She was gathering up a folder that she dropped, and when she arose again and looked at me, I

saw that she was about as horrified to bump into me as I was to see her. She said, �I�m sorry,

Professor Arnold,� and quickly ran off before I could say anything in return. I turned and looked

back at the people in the coffee queue who witnessed the run-in, and they all had an amused look

on their face. They probably thought it was the typical terrified grad student, afraid that she had

spilled coffee on a senior professor, and that she had just ruined her chances of ever landing a

job. All I could think was, �If they only knew the truth.�



I managed to make it to the meeting room without further incident. I entered, and found a seat

on an aisle, not too far from the back. I found that these early morning sessions were usually

lackluster, so I liked to position myself for a quick exit. I sat through the three papers, one of

which was pretty bad, the other two at least interesting enough that I chose to stick around. The

discussant�s comments were, as usual, condescending and totally unhelpful, but the grad students

giving their papers nodded seriously and graciously and thanked the pompous fool for his

insightful (in their words) comments.



I felt sort of badly for one of the students, to whom the discussant had been particularly mean, so

when the question and answer period opened up, I threw her a softball question. I started with

my interpretation of what she had to say, then asked her if she agreed. She answered

affirmatively, then elaborated a bit more on what she had written in the paper. When she

finished, I smiled at her and said, �Thank you.�



The moderator asked if there were other questions. I heard a clear, strong voice directly behind

me say, �I beg to differ with Professor Arnold, but I have a slightly different take on your

interpretation.� I didn�t have to turn around to know who it was � I immediately recognized

Susan Bascom�s voice. I hadn�t seen her there when I came in so she must have entered the

room after I did. I wanted to ignore her, but realized that would be so obvious to the 20 or so

others in the room, many of whom were colleagues who knew both of us. So I turned slightly in

my chair to look at her, and I gave her a curt smile. She gave me an even broader smile back,

then turned back toward the woman giving the paper and continued with her question.



As Susan spoke, I looked at her once again. She was wearing one of her signature outfits, not

unlike what I saw her in last night � low-cut blouse showing off her ample cleavage, expensive-

looking silk scarf, and a skirt cut respectably above her knee. All was constructed to maximize

the sexiness of her body. As I wrote earlier, she was by no means a thin woman, but she carried

her weight quite well and she knew how to dress to look her best. Even though at 50 she was

about a decade older than I was, I had to admit she still looked damn good. And I knew that she

still turned heads among both the faculty and grad students at the conference.



The young woman listened to Susan�s question and then respectfully answered it. Susan was

very polite back, thanking her and complimenting her. I had no desire to interact with her when

the session ended, so after one more question I discreetly turned and walked to the door in the

back of the meeting room without making eye contact with her. I quietly opened it, left the

room, and went to close it behind me. But before I could, I felt pressure pushing back on it, and

I knew exactly who it would be. Sure enough, Susan pulled the door open and exited the room,

giving me the same broad smile she had laid on me just a few minutes ago.



After she closed the door, Susan said, �Well, Bob, what did you think of that panel?�



All I could do was just stare at her, mouth agape, totally at a loss for words. Was she going to

just carry on like nothing had happened last night?



�What�s wrong, cat got your tongue?� she asked, this time in a much lower voice and with a

clear twinkle in her eye. After I still did not respond, she said, �Or should I ask, pussy got your

tongue?� With that, she laughed heartily and took a step closer to me, so that she was right in

front of me. With her height, and her fashionable heels, she was probably an inch or two taller

than me. She leaned in, and whispered in my ear, �You�ll be hearing from me, pet � you still

have something of mine you need to return, don�t you?� As she said this, she reached down and

grabbed hold of my balls through my trousers. I flinched and quickly looked around, terrified

that somebody may have seen what she did. But I realized her body in front of mine

camouflaged what was going on, so to anybody watching it would just appear she was

whispering something to me.



She squeezed again, and I quickly whispered back to her, �Yes, I know.� She released her grip,

smiled once again, and continued on down the hallway, leaving me in her wake. I just stood

there, glued to the spot, staring at her well-curved ass as it retreated.



After a few seconds I shook my head and thought to myself, �Is this going to be what the next

few days will be like, random encounters with Susan and Laura?� I had no desire for this, and

thought for a second maybe I should just leave the conference. But I had my paper to give later

today, never mind one on the last day and I was also the discussant on another panel. And I had

Susan�s admonition about not leaving the conference early � I was not about to take a chance on

inciting her wrath, not knowing exactly how far she would go with the evidence she held against

me. After realizing this, I headed back toward the lobby for another round with the barista at

Starbucks. Nothing like a good shot of caffeine � though I started thinking that scotch would

taste pretty good right now � to help get you through the day.



I headed back to the lobby for a cappuccino this time (though the cute college student was gone),

and then proceeded on to the next session. The papers in this one were only a slight

improvement from the last, but at least Susan was not stalking me in this session also. I ran into

a colleague from the west coast, Marnie Carney whose company I enjoyed quite a bit, so it was

nice to see her again. Yes, I know, that is her real name! We were in grad school together, and

she was already married when I first met her. For the life of me, I never understood why she

took her husband�s name when it would result in a rhyme like that, but she did. The irony is that

she divorced him a few years after getting her Ph.D., but since she had started her academic

career and publishing under that name, she had little choice but to keep it. I had always been

attracted to Marnie, but by the time she was divorced I was already married to Sarah. I still

enjoyed spending time with her the few opportunities we had to get together at various

conferences and meetings.



Marnie and I had lunch after that session, getting caught up on each other�s lives, the office

gossip � the usual, who was turned down for tenure, who was hot on the job market, which of

our colleagues were sleeping with their students, etc. (needless to say, I stayed away from the

topic of Susan Bascom) � and I found it was a great distraction from all that had gone on in the

last day. We parted with plans to have dinner the next night to continue the discussion.



My paper session was right after lunch, so I found my way to that room. As the session started, I

quickly scanned the room, expecting to see Susan. I thought maybe she�d take the opportunity to

try to humiliate me in public, albeit this time in a more appropriate manner. Somewhat to my

surprise, and admittedly, perhaps, my disappointment, she wasn�t there. I managed to stumble

through my paper without making too much of an idiot of myself. This discussant was a bit

more polite than the earlier ones I had heard, though he clearly knew nothing about the subject of

my paper (the influence of the Industrial Revolution on the development of child characters in

the British novel in the late 19th century). I smiled and thanked him, which was the appropriate

thing to do, then entertained a couple of questions from the audience. One or two fawning

graduate students came up to me after the session to tell me how much they admired my work

and just how influential it had been on their own. I was used to this academic bullshit � I knew

the two of them were trying to grease the skids for when they went on the job market themselves,

as my university was known as one of the plum places to work. I smiled, thanked them, and then

made a hasty retreat.



By that time I had had enough; there is only so much time that you can sit and listen to people

drone on about the British novel. So I headed back to my room. I knew the hotel had a pool, so

I thought a nice late afternoon swim would be good to clear my head. As I exited the elevator on

my floor, I quickly peeked to the left, not wanting to run into either Susan or Laura. There was

nobody there, of course, and I realized I was being unduly paranoid.



I went on to my room, entered, and threw my backpack on the bed. As I started to take my

clothes off, I noticed the red message light on the phone was blinking. I thought it might be

Marnie calling to make plans for dinner the next evening, so I called the hotel�s voicemail

system, listened to the instructions, then punched in the codes to retrieve my messages. Instead

of Marnie�s voice, however, it was Susan�s I heard through the telephone handset. �Tomorrow

night, pet, 6:00pm, you�ll return what you have of mine. Room 517.�



�Damn,� I thought, just after I had made plans with Marnie for tomorrow. She was leaving the

following morning, and didn�t want to miss the opportunity to have dinner with her. So I picked

up the phone and dialed Susan�s room, figuring I would get her voicemail.



�Hello,� I heard her answer, much to my surprise.



I hesitated for a second, then said, �Susan, it�s Bob.�



�Oh, hi there Bob. You got my message, I presume?�



�Yes, I did, but I can�t make it then, I made plans. . .� But before I could go any further, she cut

me off.



�6:00pm tomorrow pet, and don�t be late, or else.� And with that she hung up the phone. I stood

there holding the handset, just staring at it, infuriated at what she was doing to me. I slammed it

back on the phone, changed into my bathing suit, and stormed down to the pool to try to take out

my frustrations in some laps.







That evening and the next day went by in a blur. I couldn�t focus on the awards banquet that

evening, the speeches any of the recipients made, or any of the sessions I attended the next day.

All I could think about was having to deal with Susan again. In the back of my mind I was

hoping that I�d go to her room, return her panties, and she�d just laugh the whole thing off. But I

suspected it was not going to be that easy.



In the morning I had called and left a message in Marnie�s room, apologizing for having to

cancel our dinner plans. I simply told her that something had come up, and we would get caught

up with one another at the MLA convention.



Late in the afternoon I went back to the pool for a swim, then returned to my room and showered

and changed. It was about 5:30, so I figured I would go through my e-mail before I headed off to

Susan�s room. I started scanning my e-mail, which contained the usual combination of spam

(offers of Canadian drugs, erection-producing pharmaceuticals, low-cost mortgages, and

Nigerian lottery proceeds), questions from students, and administrative crap from my university

that I immediately deleted. But then one message caught my eye; I didn�t recognize the return

address, which was from a Yahoo account, but the subject line said, �For you, pet.�



I opened it up, and saw that it had an attachment, and started to hit the delete button, figuring it

was just more spam. But then I saw the message: