Pieter Strauss III was the son of Pieter Strauss Jnr and the grandson of Pieter Strauss Snr. Strauss Jnr was a university professor and a brilliant mathematician who taught a 4 year course on Calculus and the Universe. Strauss III, known to all as Trey, was finishing his second year in his Dad's course when his father was killed. Having lost his mother many years before, at 23 Trey found himself to be a rich orphan.
Having gone to the family cabin that was now his for a few days, he met a lady in a nearby cabin. She was in her mid to late fifties, an age Trey found very attractive. They had three days and nights together, culminating in 36 hours of incredible sex, then she left to prepare for a new job at the University Trey himself attended.
This story picks up on Trey's return journey home from his time at the cabin.
On the way home, Trey was making a mental list of supplies he needed for University, even though he knew after all these years exactly what he needed. It was just that thinking about stationery supplies stopped him thinking about Sarah. He stopped at Staples to buy printer paper, note pads, pens, pencils, Scotch tape, and printer ink. He gassed his car, put it through the car wash to rid it of the dust from the road to the cabin, and headed for what was now His House.
He was still not used to the quietness as he entered. If Dad was home, there was always music blaring, unless he was watching football or basketball, his two great passions after mathematics. There were times when the music was soft and romantic, which was the clue to Trey to be careful, as his Dad was entertaining a lady friend.
He loaded up the washing machine with the bed linen he and Sarah had used, and could still smell her subtle perfume on it, as well as their sweat from some incredibly active and strenuous love making. The way he felt about her now, it was love making. It wasn't just sex. When he went to bed, he lay there, resisting the temptation to masturbate, because he wanted to just relive their time together calmly. And as he did, he realized that he had to find her. He knew a new Staff List would be published the next week, and he still had last year's in his draw, so it would be a simple job to compare the list to locate the new people, and there couldn't be that many called Sarah. He just had to be patient until next week.
The next day, Tuesday, was his last day before classes started. He finished the laundry, put away his summer clothes, and made sure his clothes for Uni were all respectable. He did some housework, and resolved that once he had worked out if there were any changes in the organization of the house, he would hire a cleaning lady to come in once a week. He did do some reorganizing, moving himself into what had been his father's room, and setting up his old room as his study/work room. Although it was now his room, he kept a couple of his Dad's photos, one of Strauss Snr., one of his Mother, and one of the three of them together when he was really young. The rest he stashed away in the attic.
When his father was working, teaching a 4 year course meant teaching it 4 days a week. In his father's logical mind, therefore, if you got your first year course on a Wednesday, you stayed on Wednesday for four years. Likewise, those whose first year fell on a Monday would stay on Mondays right through. Fridays he saved for marking and research, and the afternoons for marking and tutorials. So as Trey's course last year was Wednesdays, he was due to start year 3 on a Wednesday, so tomorrow, he would find out who the University had hired to replace his father. He had, in his own mind, narrowed it down to two of his father's former pupils. He knew both as in their student days they were frequently around the house. So on Wednesday, after a light breakfast, he set off to Uni, parking his car in the spot he had always used, leaving himself a short walk to Lecture Room 3 in the Science Building.
Lecture Room 3 was an old-style lecture room, with rows of benches tiered down to the front of the room, entrance at the back, and a door at the front through which the lecturer would materialize. A writing ledge was attached to the back of the row in front. There were 12 rows of benches, and Trey always sat in the back but 1 row, in the middle. He was almost one of the last to arrive, and had to squeeze himself past several fellow students to take his usual place. It was exactly the same crowd as last year. They all acknowledged each other, and some exchanged quick comments on their summer. The girl he sat next to was busy showing everybody her engagement ring, and it was, in a sense, almost as if they were carrying straight on from last year without a break.
There was a gathering of staff and faculty down by the door, including the Dean. He couldn't see either of the people he thought were the likely candidates, but there was clearly a big cluster of people, about a dozen. The Dean broke away from the the group, and went behind the long row of worktop-height cupboards, on which were spaced out two small podiums. He stood by one and waited for the room to quieten.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, returning Students as you are, I am pleased to introduce you to the new lecturer who will replace Professor Pieter Strauss, Jnr, who we so tragically lost last year. His replacement worked very closely with Pieter in the early years of his career, helping him develop the theories and the examples that became the foundation of his course on "Calculus and the Universe". She has herself been teaching related topics for many years, almost as many as Pieter Strauss Jnr. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Professor Pieter's younger sister, Professor Sarah Strauss."
There was applause from the whole room, but Trey stopped suddenly after a couple of claps. Sarah Strauss, dad's younger sister?....
And then, from the group of people gathered by the door stepped a woman in her 50s wearing a white polo neck sweater and white tailored trousers, carrying a black folder, and heading straight for the podium, where she placed her folder.
Sarah! It was Sarah! Trey's Sarah, Trey's passionate sex partner of those treasured days! And if she was his dad's sister, that made her his, Trey's, Aunt!
Trey went quiet, and slumped in his seat, wanting the world to swallow him into some dark abyss. As she looked around the room at the applauding students, Sarah noticed the one student who was not clapping, and immediately recognized him! Trey is a student here! A piece of paper had been circulated for each student to sign and indicate their seat placing in the room, common enough at the start of a year with a new lecturer. The paper was taken back to her, and in Trey's spot was the name Pieter Strauss III! She had been cavorting naked, and having incredible sex with, her nephew, and didn't know it. And poor Pieter looked totally lost.
Determined to not lose the other students, Sarah pulled herself together and made a joke about the money the University would save.
"There is no need to put a new name on the door - it can remain as simply 'Prof. Strauss'. I know he well deserved to have his name there, and I hope that I live up to his reputation, and the respect he has earned over the years. But maybe with the money the university will save by not having to paint a new name, they can at least clean the glass in the door!"
Students laughed, and Sarah started into her presentation of what this year would cover, and referred back to various sections covered in prior lectures under the former professor Strauss that would now be developed further. Trey immediately recognized that she was working from his dad's course notes - he recognized much of the phrasing - but there were some differences, enough to show she had properly worked on updating his notes and not just taking advantage of them. But beyond hearing echoes of his father, Trey didn't hear much.
At long last, the lecture was over. Faculty and students gathered around Sarah to voice their welcomes and their congratulations, but Trey slid out of the room through the main door at the back, the top, of the room and ran to his car. He sat in it for ages, wondering how he could not have somehow known who she was, what clues had he missed? And did she deliberately mislead him in some way? But the more he thought about it, neither of them had pursued a course of finding out much about the other. He had consciously suppressed, himself, any reference to the death of his father, which might have clued her in. She never said she was a professor, only that she had a new job. She never mentioned anything about teaching. It was a holiday romance, as Sarah termed it. They had both wanted strings-free, uninvolved sex, at least, initially. He was the one who had started to fall in love, not her. After half an hour trying to control his very mixed emotions, he drove slowly home.
