Tenure Track (21 page)

She could see the disappointment on his face. So as not to leave him feeling rejected, she added, “But I would like see you again.” Pulling out a slip of paper, she wrote down her home phone number and handed it to him, with the invitation to call anytime.

“
Cool,” he responded. She gave him a quick kiss and jumped into her car before she lost the nerve to leave.

Upon arriving home, Jane hopped into the shower, as much to cleanse her thoughts as her body. Stepping out of the water, she heard the telephone ring and ran to answer it, still naked and dripping wet. It was him. “Hey Babe. Just checkin’ to make sure you gave me a good number.”

She quickly covered herself with a towel, as if he could see her through the receiver. She could not recall anyone ever calling her “Babe.” She also was thinking that an older, more chivalrous man would have claimed he was just checking to make sure she arrived home safely. This boy had a lot to learn about dating games.

“
So, wanna do it again tomorrow?” he asked.

Jane stuttered. Once again, she could not think of a good excuse to reject him. Instead, she tried to switch the subject by returning to professorial mode. “Don’t you need to get home to your parents soon?”

“
Oh well, I have some business to take care of,” he claimed. “So how about a movie this time? Whatever you want to see.”

It had been so long since she had gone to see a movie that she was not even sure what was playing in the theaters. She dropped her towel as he rattled off a list of unfamiliar titles currently showing. Apparently he spent as much time in movie theaters as he did at concerts. This time, he insisted on picking her up at her apartment.

The next evening, Jane changed clothes several times as she waited for the young man to arrive. In the midst of discarding outfit number three, the telephone rang. She thought it might be her date with an update on his status, but instead it was her friend Mark Straussman. She tried to contain the annoyance in her voice.

“
How’s your break goin’ so far?” he asked cheerfully.

“
Well, it’s only been one day, so it’s really not going much yet,” she responded curtly, pulling a wool sweater over her head. “Look, I’m kind of walking out the door. Do you mind calling back later?”

“
I just wanted to check and see when you were leaving town for the holidays and if you might wanna grab some coffee or something before you go,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her dismissive tone.

“
Uhm, sure Mark, listen, I’ll be on campus tomorrow. Why don’t you catch me then? Just drop in or call anytime.” He ended the call with an amiable goodbye, while Jane immediately regretted her tone. She made a mental note to apologize to him at their coffee.

She stuck with a wool sweater and coordinated skirt. After primping and adjusting to get every detail of her look just right, she sat on the couch and waited. And waited. Her date was 15 minutes late. When she answered the door he did not even apologize for his tardiness, just grinned seductively and growled, “Hey Babe!” He was wearing blue jeans and vest, with a white, western-style shirt unbuttoned halfway down to reveal his lean, hairless chest covered only by another gold chain. She realized her outfit probably made her look like his mother.

She should have commented on his tardiness, but did not say a word as he entered the room, put an arm around her waist and kissed her hard. As she started to respond, he pulled his head back. “Well, we’d better shake it if we wanna make the movie.” He gently squeezed her bottom on their way out the door, another first for her.

They shared a large popcorn and soda as the movie started. Her escort seemed to enjoy the music in the film about a doomed female rock star, though Jane could tell the story was going to be a downer for a date movie. After finishing their snack, he excused himself to go to the restroom for a few moments. By the time he returned, the protagonist was engaged in an onscreen liplock with another female. “Cool!” her date muttered, clearly turned on by the girl-on-girl action.

As Jane watched the female lead slowly self-destruct on screen, her date slid his hand down between her legs and started stroking her inner thigh. Her mind fluctuated between thinking that she should really protest his forwardness to being relieved she had chosen not to wear pantyhose. The sensation of his caress sent a tingle throughout her entire body. He started to move his hand upward, but she stopped him, motioning towards strangers down the row. After his hand settled passively on her knee, she made amends by sliding hers between his legs and rubbing his inner thigh. As the film progressed, he leaned over and they shared a lingering kiss. After tossing a light jacket over her torso (for “warmth” he claimed), he slipped his hand underneath her sweater and cupped a braless breast. As he started to nibble her neck, she whispered into his ear, “Save it for later, Tiger.” Actually, she feared he might give her a hickey.

Rather than being offended, he looked up at her and smiled devilishly, then went back to watching the movie while simultaneously stroking her inner thigh. Now covered by the jacket, he occasionally ran his fingers up higher to fondle underneath her panties. She had never allowed a man to go so far on the second date, much less in a public place! The inappropriateness of their behavior increased her excitement. She enjoyed truly being a “naughty girl” for once. By the time the final credits rolled, she thought she was going to climax spontaneously in the theater. He leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Where do ya wanna go?”

“
Take me home,” she replied breathlessly.

The young man raced his Trans-Am back to her apartment at a record pace. As he drove, Jane unbuttoned his shirt and stroked his smooth, youthful chest. All the warnings she had been issued about safe driving became secondary to her passion. After too long in celibacy, she wanted sex. Hot, sweaty sex. Not some television movie scene of “making love,” but
screwing.
Deep and hard. And right then.

By the time the car squealed into her apartment complex parking area, she had her head in his chest, kissing him and caressing his hairless nipples with her tongue. As soon as he parked, he pulled her head up by the back of her hair and kissed her forcefully. She moved her hand down to cup the enlarged mound in his pants, stroking him from the outside. Just when he started to reach under her skirt to cup her buttocks, she opened the door and ordered him into the apartment, racing to the door with him in hot pursuit.

As she fumbled with the key, he came up from behind and pressed his body against hers, biting on the back of her neck. Once inside the door, she could not get his clothes off fast enough, pulling roughly at his shirt and pants. He wore no underwear and was eager to please. After stripping him down completely, she stood back for a moment to behold his naked, erect glory. He was the most beautiful specimen of the male figure that she had ever seen, hung like Michelangelo’s
David.
She remained in her sweater and skirt, enjoying the sense of power that came from being fully clothed while this manchild stood naked and vulnerable before her. In the privacy of her home, she took charge, getting down on her knees and taking him into her mouth, sucking deeply. He let out a series of moans and expletives. Before reaching fruition, he bent down and carefully removed her panties. As he lifted her onto his hard shaft, she pulled off her sweater and pressed his face into her breasts. He was like a rabbit, thrusting in quick, forceful movements, each one sending a thunderbolt of pleasure coursing throughout her body.

He continued to curse, shouting expletives louder as his pleasure increased. Jane soon lost control as well, screaming in high-pitched ecstasy with each penetrating thrust. Finally, he came and they both fell back on the shag carpet in exhaustion. “Whew! That was outta sight, Babe.”

She agreed.

Still panting heavily, he sat up, groped around for his vest, then lit up a joint. “Wanna hit?” he offered. Although marijuana was not Jane’s favorite herb, she took a couple of puffs, just to be polite, but was impressed by the weed’s high quality. He graciously shared by inhaling deeply, then kissing her while blowing the smoke into her mouth, a party trick she recalled well from her undergraduate days. The afterglow did not last long. Within minutes, he had hopped up and was pulling on his pants. “You can use the shower,” she offered.

“
Naw,” he said, winking. “I’d rather drive home with the smell of you on me.”

Jane was not sure whether to be flattered or disgusted. He gave her one last deep kiss and handed her the joint. “A token of your affection?” she joked, but he just looked puzzled, clearly not getting her pun. He walked out the door with a sexy invitation to call him anytime she wanted to “get it on.”

She did not hear from him again until after the holidays, when one night he dropped by unexpectedly around 11 p.m. carrying a pizza and cheap bottle of wine. She was a bit embarrassed to be caught in her flannel pajamas and no makeup. He of the perpetual blue jeans and T-shirts did not care. Both had disrobed by the time they finished the bottle and were writhing on the floor once again.

This pattern continued for weeks after classes resumed. For Jane, the affair provided a type of excitement far beyond physical sensation. She enjoyed the power and scandal of having a young stud to service her whenever she wished while retaining the freedom to live her own life. For brief time, she thought she had achieved the ideal form of liberation.

Sitting in the darkness of her living room many years later, Jane realized that her lover had been nothing more than a conduit (albeit a very willing one) to gratify her own desires.
A hole to fill a need.

Was this what had happened with Lewis and Mandy? Had he just been using the young woman to satisfy a physical urge? Had Jane been any different years ago? Was the current situation more serious because the gender roles were reversed? Was this happening to her own daughter? If these were hypothetical cases being analyzed by her grad students, they might make lively debate fodder. But this was not theory. These were real lives. Jane, like so many other professors before her, had gotten away with her indiscretions. Lewis Burns might not be so lucky. Neither would Coach, if he was the person she suspected he was.

Part Two:

Chapter 12

Denial and Anger

Lewis returned home from his worst holiday ever in a mental fog. He spent the rest of the winter break trying to work on his manuscript, with little progress. Even when he tried reading, which usually relaxed him, the words morphed into meaningless scratchings. He passed the time watching old movies on TV and catching up on the latest Internet video crazes, numbing his mind through distraction.

One morning while channel surfing, he paused on a television talk show featuring a psychologist talking about divorce. “You have to realize,” the expert told a rapt audience, “that people going through divorce pass through five stages of grief similar to mourning a death. First there is denial, then anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance.” Lewis concluded that he was probably still in the denial stage. Since returning home, he never cried nor thought about how he was going to tell people about the divorce. As the pop psychologist’s analysis became more depressing, he changed the channel to a reality show about large-load truckers.
Those guys would know what to do with a wayward wife. Run ‘em down with the big rig!
The mental image gave him some small comfort.

Occasionally reality would intrude on his fantasies: practical matters, such as what he would do with the house and the large number of Laura’s personal items she had left behind. She callously sent an e-mail asking him to ship her things to her, expecting him to sort through and return the detritus of their past life. He ignored the request, determined that everything remain the same until he was ready to deal with it.

Two days before spring classes were to begin, he went to campus for a department meeting, where he remained unusually quiet. A couple of people asked how Laura was, to which he borrowed Dr. Stevens’s pat answer: “Oh, fine.” Once back in his office, he sat down dejectedly at his desk and stared at Laura’s photograph, paralyzed as a tight ball of emotion formed in his chest and worked its way up through his throat and face. Slowly, he felt tears well up in his eyes. For the first time since that day at the ice skating rink, he was crying over the end of his marriage.

As he sat there softly sniffling, he heard a knock at the slightly opened office door. Mandy was standing before him in a school hoodie and jeans, not quite knowing how to respond to the sight of her weeping boss. “Hey, I’m sorry, I can come back later,” she said. “This looks like a bad time.”

“
No, no,” Lewis assured, waving her in with a sniffle. “Come on in. I’m just having a little allergy problem,” he lied, grabbing a tissue. “Nothing contagious. It’s good to see you. How was your break?”

“
Good,” she replied, still trying to decide if he really had allergy problems. “And yours?”

“
It was fine,” he said. From the tone of his response, she knew that it must have been terrible, but did not say so.

She asked for an update on her assignments, to which he confessed to not even thinking about them. Sensing it was not wise to hang around too long, Mandy left, with a caring look. “I hope your allergies get better soon.” Her expression of concern made him feel slightly better and more pitiful at the same time.