Shaping Michelle

Opening up to, and opened by, her tutor. By IAmJohnGalt1. Listen to the ► Podcast at Steamy Stories. Life’s twists and turns are never what one expects. When I decided to tutor young students in history, I thought I was just doing something good – for the youth, and for myself. After several years of working at a Big Law firm, I decided I needed to do something that didn’t involve poring over legal documents and old case law. I’d always loved and thrived in history, which was my major in undergrad, and I’d always pestered my professors with questions about legal history during my years at Harvard Law. Teaching wouldn’t pay the bills, hence my pivot towards courtrooms and boardrooms, but it was something I thought would be a nice post-retirement gig. Many of my teachers in high school were former attorneys, which was quite common at Michelle’s upscale preparatory school in Manhattan. Michelle. One of those timeless, elegant names. The Beatles even used it for a song, though I don’t think Lennon had a young, Asian girl in mind when he wrote it. Her family had been referred to me by a colleague, and over the course of her senior year I’d taken her from a struggling student to a pretty good scholar of history. She was no Ron Chernow, but she could at least articulate a good analysis of social movements in Victorian England. When Michelle and I first met, I was struck by her beauty, but I wasn’t necessarily attracted to her. She was tall and thin, but with a shapely form. Think of a swimsuit model. I think it was the fact that her mother was white while her father was Chinese-American. Michelle was a social butterfly, most definitely one of the “it” girls at her school. She seemed to have it all, or at least all that high schoolers cared about: good looks, pretty good grades, money, nice clothes. Lots of nice clothes. Michelle was something of an influencer; she wasn’t going to be on The Today Show any time soon, but she had a healthy following of fellow preppy cool NYC kids. Vacations in the Hamptons, dining out with friends at the trendiest restaurants. If you grew up in the area, you knew the type. Although she would have been content to live that life forever, and her parents’ money could certainly ensure that, her parents’ values wouldn’t entertain it. When the son of Chinese immigrants and a woman who went from her dad’s small-town Ohio hardware store to a director’s corner office at a major investment bank raise a kid, you better believe they’ll expect that kid to at least get a degree. Despite her seeming disinterest in academics, she was actually pretty smart; “just needs to apply herself more” was a common critique in her report cards. I guess I felt like somewhat of a kindred spirit in that regard; I’d only shaped myself up in college. Over the course of the school year, we’d developed a friendly rapport. Our tutoring sessions were pretty open-ended, and towards the end we’d end up talking a lot about life, her plans for the future, etc. I always saw myself as a mentor to Michelle. Which is why what happened one summer day was… unexpected. I was spacing out in my office after a particularly contentious meeting with a corporate client when my phone buzzed. “hey Milo, I hope this isn’t weird but I wanted to know if you were available this weekend” read the grey chat bubble. I wasn’t sure why she was asking me about availability – she’d graduated high school a month before, and was enjoying her last summer before starting at Bowdoin. “hey Michelle, what’s up?” I replied. Over the course of a few texts, she explained that she missed our conversations and she wanted to catch up and maybe talk about college and whatnot. It seemed a bit strange to me because we weren’t necessarily on texting terms. We’d exchange messages just to set up tutoring sessions, but we weren’t chewing the fat over text outside of that. But hey, who understands teenagers? I didn’t have any plans that Saturday and figured it’d be nice to spend some of it guiding the youth. “how about dinner at your place? I know you said you like to cook and I’d love to try something tasty” she responded, with that little emoji licking its lips punctuating the proposal. Now that was out of the ordinary. She wanted to have dinner? A coffee “date” was what I’d had in mind, but her message triggered something in me. Maybe it was the not-so-recent breakup I’d gone through, or pining for the lost days of my own youth, but suddenly I thought it’d be quite nice to have dinner with her. It’d be fun to whip up one of those Italian dishes that’s dead simple to make yet impresses people, and maybe even flirt a bit. A pretty, fit, 18-year-old Asian girl batting her eyelashes at me would be enough of a reward. I agreed and told her to come to my apartment at 7PM that Saturday. She responded “awesome!” and left it at that. I returned to my work and the ...