The Mentor

I suggest you read the earlier chapters of this story first

*************

I woke up the next morning after a fitful night of sleep. I at least had remembered to set the alarm, which was an amazing accomplishment considering the mental state I was in. I had a paper to give that day, so couldn't just sleep in and sleep off what had happened.

I dragged my body out of bed and headed for the shower. The hotel room had one of those large bathrooms with both a tub and a separate stall shower, and I opted for the latter. Even though I had just taken a shower the night before, I decided that I needed another to jumpstart my day. After the water heated up, I hopped in and let the hot jets stream all over my body. As I did this, the events of the last evening began running through my head all over again. I shook my head as my encounter with Professor Susan Bascom came back to my consciousness.

*************

After Susan and her graduate student, Laura, left the bathroom, I just stood there for a minute or two stunned and unable to move. I couldn't believe I had managed to get myself in that position, of having been caught spying on them in the women's room of the hotel. Susan proceeded to blackmail me into servicing her sexually right there in the bathroom, threatening to expose me if I didn't do what she had said.

Finally, after a minute or two, I walked over to the sinks and cleaned myself up as best I could. I splashed cold water on my face and front of my hair, and wiped it off with a paper towel. I looked in the mirror and realized I still looked ragged, but decided I was presentable enough that I could pass if I managed to bump into anybody after I left the bathroom. I was planning on going right up to my room but wanted to be prepared just in case.

I walked over to the door and when I got there I realized that it was now unlocked, Susan and Laura having exited a couple of minutes earlier. I opened the door just a crack to peek out and make sure nobody was in the small corridor leading to the bathrooms. I didn't see anybody, so I quickly opened the door wide enough to pop out. The door to the men's room was right nearby, so I knew I was now safe once the door to the women's room closed behind me. As I started walking back toward the lobby of the hotel, it dawned on me that the "Out of Service" sign that had been placed in front of the bathroom by the hotel employee was no longer there. "Damn," I muttered to myself. I realized that Susan must have moved it when she and Laura left the bathroom, leaving me exposed to anybody who could have walked in. I just shook my head and continued toward the elevators.

As I approached the elevators, I glanced to make sure Susan and Laura were not still there. The didn't want to have to ride the elevator with them, Susan assuredly smirking at me the whole way. They were already gone, so I pushed the button and waited. I looked at my watch; it was about 10:30, meaning that I must have been in that bathroom with them for about an hour.

An elevator quickly arrived, which I was thankful for, because the last thing I wanted to do besides bumping into Susan and Laura was to run into anybody else from the conference. I entered and pushed the button for my floor, and as the elevator ascended, I reached in my pocket to get my key. As I did, I felt the soft, wet silk of Susan's red panties in there, which caused me to think about Susan's parting words: "I'll let you know when I want to see you again to get them back."

I had no idea what she meant by that, but I was afraid that she was going to go back on her word. She had told me that if I had done everything she told me to, that neither she nor Laura would ever say anything to anybody about what had happened in that bathroom. Yet she told me to hold on to her panties and that she would get them from me later during the conference, a directive that caused me to think she had more things up her sleeve.

The elevator doors opened at my floor, and I exited and turned right toward my room. I glanced quickly over my shoulder to make sure that neither Susan nor Laura were at the other end of the hall, where their rooms were. With a sense of relief, I saw nobody else in the hall, and continued on down to my room and went inside. I quickly stripped off my clothes, emptying the pockets of my pants on the dresser. Susan's panties landed unceremoniously on top of my change, cell phone, and a roll of Life Savers. I stared at them for a second, then quickly grabbed them and threw them into the drawer of the dresser where I kept my own underwear. I buried them under my own boxers and socks.

I hopped into the shower in order to try to cleanse from my body, if not my mind, the memory of what had happened to me. I was both ashamed and confused; on the one hand, I was humiliated by getting caught by Susan and by what she had made me do. On the other, I had to recognize that I also had been incredibly turned on by the exercise. The fact that I had been aroused by being dominated by Susan didn't totally surprise me. My wife Sarah and I had played some role playing games before, some of which involved dominance and submission. But those had only been games, and had been with my own wife. So the fact that I was so aroused as I was dominated and humiliated by Susan – and in front of her graduate student – was somewhat troubling to me.

I finished showering, dried off, brushed my teeth, and walked back into the room. I then did something I almost never did – I went into the minibar in my room and grabbed a nip of scotch. I threw some clothes on and went down the hall to fill up my ice bucket. When I returned, a put a few cubes in a glass and poured the scotch over it. I downed the scotch in about three gulps, almost causing me to choke as it went down. At that point I figured a little self-medication would help me sleep.

I got into bed and tossed and turned for a while, the activities of the evening running through my head. After what must have been an hour of this, I finally fell asleep.

*************

Back in the shower the next morning, all I could think of was what Susan's intent was in leaving her panties with me. I wasn't sure whether she was just trying to tease me and make me nervous about what she might do, or whether she intended to continue what she had started in the women's room last night. In either event, I knew that I had few options other than to play along, because she had enough evidence that she could use to do great damage to me.

After the shower, I got dressed, putting on some respectable academic clothes for my paper session. I grabbed the stuff I needed and shoved it into my backpack and walked out the door. What I desperately needed was a cup of coffee and some sugar to cram into my mouth.

As I was closing the door, I remembered what Susan had said about telling me when she wanted her panties back. I had no clue when she was going to want them, but I decided the safest thing was to have them with me at all times. So I headed back into the room and found them where I had left them last night in the bottom of the drawer. As I picked them up, I realized that they were no longer wet, having dried overnight. I quickly sniffed them, partly out of curiosity and party from the memory of what I had done last night. They still smelled quite ripe, the memories of my subservience to Susan rushing once again into my brain. I quickly put them into one of the pockets of my pack and headed out once again.

I exited the elevator in the lobby and found my way to the ubiquitous Starbucks kiosk. Even though it was a small conference, there was still quite a line of fellow academics looking for that caffeine fix they so needed to make it through a day's worth of mind-numbing and tedious discussions of English – or more precisely, British – literature.

As I waited for the slow line to progress, I glanced around the lobby trying to see if Susan was anywhere in sight. I knew that I couldn't avoid her for the rest of the conference over the next few days, but I was going to work damn hard to minimize how many times I did have to see her. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief, as she didn't appear to be anywhere nearby.

After about five or six minutes, it was finally my turn to give my order to the Starbucks barista. The young woman must have been about 19 or 20, probably a college student earning a few extra dollars working here at the hotel. She was cute as a button, so I smiled at her and gave her my order, doing my flirting-with-the-young-college-student act that I enjoyed so much (and I hoped they enjoyed as well). As she smiled back and handed me my change, her hand grazed mine, and a little shiver ran down my spine. But I quickly realized there was probably no meaning behind it, and I mumbled a "thank you," and went to the other end of the counter to pick up my large – excuse me, "Grande" – coffee and cinnamon roll.

I looked at my watch and realized I had just a few minutes to get to the meeting room where the first session I was going to attend was to be held. It wasn't the session where I had to give my paper, but nevertheless, I hated to walk in late to these things. As I turned away from the counter to head toward the meeting room, I bumped right into somebody walking by. I somehow managed to hold on to my coffee and roll, and only spilled a few drops through the sipping hole and onto the floor. As I recovered, I looked up at who the klutz was who almost ran me down, and I almost dropped the coffee and roll again when I realized it was Laura, Susan's graduate student.

She was gathering up a folder that she dropped, and when she arose again and looked at me, I saw that she was about as horrified to bump into me as I was to see her. She said, "I'm sorry, Professor Arnold," and quickly ran off before I could say anything in return. I turned and looked back at the people in the coffee queue who witnessed the run-in, and they all had an amused look on their face. They probably thought it was the typical terrified grad student, afraid that she had spilled coffee on a senior professor, and that she had just ruined her chances of ever landing a job. All I could think was, "If they only knew the truth."

I managed to make it to the meeting room without further incident. I entered, and found a seat on an aisle, not too far from the back. I found that these early morning sessions were usually lackluster, so I liked to position myself for a quick exit. I sat through the three papers, one of which was pretty bad, the other two at least interesting enough that I chose to stick around. The discussant's comments were, as usual, condescending and totally unhelpful, but the grad students giving their papers nodded seriously and graciously and thanked the pompous fool for his insightful (in their words) comments.

I felt sort of badly for one of the students, to whom the discussant had been particularly mean, so when the question and answer period opened up, I threw her a softball question. I started with my interpretation of what she had to say, then asked her if she agreed. She answered affirmatively, then elaborated a bit more on what she had written in the paper. When she finished, I smiled at her and said, "Thank you."

The moderator asked if there were other questions. I heard a clear, strong voice directly behind me say, "I beg to differ with Professor Arnold, but I have a slightly different take on your interpretation." I didn't have to turn around to know who it was – I immediately recognized Susan Bascom's voice. I hadn't seen her there when I came in so she must have entered the room after I did. I wanted to ignore her, but realized that would be so obvious to the 20 or so others in the room, many of whom were colleagues who knew both of us. So I turned slightly in my chair to look at her, and I gave her a curt smile. She gave me an even broader smile back, then turned back toward the woman giving the paper and continued with her question.

As Susan spoke, I looked at her once again. She was wearing one of her signature outfits, not unlike what I saw her in last night – low-cut blouse showing off her ample cleavage, expensive-looking silk scarf, and a skirt cut respectably above her knee. All was constructed to maximize the sexiness of her body. As I wrote earlier, she was by no means a thin woman, but she carried her weight quite well and she knew how to dress to look her best. Even though at 50 she was about a decade older than I was, I had to admit she still looked damn good. And I knew that she still turned heads among both the faculty and grad students at the conference.

The young woman listened to Susan's question and then respectfully answered it. Susan was very polite back, thanking her and complimenting her. I had no desire to interact with her when the session ended, so after one more question I discreetly turned and walked to the door in the back of the meeting room without making eye contact with her. I quietly opened it, left the room, and went to close it behind me. But before I could, I felt pressure pushing back on it, and I knew exactly who it would be. Sure enough, Susan pulled the door open and exited the room, giving me the same broad smile she had laid on me just a few minutes ago.

After she closed the door, Susan said, "Well, Bob, what did you think of that panel?"

All I could do was just stare at her, mouth agape, totally at a loss for words. Was she going to just carry on like nothing had happened last night?

"What's wrong, cat got your tongue?" she asked, this time in a much lower voice and with a clear twinkle in her eye. After I still did not respond, she said, "Or should I ask, pussy got your tongue?" With that, she laughed heartily and took a step closer to me, so that she was right in front of me. With her height, and her fashionable heels, she was probably an inch or two taller than me. She leaned in, and whispered in my ear, "You'll be hearing from me, pet – you still have something of mine you need to return, don't you?" As she said this, she reached down and grabbed hold of my balls through my trousers. I flinched and quickly looked around, terrified that somebody may have seen what she did. But I realized her body in front of mine camouflaged what was going on, so to anybody watching it would just appear she was whispering something to me.

She squeezed again, and I quickly whispered back to her, "Yes, I know." She released her grip, smiled once again, and continued on down the hallway, leaving me in her wake. I just stood there, glued to the spot, staring at her well-curved ass as it retreated.

After a few seconds I shook my head and thought to myself, "Is this going to be what the next few days will be like, random encounters with Susan and Laura?" I had no desire for this, and thought for a second maybe I should just leave the conference. But I had my paper to give later today, never mind one on the last day and I was also the discussant on another panel. And I had Susan's admonition about not leaving the conference early – I was not about to take a chance on inciting her wrath, not knowing exactly how far she would go with the evidence she held against me. After realizing this, I headed back toward the lobby for another round with the barista at Starbucks. Nothing like a good shot of caffeine – though I started thinking that scotch would taste pretty good right now – to help get you through the day.

I headed back to the lobby for a cappuccino this time (though the cute college student was gone), and then proceeded on to the next session. The papers in this one were only a slight improvement from the last, but at least Susan was not stalking me in this session also. I ran into a colleague from the west coast, Marnie Carney whose company I enjoyed quite a bit, so it was nice to see her again. Yes, I know, that is her real name! We were in grad school together, and she was already married when I first met her. For the life of me, I never understood why she took her husband's name when it would result in a rhyme like that, but she did. The irony is that she divorced him a few years after getting her Ph.D., but since she had started her academic career and publishing under that name, she had little choice but to keep it. I had always been attracted to Marnie, but by the time she was divorced I was already married to Sarah. I still enjoyed spending time with her the few opportunities we had to get together at various conferences and meetings.

Marnie and I had lunch after that session, getting caught up on each other's lives, the office gossip – the usual, who was turned down for tenure, who was hot on the job market, which of our colleagues were sleeping with their students, etc. (needless to say, I stayed away from the topic of Susan Bascom) – and I found it was a great distraction from all that had gone on in the last day. We parted with plans to have dinner the next night to continue the discussion.

My paper session was right after lunch, so I found my way to that room. As the session started, I quickly scanned the room, expecting to see Susan. I thought maybe she'd take the opportunity to try to humiliate me in public, albeit this time in a more appropriate manner. Somewhat to my surprise, and admittedly, perhaps, my disappointment, she wasn't there. I managed to stumble through my paper without making too much of an idiot of myself. This discussant was a bit more polite than the earlier ones I had heard, though he clearly knew nothing about the subject of my paper (the influence of the Industrial Revolution on the development of child characters in the British novel in the late 19th century). I smiled and thanked him, which was the appropriate thing to do, then entertained a couple of questions from the audience. One or two fawning graduate students came up to me after the session to tell me how much they admired my work and just how influential it had been on their own. I was used to this academic bullshit – I knew the two of them were trying to grease the skids for when they went on the job market themselves, as my university was known as one of the plum places to work. I smiled, thanked them, and then made a hasty retreat.

By that time I had had enough; there is only so much time that you can sit and listen to people drone on about the British novel. So I headed back to my room. I knew the hotel had a pool, so I thought a nice late afternoon swim would be good to clear my head. As I exited the elevator on my floor, I quickly peeked to the left, not wanting to run into either Susan or Laura. There was nobody there, of course, and I realized I was being unduly paranoid.

I went on to my room, entered, and threw my backpack on the bed. As I started to take my clothes off, I noticed the red message light on the phone was blinking. I thought it might be Marnie calling to make plans for dinner the next evening, so I called the hotel's voicemail system, listened to the instructions, then punched in the codes to retrieve my messages. Instead of Marnie's voice, however, it was Susan's I heard through the telephone handset. "Tomorrow night, pet, 6:00pm, you'll return what you have of mine. Room 517."

"Damn," I thought, just after I had made plans with Marnie for tomorrow. She was leaving the following morning, and didn't want to miss the opportunity to have dinner with her. So I picked up the phone and dialed Susan's room, figuring I would get her voicemail.

"Hello," I heard her answer, much to my surprise.

I hesitated for a second, then said, "Susan, it's Bob."

"Oh, hi there Bob. You got my message, I presume?"

"Yes, I did, but I can't make it then, I made plans. . ." But before I could go any further, she cut me off.

"6:00pm tomorrow pet, and don't be late, or else." And with that she hung up the phone. I stood there holding the handset, just staring at it, infuriated at what she was doing to me. I slammed it back on the phone, changed into my bathing suit, and stormed down to the pool to try to take out my frustrations in some laps.