Martin smirked a little at the tone of the questions coming from the girls. He wasn’t quite sure just what they were after. Certainly, they couldn’t have known that they’d run into a professor at a place like this. For the moment, he wasn’t sure if they were amusing themselves at his expense, the way he’d seen young American women do from time to time with other students in the program. It was invariable that the Americans were at once more self-assured about their appearances and more willing to use their sexuality as a way to wield a sort of power.<br/><br/>His gaze stayed on Paige, even as he surmised that the girls had exchanged a look. The professor suspected they’d made his appraisal of the curvy young woman. Not that he was going to give the pair any indication that it concerned them if they noticed or not. Surely, if they were coming to a club like this, they had to expect a fair number of eyeballs to find them, especially dressed in the way they were.<br/><br/>“Martin is fine in a setting like this, Paige,” he said, his tone on the back half of the sentence indicating that there were clearly settings where it would<em>not</em>be appropriate.<br/><br/>WIth the slightest shift in weight on the stool, he turned subtly to look at Lena as she took her turn addressing him. As she spoke, he sipped from the drink the girls purchased a few moments before. His eyes took a similar path up Lena’s frame, appraising her lithe figure from just over the rim of the glass. If the girls were indeed playing around for their own amusement, he was certainly going to take a moment to drink it in.<br/><br/>“And, thank you, ladies. I’m very glad to hear that you see the importance of my class. I promise you there’s quite a bit you can take away from the experience if you invest of yourselves in it.” He lowered the glass, a knowing smile playing across his lips. Martin shifted his weight forward a bit on the stool, cutting just a bit more distance between the pair. “And yes, Lena, I do understand. Athens is a rich, intoxicating city. So much to do, and see, and,” he lifted his glance back to Paige, “<em>feel</em>.”<br/><br/>Martin took another slow sip as he pondered the last part of Lena’s question, and turned his gaze back to her one more time. “So, while I do understand, it’s not as simple a matter of ‘forgiveness’, Lena.” He paused, giving her an easy, reassuring smile now, “It’s more a question of ‘now that you’ve found yourselves in this situation, is there anything that can be done to recover?’ And that,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “is where you two are in luck. I tend not to do this often, but in cases where I see real potential, I tend to offer independent study time to help lift a grade. Is that something that would appeal to either or both of you?”<br/><br/>He smiled and squeezed the glass in his hand just a little tighter. It was a fine line that Martin was walking, and he knew it. It was wholly conceivable that the girls would take such an offer, regardless of what was behind it, as beyond the scope of fairness. Perhaps the drink and flirtation were merely an effort to bait him. Or maybe it was something wholly different altogether.<br/>