I’m gathering up my notes, making sure they’ll be in order for next year. Intro to Philosophy, I don’t have to update much.

“Professor?”

It’s one of my students, a girl, except now up closer, I see she’s not a girl. When you’re an Assistant Professor, they can be as old as you.

“Yes?”

“That was really interesting,” turning to exit, but then turning back. “I’m Elizabeth Smith, I’m in Nursing. Pre-nursing, I mean. We have a humanities requirement.”

“I hope you like the class, Ms. McCarthy.” I like to learn some names, though I’ll probably forget.

She looks at me. “You grew up in Rockport?” How does she know that? “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I don’t...” Then it hit me. “Betty!”

She beamed. “I didn’t even know you were at this place when I signed up, but I knew it was you when I walked in.”

“I can’t believe it, Betty. It’s been what? Ten years?”

“Eleven. Dropped out back when,” a bit glumly, but then with a bit more brightness, “but now I’m back. Nurses can write their own ticket.”

“Good for you! Are you...? So tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Am I married? I’m a lesbian.”

Modern times, these,

“You’re a professor and everything!” she goes on. “I go off to college when you’re a punk, and now you’re my teacher!”

“Trying to be, anyway. Tenure’s no snap.”

“You’ll nail it,” as if she knew so. “Got kids?”

Like the coming-out book says, just say it. “I’m gay,” reaching out to give her an exaggerated limp-wrist handshake. “See?”

“Give me a break, Mr. Professor.”

“Sir Professor, please,” to which we both laughed like we used to do about so many things.

I’d dodged teaching Gay and Queer Philosophy to help the department appear more welcoming, however.

“Well, it’s great to have run into you. I’ll work hard.”

This is my friend Betty, Betty from Rockport. Betty! “Let’s have coffee sometime,” I call out as she leaves.

The Betty I remember again turns back. “Really? The Women’s Center warned us about student-faculty relationships. Ones with male faculty, I mean.”

“We’re from the same hometown, for Pete’s sake! You’re older than me. And anyway...”

“That you’re also of a marginalized orientation,” she finishes. “Coffee it is. We’ll split the bill to be nonsexist.”

When I was ten, I came across Betty, our neighbor and three years older than me, looking at a book at the library. She was my babysitter, not that I needed one, but my folks were afraid I’d burn the place down, I suppose. She’d have the sense to call the fire department. My folks paid her for watching me watch TV. Not fair.

“Whatcha’ looking at?”

“Art.”

“How come?”

“Homework.”

At that age, I didn’t even have homework, so I sat down to watch her copy information about the pictures. I didn’t know anything about painting, but some, when you pull back, the dots come together to show the inside of a train station or leaves on a pond. Pretty neat.

After she’d finished whatever she was writing, she picked up the book and motioned for me to follow to a table back behind where they kept old newspapers. That’s where the older kids go to kiss, we all said, when their folks think they’re getting books. Maybe at her age, I wondered, but she’d hardly be interested in a boy my age.

“Promise not to tell?” she asked, to which I nodded, not knowing what I wouldn’t tell.

“OK. Sit here,” indicating the chair beside her. “Keep your eyes open if anybody comes,” which made me more curious.

We sat where we could keep a lookout and she flipped to a page showing naked woman sitting on a chair -- I can tell you now who the artist was and when he did it and where it’s hanging, but I didn’t care about pedigree back then -- and elbowed me. “How ‘bout this one?” as if it were normal to talk about a naked lady.

I suppose I blushed, but I scooted closer, trying to store the picture in my mind.

She turned to a page nearer the front that showed statues and covered one of the photos with her hand. When she spread her fingers, there was his head -- Roman, I now know -- and when she pulled her hand down, we saw his penis.

She giggled and so did I, maybe not as much about the statue as the idea of her showing me.

When I tell my roommate Mark I’m meeting a student for coffee, it’s, “Buff freshman on the swim team feels lonely, him so far from home, right? Friendly professor. Have fun.” He’s a kidder.

“Hardly,” giving him a kiss so he’ll not pout. “Neighbor girl from back home. Old enough to be my mother. Lesbian.”

“Older women know their makeup,” Mark notes. He knows all about skin care.

If I weren’t gay, I’d have found parts of the guy a bit ludicrous. As it was, though, he’s a pretty good roommate as long as I didn’t have to join in the Pride events. As I’ve been to real rodeos, why would I want to go to one where the cowboys call me “Red” and ask if I’d like to ride a bronco?

Basically, though, I appreciate Mark because he respects that some gays don’t want to sleep with other guys, but they can still live together. If he was dating someone, he’d have his friend over for dinner, the three of us, and then they’d go to the other guy’s place.

My folks would just tell her to make sure I took my bath. What she didn’t tell them was that she’d help me do it.

As for helping me out, no ten-year-old boy’s going to let a girl see him naked, but she said I could wear my underpants. She’d just sit on the side and read a magazine in case I needed her to get me a towel, or whatever. My mom didn’t sit around while I was in the tub, but I didn’t point it out, as once I got used to her, it was nice to have somebody to talk with.

It was her idea to do my back, as I might miss someplace, and then that it was her job to make sure it got dried off. I could do it myself, I told her, but she said it was her job.

And that’s how it went, each bath, a little more.

When it got to her pulling open my underpants -- she made a point of not looking -- it was easier to let her than to make a big deal about it, and in any case, she was bigger than me. By that time, I knew that my folks better not know about bath time -- not unlike how when she showed me the art book -- so it wasn’t as if I could complain to them.

I was a goner. She had me get naked and got down to her panties and bra, as she might get splashed, and suds my penis while we talked about things. It made me nervous, but she was careful and I’ll admit that I came to like her doing it. I’d just lay back, my head against the back of the tub, feet by the faucet, not really floating, but almost. She’d lean over the middle and get me sudsy.

The first time I got an erection, she told me it was because I was catching up with her in age, which didn’t make sense, in that she was getting older, too, but I liked the idea of being older.

Plus being older meant we could kiss.

“So Doug. I can call you, Doug?”

“That’s my name, right? You still look the same.”

She smiles, then jolts back her chair and turns her thumb and little finger into a phone, “Hello, Women’s Center. My professor’s just commented on my body.”

“It takes a while to find out, right?” I ask. When you’re a gay talking to a lesbian, you don’t have to work through all the transitions.

“Got me a girlfriend, even -- Willie, really pretty. She fixes the plumbing and things.”

“My partner’s total femme,” I note. “Everybody loves him, even straight guys.”

She sends my question back. “So when did you realize about yourself?”

“You were already off to college.”

“Oh.”

“And you?”

She pauses, then decides to talk. “First year out. Chemistry. My lab partner was this jock and he asked me out. Made me have sex and then moved on.”

“Sorry.”

“I wasn’t even his girlfriend. Just a girl who’d know how to do the experiments, and too stupid to guess why he asked me out. It was in his car. It just seemed easier to hang around the dorm. We didn’t do much, just kiss, but it was safer. The Women’s Center is where I met Willie.”

“I’m glad it worked out.”

We sip our coffee.

By age twelve, I quit needing a babysitter, but Betty and I would still watch TV together. Our folks thought it was great, us being friends

If my folks were gone, she’d have my lie on the sofa, the first time not saying why. I knew it had to do with how she’d given me baths, though, when she pulled down my pants, and I suppose she knew that I was thinking of that by how I hardened.

“You’ll like it,” as she began to masturbate me. I’d sort of done it by myself, but her hand was different. When I came, I think she was surprised, and some got on her wrist. I was worried, but she just wiped it on the sofa pillow and we both giggled.