Part 1
He enjoyed Thursday afternoons. He didn't have classes, department meetings, office hours or bureaucracy to deal with. It was a chance for him to work on his research without the crush of teaching.
Not that he didn't enjoy teaching his classes. They were enjoyable, he always learned something from his interactions with students, and the hours were not bad. Also, they were good for his ego. At 42 and a widower, he was still a vigorous and attractive guy, more handsome than pretty. He knew he was attractive to women near his own age, as the repeated come-ons at faculty parties (from both female faculty and the wives of some of his colleagues) confirmed. He biked and ran regularly and he was in good shape, but clearly not a narcissistic jerk.
What surprised him was how attractive he seemed to be to his students. It honestly never occurred to him that a woman in her late teens or early 20s would be interested in him. And yet, every semester, there were two or three students who made it clear to him—often in their own shy way—that they were available to him. Some spent inordinate amounts of time at his office hours, coyly laughing at not-very-funny comments. Others just batted their eyes and wore suggestive clothing to class. A few outright propositioned him, which he appreciated for its efficiency but not for its judgment. He had never slept with a student, no matter how available she was. He valued his job too much.
In his three years of teaching creative writing at PSU, he had seen a great many beautiful young women, a few really talented ones, and one who was both. She was a current student, M. She was different from the other girls in the class. Instead of the anorexic waifs most girls seemed to aspire to be, M was sexy in a classic, Marilyn Monroe way. She was physically most reminiscent of the voluptuous redhead on Mad Men, but she had the same innocence-mixed-with-sexuality that Marilyn had. She stood 5'8" and had curves that made men (if not all boys) stand and gape. She dressed the way other girls in class dressed, but the way she wore a T shirt and jeans didn't look like any of the others. She was in a class by herself, physically.
Academically, she was also different. In his class, she was brilliant. Her writing was a cross between Flannery O'Connor and Virginia Woolf. It was both dense and accessible, innovative and classic. She had real talent and he had tried to encourage it. She had showed him her non-school projects, including a short story about a student's illicit romance with her writing professor, and he had given her detailed and constructive help. He genuinely enjoyed working with her. Even if he did often have to go home and jerk off after one of their sessions.
The problem, as he understood it from one of his gossipy colleagues in the English department, was that as good as she was in his class, that's how bad she was in all her other classes. She was clearly smart, but her lack of interest made her anywhere from an indifferent to an outright failing student. Her attention span, so good and focused when she was writing, was pathetically short everywhere else. She was texting in classes she was failing, and the word in the department was that she might not survive the current semester's academic probation.
None of that was on his mind that Thursday afternoon as he dug into recently unclassified documents he needed for the book he was writing. In addition to his own creative writing, he occasionally wrote critical analyses of favorite books. He was working on a book now about the early Soviet classic, Master and Margarita, about a writer whose lover sells her soul to the devil to have his work published. The fall of the Soviet Union had unearthed thousands of documents that could shed light on the author's trials at the hands of Soviet censors.
He had been working for only a little while when there was a knock on the door. He considered not answering, but the knock came again. Exasperated, he put down the documents and walked the five feet to the door of his cramped office.
When he opened the door, he was surprised to find M standing there. Her eyes were red from crying, though she had clearly dried her tears before knocking.
"Professor, I'm sorry to bother you."
"M, that's OK. What's wrong?"
"Can I come in?"
"I'm sorry. Of course."
He stood aside and she came into the office, her shapely ass brushing against him as she tried to avoid the stacks of papers and boxes of books. She went to the only chair beside his desk chair that wasn't piled with junk, an old red leather arm chair.
She sat somewhat primly on the edge of the seat, looking down at her hands. He tried to look at her face, but it was challenging. Her cleavage, so prominent and so beautiful, was exerting a magnetic pull on his eyes. It took a major effort to not look at it. All the same, he was very glad he had excellent peripheral vision.
"M, are you OK?"
"Not really. It appears that I am no longer your student."
"What? Why?"
She started sobbing a little and took a moment to compose herself.
"Because I was kicked out. Flunked out. Asked to leave. Whatever you want to call it."
He slumped back in his chair, genuinely—and surprisingly—distraught at the idea she wouldn't be his student any more. He rolled his chair a few feet in her direction and put his hand on hers. She quickly grabbed his hand in hers.
"I'm so sorry. I really am."
"It's my own damn fault, of course. It's not like I can't do the work."
"If you don't mind my asking, how could this happen? You're so bright and such a great student in my class."
She looked up at him, smiling through her tears.
"Well, I love writing. And I love your class." She looked like she was going to say something else, but stopped herself.
"And the other classes?"
"I guess I just didn't care. I thought I could skate by. All I ever wanted to do was write anyway."
They sat silently for a moment. He wanted to take his hand back and be professional, but he just couldn't.
"Well, looks like you'll have lots of time for writing now. Have you given any thought yet about what you'll do?"
"I'd love to spend more time writing. But it looks like I need a job. My scholarship went away as of an hour ago."
Again, they sat silently. His mind was racing. She wasn't his student any more, which was bad. Or was it? Now that she wasn't his student, he could see if there was anything between them, as he had hoped so often. He made a bold gamble.
"I could use a research assistant."
She looked like she had just won the lottery.
"For real?"
