Guest Blogger: Justine Elyot

Sentimental About Education

It’s not surprising that so many romances are set in seats of learning. Colleges and universities, filled to the brim with bright young things and similarly bright older ones, are the places many of us met our life partners, or embarked on our first sexual experiments. Few other settings can match them for intensity, excitement and breadth of subject matter. Not quite all human life is here, but near enough. The stage is packed with players – you can take your pick.

Professor hero/student heroine is a cliché, when it comes down to it, but in erotica, things are cliches because people can’t get enough of them. So I make no apology about succumbing to this age-old dynamic in Lecture Notes. Sinclair is the teacher, Beth is the student, Sinclair is the dom, Beth is the sub. But it doesn’t mean Sinclair knows it all. Oh no.

Do you have a favourite college-set romance or erotica story? I’d love to hear what it is!

Meanwhile, here’s the blurb for Lecture Notes:

Beth’s intense crush on Professor Sinclair is threatening to derail her first year at university. Her concentration is shot to pieces and her coursework is suffering accordingly. Luckily, Professor Sinclair has an antidote to that. An extremely interesting antidote…

Mentor and acolyte soon become lovers in an affair that takes them both to places they never thought they’d be. But is it too far, too fast?

And an excerpt:

At eight twenty four, showered, freshened and bright-eyed, I stroll into the kitchen, wondering hopefully if Sinclair might have breakfast on the go. He is sitting at the table sipping moodily at a cup of coffee. Proper coffee made from beans, not dust in a jar. He looks up from The Guardian and his face elicits a gulp. He is not happy.

“I told you to get up at eight o’clock. It is now eight twenty four.”

“I don’t have a lecture until eleven,” I defend myself.

“That is beside the point. While you are in my house, Beth, you will do as I tell you. Are you able to do this or not?”

“I…yes. I will. I can. I’m sorry. Sir.” I shake my fringe winningly into my eyes, praying that he will now lighten up and fry me a rasher. He called me Beth! That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it?

“We shall see,” he says contemplatively. “I’m going to make my point completely clear, Beth.” He stands and I quiver. Something bad is going to happen. “Bend over the kitchen chair, Beth, with your palms flat on the seat.”

Wild mute appeal pours from my eyes but he isn’t buying. He takes a wooden spatula from a hook over the granite work surface. Oooooh no. He makes an impatient gesture to me, noting that I am still upright, and I plunge forward into the rather compromising position he has outlined.

I don’t like being bent like this with my arse in the air; I feel the humiliation of my plight keenly, and never more so than when Sinclair swishes up behind me and pulls my leggings down around my knees. Thank Christ I didn’t wear a thong today.

“I think we’ll have a stroke for every minute I was made to wait, Beth,” says Sinclair calmly. “That makes twenty four. A good round dozen for each cheek.”

I hold my breath, waiting for the onslaught to commence. The first stroke brings it shuddering out in a long squeal as the flat wooden end makes a loud whapping noise on my backside.

“That really hurts!” I object.

“Yes,” he says equably, slamming on the second. Incipient heat radiates symmetrically through both hemispheres of my behind and I’m not quite sure I can handle another twenty two strokes. Sinclair accompanies the hard paddling with an encomium against the perils of late rising and sloth, telling me that I will be getting up no later than seven thirty from now on unless I want to greet every day in this painful manner.

When eventually the twenty fourth stinger is landed, I am gripping the chair so tightly my knuckles are white, chewing my lip to avoid the mortification of crying out too much and amazed at how hot it is possible for a bottom to get without actually catching fire.

Sinclair replaces the horrid thing on its hook – can’t push fried eggs around a pan with it now without having an inevitable mental association – and drawls, “Lesson learned?”

“Yes, Sir,” I quiver. No more lie-ins for me. Boo hoo.

Fancy reading on?

Available from: Amazon UK | Amazon US