One Plus Two Minus One Read Online Free PDF Page A

made her worry about time just that
little bit more.
    She had to be
where she wanted to be by forty, or it was all over. And from the age she’d started doing maths
properly, she had already been halfway there. She worried she was
wasting time on teaching when her mind was at its best, that she’d
never get this time back, and now she was horny instead of
thinking. She had to fuck this kid, or not fuck this kid, whichever
it was to get him out her system. One or the other. She couldn’t
afford the embarrassment he could be to her, but she also couldn’t
afford the distracted horny time.
    She tried to
work, but couldn’t think, so she marked assignments instead. She gave out a couple of large projects to cut
down the risk someone good would crack in an exam and completely
fail. With assignments, half the time she could just turn to the
back page and check they had the right answer, then give them full
points and go to the next. She gave out assignments where that
worked on purpose, so marking was quick. It was dull, but needed
doing.
    Halfway through she came to an assignment by
Ethan Wilson.
    She sat there and looked at it and wondered
what the little fuck was up to.
    She checked her class lists and he was in her
advanced crypto course, and had been coming to tutorials all
semester.
    She sat there for a moment, stunned.
    She should
pay more attention to her students. She
knew the best students by name, but Ethan was just below those. She
tried to remember, and was fairly sure he’d never asked a question,
good or bad, so she’d never noticed him before.
    She checked
his record. He was a maths and computer
science double major. Third year, in the pre-honors program. Doing
better at compsci than maths, but doing okay. He wasn’t her, he
wasn’t going to get one of the few academic jobs, but he wasn’t
going to end up a high-school teacher.
    She scrolled
up the page and found his date of birth. He was twenty-one. That made her feel a little
better.
    She wondered
what to do. She wanted to see him. She
wanted sex. She wanted more head like he’d given her, about a month
of that without doing anything else. But his being her student, in
her course, was very bad. It would be painfully complicated if
anything went wrong, and probably end up very public.
    If nothing else, she was pretty sure she
should be having someone else to mark his assignment, right
now.
    She looked at
the last page. He had everything
correct.
    She
thought. Right now, her wanting to fuck
him didn’t make any difference to his mark. So probably she should
fuck him. She could get someone else to look at his other work, she
supposed. Say there was a personal relationship, that he was a
family friend. She’d marked for someone else earlier in the year,
checking an exam against a model answer for a professor’s friend’s
son.
    After a while
she thought to herself that the worst was already done. If she hadn’t been too horny to work, and
marking this afternoon, she wouldn’t have noticed until later. So
it didn’t actually make any difference. She could fuck him tonight
then realize again tomorrow and nothing would actually
change.
    About five
she went and had a shower. The building
had a couple of toilets with bathrooms, so staff could bike in or
run at lunchtime. She had gym gear in the cupboard, including a
clean towel. She was still a little suspicious of what Ethan was
doing, and annoyed with him for not saying he was in her class. She
wasn’t sure what she was going to say if he turned up.
    She was back by twenty past, then sat at her
computer staring at the screen for half an hour wondering if he’d
turn up.
    At ten to six she got up and closed the
blinds.
    At two minutes to six someone tapped on her
door.
    She stood up,
and opened it. Ethan.
    “Hey,” he said.
    “You lied to me.”
    “Ah…” he said.
    “ By
omission,” she said. “It fucking
counts.”
    She’d been
making herself angry. She was almost going to tell him to fuck
off.