Chapter 1: Passing my Orals

It was right after my thesis was accepted that my graduate advisor took ill and was hospitalized, so I was assigned a new advisor to help me prepare for the oral exam. Dr. Brownlee was a senior fellow at the nearby Institute for the Study of Curative Equity, but she had been Dean of the Sociology Department here at New Dominion University and, in fact, had developed the Black Studies program in which I was enrolled. So I was both pleased and a little intimidated to meet her.

“Come in.” Her voice responded to my knock in a deep, rich contralto. As I entered she looked up and said, “You must be Wayne Wanley.” Not hard to guess; after all, I’m one of only a handful of white guys on campus.

“Yes, Dr. Brownley. Thank you for seeing me.” I was a little intimidated. She was seated behind her desk, large, colorful, and imposing, her dark skin glowing with vitality and her big, expressive eyes sparkling with intelligence. As impressive as she was at first sight, my awe of her only grew the longer I was in her presence.

I was also flattered that she had already read my dissertation. She told me not only that she had enjoyed the read, but also that she found my thesis intriguing. After some small talk, she began asking really good questions, which I think I handled very well. She seemed satisfied at any rate, and by the end of our meeting we were getting along like old friends. Well, almost.

“I really want to thank you for stepping in to advise me, Dr. Brownlee,” I said as we were wrapping up.

“Call me Adele, please,” she said, getting up to shake my hand.

“Thanks, Adele,” I said gratefully, looking into her large, penetrating eyes as she gripped my proffered hand.

She stepped from behind her desk as if to escort me to the door but, with my hand still in her firm grasp, she said, “If you have a few more minutes, I’m curious to know more about you.” She nodded toward the couch and I took a seat there, happy that she was interested in me on a personal level.

“Sure, Adele. What would you like to know?” I smiled. I probably looked as eager as I felt.

She sat down beside me, her large, rotund derriere taking up literally all of her half of the divan. “Well, for starters, what led a white boy to go into Black Studies and, in particular, to do your research in sexual stereotyping?”

“Well, I grew up in a kind of activist family. My grandparents marched with MLK, but our history goes a lot further back. My father’s family were abolitionists, and my mother’s ancestors were slave holders in Maryland who freed their slaves before the Civil War. So I’ve always been interested in the history of slavery and its legacy in terms of race relations.”

“Is that why you chose to attend an historically black university?” she prompted, “And why NDU in particular?”

“Yes and no...” I said, a little self-consciously. “I was considering a couple of HBCUs because I thought their Black Studies programs would be more extensive, but the truth is I came here because my girlfriend did.”

“Oh?” she said, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

“Yeah ... well, Susan split up with me when we were still in high school. She applied here because that’s where her new boyfriend was going and I knew their relationship wouldn’t last. I was right about that, but we never got back together.

“What happened to her?”

“She dropped out and I lost touch with her. After Eric, she started dating a basketball player ... well, not just one ... anyway, she got into a lot of partying and I was focused on my studies, so we drifted apart.”

“Was she dating black men exclusively?”

“Yes,” I said, looking into Adele’s penetrating eyes. “We talked about that a couple of times - we were still on friendly terms - and she used to laugh and say ‘Once you go Black you can never go back.’”

“I’ve heard that before!” She chuckled in deep musical tones. “Is that what led to your thesis topic?”

“Yes. Well, pretty much. My interest in that particular aspect started in my sophomore year. I ran into Susan at an off-campus party. She was pretty drunk, and she told me a bunch of wild stuff about the guys she’d been dating, and it just sounded so fantastical. So I started looking into the myths and stereotypes, you know. And I found a whole subculture with online communities obsessed with ‘BBC’ and ‘BNWO’ and such.” I smiled at her. “It really was fascinating!” It was a little arousing to be talking about these things, things that I myself had become caught up in to some extent, with her, a mature black woman of power and authority. I was definitely attracted to her, even if she was forty years my senior.

“So that explains your thesis,” she said, returning my smile.

“Right!” I said, feeling encouraged.

“I’m curious ... if you don’t mind my getting a little personal, do you have any direct experience with the topic? ... Have you dated any black women, for example?”

I blushed a little. “Well I really haven’t dated very much since Susan ... I went out with a couple of women here on campus, but nothing long term.”

“So, you really don’t have direct experience.” She grimaced slightly as if she didn’t like the way that sounded. “That is to say, your research is primarily in the literature, correct?”

“Yes, well, I also did quite a few interviews,” I responded.

“As I recall in reading your thesis, those interviews were all with white folks regarding their interracial fetishes, am I right?” she asked.

“Yes, absolutely.” Again I was flattered that she had taken so much interest in my work. “As my thesis statement is, ‘The fetishization of African-American superiority in white America is a form of racism,’ my focus was on the people who play in that world.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Adele allowed. “I think it would be fascinating to delve into your topic from the black perspective too, don’t you?”

“Absolutely. I thought of that, Adele,” I said, “but I realized that that would make too broad a subject for a doctoral thesis.” I was enjoying this conversation very much. And I was enjoying Adele’s company; I could have gone on for hours.

“Would you be interested in doing a post-doc fellowship at the Institute if I could arrange one for you?” she asked. “Seems to me that an expansion of your thesis into the realm of lifestyle applications would fit very well with our mission.” She looked thoughtful. “I mean, do you have anything specific lined up yet?”

That was totally unexpected! “No, nothing lined up ... Wow, thank you!” I said, possibly too eagerly. “I’d love an opportunity like that! It sounds incredible!” I enthused.

She smiled indulgently. “Yes, I think it would be fascinating to have you join the institute. You would be the first white person on the team. That wouldn’t bother you, would it?” she said, clearly watching for my reaction.

“Really, there aren’t any white people?” I said, not hiding my surprise.

“Oh, there are quite a few white people there, just not on the research staff.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering, but she did not elucidate.

“Yes, having a nice white boy on the team could definitely make things more interesting.”

Something in the way she said “nice white boy” gave me a funny feeling. I was not particularly self-conscious about my size - I’m just shy of five-foot-seven, about the size of the average woman on this campus it seemed - but I was tired of being taken for a teenager all the time. I had tried to grow a beard, but it was so light and thin that I still got carded at the liquor store at the age of 25. But it wasn’t a reference to my youthful appearance, I thought. No, I was certain that she was alluding to how I would be perceived by her colleagues at the institute. Racism works both ways, after all, so perhaps she was simply acknowledging the hurdles I might face there.

Nevertheless, being called a “nice white boy” evoked some of the tropes I had studied in my research. That must have been why my attraction towards Adele that had been steadily growing suddenly took a steep rise. As did my dick! And that made me a bit wary; a part of my mind sensed some danger.

She patted my hand gently, as if she intuited my discomfort, and it was reassuring for some reason. “I’ll make a point of bringing it up at the board meeting next week.”

“Wow! I can’t thank you enough, Adele,” I gushed. “I’ve heard the ISCE mentioned a lot, but no one seems to know much about what goes on there,” I added with hopeful curiosity.

“Well, with any luck, you’ll be finding out firsthand this fall,” she said, evading my unstated question. “But getting back to your personal life,” she said, deftly changing the subject, “weren’t you intrigued by the mystique of black sexuality, since that was your focus?” She observed me blushing. “I mean, you weren’t dating much, if at all,” here she raised an eyebrow inquisitively, “the whole time you were doing this research, right?”

“Well, no.” I answered honestly. I shrugged. Now it seemed that she intended to arouse me. But to what end, I wondered.

“Weren’t you tempted? I mean, here you are living among hundreds of young black people, learning all about the sexual fantasies white people have about them...” She paused and looked at me with a kind of motherly, you-can-tell-me-anything expression. “Come on, surely you’ve tried a ‘Big Black Cock’ at least once.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable. My face felt very hot and I was tempted to tell her that I had often masturbated to that fantasy: sucking Big Black Cock; worshiping Big Black Cock; not to mention worshipping Big Black Women like her. I was allowing myself to fall under her spell.

Adele patted my hand again and once again I felt reassured. “Well, that can soon be remedied. I can see you’re very shy, and you’re a good boy, aren’t you?” she said in soft dulcet tones.