The Literature Professor

Her Beginning

It was winter, near the beginning of a new semester, and Julie Lindsey loved both cold weather and new semesters. Cold weather meant cuddling, and she loved to cuddle. As a literature professor, she had a fondness not only for cuddling with a man, or occasionally with a woman, she loved curling up with a good book or writing erotic stories on her laptop.

Although she loved cuddling, Julie wasn't a person who jumped into bed with just anyone. She loved being single since getting out of an unsatisfying marriage when she was in her early forties. From that time, she had explored and indulged her fantasies with both men and women, but was choosy and discreet – not secretive, but discreet.

The other thing she loved was new semesters. It was nice to know that the past semester was over and buried, no more keeping up with each student's grades and having to decide whether to pass or fail, give an A, B, or C for those folks on the borderline. She especially disliked graduate students coming to her office at the end of a semester, whining about needing a B in the course. She usually told them that she didn't give grades; students earned them.

Today was the beginning of the third week of the semester, and she was heading to her first class for the day. The air tasted crisp as she sucked it into her lungs, expanding her chest. She grinned, thinking about another faculty member, a religious nut, upbraiding her for doing that very thing, telling her that she was showing off her breasts by doing so.

Julie knew she had nice breasts and in fact felt very comfortable with her body. She had been told that her air of being at ease with herself was one of the things that made her sexually attractive. And she knew she was; she enjoyed the glances, sometimes appreciative, sometimes lustful, from both faculty members and students.

As she walked across campus toward the Liberal Arts building, Julie pictured herself standing in front of the mirror after showering that morning. She had turned around, examining her nude body, front, back, and sides. Looking back at her was an older – she preferred the word mature – woman, a woman who was neither tall nor short, neither skinny nor heavy. She knew she looked good to be in her fifties. Her breasts were not as firm as they had been when she was twenty, but she had been told that there was a sensuousness about them that rivaled or surpassed those of many younger women. The woman looking back at her had graying hair, something she was proud of. She refused to color her hair, thinking that it would be a sign that she was unhappy with who she was.

As Julie entered the building, nodding and smiling at people around her, she realized she needed to pee before going to class. She hurried to her office to lay the book she was carrying on her desk before heading to the restroom, leaving her door open. When she returned, she noticed an envelope lying on the book. Opening it, she found a sheet of paper inside with the words:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

"George Gordon, more commonly known as Lord Byron." Julie thought, smiling her herself. Then she began to wonder who had put it there. She thought about looking out the door, but realized that the person was likely long gone. She tried to remember, with no success who she had seen in the hall when she was leaving and entering her office. Dropping the paper into one of her desk drawers, she soon dismissed the question and left for her class, this time locking her door.

It was Monday, and her first class went well. Lots of discussion. At one point, Julie caught herself looking over the class, wondering if one of them had left the note, but quickly dismissed the question and concentrated on her teaching.

The rest of Julie's week was uneventful and by the next Monday, she had all but put the question of the source of the note to rest. Perhaps just a prank. But then, as she opened her office door in the morning, there was another envelope on the floor. The sheet inside contained the words:

Had I the heavens embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Yeats. She recognized the poem immediately. Very nice to receive such poems, Julie thought, but from whom? Faculty member or student? She dropped the sheet in the drawer with the second one.

The question lingered in her mind during the entire week and when she found no envelope on her office floor the next Monday, she felt both relieved and disappointed – until she arrived back at her car in the evening to find one under her windshield wiper.

The envelope was damp and it had misted briefly that morning, leading Julie to think that it had been left shortly after she had gotten to school. She waited till she got into her car before opening the envelope and reading:

See the chariot at hand here of Love,

Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth.

And as she goes, all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty;

Julie recognized the words but couldn't place the author. Going immediately back into her office, she opened the ladder to reach the upper shelves of the built-in bookcase. The language gave her a clue and in about five minutes, she held a collection of Ben Jonson's works in which she found her newest poem.

She sat contemplating for a few moments. Was it an admirer? Someone courting her or too shy to approach her? Was it a stalker? The thought set shivers through her, and then she dismissed it. Not a stalker; not with that choice of poems. But who? A student in one of her classes? The new, playful professor who was about her age? She grinned, picturing herself having sex with him, as she intended to one day. As she thought, she slid one of her hands between her legs, inside her panties, playing lightly at first, then faster. The office door was locked, and she felt safe, but knew she would have to muffle her sounds when she came – and she soon did, her body stiffening, arching.

When she had finished cuming, Julie wiped her fingers on a tissue as she looked around her office. She loved it almost as much as she loved her home. The Liberal Arts building was older – new buildings on campus seemed reserved for athletics and hard sciences. The school had offered to remodel her office when they refurbished the rest of the building, but she refused. She loved the high ceiling with a ceiling fan, the oak trim, the built-in oak cabinets with book shelves on top of them reaching to the ceiling. She had settled instead for a ladder to reach the top shelves of the bookcases.

The next Monday, there was an envelope in her faculty mail slot. It had evidently been dropped in the campus mail the Friday before. Another poem:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valleys, groves, hills and fields,

Woods or steepy mountains yields.

Julie smiled. Christopher Marlowe – one of her favorite authors. The poem kept a smile on her face all day as she bounced lightly from one place to another. She decided she was being courted – willed herself to believe that because she enjoyed the feeling of romance.

As the semester progressed, Julie found herself thinking more about the identity of her possible suitor, both at home and in her office, fantasizing about one possibility then another. Was it the graduate student with jet black hair whose eyes, she had noticed, frequently settled on her breasts? The graduate assistant who worked for one of her male colleagues? The red headed female librarian whom she knew preferred other women?

Julie's mind turned to the new assistant coach that the women referred to as "The Hunk?" No, she giggled at the thought, not him. Not with the poems. Anything sent by him would more likely start with "There was a young lady from . . . ."

As she moved through the semester, receiving poems one way or another every Monday: Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, and others, she found herself not only thinking and fantasizing, but masturbating more – every evening in her home and not infrequently in the daytime in her office with the door shut and locked. She grinned one day as she thought that her office tissue expense was going up, wiping her juices from her fingers. Perhaps she would have to begin sucking them instead.

As the end of the semester approached, Julie was no nearer to discovering the identity of her suitor – at least that's what she preferred to think of the person as. It was not that she hadn't tired, but that she hadn't been successful. And then things took a turn.

Monday, three weeks before semester's end came the deadline for students to hand in term papers. They could either hand them in during class, or give them to her during her office hours.

Since it was the last day, Julie made it a point to be in her office when she wasn't in class – until she felt the strong desire for a cup of coffee. She left the door open just in case as she headed for the teachers' lounge. When she arrived, she found that the pot contained only stale lukewarm liquid. Sighing, she turned and headed back to her office, deciding to wait until she got home.

As Julie reached her hall, she noticed someone just turning the corner at the other end and recognized Joe, a student in her first Monday morning class. He must have turned in his term paper, she thought. But as she entered her office, Julie realized that Joe had handed her his term paper two weeks ago – he had been one of the first to do so.

Quickly, Julie scanned her office, looking for an envelope, but saw none. Next, she moved to the term paper folders stacked neatly on a table near her desk. The top paper was the same one that had been there when she left her office, but there was something about the stack. It was not as neat as she had left it – something had been moved. Her hands trembled with the anticipation of possible discovery as she looked through the stack, until she found one folder that was much too thin. Opening it, she read:

I ne're was struck before that hour

With love so sudden and so sweet.

Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower

And stole my heart away complete.

Below the verse, centered on the page were the words, "I Love You."

Clutching the folder, Julie sat, stunned. Joe was her secret admirer. In one way, it made sense. Joe was both bright and knowledgeable, one of her best students. If she had thought about it, she would have realized that he was one of the few students with the breadth to be familiar with the poems she had received.

But she was still surprised. Joe was a senior who would graduate at the end of the semester, and although he was bold during class discussions, seeming to have good self esteem when it came to academics, he was very shy otherwise. Julie had felt for him when she saw him blush when a female student addressed him after class one day.

As Julie contemplated the situation, she realized that she had to do something. She also wanted to be gentle as he was a good student and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. Making up her mind, she picked up the telephone and called the Registrar's office to find out more about her young, secret admirer.

At five o'clock, Julie left her office and headed for the cafeteria, having found out that Joe fulfilled part of his work-study program there. She went through the serving line, paying at the end, and all the while looking around for Joe. It wasn't until she was almost finished eating that she finally discovered him in the window where trays and dishes were taken. He was one of the dishwashers.

Julie waited until no one was at the window before taking her tray. As she pushed her tray though the opening, she said, "Hello, Joe," watching his look of surprise turn to embarrassment.

He nodded and mumbled something and Julie continued. "I need to see you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning in my office, Joe. I checked and you don't have any classes in the morning."

"Yes, Ma'am." Joe replied softly, then looked down at the dishes in front of him.

The next morning was warm, and Julie dressed as she usually did on warm, spring days. She wore a half bra that accentuated her cleavage and a blouse that fit snugly. It wasn't especially designed to be sexy, but on her body, it was. Her skirt wasn't short, but came about three inches above her knee. No pantyhose – she hated pantyhose, except in the winter when they helped keep her warm.

Panties? Panties were a choice. When she wore longer skirts, she sometimes wore no panties, enjoying the stimulating feel of air on her pussy (she loved the word, "pussy" – loved saying and hearing it.) But with this skirt, she chose to wear panties, because if she sat the wrong way . . . .

Arriving at her office, Julie remembered the poem of the day before. It was not familiar to her and she sat at the computer, typing in the first line. The name, John Clare came up. John Clare. She had something with his stuff in it, somewhere.

After looking on the lower shelves, Julie moved to the higher ones, finally opening the ladder. There, on the very top shelf was the book she was looking for. As she reached for it, she heard a knock on the door and without turning, responded, "Come in."

"Yes, Ma'am." Joe's shy voice respond.

As Julie turned to look down at the young man, her hand inadvertently knocked a book off the top shelf. The book hit the built-in cabinet below and bounced onto the floor at the foot of the ladder.

"Will you get that for me, Joe?"

Julie took the book with the John Clare poem off the shelf and waited for Joe to hand her the book from the floor. She had heard him move and knew he was at the bottom of the ladder, but when she looked down, she saw his upturned face and could tell that his were eyes riveted on her legs and panties. The thought flashed through her mind that it was a good thing she had chosen to wear panties. She grinned to herself, thinking about the thrill the young man would have had if she had not.

"Joe?" Julie said softly, not wanting to embarrass him, but she did. Joe's face turned red as he quickly rose and handed her the book.

"I'm . . . I'm . . ." Joe began to stutter until Julie cut him off.

"That's all right. Have a seat."

As Joe moved to a chair, Julie climbed off the ladder, book in hand. She noticed the bulge in the front of his pants, even though he tried to hold his hands in ways to hide it.

Moving to her desk, Julie removed a folder from a drawer and sat in a chair in front of Joe. Opening the folder, Julie began to read one poem at a time, except for the last one. With each poem, she glanced up and each time say his eyes moving from her cleavage to her lips and back again.

"Would you read the last one, Joe?" Julie handed him the folder.

Joe cleared his throat and in a firm voice, read the verse, but stopped there.

"That's not everything on the page, Joe." Julie said when he finished.

"Please . . ." Joe started, then stopped, breathing hard now. "I . . ."

Julie rose, intending to take the folder from Joe's hands to read the words herself, but as she approached him, her shoe caught and she fell forward. Reflex took over for both herself and Joe, who put his hands up to catch her.

At the same moment, both realized that Joe's right hand was cupping one of Julie's breasts while her hand was resting on his upper thigh, almost touching his balls. Both were frozen for a moment – until Julie heard Joe's voice making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a high pitched whimper. She felt his leg jerk under her hand.

Their eyes met as Julie blurted out: "Did you just . . ."

Her words trailed off because she knew it was a foolish question. His expression of sheer horror told her that Joe had just climaxed.

*

His Beginning

Joe had grown up in a religious, fundamentalist home. His father was a minister and his mother a stay at home wife – except that she had been so busy with "volunteer" church work that she had seldom had time for him, except to embarrass him when he did something she didn't approve of.

He vividly remembered some of those things – like the time he found a men's magazine on the side of a road – dirty and wrinkled, but it had pictures of naked women; he remembered his cock getting very stiff when he got home and looked it the pictures in his bedroom, and when he touched his cock, it had shot out creamy stuff. He remembered the wonderful feeling, but he especially remembered his Mom finding the magazine under his mattress and putting it on his breakfast plate one morning. And worse, they had told the entire congregation what had happened, and how fearful they were of his soul being lost. He had wanted to die at that moment, and girls in the church had laughed at him after that.

From that time, Joe had become socially withdrawn. He never got the courage to ask a girl for a date. On a couple of occasions, his parents, fearing that he might be gay, had asked a girl to go out with him and taken them out on a "date," but that had been even more embarrassing.

Joe was "home schooled," meaning that his parents didn't let him go to public school, fearing he would be corrupted. But they had provided no guidance in his studies; had no time for such things, and so Joe did it on his own.

If there was one thing Joe was thankful for, it was books. He discovered the public library and while his parents were doing church work, he frequently sneaked out of the house to go there. He had read voraciously and learned to think on his own. He didn't buy his parent's religious "crap" – at least that's what he thought of it, but he paid lip service, not wanting to be sent away somewhere. He had also realized that he was saddled with a great deal of guilt surrounding his sexual thoughts.

Until Joe discovered the computer at the library when he was sixteen, his knowledge about sex came from memories about the magazine he had found and from the hole he had made in the wall that separated his closet from the bathroom. The hole was near the bathtub faucets and when he was in his closet with the door closed, he could watch his older sister lying naked in the bathtub or showering. He was always fearful when he did so, knowing that if his parents ever discovered the hole . . . .