#Work in Progress Wednesday - Professor Plum

 Here's an excerpt from one of my current WIPs, working title Professor Plum. This is very rough and unedited, as evidenced by the unfinished names in this draft.

Jayden

Ten inebriated students fall about on the makeshift stage, shoving each other, laughing and generally dicking about. Their high spirits hide their nervousness, I’m sure of it. I’m more relaxed. I’m standing there waiting to go to my doom because it is what it is. My motto. There are bigger things to get riled up about in this life, like global warming or the dictators having the world in a choke-hold. This isn’t worth a drop of worried sweat. It’s something I step over on my path to… whatever. The only way I’ll start to sweat tonight is if I’m auctioned off to him.

I can see him standing at the bar. He sticks out like a sore thumb, a head taller than most of the men here tonight at six-two or three. He’s become my nemesis and I want to do all I can to stay under his radar.

Professor Plum. The jokes have been done to death and yet they still get whispered as he approaches.

Prof Plum did it with his lead piping over the desk in his study. Prof Plum shagged Miss Scarlet to death in the library. Yeah, I’ve heard them all and joined in with them too. It’s more than his name that attracts attention though. In a sea of stuffy old dons, it’s like someone dumped a male model in their midst. The first time I saw him, he was striding down the corridor, tall and lean and rocking a satchel and a suit like no one had the right to. Every girl’s jaw around me dropped open and some of the guys too. He left a sea of mass confusion in his wake and I’m not sure anyone’s ever recovered from it. I know I haven’t.

The boys hate him. They’re trying to get into the panties of girls who are wet for the Prof and see him as the ultimate in male sophistication. Why would they want the acne riddled teenagers with the bad hair and the beard that took them four years to grow? At times they’re unnecessarily cruel with their jibes and I wonder how much he hears from the front of the class. And me? Yeah, he’s left my underwear wet too. I’ve had more uncomfortable tightening of the pants than is healthy at the hands of that man.

I thought I was off his radar for two years until I finally ended up in his class coming into my third year. He stood there, tall and commanding at the front of the lecture theatre, talking about Dorian Gray’s sexuality in that first lecture, his gaze surveying every face in the room, until they rested on mine and held. “We don’t know if Dorian was lovers with Sir Henry Wotton and Basil Hallward,” he said, eyes boring into mine. “But they wished he was.” I felt my face redden. In two years, I had never caught his eye and now here he was staring at me. I felt like he’d caught me goofing off or playing on my phone when nothing could have been further from the truth. I was riveted by his lectures from the start. I know now that the stare was merely a prelude warning.

The auction is a charity thing and it’s a decades old tradition in our college. A student gets sold to the highest bidder for the weekend. The don makes them clean his house or whatever for forty-eight hours, the charity gets the money and everyone’s happy. The dons undoubtedly use it to get their own back on wayward students. All the guys think there’s something seedy about the whole thing though. What started off as innocent years ago has been tarnished by perverts suggesting the dons are out for young flesh. Lots of crude jokes about being made to go down on our knees within the hour are flying around the stage and I shudder at the idea it could actually happen. A thought drifts into my mind and I try unsuccessfully to shove it away. Down on my knees for him, his hand tangling in my hair and urging me on.

For the record, I’m not gay. I see you smirking now after I just confessed to a hard-on for the Plummeister. He’s the only guy who’s ever got me hard and I’ve never been with a guy. Okay, I accept my feelings for the Prof make me a tiny bit gay. I haven’t discussed the little crush pricking at me with anyone, not even Max, my best friend. Max is up on stage with me and panting to get picked by the Prof. He’s pansexual, which I think means he fancies everybody and boy, does he fancy Prof Plum. The guy eats, sleeps and breathes the Prof. He’s crushed hard for two years straight and shows no signs of letting up. He’s told me he’s going to get picked by Plum tonight and he’s going to be his willing sexual slave. I groaned at this and tried not to have images of Max on all fours being serviced by the Prof. Max constantly attempts to guess the Professor’s sexuality. He’s sure his well-groomed status points to him being gay. The other lads say he couldn’t possibly ever get any, closeted as he is here. Max wept at the idea that the Prof might be ace.

Someone taps a microphone. The fucking dean. What a headcase that guy is. I would not want to encounter him in a dark alleyway. He’s someone else whose radar I’ve tried to stay off and I’ve been successful so far, unless Plum’s been for a quiet word in his ear. I shiver at the thought. He’s introducing the auction. He’s a small, thin man with a bad rug who by all accounts starts a meeting off as your best friend and ends it with the walls of his office shaking. Similar to what the Prof did to me, I guess, on our first official meeting.

I look around the gathered masses. The function room in the X hotel is packed with students and teachers. Never have I felt more out of place as the token Yank as now. Five years over here and still feeling like an outsider, even with my best Brit slang and swear words. I straighten myself up. It is what it is.

The Dean declares the auction open. Bidding starts with Max. I try to make myself invisible on the back line of students, hoping Max gets the Prof so it’s his wet dream come true, and simultaneously hoping he doesn’t, because I might explode with jealousy. I’ve reminded Max several times that we don’t know if the Prof is even going to bid and more to the point, why would he? He looks at us all like we’re something on the bottom of his shoe; why would he want a scruffy student stinking up his rooms all weekend?

“Do I hear fifty pounds?”

I really hope we fucking do, or Max will be crushed. Shit, I’ll bid for himself even though I’ll be paying off my student loan till I’m seventy, if it means Max isn’t humiliated. But someone’s put a hand up. It’s kindly Professor Grier, a man who dishes out tea and crumpets in his office rather than reprimands. A don we all estimate to be eighty, if he’s a day and who we all love like a grandad. There’s a few mutters behind us, but no one dares joke about Prof Grier being a paedo because that would be beyond the pale. Some of the other dons maybe, him, never.

Max turns and gives me a tremulous smile and I grin back to reassure him. He’ll be glad to get someone as undemanding as Prof Grier, but I know he’ll be devastated if a certain other Professor doesn’t bid.

I squint beyond the lights at the tall figure leaning casually against the bar and sipping wine. He’s alone and aloof, as he often is. Of course I’ve noticed his routine. He lives in rooms at the college so I’m told, and doesn’t seem to socialize. Very rarely one might see him in the canteen. I feel a pang of pity for him. Is this life the one he willingly chose? But why would I pity him? Look at him! He’s the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Am I actually worrying he doesn’t get laid? Just because there’s no gossip about him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have pussy or cock coming out of his ears. Look at all his admirers, in my year alone. Some of those students must have made a move on him and he’d be only human to accept. But I haven’t heard a single scandalous story about him, not one. And the college is fertile breeding ground for gossip. He seems oblivious to his many admirers. He doesn’t seem to wear the knowledge of his beauty like a cloak of arrogance.

I jerk my attention back to Max getting another bid, this time from Professor X, a jolly woman in her sixties with loud earrings. Poor Max. Two great offers but hardly the stuff wet dreams are made from. The tall figure at the bar is watching with something approaching boredom on his face. I catch his eye and quickly look away. He’s not going to bid on anyone. Why would he? Why is he even here? Prof Grier’s pushed the bid up to two hundred quid. It’s going once, going twice and Max is sold to much applause.

He flashes me a disappointed smile and leaves the stage. Prof Grier claps him on the shoulder and leads him to the bar.

Next up is Yasmin Y, a girl who lives on the same floor as me with a passion for Emily Bronte. She and I have flirted a few times on nights out but it’s never got further. She’s pretty. Maybe Prof Plum will show his (straight) hand and bid for her. Then again, he’d be mad to. What would it say about him as the youngest and best looking member of the faculty by a mile if he bid on the best looking girl in the year? Lecherous pervert, that’s what. What about if he bid on me? Would that be safer? I’ve been told I’m pretty hot. Would he be a lecherous gay pervert if he bid on the pretty boy who attends his lectures or do people’s minds not think down the same warped directions as mine?

Yasmin is curiously short on bids, which confirms the twitchy nature of the faculty staff. Why this stupid event is still going in this day and age where you can’t say or do anything for fear of offending someone’s sensibilities is beyond me. Just the word slave has too many connotations for too many people. This was such a bad idea. I can tell when I glance at Prof Plum that he’s thinking the same. Eventually one of the senior lecturers, Molly, bids on her, a woman with bright red hair in her thirties and a love of all Russian literature. Yasmin looks both thrilled and relieved, and steps down.

Now I’m cringing amongst the other seven students. Reader, I didn’t sign up for this voluntarily. Max begged me. He only has to turn those puppy dog eyes on me and I’m putty to his wishes. He’s an earl’s son with more money than sense and a cartload of mental health issues. I love him dearly, and that’s why I’m standing up here. I can’t help but think I’m not going to get one single bid.

I hope I’m not lost. I turn my attention to the Dean who singles me out. It’s my turn. I’m glad to get it over with. Max give me a thumbs up from his seat across the room at X’s table. My legs feel unsteady. I hate the attention.

“Let’s start the bidding at fifty pounds.”

There’s silence.

Once more the Prof’s gaze catches mine and our eyes hold for several seconds, during which everything around me recedes. I can’t breathe. The chatter of the room and its music fades away and there’s only him watching me. With a breath, I tear my focus from him and look around. Everyone’s watching me; no one is bidding. Oh God, what’s wrong with me? Are people afraid to bid, the way they were with Yasmin? Are they worried they’ll put out the wrong message? Inside, I shrivel with mortification. I take a step to the side of the stage, intent on running and never coming back. Then once more, I catch his eyes, and slowly, watching me, he raises his hand.