He’s sitting there, watching me cross and uncross my legs under the table.  I know he’s looking.  Slender, toned legs, wrapped in black silky stockings, and for one unreasonable moment I’m glad I’ve been forced to walk to school for the past three years.  I’ve seen the legs of the other girls in the class- nothing special, stick thin or jiggly, some hairy, some scarred by adolescent clumsiness.  I know mine surpass them all.  Last week I didn’t wear stockings, and as I strode past his table to the back of the room I know his eyes took in the smooth gentle curves of my calves.  I’m sure the other boys watch too, but I only notice him.

I glance up at him from the Chemistry textbook in front of me, and he quickly looks down at his worksheet, pretending he’s been pondering that first question for the last twenty minutes instead of staring hungrily at me.  Nobody else ever notices the covetous looks we throw at each other- they’re all occupied with their own pubescent angst-ridden lives.  Teenagers don’t notice anything that doesn’t involve them.

Mable walks up to me.  “Can I borrow your textbook?” she asks.  “Me and Kathy left ours at home.  Just need to look up a few things- I’ll give it back at the end of class?”  I find it interesting how people have a tendency to articulate hesitant sentences as if they are questions.
“Sure,” I say, nodding, “take your time,” and she awkwardly picks it up and ambles back to her desk.  I watch her, my mouth curving into a smile as her ponytail swings left and right against her back as she walks.  A swift slide of my eyes and I see that he’s been watching me again.  Watching my lips as they part slightly and my tongue darts out, brushing against my upper lip in a quick movement.  Undetectable by any other observer.  But he sees it, and he knows it’s for him.  He swallows.  I smile secretly at my triumph. He always turns up ten minutes late to class so I notice his entrance, and he always sits in a seat that faces me, even when there’s none available and he has to squash himself on the side of a full table.  I sweep my gaze across the room.  Martin and Aleco are making paper aeroplanes in the back row, thinking the teacher can’t see them but their sporadic bursts of giggles and scrunching of paper give away their distraction.  Mable and Kathy are poring over the textbook, quietly arguing over a question.  Next to them Angela is methodically doing her work, never once looking up.  As the smartest in the class, she never sits alone at a table despite being new at the school.  Once in a while somebody leans over and asks her a question, which she obligingly answers.
The four boys on the other side of the room are also poring over shared textbooks, arguing except not as quietly as the girls.  Nicholas is sucking on the back of his pen in stern concentration, and I reflexively scrunch my nose in revulsion.  At the corner of my eye there’s a flurry of movement- my eyes snap to the right and I realise that he has turned to see what has caused me to contort my face in such a way.  When he turns back to me, his eyes widen in embarrassment and he quickly looks down at his work.  I want to chuckle.  His awkwardness is endearing.

I glance at my watch.  Four minutes left to the end of class.  I close my eyes, leaning back in my chair, knowing that he’s watching my chest move gently up and down with every breath I take.  My slender arms stretched in front of me.  My long fingers splayed on the desk, perfectly shaped cuticles, evenly painted with delicate spring rose pink.  I almost shudder with the deliciousness of it all, his eyes taking in every inch of my body.

Since he’s been in my Chemistry class, I’ve fantasized about him- in and out of class.  The feel of his cheek against mine- his facial hair has begun to grow, I can see he has just started shaving.  My brother also started growing facial hair at a later age than the other boys; I remember he was so excited he would shave twice a day even though the stubble was sparse and barely visible.  I’m not sure how often my boy shaves, but he uses Ralph Lauren Blue aftershave.  I smelt it once when I bent down to hand him a book he’d accidentally dropped- he took the opportunity to look down my shirt which sent a thrill down my spine – and that afternoon I raced to the supermarket toiletries aisle, opening every aftershave bottle to find the matching smell.

“Excuse me.” His voice, his smell.  I open my eyes and see him standing beside my desk.  Gazing down at me with a serious expression.  His lips are small, wet, and I unconsciously lick mine.
He places his worksheet in front of me, half-hearted scribbles and chemical compound symbols dotted around the page.  He points to a question.  “I don’t understand this one,” he says, and as I look back at him I am locked into his piercing gaze, his dark eyes that hold a thousand promises, a thousand secrets.  My breath catches in my throat.  “Could you help me…after class?”

I nod shyly and turn to the rest of the students who are oblivious to the two of us.  “Class dismissed,” I uselessly call out just as the end-of-period bell rings and the room is thrown into adolescent chaos.  I busy myself tidying up the papers on my desk, but my heart is thrashing around in my chest and only ten minutes later when the room is completely empty do I finally stop pretending and turn to face him.