by Claire Adams
“ …not the grade I was expecting to get. I worked really hard on that article. I’m not trying to insult you, or anything, though, or argue with you about the grade—”
“No?” I interrupted. “Because that kind of sounds like what you’re doing.”
Her eyes widened. She was attractive, but there were hundreds of attractive girls here at Benton. So many that it almost made you think being at least an eight on the attractiveness scale was a requirement for acceptance.
“No,” she said. “If you think that this article was only a C+, then I accept that. And I plan to go through all the comments and really make sure that I do better on my next assignment. But—here’s the thing. I know the semester is already more than halfway over. And I’m afraid that with this grade I’m not going to be able to get my GPA back to where it needs to be, unless there’s something else I can do.”
I nodded slowly. “I see.”
“So do you think something would be possible?”
“We can definitely take care of that.”
A look of visible relief crossed her face. “Oh, great,” she said.
“Yeah,” I continued. “Some sort of extra credit something or other that will be able to get that GPA of yours back up.”
She nodded. “Sure. What kind of extra credit assignment were you thinking? Or do you have a couple that I can choose from? I’m fine doing whatever it is you want.”
“Great,” I said, recalling that movie I had watched the other night. Clearly, this was my chance. I had put a request out to the universe, and the universe was (for once) delivering. “Here’s what I want then: I want you to be my sex toy.”
The air hung heavy in the room, and neither of us said anything for several seconds. I watched her face morph through several variations of shock, finally settling on confusion, because surely she had just completely misheard what I’d said.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I want you to be my sex toy.” This was the moment when I could laugh it off and say I was just kidding, making a joke in very bad taste, or I could keep a straight face and go with it. Just having this taboo interaction was making me feel more alive than I had in recent memory, injecting my mundane life with some sort of excitement. She could report me to the dean for all I cared; getting fired now would really be a mercy.
But all she said was, “Oh.” Her face turned red. It looked like maybe she was about to cry, or burst out laughing. She did neither, though. She just shook her head, gathering her things. She stood up. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do that. I mean, I know I can’t do that. I guess . . . I guess I’ll just have to take the grade I’m getting now. I’ll try and do better, but I can’t . . . I can’t do what it is that you just said, Professor Rochman.” She was rambling and backing up toward the door as she spoke.
“You can call me Leo,” I said, as she exited, and I had to laugh at how lecherous the whole thing sounded.
3.
Tessa
I hurried out of his office, ran through campus, and didn’t stop until I got to the student parking lot and got into my car. I sat in the front seat, replaying the whole conversation in my head. Had I just imagined the whole thing? Did he really just say I want you to be my sex toy?
No. No, I must have heard him wrong, he must have said . . . something else. Anything else. He was a professor. A professor wouldn’t say that sort of thing to a student.
But he did. I could hear his voice in my head, clear as day, as though he were sitting next to me in the passenger seat, whispering in my ear.
Underneath my embarrassed disbelief, I was vaguely aware of feeling aroused by the whole interaction. Things like that didn’t happen to girls like me—things like that happened in movies, or soap operas, or to girls like Lindsey, who had no qualms about letting a guy know when she was interested in him.
I dug through my purse and found my keys, started my car, and left Benton. I tried to ignore the fact that I felt aroused. I wasn’t going to get involved with a professor. Even if he was really hot. As I drove away from the school, I pushed all thoughts of Professor Rochman out of my mind. I had a bigger problem to deal with, and that was the fact that I hadn’t gotten the A I needed to get in the class. The best thing I could do right now would be to tell my parents. I’d initially thought that I could keep this a secret from them, because I’d be able to turn things around and they’d have no clue my grades had ever taken a dip in the first place. But I was beginning to realize now that might not have been the smartest move. They wouldn’t be thrilled to hear that I wasn’t doing as well as they expected, but knowing my parents, they’d be even more upset that I’d tried to keep it from them in the first place.
Not that it was going to be an easy conversation to have.
I found a parking spot right out front of my apartment, which was fortunate, since I usually had to park at least a couple blocks away. I went inside, took the elevator up to my floor, and let myself in.
My apartment wasn’t anything grand, but it was certainly a lot better than living in the dorms, and all the bills were paid for by my parents, including rent. There was no way that I would be able to continue living here if they weren’t footing the bill, at least while I was still in school. Even then, I’d heard plenty of horror stories about recent grads who had been unable to find a job, or had only been able to get work at Starbucks or somewhere like that. So they’d had to move back in with their parents. The whole prospect of that was rather depressing.
I didn’t know exactly what my plan was going to be once I graduated college, but what I did know was that if I graduated with a 4.0 GPA, my parents would continue to help me out financially until I got a job and was able to take over paying for everything myself. If they cut me off now, that would completely derail everything that I planned to do.
I went into my bedroom and threw myself down on the bed. Now that I was in the safety of my own place, my mind started to wander back to what Professor Rochman had said. Sex toy. He wanted me to be his sex toy.
And even just thinking about it now, remembering how he looked, how his voice sounded, it made me feel turned on, even though I knew that hooking up with him was something I could never do. I just couldn’t. He was my teacher, after all, and even if he promised to give me an A, there was no way that I could do that—be his sex toy.
That night, I met Lindsey at Haymarket Café to study. We usually met up here a couple times a week, to do our homework, eat some food, and hang out a little, though tonight, I had no appetite whatsoever.
“Everything okay with you?” Lindsey asked, returning from the counter with her plate of food. Tonight it was an enchilada with a side of chips and guacamole, normally one of my favorites. Just seeing the food, though, made my stomach clench.
I hadn’t told her what had happened earlier. Part of me thought if I didn’t speak of it ever again, the memory would just disappear and I could pretend as if it had never happened. But as the day wore on, it seemed to be the only thing I could think about. I put my pen down and closed my laptop.
“Something did happen,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “With Nick? Is he still being a douche? I could go kick him in the balls for you, if you want. We’ll see how well he’s slam dunking the ball after I do something like that.”
“That’s kind of you to offer, but it wasn’t Nick.”
“What’s up, then?”
“Well . . . you know how I had to ask some of my professors for extra credit assignments? Because I’m totally falling behind and if I don’t get my GPA back up, my parents are going to cut me off?”
Lindsey nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s pretty harsh. I mean, my parents wouldn’t be psyched if I was failing or anything, but they wouldn’t suddenly stop giving me money. That’s so not cool.”
“You know how my dad is. Anyway. I really thought that I was going to do better on that article in Professor Rochman’s class.”
“I know you worked hard
on it.”
“I did. And I thought I’d done a pretty good job. Maybe not A, but definitely A-, B+. So, after class, I went to talk to Professor Rochman about doing some extra credit. Just something so I could get my GPA back up.”
Lindsey took a chip off the pile on her plate and dipped it into the guacamole. “That’s cool,” she said. “I bet he had some good ideas for you.”
I looked around to make sure that there wasn’t anyone sitting close enough that they’d be able to hear what I was about to say. I shouldn’t have worried, because anyone within earshot had their headphones on or were deep in their own conversations. Still, I leaned a little closer and waited until Lindsey leaned in too before I told her.
“He said I could be his sex toy.”
She blinked, chip halfway to her mouth. “Excuse me?”
“Um, yeah, exactly! I thought I misheard him at first, or that it was a joke. But he said it again.”
“Shut up,” Lindsey said. She put the chip down without bothering to take a bite.
“I’m serious! I went in there, and I asked him if there was any way I could get my grade up, and he said yes, you can be my sex toy.”
Lindsey’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” she said. “That’s hot. I need to go talk to him about that. You don’t think he’d mind having more than one sex toy, right?”
“Lindsey!” I said. “Stop it!”
“What? Would you mind? You’d share, right?”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I am. Well, kind of. I mean, if he’s that open about it, hell yes I’m going to go see him about some extra credit of my own. That’s the whole reason I signed up for the damn class in the first place! He’s hot.”
“I didn’t agree to it,” I said. “There’s no way I could agree to that. It’s like . . . it’s like exploitation or something.”
“Not if you want it, too.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Aw, come on, Tessa. He’s hot. I bet he’s great in bed. It’d be fun. How could you not want that?”
“Um, because it’s probably illegal? Or at least immoral.”
“I don’t think it’s illegal for a professor to sleep with a student. It might be against policy or something, but I don’t think it’s something he’d go to jail for. It’s not like you’re underage.”
I shook my head. “Why are we talking about this like it’s something I’m going to do? Because I’m not.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “Suit yourself. But you know as well as I do that your parents are going to freak.”
“I know. But I’m hoping if I go to them and rationally explain that I am working on getting my GPA back up and that I will graduate with a 4.0, that maybe they won’t be so hard on me.”
She stuffed a chip heaping with guacamole into her mouth and nodded, probably just to avoid having to tell me that there was no way my parents were going to be easy on me.
4.
Leo
I was on my way to meet up with Jack when my brother, Aaron, called.
I almost didn’t pick up the phone, because I had zero desire to hear about Aaron’s latest adventures, but on the fifth ring, I relented. He was, after all, my brother.
“Yo, what’s up!” he said. “Just had a few minutes and thought I’d give you a call. How’s it going?”
“Oh great, living the dream,” I said, even though it was really Aaron who was living the dream. It wouldn’t be too far off the mark to say that he was the whole reason I’d gotten into the extreme sports thing in the first place; he was four years older than me, had been skating his whole life, turned pro at 17, and never looked back. He was definitely one of the oldest guys on the scene now, but instead of that holding him back, the newer kids looked up to him as a pioneer, a wise master to be revered.
“That’s great,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“Reykjavik. We’re going to shoot a video over here, and then we’ll be heading to Paris. I was thinking how dope it would be if you met up with us.”
“In Iceland?”
“Yeah! I know how much you like it here. Really great place. Or Paris. I haven’t seen you in like, a year or something. I get that you’re busy and everything, but it’d be great to hang out.” At another time, I would have been all over that shit. Hell, he wouldn’t have needed to call me like this, because I would have already been out there. Even if I hadn’t been working on a story, I’d sometimes go with Aaron when he traveled, and just as often as not, I’d come across a story, one that my editor hadn’t even thought of, and I’d write it up, and everyone there would tell me I was a genius, that I really knew how to seize the zeitgeist. But now. Now I could barely even be on the phone with Aaron without wanting to rip my fucking hair out. Everything was the same for him, but for me, things were basically unrecognizable.
“I can’t get the time off,” I said. “It’s the middle of the term.”
He scoffed. “That never would have stopped you before. I can’t believe you’re a teacher. Like, with actual students. You have students, right?”
“That is what makes me a teacher.”
“Do the students call you Mr. Rochman? That must be a trip.”
“No, I tell them to call me Leo.”
He laughed. “It’s still a trip to think of you in a classroom like that. You know, a classroom is really like a big cubicle. A cubicle that you’re in, not just with yourself, but with a bunch of other people, too. Have you ever realized that? That might be an interesting thing to write an article about. How we start kids so young, brainwashing them to work in corporate America. How we make them think that life’s highest achievement is getting into some corner office, but really, they’re all just cubicles. And what is a cubicle, really? It’s a prison. Sure, it’s a prison that you can come and go from, but it’s still a prison nonetheless.”
He kept talking. He was probably really stoned right now, and though I’d always love him, I hated him. As I walked down the sidewalk to the bar I was meeting Jack at, I felt a gripping pain in my chest, maybe like I was about to have a heart attack. This wasn’t actually the case, I knew this, but it was somewhat amusing to think that I’d just drop dead right here, in the middle of the street, talking to my brother about how fucking wonderful his life was and how awful mine had become.
“In fact,” he was saying, “it might be worse than a prison, because at least in prison you know that you don’t have your freedom. With a cubicle, there’s this false idea that you’re actually free, even though you’re not. Even though it’s like this permanent condition.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not going to be permanent. It’s just what I’m doing right now. And would you like to know what else I’m doing right now? I’m fucking one of my students, you know.”
It sounded like there was a bit of static on the line. He coughed. “Whaaaat?”
“Uh, yeah. So that’s been going pretty well.” Whether or not this whole thing with Tessa actually ended up happening, I didn’t care; I needed something to tell Aaron, something that might make it sound like my life hadn’t turned out totally pathetic.
“You scoundrel!” he said, laughing. “Good for you, man. I bet she’s hot.”
“She is.”
“How long has that been going on for? Was that your whole plan, anyway? Why you got the teaching job in the first place?”
“No, it wasn’t my plan, but that’s just the way things worked out.”
“Hmm. Maybe I should get a teaching job.”
“I’d say go for it, but seeing as you barely graduated high school, you might have a hard time.”
“I know, I’m just playin’. There’s no way I could sit in a classroom like that, no matter how hot the girls were. Just not my scene. Props to you for being able to do it. At least you’re getting something good out of it.”
I arrived at the bar, but I didn’t want to go in while I was still on the phone. And I had to get off of the phone with
Aaron immediately; it was that or I go walk out in the middle of traffic.
“Hey, look, I gotta run,” I said.
“Oh, is your girl over?”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks for calling, though. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Peace out, brother!”
I slid the phone back into my pocket and took a deep breath before I went into the bar. Here I was, going into the same bar I always went to when I met up with Jack. It was his favorite place, and though we could have gone somewhere else, he was a creature of habit. He liked it here at the Corkscrew, which was less popular with the students, which was good. I usually didn’t want to see students outside of work. The students, for the most part, seemed to enjoy the Haymarket, which served wine, I think, and copious amounts of coffee.
Jack was already there at the bar when I arrived.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“No need to apologize. How are you doing? How’d your day go?”
When the bartender came over, I got a pint of Lagunitas and took a long sip before I responded.
“I had a rather interesting encounter today,” I said.
Jack took a sip of his beer. He’d order two Anchor Steams and drink exactly one and a half bottles. It never changed. “Oh yeah? What sort of encounter? I finally got that little red squirrel to eat some sunflower seeds out of my hand.”
“Yeah, not that kind,” I said. “But congrats—I know you’d been trying to do that for a while. No, my encounter was with a student. Who came to me asking for extra credit.” I took another sip of my beer. There was absolutely no reason to tell Jack this, other than for the shock factor—I knew this wasn’t something he’d ever condone—but especially since I’d just talked to Aaron, I had a strong urge to at least say something that someone else might find a little shocking. And Jack, being about as wholesome as they come, was the perfect target.
“Ah, the good old extra credit. I had a few students after me about it, too. It’s funny, though—the ones that were asking me for it weren’t the ones that actually needed to improve their grades. But I came up with a couple good assignments. What’d you come up with?”