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by Elizabeth
Bennett
CHAPTER
1
Malcolm
Weatherby Covington, possessed of considerable talent, refinement and pride,
was a tenured professor of English at Columbia University in New York and a
Renaissance Man withal. An autodidact, he spoke seven languages fluently (two
of them dead ones), dabbled in Flemish perspectival painting, played the viola
and had composed a number of string quartets in the baroque style, several of
them having been performed in public to warm, if not enthusiastic, acclaim.
At
fifty-five, he was barely beginning to gray at the temples and was still
elegantly, almost imperially slim. A paragon of sartorial impeccability, he had
all his clothes tailored in London - suits in Saville Row, shirts and ties (he
had a predilection for floppy velvet bows) in Jermyn Street and he purchased
Swiss shoes in the Burlington Arcade. His socks and underlinen (as he preferred
to call it), though not bespoke, were always of silk. He would not be caught
dead buying so much as a handkerchief at Brooks Brothers in Manhattan.
He
was, it almost goes without saying, an accomplished oenophile, knowing all
there was to know about French wines: give Professor Covington a glass of
Burgundy and he could name not merely the year of its vintage, but the village
and even the vineyard of its provenance. He could say as well whether the
grapes had come from the north- or south-facing slope of the vineyard.
No
living person knew more than he about 18th century English literary arcana - he
knew the century's minor poets and its most obscure pamphleteers. He could
recite from memory the contents of the Earl of Rochester's weekly laundry list
for the entire year 1712. Professor Covington was a Force to Be Reckoned With
at meetings of the Modern Language Association, whose presidency he had held -
twice - while still only in his '30's.
The
professor was a singularly successful procurer of grants, making him the
principal breadwinner for his department. He was on a first name basis with the
senior staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities and had sat on its
board. For more than twenty years Professor Covington always managed to receive
a lavish grant of his own to spend summers in London, where he had his personal
carrel in the library stacks of the British Museum (with his name inscribed on
a small brass plaque). Though American-born (in Manhattan, no less), he
concealed his New York origins with a respectable patina of an English accent.
He said 'shed-yule' instead of 'schedule' and referred to the final letter of
the alphabet as 'zed.'
He
was an authentic polymath with an international reputation, or at least one in
the English-speaking world sufficient to earn him more invitations to lecture
in Edinburgh, Capetown, Toronto, New Delhi, Auckland, Brisbane or Dublin than
he had time or inclination to accept, so he accepted on the basis of the
season, travelling to the southern hemisphere, say, during New York's winter
and generally avoiding equatorial regions (except, of course, if the honorarium
ran into the high four figures). He always traveled first class and stayed in
the best suites in the best hotels. Though he was an academic, he managed to
live like a prince.
Having
never married, and always in receipt of royalties from numerous textbooks he
had written or edited and from articles he had authored for encyclopedias and magazines,
Professor Covington had earned considerable disposable income over the years
and had invested it wisely - speculating in precious metals was another of his
manifold talents - so wisely that he was, unlike many of his fellow academics,
exceedingly well-off, having regularly withdrawn his speculative profits to
place them in triple-tax-free municipal bonds. Consequently, he lived in a
spacious apartment on Riverside Drive (furnished in Chippendale and hung with
minor Gainsboroughs from Sotheby's), overlooking the Hudson and the Palisades,
not far from the campus on Morningside Heights and so only a short stroll away.
He
did not own a car, preferring a limousine service or a taxi when shopping,
running errands or going out for the evening. He was a lifetime member of the
Harvard Club (he had earned his doctorate at Harvard) and played squash there
twice a week. He was also, as one might expect, a devotee of grand opera and
held an annual subscription to a box at the Met. A gourmand as well, he had a favorite
table at Lutèce, its availability secured in perpetuity by a handsome emolument
provided to the maitre d'hotel
each Christmastime.
If
Professor Covington had a serious weakness, it was for young women, whose
intimate company he sought as often as he could arrange it, which was, in fact,
two or three times a week and sometimes more often. The Department of English
had, for more than two decades, rendered up to him a ready supply of suitable
female English majors and graduate students who were eager to exploit this
particular weakness of his.
The
professor, you see, happened to be, shall we say, rather well-endowed not only
in matters pertaining to the English department, but in other matters as well -
matters of keen interest to certain young co-eds who coveted top grades and top
recommendations to graduate school, but who lacked the necessary intellectual
wherewithal to attain them. Invariably such co-eds were reciprocally
well-endowed, that is to say, they were particularly attractive young women not
above earning a better grade on their backs than they could ever hope to earn
in a classroom.
Professor
Covington was no less than a highly educated, brilliant and articulate ...
satyr.
But
Professor Covington always delivered, both in promised grades or
recommendations as well as in the performance of his extracurricular duties,
which, because of his vaunted physical endowments, made him a sought-after
commodity even beyond the confines of the English department. Although he did
not like to admit it, he stooped to the occasional one-night fling with, say, a
pretty history major who happened to be taking one of his courses. But, as a
rule, he generally stuck with the English majors, finding them to have more,
shall we say, depth, not that he talked
with any of them more than was minimally necessary to charm them into bed.
A
chance pregnancy was, of course, always a danger, but the professor had solid
connections at Presbyterian Hospital and always anonymously paid every cent of
the bill (putting a thousand or two each year into the hospital endowment fund
as well), with two weeks on St. Croix and forgiveness of missed exams thrown in
as a bonus. So on the half dozen-odd occasions that a co-ed was found to be
with the professor's child (he was never sure of the exact number, having a
quirky memory when it came to such irrelevant statistics), nothing - literally
nothing - ever came of it. One girl, it is true, had committed suicide after
her abortion, but she was considerate enough to have left no note and so the
matter went nowhere.
And
that was really the most remarkable thing about the professor: how skillfully
he navigated the turbulent and perilous waters of political correctness which
had inundated American campuses starting in the early 1980's and had reached
such a flood tide by the late 1990's that any male professor even suspected of
old-fashioned male chauvinism (regardless of tenure or fame) was subject to
censure if not outright termination. Take Back the Night rallies in
condemnation of date rape had become commonplace. And these were to protest
date rape by students.
For a male faculty member
even to think
about a sexual liaison with a female student was like playing with
nitroglycerine. Like Stalin's Reign of Terror, when people could be imprisoned
(or shot) for having anti-Soviet dreams, the Commissars of Political
Correctness (the new Thought Police of the Western world), would pass sentence
on the basis of ideas alone, ideas which had never even seen the light of
action.
As
we said, the professor was as adept in his navigation of these dangerous waters
as he was in the exercise of his myriad other talents. In fact, he wrote
frequent letters to the New
York Times excoriating even the vaguest whiff of sexual inequality:
one such letter proposed the official enshrinement into Standard American
English of the androgynous pseudopronouns 'he/she' and 'his/her'. These letters
were often published and were then cut out and posted on campus bulletin
boards. Girls who had slept with the professor had to laugh whenever they read one,
but he had been so good to them (in bed as well as in the matter of getting
them into their preferred graduate school or job of choice), that it was not
really in their interest to blow the whistle, so none of them did.
"Covington's
girls" were scattered throughout the English departments of most of the
country's leading universities and in the editorial offices of some of
America's largest publishing houses: a recommendation from Malcolm Covington
carried great weight with certain of his male counterparts, who knew precisely
what they were getting and were willing to overlook an occasional syntactical
gaffe in exchange for what these young women really excelled at.
But
word inevitably leaked out beyond the tight circle of women who had enjoyed the
professor's favors (and beyond the even tighter circle of academic men who
subsequently enjoyed these very same women that Professor Covington had so
thoughtfully procured for them by means of his coveted references). Yes, word
inevitably leaked out into the hostile, politically correct world of the
Academic Arch-Feminists, eventually reaching the upper echelons of The Movement
where actual War Plans for annihilation of the Male Establishment were hatched
and set into motion. A dossier on the professor was opened, agents and
informers recruited (and paid), and pretty soon Professor Covington had a
rather thick file.
So
the professor had been found out at last and his halcyon days were numbered,
but he, of course, had not yet the slightest suspicion, for the operatives in
the exalted upper ranks of The Movement knew how to be patient and to plan.
Professor Covington was far too valuable a plum to waste with mere censure or
even a publicized firing. No, The Movement had greater designs for him. It wanted an elegant
and fitting revenge.
Thus
was Operation Bow Tie conceived and born. After holding dozens of interviews,
the feminist High Command recruited the finest Certified Witch it could find,
gave her the professor's dossier and authorized her to use any and all of her
powers to bring the professor to heel. The Command sketched a general strategic
outline of what it wanted accomplished but left tactical details to the witch.
It also deposited $225,000 in a New York bank to the witch's account under the
name of Deborah van Arsdale.
Deborah
van Arsdale applied to and was accepted at Columbia College, where she
matriculated as a freshman in the fall of 1996. In September, 1998 Miss van
Arsdale, nominally aged twenty years (but actually a hundred times older than
that), commenced her junior year and registered for Professor Covington's
famous course on Samuel Johnson's London. There were two hundred and
twenty-three students in the class, the majority of them women.
The
trap was now baited and waited only to be sprung.
CHAPTER 2
"Professor,
I think you'd better have a look at this," said Michael Butler, one of
Professor Covington's teaching assistants, on a brisk Thursday morning in
January, as he scaled a student paper over onto the professor's desk. The
paper, a thin one, was entitled "Johnsons Pragmatec Philosophy of
Politics," and bore the name Deborah van Arsdale at the bottom of the
title page.
"Pray
give me a single cogent reason, Michael, why I should sully my fingers reading
an undergraduate paper. I haven't looked at one of those in decades. That's what T. A.'s are
for," Professor Covington drawled, aspirating his 'r's and not looking up,
while he critically examined the less-than-perfect buff on his nails and
reflected it was about time to change manicurists again.
"Well,"
Michael responded, "this one's a bit different. It's word for word lifted
from your Samuel Johnson entry in last year's Brittanica. Here, have a look. I brought you
Volume Ten," and he slid the heavy, black leather-covered tome across the
desk towards the professor.
Professor
Covington didn't need the Brittanica:
he had a near-photographic memory for the written word, particularly his own.
He recognized the writing as his the instant he opened van Arsdale's paper at
random and read:
"For
Dr Johnsen these tracts were an oportunity to expound his esentialy pragmatec
philosophy of politics he ascribed devine rite niether to kings or to people
talk about liberty in the abstract or about 'naturel' rights he dismised as
can't what was esential for a civillized comunity was a stable goverment and
respect for it's laws..."
He
wanted to read further (always soothed by the sound of his own voice on paper),
but he winced at the egregious misspellings and grammatical errors. The girl
was a rank plagiarist, yet she could not even copy correctly! He felt his blood
begin to boil with the indignation only a tenured Professor of English can feel
whenever the Mother Tongue is assaulted.
At
that moment, Phoebe Phipps, the lissome and doe-eyed graduate student whose
brains the professor had been screwing out every Thursday lunchtime for the
semester, knocked perfunctorily on the door and entered, bearing a note.
Miss
Phipps was clearly disappointed to see Michael Butler already in the office,
and the special meaningful smile she had just, in front of the ladies' room
mirror, so carefully prepared for the professor, quickly faded from her haughty
and intelligent face. She passed Professor Covington the note, sniffed once or
twice as she lifted her nose slightly into the air, and, barely able to conceal
her petulant irritation at Butler's presence, began to whine in an Up-Eastern
drawl:
"There
was a Miss ... a Miss van Ahsdale to see you, pwofessah. She seemed wahthah
anxious, and ahsked me to give you this note. She left but said she'd wetu'n in
ten minutes."
"Thanks,
Miss Phipps, that'll be all," he replied, unable to address her as Phoebe
in front of the T. A. and languidly taking the note between his two fingers, as
one holds a cigarette. "Oh, Miss Phipps, by the way, here's the new
reading list. Burn a couple of hundred copies and have it ready for tomorrow's
lecture, won't you? Thanks ever so much," he added, as he handed her the
list with a clearly dismissive motion of his free hand. Miss Phipps,
crestfallen, looked as if she were about to cry, and for a few moments stood
motionless with a hurt expression on her patrician features, undecided whether
to speak up or leave.
"And
Michael," the professor crooned, "thanks for bringing this other
little, ah, matter to my attention. I'll deal with this Miss van Arsdale when
she returns - if she does," and he made a small sweeping gesture with two
of his fingers, indicating Butler was also to withdraw. Butler retrieved Volume
Ten from the desk, then he and Miss Phipps collided with one another in the
doorway, mutually glared, begged each other's pardon (for Professor Covington's
benefit) and left.
Alone
now, Professor Covington glanced at the folded note, inscribed on the outside,
"to proffesor covington." A little circle with a smiley face
surmounted the 'i' of his name. He instinctively sensed an opportunity here,
while subconsciously he whiffed danger but paid it no mind at the moment. He
unfolded the note and read:
"dear
proffesor covington I am afraid I did something real bad and its been bothering
me quite a lot if you can spare a couple minits of you'r time Id like to
explain it Debbi van Arsdale"
Again,
the little circle with the smiley face over the 'i' in the name and no
punctuation whatever besides the superfluous apostrophe.
Professor
Covington opened his desk drawer and withdrew the current college student
directory. Fanning through it to the 'V's,' he located Deborah van Arsdale and
examined her small color photograph. Pretty enough face - fine features, blue
eyes, rather too full a mouth for his tastes (her preferred thin-lipped Yankee
girls of solid Puritan lineage) - with shoulder length, slightly waved honey blonde
hair. She was wearing a soft-looking pastel blue sweater, and from the fall of
it (even though the picture was cropped rather high on the chest), he sensed
she was, well, to use a vulgar but evocative expression... stacked. He returned
the directory to its place and slid the drawer shut.
Next
he logged on to his terminal and punched up the roster for his course on Samuel
Johnson's London. It was updated through yesterday, January 13th. He scrolled
down the listing of names and found 'van Arsdale Deborah.' Van Arsdale Deborah
had failed to turn in her first paper and on her subsequent four papers had
received two D's, an F and a C-minus. Her midterm exam grade was an F; in the
'comments' field he read that she had left 75 per cent of the questions unanswered.
Now,
Professor Covington was a realist and knew very well the depths to which
American university admission standards had plunged by the end of the 20th
century, but this seemed a bit
much: fourth-grade elementary school writing was better. And consider the
girl's brazen plagiarism, without even the clumsiest attempt to make the least
alteration! Plagiarism was a hanging offence, so to speak, at any university,
and the girl must surely have known it. And how on earth could she have gotten
admitted to Columbia College, much less to his junior-level course?
He
would have to have words with Arbuckle, the Dean of Admissions. And with
Samuels, too, his senior T. A., who supposedly vetted every student's
performance and grades before admitting any of them to an elite course like
Samuel Johnson's London! A ringing letter to the Times about the shameful erosion of academic
standards began composing itself in his head when he heard a light tap at his
door, which was ajar, and he saw the face from the picture in the student
directory peek into the room.
The
photo hadn't done the living girl even the least bit of justice: van Arsdale
Deborah was ravishingly beautiful and batted her large blue eyes at him through
the half-open door. He automatically rose from his chair and invited her to
enter, which she did, quietly closing the door behind her, and continued to
blink at him like a frightened rabbit.
Miss
van Arsdale resembled a classic 1940's Coca-Cola poster girl: her clean good
looks and fresh face, with its pert, slightly turned-up nose, made Covington
agree that little circles over her 'i's suited her to a 't,' and he chuckled
inwardly at his mental pun. She wore nylons and heels, something he had not
seen on a co-ed for years: nowadays, college women favored Desert Storm
fatigues and bright blue Doc Marten's combat boots.
The
hint the school directory picture had given of a prominent décolletage was more than
amply confirmed in the flesh: Miss van Arsdale was, indeed, stacked. Professor
Covington could barely wrench his eyes from her bosom, and, when he did, they
involuntarily swept downwards to take in her perfect figure, which she took no
pains to conceal, as her rather short beige knit dress was certainly not overly
loose. Her long, nylon-encased legs glistened as she entered the office, which
she instantly filled with a pure and overwhelming feminine essence radiating
from her like the blast from a Bessemer converter.
There
was nothing subtle about the girl, but she carried it off with such open-faced
innocence that it was not at all a black mark against her in the professor's
book. For the professor preferred willowy aesthetes, ones whose cerebral
pretensions flew out the window almost the moment he got a hand on their legs
anywhere above the knee and who then couldn't wait to slide off their panties
and display their treasures for the Great Professor to ravish, and whose mouths
he more often than not had to cover with his hand at the moment of their
release to stifle their most un-intellectual screams... Though he preferred
such girls precisely because he loved to strip them of their intellectual
pretensions almost as much as he loved to strip them of their clothing, he
instantly forgot them, forgot that it was almost lunchtime on a Thursday and
that the somewhat angular Miss Phipps, aesthete extraordinaire (and a screamer of the first
order), shortly would be expecting him to summon her in with the day's grades,
followed by a quick and thorough reaming...
Contemplating
Miss van Arsdale, the professor felt a familiar stirring down below like a live
bird in his trousers and he was hooked. Miss Phipps had no chance this week:
poor Phoebe could not possibly compete with a two thousand year old witch...
But
we have ungallantly left poor Miss van Arsdale standing before the professor,
not knowing how to begin and waiting for him to address her; she continued to
blink like a frightened rabbit. So the professor broke the silence:
"Ah,
Miss van Arsdale... I've just now read your charming
little, ah, note. Won't you please sit down?" he intoned in his best
plummy voice, and he felt his heart pounding as it had not pounded in almost
thirty years; breaking etiquette, he sat before she did to conceal the
burgeoning evidence of his not-so-very-academic interest in this failing
student of his, who must have spent the semester sitting in the back row of the
lecture hall, otherwise he surely would have noticed her sooner.
Miss
van Arsdale sat, taking no care at all to prevent her skirt from riding up as
she crossed her nyloned legs with an audible whizz, permitting a tantalizing
flash of a satiny white 'V' that the professor could not be sure he really had
seen, but the impression of which, real or imagined, hardened him further.
She
carried a little dark blue leather purse, from which, after having placed it on
her lap (so that he could, unhappily, no longer admire the lovely adumbration
of her confluent thighs), she extracted a kleenex as she simultaneously lowered
her face and began to cry.
"I...
I don't know what to say," she began in a stammer, dabbing her averted
eyes. "I know you've found out about my paper... I mean, your encyclopedia article.
There's no excuse, I know, but I just have
to get through this course, or Daddy will kill
me. I have three older sisters, they were all Phi Bate, and I'm supposed to outshine
them and I can't even spell!" she wailed, and then blew her nose. "I
don't know what to do! I can never
think of anything to write about, I hate
college, these have been the worst two years of my life! All I want to be is a
wife and a mother, but I could never tell that
to Daddy... he always wanted a boy and I was the last straw! Please don't flunk
me, Professor Covington, I'll do anything
to pass..."
And
she began to blubber freely.
Professor
Covington wanted to get up and comfort the girl, but didn't dare because of the
majestic tent in his trousers and he knew that any minute Miss Phipps (not,
after all, wholly
forgotten) might burst in on some pretext or other and he had no desire to be
caught in flagrante.
So
instead he soothed her with words:
"Now,
now, Miss van Arsdale, do dry your tears. You're not the first young lady to
have problems in an advanced course like mine. I've had a look at your grades
so far this semester, and, well, as I am sure you're aware, you are not exactly
pulling an 'A' in the course. But I am certain there is something you can do
for, ah, extra credit. I've gotten quite a number of, ah, problem students
successfully through my courses, you know. In fact," and he began at this
point to confabulate freely (unctuous confabulation being yet another one of
his talents), "by a remarkable coincidence a number of students are
gathering at my apartment after dinner this evening for a little, ah, seminar
on Dr. Johnson and his politics, the very theme of your, ah, paper. Why don't
you drop by, it'll be worth a good fifty points towards your final grade,"
and he tremulously jotted down his address and apartment number on a notepad,
taking pains, despite his excitement, to form the numbers extra legibly so that
she would have no trouble reading them. "It's only a ten minute walk from
the campus. Eight-thirty, over before eleven. What do you say?"
The
girl looked up and a meek smile broke out and spread over her lovely face just
as a rainbow at first barely glows in the sky then shines forth in spectral
resplendence when the sun's rays suddenly break through the clouds in the midst
of a midsummer rain shower: she seemed achingly vulnerable, for tears still
trickled in glistening tracts down her cheeks to either side of her captivating
smile.
"Really?"
she asked, sniffling, and her smile spread even further, softening the
professor's heart but having quite the opposite effect elsewhere. "I can
come to your seminar? D'you really mean it?" He nodded, she gave one final
(and dignified) sniff, arose, approached his desk and took the proffered
notesheet, which she glanced at and then stuffed into her purse.
"Thank
you, Professor Covington," she purred, half-closing her eyes, "you
have no idea what
this means... I'll be there at eight-thirty sharp," and she turned on her
dainty heel and undulated out of the office, closing the door behind her and
leaving the professor, still seated, with his mouth half-open and his manhood
as stiff and as thick as a roll of half-dollars though considerably longer.
As
far as Professor Covington was concerned, eight-thirty could not come too soon.
And, best of all, he still had time for the now-remembered Miss Phipps, just to
take his edge off, for he was quite stiff with lust and needed release. It
would make everything so
much better that evening, he thought.
And
at that very moment, with perfectly fortuitous timing, the ethereal Miss Phipps
tapped at his door...
CHAPTER 3
Tapping
the ferrule of his furled London umbrella on the sidewalk in time with his
pace, Professor Covington walked briskly down the hill West 112th Street makes
as it descends towards Riverside Park and the Hudson, which the setting January
sun was just beginning to gild a deep shade of gold. The glow of the water's
reflection nicely complemented the warm image of Miss Phoebe Phipps bent over
his desk this noontime, her dress and slip neatly turned back up over on
themselves, exposing her pale and pantiless rump.
Miss
Phipps, in the interests of sexual efficiency during an always abbreviated
Thursday lunch hour, had stopped off at the ladies' room beforehand to remove
her immaculate white cotton panties. She had retained, however, her black
garter belt and Retro seamed nylon stockings, which she knew titillated the
professor, who had, after all, come of age in the '50's when women still wore
real stockings and not pantyhose, and besides, Miss Phipps shared the professor's
view that pantyhose were not sexually efficient.
As
the professor neared the bottom of the hill and the sun glinted more brightly
off the water, the warmth of his mental image glowed more brightly, too, as he
recalled how he had taken Miss Phipps from the rear this time, while both his
hands fondled her smallish breasts. Phoebe Phipps was a little wiry, perhaps,
for his tastes, but her nipples could get unusually firm and she was tight and
always wet where it mattered, which was, after all, precisely what counted for
the professor's lunchtime interludes. He came, she didn't - a frequent inequity
which had never once overburdened his conscience on any occasion during his
long sexual career.
As
he reached the corner and turned north on Riverside Drive, Miss Phipps' image
dimmed and faded; it was displaced by a new one, in primary colors, of the
smiling and buxom Miss Deborah van Arsdale as she accepted the note paper with
his address written upon it, then turned on her heel and... sashayed from his office.
He pictured her
luscious derrière
limned by her tight beige knit dress, and thought he might like to remove her
panties himself, at least the first time, like unwrapping a present.
He
next recalled that flash of a white satiny 'V' as she had sat down and crossed
her legs and he imagined the delectable treasure that satin concealed. He
speculated what color hair she had on her little mound - would it be blonde or
a light mousy brown? Kinky or gently waved? And he hoped that, whatever the
color or texture, she shaved it over her lips in the fashion of many, ah,
liberated girls - liberated, that is, from the interference of any hair
whatsoever on their most sensitive skin, for the professor found girls to be
far more responsive when properly shaved. Stroking a girl who was properly
shaved elicited an almost immediate moan of pleasurable arousal (or, less
often, a squeal), and he adored hearing a girl moan as he stroked her. The
sound of feminine moaning augmented his
pleasure immeasurably.
He
glanced at his watch - five 'til six - just a little more than two and a half
hours and he was reasonably certain he would not have to speculate any further
on questions of color or texture - or of much else - as he would be, by then,
well on his way to possessing the actual facts.
Entering
Number 438, he noted, with approval, a new and expensive floral display in the
elegant lobby. Summoning the lift by pressing the button with the tip of his
umbrella, he ascended to the sixth floor and entered his apartment. Depositing
his umbrella, briefcase and tan kidskin gloves on the stand in the foyer, then
carefully hanging his overcoat in the closet, he walked down the hall to his
bedroom, already pulling off his bow tie. He showered, shaved for the second
time that day and hung out his best grey Worsted suit - the one with the
widely-spaced wine-colored pinstripes - on the clotheshorse in his dressing
room. He put on a fancy dress shirt with French cuffs, closing them with
cufflinks of sterling. He tied on a plum velvet bow and donned the elegant
suit, expertly shooting his cuffs. Finally, he slipped into a new pair of black
Bally shoes that his shoemaker had shipped over from London earlier in the
week.
He
then left his apartment and retraced his steps until he came to his favorite
Vietnamese restaurant, the Nouveau Saigon, on Broadway, expensive, elegant and
not frequented by students (heavens forfend!) because of its prices, and whose
waiters all wore white gloves. Tran, the headwaiter, conducted him to his
particular table and, snapping his fingers twice, caused the professor's usual
Thursday before-dinner apéritif to materialize - a white Dubonnet-and-tonic
with an ever-so-thin wedge of lime and only one cube of ice, if you please.
They exchanged empty pleasantries for a minute or two, then Tran cocked his
head and smiled the ingratiating smile of a headwaiter. He clasped his hands together
at chest level, bowed his head briefly then glanced inquiringly at the
professor, who murmured, "The usual," signifying that Tran was to lay
on whatever dishes the Thursday chef excelled in - the professor disdained
menus in restaurants, preferring an element of culinary surprise. His lavish
tipping habits guaranteed him the finest dining - always.
After
a leisurely dinner, he strolled back to his place and settled into his library
to review his daily electronic correspondence from all over the world, most of
it erudite and scholarly. This evening there was an unusually large number of
messages; he had barely gotten halfway through them when the door buzzer
sounded. He glanced down at a screen in the little console set into his desk,
saw the image of Deborah van Arsdale in profile, staring up at the ceiling, and
buzzed her in. He shut down his computer, stopped off at his Chippendale
highboy and poured out two snifters of Armagnac '57, which he left on the
shelf. By the time he reached the apartment's entry door, Miss van Arsdale had
already knocked on it lightly and he admitted her.
"Ah,
Miss van Arsdale, I'm so very glad you could make it. Please do come in,"
he crooned in his most mellifluous tones, ushering her inside by her elbow then
noiselessly closing the door. "Here, let me take your wrap," he
continued, as he helped her out of her simple black trench coat. She switched
her little dark blue leather purse from one hand to the other as she extracted
each arm from its sleeve.
"Thank
you," she murmured, and peered about her into the rich interior of the
apartment with apparently innocent wonder. "This is certainly a lovely
place y'have here, professor, it must have set you back a fortune."
"Yes,
it did, quite," he responded, turning from the coat closet to face her,
stunned to see how beautiful she really was. Miss van Arsdale had worn no
make-up at their earlier encounter, but now she had on lipstick, eyeliner and
just a hint of blush, accentuating her naturally radiant cheeks. She wore
small, dark blue enameled disks, gold-rimmed, in the pierced lobes of her ears.
He now saw that she never closed her mouth fully, always leaving her lips
slightly parted in apparently perpetual breathless anticipation.
Standing
so close to him, Miss van Arsdale seemed shorter than he recalled, and then he
realized she was not wearing heels, but flats, and he briefly wondered why she
had so incongruously dressed down for the evening in this single respect, not
suspecting, of course, the real reason. She wore a pale yellow shantung dress
with a full, mid-calf skirt, which nicely set off the rich, honey tones in her
hair, and a dark green sash round her tiny waist; the bodice was low-cut, but
not tight, so one could glance down the front of her dress at her magnificent
cleavage, which disappeared into a froth of frills - a combination of matching
lacy trim on slip and brassiere.
So
the professor glanced down, only briefly, then looked up to resume their
interrupted conversation by completing his response to Miss van Arsdale's
opening comment:
"But
what's money for if not for nice things?" he asked, flashing his best
toothsome smile, which resembled a grimace and remained on his face for a
fraction of a second too long.
"I
wouldn't really know that, professor, because I never have any. Money, I
mean," she parried, and they both laughed.
"Actually,
I spend every cent on my clothes," she continued. "D'you like my new
dress?" and she unselfconsciously twirled herself before him so that her
skirt flared, revealing a glimpse of her beautiful legs. "It's real silk
shantung. It's from the '50's, and I got it last weekend at a little vintage
shop on Amsterdam Avenue. The rich old ladies in these big Riverside Drive
apartments have just tons
of lovely old clothes, and usually in near perfect condition, too. A few weeks
ago I got a '20's beaded dress for only seven dollars!" She smiled and
batted her eyes with the same air of innocence as that afternoon.
"Yes,
it's quite, ah, lovely, really
quite lovely," replied the professor, with mild, feigned enthusiasm. He
had scant interest in the outer
garments of women, you see. The sooner women could be gotten out of them, the
better, was his firm motto. He saw the yellow shantung dress as sort of an
enemy to be disposed of forthwith and the last thing he wanted was to have
attention drawn to it by making it a topic of conversation.
"Why
don't we go into the living room," he suggested, and he guided her again
by her elbow until they had entered it.
The
living room's west wall was all window, floor to ceiling, and looked out over
the nighttime Hudson. To the north were the jeweled lights of the George
Washington Bridge, draped over its towers in parallel lazy parabolas. Far to
the south stood the wharves on the river, brightly lighted by the harsh
greenish-white glare of mercury vapor as freighters were being unloaded.
Directly to the west above the river's opposite bank was the pitch-black void
of the Palisades, prominent precisely because of the complete absence of lights
of any sort, a gaping black hole against the twinkling lights of New Jersey.
Strings of red tail lights and white headlights wove silently up and down the
West Side Highway below them, making a luminous trail in the otherwise dark expanse
of Riverside Park as it ran down to the Hudson. It was one of the best views
upper Manhattan had to offer.
Miss
van Arsdale set her purse down on an occasional table, approached the window
and stared out at the view.
"This
is fantastic," she murmured, and felt a hand on her shoulder.
The
professor was working fast tonight, but he rarely erred in his instincts and he
did not err now. The girl turned slowly around to find herself looking up into
the professor's inquiring eyes. She blinked several times, in feigned innocence
now, and said:
"Oh,
I see. So there's no one else here and no one else is coming, right?" and
she smiled.
"Right,
Miss van Arsdale. You're a perceptive young woman. Perhaps it's next Thursday the others are
coming," Professor Covington replied, barely suppressing a smirk. "As
I get older, it seems my memory isn't quite as good as it used to be. But
everything else is..."
Miss
Van Arsdale's smile merely broadened as she said:
"Oh,
that's perfectly all right, Professor. About no one else being here, I mean.
It's much easier that way, isn't it? We can get on with it tonight instead of
putting it off. Maybe I can't spell and my grammar isn't so hot, but I'm not stupid, y'know." She
gave her honey blonde hair a proud little toss and as she continued to smile
her agonizingly seductive smile, now completely devoid of all previous
innocence.
"I know what extra credit
means, all right," she continued, momentarily knitting her brows and
frowning as if she intended to give a formal speech on the subject, "I've
gotten plenty of it, too, since I arrived here two years ago. Ask Dr. Arbuckle,
the Dean of Admissions, he was the first, or Mr. Samuels, your senior T. A., he
was one of the last. How d'you think I ever got into this place anyway? And
into your course? Without all this extra credit my grade-point average would be
somewhere near the square root of two - and even I know that's a pretty small
number. But right now I'm carrying a three-point-oh, and I hope to bring that
up to at least three-point-two with very
course, professor," and so saying she reached both hands up high behind
her back and briskly unzipped her dress; as she did so she slipped off her
shoes. "I can't write worth a damn, but there are a few things I can do very well..."
Within
seconds the girl stood before Professor Covington clad in her slip, whose
shimmering fabric outlined her stunning figure to perfection and gave clear
hints of her delectable hollows. In her stockinged feet Deborah van Arsdale
stood about five-foot-four. There was nothing to quibble about regarding her
proportions: without boring the reader with the usual litany of bust, waist and
hip measurements (not to mention cup size), suffice it to say that she was
thoroughly voluptuous in every respect, without any part being excessive - all
was in pleasing harmony, creating a whole that was insanely attractive. Not too
many English majors had bodies like this...
The
professor could hardly believe his good fortune. Why, he didn't even have to
waste any time chatting this one up beforehand - asking about her background,
her parents, her siblings, her taste in music or movies or what she wanted to
do with her life. He certainly
didn't have to talk with her about Samuel Johnson's London, which was the very
last thing on his mind.
This
girl didn't waste a moment on subtlety - she got right to the point, yet she
did not come across as coarse or aggressive. He thought her a refreshing change
from the most challenging, ultra-intellectual English majors, the ones who required
two or even three hours of preliminary verbal foreplay, various clever word
games and arch innuendoes before they were ready to consider shedding even a
single item of clothing. And often he didn't actually get into their panties
until the second or third encounter. It all depended on just how bad their
writing was, it seemed, their willingness to spread their legs for him being in
inverse proportion to the quality of their prose.
"Well,
then, Miss Van Arsdale ... or may I call you, ah, Deborah? Since we understand
one another so well at the outset, I suggest we not beat around the bush and
instead retire to the, ah, bedroom," which they proceeded to do, the
professor detouring by way of the Chippendale highboy in the study to retrieve
the two snifters of Armagnac, one of which he handed to the girl.
"Just
call me Debbi," she replied as he steered her towards his
inner
sanctum, "I think you'll get used to it sooner than you imagine..."
and the professor wondered what the girl meant, whiffing that faint sense of
danger again. Did she suppose this was the start of a prolonged liaison? If she
did, well, she had another think coming. But he did not demur and responded
with a simple, "Very well, Debbi."
The
professor sat on the bed sipping his brandy, while Miss van Arsdale stood
before him, snifter cradled in both hands, raised to her face. She regarded him
playfully through the distorting lens of the snifter's amber contents.
"D'you
want me to undress for you or d'you
want to undress me?" she teasingly asked, then took a long sip of brandy,
swallowed it slowly, lightly smacking her lips, and looked at him. She raised
her eyebrows interrogatively and ran her tongue over her lower lip to capture
an errant droplet of liquor.
Now,
the professor really didn't care a tinker's damn how Miss van Arsdale was
undressed, as long as she was, one way or the other. His own preference was to
remain in suit and bow tie until the woman was down to bra and panties or else
completely naked, as this gave him a feeling of power - being fully clothed
while his partner was most vulnerably not. Using his fingers (he eschewed the
use of the tongue for such matters, reserving it only for the caressing of
words), he would then work her up to a certain pitch of desire, and, when he
judged the pitch to be sufficiently wild, he would retire to his dressing room
to disrobe, then return, in an elegant Viyella dressing gown, slide her panties
off her, slide off his robe, slide into bed and then slide... into her. If he
played his cards right, the girl would by then be sufficiently wet to allow a
nearly frictionless insertion of his enormous tool, which always evoked a gasp
of pleasurable shock as he plunged it home, plunged it in as high as the girl's
navel or higher, if she was petite.
But
tonight the professor felt particularly gallant, so he replied, "Whatever
suits you, my dear." Taking her cue, the girl quickly finished her brandy
and put the empty snifter down on the dresser. She then proceeded to perform an
excruciatingly slow strip tease, at last slithering out of her panties, which
she picked back up off the floor with her toes and expertly flung into a far
corner of the bedroom with a practiced flick of her lovely long leg. Totally
nude, she gracefully pirouetted several times for the professor, who, raptly
attentive, was silently taking in the performance.
Now
he drew in his breath at the perfection of her beauty. He saw that the hair on
her mound was darkly blonde, like ripe corn silk, and he beckoned her over for
a closer inspection. Like an apparition, she slowly glided closer and stood so
near that he could feel the heat of her body radiating onto his expectant,
almost trembling hands.
Without
boring the reader too
much, allow me to cut to the chase (which is, to be sure, what you've been
waiting for after all these pages). Miss van Arsdale, having been brought to
climax once or twice by the professor's expert digital attentions, now appeared
ready enough in his experienced judgment for the real thing, and so the
professor retired to his dressing room, undressed (taking his time to hang his
suit, meticulously preserving the crease in his trousers as he draped them over
the rod of the hanger), returned to the bedroom in his dressing gown, removed
it and slipped into bed next to the virtually palpitant girl.
He
entered her, from behind, with his colossal organ (it was not for nothing that
he had his reputation), both of them on their sides spooned snugly together.
Then he took her from on top, then she was on all fours, and, finally, after
half an hour, when she was perfectly frantic with pleasure, he allowed her to
ride him as he lay on his back and kept his hands pressed to her breasts as she
slid herself up and down on his shaft, neck extended, eyes lightly closed, her
enraptured face turned up towards the ceiling.
Presently
they reached their simultaneous climax... but something was terribly wrong: the
professor could not fail to notice that his pleasure was far more intense than
anything he had ever before known, and instead of dying down right away it went
on and on and actually augmented and he was transported to some other plane of
being and he knew that something awful was going awry, like a flywheel spinning
out of control and about to break up, like a searing rent in the continuum of
time and space and existence, and his pleasure became exquisitely unbearable,
almost painful, like drawing a razorblade lightly over the web between one's
fingers, and he felt a strong rhythmic rippling in his belly and a soft fleshy
implosion, a pulling asunder of his hips as they broadened then a hot pulsating
fullness surged upwards through his belly and into his chest and his skin
seemed on fire and his body suddenly seemed less substantial and the bed began
revolving end over end and spiraled down and down into the depths of an
infinite black vortex, an astral nebula studded with billions upon billions of
frigid white stars and he heard himself scream in an odd girlish register then
all became wet, warm, soft, open and black as consciousness fled and was
extinguished like the flame of a guttering candle as it expires with a last,
soft flare and its final quantum of smoke coils languidly upwards impelled by
hot gases no longer, coils languidly upwards through the now-cool air, then all
is dark and still.
In
his last moments of consciousness Professor Covington thought he was dying.
CHAPTER 4
Malcolm
Weatherby Covington did not, however, die. No, far from it: Operation Bow Tie
did not envision his death. The professor was, in fact, reborn, in a manner of
speaking. His lapse of consciousness had actually lasted only five minutes at
most, though it may as well have been an eternity.
Professor
Covington was summoned back to consciousness by the slow and lubricated
withdrawal of something long, smooth, cylindrical and half-soft, half-hard, a
withdrawal from his belly (and against his will), through a new and appallingly
wet... aperture... between his legs, followed by a warm trickle that ran slowly
(and rather uncomfortably) down the fissure between his buttocks and onto the
bed where it pooled into a classic wet spot - then cooled off and stayed cool.
His
very first thought
was that he was sorry for the withdrawal of this alien but nonetheless
comforting cylindrical object, for its absence left him feeling bereft,
unsolaced and somehow imperfect. Such a disappointing emptiness made his eyes
snap open and he was shocked to see... to see his own face or, rather, the face
of his doppelganger leering down at him. The doppelganger was nude, hairy and
male, and had obviously just finished... well, had just finished servicing him,
that is, had just finished servicing Professor Covington, who was lying on his
back, in his own bed, his white feminine thighs immodestly spread. Yes, that's
right: his immodestly spread white feminine thighs - for we are constrained to
confess that Professor Covington had become a woman.
And
if the doppelganger looked like the professor, then the professor was now a
perfect replica of Deborah van Arsdale, right down to the two moles on his left
breast just below the nipple.
Professor
Covington lifted his pretty head and instantly felt the silky sway of his own
long, honey blonde hair on his shoulders as he changed his position. Looking
downwards, he found his view obstructed by a pair of magnificent breasts, his
own, their nipples still semi-erect and surrounded by broad, dusky red areolas
three inches across. So full were his breasts that to see further down he had
to lift his head considerably higher; he had to half sit up, in fact, and
support himself on his elbows to see over them and even then he had to crane
his neck forwards so far that the ends of his hair brushed his nipples.
No
sooner had he raised himself and looked down than he screamed a high, girlish
scream when he saw what was there (and what was not there): a smooth, hairless
and slightly scaphoid white belly set between broad feminine hips, a belly
ending below in... in a soft mound sparsely covered with fine and wavy darkish
blonde hair, sufficiently sparse so that he could easily see the vibrant pink
and still-gaping cleft in the dreadful void between his legs from which the
doppelganger had just withdrawn his huge and detumescent organ, a cleft
glistening with the spent and copious secretions of their recent lovemaking.
The professor's heels were drawn up so high on the bed that they were almost
touching the cheeks of his lovely derrière,
and his legs - long, smooth, shapely and hairless - were still spread
outrageously wide.
In
shocked disbelief he extended a hand downwards to confirm what his eyes refused
to accept and... O, horrible! His fingers encountered the moist and tender
contours of an aperture all-too-familiar - not some other woman's this time,
but his, for it was alive to his touch: he - it - reciprocally felt his own
probing and tentative fingers. There was no doubt that he was touching his
own... his own what?
No!
It was impossible! This was all an insane delusion: he couldn't have a
woman's... a woman's... No! He couldn't have one of those! His mind balked at the word and his
fingers at the reality: he jerked his hand away as if he had touched a hot
stove. Then he sucked in his breath to scream again, but the doppelganger
quickly brought a firm hand up over his mouth, effectively stifling him.
Professor Covington struggled, but he hadn't half his former strength, and the
hand remained firmly emplaced.
"Ah,
welcome back, professor," the doppelganger intoned in the professor's very
own rich, plummy voice, "Why did you scream? Didn't you like what you saw?
Perhaps you don't think it's real? Here, why don't you feel it again," and
he forcibly pulled down the professor's petite hand and pressed it firmly
against his new sex, pushing the fingers inside. "Tell me: does it feel
real enough now?"
he asked, letting go of the professor's hand, which this time remained where
the doppelganger had placed it, fingers still hidden from view.
Unable
to utter a word, Professor Covington's eyes showed white above, just as the
eyes of a young mare show white when she is put out to stud for the very first
time and she sees the stallion released into her paddock and he snorts through
his dilated nostrils and rears, pawing the air with his hooves... even so the
professor's eyes showed white and darted wildly about, focussing on everything
and on nothing. He struggled a few moments before the insistent pressure of the
doppelganger's hand over his mouth forced his head back down onto the pillow.
He bit the hand and instantly felt the sharp thwack of the doppelganger's other
as it slapped his cheek smartly; his big, blue eyes overflowed with stinging
tears and he soundlessly sobbed.
The
incubus spoke again:
"Listen
to me, Professor Covington. Listen carefully. Your new brain might have some
difficulty understanding this, but just listen anyway.
"You
thought I was Deborah van Arsdale. You thought I was just another pretty co-ed
letting you screw her in exchange for a grade, but I'm not Deborah van Arsdale: You're Deborah van Arsdale.
I'm a witch, a Certified Witch. I was born in Anatolia in the year 7 and have
lived as so many people in so many centuries and in so many countries that I
cannot begin to recall them all. You have just undergone what we call, in our
trade jargon, a, ah, body conversion. This must be my umpteenth: there's not
too much of a challenge in it any more. For me, that is. As for you, professor,
you'll have to judge for yourself what sort of challenge it turns out to be.
You're going to have lots of time to find out."
Professor
Covington again struggled violently against the doppelganger's restraint, as
ineffectually as before. His eyes seemed to bulge from his head.
The
doppelganger continued:
"Save
your strength, professor. Struggling won't change the facts - you're a
twenty-year old woman now, and there's not a thing you can do about it. But
you're entitled to an, ah, explanation, at least. We know all about you, you
see. By 'we' I mean the Feminist High Command. We've been watching you for
several years. I was hired more than two years ago to bring you precisely to
where you find yourself at this very moment: a young woman student, on her
back, having been, ah, screwed by her lecherous professor for the sake of a
grade. Did you enjoy it?"
Professor
Covington shook his head, his large blue eyes still showing white above and
brimming with tears.
"What's
that?" asked the doppelganger, his free hand cupped behind his ear,
feigning deafness, "Speak up, I can't hear you. Oh, you don't know yet,
perhaps? Well, just give yourself a chance. You might be surprised."
Professor
Covington was having difficulty enough coming to terms with his sudden
transformation, and so could barely absorb a word of what he was hearing. He
had no choice now but to listen, however, so the witch obligingly continued:
"Our
sources report that you seduced a total of one thousand and three women from
1975 until the present, not counting me. So that makes one thousand and four.
You had sex with many of these women more than one time. You miraculously
managed to get only sixteen of them pregnant and one of those committed suicide
following her abortion. We think that's a pretty sorry record, professor. A
record that demands a fitting punishment.
"So
here's the, ah, deal: you'll remain Deborah van Arsdale until you've slept with
a thousand and four different men
and see how you like it. We think that's a generous offer, since if we held you
to the total number of times you've slept with women for grades, it'd be
somewhere around seven or eight thousand and it'd take you twenty years to work
off your sentence. You're comparatively lucky: you have to sleep with each man
only once. Well,
of course you can sleep with a man more than once if you, ah, care to, (and
you'll find that you might), but it won't count.
"Then,
as soon as you've racked up the requisite total, you can change back - if you
still want to and if you still can,
because, if you become, ah, pregnant, you see, you'll remain Deborah van
Arsdale forever. Of course, the more you sleep around, the sooner you'll get
back to being yourself, but the more you sleep around, the greater the chances
you'll get knocked up. So it's the golden mean all over again, professor:
everything in moderation. And you'll have to be very careful. But you're only
twenty years old now, so there's really no hurry. Try to look at the positive
side."
The
doppelganger paused for a sign that the professor was following this line of
reasoning. Professor Covington's large and frightened blue eyes were
unblinkingly fixed on the doppelganger's, indicating complete comprehension, so
he continued:
"And
while you're working off your sentence on your back, I'll be the professor and I'll take care of your
career. You'd better not leave me in charge too
long - I'm liable to ruin your precious, ah, reputation, so you'd better get
cracking. Do the math (if you still can): if you sleep with someone different
every night, you'll be done in a little under three years... even sooner if you
work extra shifts on the weekends.
The
doppelganger paused again to let this latest twist percolate into the
professor's brain for a few moments. He wasn't quite sure the professor was
completely on board, but he resumed just the same:
"And,
by the way, this first time with me didn't count, so you still have a thousand
and four to go. I'd be happy to reduce your total by one: if you're interested,
we can do it right now, and, even if you're not, well, the fact is, I might be, as you're a real
dish, professor, quite, ah, lovely, really
quite lovely. You turned out rather nicely, you know - my work gets better all
the time, if I don't say so myself.
"Now,
I'll take my hand off your mouth if you promise not to scream. And don't bite
me again. Do you promise?"
The
doppelganger awaited another sign from the professor, who nodded his pretty
head affirmatively. The doppelganger removed his hand.
The
professor began to sputter and fume. "You... you... you can't do this to me," he
squealed in Deborah van Arsdale's light contralto, "You... you'll never
get away with it!"
"Oh,
won't I? Are you going to turn me in as an imposter? Or as a seducer of
students? Even if someone believed you, you would only be hurting yourself, don't you see? And
you don't suppose you can go on being a professor of English as Deborah van
Arsdale, now, do you? You'll always remember who and what you were (that's part
of the punishment), but in an hour or two you won't know a damned thing about 18th
century English literature anymore - you've probably forgotten most of it
already. Here, let me show you: name me Dr. Johnson's biographer. Everyone
knows that. Go
ahead, tell me who it is."
The
incubus sat back, folded his arms and waited. The professor looked up at the
ceiling and thought as hard as he could, which, as you might expect, was not
terribly hard.
"Dr.
Johnson... um, is he the one who invented baby powder? Why would he have a biographer?"
asked the professor, looking genuinely perplexed, his eyes wide with innocent
simplicity.
"The
wrong Johnson, professor... the 18th century one had nothing to do with baby
powder. The answer is Boswell, whose name you don't even recognize. You see,
professor, you have Deborah van Arsdale's mind now, not only her body. Try
writing the simplest paragraph - see how you spell and what your syntax is
like. You can't write your way out of a paper bag any more. And when you sign
your name, it's going to come out 'Debbi van Arsdale,' with a little smiley
face over the 'i,' because that's who you really are now. And you're becoming more like her by
the minute: do you know you're a very quick study, a real, ah, pleasure to deal
with?"
The
professor returned a blank look, so the doppelganger rephrased his question:
"Do
you have any idea
what I'm talking about?"
The
professor bit his lower lip and, knitting his delicate eyebrows, pursing his
lips and nodding his head in a series of quick, little jerks, answered,
"Um, I think
so: I'm you and you're me, or something like that."
"Good
girl! In another couple of hours you'd have had a lot more trouble ah,
articulating even that. And I must confess, professor, I really am astounded at
the extent of your knowledge. You are
a genuine Renaissance Man - I'll learn a lot being you. So don't go out and get
screwed too fast
or too often; (you
needn't work off your sentence in under three years, you know) - I might fancy
being you for at least five or six years." The witch paused and smiled
wickedly, awaiting the professor's response.
The
professor's pretty face registered as much consternation as it was capable of
showing, which is to say, not very much. Then his expression became pained: he
shifted his long, lovely legs uncomfortably and also shifted the subject.
"I
think I have to pee," he said, in a small, rather petulant voice,
"but I'm not sure I know how."
The
doppelganger laughed. "Sure you do, honey," he said. "The
bathroom's in the same place as always. You just have to remember to sit down,
that's all, and wipe yourself when you're finished. Don't worry, professor, you
really do know
how. Go ahead, give it a try. It's easier than you think. Then take a good look
at yourself in the mirror. But don't stay in there too long. Hurry back: we have
other important business to settle. I'll give you five minutes (and he glanced
at his Rolex); any longer than that and I'll come and get you. You can lock the
door if you want if it'll make you feel any better: locks don't stop me, you
see."
Impelled
by an inexorable call of nature, the professor arose lightly from the bed, all
five feet four inches of him. He urgently minced off to the bathroom, his hips
swaying nicely and his full, unrestrained breasts swinging in time to his
surprisingly graceful feminine gait. Less than halfway across the room he
hesitated, stopped, looked down and gasped, for the flow of secretions had
begun trickling down the insides of his milky white thighs. Placing a tiny hand
between his legs and blushing intensely, he entered the bathroom and closed the
door behind him, not locking it.
CHAPTER 5
Once
inside his bathroom, Professor Covington made straight for the toilet and
promptly sat down, only to pop back right up like a jack-in-the-box the instant
he felt the cold porcelain rim of the bowl against his broad bottom. Flustered,
he lowered the seat and sat down again, clasped his hands tightly between his
knees, and set his feet, heels up and toes only touching the floor, on either
side of the pedestal. The doppelganger was right - he did know how to go, though
the abrupt, high-pitched sound of his feminine rill startled him.
He
carefully wiped himself, duly impressed by the exquisitely delicate softness of
his new apparatus, then arose and approached the washbasin, wetted one of his
monogrammed washcloths with warm water, and, stretching it over two of his
tapered little fingers, squatted slightly to open his lips and carefully
cleaned himself out. He needed to rinse and wring out the washcloth several
times before he had absorbed all the sticky fluids remaining inside him. The
thought of what he was actually doing revolted him (for he was by nature quite
a fastidious fellow), but he did it anyway and he did it efficiently, too, not
roughly and without scratching himself with his long fingernails.
His
intimate ablutions complete, only then did he turn to the full-length mirror on
the back of the door to regard himself - with utter and open-mouthed awe. Yes,
Deborah van Arsdale was every bit as gorgeous as he had remembered seeing her
when she first stepped out of her panties a hundred years ago (or so it
seemed), and as he turned before the mirror, - oh, no! it was really true! he saw his
reflection turn, too! - he had no doubt whatever that he and Deborah van
Arsdale were now one and the same.
We
have already described Miss van Arsdale's attractions in some detail, hence we
need not do so again as the professor reaffirmed them for himself in the
mirror, except to note that he appeared mesmerized by the soft-looking cleft
which bisected the inverted apex of his mound and descended a couple of inches
before vanishing between his thighs: he could not tear his incredulous gaze
from it. Though alone and unobserved, he flushed a deep shade of crimson when
the realization finally struck him that he was shaved precisely to his own
specifications, and his hand shot downwards for tactile verification. Oh! How
smooth and soft he was! His lips felt softer by far than those of the girls he
had remembered stroking in his long experience, not realizing that he was not
actually softer than any other girl: it was simply that he had never touched
such delicate skin with feminine fingers before. He was not, of course,
unmindful of the delectable thrill his light touch induced, but he was afraid
of the doppelganger and remembered his admonition to return without too much
delay.
So
he proceeded apace with his hasty inspection: he placed two fingers of one hand
on the lips to either side of his little cleft and gingerly spread them, while
at the same time squatting down in a most unladylike way to induce them to
part, which they did, like an orchid unfolds in time-lapse cinematography,
revealing his iridescently pink penetralia, its folds glistening as he spread
his lips even further apart with the inverted 'V' of his fingers.
At
this sight his jaw dropped and he brought his free hand up to his cheek; he
shook his head slowly in wordless denial and gasped, then gasped again as he
removed his fingers from his lips and hurriedly straightened up - the soft pad
of his index finger had inadvertently grazed the little bud at the jointure of
his inner lips - the diminutive anlage of what he no longer possessed - and he
could not deny that it felt delicious. So delicious, in fact, that, despite the
doppelganger's admonition, he tentatively touched himself there again, and then
several times more for good measure (no longer tentatively but already with
passably decent finesse).
He
next cupped and hefted his breasts; they felt huge in his little hands. He was
astonished at their weight and consistency and how they jiggled and settled
when he abruptly released them. He was about to repeat this maneuver when he
heard the doppelganger clear his throat - no doubt a reminder that his presence
was again required in the bedroom. So the professor, almost reluctantly,
curtailed his tour of inspection and hurried back into the bedroom, the
movement of the cool air over his delicate skin causing it to break out in
gooseflesh.
The
doppelganger was lying semi-recumbent on the bed, clad in Professor Covington's
Viyella dressing gown. He had his half-glasses on and was reading a manuscript.
He appeared completely absorbed and did not even glance up. The professor stood
for a moment at the foot of the bed and glared at him, feeling somehow slighted
and thinking he should be indignant, but he couldn't think of anything to say
besides, "I'm cold now," which the doppelganger appeared not to hear,
so he crept in under the covers, pulled them up almost over his head, lay on his
side, drew up his knees and began to shiver. He kept his back towards the
doppelganger.
After
several minutes of reading in silence the doppelganger sat straight up, removed
his glasses and turned his face in the professor's direction.
"I
say, professor," he began, "this is a deucedly fascinating paper
you're writing. It looks like an editorial for a scholarly journal. Am I right?
Shall I read you a bit? I know you just love
to hear your own writing read aloud," and he glanced over at the slight
form lying curled up under the bedclothes beside him.
"I'm
cold," whimpered the professor again, "I don't want to hear any
editorial, and I have no idea what a scholarly journal is. I just want to warm
up." Now his teeth chattered audibly.
"Oh,
is that all?"
replied the doppelganger, stifling a yawn. "Well, I had meant to go over a few
things with you before I kicked you out, but if you want to get warm, they can
wait and we can go over them later. So let's warm you up, professor. I think I
know a good way." The doppelganger removed his robe, but the professor,
his back turned and his head buried under the covers, did not see him do it.
And
to his shocked indignation, the curled-up professor felt the bedclothes drawn
off him and a hand - not his - slide between his legs from the rear and cup his
new sex. His whole body gave a twitch, and he turned his face round over his
shoulder to see the doppelganger only a few inches away, leering at him again.
"No,
please..." protested the professor, squirming as if to escape, but the
hand, conforming to his outer lips, cupped him firmly and held him in place.
"No... don't... Please
don't..." he tried protesting again, but then heard his voice say
"oooohhhhh..." in a little moan of pleasure, as a finger entered his
new aperture and began slowly to probe his sensitive tissues, which almost
instantly began to moisten again. "Oooohhh, that does feel good," he
moaned, drawing his knees further up until they were compressing his breasts;
he simultaneously thrust his shapely derrière
towards the doppelganger, granting him readier access: he simply could not help
himself.
After
too short a time the hand was withdrawn and he felt the doppelganger nestle up
next to him and slide his huge member between his thighs from behind, not penetrating
him yet, but sliding it slowly and endlessly forward along the length of his
delicate (and shaven) lips and over his excruciatingly sensitive little bud, so
far forward that its tip, and more, protruded between his thighs in front and
he, to his horror, found that he actually grasped it, grasped it in his tiny
hand. The professor was astonished (and dismayed) to feel the full caliber of
the organ, as he could not quite close his fingers completely around it.
Well,
why, indeed should he have been at all astonished or dismayed? Surely, he must have been well
acquainted with its length and circumference after all these years! Ah, yes, he
was, of course, but never quite from this... well, from this novel perspective.
So he was duly shocked to find just how enormous he really had been and was
fearful, too, that it might hurt to take something so large and so hard into
something so delicate and so frightfully
soft as he felt himself now to be, quite overlooking the remarkable elasticity
of his tissues, an elasticity which he was not yet fully acquainted with but
was very shortly to learn a lot more about.
By
now the intense new sensations careening through his feminine sensorium and the
revulsion the battered remnant of his male psyche was feeling collided in his
brain in a thick red cloud of confusion and pleasure. He decided to abandon his
being to the latter, as if, the way things were proceeding, he had any choice.
The
doppelganger drew back, paused - forever, it seemed to the expectant professor
- and this time, as he slowly thrust forward, he entered the professor's
supernumerary orifice from behind - the indignity of a fitting and elegant
revenge! - distending his lips until they formed a perfect 'O' round the huge
shaft, and then slid it up and up into him to the full depth the professor's
female anatomy allowed, which is to say, exceedingly deep - to the professor's
breathtaking surprise. His eyes opened widely and he gasped, partly in alarm
but more in pleasure, at the sensation of being impaled by a man.
Now
the internal collision of feelings and thoughts made him think he was going
insane and he wanted to scream, but instead he brought a hand to his mouth and
clamped his teeth tightly into the edge of his index finger.
He
managed to suppress a scream, but not the sharp little 'Oh!' he emitted as the
doppelganger wriggled himself in that last little bit deeper, causing the
professor a brief spasm of pain.
When
the doppelganger heard it he paused and inquired, "Did I hurt you? Do you
want me to stop?"
Disappointment
instantly clouded the professor's pretty features, and to his astonishment (but
not to the doppelganger's) he heard his little girl voice start to plead,
"Oh no please don't stop don't stop, just do it..."
The
doppelganger, however, did indeed stop - stop and withdraw, but it was only to
roll the professor over onto his back. The professor's thighs fell willingly
open as the doppelganger mounted and entered him, and his heels involuntarily
rose a foot or two into the air. The professor pushed the flat of one little
hand, fingers splayed, deep into his soft and broad belly, just below his
navel, deep enough that that his hand could feel the doppelganger, moving in
and out of him, through the intervening wall of his abdomen. Now the
professor's hips started to roll in time to the thrusting and he began to
thrash his head side-to-side and he bit the edge of his finger even harder than
before.
And
presently he screamed a real scream - high, thin, drawn out and tapering into a
long sigh of ecstasy as he was overtaken by the rapturous and blinding delight
of his stunning orgasm.
CHAPTER 6
The
professor lay once again on his back, no longer cold, except for the
now-to-be-commonplace wet spot under his bottom, a spot upon which he would
find himself struggling to fall asleep for countless nights into the future.
But the wet spot was not bothering him at the moment: eyes half-closed, he lay
spent and relaxed and content and his fine, glowing skin gleamed with hot
feminine perspiration. He had, without question, enjoyed being ravished, and
was now basking in the afterglow.
Alas,
the professor's serenity was short-lived, for it was suddenly shattered when he
remembered who he really was and the awful sentence upon him. The hideous
thought flashed through his mind: "Only a thousand and three to go!"
and he began to weep freely, as much for the intense sexual release he had just
now gone through as for the impossible reality of his future, not to mention
the frightening prospect of pregnancy. O, how his woman's heart froze when he
realized that he just now might have been impregnated! The poor thing had no
idea where he was in his cycle! He couldn't afford chances like this, he
reflected, and would have to start taking proper precautions.
His
tears, of course, were one of the goals of Operation Bow Tie, for Professor
Covington, though incarcerated in the body, and controlled by the brain (and
potent hormones) of a voluptuous twenty-year old woman, and though bereft of
his vast intellectual powers, still had his same male identity within, never to
be fully suppressed, merely to be thrust far into the background on many
occasions (at least a thousand and three more), of which his frantic lovemaking
with the doppelganger had been only the first. No matter that he had been made
a vapid female: he could never forget what he had been and would be reminded of
it many times each day, but particularly after each of his mandatory couplings.
And
that was the beauty of his punishment: the professor would be completely
captive to his female body and its irresistible impulses and would have to obey
and enjoy them, but, between his moments of rapture, or even his moments of
female discomfort and inconvenience (which he would shortly learn about in five
days' time or so, when he would suffer the emotional ups and downs of his first
premenstrual syndrome and be referred to by one and all as 'that bitch'), the
essential core of his psyche would remain male, so no sooner would he remember
his maleness, however wistfully, than he would be abruptly dragged off again,
in one direction or another, by the bittersweet femininity that would utterly
dominate him for the term of his sentence. Or, should he become pregnant -
forever.
The
tension between this new and indescribably wonderful sexual pleasure and the
absolute tyranny of his subjugation to it would often bring him to tears in the
future just as it had brought him to tears even now, for being a passive
receptacle for the gratification of male lust was horribly repugnant to the
professor, even though his female body would force him to enjoy it each time.
And, even worse, no matter how often he would be debased and humiliated by men,
he would soon find himself looking forward, with prurient anticipation, to his
next sexual encounter, making his fate all the more horrible.
It
was really a brutal sentence, even for the professor. The High Command was
getting its money's worth.
All
this would be in the future, however. But even now, after only one coupling,
his duller brain could foresee the frightening implications of his thralldom,
and he was able to grasp, albeit dimly, the enormity (if not the perverse
perfection) of his sentence.
No
sooner had he done so than the doppelganger jabbed him sharply in the ribs.
"Time
to get up and leave, professor," he said, "it's way past eleven and
pretty young ladies shouldn't be out on the streets alone late at night in
Morningside Heights - so close to, ah, Harlem. Naturally, I can't be seen walking you
back to the dorm. I'm afraid you've left me short of cash, professor and I've
left you the same, so you can't take a cab - you'll just have to walk home on
your own and be careful.
"So
go pick up your clothes - don't forget, your dress and shoes are in the living
room and you'll find your panties in the corner over there," he gestured
with the back of his hand to where he, as Deborah van Arsdale, had flicked them
during his little introductory strip tease earlier in the evening. "And
you'd better, ah, clean yourself up again, too, or else you'll have a rather,
ah, soggy walk home, if you know what I mean. So, come on, it's getting late, and I
need to finish my correspondence. It's time to get moving, professor
dear."
The
poor beleaguered professor abruptly sat up in bed and wrapped the bedclothes
about his nakedness to preserve a modesty that was only imagined. With one hand
grasping the gathered bedsheets over his prominent breasts, he lifted his
little chin high into the air like a woman in dudgeon (which was, of course,
precisely the case), and glared over his nose at the doppelganger.
"What
d'you mean, 'leave'?" he squeaked in protest. I live here!"
"Wrong
again, professor. I
live here. You
live in one of the dorms, Bard Hall, to be exact, room 1127, which you share
with a girl named Tae Woon Kim from Korea and a girl from Malawi named Celeste.
The room key's in your purse. Here, I've brought it for you," he said, as
he handed the professor his little dark blue leather purse as if it were a
grenade with the pin pulled, then sat back expectantly to enjoy what was about
to transpire.
Professor
Covington received the purse only to discover that a woman wearing anything
without straps never seems to have enough hands to deal properly with hair,
garments and other inanimate objects all at the same time. He needed both his
hands to open his purse, but when he leaned forward, his long honey blonde hair
fell in front of his face and he was unable to see, so with one hand he swept
back his hair and in so doing raised his arm slightly, which caused the
protective bedsheets to fall away, exposing his breasts. Blushing once more, he
dropped the purse, needing both hands to pull the bedclothes up around himself
again, and, in fumbling about, happily discovered that his cleavage was a
rather handy, if not too reliable, place to tuck in the enveloping sheets, so he
did, thereby learning one of the essential functions of breasts having nothing
to do with the nursing of babies.
As
the doppelganger had said, the professor was quite a quick study.
Both
hands free at last, he again took up the purse, snapped it open and began
excitedly to rummage through its contents, pulling out one item after another
and holding each closely up to his face to scrutinize it - a lipstick, a small
hairbrush, a compact, a calculator, a couple of condoms, ('Oh damn!' he
thought, 'where were these an hour ago!') a small bottle of nail polish, a door
key bearing the stamped number '1127.' Then his hand came out clutching several
little O.B. tampons in cellophane wrappers: he gazed quizzically at them,
opened his pretty mouth and was about to ask the doppelganger what they were
for when the latter interrupted him before he could get out the question:
"Those
are, ah, tampons professor, the kind modern girls favor. Put them back - you
won't need them for a week, if memory serves... Oh, by the way, you'll discover
that Debbi van Arsdale has trouble counting past ten (anything greater runs off
her fingers) - so I might be off by a few days one way or the other: it might
be tomorrow or two weeks from now, I can't really recall. Anyway, it'll be sometime
within the month; if you can't figure out those tampons when you need them
(they're really quite simple to use, you know), your roommates will be more
than happy to, ah, instruct you, I'm certain."
The
professor was aghast at the thought that he would start menstruating in the
not-too-distant future; he blanched, dropped the tampons back into his purse as
if they were scorching his fingers, and resumed his rummaging, while the
doppelganger proceeded:
"Oh,
that's your driver's license in the side pocket, but, of course, you don't have
a car. In fact, professor, you don't have much of anything except your good looks. Ah, you've
found your checkbook, I see."
The
professor had already opened it and was studying its slovenly entries with a
genuinely blank expression on his face as if he had never seen a column of
numbers before.
"That
running five-figure balance is wrong, so don't get your hopes up..."
The
professor hadn't gotten any hopes up at all, not having comprehended the
purpose of the little ledger in the first place - it's the checks that count, right?
Besides, the matter of money had already evaporated from his mind, for he had
discovered a half-consumed roll of Life Savers which now absorbed his
attention. With an enameled fingernail he pried off the green one at the end of
the roll and popped it into his mouth. Then he turned to the doppelganger and
smiled his perfectly innocent and crazily seductive smile.
"Mmmm!
These are good," he said, "D'you want one? The next is a red."
And he proffered the roll.
The
doppelganger held up his hand in negation and shook his head, then he smiled
too, but indulgently, clearly pleased at the professor's rather charming
diversion. But he needed to bring the professor's attention back to the subject
of money, and so he resumed:
"After
I left your office at lunchtime, I took the liberty of electronically
transferring the bulk of Debbi van Arsdale's funds to your - I mean to my - account. Banks will let
anyone put money into
anyone else's account, you know. So your real balance is about $300, maybe
less: I probably wrote a few checks and forgot to enter them. I did that a lot.
I hope you know how to balance a checkbook (I
certainly didn't) - you can't afford any NSF charges, you know. You might give
the bank a ring in the morning to see how much is really left. I'd advise it:
it's all you have in the world besides your clothes and cosmetics...
"And
by Monday or Tuesday you'll receive a certified letter from the bursar
informing you that your tuition is overdue and because it'll be the third and
final notice, the letter will also regret to inform you that your, ah, career
as a Columbia College co-ed is over and that you'll have to turn in your key
and remove your possessions from your room by the end of the week. Don't count
on getting back your security deposit, either: I left a hot iron on the dresser
last week and scorched it rather badly, so I'm afraid your deposit will be
docked for the cost of a new one. And I was fined fifty dollars for having an
iron upstairs in the first place - it's against dorm rules, you know. The fine
comes out of your deposit, too. And..."
The
professor evidently understood the gravity of his predicament clearly enough,
for dismay clouded his pretty features. He interrupted the apparently endless
catalog of his misfortunes, and stammered:
"B...
b... but what am I going to do? Where am I going to live? Where am I going to
get money to live on?"
The
doppelganger chuckled and replied:
"Well,
professor, that's hardly my
problem now. But even girls without brains can always find a way to, ah, earn a
living, so long as they're pretty, and you, my dear, are an absolute, ah,
knockout, as you are doubtless aware."
Genuine
puzzlement replaced dismay on the professor's little face: he really had no
idea at all what sort of work the doppelganger could possibly be referring to.
"I...
I... haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about," he said slowly,
frowning and touching his index finger to his cheek, "unless you mean
being a showgirl or something... D'you think I'm pretty enough for a
showgirl?"
The
doppelganger practically guffawed. "Yes, you certainly are pretty enough, but even
showgirls need some talent besides their good looks, and you're tone-deaf - you
can't even carry a tune - and you're a rather poor dancer besides. No, I'm
afraid the stage is not a good career option for you, professor dear. Think
again."
The
professor thought for a few seconds, then his large eyes grew wider. He drew in
his breath and blushed beet red as the realization of what the doppelganger was
suggesting finally dawned on him. He felt like slapping the doppelganger's
face, but he didn't dare.
"No!"
he squealed, horrified, "I know what you're thinking. I'll never do that, I'd rather
die!"
"That's
what they all say at first, every last one of them, but before they know it,
they're, ah, displaying their wares on a regular basis, cash only, please
(never take a check, professor). You're far too good looking to be a
streetwalker - your roommate Miss Kim, who is earning her pin money by, ah,
working a few evenings a month, has excellent connections with a number of
upscale midtown agencies that would be delighted to list you, I'm certain.
Gotham Escort might be a good place to start, but they'll insist, of course, on
sending you for an exam before taking you on: they want all their girls to be,
ah, healthy."
The
doppelganger paused long enough for the professor to picture himself on an
examination table, feet up in stirrups and the menacing speculum poised for
insertion. When the predictable crimson flush finally came (it was not
instantaneous), the doppelganger smiled again, for this was going far better than anticipated:
the High Command would doubtless cheer and break open champagne when they heard
all the details - he could already hear the clinking together of glasses. Why,
there might even be a fat bonus in the offing, for this job really was a
masterpiece of the first magnitude!
Bringing
himself back to the present, the doppelganger resumed:
"You'll
get to see some of the finest hotel rooms in Manhattan, by the way. You'll, ah,
meet lots of interesting men, too, and you'll have a regular and predictable
decrease in your sentence, so it's a good idea on that score, for sure. And you'll possibly get
presents, too, like real jewelry and fur coats - if you establish a good
reputation and a high-class clientele, that is. You might even wangle a
marriage proposal out of it. That sort of thing does happen, you know. Of course, a marriage
proposal would, ah, complicate your future enormously..."
"I
wouldn't have to be out on the street, you really don't think?"
interrupted the professor, frowning with intense concentration, finger again on
his cheek, pursing his lips and raising his eyes towards the ceiling as he
weighed the practicality of the doppelganger's suggestion. "It'd be just
the best hotels?
And somebody'd actually give me a mink coat, d'you think?" and his blue
eyes became wide and began to sparkle at the prospect. "Are you sure?"
"Guaranteed,
professor, though a looker like you really ought to hold out for sable. Just
please your clients, keep away from drugs, don't, under any circumstances, get, ah,
pregnant and you'll be right back here running the show in a little less than
three years, that is, if you want to get it over with quickly. Now come on, get moving: it's
late."
Cocking
his head and evidently considering his options as seriously as he was now
capable of, the professor again arose from the bed, one hand protectively over
his cleft to prevent any new, embarrassing leakage, and glided off to the
bathroom to clean himself up. He shortly emerged and, with a bedsheet clutched
about himself, toga-style, scurried around the apartment retrieving his garments,
which he brought back into the bedroom.
The
doppelganger, in the professor's best dressing gown again, reclined on the bed,
an amused expression on his face and hands clasped behind his head, watching
while the professor slipped into his panties and pulled them up snugly,
releasing the delicate waistband (a tiny flat satin bow at its center) with a
crisp little snap. The professor skillfully wriggled into and fastened his bra
without pinching his breasts and put on and straightened his garter belt.
Sitting on the edge of the bed and extending each leg in succession, toes high
in the air, the professor smoothly rolled on his nylons, then stood and secured
the garter tabs, twisting his head first over one shoulder, then over the
other, so he could see to fasten the rear ones. Next he put slip and dress on
over his head, shimmying a bit to get them to settle about himself and
automatically smoothed down his yellow, real silk shantung dress (circa 1952) with the palms
of his hands. He tied his dark green sash about his tiny waist.
The
moment he slipped on his shoes the professor finally understood why Deborah van
Arsdale had arrived in flats: it was an act of kindness (alas, the only one!),
because, he realized, he would never have been able to make it back to the dorm
in the heels she'd been wearing when she'd come to his office the previous day.
Now
fully dressed, he tossed his lovely hair in a surprisingly habitual motion and
then briskly carried his purse into the bathroom and came out a few minutes
later with hair competently brushed and clothing perfectly straight, but he had
wisely deferred trying to repair his wrecked make-up: with surprisingly good
judgement, he had simply removed it entirely. Neither the absence of make-up
nor his mournful expression diminished the stunning beauty of his face,
however.
He
approached the bed and hesitated a moment. Blinking seductively for the very
first time, then lowering his head, he asked softly:
"Y'don't
suppose I could move in here?
There's a maid's room in back, y'know, that's never been slept in. I'd stay out
of your bedroom unless you, um, wanted me. I know how to vacuum and dust; I can
cook breakfast and I do a mean tuna-noodle casserole. Um, what d'you say?"
For
the first time the doppelganger looked surprised, for, despite months of
meticulous planning, this promising option had been overlooked completely.
Stroking his chin, he considered the professor's suggestion, then replied:
"That's
actually not a bad idea, professor, except for the tuna-noodle casserole bit.
But you'd have to do a maid's work and the laundry and ironing, too, of course
(don't forget, I like my underlinen and socks ironed), there'd be no pay in it
at all, and you would have to be, ah, available whenever I wanted you, which,
knowing your, ah, my
sexual appetites, might be pretty darn often. And none of those times with me
would count towards your sentence, as you already know, so you'd still be
working most nights, assuming, of course, I didn't want you myself. It might
take much longer for you to work off your sentence that way, but if you don't
mind a few years' delay, it might work. In fact, it has some intriguing, ah,
advantages... for me."
The
professor lifted his face, which had at last assumed a minimally hopeful
expression. The doppelganger continued:
"But,
anyway, you can't stay here tonight - you have to go back to your dorm - your
things are there anyway - and I'll think about it. But no promises. Don't call
me - I'll call you."
The
professor cast his face downwards again, nodded dully and offered no objection,
saying merely:
"All
right then. I guess I'm ready. D'you suppose I can have my coat now?" and
he picked up his little blue leather purse from the bed.
The
doppelganger stood and accompanied the professor to the front door of his
apartment. Retrieving his black trench coat from the foyer closet, he helped
him into it. The professor buttoned it up, not even noticing that the buttons
were the wrong way around. Tears glistened in his beautiful blue eyes.
The
doppelganger opened the door for him, handed him his purse, which he had taken
from him so he could get into his coat, and patiently awaited his departure,
beaming avuncularly.
The
professor hesitated for fully a minute. "I guess this is good-bye,"
he finally murmured, starting to sob, and he turned and walked off down the
hallway - no, make that undulated
- in the direction of the lift, his little dark blue leather purse slung over
his shoulder and bouncing softly off one hip as he walked.
The
doppelganger waited until the lift had gone, then he closed the door and headed
into his study for another snifter of brandy. The image of Phoebe Phipp's pale
and pantiless rump rose up before him again and he smiled. Perhaps he could add
in Miss Phipps for Friday lunchtime as well: his Fridays had been free for
quite a while now.
While
the professor, snug in his study, imagined Miss Phipps' grammatically impeccable
treasures and booted up his computer to finish the day's correspondence (as he
nursed his Armagnac '57), Debbi van Arsdale, outside in the cold on Riverside
Drive, clutched her trench coat tightly about her throat against the January
wind blowing in off the river. Turning the corner onto 112th Street, she began
to trudge slowly uphill in her flat-heeled shoes, towards Morningside Heights
and towards her new life.
Her
new life! On the one hand, she dreaded the prospect, but, on the other, she reflected,
as a cold gust of wind caught at her legs and swirled up under her dress, a
long sable coat (or even a mink) would be absolutely lovely and the mere
contemplation of it warded off the chill. Debbi van Arsdale clutched her coat
even more tightly about herself, then she paused, recalling the cruelty of her
sentence...
'Oh,
my God,' she thought, standing stock still. 'One
thousand and three!' She hadn't the least idea how she would
manage, but, then again, ideas were no longer her strong point so she decided
not to worry too much about it. She'd start first thing in the morning, she'd
think of something
- and she began to plod up the hill, the lights of the city shimmering through
a veil of self-pitying tears...
The
Graduate Education of Malcom Covington copyright 1999 by Elizabeth Bennett.