His mouth closed over hers, hot, needful, quivering with passion. She was more amused than alarmed; his actions were merely an advanced version of her father’s. She let him kiss her. She allowed him to pull up her loose T-shirt, unsnap her brassiere, and kiss and fondle her small but perfectly shaped breasts. And though she could see that he was enormously aroused, she refused to let him go any further.
“Please…” he whimpered, as she pushed his hand away, “please … just touch me here.” She looked down at his engorged crotch, and then at his bleary-eyed gaze and roughed lips. She felt neither excited by nor sorry about what they’d done. But she was thrilled by the realization that she, at last, wielded some power in what Melina saw as an unfairly balanced battle against men. She smiled down at him.
“Does this mean I get an A?” she asked with girlish laughter.
“Of course,’” he answered. “Now please…?”
“Next time, then,” she answered firmly, standing up and tugging down her T-shirt. “If you’re good.”
She wasn’t dumb. She went out and got fitted for an IUD. She gossiped with other girls in the dormitory about the various professors and soon learned which ones were on the make. She was not particularly surprised to discover that student-teacher affairs were fairly commonplace on the campus, or that Professor Chapin was a notorious practitioner of the art. She silently cursed herself for falling for his line (she was seeing him two or three evenings a week by then for “extra credit” work) and decided to cut the affair off. Henceforth, she told herself, she would never believe another thing a man told her. From now on, she declared, she was going to call the shots when it came to sex. She never once considered the possibility of love.
“What about Professor Thornberg?” Melina asked, referring to the chairman of the communications department. Alan Thornberg, a writer of two popular books and several texts on his subject and a nationally known figure in his field, was the only real star at that branch of the university. He was in his late fifties, divorced, a firm disciplinarian, and considered something of a pedant by his lesser colleagues. He was, however, frequently cited as an expert in the press and was an occasional guest on the “McNeil/Lehrer News Hour.” He was also, as far as Melina could tell, her most likely route out of rural South Carolina and into the big time.
“God, I doubt he knows how,” one of the girls on Melina’s floor retorted. “And who’d want to find out?”
But Melina, who took Thornberg’s Introduction to Marketing as an elective the next semester, decided that she did. She worked hard and, though she found his lectures dry and uninspired, she didn’t miss a class. She always sat in the front row. She always wore her tightest pair of jeans, a T-shirt that rubbed against her nipples, or a laundered man’s shirt casually unbuttoned to her cleavage. She watched his every move, her mouth slightly open, her tongue moistening her lips. She willed herself to communicate to him on the same subliminal level he said most advertising reached the consumer.
Alan Thornberg favored three-piece suits, despite the university’s lack of a dress code, white cotton button-downs, and striped bow ties that he hoped looked Ivy League. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and brushed his thinning blond hair back from his forehead. He jogged three miles a day, religiously observed a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, and consequently looked at least five years younger than fifty-seven. His movements were precise, his diction carefully groomed to come across well on television. In fact, his whole appearance was as one-dimensional and easily assimilated as his favorite medium. But he was not unintelligent or unobservant. And though he had sat through a great deal of talk about such goings-on during departmental meetings, it was not until he noticed Melina Bliss in the front row of his classroom that it ever crossed his mind that he—the nationally respected Alan Thornberg—could consider a carnal relationship with one of his students.
That semester he thought of little else.
“This was quite good,” he said casually as he dropped Melina’s term paper on her desk. It was the last of the year, and he was overcome with a fierce longing for the bare-legged, petitely constructed woman before him. Looking down, he could see the rising hills of her breasts nestled in the opened-necked starched man’s shirt. He could smell the herbal scent of her hair and some deeper, more intimate aroma of skin and body lotion. He longed to reach down and massage her shoulders, run his hands through that mass of thick, fragrant hair. He could hear the rest of the class rustling behind him, waiting for their papers, longing to escape into the freedom of summer. Suddenly his busy, publicly oriented life seemed empty and ordinary. He didn’t know how he was going to live without seeing this girl in front of him three mornings a week.
“Thank you, Professor Thornberg,” Melina replied demurely, feeling his breath on her neck, shallow and fast. “I’ve enjoyed this class so much. But there is one thing.” She turned slightly to look up at him through long mascaraed lashes. “Perhaps I could stay after class to discuss it with you?”
“Yes, of course,” he answered weakly, proceeding down the aisle. “By all means.”
The door closed behind the last student. Melina remained seated while Thornberg firmly erased the blackboard. He could feel her watching him, and he knew his movements were awkward and mechanical. He positioned the eraser neatly on the rimmed edge of the blackboard and turned to face her. He gasped.
Melina’s shirt was open to her waist, exposing her breasts beneath a skimpy black lace brassiere. The classroom, on the top floor of the building, had only two windows. No one could see in.
“Lock the door,” she commanded. He didn’t think twice. He did what she told him and then came back to stand behind her and, as he had dreamed of doing for so many months, he ran his hands through her hair.
“Oh, my God,” he murmured, sinking to his knees. She turned toward him and he breathed in her silky warmth. “Oh, Melina, Melina…”
“Shhh…” she whispered, taking off his glasses. “I know. Just be quiet please. Just please…” She slid to the floor, pulling him on top of her. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
Alan Thornberg had never been a particularly passionate man. He tended to channel all his emotions and needs into his books and lectures. Though the divorce from his wife had been amicable, she did tell him that sex twice a month was not enough to keep any marriage alive. But that afternoon, as he mounted Melina Bliss on the floor of his classroom, he couldn’t imagine how he had lived without it for so long.
“Oh!” she cried out.
“What is it?” he whispered, withdrawing slightly. “What’s the matter, darling?”
“It hurts,” she replied softly. “Is it supposed to hurt?”
“Do you mean…” He pulled himself free of her. “Do you mean you’ve never done this before?”
“No…” Melina answered, blushing prettily. It was her great moment, she knew, and she played it for all it was worth. “I’m so sorry. You must think me stupid. But, no, I’m sorry, I never have … before.”
“My dear girl,” Thornberg answered, cradling her in his arms. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Nothing at all. This is marvelous, really. But … no, we can’t do it here. Come, let me take you back to my place where we can be more … comfortable.”
They talked for several hours first, while he forced her to sip dry sherry and, as he kept saying, “try to relax.” But it was Thornberg who was clearly nervous. He ruined two of his favorite records when his sweaty fingers dropped the needle across them.
He led her to the bedroom just as evening was falling. In the red and orange glow of the last rays of sun, her skin appeared golden to him, like the statue of the hunting goddess Diana that Thornberg admired on his last trip to New York. He had no idea that it was, indeed, a huntress whom he made love to that night. A schemer whose blood—and, yes, she had thought this through very carefully—was simply due to her regular menstrual cycle. Melina had already learned how to fake orgasm. She cried out just as he c
ame. He was ecstatic, of course. Beside himself with passion. Totally fooled.
She lived with him that summer, finishing up her final credits and helping him edit the typeproofs for the new edition of his textbook on advertising. At the end of August, at the suggestion of the dean who was frankly shocked that his esteemed communications expert had taken up with a woman nearly one-third his age, Thornberg asked Melina to marry him.
“No,” she said simply, having already rehearsed this inevitable scene carefully in her mind. “It would be wrong. I would ruin your reputation. I probably am right now, aren’t I?”
“Darling, it doesn’t matter,” Thornberg nobly responded, but in truth he was tired of waking up every morning with a raw chafing between his legs. Also, dear Melina seemed to think his meager academic salary was hers to piddle away on whatever new dress or trinket took her fancy.
“Of course it matters, Alan,” Melina answered firmly. “I’m no fool. You’re an important figure. You have a national reputation. And I know you well enough to realize that your work means everything to you. I won’t be the one who destroys that … no matter how painful it is to me.”
“But … darling.” Thornberg, wisely, decided not to fight. “What do you mean? What will you do?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Melina answered slowly. “I think we should make it look like a clean break. I think I should get out of the state, maybe move north. I thought, perhaps, I could go to New York. Get some kind of a starter job in advertising. You fly up there a lot for television stuff, so it wouldn’t be as if we’d never see each other again…”
“Well, Melina.” Thornberg sighed, relieved and impressed by her reasoning. “If this is what you really want to do. I … won’t stand in your way, of course. And, it’s true, it’s not as if we wouldn’t see each other. Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it’s for the best. And, in fact, darling, I know a lot of people in advertising. I’m sure I could help you get a suitable job.”
“Oh, no, Alan,” Melina objected. “That’s not necessary. I wouldn’t want to put you out like that.” But that, of course, was what she had had in mind all along.
Chapter 9
Whatever happened between Zach and Melina, it was over before most people realized it had begun. Melina never mentioned it to Janie; Zach never referred to it after the evening he spent at Janie’s apartment. The next morning, a bouquet of peach-colored roses—ones amazingly like those in the watercolor Zach had admired—arrived at her desk without any note of explanation. She knew who had sent them and was surprised by the fact that Zach, who seemed so oblivious to such things, would remember the exact color of the flowers. He was around more after that, dropping by her office as he used to do.
“You had those Magic Moments people mesmerized this afternoon,” Zach told her toward the end of July. “You and Melina can put on quite a show.” The company had bought the proposed winter print campaign down to its smallest magazine insertion.
“Thanks,” Janie said, knowing it had gone well herself. “We practiced, just as you and Michael told us to. That makes all the difference.” That, and sharing center stage with someone as confident and aggressive as Melina. With Melina doing most of the talking and explaining, Janie was able to relax, ad lib humorous asides, be more herself.
“Keep this up,” Zach told her, “and we’ll have to give you some kind of title or other. And, speaking of titles, Alain Chanson suggested in his last fax that we might want to consider the Chanson chateau as a setting for that winter promotional piece you’re doing.”
“Are the Chansons really nobility?” Janie asked lightly. “Along with everything else?”
“I suppose so,” Zach replied lazily, flipping through the stack of design magazines on Janie’s bookcase. “Why, does that impress you? Should I reveal to you now the deep, dark secret of my ancestry? I am really Baron Zachary von Dorn, second cousin to the first pretender to the throne of the Hapsburgs. But, please, you mustn’t tell anyone—my life could be at stake.”
“Where do you come from, Zach?” Janie asked, laughing. “You never mention your family.”
“You never mention yours either, dearest,” Zach replied, turning quickly to the door. “And I’m sure we both have our reasons. Now keep up the good work.”
Over the course of that summer, Janie saw a lot more of Melina … and a great deal less of Louella. It was nothing she had planned. It was only natural that after a long working session with Melina, she and Janie might grab a bite to eat together. Or that in preparing for a presentation, they’d order up lunch to one of their offices. Louella just seemed to be around less, though Janie didn’t once suspect that Louella was making herself scarce on purpose. Louella remained friendly, always available if Janie wanted to see a movie, but she stopped dropping by Janie’s office unannounced. And she called Janie at home less and less frequently … until she stopped calling at all.
But the biggest change in Janie’s life occurred just before Labor Day of that year, just after a major presentation to Alain Chanson. Dressed in a lightweight seersucker suit and open-necked cotton sportshirt, tanned from a sailing excursion in the Caribbean, Alain had appeared almost painfully handsome to Janie. And there was something about his casual elegance that made him seem even more out of reach than usual. She watched his every move, trying to store up enough tactile memories of him to sustain her through the weeks that lay ahead before the next meeting.
“He really loved that centerspread design,” Zach told her that evening when Janie wandered down to his office around seven o’clock. She knew that he and Michael had taken Alain out for lunch, and she was hoping he’d drop little tidbits of what was said. “He mentioned you and Melina. Thinks you’re vastly talented, Janie.”
“Alain mentioned me by name?” she asked, and at that moment only a fool would look at Janie’s face and not see what was written all over it. And Zach was no fool.
“Janie, you’re blushing,” Zach replied. “Why is that?”
“No, I’m not,” Janie babbled. “I’m … I’m just hot, I guess. I’m just fine.”
“Don’t give me that,” Zach replied. “It’s freezing in here with this air conditioning. Now, look me in the face and tell me the truth.”
“What truth?” Janie retorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alain,” Zach said. “You have a thing for him, don’t you?”
“You find it amusing, I suppose,” Janie replied, her face a deep scarlet. She felt exposed, as though her heart had been turned inside out, her most precious secret revealed for all to see. She was trying hard to maintain her equilibrium, to keep from Zach just how much she cared.
“Not at all,” he said. “I guess I’m just a little taken aback that you didn’t tell me before. God knows I’ve bared my soul to you enough times over the last few years. I guess I just never thought to ask where you stood, what you felt. Now I feel like a fool.”
“Oh, Zach, please,” Janie objected, “it’s perfectly understandable. I mean, the way I look, the way I am, why should you think about it at all?”
“What are you saying?” Zach demanded, standing up from behind his desk. “That because you’re fat you’re not entitled to feelings?”
Janie sighed and sat down on the worn plastic chair facing his chipped desk. Though Michael had redecorated his corner office with sleek leather settees and chrome and glass tables, Zach had insisted on keeping the faded and mismatched pieces he had started with. He proudly told guests that his interior decorator was the Salvation Army.
“No one could accuse you,” Janie said at last, “of being overly sensitive to other people’s feelings.” She felt stupid and hopeless, the way she always did when anyone spoke openly about her looks.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Janie,” Zach retorted, coming around to crouch beside her chair. “This is beyond feelings, sweetie, we’re talking simple facts. You’re a smart, talented, warm, funny, and wonderful person
who’s wrapped herself up in a tent of—”
“Please don’t—” Janie started to object, angrily fighting back tears. “I … I really can’t stand to talk about it, Zach, please.”
“Why not?” Zach asked gently, touching her arm. “Don’t you want to change?”
“Of course I do,” Janie replied, turning away from him. “But I’ve been this way all my life. It’s like being a cripple, Zach, it’s just something you learn to live with.”
“Bull,” Zach replied, standing up. He leaned against his desk, crossed his arms, and looked down at her. “It’s not like being disabled at all, dammit! This is your choice, Janie. Absolutely your decision. You could change any time you wanted to. But you know what?”
“What?” Janie asked, then added defensively, “Before you continue with whatever great revelation you’re about to share, do you think you could find me a tissue?”
He fished around in his top desk drawer, tossed a box of tissues over her lap, and said: “You don’t want to change. You’d rather stay the way you are—safe, secure, untouchable. You’d rather daydream about someone like Alain Chanson than really face up to a relationship. You’re living inside yourself, Janie. Inside your body and your head. That’s not living.”
“I see,” Janie responded, blowing her nose and straightening up to look at him. She knew her eyes were red-rimmed and her lips swollen. She looked terrible when she cried, but she didn’t care. “And who, may I ask, are you to sit there in judgment of me?” She stood up, the anger shooting through her now, giving her strength and power. “Just who do you think you are to tell me I can change? That my feelings aren’t real? That I’m not really alive? Who the hell do you think you are, Zach?”
“Someone who cares about you,” Zach replied simply. “Someone who wants you to be happy.”
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