Drawing on both philosophical and imaginative sources, this article explores the profile of concern and caring in the teacher-learner relationship. Following a defence of the role of narrative in educational theory, the nature of the teacher--learner relationship and the role of concern in the relationship are addressed. The main part of the essay draws on the autobiographical fiction "The Pupil: A Memory of Love" by Irish author Monk Gibbon to demonstrate the process whereby shared passion for literature can become--on the part of the teacher--an obsessive sexual desire for the learner. Eschewing virtue-signalling and moral grandstanding, the third and concluding part of the essay endeavours to explain the inappropriateness of the erotic in the teacher-learner relationship.