This is another Deirdre tribute story from 1994. Enjoy!

I was going to fail biology. It hadn’t happened yet, and I normally was an outstanding student, but a third of the way through the semester I could sense how things were going to turn out. So when the first low grade notice arrived in the mail, I was speechless but not surprised.

There was just no way I could articulate the problem. “Well Mom, it’s all Ms. Cortez’s fault. If she wasn’t such a slut I’d be able to concentrate.” Even if it were true, I couldn’t say it — and I wasn’t even sure it was true. It wasn’t anything she ever said, or did, it just happened to be the case that I couldn’t concentrate in her classroom.

I’d hurry to my seat and scoot the chair in tight against the lab table so the bulge in my crotch wouldn’t show. Then I’d try to study my text, or specimen, or whatever, but inevitably I’d find myself watching her. I’d scrutinize her tight knit skirts and wonder if the hem would slide up enough to see anything if she’d spread her legs just the tiniest bit more — we’d heard about perfectly frictionless surfaces in physics, and Ms. Cortez’s long, sleek legs had to be the closest thing there was in nature. I’d stare at her jutting breasts and try to figure if the lack of strap bulges meant she wasn’t wearing a bra, or the firmness and shapeliness meant she was.

But mostly I’d wonder if it was my imagination working overtime when it seemed she was looking right at me those times when she’d moisten her ruby lips with languorous swipes with the velvet tip of her pink tongue. Then I’d agonize over whether I’d be able to hold out long enough to make it to the bathroom and jerk off instead of coming in my pants; I didn’t, always. Coursework was a distant also-ran.

Sure, I knew the text forwards and backwards. But it didn’t help when my mind froze up during the written tests, or when my hands decided to draw pornographic sketches of Ms. Cortez instead of the sample under the microscope and I’d have to rush to have decidedly second-rate replacement work done by the end of the period. And it didn’t help at all that Ms. Cortez, realizing I was having trouble, gave me a little more attention than the rest of the students. Frankly I considered myself lucky to be pulling a D instead of an F.

The upshot of all this was that I was facing the dubious prospect of a parent-teacher conference for the first time in my distinguished academic career. My less capable sisters delighted in teasing me about my predicament, glad they could get one up on the surrogate man of the house. Alicia, who couldn’t be bothered to do anything that interfered with her cheerleading or chasing varsity lettermen, took particular pleasure in razzing me — biology had been the only class she’d ever gotten better than a B- in.

Mom groused about how she had enough problems at work without having to take time away for this meeting. Naturally that day turned out to be one of the ones where I lost it during class.