Next Time

A short story by Anne Weller

This story contains: her and him, contemporary romance, strangers, outdoors, cunnilingus

Professor Katherine Mandrake brushed a piece of lint from the sleeve of her tweed jacket. The department meeting had been a colossal waste of her time, and she gritted her teeth as they inched toward the agenda’s final item.

To distract herself, she glanced around at her peers.

At the head of the table, English Department Chair Daniel Runcible was tall and distinguished, but much of his vitality had drained away in the three years since his wife’s death.

On his right sat the department’s junior member, Peter Robinson. He seemed like a nice enough young man, but Katherine couldn’t recall hearing him say a dozen words all semester beyond the basic social pleasantries.

Katherine herself, seated at the foot of the table, knew the nickname they had coined for her: The Ice Princess.

If they only knew.

To her right sat Kipling Southerby, her only real friend in the department. Kipling had a brilliant mind and a kind nature, but his self-confidence was undermined by a debilitating stutter.

And seated beyond him, completing the department, was Vanity Kahldron, a drab sparrow of a woman whose name was worthy of a peacock.

Four colleagues without enough combined libido to fuel a flashlight.

Katherine herself was filled with a life force she was determined not to waste. On campus, she wore her professional identity like a suit of armor. By Friday of each week she felt stifled, a butterfly desperate to escape its chrysalis. But she lacked the nerve to fully transform. Each Monday she resumed her drab, protective disguise.

That disguise had saved her during the erosion of her marriage, as Clifford became more and more controlling as he questioned her fidelity, criticized her clothes, and doled out vicious punishments for imaginary infractions of his rules. Fifteen years her senior, he had seemed worldly when they met, but the ring he placed on her finger became a bill of sale giving him the right to tear her down and recast her from the broken pieces. It had taken her four years to admit that divorce was the only solution, and months more to make that divorce a reality.

Clifford had been out of her life for a year now. The physical scars from their relationship were mostly gone.

The intangible scars were proving more resistant.

“And finally,” Chairman Runcible said, “we can begin our discussion of the proposed reforms for next semester’s symposium.”

Katherine shuddered. Her weekends had become precious to her, and it was past time for the current one to begin. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Dr. Runcible, but I’d like to do a bit more reading on that matter. Might we postpone the discussion until next week? Thank you. In that case, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment and I don’t want to be late.”

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