Meeting Her Part 2: Starting Affairs
by LolaPaul49
Chapter 0. Preview.
Alec Braxton was a hired gun, he was not looking for love. But he was not a monk either. His past meetings with the two women were occasional and unconventional (oral and anal). Also, anal sex may be fine in a shower, but it is not a good idea in a faculty office.
When fishing it often helps to have several lines in the water at once. Here, on the small campus luck strikes - twice - in a short period.
I am nominating this as "Erotic Couplings" as most of the activity involves a guy and, separately, two women who are figuring some things out. The story follows from Part 1, reading that might be useful. Some critical facts that were cloaked there are exposed below.
The tags used here follow for most parts of the story.
For those who want to go right to the action, in Chapter 2, the new hired gun scores a significant breakthrough with Nancy. Chapters 6 and 8 feature Isabel opening up some new places. Most of the other chapters advance Isabel's story of woe and salvation, which is rather complicated as her marriage has been poisoned and she is pregnant.
Note: the word "chair" has 2 distinct meanings in academia.
A Department Chair is the administrator of a department, he thinks he is the boss in a discipline like English or Chemistry because he has the biggest office. But actually he is a overworked paper pusher since he can't hire or fire or change the pay of any faculty member. In fact, the department chair really has only one power: scheduling. However, since the objective is to impart knowledge to all the precious darlings (students) this is more a case of co-ordinating the desires, skills and preferences of the individual faculty, the number of students anticipated for each course, and the rooms each department is allocated. Put, say, a tax guy in a systems course and everybody loses.
An Endowed Chair is an honor and a pay supplement for a faculty position in an area where the regular salary is simply not enough. The endowment funds are contributed by somebody with too much money, then invested to generate the extra salary and other monies needed. These are usually used to recruit and keep VIP faculty the university could not otherwise afford. Universities are shameless in soliciting rick folks to obtain these funds.
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Chapter 1. Discovering A Name
Late August
In August Dr. Dryden and I were having a friendly discussion of a joint publication we were considering. I had 2 pubs of my own accepted from my dissertation and a couple more with co-authors in advanced stages, but they were not sure things. Some things that didn't work out had turned into paper presentations. The lead time and the hit rate is such that a guy on a schedule like me must always plan ahead.
The research idea was solid. We knew that anything with Dryden's name on it would get published, the issue was how big the project would be. It was given that I would do most of the research and writing, credit would be shared equally, and our names would be listed in alphabetical order. (My name is Alec Braxton.) That is how things were done.
The question was, how much would including Dryden slow down the process (it was inevitable) versus the chance of placing it in a better journal, increasing my future value, with him as a co-author (also inevitable). We had already written one presentation together, it went quickly, but an article would take a lot more from both of us. (Dryden was sharp enough, he would contribute, so it was a genuine joint effort that would help us both.)
I noticed that Dryden's computer had the icon for the university's building entry system, and I asked about it. When anybody entered or left a secure building their RF-chipped ID card chirped and data was recorded. I was surprised to see access to this entire system on his computer, but I guessed it was an "all or nothing" system. I asked why he had it and I didn't.
"Yes, it's there," he replied, "access is available to all administrators, department chairs and higher. Plus anybody in Buildings and Grounds or Security... others. Silly thing, I don't use it."
One thing I get frustrated about is when folks don't answer the question asked. With Dr. Dryden I had to be a bit diplomatic. "But why do you have it? You aren't some foul administrator, are you."
"Oh... that. Well, I confess I am. They just installed it when I got the computer. I was not consulted by the tech minions. Technically I am the Director for the Finance and Accounting Institute. It is worthwhile it just to keep it out of Ober-Chair Bumblurs's grasping hands." (We agreed our chairman was an ass-kissing idiot - his own ass mostly so he was always falling down.) "A Director is deemed equivalent to a Chair, even one with a trivial budget, so I get access to endless worthless details. Hell of a way to run a university, filling computers with useless data. You can be the Director when you get tenure." That would never happen because they could not afford me, there is always more green waiting at the next school. We found ourselves moving on to a pleasant topic, the tall skinny blond work-study coed who could not do her own buttons...
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Faculty are organized in Departments, each with a Chairperson. Usually Accounting and Finance are different departments, but for some reason this school combined them plus they added in Law, Real Estate and Insurance to make one jumbo department. Because it was so large we called our department chairman the Ober-Chair. (This was not a intended as a compliment.) The other departments in Business were Marketing, Economics (which also did statistics) and Management (which really could be 3 departments: Quant, Behavior and HR).