She was built like an arrow in flight, like a blond rocket seconds before liftoff, like a jungle cat stalking prey. She was all limbs and straight lines and potential energy. She was spikey, from her hair to her nipples to her nails she was spikey. And when she sat in a chair she curled like a spring and you kind of backed off a little bit lest she explode on you. Like she exploded on me.

She exploded on me across the classroom with her nails aimed for my neck. Apparently my criticism of her comments cut to the core. Fortunately for all involved I ducked, and her pretty little ass landed on the floor. I looked down at her sitting next to my desk looking wounded in her dignity, I looked at her pale green eyes and I was almost frightened by their intensity. Frightened and excited. Excited and hard. I don't know what the class thought. I didn't even care. I didn't even look. I said "Go on home folks, I think we're done for tonight. Not you young lady. Don't you even dare. You and I are going to have a little chat about appropriate classroom behavior while you and the topic are still fresh and hot in my mind."

She just stared. And I stared back. Because I can stare with the best of them. Hell. I am the best of them. The class rushed past to the door and we are lucky there were no trampling deaths to complicate an already overly interesting evening. We stared in the silence of a suddenly empty space. A silence and an emptiness I rose to fill, pacing as I spoke: "You have passion which in the future needs to be placed on paper. If so expressed I would perhaps be less caustic before the class. In the meantime this room, which recently contained twenty-seven witnesses to my attempted murder, is now unencumbered by those sources of potential embarrassment and I, who have been forced to grade your previously uninspired scribblings, desire to experience more of this passion personally."

I was standing behind her, toying with my belt buckle. She was still silent, now kneeling. I admired the back of her neck. I imagined her naked. "What is it in me that inspired such rage in you?"

Her neck tensed. Her back arched. The muscles in her arms and buttocks coiled again; she almost spat. "You talk to me the way my father talked to me."

I reached out as though to touch her, tracing her long lines in the air to engrave the memory. "Your next assignment is to write down the feelings you had from the moment you entered this classroom until the moment you stepped back out into that hall. I want every nuance of emotion and every triggered memory. You will turn the assignment in to me when we meet next Monday. It will be good or you will fail. Am I clear?"

She nodded. Behind her back I smiled. "You are dismissed."

I watched her as she left, watched her and ached for the want of taking her. But I had seen her passion. I knew her motivation. Soon I would read her paper. Close enough.