It was a characteristically temperamental Midwestern spring day, gray skies, wind, rain and all. My friend Mari and I were taking shelter at the coffeehouse at the end of vomit row since it was closest to the English building and our Renaissance literature class had just finished. This had become a weekly ritual, sitting and chatting over delicious hot beverages.
However, one topic came up at least once during our meetings.
"You know how he crosses his legs a lot during class, what's up with that?" Mari took a sip from her still-steaming cup of tea.
"Yeah, not to mention almost every other part of lecture and discussion is a somewhat Freudian interpretation about orgasm, phallus and wombs..." I licked a bit of chai latte froth that clung to my upper lip.
"He must really need to get laid." She sighed. "But, you know, someone with all that pent up energy is probably a really good fuck."
This was probably not what I needed to hear. Most of my other friends would tell me I was crazy for wanting to seduce our somewhat mousy, possibly sexually-repressed professor. If I had told Mari that our little game of showing up to class wearing dresses and skirts to see if we could get a rise out of poor Professor Hall was a lot more sincere on my part, she would have probably just told me to tell her how it went.
"He's just so stiff in class, all buttoned up in those suits he wears..." I trailed off, not wanting to go off into meandering slips of words relating to other uses of the word "stiff."
"I know." She said. "He just looks like if given the chance, he'd fuck someone right up against the wall."
I felt a slight creep up my spine and fall back down again, as if punching me right in the gut. All right, it wasn't the "gut," but I only like using the word "womb" in an ironic, "let's make fun of Freud" sort of way.
At the same time, I recall Mari making a similar comment in our D.H. Lawrence class when our professor had asked her what her interpretation of Gudrun's motivations in a chapter of Women in Love was. She had simply said, "Sometimes a woman wants a guy to take her and throw her up against the wall." There was a moment of silence followed by our older professor, Eddington, who was usually curmudgeonly in a way that made House, M.D. look like Mister Rogers, saying, "That's not bad."
My jaw was on the floor from that. If Professor Hall had taught the Lawrence class, I probably would have needed a new pair of panties after every class and a straight-jacket. My vibrator would have come to life just to hang itself with a note saying that it would rather no longer exist than be subjected to such exhaustion.
Hyperbole aside, it had been a dry spell my last year of college. Then again, I wouldn't know what a dry year meant until I moved out of state and didn't know anyone and spent most of my time catching up with science fiction. Back then, it just meant I had no new sex partners and was still having a weekly casual fuck with an old friend from freshman year.
Still, that wasn't enough to keep me from being a bit too curious about my Renaissance literature professor.
"Oh yeah." I sighed, trying to will away the image of Professor Hall backing me into a corner of his office and pinning my hands over my head. "He'd probably pin a woman's wrists over her head and wrap her legs around him while he drove her into the wall."
So much for blocking out my thoughts.
To my surprise, Mari didn't have a paroxysm of agreement, but was uncharacteristically subdued.
"What?" I asked.
She nodded upward, looking over my shoulder.
I turned slowly to see Professor Hall at the counter paying for what looked like an Americano or even a drip coffee. He didn't bother going to the counter where the sugar, honey, stevia and other sweeteners surrounded cream carafes in a chaotic chess game where the board wasn't marked.
I swear, my life is like a bad movie sometimes.
He hastened out of the coffee shop as suddenly as he had appeared, not settling in a booth or on a couch with a pile of papers to grade, a book to read or a laptop to clack notes in.
"Don't worry, he probably couldn't hear us." She poured the last drops from the tomato-red one-person teapot into the equally vibrant cup.
"Yeah..." I trailed off, wondering what he would have said or done had he heard me, knowing he was the reference for my pronouns.
This simply wouldn't do. My neurotic sexual obsession with Professor Hall was cutting into my bantering time with Mari, which was another highlight of my typically mundane week. I had originally met her in an advanced poetry writing class. Her work was dark, vivid and of course, erotic and sensual. My work was usually of the angry, personal identity politics nature. We had a mutual hatred of the pretentious poetry workshop professor.
She was much taller than me, Mediterranean features: glowing complexion, curly dark hair, a nose that she practically decked an in-law for even suggesting that he knew a plastic surgeon who could "fix" it. Another one of my friends had been bowled by Mari after first meeting, calling her an Amazon. To this day, I still wonder how someone as gorgeous and brash and interesting as her had difficulty meeting decent guys. Then again, this was in college, so I imagine she's done a lot of weeding out since then and found someone worth the trouble or just decided to not bother with it anymore.
When I hung out with her, I felt like the mouse who tried to run with a tiger.
"Shit, I have Business Writing in ten." She looked at her cell phone clock. "I'll catch you later."
"Later." I said, getting up and slinging my bag over my shoulder.
I loved that coffeehouse. Our usual place was in a corner tucked down a small set of stairs with a couple of overstuffed old velveteen couches and a well-ringed coffee table with board games missing pieces and dog-eared trade paperbacks resting on a shelf beneath it. However, it was taken by some group that had scheduled a meeting there, so we were up with the rest of the madding crowd.
I walked down the stairs instead of leaving immediately, noticing how despite the reading lamp, that little area was dark. I hadn't even noticed it was there until Mari had pointed it out. I couldn't help but picture running into Professor Hall here again, having a brief chat that would somehow lead to me straddling him on the couch, his hands grazing up my thighs, fingers slipping beneath my panties as I kissed him, pulling at his dark hair, biting his lips. He would undo the fly of his pants, lowering them and loosening his cock from his boxers (I couldn't picture him as a briefs wearer, even though he was a bit tightly wound). I would slide my panties down from under my skirt (fantasies always have to be in a skirt for easy access) and we'd fuck quietly so that no one would even notice we were downstairs.
"Oh, excuse me." A jolt brought me back to where I was on the small stairs, where the barista was walking back up with a full bus bin.
"Sorry." I mumbled, looking back down for a moment and walking to the exit.
* * *
My final semester went more or less as planned. I was definitely going to pass all my classes, but for once, I wanted to make straight As as opposed to letting one class slip into the B range due to lack of interest. I was busy trying to keep things together in my campus organizations and maintain my GPA that I had forgotten about the most important thing: what would happen after I walked across that stage in June. I hadn't expected to graduate that semester, but my adviser told me I could do it if I took a class that summer.
My last week of classes was about to end and Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. rolled around as if for the last time. Mari had decided to skip because she had a project due for her noon Business and Technical Writing class, so I was there, playing the old game by myself: trying to stay cool in the antiquated, air conditioning-less English building with a blue and white cotton sundress so thin you could see the peach colored silk bra I had on beneath it. Meanwhile, the other students were equally minimal in dress. Girls in short shorts and spaghetti-strap tank tops, guys in cargo shorts and tees.
Yet just as he had been clad in January, there was Professor Hall, sitting in a desk with the rest of us in the circle, wearing a black suit, white button-down and black tie neatly knotted, not loosened with so much as a button undone.
At least this time I knew he had a legitimate reason to sweat. To make matters worse, there were no windows in the classroom.
Also, it was my turn to present an interpretation of a passage. Fortunately, the last text was Hamlet, as if Professor Hall had anticipated people would skip the last week or not bother doing the reading for class. I could have done my presentation in my sleep, but I still had tried to teach an old dog new tricks in finding an additional academic article, feminist critical theory, of course.
I stumbled occasionally on my words, refusing to look up from my notes the whole time. I hated public speaking and couldn't stand the idea of the other students watching me, let alone how nervous I was, knowing his eyes were on me. Fortunately, he let us remain seated when we'd do our individual presentations. Still, I kept fidgeting in my seat. It was so hot I kept moving my knees together and apart, trying to keep the air circulating up my skirt and around my legs. I was probably doing an inadvertent Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate, an unconscious homage.
Was he looking? Maybe I was imagining things, but I wanted to think that his eyes started on my face, paying attention to my words, as mundane as they were considering how well-trod Hamlet is to any English major or instructor. Then he'd notice that this was the first time he had ever seen my bare shoulders, as I usually wore sleeved shirts to class. I felt sweat beading on my back, right between the shoulder blades. Where I slid against the back of my seat, I imagined him running his tongue and lips along the plane of my back.
After a very brief open discussion after my lecture and his comments, class ended just as it did every other week. Professor Hall mentioned that our final papers were due next Thursday, but we could drop them off in his mailbox at any point before then as well. Also, we were welcome to talk to him during office hours today or schedule an appointment before the due date.
I had half a mind to schedule a private meeting, but I didn't. I had completed my paper and had it printed and ready to hand in during his office hours. As I had discussed with him earlier (well, not so much discussed but stalled for time before retreating), I ended up writing my final paper on sex acts in Spenser's Faerie Queene.
I knew no one else in the class would have the foresight of completing or even starting the paper this early, so there was a good chance I could talk to him without fear of interruption. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing up even though it was still unbearably hot in the corridor.
My shoes clicked on the tile floor. Instead of causing an echo in the unusually clear hallway, the sound fell with a thick thud as if the dampness in the air cushioned the blow. I felt a little sick as I watched Professor Hall turn the corner to where his office was. Unlike other Assistant Professors (who were basically non-tenured professors), he had his own office. Yet another privacy interruption roadblock out of the way.
Still, this didn't seem right. I felt damn near predatory gliding my way to his door. I figured I would give him a moment to put down his briefcase and get his things together and have a seat before I pounced on him.
I glanced through the doorway. Unlike last time, this time, his windows were wide open. It looked like he had finally caved in and opened the windows. This made me glad. I could hear the students outside talking, playing frisbee, walking pets... and I could see him, eyes cast downward at a stack of papers. I knocked at the door frame, leaning in.
"Come in," he said, not looking up until I stood in front of his desk.
I put my bag on the floor and rummaged around in it for my notebook for his class, where my paper was neatly sandwiched.
