― Somerset Maugham
Being a university professor can be challenging at times but more so when you're fighting an attraction for one of your grad students.
Karine Williams is not just a beautiful coed, but there is a deep soul tie between us I can't explain.
I've been cloistered at my cottage for the long weekend vainly trying to distract myself from obsessing about her but nothing's working—even throwing myself into the physical labour of landscaping has just left me tired and miserable.
And then, when I've sunk to my lowest point and am thoroughly dispirited, I'm awakened from my doldrums by hearing her teasing voice.
She's taken my challenge and driven up to Muskoka with her overdue term paper and I couldn't be happier to see her.
She's standing in the driveway flirting with me, affecting the role of a southern belle, using her term paper as a fan, but the mocking gesture has the opposite effect—it inflames me with passion. I feel as if there’s a furnace behind me—and each brush of her fan causes waves of heat to roll over me.
She eyes my jeans, damp with sweat, and my red ragged tee shirt. “You don’t look like a Prof anymore—I don’t know what to call you—certainly not, Professor Enright.”
“You can call me, James,” I grin.
“I brought lunch—as a peace offering. You ready for a break?”
“Oh yeah—about two hours ago,” I laugh.
“Where can we eat?”
“How about down by the lake?”
We sit in the shade of a huge Maple eating delicious Swiss cheese on rye and drinking ice-cold Labatt's Blue beer.
“I didn’t know if Profs drank,” she giggles.
“We’re prone to all the weaknesses of the flesh,” I smile.
A shadow passes across her features. “Can we talk about the other day?”
I nod. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. I hope she can’t hear it too.
“I’m not sure what happened,” she begins, “ we were there in the class and then suddenly we were in another room—and you know the crazy thing? We had a history, in some other time, in some other place.”
The air goes dead between us.
She gives a little nervous laugh. “I knew you’d think it was crazy—but, there—I said it—and I’m not taking it back.”
“I felt it too,” I whisper.
Her eyes grow huge. “You did?”
“Oh, it gets even crazier—you’re in my dreams every night.”
Tears blur her huge brown eyes.
“I was angry at somebody in my dreams,” she continues, “—for years, I’d be searching and looking for him—to blame him for leaving me.”
I resist the urge to put my arms around her, but want to more than anything—to protect and shelter her.
“You know the other day when I fell into your arms, I felt I was coming home—but I also felt something else—something that made me run.”
“What was it?” I rasp hoarsely.
She blushes and looks away, and just when I think she’s not going to answer, she whispers so low I can barely hear her.
“I think Tennessee Williams calls it Desire.”
There are still three piles of gravel, stone and soil sitting out on my driveway up north—up where the cool pine breezes blow.
We go up there nearly every weekend now—Karine and I, to listen to the wind's soft songs.
Some nights we sit by the edge of the lake and stare at the northern lights reflected in the waves.
And some nights, I swear I smell magnolias, but that’s impossible I know.