PROLOGUE ("Spare the rod, spoil the child"-Proverbs)
"There she goes again! How many times do I have to tell that girl to get off her phone during class? And we're only into the third week of the semester," the professor mused angrily.
"Becky!"
Nothing.
"Becky Thrice!"
"Yes, Professor Wilson?" She looked up with her big, brown doe eyes peering behind those full lashes, but always, always, somehow managing to pronounce my name in lowercase.
"To think this little nymphet believes she is above it all, that any man is barely worthy of her elicitations, her barest speck of attention. It is galling, to say the least, but something needs to be done to drop that pedestal a few feet!" he thought.
"Maybe you would mind sharing with the class what the basic tenet of Keynesian thought is?"
"Oh...well, professor," a bat of the eyes, a slow flick of the tongue along those full, lusciously red lips. "You know I meant to read the chapter, but I was so exhausted after my yoga classes yesterday..."she paused with a deep sigh that just naturally lifted those perfectly sloped and rounded C-cup breasts within her jogging top. Seriously, he had seen sports bras that had more material. "I went straight to bed and didn't get a chance to read it."
And that smile, inwardly chuckling, knowing that she instantly had 90% of the males and more than a few of the ladies in the class imagining her in the Downward-Facing Dog, lifting her perfect posterior into the sky, arching her back ever so slightly while moving ever deeper into the stretch, inching ever so gently higher. Or Pranayama, lifting her arms, breathing deep from her diaphragm, lifting that bosom ever higher, then slowly exhaling and letting the exhale release all the tension, allowing everything to relax and yet still remain firmly in place and invitingly, teasingly protruding.
"Oh, something needs to be done and quickly, or this girl is going to be trouble," he surmised.
"Well, maybe you could let us all know what vitally important text messages you are rapidly conveying into the ether?" Light chuckles out of the rest of the class.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Ms. Thrice, I have been teaching longer than you have been alive. If you think I can't tell when a student is trying to hide their phone in their laps so they can text, you are greatly underestimating my powers of observation, or overestimating your own deviousness." Inwardly he thought, "Or are you hoping for my observations, holding your phone so near those perfect legs, the slightly protruding Mons, and the imaginably bare skin of her labia under those running Capri's. And never a panty line, does she go bare, or is it the tiniest of g-strings, or perhaps a T-bar?"
"Sorry, professor, it won't happen again," she replied reaching for her purse to slide the phone away. Finally a hint of respect in her tone!
"I know it won't, Miss Thrice, because I will be keeping it until my office hours later this afternoon."
"What? You can't do that!"
"Oh, but I can. If you look in your student handbook and in the syllabus, which I have your signature on saying you read it thoroughly, that is exactly what I can do."
The look of surprise, shifting to anger, to horror, to confusion, and finally acceptance; all within a scant moment and then was that last flicker a look of determination? This is going to be an interesting meeting later. Giving in, she walked up to the front of the room and handed her phone over, with a demure, carefully apologetic expression on her face, returning to her seat looking all the world like a slightly abashed, attentive student. Is she doing that on purpose, that gently swaying side-to-side sashay, not enough to be slutty, just enough to draw the eyes and cause you to focus and pause?
"And let that serve as a warning to the rest of you. Anyone caught texting will surrender their phone."
The rest of the class was blessedly free of the faint tap-tapping sounds of fingers on number pads.
CHAPTER 1 ("Nothing happens unless first we dream" -Carl Sandburg)
When the rest of the department got moved into the Business College instead of the Sociology Department two years ago during the reorganization, they moved to the new Thomas More Business Building. Being rooted comfortably in the office he had occupied for well over a decade in Hanover Hall, he wasn't all that disappointed when he found out there weren't enough offices in the new building. His office was near enough to his classes that the walk was not difficult and the fact that his was now the only office on the 1st floor, the rest having been converted into storage areas and part-time offices for adjuncts, meant that he could work in relative privacy. The practice of playing music while grading and preparing lecture notes now wasn't a distraction for the other professors, and the relative isolation meant the volume could be as loud as he wanted, for the most part. Students visiting would often hear Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Grieg, or Wagner greeting them as they journeyed down the hall to his office in the back corner of the building.
The view was also stunning. His office looked away from campus and had a spectacular view of the County Park and woodland area that bordered the college. Stunning arrays of leaf changes to the view of the occasional deer or other wildlife really made up for having to walk to a different building for department meetings and classes. But the best part of the office was the size. It was once the Dean's office so it consisted of an outside vestibule and the inner office, where the desk and computer were, that was big enough to at one time have been used as a small conference room. Now it held a few small bookcases, a small wood table with chairs to accommodate meetings and advising sessions with students, and a large L-shaped desk with the computer in the corner. It was arranged so the long side was against the wall and the short side faced the door. This way the computer screen faced away from the door and he could easily see when someone entered the outer office on their way to see him. The outer office was just used now as a comfortable reading room with a small Queen Anne chair and an overstuffed sofa. There was a small refrigerator and a table with a coffee maker for those long nights of grading. The sofa had more than once doubled as a bed during finals week when grading was a little behind.
The grading, as usual at this point in the semester was getting to be tedious. Going through 150 papers on the relationship between Supply and Demand in Macro Economics was always an exercise in mental focus.
