|
Gaudimus
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
------------------------------------><-----------------------------
PART 1
GAUDIAMUS
A dismal February day, and time for the seminar. Pepper stares morosely at
the door to the seminar room. Maybe he won't make it today. No, it was too
much to hope for. Here he is -- Peter. Or Professor Peter MacCleod, holder
of the John W. Smythe Chair of Literary Criticism -- if we are being grand.
Of course, he normally discourages such grandiloquence. You either hate him
or love him. If you are a freshperson, you either hate him or you despise him.
He prides himself on suffering fools not at all, let alone gladly. He professes an
endless disappointment at the quality of incoming students.
If only he could be away at one of his endless conferences, so the TA, the
delicious Karen, can take over! But it never seems to work that way -- for this
seminar. No matter his busy globe-trotting schedule which seems to pre-empt
half his intro classes, he always seems to be _here_ for the seminar in 20th C.
lit. Well no wonder -- he obviously finds Karen pretty delicious too.
Karen is a plump little thing, complete with dimples. But oh how the truth can
lie! The _real_ truth is that several billion dollars in advertising budgets
impact on Karen, and just evaporate. She completely explodes the 'conventional'
aesthetic view -- you know the one: an attractive woman must be blond and
thin. Karen is neither.
Her hair and eyes are soft and brown. You could lose yourself in those eyes,
though "doe-like" will not perform an adequate descriptive function. Karen's
eyes contain a subtle wisdom possessed by no doe. Wisdom and something else --
the shining promise of, can it be? -- _lust_. For the one adjective that
occurs to you immediately is _juicy_. Karen just bursts at the seams with
sexual juice. This toothsome woman is a walking aphrodesiac. She affects
everybody around her -- absolutely everybody. One of the tottering emeriti,
bent almost double beneath the weight of his honours, was seen to look
wonderingly after her as she passed him in the hall and exclaim "What a tasty
bit of crackling!" He continued to smile all the day long after that
encounter, as if gladdened at the thought that such as Karen existed in the
world.
And most charming of all -- she seems to have no appreciation of her effect.
In part, that is a result of her undergraduate training. Karen went to a
fairly undistinguished school for that. There she found and nourished her
great love of literature, but so consumed were her fellow students with the
doings of the school sports figures, that her blossoming went unremarked by
them, and thus by her as well. It was enough for Karen that she flourished
intellectually -- that she could come here, first on a full fellowship and
then on a named scholarship. So she has never noticed that in the brief two
and a half year stay, she has become, hands down, the most beloved creature in
the whole English department.
Pepper looks at Karen with thinly veiled longing, her blazing erotic imagination
working at fever pitch, as always when Karen is nearby. Pepper Dyson's birth
certificate actually gives as her first name: "Penelope", but this is, most emphatically,
not her 'real' name. Pepper was eleven the last time somebody called her Penelope.
A snotty cousin a year older did the calling and he required a quick trip to the dentist
immediately thereafter.
She is barely 30, her skin the color of day old cream and her hair spun
copper. Her eyes are the color of the gut skin of a poisonous tree frog in
Venezuela which injects a fluid that dissolves its victims' internal organs.
She was raised in Virginia, near hunt country, and could wear the gear with
more panache than the old guy, anyday. She was a tomboy, breaking bones and
hearts in equal numbers. Did the Vassar thing, took some time off, lived in
the Village and discovered that her sexual world-view was fairly inclusive,
and thereafter took on a roommate duo...a 5'4" cowboy wannabe named Jim, and
a moist, plump lovely from Sud Amerique named Orfillia, who was possessed of
a clit the size of a habanero pepper. Worked in mid-town as an editor for
Harcourt Brace, fell under the mentorship of a senior editor who wheedled at
her to go back to university by promising a shot at his job (when he moved
up, of course) and a shot at his bed. Instead, she seduced his wife, just to
see if she could, left HBJ, and went back to school with money provided in
perpetuity for that purpose by her grandfather's blind trust. She had aced
everyone and everything until Peter...and Karen.
If only Karen weren't wired quite so tightly to MacCleod. She was 'scouted' by Peter
as soon as she arrived in the department. In fact, even before that time Peter had
seen her application to the graduate program, and made sure that she was admitted
-- not that anybody would have argued against her, not with _that_ record. But
fellowship money has been known to go astray in mysterious circumstances. Peter
made absolutely sure that such a disaster did not befall her.
Once Karen arrived, Peter gathered her under his wing as a matter of course --
part of his program of finding, what he insists upon calling, "top people".
This same program has managed to offend at least half of his department.
Why should _he_ be the one to get the best students? But bitter experience has
shown that one must be intrepid indeed to deny Peter his selection. More
intrepid certainly, than any now present.
In Karen's case there was rather less grumbling, except for the envious sort.
In her application she stated specifically that she was interested in Peter's
critical work and wished to study with him. The two made a good 'fit' from
the very first day. She began by assisting him in his large undergraduate
course and, after two years became his TA for graduate teaching. During this
same period Peter has moved from being her mentor/professor to being her
out-and-out champion. He it was, who put her forward for the scholarship she
now holds -- not only more prestigious than her "full" fellowship, but
also much more lucrative. Karen is clearly Peter's pride and joy. In short,
this is the sort of relationship that both instructors and students pray
for and are seldom granted. But there is more to the bond between Peter and
Karen, much more.
For even though Peter has said publicly on many occasions that he never has had,
nor ever will have, a sexual relationship with a student, he has clearly
fallen under the spell of Karen's unbelievable eroticism. You only have to see
him around her to pick up on that. Moreover, this lustful regard obviously goes
both ways. Karen seems to melt whenever Peter is near -- her already soft eyes,
soften even more when they gaze at him. Nor is Peter insensitive to this --
who could be? He plays to it shamelessly; acting and dressing with more
dom-ishness each day. Dark suits have become replaced, bit by aching bit, with
even darker leather, until at last he has taken to appearing in skin-tight black
breeches and riding boots!
It's clear, to Pepper at least, that the two can barely keep their hands off
each other. Peter and Karen exude such a miasma of lust together that
sensitive nearby folk have been known to go into spontaneous orgasm.
There is no question, no matter what Peter may say or even think, that he and
Karen are going to come together, and soon. _Felix_conjunctio_!
Here he comes now -- curse the luck! Stomping around the seminar room in his
'Dom suit' -- can't the idiot sit still for a minute? He glances out the
window at the grey skies and yet another course at the endless banquet of
rain, drizzle, and fog.
"What is it, that Elliot says in _The_Wasteland_ ?-- oh yes -- 'February is
the cruelest month'"
Pepper sits up straighter -- this looks like an opportunity to puncture the
MacCleod baloon at last! "Professor!?"
Peter whirls around in an irritating way -- a deliberately clumsy miming of
somebody looking behind them, in search of this "professor" person. Pepper
cannot prevent her flush: "I mean 'Peter', sorry. I'm certain that the line
actually reads 'April is the cruelest month'!" Got the bastard! Pepper curls
an errant lock of her red hair around a forefinger and grins in satisfaction.
The answering expression on Peter's face is a smile. A slightly sad and weary,
though _knowing_ smile.
Shit! Pepper realizes that she has fallen into some kind of trap. She grits
her teeth to hear "No, my dear Pepper, I'm afraid that it was _Pound_ who said
'April'. His editing job is rather notorious. I'm surprised that you didn't
know that -- surprised and a little disappointed. You should always check the
original manuscript before entering into a textual dispute."
While smarting from this casual squashing, Pepper feels her eye being caught.
She looks over to see Karen, her face expressing heartfelt sympathy, shaking
her head slightly, as if to say "Don't mind him -- he doesn't even realize
he is doing it."
She loathes the fact that she can't keep up with him, it's as simple as that,
and her skin crawls when he tears up behind her and screeches to a halt
beside her desk. She had always been a star in the English Department, and
now this...this pulp fiction in riding boots seems to have made an avocation
out of humiliating her in front of Karen. He sets her teeth on edge. She
wants desperately to best him at something, anything, in order to preen a
little, in order to show the luscious TA that she has a facile brain and a
quick wit. She sees that Karen admires those things in Peter; she does not
want to openly challenge him for Karen's affections and thus alienate her.
What to do? She knows that Karen sympathizes when Peter attacks her...maybe
there is a way to play on that. Perhaps if she provoked him beyond all
patience one day...hmmm. She might, for example, inquire why his objection
to Derida did not rest (as did hers) on the obvious...that deconstructionism
carried to its conclusion disintegrates into solipsism...but rather on the
dubious idea that there might be a yet more "rigorous" litcrit than Derida.
She snorts at the thought. What on earth does Karen see in the bugger
anyway?
Look at her now! MacLeod has just said something about starting new material
and that Karen has some handouts for them. She clearly has no idea what he is
talking about and is covered in a charming confusion. "My dear Karen, didn't
you check your email before coming to class? That was very very naughty of
you!" The naughty girl blushes a deep crimson. You could just about roast
marshmallows. "I'm so sorry Peter, but my machine isn't working -- it's
getting fixed." As if he didn't know. As if she didn't know that he knew! The
two of them are so transparently prolonging the scolding as long as they can.
Pepper grinds her teeth once more (is she the only one in the seminar who can
_see_ what's going on?) "But Karen, I'm sure you could have used one of the
departmental machines, couldn't you?" MacCleod has such a stern look now -- the
jerk. Karen bows her head "Yes Peter, I'll do that next time -- I promise".
MacCleod is obviously dying to carry on with this longer -- hours no doubt --
but he finally hearkens to the call of his teaching duties. "Very well then,
see that you do. You know how I hate it when my arrangements go for naught!"
The bloody seminar only _seems_ to go on forever. In fact it is over at 5:30
and the brown-nosers are finished with their "Oh professor!"'s a few minutes
later. To give the bastard his due, MacLeod doesn't relish that sort of thing.
Pepper is among the first to escape the room but she doesn't hop on her bike
quite yet. She wants to see what Karen and the insidious MacCleod are going to
do after class. The answer is nothing to cause an iota of arousal. The two
proto-lovers walk down to the parking lot; they talk for a few moments; and
then MacCleod takes off in his old rattletrap, leaving Karen staring whistfully
after him. It's time for Pepper's move!
She walks her bike quickly toward Karen, approaching from behind and saying
"Well, even you get a turn in the barrel, I see!" and offering her a wry
smile when she spins around, startled. "Oh, Pepper, hi, I wasn't, I
didn't...uh, yes, I guess so." Karen always feels slightly uncomfortable
around Pepper. It isn't simply the redhead's careless good looks and slender
body, it is the fact that she knows the woman dislikes Peter, and Karen can't
be at ease with that. She feels compelled to explain him, to be his
apologist, to assure everyone that he isn't like that, really.....as if she
even knows what the man is like outside the university walls. "Pepper, I am
sorry, really, I know it seems as if Peter (she rolls his name around in her
mouth as if it were a spoonful of honey) is picking on you constantly, but
honestly..." "Yes," interrupts Pepper, "yes, he is. And don't hand me that
load of pie weights about him prodding me to excellence because he sees it in
me. That's horseshit and you know it. He thinks I'm a moron." Pepper lets
her voice trail off in tones of misery, though to be frank she doesn't much
care about what the old throwback thinks of her. She does, however, sneak a
look up through her lashes at Karen's expression, since she very much cares
what the TA thinks of her. Karen's shoulders slump and she wears a pained
expression. Good, thinks Pepper, progress!!
"Look, I'm sorry, I know you work closely with him, and you probably even
like him (supressing a broad grin), and for all I know he has some redeeming
qualities somewhere. Tell you what, let me buy you a cup of coffee, or cocoa
or something, and you can try to explain him to me...and tell me how the hell
I can get out of his personal shooting gallery. Deal?" Karen meets Pepper's
earnest pale green eyes and sighs. She had wanted to get those copies made,
and check the text quotes for the Middle English class, and...well...she looks
at Pepper again and feels a tiny spark of exasperation with Peter. She has
discussed this with him over and over again...this fixation on one student,
his absolute compulsion to sail into the lecture hall, cut one from the herd,
and ride him or her back and forth across increasingly narrow arguments until
panic causes the inevitable stumble and fall...whereupon Peter would pounce,
tie up the flailing unfortunate with some literary piggin' string and throw
up his arms in unholy jubilation. "Sure!, she says brightly to Pepper, who
glows. "Let's do. I have a lot I could tell you about Peter!"
The two have an entire corner of the coffee shop to themselves -- perfect for
the kind of conversation Pepper has in mind. Of course she has no intention
of waiting through some glowing apologia; she at once seizes the initiative:
"You know, when Peter was scolding you in class today, I thought he was
going to take you over his knee right there." The result is everything she had
hoped for. Karen at once begins to choke on her mouthful of hot chocolate.
When she regains her breath, she stares wide-eyed at her friend, her hands
pressed to blushing face -- even her ears are aflame. "Pepper! How can you
say something like that -- something so, so ......" her voice trails off as
she trys to swallow the lump that has suddenly appeared in her throat.
Pepper breaks in.
"Oh don't be such a silly little goose. I can see the way you two act
together. I've been around you know. I don't have to be a telepath to see
what's going in in _both_ you minds." Karen would like to protest, to deny,
to lead the converstion anywhere else but where it is so clearly going. To no
avail -- the hook is firmly set in her.
"What do you mean 'both'?" Pepper smiles gently, though on the inside she is
roaring with delighted laughter. "What I mean, my juicy little kumkwat, is
that you long to be over that knee of Peter's, just as much as he longs for
you to be there. It is _so_ obvious! Haven't the two of you done it?
Haven't the two of you at least talked about doing it?"
Karen fights for equilibrium, settling down the rattling cup and fixing
Pepper with what she hopes is a daunting stare. "Look here, this is _not_ what
I came here to discuss with you, Pepper. We are supposed to be talking about
you and _your_ relationship with Peter, and..." "_and_ you are avoiding the
question, _and_ it does have to do with me as well." Pepper sits back, folding
her arms under her breasts and smiling at her kill. "I think we need to
clear the air a bit, Karen. I think we all need to be on the same page, so to speak.
I have a plan," she said, leaning forward onto the small table, her face now inches
from the disconcerted Karen. "I have a plan to get the Eminince Grise off my ass
and mounted onto yours. Interested?" She sat back again, loving the delicious shock that was
spreading across Karen's pretty face.
******
It all happened so fast! Peter should have known that something was up, but
academic life is a poor preparation for rough and tumble, except of the
intellectual kind. When he had opened his office door, he was startled to
see Karen and Pepper awaiting him. Karen often got in first since, as
his assistant, she had her own key, but the normal procedure was that any
other student who wished to see him, had to wait in the hall. This wasn't
actually written down anywhere, but there are such things as tradition!
So Peter was a bit off balance right away (he was to comfort himself with
this excuse later).
Being Peter, he was not going to let such a breach of the established order
pass without comment. He banged the door shut just a trifle petulently and
cast his baleful gaze upon Karen as she sat in 'her' chair looking a bit
frightened. Another clue missed. He strode to the center of the room saying
"I see that there have been some changes in protocol since yesterday. Did I
miss a memo? Surely I would have been informed, had the normal rules of
conduct been suspended...had the bounds of common courtesy been re-drawn,
eh?" He fixed Karen with a truculent, disapproving stare, and she shivered
in the chair. She cursed Pepper for talking her into this. It wasn't going
well at all, not at all. And to all appearances, he was just getting
started. "Am I to believe that my own office is now the common meeting area
for this class? Is food to be served? Shall I provide drinks? Well, just
tell me what to do, Karen, in this new order, where my TA admits an audience
to my chamber on her own whim!" He strode to her and leaned down over the
chair, assuming his famous posture, reducing Karen to the apparent level of
the lowest Intro by his demeanor. He fairly bristled with righteous
indignation at the invasion of his domain.
Pepper's stomach clenched, seeing him hovering over Karen like that, and her
looking so miserable. She took advantage of his focus on Karen to move,
circling slowly to his right and then behind him. There was a fine sheen of
moisture on the back of his neck, she saw. It was warm in the office, and he
had worked himself up into quite a pompous lather. In a moment, she saw the
opportunity for which she had been waiting. As he fumbled with the buttons of
his jacket, thinking to remove it and cool himself, Pepper moved in close
behind him and put her hands on his coat collar. Peter was amazed! Was the
insolent young Pepper going to help her nemisis off with his jacket?
|
|
