The waiter had just shown me to my table when I saw Bela walk in her purposeful way through the door into the faculty club dining room. Our eyes met almost instantly; she walked toward me with a slight smile. I wanted to look her over from head to foot and back, lingering over her elegant curves, but forced myself to hold her eyes and to smile in return.

It was already clear that this lunch with my former protégé wasn't going to be easy. My feelings hadn't changed even a little bit in the months since we had last spent any time together. I stood up, shook her hand, stifling the urge to give her a hug, then pulled out a chair and slid it under her as she sat down.

After the usual pleasantries, Bela looked me in the eye and said, bluntly, "I was very hurt when you shuffled me over to Dr. Cohen to supervise my dissertation, Robert."

I sighed and looked out the window, noticing with little of my usual pleasure how the bright sunlight pierced the half-bare October oaks in the Quad. "But Bela," I began, and paused for a moment. "Dr. Cohen is an expert on Sterne, one of the most respected in the country. You have the ability to do brilliant work; and some of your ideas on Tristram Shandy are truly original. Dr. Cohen is much better able to help you do an extraordinary study."

"But it was in your seminar, and under your guidance, that those truly original ideas of mine" – her tone when she repeated my words was tinged with self-mockery – "were born and developed." She stared at me for a moment, daring me to disagree. "I just know you could have helped me. Your writings on Fielding are also well regarded. So you can't tell me you don't know the area well enough to have helped me."

I looked down at the tablecloth, then noticed the approaching waiter and gestured to him to give us a few more minutes. We were, of course, both right. And it wasn't the first time we had said these things to each other. My lips tightened as I tried to stop myself from telling her the rest of the story. But my determination ebbed away; I knew that I could not continue doing what I once had seen as necessary for my own self-preservation.

But the words would not come easily. Finally, I looked up at this beautiful woman, twenty years younger than I, and said, my voice rough with emotion and tension, "Bela, my darling, the rest of it was that it was torment to be around you and to know that my role as your mentor kept me from ever telling you about my feelings."

Now it was she who bowed her head and looked down at the table, clearly at a loss for words. When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes. My heart sank as it became clear that she was trying to think of what she could say that would not cause me any more pain.

But her words, when they came, first surprised and then stunned me. "You are so brave to tell me that, Robert. Braver than I, because I have the same feelings for you, and have been afraid to tell you. In fact," she continued, "I was afraid you sent me away because you sensed my feelings and wanted to spare me the pain of being around you."

If we hadn't been in such a public place, I would have reached my hand to take hers. For a moment, I was too filled with emotion to speak. Then I tried to smile, and to make a little joke. "So it's very lucky that Dr. Cohen is your supervisor now. Otherwise we would have to stifle these feelings mercilessly."

Bela smiled through her tears and said, "Let's go somewhere else, Robert. We need to talk!"

I nodded, then walked behind her back out the door, filled with emotion but still able to admire her walk, at once sinuous and graceful.

We soon found ourselves in her apartment, just a few blocks from the campus. When the door was closed, Bela turned to me and we embraced, leaning back against the door to keep our balance as the blood alternately seemed to rush to and away from my brain. At 5'8", Bela was only three inches shorter than I, so looking deeply into each other's eyes was effortless. When we pressed our lips together, it seemed the happiest moment of my life. After a moment, I cradled her face in my hands and lost myself in the beauty of her loveliness. "Bela, you have been so dear to me for so long. I can hardly believe that this is happening."

She smiled at me, a smile so sweet that it created an epiphany for me, a moment when time seemed to stand still. Then she began unknotting my tie, pulling on it playfully to lead me toward her bedroom.

We sat on the bed, kissing deeply and passionately, and began to caress each other through our clothes. Her orbs, soft yet firm, were surprisingly full, something she concealed by her conservative clothes. I slowly, luxuriantly, unbuttoned her blouse, reached around to unclasp her bra, then pulled the bra up and over her shapely mounds so I could cup them with my hands. They were firm and beautifully shaped, very wide at the base.

She laughed softly when I told her that each of them was shaped like the dome of Haggia Sofia in Istanbul. And atop each of these twin pleasure domes, more decadently delightful than the one decreed by Kubla Khan, was a delicate, almost fragile cupola. I gently kissed and sucked the one on her left dome and reveled in the slight increase in its size as Bela murmured her pleasure.

But Bela was not waiting for me passively. She undid my pants and moved her hand caressingly down toward the rod that was straining against the fabric of my underpants. "Oooh," she said, "I'm so glad you're big. How long is it?"

I laughed, thanked her for her generosity and told her it was a bit more than seven inches long. "Surely you've had men with bigger ones," I added.

"Well, yes, one anyway. But he was so big that it was painful to have him inside of me. But yours seems the perfect size for me."

"I'm looking forward to finding out how well we fit, my sweet. But it's not quite time for that yet."

We took our clothes off and threw them on the floor in what turned out to be a single, disorderly pile. Enthralled as I was by the unveiling of Bela's lovely body, I wasn't looking where my clothes landed. When her body was entirely exposed to my eyes, she stretched out on her right side on the bed, facing me. Her beauty was extraordinary, even down to the small details, such as the smooth curve from her hips to the tops of her long, graceful legs.