by Amy Brent
“Keith, listen to me, what we had, it was fun and —”
“It was more than fun, Jude,” he said, his voice gravelly, almost a growl. “It was everything. What we had, I mean, it wasn’t just the sex, which was fucking amazing, but the connection, the feelings…” He was rambling, almost talking out of his head. I noticed for the first time that his eyes were red. He was sweating. His hands were trembling. I could smell the alcohol on his hot breath. He was high as a kite. Knowing that frightened me even more. A sober, coherent Keith would listen to reason. But I knew from experience that a Keith who had been drinking and smoking dope only listened to his own urges regardless of the consequences.
I forced myself to stand a little straighter. I raised my voice and held out my hand again. “Keith, stop it! It’s over. We are over. I still care about you and I want you to be happy but there’s nothing here now, nothing sexual. I will not sleep with you again. Period.”
He shocked me when he fell to his knees in front of me and reached out his hands. Tears filled his eyes. “Fine, I can accept that, but Jude, please, I have to have you just one more time. Just one more fuck for old time’s sake. Please. I’m begging you. I’ll die if I don’t fuck you one more time.”
Before I could respond he suddenly reached out and grabbed my wrist, pulling me down onto the pavement with him, sending my books flying. I tried to scream, but a strong hand over my mouth forced the words back down.
“You fucking bitch,” he growled in my ear. “You think you can just come along and flash that pretty pussy and get whatever you want without worrying about who gets hurt.” He roughly turned me around and put his arm around my neck and squeezed hard. I felt myself starting to black out as his arm cut off my oxygen. I scratched at his arm, fighting to stay awake.
“Fucking whore,” he growled, somehow getting to his feet and pulling me up with him. There was a grassy area next to where I was parked. Twenty yards across the grass was a patch of thick woods. Keith started dragging me toward the trees. I knew what was going to happen if he got me into the woods. He would beat me, rape me, probably hurt me bad. I struggled to break free, but his arm around my neck was like a vice. His right hand had grabbed my right wrist and twisted it behind me. It felt as if my arm was about to break. He ground his crotch into my ass as he pushed me along. I could feel him getting hard already at the anticipation of forcing himself on me. And I was helpless to do anything but allow myself to be forced into the woods until I could get into a better position to fight. Once he turned me around my knee would go for his balls and my fingernails for his eyes. There was no way I was going to make this easy for him.
“Fucking cunt,” Keith growled in my ear. “I’m gonna fuck your ass until you can’t fucking move, you fucking cunt bitch. Come into my classroom and flash your pussy and your tits and ruin my marriage. Hell, you ruined my entire life, you fucking cunt. And I know I’m not the first. And probably won’t be the last. It’s time somebody made you pay. Let’s see how many men will want you when I’m done with you. I’m gonna fucking —”
I suddenly felt myself being jerked backward as the words cut off in Keith’s throat. I was thrown roughly to the side and rolled several times, landing hard on the grass. I heard male voices, angry, threatening. When I finally stopped rolling and was able to look up I saw Holden gripping the front of Keith’s shirt, shaking him like a rag doll. Keith’s nose was bloody. There was blood smeared across the knuckles of Holden’s right hand.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Holden growled, shaking Keith hard enough to rattle his teeth. Keith grabbed onto Holden’s wrists to try and balance himself. He spat blood over the front of Holden’s shirt. Holden hit him again, then looked my way. “Jude? You okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” I said, pushing myself up onto my knees. “Please… don’t hurt him…” I put a hand to my throat and tried to swallow. My voice was hoarse. My head was spinning. My knees and elbows were skinned. Otherwise, I thought I was okay.
“Call the police,” Holden said, clamping back on to the front of Keith’s shirt.
“Holden, old pal, come on,” Keith said, forcing a drunken smile as the blood ran from his nose to his chin. “Don’t call the fucking cops. Help me get that bitch into the woods and we’ll both fuck her ass up. Trust me, what she did to me, she’ll do to you! You’re just the fucking flavor of the month.”
“Shut up, you asshole,” Holden growled.
“Oh, come on, man, don’t pretend you’re not tempted. You love that shit, double teaming the girls, gangbanging their fucking brains out… I know you fucking do.”
“Shut the fuck up, Keith,” Holden said, shaking Keith hard again with his teeth gritted and eyes narrowed. “You don’t know shit about me so just shut the fuck up.”
Keith chuckled and tried to keep his wobbly knees from buckling. “I know you well enough, you hypocritical motherfucker. You and that fucking faggot asshole friend of yours, goddamn Wynn Driver. You perverted motherfuckers have used and abused more girls on this campus than anyone. Don’t you act so high and mighty with me, you cocksucking piece of shit.”
“I’m not going to tell you again, Keith, shut the fuck up!” Holden said, shaking Keith hard enough now to buckle his knees. Keith went down hard on his knees and Holden pushed him away, sending him careening backward.
“Motherfucker…” Keith rolled over to his side for a moment, swearing at Holden, then got onto his hands and knees and started puking his guts out. He spat toward the ground and glared sideways at me. “Fucking cunt… this is all your fucking fault...”
Holden told him to shut his mouth, then glanced over at me with his hands in the air. “Jude? Jude? 911? Call them. Now.”
“What? Yes…” I found my purse next to my car and dug out my cell phone and called 911. Within minutes, campus police arrived, then the city cops. Thirty minutes later, Keith was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car with his head resting against the window. His eyes were closed and his mouth was hanging open. The son of a bitch was sleeping like a baby.
“Okay, here’s my card,” the city cop said, holding out his business card between two fingers. “You’ll need to come in and make a formal statement if you want to press charges. Just call me to make an appointment. Otherwise, we’ll just charge him with public intoxication and violating the restraining order and that’ll be it.”
“I… I’m not sure what I should do…” I muttered.
I took the card and slid it into my purse, even though I wasn’t sure I’d be pressing charges against Keith. It was crazy, I know, but I felt responsible for everything that happened.
If I had not targeted Professor Keith Calloway one summer ago, if I had not signed up for his class with the specific intent of seducing my teacher, becoming his pet, maybe Keith would still be married and I wouldn’t be standing here today shaking like a leaf and blaming myself for everything that happened.
Maybe Keith and his wife would still be together.
Maybe he would be going home to his kids every night rather than to some shitty apartment to be alone and drink his problems away.
I should have never set foot in his classroom.
This was all my fault.
Every single bit of it.
“Jude, you okay?” Holden asked, putting a hand on my arm.
“What? Yes, I’m fine…”
“So, you’ll come down and give your statement later?” the cop asked again, giving me a look that only served to make me feel even more guilty.
“I’ll make sure she gets down there later today,” Holden said.
The cop stared at me for a moment, then shook Holden’s hand and headed toward his car. I stood watching with tears in my eyes as the police car pulled away with Keith slumped in the back. Keith didn’t woke up and I was glad. I didn’t want to look into his eyes again. I felt bad enough for everything I’d done to him.
“Jude, it’s okay, he’s not going to bother you again,” Holden said, putting h
is arms around me and pulling me close. I did not put my arms around him. I just stood there like a limp noodle with my arms dangling at my sides, wondering how many other men I’d hurt in my silly quest to be teacher’s pet.
There was one thing I knew for sure.
Professor Holden Moss would be the last.
CHAPTER TWELVE: Holden
It had been nearly a week since I had seen or talked to Jude, not since the day Keith Calloway attacked her in the parking lot after my class. If I had not been coming out of the psyche building at the same time Keith was dragging her toward the woods—and had not spotted them across the way— things might have turned out very differently. And very badly for Jude and for Keith, who I recalled as being a fairly decent guy before becoming obsessed with Jude.
Like a lot of professors—me and Wynn included—Keith had a reputation of being a major pussy hound. It was hard not to be a swinging dick when you were surrounded by hot, willing coeds all day long.
Jude was not the first student he’d had sex with and probably wouldn’t be the last. Keith was a good-looking guy with a great personality when he was sober. I just hoped his next employer was made aware of his psychological issues and legal problems before exposing him to another field of female students.
I sort of felt sorry for the guy, but his problems could not be entirely blamed on Jude. From a psychological point of view, Keith was an obsessive compulsive with narcissistic tendencies. He zeroed in on Jude and let his own obsession for her devour him. It wasn’t her fault Keith had flipped his lip over her, no more so than any other innocent girl or former girlfriend who was now the victim of a deranged stalker, which, at the end of the day, is what Keith had become.
Honestly, I couldn’t fault him entirely because I had become obsessed with Jude, as well. What started out as just another casual affair with a student had moved on to a higher level, at least for me. I wasn’t in love with Jude—at least not yet—but I certainly had strong feelings for her. Stronger feelings than I had ever had for any girl before. I thought about her constantly, not just about having sex with her, but about just hanging out and spending time. We had fun just watching TV or making dinner or walking through the park or sharing a big plate of French fries in the cafeteria. Jude smothered her fries in ketchup and talked with her mouth full. It was an annoying habit that I had come to love about her.
Jude insisted on driving herself home after the incident, even though I tried to talk her into letting me take her, and that was the last time I’d seen or heard from her. She had stopped coming to class and stopped answering my calls and texts, and when I stopped by her apartment she refused to come to the door.
I talked to the city cop who had answered the 911 call and he said Jude never came down to the station to give a statement or press charges, so Keith was released on his own recognizance and warned to stay away from Jude and keep off the Midwestern campus.
The next time he violated the restraining order it would be a mandatory thirty days in jail with no chance for bail. Same if he ever set foot on the MU campus again. Keith was a fucking asshole, but I didn’t think he wanted revenge badly enough to risk jail time over it, at least not while he was sober.
I stopped by Jude’s apartment several times over the course of the next week, but her roommate Izzy said that Jude had gone home to visit her parents. When I pointed out that Jude’s car was still parked out front, Izzy stumbled over the lie and said that she had dropped her at the airport and drove her car back to the apartment.
“Izzy, please, just tell me what’s going on,” I said, propping a hand on the door frame and leaning in to lower my voice. I glanced past her at inside of the apartment, which was dark and quiet. “I know she’s in there. Why won’t she see me? Why won’t she talk to me? What did I do?”
Izzy gave a nervous glance over her shoulder for a moment, then brought her dark eyes back to mine, as if she were considering letting me in but then thought better of it. She closed the door a little more and leaned her cheek against it.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Professor Moss,” she said with a heavy sigh. “She’s sort of having a meltdown.”
I swallowed hard and glanced past her again. I was an academic by calling, but a medical professional by trade. In my practice I’d worked with dozens of patients experiencing overwhelming feelings of guilt and debilitating depression. I prayed that wasn’t the case with Jude.
I narrowed my eyes at Izzy. “What kind of a meltdown are you talking about?”
“Professor Moss, come on man…” Izzy took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, look, she’s blaming herself for a lot of things that have happened over the years. Not just the shit with Keith Calloway, but other stuff that she’s done and people she got herself involved with. Jude is the sweetest girl on earth, Professor, but sometimes the choices she makes are not the best for her. Or the best for others. She realizes that now. And I think she just needs time to sort things out.”
I gave Izzy a look that told her I was not leaving until I knew Jude was all right. I asked, “Blaming herself for what kind of things?”
She glanced back over her shoulder again, then shook her head. “I shouldn’t say anymore. Please, just leave her alone, Professor Moss. She has to work things out on her own. She’ll be okay. You just have to give her time.”
Shaking my head, I said, “It’s the Keith Calloway thing most of all, isn’t it? She blames herself for what happened with that piece of shit.”
“He wasn’t always a piece of shit,” Izzy said sadly. “At least not in Jude’s mind.” Regardless of her words, her eyes told me she agreed with me, but she shrugged and told me she had to go. I put my hand on the door before she could close it.
“Izzy, please, tell her to call me. Nothing that happened is her fault. I’m trained… I mean… I can help her work through this. I know how these things work. Jude is amazing. None of this is her fault. I want to help her. I care for her. Very deeply…”
“That’s nice of you to say, Professor Moss,” Izzy said as she eased the door closed another inch. “But she is not feeling very good about herself right now, but she will soon. Please, just give her time. Go home. And have a good night.”
“Izzy, I really do care for her.”
“I know you do, Professor,” Izzy said quietly. “I’ll make sure she knows that. Don’t worry.”
She closed the door and clicked the deadbolt, leaving me standing on the stoop with a hole in my chest that only one person could fill.
And at that moment I wasn’t sure I’d ever see that person again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Jude
In my dream, I was being judged. I mean literally and figuratively being judged, as in on trial for my alleged crimes with my fate left up to the mercy of the court, a group of people who didn’t know me from Eve.
My alleged crimes…
What a bullshit word my brain had conjured up in a half-hearted attempt to defend my own actions to myself.
Alleged, a word plucked straight from my sophomore criminal law class, no doubt.
Alleged.
There was no more greater bullshit word in the English language, at least when it came to helping criminals like me hide behind the good old Constitution and avoid the law.
Even when they saw you commit a crime—had you on video tape, even—and had you dead to rights, they had to use the word “alleged” so as not to violate the old “innocent until proven guilty” routine.
What a crock of shit.
Alleged.
There was nothing alleged about my crimes.
I’d committed them blatantly and willingly, without ever giving a shit who might get hurt in the process. As long as my rocks got off, that’s all I cared about. I got mine. Fuck yours.
I’d committed every crime of passion with a smile on my face, knowing full well what I was doing, without regard to who would have fun and who would get hurt.
In the dream, I was in a courtroom with a jud
ge, a jury, a gallery filled with spectators, and tables for the lawyers. I was sitting at the defendant’s table with shackles around my wrists and ankles, and a thick, leather, spikey dog collar around my neck. There was a leash made of heavy chain running from a loop at the front of the collar to another loop bolted to the floor. I couldn’t have moved from the chair if I’d tried.
I looked down at myself in horror. I was wearing an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit and pink fuzzy slippers. I started thinking, who dressed me in this getup? Don’t they know I look terrible in orange??
I glanced around the room. Izzy sat sitting quietly beside me, wearing what looked like a black choir robe and a white wig like the ones I’d seen on some movie the one time I tried watching PBS. I tried to ask her what was going on but she shushed me with her hand without looking at me.
I looked past Izzy toward the prosecution table. There sat old Professor Markle, dressed in a similar black choir robe and white wig, though his robe was too big for his skinny frame and his wig was askew to one side. He kept fiddling with the wig, but it kept sliding to the side.
Sitting next to him was Keith Calloway.
Suddenly, I knew why I was on trial. Though I wasn’t quite sure of the specific charges yet, I knew they would be numerable and impossible to argue. I was fucked, but not in the good way.
