Chapter 6 #2
As the minutes tick by and I listen to him talk, I find myself wanting to draw closer and touch him. Seriously, thank God for this desk in between us or I would be tempted to climb into his lap. This entire room smells of him; it’s intoxicating.
Snap out of it, Alis. You CANNOT have anything more than a professor/employee relationship with this man.
Or, maybe I could? He didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea.
No! He’s a professor. I’m a student. And everything that went down with Dr. Ryan, I know how easy it is for someone to misconstrue the nature of the professor/student relationship.
“Alis?” Whoops.
“Sorry, my thoughts trailed off for a second. Could you repeat that?”
He smirks as if he knows I was fantasizing about him.
Leaning his forearms on the desk, he repeats whatever I just missed.
“I said I think it’d be best for us to meet once a week to go over upcoming assignments.
It’s important that we communicate regularly since you’re handling the grading for my classes. ”
“Weekly meetings? Is that really necessary? Seems like an email report of weekly assignments would suffice. And you should get a notification whenever I post grades in the student portal.” I know what he’s doing, and I’m not having it.
I’m hanging on by a thread of self control as it is; I don’t need any motivation to cross the line.
“Why send an email when you can drink coffee and enjoy friendly company?” He leans back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant as he imposes weekly coffee dates.
“Look, Dr. Belanger —”
“Dexter. Call me Dexter.”
I flit my hand at him, annoyed. “Fine, whatever, Dexter. We had one flirty conversation and an incredible kiss, but I already told you I can’t date you. Now is really not a good time for me. And even if it was, you’re still a professor and I’m still a student.”
“Incredible, eh?” Thank the good Lord this man has a beard. I don’t know if he has dimples, but if he did my panties would melt right off me with that ridiculously sexy smirk.
I look to the ceiling and exhale. “Is that seriously all you took from what I just said?” This conversation has to end. We’re going off the rails.
“I heard everything, but you said our kiss was incredible. I’m inclined to agree. Je veux encore t'embrasser.” His eyes are twinkling. TWINKLING, dammit!
I rub my forehead, trying to smooth out the stress wrinkles embedding themselves into my skin. “I have to go.”
I stand and am about to turn when he stops me. “Alis, wait, please. I won’t apologize because I do want to kiss you again, but if you don’t want this, I will let it be.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not budging on the weekly meetings, but those meetings will be strictly professor/grader. Thirty minutes, tops. I won’t pursue you romantically unless you ask me to.”
Do I believe him? I don’t know. I’d like to think he’ll respect my boundaries, but his flirtatious demeanor during this meeting suggests otherwise.
“I think I can work that into my schedule. I’ll talk with your secretary and find a good day and time each week.”
He nods. “Sounds perfect. I’ll email you the syllabi and some notes about each class. May I walk you out?”
“Thanks, but I can find my way back to Dr. Matthews. I’ll keep an eye out for your email.”
I walk to his office door and he follows, but he stops at the threshold. One point to Dexter for respecting boundaries.
I stop at his secretary’s desk to grab her card and let her know I’ll be emailing her to set up weekly meetings with Dr. Belanger. She smiles and bids me farewell.
I don’t look back at Dexter. Looking back will only make him think I’m lying about the boundaries I’ve set.
He can’t think that I want him. Forget thinking I want him — I straight up CANNOT want him. A professor/student romantic relationship is a line I won’t cross, even if he doesn’t see the problem. I know what happens when people blur the lines, and it’s not worth the fallout.
Once I’ve retrieved my items from Dr. Matthews and bid her farewell, I head back to my car and sit in the parking lot. My thoughts are spinning, taking me back to the darkest time of my life, and I can’t dig my way out of this mental sinkhole.
The drama surrounding my snap decision to drop out of grad school still haunts me to this day. I don’t dwell on what happened, but those wounds are deep and I still feel the scars of betrayal and loss. You’d think after nine years I’d be over it.
I didn’t expect the memories to resurface so forcefully with this fresh start, but life has a way of dishing out a gut punch when everything seems fine and dandy. Why can’t anything be simple? All I want is to finish my degree, maybe continue on with my PhD, and teach. Is that too much to ask?
After what happened with Dr. Ryan I wasn’t on campus to fight my way through the gossip, but social media painted a pretty clear picture of my tarnished reputation among the student body. The messages I received are still burned into my memory.
“Oh my gosh you whore how could you sleep with a married man?!”
“OMG OMG OMG you and Dr. Ryan?! You lucky bitch!”
“So you won’t give me a second date but you’ll suck off a professor? That’s fucking sick.”
“Please tell me you have dick pics.”
“Where the hell are you? You get caught fucking a prof and then you disappear? Coward.”
“Now we know how you landed the TA spot. You must deepthroat like a porn star to beat out students who actually deserved the job.”
God bless the creator of social media. Who knew the Internet would give people the courage to say what they really feel? Never mind that their words destroy others.
Part of me wishes I had been on campus to defend myself and my character, but everything in my life fell apart in a matter of days and I didn’t have the energy to fight off an insecure woman, a spineless man, and a student body full of idiots who believe everything they hear, no matter how absurd.
Regardless of how hard I worked and how quickly it was destroyed, none of it mattered after that day.
For all I know I became a legend at Grant University.
Dr. Ryan is charismatic and inspires devotion from his students.
I have no idea what the man looks like now — please, please be balding — but a decade ago in his early forties he oozed geek chic.
Who knew anyone could consider argyle attractive?
I think the coeds were more attracted to his charisma than his looks — not that he was ugly or anything, but he wasn’t Adonis by a long shot.
“Dr. Ryan — more like Dr. Ride Him!” I wish I was joking.
No creativity points awarded to the sorority bimbos.
This one girl, Michelle, used to stare at his butt and make comments under her breath about biting it.
I don’t think she realized I could hear her talking to herself about seducing our professor, and I never let on that her “secret” crush was actually public knowledge.
Skye always got a kick out of my weekly Michelle reports. “What part of Dr. Ryan did Michelle have for lunch today?” she’d ask. Now that I think about it, Michelle must have had one hell of an oral fixation. She always fantasized about biting, licking, sucking, nibbling — Gross.
Did I think Dr. Ryan was attractive? Sure. However, I was not a twenty-one-year-old girl with daddy issues, nor did I have an older man fetish. I was so consumed with my studies and goals that I didn’t have time to date, much less lust after my faculty supervisor.
I tried dating in undergrad, but most of the guys I knew didn’t hold my interest. Skye introduced me to my first — and only — long-term boyfriend, Ben, our junior year. We dated for ten months and then he dumped me because I didn’t give him enough attention (see studies and goals above).
Annabelle Windsor surely gave him enough attention, though.
Right after we broke up, I found out he’d been hooking up the girl for the last month or so of our relationship.
I knew he definitely was not “the one” when I found myself less upset about the emotional betrayal than I was about his double dipping.
Thinking about it still gives me the heeby jeebies.
We always used condoms, but I still got tested after learning of his wandering dick.
Side note: Why don’t we refer to cheating as wanderlust? That seems more accurate, and makes a hell of a lot more sense than an overwhelming desire to travel.
Ben was the beginning and the end of my boyfriend roster.
I went on random dates over the next few years, but only because Skye couldn’t help but try and set me up with whatever guys she met in class.
None of them ever got a second date. The only reason any of them got a first date was to keep Skye off my back about my lack of romantic life.
If I “gave him a chance” and went to dinner then I could go back to my books for a few months until Skye decided it was time for her to once again intervene. Wannabe cupid, that one.
After Hurricane Margaret (as I’ve dubbed the Dr. Ryan debacle) I wanted nothing to do with dating, relationships, romance — none of it.
Add in my sudden and terrifying new role as guardian to a nine-month-old baby girl, mourning the loss of my sister and brother-in-law, and grieving my demolished life plan, and I was one hell of a depressing cocktail.
Not even tequila could numb the pain that was my life back then.
I’ll never knowingly set myself up for that level of betrayal and pain again — which is exactly what will happen if I don’t douse all lustful thoughts of Dexter Belanger.