Forbidden

by R. R. Banks

  The thought had burst into my mind fully formed. There was no hesitation or sense that this might not be the right next move. For all the questioning that I had put myself through the night before, the compulsion felt irresistible now. Having her as my TA was the ideal opportunity to spend more time with her, to get closer to her, and to begin the seduction that had been on my mind since I first saw her. That was all I wanted from her. To seduce her. To possess her.

  The only even semblance of hesitation that I felt had nothing to do with Veronica or my intentions for her. Instead, it was about the idea of having a TA at all. I had never had one and had never intended to. In fact, I had always been deeply critical of the professors who always had them and pawned off so much of their work on the validation-desperate students rather than handling it for themselves. In my eyes it had been the worst kind of academic monarchy, encouraging people to deem the professors worthy of praise and admiration when they were truly little more than figureheads in their own classrooms. I knew that I would have to balance making her feel as though she were actually doing something of value and still maintaining what I thought of as my integrity as a professor, handling my own work and involving myself directly in all aspects of the course. I knew that I would find that balance if it meant having her in the classroom with me.

  I went to my office and emailed Veronica, explaining to her that I had a TA position available and learned that she was interested in such a position. I wasn't lying to her. I just didn't feel the need to elaborate that the timing of finding out that she was interested in a TA position and me having one come available was conveniently the same moment.

  I spent the next hour finalizing the plans for the first week of class for each of my courses. I had always been the type of professor who was very aware of the add/drop period and the impact that a poorly chosen course could make on a student's entire semester, if not college career. Choosing one class that they weren't suited for or that they didn't really need because they thought that it looked easy and then failing could send them spiraling, taking away opportunities and making it difficult for them to recover. This was why I was never one to spend the first few classes on exhaustively reviewing the syllabus and easing into the course. Getting to know you games were for children. I wanted my students to learn about me through my lessons and assignments, and for me to learn about them through the work that they put into them. Those assignments came immediately and intensely, forcing the line between the students that filled my lecture halls and classrooms. Either they picked up quickly and learned to thrive, or they rapidly recognized that they were going to fail and decided to leave. By the third class every semester my numbers had dwindled, and I was down to mostly those students capable and willing to take on the challenge. Inevitably there would be a few scattered in there who thought that they could handle it but ended up still proving that they should have been amongst the early exodus, but that was something that happened in virtually every class in every university.

  I was reviewing the prompt for the writing assignment I intended to give in the second class when I heard a light knock on my office door. I looked up and saw Veronica standing in the doorway, her hand still hovering near the open door. I smiled and stood.

  "Hello, Veronica," I said. "Come on in."

  She stepped inside and closed the door almost automatically. Rather than sitting down, though, she took a few steps toward me and clasped her hands in front of her, letting out a sigh as if preparing to give a speech.

  "Professor Ford, I got your email offering me a position as your TA and I wanted to thank you. But I came here to let you know that I won't be able to accept it."

  I looked at her quizzically.

  "You won't?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  "I should have taken my name off the list before I even left the office. The truth is that the only reason I was looking into becoming a TA is that I need a job for this semester. I need something that will allow me the flexibility to go to my courses and all my training and rehearsing, and that will also pay enough to sustain me. The receptionist let me know that the positions are on a strictly volunteer basis so it's not an option for me."

  "Would you want to be my TA?" I asked.

  "I think that it could be interesting," she said, "but I can't commit my time to something else when I will barely be able to fit a paying job into my schedule. I have a few courses that I should have taken earlier that I need to do, which has made my load very heavy for this semester, and I'm working on my senior pieces for the dance department so that I can hopefully catch the attention of a company. I wouldn't have the time to devote to assisting you and working anywhere for enough hours that I would make the money that I need."

  Her cheeks had become slightly pink and she had glanced away as if she were embarrassed to even be discussing something like this with me. I remained still, my arms across my chest.

  "And if I made sure that you could do all of that?"

  She looked up at me, questions in her eyes.

  "What do you mean?"

  "If I ensured that you had the time that you needed to take care of all of those things, gave you credits so that you didn't have to take those basic courses, and paid you the rate that you want, would you want to be my TA?"

  She shook her head slightly.

  "But the receptionist said…"

  "Forget about what she said. Just answer me."

  "Yes," she said, sounding breathless.

  I gave a single nod.

  "Then that's settled," I said, walking back around to my chair and sitting down. "Be in the Harrison Lecture Hall at three Monday afternoon. Actually, you should probably make it fifteen minutes early to make sure that you are ready for the students." She stood there staring at me, not responding. "Is there something wrong? Does that conflict with another of your classes?"

  "No," she said.

  "Good. Then I will see you then."

  "I don't understand," she said. "How can you do that?"

  I rested my hands on the desk, looking directly into the hypnotic blue of her eyes and feeling the pull in my chest intensify to an almost unbearable strength. I had to have her and I would do anything necessary to make sure that she took this position and was there with me when the classes started.

  "I can do anything I want," I said simply. "Who will defy me?"

  "But if the University doesn't allow paid TAs…"

  "There might not be any budget that would allow for TAs to be paid directly through the school, but they can't stop me from providing my own financial compensation for a student who shows exemplary commitment and does an exceptional job in her position." She seemed to think about this for a moment, unsure of how to respond. "Veronica, you were very good in my class. You had to have been for me to remember you now. I teach hundreds of students each semester and most of them I wouldn't be able to tell you that I had ever seen them if you showed me a picture of them. It's not that way with you. You made an impression on me then and I know that you would be fantastic in this position. It would be a very easy experience for you, and it could offer you far more than what any other job you could find would. I know that this is an important decision for you, so I don't want to pressure you into it. Take some time to think about it and consider your other options. If you decide that this is the right decision for you, come to class on Monday."

  She nodded.

  "I'll think about it," she agreed.

  "Good. Thank you for coming in."

  Dismissed, she turned and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her again. I waited until she was gone to lean back in my chair, folding my hands over my lap and smiling. I knew that she would be there when the class started on Monday. I could see the look in her eyes. I was offering her far too much to simply pass up. There was just too much benefit in what I was offering to her for her to be able to resist it. The image of my wife flashed briefly through my mind, but I didn't dwell. I le
t it fade. This wasn't about her. Veronica would never reach the place in my heart and my mind where I still cradled her. This wasn't about love or even a relationship. I wanted Veronica for a simple purpose, and soon I would begin to convince her that that was what she wanted, too.

  Chapter Four

  Veronica

  I felt distracted as I walked out of the building and across campus. I had gone to Professor Ford's office only to tell him that I wasn't going to be able to take the position that he offered me, feeling that that was more appropriate than just emailing him back to turn him down. Now I was strongly considering the possibility of taking him up on the offer, even if that did mean skirting around the policies of the University. What he was offering me would mean that I could drop the two basic courses that I was forcing into my schedule after years of procrastinating, freeing up a huge amount of time, fit in all my dance requirements, and still make the money that I needed. It was a very difficult offer to resist.

  I was trying to convince myself that it was only professional interest that was making the offer so appealing. I didn't want to think about my attraction to Professor Ford or the fact that this would give me far more opportunities to think that way. This had to be nothing more than an academic and financially beneficial experience. But it was that tug along with the feeling that he was offering me something that might not be entirely ethical that had stopped me from immediately agreeing to it. He was handing me everything that I wanted, but I didn't want to risk his career or the future of mine because of the policy. I could hear my phone ringing and when I climbed into my car and tossed the phone into the cupholder I could see that it was Javi. I pressed the button to ignore the call, not wanting his input to confuse me anymore. I would talk to him about it when I had come to a conclusion for myself. Or when I was so hopelessly locked in indecision that I had no choice but to let him help me figure it out.

  Before I even realized what was happening, I found myself driving through a neighborhood that was so familiar I could have navigated it with my eyes closed. Only a few miles away from campus it was the place where I had developed my love for the University and decided that there was nowhere else that I wanted to study. This was it, this was the place where I was going to pursue the dreams that had been in me since I was just a little child. Part of me knew that I should still be living here. I should never have left. Yet I had to. I needed to in order to invest myself fully in the experience of college.

  At least that was what my grandmother had told me.

  I stopped my car in front of her house and stared up at it. I got the same gnawing, empty feeling that I always did when I thought about it and the days that I had spent here. It was here, at this house, sitting on that porch in a swing that was once pristine and white but was now fading and blistering in the wind and sun that my grandmother told me that I needed to move out and find a place to live while I was in college. I had argued with her, telling her that I would be fine living in the house with her and commuting the short distance to classes. I could be there for her. I could take care of her. She refused, telling me that I needed to be away from my childhood in order to find my adulthood. I needed to learn what it was to be somewhere completely unfamiliar and have only myself to think about.

  I often wondered if she already knew then.

  I wondered if she knew that by the time that I was in my last year of college I would only have myself with no family to help me or to take care of me. I would have hoped that she would have told me, but at the same time, I understood why she would have wanted to keep it from me. She had been everything to me. She was all I had from the time that I was a small child and the incident that took the rest of my family from me. I had grown up in a world that was completely crafted by her and couldn't have imagined a time when she wouldn't be there to guide and protect me. She had been the only reason I had been able to come through what I had experienced and get to the place I was now. She wouldn't have wanted to put the fear of being alone in me.

  So, she pushed me to learn what it was like to be alone. She encouraged me to step outside of the comfort that I had found and experience those first few steps still knowing that she was there. I know that she thought that that would make it easier. But as I sat here looking up at the house that I owned but that I hadn't stepped foot in in more than a year, I wondered if she was right.

  Losing her had come as such a shock to me, even though she had known that it was coming. She gave me such a short time to ready myself, just two weeks to wrap my head around the fact that she wasn't going to be with me anymore. I still hadn't fully come to terms with it. That was part of why I still hadn't gone back into the house. I knew that she wasn't there. I had collected my inheritance and added it to the amount that she had put into my account before I moved to help me through. I had been there to face the friends and neighbors who came to pay their respects. I watched the faceless, nameless men as they lowered her into the grave. But my heart wouldn't accept it. I had refused to go back into the house, allowing a few close friends of hers to go in and clean out the kitchen and do the last of the laundry, finishing up those tasks that should have been my grandmother's. That should have been mine.

  Part of me felt almost as though if I didn't go back inside, I wouldn't have to really face it. I could sit out here and look at the house and pretend that she was still in there. I could imagine that the grass was high just because the weather had been hot and she hadn't wanted to call the landscaper and make him miserable in the sun. I could pretend that there was mail in the box and Nana would come shuffling out of the house soon to collect it. I could pretend that the house was filled with the smell of pot roast and apple pie, and the sound of Wheel of Fortune or the same movie she had seen a thousand times before but liked to have on because it kept her company. As long as I didn't open that front door and step into the silence, I didn't have to accept that it was there.

  I knew what Javi had said was true. This was the house that I owned and where I would likely live after school unless a company chose me and I had to move to another state. Even then, I couldn't imagine selling the house. At some point, I was going to live in it again, which meant that at some point I was going to have to go through it and replace what had essentially become a memorial to my grandmother's life with my own. I couldn't live in the protective bubble of the apartment with Javi forever. He had an incredible career and life ahead of him and I didn't want to be the thing that held him back. He deserved the freedom to explore everything that his brilliance and talent could offer him without me clinging to him and hoping that one day I would feel safe again.

  I needed to be able to handle this on my own.

  I pulled away from the house and noticed that my phone in the cupholder was still ringing, buzzing against the plastic edges now that I had silenced it. Javi's name was glowing on the screen. I didn't want to start a conversation with him while I was driving, so I let it finish ringing. A few seconds later I heard the buzz that told me I had voicemails waiting. I accessed the box and the monotone woman I liked to imagine lived within my phone and kept all my communication organized told me that I had seven voicemails.

  Three guesses who those are from.

  Javi seemed to be in a particularly musical mood that day. Not that that was terribly much of a divergence from his usual mood, but I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened at the party the night before that had contributed to his singing.

  "Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na," he sang, "hey, hey, hey, call me."

  He worked his way back through the decades with each new message.

  "Oh, Honey, do-do-do-do do-do, Oh, Sugar, Sugar, do-do-do-do do-do, give me aaa- aa call back," sang the second message.

  Things went a little downhill from there.

  "I just called --- to say – I lo – where the hell are you, bitch?"

  Javi's sweet ballad voice disappeared into his best queen shriek by the end of the third message and all the following ones were just the sound of him s
lamming the phone into the table to make progressively louder sounds as if he was hanging up on me. He was ever the model of self-control and calmness.

  "I don't think that's how that song is supposed to end," I said when I walked into the apartment ten minutes later.

  "Which one?"

  "Any of them, actually."

  "Where have you been all afternoon?"

  "I had an appointment," I said.

  "What kind of appointment?"

  He was standing in the kitchen staring into one of the cabinets. After a few seconds, he closed it and moved on to the next one, opening it and staring into it similarly. This wasn't unusual behavior for him. I'd learned over the time that I had lived with him that he frequently stood in the kitchen staring into the cabinets or refrigerator hoping that the food fairy would have visited and brought him something delicious. This most often happened when he had a craving that he couldn't quite put his finger on and he hoped that he would spontaneously see it and know what he wanted.

  "I went to find out about those teaching assistant positions like you suggested."

  "That's fantastic," he said. "Did you find anything?"

  "Well…" I said.

  "That doesn't sound completely confident. Were there no positions available?"

  "Well, no. There weren't really many available, but on top of that, I found out that the positions are unpaid."

  "Seriously?"

  "Apparently it's tradition at the University for all TA positions to be strictly on a volunteer basis."

  "I'm sorry. Are you looking for something else?"

  "Not exactly. I got an offer for a position that does pay."

  "How does that work?"

  He moved over to the refrigerator and stared in, finally emerging with a jar of green olives.

  "The professor apparently really wants my help. He offered to pay me personally and to arrange for me to get credits for the time so that I can drop some of my basic courses. That will save me a lot of time, which means that I'll be able to study more and I can pick up some extra workouts or choreography sessions if they come up. It's really a great opportunity that I should be taking without a second thought because it would be exactly what I've been looking for and would make this year so much better for me."