The first sign of trouble came shortly after midnight when Bill went upstairs to piss and to get away from the groupies, who tonight seemed more aggressive (and tempting) than usual.
Soundtrack: Just Like a Woman---Bob Dylan
Soundtrack: Just Like a Woman---Bob Dylan
Buy an MP3 of the original recording
Buy a CD of the original album
He was sitting at the desk in his bedroom, reading over a letter from his mother in which she complained about her social isolation ever since her second, messy divorce a couple of years ago. It was clear to Bill (though not to his mother) that her isolation was really a product of her own insecurities, not her objective circumstances. She was attractive, a young-looking fifty-three, and she lived in a big city where she had lots of cultural and social opportunities, not to mention dozens of acquaintances she'd accumulated over the years. True, few of these acquaintances could actually be counted as friends; over the past thirty-odd years, throughout both her failed marriages, like so many women of her generation, she’d devoted herself almost exclusively to her demanding husbands, so that she never made any really close friends of her own. And, what with having married young, never holding a real job, and not attending college, she didn’t have the sort of network of friends that so many of toady's young women had.
Bill worried about his mother. He wished there were some way he could help her, just as he had done when he was a youngster during World War II and his dad was overseas. His memories of those years were like beacons of light in an otherwise drab and lonely childhood. He recollected with pleasure his mother’s shining face, as he helped her prepare their meals, limited as they were by his family’s relative poverty and by wartime food rationing. And when his little sister was born shortly after VE day, how proud he’d been to be there to hold the baby, in place of his absent father, then on his way to the Pacific Theater of Operations for yet more fighting. Yes, at age nine, Bill had really been, as his uncle always used to call him, “Little Pops.”
Yet, now that he was a true adult, Bill felt powerless to help his mother. As a son, he couldn't provide her with what she really needed: the right man as a life-partner, a modern man, one who would share in a relationship, not just take, take, take from an overly-devoted wife. Really! Most people in his parents’ generation were so hopeless, caught as they were between the pre-war values and gender roles with which they grew up and the new values and gender roles that were just now exploding onto the scene.
“Hi Bill, mind if I come in?” a confident female voice inquired, ripping Bill out of his reverie.
He looked up; it was that disturbingly lovely co-ed, Christine, the very embodiment of the new values and gender roles he had just been thinking about. And, before Bill could respond to her question, she entered the room, quite deliberately closing the door behind her.
It took him a moment to recover his equanimity, but he was still pretty damn quick to respond as he knew he must: “Uhm, actually I do mind.”
Christine seemed genuinely surprised by this unequivocal negative retort; evidently she had counted on him responding positively to the stimulus of such an attractive co-ed making overtures to him.
Seeing her surprise (and apparent disbelief), Bill realized that he had to elaborate, “You see, Christine, I have a very firm policy of not being alone with female students except during office hours and, even then, I generally keep my office door open. It’s just too dangerous to do otherwise.”
“Dangerous?” Christine asked, quickly recovering her composure and confidence. “How so?”
Was she serious? Was it possible that she didn’t understand what a temptation she presented and just how easy it would be for the two of them to be rolling round on his bed in no time at all? But, she’d asked the question and he needed to answer it, although he had to be sure to do so in a way that gave her no opportunities for any further flirtation.
“Well you see Christine, I have an unfortunate and, whether you believe it or not, an undeserved reputation for becoming sexually involved with students and so, I have to bend over backwards not to do anything that would give anyone an idea that this might be true.”
Christine broke into a broad smile, as Bill continued. “So, case in point: I’m going to ask you to leave this room right now, go back downstairs, and make very clear to your girlfriends down there that you came up here to go to the bathroom, ran into me in the hall, and that I directed you to the bathroom downstairs, which you will then go to, lest any of them disbelieve you.”
Christine’s smile faded, slightly. “Bill, you can’t be serious. First of all, my 'girlfriends,' as you call those bimbos downstairs, wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said. And, by the way, they're not my girlfriends; I just met those girls here earlier this evening when you introduced us all to Jake. I came here with my Upperclass Advisor, Joanie Cohen.”
“Sorry about assuming you were with the 'bimbos,' as you call them, but I am serious, and I’d like you to go now,” Bill responded with a firmness he didn’t actually feel.
The truth was that this beautiful young woman intrigued and attracted him… and had done so ever since September, when she first walked into the lecture hall where he was about to give his opening lecture in Intro to Sosh. His immediate thought had been: Now there’s one of the most attractive girls I’ve ever seen at the U! And she seemed to be completely without artifice, avoiding the traditional bimbo dress code of short skirts and absurdly tight T-shirts and wearing little, if any, make up, at least as far as Bill could tell. Her wavy, dirty-blond hair, too, seemed natural — she wore it down so that the sun-lightened highlights shimmered invitingly whenever she lightly tossed her head. And, over time, he noticed that, unlike the bevy of juvenile seductresses who displayed a good bit of thigh and cleavage for him in the front row, Christine's mode of dress and body angles were at all times appropriate to an academic setting. She was just naturally attractive.
A couple of weeks into the course, Bill arranged to sit in on the discussion section Christine was in, ostensibly to see how well students were internalizing the material from his lectures. Funny thing was… that’s exactly what he learned. Christine, anyway, was internalizing the material, exceptionally well. In section, she’d spoken clearly, intelligently (and often) about the topics he’d lectured on. And even if it were the case that her talking in section was done for his benefit, Bill was nevertheless genuinely impressed... and not a little attracted to this lovely, and apparently bright young woman!
Still, he knew better than to pursue any closer a relationship than that of classroom teacher, so he’d kept his distance from Christine for the rest of the term. And now this…
“I mean it,” Bill said, more at this point to convince himself than to persuade Christine who by now had turned to leave. She was about to open the door when they both heard familiar sounds coming from another room on the second floor. It was two people loudly having sex.
Christine turned around, as if to ask Bill for guidance. “Shit!” Bill thought. It’s Donna with some guy, most likely Jukie.
“Please, young lady. Go downstairs and do as I asked. I’ll stay up here awhile longer, so no one thinks we were up here together or that the bedroom sounds from the next room have anything to do with us, which they don’t so never mind about whatever’s happening there. That’s the business of whoever they are.”
Christine turned back to the door and opened it just a crack to peek out. Evidently, seeing no one, she stepped into the hallway and, as she closed the door behind her, called back to Bill in a sarcastic whisper “See you later, prof!”
And that was that; or at least it should have been.
Links
Life on the home front during World War II
Food rationing during World War II
V-E Day
Pacific Theater of Operations
Bob Dylan (Buy CDs of his albums)
Go to the next scene in Bill's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Bill, Scene 3 "Depravity"
Go to the previous scene in Bill's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Bill, Scene 1 "1969 Began with a Kiss"
Buy a CD of the original album
He was sitting at the desk in his bedroom, reading over a letter from his mother in which she complained about her social isolation ever since her second, messy divorce a couple of years ago. It was clear to Bill (though not to his mother) that her isolation was really a product of her own insecurities, not her objective circumstances. She was attractive, a young-looking fifty-three, and she lived in a big city where she had lots of cultural and social opportunities, not to mention dozens of acquaintances she'd accumulated over the years. True, few of these acquaintances could actually be counted as friends; over the past thirty-odd years, throughout both her failed marriages, like so many women of her generation, she’d devoted herself almost exclusively to her demanding husbands, so that she never made any really close friends of her own. And, what with having married young, never holding a real job, and not attending college, she didn’t have the sort of network of friends that so many of toady's young women had.
Bill worried about his mother. He wished there were some way he could help her, just as he had done when he was a youngster during World War II and his dad was overseas. His memories of those years were like beacons of light in an otherwise drab and lonely childhood. He recollected with pleasure his mother’s shining face, as he helped her prepare their meals, limited as they were by his family’s relative poverty and by wartime food rationing. And when his little sister was born shortly after VE day, how proud he’d been to be there to hold the baby, in place of his absent father, then on his way to the Pacific Theater of Operations for yet more fighting. Yes, at age nine, Bill had really been, as his uncle always used to call him, “Little Pops.”
Yet, now that he was a true adult, Bill felt powerless to help his mother. As a son, he couldn't provide her with what she really needed: the right man as a life-partner, a modern man, one who would share in a relationship, not just take, take, take from an overly-devoted wife. Really! Most people in his parents’ generation were so hopeless, caught as they were between the pre-war values and gender roles with which they grew up and the new values and gender roles that were just now exploding onto the scene.
“Hi Bill, mind if I come in?” a confident female voice inquired, ripping Bill out of his reverie.
He looked up; it was that disturbingly lovely co-ed, Christine, the very embodiment of the new values and gender roles he had just been thinking about. And, before Bill could respond to her question, she entered the room, quite deliberately closing the door behind her.
It took him a moment to recover his equanimity, but he was still pretty damn quick to respond as he knew he must: “Uhm, actually I do mind.”
Christine seemed genuinely surprised by this unequivocal negative retort; evidently she had counted on him responding positively to the stimulus of such an attractive co-ed making overtures to him.
Seeing her surprise (and apparent disbelief), Bill realized that he had to elaborate, “You see, Christine, I have a very firm policy of not being alone with female students except during office hours and, even then, I generally keep my office door open. It’s just too dangerous to do otherwise.”
“Dangerous?” Christine asked, quickly recovering her composure and confidence. “How so?”
Was she serious? Was it possible that she didn’t understand what a temptation she presented and just how easy it would be for the two of them to be rolling round on his bed in no time at all? But, she’d asked the question and he needed to answer it, although he had to be sure to do so in a way that gave her no opportunities for any further flirtation.
“Well you see Christine, I have an unfortunate and, whether you believe it or not, an undeserved reputation for becoming sexually involved with students and so, I have to bend over backwards not to do anything that would give anyone an idea that this might be true.”
Christine broke into a broad smile, as Bill continued. “So, case in point: I’m going to ask you to leave this room right now, go back downstairs, and make very clear to your girlfriends down there that you came up here to go to the bathroom, ran into me in the hall, and that I directed you to the bathroom downstairs, which you will then go to, lest any of them disbelieve you.”
Christine’s smile faded, slightly. “Bill, you can’t be serious. First of all, my 'girlfriends,' as you call those bimbos downstairs, wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said. And, by the way, they're not my girlfriends; I just met those girls here earlier this evening when you introduced us all to Jake. I came here with my Upperclass Advisor, Joanie Cohen.”
“Sorry about assuming you were with the 'bimbos,' as you call them, but I am serious, and I’d like you to go now,” Bill responded with a firmness he didn’t actually feel.
The truth was that this beautiful young woman intrigued and attracted him… and had done so ever since September, when she first walked into the lecture hall where he was about to give his opening lecture in Intro to Sosh. His immediate thought had been: Now there’s one of the most attractive girls I’ve ever seen at the U! And she seemed to be completely without artifice, avoiding the traditional bimbo dress code of short skirts and absurdly tight T-shirts and wearing little, if any, make up, at least as far as Bill could tell. Her wavy, dirty-blond hair, too, seemed natural — she wore it down so that the sun-lightened highlights shimmered invitingly whenever she lightly tossed her head. And, over time, he noticed that, unlike the bevy of juvenile seductresses who displayed a good bit of thigh and cleavage for him in the front row, Christine's mode of dress and body angles were at all times appropriate to an academic setting. She was just naturally attractive.
A couple of weeks into the course, Bill arranged to sit in on the discussion section Christine was in, ostensibly to see how well students were internalizing the material from his lectures. Funny thing was… that’s exactly what he learned. Christine, anyway, was internalizing the material, exceptionally well. In section, she’d spoken clearly, intelligently (and often) about the topics he’d lectured on. And even if it were the case that her talking in section was done for his benefit, Bill was nevertheless genuinely impressed... and not a little attracted to this lovely, and apparently bright young woman!
Still, he knew better than to pursue any closer a relationship than that of classroom teacher, so he’d kept his distance from Christine for the rest of the term. And now this…
“I mean it,” Bill said, more at this point to convince himself than to persuade Christine who by now had turned to leave. She was about to open the door when they both heard familiar sounds coming from another room on the second floor. It was two people loudly having sex.
Christine turned around, as if to ask Bill for guidance. “Shit!” Bill thought. It’s Donna with some guy, most likely Jukie.
“Please, young lady. Go downstairs and do as I asked. I’ll stay up here awhile longer, so no one thinks we were up here together or that the bedroom sounds from the next room have anything to do with us, which they don’t so never mind about whatever’s happening there. That’s the business of whoever they are.”
Christine turned back to the door and opened it just a crack to peek out. Evidently, seeing no one, she stepped into the hallway and, as she closed the door behind her, called back to Bill in a sarcastic whisper “See you later, prof!”
And that was that; or at least it should have been.
Links
Life on the home front during World War II
Food rationing during World War II
V-E Day
Pacific Theater of Operations
Bob Dylan (Buy CDs of his albums)
Go to the next scene in Bill's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Bill, Scene 3 "Depravity"
Go to the previous scene in Bill's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Bill, Scene 1 "1969 Began with a Kiss"
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