Me
I *do* want to. Now what did one wall say to the other?
Devon
Not sure I want to know.
Me
I’ll meet you at the corner.
Devon
Your worst yet.
Me
Oh, is that a challenge? Also, that doubles as math humor. Most likely they met at a right angle.
* * *
I chuckled at my silly joke.
“Dr. St. James, have I said something amusing?”
Looking up, I met the department head’s gaze. Dr. Bilson—or Dr. Bilious as Violet called him—had interrupted his pontificating on the new faculty requirement to submit weekly activity reports to ensure I was still paying attention in today’s faculty meeting. Luckily, I could multitask with the best of them.
“I fail to see how creating a paper trail documenting my work meets department goals. Such busywork infantilizes the faculty who have more pressing uses for their time.”
Dr. Bilson looked surprised at this challenge to his authority. “Asking faculty to keep me informed of their productivity contributes to the greater enterprise.”
Sure. In Communist Russia.
The meeting continued without further disruption. At its end, I had just reached the door to the department conference room when Dr. Bilson spoke.
“Dr. St. James, do you have a moment?”
So close.
Today was the last day in my ovulation window and I needed to meet Jason at home for the next “delivery.” For the last three days, he had come to my apartment and come in a cup while I turned up the music and imagined him on my bed. Or in my bed.
“I have an errand to run, Dr. Bilson, so if you could make it quick?”
His bushy eyebrows met as one, similar to the larvae of a pasture day moth, and I wondered how I had ever found him attractive. Two years ago, during a cocktail reception for up-and-coming faculty leaders at a conference, we got into a spat over his misunderstanding of the comparative mitogenomics of freshwater snails.
You should read St. James et al on this topic, he had said. He went on to mischaracterize my research and to ask if I understood the concept at hand. His face, when I held up my name badge, was, as they say, priceless.
I had rather enjoyed his grovel and then enjoyed the conversation that focused on how much he respected my research, even though he clearly didn’t get it. What could I say? Fruit fly researchers were rather one-track. Three glasses of reception-quality Chardonnay later, and I was ready to end my dry spell. At the time, he was an associate professor in a biology department at a small liberal arts college in Maine. Now he was my boss.
“You know, it’s perfectly fine to call me Marcus,” he said. “After all, we are old friends.”
I offered a thin smile. While we had never discussed our sexual history, he didn’t mind being overfamiliar with me, a reminder that we had a connected past that he could weaponize at any moment. “How can I help?”
“I’ll need the performance reviews for your teaching assistants by the end of the week.”
“Yes, I saw that in the email you sent to all the teaching faculty.”
He cleared his throat, a rather annoying habit. Marcus was in his mid-forties, divorced with no children, and I suspected, willing to again “discuss” my research after three glasses of indifferent Chardonnay.
