Chapter 1

Professor Robert McFeeley coasted on his bike, listening to the click, click, click as he backpedalled half a rotation. He leaned into a turn and applied the brakes only at the last second, coming to a smooth stop three feet from the door to Albert Hall. Students seemed to know he was there without looking, and altered either their stride or direction in a smooth, unspoken coexistence with his vehicle.

He caught a door as it was opened by a student and followed her in, steering his bike into the building. He never left his bike outside. It cost over a grand, and the campus police had given up looking for stolen bikes years ago. Pretty much any bike left unlocked and unattended outside had been stolen, and either was now abandoned, or soon would be. Then it would be stolen again, in a cycle that ended only when the bike got a flat tire, or it was pawned for a few quick bucks.

He admired the shape of the girl's bottom as she walked in front of him. It was a saucy one, undulating beneath a skirt made of some kind of material that was slinky and moved a lot. She turned left at an intersecting hallway and Bob moved straight on, to his office. Watching the coeds was fun, but watching was all he could do. Unfortunately, as chairman of the English Department, there weren't many good looking girls in the classes he taught. For whatever reason, the babes didn't choose to be English majors.

Which is why he faithfully attended all the university football and basketball games, and quite a few of the other sporting events as well. Volleyball was one of his favorites, with its long, lean, leaping girls. It was there that he could feast his eyes on nubile young things in the flower of maidenhood. Assuming there were actually any maidens left these days, by the time a girl got to college age.

His faithful attendance to these events made him a well known fan of the school teams, because he always sat on the front row, where he had an unobstructed view of the action.

What most people didn't know was that the action he was so intent on was of the female variety, particularly if there were cheerleaders involved in the sport.

Bob McFeeley was that guy there would be a photo of in the world where, if you looked up a term, there would be a picture of a person as an example. In Bob's case, it was "Mr. Average." He was of average height, with average looks. He was the kind of guy who, if you saw him on the street, you'd never notice, much less remember. He was the kind of guy witnesses couldn't describe to the police, the kind of guy those witnesses always reported as, "You know ... just an regular guy."

He didn't mind being just the average guy. Not really. His personality fit with that image too. For example, he had a PhD and was entitled to be addressed as "Doctor McFeeley." That was even on the plate attached to his office door. But he never corrected anyone when they called him " Professor." In his mind, being a professor was an honorable and respected profession. He also felt that a man should be known for what he produced, not some inflated title he'd gotten by jumping through a bunch of hoops.

He was active as a child, but not on teams other than the kind that form for a game, and then break up, never to form again. He could hit a ball, but only at every third or fourth at bat. He hit about 30% of his shots in basketball. He'd been pretty good in tennis during high school, but couldn't find anybody his age to play, because very few people in high school think it's cool to play tennis. In college he'd been the kind of racquetball opponent people liked to hone their skills on, because he could sometimes return the ball, but rarely ever won more than six or eight points in a game. And, just as he seemed to drift around in sports, he drifted from major to major, unable to find anything that he felt like he could be good at, or even like.

Until, that is, he took a class on Elizabethan poetry. The musicality, verbal sophistication, and romantic exuberance of the poets and writers who dominated the era that coincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I set his imagination on fire. He went on to stay with English, avidly exploring the immense amount of variety the human mind had put on paper over the centuries. Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe were still his favorites, though he didn't let that divert him from becoming an expert in other areas. It had led to his current position and, even more importantly in his opinion, to a grant that was allowing him to collect and catalog material that, until now, had been in private collections around the globe. He'd gotten the grant, which made the university happy. What made them ecstatic was that they were now known as the up and coming depository for original papers, first drafts, and original manuscripts.

Basically, Bob was the perfect professor, as far as the university was concerned. He brought them a little fame and some degree of fortune, and he was too ordinary to become embroiled in scandal.

Or so they thought.

Actually, that's what Bob thought too. He was forty-two, unmarried, with no real romantic prospects, about fifteen pounds overweight (though he was losing that slowly, now that he rode his bike almost everywhere), and almost nothing out of the ordinary ever happened around him, much less to him.

The collection was his passion. He thought of it as "his" collection, though of course it actually belonged to others. About a quarter of the collection had been purchased outright, but many more were on loan to the university. He was working on a couple of wealthy dowagers, urging them to leave their pieces to the university in their wills, but they spent a lot more time sipping wine in the company of "that nice young fellow from the university" than they did having their attorneys draft things up.

Teaching had, at one time, been his passion, back when he tried to elicit in his young students the same awe for literature that had kindled in his own heart. But the truth of the matter was that the vast majority of his students were there because English credits were required to graduate, and not because they wanted to take the class. Even the English majors seemed to be coasting along, much like he had been doing before he read that first sonnet by Michael Drayton, describing his passion for the woman he could not have.

And, truth be told, that had been the story of his own love life. There were plenty of girls that he'd noticed, and longed to have in his life in a romantic way. But, like Drayton's love Anne, the daughter of Sir Henry Goodere, his employer, they always wanted other men than him.

True, there had been a few fellow lovers of literature, young women with whom he had learned the dance of sex. But by and large they were women who sought the attentions of a willing male more to flesh out their own fantasies, than for the purpose of forging lasting relationships. It was surprising how many English majors were also ardent feminists, up in their ivory towers most of the time, coming down to tryst with the male of the species only when lust drove them to it.

As things turned out, those demanding, controlling lovers had done him a favor, though he didn't know it until almost two decades later.

Which brings us back to the present, wherein Bob was sitting in his office on a Monday morning, leafing through the woefully incomplete listings of a shipment of papers and documents purchased at auction as lot number 124, from the estate of one Marian Beatrice Eldridge. She had been a prodigious pack rat. Fortunately - at least Bob hoped so - she'd had an eye for keeping the good stuff and getting rid of the junk. At least there hadn't been any junk at her estate sale.

More importantly, her late husband had been Anthony Eldridge, a man known in the literary circles Bob moved in as an expert on Shakespearean documents. Bob had high hopes that the six old fashioned filing cabinets of "miscellaneous academic papers" contained a treasure trove of either research, or even original documents themselves. And he'd gotten them for a song, fifteen dollars per cabinet in fact, which was little enough that he hadn't even gotten around to doing the paperwork to get reimbursed from the university account the grant funds had been deposited into.

The problem was that it would take hundreds of man hours to sift through them and catalog them all. And for that he'd need an assistant. He'd put up notices around the hallways, worded thusly: "Graduate student wanted: Opportunities for doing original work of a part time nature in the investigation of Shakespearean documents, possibly leading to publication of significant importance."

To his mind, that had it all ... Shakespeare ... part time work ... and the chance to publish. What more could a student ask for?

The problem was that eager grad students weren't battering down his door to get the position.

All that changed, though, when the cheerleader walked through the door, smiled, and said, "You're looking for a research assistant?"

He recognized her right away. Her name was Kendra. He'd heard others of her social group call her "Kat" before, but he preferred the more mysterious, less usual "Kendra."

That name was "mysterious" in Bob's mind, primarily because the only other woman he knew of with that moniker was Kendra Jade Rossi, who starred in some 40 or more films of an "adult" nature. Bob had, at one time or another, owned VHS tapes upon which resided pirated copies of three or four of those films. Her name had been different enough that he'd looked it up. The etymology of Kendra was unsettled, but a popular one was, "A most clever but stunning individual. Formally known as the most beautiful woman on the planet. Any man would be lucky to have her even in his dreams." His second favorite was, "A woman who looks and acts like a goddess."

Naturally, when he found out one of the cheerleaders he so loved to watch had that name, he compared her to the woman he'd watched so many times while he stroked a load out onto a hand towel. His initial evaluation determined that this Kendra had strikingly similar facial features to the porn goddess, though her hair was long and blond, while that of the fuck goddess was usually rendered dark in her movies. Eying her critically, he decided the cheerleader was more slightly built, overall, but might have larger breasts. She definitely fit her name. She was incredibly beautiful.

His fantasies about Kendra the cheerleader had been along the same lines of his fantasies of meeting Kendra Jade Rossi, who had an unaccountable fascination (in his fantasy) with Elizabethan poetry, and loved to discuss that with him while she had romantic sex with him (in private, as opposed to business sex in front of a camera). Kendra, the cheerleader, was the one the other girls tossed up in the air, or who stood on the top of the pyramid before jumping, to be caught effortlessly by her friends or some male cheerleader (who naturally copped a feel in the process of catching her), so his fantasies about her were of a slightly different nature. His fantasy about her involved the two of them being on "Dancing With The Stars," the only television program Bob ever watched. He never told anyone he liked that program, primarily because in his fantasy, he was the star, and Kendra was his professional dance partner who couldn't help but fall madly in love with him during the show.

Such are the fantasies of middle-aged, lonely men. And what's the harm?

"Professor?" Her voice was clear and sweet, in the high registers. Bob would have bet she sang soprano. He'd heard her shout, and say things to her cohorts, but not in this voice.

He realized he was staring, and jerked his eyes away from the front of her blouse.

"I'm sorry," he said, automatically.

"You have signs up?" she reminded him. "About a job?"

"Oh! Yes!" he said. His mind was trying to catch up. The problem was there was no way he was ready to entertain the idea that this girl might want that job. "I do!" he said.

"Well, I need a job," she said.

"But you're a cheerleader," he said. Somehow he thought cheerleaders didn't need jobs. Didn't they get scholarships or something, like the other athletes?

"You noticed!" She both looked and sounded delighted.

"Of course I noticed," he said, before he could think to, perhaps, retain that bit of wisdom in his mind, unsaid.

"I guess that makes sense," she said, moving a step deeper into his office. "You always sit right on the front row. I'd recognize you anywhere, so I guess it's reasonable that you might recognize me too."

If only you knew, he thought to himself.

"So ... you're interested in Shakespeare?" he said, instead.

"Actually, I don't know that much about him," she admitted. "We read Romeo and Juliet in high school," she said, hopefully.

His mind, upon hearing that title, wrested control away from his libido. This was serious business. And she obviously knew next to nothing about Shakespeare.

"I haven't seen you in any of my classes," he offered.

"I took Dr. Poindexter's course on hippy English," she said.

Bob knew the course to which Kendra had alluded. Its formal name was English Literature 101: The effects of the bohemian era in American history on American English. Roger Poindexter had somehow convinced the dean that this course had merit and freshmen flocked to it because it had a reputation for being an easy A, and it satisfied the English requirement for most non English majors. As far as Bob was concerned, Roger Poindexter was a putz, whose only goal was to pack his classes with cute young freshmen girls.

"What is your major?" asked Bob.

"Early childhood education," she said. "I want to be a preschool or kindergarten teacher."

He knew, of course, the exact year she had first bounded out on the court.

"You're a senior," he said.

"Yes," she agreed, her eyes widening.

"This is more of a position for a graduate student," he suggested.

"I could learn," she said. "I'm bright. I get good grades. I have to, to stay on cheer. Please, give me a chance. I promise you'll be glad you did."

He thought about the fact that the posters had been up for two weeks now, and she was the first person who had shown even an inkling of interest. Not to mention one of the most beautiful young woman he knew of. She was by far his favorite cheerleader, and the one he most often fantasized about. Even in the months when the cheerleaders bundled up during football games where snow flurries flew, she managed to look sexy enough to stiffen his dick on a regular basis.

He thought about that, critically. Having her around, even on a part time basis, was going to be hard on him. Literally.

But then again, forming something even on the outskirts of "friendship" with her would give him material for stroke sessions for the rest of his life.

The cartoon character on his left shoulder whispered, "Not a good idea, Bob," while the one on his right shoulder shouted, "Take it! Hire her! And then fuck her little cheerleader socks off!"

"I guess we could give it a trial period," he said.

She jumped up and down, squealing. It was a very cheerleader kind of thing to do. Her breasts bounced gently under her silk blouse.

"Thank you!" she gushed. "I promise you'll be glad you took me on."

"I'll take care of the paperwork," said Bob, somehow turning "took me on" into being on top of her naked body, in his mind's eye. "When can you work?"

"Would evenings be okay?" she asked, suddenly concerned. "I have classes, and cheer practice, but I can work between eight and ten most nights."

"I'll need to supervise you," said Bob, who wondered why he was pointing that out. Wasn't that obvious? And he had nothing better to do between eight and ten on any given night.

"Except for game nights," she said, putting one finger up to her lower lip. "But on those days, maybe I can make up for it on Saturdays."

"Okay!" said Bob, a little too eagerly.

Now he even had something to look forward to on Saturdays!