As we walked back from the dining hall, we could see our breath in the crisp evening winter air. Jennie was wearing some form-fitting jeans, and her shapely figure was accented surprisingly well by the down ski-jacket that she had on. Her silky black hair seemed strangely radiant in the moonlight, especially in contrast with the snow on the ground. I’ve noticed that some Chinese-American women go to great lengths to make their hair look more "European," but I was glad that she left hers with its original beauty. "It was a great idea for them to hold the conference up here," she said. "Hotels in big cities are always the same. This ski lodge has character."
I pretended to protest. "Bull. It’s cold, I have to walk through snow, and I don’t ski."
"But it’s beautiful, you philistine!"
"You young people are easily impressed," I humphed.
"Sorry grandpa," she teased back. "Are you this grumpy with your wife?"
"My wife find me utterly charming."
"Obviously a very patient woman," she remarked, smiling. As we walked up to my cabin, she continued, "And why, pray tell, do you get your own chateau here?"
"It’s just a tiny cabin. And I’m a big, bad-ass successful professor so I deserve the best they have."
"Oooo, I’m trembling in admiration!" She smiled and asked, "Do I get to see what it looks like inside the royal residence?"
I laughed. "Sure. I know you’ll be impressed. Just try not to accidentally touch the walls or it may all fall down." We went in and I turned on the lights. It actually was a very charming cabin. It was rustic -- but that’s part of the ambience. I noticed Jennie shiver and rub her arms as she looked around. "I was gonna start a fire. Do you want to warm yourself for a few minutes before you go to your room at the lodge?"
"Thanks, that’d be great."
Like every male, I love making fires, so I happily went to work arranging the crumpled newspapers, kindling and logs, and then started it burning. When I turned around, I looked at Jennie sitting on the couch. She had taken her boots off, and was sitting with her feet folded underneath her. She had also put aside her jacket. I couldn’t help but notice how many buttons were open at the top of her blouse, and how her chest strained against the material. "Whoa, boy," I thought to myself. "You’re married, and she’s old enough to be your daughter. Well, she could be my older brother’s daughter anyway." I sat down with her on the couch. As soon as I did, I felt like I’d sat too close to her, but I decided it would seem awkward to get up and move away now. "Stop acting like a nervous teenager," I told myself. "She’s a graduate student and you’re her advisor. In her eyes, you ARE ‘grandpa.’ "
She spoke up: "I got a lot out of your talk today. When I read your earlier research, I understood that you were throwing light on traditional Hindu thought, but listening to today’s talk was the first time it became clear to me that you see your research as having practical implications." I felt comfortable again now that we were talking shop. Jennie is one of the best students I have ever had. I’ve always gotten so much out of our conversations. "Yes," I explained, "I think that the Hindu notion of social roles still has a lot of relevance. Obviously, we don’t want to go back to a totally old-fashioned system, but I think we’d be better off if people in our society today did take more seriously their obligations as leaders, teachers, students, fathers, mothers, children, and such."
Jennie‘s eyes narrowed in concentration and she asked, "But how do you reconcile that with other aspects of the Hindu tradition?"
"What do you have in mind?"
"Well, the Kama Sutra is one of the most notorious sex manuals in the world. But it’s also as much a part of the Hindu tradition as the notion of social obligation."
I nodded. "You’re quite right. But, you see, that’s the beauty of Hindu ethics! They don’t see any inconsistency between living a good life and enjoying sex. In fact, they stress that enjoying sex is a crucial part of living well!"
"Do you agree with everything in the Kama Sutra?"
I chuckled. "I’m sure I don’t know that text as well as practitioners like yourself." She gave me a look of mock indignation, then smiled. I continued, "Seriously, though, I do think that it’s a very insightful work, not just about human sexuality, but about life in general."
Jennie looked away for a moment, like she was pondering what I had said. Then she leaned a little closer to me. I found myself fighting the instinct to peek into the blouse that was now inches below my head. She asked, "So you agree with the part where it says that a married man should -- how do they put it -- ‘Stimulate the heat of his male organs by enjoying younger women’?"
I laughed. "Wow, you have been doing your homework!" I paused, wondering how honestly I should answer this question. I decided that Jennie was a good enough student that she deserved my candor. "Well, to be frank, I think that monogamy is not always a very realistic arrangement. Marriage is many things: a romantic relationship, to be sure, but also a sexual relationship, a financial relationship, a parental relationship. No marriage is perfect in every area, especially not over the course of many years. I wonder if we would have so many unhappy homes, and so many divorces, if people were more flexible in sexual matters. And, of course, almost all men fantasize about younger women."
Jennie‘s limpid eyes stared into mine, and she asked, "Do you fantasize about younger women?"
This was the first point at which it occurred to me that Jennie was doing something other than just gathering information for her doctoral thesis. My heart started to beat faster, and blood started rushing away from my brain and into other parts of my anatomy. I wasn’t sure what I should say, or even what I wanted to happen. I’d noticed how sexy Jennie was before. How could I not? But I had honestly never envisioned anything sexual actually happening between us. And despite my brave talk about "flexibility in sexual matters," I had never contemplated adultery. This was so surprising, so complex, so dangerous! But while the rational part of my brain was weighing all these concerns, some other part of my brain (one that developed much earlier in the evolutionary process) was telling my mouth what to say. "Yes," I heard myself saying. "I find some kinds of younger women quite sexy."
"What kind?" she said, not missing a beat.
"I think intelligence is very sexy. I like a woman who has a passion for learning. But I’m also susceptible to more obvious charms." As I said this, I did what I had been forbidding myself to do since the first day Jennie walked into my classroom: I let my eyes wander down her body and take it all in. Yes, her breasts were just as well-rounded as they had looked in my occasional furtive glimpses. I noticed for the first time that she wasn’t wearing a bra tonight. My knees got weak at the sight of the outline of her hard nipples pushing against her shirt. Her body was lithe and seemed to possess a catlike grace. I felt a surge of power as I realized that she was moving under my gaze. She straightened her back as I looked at her breasts, and she stretched her long legs out and curled her toes as my gaze moved down. When I looked back up at her face, her eyes seemed languid and her lips were parted seductively. "What kind of men do you like?" I asked softly.
She looked away and cocked her head, coquettishly. "I like smart, accomplished men. You know, the kind of older men who are more ... experienced ... at things." She looked back and gave me a sly smile.
I felt myself being swept away. But the rational part of my brain got one last gasp of strength. So I said, "You know, one thing the Kama Sutra assumes is that a married man’s other lovers will become part of his household as his official concubines. That job description isn’t open in our society, though. And besides," I said, smiling, "I couldn’t afford a concubine on my salary."
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