Charlotte Stein - The Professor

Because I don’t care.

I only care about the work.

‘So I looked at Chatterley and have to say – I think it’s better than you give it credit for. Here look, this line: “He hated mouth kisses.” It might not explicitly state that he did it between her legs but what else could he possibly mean?’ I tell him, just as bright and breezy as can be. I even manage a little shrug of my shoulders and a finger-point at the passage.

Only to be dragged back to hell by the deep, dark rasp of his voice.

‘Did what between her legs?’

I look at him then, though I know it will be a mistake. And it is: his gaze is as challenging as his words are, nearly flat but with just the finest hint of something else. Amusement, my mind whispers – though I try to shake it off. I answer him with the words ‘kissed her’, in a calm and even tone.

But he just pushes harder.

As though he knows that I’m close to breaking.

‘Kissed her how? Kissed her where?’

‘Kissed her…kissed her clit.’

The word sizzles through me as hotly as it did when he said it.

Hotter, because for one moment I see a flash of something in his eyes. A brightness that dies as soon as it appears. Or at least I think so – he turns away before I can tell for sure.

‘I see. And you are prevented, as he might have been, from saying this?’

‘I just said it to you now!’

‘But not in your writing.’

‘All right, yes, that much is true.’

‘You have every opportunity open to you to say what Lawrence was either too ignorant or prohibited from actually saying. You can give perspective that many cannot, that indeed many would kill for.’

‘Would you kill for it, Professor?’

‘In what way exactly? What do you mean?’

His tone is so sharp suddenly that I look up from the spot I chose to focus on – a postcard pinned to the wall of a woman with hair as black and shaggy and thick as my own. And I’m glad I do, too. I get to see his eyes narrow, as though I made an accusation of some sort. I made him feel guilty, despite never intending to do anything of the kind. I didn’t even think about what the question might mean.

Until he reacts like this to it.

Like I said would you kill to know my thoughts , instead of anything more innocent.

‘I mean, would you like to be able to perfectly describe what women desire?’

‘I have no desire to ever write anything at all.’

‘No, not in terms of writing. Just in terms of how you feel.’

‘You honestly believe I have any kind of feeling about anything.’

‘A week ago I would have probably said you were made of granite.’

‘A week ago you were obviously far wiser than you seem to be now.’

‘Because I believe you might be made of flesh and bone?’

‘The granite guess was a great deal closer.’

‘You say that, but you have just spent hours and hours of your time trying to convince me that I should let imaginary women experience pleasurable sex.’

His eyes spark again – more obviously now.

So obviously it makes me shiver.

‘That hardly says anything about my emotional state.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I rather find it my civic duty.’

‘I see. In what way?’

‘I find it of vital importance that men are not permitted to go away believing a woman can orgasm from the most basic of attentions. Or worse: that it doesn’t matter if she orgasms at all.’

‘That almost sounds like passion. Not really a civic duty.’

‘Not at all. Not in the least.’

‘Are you quite sure, Professor?’

He pauses before answering – though I’m glad he does. My heart is hammering too hard for me to carry on doing this for much longer. I feel as though it might be showing – that it might be juddering visibly through me. In fact, it seems to be going harder than when he spoke to me about sexy things.

Or so I think, until he says the sexy things again.

Quite abruptly, as if he understands what will happen when he does: I will lose focus. I will stop asking him questions he maybe doesn’t want to answer.

And he’s right.

‘On page fourteen you write about him coming in her mouth,’ he says.

Then I forget every single thing we were speaking of before. I forget the delicious idea that he might feel, beneath his cold, calm exterior. I forget how tense he suddenly looks, how bright his eyes suddenly are, how his hand goes to his tie as though checking it’s still there. The only thing I know is that he just said ‘coming’.

And is about to say more.

‘I think it’s lacking. It seems to me that you shy away from the idea at the last moment – as though you cannot quite bear to include such a crude thing in your story. In fact, several times I had that impression. That you wrote, “I taste him on my tongue” when what you really wanted to say was something far more visceral, and explicit.’

‘No, honestly, I –’

‘Something like: “He floods my mouth.”’

‘That…OK, that…seems like…’

‘Or perhaps: “He glosses my lips with his come.”’

‘I suppose I…I mean –’

‘Or what about: “His cock swells, thick ribbons surging from the tip to stripe my face and my throat, each one hot enough to sear and so slick it sets my senses on fire. Everywhere it touches seems suddenly more sensitive, more alive, and especially when it gets to the tip of my tongue. The taste of him is bitter and sweet at the same time; the idea of him filling my mouth enough to set my own sex on edge . ” Though of course I would defer to you on how it feels to have a man come all over your face and tongue. What do you think, Miss Hayridge?’

I think I need to escape, now. Before he goes any further. Before I go any further, because oh, I so desperately want to. There are words on the tip of my tongue, filthy, impossible words, just reams and reams of unadulterated smut that I never fully dared express before. Not even to myself, while alone, with no one else around to ever see it. As though to even think it is a source of shame – so God knows what it would be if I expressed it out loud here and now. If I said to Professor Halstrom, of all people, that what I really want to say is:

I want you to do it.

I want you to come all over my face.

I want you to make a mess of me, to ruin me, to fill my mouth with fat, fierce ribbons of jism. I want to use the word ‘jism’ and see your face change, the way mine undoubtedly did when you said ‘quim’. And I want to do it all here, now, in this book-filled room with a door that barely closes, so that when you push me down to my knees and fuck into my mouth with your heavy cock I can thrill at the thought of anyone walking in at any moment. I can imagine us being caught doing the most illicit thing you can possibly dream up, and have you finish in my mouth all the same.

‘Miss Hayridge?’

I stand up too fast. So fast in fact that I knock over a stack of books to my right – though I don’t stoop to set them right. I don’t even gather up the pens that spill from my bag when I launch it on to my shoulder, or make calm and deliberate apologies of the sort I know he expects. Instead I simply blurt out that I need the bathroom, like a total fool, and head for the door before he can protest.

By the time he speaks again I’m out in the hall, breathing air that somehow seems eight hundred times fresher and cooler. It shouldn’t be – the ancient radiator on the wall is kicking out heat high enough to singe hair and the space is even smaller than I remember. But it remains the case, all the same.

Until I hear him.

‘Miss Hayridge, are you quite all right?’