behind me and something cuts into the small of my back.
“Enough, Geoff! What are you doing?” I push harder, start to shout, but he puts his hand on my face, extended so that his fingers are over my eyes and the palm of his hand is over my mouth. The taste of his skin makes me gag.
He licks the side of my neck. “What does your husband say? Does he know? About you and June?”
“Stop!” But my words are muffled. I can’t breathe. My fingers frantically search behind me for something I can use against him but there’s nothing. I wedge my knee between his thighs and he laughs softly, like I’m doing it on purpose, like I’m enjoying this. He moves his hand to hold my chin. Fingers like a vice on either side of my jaw.
I take a desperate breath.
“Get off me!” I shout as loudly as I can, my voice shrill with fear, my mouth distorted by his grip. I grab his wrist just as he brings his mouth close to mine. His breath is hot and reeks of stale alcohol.
“Come on,” he groans into my face. “I know you want to. Don’t tell me you’re just a tease. You’ve been wanting me to do this to you ever since you first laid eyes on me.” He brings his free hand up my skirt, his fingers sliding up my thigh. “How does that feel? Is that nice?”
His mouth is against mine, hot and wet, making me heave. I let out a wail, twist my head away, then grab his hand and bite it.
He jerks away suddenly. “Hey! What did you do that for?” He stares at his finger where my teeth have left a reddening crescent. He massages it, an astonished look on his face. “What the hell is wrong with you? That really hurt!”
I wipe snot off my face with my sleeve. I’m shaking with fury and humiliation. “You’re out of your mind! I’ll report you for this!”
He jerks his head back, an angry look of scorn and surprise on his face. “You’re a bitch, you know that? You’re just a tease. You’ve been at me like a bitch in heat since forever. And what about Chicago, hey? You played the tease then and I let you get away with it. But you never stopped coming on to me, did you? You want to play it that way again? Then you better watch yourself, Anna. Nothing good happens to women like you.”
Does he actually believe I ever wanted this? I straighten my skirt, my entire body vibrating with anger while he straightens his clothes. He opens the door and light floods in from the corridor. Students walk past, their heads swinging towards me in unison. A burst of laughter.
“I won’t let you get away with this,” I say, between my teeth.
“Oh, really? What are you going to do, Anna? Report me? Who do you think you are? You want to tell them about Chicago? Or shall I? Because there’s bound to be a whole lot of people who saw you get drunk and come on to me like you couldn’t get enough of me. Plenty of people who saw us leave together that night. And I don’t think your behavior was leaving much to the imagination, but hey, your call.” He snorts. “And by the way.” He rests one hand on the door handle. “Mila says you’re avoiding her. That you refuse to talk about how you came up with the solution. What’s that about?” He waits, chin forward, but I don’t reply. I wipe my cheeks with trembling fingers and he shakes his head in disgust, steps into the corridor then changes his mind and turns around again. “And one more thing, you know why you didn’t get the professorship?”
My chest is rising with every loud breath. I run my trembling fingers through my hair.
“I never submitted your application to the board. That’s why. I never even nominated you.” He smirks.
I search his face, looking for the lie, for the joke, for the punch line. I think of all the extra work I did, the many conversations I had with him about the best way to approach my application. All the proposals I devised, wrote and submitted: funding proposals, asset refurbishment proposals, how to attract more young women to study mathematics proposals. All to show I am a team player, a rallier.
He answers his own question. “I wasn’t going to waste my time. I knew