Teaching Is Bliss

August 18, 2007 – 10:00 am

It was Robert’s first semester at a local private university as
a music major.  All throughout high school, he had practiced the piano
diligently–it was all he cared about, and now finally he had a chance
to study music in a formal setting.  He was in heaven.  Except for the
one non-music class he had reluctantly been forced to take.

 If it were up to Robert, he would have spent his entire college
career immersed in music, with not a single credit hour taken in any
other field.  But the university had different ideas.  They required
him to take a minimum number of non-music credit hours to hopefully
turn him into a well-rounded human being, and not just a musical
machine.  Despite the wisdom of this approach, Robert resented it
deeply. 

 Consequently, his only non-music class, English 101, suffered
for his lack of attention.  He never seemed to be able to turn his
papers in on time, and they were usually poorly written.  This caused
Professor Marissa Kennan, his lovely young teacher, no end of
consternation.
 
 Marissa loved her job.  She loved the cadence of words, she
loved their structures, the way they could be made to dance together
in bright flowing rhythms that stimulated the mind and heart.  She
was, quite simply, passionate about the English language, and took
great pains to try to instill this passion in her students.  She
delighted in seeing her students learn to go beyond mere rudimentary
communication, into realms that explored the sheer delight of words
for their own sake.  She despaired when she couldn’t reach a student.
And in her six years of teaching, she had never encountered anyone who
cared less about the written word than Robert.

 Finally, after grading the latest in an endless series of
Robert’s miserably written papers, she resolved that she would do
something about it.  She was going to reach him if it was the last
thing she ever did.

 The next day, as she was handing back the graded papers to her
class, she stopped briefly at Robert’s desk and tapped firmly on the
paper she had just placed there.  Then she went on to the next desk.
Robert, who usually had his nose stuck in a piece of sheet music and
didn’t even bother to read her comments, put down his copy of Chopin’s
Polonaise and picked up the paper.

 “F,” it began in bright, red ink.  “Robert, you are in serious
danger of failing this class.  I have spoken to the dean of the music
department, and he is in agreement with me that your scholarship is
contingent upon academic performance as well as musical achievement.
Failing English may result in your scholarship being reduced or even
revoked.  If you have any desire to pass this class, be at my office
tonight at 7 pm, sharp.  Bring this paper with you”  Robert read the
words and a knot tightened in his stomach.  If his scholarship was
revoked, he’d never be able to afford the university tuition.  And so,
when 7 pm rolled around, he was knocking on Marissa’s office door.

 “Come in,” she said brusquely, and Robert opened the door.  She
was sitting behind her desk, which was surprisingly bare, reading a
copy of Arthur Miller’s _The Crucible_.  When she saw Robert, she set
the book down and clasped her hands together on the desk.

 “Good.  I’m glad to see that you’re concerned enough about
your future here to bother to see me.  Please, sit down.”  She
motioned toward a chair in front of her desk, and Robert nervously sat
down, his hands fiddling with his paper.

 “Professor Kennan,” he began, “I know I haven’t really done my
best in your class, but I promise I’ll do better.  I can’t lose my
scholarship.  Music is all I have.”

 Marissa smiled and leaned forward slightly.  “I’m afraid that
won’t work.  Even if you turn in stellar work for the remainder of the
semester, you will still fail.  I’m afraid that your only hope is to
improve your performance and take on a considerable amount of extra
credit work.

 Robert seemed genuinely dismayed by this.  “But Professor, I
have all the work I can handle now!  I have to practice four hours a
day, then there’s my music history class and choir–”

 She cut him off with a dismissive gesture.  “You aren’t in the
choir anymore.  I’ve discussed it with your dean.  He agrees with me
that this is more important.  You are going to use the time you would
have spent on choir to improve your performance in my class.”  She
stood and walked around the desk, approaching him.  He looked up at
her with wide eyes.  “You are going to do what I say, when I say, and
you’re going to do the best damn job you’re capable of, or I’m going
to fail you and you can figure out how to pay for next semester
yourself.  Do you understand?”

 Robert was breathing rapidly now as he looked up at her.  “Yes,
ma’am,” he finally said.  He was uncomfortably aware of how attractive
she was, and how she possessed an air of complete self-confidence.
Robert had never had the slightest shred of self-confidence, and to see
it so forcefully displayed in his professor was unnerving, to say the
least.

 “Stand up,” she said.  Robert did so quietly, holding the paper
in front of him as if it could act as a shield.  Marissa walked behind
him and slid the chair he had just vacated a few feet back.  She
turned to face him.  Robert felt uncomfortable, she was standing so
close.  He could smell her perfume, which mingled with the sweet scent
of her hair.

 “Do you want to pass my class?” she asked him.  “Are you
prepared to do anything I say?”

 Robert hesitated a moment, his thoughts cascading out of
control.  Finally, he bit his lip and answered, “yes, ma’am.”  She
took one more step toward him, her body almost pressing against his.

 “Strip,” she said.

 Robert gasped at this.  “I– I couldn’t–” he began.  He was
clutching his paper, subconsciously dismayed that it was not providing
him any sort of protection.  Marissa silenced him by gently touching a
finger to his lips.

 “Shhh,” she said.  “Do you want to pass my class?”  Robert
hesitated, then nodded.  She took the paper from his fidgeting hands
and set it on her desk.  “Then remove every stitch of clothing from
your body.  Hand each item to me as you take it off, and do it
quickly.”

 With a look of dismay, Robert began to strip himself.  He was
shaking from embarrassment as he exposed himself to this woman, who
would be able to easily see just how aroused her student was.  Robert
blushed as he handed item after item of clothing to her.  But he truly
felt mortified when he gripped his underwear and lowered it to the
floor, his erection popping out for her to see.  But she did not
change the expression on her face.  In fact, she did not even glance
down there, but calmly looked straight into his eyes the entire time.
Surprisingly, this fact reassured him, and he reluctantly turned over
the last vestige of his modesty to her.

 “Face the desk,” she commanded, and he did so, his body unable
to disobey.  She stepped behind him and touched his back.  She began
pushing gently, and he understood.  He bent his body until his torso
was draped over the desk, the troublesome paper before his eyes.  “Now
spread your legs.”  Robert did so until his upper half lay completely
flat against the desk.  His trembling became even more violent when
she touched his naked ass and begin lightly rubbing it with her hand.

 “These are the rules.  Your torso stays flat against the desk,
understand?”  Robert nodded vigorously.  “Your legs stay locked in
place, understand?”

 “Yes, ma’am,” was the quivering reply.

 “You are only allowed to move your hands, but not, of course,
to cover yourself.  Now take the paper in both hands.”  This he did
quickly, without complaint.  “What you are going to do for me, Robert,
is to read every word of your paper out loud.  What I am going to do
for you is to impress upon you how terrible this paper is while you
read.  Do we understand each other?”  Robert could only nod helplessly.
“Good.  Then begin.”

 Robert began to read the paper in a trembling voice.  He had not
even finished the first sentence when he felt her hand strike his left
asscheek sharply.  He flinched and almost stood up, but managed to
restrain himself.

 “Continue,” commanded Marissa.  Robert did so, and soon every
other word was punctuated with a sharp blow from her hand.  When he
finished the first paragraph, she told him to stop reading, but she
did not stop spanking him.  Instead, she lectured him on what he’d
done wrong.

 “Aside from the obvious and easily corrected grammatical
errors,” she said as her hand rose and fell continuously, “this is a
poor opening paragraph.  You have left the reader completely in the
dark as to the point of your paper.”  Robert moaned as her hand
continued its work.  “A solid opening paragraph should make the reader
aware of what you intend to discuss.  You don’t have to give
everything away in the first paragraph, but you must make it clear
what your point will be.  Otherwise, your paper is pointless.
Understand?”

 “Yes, ma’am!”  Robert gasped between blows.

 “Good.  Now continue.”

 They went through the entire paper this way, Marissa stopping
him after each paragraph and patiently explaining what he had done
wrong.  Not once did her hand ever falter, and by the end of the paper
his ass was a bright red, and there were tears in his eyes.  The tears
were more from shame than pain, but that didn’t make it any easier.

 When she was finished with her final correction, she rubbed
his ass gently and leaned over him, murmuring in his ear, “there,
there, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”  Robert shook his head, the tears
now flowing freely.  Marissa smiled at him and told him to stand.  She
handed back his clothes and watched as he put them on.

 “May I go now?” Robert asked when he was dressed.

 She smiled at him.  “No.  All I have done is told you what
you’ve done wrong and what you can do to improve.  Now comes the hard
part.  Now you need to learn to apply the things I have told you.
Come with me.”

 Shaken, Robert followed her out of the office.  His heart was
racing as they headed for the parking lot and approached her car.  She
opened the passenger door for him and closed it behind him when he was
seated.  Once she was at the wheel and the car was pulling out of the
parking lot, Robert closed his eyes and tried to relax.  He tried to
make sense of all the emotions that churned through his body, but he
couldn’t.  All he could do was keep his eyes closed and hope for this
roller coaster ride to end.

 Robert was startled out of his confused thoughts when he heard
Marissa say “we’re here.”  He opened his eyes and was startled to find
the car motionless, parked in a driveway.  The whole trip had gone by
unnoticed, so deeply had he retreated within himself.  He opened the
door, stumbled out of the car, and followed her up the concrete path
to her house.

 Marissa lived alone in a modest little house that was well cared
for.  She especially loved to work outdoors, and Robert admired the
roses and other beautiful flowers that adorned her yard.  He could
tell that she worked very hard at creating elegance.  The inside of
her house was no different.  It was not lavishly or expensively
furnished, but everything seemed to be balanced and in harmony with
everything else.  It seemed a place at once both earthy and sublime.
And then he noticed the piano.

 In the center of her living room stood a black Yamaha baby
grand piano.  Suddenly heedless of where and with whom he was, he
approached the piano and stared at it, lovingly caressing it.  He sat
down at the stool and opened it up, examining the polished keys.  Only
then did he remember his surroundings, and he looked at his professor.
“I didn’t know you played,” he said.

 She smiled at him.  “I play a little.  I love the sound of a
baby grand.  Why don’t you play something for me?”

 Robert was in his element now, and had relaxed somewhat.  “Sure,
Professor Kennan.  I’ve got a Bach Prelude and Fugue I’m working on
for a recital–”

 “No no,” she interrupted.  “Play something romantic.  Do you
know anything by Debussy?”

 He blushed a little at her words.  “Yes, ma’am.  Reverie.”

 “Mmmm, I like that one.  Play it for me.”

 Robert stared at her for a moment, once again noticing how
beautiful she was, then turned his attention to the piano.  He placed
his fingers on the keys and closed his eyes, breathing deeply while he
summoned up the music from inside.  Then he opened his eyes and began
to play.  The haunting music poured out of him.  He was in a state
where he didn’t even have to think about what his hands were doing.
They moved of their own accord, drawing an achingly sad sweetness from
the strings.  Marissa closed her eyes and felt herself become lost in
this world of his creation.

 When the last note faded, she approached him and sat on the
bench next to him.  “You put so much passion into that, Robert.”  She
sighed and took his hands in hers.  “So much passion.  Why can’t you
put that much passion into your writing?”

 Robert was quite flustered now.  “I–I don’t know, Professor–”
 She interrupted him again.  “Please, call me Marissa.”

 “I don’t know, Marissa.  I guess I just don’t feel the same way
about writing that I do about music.  It just doesn’t interest me very
much.”

 She smiled at him.  “I think with the right approach, you
could come very quickly to love the written word.”  She stood up.
“Follow me.”  She led him upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door.
Robert was trembling as she pulled him to her and kissed him.  He
started to put his arms around her, but she stopped him.  She turned
him around so that he faced her chest-of-drawers.

 “Do you see the rose?” she asked him.  There was a single,
perfect rose in a delicate crystal vase on top of the
chest-of-drawers.

 “Yes, ma’am–I mean, Marissa.”

 “Here are the rules.  No matter what I do, no matter what
happens to you, you are to stare at that rose.  You are not to let
anything distract you from that rose.  You can blink, but you are not
to close your eyes for more than a second or two.  You are to stay
completely focused on the rose.  I want you to examine it, to study
it.  I want you to notice as many little details about the rose as you
possibly can.  Do you understand?”

 He was shivering.  “Yes, Marissa.”

 Without another word, Marissa began slowly stripping the clothes
from his body, noticing every reaction he made.  She undid each button
of his shirt, kissing his neck as she did so.  His breath was hot and
rapid, and when she had stripped the shirt from his body, she pressed
her ear up against his chest to listen to his heartbeat.  She knelt
and unzipped his jeans, sliding them down his legs, letting her
fingers stop and caress and squeeze.  She smiled at the bulge in
Robert’s underwear, then kissed it.  Robert gave a little cry at that, but
he kept staring at the rose.

 Marissa left the underwear on him for the moment.  She stood,
bent over, and kissed his nipples.  Robert moaned and touched her hair.
At this, she stood up straight, grabbed his wrists, and placed them on
top of his head.  “Keep these here, understand?”  Robert nodded.

 Marissa stood behind him again, clawing gently at his back.  She
traced little figures with her tongue on his neck, and Robert could not
stop the moans that escaped his lips.  Lower and lower danced her
fingernails, making him undulate against his will.  Her fingers passed
between the elastic of his underwear and the smooth skin of his lower
back, and then she roughly grabbed an asscheek in each hand and
squeezed.

 For half an hour she tormented him like this, light caresses,
nibbles, her tongue tripping the nerve pathways of his passion, her
fingers sculpting his flesh.  And Robert lost himself in the beauty of
the rose.

 She gave him a hard swat to his still-clad ass, and whispered
in his ear.  “Ready to write, Robert?”  Robert groaned.  His cock was so
hard and so alive and so unsatisfied, and she had spent the past
half-hour stimulating everything else, and he needed to come more than
he needed to breathe, and she wanted him to write?

 But there was nothing to be done other than sit upon her bed
and accept the proffered notepad and pen.  He stared at her, almost as
if he were seeing her for the first time, noticing the few wayward
strands of raven hair that fell across her face, the purse of her
full, red lips, the delicate curves hinted at by her clothing.  He
watched her as she walked to the rose, her hips swaying ever so
gently.  She reached out and caressed the rose as she had caressed his
flesh, and he shivered in sympathetic resonance.

 “Robert, I want you to write about the rose.  And I don’t want
you to hold anything back.  Don’t force the words.  Don’t try to write
anything fancy, or imitate things you might have read, or write what
you think I want you to write.  I want you to write directly from the
heart.”  She turned and faced him.  “I want you to write in a rush.  I
want you to paint me a picture with words.  Not of the rose itself,
but of how you saw the rose.  I’ll return in ten minutes, and I expect
you to have poured your soul out on that paper.  Do you understand
me?”  She smiled ever so slightly as she said this, sending chills
down his spine.

 “Yes, Marissa.”

 With that, she left the room, closing the door behind her.
Robert sat for a minute, trying to collect his thoughts, trying to
ignore the throbbing between his legs that demanded his immediate
attention.  He tried to focus his concentration on the rose, how he
had felt about the rose as she was touching him.  He put his pen to
the paper and began to write.

 “It was something so beautiful,” he began.  “The rose called
to me, almost.  It was like a fire on top of your chest-of-drawers.
It felt like it would burn me.”  On and on, Robert let the words write
themselves until he was barely aware of what he was doing.  He lost
himself in this world almost as easily as he lost himself in his
music.  “And then it seemed like I was falling into the rose, and the
petals were opening up to hold me.”  It wasn’t the greatest prose ever
written, but it was infinitely better than what he usually wrote.  And
most importantly, for the first time in his life, he felt involved in
what he was writing.

 Robert didn’t even notice when Marissa returned.  Only when she
put her hand on his shoulder did he shake himself out of his reverie.
He looked up at her, smiling, and offered her the notebook.  She took
it from him and read, and Robert was amazed to see a single tear escape
her eye, trail its way down her cheek, and fall to the paper.
 Marissa set the notepad down.  “Oh, Robert, this is wonderful.”
Her voice was husky and full of emotion.  “You really opened yourself
up.  You infused your writing with passion.  I don’t care what you’ve
learned or will learn from any other teacher, writing without passion
is a waste of trees.  You’ve learned your most important lesson,
Robert.” 

 She leaned over and kissed him, probing his mouth with her
tongue, and then he pulled her on top of him, and their kisses became
deeper and more deeply felt, and Marissa quickly had her clothes on the
floor next to Robert’s, and Robert’s eager cock was released from its
cotton prison, and they began to flow together, to writhe together,
until the whole room was suffused with the sweet aromas and sounds of
passion.