The Professor Read Online Free PDF Page A

abruptly hands me a copy of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
I see how firm and steady his grip is. And his tone when he next speaks is almost offhand.
    Like it just occurred to him that we should finish up here.
    Rather than it being a necessity, as it currently is to me.
    ‘Now, for next time I should like you to read some of the sex in this and note down all the ways where it goes completely wrong. Both because I want it to be absolutely clear that even great writers can fail on the details, and because I believe you are perfectly aware of what may be missing from your story – you simply have not had occasion to address it. Does that seem acceptable to you?’
    It shouldn’t, considering the state I am now in. I should stop here, I know. Tell him that I have other engagements; explain that I feel I have learned enough now. The chance of me embarrassing myself is getting too close. Who knows what I will do during our next meeting, if the word
‘clit’ puts me so on edge?
    Yet when I open my mouth, all that comes out is this:
    ‘Of course, Professor.’

Chapter Three
    I am well prepared for the next session with him. The book has been annotated and circled and marked. I have thoughts on it to discuss with him, and questions to ask of him, and serious points to make – almost as though we are a real Professor and student, meeting to further my education. Which we are, we are, we are. There is no
almost
about it. It is an absolute fact, and I would do well to remember that.
    I do remember that. As soon as I sit down opposite him, I open my satchel. I get out the copy of the book he gave me, without thinking once of how I fell asleep – with those pages spread over my face, so I could smell their papery smell and be reminded of certain things. And though I look at him, I avoid any part that might have once struck me as pleasant. His eyes, his mouth, the way he sits. The sheer bulk of him, crowding out every rational instinct and thought.
    I even ignore new little details that shouldn’t matter at all.
    That
don’t
matter at all. That
never
matter at all.
    Like the fact that his trousers are checked today. Very faintly, and in big squares of the sort men in the nineteenth century favoured, but still. They seem strange on him – even a little wild. And his cufflinks, his usually plain silver cufflinks…they are gone and have been replaced by ones set with blood-red stones.
Rubies
, I think, but I could never say for sure.
    Because I don’t care.
    I only care about the work.
    ‘So I looked at
Chatterley
and have to say – I think it’s better than you give it credit for. Here look, this line: “He hated mouth kisses.” It might not explicitly state that he did it between her legs but what else could he possibly mean?’ I tell him, just as bright and breezy as can be. I even manage a little shrug of my shoulders and a finger-point at the passage.
    Only to be dragged back to hell by the deep, dark rasp of his voice.
    ‘Did what between her legs?’
    I look at him then, though I know it will be a mistake. And it is: his gaze is as challenging as his words are, nearly flat but with just the finest hint of something else. Amusement, my mind whispers – though I try to shake it off. I answer him with the words ‘kissed her’,
in a calm and even tone.
    But he just pushes harder.
    As though he knows that I’m close to breaking.
    ‘Kissed her how? Kissed her where?’
    ‘Kissed her…kissed her clit.’
    The word sizzles through me as hotly as it did when he said it.
    Hotter, because for one moment I see a flash of something in his eyes. A brightness that dies as soon as it appears. Or at least I think so – he turns away before I can tell for sure.
    ‘I see. And you are prevented, as he might have been, from saying this?’
    ‘I just said it to you now!’
    ‘But not in your writing.’
    ‘All right, yes, that much is true.’
    ‘You have every opportunity open to you to say what Lawrence was either too ignorant