As a professor of mechanical engineering, I strongly believe that students learn most from hands-on projects. I also believe that engineers nearly always work in teams, so learning to collaborate is as important as learning how to calculate structural weight loads. So, in fifteen years of teaching, I have honed a very effective, semester-long capstone project for seniors in our engineering program, in which teams of students design and build some kind of useful machine, write documentation for it, and develop a marketing plan for it.
Over the years, students have built all kinds of devices, some crappy and some ingenious. A few have even patented their devices and started their own businesses after graduating. None was as memorable as a project undertaken last year by a couple of my best students.
Shyla, a dark-skinned, Rubenesque beauty with almond-shaped eyes and the most alluring, full lips, and Bobby, a slender redhead who couldn't have been taller than five foot nothing, seemed inseparable. They both wore sweatshirts from the same sorority, and never appeared in one of my classes without the other. Neither was particularly talkative; in fact, both seemed to be a bit shy. From the work they submitted, I knew they were smart enough, but in class, they listened, took notes, and did fairly well on exams but rarely raised a hand to speak. They typically earned respectable B's on their assignments.
I was unsurprised, then, that they asked to work together on their capstone project. I tend to hang back as students work on their projects, since they will not have constant supervision and support once they enter the workplace, so, unless a group was running into trouble and sought my advice, I typically didn't know what students were working on until the semester-end symposium in which they presented their work. Such was the case with Shyla's and Bobby's project. I had no idea what they were designing and building. I expected it would demonstrate some proficiency, but I didn't think I'd be particularly impressed.
As the end of the term neared, the students were instructed to bring their projects to school, and to store them in a large, empty classroom in an older, seldom-used building on campus. The next day, they were to move their projects to designated areas for the symposium, when each team, in turn, would present its work to peers, visitors, administrators, and me.
It was my habit to preview the projects on my own, the night before the symposium, so I can take detailed notes for later grading. So, after dark one weeknight, I unlocked the door, entered the room, and turned on the lights.
I wandered through the labyrinth of projects of all sizes, taking notes, moving things this way or that, studying their design. After a couple of hours, I reached the project created by Bobby and Shyla.
At first, I had trouble making heads or tails of it. Labelled most unhelpfully with a hand-lettered sign reading "A Machine," it looked like a hybrid between a chest-pull machine from the gym and one of those posture-friendly chairs from the '80s that provided pads on which to rest your shins and a forward-tilted seat to sit upon.
I puzzled over it for a while, and blushed hard when I realized that it was some kind of sexual device. I could see that, if one were to sit upon the seat, some kind of tube would sit right between one's thighs, essentially in one's crotch. Examining it more closely, I could see that the tube emanated from a pump affixed farther down the bench that extended away from the front of the chair.
Despite myself, I felt myself getting a bit aroused, particularly having suppressed my attraction to these two young women since I first met them months ago. I have to admit, I thought about these women often, usually in ways that I'd be embarrassed to verbalize. Now, though, I could not but help fantasize about them, and about what this machine might do.
You have to understand that I'm typically a fairly conservative guy--long, monogamous marriage, many years with the same employer, a two-year-old sedan in the garage--so what happened next mystifies me to this day.
I checked the door to make sure it locked behind me when I let myself in, and returned to the device. Then, inexplicably, I undressed. I left my loosely-folded slacks on a neighboring project, hung my shirt over it, and pulled a leg over the saddle, with my shins against the padded rests, and my nether region, which by then was semi-erect, fit easily in the crotch-level tube made of black rubber. Immediately before me was another padded panel, angled slightly up and away from me at chest-height, such that I could rest my torso upon it. I found that it became necessary to do so, because the machine's control panel required me to stretch pretty far forward to reach it (a design flaw, I noted). The panel was simple, with just an on/off toggle switch.
My sense of caution utterly abandoned me at that point, partly from arousal, partly from curiosity. Reaching far forward, I flipped the switch to "on."
I was startled--frightened half to death, really--when semi-circular steel cuffs, padded with foam, bolted from the panel I was leaning on and captured my wrists. Although I couldn't see them, I could feel another pair of cuffs trap my ankles. They didn't hurt, but they were somewhat uncomfortable, especially the way the wrist cuffs kept me stretched awkwardly forward. I tried to struggle my way out of them, but the cuffs held fast, and I could not pull my hands or feet out of them.
At the same time, and equally startling, I felt a vibration and gentle suction begin down below. It felt amazingly good, but I was not in a position, as it were, to enjoy my predicament. With my wrists cuffed, however, I was unable to reach the toggle switch to turn the machine off.
What could I do? I could shout for help, but getting discovered like this was the last thing I wanted. Would it stop on its own? I could only hope that the two women programmed a timed shut-off for the machine. I would die if I were found here in the morning, still strapped onto this damned thing.
Ten or fifteen agonizing minutes later, my heart stopped once again when I heard a door open behind me. I cursed myself for checking only the door through which I entered. Although I could turn my head from side to side, I was unable to look behind me.
I heard a woman's titter. But it was worse than that. I could see upon the floor two shadows approaching.
The two figures stepped into my field of vision. I was horrified to see Bobby and Shyla. Instead of registering anger at what I had done to their machine, though, they both grinned, their arms folded across their chests.
"Well, well! Professor, just what is going on here? How did you end up in such a position?" Bobby asked through her mischievous smile.
"Look, please, you guys, please let me off this thing."
Shyla's eyebrows arched in mock surprise. "What? Let you off? But, Professor, we built this for you! Why would you want to get off it?"