The Valentines

X

Esmé tapped her fingers against her desk, staring blankly at her laptop screen. Before her sat her new first year students, most with a positive attitude that she knew university life would destroy. Her eyes travelled the filled rows, knowing full well that within two months she would have to send out emails about attendance levels.

Overall, the attendance levels for Esmé's lectures were high above the average for most other courses. It didn't take a genius to figure out why that was. For a lecturer, Esmé was young. For a woman nearing her mid thirties, she was unusually attractive. It didn't matter how intimidating she was, or how little crap she took from her students, they would always turn up, even if it was to just stare at her ass for two hours.

Esmé missed her third year classes, specifically the one with Theodora in. They were far more engaged than the first years would ever be, came up with brilliant ideas and in general were a fun bunch of adults. It was the only class where Esmé allowed them to use her first name and would loosen up a little, openly joking and messing around with the students.

Unfortunately for all of them, she only took that class once a week now.

"Excuse me, Mrs Valentine?" A voice spoke up and Esmé's eyes refocused on the speaker. It was one of her more tenacious students, one of the ones that also studied drama. The young man was staring at her expectantly and with a well practised sigh, Esmé leaned back and made a gesture for him to continue speaking.

"I was just wondering if you offer after hours tuition," he asked and Esmé almost groaned.

"It is the start of the year," she countered.

"Yes, I know that, but I wanted to get ahead, you see," the speed at which the man was speaking made Esmé wonder if he knew about substances other than coffee. "And I figured the best way was to get extra tuition from you."

As if Esmé had the time for that.

"Unfortunately I do not offer extra tuition. Other lecturers in the department do, I can send you to one of those."

"But I'd really like it if you could just-,"

"I will refer you to another member of the department," Esmé said firmly.

"But I've heard that you do offer extra tuition and-,"

"For my final year students only," she replied sharply.

And it was true. Most lecturers offered their final year students extra tuition. The reasoning was that they had come this far, and most of them had dissertation projects that they had to complete. Esmé's field was rare, and so it was unlikely that she would end up as a dissertation supervisor for a student, so she offered the extra tuition for the third years as a way to help them get another perspective on their proposals.

She had never and would never do it for first years.

It was pointless. Almost a third of her class would drop out before the second semester was over, and the likelihood of the other students enrolling for their second year was always touch and go. Esmé, amongst other lecturers, had decided it was a waste of time that could be spent on the students who actually intended to continue the subject, and didn't just want to spend another hour staring at their attractive lecturer.

"What can I do to make you reconsider? I promise I'm really interested in your subject-,"

"Oi, Ethan!" One of the other male students called. "Do us a solid and leave 'er alone, would you? Kinda don't want you drivin' out the only good lecturer on this course."

Esmé looked up with interest and upon finding said male student she tilted her head. She was certain she had seen him before, but she wasn't sure where. There was chatter in the room, which usually would irritate the woman, but this time she ignored it.