Bruce Walters remembered a quip from a fellow student way back in his undergraduate days: "To make a living as a poet, you have to be dead." That was more-or-less true. When he was researching

his dissertation on Andre Steffano, he read a comment that poet had made about his income from poetry: "About the time I published my tenth book, I needed a new car. The total I had received for poetry up to then, including the advance on that book, totaled a little less than the price of that Chevette."

Bruce knew it was a long time before he would write his tenth book and probably longer before he'd reach Steffano's level of fame. He had no illusions about making a living as a poet.

On the other hand, being known as a poet had its compensations. His job as an instructor in the English department of Benson University was due more to his poetry than to his (minimal) promise as a scholar. And the department tolerated his drinking and sexual flings as they would not have tolerated such behavior in a mere scholar. Everyone knew poets were a rather wild bunch.

And the girls hung on him. He was not so modest as to deny his looks, but those looks hadn't got him nearly as much tail before his first book was published. And, knowing that poets were a wild bunch, the girls accepted his flings with other girls as their predecessors had not done when he was younger.

Still, when girls in the front row of his classes started revealing more and more cleavage, he got worried. The department didn't demand a vow of celibacy, but you were not to touch your own students. That was a sexual harassment charge, and probably a sexual harassment discharge.

So, he treated the front rows as scenery. For pickups, there were the local bars and cocktail lounges, which effectively excluded undergraduates. Seniors, and some juniors, were over 21; but they got tired of being carded when they'd been drinking in informal student parties for years.

The downside of this is that townies were less impressed with a poet, and less likely to know he was a poet, than the students were. Still, Bruce seldom needed to go home alone.

The goth-look girl giving him the eye one Friday night in the middle of the fall quarter was an example. She had a pretty face despite the makeup, and a body too lush for the style. He watched as she shook off two men who approached. Well, nothing ventured, nothing laid. He took one more drink to build up his nerve and went over to her table.

"Might I buy you a drink?"

"Thank you. A Manhattan."

He went back to the bar for a Manhattan and a scotch on the rocks. He brought them back to her table and sat down. "Skoal," he said. She sipped hers as he swallowed a third of his.

"Bruce."

"Janet. I'm a secretary; what do you do?"

"I teach and write poetry."

"That's fascinating. I love poetry. Have I heard of you?"

"Probably not. Bruce Walters."

"Of course I have. Away From Home." She'd had his interest when he came over; this comment won his heart. He guessed the number of people who had heard of that book, including booksellers, librarians, and employees of the publishing house, as in the low three figures. Fewer than half of those could tell you the name of the author. Far fewer could go from his name to the name of the book.

Getting acquainted with her would probably cut the number of those who didn't know him personally by ten or twenty percent. Still, he definitely wanted to get acquainted. Tits and taste in poetry.

"Look," she said, "you're off-duty, so to speak; and I won't take offense if you refuse. But could you recite 'Dry Morning' for me. I want to hear it as you say it."

So he did, and more. He tried to turn the conversation to her. He'd come looking for tail, after all, not an audience. Every time, though, she turned the conversation back to him. "Buy you another drink?" he asked.

"I'm not done." She called over a waitress. "Mr. Walters needs another drink. What is it?"

"Scotch on the rocks."

When the waitress looked at her suspiciously, she sighed and showed her a driver's license. "I was dressed a little differently that day, okay?"

"Sure," said the waitress and brought Bruce's drink.

He had three more, and she had one. "Look," she said. "You could drive perfectly well, but the cops around here are vicious. Could you pass a breath test? Why don't I drive you home?"

She did in her shiny-new car. It was only polite to invite her in, and she accepted. She headed directly to his shelves and looked at his display copy of his books. "You really liked Away From Home?" he asked.

"I thought it was marvelous."

He went to his box of remainders and pulled out one. "To lovely Janet," he wrote on the fly leaf. He gave it to her.

"For me? 'Lovely Janet'?" Her voice was so excited that he was barely offended when she set the book down. Even that minor feeling disappeared as she threw her arms around him and kissed

him. "Oh, thank you," she said, moving her head back but keeping her body pressed to his. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"You're welcome," he said and kissed her back. "Welcome," another kiss, "welcome," kissing again, "welcome." This kiss involved his tongue. She opened her mouth for it.

One thing led to another, and all of them led to bed. He'd drunk enough to slow him down. She clearly hadn't. She climaxed around him and then lay under him. When he knew his own climax was coming and tried to withdraw, she tightened her legs around him and clutched his ass with her fingernails.

"Stay here," she said when he tried to move off. So he fell asleep lying on her.

When he woke the next morning, she was gone. All he had left was a throbbing headache and the book he had inscribed.

Scotch was for ordering in public. When he was alone, he drank vodka. He got the pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator. By the time he had consumed half of that, well-mixed with vodka, and downed three aspirins and two vitamin-C tablets, he was ready for teaching. Bruce wasn't an alcoholic; alkies drank Sterno.

He had a class in American literature that afternoon. The front rows gave him a nice view again, and several in the rows behind them had actually read the assignment. He kept office hours, picked up his car from the cocktail lounge's parking lot, and drove home. He was working on his second screwdriver of the afternoon when the phone rang.

"Mr. Walters? Bruce? This is Janet. Something terrible has happened. Did I leave the book you gave me there?"

"Yes, you did."

"Oh, thank God! I couldn't find it when I got home this morning. Could I come by to pick it up? When would be convenient?"

Bruce looked around his living room. "Half an hour?" He should be able to neaten the place up by that time.

"I'll see you in half an hour, then."

He'd straightened the whole apartment and put the vodka away when his doorbell rang. It was Janet. She was dressed in tight pants, a blouse, and sandals. She was carrying a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. He handed her the book; she handed him the bottle. "I know that nothing could match the gift of something you wrote yourself," she said, "but I do think I needed to give you something after you gave me the book."

When the book had been available in bookstores -- not many bookstores and not for very long -- it had sold for a good deal less than the Scotch. As the author, he could buy it more cheaply yet.

"Can I offer you some?" he asked.

"Let me put this in the car so I don't lose it again," she said. "Then I'll come back."

She did, and drank a little. He had only ice cubes to offer, orange juice would have been blasphemous with that scotch.

They talked a little more, she kissed him again. He was sober this time, and it was even better. Slowly, he took off her blouse and bra. She made not the slightest objection, and when he'd lowered her pants, she was wearing no panties.

When he started to move towards the bedroom, though, she demurred. "What's wrong with right here?"

Nothing was wrong with right there. He dropped his own trousers and shorts. "Should I use something?"

"You don't need to." She bent over the kitchen table, and he entered her. He held her rich breasts while stroking slowly back and forth. His hands moved to her thighs when his strokes sped up. When she screamed and shoved back hard against him, he erupted within her. She collapsed on the table and he rested his weight on his elbows while cuddling her shoulders with his hands.

When he could stand up, she'd recovered, too. She knelt down to untie his shoes. Then she stood up to remove his shirt. "This would be a better time for bed," she said. And they lay together as the afternoon turned to evening. She was perfectly willing for him to explore her body with his hands as well as his eyes. At the end, she used her mouth to arouse him again. He pounded into her until her climax brought his.

Sunday, she brought in some frozen food. She cooked it, and they ended up in bed. He didn't know her last name; he didn't know her address or phone number. That was all right as long as she showed up.

Monday, however, she didn't. Tuesday, he went back to the cocktail lounge looking for her. She wasn't there Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday, he started at the cocktail lounge and bar hopped looking for her. He ended up at the cocktail lounge just in case. He still hadn't seen Janet, but he was sufficiently drunk by that time so that one woman with hair dyed red looked like a good-enough substitute. Probably she was sufficiently drunk so that he looked good enough, too.

They kissed and petted a little in the car before he drove her to his apartment. He was opening his door for her when the two of them were attacked.

"He's mine," yelled Janet. She slapped the redhead and ripped at her blouse. The redhead retaliated, but Janet had size, speed, and sobriety. The redhead ran off crying.

"Look what you did to her," he said.

"Look what she did," Janet yelled. A tear in her blouse revealed a braless tit. "For that matter, look what you did. You brought a slut home. Can't we take this inside?" That was the first sensible thing she'd said.

In his apartment, Janet pushed him into a straight chair while she paced back and forth. If her language wasn't nice to hear, she was nice to look at. Her tits were bobbing up and down under her blouse, their nipples straining against the fabric - except for the moments the left one caught in the rip and was directly visible. Her miniskirt swirled on her turns, revealing more and more of her leg -- but no glimpse of panties.

He'd gone without tail for days; he'd been fairly turned on in the car. Now, she was turning him on more. "You'd fuck a knot in a fence," she told him in a carrying voice. He winced.

"Can't you watch your speech?"

"You can't make me. Who are you? You aren't my daddy to turn me over your knee." The image was immediately arousing.

"Don't be too sure."

"No you can't. You wouldn't dare. You don't have the balls." And she walked up to him, slapped his face, and turned around to wag her ass in his face.

He'd had more than enough. Probably he would have grabbed her even if he had been sober. He pulled her by the arms and lay her across his lap. "You can't," she said. "You don't have the balls."

Flipping up her skirt revealed that her ass was as bare as he'd suspected. He bent both her arms behind her back and gripped the wrists in his left hand. "You think you're a caveman," she said. "You think you'll beat me and then fuck me."

Then the only sounds out of her mouth were yells of pain as he gave her as hard a spanking as his hand could stand. She kicked and writhed in his lap, but she didn't escape. Finally, when his hand rested on her ass and she lay crying over his legs, he could feel the wetness of her cunt. The bed was too far away. He lifted her over to an easy chair. He dumped her with her hair spread over the seat of the chair, her ass raised on the back of it, and her legs hanging down behind. He pulled her a little further back until her cunt was at a lower height. Then he fucked her.

She yelled when she came. Lacking the strength to stay there, he staggered into his bedroom and fell asleep. She was gone in the morning, but she came back late that afternoon. She had a bottle and a small suitcase with her.

They talked a little, made out a little, drank a little. She cooked two of the frozen dinners from his freezer for dinner. Later she asked, "Can I take a shower?"

"Be my guest." She took the suitcase in with her and came out in a baby doll nightgown.

Having asked if she could take a shower, she didn't ask if she could use his bed. Not that he wanted to, in the slang term, kick her out of his bed. She was an imaginative bedmate, and he woke late the next morning. She put the baby doll back on to join him for breakfast cereal, hers accompanied by orange juice, his by a screwdriver. She had a small scotch and he had two large ones for a midmorning snack. By early afternoon, though, he wanted real food. "Going to cook another of those TV dinners?" he asked.

"I want to go out to eat," she answered.

"Okay," he said, "get dressed." They'd been drinking the scotch she'd brought rather than visiting bars; he could feed her half a dozen meals at the best restaurant in Springfield on the money he'd saved this weekend, let alone that he was getting the best tail in his life.

He expected her to duck into the bathroom -- maybe the bedroom. Instead, she doffed the baby doll right in front of him. She put on the torn blouse without a bra, and then the skirt without panties.

After stepping into her sandals, she looked at him. "Well, I'm dressed. You?"

"Come on. Dress for public. I'll dress in my bedroom."

When he came out, though, she was wearing precisely what she'd been wearing when he went in. "Put on some underwear, for God's sake," he said.

"Make me." What was she, a grade school kid?

He carried her bag over to her. "What do you have in here?"

"None of your business. Come on, I thought you were hungry."

He was hungry, and pissed off, and a little buzzed. When he reached for the snap on the suitcase, she slapped him. That was too much. He grabbed her, ripping the blouse more. She struggled until she was over his lap. Then he pulled up her skirt and spanked her naked ass. Her moisture was running down her leg by the time he was done, and he was hard as iron. When he let her up, she yanked his belt open. She pulled his zipper down as he stood up. When his trousers and shorts were around his ankles, she pushed him back in the chair.

She was as wet as she'd looked. She straddled him and impaled herself. She tore the blouse open and pulled his face into her tits before beginning to rise and fall around him. She fucked him more wildly than he'd ever fucked her. When he had climaxed in her, she rose -- dripping their mixed juices into his lap.

She took her suitcase into the bathroom with her. He heard the shower running. When he tried the door, it was locked. He washed himself off as well as he could at the kitchen sink and changed into another pair of slacks. When she came out, she was dressed in blouse and pants. Her luscious tits were confined by a bra. She had put on lipstick and done something with her eyes. The only resemblance to the previous outfit was the sandals she put on in the living room.

They went out to a diner, it being mid-afternoon by now.

When they came back, they sat in his car for a while -- making out like teenagers. From his car, however, she went to her own. He ran after her. "Janet," he asked across the car roof, "where are you going?"

"Home. I have to get ready for tomorrow."

"And where is your home? I don't know your address or your phone number." He didn't even know her last name.

"Well, I can't stay here. I don't even have a key."

"If I get you a key, will you come back tonight?"

"Yes. Meet here at eight?"

He thought that was awfully late. But he did have lessons to prepare. "Yes."

"Goodbye," she said and walked around the car to kiss him.

When she rang his doorbell at eight that night, he handed her the key. She kissed him for a while before showering and changing into the baby doll. They made out in bed until she rolled over and knelt on the mattress.

"Come into me from behind," she said. "Treat me like a bitch."

His first class on Tuesday was at ten, and they were still dawdling at the breakfast table at 9:30. He gathered his materials and walked to the door. She was waiting there. "Which side of the closet should I take?" she asked.

"Huh?" Well, if she was going to move in, she'd need some space. "The right."

The next three weeks were the end of the quarter, giving him a lot of work. Janet wasn't always there. She missed some nights and came in late on others. That was lucky in a way, since she was capable of demanding attention when he was trying to grade papers. This ended with a spanking, which always led to wild sex. By the time that was over, Bruce was in no shape to read a paper on Poor Richard's Almanac.

The small suitcase was the only one he ever saw, but her side of the closet became fuller and fuller. She moved in no reading material -- not even a glossy magazine -- and very few of what he thought of as 'toys.' She did have a Polaroid camera. They took some expeditions out into the wintry streets. She snapped pictures of the scenery and occasionally persuaded a passerby to snap Janet and Bruce holding hands or hugging, Break week, he saw her every night, spanked her every night, fucked her every night and some mornings.

But he never learned where she was when she wasn't with him; he never got a phone number for her, either a home number or a work number. And he didn't learn her last name.

Until it appeared on one of his class rolls for English 102.

He didn't blink at the name 'Janet Nelson.' He barely looked at these lists before class time. Seeing her in the third row, however, took him aback. He called the roll and marked where each student was sitting.

"Miss Nelson," he said, "may I see you after the end of class?" The rest of the class, most of whom had been with him the previous quarter, looked surprised.

"Yes, sir," she said. She didn't wait after class, though, and didn't show up in his office. Sitting in the office, sitting in the apartment later, he could see his whole life collapsing around him. An hour after he'd got home, he was drinking his fourth screwdriver, maybe his fifth or sixth.

She waltzed in the door "You wanted to see me, Professor Walters," she said. "This is after the end of class."

"You can't take that course. You have to move out."

"I have to take that course. Beginning English is required of every freshman."

"You don't have to take that section. Transfer out; I'll speak to the department secretary. How did you get in, anyway?" His classes were usually overbooked, which would impress the department more if they didn't see that most of these students were bedazzled coeds.

"My dad's a trustee. It wasn't much of a favor to put me at the top of the list of students trying to transfer into that section." Her dad was a trustee! The visions in Bruce's mind changed from being sent packing to being shot at dawn.

"You can't live here. It's entirely impossible. What would people think?" They would think some pale shadow of the truth, but that would be bad enough.

"You're going to send me away. I won't have any memories of this time but the snapshots and the book inscription."

"And give me those snapshots."

"I can't. They're in my room at home. I'll at least have those to show my friends when everything else is gone."

"That's blackmail."

"What's blackmail? You're just afraid of what people will think. And what will they think if you try to have me transferred out?"

"I could strangle you."

"And, if you do, the cops would want to go through my room. Dad would have to let them; probably he'd go through my room himself. They'd find the snapshots."

"You have it all figured out, don't you?"

"I don't have anything figured out. You're the professor, the brain. I'm just the freshman, your fuck toy."

"You think you have me over a barrel."

"I think you have me. Have me where you wanted me yesterday. Don't you think I've been a good girl?"

"Good? You've been scheming, deceitful.... How did you get into that cocktail lounge anyway?"

"I borrowed some ID. They checked, and I didn't tell them my name was Janet. You served me drinks without checking at all, and I never had ID which said I was Janet and also said I was 21." That was the least of his problems. "You've broken the law, you know. Of course, I have too. Other than that time in the cocktail lounge, weeks ago, I've been a good girl and done what you wanted."

"You haven't been a good girl. You've been a conniving slut!"

"Do you think so?"

"I know so."

"Well, you can't do anything about it. You used to spank me when I lived here, but you can't any more; you've kicked me out."

He was drunk. He was pissed at her and at the world. He didn't see any way out. At least he could take some pleasure in her pain. He grabbed her, slammed her over the easy chair again, and spanked her jean-clad ass until his right hand was tired. Then he yanked down her jeans and started over with his left hand. He alternated hands until they both smarted. Then he grabbed her pubic hair and yanked. She screamed at that. He lowered his own trousers and pulled her back.

Balanced on the back of the easy chair, she climaxed twice before he finally erupted. He staggered into the bedroom and fell asleep.

He awoke beside her in the morning.