Chapter 4
It was late, but Laura Standard had forgotten the time as she contemplated many things within the privacy of her cottage. It was dark outside the cottage, it was dark within, for Laura had disdained the use of lights. She had wanted quiet. And darkness. And aloneness for the thoughts that boiled within her, thoughts that strangely brought her past and present together in a tangle of emotional confusion.
As she lay on her bed, only a thin negligee covering her body, Laura wondered how she had possibly made it through that day. But she had. Somehow, she had managed to complete her duties as assistant to Thelma Andrews before seeking the aloneness of her own quarters. And in her quarters she had stayed as the day changed its colors, turned from dusk to darkness to greater darkness.
Laura twisted on the bed as if she were trying to dislodge a thought that had taken her. She was unsuccessful. She kept remembering the close intimacy of her body to Kurt Wiley, how she, not he, had provoked greater closeness. She rolled to her side, shivering, as she recalled the kiss she and Kurt had shared.
Finally, after she had turned on her side and drawn her knees up high to her stomach, Laura's body calmed. But her mind could not. It buzzed with the present and the past, mixed the two together to converge upon her like an attacking army.
Most of Laura's thoughts were of the boy with whom she had shared drinks, a half-dance, and a very full kiss. She remembered how desire had clutched at her loins, forcing her to greater closeness as they danced. Then, thinking about it, she shuddered again. And then she reasoned with herself, thinking that she was different, that she, unlike other girls, could not allow herself the privilege of sexual feelings that for her they would spell doom, the kind that might set off a series of cravings that would leave her destitute of energy and ability, or even a future.
Laura pulled her knees up harder against her stomach. It seemed an effort to restrain herself, or hold back some inner cravings. It seemed like an attempt to control pain. But it did no good. The shivering started again and had raked her again and again by the time that a light knock on her door jolted her to quiet and forced her to move to the edge of the bed.
The knock sounded again. Then again.
Laura remained motionless, fearing the caller, wishing that whoever it was would go away without intruding upon her misery.
The knock sounded again, this time harder and more persistently as if it knew of her silent presence within the room.
Finally, when the knock continued and gave no sign of stopping, Laura pushed up from the bed and went to the door.
Laura's face registered surprise that her caller should be Professor Thelma Andrews. She took a step backwards when she saw the woman. Then she took still another step backward into the confines of her room.
"Well, Laura, you were a long time answering the door," Thelma said, puckering her face into an expression of concern.
"Yes. I, well was sleeping."
"So early?"
"Yes. I was very tired today."
"You're ill?" Thelma asked. "Oh, I hope it's not that."
"No. I'm fine," Laura said.
Thelma shifted her gaze from Laura's eyes, past the girl's shoulder and into the darkened room, looking, Laura thought, like a woman expecting to find someone else present.
"Come in," Laura said. "That is, if you want to."
"Yes, I'd like that," Thelma said.
Laura pulled the door open fully, allowed Thelma Andrews to enter the room, then left her for the moment it took to find the switch and flick it. A lamp in the corner of the room suddenly glowed brightly.
Thelma gave a quick look around, gazing a little longer, and a little more pointedly, at the rumpled bedspread upon the bed.
"Sit down," Laura invited. "I well, I was a little surprised to find that it was you calling on me."
"Yes, you looked it," Thelma said.
"Was there anything special that you wanted?" Laura asked.
"There are a few things I'd like to talk to you about," Thelma Andrews said. "School things business and a few other little items."
Laura nodded. Then she turned and pushed a large chair a few inches forward, arranging a place for the woman professor to sit.
'Oh, I'll just sit over here on the love seat," Thelma said. She turned, then walked to the small love seat. She lowered to it as gracefully as a dancer.
Laura walked around the chair, then seated herself in it. Her negligee bunched above her knees as she settled in it, revealing a good portion of tanned thigh. Laura smoothed the dress down,, then looked at Thelma, who was looking very intently at her.
"Oh, maybe I could get you a drink or something," Laura said, hunching forward on her chair as if making ready to rise.
"No. Nothing, thank you," Thelma said. Now the woman's eyes were on the open bodice of Laura's gown and the rounded breasts it revealed.
Laura closed the opening, then leaned back in the chair.
"Now, something came up after you left the office today that I wanted to discuss with you, Laura," Thelma said.
"Have I done something wrong?"
"No, of course not. Your work is letter perfect. And you've caught on so quickly only a few weeks on the job and you're doing beautifully."
"Thank you."
"It's about future work that we have to do that we must discuss," Thelma Andrews continued.
Laura nodded, then remained quiet as Thelma took a cigarette from a pack that she withdrew from a small purse. As she lighted it, Laura again became aware of the woman's beauty, her good, sensual-looking body, lovely features, and especially the long-flowing black hair that made her seem part native. Laura felt a slight increase of her own heart beat as she considered Thelma's beauty, and because they were both women it was like a consideration of her own beauty, Laura decided.
"Funston College is coming up for accreditation soon," Thelma said, making the statement sound ominous.
"We're not accredited now, are we?" Laura said. "I mean like most colleges are."
"No," Thelma replied. "Because we have advanced courses that the stupid old accreditation committee can't understand, they've chosen to withhold accreditation from Funston. But that's going to be changed very soon."
"That's good to hear," said Laura. "Some of the students are here to bolster their credits so they can return to other schools. Accreditation will mean a lot to them."
Thelma exhaled a long breath of smoke, then said, "Precisely. And something else, too. Accreditation will attract a lot more students wealthy students to Funston."
Again, Laura nodded. Although she admired Thelma Andrews candidness, she had never gotten used to the importance placed on wealthy students. It seemed odd and disillusioning that money and education should be so intertwined. Then she reminded herself that this was the case at Funston more than other colleges.
"There's something else, too," Thelma said, putting her cigarette out in a nearby ash tray. "We must be accredited in order to take advantage of some of the grants that are floating around. There's just oodles of money in grants lately, both from the government and from foundations and private sources. President Fleming wants Funston to get some of that money."
"That's understandable," Laura said. "I suppose then there can be more scholarships."
"Well, yes, but that's not exactly what Dr. Fleming has in mind. But that's not important now. What is important is the impression that we make on the accreditation committee."
"The impression we make, or how our records and scholarship look?" Laura said.
"Both," she replied. "And you have to help us with it."
Laura uttered a little laugh, then said, "How in the world can a new student like I am help?"
"Many ways," Thelma told her. "But we'll come to them one at a time. First, I wanted to be sure of your cooperation. That's why I came to ask you for it."
"But of course I'll cooperate you didn't have to ask."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly."
"In anything?" Thelma asked, sitting a little forward on the love seat.
"In any way that I can. But, I'm only a student."
"I know, dear." She settled back and took another long look at Laura's body as it glowed from beneath her negligee. It made Laura feel a little uneasy and her hand automatically went to the throat of her gown.
Thelma continued to stare at her for what seemed a long time. Then she gave it up in a quick gesture.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said. "I have something for you."
"For me?"
"Yes."
Thelma smiled, then reached for her purse and placed it on her lap. She opened it. Then she withdrew Laura's glasses from the purse.
She reached them out in the girl's direction. "My glasses," Laura exclaimed. "Yes. You Ah, left them somewhere."
"Yes, I know."
"And that delightful boy, Kurt Wiley, was good enough to bring them to the office and leave them for you."
"Oh."
Thelma's eyes narrowed mischievously, conveying more innuendo than words could achieve.
"Thank you for bringing them to me," Laura said, feeling embarrassed as she recalled the circumstances of the left-behind glasses.
"Oh, it's quite all right," Thelma said. "As a matter-of-fact, I'm glad to see you showing some interest in a boy."
"But I'm not--"
"Don't explain," Thelma interrupted. "At Funston, there's never anything to explain except a good time and that only has to be explained to yourself. And besides, you've been much too solitary since you've arrived here."
Laura started to protest, but she knew that it would do no good, that Thelma Andrews believed what she wanted to believe, and in this case it was that the glasses had been left in a boy's quarters because of her involvement with him. And that's exactly what it was, she told herself, so why be petty and protest the truth.
Thelma pushed up from her chair. The light framed her body in a way that let Laura know that the teacher wore nothing beneath her light dress. Laura was amazed at herself for staring at a woman's body. It seemed indecent, but she couldn't help it. Even when Laura knew that Thelma observed the interest, she still could not help it.
Thelma moved a few paces forward, then turned in a light swirl. She smiled at Laura and said, "You'll have to come over to my place some night for a drink."
"Yes. Yes, that would be nice," Laura said, fastening her eyes to the rise and fall of the woman's breasts, wondering at the same time if they were different than her own.
"I'll let you know when," Thelma said.
"Yes. Do that. I'm-I'm always available."
"I know, my dear," Thelma said solicitously. "But I'm hoping that you'll change that you'll fall more into the fun of things at Funston."
"I'm not the fun-type," Laura said. "Perhaps you will be."
"Perhaps."
Thelma moved to the door and Laura followed her. The woman professor smiled at Laura, looked over all of her body, then, as if saving the best for another time, turned and left the cottage.
Laura stayed by the door for several minutes, leaning against it as if she were barricading herself against temptation. But finally, she moved away. Then she flopped into the love-seat that had been occupied by Thelma Andrews. And Laura wondered what had come over her. She questioned the many emotions that had charged throughout her during the day. She knew that they were caused by things of the past that had come to plague her future. She knew it yet couldn't do a thing about it.