Without a knock or warning, Ashley shoved Gina through the door and into the office of Dr. Edward Fish, Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Ashley stepped back to observe her experiment in human chemistry. The fiery fusion of opposites lit Ashley's imagination. When the clash was just right, when two people were different enough that conflict was inevitable, but each was strongly attracted to something in the other that might fill some gaping hole in their own personality, friction might ignite an explosion of amalgamation, passion, and pain. Human experimentation intrigued Ashley, fireworks delighted her, and the smell of conflicted obsession smoldering and sintering in her crucible set her creative urge ablaze. It was a matter of advancing scientific understanding. Who said the humanities could not be a hard science?
Ashley threw the pathologically shy, naïve Midwestern schoolgirl into the den of the womanizing, sociopathic professor. He looked up. The carnivore in him smelled meat. The great Professor appraised the wild, raw beauty Ashley had flung at him to feed upon. This looked too simple. Edward liked easy young women, but this one was different. What was it?
The girl stood trembling, drenched from the autumn deluge pounding the campus. Her dripping tee shirt revealed a sinuous young body and firm maturing breasts. Her black hair fell in slick streaks down her face into deep, frightened eyes.
Edward usually sniffed out his prey carefully while patiently stalking it through the jungles of academic pretension. That was half the fun, waiting, letting it reveal its inferiority, and finding the weakest place to begin to feed.
However, this was a different animal. This dumbstruck girl washed up out of the flood could not even pretend pretense. She was openly in awe of him, and she offered up no resistance. The girl's haunting eyes dominated her perfect face, but her gaze fearfully avoided Edward, flitting about like a trapped bird. Her breath was shallow and uneven. The girl clenched her hands at her sides and her fingers fidgeted. Otherwise, she did not stir. She did not utter a sound, though her luscious lips pouted an open invitation to Edward's lust.
The worldly Professor was leery; this must be one of Ashley's malicious tricks. Was this bait for some sort of trap? Edward leaned back into his big chair behind his wide desk in the warm comfort of his office. The leather exhaled a crinkling, satisfied sigh as the chair embraced its master. Edward carefully assessed what Ashley had left for him. What was this thing? It was more than a pretty, shy girl. This was not just a simple easy treat. There was something wild, an enticing elemental vitality about this thing, something dangerous. Then the answer occurred to him; this object Ashley had offered to him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Ashley poked her head back through the door, "Well guys, I promised to introduce you. Gina, Edward; Edward, Gina. Have fun. Gotta go." Ashley disappeared but her sly departing smile seemed to linger, floating on the intense silence reverberating between Gina and Edward. Edward found words first. "Gina, I have been most impressed with the work you have been doing in my class. Your little paper on Chaucer's Miller's Tale was most insightful. I have been looking forward to an opportunity to discuss it with you."
Why had Ashley abandoned her like this? Gina felt as though she had lost her grip on the rock that had been saving her from the floodwaters. She was being swept away. "He wants me to speak, but I am drowning." Gina tried to shake her head to break the spell of panic. She managed a crooked smile, and said, "...". Nothing came out. She thought, "I am floundering. He will think I am a moron. I am a moron. I am drowning; I can't breathe. It's all spinning...away..."
Edward was transfixed by the untamed loveliness of the feral child standing before him. "How feeble artifice; how potent nature; its mindless forge has wrought this exquisite faultlessness in so simple a thing. She is slim and muscled, her eyes dark and mysterious, her mouth full and giving. She will speak. I didn't hear. Her mouth is moving but...she is falling." With that, Gina fainted away.
Gina awoke on a couch in Edward's office. He was leaning over her offering tea in a Japanese cup. "Are you better?" Gina could breathe now, but words still would not come. She attempted a fleeting glance into Edward's eyes, but she blinked, and her eyes fluttered off into the distance. Gina wanted this man but she could not concoct a word of social camouflage.
In desperation, Gina reached up and pulled him down, drawing his lips to hers. Edward eagerly responded with a long lustful embrace. He spoke to her again. Gina could not answer. In silent desperation she simply offered her herself up. Gina kicked off her boots, unbuckled her belt, and pulled off her soaking jeans and panties. Edward finally understood. This lovely thing was his; there would be no pretence of courtship, and no negotiation of terms of surrender. She was his.
Edward put down his tea, "Thank you Ashley." Autumn thunder boomed in the dark afternoon sky. Gina pulled Edward down into her body in a tumble.
Cups crack, hot tea flies
Fog kisses rain on cold pane:
Tea leaves scattering.
