Their conversation had been wide-ranging and multi-faceted, wonderfully refreshing and satisfying. Dinner itself had been exquisite, the table as private as they'd hoped, the food superb - filet mignon, kale Caesar salad, turnip soufflé, and a bottle of intense, almost tannin-less syrah. Due to familial training, Taylor had very seldom tasted wine, but even (especially?) for a tyro, she found this one mind-blowing. Likewise the entire evening: mind-blowing. She, a junior at a religious college, being treated so lavishly by the retired professorial visitor to campus – dinner at the best restaurant in town. And explicitly without ulterior, hidden, nefarious motives on Roger's part. It was a 'thank-you' for her hard work on his behalf.
Taylor set down her dessert menu, took another sip of her wine while looking squarely, unblinkingly into his eyes, then reached across the table for Roger's hand, squeezed it.
Silence.
He arched one eyebrow, waited.
"Can I ask a silly question?"
He nodded: his expression said 'Of course!'
She took a slow, deep breath: "Tell me honestly now – after our two days of running on the campus and beach with all those boobs and butts and legs on display – do you find me at all sexy?"
*****
Roger had flown across the country to teach, for the faculty of the small but striving campus, two iterations (Thursday, Friday) of his class, 'Proposal Strategy.' He would stay the weekend, leave Monday, so he could enjoy the beach and intense, predictable sunshine - a change from his Pacific NW home.
The school was private, undergraduate only, and seriously religious (way overly so, he felt, having browsed the college's web-site) but it had a brilliant policy about teaching students responsibility and teamwork. They assigned well-defined complex tasks (like his visit) to one student, gave them authority, responsibility and resources, and told them to figure it out and handle it, while doing the school proud.
Taylor (the only woman so-named whom Roger had ever met) was a work-study undergraduate in the office of the Vice-Provost for Research, the "VPR", doing whatever was needed. A generalized 'gofur'. Four weeks ago she was given his visit as an assignment; Roger and everything to do with his visit were entirely
her
responsibility while he was enroute to campus, actually aboard, or enroute home.
Accordingly (after Roger and the VPR's office had agreed on date, topic, and fee), she had initiated their getting together via Skype, with live real-time online face-to-face, a first for him. She was good (pretty, too, which for Roger wasn't a requirement but certainly never hurt) – organized, thorough, obviously very well educated already. Well-prepared even for that first call: she'd made him a short video showing the lecture facilities plus a short campus tour, and talked him through it.
They got along famously from the get-go. In that first conversation he'd discovered that her main interest was marine biology. Being an oceanographer, he volunteered to help her with general career advice, and on her graduate-school applications. While they were online for that initial contact, she'd sent him her CV and complete transcript, so he knew a good deal about her – age (19, soon 20); status (nominal junior, effective 1st semester senior); GPA (3.82); GRE scores (superb); home address (1000+ miles away, out of state). She already had his CV and personal data in the file, and was quite impressed – PhD, JD, age 67, retired, a wealth of experience spanning at least six careers.
Being impressed was mutual – she was taking the right foundational courses – lots of chemistry, math, physics – and seemed to have either found a good advisor or figured out a lot on her own. He complimented her on that: she blushed (visible even on low-res Skype), said it was her own doing, the choices seemed obvious. He told her –quite truthfully- that however obvious they might seem to HER, not many people figured it out early enough to handle it properly, as she was clearly doing.
Taylor had worked hard on this meeting - arranged menus and catering; printed schedules and fliers; inquired as to his lodging needs and made the arrangements -a mile from campus, a small suite ("NOT just a cheap little room!" her boss had said) in a very good hotel.
She found out he was a noon-time runner, and invited him to bring his gear. She was a runner too, would show him the campus and its beaches by foot, and she would get him a visitor's freebie pass for the gym adjacent to the meeting building.
And she did all the dozens of little things needed to make the classes a success - signs to restrooms, proper style and arrangement of tables, electricity to the tables, video facilities.
Roger arrived at noon Wednesday – the afternoon of which he planned to spend partly with the campus mucky-mucks, but mostly with Taylor, going over details. She picked him up, meeting him at the baggage claim per plan. Up close and in person, she was much smaller and younger-looking than he'd expected, but even prettier than when seen over Skype. Five two, one ten, with piercing pale-blue eyes, beautiful lightly-tanned skin, long shiny dark-reddish hair pulled into a pony-tail. Square-oval face with a perfect nose, insanely inviting lips, and perhaps the whitest teeth he'd ever seen. A beautiful butt, lovely runner's legs dangling from snug white shorts, and essentially no bosom whatever.
She wore a loose boat-necked sleeveless blouse, running shoes, sunglasses: full-stop! That was her entire ensemble. She'd warned him about the informality of student dress (including her own) in the northern Florida climate, and as a result Roger had arrived in tennis shorts and a good tee-shirt.
If he was pleasantly surprised by HER, the reverse was equally true. Taylor was astounded, enough so to break her own protocol and say "Um, wow! You sure don't LOOK like a retired professor! You said you're a runner – those legs prove it!" Then, perturbed at her unplanned and inexplicable (but, she hoped, forgivable) forwardness, she led him quickly to the car. The drive to his hotel was uneventful – full of friendly chatter half science half lecture-prep details.
He checked in, dropped his bag in the room and rejoined her for the trip to campus. The afternoon blew by: he had dinner (sushi) with two of the VPR staff, and they dropped him at the hotel.
He walked the mile to campus in the morning, a tall double latte in hand. At seven-thirty he met Taylor at the lecture-room: she was way ahead of him. Class was to start at 0830. The setup was perfect, save for the need to re-arrange a dozen work-tables. She seemed mildly chagrined, wondered aloud who had moved them about, said it was still too early to call for janitorial help, but that shouldn't be a problem – the two of them could easily do the job themselves in the time it would take to make such a call.
Each table was a two-person item, awkward but not heavy. And each carry required them to stoop whilst facing one another, which afforded Roger a dozen prolonged and perfectly delightful views down her blouse. She seemed oblivious: he wondered if she were actually so? If so, hooray! If she were not oblivious, then what (if anything) to infer?
At any rate, she wore no bra, and had no need for one. Two very small shallow cones, solid and totally ignorant of gravity, with translucent pink points, like new-sprung boobs borrowed from a girl just starting puberty. Suntan-brown, white, pink – a delightful combination! They got his attention far more seriously than would have a better-developed set, because they were a near-perfect replica of a pair particularly important in his personal history – there had been a certain Miss Anne and himself (egad, so many decades ago!), encouraged to be alone together far too much... all at the instigation of her solidly-Catholic parents whose main focus seemed to be getting their various daughters into service in the "human-being production line" as quickly as possible.
Anne was a precocious thing, who obviously enjoyed giving him frequent 'accidental' views down her blouses. Nothing beyond glimpses ever came of it, but he had fixated on her body. Taylor's bosom strongly resembled Anne's – and was therefore entrancing, maddening, and utterly addictive. And - damn it all! - completely off-limits.
As enrollees arrived and got coffee, Taylor worked the welcoming and registration table. All went well – an attentive and appreciative class, plenty of questions and enthusiasm. Lunch break was 1200 -1330, and as instructed, he'd brought his running gear to the class. At 1205 they were in the gym; at 1212, running side-by-side across campus. He let her set the pace – slower than he'd have gone were he solo, but fine.
The campus was swarming – almost literally so- with undergraduate women (over 70% of the student body was female). Apparently the entrance requirements included big boobs, perfect butts, long legs, suntans for the few Caucasians – and a willingness to put it all on open display. It was distracting, to the point where Taylor giggled as they passed one particularly exposed example, and said sideways "There are a LOT of them out and about today, aren't there?!"
She was pleased that Roger reddened – gotcha! He was so easy to talk to!
He shrugged, advanced his theory about admissions requirements.
She laughed, agreed. Then, after a hundred or so meters of silence, he volunteered "Lots of busty bodies, sure, and that's nice. A distraction for me even though I spent twenty years running the beaches of San Diego. Including the big nude beach, Black's. But frankly, I was trained – broken in as it were – on bodies much more like yours, and THAT's my idea of a good time."
Then, vaguely worried, he ended with "Incidentally, Taylor, that was definitely, absolutely NOT meant to be a pass at you – just a statement of fact about myself. No offense, please?! I'd hate it if I upset you after all the lovely hard work you've put in advancing my cause!"
She laughed, distinctly pinker than before his comment, and pinker than required by their pace. "That's okay – no offense meant and none taken. I'm flattered. But the Playboy syndrome is pretty wide-spread and I suspect you're in a VERY small minority! No double-entendre intended!" Then, half a beat later, "I mean it... I love talking with you. You're very open, and it's fun – we can go anywhere in our discussions while we're doing other things."
She stopped speaking for several paces, then said "Like moving tables, for instance. But you didn't seem to have anything to say back then."
He almost stumbled, caught himself, tried to come up with a retort, looked sideways at her, made smiling happy eye-contact, and quit trying. She hadn't been oblivious to the views she had given him, for sure! She was fast, indeed – fast and good!
