I'm fucked.
How I got to this point is not exactly a mystery.
I've made several really bad decisions over the past two months and I have no earthly idea how I'm going to get out of this.
First, a little background.
My name is Mark Mackenzie and I'm an Associate Professor in the Humanities at a reasonably well-known midwestern university. I'm 42 years old, divorced, with two teen-aged children. My ex-wife and I get along just fine, all things considered. You would call me reasonably handsome—tall, dark hair, green eyes, and I work out enough to stay toned, albeit not exactly buffed.
I've taught at this university since I finished graduate school 12 years ago and when my next book comes out sometime next year I'll probably become a full professor without much difficulty. My office, where I'm sitting right now as I write this, is windowless and three of the four walls are crammed with books, books, and more books. The desk and chairs are remnants of some government surplus auction in the 1980s, the carpet industrial. Office luxury is not a good reason to become a professor. Neither is the salary. But then, no one in this department went into academia for the money.
My students rate me as one of the most popular teachers in the College of Arts and Sciences. They like my demanding nature, my passion for my subject, and the respect I show them as adults. In recent years I've developed a following among our MA students and my graduate seminars are consistently over-enrolled.
In short, except for the divorce, which went as well as such things can go; I've got nothing to complain about.
Until now.
It all started last January when Alix enrolled in my graduate seminar on gender and sexuality in contemporary American literature. She is unusual among our MA students in that she is a recent college graduate and only 23 years old. Most of our graduate students are working adults credentialing themselves for their jobs. Alix plans a career like mine—or so she tells me.
Like me Alix is tall—at least 5'10"—but you would not call her beautiful. She's not unattractive to be sure, but just not beautiful. Her face is a little too long, her teeth a little too crooked, her skin shows a few scars from teenage acne, and her hair, highlighted blonde, hangs limply down to her shoulders in a non-descript cut. Broad shoulders and long legs compliment her height, giving her the look my ex-wife used to call "large boned," but it is none of these things that I noticed about Alix when I met her the first time. What I noticed is her breasts.
You see, I'm a small breast man. Every man I know except me drools over the big boobs, staring down darkened cleavages, longing to bury themselves in the most massive breasts they can find. Not me. Ever since I first fell in love with the female body I've been drawn to women with very small breasts. I love the way they feel, the way there are almost all nipple, the way I can hold the entire thing in one hand. What can I say? I just love small breasts.
Because Alix is tall and broad shouldered, the smallness of her breasts makes them almost invisible. Or, at least they would be almost invisible if she were not so clearly proud of her body. One of the great developments in our society over the past five or six years is the way that young women have learned to be proud of their bodies—thin, curvy, large and small—and Alix is one of those young women.
She dresses more stylishly than most women her age, often wearing blouses that look expensive and that are open just as far as would be tasteful in a professional environment. Sometimes just the hint of a camisole or bra is present, floating at the edge of her blouse. She's a bit high fashion for this sleepy midwestern town, something I couldn't help but notice the first time I saw her.
While I try hard to maintain a professional distance from my students, as a man who still has a very active sex drive, it was impossible for me not to steal a glance at her breasts once in a while. With Alix I had more opportunity than with most of our students because she is also our departmental receptionist—her student job—so we are around one another daily.
In my seminar Alix was one of those students all teachers live for—animated, well-prepared for class, opinionated, but not just for the sake of having an opinion. From Week One in the semester she helped carry the discussion, making my life as the instructor much easier. As the weeks wore on, it became clear that one of the reasons for her animation in class was that Alix had strong feelings about the discrimination gays, lesbians, and bisexuals suffer in American society—especially bisexuals.
When one of the other students called her out on this, demanding to know why bisexuals had it worse than gays or lesbians, she laughed and pointed out that people who are bi- are discriminated against by everyone—straight, gay and lesbian. This exchange led the class into a discussion of whether people really are bisexual or if they are just gays or lesbians who refuse to admit to themselves their true sexual identity. Alix and one other student became almost strident in the defense of their position. Eventually, tempers began to rise, so I gently nudged the class discussion back to the literary aspects of our topic.
Late that night Alix wrote me a long despairing email apologizing for getting so worked up in class and lamenting the conservative views of the students who opposed her. When I read the message the following morning I wrote her right back to let her know that I approved of passion in the classroom and that there was nothing wrong with defending one's position, so long as it was a defense based on fact and not on prejudice. I hoped she understood that I meant that hers was a defense based on fact and that the other student was the one with the prejudices. I never criticize one student to another, but this particular email was pretty transparent.
When I saw her in the office later in the week she thanked me for my understanding and promised to behave better in the future. We both laughed about it and that was that.
*****
By the halfway point of every semester, I typically feel comfortable enough with my graduate students to invite them out for a beer after the seminar is over. In any given week half a dozen or so will take me up on the offer and the group is usually a shifting constellation based upon who was fired up by that evening's discussion. Alix was a regular attendee, missing very few of these "further discussions." I have a strict two-beer limit in these situations, because even though I have tenure, it does not do to get drunk with one's students.
I enjoy these sessions though, because it's over beer that we can let our hair down a bit and discuss things that are not always appropriate in the classroom environment. Alix and several others in the class often used the pub as a place to go more deeply into their opinions about sexuality and more than once I found myself a bit uncomfortable with the frankness with which they discussed sex in front of me. I'm no puritan and love to talk about sex as much as the next man, but the younger generation—God I feel old even writing that phrase—is just a lot more open about sex than we ever were at that age.
When the semester was over, Alix asked if she could stop in to talk about the next semester. Sitting there in my office chair, she looked so intense and so attractive, that when she asked if we could continue our work together in an independent tutorial I readily agreed. That won me a bright smile and a thank you and I promised to send her a more in depth reading list over the holiday break.
*****
January blew in cold as it always does here on the Great Plains. I especially hate the way it gets dark so early in the afternoon. One of my only consolations was that every other week I got to spend a very enjoyable two hours arguing with Alix about what she'd read for that tutorial session. In the one-on-one of the tutorial she proved to be an even more brilliant student. It became clear right away that despite her animation in class, she still held back a bit in front of other students. Only in my office did she put her full intelligence on display. I really looked forward to those tutorials and hoped she did as well.
After a particularly blistering debate about pornography in early April, Alix surprised me with a question. "Dr. McKenzie, would you like to continue this at the pub the way we did last semester?"
I must have blushed, because there was no way I could have stood up at that moment, since our discussion of porn had caused a slight bulging in my pants, thankfully hidden by my desk. "Uh, well, I'd like to," I stammered, "but I'm sorry, I've already got plans for this evening."
Alix looked so abashed that I felt I had to add something to my lie. "Not those kinds of plans, Alix," I rushed to assure her. "I just have a huge pile of grading to do before tomorrow and if I drink even one beer, I'm doomed."
She brightened right up and said, "Oh, okay. Well then, how about next time? I'm asking because, well, I really miss the more relaxed discussions we had there. It's not that I don't love the work we're doing here, but, well, the pub seems like a better place to discuss some things than your office does."
