Part 1 (1/2)

LEARNING CURVE.

DIANA HUNTER.

Chapter 1.

At eleven years old, Samantha wrote her first chapter story. The protagonists were detectives; two young girls who were tied up and put in a cage in the process of their investigation. Samantha was proud of her story and showed it to one of her cla.s.smates. The girl read only half the story before handing it back to Sam as if it were a disgusting dead rat.

”Ewwww! What kind of a mind would put girls in a cage?”

And so Sam learned that tying girls up and putting them in a cage was not ”right.” She quietly put away the ma.n.u.script, wondering what was inside her that had caused her to write a story her cla.s.smate had found so twisted. She never showed it to anyone else and she never, ever wrote anything like that ever again.

Samantha grew, becoming a respectable, self-a.s.sured young lady. Over the years, her eleven-year-old tomboy figure blossomed into that of a full-bodied young woman. She liked to wear her auburn-brown hair at shoulder length in a straight style she called a ”wash and walk.” Rarely did she wear makeup-she never had time for it. But the reality was, she didn't need it. While she would be the first to tell anyone she was not a ”looker,” she still garnered her share of second glances. But her schoolwork came first. In high school and then in college, she excelled, the very picture of a well-behaved and well-liked, if quiet, young woman.

But as her outward respectability grew, the fantasies she savored in her private dreams turned more and more s.e.xual. When lost in her daydreams, Sam lived in a different society-maybe in the future, maybe on another planet-the details were unimportant. In fact, society as a whole had only one major difference: a change in roles of women. On every street corner, in every public place, women were on display for s.e.xual use.

Oh, some women were free and roamed around, but not many of them. Those women in her fantasies were minor characters. No, she pictured herself among the majority-the women chained outside where their s.e.x was presented to any pa.s.sing man. Women who were naked. Open.

Sometimes Sam imagined her naked body pulled along the length of a single pole, her arms suspended above her; sometimes her arms were tied to the back of the pole, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushed out advertising her availability; sometimes her body was stretched between two poles in a strict bondage that did not allow movement, her outstretched arms matching her outstretched legs. That was the important part. In every daydream, in every position, her slender legs were open; her most private areas spread in a wide vee for any pa.s.sing stranger to use. She was a s.e.xual object-nothing more. Men came up and touched her, caressed her, exploited her body with no regard to her own thoughts or desires. She existed for one reason only-for the men to use. The dreams excited her at the same time she was ashamed of them.

But secret dreams they stayed. Throughout college, she dated many types of men and daydreamed about them afterward. With the public face that she presented, she knew she might as well have a sign hanging around her neck that said ”good girl.” And as everyone knows, good girls-don't. As a result, the outcome of every date was the same. Her date might kiss her at the door, but rarely pushed any further.

Only one guy in college had pressed her-only for one man had she let down her defenses a bit, although she never could bring herself to tell him her fantasies. Three wonderful months of what her mother would have called ”petting” ensued. But then he broke her heart. She was still a virgin, and her dreams of being treated as a s.e.xual commodity intensified.

Grad school began and Sam concentrated on her studies. A new fall semester lay ahead of her-her last one. With any luck, by December she'd be done with her cla.s.s work and could write her thesis. Most of her cla.s.ses were during the day, but one was offered only on Wednesday nights. Taking a seat close to the middle of the room, as was her custom, Sam took out her notebook and ran a critical eye over the other students. She had a habit of labeling each person that entered and chose a seat: serious, not-serious. The ”not-serious” types fell into two categories: generally just wasting Daddy's money, or looking for a husband. Sam knew where she, herself, belonged-and that was why she picked a seat second from the front, in the middle of the room. She was here to learn, not waste money or flirt.

While she was in the process of neatly writing the date for her notes in her book, a sudden change in the atmosphere of the room caused her to look up. For a moment, the electric hum in the air puzzled her, then she saw the reason-the most drop-dead gorgeous, brown-eyed, tanned, self-a.s.sured man she had ever seen. She heard the gasp from several of the husband-lookers in the back of the room and for once her own opinion agreed. Whoever wrote those romance novels and made all the men tall, dark and handsome obviously had this guy in mind. Wavy black hair curled over his ears and just touched the top of his collar. A fine nose hinted at an aristocratic bloodline; high, sharp cheekbones confirmed it. His clean-shaven jaw line showed not a hint of five o'clock shadow on his tanned skin. The man stood tall, not stooped over like so many tall men surrounded by their shorter counterparts. Sam didn't care if this guy was serious or not-serious. He was a work of art and it didn't matter. In spite of herself, stomach b.u.t.terflies flew into her throat as she watched his graceful saunter into the room.

The room was only about half full-there were lots of empty desks yet. Sam could hear the primping and jockeying in the rows behind her. With a barely hidden, disgusted glance in their direction, Sam turned to face the front of the room, pretending to ignore the gorgeous hunk, while still watching him out of the corner of her eye. She was secretly delighted when he sat in the row next to her-right beside her seat.

Now it was okay to give him a friendly smile one that said, ”I-see-you-are-a-serious-student-and-so-am-I-so-don't-get-any-ideas.” She turned, that smile already on her face, and fell deep into such beautiful dark brown eyes that her smile turned uncertain.

”I'm Peter,” he introduced himself, putting out his hand.

”Sam...er, Samantha,” she stammered, taking his hand in hers, absently noting the long, slender fingers and the firm handshake as her heart pounded to the beat of her sudden arousal.

Further conversation was cut off by the arrival of the professor, an old-school type who believed only in lecture. If you had questions, they were to wait till the end. With a great deal of difficulty, Sam put Peter' s presence out of her mind and concentrated on getting down all the notes.

The professor left immediately following his lecture; several students trailed after him to ask the inane questions they hadn't gotten to ask in cla.s.s. The husband-lookers from the back of the room converged on Peter Sam quietly gathered up her materials and prepared to leave.

She couldn't help but linger over the task, however. Was this the type of guy who ate up this type of feminine attention? Or would he politely, but firmly put them in their place? Then she heard the words she dreaded, ”Sorry, ladies-I have a girl already.”

She was out the door before her disappointment could show on her face.

The semester progressed quickly. Peter chose to sit beside her each Wednesday night and by the end of the first few cla.s.ses, the two had become friends. Student-friends, anyway. Their conversations rarely strayed from the cla.s.s at hand. He had a girlfriend and Sam was not about to interfere. That was not true for the husband-lookers, however. Each week several of them positioned themselves near him, smiling and dropping things on the floor so they'd have to bend over-waaay over-to pick them up. Their low-cut tops and short skirts left little to the imagination. Sam just rolled her eyes, but Peter was always polite to them, sometimes even retrieving the dropped object for them, returning it with a smile that had Sam considering dropping something herself.

This Wednesday night the professor returned a set of papers they'd turned in the week previous. He always handed them out face down; Sam turned hers over-a big, fat ”B.” Her shoulders slumped. Peter flipped his over-an ”A” -again. What was she doing wrong? Why didn't this professor like her papers?

”What's wrong?” Peter asked her at the end of cla.s.s.

”My paper. I just can't seem to write to what he wants. He's given me a 'B' on every one I've written!”

”Let me see it.” There was a no-nonsense tone in his usually jocular voice and Sam handed Peter the paper without thinking. He read it through and turned to her, a questioning look in his eye. ”Are you hungry? What do you say we go get a pizza and I can help you with your paper.”

Sam couldn't believe it. She had gotten, without even trying, what those floozies in the back of the room had been angling for all semester-a date with Peter. She shrugged her shoulders, feigning nonchalance even as her stomach did a small flip. ”Sure.”

She followed him in her car as he drove to a small, out-of-the-way pizzeria on the edge of town. Inside, the place was cozy; they chose a booth in the back, ordered, and he pulled out her paper. A soft light overhead cast a romantic glow over his patrician features and Sam's stomach did another one of those flips. They were becoming annoying.

Peter handed her his paper, the red ”A” prominent on the front. ”Read this,” he told her and again she complied without question. What was it about that tone of his? It was commanding yet inviting; authoritative in a nice way that made her want to just do what he said.

She read through it, her heart dropping. It was informative, but dry as dust. The facts were there, but there was no sense of style, no heart. Smiling weakly, she handed it back to him when she was done.

”What difference did you notice between my paper and yours?”

Sam hesitated. She didn't want to tell him his writing was boring and uninteresting. ”Well, you covered the material-all your facts were there. But I had all the facts right, too.”

”Yes...he prompted. ”But...”

”But you wrote yours like a textbook and I put more spirit in mine.” It was as tactful as she could manage.

He laughed out loud and Sam noted how the corners of his eyes crinkled into charming little crow's feet. ”You mean like a boring, old textbook, don't you?”

She smiled in relief. ”Yes, a dusty, boring old textbook.”

”I write these papers that way because that's what the professor wants. This one isn't interested in style and form-he wants the facts. Period. I get the 'A's' because I don't clutter the paper with elaborate sentence structure and fancy words.”

She wasn't sure if she'd just been insulted or not. The waiter brought them their drinks, so she was saved from an immediate response. Once he'd gone, Peter continued.

”Now, don't get me wrong. I liked your paper-and would much rather read that than the drivel I wrote. But I'm not giving you a grade, the professor is.”

Sam nodded, she had been in college long enough to know that most grades were achieved simply by guessing what the professors wanted and giving it to them. ”I can do that. I can write dry and dusty. I won't like it, but I can do it.” She sighed dramatically for emphasis and grinned at him.

He smiled at her and she noted how dark his eyes were in the dim light. Like dark pools one could just fall into...No. She brought herself up with a start. He had a girlfriend; she wasn't going to walk down that road. This was simply two people sharing a bite to eat and discussing their cla.s.s work.

”Your writing shows you have a wonderfully free sense of style-you create pictures with your facts that raises the information to a much more interesting level-a sensuous level,” Peter told her.

She practically spit her soda. ”Sensuous? Me? I mean, my writing? You've got to be kidding!”

”I'm not.” His tone was dead serious. ”Your grace with the language belies the studious woman who's been sitting next to me in cla.s.s, intent on taking notes. In fact, show me the notes you take.”

Looking at him doubtfully, she pulled out her notebook and opened it to the evening's pages. He got out his and put the two side-by-side. His hand brushed against hers and his fingers nipped playfully at the back of her hand. Sam's heart beat a little harder and when his hand closed around hers, she had to force herself to remain calm and keep a cool exterior image no matter how much she felt like melting and staring up at him with those doe eyes the flirts always used.