[This is a sequel to
Donna in the Senior Year Ch. 02
.]
I suppose I was something of a cad back in college, but I didn't see it that way then. I thought I was just making up for the lost time of high school and then my freshman year. Near the start of my sophomore year in the fall of 1974 circumstances started to break in my favor. I wasn't involved in casual sex or one-night stands, but I had several overlapping girlfriends for a while. Two of them even offered several threesome sessions to me, and I happily obliged.
In my mind, with pornography openly playing in Manhattan theaters and people paying for orgies at sex clubs like Plato's Retreat, I imagined I was just following the standards of the times -- and at a relatively restrained level. I convinced myself I loved these women simultaneously. I shouldn't have been surprised when two years passed and I was dumped by them for other guys. One of them, an older perennial student, simply graduated and moved on to so-called real life.
At the beginning of my senior year in 1976 I was at a party and there I met a Fordham University student named Donna Azzato. For a few months I promised myself I'd be faithful to her and not attempt to date the women at my own school, which was the City College of New York.
The motto of my school was
Respice, Adspice, Prospice,
which translated roughly as "Look back, look at the present, look forward." I started to look ahead to a possible post-graduation, adult relationship with Donna. Still callow, I hadn't exactly defined what that would be, but it was the first time I had thought that far into the future.
However it wasn't my fellow students on Hamilton Heights who led me astray; it was one of the professors. At the time I used the excuse that she was the one who had initiated our trysts.
********
Professor Marilyn Janssen taught my French History: 1789-1940 class. At that time she was thirty-eight and had just received tenure. I enjoyed her class, and I did develop a bit of a crush on her. She had gotten her B.A. at Brown, and her masters and doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.
She was a fairly tall woman with dark-blonde hair that came down to her shoulders. Sometimes she tied it back in a bun; she always wore squared-off dark-rimmed glasses. Professors, except for the very youngest, usually dressed-up for classes more than they perhaps do no, and she was no exception. I looked forward to seeing her at each class and I took note of what she was wearing.
She was also one of the sharpest and most engaging teachers I had known at the school, and her intellect impressed me. If anything that made her even more attractive to me. After class I often felt a bit guilty that I had completely forgotten about Donna; I had to mentally shake myself as a reminder of my commitment.
I had gotten good grades at City, but my work habits ranged from mediocre to terrible. I tended to write papers in the last three days or so before they were due. In that era before word processors, I had to use a Smith-Corona electric typewriter. Usually I had time to do one draft, and thus the next one had to be the one I turned in.
For this course I had decided on an analysis of why the French lost the Franco-Prussian War, with an emphasis on the final climatic battle at Sedan; Professor Janssen had approved my topic weeks earlier. Then in the next to last week of December I got bogged down in my efforts. It seemed I only could write about the weapons and tactics used, and the deeper reasons for the defeat eluded me.
I felt that I should be doing a better job for a professor as good as she was. Beyond that, I was ambitious; for me a grade below an A was a "gentleman's B." Yet I couldn't finish my work in time for the last class. At the end of the session I was at the front of the room trying to explain myself and not doing very well at that.
She was sitting behind the desk and she interrupted me, "I know what you want; you're going to ask for an incomplete, aren't you?"
I had only asked for that in one other class, two years earlier, and it had been granted to me. "I can have it ready in three more days, I think."
"You think? All right, see me in my office tomorrow at three. We'll discuss it then."
**********
On the blustery and overcast afternoon of the following day I walked up the steps of Wagner Hall, the vintage building that contained several of the liberal arts departments. I was aware of the history of the place. Back in the 1930s, before the city had purchased the South Campus, it had been a dormitory for a Catholic women's institution called Manhattanville College. I wondered if alumnus Ethel Kennedy, née Skakel, had roomed in there once.
I bet she never asked for an incomplete; she doesn't seem like the type who would.
The building was quiet when I knocked on the door of Professor Janssen's second floor office.
"Yes?"
"It's Paul, from your French history class . . ."
"It's not locked; come on in."
She was sitting at her desk. As usual, she was well-dressed; she had a dark jacket, a white blouse, a tight gray skirt and dark stockings. She spoke before I could get a word in, "Don't take off your coat, and don't sit down yet. Also, lock the door."
Shit, she's going to turn me down on the spot.
I had made a trip all the way down there just for this. The request about the door being locked didn't register as important to me.
Then she said, "Frankly, you've got some fucking nerve asking me for an incomplete."
I was shocked; I had never heard her curse before. Professors rarely did; in fact people in general where much less apt to do so compared to now. I decided not to respond immediately.
She went on, "I approved your assignment eight weeks ago. Would you mind telling me what happened?"
Like with cops, professors gave you one chance to make your case. "Yes, ma'am, but I've been doing a lot of things, like with the newspaper I'm on." I never called professors sir or ma'am, but some instinct told me to do it now.
"Yes, that rag; I've seen it."
So I guess she isn't a fan.
"One of the things you been doing is taking this course. Incompletes are a privilege, not a right. I'd be well within protocol to just fail you."
I wasn't sure if that was accurate, but I was anxious anyway. "As I said, I can have it in about three days."
"About three days? And why should I do that for you if all the other students have done their work on time?"
Why couldn't at least one other of those grade-grubbing snots have asked for an incomplete too?
"Please don't fail me; I've never failed a course before." I knew I was sniveling, and I hated myself for it.
"There's always a first time for everything; I'll have to give this some thought."
She looked away and as she crossed her legs her skirt rode up well over her knees. I could hear the rub of nylon against nylon and I tried not to get rattled by that - but I did anyway.
I had the suspicion then - and I was sure of it later -- that she had actually made up her mind earlier. In fact, the whole scene that followed was surely planned well ahead of my arrival. "Now Paul, I will consider giving you an incomplete, but first I will punish you quite severely for your -- frankly, your inconsiderate attitude, just blowing off the course and expecting me to bail you out. If you can take that discipline to my satisfaction, I may grant you more time to finish your paper."
"Thank you, professor." I had no idea of what she was talking about. The only thing that came to mind was that she would limit my final grade to a B.
Better that than failing.
She said, "Don't thank me until you find out what my conditions are." She opened a desk drawer and took out a magazine. She held it up and said, "Have you ever seen this?"
Indeed I had. It was
National Lampoon's
"Back to College" issue from the previous year. The most notable thing about it was the cover drawing, in full color, of a male professor using a slide rule to spank the bare buttocks of a female student. She was over his knees, her skirt was up, her blue and white panties were down, and she held a term paper with a big red F on it.
I saw no point in lying, "Yes, I've seen it."
"Well, this is like what your punishment will be too. Just like this poor coed, I'm going to take you over my knees and beat your bare backside."
She has to be kidding; but why would she joke at a time like this?
Then some truth struck me, or at least part of one. This wasn't a joke, but neither was it a straightforward discussion about my grade. It was a pretext for something else; she had another agenda. I decided to play it straight and hear her out.
"When you are over my lap, the first thing I'm going to do is hand-spank you. Then, since I don't have a slide rule . . ."
Of course not; you're not an engineer.
"I'm going to use this instead." She picked up a ruler from her desk. "Now this, this is eighteen inches of hardwood." I noticed that it said New York Board of Education of the obverse side. She began stroking it, one hand sliding up and down the length of it. For the first time she smiled at me.
"I'm going to whack your behind with this, really good and hard; maybe that will get your wandering attention. As I said, just like this girl on the cover, you're underpants will be down around your knees. Have you ever been spanked before, even by hand?"
I decided to lie about that, "No ma'am, I haven't." Actually I had been in spanking games with various girls, both as a top and a bottom.
"Then you're in for quite an experience. I bet your ass is twitching at just the thought of it."
She was right about that. I could guess more of her intentions now. She wanted to explore her own fantasies of being a dominatrix, and she had chosen me to be her subject. I wondered if she had ever pulled this stunt on students before, but I figured she hadn't. Surely the word would have spread around campus if she had. Maybe she'd insist on my secrecy as part of the deal for my incomplete.
"All right, come over her, take off your coat; then drop your pants but not your underwear. If you don't want to do it, you can get out of here right now."
I briefly looked out the window at the tops of the bare trees of St. Nicholas Park and the blocks of old buildings down the hill.
I bet those people down there in Harlem couldn't imagine the weirdness that goes on up here in academia.
I did as she asked with my clothes and then she beckoned me to get over her lap. When I was in position, she put a hand in the waistband of my underpants and yanked them down. I noticed the feeling of air around my uncovered body, and I was aware that this woman was gazing at me. I actually liked both sensations.
I think she knows that too.
"Now keep your feet on the floor and left up your behind, present it for your punishment." I had the impression now that she had mentally rehearsed most of this scene long before I arrived, perhaps even the day before. "So you want an incomplete? The nerve of you, waltzing in here and presuming I'm going to save your sorry ass."