Each of the professors would become aroused at the sounds the other men were making, and at the thought that there were five hard penises throbbing under the table. Roxy was becoming a little aroused, just thinking about it.
The phone rang. It snapped Roxy out of her daydream. “Hello?” she said, picking up the receiver. “Good evening. I’m trying to reach Mr. Slotheropes.” “He’s my boss. But he’s not working now,” said Roxy.
“That’s fine,” said the man on the other end of the phone. “Could you ask him to give me a call when he comes in, please?” His voice was polite and delicate. Roxy wondered how big his penis was. She always found herself wondering these types of things, and she always felt bad about it afterwards. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking these thoughts about strangers. What did they think about her, when they were talking to her on the phone? They were probably hoping she was a skinny little college student, with perky little breasts just peaking out of her crop top.
Roxy took the number down on a scrap of paper, and hung up the phone.
She looked at her desk again. She picked up the dusty old book again. She started reading.
It was a first hand account of an explorer who had traveled into the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1900s. He had met with the natives. He wrote about their customs. He wrote about food, and the dogs, and the weather. It was so boring, it was hardly any wonder students weren’t interested in archeology.
The writer of the book was an archeologist himself. Roxy flipped to the beginning of the book. The introduction explained what his goals were. He had headed to Alaska, a dangerous journey at that time. He had traveled by boat, horse, dog sled, and eventually by foot.
Roxy kept flipping. The book was mostly just travel notes, and racist remarks about the native populations. The archeologist hadn’t thought much of their intelligence, or their way of life. He didn’t seem to understand that a different way of life was legitimate. Mostly he wrote about the all-meat diet he was adopting. And he wrote about how old the woman had looked, with their wrinkled skin. Roxy felt disgusted by his overly male attitude. He just cared about eating meat, shooting animals, and analyzing the women’s bodies.
But there was one thing that caught Roxy’s eye. There was a little diagram in one of the footnotes of the book. It was an old black and white photograph of some footprints that the explorer had taken. The photograph was poorly reproduced in the book. It was hard to make out exactly what it was.
But the prints were very strange. They were those of a man in traditional sandals. Then they turned into the footprints of a bear. Roxy’s personal academic specialist was analyzing footprints. She knew all there to know about footprints. Or, she knew all there was to know about ancient footprints.
Because her specialty was listed on the department website, she had been contacted once by the police. They had been looking for information regarding a murder case that they couldn’t solve. Unfortunately, Roxy had had to tell them that she wasn’t really any good with modern footprints. The forensics people knew much more than she did. They were able to look at the footprints and know things about the person’s weight and gender. To Roxy, all the prints just looked like Nike sneakers.
But Roxy was really good with early human footprints. And animal footprints. She even studied dinosaur footprints.
These footprints were nothing like what she had ever seen. Because of the tread pattern and the space between the footprints, it looked as if the man had suddenly turned into a bear as he was walking.
Roxy got up and turned on the overhead office light. She turned on the other desk light. She bent down to get a better look at the prints. It wasn’t a great reproduction of the photo. But there was still enough detail to get the information she needed.
Using a small ruler and a mathematical compass, Roxy was able to get the measurements she needed. She tallied them up on a little scrap of paper. She measured the distance between the prints. Because of the depth of each print, she was able to calculate the approximate velocity of the man. This was really weird. Roxy measured again. There wasn’t any doubt. There just wasn’t any doubt. As an academic, Roxy knew she had to follow the evidence. The man who had made these footprints had turned into a bear while walking. She didn’t have any doubt.
Roxy signed. They’d never believe her. She barely believed herself. How could it be possible? People didn’t turn into bears. But then Roxy thought back to an anthropology course she’d had in undergrad. They’d been covering native beliefs. And the natives across the world had believed that humans could turn into animals to go to special missions. Not every human, of course. But certain people had figured it out. They were generally known as shamans. While the word was different across different cultures, every culture had the concept of the Shaman. He was a person, sometimes male, sometimes female, who took plants and drugs to get into altered states of consciousness. Usually they were believed to be able to inhabit the body of an animal many miles away, while still looking as if they were sitting there in a trance. Sometimes the cultural belief was that the shaman could actually turn into a physical animal. Roxy wondered what the indigenous people of Alaska, the Inuit, had believed.
Roxy felt stressed. She felt weird. This was a really weird thing to think, that a man could turn into a bear. Was she going crazy? Was she trying desperately to find something that would save her job, some crazy new discovery?
Roxy did what she always did when she felt stressed. She lifter her hips up from her seat, trying to hold the rolling chair in place. She undid the buttons on her jean skirt, and slid the skirt down around her hips.
She reached down and touched herself gently on her inner thigh. She touched the outer rim of her vagina. She could feel that she was already wet, already dripping. She put finger inside herself, and felt the warm wetness. She imagined what the cock of the man on the phone must have been like. She imagined it being 7 inches long, and thicker than average, with a bit of precum oozing out of the end that throbbed and seemed to hum in excitement.
She moved her hand up and touched her clit, rubbing it gently. She imagined that she was at the call center, lying on the floor under the desk of the man who had called. He was trying to make a phone call while penetrating her with his 7 inch long penis. He was overcome with desire, and pierced her again and again, with long powerful thrusts.
Roxy’s own hand began to move very quickly, almost as fast as the industrial vibrator she kept at home under her pillow. She moved faster and faster, bucking her hips, making little moaning sounds. In under a minute, she was coming. She gasped, and moaned loudly. She covered her mouth with her hand, removing it from her clit. Her lower fingers were sopping wet. She could taste her own juices on her hand, as they dripped, sweat and sticky into her mouth. She came for a full thirty seconds, then fell back into the chair exhausted.
She looked around. The place was as quite as it had been. It seemed completely silent. The streetlights outside made the darkness seem even lonelier. She had to get home. What was she doing here so late?
The next day, Roxy went to Slotheropes first thing in the morning. She carried a big 32 oz. coffee from the local coffee shop. “It’s black,” said Roxy, feeling self-conscious about the number of calories Slotheropes might think she was consuming.
“I can’t get away from the stuff,” said Slotheropes, leaning back in his elegant chair. His office was wood paneled and fancy. There were all sorts of artifacts around the room. There were skulls, old telescopes, ancient “magic wands,” even dinosaur bones. Old and fading maps were pinned up on the walls.
Slotheropes looked handsome, with his clean jaw line, and just the right amount of stubble. He wore a pair of those horn-rimmed glasses that made anyone look intelligent and academic.
“You’re so funny,” said Roxy, blushing at the thought of yesterday’s fantasy.
“I’m glad you came to see me, Roxy. We’ve got to talk about your future here.”
“Well,” said Roxy. “I wanted to see
you because I think I hit something really big. Something really exciting.”
“Yes, that’s quite nice. But you know we’ve given you plenty of time to come up with something. I’m not sure we can wait any longer. In fact, I’ve been talking with the other tenured professors, and we all agree that...”
“But this is something that could really connect with the students. It’s not just my career I’m thinking about. I’m trying to think about the health of the department too. This is something really crazy. Really different for archeology. It’s something old but really exciting.”
“...the administration agrees that we’re going to have to let you go.”
Roxy was dumbfounded. “But I thought I’d have at least another few weeks. I won’t even have any time to publish what I’ve found. I can’t go back to 711, I really can’t.” When Roxy was really nervous, she became very aware of her body. She could feel herself starting to sweat. Her whole body felt really heavy, as if her legs wouldn’t be able to hold up the monster that she was. Her breasts alone felt like weighted pendulums. Even though she was standing still, it felt like they were swinging heavily in front of her, moving her body from side to side.
“I’m sorry, Roxy, but this is the decision we’ve come to.” He leaned even farther back in his chair, putting his fancy dress shoes on his mahogany desk.
“But I’ve discovered evidence of a man turning into a bear,” Roxy blurted out. She’d wanted to present the idea in a better way. It had just come out. She wiped her brow. Her hair was getting stuck to her forehead.
The image of Slotheropes’s cock came into her mind. This was the second phase of her getting nervous. She usually started having sex fantasies at the worst possible moments.
She imagined Slotheropes pulling off his glasses one arm at a time. She imagined him unzipping his dress slacks. And, with his legs stretched out, pulling out his hard cock, a short but very thick one, that had darker color than the rest of his skin. He would stroke is fast right from the start. He would stare right at Roxy’s face, trying to tell her she was fired.
“You OK?” said Slotheropes. Roxy snapped out of it.
“I’m fine,” she said, blushing.
“What I mean is that’s not really what we deal with in archeology. Maybe someone in the literature or religion department could tell you some more information if you’re curious about native beliefs.”
“What I’m saying is I’ve found actual archeological evidence that a human turned into a bear. I have the footprints and everything. Everyone else must have overlooked it, because it just seems too unreal.”
“Look,” said Slotheropes, adjusting his glasses, and looking at a map on the wall. “I know you’re under a lot of stress with losing your job and everything, but you’re still an archeologist. This bear stuff just sounds insane. Maybe you should see a doctor. They can give you something to calm you down while you look for a new job.”
“So I’m already fired, then?” said Roxy, beginning to grow angry.
“We prefer to say that we’re going to look for other options for our department.”
“So you tell me to take a pill, to make me like a docile housewife? Drug me up so I can accept my situation?”
“I’m just saying I imagine it can be stressful for a young lady like yourself. You’ve got to think of your health, after all.” He gave an important glance to Roxy’s bulging middle.
“This is also about my weight isn’t it?” said Roxy, her voice rising despite herself. “Absolutely not. But we do want to present a fresh, modern image to the student body. We have to be ‘sexy,’ as the students say.”
Roxy was already half way out the door. “I’ll show you,” she said, turning around. “I’ll show you I’m right. There was a human that turned into a bear, and I’ve got the evidence to prove it.”
She slammed the door on the way out. She was breathing heavily, practically panting, as she walked down the hallway to her office. She tried to walk calmly, but her high heels clicked quickly as her pace hastened. It was too bad she hadn’t come up with a better retort. What sexist garbage! Look what a young female professional today still had to put up with.
Roxy went into her office. She grabbed the book she’d been reading the night before. She shoved it into her large handbag. Giving the trashcan a kick that toppled it over, she turned on her heels and walked out of her office, leaving everything behind.
When she got home she kicked off her heels. She looked around at her messy apartment. There were still dishes in the sink from the week before. She opened her phone to her financial tracking app. It gave her the information from her bank account.
Roxy had one week before she’d need to start working again. And there wasn’t any chance she’d get hired any another university or college, especially the way she’d left. You needed to have recommendations in order to get another job.
Roxy felt stressed. The financial prospects were too much for her. She felt like masturbating. She reached down to feel herself, under her underwear. Perfect, she was wet. She just needed her tiny travel vibrator. Had she brought it along to work with her, in her handbag? She stuck her hand into the handbag, rummaging around. Damn it, her vibrator wasn’t there. She’d have to go looking to see if her other one was still under her pillow.
But Roxy’s hand came across something else. It was that old archeology book that had cost her job. She pulled it out. The binding was pretty thick. Maybe she could use it instead of her vibrator.
She pressed the spine against her clit, through her clothes. It felt good. Maybe it felt good enough to get off on.
As she was applying pressure to the book, pressing it into herself, the pages flipped, the book flapping open. The book lay open right in her lap. It had happened to open to the page with the strange footprints.
Distracted from her self pleasure, Roxy took another look at the photograph of the footprints. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind. She was one of the world’s leading experts (now unemployed, as often happens) on ancient footprints. And these prints definitely showed a man turning into a bear.
She should have known her male colleagues wouldn’t accept the evidence. She should have known they would refuse to even look at it.
Right then and there Roxy decided she’s prove them wrong. She’d hunt down these prints in person, if it took going to Alaska herself.
Roxy looked again at her financial tables. Then she plugged in the web address for a flight to Alaska. It would cost $1200, for a round-trip ticket. If she bought it, she wouldn’t have enough for her rent. She wouldn’t have time to get another job.
Roxy clicked “buy,” and entered all her information. An email notification popped up. “Get ready for your trip to Alaska,” it said. Roxy was headed to Alaska.
3. ARCHEOLOGIST IN ALASKA
The plane landed on the runway.
“Welcome to Alaska, ladies and gentlemen,” said the captain’s voice. “Please keep your seatbelts fastened until the plane comes to a complete stop and the overhead seatbelt indicator turns off. Please leave your continental ideas behind. This is Alaska, the last frontier.” He had a charming, sleepy accent.
Roxy’s heart was pounding. What had she done? She’d arrived in Alaska with just about $500. She’d taken what she could from her apartment. When she got back, the landlord would have reclaimed it, and sold all her belongings to cover the costs of rent. She wouldn’t have a place to live, or a job. She’d be homeless without any of her things. She wouldn’t even have a dress to wear.
She’d brought practical clothing. Jeans, sports bras, plaid shirts and sweatshirts. She’d left all her makeup behind. She’d left her industrial vibrator behind, as well as her pocket vibrator. She’d packed all her archeological tools and the necessary reference books.
She wanted to remain concentrated on this trip. She had one goal, and that was to find the prints in person, and to learn as much about them as she could, if possible.
The photograph of the prints h
ad actually been a picture of a piece of fossilized mud, in which the prints had been set many thousands of years before. According to the footnote in the book, the actual prints were housed in the Anchorage Museum of Native Artifacts. By the time the book had been written, the prints had already been wrapped up and put into the museum’s deep storage. That was almost 100 years ago.
But all Roxy would have to do is talk to the museum director and explain her situation and research interests. Having a doctorate in Archeology was sometimes useful. Especially in situations like this.
They debarked from the plane directly to the tarmac. Even though it was June, the air was cool. There was a strong wind.
Roxy pulled up the collar of her plaid shirt. Maybe she should have bought a warmer jacket.
She took a cab into the heart of the city.
The cabbie was a good-looking guy with some rough edges about him.
“Where you headed, lady?” he said. It didn’t seem like he spent much time to women.
“The cheapest bar in town,” said Roxy. She didn’t feel like going right to the hotel. And she’d need a stiff drink before she had the courage to march into the museum and explain what she needed.
“Don’t think you want to go there,” said the driver. “That’s where I hang out, and trust me, it’s no place for a lady.”
“Just take me there,” said Roxy. “I need a drink fast.”
“You’d be surprised how often people arriving in Alaska say that. Hey, if you really need a drink, here’s something that might warm you up.” He reached into the glove box and pulled out a beaten and partially rusted flask. He handed it back to Roxy.
She unscrewed the cap. Little bits of rust flaked off. She took a long drink. “Thanks,” she said, handing the flask back. “No worries,” he said. They drove on in silence, presumably to the cheapest bar in Anchorage.
Wild Ride: A Bad Boy Romance Page 17
