I wanted to sleep with him because he was my teacher and he was older than

I was and he was smarter than I was. He wanted to sleep with me because I was his student and I was younger than he was and he was smarter than I was. In his class we read Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath (distorted by the lens of Judith Butler). I lived off-campus and experienced a lot of problems with my house at that time. When three women live together a lot gets flushed (or not flushed) down the toilet. So things really began to clog up. On top of that, our front door only closed if we hoisted it up and sort of shoved it towards the top of the frame while shutting it. Also, I felt itchy lately and suspected that it came from the old orange and brown couch that stretched its unruly frame across our television room. But I never actually saw anything suspicious crawling around because we needed a new light bulb.

And then, in English class, I sat next to this tall and handy looking professor with these big hands and this moppy hair and I really liked the way he smelled not to mention the fact that I thought he could fix my door for sure.

So, I began to drop by his office hours to talk about literature until we stopped talking about literature and started talking about life. Swiveling his swivel chair out from behind his cheap metal desk, he rolled closer and closer to me, occasionally marking ungraded papers with wet coffee-cup rings. On those visits, I wore short black skirts and recrossed my legs and thought about what he'd do if I did that Sharon Stone thing which I'd never do. Then late one afternoon, I wore tighter-than-usual black and asked him to go for a drink. He said yes and he said that now seemed as good a time as any.

We walked to his car (a boring, bluish Hyundai) and he drove me to a bar about ten minutes out of town. I talked the whole way there, exhibiting my smarts over the cool whirr of the engine, impending darkness shoring my resolve. I told him about a paper I was working on called "Expressionism as Feminism." I mentioned an article called "American Drama, Feminist Discourse, and Dramatic Form." I informed him that a feminist play resists the oppressions of traditional dramatic practice in theme and form as well as in characterization. Linear discourse, I explained, is masculine discourse-it barrels along, building and building, until it reaches a climax, ultimately relaxing into resolution.

Then we got to the bar.

The bar: a barely-lit, below-ground dive. Seedy and smoky. Perfect, I thought. The only other people stood by the half-size pool table. A woman (tight jeans, sprayed hair) lined up a shot. A man leaned over and adjusted her angle. She hit the cue, sent the six (smack, crack) into the corner pocket, and kissed his mustached mouth.

We sat at a small, sticky table in the corner, right by a swinging door that swung into a unisex bathroom. I told him the drink was on me, because I'd invited him out. I asked the waiter for a Heineken, he ordered something harder. To fill the awkward pause I thought I ought to tell him a story, but my mind...stalled. So I ended up talking about how my Uncle Leo married a much younger woman named Ingrid in a secret wedding ceremony. I babbled on about how he hadn't even told his sister (my mother) because he wanted to keep it low-key. As though my mother automatically keyed things up, I laughed. Mid-sentence, I realized my story lacked a punch line, but I stuck with it, seeing it through to its un-climactic ending (something about my mother's hurt feelings?) and then stopped talking.

Gallantly wading through my verbal wreckage, he asked if I was close with my mother and, because I wasn't, I said yes. Then I said that I didn't know why I told him that story and he said that he didn't know why either and we both laughed. We ordered our second drink-another Heineken and a scotch on the rocks. Briefly, I considered telling the waiter to give him Teachers, because I remembered some sad Raymond Carver story that opened with a wife licking Teachers off her husband's belly.

By our third drink he smoked a cigarette even though he wanted to quit (I didn't smoke a cigarette because I already quit). He told me that he met his wife while they both studied at Oxford. She went by a silly name like Pammy or Kiki or Buffie or Bambi or Bimbo. He said at first he found her boring but she hung around him for so long that he got used to her.

You are pretty easy.

We laughed.

In the middle of drink number four he pressed his leg against mine and our hands knocked into each other. (Think slow motion, romantic music, etc.). The pool players had left a while ago and the bar's neon lights started flashing on and off. So he settled the bill (I knew he would) and we approached an uncomfortable moment because neither one of us wanted to leave (or rather we wanted to leave but we wanted to go home together).

Note to self: 'Sometimes it's not so easy, to be the teachers pet'

I bit the bullet and put my hand on his thigh. He said something about how he supposed I always got what I wanted and then I kissed him and he kissed me back.

I told him he should come back to my house. I told him that I lived with two other women but one was out of town and the other always slept at her boyfriend's place. I gave him careful directions as he drove home slowly and drunkenly, and guided him with my hand on the back of his neck (except when it played with his fly). We both giggled a lot.

That's the house.

He parked and we climbed the five steps to my front porch. I shivered in the chilly air as I confronted the big, oak ruin that masqueraded as my door. (It's always uncomfortable when you realize that a wall might come tumbling down.) So I fumbled around in my big, black purse and then handed him the key. Of course, as soon as he opened it, the door slid off its hinge. I acted surprised and asked him what he did to the door of my house. He said he didn't know and looked concerned.

Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it in the morning.

No, no, he said, I'll do it.

I smiled and he followed me inside.
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* *** *** * ****** ***** ******* ******* ****** **************************
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(I never fucked a Teacher before)
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He woke me up in the morning, making a lot of noise, looking for something. Morning, I said to his back. He turned around and smiled and lifted my new black dress off the ground, finding his shoe. He said he had to get going.

Of course, of course. I understand. I want to get back to sleep anyway.

My clock flashed 5:30.

See you, I said, cocooning in my warm, blue quilt as he waved goodbye. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep until the ringing telephone woke me up a couple of hours later.

Hello?

10:45 glared in digital red.

Did I wake you up? my mother asked.

Yes.

But she continued talking, telling me the latest news about my Uncle Leo's divorce and telling me that Ingrid would probably get custody of their one year old daughter. I tried to listen and then I cut her off.

School is good, thanks for calling, I'd better go because I have class.

But I didn't get up right away. Instead, I lay in bed for a little while longer and considered smoking the half-cigarette that he'd left behind. Deciding not to, I started to cry.