Nobody pays much attention to Westminster College: in Charlottesville, all eyes are focused on the University of Virginia, the storied institution of higher learning founded in the eighteenth century by Thomas Jefferson and attended by Edgar Allan Poe and many other luminaries. But Westminster itself dates its origins to the tumultuous post-Civil War period, when a new generation of Southerners was attempting to put the humiliation of defeat in battle behind it and establish a "New South" that could compete both economically and culturally with the victorious North.
Some years ago Westminster duly celebrated its sesquicentennial and in its quiet way continued to operate as the classic "small liberal arts college." With a student body numbering less than a thousand and its campus retaining the classic architecture of ivy-covered brick buildings (grudgingly upgraded for modern technology), it was easy to think of Westminster as a relic of the past with little to offer to the distracted denizens of the twenty-first century. But most of the students, faculty, and administration took pride in catering to an old-fashioned way of life that to them still had value—so long as it didn't descend into the disreputable sins of racism, sexism, and classism.
Twenty-year-old Damon Whittier, now starting his junior year, felt as comfortable at Westminster as he ever had. Coming from a small town in rural Virginia where learning was not highly valued (and where, he was forced to admit, he didn't apply himself to his studies as ardently as he should have), he felt unprepared for the rigors of college life; during his freshman year he frankly floundered, fishing around for some discipline to focus on while at the same time striving to resist the temptations that even this staid institution offered—notably free-flowing alcohol at the all too frequent frat parties and the bevy of beautiful Southern belles that seemed to populate every one of his classes. The former temptation he did resist, and he was proud that (almost) no alcohol had ever passed his lips. The latter temptation he wasn't quite so successful in combating.
While acknowledging that his wandering eye couldn't help devouring the sight of gorgeous girls at every street corner, he nevertheless knew that females of all ages must be treated with the respect they deserved; he was proud that he had never laid a hand on any woman or girl who did not welcome his advances. And yet, he recognized that a fair number of women
did
welcome those advances. At five foot ten and with a solid musculature from head to toe, he could take justifiable pride in his appearance. He felt that his face, with its clean, honest features and topped with a mass of curly blond hair, was his greatest asset. He had quickly become captain of the college's baseball team, his expertise at the plate and at first base propelling the team to preeminence in the modest league where Westminster played with colleges of similar stature.
Given his athletic prowess and other qualities, it was no surprise that Damon had bedded down with a good many female students during his first two years of college; but none of them—to say nothing of the several girls whose bodies he had similarly explored in high school—really suited him. It was not that he was excessively particular, and in some cases he had to confess that he had been dumped by the female in question. It was just that he hadn't found exactly the right girl.
But now, he thought, maybe he had.
All summer he had thought of Iris Farquhar, whose very name proclaimed her a proper scion of an old and distinguished Virginia family. He had been hypnotized by her physical assets: an hourglass figure that (in spite of her relatively conservative clothing) emphasized her swelling breasts, flaring hips, flat stomach, exquisitely curved bottom, strong thighs, and tapered calves. But most of all (as in his own case), it was her face that entranced him. How could he describe, short of poetry, those deep green eyes, slender nose, Cupid's-bow mouth, high cheekbones, and gentle jawline, all framed by well-styled tresses of auburn hair? At about five foot six she was a good height for him, and he yearned to wrap that heavenly frame in his arms and paste a wet kiss on that sensuous mouth.
But Damon's interest extended far beyond her appearance. There was an indefinable delicacy, grace, and fragility about Iris that contrasted sharply with the loud, brazen manner of most of his female classmates. To him she embodied a classic feminine sensibility that was in no way submissive. It was, he felt, a rare quality in today's environment.
There was only one problem. Iris Farquhar was a professor.
True, she was a fairly young professor. He had done his research on her, and various Internet sources had established that she was thirty-two years old, unmarried, and relatively new to the college, as she was starting her fourth year as a professor of history. The class he had taken with her in the spring semester of his sophomore year—on the Civil War (what else?)—had been stimulating in more ways than one, and he recognized that he had done his best on papers, quizzes, and class discussion for the sole purpose of pleasing her and making her notice him.
How much she had really noticed him, however, was frustratingly unclear to Damon. Every now and then, as she handed a term paper back to him, he thought he detected a little gleam in her eyes that went beyond mere approval of his work. But getting Iris to smile at him had proved unusually difficult—and not only because Professor Farquhar seemed perennially bathed in a kind of wistful melancholy that only enhanced Damon's fascination with her.
His feelings, he sensed, went way beyond a mere "crush." For God's sake, he wasn't a kid anymore! He had had enough other involvements with women to tell the difference between a crush, a mere craving for the satisfaction of lust, and something far deeper and more intimate.
He had to get to the bottom of these feelings—and the only way to do that was to get to know Iris Farquhar better.
But how to do that? Well, there were various ways. It would, for example, help to know where she lived. But the Internet was, irritatingly enough, no use in that regard. He could have tried to follow her home after her last class, but he felt that was too creepy: he was no stalker! So he chose a slightly more roundabout method.
The secretary of the history department was a middle-aged woman, Carrie Branscom, whom Damon knew had gone through a pretty tough divorce—lots of bitterness (her husband, curse him, had cheated on her) and with a bitter custody battle over their two children. Damon felt bad about taking advantage of Ms. Branscom during this difficult time in her life, but the need to establish a bond with Iris was inexorable.
And so, one late afternoon toward the end of September, Damon sauntered over to her desk, as she was getting ready to shut the office down for the day. He knew that she liked him—knew also that she had given him more than a few covert looks at his butt and chest whenever he walked into the office. So now, as she greeted him with a flushed face, he sat himself down at the corner of her desk and said:
"Say, Ms. Branscom, I wonder if you could help me."
She had trouble looking up at his face. "Um, yes, Damon? What is it?"
"I really need to talk to Professor Farquhar."
Carrie frowned. "You're not taking a class with her this semester, are you?"
"Well, no," Damon admitted. "But I'm thinking I might want to write an honors thesis with her next year, and I'd like to sound her out on some topics that might be suitable."
"Damon," Carrie chided, "you won't have to think about that for another year! What's your hurry?"
Damon wasn't ready to admit defeat just yet. "But I wanted to get a head start on the research! There's been a lot written on some of these subjects, so I wanted to get some advice from her. Could you give me her home address? I'd like to talk to her right away."
Carrie froze, her face going blank. "Damon, I'm not allowed to give out that information. Privacy, you know."
"Oh, Carrie," Damon said, boldly using the secretary's first name, "it's just me! She knows who I am: I took a class with her last semester, and we got to be real good friends."
That was a considerable exaggeration, and Carrie detected it at once. She became even more officious than before, locking her desk firmly and getting up to turn off the lights in the office.
"I think you'd better go home now, Damon," she snapped.
Damon's shoulders drooped in defeat as she shuffled off the desk and began following Carrie out of the room.
But as they approached the door, he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. Carrie, quite a bit shorter than Damon and a little on the heavy side, let out a gasp as she gazed up at his face. She placed a hand on his chest, but otherwise didn't pull away.
"Are you sure you can't help me?" Damon said, peering into her eyes.
