He was pretty. Distressing how pretty he was. His face would be distracting if his presentation weren't so engaging. Professor Reid stood before the cramped lecture hall looking like a naughty professor from a romance novel – from the tweed jacket to the angelically carved face – lecturing about one of his many FBI exploits to illustrate this week's subject matter.
"Miss Prescott?" He called suddenly, his hazel eyes staring straight at me. A fucking cold call, he loved doing that to students he thought weren't paying attention. I understand why he would so often assume that about me, my ADHD resulted in a lot of staring into the middle distance and fidgeting, but it still stressed me out everytime. "What do these actions from the unidentified subject tell us about him?"
"Well," I started, slightly shaky but doing my best to express confidence, "he's probably not a sexual sadist, given that there's no evidence of sexual assault. So dressing up his victims in such sexually provocative clothing was probably intended to humiliate them, instead, which would indicate that the victims were people he knew or met previously." I stumbled every word out the best that I could while staring straight at the crime scene photos on the board behind Professor Reid's head, praying this was a decent enough answer.
Professor Reid smiled, seemingly relieved to see that my disengaged body language had not indicated disengaged ears, "That's a decent deduction, Miss Prescott, and certainly worth considering, however at this juncture of an investigation you have to consider all possibilities. A lack of sexual assault does not necessarily indicate a lack of sexual sadism, we must also consider the possibility of the unsub being impotent, and thus taking out his sexual frustrations on these women by humiliating them. Also consider what these women may otherwise have in common, they may simply be surrogates for a specific person who incited his rage, rather than the sources of it themselves."
I nodded vigorously at his response, trying to not let the sting of RSD hit too hard, that could have gone better, but it also could have gone much worse. At the end of his lecture Professor Reid asked us all to use the last 30 minutes of class time to begin the reading he had assigned for the week, while I appreciated it given that it was four goddamn chapters of David Rossi's first book, it seemed a strange use of class time until the 30 minutes were up, when the handsome professor began handing back our graded essays that we had turned in that morning. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given that he could famously read 20,000 words a minute, but regardless I had not emotionally prepared myself to get my first grade back from him today.
"I want you all to really take in the feedback on these papers!" he said, "there's a reason I had to all write a paper so early in the semester, this is the baseline for all of you to consult and work up from. Your approach to the subject matter, your understanding of the material, and the quality of your writing were all considered. Please feel free to reach out to me before or after class, and during my office hours if you have any questions or need any help." His last word punctuated as he dropped my paper down in front of me, a large C dawning the top of my paper. I'm used to Cs on tests, but papers are usually where I shine. As everyone else around me rose to leave, I just sat there reading the professor's notes carefully. A sense of relief washed over me to see almost none of his feedback was on the quality of my writing itself, only for that to be immediately raised by an extreme indignation to what the feedback was about.
"Miss Prescott?" The familiar, soft male voice interrupted my train of thought, causing me to snap my head up. And just like that I was suddenly making direct eye contact with my professor, a mere foot or so away from my desk. In the two and half weeks since the semester had begun this was the closest physically I had been to him, and he was even prettier up close. "Class was dismissed ten minutes ago, is everything alright? I was content to let you look over your paper before leaving but I have to lock up the room now." The genuineness of his voice threw me even more off guard, almost like he was actually, literally, making sure I was physically capable of moving from this seat. It would probably read as condescending from anyone with less fluffy hair.
"Yeah, sorry, I'm fine," I started to stumble slightly as I rapidly started collecting and packing my things, "I just, well, no actually." I finally got out. "I disagree with this grade you gave me." I stared sharply at my desk, knowing the strength of my voice always holds better when I don't look him in the eyes. Even with that I could feel his eyebrows furrow together, before he crossed his arms and leaned back against the desk behind him. But I continued before he could start, "It doesn't feel like you graded me on the content of my work, but rather a personal bias against my assertions, which largely question the foundation of the work you do. It feels dismissive of my work in response to what you incorrectly perceived as dismissal of yours, rather than helpful feedback on my understanding of the subject." I finally let myself look back up at him after that, doing my best to maintain confidence in my self-advocacy. His pretty face looked stern, almost irritated in a way that was unfamiliar to me.
"I would argue the type and level of skepticism you presented in your essay is itself demonstrative of a misunderstanding of the material, as I noted on your paper itself." Reid explained, holding my eye contact like I was a suspect he was interrogating.
"Yeah, I saw that, and I am disagreeing." I responded, holding my ground as I found myself matching the intensity of his eyes in a way that was unfamiliar to myself. Our staring match found itself interrupted by a beeping on his phone.
"Well, if you would like to make the case for yourself further you can. Though if you're really this upset with your grade it may be a better use of your time to just re-write the assignment." Reid began, "Either way, if you wish to further engage with this it'll have to be in my office hours this friday." He continued as he headed towards the door, holding it open in wait for my exit. I stared at him from my desk through one solid deep inhale before standing and picking up my bag.
"Thank you, sir, I think I'll take you up on that actually." I said as I made my way to the door. "By the way, sir, something else has been bugging me for the past hour." I added as I stopped in the doorframe.
"What's that?" He asked, looking down at me in a way that would have made me feel small and hour ago, but somehow felt empowering now.
"Well you said to consider all possibilities in the early stage of building a profile during an investigation, and I just found it curious that in all your examples for why the unsub could be operating the sexual way he is without engaging in any sex acts, you never even considered the possibility that it wasn't a 'he' at all." I said, "I'll see you friday, Professor."
