Everyone has felt this way to some degree: that you and a stranger would make great friends, if only you got to know them. Sometimes, I feel this way about professors. I have maladaptive fantasies about my presence being wanted in the life they’ve already built without me. Once or twice I’ve google-stalked them just to see what’s up. And typically, professors aren’t the type to leave an online social page unchecked; they’re far too smart for that. If they’re accomplished, you can find the press that covers work they’ve done. You can find their thesis, their doctoral program reading list. Their oil paintings. Their ex-wife’s obituary.
I find excuses to stay back and speak with them when class is over. I laugh when they tell their clumsy jokes. The emails we exchange display a version of myself I’ve crafted just for them—professional enough to not cross any lines, confident and honest to convince them that perhaps they’d like me, too.
I took a class my first semester just to fill a credit, and it ended up being my favorite: the history of art spanning from cave paintings to renaissance. I had always had an interest in art history, fueled mostly by a book my father bought in Paris on deployment. I flipped through that book ravenously, admiring works of art I would likely never get to lay eyes on. The lectures were almost three hours, once a week, but consistently they were a highlight. The passion for the subject my professor had was more than contagious. I have him to blame for most of what I learned that first year, truly. I would not have half the love for modern art that I have now, as an adult.
He sprinkled in some anecdotes to show how chill he was. “Cocaine is amazing,” he blurted out one Thursday night. “It makes you feel like you can do anything. It makes you feel like God. But when that high is over, it’s like you’ve hit rock bottom. Makes you realize how so many people get addicted to this stuff. Like maybe you’d do anything to feel that high again.”
I often went up after class to ask relevant questions or recommend an online video I’d been reminded of. Toward the end of that semester, I friended him on Facebook.
At first I was unsure about this type of contact, but as I scrolled the site I saw the age discrepancies between my friends. Back when I used to fence, I had made many such unusual connections. Fencing brought together a diverse array of people, and we all had in common our love for competitive swordplay. My social media friends reflected this. A yacht electrician with two kids; a gun-loving detective; some computer science students; the local postman. The years between us didn’t mean we couldn’t carry on a lively conversation. To me, this was no different.
He confessed he was an alcoholic, divorced three times. His son was my age. I shared my own quirks candidly. My love for women. My complicated feelings for my parents at that time. I considered a future with him as my mentor, learning to paint. If I was lucky, maybe he would paint my portrait. I had always wanted to be someone’s muse.
I stayed after class to read his Tarot.
Satan. The Tower. The ten of swords.
One by one, the images revealed got worse. New to Tarot, I was aware the most important thing was subjectivity. For instance, the Death card meant an ending, and also new beginnings. There were several cards that foretold fates far worse than Death, and somehow he had drawn them all. Obsession, greed, a violent end.
“Yikes,” I laughed. “This looks bad.”
I’d asked him to hold an open ended question in his mind, no yes or no’s. He’d kept it to himself, something I prefer when reading cards; it might help me be more specific in a reading if I know the question, but it’s more fun this way.
“You should be cautious. Whatever you’re thinking about, tread carefully.”
The last session in my second semester, he asked to talk after.
“There were some volleyball players who took my class, years ago. They had these long, amazing legs I couldn’t stop looking at. I had been married for eight years. But seeing those legs I thought, if I could have that once, it would be worth losing everything.”
This was distinctly different from the times we’d spoken this past year. This was not his customary offhand rabbit trail to show the students how he knew an artist’s circumstances. This was not a joke. This was special. The lights above—dimmed, for his projected slides—became a singular spotlight. His gaze was steady, searching; the sign of a deserving member of my audience.
“One of them, I just couldn’t get out of my mind. She was the tallest, almost the leader. Her legs went on for miles. There was just something about her.”
He was being vulnerable, honest. None of my classmates were this lucky. None of them could get behind the scenes like me.
“What happened to her?”
“We’ve been together eighteen years.”
As if it was a dream gone on too long, at some unknowable point becoming unmistakably a nightmare, my spotlight rippled, the words cutting through like a stone in the path of a river. The stone was lodged in my gut. The river was flowing, and only magnificent force could put a stop to it. With the sudden clarity of a stormcloud breaking, I knew I was not magnificent.
What a fool I had been, to expect to have a friend in this man. No longer was I drawn to him and his fascinating fables. Worse than what I felt toward him was how this conversation brought my own naivete to light; it was as plain as the grey in his beard. Rooted in my front row seat, I could not run. The sickest part was how still, a piece of me did not want to.
He continued his preamble, describing more of these scenarios. I recognized a pattern of behavior. As he recounted these encounters, I could feel the fixation he had for these girls rolling off him like smoke, hanging in the air between us. He claimed he was appreciating them with the eyes of an artist. But for all his talk of art, I could not picture the woman he’d been with nearly my whole life aside from her legs; much like the figures in his paintings, their forms fully abstracted. Incorporeality was not a saving grace here, either: one girl, it was her smell; another, purely vibes between them.
“Do you think we have those vibes?” Of course, I knew the answer wasn’t ‘no’; why else would we be having this discussion? But I wanted to hear him say it. I craved that validation from a man I admired and respected. I used to believe that that was power over him. Now, I know better.
“It’s your ribcage,” he continued bashfully, reducing me to bones. Like maybe he did not expect to get this far. “Not really your ribs, but your abdomen.”
He justified it with a moment after class my first semester, one I vividly remembered. I had gone up to talk, but I was overheating in my hoodie. Removing it, my shirt rode up, exposing me up to the band of my bra. An honest to God mistake, but not one hard to make—a teen adjusting to the desert heat, my wardrobe was all crop tops. It was awkward, and I briefly worried he might think it was a signal of flirtation. With dismay I realized how to him it was just that, and he would not move past it.
I shifted in my chair. My face was hot. I was hot. But if I removed the jacket I was wearing, I might as well be telling him he’s right. My actions held a newfound weight I’d just begun to notice. Instead, I alternated rapidly between the jacket open, sleeves down, and zipped up to my throat, sleeves up. With either I was overheating, but open I was more exposed. What’s worse is what I wore beneath it—another top that ended just above my midriff.
“This is a sign of respect. I mean, I admire you. And I’m not trying to start anything.”
Thank god I trusted this guy. If we weren’t so close, I would know he was up to no good.
I floated to the curb where my mother came to pick me up, where I had kept her waiting. I didn’t yet have my driver’s license.
“Sorry momma, didn’t know we’d talk so long,” I said, but I wasn’t there; I was back at the table, warm under the lights, fidgeting. My top was lower cut, and every time I pulled it higher, it crept back down; I could feel my professor’s attention on my chest each time, even if only in his periphery. He’d studied me intently. He’d likely even tried to paint me months ago, my body distorted on the canvas.
When I told my friends about this, the verdict was split: the girls my age saw this as a compliment, the older girls knew better. If this happened to someone else, I wrote in my diary later, I’d tell them to run.
I felt so confident that he would not cross any lines from this point on, tonight only a blip in our strange friendship. This was not the first time I’d had a friend admit attraction to me, unreciprocated. I’d had friends in middle school like me more than I liked them, and we’d stayed friends. Now, I was an adult. We both were. I could do this.
I long to worship your clit with my mouth.
My summer hadn’t even started yet when it was interrupted by a Facebook message. My stomach turned, my vision blurred, my face turned red. I tried to classify this shame as ‘excitement’, but it wasn’t working this time. Iambic pentameter was meant to make the reader feel a sense of pleasure, not dread.
Sorry, he messaged after no response. I’ve been drinking.
He confessed a desire to cuckhold, an attraction to women’s feet. I pictured my own, my shoes kicked off for comfort, the many classes I had done that in. I looked down at my lockscreen, my lovely girlfriend smiling up at me despite my firm betrayal. I was losing myself in a pit of my own making; my inhales now more dirt than air.
His messages were agitated now.
You wanted me to notice you, so don’t blame me for noticing.
I saw the way you dressed.
You wouldn’t wear any of that if you didn’t know what you were doing.
I ran to my closet and gutted it.
***
When I spoke with the Dean about this incident, I wore a Pikachu t-shirt. I wore no makeup. I looked fifteen years old.
***
The next semester I returned to classes, afraid to cross his path. I asked my Social Psych professor for advice. It was the only time I’d seen her remove her sunglasses—she had to wear them, her retinas burned in the Sahara, scorched on desert sands. Her eyes enchanted me, clear and blue like waters off the coast of Puerto Rico. Without her glasses, her intimidating aura melted into something much more kind. She promised he was gone.
But that relief did not extend to other places. On campus, I was safe. At art museums and galleries I visited, I was not sure. I could not then articulate the fear I felt. I did not fear a violent outburst necessarily. It was his eyes—the fear that upon sight he’d take even more of me, leaching from my spirit; the opposite of what he claimed occurred in viewing art. I felt I might dissolve completely if I had to see his disappointment for myself.
***
In my A&P class, I saw a familiar face. Together, we were tasked with assembling a skeleton from scratch; well, almost—the skull was in one piece.
“Riley? From Scott’s class?”
“I knew you looked familiar.”
“You know he retired?”
I blinked, the smile frozen on my face. “Retired?”
“Yeah, he retired early. Says he’s living the good life now.”
We never mention him again.
***
Any time I mine my life for inspiration, he is one of the snags I hit.
Once, I checked his Instagram. Everything I knew to be there was archived. It had four posts, all new, all posted the same day in quick succession. He had visited the Louvre. He had seen Frida Kahlo’s work in person. There he stood, grinning crookedly in front of pieces I had mentioned needing to see up close. He was showing me precisely what he could have given me. He was saying to me quietly, even as I sat in darkness reminiscing over what had happened, that I was still a feature in his mind. While I was saying prayers and taking full, deep breaths outside galleries to preempt any chance encounter with this old man, that old man was likely getting drunk and telling other girls his perverse thoughts—all while plotting how to get a message in his inbox, a plea for reconciliation. It was an outright dare, a dream that he could prove for good that I desired him.
Sometimes, this feels like power, too.
My name is Riley Hart (she/they) and I am currently a student at CSUSB pursuing a degree in English Lit. I am a lesbian, poet, and writer (in that order), and I have had a couple of poems published before in the Santa Ana River Review and Noble / Gas Qtrly, but it’s been a while since I’ve put my work out there. Aside from writing, I enjoy crocheting, collaging, and pointing out the beauty in the mundane. I used to be the lead poetry editor for The Concrete Desert Review, the student journal over on the PDC campus.