Author's Preface: Everyone in this story is over eighteen years or older. The story is entirely fictional. Any similarities to real people or events are purely coincidental. Constructive comments are always welcome.
This is a continuation of the Tammy series. It works as a standalone story. Tammy is a cute girl from a small town in Texas.
There are four more parts in this series about Tammy's first year in college. I'm going try to add a new one each week.
This part is longer than normal. It's really two stories.
Enjoy.
Last semester, I took Introduction to Psychology. It was one of those big survey classes. There was at least one-hundred and fifty people in it. The class was interesting but the best thing about it was the professor, Dr. Clark Walker. I liked him because he could take even the boring parts and make them interesting. Dr. Walker refused to make this class too serious, especially for us freshman.
He kept us on our toes by throwing out horrible psychology jokes. He must have known them all; I can't believe there are that many. He only taught this class because he was still a lower ranking professor, and he got stuck with it. His specialty was behavioral psychology. That's what he taught in his other classes.
He kept us laughing, and groaning, while he lectured.
A man goes into a library and asks for a book about Pavlov's dogs and Schrodinger's cat. The librarian says, "It rings a bell, but I don't know whether it's there or not."
It didn't hurt that he was extremely attractive. He was young-ish for a psychology professor. He was in his early thirties, and reasonably fit-looking although he was no body builder. I had a bit of a thing for professors, and he looked like one. He even wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He wasn't that handsome objectively, but the whole package looked...right. There was something about the way he acted around his students that amplified his attractiveness. It's hard to pin down exactly what it was. Charisma might be a good word for it. He had an air of quiet confidence and always seemed relaxed and happy. His rich baritone voice made me warm below my waist. He had a smile that came from his eyes as well as his lips. His charm made all the girls in class perk up and sigh when he came in the door. He was, "dreamy." It was probably good that he was married with a young child. That made him off limits to me, although I'm sure some of his students still hit on him. If he weren't married, I would have loved to go out with him.
Shortly after the beginning of my second semester, Dr. Walker called me.
"Hi, is this Tammy Tatum?"
"Hi, I didn't expect to hear from you. What can I do for you Dr. Walker?"
"First, call me Clark. You're not my student anymore."
"OK, Clark. It sounds strange not to call your Dr. Walker."
"I need to ask you for a big favor. Could I possibly get you to babysit for me?"
"You seem a little old to need to be babysat, but I guess..."
He laughed.
"I mean could you sit with my daughter? I need to go to a psychology conference next weekend. Can you think of anything more boring? Our regular babysitter was in a car accident and won't be able to be here."
"I'm not sure I can. I don't know much about babies."
"She's not a baby and there's not much to know. She's four and three quarters and she's housetrained so you won't need to deal with diapers. She can dress herself, although don't expect her clothes to match. She can feed herself and brush her teeth. She sleeps through the night so you can get some rest. All you need to do is make sure that she doesn't fall down the stairs, give her some food and water, watch movies with her, don't let her have parties or have boys over, etc. I can tell you all you need to do when you get here."
"I don't know. I've not been around children much. When you say 'housetrained,' do you mean I don't have to spread newspaper on the floor, and I can just let her outside?"
"You can't let her outside; she might dig in the garden." They both laughed. He was trying to win me over with his charm and it was working.
"Please Tammy. I'm desperate. I've called everybody else. All you need is to be responsible and think like a kid. I know you can do that."
"How do you know that?"
"You laughed at all my bad jokes."
I took a deep breath and said, "Ok, I'll do it. But only if you don't tell me any more jokes."
"Oh, thank you, Tammy. I'll be forever in your debt."
He gave me his address and told me when his flight was. He asked me to get there an hour early so he could show me around and tell me what I needed to do. He was leaving Friday afternoon and would return Sunday afternoon. I wasn't looking forward to it, but he was such a charming man that I couldn't say no to him.
I arrived at the address he gave me, at 10:00 on Friday. He lived in a huge house for a college professor. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. He gave me a tour of the house and I wondered how a college professor could afford a place like this. I looked at the room where I would sleep and then he introduced me to his little girl Maggie. She was adorable. Maybe it was my womanly hormones kicking in, but I bonded with her at once. Clarke left a big wad of cash on the kitchen counter and told me to order-in anything I wanted to eat. If I felt like cooking, there was plenty of food in the house. He showed me what Maggie liked to eat.
