Ganymede: Part 5

Professor Lopez tried to forget about BabyT. His sleep was restless, filled with odd and stimulating dreams. Despite these dreams, he awoke feeling rather unfulfilled. However, Lopez decided to do what he always does when confronted with a troubling attraction to a student (it has happened before, but not often, and he never acted on it): focus instead on work. Lopez vowed to work extra hard on what he had planned for the day. Since that day was a non-teaching day--minus the boring meetings he'd have to attend--he was free to spend time preparing for the next day's classes.

He showered, dressed, and made his way to the university. The morning was crisp and cool, and Lopez felt quite refreshed after parking his car and walking to his office. BabyT was quickly receding to the back of his mind, a potent memory that would be soon forgotten.

Inside his office, Professor Lopez turned on his computer, looked toward the stack of paper on his desk, pulled the first essay to his black pen, and started grading.

As the first morning hours passed, the sound outside his office grew steadily louder and louder. The university itself was waking up; the voices of students, colleagues, and other various university employees all mixed to produce a steady wave of welcoming noise. Lopez enjoys being present as the university "wakes up." It reinforces his feeling that the school is a living being, full of potential, just like his students. The professor's pen scratched across paper after paper. Needless to say, he was in "The Grading Zone."

A series of knocks on his office door, however, brought Lopez out of "The Grading Zone."

Lopez's head lifted and his eyes slowly focused on the student half-in-half-out of his office. His breath caught in his throat. Tanner stood there, looking expectant and a bit flushed.

"May I come in Professor Lopez?" Tanner's voice was quiet and soft.

There was a beat of silence, and then Lopez responded, "Sure. Take a seat." Heat radiated throughout Lopez's body, a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. However, he forced his voice to remain calm, which was an impressive feat considering this was the first time he and Tanner had ever been alone together.

Oddly enough, the boy looked a bit nervous himself, but Lopez thought this could simply be a result of meeting with a teacher face-to-face. Plenty of students get nervous when meeting their professors one-on-one.

"What can I help you with, Tanner?" Lopez asked.

Tanner's voice started and stopped, halting, seemingly unsure of how to begin. Lopez waited until the boy found his voice.

"Well…. um…. sir…" Tanner shifted in his seat. "I have a question about… the essay you assigned in class."

"Okay. What is it?" asked Lopez.

"Uh…." Tanner shifted again. For some reason, Tanner was determinedly trying to keep his legs close together. "I was wondering if the story of Ganymede could relate to… you know… modern homosexual relationships."

The word homosexual seemed to taste awful in Tanner's mouth, as if the formality of the word somehow struck the youth as false. Like he would have been more comfortable with gay instead. However, Professor Lopez didn't say anything about that; instead, he sat for moment in silence, mostly to think about the best response, but also to calm his nerves. His palms had started sweating the moment Tanner shifted in his seat. There was something about the way he sat in the chair that aroused the professor.

"I think it could relate to more than strictly 'modern' relationships. It was quite common for older men to teach younger, adolescent, men in sexuality. That is, to say, they performed sexual acts on them so they could learn and eventually please their future wives."

Although Lopez sounded quite professional and calm through his explanation, his heart betrayed his true feelings. The more Tanner squirmed in his seat, the faster Lopez's heart pounded in his chest.

"I see," said Tanner. The boy's mind was completely incapable to forming sentences longer than a couple of words. For a boy who is normally so eloquent in class, his concentration seemed focused on his legs, which were pressed hard together and trembling. Tanner's hands were resting on his thighs, but he kept moving them back and forth, almost like he were having a battle of where they should be placed: either at his knees or at his crotch.

"So… How would that translate to modern gay… homosexual relationships?" Tanner's eyes began to water.

"Are you okay, Tanner?" asked the professor.

Tanner nodded.

"Okay… uh… Well, that's a bit harder to pin down since there's not a direct correlation to modern times. However, I think the fact that there are quite a few older men in relationships with younger men could be a cultural remnant of that era. Or, at the very least, there are connections that could be made. Of course, every relationship is different, so whatever you decide, make sure your argument reflects the complexity and variety of homosexual relationships."

Throughout his entire speech, Lopez felt his breathing grow more rapid, heavy and sporadic. Lopez was finding it difficult to catch his breath; his hear raced beneath his chest.

"I see… uh…" Tanner looked as though he wanted to say something more but paused. His eyes glistened as he gazed, not at Professor Lopez, but at some far off point, far beyond the walls of the professor's office.

"Yes, Tanner? Is there something else you'd like to ask?"

Lopez waited, but Tanner didn't say anything. Then, after a minutes' silence, Tanner's eyes overran with tears, and his head bent down.

The professor was shocked, wondering why Tanner would be crying in his office. Then he looked down at the boy's shorts, a prominent wet stain was growing and growing, spreading out from the boy's crotch.

Tanner, the college student, right there in Professor Lopez's office, had just urinated all over himself.