Professor Trouble

by May, Soraya

  I slide my hands up under her skirt, pulling her hard against me, and nod. "And what exactly is that, Ms. Masterson?"

  The dirty little smile again. "You, Professor."

  At the worst possible moment, my phone rings, and so does hers. We look at each other.

  "Man, the outside world really doesn't get the message, does it?" Laughing, we reach for our phones to turn them off.

  I glance idly at the message I got. It's from the Faculty Office, and it says three words:

  CALL. NOW. URGENT.

  As I'm looking at it, my phone rings again, from a number I don't recognize. I'm about to turn it off when I look up at Emily's face. It's completely white, and she has a look of horror in her eyes I've never seen before.

  "Emily, what's wrong? Has something happened at the college?" She doesn't answer.

  I hunt for the college Facebook page. Maybe there's been an accident, or some kind of terrorist incident.

  The headline on the top post says 'Professor William Spencer accused of misconduct in student letter'

  What the hell?

  Emily is still astride me, but I look at her face again, and all of a sudden, making love is the last thing I can think of.

  "Emily, what are you reading? Tell me what's wrong."

  Without saying anything, she turns her phone to face me.

  SLEAZE-BALL ENGLISH PROFESSOR PREYS ON STUDENT

  I am fucked.

  35

  I read the Facebook posts on my laptop with a mounting sense of despair.

  Professor preys on young female student, exposed in letter

  Student documents abuse of position from faculty academic

  Culture of abuse at Lowell? Professor's misconduct raises questions

  That morning, Will asked me to leave his place as the phone started ringing, and I saw a tight line around his eyes that I'd never seen before. As I closed the door behind me, I heard him on the phone.

  "No, I accept full responsibility. The student in question had no hold over me, and I did it of my own free—"

  Ronnie leans over me, hands gripping my desk chair. "Is this the guy, huh?"

  "Yeah, this is the guy. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, Ron. I just didn't know how to explain it without it seeming—" She waves a hand, and I stop.

  "It's okay, babe. I don't blame you for not wanting to say anything." She turns back to the laptop screen, where a photo of Will is prominently displayed underneath the word PREDATOR in large black letters. Her eyes narrow. "This smeerlap, though. The shit he put you through...getver! I hope he gets his ass kicked back to England. Slimy asshole."

  I round on her. "Ronnie, it's not like that! He's not like that at all. It's not like he seduced me. I found out he was attracted to me, and we talked, and I fell for him. He didn't manipulate me, or any of the things people are posting." I can feel my voice rising. "Why the hell does everyone automatically assume that I'm some kind of victim? I'm a grown woman, and I knew what was happening with him, all the time. I've never met anyone like him before, and I don't think I ever will again."

  Ronnie's face softens. "Honey, I hate to say this, but...it might be that playing the victim is the best way for you to avoid getting in trouble here. You know this is serious, right?" I nod. "You know you could be subject to a disciplinary from the college, right?" Another nod. "Well, if you look like you were pressured to sleep with him..."

  I slam the laptop shut. "No, Ronnie. No way. I'm not going to make this out to be something it wasn't."

  "Well, you'd better talk to him, and explain it, then. You say you wrote all this stuff in some book or something?"

  "Yeah, we—" I decide not to go into details.

  "Well, go and tell him that. I think both of you owe the other an explanation."

  * * *

  I knock on Will's apartment door, no longer really caring if anyone sees me. A few students give me curious looks, but don't pay much attention. I suspect it'll be a day or so before photos of me get plastered all over social media like they are with Will.

  I keep knocking. It takes a good five minutes before I hear the door unbolt. It opens slowly, and he's standing there. For the first time, he actually looks his age—there are dark rings around his eyes, and it's ten in the morning.

  He doesn't say anything, but takes a deep breath. "Good morning, Emily. You'd better come in." His tone frightens me more than anything else could have. I start to talk, but he cuts me off.

  "Sit down, please. We need to talk." He takes my hand and leads me to the sofa. We sit in the same spot in which we were about to make love just a day ago, and I wince when I think of it.

  "Emily, we can't go on like this. Those headlines—they were unfair, but they weren't wrong. I've manipulated you, and I owe you an apology. I don't know what I can do to make amends, but you need to know that what I did to you wasn't right. "

  "Will, that's not—"

  "No, Emily. I took advantage of my position of power over you, and I take that very seriously. When you're in the role of a teacher, students put their trust in you. I was someone to whom you looked up, someone who was putting you at your ease. It was natural that your response to that could turn into attraction. I was flattered, but I should have left it at that."

  I try to take his hand, but he sits back, head bowed for a minute. When he looks up, he's trying to smile, but there's no spark in his eyes.

  "Emily, I'm not someone you were ever going to be with for a long time, was I? Be honest with me."

  I can't believe what I'm hearing. "Will, that's not true at all. You didn't manipulate me, and we both know it. All the horrible things that are being said about you—you can't honestly think that I believe them, too?"

  He shakes his head. "I don't, Emily, but that doesn't matter any more. I need to leave Lowell, and the only way to get you out of this, and minimize the harm to your degree, and to your future career, is for me to take full responsibility. I won't be saying to anyone that you were anything other than a victim."

  I wish I were a little younger, so I could stamp my foot right now.

  "Will, you're not listening to me! Right now, I don't care about my degree, and I don't care about my career. I'll be fine, honestly."

  "Emily, you don't understand how this kind of thing can follow someone for their entire career. If you go into academia, you'll be constantly reminded of it. You'll be 'the girl who had an affair with her professor'. The only way to get you out of this is to explain that you were the victim. That way, no-one will be able to call you those things."

  I lean forward and touch his face, but he doesn't respond. "Will, please. I'm not a little girl, and I'm not going to just change my mind about you. Why won't you listen?"

  "Emily, no. You need to be away from me. You need to move on with your life, and put this behind you." He takes my hand, and puts it back in my lap.

  And then, the words I was hoping desperately not to hear.

  "The semester is over in a week, and I will be returning to England. My time here at Lowell is over."

  Oh, no.

  There's nothing I can do. I stand up, mute, and turn for the door, hiding my face so he won't see the tears pricking at my eyes.

  The walk to the door seems very long indeed, and I'm dragging it out, knowing this is the last time I'm going to be with him, here in this shitty anonymous little college-furnished apartment, here where we were happy together.

  "Emily." I know he's looking at me as I reach the door, but I don't turn. "Emily, all I can do is apologize. I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I'm sorry this—us—ever happened."

  I turn back to him, one last time, and let him see my tears.

  "I'm not sorry, Professor. I'll never be sorry, not as long as I live."

  36

  Punching a brick wall is an excellent way to learn about the effectiveness of anger. Every teenage boy should do it, for two reasons: it hurts like shit, and it achieves absolutely nothing. The wall doesn’t care, but your hand sure
does.

  So, as you stand there, holding your bleeding knuckles, it’s really hard to escape one overriding thought: That’s right. I’m being a childish idiot. If I’m half as clever as I think I am, I should get it together and start using my brain to make sense of this situation.

  The college PR machine in full damage-control mode, but it's not really working. The faculty has politely asked me to resign, even though there is only a week of the semester left to go. On the whole, I got off pretty lightly, considering some of the headlines being posted on social media—"SPENCER THE SLEAZE" was a particular highlight—and as long as I make a statement that it was entirely my fault, and I will be resigning, then no further action will be taken. I very much doubt I can go back to Bailey like this, so I don't quite know what I'm going to do.

  I guess I should have expected that this would end badly. Now, it seems like I'm always packing or unpacking somewhere. I only got this damn office unpacked about a month ago.

  Emily's face when I told her I was going back to England was the last thing I expected. I thought she'd be upset, but instead she just looked defeated, like someone who's been told that Christmas was canceled. I don't know what else I can say to her—there's no question of me staying.

  And, in any case, she'll move on soon enough. At that age, people fall in love quickly, and they fall out again just as quickly. Pretty soon, this will just be a story that she tells her girlfriends over cocktails, or something like that.

  I don't think that's Emily, ever.

  I could see her one more time before I go, but what good would it do? I don't have any way to explain to her anything more about how I feel, because I barely understand it myself.

  Part of me wants to take her in my arms and tell her that she's the best thing that ever happened to me. That everything about her makes me want to smile, and that I would have spent the rest of my life waking up next to her if I could. If things had been different for us.

  But that would only be making things harder for both of us, and every time I look at the headlines—"PROFESSOR TROUBLE"—I get a fresh reminder of what I did.

  I was no good for her, and I knew that from the beginning. I should have had more self-control, but it's too late for that now.

  I'm not sure what's going to happen to her, but I know she'll be better off without me in her life, reminding her of what happened here between us.

  Time for one last email.

  I have to make sure there's no going back, no chance of this going wrong again. She's too beautiful, and too vivacious, and too loving, to have something like this happen to her again.

  Dear Emily,

  This will be the last message from me.

  I am writing to reiterate my complete and unreserved apology for what I did to you. I put you in an unprofessional and unfair situation, and what I did was not only a violation of my professional duty as a teacher, it was a mistake as a grown man. You have the right to be treated with respect by the men in your life, and I failed you in this regard.

  I know you will go on and find happiness and success, and although you may not believe me, I genuinely wish you all the best in your career, and in the rest of your life. You have considerable gifts of knowledge and ability, and I am sure you will make the best of them.

  Yours,

  Will Spencer

  37

  Yet again, I'm stuck in my bed, crying under the covers. I'm so sick of this. Sick of this place, and sick of walking around where everything reminds me of him.

  Everything was so close to being perfect, and I screwed it up. I was too afraid to be open with him, and this is the result. If I’d told him I wanted to be with him. If I’d told him I thought he was married. If I’d told him about what I wrote and then tore out.

  If. If. If. Too late for ‘if’ now.

  Maybe I'm not the right person for him after all. I messed up his life, just by being insecure.

  Maybe I really am a silly girl, and this was just an infatuation. It's the logical conclusion to the fact I'm in bed at midday, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.

  I hear a knock on the door, and I know it can only be one person. "Come in, Ronnie."

  The door creaks, and a wave of perfume enters, even when Ronnie doesn’t. "Is it safe, honey?" She can't see my face under the covers, but I twitch them noncommittally. She evidently takes that as a yes, because she comes all the way in, closing the door softly behind her.

  I feel the blanket being drawn down slowly, and Ronnie's face hovers over me. I try to smile.

  "Oh, honey, this is no good. No good at all. Have you been here all morning?"

  I nod. "Not much else to do. Exams done, nowhere to go." I sniff in a way which is maybe a bit louder and more self-pitying than I'd intended. "And it's not like I have a boyfriend or anything."

  Ronnie sits on the bed next to me, and brings her knees up to her chin, which is no mean feat considering how long her legs are. It's like having a Great Dane sitting on the bed, although if I told her that, I'd be in deep trouble. "So, why don't we go somewhere? Come on, let's just go out. I'll hire a car, and we'll just go and drive, you know? Get away from the campus."

  "That's sweet, Ron, but there's no need. I can be miserable here just as well as anywhere else. All I can think about is how I've messed this up, and he doesn't want to see me." She snorts.

  "If he doesn't want to see you, he's a damn fool." She takes my head in her hands. "Look at me. Look, right here. Now."

  I face her, a little reluctantly. Ronnie's self-help lectures are heartfelt, but sometimes lapse into a stream of curses which limits their inspirational potential a little.

  "You are the most gorgeous, funny, sexy Goddamned girl I have met in my whole time at this stupid college. If he wasn't the right guy, then so what? You will meet the right guy, and he will be crazy over you. You know it, and I know it."

  I smile, despite myself. "Thanks, Ron. It's nice to hear that from someone, even if it is the same damn thing you always say." I pull the covers back. "I guess you're right. I should drag my sorry ass out of here and do something with myself."

  "So what are you going to do?" Ronnie sits up and starts to play with her rings while she watches me. I think for a minute, and then sigh.

  "I'm going to pack up and go home. The semester's basically over, and there's no reason to be here. "

  Ronnie looks downcast for a moment. "I'm gonna miss you, honey. I was kind of hoping we'd have one last night out at the end of this week, to go out with a bang, you know? But, I understand. If you want to go home, you go. We'll still be in touch, huh?"

  I hug her. "Oh, Ron, I can't forget you, and I'm not disappearing off the face of the earth. Come down to Boston on the weekends, and we'll go out together." She perks up.

  "You know, that does sound good. You can show me the bars, huh? They are Goddamned expensive down there in the big city, though. Fuckers." She says the last word with a Ronnie-Haas-special kind of enthusiastic venom, reserved for anyone who sells overpriced booze, the worst of crimes in her world.

  "Sure thing, Ron. I'll get an office job, and I'll be buying. No problem."

  "You going to be okay, honey? That minkukel guy really knocked you about." I shrug.

  "Yeah, I'm going to be okay. Once I'm on the train to Boston, this will start to fade, and by the time I get home, it'll just be a story I can tell people about over cocktails."

  I wish I could believe that. I wish I could believe that I'm going to forget him.

  38

  Packing my stuff always takes longer than I think it will. I wonder for the tenth time where I got the money to buy all these pairs of cheap shoes, and why I don't buy expensive ones that don't break on me.

  If those shoes hadn't broken, maybe Will and I would never have happened.

  There was no way I could have known that this would have happened, and I wonder whether I'd want things to be different if I could have chosen.

  I was wrong, what I said to Ronnie—I will miss
this place, my crappy little room. Ronnie down the hall, cursing and singing off-key.

  The grounds of Lowell, and the places to sit and eat lunch. The lecture halls, and all the ways you can sneak in late.

  But more than anything, I'll miss the time I spent with him. Going to the ball. Making love in his apartment. Listening to him talk in class, eyes fixed on him, drinking in every part of his face, his figure.

  I move a stack of books, and underneath it is the notebook. That damn notebook. I'd like to throw it out, but it was never mine in the first place, so maybe it should go back to him. I pick it up, but I don't read any of the pages. I just stare at the first letter of the first entry.

  'E'

  My whole life, I'll always be a little sad that I messed this up, but sometimes it's worth celebrating something wonderful, even as it ends.

  One last time.

  Sitting down for a moment, I clear a space between the books, and fumble for a pen.

  This time, I'll tell him the truth, and tell him everything. Even though it doesn't matter any more, I want it to be recorded.

  39

  I'm in my office, packing, slowly. The semester is over next week, and exams have finished, so unless there's remarking of exam scripts or queries to deal with, I don't have a lot to do.

  It would be impossible for me to stay here at Lowell even if I wanted to, but now this has happened, my chances of going back to Bailey are also pretty minimal. I seriously doubt that Dean Holgate has a Facebook account, but I can imagine the satisfied look on his face when someone tells him that Will Spencer has been embroiled in a misconduct scandal with a student while in the United States.

  Do I really need to take all of this stuff back to England? I glance around at books and papers, notes scribbled on white-boards, and I wonder what it was all for. This time at Lowell seems like a dream, something I'll wake up from and wonder how it happened.