I should have shown some compassion. At least I should have held back my sarcastic comments and kept from twisting the knife in Anne’s wound. In hindsight, I was a lousy friend to her, and the outcome of the whole thing makes my guilty conscience even worse. But back then I was tipsy after the one or other glass of wine too many, and when Anne had confessed that she had licked the pussy of Mrs. Harding, our - old, grey-haired, wrinkled, stern, no-nonsense and usually compared to a dried-out crow - maths professor, my first reaction was to bellow with laughter.

I thought she was having me on. But when serious tears started to trickle down her cheeks and her face turned into a picture of utter dismay, I realized that she was serious. Not that this insight made the whole thing any less hilarious in my eyes, and when Anne mumbled something about being seduced, I toppled over with laughter. “Seduced?” I quipped, and even at her hurt look, I still couldn’t control my tongue. “You mean she squeezed your tit, or what?”

Actually, that was the moment she stopped talking to me. The few nights she slept in our dorm room after that event, she came in late and left early. I tried to string up a conversation a number of times, but she ignored me. I knew I’d have some serious groveling ahead of me, and I don’t mean metaphorically. I had a bit of a bad conscience, I admit. But I was too caught up in day-to-day events to really waste too many thoughts.

Until that one evening when I came back to the dorm room, turned on the light and found one of the two comfy chairs in front of the telly occupied. I stopped mid-step, barely registering the dry click of the door swinging shut behind me. There, clad in a moss-green dress with a deep v-neck, was Mrs. Harding, looking me up and down with calculating eyes.

“It’s about time,” she remarked with a nonchalant glance at her wristwatch.

“What,” I managed to stammer after a few seconds, “what are you doing in my room?”

“I’ve been waiting for you. Anne gave me her keys.”

“So you and she really…”

If the question made her uncomfortable, she didn’t let on. Instead, she patted the armrest next to her. “Come here, it’s not productive to talk across the room.”

The confident way in which she, the stranger, offered me a place in my own room immediately sent my blood boiling. That she expected me to sit next to her on the armrest like a child added to the insult.

“No thank you,” I said, plopping down in the other chair, “now what do you want?”

“Oh my,” she sighed, “courtesy and manners are really a lost art nowadays. That’s especially sad with beautiful girls like you.”

She had her legs crossed, and one foot, clad in a high-heeled, fashionable shoe that exposed her bright red toes, was rocking up and down. It annoyed me. “What,” I ground out through my teeth, “do you want?”

“You weren’t a good friend to Anne when she told you of our - tête-à-tête, were you?”

“That’s Anne and my problem, not yours. We’re both of age.”

“Oh but it is. I can’t help but feel responsible. I’ve taken advantage of your friend, and without someone else to talk about this, you were her only option to share her qualms with.”

“So you’re here to give me a bad conscience and make me apologize?” I chuckled to emphasize my opinion of that.

She had her hand in front of her and tilted it to the sides, as if watching her nails for imperfections. “Oh no, not at all. I’m here to introduce you to the other side of the coin. I’m here to seduce you.”

That sentence made me laugh out loud. “Seduce me? You’re ape-shit crazy.”

Whatever response I had expected, it wasn’t the bright smile she sent me. “I’d have used a little less, let’s say, modern, terms, but I’ve heard similar sentiments before.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” I challenged her, curious to see where she was going with that absurd notion.

“Oh, a seduction usually runs along a fixed pattern. The first part is to do something unexpected.”

“I see. Like waiting in the dark.”

She smiled. “Exactly. That first moment of catching someone off-balance is important to be able to establish the correct direction.”

“And that direction was…” I let my voice trail off and lifted an eyebrow.

“To get you in the chair. If you had kept standing, you’d either have left the room yourself or kicked me out.”

“But I didn’t sit on the armrest.” I threw back my first trump card.

“I never expected you to. But the moment I tried to get so personal, sitting across from me was the lesser evil.”

This was the moment I felt a short prick of unease, and I had to counter her manipulation. “You’re forgetting one important thing,” I told her with a grin. The condescending way in which she tilted her head and smiled almost made me jump from my chair and attack her.

“That you’re not a lesbian?” She made a dismissive gesture. “Male, female, hetero, homo, it doesn’t matter in the big picture.”

“We’re not talking about the big picture.”

“Oh, but we are. Seduction is always a big game in a big picture. See, you are almost ready to get physical with me. Even if it is out of aggression. Now we’ll only have to steer the energy into a different kind of emotion.” She stood from the chair and began to roam around the room with a thoughtful expression, and the way she bit her lip made me smile. I could see that she had to work had to solve her predicament.

Two could play mind games. I waited until she had her back turned to me. “But how would you do that?” I feigned curiosity.

My question seemed to startle her, and she stopped right in front of me. Her eyes were twinkling when she turned around. “Good,” she cooed, “you’re looking up at me now. So we’re establishing the power balance.”

Another prick of unease, but I wouldn’t fold to her psycho-game, I really wanted to see where she was going with this. “And what comes next?”

Her reaction took me by surprise. Quick like lightning, her knee had pushed itself between my legs and onto the chair, and her outstretched arms leaned on the backrest. Her face was right next to mine, and when she spoke, I could feel her hot breath brush my cheek. “Invading your personal space,” she told me with little more than a whisper, making me feel rather uncomfortable. “Does your heartbeat quicken? Do your hands get slightly sweaty?”

My lack of reply spoke for itself.

“If you looked down now, you’d see that I’m not wearing a bra,” her voice continued, “but you’re of course not interested in seeing my pretty, big nipples.”

“No, I’m not!” This was getting too much, and I contemplated how I could extricate myself from this situation.

“Touch me!” She suddenly demanded, and I shrank back into the chair.

A giggle filled my ears that made her sound a lot younger than her fifty-plus years.

“Oh,” she cooed, “you’re so easy. Just a second ago you thought about pushing me away, but now that I asked you to touch me, you’ll do anything but put your hands on me.”

I was getting claustrophobic. I wanted to end this. My feeling of dread shot up into the clouds.

“It’s already too late now, honey. But don’t you want to know what comes next?”

My mouth was dry, and I had to swallow a few times until I could answer, goosebumps from the touch of her breath still tickling my cheek and her sweet, heady perfume filling my nostrils. “What - what comes next?”

“I compliment you. You’re such a beautiful girl. You’ve got such pretty blonde hair, with an endearing glint of red when the sun touches it.”

Hardly anybody noticed that I had a tiny bit of red in my natural hair color. Had she been watching me?

“Your arms and legs and trained and delicately formed, and your narrow ankles and wrists are so feminine. You’re born to wear high-heeled shoes. You’ve got a slim waist, a tight bum, and a chest that the boys can’t keep their eyes away from.”

Something about her voice was becoming almost hypnotic, and I had to blink a few times to stay focused. In a strange way, I loved it how she complimented me, an experienced woman and not just a same-aged friend who would tell me what I wanted to hear.

“But most of all,” she continued, “you’re clever. You like to analyze people, and you do that well, even if it is mostly from a distance.”

My breath hitched. I prided myself over my skills in reading people, and I was hardly ever wrong in that. But that was not something I had ever talked to anybody about. “How?”

“I see your eyes. I see you standing at the side and watching your peers. I notice how you always leave before trouble starts. You’re an interesting personality.”

“Still,” I croaked.

“I’m not arousing you? Because I haven’t started planting the right images. But I was once just as young as were, self-assured, but still quite gullible. I thought of myself as quite straight too. Until I was seduced by roommate, a pretty, dark-skinned girl a year older than me, after a few glasses of champagne. She introduced me to the pleasure of having a knowing female tongue stir up the most exquisite emotions between my legs, and to enjoy giving the same in reverse. There’s nothing more rewarding than tasting and feeling the arousal rise under my lips, feeling her folds swell and the heat increase with every lick of my tongue. She taught me to enjoy the salty taste of passionate sweat, and to worship a female breast, to draw forth the most delicate feelings and rawest passions just by kissing and nibbling her nipples.”

Try as I might, my breathing started to quicken while I listened to her poetic descriptions. Consciously, I was quite aware what she was doing. Still, the images she painted slipped through my resistance like water through a sieve, and I could feel a heat between my legs that I desperately tried to ignore.

“That’s not all. My roommate, Calliope was her name, introduced me to her circle of friends. Men, women, old ones, young ones, it didn’t matter, and we let them have us, alone and together.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. So much for the stuck-up and holy label people had attached to her.

“I learned to enjoy the crispness and enthusiasm of youth as much as the ripeness and experience of age, but I enjoyed every cock that stretched the walls of my sex and every tongue that dove into my slick folds equally.”

Suddenly her face was right in front of me, her eyes were filled with lust and need, mirroring my own, and her lips were full and glistening. Something in my perception shifted, and within the blink of an eye I didn’t see the strict, old professor anymore, instead there was a woman, experienced and intelligent, who had noticed facets of me that nobody else had before.

“Christine,” she whispered, her breath traveling hot over my lips. Nobody had called me by my full name in ages. “Such a beautiful, sweet, elegant name.”

I tried to lean forward, to capture her lips with mine, but she escaped my clumsy attempt. Instead, she hooked her index finger in the neckline of shirt and gave me just a tiny pull forward. It was enough make me lose my balance, and I stumbled and fell to my knees. But that was what she had planned all along. With a quick gesture, her dress was brushed off her shoulders and fell to the floor, exposing a tanned, womanly body with slightly saggy breasts but proudly erect nipples, and a puffy pussy, her inner lips cheekily poking out like rose petals and only a strip of hair above it. It suddenly looked incredibly inviting.

I hesitated a moment, but when she didn’t move, I slowly bent forward, my heart hammering like mad, planted my lips against it and kissed it, slowly and tenderly, her flesh warm and soft and her taste like a sweet, ripe, slightly bitter wine.

“Oh yes,” she moaned above me, “that’s how it’s done, that’s what I came here for. Don’t stop. Show your friend how eager you are to lick my pussy. How easily you are seduced.”

I didn’t stop. Not even when I saw the bathroom door open from the corner of my eyes and Anne step into the light, although my heart almost burst with the intensity of the moment.

I only stopped after Mrs. Harding had climaxed, shaking and moaning, her fingers pulling on my hair and rubbing her gushing sex all over me. When she fell into the chair to get back her breath, I knelt before Anne, my face wet with Mrs. Harding’s juices and my heart full of regret.

“I’m so sorry, Anne,” I pleaded, “I’ve been such a cruel bitch to you. How can I ever make up for that?”

For a moment, her eyes were sad, but then one of her hands buried itself in my hair and pulled me closer, while the other opened the fly of her skirt so it could join our professor’s dress on the floor. “It might take a bit,” she told me, biting her lip and looking incredibly vulnerable and sweet, “but I have an idea where you can start.”

Waiting the three months to graduation was hard, but as soon as I was free from school, I moved in with Mrs. Harding - I still address her like that, because she likes it that way. There is a definitive power balance in our relationship. Anne comes by from time to time, to talk and to let me make up for my faux pas some more.

Sometimes Mrs. Harding invites friends of hers to seduce me. I’ve long since stopped all attempts to resist. Against a skilled seductress or seducer, I’m powerless.