Chapter 20: Vendetta

-- TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

I was waiting outside her office, leaning against the wall with a paperback of Sudoku puzzles in my hand. I was so engrossed in my current puzzle that I didn't notice her arrival. One minute, I was marking dots to represent the number 2 in a square in the upper-right hand corner; the next, she was clearing her throat right in front of me.

"Benjamin. You are in my way," Viktoriya Isakova stated calmly with a bemused smile on her face.

I dropped the book to my waist, stood up straight, and returned her smile. Checking my watch, I noticed the time and replied, "You're four minutes late this morning."

She shrugged and answered, "It happens." And then she gestured rather brusquely with two fingers for me to move.

Obediently, I stepped aside and allowed my professor to fit her key to her door and unlock it. I then followed her inside and set my messenger bag on the floor next to her conference table out of habit from the months I'd spent here as her summer intern.

Viktoriya went to the coat rack, removed her peacoat, and hung it up. And then she turned to evaluate the particular way I was staring at her. "You are not gazing at me with your usual expression of lustful admiration. Either I am losing my appeal or there is something else that brings you to my office so early on a Tuesday morning."

I nodded slowly before returning to the office door and pushing it closed. "Something else," I stated seriously.

"Such an ominous tone. What is wrong?"

Turning to face her, I held up a hand and prefaced myself by stating, "My apologies in advance, as I mean no offense. But first I have to know if you've ever traded a good grade for sexual favors."

The look of honest astonishment on Viktoriya's face satisfied my concerns on its own. Still, it was nice to hear her add, "Benjamin! Absolutely not!"

I stared at her with raised eyebrows, clearly expecting further explanation, and she gave it to me.

"I have sex with some of my students, true enough. But those are mature relationships between consenting adults, and I have never slept with a student while he or she was my student; not even you, if you will recall. Once we returned to class, I cut you off."

I waggled my head. "It's a fine line between student and intern, but I'll grant you that."

"Perhaps, but the point is that grades have never been part of the bargain. Why do you ask? I choose to believe you would not ask such a thing of me lightly."

My eyes hardened. "How much do you know about Professor Rutledge's dealings with his students?"

Viktoriya frowned, staring at me in a seriously evaluative manner. She'd been standing by the coat rack, but now moved over to her desk while gesturing for me to sit in a chair on the opposite side. "What are you implying?" she asked, her elbows on the desktop and her hands pressed together.

I sat down, slumping in the chair with my elbows supported by the armrests as I replied, "I'm implying that he's trading grades for sex. And I'm implying that he's done it before."

"What does it matter to you? I find it hard to believe that Henry Rutledge has propositioned you."

"Me? No, of course not."

"Then someone you care about? One of your female acquaintances perhaps?" Viktoriya leaned forward so that her hands, still pressed palms-together, ended up to the side of her face.

I averted my gaze but nodded. And with a heavy sigh, I decided to say what I'd come here to share in the first place. "What prompted me to come here is a friend of mine who is in one of his current classes. But what's been weighing on my mind for nearly a year ... well ... it's Dawn."

Viktoriya blinked in surprise, sitting up straight and pulling her arms off the desk.

I sighed again and shook my head. Staring a thousand yards at some point behind and vaguely to the right of Viktoriya's head, I started mumbling, "I never told you the circumstances behind Dawn leaving school. Did Kim tell you anything?"

"Well, yes. Kim told me that Dawn cheated on you and then left the campus. She could not face returning here, so she took a leave of absence to get her head straight."

"But that's it?"

"There is more?"

I glanced over to see Viktoriya's intrigued face. "I never told Kim this part, which is probably why you didn't know. Still, I can never be sure how much that girl has eavesdropped..."

Viktoriya gave me a bemused smirk.

I returned to my focal spot behind her and vaguely to the right. Taking a deep breath, I said, "I'm trusting that you won't use this information to somehow harm Dawn or her record. It's pure hearsay, and while I don't think Dawn lied to me, given her mental state when she left I can't be totally sure. The point is: Dawn said she blackmailed Professor Rutledge into giving her an 'A'. She claimed that she seduced him, knowing that he'd been eyeballing her all semester."

"Wait. The man Dawn cheated on you with was Henry Rutledge?!?"

"No! No ... At least, I'm fairly positive she didn't sleep with him." I took another deep breath. "The cheating was before that with a guy we both knew. The thing with Rutledge, well ... I understood that Dawn wasn't doing very well in the class. She said she was about to fail, but for all I know she only had a B-minus or something. That's not important. The point is that Dawn came onto him and talked him into confessing that he wanted to fuck her, even though she was still his student. She caught it on tape and threatened to release the tape if he didn't give her an 'A' in the class. Apparently he caved."

Viktoriya whistled.

"Now I thought that was all there was to the story. Like I said, I don't think Dawn lied to me. We were in a better place when she told me all that, and I'd like to think she didn't hide anything from me. But one thing that always bothered me was how she claimed that Rutledge wasn't a sexual predator. Sure, he wanted to bang hot coeds, and he has a history of doing so. We both know he's nailing Samantha Hitchcock. But Dawn claimed that he doesn't trade grades for sex."

"That part, unfortunately, is not true," Viktoriya stated solemnly.

"So he does do it?"

Viktoriya shrugged. "I am not in a particularly good moral position to judge, but I do not personally condone such practices. However, I am aware of it taking place on this campus. I don't know what you intend to do with such information, but yes, Henry Rutledge has been willing to ... enhance ... a female student's scores from time to time."

"In exchange for sex?"

Viktoriya sighed. "Yes."

"And you know for sure?"

"I have it from a very reliable source, yes."

"But you're not going to tell me who, are you?"

Viktoriya steepled her fingers again, with her elbows on the desktop. "Benjamin ... I am fond of you. But where are you going with this? Is this some misguided attempt to save your friend from a potentially bad decision? Has she sent you here to find out IF she would be successful were she to proposition Professor Rutledge in exchange for in improved grade?"

"What? No. Sleeping with him is the LAST thing she wants to do. But she's apparently on the brink of failing, and she claims that HE'S made it quite clear what he wants from her. And DAMMIT! I WON'T LET THIS BE A REPEAT OF DAWN!!!"

"Benjamin! Calm down!" Viktoriya had suddenly stood up from her chair, leaned over, and put her hands on top of mine where I'd slammed my fist down onto the desktop.

The bottom of my right hand hurt from the impact, and I was breathing heavily. Slowly, I tracked my gaze up from where her hands covered mine, and found myself staring at her tits hanging forward and clearly visible through a V-necked sweater. But I wasn't thinking about sex right now, and my eyes finished their path up to Viktoriya's face.

"Benjamin..." she began carefully. "Do you think for any reason that your friend is being coerced or otherwise forced into propositioning Professor Rutledge?"

"You mean besides nearly failing the course and having no other option to improve her grades?"

"Such is the fate of all students who cannot measure up to the material."

"But it's not right."

"Right or wrong, it is HER choice. Or do you think he is doing something underhanded to manipulate the situation?"

Turning my eyes to the wall, I gritted through my teeth, "I don't know."

"Because if he is NOT, if he is simply a horny man who likes sleeping with young girls ... then ... well ... that is an unfortunate reality of the world we live in. Pretty girls always have options. If YOU were about to fail his class, you would not have any choice but to fail and not get course credit. Your friend, on the other hand, has a choice. She might not like the choice, and she may very well choose to fail instead of take the alternative. But at least she HAS an alternative."

My eyes tracked back to Viktoriya's. "I don't like you very much right now."

She sighed and pursed her lips, standing up straight and folding her arms across her chest. "I am sorry to hear that."

"It's not right."

"It is what it is." She shrugged. "I did not put a gun to your head and tell you to sleep with me."

"My academic success didn't hinge on whether or not I accepted your seduction."

Viktoriya shrugged. "If she does not want to do it, then she does not want to do it. There are other girls who do not have such moral hesitations. I know for a fact that one of his other students currently makes frequent visits to his office – and to his home – and I am fairly certain she will get an 'A' for her efforts. She made her choice. It is not my place to interfere."

"But what if he IS coercing my friend? What then? If Rutledge is capable of adjusting her grades up without any traceability, of giving an 'A' where one isn't deserved, who's to say he's not adjusting her scores DOWN, precisely to put her in this position? Huh?"

Viktoriya pursed her lips and looked away. "It is ... possible ... But it would be quite difficult to prove."

But I was already thinking of a way. It would take help, and cooperation, but it was a possibility. "What if I could prove it? What then? Would you help me?"

"Benjamin ... Where are you going with this? Why? Do you care about this friend this much? Or is this really about Dawn?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe both. Maybe I just see something happening and it screams out wrong to me and I HAVE to fix it. If I have the ability, don't I have the responsibility to DO something?"

"The ability to effect change is NOT responsibility to do so. You have to live your OWN life as well."

"Then it comes back to self-interest," I retorted. "If I DON'T do something, I'm going to regret it. That regret will haunt me for the rest of my life. So I'm not doing this for her, I'm not doing it for Dawn. I'm doing it for ME. Something about Rutledge doesn't sit right with me. I FEEL it in my gut, and I've been feeling it all year. He isn't just another hunky professor hooking up with his students for casual affairs. There's something WRONG with the way this guy operates, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"You are making this a personal vendetta."

"So what if I am? And why the hell do you keep defending the guy? Are you sweet on him or something?"

"Good heavens, no. The man is like slime. His eyes always follow me ... lingering ... I understand what you mean about feeling like something is wrong. But I am not one to point fingers where there is no evidence."

"I'll get you the evidence. Count on that. And when I do, I'm counting on your help. Fair enough?"

Viktoriya sighed. "Find evidence of his grade tampering. Then ... we shall see..."

Viktoriya gave me a surprising amount of information about the archaic Cal Berkeley grading software. It was simple math: each assignment was assigned a percentage value of the entire course, and both professors and T.A.'s could manually type in whatever score they wanted. I felt positive that the easiest way Rutledge could submarine Peyton's grade was through manipulating the computer: putting one score on Peyton's papers and a lower score into the program. But the only way of verifying whether or not the correct value was entered was to compare the computer score to the mark on the student's paper.

I found myself desperately hoping that Peyton kept all of her assignments and exams. But even if she did, we had no way of accessing the computer scores for a comparison. Short of a formal inquiry, only Professor Rutledge and Samantha Hitchcock could do that. We had no way of knowing the percentage weight of each homework assignment, or of each midterm. And so trying to estimate what overall score Peyton SHOULD have based on her written marks would be a very rough guess at best.

We ran out of time before I got my head wrapped around all the possibilities. Viktoriya had to get to class, and together we left her office. Moments later, Professor Rutledge stepped out of HIS office. He smiled warmly at us, but given everything we'd been discussing for the past half-hour, neither Viktoriya nor I was in the mood for polite greetings. Shaking my head, I simply turned my back to him and smiled to find that Viktoriya had followed my lead. We waited for about twenty seconds, and I then I turned around to find that he was gone.

"I'm going to track down some homework comparisons," I told her. "Can I have your cell number? I'll call you when I find something."

Viktoriya smirked. "All this time and you never got my 'digits'."

I smiled back, and she told me her number while I entered it into my contacts list. On impulse, I briefly stepped forward and gave her a hug. "Thanks. I don't think I've said that enough in the last couple of years. You've been such a big help to me, in more ways than one."

"It has been my pleasure, Benjamin." Viktoriya's eyebrows waggled suggestively at that.

I smiled and took off.

"Hey, I need a favor."

Bert and Sasha looked at me with raised eyebrows as they took their seats at our usual Thai joint, Sasha by my side and Bert across from us.

I looked at them both. "Please tell me you kept your assignments from Corporate Finance."

"Corporate Finance? Last semester?" Bert asked in surprise.

I nodded seriously.

"Uh, yeah ... I think so." Bert shrugged. "Probably in a box under my bed at home."

"Can you bring them to school tomorrow?"

"Uh sure ... What's going on?"

Sasha spoke up. "This is about Peyton, isn't it? You were helping her with Corporate Finance last night."

Bert frowned. "Peyton? I thought you weren't doing anything with her until Friday."

"I'm NOT. This isn't about sex. It's purely academic."

"So what, you need my homework to help her study? Really?"

I shook my head. "This isn't about studying. Come to think of it, okay maybe it IS about sex."

Sasha put her hand on mine. "Ben, you're not making any sense."

I sighed, wondering whether or not I should tell them about my suspicions regarding Rutledge's grading. Really, I had NO evidence, no reason to believe that he was falsifying her scores other than my gut feeling and the fact that Peyton was a gorgeous, desirable young female. It wasn't my nature to spread rumors about other people, no matter how much I disliked them. And really, what had Rutledge ever done to me personally? If it's a crime to think girls like Peyton and Dawn are hot and to be tempted should either of them get seductive, then I'm just as guilty as anyone.

But I couldn't shake this feeling. If I was wrong, I was wrong. But if I was right, then maybe I could save Peyton from the kind of decision she might regret for the rest of her life.

I hadn't saved Dawn. I didn't know Peyton very well, but maybe I could save her instead. As reasons go, it wasn't a very good one, but it was my motivation nonetheless.

Looking both Bert and Sasha in the eye, I said slowly, "I want to compare your homework, and mine, to Peyton's. I think – I don't know – that Rutledge is messing with her grades and putting her on the brink of failure, so that she'll have no choice but to sleep with him in order to pass."

Sasha jerked away, staring at me in horror. Bert's eyebrows went up in shock. "Are you sure?" he asked gruffly.

"No. Completely NOT sure. This is totally just a hunch. Peyton really is struggling, and she's had multiple meetings with him about her scores being low enough that she won't graduate. All three of us know he's a total letch, and I'm sure you've caught him checking you out, Sasha."

She blushed and nodded.

"But at the same time, she DOES actually know the material better than a student who should be failing. We went over almost everything for three hours last night, and she's not THAT far behind. I'm not the one in charge of grading, but I've seen her homework and the errors she's making aren't the kind that should be earning 50s and 60s. That's why I want to compare her scores to ours."

Sasha frowned. "But are the assignments even the same?"

I shrugged. "I haven't looked at my own yet. But it's the same textbook; some of the questions HAVE to be identical."

Sasha pursed her lips. "Okay then. All my papers from last semester are in my room. Let's go home and take a look."

-- WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

"I don't know. We're really splitting hairs here, and none of it's conclusive." Sasha shook her head and pointed to two papers, side-by-side. "Bert made the same mistake on this question last semester and got docked four points. Peyton got docked five. It's a difference, but how much of a difference?"

"It's a difference, period. This is the fifth discrepancy we've found on the last three assignments, and only half of the questions are even the same. There are probably twice as many places where Peyton's getting nicked a point or two more than we ever did. Never fewer point penalties, always more. That adds up."

"Fractionally," Sasha argued.

"It's the difference between a 71 and a 68 per assignment. That's the difference between a C-minus and a D-plus in the long run."

"For all we know, his grading has simply gotten a little harder since last semester," Bert pointed out. "We can't say anything for certain without being able to compare these scores to others currently in the class. Yeah, a lot of the questions are the same, but even though they're both fruit we're still comparing apples to oranges. And our midterms are completely useless. There's nothing identical to compare."

"So we need to get more apples."

Sasha gasped. "Get homework and midterms from Peyton's current class?"

Bert snorted. "Do we even know anyone else in Peyton's class?"

"They're almost all UGBA students. Yeah, we do."

"Casually. Like acquaintances. Do we know them well enough to ask them to turn over their homework just so we can compare them to Peyton's? Yeah, like Rutledge isn't going to find out about that. Be serious, dude." Bert gave me an apologetic shrug. "Even if we could find a few discrepancies, I don't think it's enough to file a formal complaint."

"Really guys..." Peyton spoke up from behind us. The four of us were in the sitting area of my bedroom for privacy, but even still the Tri-Delt President looked distinctly uncomfortable with what was going on. "Let's just drop the whole thing, okay?"

I glanced back at her. "What, you don't want to find out if Rutledge has been screwing you over?"

With a pained expression, she folded her arms and paced by the door. "It's just ... I agreed to let you see if there was anything fishy going on. But like Sasha said, there's nothing conclusive. And I'd rather this not blow up into a big mess."

"We've just barely started looking."

"But you're probably not going to find anything. I really AM struggling in the class." Peyton sighed and gestured to my friends. "It's bad enough you brought them into this."

I glanced over at Bert and Sasha. "They're my friends. You can trust them."

"They're not MY friends. Fuck, YOU'RE not even my friend. I don't know why I'm letting you all go through my papers like this. It's embarrassing that other people know how badly I'm doing in this class."

"So what? You just give in?" I glared at her. "Walk up and give him what he wants? Bend over for a grade?"

Peyton glared back at me. "At least that would have been private. Just between me and him. I don't want half the campus to know I'm failing."

"Better your private shame than public embarrassment? Huh?"

She pouted. "Something like that."

I stood up and stalked over to her. "What happened to the strong young woman who barged into my house weeks ago and ordered her froshlings to stay in my house? What happened to your pride, your self-esteem? What happened to the woman who would never let a MAN get the best of her, huh?"

A couple of tears rolled down Peyton's cheeks. "I can't not graduate."

"And I can't let you sleep with him."

"That's my decision to make."

"Well it's the WRONG decision."

Peyton shook her head. "I don't WANT to do it."

"Then don't! I'm not done yet. Something's wrong with that man, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"Why? Why are you so adamant? Why are you working so hard ... for me? We barely know each other. You don't even LIKE me."

"I'm not doing it for you."

"Then what? This is some sort of charity job? Trying to protect the damsel in distress out of the goodness of your heart?"

I shrugged. "I don't like seeing a woman get taken advantage of."

"Says the guy keeping an entire harem of my sorority sisters in his house to be his fuck toys!"

I wheeled over to Peyton, moving up into her personal space and glaring down at her from only inches away. Jerking my arm, I pointed at the door and growled harshly, "You walk downstairs and ask any of those girls whether they want to be here or not. You ask THEM if I'm taking advantage of them. I'M not the one who ordered five 18-year-olds to stay here for all of Spring Break just in case a strange guy wanted to seize and inseminate them. Those girls downstairs stood by and let YOU give that order because they KNEW ... they KNEW ... that I would never hurt any of them. Nobody is being coerced into being here. NOBODY is being forced to do anything they're not comfortable with. Don't you ever ... EVER ... insinuate that I am ANYTHING like Henry Rutledge, do you understand?!?"

Her eyes wide with fright at my tone and demeanor, Peyton nodded hurriedly.

Only now did I recognize that despite my insistence of not being a monster, I was still scaring her. I backed up quickly and shook my head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten up in your face," I apologized with a wince.

Peyton pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest again, more or less hugging herself. She didn't look me in the eyes, but she nodded and replied, "It's okay."

"Really ... I'm sorry," I repeated in a much more apologetic tone.

Peyton picked her head up, now studying my face with a strange expression, as if she was seeing me for the first time. "You know, I had it all wrong about you. I thought you were this charming lothario, a Casanova who happened to be really, really good at sex and at making a girl's world turn upside-down. Well you are, but there's a lot more to you than that. I think only now do I get why all those girls downstairs stick around this house, even though none of them are your girlfriends. You're something else. You're something special."

I blushed in embarrassment, not expecting that kind of praise from Peyton.

Chuckling, the pretty dirty-blonde shook her head as if she couldn't believe she'd said it either. Moving over to the door, she grabbed the handle and looked back at me. "Do what you need to do. I really hope you find something. And... thank you for doing this for me. You really don't have to, but thank you for trying. Not many people in this world would do so much for me."

I blinked, surprised again at what she'd said. But then Peyton opened the door and left.

"So that's it. Midterms are a wash. Nothing comparable." Bert sighed as the three of us walked up the hill toward class. "And the homework grading, while harsh, isn't completely out of bounds. We're out of luck. There's nothing concrete."

"I finished calculating all three of our grades from last semester," Sasha added. "It doesn't necessarily mean Rutledge is assigning the same percentage values to all assignments this semester as he did last semester, but at least it's something to start with."

"And?" I asked. "Did you have time to run them against Peyton's scores?"

Sasha nodded. "I did. Combined with her two midterms, everything grades out to a 69. She's Econ major, and this counts as an elective major. She needs a 70 to get credit for the course, and without these credits, she doesn't graduate. 69 is borderline, and she could still pull herself out, but she's definitely in the danger zone. The third midterm is a killer, if you'll remember, not to mention the final.

I frowned. "So what? Maybe the best course of action is just to help her study and make sure she gets above 70?"

"She's not far off," Bert chimed in. "It's doable, and definitely without resorting to any Mission: Impossible-style hacking into the computer database. If she aces next week's midterm, she'll be in the clear. No need to ... ahem ... get extra credit."

I sighed. "Okay then. Rutledge still smells like a rat to me, but this sounds like a plan."

-- THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

I felt something tickle my balls; and with a start, I jerked awake.

"Mmph!" a girl moaned and I realized I'd just shoved my dick an inch into somebody's throat. She took it like a trouper, gagging only slightly and keeping her head down, breathing heavily through her nose until I pulled back. And then she resumed rhythmically pumping my shaft in her hands and sucking on the mushroom head as if I'd never interrupted her.

My eyes fluttered for a brief second, giving me just enough time to see the bottle-blonde head bobbing up and down in my lap before my heavy eyelids closed themselves. I was tired, like really-really tired. But for once my weariness was not the result of excessive sex.

Oh, I was still having sex. Despite all this Rutledge drama, college life went on. I still had classes, and my house was still occupied at all hours of the day by horny Tri-Delts. Sex was a great way of unwinding after a stressful day, for me and for the girls. It was why most of them stuck around, to get that itch scratched without dating hassles or relationship drama. If one of them wanted a good orgasm, no questions asked, I was around. And there were enough of them that somebody was always ready and willing whenever -I- got an itch.

Plus, it was really nice to have that ready and willing distraction after my latest futile attempt to contact Kim. She still wouldn't answer my calls or texts, and while Bert WAS in contact with her to reassure me that she was alive and well (and similarly tell HER that -I- wished her well), he never had anything really hopeful to tell me.

Thank goodness Andie was such an eager mood-changer.

But for this morning at least, my weariness wasn't about Kim or my schoolwork, and had everything to do with Rutledge-drama. Tutoring and helping Peyton with her homework was the equivalent of adding an entire class to my schedule, even more so because it took me much less time to complete my own assignments. But even besides mundane busywork, I found myself... thinking ... about the situation far more than was really healthy.

I wondered if Rutledge really was conducting some underhanded score manipulation to coerce coeds into putting out for him.

I wondered if he really was aboveboard, accepting opportunities as they presented themselves but not really doing anything nefarious.

And I wondered about what REALLY happened between him and Dawn. I wanted to believe she'd been 100% truthful, but even she could have been misled. If Rutledge had fucked around with Peyton's grades, he certainly could have done so with Dawn's. And if Dawn HADN'T had so much trouble with her Finance class ... well ... would she still be my girlfriend right now?

There were other factors in play, of course, and even if Dawn had gotten straight A's, the causes of our breakup ran far deeper; but it was still something to chew on. Those are two of the worst, most harrowing words in the English language: What. If?

But these were the thoughts of yesterday and of last night. For as much as these ruminations had dominated my attention then, I really wasn't thinking about them now. My schlong was nearly eight inches up a pretty girl's throat, you see, and it's hard to really feel bad about your life in a situation like that.