A Bundle of Neurotica: Eight Neurotica Short Stories

Notes

A BUNDLE OF NEUROTICA

Eight Neurotica Short Stories

D. B. SHUSTER

NAUGHTY BYTES

An Imprint of Crime Bytes Media

New York

PLEASING

PROFESSOR

A Neurotica Short Story

D. B. SHUSTER

NAUGHTY BYTES

An Imprint of Crime Bytes Media

New York

DEDICATION

To Anna, for not laughing at all my neurotica.

And to Gene, as always.

PLEASE, PROFESSOR. I know I did better than this. The latest in a long line of students pushed her test with its disappointing grade across Melanie’s desk.

She’d listened politely and pasted on a smile for the past two hours, as they marched in one after another, each with a sob story or belligerence, pathetic or entitled, demanding or begging for another chance. So far, none had earned her sympathy. At least the line had diminished. Outside her door, they were only five deep now. But one of them was Hunter.

What exactly do you think is the problem? she asked the student—what was her name?—across the desk from her. In the hallway, Hunter cleared his throat, and her scattered attention coalesced and focused in his direction.

He gave new meaning to the term Golden Boy. He’d been blessed with blond good looks and sun-kissed skin from yachting or some other rich-kid pursuit. He had the body of an athlete and the clothes and attitude of a trust fund child.

She imagined what it would be like to touch the solid muscles under his shirt, to let the gold of his hair slide through her fingers, to lick his…rich-boy neck and shoulders.

Professor? The sour-faced slacker in her office interrupted Melanie’s daydream. Even with the cold snap back to reality, the rising heat from her fantasies lingered and curled around Melanie, heating her cheeks with shame.

I’m sorry, what did you say?

I asked if you’d take another look at my test, the student said. The TA docked me points when she shouldn’t have.

The student kept talking, trying to make her case, but Melanie  couldn’t stop looking at Hunter.

Something was so very wrong with her. As a professor, she shouldn’t be thinking of any of her students that way—never mind that she had a steady boyfriend, a dependable grownup with a doctorate, who any day would declare his undying love for her.

But she couldn’t help thinking about Hunter that way.

He was exactly the kind of boy she had coveted when she was younger, the kind who would have seduced her out of her virginity with sweet lies and then, the moment he had gotten what he wanted, called her trash from the wrong side of the tracks. She had avoided those boys…and lusted after the unattainable.

Any moment now, she would collapse in a fatal fit of lust, when she should be focused on solving this eruption of student complaints.

Her eyes darted again to Hunter. Unlike the others, he actually had power. His father was one of the university trustees, the one who rumor had it was about to donate enough to name the business school. She really couldn’t afford to upset such a VIP in the university community.

Unless Melanie capitulated to Hunter’s demand for a better grade, unless she…pleased him, he could level her with his connections.

In another few minutes, he would be in her tiny office complaining like the other students. He’d be only feet from her, close enough to touch that way—the way she did in her daydreams.

But if she gave in to him in any way, her colleagues would burn her in effigy.

The faculty in her department railed against pandering to students and lowering the academic bar so that wielders of the almighty tuition dollar could feel good about their underachieving selves. Most of the professors could afford to be self-righteous. They had tenure, while Melanie didn’t.

Nor had any of the rest of them been strong-armed into teaching Sex and Society, one of the most notorious scut courses in this university or any other, beloved by students for requiring the barest minimum of work. Predictably, the students had revolted when they’d received their first tests and she’d withheld the easy A’s all three hundred of them expected.

But the chair believed in satisfied customers and client-friendly services, and so she was also somehow supposed to keep three hundred disgruntled students happy.

She wasn’t a gifted scholar. She knew she’d been lucky to land this position. She wanted to hold onto it, but she didn’t see a way to please everyone.

Her mouth grew dry. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as if it planned a jailbreak from her ribcage. Robotically, she took the blue book exam from the student and forced herself to look at the X’s the teaching assistant had made over the wrong answers.

There was a slight disturbance in the hallway. Melanie gasped with horror as Violet muscled her way through the line of students and burst into the office.

She couldn’t imagine a worse time for her evil twin to show up.

I can tell you missed me, Violet said.

Melanie rose from her desk, ready to banish her nemesis. Go away. I don’t want you here.

Why, Professor? Because you want to keep all this yummy student beefcake for yourself? Violet gestured to the hallway, toward Hunter.

The student gawked. Melanie couldn’t blame her. Violet was an undeniable piece of work.

When Melanie didn’t answer her inappropriate question, Violet snickered. What you want is irrelevant. You obviously need my help.

The mischievous gleam in Violet’s eyes filled Melanie with dread. Violet’s help only ever ensured things got worse.

Violet made sure they got worse.

***

This meeting is over. Study harder and do better on the next test, Violet said. She shooed the student out the door and then kicked it shut behind her.

Hey, you can’t do that, Melanie protested, but Violet could, and she did, as Melanie herself should have done several minutes ago.

Melanie made her living writing dry articles and reports about the advantages of education, while struggling to deliver a decent one at this pricey, private university to privileged students, who were already advantaged in life and cared more about getting good grades to please Mom and Dad and keep the money flowing than about learning anything.

Violet scanned the office, the bookshelves lining the walls and filled with Melanie’s tomes on education and inequality—thousands and thousands of pages proving that Melanie had bucked the odds and escaped their trailer park by hying off to college and white-knuckling her way through graduate school.

And what had the good twin escaped to? A dimly lit office with ancient, moldy carpet and pock-marked walls, where her boss demanded she daily spin straw into gold and keep everyone happy, where her students didn’t value what she taught, where nothing she did was ever good enough, and where she shrank deeper and deeper into herself.

Melanie had poured the whole sob story out line by line in her diary. If nothing else, her twin was thorough when it came to recording her emotions, perhaps because, despite a yearlong relationship with a Classics professor who was priggish enough to be her soulmate, she lacked any true intimates. Instead, she trusted her confidences to a cloth-bound book covered with tiny rosebuds and secured by a flimsy, gold-toned lock that a motivated child could pick.

A trusty paperclip easily unlocked Melanie’s deepest and darkest secrets for Violet’s perusal. She had no compunction about invading her twin’s privacy.

After all, Melanie would be lost without her. Just look at this latest mess. Melanie might be a brainiac with a fancy education, but she’d proved yet again that she needed a transfusion of Violet’s street-smart survival skills.

Violet felt compelled to intervene, no matter that Melanie forever failed to appreciate her assistance.  Otherwise, Melanie would end up trampled flat by life—albeit a far different one than the one they’d been born to.

Of course, shaking up the proper professor now and then was not only necessary, but just plain fun.

Violet pinched a pressure point on Melanie’s shoulder using a move she’d seen on late-night TV. Melanie slumped over the desk, unconscious.

Goodnight, Melanie. Laughing, she stole Melanie’s glasses, hair tie, and bright red and blue sweater, hiding herself in Melanie’s guise. Really, Violet thought, the woman dressed like a muppet: stripes and bright colors, sunny rainbow vomit. How could she expect anyone, least of all her students, to take her seriously? And Melanie accused Violet of trying to sabotage her career.

She was only looking out for her twin’s best interest … and alleviating her own boredom.

She hauled Melanie out of her desk chair, shoved her into the supply closet, and locked the door. Now to have some fun. She remembered her own power, even if Melanie didn’t.

Next! she called and plunked herself into Melanie’s desk chair. The next student timidly opened the door, no doubt stunned by the brusque dismissal of her peer when Professor Stevenson had heretofore been so nicey-nice and accommodating, so afraid of her own shadow.

Come in. I’m not going to bite. Yet.

The next student, a plump young woman with stooped shoulders, shuffled in and took the seat in front of the desk. She didn’t look at Violet right away, instead opening her backpack and rifling through noisily before pulling out a tattered notebook and a cheap plastic ballpoint pen. The front of the notebook had the name Courtney in big bubble letters with a heart around it.

So, Courtney, what brings you in today? Violet asked, as if they both didn’t know she was part of the I-don’t-like-my-grade parade.

I don’t understand how I could do so bad on the test, Courtney said. I’m a straight A student.

And remind me what your grade was.

I got a B+, Courtney sputtered as if this were an outrage.

And you think the TAs and I wrongly docked you for points? Violet fluttered her eyelashes, but maybe the student didn’t notice, or maybe Melanie’s huge glasses made it hard to see the way she was laughing with her eyelids. Do you want to go through the questions? I do have to warn you that if I regrade, you run the risk of my disagreeing with your grader and taking off additional points.

So my grade could get worse?

Yes, so think carefully. Do you really think you got an unfair grade, or are you only disappointed that you didn’t do better? Do you feel lucky, punk?

She opened the drawer to Melanie’s desk and examined the contents while she waited for the student to make up her mind. She didn’t know the material on the test or what the answers should be, but she would enjoy making little Courtney sweat it out while she ran her red pen up and down the margins like a knife ready to cut. She pulled out a rubber band and snapped it, but the darn thing broke instead of making the kind of ominous noise she had hoped for.

There wasn’t much interesting in the drawer, except for the old-school wooden ruler. She pulled it out and slid the drawer shut. Taking the ruler in hand, she smacked it against her palm. Tick tock. I have a line of students waiting to talk with me. What’s it going to be?

I thought you were nice. The other students said so.  Of course, they all expected a sympathetic ear and a winning smile from Professor Stevenson. Melanie was the queen of sob stories and second chances, a total pushover, ready to drain herself dry to help people who didn’t deserve it, because someone had once helped her.

Oh, sweetie, no one keeps this job by being nice, she said. Inspired, she mimicked Melanie’s sweetest, most understanding tone and her cloying smile. Shall I regrade your test, or would you rather admit now that the class was harder than you expected and that you need to spend more time studying for the next test to get that all-important A?

"This is so unfair. You regraded Kaylie’s test and didn’t make her put her grade in jeopardy."

Oh, my mistake, she said. Shall we call her back in and take a closer look? We do, after all, want to be fair.

No thank you, the student grumbled.

Good talk. Come back soon.

She sat back in the chair, put her feet up on the desk, and folded her hands behind her head. She could definitely get used to sitting in this seat of power, even if the pay was crap for all of the work and idiocy Melanie had to endure.

Too bad there was so little else to enjoy from Melanie’s position at the university, least of all this line of whiners and complainers who didn’t know how good they had it. Not everyone got to go to college. Getting a B instead of an A should be someone’s biggest problem in life.

Next! she called out. There was a pause. She craned her head to look out into the hallway. The line of students had dissipated, likely as students eavesdropped and word of the new policy spread. There was only one petitioner left.

Well, hello, handsome.

She recognized Hunter from Melanie’s tortured yet rhapsodic depictions of him in her