[[This story (in two parts) could fit into several categories. It contains mild interracial, May-December, light femdom, anal, lesbian, and heretical action. And like much of fiction there is also death which is in no way portrayed in an erotic fashion and is not intended to be treated as such.]]
*
As Yusef Muhammad awoke one afternoon from uneasy napping dreams he found himself in his study transformed into a monstrous heretic. With a snowstorm compelling all of the Twin Cities metro to stay inside and the first day of Winter (Christmas) Break well in effect, the young professor's body became weary after a semester's conclusion and collapsed as he worked at his desk. Smacking his lips, he plucked his consciousness from the forgotten but disturbing dreams, groggily clutched the desk clock, and pulled it before his face. He sighed and slammed it face down. He had slept for four hours. Sitting in his desk chair, he struggled to convince himself that it was in his best interest to get up. This was true of course but his brain could tell his body the truth until he was blue in the face and it still might not move. What little work the TAs left for him was complete but he had no plans to celebrate a Christian holiday with his secular Muslim family in Oman and Saudi Arabia. And he was fairly certain "secular" was blasphemy in the latter.
He successfully tricked himself to get up and he cautiously stood for a stretch, careful not to pull any muscles strained by his odd sleeping posture. Satisfied nothing broke, he realized he was hungry and turned from his desk towards the house's old kitchen but his peripheral vision noticed a change of environment. Forgetting the snack, he investigated the unsettling feeling of unknown change. As he walked about his study, he tried accounting for every object he passed but also whether Lupe, his maid, had been around. No, surely not, she would have woken him with the sound of her vacuum. And besides, as a gesture to her devout Catholicism, he gave her the week off from cleaning for him. He nearly gave up before he realized the obvious and noticed his free standing black-board covered with white chalk. Though the writing was in his handwriting, he could not recall writing it. The first equation was the "ABC" of logical philosophy—his focus. A + B =C. "A. All men are mortal. B. Socrates is a man. C. Therefore Socrates is mortal," was typically the first example of this formula he gave his intro class.
He nearly started back for the kitchen but when the formality of simply re-remembering the act of writing the equations became an ordeal, his curiosity peaked. Examining the board closely to perhaps jog his memory, he realized they were not many small equations but a single long one. Personal intrigue and professional curiosity enticed him and so he continued to the bottom, realizing it kept going onto the reverse side.
"Sensational," he muttered as he mouthed the logic equation and turned his eyes to the symbolic-key, illustrating what the formula letters stood for like on a geography map. "Remarkable!" he exclaimed at one particularly tricky but well deduced section. "Oh how controversial! How on Earth did this get here?" he asked himself as he read on. After five minutes he reached the end but he was not finished. He read it yet again, this time for a thorough twenty minutes to triple check the correctness of the conclusion. His initial excitement over this mysteriously appearing equation was tempered by repeated examinations but his mind grew more aroused when it was satisfied of its correctness, prompting him to take pictures of the equation with his digital camera just in case it vanished as instantly as it appeared.
He cursed when he saw the clock. His colleague Tina was supposed to arrive soon for coffee but his excitement exaggerated that half hour into eight. He pressed a pen to paper and scribbled a fairly long note of explanation that indented several sheets below. As he exited into the storm with little else but the clothes on his back, he taped the note to his front door and high stepped in the fluffy snow.
Tina's car arrived 25 minutes later. Walking to the door dressed in a metallic gray trench coat as unquestionably feminine as a Hawai'ian shirt is manly, a ribbon weaved cap, and stylish black leather boots to match it all, she nearly rang the home's doorbell before she noticed the note and used that hand instead to remove it. The cold drew mucus from her nose and the snow struck her eye lids and stuck in her fiery hair as she read. Finished, she smiled first with bemusement but as she considered it further, she realized its ring of prophesy. He had gone from his home leaving an absurd note behind him, such as great men have written, and the world has read later when the story of their struggles has become famous. Her gloved hands folded it and neatly placed it within her inside breast pocket just in case her instincts were correct.
*
Arthur Zimmermann was not a happy man. Even though he was the chair of the University of Minnesota's department of philosophy, he had the most dilapidated and drafty office the renovated building had to offer. New seats, floors, piping, and those new-fangled several ply windows that one could never open were installed in every room but 307. Perhaps socially he might claim this was because, as someone with a logical philosophy Ph.D., he was picked on by the Continental philosophy Ph.D.s. Because of their stuffy air of superiority, they wallowed in their own genius. In reality however 307 was untouched because he called in a few favors. Though they needed to examine the pipes underneath and the wiring in the walls, which meant tiles replacing laminated cement and dry wall patches, everything else was original; this included the windows.
As the left half his butt sat in his window's niche and his right leg supported his corpulent frame, the bald department chair grunted when he opened the window facing the ten foot bronze statue of a solitary Civil War soldier, loosing the cold December air inside. Billy Yank, his ears perked as his neck turned Southeast to Richmond, carried the colossal and august ideal of Union upon his hardened shoulders as well as what snow the storm bore down. Arthur glanced to his office door and honed his ears for his secretary's soft footfalls. Nothing. Relieved but still half listening for the slightest sign of her, he placed the Lucky Strike into his mouth and lighted it. The first drag was unhurried, merely sighing past his lips and out the window. The following ones however were swiftly inhaled and he was careful to keep as much smoke out of his office as possible.
With only half smoked, Art heard the swift sound of pounding shoe steps. Though clearly not his secretaries delicate ones, it was probably someone she would have to show inside. He frantically tried to suck the lingering smoke before dropping out of the niche and sprinting to his coffee mug to snuff out the cherry.
"Blast—some smoke came with me," he quietly cursed, spilling some ashes onto his desk. His secretary's soft knock sounded on the door and like a child nearly caught masturbating, he desperately tried to hide the contraband and clean up the mess he'd left. "Just a minute," he requested, careful to hide his hurry as he dropped the butt into his coffee. His secretary ignored him and stepped inside, careful not to open the door more than she had to.
Dressed as usual in her flowery full skirt and blouse adorned with countless little flowers, Arthur's personal secretary and confidant Fanya Kaplan stood with her back against the door, her nylon covered legs spread several feet apart. Though her smile and behavior was very matronly, this 25 year old belonged at the arm of an equally young and talented doctor. A throwback to a bygone era, the woman's protective and supportive demeanor yet challenging conversation would make her the perfect wife and companion of one lucky stiff some day; she sniffed the air, drawing a weak frown from Arthur, and shook her head reprovingly. Until she found that lucky stiff, or Arthur did the impossible and found someone better qualified, he had to suffer her attentions.
Perhaps naively unaware that men melted at her seductively long legs and toned ass, she stepped lightly in her simple gray running shoes, the single deviance from an otherwise flawlessly classic professional behavior and attire. The first time Arthur saw her bruised aching feet, she had worn heels but a few hours; insisting they were fine even as she sorely massaged them, she reluctantly accepted Dr. Zimmermann's ultimatum that she switch to anything more comfortable—even bare feet. He hadn't heard their clacking ever since. It was only later he realized this silence made it harder to sneak a smoke but the disadvantage was acceptable so long as Fanya walked without pain.
She offered her palm when they came face to face. Looking suitably ashamed, he placed the coffee-wetted butt in her hand. She impatiently twitched her long fingers towards herself, demanding more. Reluctantly he placed the pack of cigarettes in her hand like a child spitting out his gum in class. She glanced inside the pack, spotted the lighter, then rewarded and punished him with a pleased but disappointed smile that met her cheekbones.
"Art, you know you shouldn't be using these," she chastised. "The doctor says you have to watch your health and dieting isn't enough."
