Page 14 of Office Hours
This is how it goes: Simone arrives, nervous but sweet, in a skirt and a top calculated to short-circuit every vestige of academic discipline. She sits, legs crossed high, hair swinging, the smell of her—something floral and compelling—spilling through the room before her voice can. She thanks me for meeting outside campus, calls the house “cool,” and tries not to stare at my diplomas or the view or the certificates on the wall. She’s terrified and arrogant and terminally alive. It’s all I can do to stay seated.
I look out the window, wait for the glint of her car in the driveway. I shouldn’t have invited her here. I know the optics, the risk. The university would hand me my own balls if they knew I was meeting alone with the beautiful undergrad, and at my house, no less. But the university library is always loud, and coffee shops reek of burned beans and desperation, and what I really wanted was to see what Simone would do with a private stage, what she would show if no one else could see.
I sip the coffee, taste nothing.
The doorbell rings.
It’s exactly two o’clock.
I move fast, a little too eager. I catch my own reflection in the foyer mirror—blue button-down, dark hair combed but refusing to be tamed, harsh cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. I remind myself to soften my gaze, not to come off as the wolf everyone already suspects me to be. Of course, they wouldn’t be wrong.
When I open the door, Simone is standing there with a tray of cookies balanced on one hand, her other clutching the strap of a canvas backpack tight enough to leave a mark. Her hair is up in a ponytail, which gives her pretty features an air of innocence. Theskirt is blue and very short; the white top highlights her big bust, telegraphing the twin shapes of her breasts so openly it feels like a negotiation.
She’s trembling slightly, but covers it with a smile that could pass for innocent if you didn’t know her.
“Hi, Professor Thomas,” she murmurs. “Thanks for inviting me. I brought snacks.”
I step aside. “You didn’t have to do that, Simone.”
She shrugs. “My roomie went crazy, and she said to share the cookies. They taste like magic.”
She follows me inside, pausing to slip off her shoes. Bare feet, toes painted mint green. I can’t help but stare for a microsecond—her feet are perfect, slender, with an arch that makes the tendons in my forearms go tight.
She glances around the main room. “Your house is really cool,” she says, then turns a circle, mouth parted.
“Come in,” I say, beckoning to the right. “My office is here.”
The golden girl steps through the doorway and stops with surprise, blue eyes wide.
“You have, like, a million books. Have you read all of them?”
“No,” I say. “Some are for show.”
She sets the cookies on a side table and moves to the nearest bookshelf. Her fingers run over the leather bindings, stopping at a massive, gilt-edged edition ofUlysses. “Wow. This is, like, a first edition or something?”
I nod. “One of my vices.”
She lifts it, grunting at the weight. The skirt flares, and I have to bite my own tongue not to say anything. She glances at me, as if aware of exactly how much she’s showing.
“Expensive hobby,” she says, putting it back.
“So is college,” I reply. “So have a seat, Simone. Let’s get started.”
I gesture to the desk, then sit at the long side. This is good. We’re on track. We’re actually going to do some serious work, and I’ve already laid out her paper and a couple of pens, legal pads, sticky notes—the full teacher cosplay.
She perches on the edge of the seat, legs crossed, the skirt riding high. She’s close enough that I can see the flecks of cinnamon in her hair, the way it catches the light, almost backlit. Her skin is flawless, milk-pale except for the flush rising on her cheeks. Her lips are glossy, and I can’t stop thinking about what she did with them in class. I’m half-erect already.
I take a deep breath to maintain my cool and ask, “Did you have a chance to write a rough draft since our last meeting?”
She slides a spiral-bound notebook from her backpack, places it on the desk, and flips to a marked page. Her handwriting is large, bubbly, full of hearts dotting the i’s.
“I still work by hand although I know most people type these days. But I like the act of writing, so I hope you don’t mind.”
She offers it, and our fingers brush. Her skin is warm, dry. She lingers, just a second too long.
I take the notebook, try to focus on the words.
Her thesis is, as expected, a twist on my own lecture notes: “Obsession is the only freedom left to the doomed.” The supporting paragraphs are riddled with digressions and fragments, but the voice is alive, wild. She uses metaphors the way some girls use selfies—flagrant, self-conscious, a little desperate for approval.
