The University Lecturer

The University Lecturer

This story concerns Dr Margaret Hill, a sixty-one-year-old lecturer in English Literature at a British university. Despite her age, Margaret is still a virgin, something she wants to resolve before it's too late.

Enter Alan, slightly older than most of his contemporaries and keen to enjoy whatever experiences university life has to offer.

The story does contain descriptions of anal sex, so if that offends you please pass on by. If you continue reading, I hope you enjoy the story and I look forward to readers' comments.

Sylviafan

I went straight into publishing when I left school, starting as an editorial assistant. Most of my contemporaries had degrees and although it wasn't a requirement for the job, it was pretty obvious that I would need one if I were to progress in my chosen profession; and I did want a career in publishing. I was passionate about books and I planned to write myself in the future.

So I was twenty-four when I went up, about five or six years older than the average new-entry undergraduate. I applied to the nearest university, which happens to be a well-known establishment in a city about ten miles from where I live with my parents. I was duly accepted on an English literature honours degree course and I started fresher's week at the beginning of October.

I could have lived at home for the whole of my degree, I had a reliable car, and it was only a twenty-minute drive from my parent's house to the campus, but I wanted to taste the full university experience, at least for the first year. Later, when I really needed to knuckle down and do some work, I could live at home.

I loved the first couple of weeks in the groves of Academe. I felt a sense of elation and belonging and I looked forward to hours spent debating contemporary literature with like-minded fellow students in the student bar or strolling by the river. I joined clubs and drank cheap beer and flirted with the female students on my course. I also spent a lot of time in my spartan room, reading.

My first lecture was scheduled for the end of my second week; the University liked to give its new undergrads plenty of time to acclimatise to being away from home. The lecture was an introduction to the degree course and was to be delivered by Doctor Margaret Hill, Assistant Professor in English literature.

I got to the auditorium in plenty of time but it was already full and I was lucky to squeeze into a vacant space in the back tier, about fifty feet from the stage and thirty feet above it. Dr Hill walked in exactly on time and there was an expectant hush from the audience. She introduced herself, explained what she would be talking about for the following hour and, without further preamble, started her lecture.

The lighting in the lecture theatre wasn't particularly bright and I was a long way from the stage, so I couldn't see Dr Hill particularly well. What I could see, and somewhat to my surprise, was that she was wearing a dark dress that only came to just below mid-thigh. Below that she was wearing black tights and from what I could see she had splendid legs: long, very slender and shapely. Over the dress she wore a red jacket. I couldn't see much of her features except for dark, straight, collar-length hair and thick-framed glasses. I mentally assumed that she was in her thirties of forties, given the dress and her legs, and I gave myself up to listening to her lecture.

And very worthwhile it was too. Dr Hill spoke without the benefit of notes, clearly and concisely, and with excellent diction and sentence construction as, I told myself, one would expect of a professor of English literature. But not only that, she spoke with enthusiasm and passion and a deep understanding of her subject and I became enthralled by her talk and the time passed as if in a dream. Almost before I knew it she had finished and the audience was applauding and she was walking out of the theatre.

Back at my accommodation block, one of my new acquaintances directed me to a noticeboard where I learned that Dr Hill was to be my tutor for the first academic year and my heart filled with gladness. This was a lady I knew I could learn from.

My first tutorial was on the following Monday at two o'clock in the afternoon. It was to be held in Dr Hill's apartment in the old Manor House. The Manor House sat in the centre of what had once been five-hundred acres of parkland and was now the University campus. It was a sprawling Jacobean mansion which contained a number of small apartments for the Vice-Chancellor and senior members of the academic staff, usually the unattached ones.

After a few false starts I found a door at the top of a winding staircase with a brass plate that read: Dr M E Hill. I rang the doorbell and waited.

Thirty seconds later the door was opened by the lady I'd seen in the lecture theatre, except that this time I was three feet away and the lighting was infinitely better. I almost did a double take. Dr Hill was much older than I had imagined; early sixties was my guess.

'You must be Alan,' she said in that delicious upper-middle-class accent. 'I'm Margaret. Come in, the others are already here.'

I followed her, slightly bemused, down a short corridor and into a comfortable lounge with a window overlooking the front courtyard. The walls were lined with bookcases and there were settees and comfortable chairs around a coffee table.

Three students, one male and two female, were already there and they looked at me with the smug expressions of people who had made it on time.

'Sorry I'm late,' I began. 'I got a bit lost finding your flat.'

'It's easily done,' smiled Margaret. 'I keep asking the Admin Office to send out a plan but they never do. Will you have tea, Alan?'

I took a seat and she poured me a cup and one of the other students handed it to me and another passed me a little jug of milk.

'You haven't missed anything,' she continued. 'We were just doing the introductions. I like to know a little bit about my students.'

'This is Daisy, Luke and Naomi.' I smiled and nodded at them and they smiled back. 'They've come straight from school. What about you, Alan?'

'I've been working in a publisher's for a few years,' I said, 'as an editorial assistant.'

'Which publishing house was that with?' asked Margaret, with interest.

'Schofield-Daniels,' I replied.

'I know them,' she said, looking at me. 'The University publishes a lot of academic work through them. They've published some of my efforts.

'But to business,' she continued and for the next hour she talked about the course and what we would cover and the assignments and tutorials and what she expected of her students and the four of us sat and listened and I had a chance to study Dr Hill.

I think I'd been disappointed when she opened the door; after the lecture, I'd assumed my tutor was a leggy thirty or forty-year-old, someone I could enjoy looking at as well as discussing literature with. She was certainly leggy. She was dressed in another short dress and she was sitting in a leather armchair with her legs crossed, exposing much of her thighs. Her legs, again encased in sheer black tights, were gorgeous with slim ankles and shapely calves. She was wearing another jacket today, this one a royal blue, but it was to her face that I was drawn in fascination.

Her hair, I now saw, was extensively shot through with grey. It was centre-parted and framed a face that was long and rather lugubrious with a high forehead, the beginnings of jowls on her cheeks and a little wattle of skin at her throat. Although her forehead was mostly unlined, there were pouches under her blue eyes and crows' feet at their corners. But her nose was nice: straight and narrow, and she had full, well-defined lips. Her thick-framed glasses only added to the appearance of a wise old academic.

Most incongruously, I thought, were her fingernails, which were quite long and painted bright red and drew attention to her hands which were slender but veined and spotted with light-brown patches. Other than that she wore no other decoration; no rings or earrings and only a touch of rouge on her lips.

But my initial disappointment was soon forgotten; the assistant professor knew and loved her subject and was an expert at instilling that love in her students. Besides, what had I been expecting to happen? A fling with my tutor? Come off it.

Again the time flew and it seemed that we'd only just arrived when she smiled and said that that was it for the day and we stood up and headed for the front door.

I had a tutorial every Monday afternoon for the rest of the autumn term and I looked forward to them immensely as the height of my academic experience, because it was just so great to discuss Victorian and early twentieth-century literature with Dr Hill. She seemed to have read every book ever published in the English language and she could describe the life and influences of the authors and why they had written what they had written.

I'd read all my life and had a fairly solid grounding in the classics. The other three students seemed only to be time-servers, submitting their assignments when they were due and sitting through lectures and tutorials with no obvious sense of enjoyment. When tutorials ended they were up and through the door which often gave me a chance to have a brief one-to-one with Margaret, perhaps to clarify points that had been raised in the tutorial or to ask her advice on research reading. As a result, we became rather friendly and we would stop and exchange a few words if we met in the library or in the Great Hall where we ate our meals.

I discovered that she was kind and unjudgmental and rather endearingly naïve about life outside the world of literature. She had had several academic works published by Schofield-Daniels and we knew people in common in their offices.

So that first term passed rather agreeably. I made new friends and worked hard and achieved success with my assignments. I flirted with Emma, a first-year biology student but it never went further than the odd kiss after a night out. And I attended lectures and tutorials and I listened to Margaret and learned from her breathtaking depth of knowledge and understanding of her subject.

'Are you going to the Christmas ball?' Margaret asked me one Monday afternoon in December after the other three students had departed.

The Christmas ball was the following Friday, just before the University broke up for the seasonal holiday. Most of my friends and acquaintances had pooh-poohed the idea, calling it a stuffy tradition.

'I'm not sure,' I told her.

'Oh, do come, Alan. I'm sure you'll look very dashing in a dinner jacket.'

I still wasn't sure but if Margaret was going to be there I'd at least have someone interesting to talk to. So I went into town on Thursday afternoon and hired a dinner suit and a black bow tie and a dress shirt and on Friday evening I presented myself at the Great Hall.

Inside it had been decorated with a tree and the usual Christmas tat. There was a stage at one end with a band and a disco and a small dance floor and a bar had been set up at the other end. I got a drink and strolled around looking for people I knew but after about twenty minutes it dawned on me that there were precious few students here; it was mostly academic staff, and certainly none of my friends.

Except Margaret, of course. I spotted her sitting at a table by herself and went over.

'Hello, Margaret,'

She looked round and gave me a big smile. 'Alan! I'm so glad you decided to come! And I was right, you look fabulous in that DJ. Very Sean Connery.' I snorted and she laughed.

'Would you like to join me?' she asked.

'Yes,' I told her, 'that would be very nice.'

'I'll get us a bottle of wine, you hang on to the table.' She stood up and I watched her as she walked down towards the bar.

Dinner jackets were mandatory for men at the Christmas ball and ballgowns for women. Margaret was wearing a floor-length sheath in some shimmery material. It had long sleeves and a high neck but it couldn't disguise the fact that Dr Hill had a slim, rather nice figure, especially for someone who was probably in their sixties. She was about my height in her heels and had shapely hips, neat buttocks and a modest bust; she also had the rather round shoulders of the career academic. It was a pity that she was so much older than me, I fantasised as I waited for her. If she'd been twenty years younger, or even ten, I'd have tried my luck, even though she wasn't particularly attractive.

Inevitably I thought about Samantha, the senior editorial assistant at Schofield-Daniels. She was thirty-eight and divorced and had been looking for some fun with no strings attached. A feisty redhead with a penchant for dirty sex as often as possible. For two years she and I had maintained a clandestine relationship. I was besotted. I wanted to marry her but she just laughed and said she'd already ticked that box. She was one of the reasons I'd decided to leave and go to university.

Margaret came back with a bottle of Pinot Noir and two glasses and she sat down and poured the wine and we clinked glasses and wished each other Merry Christmas.

'Tell me about yourself, Alan,' she smiled at me. She'd put quite a bit more makeup on than usual and painted her nails a deep red. She looked vaguely like the aging owner of a bordello, a look that was a bit off-putting and, at the same time, rather alluring. I swallowed some wine and concentrated on what I was saying.

I told her about my family and my hobbies and interests and she listened carefully and asked intelligent questions. I told her that I wanted to write one day and she admitted to me that she had written some detective fiction and had had some small success with it and so we talked about writing and I was again enthralled by the way she talked and the things she said. About an hour later she went and fetched another bottle of wine, despite my protests that I would pay.

'Come and dance with me,' she said suddenly. The band had finished their first set and the disc jockey had sensibly put on some slower numbers that the members of the academic staff could shuffle round the floor to with their partners without embarrassing themselves too much.

She led me onto the dance floor and turned to me so I put my arm around her waist and took her hand in mine and she put her arm around my shoulder and we started doing something approaching a slow waltz, navigating our way around the crowded floor.

It was getting quite hot in the Great Hall and I was aware of Margaret close to me. Closer than she had ever been. Touching at several points, in fact.

'I don't get many dances at these balls,' she told me, leaning forward to talk in my ear. 'There aren't many singles, especially at the Christmas ball.' Was it possible that that was why she'd suggested I attend? So that she'd have someone to dance with? Surely she wasn't that devious.

'You haven't told me much about yourself,' I said.

'Wait till we get back to the table,' she replied. 'Then I'll tell you everything,' she smiled.

We danced for about forty-five minutes and then the band came back for their final set and we went back to the table. During our dancing I had the impression that Margaret was trying to edge closer and certainly during that last dance we had been touching at a few more points than at the beginning.

'Ok,' I said as we started on the second bottle, 'spill the beans.'

So Margaret told me about her childhood in the Cotswolds and her time at Oxford and her doctorate at Durham University.

'You never married?' I asked, curious.

'No,' she replied, 'I never married.'

By eleven-thirty we had finished the second bottle of Pinot and Margaret had got us brandy cocktails, which I didn't really want. I wasn't falling-over drunk but I'd had plenty and I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of my tutor.

Margaret however was showing definite signs of intoxication. Her voice had risen and she was slurring slightly and using her hands far more than usual to illustrate what she was saying. She finished her cocktail and raised her empty glass to me.

'Another?'

'No thanks,' I said.

'Good idea. Let's have a nightcap at my flat instead. I'll get my coat.'

She disappeared towards the cloakroom and appeared a few minutes later with a black wool coat on. We left the Great Hall and stepped out into a chill December evening. The cold air sobered me but it appeared to have the opposite effect on Margaret and she steadied herself with a hand on my arm.

We walked like that to the Manor House and went upstairs to her flat where she found a half-full bottle of cheap Merlot and poured us a glass.

We talked for another half an hour, Margaret was quite drunk by this time and I was anxious to leave.

I stood up and thanked her for her company and the drinks and moved to the door with Margaret tottering behind me. I opened the front door and turned to say goodbye and to my astonishment my tutor stepped right up to me, put her hands on my shoulders and pressed her mouth to mine.

Her lips felt soft and she tasted of wine but as she pushed her tongue into my mouth I gently disengaged her. 'Not now, Margaret,' I said gently.

'Oh God,' she wailed, putting her face in her hands, 'I've made a bloody fool of myself again! I'm sorry Alan!'

I smiled and said it was okay and I wished her a Merry Christmas again and then I walked down the stairs, leaving her standing in her doorway weeping. I felt pretty awful but I didn't see what else I could do. Goodness knows what she might have done if I'd stayed and tried to put her to bed.

I walked back to my accommodation block, now completely sober and trying to remember what her lips had felt like. And I knew that if she hadn't been drunk I would have kissed her back and then who knows what would have happened. But then if she hadn't have been drunk, she wouldn't have tried to kiss me, would she?

Christmas was good. I spent the day itself with my family and the rest of the break seeing friends and skiing in the Cairngorms. I got a text message from Margaret early on Christmas day:

Happy Christmas, Alan. I hope you are having a wonderful time. Margaret x

I thought of her alone in her flat or having a stilted celebration with the other live-in academics in the Great Hall. I thought about the kiss and her understated figure and her long legs and I found myself becoming hard and looking forward very much to my next tutorial.

Best wishes to you, too, I texted back. See you in a couple of weeks. Alan x

As luck would have it I had a tutorial with Margaret on the day after I got back from the Cairngorms. The weather in the south of England was wet and foul and two of the tutor group students didn't turn up. Margaret, dressed in her trademark short dress, tights and jacket, talked about the social and environmental influences on Jane Austen and compared her writing to the Brontës as we listened and sipped tea. When the tutorial was over Margaret asked me to stay behind so I sat on the settee as she ushered the other student out and shut the front door.

'I think you can probably guess what this is about, Alan,' she began, coming back into the lounge and sinking into her chair. 'I'm afraid I got drunk and behaved unforgivably at the Christmas ball.'

'It's okay,' I said. There was no harm done.'

'Well it's kind of you to say so but I feel I owe you a proper apology. And an explanation,' she added.

I sat quietly, wondering what she was going to say.

Margaret looked at her watch. 'There's no time now, I've got another tutorial group in twenty minutes, and it's not the right place either. Look Alan, I know it's short notice but I'd like to take you out for a pub meal this evening, if you're free that is. It'll be easier for me to talk to you in that environment.'