"'...it isn't lust; it's all the rest of what I want with you that scares me shitless.'," the professor read the last sentence of the poem, then paused a moment to let the words sink in. "...it's all the rest of what I want with you that scares me...'"
The professor raised her eyes to address her students, "Marilyn Hacker, a 20th century poet who knows no boundaries to her needs and who is uninhibited by her desires. Your assignment is to show me no boundaries to yours."
At that very moment - at the word, 'yours' - Kristina's world seemed to stop because the professor's eyes stopped on her and wouldn't. let. go.
'Yours,' reverberated in Kristina's ears, her stomach dropped into her knees, her head felt like it was filled with helium.
Kristina looked at her hands to ensure that they weren't visibly trembling. They were still - clammy but still - just trembling from the inside. She massaged the back of her neck, shifted in her seat. Without looking up, she could still feel the professor's eyes on her.
"In two weeks," the professor said to the class. The professor's attention seemed to finally draw back from Kristina's shoulder where Kristina felt like it had just settled there - breathy and expectant - waiting for Kristina to turn to it. "I want to see what you deliver. Until then, see you on Friday. This Friday. On time."
Walking across campus, Kristina's mind was still in the classroom.
What am I supposed to turn in? Kristina thought. What does she want me to turn in?
The second question stopped Kristina in her tracks.
It shouldn't matter what she wants. What am I thinking?
Kristina didn't know anymore.
"Hey!" a call in her direction snapped her back to the grassy path that lead to her next class. "You're in my history class, right?"
A vaguely familiar face approached her. It was a good looking face; sweet yet rugged with a firm chin. He was tall, his shoulders, broad and his chest buff.
Just my type. Oh ya.
A welcoming and more than interested smile formed on Kristina's face as she walked toward him.
"If you're taking history with that woolly faced professor with the shirt stains," she said with a quick flick of her head that made her hair cascade down one shoulder. "Then yes."
He chuckles, "Ya, that's him. Listen I, um, missed last class...and the one before that. Can I borrow your notes?"
"I would say yes," Kristina replied, "but I seem to be on that 'independent' track too." - Kristina air quoted her fingers - "You know the one where you attend class when you feel like it because your parents are using their hard earned cash to foot the bill?"
"Looks like we have something in common," he answered with a smile. "Maybe we could not attend class together some time."
But Kristina didn't hear his offer because, like a bad connection, his last phrase got garbled by something else that caught Kristina's attention. Someone else was speaking to her. Not in words but with body language.
The professor walked across campus right into Kristina's periphery. Even from a distance - far enough for the professor not to notice Kristina's unbroken stare but close enough for Kristina to notice the professor's commanding stride - Kristina was dumbstruck. The way the professor's clothes fit her as a cultivator of minds - refined, professional, sleek - and fit her body - her trim, stately shape - Kristina couldn't take her eyes off her.
Kristina had never noticed a teacher like this before. Teachers were generic, staid, nondescript, affected, boring. But this professor, she was...wow. She was the goosebumps prickling up Kristina's arms.
"Hello? Earth to history class girl?"
It took Kristina a minute to remember who this guy was standing in front of her with the all too eager look in his eyes. She blinked at him, then blinked again before she answered, "Huh?"
"Hey, I don't know where you went," he said, "but I wish I was there."
"Ya," Kristina responded absently while her gaze wandered in the direction of the building the professor disappeared into. An image of the professor's lips mouthing the word 'yours' crossed Kristina's mind. "Ya, me too."