The Rules

Sure enough, just as Jenny predicted, when she dropped off, she slipped sideways so that her head was resting on my shoulder. It was quite awkward and uncomfortable with her temple resting on the point of my shoulder so I gently lifted my left arm, wrapped it loosely around her shoulder so that her delicate cheek now rested on my chest. In her sleep, she sighed and snuggled more closely. It wasn't just sexy - I knew I mustn't go there - it was comfortable. As I held her, I remembered being comfortable, just plain comfortable, so often with my Robin. I realized that I need a woman to be comfortable with. Maybe, eventually, I do need to start dating again, hoping sometime, with some woman, to be comfortable again.

I dropped off myself and dozed fitfully. I emerged into a semi-conscious state somewhere over Alaska I think, with Jenny still snuggled next to me. A stewardess had obviously covered the two of us with a blanket. As I came to full consciousness, I realized that the presence of the blanket was a very good thing, because I was fully erect. I dare any heterosexual man to hold a sexy young woman in his arms most of the way across northern Canada, or anywhere else, and not have that problem. I tried to think about what to do in case of air sickness but even that didn't help.

I could still remember what I had been dreaming about before I awoke, presumably the cause of the erection. In my dream my head was between Jenny's naked thighs and I was passionately licking her moist slit.

In some ways, I think that oral sex is more intimate than intercourse. Penetration is a biological imperative, an impulse and an instinct we males are born to fulfill. We choose to lick the woman, by contrast, not to sow our seed but to give her pleasure. The penis is "down there" but the mouth is an immediate extension of the brain. (Well, usually, I've known lots of men whose mouth and brain have no connection whatever, but that disconnect shows up in talking, not sex.) My Robin loved oral sex - she loved me - and now I was dreaming that way about Jenny.

It was also a practical problem, big time. Jenny would be humiliated and offended if she saw my hard on. I truly did need to get control over myself, I knew. With a firm exercise of willpower, I made the rest of the journey an erection free zone, but it was tough.

We were picked up at Narita airport in Tokyo and driven in a university car to a downtown hotel. The problem came when we had checked in.

"Professor san, here are the key cards for you and the young lady. You are in room 1724."

I waited for the front desk clerk to give the room number for Jenny also but he turned away, business obviously concluded.

I looked at Jenny. Her eyes had fallen to the floor and she was blushing gently.

"Wait!" I said. "What about the young lady's room?"

The clerk turned back to me with a surprised look on his face. He punched some numbers into his computer and examined the screen intently.

"Reservation for two, arranged by the office of the Dean of Engineering, Locksmith University, one room."

"All that is correct, except the part about one room. The young lady and I can't share a room, We're not..."

I cast a glance at Jenny. She appeared half embarrassed and, strangely, half defiant. Maybe in Japan they assume that an older man travelling with a younger woman must be a couple and therefore sleeping together. Well, I wasn't going to subject Jenny to that, no matter how lustful my daydreams...especially considering how lustful were my daydreams.

But how could I finish that sentence without publicly humiliating her?

"That is not the nature of our relationship!" I declared firmly.

It looked as if "embarrassed" was now overcoming "defiant" for Jenny.

"Please arrange for another room for me and I will pay for it with my personal credit card.'

The clerk appeared very doubtful. Jenny laid her arm on my arm and said, "Will, you don't need to do that..."

"I certainly do! I don't want to put you in an embarrassing position."

Judging by her face, I was missing out on my intention.

By then the clerk had consulted his computer.

"I'm sorry, Professor san, the hotel is completely full."

"It's all right, Will. We can share." Jenny is so kind and doesn't want to cause any trouble for anybody, even a hotel clerk who is paid to take trouble for the guests.

"No, no, I insist." I told her.

"Are there two beds in the room?" Jenny asked the clerk.

"No, miss, just one, but Queen sized." He checked back on his computer, "As requested by Engineering Department, Locksmith University."

What a foul-up! I would have to tell Rich all about this when we returned.

"Find me another room," I told the clerk firmly.

"I cannot do that, sir. Truly, we have no rooms."

"Please keep looking," I insisted.

Eventually the clerk admitted that the hotel also owned a lower grade establishment, "Largely for day laborers and low grade salarymen, sir!"

I raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"The rooms are not really rooms, sir. More like, how do you say it in English... drawers!"

I had read about this kind of accommodation in Japan and though I didn't look forward to sleeping in the hotel equivalent of a morgue drawer, I was willing to do just about anything not to impose myself on Jenny.

"Will, please, stay with me!"

I raised my hand to wave away her objections. "That will do until we can make alternate arrangements," I said to the clerk.

Jenny balked at this. "If you won't stay with me, at least let me take the ... drawer. I'm much smaller than you are."

"Not advisable for a young lady, miss," said the clerk regretfully.

"Please call me a taxi. I'll help the young lady with her luggage to her room, while I am waiting," I informed the clerk.

I carried her suitcase and carryon to what was now Jenny's room on the 17th floor. I opened the door, set her luggage on the rack and the dresser and looked around. "Nice room!" I said with appreciation.

Jenny almost lost it. She clung to me and all but begged, "Will, truly, you don't need to go. Please don't leave me here alone!"

I have to admit, I was tempted. It's hard to say no to an armful of femininity, especially an armful as delectable as Jenny. But then I thought of my dream on the airplane. How in the world could I be sure I could resist those kinds of impulses if I were actually sharing a bed with Jenny, right next to that mouth-watering "cool?" What would she think of me if I gave in to temptation and came on to her in the night? And there was no way in the world that I could keep from getting an erection if I were in bed with her. She would be so offended! And I could hardly imagine what Maggie would say to me if Jenny told her what a fool I had been!

There is no fool like an old fool and I knew of too many professors who had made fools of themselves trying to relive their youth with students. Why do we middle aged men delude ourselves into thinking that young women actually are interested in our wrinkly, saggy, well past the best by date, bodies? It's ludicrous!

Her respect and friendship mattered far too much to me to put at risk like that.

"Jenny, I couldn't put you in that position and still live with myself."

"Please, Will, put me in that position!"

I flushed at her inadvertent double entendre. Trust me to think of that. I just couldn't keep myself from sexual thoughts tonight. That settles it, I thought. I couldn't put myself in temptation's way anymore.

"See you at 8:30 in the morning in the lobby," I said. I hugged her quickly and slipped out of the room before I could be tempted again to change my mind.

It turned out that the drawer wasn't that bad. It was no more crowded than being stuck in the lower bunk at summer camp. It certainly smelled better; there was no unwashed and sweaty fourteen year old dangling his socks from the bunk above. It even had a very small flat screen TV on a swivel mount. I've slept in more uncomfortable places, on my daughter's pull-out couch, for example. But "Painful Eliminations" is just as bad without the cheesy English voiceover.

I met Jenny the next day at the appointed time and for some reason she seemed a little distant and cool. Perhaps it was jet lag. That wore off through the day and for the rest of the trip she was her normal self. And the meetings and consultations were first rate. If Jenny wants a job in Japan, she will have no trouble getting one. I knew I ought to be happy for my favorite grad student, but the truth is, the thought of Jenny in Japan made me a little depressed, at least until I told myself to snap out of it.

We flew back stateside via San Francisco and stayed two days with my daughter and her husband in her apartment in Berkeley. Or, to be more exact, Jenny slept on that pull-out couch while I rented a motel room nearby. The room wasn't up to the high standards of a Tokyo drawer, but it was great to see Amy and her husband.

Still, my mild depression returned. Amy and Jenny always get along like sisters, in fact, far better than most blood sisters do. But seeing the two of them together, laughing and chatting, reminded me that I had been lusting after a woman young enough to be my daughter. "Lusting after!" It sounds so, so Jimmy Carter. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Shortly before we left, Amy took me by the arm and whispered in my ear, "Jenny's a sweetheart, Dad. I really like her."

"I like her too, sweetie," I replied. What else is there to say? Amy stood on her tiptoes and said, "Never forget you are a handsome man and, besides that, the most special Dad in the world." That probability of weeping factor kicked in again with me.

I think I was still a little down when we arrived back in Oldport. Rich and Maggie had come to pick us up which was very kind of them. Jenny and I threw our luggage into the massive trunk of the Lincoln and we settle into the amply cushioned rear seat. I wonder if they also call that a "cool" in Montreal.

Rich eyed us in the rear view mirror. "So, how was Tokyo? he asked with a smile.

"Great!" I said.

Rich and Maggie, grinned at each other.

"But your office screwed up."

"Oohhh?" said Maggie in that tone of voice that seems to convey, "Ve haff vays to make you talk!"

"Rich, your office booked us into one room by mistake and the hotel was full. I couldn't get another room, no way, no how."

"And?" continued Maggie.

"I had to find a room in another hotel, one of those beds in a drawer affairs that you read about. You know, like a double wide coffin. But at least coffins don't have reading lamps... as far as I know!"

I thought they would be amused. My mistake! Maggie, like Queen Victoria, was definitely not amused.

She turned to Jenny, "You let him sleep in a drawer?!?!" she hissed and stared venomously at poor Jenny.

Maybe it was the jet lag, maybe it was still feeling depressed from watching Jenny and Amy together, maybe I am just getting old, but for the first time in my life, I lost my temper with Maggie. I wasn't going to let her abuse my Jenny!

"Maggie!" I said sharply. "That's enough! It's not Jenny's fault. It's probably one of those language mix-ups between Rich's office and the hotel in Tokyo. And it was my call to sleep in the drawer. I was trying to keep Jenny from feeling uncomfortable, and I think that was the right thing to do."

I glared at her. She stared back at me and, for God's sake, then she actually smiled... as if she approved.

By then I was calming down and guilt washed over me. Not only was I the kind of man who lusts after a woman who trusts me, but now I was telling off a dear friend to whom I owed more than I could ever calculate. What a shit I am!

That's what I remembered as I prepared for bed after the dinner at Rich and Maggie's, and mulled over this business of the Sexual Harassment Policy Committee. I knew young women like Jenny need protection, from men who have all my desires but put them into action. Or, to put it another way, from men who are even worse shits than me.

As a result, the day after the conversation about the Sexual Harrassment Policy Committee, I dropped by the Dean's office, stuck my head through the door and told Rich, "I'll take on that committee work you were asking about."

"Good," he replied. "I was speaking with the President's office about this and I told them I thought you would accept the job." He hesitated for a moment. "They want co-chairs, one male, one female. It's likely that you will be named as the male co-chair."

"Who will be the woman co-chair?" I asked.

"Marsha Kroeger, from the Faculty of Divinity."

"The one who teaches feminist theology?"

"Yep."

"Dear God!"

"Amen."

And the whole miserable business was just about, though not quite, as bad as I expected. At first I wrote out the entire name of the committee in my Blackberry, "Sexual Harassment Policy Committee" whenever a meeting was scheduled. Eventually I gave up on that and called it simply, "Harassment." And I meant it.

Still, we made good time on the project, just as Rich had predicted. It wasn't always easy working with Marsha. She is one of those tall, lean middle aged white women with an afro perm or a mop or whatever they call it, divided in the middle and falling on either said of the head. That hairdo always says, "aggressive and feminist" to me and whether or not that is true in general, it was certainly the case with Marsha. She pushed the committee along and I smoothed the ruffled feathers. It turned out we were actually a good team.

We decided very early on that the rules, as presently written, were fundamentally sound and that they only needed to be tweaked. Interestingly enough, it was the gay representatives who argued that it was impossible completely to forbid sexual and romantic relationships between members of different categories of people on campus and that the gay population on campus wouldn't put up with draconian limits on their sexual expression.

"Gays refuse to be bound by the dictates of the traditional bourgeois morality of the straight majority," declared the rep from the LGBT society and Marsha nodded her head in decisive agreement. Not for the first time, I wondered what the Puritan divines who founded Locksmith would think of their school now.

I pointed out that you couldn't have one set of rules for gays and another for straights and, to my surprise, the committee agreed. We proposed a system which basically left folks alone where no coercion could reasonably be considered to be involved and a set of procedures by which persons who might be in a position of power or influence over their intended partners could distance themselves formally from any such relationship by writing to their supervisory officer to make alternate arrangements.

"Oh great," grumbled Rich when I outlined the first draft of the rules for him. "Now I'll have to give permission every time a professor has the hots for a grad student." After kvetching about the letters he would have to write, but in a very amusing way, he grunted his approval of our proposals.

_________________________

I have to admit that the next development truly astounded me, especially since I had done Rich a huge favor by serving on that damned committee. He took Jenny away from me and assigned her to another supervisor, Bobby Cohen! And she could no longer serve as my assistant!

I hotfooted it to Rich's office and told him I was royally pissed off.

"Now, calm down, Will. Bobby Cohen is in nuclear physics and has directed many dissertations, 100% successfully, too."

"Sure, but he's in the physics end of things. He knows piss-all about construction."

"Will, all that part of the work is over for Jenny. She just needs someone who knows the ropes about submitting and who will push her to get her writing done. You're off to California and it will be a problem if Jenny can't submit before then."

"She's making great progress. She'll be done in time!" I declared.

"Things happen to delay students. They don't always submit when their supervisors think they will. You know that."

Rich paused, looked at me apologetically and gently said, "Will, Jenny thinks it's a good idea too."

I was stunned, absolutely stunned. What could I say to that?

I stared out the window for a half minute. Finally, I turned back to Rich. "Rich, is Jenny mad at me? Did I hurt her in any way?" Then a shameful thought struck me: maybe she had somehow caught the vibes of my lust for her and was so disgusted she didn't want to be around me anymore.

Rich winced when I asked that question. "Not in the least. Not at all, Will."

I remembered my display of temper after the Tokyo trip. "Did, did, I offend you.... or Maggie?"

"No, definitely not, Will. Nobody is mad at you." He paused. "You'll understand why, eventually."

But I won't. Not ever.

In some ways though, much to my surprise, things didn't change. Jenny still dropped by regularly just to chat. Rich and Maggie obviously wanted to make me feel better about the change, so they assiduously continued to invite the two of us to their home, just like when Jenny and I were together. But we weren't... and it hurt.

Sometime later, I dropped over to Rich and Maggie's place on a Saturday afternoon to watch a football game. Jenny was already there, helping Maggie with a home decorating project and we ended up being invited to stay for dinner. I hadn't seen her as much as usual that month, because Jenny had been grinding out her dissertation. Still, I had to acknowledge that she looked well. She has a little bit more of a bottom on her than many Asian women -- maybe some folks might even think it's a bit on the large size for her slender frame, but I like it - and a tight pair of blue jeans shows it off nicely. "Cool," as they would say in Montreal.

But the rules forbid staring in a manner likely to cause offense or discomfort, so I did my best not to notice. Or at least, I tried very hard to appear as if I wasn't noticing. It didn't work. Maggie caught me sneaking a peak, smiled at me roguishly and wagged a mildly chiding finger at me. But she didn't look truly upset.

We all sat down in the den after dinner over coffee. Conversation turned very naturally to the progress of the Harassment committee. That led inevitably to Maggie and Rich telling Jenny in considerable and very amusing detail about their early days as a couple. Suddenly Maggie turned to me and said, "Tell Jenny how you and Robin started dating. She needs to know."

"Needs to know, why?"

"Humor me,"

I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea why anyone, least of all Jenny, would be interested in how Robin and I got together, but it was easier to tell the story than to argue with Maggie. Not that it's much of a story.

"We were juniors in high school and Robin invited me to a Sadie Hawkins dance. One thing led to another and, well, there you go."

I wonder if they still have Sadie Hawkins dances in schools these days. L'il Abner, the comic strip the idea came from disappeared years ago.

Maggie turned to Jenny, "I told you... sometimes the woman has to take the initiative."

I looked from the determined face to an embarrassed one.

"Ahh," I said, "I get it. Jenny's interested in somebody and he's not getting off the mark very quickly."

She flushed and rolled her eyes.

The truth is, I was a little hurt once again. I thought Jenny and I were good enough friends that she might tell me if she was interested in someone, even if I was no longer her supervisor. And I even felt a little constriction in my chest as I thought about it. The idea of Jenny falling in love, getting married and leaving the lab made me genuinely sad. I had hardly even admitted to myself that I hoped to get her out to Palo Alto in some capacity after she submitted her dissertation. If she had fallen in love with someone here, that wasn't going to happen. I hadn't even fully formed the plan and had no idea why I should feel so disappointed that it was already going wrong. But I did.