25. Sex on Fire
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
sex on fire
IMOGEN
ROMAN: Don’t wear panties to my class.
I flip my phone over. Do you know how hard it is to focus on a discussion when all a man is doing is texting you pure filth?
The worst part is that I can’t even sneak into his office for a quickie. Frankie wants to see me after class to talk about my work, work that I care enough about to put my life on hold for. Academia isn’t so much a job as it is a vocation, so I knew I was giving up a lot going into the PhD program. Everything else comes second.
I should be excited to sit down and talk about the academic aspects of kink and subcultures, all with a man whose work I deeply admire, but the closer the meeting gets the more anxiety I feel. Have I done enough? Am I ready for this? It’s hard to say after spending all my time thinking about Roman.
I curse under my breath as one of my classmates brings up a point about Bourdieu that I realize never made its way into my paper. I try to follow along and make notes, but the urge to text him back is overwhelming.
IMOGEN: You’re a fucking menace.
ROMAN: You started it, my dear.
IMOGEN: It seems to me, Dr. Burke, that you might not know who you’re messing with.
“Imogen?” Abi asks. “Thoughts?”
Shit.
What was the last thing someone said that I can use as a talking point?
“Sorry, I got distracted,” I laugh, feeling myself turning slightly red as I set my phone down.
“Bourdieu presents the idea that our freedoms lie in multiple places: between social and class constraints that determine our personal tastes, our style of dress, or even the jokes that we laugh at, providing the space for us to have choice or preference. Do you have any thoughts on that?”
Jesus, do I have thoughts on that?
Okay, I just have to focus, I did this reading after all. To be fair, I did some of it at a house party where I was smoking a joint, but I’d hoped that I retained… something .
“Well, I think there are lots of rules that tend to guide us. Everything from high-stakes stuff like following the law to low-stakes, like what kind of music we listen to. And even when it comes to school or jobs, we have class restrictions, geographic restrictions, and financial restrictions that shape our decision making.”
Abi looks… disappointed.
“So the takeaway is we’re not really free.”
“I… don’t think we are. Maybe?”
I’m sure it’s a rudimentary understanding of the reading, and I feel like an idiot for not saying something profound or interesting. My mind has a tendency to wander, to find something more exciting than sitting around talking about theory… even if I like theory, and as much as I want to show that I’m capable of analyzing this material, I still feel like I’m miles behind my cohort.
This whole secret friends with benefits thing I’ve got going on with Roman isn’t helping the situation. I’m finishing my assignments, I’m doing the readings, but the problem is that I don’t know if I’m actually retaining anything with something so weighty looming over me.
“Okay,” Abi says with a soft sigh. “We’re out of time. I’ll get your papers back to you next week and you can start to piece together your final assignment on a theory of your choosing.”
Everyone starts to pack up as Abi shoots me a smile from the front of the room. Shame stings the back of my throat and I flip my phone over on the desk; I should have turned the damn thing off and paid attention.
“Good work today. I’m looking forward to your paper.”
My heart skips a beat and I can’t help but perk up at the compliment. I try not to rely on academic approval, but when you come from a family of professors it’s like fuel.
“Yeah? I felt a little shaky at certain points. The material’s just so dense. I hope I didn’t sound… like I was just repeating the readings.”
I scoop up my things and follow her out of the classroom.
There’s something about Abi that always puts me at ease. I’ve only really known her in this capacity for a few weeks, and already she’s the coolest professor I’ve ever had.
“That’s the point of these discussions, and it’s how we get the readings into our head. The most I ask is that you guys do your best to think through the questions that are being posed in the material. We’re not here to get it all right, we’re here to build an understanding of these frameworks so that you can use them as jumping-off points for your dissertations.”
I’m not here to get it all right, but I want to. I know theory is a grind— hell, I know this whole thing is a grind, but sometimes, when I’m not immediately good at something, it starts to eat away at me.
“Thanks Dr. King, I appreciate it.”
Luckily, or maybe unluckily, I have something to take my mind off of it.
Abi waves at me and heads for the elevator as I turn toward Frankie’s office. It’s just a few feet from Roman’s, whose door, I can’t help but notice, is open. I dip into the bathroom, quickly blocking the stall door with my body while I slide my panties off and tuck them into my jacket pocket.
The plan is to drop these onto his desk and watch him freak out while I slink off to meet with Frankie. I’m grinning like an idiot as I march toward his office, but when I get there, it’s empty. His laptop is closed, but there’s an open book and a steaming cup of coffee on his desk. Must have just missed him.
“Damn.”
I really wanted to see his face, but this will have to do.
I slip over to his desk and try one of the drawers. The top one is locked, but another opens with ease. I quickly drop the panties in and slide it shut, the book on his desk catching my eye before I think to peel away.
I recognize the cover immediately, it’s Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman. I read him obsessively during my master’s degree. The pages are fully annotated in what I’m sure is Roman’s sprawling cursive. I can barely read it, but it looks way more elegant than my own chicken scratch. I lean down, trying to see if he’s written anything illuminating in the margins. I’m excited to see his interpretation of my favorite sociologist. If they’d let me read nothing but Goffman, grad school would be a breeze.
Mid-way through a sentence I hear footsteps, rushing for the door as my heart pounds in my chest. Before I can quite make it, I slam right into his rock solid body. Roman’s hair’s a little messier, like he’s been absentmindedly running his fingers through it; the smell of his cologne and the intensity of his gaze as he looks down at me makes me giddy.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I, uh— I…” Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone walking past and clear my throat. “I have those papers graded. Put ‘em on your desk.”
Roman’s lips curl into a devilish grin.
“Anything else?”
I slip past him as quickly as I can, dodging into the hallway.
“Nope! I’ll see you in a bit!”
“Remember to stick around after class today,” he says, lazily glancing over his shoulder just far enough to show off that damn smile.
I scurry down the hall before my fantasies of him bending me over his desk can take root in my mind, shaking them off as I approach Frankie’s office. As the head of the department, and the person in charge of my future, I need to have a good relationship with him, but it helps that he also just seems like a good guy.
Hiding all of this from him has kind of started to make me feel sick.
“Dr. Hughes?” I knock on the door. “You wanted to see me?”
He looks up, a golden curl falling across his face as he greets me.
“Come on in— and I thought I told you to call me Frankie,” he laughs. “The Doctor thing is too professional.”
His office has a huge window with a bookshelf next to it that looks like it’s about to burst. Some potted plants line another shelf just above his desk, along with sports memorabilia, some framed journal articles, and photographs. I shut the door and sit down as Frankie closes his laptop, turning his chair to face me.
“So? How’s it been? I know this is our first official meeting, but I figured I’d let you get settled in before we really got to talking about your project.”
“It’s been good,” I reply, keeping my hands clasped in my lap. “Great, actually. It’s an adjustment from NYU, but it’s been a nice change of pace.”
Frankie isn’t intimidating, but I respect him and his work. I’ve been reading his stuff since my master’s degree, and his writing takes up at least a third of my bibliography. He approaches kink with empathy and understanding rather than viewing it as something deviant.
“Glad to hear you’re adjusting.” Frankie wheels his chair a little closer to me. “Listen, there’s a big conference coming up in Aspen. And I mean big . There’s going to be publishers there, huge names in academia, and so it’s a great chance to network. I was wondering if you’d want to submit your dissertation idea as a paper. You could present it, and?—”
“Yes!” I’m already on my feet, my hands balled into fists while I’m shaking with excitement. “Fuck yes! I’m so in! I mean– Sorry, that was unprofessional.”
This is the shit I’ve been dreaming about since I started grad school. I’ve watched from the sidelines as my dad and my brother presented at academic conferences, and now I get the chance to do it myself?
There’s no way I could say no.
This is my chance to really prove to myself that I can do this.
But then panic starts to set in.
I pitched something extremely vague for my dissertation topic: Stigma in Kink Spaces Among Working Professionals. It’s something I became interested in solely based on one hookup. I dommed for a banking executive. A real button-up guy in his day to day life, but behind closed doors? He fully submitted to me. Afterward, we spent a long time talking over drinks and I got the sense that he’d compartmentalized the person he was in the club and the person he was at work.
“You okay?” Frankie asks, showing off his kind smile.
“Yeah, uh… you know, the thing I pitched it was… vague. It was mostly to get me in here, it doesn’t have a lot of, I don’t know…”
A pitch is easy, but a presentation? That requires a theoretical framework, methodology, ethics, sample size… and since we were only allocated two pages for our application, I spent a lot of time on my research question and literature review and not all that other important stuff.
“That’s fine,” he assures me, raising his hand. “Your topic is stigma and kink, right?”
I nod.
He slaps a notebook down on his desk, grabbing his pen and twirling it between his fingers at an impressive speed. It makes me wonder if he used to be a drummer or something.
“All we have to do is narrow it down then. Any ideas?”
I’m great under pressure, and I can be quick on my feet, but right now, it’s hard to think clearly. I have to push through the brain fog from class, and doubly Roman’s distractions. Then again, isn’t my relationship with Roman exactly what I’ve been writing about? The way we met on the app, the pseudonyms, the filtered pictures, fake names only…
Before I can stop myself, the words are pouring out of my mouth.
“What about kink as a highly stigmatized part of identity, all through the lens of social media and Goffman’s work on identity management?”
Thank you, Roman Burke, for coming through at the eleventh hour. As usual.
Frankie nods, scribbling something down as my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket. I pull it out to see a text from Roman. It’s a picture of my panties between his teeth.
ROMAN: I’m looking for my present. Am I hot or cold?
“Imogen? Did you hear me?” Frankie asks.
“What? Sorry.” My cheeks burn as I quickly put my phone away. “I’m all ears.”
“Methodology. Data collection. Ethics— that’s going to be a big one. I need all of these fleshed out really well for the pitch, okay? You have a three page limit, not including a bibliography.” I pull out my notebook and start jotting things down as he goes. “Proposals are due next week. Can you get one to me in the next couple of days so I can look it over and give feedback?”
Sure, let’s throw this on top of keeping a secret fuck buddy and all the other shit I have to do. If I’m lucky enough to make it through my PhD, this is going to be the rest of my life.
“No problem!”
“Great! Just remember that I’ve got your back on this.”
I get to my feet and shake his hand. Despite the complete emotional overload that’s right around the corner, I know I can do it. All I have to do is knock this thing out of the park.
“Thanks, Frankie.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket again as I walk out the door. Roman’s been bratty and distracting today, which means he’s winning.
We can’t have that.