by Hazel Kelly
Perhaps his weariness was a result of his professorial position being more demanding than he’d anticipated. Or perhaps married life just didn’t suit him.
She’d clocked the modest gold wedding band from a mile away so she knew he went through with it. She pictured his wife at home in an apron, ready to pop out a bunch of babies they made in the missionary position. If she hadn’t already gotten started.
She was glad that he was married. It meant that either his wife didn’t really care what he got up to or that more likely, he had kept what happened between them a secret. She hoped it was the latter. She liked secrets. It turned her on to think his feelings for her were hidden and guarded inside him.
And of course, the other good thing about him keeping her a secret was that he was capable of doing it, which meant that he was capable of doing it again. It was just a matter of whether he was willing. Of course, if he got away with it the first time, why wouldn’t he be? The keeping of secrets was a slippery slope.
Julianna twisted her ankles around each other in anticipation. The moment she was waiting for had finally arrived. It was time for her to erase the stern frown that seemed cemented on his face.
Kirk turned and looked over the heads of his students for what seemed like the first time the whole session.
“Alright,” he said. “One thing you’ll come to know about me is that as long as the work gets done well, I’m not really worried about how long it takes. So I’m going to let you out early today, but next week the pressures on.”
Feet shifted and chairs scratched against the floor.
“But first…” He raised his voice. “I think we should go around and just introduce ourselves quickly. I know you’re all graduate students so I’m not going to force you to do a bunch of juvenile icebreakers like some of your other psychology professors-”
The students laughed.
“But I do think we should be on a first name basis since we’ll be working together a lot going forward. So how about just sharing your name, where you’re from, and how you ended up in this class. Who’d like to start?”
Julianna raised her hand.
“Yes. The woman at the back. Go ahead.”
She stood up slowly and smiled at him.
Kirk’s face went white.
She slid off her glasses and hung them in the neckline of her shirt.
“Hi everyone.” She kept her elbow at her side and gave a small wave. “I’m Julianna. I’m from Amery originally, and I actually went to undergrad here. But now I’m on a semester exchange from Emhurst. And what else?” She rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling and flipped her hair behind her shoulders. “Oh right, and I’m in this class because I’ve had Professor Kirk before.” She locked her eyes on him. “And I found him to be very good.”
Kirk swallowed. For a moment, he said nothing. It was as if he had sudden amnesia.
The woman to the left of Julianna raised her hand. “Should I go next?”
Kirk cleared his throat. “Yes. Please. Go ahead.”
Julianna had to admit that although Kirk hadn’t had the happy reaction she’d hoped for, she did think he already looked a little more awake.
She watched him as he pretended to listen to the other students. He reminded her of a lost puppy that she just wanted to pet until he rolled over and exposed himself. She imagined it wouldn’t take much time.
When the other students finished introducing themselves, Kirk reminded them again about the section of their text book they were supposed to read and dismissed them.
Julianna collected her things and made her way to the front of the room. By the time she reached his desk, all the other students had left.
She held her books in front of her with both hands, letting her gold necklace dangle in her cleavage. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Kirk was leaning against the desk in front of her. He looked at her like she was a ghost.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“You know why,” she said, letting her head fall to the side. “Because I want to be a professor.”
He placed his palms firmly on the desk like anchors. “Why are you in my class?”
“Because I want to learn from the best.” She shifted her weight. “Is that so wrong?”
“Julianna.” He fixed his eyes on her. “I’m married now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Do you understand what that means?”
“Sure I understand, but I don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“What I’m trying to say is that I only want you to stay in this class if you can respect that.” He looked back and forth between her almond eyes.
“Can you respect that I’m equally concerned with my own reputation and priorities?”
He pursed his lips. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said.
“Good.”
“Now I have a question about the assignment,” she said, noticing that he still smelled like spearmint.
“Sure.” He straightened up, as if he were inflated by his own relief.
“I started to read some of the text already-“
“Great.”
She smiled. “And I was thinking about you while I was reading-”
His eyebrows came together.
She leaned in close. “And now some of my pages are sticking together.”
He swallowed and clenched his jaw.
“And I was just wondering…” She leaned in to whisper in his ear so he would be able to feel the heat coming off her breath. “Do you ever think of me like that?” She hovered there, letting the words sink in.
He was frozen in place.
She stepped back and looked down at the bulge in the front of his pants and then back up to his eyes.
“Thanks, Kirk,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
Kirk
Kirk’s head was spinning. He had been spending so much time and energy trying to fix his wife and heal his marriage that he genuinely thought things couldn’t get any worse.
But they had.
His biggest mistake had come back to haunt him and was going to continue to haunt him all semester. He feared for what she wanted this time. And that was his fault. The precedent he’d set was that when it came to him, she could have anything she wanted. He’d risked everything to give her what she asked for.
And she looked better than ever. Her dress sense had matured, but her face was still younger and deceptively more innocent than she actually was. When she stood in front of him, he thought the buttons on her shirt were going to pop off from the strain of trying to hold her heavy tits, the same ones he’d squeezed in the car the day she seduced him, the same ones he’d imagined fucking so many times.
No woman like that had ever given him the time of day. She was like a Playboy bunny posing as a graduate student, revealing her true intentions to him alone. Even her smell was intoxicating. Like warm vanilla. And he was sure her skin would taste just as sweet.
He shook his head in shame. She made him feel greedy. Horny. Insane. How could he be so selfish as to think of his “needs” at a time like this? When Madeline was hurting like she was?
God was obviously testing him. Madeline was nearly catatonic. If he got away with it before, he was sure he could get away with it again. It would be too easy to give in to her.
His pent up sexual energy was like an animal outgrowing its cage. He needed help. He needed to find some strength outside himself to help him resist temptation.
He pushed the small curtain to the side, sat down in the confession box, and wrung his hands together.
The priest cleared his throat.
Kirk took a deep breath in through his nose. His jaw was clenched.
“Go ahead,” the priest said. “I’m listening.”
Kirk kept his eyes down on his hands. “Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been many years since my last confession.”
“May God the father of all mercies help you make a g
ood confession.”
“Father I am feeling tempted to commit adultery. There is a woman from my past who has just come back into my life.” Kirk swallowed. “To make matters worse, my wife is unwell at this time and the quality of our marriage is suffering.”
The priest sighed. “Well, suffering is the third ring of marriage.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It comes right after the engagement ring and the wedding ring.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just a joke, my son.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Kirk scratched his head. “But father-”
“Yes?”
“I really don’t want to be unfaithful to my wife. Please tell me what to do.”
“You have not acted on your temptation at this point?”
“No,” Kirk lied. “Not yet. I mean, that’s why I’m here. I want God to give me strength to resist my urges so I can be a good man.”
“Does your wife know about the other woman?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes,” the priest said. “I think this matter is best kept between you and God.”
“Okay.”
“Unless you really want to experience Hell on Earth.”
Kirk’s eyebrows came together. Was the priest making another joke?
“Also,” Kirk continued, “my wife’s depression is causing a strain in our marriage. She is not- um- expressing her love for me as she used to, and I’m worried that I am starting to resent her.”
“I see.”
“What can I do?” Kirk asked. “Obviously, I love my wife and I don’t want her to hurt anymore, but I’m not getting the attention from her that I need.”
“Patience is a virtue, my son.”
“I know.”
“And you vowed to love your wife through sickness and in health, did you not?”
“I did.”
“So it is clear what you must do.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Listen carefully,” the priest said. “It is imperative that you don’t overcomplicate this situation.”
“Agreed.”
“You must channel the lustful energy you have for this temptress constructively. Use it to give your wife the extra care that she needs from you at this time.”
“Okay.”
“This strategy is sure to reap the greatest rewards for both you and your marriage.”
“Okay.”
“Being true to her will give you the strength you need to hold strong to what is right and good in her eyes and the eyes of God.”
“Okay.”
“And I suggest you use regular prayer to remind yourself of the promises you’ve made to both your wife and to God.”
“Yes, father.”
“Do you have a favorite prayer, my son?”
“The Our Father,” Kirk said, assuming that by “favorite” the priest meant “memorized.”
“Perfect,” the priest said. “Well, just pray to God when you need extra guidance, and he will give you the help that you require.”
“Thank you, father.”
“May God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Amen.”
“May God Bless you.”
Kirk ducked his head on the way out of the confessional booth and ran his hand over his head. He knew he should hurry home to begin his penance of taking care of Madeline with renewed commitment, but he decided to sit for a few minutes and enjoy the lightness he felt from his first confession in so many years.
He slid onto the smooth seat of a pew and leaned back against the polished wood.
Jesus hung on the cross above the altar, trickles of dried blood painted on his hands. Kirk wondered what Jesus would do if Julianna were trying to seduce him. His first thought was that even Jesus wouldn’t be able to resist committing sins of the flesh with her if she set her sights on seducing him.
But he quickly dismissed that notion. After all, Jesus had big priorities and superhuman goals. Surely his commitment to spreading God’s message and delivering humanity from its sins took up all his time. And Jesus had greater self-control and a more exacting moral compass than Kirk. Plus, people threw themselves at Jesus all the time so it wouldn’t have been nearly as special or out of the ordinary.
Then again, a lot of those people were lepers and untouchables and social pariahs that would have made Julianna’s beauty stand out even more. It seemed like, even for Jesus, it would take a miracle to resist Julianna’s charms. Then again, performing miracles was one of the things Jesus did best. He could have done it. He could have eluded her, and if necessary, surely God would’ve given him some extra help if he needed it.
But then what hope was there for Kirk? He was just a mortal man, the son of a mortal man. He didn’t have such impressive aspirations. He’d never been anywhere near a miracle and his moral compass was decidedly flawed. All he wanted was a secure career and a wife who loved him, with not just words, but actions, too.
The priest had fed him some easy answers and had given him some decent advice on the whole, but his confession hadn’t changed the fact that Kirk was facing the most impossible situation he could think of, a situation that had plagued man since the beginning of time.
Kirk was naked in the Garden of Eden and he wasn’t alone. In one hand he had a shiny, juicy apple that made his mouth water, and in the other, he had a greedy snake that he couldn’t trust.
Julianna
Julianna didn’t have a good excuse to go to Kirk’s office hours except that she wanted to see him.
She needed to know she wasn’t crazy, that it wasn’t all in her head, that they had something worth exploring, that he felt it, too. After all, she was a firm believer that unrequited love was overrated, and she longed to know whether their secret was one he hated to keep or treasured as she did.
Because even though she had seduced him before, he hadn’t had a chance to take the lead. There just hadn’t been time.
Now they had a chance to make things right, to try again. She hoped he would be a man and take her. She wanted to feel the extent of his emotional and physical desire for her.
Because if there was one thing Julianna couldn’t stand it was being wrong. The only thing she hated more than that was being out of control when it came to men. She had only been wrong once. About Charlie. She thought it was true love, and he had gone behind her back. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. All she had wanted back then was for Charlie to want her like he wanted his slut, helplessly and hopelessly.
It was that feeling by which she now judged her relations with men. Either a man would do anything for her, risk anything for her, be anything for her, or he wouldn’t. She didn’t need love making and security and Valentine’s day romance. She needed to be craved. She wanted to be obsessed over.
But in order to test Kirk’s feelings, she had to alter her approach. She had to give Kirk some space and not come on so strong. He needed to know she was available to him and then hopefully, he would seize the opportunity.
Julianna looked over her shoulder and then wiggled her breasts into position and licked her lips.
She knocked quietly on the door.
“Come in.”
She turned the cool door knob and poked her head inside. Kirk was sitting at his desk with his chair angled towards the door.
“Julianna.”
“Hi.” She closed the door behind her.
“Have a seat.” He reached for a brown cushioned chair in the corner of the room and moved the papers stacked on it to the floor.
“Thanks.” Julianna sat down and smoothed her skirt over her smooth, bare legs.
Kirk pushed his glasses up his nose and sat back in his seat.
Julianna was pleasantly surprised by how relaxed he seemed in her presence.
“So,” h
e said, folding his hands in his lap. “What brings you to office hours?”
“I was in the area. I just thought I’d stop in to say hi.” She looked around for pictures of babies and noticed a blond woman in a frame on the far side of the desk. “Is that your wife?”
Kirk looked over his shoulder at the photo and then turned back to Julianna.
She felt like an idiot. It was obviously his wife. He was standing next to her in the picture, and she was wearing a wedding dress. “She’s pretty.”
“Yes,” he said. “She is.”
“Congratulations again.”
“Thank you.”
“You didn’t tell her about-”
“No. I didn’t.”
Julianna pursed her lips.
“Julianna.”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well it’s your office hours, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“So I thought it was a good time to come see you.”
“About what?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
“Well here I am.”
“Kirk.” Julianna pressed her knees together. “I know you probably haven’t thought about me since I graduated, but I think about that day in your car a lot.”
“So do I.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Julianna searched his eyes for more information, but he gave nothing away. “I just want to know if you’re… angry with me? About what happened?”
“No.”
Julianna exhaled.
“I’m angry with myself, but I’m not angry with you.”
Julianna crossed her legs and straightened up in her chair. “Did you miss me?”
Kirk moved to the edge of his seat and leaned forward. “Can I be honest with you?”
Julianna nodded.
“I missed how you made me feel,” he said. “I missed how you felt.”
Julianna’s stomach dropped.
“But I didn’t miss you.”
Julianna looked at the floor. “Oh.”
“Only because miss isn’t the right word.”
“Oh?”
Kirk shook his head. “I wanted you. I craved you.”
Julianna swallowed.
