His narrow office was so warm that I immediately shed his tuxedo jacket and slipped it onto the hanger I found on his couch. Ford opened the small, ivy-covered window and let in a soft, autumn breeze to cool us.
"So you really liked it? You're not just being nice to me?" I asked.
Ford tossed me the short story and leaned against his desk. It took a moment before I could tear my eyes from the shirt that was tight against his muscles when he crossed his arms.
"I loved it," he said.
The words sent a honeyed delight over my body until I looked down at the pages. "There's so much red ink. Oh, my god, it's like a blood bath."
Ford chuckled as I sank onto the small sofa in his office. He stepped over and sat on the arm next to me. "Don't let that get you down. Most of my comments are about structure and clearing out the extra images. Your writing itself is impressive."
I gripped the pages and pored over each mark. Ford cleared his throat and went to reopen his office door. The breeze made it waver closed again, so he leaned against it. The faint light from the hallway cast him into silhouette and I realized neither of us had bothered to turn on more than the small desk lamp.
In the dim light, he could still read my expression and chuckled again. "You have to think of all criticism as constructive or it'll sink you," he said.
"Do you mind going over it with me? I'm not sure I can interpret all of this as positive unless you explain it," I said.
Ford pushed off the office door and went to one of the sparsely occupied shelves. He pulled a bottle of scotch from behind a wide textbook. "Would my comments go down better with a drink?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I had champagne at the event," I confessed.
He smiled at me, then pried his eyes away and poured an extra finger of scotch. I tugged my thin dress strap back into place and wished the breeze would blow through the open window again. His office was getting warm.
"You seem used to events like that. Does your father make you go with him a lot?" Ford asked.
I looked up from the pages of my short story and met his eyes. In the dim light, the gray was shifting to a deeper, fathomless blue. "You don't like events like that, do you?"
"The event's fine, I just have a problem with a lot of the people there," Ford said.
I shrugged and my dress strap slipped again. "My father is great at those events. Maybe knowing how to schmooze is an inherited trait."
Ford finished his drink and settled onto the arm of the sofa next to me again. His fingers plucked m,y errant strap and tugged it back in place. "You inherited that but not your father's passion for creativity in everyday life?" he asked.
My breath faltered. His fingers had left a brand on my bare skin, one that my body believed only his touch could sooth. "Creative expression has its place but, no, I think practicality should take precedent in everyday life."
Ford reached for the tendrils of hair escaping my messy chignon then pulled back. He rose and tossed himself into his creaky, old desk chair and kicked his feet up. "You know, I think I might be starting to agree with your father. You are too practical. You know college is supposed to be a time to explore, right?"
I shoved away the blazing thoughts of what
I wanted to explore. "Is that what you did?"
He shook his head. "I enlisted straight out of high school and had the Army pay for my education."
"So you were practical too," I said.
Ford trailed his eyes up to my face and I realized how primly I was perched. "You know it's possible to be both. Like Hemingway," he said. He nodded towards the skeleton selection on his shelves. "Top, middle shelf.",
I stood up, the swirl of my long black dress and the appreciative focus of his eyes like a caress against my sensitive skin. I hoped he didn't see the trail of grazed goosebumps. I had never felt a man's eyes on my body with such pleasure.,
I wanted to linger along the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves but the book was easy to find. "Did you just move offices or something?" I asked.
Ford snorted. "I guess I'm just not your stereotypical professor."
My mind backtracked and played that thought over again. Ford was not a stereotypical professor. Maybe that was why I was having trouble thinking of him as off-limits. He was relatively young for a professor, more closely connected to a vocation than scholarly studies. Ford was also unmarried, single, and devastatingly handsome.,
I was not the only student that thought about him, and that was a fact. My female classmates, and a few of the men, commented on his effortless attractiveness almost every day.
"Have you ever read A Moveable Feast? It's Hemingway's reminiscing about starting out as a writer in Paris." Ford continued to lounge in his office chair.