Meeting Her Pt. 02: Starting Affairs

"I imagine that with your husband back home you are less interested."

She gave a sigh that spoke volumes - it said I was going to have her body to enjoy with the lights on. "So you know I have a husband. I had such hopes, I wished, but... expectations... You don't know my husband. As planned there is a bun in the oven, but I would rather not talk about that here. He arrived home a few days later than I hoped, I had taken some time off work in hopes of romance, but I should have known better. To be honest I figured it was something to do with his South Pole bed warmer...

"A penguin perhaps?" I could not help it, the image just jumped into my head.

She was entertained and almost broke up. "You know, I am not sure that would have been worse. Anyways, he showed up here with two of his bothers, right on time... there was no alone time, no romance. I was made naked, they took turns all weekend. The deed was done. They made it very boring. Drudgery. Then I was back to work. Things were normal until the end of August, when his girlfriend returned. I am now unworthy of his spare time. He basically told me to grow his child and leave him alone. That brings us up to date."

"Why does he cheat so openly? I mean, you are beautiful!"

"Thank you for that, I don't hear in enough. I don't know why he does what he does. It is not open, there is discretion, but the short answer is that he was raised that way. Like his father. His mother knew, at home it was expected that the men would have lovers but no bastards."

"What of the wives?"

"Oh, they received the incredible gift of male children, to birth and then raise. Everybody knew husbands could not raise children, lest they become priests or socialists. These are Old World Spanish, the ones who conquered the New World, or at least the part that counted, with so little blood shed... by them anyways. So much cruelty. Nobody would ever question the order of things."

"Didn't this type of thing come up before the marriage?"

"No... I was foolish, but he lied. He was older, and actively looking to find a baby maker. During courtship he was the image of romantic attention to my whims. It was an act. Romance ended after the honeymoon. We agreed that we both wanted children, just not right away. We did not talk specifics. He did not have a girlfriend until the week after the honeymoon. Before we celebrated our first anniversary I caught him saying goodbye to her. He was unapologetic, saying it was okay because she was leaving. He was my husband! But he had another soon enough, for less that a year, then the present one who has lasted through her schooling. I don't know why. We only discussed it once."

When Jorge got back after the South Pole she hoped some of the old magic romance would be back. She also thought that after a 9 month separation the girlfriend was history. Both expectations were wrong. First was the breeding, which she would not discuss further. Then he buried himself in data, as he was obligated to present something to people in Chile before Christmas.

Then she confided that he had a problem, his raw data was all in the wrong direction, it seemed to show the world was getting cooler. That anti-calamity was heresy to his dogma, if it got out he would be excommunicated or worse. All the High Priests of Global Panic would denounce him for setting back their struggle to save the world from people and their free choices.

As if the masses of China and India and Indonesia care about such things.

It was not just him, there were four others who worked in the region with similar data, so multiple careers were at stake. The pseudo-priest-scientists needed either an implausible explanation or to abandon a year of work by assuming the instruments - at five locations - were conspiring against them.

They considered blaming Chinese/Korean/Indian/Arab/Flat-Earth-Society hacking, but they could not agree and the claim would not stand scrutiny. Also, some folks got nasty when accused. So they all agreed to do the "right" thing: they would feed all their bad data to the shredder and never speak of it. They would only use "massaged" data that was "right" with their beliefs. Their data would be re-envisioned by Jorge so it fit their sacred bias. Instruments costing tens of thousands of dollars had stored data so they were "lost when the ice melted unexpectedly," making them mute martyrs to climate change.

You see, science is so much easier when you ignore the truth and go with your dogma, retreating the border of that which is known, one study at a time.

My research has to pass a simple test: does the theory allow one to make money? Climate change research does not have a similar inconvenient hurdle. A 50-year prediction is wrong? Ask the penguins.

Jorge had a lot of data to extrapolate (make up lies about) before Christmas. He was inconsolable, but he would come up with something, "he always did." When he said those words Isabel knew this was not the first time.

Part of the deal when you publish in a quality journal is that you agree to forward your raw data to any qualified researcher who asks for it. So his data backed him into a corner. He and the other four had to agree on their false data, to 5 decimal places, before they presented anything. Making that many lies line up is a lot of work.

I asked about computer backups. Isabel smiled and confided that the raw data for all five scientists still existed on the university server; Jorge was the most prestigious of the cabal so he volunteered the data repository. While Jorge's "heretical, back-stabbing" files on his laptop were gone and would be replaced with lies, she secured the original raw data. She was so thorough she even made a copy that was offline, on secure media. It was all in the logs.

Jorge really had a lot of reasons to be nice to her. But in fact, he treated her like a piece of furniture. I did not need a crystal ball to see where they were going. This sexy, important lady would soon need some loving support. It was my obligation to help her in her time of need. Any decent person would.

I mentioned how it would be a shame if that raw data got out after Jorge published. It would rend the cabal apart in public. Somebody would talk to save his or her career, taking down the others in the process, while making the young guy who "found" the correct data an immediate star. He would get a chair. Obviously, Jorge did not know how lucky he was to have her. I started humming "Born Under A Bad Sign" where the singer laments that, if he did not have bad luck, he would have no luck at all. She smiled and joined me.

Coincidentally I figured I was looking at some good luck for me. She needed some loving comfort, and she had a notion about who was good at that. I mean, if I was memorable in back, in the dark, imagine my handsome self from the front with the lights on. She was probably undressing me in her mind and imagining us as we spoke. I know I was. We smiled at what we thought.

Unprompted she said she often thought very fondly about one night in July when "a man was a scholar and a gentleman, paying divine lip service sight unseen" before he gave her the penetration she so desperately needed. She was sure the experience kept her sane since that night. "I may need another sanity injection soon," she said, looking into my eyes. "Very FUCKING soon."

This helpful guy could work with that. "I see that the men's shower room in your building is fixed and the woman's does not appear to need repair."

"That is true. With students around the power outages are much shorter and are scheduled with 15 minute warning, some of the power plant people have kids in school. But I can't wait, I figure I have until MLK day before I will be fat and repulsive and under a medical restriction. Before that happens I want to be bad... will you be bad with my body?"

(MLK day is a Monday in late January. Spring term always starts the next day. It's like a commandment in godless academia.)

Well, that was a pretty blunt question and it called for a blunt answer. But before I responded our food arrived. The food really was quite good, goose and duck prepared as rich fattening food never served on campus.

While the server was there I had to reassure Isabel. "Looks will never be an issue, they weren't last time..."

She gave a laugh at that.

I continued. "... even in the last stages of the project. I can appreciate things rounded out properly, mature womanhood." I looked at her eyes to make sure she knew what rounding I was talking about. "I see no reason why efforts can't continue right up to the legitimate deadline."

The server left.

She understood but took exception to my optimism. "I will be fat and have to pee a lot."

"If it works for you, those things won't bother me."

She gave me exactly the look - disbelief at my mentioning such things in front of the server turning to admiration and then anticipation - just like I was looking for.

As we ate we agreed that Mayz was too public to discuss the specific details of her desires for my body, but she did not want to delay. If I was willing she could invent a reason to come to my office in Carson Hall. She wanted to get one of those experiences "she imagined but couldn't get," like something from one of "her great uncle's letters" (Penthouse Forum) we had talked about in July. How about 5 this afternoon? Was I interested? Why yes, it was a date.

I did ask one other thing. Would the climate guy know about me? Us?

Her response was bitter. "I have proof of his flings. We are both playing by the rules we agreed to, but he is assuming some things, like infidelity is okay for men but will not considered by a woman. Maybe that works in Chile. Not here with a woman like me. Still, I fear that in any case, the marriage will not last as long as we thought it would."

"What about your wedding vows?" I asked. "I assume you took some."

"What is unusual there is what we skipped. I wrote out simple vows I got someplace, then he crossed most off the list. There was no fidelity vow. 'Honor and obey' was out. He tossed the 'in sickness and in health' away, he claimed it was because he was afraid of dementia on my side. He heard rumors."

"Is it an issue?"

"Not in my blood. My maternal grandmother had a brother who married a widow who got dementia. Not my blood. But the point is, he would walk away from caring for me, yet he expects to coerce me to care for him, and he kept that a secret... I will explain later."

She took a breath, she was not sure about the next topic.

"As for knowing you... he hates you with a pure irrational passion right now, and he has never met you."

"Will you be in danger?"

"No, I will use it to bring him to heel. First, he would not dare lay a finger... he has a thing about women, his folks would disown him for the slightest physical contact with their grandchild's mother. Second... and this is the great secret... he is weak as a sissy-cat. I own the campus weight rooms and all the strength coaches report directly to me weekly, for a "Get Isabel Stronger" committee. Good results or goodbye. I am the strongest and fittest I have ever been. I can overpower him, knock him down boxing, break bones... he knows it and would never risk that... Oh yes, third, I am the chief of the campus cops."

"Are you that strong? I know he played football..."

"That was a long time ago. At his prime he used to bench twice his weight with ease. Today he can't do a single push-up. I will explain that later."

"Oh... kay... Getting back to me," I said it as lightly as I could, playing for laughs. It worked, she almost had a fit laughing. "I have to ask... why does he hate me so if he does not know me?"

"He knows your salary - fucking 25% more than him! It was quite a trick your Dean played. Talk about sending a message! Your paycheck is a neon sign as big as the stadium scoreboard to the whole campus. Jorge was so upset with the concept that he lost a week of work in Chile, he ranted for 30 hours straight, until he collapsed. His mother wrote to me, the whole family was afraid 'my father's reckless indulgence' would cause the righteous faculty of the colleges to rise up and start of a bloody revolution like proper socialists all academics are inside. As if."

"Well, if he published in the same journals I do, he could get the same money."

"Yeah, about that... The thing is, he can't read the journals you publish in, and he knows it. THAT hurts like a knife in the guts."

In academia budget games are played with silly, made-up bendable rules. In order to pay me a salary I would consider, the Provost, with her Dad's approval, had to bend some of the silly rules well beyond the point where anyone thought they could be bent.

Each college is alloted a budget based on "positions." There is a formula for that. Each position is allocated so many dollars. The big sin was that my Dean sacrificed a faculty position slot, one of a half dozen he would never fill, so he could pay me more than twice the usual baseline salary for a Liberal Arts position. In effect, I was so special I counted as two people for salary. It was a simple and terrible message about my value relative to hoi polloi.

Our Dean had long complained that he could not hire any Business faculty at Liberal Arts pay rates. Now I was publicly getting paid more than two "regular" history faculty while teaching something under 50% of students one average history faculty has scheduled for. It was unheard of, an insult to all, and surely against the will of heaven and all that is right. But divine lightning had not struck me down yet. The righteous whiners were exposed as naked and limp in their impotence. Nobody got chastised for breaking the rules, which is all that counted. So the great cries were in vain.

As if their educated opinions ever counted for anything.

During the debate the Provost mentioned how medieval lords hired mercenary troops (landsknect) who employed "double pay" men (doppelsoldner).

That hit a nerve, "You know, somebody called me doppelsoldner this summer."

She got the reference and laughter a bit too hard, almost choking on her brie.

I opined that "Things would be a lot easier if budgets were drawn in the summer, when the liberal masses with unrealistic expectations were not around to rattle their cages. But since they were around the unwashed expressed their uninformed indignation by making impassioned speeches in the Debating Assembly Of The Aged Impotent, otherwise known as the Faculty Senate."

After she stopped laughing Isabel continued. "That leads me to the second reason he hates you. I tried to read one of your articles and I could not get through the first paragraph. I read 'homoscedasticity' and was sure you were putting us on... that it was really a sex thing... anal sex maybe. Maybe I had sex on my mind. I asked Jorge - without using your name - and he said it was a bit beyond him, but he was sure the term was legitimate. He was too busy to explain - which means he couldn't, because his greatest pleasure in life is lecture me. So I asked a friend of mine and she tried to explain it. I was so sorry I asked... it's a black hole on my next brain x-ray for sure. A few days later Jorge must have googled you, or more likely he used the title of the article. He saw the article, but then he spotted this U-Tube thing you did cruelly mocking his beloved climate change. He... freaking... flipped... out. Talk about a red flag in front of a bull. Why would you record such a thing?"

The 'thing' on U-Tube was a video I made that sharply mocked his alleged academic discipline.

"It is a graduate student ritual. At my school, after you defend, you still have to be affirmed by the grad students as one who is worthy of their little mafia. The current rule is that you do something 10 to 20 minutes long. The audience must regard the content as both scholarly and humorous. The presentation should be suitable and stimulating for conversation during a date between two graduate students. I knew I was coming here, so April 1 - April Fools day - I posted this intellectual rip on the concept of a Climate Change department - which my PhD school does not have. The presentation, which is legitimate but unkind, combined stand-up and sort of "Adam Ruins...." It was rated at 4.95 on a scale of 1 to 5. Your Dad has seen it, your mother had to stop it because he was laughing too hard. At the end I said one could fix it all, just call it 'Climate Cycles' or something similar. That would be intellectually honest but more difficult. This way, they are prostituting themselves."

"Yeah, well Professor Jorge Victor, PhD, our Allbright Scholar of Climate Change did not get to that part of it... or he was too offended."

"Okay, maybe the crotchless panties lecturing with the dollar bills sticking out went too far. But the essential points are still valid and funny for anybody who is not a card-carrying member of the Society Of The Perpetually Offended."

At that point our wonderful main courses were done and we were both very amused with our quips. Our attention now turned to focus on the contents of the magnificent desert we would share. It was the high point.

At lunch Mayz serves one huge desert at each table. The serving is suitable for four people and is served on a single dish. There are two spoons for their signature excess. All desserts are whipped cream delights, with whipping and construction done at the table by a staff of three "dessert architects."

I let Isabel pick, one really can't make a bad choice. She selected a cherries and apricots jubilee superstructure over a foundation of rich flourless-chocolate-seedless-raspberry cake, served "flamed and quenched" meaning a second splash of Grand Marnier was added after the first serving was burning and then smothered in super-rich whipped cream flavored with coconut cream mixed as we watched. Mixing-burning-quenching were intended to provide some drama. Would it burn too fast? Would the cream be enough? Was the second pouring of booze excessive? Would it catch fire or douse the first fire? It was perfect, sinful and marvelous but light enough so one could almost say, with a straight face decorated with the inevitable dollop of whipped cream, that it was not "too much." Except it was, in every way.

Whipped cream was impossible to take home, so it had to be eaten on site. Good thing they served small portions for the rest of the meal.

Silence reined for the half hour it took to put the structure to rest.

We finished it, we cleaned our plate of the excess goodness. They provide little shovel-like silver scrapers so you can get the last of the whipped cream. A fanfare of joyful trumpets were sounded to signify our success.

As we waddled out (well, it felt that way) we agreed that my duck and her goose were excellent, especially as nourishment for a mother-to-be. But the dessert merited extraordinary penance regardless of one's faith, even for devout acolytes of the Horned One.

I expect we were both thinking about how and where that penance might be served together, burning off those extra calories on our knees, with smiles, summoning smiles.

We agreed, at five in my office to "discuss penance for luncheon desert sins."

-

After lunch I had a class to teach, imparting true wisdom to the highest paid students who would graduate from this school next May. Most already had solid job offers for June (it was the first week of October), and with luck about half of them would earn my current salary or better in 5 years. Some couples sat in pairs together, with one sporting an engagement ring - double score DINKs! Their faces and demeanor said they knew they had made the right choices. They saw me as the voice of wisdom, their key to prosperity and the piper leading them to their golden dreams.