Ignoring Your Conscience

I've been working on a few novellas with a friend of mine, Dominic Leblanc, and we've been flirting with moral and ethical boundaries, since our joint projects are erotica stories that take place between teachers and (legal-age) students. For this fortnight's theme of "conscience", I was reminded of a scene in our upcoming novella, Schoolboy Secrets, in which the teacher is battling with his own conscience. He knows what he wants to do is wrong, but he knows he'll also be better off if he does the wrong thing. Sometimes the right thing is not the best choice.

So, I thought I'd share an excerpt from that scene as my post.

To give you some context on the scene below -- Evan, the student, and Coach Miller, the teacher, had a hookup at a bathhouse the night before. It was in total darkness and neither one knew who they were having this encounter with until they stepped into the light and it was far too late to undo anything.

It's the day after the bathhouse and Coach Miller is prepared for everything to go pear-shaped. He calls Evan into his office for a chat, to figure out if he's going to go to the authorities or if they can just pretend this didn't happen. Though this was highly immoral and unethical, Even is an adult.

---

“Come in,” Stan called.

The door opened and Evan came in, looking sheepish. And looking fucking cute.

“Close the door and have a seat.”

Evan did as told and sat in the chair on the other side of Stan’s desk. He looked up and Stan was sure he could see that same mix of terror and desire in Evan’s eyes that Stan had been coping with all day.

“About yesterday...”

Evan held out his hands in a complacent gesture. “I haven’t told anyone. And I promised I wouldn’t.”

Stan considered Evan, staring at him as he thought through all the ways this could still go wrong. Finally, he sighed — there was no point in playing “worst case scenario” with himself as it would just keep winding him up. He leaned forward on the desk and clasped his hands together.

“Thank you, Evan. It was ... an indiscretion. I really shouldn’t have been there. And you shouldn’t have been, either,” he said, his teacher instinct taking over for a moment. “Look, Evan...”

“Coach Miller, you really don’t need to explain yourself. I was there for my own reasons and I’m sure you were there for yours. There’s nothing to explain.”

For an eighteen-year-old, Evan was certainly mature in his attitude. Stan forced himself to relax, to ease up on the boy. “So ... I take it you’re gay, then?”

Evan nodded. “Yeah. I’m not out, though. You’re one of very few people that knows. You’re gay, too?”

“Yeah. Sort of in a relationship. But we’re on a ... we’re on a break for a bit,” Stan said. “Sorry, that’s not really something I should have shared.”

“It’s okay,” Evan said. “Maybe that was what you needed ... you know, to get back on track with your partner.”

“Maybe.” If only it were that simple, Stan thought. Unbidden, the fantasies he’d had in the last twenty-four hours came flooding back to him, of Evan on his knees right here and now, sucking him off. He felt his cheeks warm with a blush; he was ashamed for still having these thoughts.

“Coach Miller...?”

“Yeah?”

“As weird as it might sound,” Evan said, looking down at his hands, as he fiddled with his thumbs, “I think it was a good thing I ran into you at the ... at the bathhouse. I could’ve easily gotten with the wrong guy and things could have gone wrong.”

“It can be risky sometimes, yeah,” Stan said. “As long as you take care of yourself, though, you should be okay. You’re a smart guy.”

“But...” Evan looked up at him, his crystal-clear blue eyes staring right into his. “I was wondering if ... if we could do it again. But, like, in a safer place than the bathhouse. I really want you to show me how to be with a man.”

Stan did his best to suppress a groan and he discreetly pressed the heel of his palm against his raging erection. I can’t go along with this, no matter how much I want to, he told himself. Yet, another part of him said, But you’ve already done it once ... what’s the harm in doing it again? For the sake of his on-break relationship, it was probably better to do it discreetly with a safe guy like Evan than to do risky shit like going to the bathhouse, being seen by random people and potentially being put at risk of disease.

“Evan, you know we can’t.” It almost hurt Stan to say that.

“Please, Coach Miller,” Evan leaned forward in his chair, bringing his gorgeous face closer to Stan’s. “It’s either you ... or I go back to the bathhouse.”

Fuck. Him going to the bathhouse is as bad as me going to the bathhouse. Some punk there is going to take advantage of the poor boy.

Evan slid forward some more, bringing his ass off the chair and sliding down to his knees in front of Stan’s desk. “I’m begging you.”

Stan tried to fight the crumbling walls of resistance, to firm them back up and say no to the boy. Instead, he found himself saying, “As long as we’re both discreet.”

Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Dominating the Freshman. He is publisher at and co-founder of Deep Desires Press and a member of the Indie Erotica Collective. He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.