Her Possessive Professor by Gena Snow

Epilogue

 

Jared

 

 

 

Five years later

 

It’s a sunny day in July. I’m watching my children play with their nanny by the creek in my backyard. My wife is sitting on a chaise across the lawn, typing furiously on her laptop.

I married Hailey soon after she graduated college four years ago. She spends most of the weekdays working at home and taking care of our babies with the help of a hired nanny.  But over the weekends, I take over her household duties.  I’m also my wife’s editor and loyal fan. I know what she’s working on at the moment. She’s writing a novel about the romance between a professor and student, which I suspect is more or less biographical.  

“Look, Daddy, a big fish!” our three-year-old boy Justin shouts excitedly, pointing at the creek.

A rainbow trout shimmers underwater as it wriggles forward down the stream.

Emma, Justin’s little sister, struggles in my arms, wanting to get closer to the water.

I put her down on the ground so she can see better.

“Fish! Fish!” Emma claps her hands. “Pretty Fish!”

The two of them continue to observe the activities in the stream. I let the nanny watch them and sit down on the meadow to rest. I can never compete with their energy.

My cellphone chimes, notifying me of an incoming email message. I take it out of my pocket to check. It’s from Hailey. I glance up and see her waving at me.

She has the habit of sharing parts of her stories with me as she writes. My pulse quickens as I tap to open the message, expecting an erotic scene.

I raise my eyebrows when I see a poem instead, titled “Love Song for J.A.P. (aka Jared A. Price)”

I chuckle. What’s my naughty wife up to?

 

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a maiden sprawling on a bed;

Let us go, through crowded streets,

The moaning retreats

Of passionate nights in our cozy home

 

I unbutton your expensive shirt

And peel off your designer jeans

These garments are for others

I need to see the real you—

The beast stripped of his civilized pretense

 

Your arms are burly and strong,

Your body is perfectly sculpted—

Michelangelo’s masterpiece 

 

You whisper poetry into my ear

Calling me your little mermaid

I hush you with my lips—

I’m no mermaid and I don’t need a prince

 

I’m a woman and you’re my man—

My pussy needs your cock

 

Fuck. Such an elegant poem ends abruptly with vulgarity. She knows how to shock me, not to mention turn me on.

I want to shoot her a line from a poem but can’t come up with anything good enough. So I write, B plus on this one, baby. Need to work on your rhyme scheme, and I send it with a winking face emoji.

Hailey passed my class with a C. It was the first time I ever had a class with a passing rate of over seventy percent. It had nothing to do with Dr. Kennedy’s threat, though, but my experimentation with a new teaching approach. I gave my students poetry writing assignments for which they had to employ various poetry devices or emulate poems we studied in class. The experiment was actually based on the old theory, learning by doing.

It turned out to be a successful approach. The students surprised me by their eagerness to participate and their poetic talents. The poems they wrote might not be very good, considering it was the first time some of them ever wrote any creative pieces, but they were poetry nonetheless. Some of them discovered their appreciation, if not passion, for the literature form.

Hailey was particularly fond of the project and did well on it, which boosted her grade. Over the years, she emulated the Love Song more than once, saying she loved Prufrock because he reminded her of me. It wasn’t flattering at all, although she might be right. I tended to reflect more than communicate but that was before I met her.

I’m still teaching at Alton, but I’m a better professor now. I’m less cynical and more considerate, thanks to my wife, who shows me there’s more than one way to appreciate poetry. I’ve become more and more popular among the students, which isn’t something I strive for but nonetheless proud of.

About Lora Larson’s false complaint? Needless to say it didn’t get anywhere. In fact I sued her back after she recanted and confessed to school authority that Dr. Kennedy had contacted her and encouraged her to take the vile action. Because of that and because of other faculty members’ complaints against him on account of pressuring them to pass undeserving students, the board of trustees forced Dr. Kennedy to resign soon after the incident. The current department chair is a much more conscientious fellow who shares my enthusiasm in poetry and holds high teaching standards.

My phone dings again. It’s another message from my wife.

“Oops. I didn’t send you the last line of my poem. Here it is:

Now.”

I look across the lawn and I’m surprised to see the chaise is empty. I glance up to check our bedroom window but don’t see her there either. And then a movement behind the library window catches my attention. Fuck. Her favorite place next to our bedroom.  My pants feel tight as I stride toward the house, planning ways I’ll take her. Normally I begin with some erotic poems to turn her on, but judging from her earlier message, we can definitely skip that part.