For Michaela Birch, going to her Art History 301 class was a teasing delight.
Bellamy University had been thrilling from her first day as a freshman. Meeting every kind of person from all across the country, funneled into Bellamy's verdant campus by hunger for learning, thirst to achieve, all young, looking for fun and exciting paths to the future. Even as most of her senior year spread out before her, she knew she would miss every moment.
Through it all, while Michaela prided herself on sinking her teeth deep into what the world laid before her, she had never encountered someone like Nathaniel Wolf.
Professor Nathaniel Wolf, author of "Eros in Our Eyes: An examination of Human Sexual Attraction Through History." Professor Wolf, the hottest man on campus. Professor Wolf, Michaela's very own tormentor.
It happened every time she walked into his class to watch him strut around before his students. She sat spellbound at his every story and fact. And every time, she could not help but imagine him lifting her up on the teacher's table and dropping to his knees between her thighs.
It was impossible to ignore even as Michaela knew it was absurd. Seven out of ten students in his class were women. Half the remaining men were gay. It was as if the class, an examination of sexual imagery through art, was engineered for Professor Wolf to skim the cream of the campus into his bed.
But he was famous for deftly batting away come-ons by students, professors, men and women alike. As wanted, heralded and appreciated as he was on campus, there were whispers about the Professor. By the upperclassmen who had watched him through their years at Bellamy University, he was seen as something like George Clooney by way of a monk.
He was a sexless man made for sex.
He was supposedly married, but no one ever saw his wife.
There was some buzz he was gay, but no boyfriend ever appeared.
Under all the gossip and rumors, the tantalizing talk with its scintillating possibilities, there was one rumor that coiled around Michaela's thoughts like no other.
While she didn't believe it, she so desperately wanted it to be true: Professor Wolf was rough beyond normal. Spanking, slapping, nipping, pulling hair, biting hard enough to leave marks, all with a presence so commanding in the bedroom he had found the need to withdraw from the sexual arena of the city lest the rumors of his predilections seep out onto campus. Careers had been broken for much less in the last few years and scarlet letters had been burned onto professors from coast to coast on social media.
Michaela had heard this rumor from an upperclassman, Holly Rothman. She had no way of knowing if it were true, but through her friendship with Holly, Michaela had no reason to doubt her.
They met through common friends in Michaela's second year and became close. It didn't hurt they shared Arts as a major. With Holly a few years ahead, Michaela found herself looking up and admiring her new friend. What that would lead to she could scarcely have imagined.
Most Friday and Saturday nights found them hopping from bar to bar in the streets along the campus' northern edge, skipping over to frat parties or private homes when interesting adventures presented themselves. Generally having the heedless fun college years were so perfect for.
But as open as they were, Holly clammed up when Professor Wolf came up.
"Oh, come on! You can't tell me you haven't thought about it," Michaela said, teasing Holly when she realized her friend grew red and quiet when the subject of their favorite professor came up.
"Yeah, I've thought about it," Holly said, trying to cast a cheerful disinterest and failing. As her eyes flicked to Michaela, she knew she was caught.
"You bitch," Michaela said through a gale of laughter. "You know something. Tell me."
She regretted her demand almost immediately. The look in Holly's face was a mixture of panic, worry, and a smoldering pride. An interesting mix.
"Michaela, I..." Holly began. "I can't say anything. Just know that most of the girls on campus don't know a fucking thing about Nathan and wouldn't know what to do with him if they got him."
"Oh, Nathan is it? Just how well do you know him?"
"Uh, not very. I..." Holly's eyes widened, the search for defusing words written in her expression.
"Fuck you if you think you can say something like that and not explain it," Michaela said through bright laughter.
Holly quieted, composed herself, then looked right at Michaela, who fell silent. Here it comes, Michaela thought.
"We're friends, but this is big," Holly said. "I trust you, but this could get people fired, so I can't say everything. I'm not going to say what I know, or how I know it, but most of what you hear about Professor Wolf is BS. He's not married, he's not gay. God knows he's not celibate. He dates. But he keeps his real self pretty far from the social life around here... he's pretty intense when he gets going."
"Oh my God. Like... how?" Michaela could feel the heat rising through her body, between her breasts, through the flesh of her throat.
"He's very... rough," Holly said, some memory behind her eyes drawing the whisper of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "A lot of girls think they want him, but I'm not sure they'd love it."
"Did you?" Michaela asked.
"Yes," Holly said before she could catch herself. Once she realized, her pale throat and cheeks went crimson. "Oh, yeah."
With her little victory, Michaela smiled, but didn't push. Seeing her friend so vulnerable and wrought up about Professor Wolf brought out the sister in her, and she dropped it.
But a seed was planted deep.
After Holly graduated Michaela went through her own college flings through her Junior and Senior years. As graduation approached, aside from some fun with three of the starters on the Bellamy football team, Michaela had fund the men on campus uninspired. At least the guys her age.
Through all her semesters she watched Professor Wolf from afar and occasionally from close up in the classes she needed from him for her major.
Then she found herself in the last few months of her college life experience. Closing in on her degree in Art History, she found herself in his class three times a week. That's when Michaela's interest in Professor Wolf went from idle daydreams to a full, delicious fever.
She found herself laying her interests out, naked in her expression. She wanted him to see even if his eyes would fall on her through a few glances over a class period.
He noticed. At first it was a few double takes, His eyes stopped, widened just so as his glances played over the crowd. Then a glance back to make sure he saw what he thought he saw.
And he did. Michaela's interests were literally as plain as the look on her face, revealing just what he could have from Michaela if he chose to take it.
