Learning Curve Part 1

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.

She stole a glance at him, but his attention was on the notebooks.

"Now, looking just at these two pages and pretending you know nothing about the people who wrote the notes, what would you think?"

Constantly aware that he was holding her hand, Sam had to admit that her handwriting was florid, with graceful curves and arcs that flowed across each line. His letters were more regimented, standing straight up as if at attention. Where her thoughts blended together as she connected ideas as she wrote, his were in a bulleted list, lined up along the side like troops on dress parade.

She smiled shyly. "Well, so my handwriting is fancier than yours. Most women have fancier writing then men."

He shook his head as he released her hand and put away his book. "Most women write with that silly over-round style and put hearts instead of dots over the 'i's.' Your style is older, one that brings to mind a quieter time, and still waters that run deep, Samantha." He held her gaze and those deeply guarded fantasies leapt into her mind. For a moment, an image of her body spread between two poles on a busy street corner flashed through her mind. A man came up to use her, his strong fingers closing over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-and he had Peter's face. Fl.u.s.tered, she broke his look, struggling to rebuild the walls around her by turning to put her own notebook back on her seat.

"You know, most people just call me Sam," she told him as she took a drink of her soda to cover her momentary unease.

"Do you mind if I don't? Samantha is a much more fitting name for a woman. It's too beautiful a name for too beautiful a person to shorten in such a way."

She blushed. Why did he make her feel like a giggly schoolgirl? "That's fine, I mean, if you want to call me Samantha, that's okay," she stammered. "I've heard some of the others in the cla.s.s calling you 'Pete,

' but I have to admit, you're more a 'Peter' to me." "I am." He nodded and Sam thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, quickly smothered. "I do notcare for people who shorten my name without bothering to find out if I care or not. And those who doinquire, generally wouldn't do so unless they know me. But by the time they know me, they know Iprefer..." his hesitation was momentary, but Sam noticed it. "...Peter."

The pizza came and they spent several moments getting slices off the tray and onto their plates.

"So, Samantha," he cut into his pizza, it being too hot to hold just yet, " may I venture a personal question?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Are you seeing someone?"

She almost choked on her pizza. He'd asked it casually, but looking into those depths she could not

fathom, she heard the implication. Clearing her throat and steadying her nerves, she replied, "No. I'm not."

"So then if I asked you for a date, a real date, you might say yes?"

As her heart jumped into her throat, she pushed it back where it belonged. "I couldn't-and you can't ask me. As I recall, you have a girlfriend."

For a moment he looked puzzled. Then his face cleared. "Ahh, the husband-catchers from the first day.No, I don't own anyone at the moment-I just told them that to dissuade them." If she thought his phrasing odd, she ignored it. He was available and asking her out! Her heart soared. "Well, if you asked me out, then I guess I'd say yes." She smiled coyly at him. "A yes, or a no, Samantha. Would you let me take you on a date?" His voice was stern with a lack of mirth in his eyes that surprised her a bit. "Very well, yes."

"Good."

He insisted on paying for the meal, even though she told him she wanted to pay him back for the free advice about her papers. "If you paid, then the advice wouldn't be free, now would it?" She acquiesced at that point.

Their cars were parked side-by-side, but he still walked her to her car door. There was the awkward moment once she unlocked her door, but hadn't yet said goodbye. It wasn't a date, she reminded herself; there would be no kiss, even though she wanted one. Out of long habit, the term "good girl" was broadcasting itself over all her speakers. He shut her door once she was inside and leaned on the open window.

"Friday night, 6:00. Be ready and I'll pick you up."

She grinned. "Be prompt!"

With a smile, he thumped her door and sauntered around to the other side of his own car. Sam waited till his engine turned over, then pulled out. She was halfway home before she realized she hadn't told him where she lived.

* * * * * After spending a fruitless Thursday trying to find an address for him, she gave up. Peter was not listed in any directory she could find and the college treated that information as confidential. Sam really wanted this date. In spite of her intentions to remain entanglement-free until after graduation, she had really fallen for this guy. He was everything a girl could want-witty, charming, gorgeous, and above all, s.e.xy. On the off chance that he would somehow find out where she lived, she was ready at 5:45, trying not to peek out her apartment window every other minute.

Peter hadn't told her where he was taking her, so Sam dressed in good, but not dressy slacks with a cream-colored turtleneck and scarlet knit sweater. Red definitely was her color and brought out the healthy glow of her complexion. Briefly she considered donning makeup, and just as she decided she would the ring of the doorbell startled her. Hurrying to the little window in her steel door she peeked through to see Peter's face distorted by the tiny gla.s.s. Suddenly nervous, she opened the door.

The first snowfall of the season had yet to fall, but the nights were definitely getting colder. Peter stood before her looking every inch like a magazine model in dark pants and a crisp, white s.h.i.+rt that accentuated his dark hair and those wonderful eyes. No tie graced his neck, but he did wear an unb.u.t.toned black wool coat. Her breath caught and she tried not to stare.

"Good evening, my lady," he bowed before her and she laughed. Locking the door, she turned and dropped a flawless curtsey learned in years of ballet.

"Good evening, fair sir," she replied.

"Mmm...I like that you call me 'sir.' It sounds quite right coming from you."

She laughed again, thinking he was teasing her. He did not tell her otherwise, instead gesturing to the car at the curb. "This isn't your car!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, it is...Oh! You mean the car I had the other night? That's my winter rat. This one goes into storage this weekend-but I thought we might get one last run in it before spring."

The bright red MGB gleamed in the streetlights. The top was down and he handed her a scarf for her hair. She tied it around her chin like she'd seen the women do in the old 60's movies and they started off.

What a glorious ride! Never before had she ridden in such a tiny car-or so close to the road's surface. Once she realized they were not going to sc.r.a.pe bottom, but rather glide over the road's surface, she relaxed, letting his ease in traffic soothe her anxiousness.

The noise of the road precluded her asking where they were going. He pulled the sports car into a spot near one of the art house movie theatres and she felt again as if she had stepped back in time. The marquee read "Gaslight. Starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotton."

"I love the old movies and this place shows them the way they were meant to be seen-on the big screen," he explained as he led the way to the old-fas.h.i.+oned ticket booth.

Sam often had enjoyed the old black and white films, but had never seen this one. She knew the plot of course; everyone did. They munched on popcorn and watched as Charles Boyer drew his evil net closer and closer around Ingrid Bergman. Even as she applauded Joseph Cotton as he entered in the nick of time to save the luckless woman from her maniacal husband, there was a stirring deep inside her; to be so completely dominated by a man-a man she could trust-excited her in a very primal way. She felt Ingrid Berman's fear, but inside herself, it was mixed with a shameful excitement. Sam was grateful Peter did not get up to leave as soon as the words appeared at the end of the film; she needed a moment to regain her composure and hide away those shameful thoughts.

Heading out of the theatre, Peter suggested they go for a walk before returning to the car. It wasn't late and many of the businesses were still open. The street, known for its offbeat boutiques, stretched for several blocks. Peter took Sam's hand as the two of them meandered along, peering into the windows of an antique shop, a bicycle shop, and a head shop before coming to a leather goods store. A customer was just leaving as they approached and the wonderful scent of leather came out to greet them. Sam took a deep, appreciative breath.

"You like leather?" Peter asked her.

"Oh, yes," she answered, a blush coming to her cheek. "My gloves are of leather, my boots, too. I've looked at the leather coats, but haven't bought one...yet."

"Why not?" he asked, and held the door open for her to enter.

"Haven't had the nerve, I guess. The type I like aren't exactly 'proper.'" She couldn't believe she just admitted that to him. What was wrong with her?

"Show me-I'm sure they have your 'type'. They have a good selection of leather goods here."

It didn't take long to find the style she wished she had the courage to wear. It wasn't really a coat-and that's what held her back. A coat was socially acceptable. But the leather bustier she now fingered was not. She ran her fingers over the soft, supple leather, knowing she would feel so s.e.xy in it. His hand closed over hers, his fingers entwining the laces between their clasped hands and Sam's heart beat faster.

"I would love to see you in this," he murmured in her ear.