It was a sultry day, the moist air spreading its milky-skinned legs wide across campus like a warm, wet blanket of buxom lady-flesh. Associate Professor Apricot Marmalade-Jones hurried through the sticky mass of undergraduate bodies, her ample bosom straining against the damp fabric of her avocado silk blouse, her huge academic brain pulsing painfully between her temples. Yes, Apricot Marmalade-Jones was both beautiful and clever, and it was a burden she struggled to bear between her toned professorial shoulders every single day.
She hurried into the cool interior of the Literature Faculty and made straight for Room 131A, pushing open the heavy oaken doors with a decisive forward thrust of her bust. Professor Tarquin Tweedy-Eiderdown was at his desk, stroking his pipe with the rhythmic precision of a man who’s got wood and knows how to handle it. His eyes were closed, his face a contorted rictus of tobacco-induced pleasure.
Apricot cleared her throat. She’d been waiting for this moment. She could barely contain herself. At last, she was here, with Professor Tweedy, ready to embrace her new future with open legs. She could feel her desire mounting in her chest, could feel the object of her lust and need growing ever closer. She could practically lick it.
‘Professor? I’m here to talk about … my tenure.’
The professor’s eyes sprang open; his pipe fell to his lap with a wet thud, tobacco spurting forth in a sudden, uncontrollable geyser of strangely viscous brown. ‘Oh, Peaches! Did you make an appointment with my secretary?’
She sighed inwardly. ‘Yes, Professor,’ she replied. ‘And it’s Apricot, not Peaches.’
‘Stop right there, Tweedy-Eiderdown,’ Apricot ejaculated—yes, women do it too.
The professor placed his spent pipe carefully on his desk and levelled his gaze directly at Apricot’s nipples. ‘Terribly sorry, Areola—uh, Apricot. Tenure? Yes. Well, as you know, you’re an extremely valuable member of the department. Your work on the phallic symbolism of the courgette in twelfth-century Latin iconoclastic verse is very juicy indeed. But I’m afraid we’re simply not in a position to award tenure this year. We really need you to put out more … papers.’
Apricot was blindsided—although she still looked very beautiful. ‘Professor, this is an outrage!’ she gasped. ‘What about my research on Persimmon Gourd, the reclusive feminist poet and sculptress supposedly responsible for the mystical and ancient English monument they call StoneVag? I discovered her work! Her oeuvre is incredibly significant for the history of feminism!’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Feminism. The women’s movement.’
‘Oh!’ said the Professor. ‘I see—“women’s things”. Quite. Look, Apple—I’m afraid we’re not the history department. What you need, young lady, is for people to reference your body … of work.’ He continued to avoid making eye contact with Apricot’s actual eyes—she often wondered how much easier life would be if her nipples could see.
‘Don’t worry, Plum. We’re happy to keep you on, but we’ll have to see more published research to satisfy our needs. We won’t ride you too hard—we know you can pull one off. Uh, another publication, that is. I’d love to see you submit to me—I mean, a draft. Submit a draft.’
Apricot drew several deep breaths, the Professor’s eyes rising and falling in perfect time with her heaving chest. ‘Actually, Professor—I didn’t come to ask for tenure—’
‘Oh, of course!’ Tweedy thrust a fresh load of tobacco into his pipe. ‘I’m simply suggesting you add some new tricks to your repertoire. Have you considered oral? It’s really a very important skill, being able to present your own work.’
This was too much. ‘Stop right there, Tweedy-Eiderdown,’ Apricot ejaculated—yes, women do it too. ‘I don’t need your tenure. I’m getting some already—somewhere else.’
Tweedy paused. ‘Right. Come again?’
‘I have come to submit to you, Professor—submit my resignation!’ Apricot declared. ‘I’ve penetrated the halls of another institution and found true happiness. I don’t need you and your false tweed promises anymore!’
With that, she swept from the room into the strong, muscular embrace of her one true love: her career.
About the Author
Tuesday Thatch BA MA Grad Dip Cert IV Small Business (pending) wants you to be quiet in the stacks; she has ways of making you not talk. A former academic librarian with a penchant for pince-nez and a plethora of as-yet-unpublished publications to her name, Ms Thatch enjoys tweed skirts, twinsets, and the tactile pleasures of thumbing vigorously through a volume of purposefully chosen prose.
She derives intense satisfaction from assisting helpless male academics find exactly what they need from between her well-stacked shelves. Her hobbies include touch typing, watercolour painting, and exploring the rich intricacies of the Dewey Decimal Classification System.
She is also the tweed clad alter-ego of Carody Culver, who resides in digital form at www.carodyculver.com.
