Chapter 1

I’d had a bit of a crush on Jennifer ever since the department had hired her a couple of years earlier. Not that she was a hottie, exactly. But she was a delightful combination of smart and attractive. I’ve always been partial to intelligent women. I suppose that in principle, the act of sex should be enjoyable even with a dolt, if she (or he) is attractive enough. Yet for me, at least, a sluggish brain is a hopeless turnoff.

The college was not lacking for fine minds, of course, and many of them were of the female persuasion. But when you cross-referenced this with the physical side of the equation, the pool shrank dramatically. For a woman to have made it through all the filters of academia to reach the tenure-track, and still be attractive and young enough to capture my attention was rare. (And, lest questions of bias be raised, I imagine my female colleagues felt similarly about the department’s many dusty specimens of dubious masculinity.) As a result, there were only a few faculty members who really rose to the level of fuckable, in my mind.

This crush I mentioned may have stemmed, in part, from timing. Some would say that I was going through a midlife crisis when Jennifer joined the department. I prefer to think that I was coming to terms with the limits of my sexual horizons. Like many men, my career drive had always had some connection to our society’s shared but rarely-articulated belief that a man who achieved a sufficient degree of professional success would have access to wider assortment of the carnal delights.

Nor was this belief without some basis in fact—in the aftermath of the #MeToo moment, it was clearer than ever that being rich, famous, and successful had often conveyed some sexual perqs. Yet, even leaving aside the psychological harms that abusive behavior left in its wake (and, in truth, I had no wish to inflict harm on the women around me), #MeToo had also revealed how sad and tawdry such masculine privileges had become in the modern age. If even the highest level of fame, wealth, and professional success brought only such tarnished delights as those paraded through the press—the opportunity to jerk off on a subordinate once in a while; the chance to open one’s robe to a disgusted starlet; the prospect of getting caught in a happy-ending massage parlor sting—then what was the point?

And yet, I lacked even these dubious pleasures. Admittedly, I had chosen to go into academia, so I was never going to be a high-roller. Still, within my chosen profession I had become what counted as a ‘roaring success’ by age 45: promoted to full professor in record time, occasional TV ‘talking head’ (you may have seen me, James R. Miller, on CNN), recipient of sizable government grants, director of my own small center at the university, author of both a book on the NYT bestseller list (nonfiction) and a popular textbook, each of which earned me real money. Yet none of these things earned me any of the ‘action’ that top-of-the-pecking-order male faculty are often assumed to enjoy. Oh, when hiring staff for the center I was able to choose women whose appearance brightened my day, but that was as far as that could go for obvious HR reasons. Likewise, the dewy-eyed grad students and precocious undergrads who were “oh-so-grateful” for my mentoring remained off-limits—I liked my job and reputation too much to pursue these forbidden fruits in an era of microaggressions, power differentials, and harassment lawsuits.

More generally, I faced the essential conundrum of a monogamous society: if one wants to marry a person worthy of respect, stay happily married to them, and build a family together—which I did—then one’s erotic options are inevitably circumscribed. I absolutely was (and am) in love with my wife. We’d met in graduate school, been married nine years by this point, and had a toddler and an infant. My wife Taylor was cute, sexy, whip-smart, supportive, and a lot of fun. I wasn’t looking to upset that apple-cart in the slightest. It’s just that, with well over a decade of exclusivity, and now two small children, our sex life had become rote at best, and a fading memory at worst. I tried to do what I could to reignite the sparks, and I think Taylor was trying too, at a mental level, but her emotions, hormones, and priorities all broke the other way. I had no interest in ‘trading in’ Taylor, and hoped things would eventually improve (they have, in fact, in the years since). Yet at that moment, I was deeply frustrated that my life seemed to have no space in it for a little heat and light. Still, it appeared that unless I was willing to think with my dick and take the inevitable consequences—which I wasn’t—then I would have to make peace with the status quo.

That, at any rate, was my mindset around the time that Jennifer came to interview for the open position on the faculty. Given the abysmal job climate in academia, we had an abundance of candidates for our position—as I recall, her application described a scholar roughly as overqualified as all the others. But then she came into the room for her presentation, and it was like a springtime breeze blew through the room. I remember she was dressed in a reasonably attractive variation on the female academic uniform: slightly frilly but modest pale-blue blouse, heather-grey jacket, and matching knee-length skirt. What really made an impression was the contrast between these austere professional trappings and her Iowa farm-girl persona. She had a round, flat face which tucked neatly in at the chin. Her small, upturned nose and dancing blue eyes enlivened an aw-shucks manner and broad accent that academia had not entirely managed to erase. Her dark-flaxen hair—worn mid-length, with bangs and a fetching upcurl at the shoulder—meshed perfectly with her golden complexion and freckles. I didn’t hear a word of her talk, but enjoyed the view immensely; I wasn’t daydreaming, so much, as just letting her soak into my eyeballs. Afterwards I figured she had my vote, but did not hold out much hope that she’d make it through the crowded field.

It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, when I heard that Jennifer had been offered, and accepted, the position. I looked forward to years of her pleasant exterior elevating otherwise dreary faculty meetings. Still, that was about all I expected. Two colleagues might hook up without committing career suicide, under the right conditions; but given my marital status, her professional imperatives, and whatever personal baggage she might have, I harbored no serious dreams of anything of happening between us. And for the first year, at least, my predictions were correct. I did manage to get myself onto an oversight committee with Jennifer (and four other cantankerous colleagues), but our ‘relationship’ was limited to no more than a monthly exchange of banalities and pleasantries before the meetings came to order. The main thing I learned was that she was married, which gave me yet another reason to believe that nothing would ever happen between us.

It was the second year that we started to become more connected—what it would be fair to call friends. I read a couple of papers for her and provided feedback. There is something intimate about reading someone’s writing, even academic work, when it’s still in the draft stage, and seeing how it evolves—it provides a unique vantage point into the workings of another mind. And with respect to my feedback for her, I’m afraid I pulled my punches in hope of furthering our connection—aiming to be helpful and constructive, true, but only within the most supportive and positive framing. She responded by drawing closer, no doubt seeing in me a useful ally and mentor—a successful role model a few steps further along the career trajectory, who could empathize with what she was going through. When one of her papers was rejected with a particularly harsh critique, it was my office she came to, eyes unwillingly teary, for moral support. We hit an off-campus bar to get mildly drunk, and I railed about how unfair and incompetent the reviewer had been until finally she was able to smile. As the year went on, I steered one of my fellowships toward a project with relevance to her field of research. That led to several months of very close collaboration—the kind of work where you might regularly find yourselves crammed in a small office, poring over a set of documents together—one person leaning intimately over the other’s shoulder, hair brushing, hands touching incidentally.

So we were becoming closer, and I was actively working to cultivate that connection. But this was not really the product of some master plan, or even a particularly high set of expectations. More accurate to say that it was simply pleasant to be around this attractive, intelligent, vivacious woman at work, and so I made sure it happened as often as possible. That is not to say I didn’t have fantasies about something more happening—increasingly, when I jerked off, it was her face I saw, her blouse I was unbuttoning, her panties I was pulling down. But my fantasy life is where I expected all this to begin and end.

By her third year at the university, our connection was moving well beyond the solely professional. Jennifer began to confide in me about her personal life. She broke down completely in my office one day, in October I believe, when she told me that her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I moved around the table to sit beside her, arm around her shoulder, as she melted into my side and sobbed against my chest. Let’s be honest, the physical and emotional intimacy was exciting; but, in my defense, the sympathy and support I offered was genuine and heartfelt. In the weeks that followed, I also came to understand that part of the reason she had turned to me for support at that moment of crisis was due to marital problems. It seemed that her husband, Pete, who did something with computers, had never been able to secure a job he was excited about after her career brought them to our sleepy college town. He was unhappy, blamed her, and wanted to move back to one of the tech-hubs, but that would have foreclosed her professional options. The mood at home was evidently frosty, so over those months that her mother was wasting away, it was often me that she came to for comforting words.

Despite the pain of that period, life went on. One of my fond memories of Jennifer is of a day, toward the end of the following spring term, when a freak rain-shower hit campus just as I was walking from the parking lot before morning classes. For some reason, quite out of character, I had brought my umbrella with me; so instead of dashing, I was able to stroll along and enjoy the vibrant greens of the wet vegetation, the bedraggled but undaunted blossoms, the smell of the rain. At one point, above the pattering sound of drops, I heard quick footsteps overtaking me, and then suddenly there was Jennifer, dashing under the cover of my umbrella, jostling her arm against my side. She laughed, softly but freely and unselfconsciously, at my surprise; and leaned her head in toward my shoulder, as if to better shelter under the umbrella, but in a gesture that signified a good deal more familiarity than was normal between departmental colleagues. She wearing an antique-white sundress with a pastel-floral pattern that was really insufficiently professional for academia. She was also soaked—her hair hanging in thick, darkened, dripping locks, droplets beading on her face. Her smile was open and broad, however, and her eyes sparkled.

When we reached Feinman Hall, I shook out my umbrella and unlocked my office. She followed me inside, and closed the door behind us. “Wow, that rain was something! You don’t mind if I stop in for a few minutes to dry off, do you? I can’t have my students seeing me this way,” looking down and examining the damp, clinging fabric of the skirt, “they could probably see right through this!” I’d been hoping for something similar, but in truth the cloth was not that thin. Still, the lightweight cotton was wet-through, and stuck to her torso and thighs in a most appealing manner. With spring in the air, and these little intimacies being shared, I was struck (not unreasonably) by a notion: maybe this shift in mood and behavior signaled interest in taking our relationship to a more physical level? Maybe she had finally become fed up with her marital woes, and fixed on me as a consolation prize. As the first hint of this idea dawned in my mind, my breathing got deeper, my face flushed slightly, and I felt a stirring in my crotch.

Of course, this was all rooted more in wish-fulfillment than reality. Before I could even meaningfully process these feelings, let alone (thank goodness) make a move on her, I began to realize that something different was at play. She kicked off her soggy shoes and sat down at the table I keep for student conferences, bent forward slightly at the waist, hands in her lap, eyes lively and expressive. “I just have to share the good news with someone—,” she said, “I think Pete and I have made a real breakthrough!” Oh, so that was it: she saw me as her platonic emotional confidante, her bright mood was a product of some improvement on the home-front, and she felt the need to share it with me. Just dandy...