I Dated My Professor

Shocked? Don’t be. If you’ve spent any time in undergrad, I promise you that you’ve known someone who’s had a somewhat inappropriate relationship with a teacher. I have to think this situation is more common than we’re led to believe. Professors are people, after all, with desires, secrets, trauma, shame, emotional baggage, etc. Just like your doctors, religious leaders, parents- and sometimes, these people behave badly.

Revolutionary, I know, but hear me out: as obvious as this is on paper, we often need to observe it in real life to accept it as fact. This goes double for sheltered suburban kids who have been taught to always and unreservedly trust authority figures in our communities (guilty). We make it all the way to frankly embarrassing ages before we’re out of our bubbles enough to observe these stark truths (guilty again).

And the situation is made murky by the fact that college students are usually over the age of eighteen. Most institutions explicitly prohibit student/teacher romantic and/or sexual relationships only if the teacher is in direct and ongoing academic contact with that student, or in a supervisory position over them. Otherwise, we’re deemed autonomous and consenting adults, free to love and sleep with whomever we want. This school of thought conveniently disregards the inherent power dynamic in existence between a student and a professor, and in fact opens up a lot of potential for abuse and manipulation.

In my case, this part of my story takes the shape of a man I’ll call Stefano Alessi, a tenure-track philosophy professor in his mid forties who taught my Monday/Wednesday/Friday 2pm; Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Dr. Alessi was a strikingly handsome Italian man with beautiful eyebrows and feathery black hair that he kept a bit shaggy. He spoke in a melodic tenor, wore expensive clothes, and captivated every student in the room with his expressive and passionate lecture style. A lot of girls (and more than a few boys) on my dorm floor talked about him in reverent and crush-worthy tones. And why wouldn’t we? He was certifiably gorgeous. Intimidatingly brilliant. His accent, along with his soft, self-deprecating laugh when he performed the rare mispronunciation of an English word, was unbearably adorable.

So imagine, then, my utter and instant state of butterflies when this person asked to see me privately, about two weeks into the semester. I’d written a paper that he’d given a 94 percent. Just the grade, and some exclamation points and underlines in red pen throughout, and on the last page- the circled “Let’s talk”, followed by a list of his office hours.

I went up to see him after class that same day. He was facing away from me as I came into his small, light-filled corner office, searching for a book on the packed shelves. I made some kind of awkward little knock and he turned and grinned at me. I still remember the thin spring sunlight slanting over his cheekbones; exactly how the hollow of his throat looked over the V of his black cashmere sweater, the quick way he had of pushing his thick black hair back from his face. The moment I realized that he was actually almost precisely my height- I’d never stood this close to him before, and he had only an inch on me, tops.

“Ms. Byrne! Thank you for coming. Do you have some time for an espresso and a chat?”

I was nineteen. I floated away from his office that evening with the taste of imported espresso on my lips, the buzz of new ideas rifling through my head, and a Big Crush. Our first conversation lasted for three hours. I came to office hours again two days later, a bit shy again, and was waved enthusiastically in. This time I didn’t emerge for almost five hours.

After our first few meetings in office hours, I started to come every day, for as long as I could. We talked about everything. He had an intent, urgent way about him when he was listening to me try to articulate something new. He’d shake his head and steeple his fingers together on his side of the desk, while on the other side I waited, leaning in, eager for his sure praise. And it came. He told me he’d never met a student with a mind like mine. He called me brilliant. He said I had a grip on (and ever-present urge to interrogate) sociopolitical theory that rivaled some of his own teachers. He insisted that he was learning as much from me as I was from him.

Soon, we weren’t just talking theory. We traded childhood stories, learned each other’s family history, shared our often-similar struggles with depression and adolescent trauma. I finally told him, hesitatingly, about my experience with sexual assault on campus the previous year- an incident that had triggered a brief stay in a psychiatric unit and a medical leave of absence. How chilling it felt, sometimes, to be walking home from the library at night and to suddenly have the sensation of being watched by a tall, faceless predator. He was quiet at this, a deep sympathy in his liquid black eyes. He reached both his hands across the desk and took mine, smoothing his thumbs over my slightly shaking knuckles. He shook his head.

“Such a terrible thing to happen to you, beautiful Joanna.” It was the first time he hadn’t called me Ms. Byrne. He lifted my hands to his mouth and gently unfurled them, to place a light kiss on each of my palms. It was the first time he’d ever touched me. I stared at him. I lay in bed that night, electrically awake, and understood that a door had been opened.

After that night, I stopped talking about my friendship with Dr. Alessi. I’d proudly described to my parents how my genius, feminist professor thought I had real potential as a political mind, and they’d voiced their pleasure at my having such a distinguished mentor on campus who thought so highly of me. To my sisters and friends, I’d playfully gushed about my hot teacher who clearly had a soft spot for me and wanted to hear my thoughts about absolutely everything. I’d known, of course, that nothing would come of this crush. That just wasn’t how the world worked. Up til that night. That night I felt the beginning of the shift happening. Neither of us had behaved as prescribed- not quite. There was still time to go back, but the shift had begun.

I read the relief in his face when I came the next day. Actually, it never felt like an option not to come. I was curious. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to see how far I could go down a road I’d never once considered but that was now occupying most of my mind. Now we were Stefano and Joanna, and without ever discussing it outright, we changed how we were meeting. I’d come at the very end of office hours, having grabbed dinner in the cafeteria beforehand, and he’d lock his door behind me, glancing both ways down the hall of the darkened department floor, as I was slipping off my shoes.

We were still just talking. We flirted now, though, playfully and with a growing degree of intensity. He brought dinner with him too, along with wine; soon, two glasses appeared in his cabinet and he was giving me my first appreciation for really good red wine. We giggled like high-schoolers about our own daring and had a few semi-serious conversations about the need for secrecy, what with the drinking. But of course, his fairly flagrant disregard for authority or social norms was part of my attraction to him. He told me that we were equals in every way, constantly complimented me on my emotional and intellectual maturity, and frequently asked for my opinion. He was unlike anyone I had ever met, and I remained incredibly flattered by his unwavering attention and affection. We were already emailing between meetings, and now we started texting throughout the day. Once during this period, he texted me during a guest lecture in his own class to tell me that he couldn’t take his eyes off me and to please forgive him if he was staring. I thought it was charming.

My peers had noticed our friendship, but didn’t fixate on it. His door was solid wood and windowless, but a few times I was caught by some friends leaving his building late at night. I’d tell them I was working on a paper and that we’d lost track of the time and they’d tease me about staying late with the cute Italian professor, because it was still just that ludicrous that anything could actually happen. I didn’t contradict them because I no longer believed that that was true, and steered the conversation to one of their love lives. Damage managed. He and I were perfectly professional in class, to the eyes of his other students, so no irritation came my way in that regard. But the shift was picking up speed. I was infatuated. I was sleeping badly, lying awake for hours thinking about our conversations, neglecting my other classwork, sometimes skipping other classes to go see him during times of the day that I knew he was free.

If you’re rolling your eyes at this point, I get it. Like I said- I was nineteen years old, and truth be told, I didn’t understand adult men yet. I’d figured out men’s capacity for violence, to be sure, but I hadn’t gotten much further than that. I’d dated a handful of boys, one desperately immature married man in his late twenties, and had briefly but passionately fallen in love with a woman my own age, just before I was raped. All the feminist theory and knowledge of power dynamics in the world would still not have prepared me for the experience of Stefano- it had to be felt. Surely this smart, tender, soft-spoken man was not A Predator. And yet: the same Stefano who was now pouring me Bordeaux in a dimly lit office, proclaiming my academic brilliance, and casually, curiously asking me if I’d ever had an orgasm with my high school boyfriend would later call me a manipulative slut. So it goes.

I felt something deep inside me blooming, reaching for him like a flower spirals open into light. Years later, knowing what he was, I would understand how he knew to choose me. The way he knew exactly how to draw me out. He cultivated my admiration for him in such a casual fashion. I’d never been taken so seriously by a man his age before, and the intoxication of that was indescribable. I basked in his praise, in his anointing of me as smart, as special. I had no recognition of the flawless maneuvering that he was constantly doing in order to keep my trust and intensify my affection.

On the first warm Saturday of May, my friends and I piled into an upperclassman’s borrowed car and drove to the beach. We spent the day playing volleyball, drinking warm beer, and investigating a nearby farmer’s market. It was heaven. At some point, my phone got both wet and sandy, and I missed a few texts from Stefano, not to be discovered til I managed to revive the poor thing on the ride home. I squinted in the moonlight, angling the screen away from my giggling roommate.

How is the beach? :) and

Jo, you ok? and

Hey, sorry to be clingy lol, let me know when you’re safe back on campus please.

Beer-emboldened and feeling a little drunk, too, on sunshine and the easy laughter of my friends, I asked to be dropped off in front of the department building because I’d left some work there. I could see his light on, the only light, and I ran in my bare feet up the four flights of stairs.

He was working, head bent over his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, his top three buttons undone. The lamplight on his forearms, wrists, planes of his face, turned his skin an oaky gold. Wanting crowded up into my mouth. Finally, we were here. Finally, I could name what I wanted. He looked up at me as I came in and hastily got up, setting down his pen and straightening his belt. He came around the desk toward me and suddenly I felt myself reflected in his eyes, saw me as he saw me: the wild, still-drying mane of hair sweeping down my back, the open denim jacket and low-riding sweatpants both exposing my black bikini, the feeling written all over my face. Everything became possible; the door opened all the way and we were still only for a moment on either side of it, completely still.

Then I was back in my own body and the sun and the beer nudged me forward and we were clutching each other, in each other’s too-tight grip, and then I took my last breath and I kissed him.

The text from him came late that night, around 1:30. I was still awake reading. I’m at a bar on my fourth bourbon, and I can’t stop thinking about you. I grinned madly in the semi-dark of my room. I felt triumphant and scared. I texted back: Oh yeah?

The reply was immediate. Do you want to come over? I can pick you up.

I was already rummaging for my jeans. It was a short drive to his house, a bungalow-style close to school. He had his hands up under my shirt before the door closed behind us. The sex was awe-inspiring, especially to a teenager who realized, abruptly and humblingly, how much I still had to learn about sex -- not that Stefano seemed to mind. We lay in a tangle of clothes and blankets and candlelight on the living room floor at 4am, catching our breaths and eating fruit and cheese from his fridge.

I eyed him, munching and thinking. “This doesn’t feel quite like it’s actually happening. You know? Like we’re in an alternate dimension or something,” I told him.

He laughed, relaxed, lounging with his arms behind his head. “I know what you mean. I don’t want to leave though. Alien principessa of another dimension, I am your slave.” He kissed my elbow.

“I’m serious, Stefano. Like, what did we just do?” I giggled, feeling vaguely hysterical. “You could get fired for this. Can I get in trouble for this? Should we not do it again?”

He was already up on his knees, frowning at me. “Joanna, relax. We just have to keep it a secret. Are you worried about being able to keep it a secret?”

“No! I…. Of course not. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Not everyone would understand this, you know that.” He looked solemnly at me and gestured between us. “What we have.”

What we have. I considered this, heart galloping. “So what is it that we have?” I asked him. “What happens now?”

Click here for part II