My Student Pt. 03

"Hello, is this Jessica Tisdale? ... This is professor David Stanley. ... Yes, I just saw your email. ... He has been in class, and I... well, I saw him this morning, in fact. ... How long has he been out of touch? ... That's very odd, because he told me that he was home for spring break last week. ... Hmm, I see. ... I understand. ... Yes, I will tell him that we spoke. ... Yes. ... OK, I will. Goodbye."

I hung up. Aaron's mom sounded like any other concerned parent, I didn't get any sense that she was a cold-hearted bigot, but I had been cagey with her, feeling protective of Aaron, since her version of events was wildly different than what Aaron had told me.

She told me Aaron had stopped answering her and her husband's calls about a month ago, that he hadn't come home for spring break. That he'd seemed stressed when she'd last spoken to him, that he'd told her he needed space away from them for a while. They had tried to respect that, but after several weeks with no contact they were extremely concerned. She was worried that he was having some sort of breakdown.

The longer I thought about it, the more uneasy I got. What the hell was going on? I looked at the clock. My upper-level class was starting in twenty minutes. I would see Aaron soon enough and sort this out. I went across the quad to get a coffee at the student union and clear my head before class. My whole body ached. And needless to say, my head was a mess.

Right as class started, I got a text from Tom.

Call me, David

Great, just what I needed. Tom should know I was about to teach. I turned my phone to silent.

After fifteen minutes, when Aaron still hadn't shown up to class, I knew something was wrong. The rest of the period dragged by, endlessly, as my mind spiraled. What if he really was having a breakdown? And, like a predator, I'd swooped in when he was most vulnerable. The whole class, the sight of Aaron's empty chair by the window needled me. My mind flashed images of his naked body, his wet skin in the shower, the gape of his used, spent hole as I spread his asscheeks apart in the bed.

What if he'd hurt himself? At my house? I imagined grisly scenario after grisly scenario. Class ended with no sign of Aaron. I pulled out my phone. Five more texts and three missed calls from Tom. What the fuck? I collected my notes and computer, and headed back to my office. I called Tom as I walked.

He picked up immediately. "David, did you not see my texts?"

"What's the emergency, Tom? I was teaching."

"The bank called me. Did you authorize a transfer of sixty thousand dollars from our emergency savings account to someone named Dominic LaStrange?"

"What?" Tired and distracted as I was, I wasn't registering what Tom was saying.

"Log into our bank account. Two hours ago, it appears that you wired Dominic LaStrange everything we had in there."

"I didn't send anybody any money," I said, opening my office door.

"Well, the bank says that someone named David Stanley called to authorize it. David, I think someone stole your identity..."

Tom kept talking, but all of a sudden I felt a weight drop into my stomach. I sat down in my office chair and held the phone away from my ear. My head was pounding.

"David... David, are you there?" I heard Tom's voice say from the phone.

No. No way. He couldn't have. My temples felt like they were going to explode.

I brought the phone back to my ear, said, "Tom, um, hold on. Can I call you back?"

"What do you mean, hold on? David, this is fucking serious."

"I know... I know," I said, standing up and grabbing my jacket from my chair. "I, uh, I am going to run home. I can't log into the bank account from my work computer."

"What? That doesn't make any sense," Tom said. "David..."

"I'll call you back," I said, and hung up.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I whispered to myself, as I hurried home. I didn't run, but I was walking fast. As I hustled through the north gate I felt a sharp twinge in my right knee, the one I'd injured badly several years earlier. I ignored the pain and kept walking, back through the leafy, tree-lined blocks that ringed the campus. I broke into a trot when I was within sight of our house.

Coming in the door, I yelled Aaron's name. There was no reply. I limped down the guest room hallway. My knee was reporting with strong shocks of pain, now. The guest room was empty, and Aaron's bag was gone. I came back out into the kitchen. On the kitchen island, I saw a small thumb drive sitting on top of a green sticky note from the pad we kept in our junk drawer. I hobbled over and ripped the note off the counter, began to read it.

Professor, I'm sorry for taking your car and your $, the first line read.

"Fuck!" I shouted, and hobbled over to the door leading to the garage, threw it open. Our truck was gone. The Prius was still there. "Oh, fuck. Oh fuck," I said, quietly. I looked again at the note.

I recorded us fucking. I set up an email account to auto-send the video to the dean and everyone in the anthro dept every day at 8am, unless I cancel it. Don't call the cops! Aaron. PS. I made you a copy. Enjoy.

As I read this, my heart pounding, my phone buzzed again, it was Tom. I silenced it.

"Fuck," I said, again.

I grabbed the thumb drive and limped to my room to get my computer. I saw the laptop open on the bedside table. The laptop that had all my passwords and personal information readily accessible.

"You little fucker!" I yelled. The internet browser showed the bank website's auto-logout page. I rubbed my hands on my face, felt my beard. The beard that just a few hours ago had been covered in Aaron's cum. I put the thumb drive in. It contained a single video file, 1.3 gigabytes in size. I clicked it.

I saw the empty guest room shifting left and right before the camera centered in on the guest bed. He must have propped his phone on the bureau next to the door. I scrolled ahead, saw him, naked, meet me at the door and the two of us stumble toward the bed. I cringed, seeing how huge and fat I looked next to Aaron, how roughly I had thrown him onto the bed.

"Jesus, fuck," I said, scrolling through the video, which showed everything that had happened next in excruciating detail. I saw my great, hairy body slamming into him, his thin legs waving in the air. I watched, feeling my cock harden in spite of my boiling rage. I saw him turn to the camera while I fucked him. He smiled, stuck out his tongue.

I closed the laptop and ripped the drive out of the computer. I sat down on the bed and put my head in my hands. How could I have been so goddamned stupid? That little shit!

My phone buzzed again. I picked it up, saw it was Tom calling, of course. I let it ring a few more times before I answered it.

"David! What the hell is going on? Did you call the bank?"

"Tom..." I said, my voice breaking. "Tom, I'm sorry. I fucked up."

//

Epilogue.

It was 6:30 p.m., and I was still in my office, working. I was trying to be better at getting home at a reasonable time, or at least earlier than usual, because I knew how much Tom liked us to eat dinner together. But there just weren't enough hours in the day.

All of a sudden, in my peripheral vision, I saw someone come into my office and plop down in the chair opposite my desk. I turned. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Aaron, a freshman in my writing seminar. I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"Are you busy, Professor?" He asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. And I would appreciate it if you knocked next time before coming in."

"Sorry," he said, but he remained sitting. "I thought you said to come by if your door was open."

I sighed and turned from my computer to face him. He sat there, looking at me quizzically. Freshmen. Entry into the world of college seemed to require more and more hand-holding these days.

"Common courtesy, Aaron," I said. "Even if a door is open, even if it's office hours, most people appreciate a knock or a greeting before you walk into their office."

His big blue eyes took this in. He was distractingly cute. And whip-smart. I felt a twinge in my gut, and my groin, looking at his boyish face, his narrow shoulders, sitting across from me. In class, around the large conference table with fifteen other first-years, I had to keep myself from looking at him too frequently.

He smiled. "OK Professor, I'll knock next time. But can I ask you about my grade on the first essay?"

I debated for a moment whether I should refuse, tell him to come back during office hours, but I softened, seeing him here, his adorable face, his earnest eagerness.

"You're upset I gave you a B minus," I said.

"I just want to know what I did wrong. You gave Ben an A, and my essay was better than his," he said.

"Ben followed the instructions," I said, somewhat annoyed by his blunt assertion. "You didn't."

"But I write better than him. My essay was really good," he said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Wasn't it?"

"You're a talented writer, Aaron, that's obvious. And I could tell that you were inspired by the reading. But you got carried away, well, emulating Gould. The instructions were very clear. The assignment wasn't to emulate Gould. It was to analyze his thought process. Get into his head, not into his pen."

He thought for a moment, then said, "But were you not... entertained?" He grinned at me.

I laughed. This kid might turn out to be a lot of fun.

"Sure I was. But unfortunately, you aren't graded on entertainment value, at least on this essay. I suggest you take another look at the Takeda paper, which is a nice example of what I am looking for. Then, take another look at the rubric. If you still have questions, definitely come back to meet with me... during office hours."

As I spoke, he maintained eye contact, nodding slightly, occasionally flicking his eyes to my mouth, it seemed, watching me speak.

"OK," he said. He looked down at his hands. I suddenly felt for him. I remembered being in his shoes, on the cusp of everything, desperate to break into the world.

"Look, Aaron, my goal is not to discourage you, at all. I'm excited to have you in my seminar, I can tell you're going to come up with some great stuff. But this isn't high school, you won't cruise through on talent alone." Or on looks alone, I thought.

He sat there for a long moment, looking down. I imagined pulling him out of his chair, forcing him to his knees, pushing his face into my crotch, his full, red lips wrapped around my cock. I shifted in my chair, feeling the oncoming erection.

After a moment, he looked up at me. He said, "Can I try again?"

"Sure," I said. "I'll happily read another version. And I'll happily meet with you about it. But right now, it's almost seven, and I need to get home to my husband."

Aaron stood up and grabbed his backpack from the floor. "Thanks, Professor," he said. "I really appreciate the feedback. I will send you another essay, tonight. It will be excellent, you'll see."

I chuckled. "OK, Aaron, don't stay up too late," I said, turning back to my computer. "I'll see you bright and early in class tomorrow."