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By August Jacobs

May 17, 1999 | During my years as a college professor, I assiduously avoided intimacy with students. In an environment of unspoken permissiveness, I took an unforgiving stance. Thou shalt not encourage, accept or enjoy the intimacy of students. As with most prohibitions, this one went against all natural inclinations. When, for example, one young woman, blond hair flowing over her shoulders, airy sundress hanging gracefully on breasts and hips, put her hand on my chest and teasingly accused me of flattering her with good grades, the thrill that surged through me was dizzying. But I knew that this was simply her way of getting what she wanted, just as a basketball player once gave me tickets to a game. A sublimated quid pro quo that slipped undetected below the illicitness radar. And though I wouldn't want to exile libido from the classroom entirely, I told myself sternly, the excitement of teaching and learning should circulate around the material at hand, not around the personalities involved.

But every once in a while it is nice to be adored. Twelve people enrolled in my "Psychoanalysis and Culture" seminar, all seniors, nine women. The material was difficult, the evenings were dark and cold, but I was on top of my game. Soon, I was spending all week writing elaborate lectures. The class was a frenetic dance between blackboards, notes and texts. And if teaching, like hitting a baseball, has a sweet spot, I found it that semester. My arguments would grow to baroque complexity only to reach an elegant simplicity in their conclusion. After the semester had ended, my student evaluations astounded the teaching committee. I was loved. After each seminar, my fans would follow me to my car. And students would report their Freudian epiphanies to their other professors, who would relate them back to me.

But there was one student not taken by me. She wasn't resistant to the material, nor did she show any dislike for me or the seminar. But what was breathtaking to the rest of us left her unmoved. I would not have fallen for her had it not been for this irresistible distance. She was neither the smartest nor the prettiest nor the coolest. But somewhere along the line, she had been inoculated against the allure I held for everyone else.

I, however, lacked all immunity to her charms. If her seductive disinterest weren't enough, she had the bluest eyes and the fairest skin one could ever dream up. And lest you think Rebecca was a preppy, she had dirty blond dreadlocks with frosted highlights. Her affectations were punk, but underneath there was a femininity that allowed her to hold down a job at the bridal registry of an upscale department store. Her beauty was understated yet persuasive enough that she could pass effortlessly from feminist cultural studies to counseling brides on crystal. Her low-slung, vintage men's jeans weren't worn to disguise the generosity of her hips or her stomach. Her boots were edgier than the clunky Doc Martens everyone else was wearing. And I thought that her small, black cardigan could also be worn at the bridal registry, but imagining that pristine incarnation of my otherwise grunge crush was too delicious to dwell on for long.

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