Office Hours

Describing the relationship I had with my professor was difficult—I liked to think we existed in a claustrophobic gray area, where plausible deniability was stretched a little too thin to obscure the way his hand sometimes brushed my arm when I said something particularly funny, or the way we danced around conversations about my sex life. 

He was particularly interested in the latter, though he never brought it up first. 

“Do you mind if I smoke?” I pulled out a damaged cardboard box adorned with a golden camel before he could answer. 

He tried his best to look disappointed in me. “Those are extremely bad for you.” 

“I just had two job interviews this afternoon, back to back. I think this is a situation, if ever, to give in to my temptations.” I put a cigarette in my mouth, precariously speaking with it dangling out the corner. I was thrilled at the feeling of him watching me, wondering if he was imagining easing something else between my lips. “Do you have a light?” 

For all his stern disapproval, he seemed to have a habit of always carrying a light on him. 

“Is that all you’re stressed about?” he asked casually. I loved the way he spoke, sotto voce, with an accent that I had never actually asked him about. Almost British, but far more alluring than anything the English could cook up. 

I took a deep drag, my eyes watering from the cold. Winters by the coast were always frigid, even in California. “If you’re asking me if Sean’s been giving me shit: he hasn’t. We’re done. I think for good.” 

He made a sound of vague approval. “He wasn’t good enough for you, I take it?” 

“I’m a hard woman to please.” 

I looked at him then, wondering if I had crossed some proverbial line. I was half-hoping for a reaction, just to delude myself into believing he cared for me in a way a professor shouldn’t. But he just smiled and motioned to hand him a cigarette. 

“I don’t think we’re allowed to smoke here,” I said, letting my finger brush along the side of his hand as I deposited it into his open palm. We were tucked away in the corner of Brenn Hall, where the English department was located. It was half-past seven, far later than any faculty or student liked to stay on campus. 

He was a faster smoker than I was. In the minute of tense silence between us, he had burned down to the cotton, looking thoughtful. 

“You must be cold,” he said. “Your class got out ages ago. Do you want me to make you a cup of tea in my office?” 

There wasn’t an exact word in there that made me realize what he wanted from me. I barely registered the question at all, I was too distracted thinking about the sweater that hung loosely off his thin frame, wondering if his wife picked it out for him.  

He was an academic, and he looked the part entirely: thick glasses, gray stubble, button-downs underneath sweaters underneath a suit jacket. He was more than twice my age—maybe closer to three times older—and he had thinning hair, lines permanently etched on his face, and a slightly pretentious attitude.

In all, I knew that it was wrong. He was married, he was older, and he had been in a position of authority over me just one semester ago. But I thought about the gentle ache between my legs, and the pent-up frustration from everything—the job interview, the boring ex-boyfriend, the grad school applications—and just wordlessly nodded, extinguishing my cigarette and following him up the building. 

I was glad he didn’t keep up the pretense of making me tea. I was glad that finally something was going right this week: he wasted no time slipping off my scarf, unbuttoning my blouse, and gently cupping my breast. 

It was uncomplicated. It was bliss. 

“I always wondered why you never wore a bra to my class,” he mused softly into my neck, kissing it gently. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, old man,” I let him push me into his bookshelf, which rattled with the pressure. A copy of Yeats’ poetry fell off, crushing the pages from the impact. When I arched my back, I tilted my head so he could continue his caresses. “I never wear bras.” 

A shock of pleasure ran through my spine as I felt his erection on my thigh, and let his hand lead mine into the waistline of his pants, a heat emanating from his cock. 

“What do you want to do?” he whispered, though there was nobody in the department. And if there were, there would be no hiding the moaning coming from behind his door. Either he was watching porn with the volume on maximum, or he was fucking a student. 

I thanked God it was the latter tonight. 

“Can you come in my mouth?” 

What I liked about this professor was that he wasn’t so wordy. All the brilliant ones ever wanted to do was talk about “the modern woman” or “the flaneur in modern literature.” It was interesting, but it was hard to touch myself to the thought of Leopold Bloom. 

But my professor didn’t say much at all, just held my hair back with one hand and pushed my lips down on his cock with a little more force than necessary. I looked up, mouth bitter from the taste of his pre-cum, and saw his chest rising and falling rapidly. I was between his legs, just as I had imagined in my fantasies before bed, delighting in the way his head was thrown back slightly, lips ajar in pleasure while I massaged his balls and licked the head of his cock. 

It was thicker than I thought it would be—veiny and stout. I thought academics would have smart-looking penises, but I guess men are all alike when it came to the important stuff. 

I flicked my tongue over his urethra, suckling on his tip until I heard him cry out. His hands tightened at the base of my neck and pushed me all the way down, guiding me furiously up and down his dick. 

It was a brief thought, but I remembered a conversation I had in my feminist studies class. A woman had mentioned that she never gave her boyfriend blowjobs, because it was creating a power imbalance that she thought “set back feminism fifty years.” 

The rough carpet scraped my knees as the force of his guiding hand clamped me tightly over his penis, holding me until I felt a stream of hot liquid slide down my throat.

He let out a slow groan, releasing his grasp on me slowly, until I could lean back and take in gasps of air. 

Rough hands held my chin and wiped a drop of cum off of my lips. It wasn’t particularly affectionate, nor was it a kind gesture. It filled me with a desire to be used. 

As if reading my thoughts, he smiled at me and brought my hand to his dick again. “I’m going to fuck your brains out.” 

So much for feminism, I thought.