1
“I hear the professor is to die for,” Michelle, my best friend and roommate uttered, looking around the lecture hall with wide blue eyes. She was beautiful in the traditional big boobed, blonde-haired, pouty lips way with the sort of innocent vulnerability that men flocked to. “I wonder if he is still as handsome as those pictures that I found online. How he’s not married is beyond me.”
I was opening a blank document on my laptop preparing for the notes I would type onto it throughout the next hour, while she took in the students around us who anxiously waited for the infamous professor to enter at the front of the room.
I’d begged off sitting in the front few rows that she’d requested of me, insisting on sitting mid-way up and in the center of the big hall in the Corner Building of Columbia University. The room didn’t seem wide, but the rows of seats rose up several stories from the front of the room where a platform in front of a large digital screen had what looked like an old antique desk sitting off to one end.
I rolled my eyes at Michelle’s over-the-top enthusiasm for the yet unseen man who would teach our class. I had to admit, inwardly I was somewhat awe-struck, but not for the same reason as Michelle. She had a sort of hot-for-teacher fetish, and it helped if the professor was indeed, hot. I’d seen pictures of Jaxon Michaels on the internet and a few television interviews he’d done when he released his last couple of books. He did have a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature, but more than that, he was a New York Times bestselling novelist, who only moonlighted as a professor of Creative Writing at Columbia. No question, he was smoking.
Glancing up and looking around the room for the first time in the five minutes since we’d arrived, I notice the diversity of the people filling the seats around us. Many were laughing and chatting, but few had their heads buried in their computers, as I did.
I leaned to my right to where my friend was seated, and I spoke softly. “Maybe he has a big brain and a teeny weeny,” I offered, a sly grin sliding across my face.
My friend huffed and sat back in her seat, clearly offended that I’d even consider such an absurd possibility. “What?” Michelle scoffed indignantly. “Not likely.”
I laughed out loud as glee filled me. I wasn’t sure why it made me so damn happy that she’d consider the possibility ridiculous. “How do you know? Do you think just because he teaches a class about writing love scenes, he’s automatically hung like a horse?”
“Actually, it has crossed my mind,” she stated emphatically. “I mean, the man writes such hot sex, he had to have experienced it! He must have a treasure trove of techniques.”
It was my turn to have intentionally wide eyes as my mouth flattened into a thin line and I shook my head. “Ever heard the saying ‘those that can, do, and those that can’t, teach?”
“Buzz kill,” she muttered.
“Maybe he reads a lot,” I added. “Good writers are voracious readers.”
I was still grinning as I continued to yank Michelle’s chain. During the three previous years at Columbia most of my instructors and professors had been impressive, but it was fun to see Michelle squirm. She was probably right; the name of the course alone had the seats in this huge auditorium packed from the first row to the last, but unlike my horny friend, I was here to learn from a master.
“Oh, my God! Professor Michaels is so sexy!” Another female student sitting behind us swooned loudly.
“I know. If only we would have gotten here sooner, maybe we would be sitting closer to the stage.” The second woman was less obtrusive and her voice much less boisterous.
Michelle nudged my arm with her elbow. “Are you listening to that? I told ya.”
My head snapped around and I locked eyes with her. I couldn’t help rolling them again. “You’re kidding!” I admonished, using my pen to point to the front several rows of seats by the lectern that were full of eager young women. I imagined that classic scene from Indian Jones where the woman in the front row had “I love you” painted on her eyelids so that when she blinked the professor saw it. I also figured that if this man was as hot as everyone said, he’d have a similar reaction as Harrison Ford had in the movie.
“He must get sick of all this unbridled and sophomoric adulation,” I observed dryly. “Unless he’s a narcissist.”
“Oh, my God, Addy,” Michelle moaned. “Can’t you stop being such a smarty pants for five minutes? Do you even have a vagina? Why don’t you just hole up with your books while I get in a few private lessons?”
“You think that you’re the only one with that idea, Michelle? Look around? The poor man probably has a sort of super-human resistance to the constant flow of estrogen flooding the air around him; either that, or he’s gay.”
My friend’s mouth dropped open in horror as she considered my words.
The bawdy woman behind me, who had obviously been listening to our conversation, leaned forward and stuck her face between mine and Michelle’s. “Um, no way, honey. The man ain’t gay.” Her eyebrows shot up and she shook her head. “Trust me.” I shifted in my chair to get a good look at her. She was middle-aged and looked a bit out of place in the sea of twenty-something students, but maybe she was making a career change.
Ain’t? my mind protested. And, this woman was in a 400-level writing course?
“See?” Michelle looked at me smugly. “Dr. Michaels is not gay.”
“No, he’s definitely hetero,” the woman said empathically. “Mmmmm! Mmmmm! MMMMM! All man, that one!” She must have done some sort of clenching thing with her whole body because she made the air rush around me.
Startled by the woman’s outburst, I glanced over my shoulder at her and her companion; a more delicate, deer-in-the-headlights looking woman sitting to her left.
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t start giggling, though Michelle was openly smirking. I was about 300% certain there was absolutely no way this woman had carnal knowledge of our bestselling professor, and even had doubts that she was a serious student, but I decided to humor her anyway; just for shits and giggles. Maybe she was a Jaxon Michael’s groupie.
Even my hormone-filled friend was taken aback and was having trouble holding in her amusement.
“Wow,” I said, drolly. “I guess I should have brought an extra pair of panties to shimmy into halfway through this class.”
The timid younger woman sitting next to the more obnoxious one, piped up softly. “If they last that long. He’s a real panty-melter.”
I was surprised to hear this from her, considering her demeanor. “If only his name were Professor Melter, then, huh?” I challenged, the dimple in my cheek deepening when my mouth slid into a grin.
The first woman looked as if she’d suddenly seen the face of God or discovered the cure for cancer. “Ya know what? I’m gonna start calling him Professor Panty-Melter instead of Dr. Michaels! That’s genius!”
I forcibly stopped myself from laughing and concentrated on the screen of my laptop, noting the time in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, silently praying for the class to start so this asinine conversation could end.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be very receptive,” I added dryly, under my breath. Clearly, this woman wasn’t here for the class, but rather, the handsome author teaching it. “I’ll concede he is handsome, but these scholarly types can be boorish and stiff.” Not that my limited experience afforded me any sort of insight, I silently acknowledged. Still, all of this talk of Dr. Sexy had me curious if the man would live up to the fantasy.