Professor Trouble

by May, Soraya

  Piece of cake.

  "Very well, then. You are going to get to see him on a regular basis, so you can daydream about him twice a week in class, and in the meantime get on with your life. Tonight, though, we are going out to party," Ronnie stalks over to me and puts both hands on my shoulders. The difference in our heights is such that she has to reach down quite a way to do it. "And drink. We are going out to party and to drink. I am sick of this fucking machine, and you need to get this professor guy off your mind. Go to your closet and find a party dress."

  I open my mouth to protest, to say I'd rather stay home and read Virgil, but one look at her face tells me I'm wasting my time.

  "Oookay. Whatever the fiendish Madame Haas says, that's what we do."

  Ronnie grins slowly. "You're learning. Go, go, now. I need to wash this computer crap off me and try and look like a girl again."

  6

  My study is a welter of unpacked boxes, all with cryptic markings on them to indicate their contents. It’s great having someone else pack your things for you, but the drawback is that you have no idea what the hell is in any of the boxes.

  This office would be spacious were I to unpack them all, but right now it’s like the world’s most irritating sliding-puzzle game. I have to take a box out in the hallway, so I can move the other boxes around, so I can unpack the one I want. If the box I want is at the back, this process can take upwards of twenty minutes.

  Avoiding the issue entirely, I thread through them, turn my chair the correct way up, and drop into it. Outside, the chatter of undergraduates flows past the mottled-glass window, all going somewhere.

  Unlike me.

  When I said I’d take this job at Lowell College, I thought this would be a straightforward business. Sarah pulled a lot of strings to get me here, even if they did need me to teach Latin Literature, and I’m genuinely grateful to her. She looked out for me during all my time at Bailey, and I owe it to her to do the right thing here.

  So. Move here for a semester, get through classes, go to dinners, shake hands. Wait it out, then go back to England when my little indiscretion is forgotten about.

  So let’s just do that, Will. Keep your head down, don’t do anything that might arouse attention. Whatever happens here doesn’t matter, and it’ll all be done at the end of the semester.

  There's no point thinking about Shoe Girl. Emily. Her name is Emily.

  I've had a lot of pretty female students in the past, and as an academic, dealing with their attraction is just an occupational hazard. The thing you have to tell yourself is that it's not you they're attracted to; it's the idea of you.

  When you're in a position of power over someone, and you're responsible for putting them at their ease, and they're looking to you for guidance—it's natural that sometimes the emotions caused by it spill over into attraction. That's all it is. It isn't about me, and it isn’t about the person I really am.

  Emily with a radiant smile, and purple hair-clips, and T-strap shoes, and a cute little rear.

  The only thing to do in this situation is work. I clear a space on my desk, take the top book from the only opened packing box, let it fall open, and start reading.

  After ten minutes of staring at words expecting them to mean something, I shut the book. It isn't just her, it's the business of being here. Here for a semester, and then gone again. It’s not the worst place in the world to be stuck, but the transitory nature of my time here makes me feel like nothing’s worth starting.

  How bad would it be if I just did nothing different at all? Taught the same course, read the same books. No change, all semester. Bugger it.

  Maybe writing will help, if reading won't. I pull a fresh notebook from the stash in my bag and open the plastic seal. Expensive notebooks are a weird indulgence—I once calculated these ones to be worth about 20p a page, and that's when they're empty—but they do make the business of writing a damn sight more enjoyable.

  My pen hovers above the page, waiting in that first moment of anticipation. A lot of writers think of it as freedom, all pregnant with possibility.

  I always find it a bit terrifying. As soon as I’m writing, it’s fine, but the blankness of the page feels like some kind of accusation.

  Hover, hover. The tip moves, touches the page, and it makes a letter.

  The letter 'E'.

  Then it stops. Oh, what the hell.

  So, for the next half an hour, I write.

  I write about a girl with neat hair in a ponytail, about her smile, about her outfit.

  I write about the way she gestures unconsciously at me when she's thinking or talking, about how she slipped her foot back into her shoe when she thought I wasn't watching.

  I write about how much I want to see that skirt slip to the floor, to find out whether those really were stockings she was wearing. I fill three pages with descriptions of what she might look like under those clothes, how she moves, and how she'd writhe and gasp with pleasure when she was being touched in just the right way.

  Finally, I'm done. This has helped, but I'm now extremely horny. I throw the notebook on my desk, pick up my case and head for the door.

  * * *

  The main entrance of Lowell College is a big two-lane affair, although it’s closed to vehicle traffic. The big wrought-iron college gate itself is still standing, although the wall surrounding it is mostly gone. My furnished apartment, generously provided for me by the college, is a couple of blocks away, and I wait at the crosswalk.

  Most times of the day there’s a steady stream of pedestrians and bicycles weaving in and out of the gate, but now in the late afternoon, there are only three of us; a guy in a blue hooded sweater with his hands in his pockets, a young woman with red hair pushing a stroller, and me. She has her hands full of shopping, and she’s hurrying to rearrange her bags before the crossing signal goes.

  I look over, and clear my throat. “Can I help, ma’am?” She looks up and smiles.

  “Thanks, but I’m OK, I’ve just got—” She staggers backward and gives a short scream. The guy in the blue sweater next to her has grabbed her purse while she was looking at me, and he’s pulling on it, hard.

  I step forward, but I’m not close enough. She lets go, groceries fly into the air, and he’s got her purse. In an instant, he’s off, across the road, dodging between the cars.

  Bugger this. That was my fault.

  I drop my case and take off after him. He’s quick, and I’m lucky the traffic isn’t heavier, or I’d get run down in the first two strides. But I’m quick too, even in my squeaky brogues; across the street and down the sidewalk, hurdling trashcans as I go.

  We’ve gone about twenty yards when he makes a big mistake; he turns around to see if he’s being chased. Got you, you bastard.

  He sees me coming and turns to run again, but he’s too late—five years of college rugby comes up through my shoulder and hits him smack in the ribs. He goes down with a satisfying crunch on the concrete. I know I’m supposed to be a mild-mannered scholar, but God damn it, I had really forgotten how good that feels.

  I’m up and on him immediately, knee on his chest. “Right, you prick. Hand over the purse.” He struggles, and I suddenly remember I’m in the United States. Oh shit, he’s probably got a gun or something. I’m in for it now.

  But he doesn’t have a gun. In fact he’s scrawny and about seventeen, glaring defiantly at me from beneath a wispy moustache. “Fuck you man, I think you broke my rib. I’m gonna sue your ass.”

  I take the front of his sweater tightly in my fist, and drag him to his feet. The purse drops to the ground, and I hope there’s nothing breakable in it. “Sue this: you have two choices. Either you bugger off right now, or I ring the police and we wait for them to sort it out. You choose.”

  I let go of his sweater, and push him backwards. He backs away, scowling. “Fuckin’ Brit asshole.”

  I watch him, hands on hips. “Son, Britain is a geographic region, not a country. Some people in Britain are Welsh,
some Irish, some Scottish, some English. What you are thinking of is the United Kingdom. Now sod off.”

  He makes a final obscene gesture, then turns and disappears around the corner. I grimace, and pick up the purse. Shaking it suggests that there’s nothing broken in there, and I walk back up the street to where the young redheaded lady is standing, one hand on the lamp-post, comforting her crying baby.

  “Here, ma’am. I hope there’s nothing broken. Are you shaken?” She looks at me, cheeks flushed.

  “I—I’m okay. That was a brave thing you did, sir. He might have had a gun, or a knife, or—”.

  I smile. “Yeah, I didn’t think of that until I’d started to chase him. I’m only sorry it happened in the first place; I feel like it was my fault. If you hadn’t been talking to me, you wouldn’t have been distracted.”

  She shakes her head. “No, I realize now he’d been following me for the last two blocks. I’m only glad you were there when it happened.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Can I walk you somewhere safe?”

  “I’m fine, honestly. My apartment is just across the street, and my husband’s home right now.” She shoulders her purse and starts to gather up her things. “I can’t thank you enough, sir. That was really kind, and you didn’t—”

  “Honestly, anyone would do the same. Don’t mention it.” I help her pick up the rest of her shopping, and cross the street with her, then turn for my apartment.

  * * *

  Back in my apartment, I drop my keys, shrug out of my jacket, and pull up a chair. It’s time I wrote to my sister.

  Dear Kath,

  An eventful day today; I foiled a mugging, and rescued a student from a falling injury, all in the same day. I hope things get quieter or I’ll be knackered by the end of the semester. Apartment is bloody awful but I can’t look a gift horse in the mouth, etc. Hope the nippers are doing well. Miss you all.

  Love,

  Will

  7

  On Wednesday, by some miracle, I'm at class on time. In fact I'm even slightly early, so I can get a seat down the front on the right-hand side.

  Prof. Spencer—Will—strolls in carrying a cup of coffee, already being questioned by one of the students before he gets through the door. Claire is pretty, dark-haired, with a tight top, and as he makes a joke, she laughs just a bit too quickly, and arches her back to make her breasts a little more prominent. I feel a sudden flash of irrational jealously. Don't do that, you.

  Will, to his credit, is unflappable. I'm watching his eyes intently, and not once do they slip southward to her chest. Nice try, honey, but he's on to you.

  He looks up, and for a moment looks directly at me, and I realize that it's obvious I've been staring at him. His eyes are a deep brown color, so liquid you could drown in them, and I feel something rise in my chest. With some difficulty, I stop myself from doing the same kind of stupid preening I was so quick to condemn in Claire a minute ago.

  Then, something happens that I really didn't expect—he blushes.

  He actually blushes. Mr Unflappable looks pretty flappable for a second, and he quickly looks away from me, turning to the board, and clearing his throat.

  For the rest of the lesson, he doesn't look at me once. Even when I answer a question, he won't look me in the eyes. When the class is over, I start to move towards the front, but he's up and out quickly, a small flotilla of disappointed students trailing behind him.

  I lean against the lectern for a moment, alone in the hall, and wonder what happened. He's distancing himself because of our meeting on Wednesday.

  Or just maybe it's the thing where I fell into his arms and made an idiot of myself.

  Yeah, it might just be that. Good job, Em.

  Cheeks flushing, I turn to leave, and realize there’s a notebook on the lectern, a nice expensive one with a black leather hardcover, and an elastic strap holding the pages closed.

  There's no name on it, but it must be Will’s, because no-one else was in this hall before us.

  For a moment, I think about looking inside it and then stop myself. Noooo, invasion of privacy, not good. Besides, what are you going to say? 'Hey, professor, I was reading your notebook yesterday, and by the way, I'd like to get naked with you?'.

  Not really appropriate. I pack it in my bag and make a mental note to give it back to him next class.

  8

  Sorting through my papers the next day, I realize I’m missing something—the notebook I started writing in last week.

  Damn. That was…ill-advised.

  I pull everything out of my bag, and sort through it. Nothing. I open all the pockets, and upend the bag on the table. A couple of paperclips and a toffee wrapper. No notebook.

  I go through all of the pockets of all of my jackets. It’s too big to fit in there, but I do it anyway. Still nothing.

  Beside the bed, on the kitchen table, underneath the telephone. Still nothing.

  Bugger.

  I must have been carrying it around with me, which was a silly thing to do, and now I’ve left it somewhere. This is all I need; getting stuck with writing pornographic literature about the students. Oh, boy, that'll go down really well on my evaluation form.

  Right, where could I have left it? Retrace my steps.

  I spend the next two hours walking slowly from my apartment to my office and back, and turning them both upside down. Nope, not a sausage. Maybe I took it to a lecture? Uh-oh.

  I head back to the Medium Theater, and push the door open. Tom’s in there, setting up for a lecture.

  “Will, what’s up? Missed something?”

  Mmm, this could be embarrassing. “Tom, did you…find a notebook in here when you arrived?”

  He frowns, wrinkles creasing the top of his bald head. “Nope. Something important?”

  “Well, ehh, well. No. Not really.” I try not to look too relieved, although I’m not sure I am relieved. It’s still out there in the wild somewhere.

  “Well, I’ll keep an eye out for it. Oh, dinner next week? You must come over to the house; I’ve been promising Hannah she’ll get to meet you since you arrived.”

  “Sure, Tom, that would be lovely. Look, I must dash; talk soon.” I duck out as quickly as I can.

  Finally, I'm back in my apartment, disheveled from wandering around the campus while trying to look inconspicuous, and pissed off.

  Better to write it off as lost. Thankfully, it doesn't have my name in it, and there's nothing identifying about the subject.

  I didn't write anyone's name in it, just the letter 'E', and even that isn't a name. So there's nothing to trace it back to me, and nothing to link it to Emily. If anyone does find it, they'll think it's just a horny freshman writing about his girlfriend.

  9

  A house party sounds like a great idea, but a house party on a Sunday night turns out to be trouble. We’re jammed in the kitchen—the place is packed—and Ronnie is mixing drinks while telling me we’re going to go and dance.

  “nemo saltat sobrius”, I mutter under my breath. Ronnie, being mostly interested in Linux and not at all interested in Latin, looks at me quizzically.

  “What? Have you been reading your textbooks on a party night again?”

  I put my hand up. “Guilty as charged, Ron. ‘Nobody dances sober’. It’s from Cicero.”

  “Smartest thing I’ve heard those old dead guys say. Hold this.” She hands me a glass with a virulent pink liquid in it, and I regard it suspiciously. Behind me, there’s a whoop of approval as another frat-boy slumps to the floor and is carried out by his brothers.

  “What is it?” She looks at me pityingly.

  “It’s a Cosmo. It’s to help you with your problem. The problem you have just described which is preventing you from dancing.”

  I snort. “A Cosmo? Cosmo Kramer, maybe. It’s bright pink! It’s the same color as the stuff you get at the dentists!”

  She says something unprintable in Dutch. “Okay, I had to use pink grapefruit juice instead of c
ranberry. Fine. Stop being fussy, woman. This is your last semester and you have only so many chances to make consequence-free mistakes, you know?”

  “Do you want me to rinse it around and then spit? I feel like you’re about to tell me off for not flossing enough.”

  “Just drink your drink, Emily Masterson, be grateful to your hardworking bartender, and follow me.” Sharp-elbowed, she slices through the crowd of overdressed guys in J.Crew sweaters like an icebreaker through the Northwest Passage, heading for the music. I eyeball my glass, take a deep breath, swig half of it, and dive after her.

  * * *

  In the main room, the music is shatteringly loud. The huge flatscreen TV shows a short man in a fur coat and white sunglasses waving his arms, while a bunch of women in inadequate clothing writhe on top of a Cadillac. Normally I’d hate that kind of thing, but three-quarters of the way through Ronnie’s pseudo-Cosmo, it’s getting weirdly appealing.

  “Em! Eeeeeeeeeem!” There’s a stereophonic squeal in front of me, and I’m enveloped by a hug—two hugs, in fact. It’s Claire and Sonia from my Latin Lit class, and they’re both quite drunk, practically bouncing. My drink nearly goes all over my top, but I hold it at arms-length while they envelop me. After a moment, Claire disengages herself, and steps back, grabbing my shoulders with wobbly seriousness.

  “Em! Em! Did you hear about Prof Spencer? You know, the hot one where, you, uh, fell into his arms?” She giggles. “Do you know what happened? You’re not going to guess what happened.”

  I try to look as neutral as possible. “What?”

  “He totally foiled a mugging outside the main gate on Monday! Seriously! This guy grabbed some girl’s purse or something, and Prof Spencer was there, and he chased the guy down and made him give it back.”

  Wow. “Really?”

  Next to me, Sonia nods, about seven times. “Uh-huh. So he’s not only Hot Older Guy, he’s kind of Hot British Action Older Guy!”