Winter Jacket: New Beginnings (6 page)

“I’m trying not to judge you for having read those books.”
When I’d found the paperback trilogy among Hunter’s personal library, some works of fiction, but most of them books for school, I’d been horrified.

Hunter smirked. “Doesn’t matter,” she breezed. “I know you’re not in love with me because of my massive brain.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “And why exactly
am
I with you?”

“
Because of my ass, naturally,” she returned, batting her eyelashes comically.

I rolled my eyes.
“You’re an ass alright.” I laid still in bed for a moment, but realizing the morning wasn’t going to pause itself just because I wanted an extra hour of sleep, I started to roll out of bed. “I should get ready for work,” I sighed.

Hunter remained in her place in bed. “I’ve never heard of anyone working on their birthday,” she replied with a yawn.

“That’s because they don’t know it’s my birthday,” I reminded her as I picked up my clothes from the previous day off of her bedroom floor. “Academica is different from a regular work environment. No one pays attention to things like that. Besides, I really don’t want
anyone
to make a big deal over it. It’s not worth it.” I narrowed my eyes slightly. “So if you’ve got something planned…”

Hunter held up her hands as if retreating. “I swear. I
t’s just gonna be a normal Friday night tonight.”

“Good,” I said, satisfied that she was telling the truth. “I don’t have any classes today, but Penny called an emergency meeting of the Women’s and Gender Studies program for some reason. I shouldn’t be home too late.”

“I’ve got a full day at the hospital today,” Hunter noted. “But I’ll meet you at your house later?”

“Sounds good,” I confirmed. “We can order in so neither of us has to make dinner tonight.”

“Want some company in the shower?” Hunter practically purred. Her lips curled into a smug smirk. “I could scrub all those hard to reach places.”

I laughed. “As tempting as that sounds
, I can’t be late for this meeting; you’d better stay in bed.” We’d just had a WGS meeting a few days ago, but Penny’s email had sounded urgent.

Hunter gave me a lazy smile and stretched her arms above her head. “Okay,” she conceded. As she stretched, the cotton sheets slipped further down her body, r
evealing more of her toned, smooth skin. “But you don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

Although I should have been immune to the sight of Hunter’s naked body by now, I felt my willpower rapidly diminishing.
My eyes unabashedly drank in the sight of her tight body.

I scampered out of the bedroom before I got unnecessarily distracted.
Oh yes I do,
I wistfully thought.

+++++

Penny, the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, looked around the room. We were in a conference room in the Humanities building; our usual meeting room in the Library was booked, a conflict with the hastily scheduled meeting. “We’re just waiting on Kathy, but let’s get started.”

No sooner had she called the meeting to order when the door to the conference room flew open with Kathy from Sociology on the other side, looking more agitated than usual.

“She did it,” she said, slightly out of breath. “I can’t believe she actually did it.”

“Who is ‘she’? And what did ‘she’ do?” Penny asked gently.

Kathy wiped at her forehead. I wondered if she’d run across campus. “Dean Merlot canceled my summer session to Costa Rica. She said that the funds for the course had been reallocated.”

“What?!” Gemma from the Psychology
department exclaimed. “She can
do
that? Is that even in her job description?”

Kathy waved a stack of papers she’d been clutching in one hand. “I printed out the emails to show you.
I don’t even know how she got included on the email thread. I was emailing with the Registrar about opening the course cap so more students could enroll, and suddenly I had an email from Merlot informing me that plans had changed because the funds were no longer available. This is the beginning of the end, people,” she ranted. “Once Administration starts telling us what we can and cannot teach, say goodbye to Academic Freedom as we know it.”

Penny’s aged face scrunched with maternal concern. “But what about the students who’ve already enrolled and are counting on those credits?”

Kathy sat down in the vacant chair beside me with a dramatic grunt. “Merlot told me I can do the class, but it has to be on campus.” She raked her fingers through her short, tussled hair. “I have to completely redesign the course now. How can I do a service-learning class on women’s reproductive health issues in developing countries without actually being
in a developing country
?” She made a frustrated sound and threw her hands up. “I’ve been planning this class for
years
! All the contacts I had to make and the red tape to go through – all for nothing.”

“Did
the Dean say where the funds had been reallocated to?” my friend Emily asked.

Kathy shook her head vigorously.
“No. I asked, but she hasn’t replied yet to my emails.”

“That bitch,” Gemma from Psychology seethed. “Someone needs to yank that stiletto out of her ass.”

“Gemma,” Penny scolded. “That’s not very sisterly of you.”

Gemme frowned, but looked properly chastised.

“You should go talk to Merlot face-to-face, Kathy,” Emily reasoned. “Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding.”

Kathy
looked wistful, but clearly defeated. I bit my tongue. I wanted to share my own frustrations about the Dean and the thinly-veiled warning that I keep my gay to myself. My own problem felt insignificant, however, compared to Kathy’s. At least my classes weren’t getting canceled.

Peggy stood up.
“Well, I did call this meeting to address a recent outbreak of student plagiarism, but I think we’ve had enough bad news for one day,” she announced. “Who wants donuts?”

+++++

Instead of indulging in donuts and continuing to complain about Dean Merlot, fueled by unnecessary carbohydrates, I hiked up the multiple flights of stairs to the English department offices. I liked bakery pastries as much as the next woman, but in my experience it wasn’t productive to simply complain about the administration’s decisions. If we wanted to affect change, we needed to take an organized proposal or petition to the faculty senate. And to be honest, my tenure was still too new for me to start rocking the boat.

When I reached the appropria
te floor, there was a group of professors hovering outside of the mailroom door, nearly blocking the entrance to the department.

“What’s up with the traffic jam?” I asked Thad, one of my Associate Professor colleagues.

“
Haven’t you checked your email?”

I shook my head. “No. I was in a meeting this morning.”
And in my girlfriend’s bed.

“Dean Merlot put everyone on blast,” he frowned. “Everyone’s teaching is going to be evaluated before the semester is done.”

“
Everyone’s
?” I asked.

Thad nodded. “Even the full professors. They’re all in an uproar.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the mob of faculty members clogging up the hallway. “Hence the angry villager routine. I think they’re getting ready to storm the castle.”

“Merlot’s at it again.”
I breathed out a heavy sigh. Kathy from Sociology was going to go postal after she heard about this new development.

Thad ran his fingers through his surfer-boy
hair. “Yeah, and it gets worse. We’re not going to be given any notice about when the observation is going to happen. Someone can sit in on one of our classes whenever they feel like it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I snorted. “What’s the point of having tenure if
the Dean’s office is going to monitor us like we’re children?
We’re
the experts in our subjects,” I scowled, “not some administrators who’ve never taught a class in their life.”

I’d already had to go through a rigorous teaching evalua
tion process to achieve tenure. It was intimidating because often a class’s performance was out of your control. If you had scheduled a discussion of a reading for the class period, but the majority of the students didn’t actually do the reading, you were stuck and had to think up something on the spot to do instead. One of the perks of being an Associate Professor was not to have those watchful eyes on you anymore.

“So what happens if we get a bad review?”

“The email claims it’s tied to performance raises,” Thad said. “You get a bad review, you don’t get a raise.”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.
“So, once again, our tenure is pointless.”

He nodded, looking full of remorse.

“Well if the villagers bring out their pitchforks and torches, let me know,” I tried to laugh. “I want to watch.”

I circumvented the road
block by the mailroom and walked down to my faculty office. I needed to make a fresh start on my second book proposal while there was a lull in student grading. The disturbance of my fellow faculty and their inspired grumblings floated down the hallway. I closed my office door to shut the voices out so I could get some work done.

I was
also curious to learn more about this new Dean who seemed intent on keeping her faculty on a short leash. A web search of her name produced no helpful results – just pictures of nail polish. Typing in ‘Dean Jessica Merlot’ was even less revealing; the latest news on Paula Dean showed up at the top of the search engine page. When I browsed the university’s webpage, my research came up empty as well. Dean Merlot was too new of a hire, and the IT Department was too lazy for the appropriate webpage to have been updated. Dean Krauss’s headshot smiled back at me where Jessica Merlot’s picture and biography should have been located.

When there was a brisk knock at my door, I hastily closed all the open web browsers as if I’d been caught looking at pornography; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the Dean’s office had installed spyware on our work computers and knew when we were searching for information on her.

I opened the door, more reasonably expecting to see Emily, Thad, or one of my other colleagues, still fired up about Dean Merlot’s recent proclamation. I wasn’t prepared to see my student Loryssa though.

“Hi,” she smiled affably
. She gave me an awkward-looking wave. “Do you have a minute?”

“I, uh, I’m actually not even
supposed to be on campus today,” I stumbled.

Two expertly sculpted eyebrows rose on her unlined forehead.
“So that’s a no?”

“Can it wait until Monday?”
I winced.

The smile slipped from her face.
“I had some questions about the reading for next week, but I suppose it can wait.”

A cumbersome guilt settled over me. I couldn’t ignore a student request just because I was afraid that my willpower would falter.
I was actually pretty proud of myself for reigning in my wandering eyes lately, and I hadn’t had anymore inappropriate student dreams in two days. I’d chalk that up to a win.

“No, no. Come in.”

She walked into my office and started to shut the door behind her. “You can keep that open,” I said, almost desperate.

“Are you sure? It’s pretty loud out there.” She gave me a peculiar smile. “Are you guys having a party and starting the weekend early? English professors gone wild?”

I shook my head. “English professors don’t go wild unless there’s a Renaissance Faire or something in town.”

She laughed a little too loudly. “I’ll have to remember that for the future. Busty wenches, mead, and jousting, right?”

I cleared my throat and moved to sit behind my desk, determined to keep things professional. There was no way I was going to flirt back and let my idiot mouth betray me.

+++++

I unlocked the front door of my house, feeling emotionally exhausted. Even though it was just past 6pm, the sky was already dark due to the late winter month. I’d stayed later on campus than I’d originally planned because of the drama over Dean Merlot’s new totalitarian regime. After my brief one-on-one meeting with Loryssa, I’d penned a letter to the Dean’s office, protesting the re-allocation of funds for Kathy’s sociology course. My words would probably fall on deaf ears, but I’d been inspired to do something to stem this power-trip the new Dean was on. It had been a dismal way to spend my birthday afternoon, but it wasn’t as if any of my coworkers knew today had any special significance. The only people at work who had record of my birth date were in Human Resources because it was filed away on my I9s and W2s
.

I’d received a few rambling texts throughout the day from Troian teasing me about my advanced age and a simple “Happy Birthday, lady!” text from Nikole, but beyond that I hadn’t heard from anyone else. E
ven though I always vehemently insisted that my birthdays go unrecognized, there was still a tiny part of me that wanted
some
kind of recognition – a balloon, maybe a single cupcake at my desk, a bouquet of flowers. Anything. I’d even entertained the thought that maybe Penny’s “Emergency Meeting” had been code for a birthday surprise for me. It was silly though, and I knew it.

I entered the front foyer and was greeted by silence and darkness. I reached
around, fumbling for the light switch I knew was there. When I flicked the toggle up, however, nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing.

I cursed and to
ok off my snow boots in darkness. I hung up my jacket and allowed my eyes to adjust to the limited light coming in through the front windows from the streetlamps outside.

“Hunter?” I called out.

I could make out the sound of footsteps traveling down the darkened hallway. Sock-covered feet padded in my direction. I tensed momentarily until I recognized Hunter’s familiar gait. As she came closer, I could make out the smiling features of her beautiful face.

“Hey, birthday girl.” Hunter greeted me with a warm hug. “How was your day?”

I kept my face buried in her shoulder. She smelled like her coconut body wash.

“Uneventful.” I didn’t want to rehash all the Dean Merlot drama.

Hunter pulled away and held me at arm’s length. “That’s a good thing, right?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow.

My mouth scrunched up, and I blew out a deep sigh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why is it so dark in here?” Hunter asked, noticing the lack of lighting for the first time.

“I think there’s a fuse blown or the bulb in the front hallway burned out,” I remarked. “I thought that maybe…maybe you’d planned a surprise party
, and that’s why it wasn’t working.”

“But you told me you didn’t want me to do anything.” Hunter’s eyebrows scrunched together. “You also told me you didn’t want a birthday present.”

“I know,” I agreed, feeling unwontedly crestfallen. “I just…I didn’t think you’d actually
listen
to me.”

Hunter blinked a few times. “I…is this a trick? Because
you often
complain that I don’t listen to you.”

“So why’d you choose t
oday
as the one day to actually listen?” I literally whined.

Hunter chuckled and grabbed onto my hand. “Come on. Your present’s in the kitchen.”

“Present?” My voice embarrassingly cracked on the syllables. I allowed Hunter to pull me in the direction of the kitchen.

She
pulled a small white box out of the refrigerator and set it on the kitchen island. She grabbed a knife out of the butcher block and snapped the twine that held the box closed.

“I was
planning on saving this for later,” she remarked with a smirk. She opened the top of the white box to reveal a small, circular 6-inch birthday cake. There were no candles, but it would have been a mathematical feat to squeeze thirty-one candles onto the surface of the modest-sized cake.

I immediately swiped my finger along the top of the cake, covering my finger
tip with light purple frosting. I sucked my finger into my mouth and licked off the creamy topping.

Hunter cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Is it weird that I’m suddenly jealous of your finger?”

I raised an eyebrow, my finger still in my mouth. I popped the digit out from between my lips. “Because it’s covered with frosting or because it was in my mouth?”

Hunter’s lips curved into a leer. “Take your pick.”

An unorthodox idea filtered through my brain. I must have made some kind of strange face, because Hunter looked confused.

“What?” she asked.

My mouth widened into a grin. “I just figured out what I want for my birthday.”

+++++

“But, baby,” Hunter complained as she tugged on the bindings around her wrists. “It’s
your
birthday. Shouldn’t I be the one doing all the hard work?”

I sat atop my tied-down girlfriend, straddling he
r naked body between my thighs. The fashion scarves around her wrists were soft, but I had tied them securely. The wood slats on my headboard creaked, but gave no indication that they’d break as long as Hunter didn’t suddenly turn into the Incredible Hulk.

My lips twisted into a wry smile. I stroked my fingers down the center of her naked body. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase that it’s far better to give than receive?”

“Sure, but—.”

I placed a finger over Hunter’s generous lips, effectively silencing her. “Like you said. It’s
my
birthday. So let me have some fun.”

Hunter grumbled. “Fine. But can’t you at least take off some of your clothes? I’m feeling a little weird being the only naked one.”

I smirked and shook my head. “Maybe later. But that’s not on the agenda right now.”

“Agenda?” She turned her head toward the birthday cake she’d gotten me; it sat on the bedside table. “And what’s the deal with the cake?” she asked. “Are you gonna eat me and have your cake, too?”

“You’ll see,” I sing-songed. I swiped two fingers across the top of the cake. A giant dollop of frosting hung from my fingertips. I smeared the sugary topping across the side of Hunter’s neck.

“Oh God,” Hunter groaned, as if suddenly realizing why I had brought the cake into the bedroom.

I licked my lips and beamed down on Hunter’s vulnerable body. “Happy birthday to me,” I murmured.