"You're different. You love pussy.
You're short. You stutter.You're
clumsy. Your ugly glasses don't
even fit. And, that dueling scar
or whatever on your right cheek.
Yet you screw two-thirds of
the women you meet. You just love
pussy. Women sense that. They know
how much you enjoy them. They are
flattered, and you turn that flattery
into a fuck." ---- Doris Loro
The Perfect Professor
Within six weeks of starting college, I got a job in the sports department of the local newspaper, found an apartment across the river and fell madly in lust. Three years later, I'm still writing about high school sports, still living two blocks from the ferry, and still in lust with Mary Adams. Like all first year students I took a required class in English composition: ENG 101, MWF, 9:00-9:50. The instructor, Dr. Richard Adams, had us read and discussed Poe, Emerson, Thoreau or whomever, and each week submit a 500 word essay on any of about 100 subjects.
One week in October, bored to death and probably drunk, I wrote a paper on the poet John Milton, comparing the angels and devils in Paradise Lost to various politicians. Of course the instant I turned it in, I had second thoughts, the same thoughts I had the following Monday when Professor Adams handed back the papers. All the papers but mine. "Mr. Strange, see me in my office this afternoon." (Bored to death became scared to death.)
I had a burger and a beer -- actually a few beers -- at the university center before taking the long walk up the wide, green mall to the English Department.
Surprise No. 1: Adams praised my paper,
Surprise No. 2: He introduced me to his English professor wife, Mary, who had also read the paper and wanted to meet its author.
Damn, this was one awfully good looking woman. I just stood there for a few minutes staring,as my eyes began trying to take it all in, from head to toe. Richard and Mary both were both amused at my reaction. Did they assume I was shocked by the good news about my paper? Or, did they know I was head-over-heels in lust? Still am.
The woman has a perfect ass and legs up to her arm pits, which her miniest of mini-skirts that the slenderest of four-inch heels tend to underscore. Her navy-blue eyes shine behind rimless glasses and wisps of gray streaked blond hair give her the professorial air she covets. Every bit the academic but still my goddess -- has been for three years, like I said.
Mary is about 40 now, maybe even older, but she still looks like an undergraduate. A knowing look behind a smile that's not really a smile. Full breasts hidden under billowy dresses and blouses in summer, but vaunted by sweaters in winter. Perfect. You get the idea.
Anyway, I worked this afternoon, Sunday afternoon, writing a week's worth of advance stories on high school football, and then walked to the ferry. The trip across the river usually takes ten minutes, but it is far enough and long enough to protect me from my family, from the city and from the college pseudo-intellectuals. The tree lined streets of the Point are nice, secluded and quiet. It's now about six, the sun has just about disappeared and I'm trying to get "psyched up" for an hour or so of Getman's Theoretical Chemistry, after I grab a bite to eat.
Liuzza is one of the many restaurants, bars and bookie joints facing the plaza at the ferry landing. It is the only place serving food on Sunday nights. I open the front door, and there she is, Mary Adams, Dr. Adams, Professor Adams, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Helen.
She is sitting near the wall of windows that runs down the Julia Street side of the restaurant. She is alone at a table for four, one wine glass, one table setting. She is looking at the cars on the plaza sparring for a spot on the ferry, and doesn't see me enter. Elsa, Pete's wife, knows me: "Buona sera, Signore Jack." I suspect that's the only Italian she knows. "You're by yourself?"
"Maybe."
Elsa doesn't know what to say. I walk toward Mary's table.
"Dr. Adams, I presume." It has just occurred to me she may not even remember who I am. The bad joke doesn't help. "What brings you to this side of the river?
"Mr. Strange." She remembers.
"I didn't mean to startle you. But I never expected to see you or Richard -- or any of my professors -- over here." She flashes that smile that's not a smile and that makes me feel good. "I went to the flea market, and ended up staying later than I expected," she replies. "I was trying to find a sideboard for the dining room."
I have never been to any flea market and I'm not sure where the one she is talking about is. I took a guess: "That's over by Eisenhower Drive? You probably should have taken the bridge."
"We live in close to downtown, you know, so the ferry's quicker." The smile that's not a smile continues. My heart races. And when she adds, "Would you care to join me?" I think I'm about to have a heart attack.
I waste no time sitting down, staring. I wonder if she knows? Knows that I have watched her from afar and up close for three years? Knows that her smile that's not a smile turns my legs into jelly and my cock into steel. Knows that I dream of that perfect ass? Knows that I ache to have those long legs wrapped around me?
She starts talking about my Milton paper of three years ago, and somehow gets the misconception that I like literature. Since you could put all my knowledge of English literature in a thimble, we naturally discuss romantic poets, Blake, Byron, Coleridge. Out of my league.
Sensing my discomfort, she asks who won the day's football games. Does she know I work in sports or just assumes that as I guy I know these things? But a lot of women like football, so I guess an English professeuse can, too. We joke about the local guys losing yet again, which seems to cut through the tension a bit. She laughs at all of my silly football stories -- half of which aren't true.
I guess I'm manic now (I was as bipolar then as I am now), as my stories expand to Southern lore and politics. I explain the politicians in my Milton paper, and tell stories of other people and events. She seems interested or at least fakes it well. I just go on and on. Manic. I wanted to call her Mary. But she continues to call me Mr. Strange, so I'll continue to call her Professor or Dr. Adams... except in my mind and the rest of my body, of course.
"Thank you oh so much, Mr. Strange," she says as she prepares to leave. "I needed to laugh. Things have not been going well for me. Thank you." I ask no questions. She had finished her sandwich even before I walked in. My lentil soup and beer had yet to arrive. That killer smile that's not a smile had taken its toll on me for three years.