. And, if such desire appeared, she ever so swiftly and elegantly told it to 'fuck off'. Penny's nineteen years of life lived vivaciously, everything I'd always wanted to be, struggled to be. I cared too much; she didn't care at all about much of anything. She was a feather in the wind, like the closing scene ofForest Gump, floating without a care in the world to her next destination.
Since I didn't live near campus, I wasn't worried about having her over to my apartment. The chances of us being seen together were slim, and even if we were, we'd decided we'd write it off as "tutoring". With midterms on dock and finals approaching, no one would question it.
Even the top students were gathering every bit of help they could muster in preparation.
The sex was amazing. The only place she didn't take charge in life was in the bedroom. Instead, she gave that gift to me. Maybe in some subtle way she was teaching me to take charge of life myself, or perhaps the English teacher in me was grasping for more than was actually there. Regardless, before I knew it, she'd captured me.
Our favorite past time was drinking Starbucks lattes in the park after dark, counting the stars, finding constellations, and creating our own. At Penny's age I'd been an amateur astronomer of sorts, or at least I thought I was, so I enjoyed pointing out the ones everyone wanted to see: the "Big Dipper", "Little Dipper", and Orion.
Penny would nestle close to me, allowing me to cradle her head in the recess of my shoulder, as she watched the sky with such wonder, much like a child seeing the world for the first time. Everything around us so large, bringing awareness to our finite puniness.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes I can still see the way her eyes sparkled when we first kissed and feel the heat of her body against me, molding me, pulling me deeper and deeper. In those minutes together, where hours faded like seconds, Penny and I learned how to live. I began to see my place in the world, as if I were the king of this suburban castle we called Salisbury. Yet, Penny was beginning to see the magnitude of this world, the majority of which, was unturned and untouched by her finger tips.
The best part about Penny, if I had to pick one, was probably the fact she never spoke a single word about our tryst. Whether that was more for my protection or her own, I may never know, but looking back, I amaze myself at how it all played out. The way we were miraculously able to act perfectly normal during the 10 o'clock hour of my Creative Writing class, but the moment class dismissed, we were tangled again.
"I never thought in a million years this could happen," she laughed one evening as we sipped tea in the dining room. "That I could be here...with you. As cliché as it sounds, it's true."
I chuckled. "Well, in all fairness, Penny, I never thought this could or would happen either." I raised my eyebrows. "But, curve balls happen."
"Yes, they do," she concurred.
"Speaking of curve balls, how is your story coming?" "It's not exactly something I can share with the class." "Why not?"
"Well, it's not so much fiction, for one, and for two, I'm afraid people will put things together with the whole motive of the story. The teacher-student relationship, you know."
"I understand that, but at the same time, writers write about all kinds of things. We have students who create gay main characters even though they themselves are not gay. Sometimes the people who write about drug, sex, and violence are actually the innocent ones. Maybe you could change the names?" I chuckled preemptively. "I wouldn't mind being transformed into, uh, Matthew McConaughey or something."
"I know, Dr.—erhm, Reed."
"I haven't read your latest version. I'd like to take a look at it, and see what you took away from our last Writer's Circle."
"You don't need to read it," she smiled. "You're kinda living it."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
