[fanfiction] - Adam Carlson's POV of the Love Hypothesis

office hours

"But... you know.... it's hard." Her voice is trembling to a serious degree, indicating imminent tears and a prolonged version of her sob story about this sick pet, she apparently has at home. 

And I would feel a little bit more compassion towards Miss Gretchen Wallhauser, if said sick pet would have had a symptomatically coherent medical history. But she claims, that the pet is vomiting on books, being unable to walk, to properly drink or eat and still - after multiple weeks - somehow still alive... and that's a bit too wild for my taste. Also, I don't want to be prejudiced, but it fits Miss Wallhausers overall academic performance to a tee to come up with excuses. Rather than evaluate Berger, Steinmans et al. publication on protein synthesis, which - I give her that - would have taken at least two days, since it's 345 pages of packed insights, she took (like many many others before her) the easy route and read only >>protein post-translational modifications and regulation of pluripotency in human stem cells<< by Wang, Petersen and Loring, which, yes, answers all questions she had to face for her paper, but lacks any deepdive into microbial protein synthesis. 

Therefore, I can't credit her with anything above a third and because that seems to be troubling for Miss Wallhauser's grade point average, she is here, already more than ten minutes (which I emphasize again and again, is my absolute hard limit on paper dicussions) and the mostpart of those twelve-and-a-half minutes, she's sitting across from my desk, she has pestered me with unwanted background info about 'Marshmallow' and as astounding as it is, even after this ridicoulus amount of storytime, I still can't tell if  'Marshmallow' is a very large cat or a rather small dog. 

"If I could just, I don't know, perhaps submit a corrected version later this week? Or... or next week?" She bashes her eyelashes in a somewhat hopeful fashion, as if someone very wicked has misinformed her that this would actually work. ON ME. 

That's so far away from the truth, it's almost laughable. But wasting my time isn't and so is the time of all the other students who might as well be waiting outside my office, maybe even eager to discuss a paper with me that is above groundlevel plagarism. THAT would be a delight, I can only wish for. 

"See, Dr. Carlsen." Now she sounds less desperate and more slinky. I hate it immediately and wish for the shiny eyes and the wobbly voice back. I can handle sobbing. I can handle the loss of ridiculously-named-pets. What I can't handle, could never and never will, is: Attempted seduction. Intentional ambiguity. 

Suddenly my thoughts jump to Olive. Again. But I just can't help it, I have to dwell on the reminder, that this woman - this wonderful woman - has kissed me. Has overpowered me for a second and broken all the rules on unspoken professional distance between university staff and still - STILL she never seemed to try and seduce her way out of anything. 

And I can't help it - I have to picture her in Miss Wallhauser's seat. Batting her eyelashes, pressing her arms to tight to accentuate her cleavage to me. 

My mouth goes dry, my blood suddenly swooshing in my ears, drowning out Miss Wallhauser's voice. 

What would I do if Olive would even try? How could I neglect that, how could I ever forsake such an offer?

I take a deep breath, my head feeling disturbingly light, when I come to realize: I wouldn't. Hell, it's un-professional, it's despicable, it's even MAD. But I just know, I know, I wouldn't mind, I would comply. Take her up on her offer. Giving her, what she would desire. Demand even more. 

I suck in a sharp breath, trying to escape the picture in my mind where Olive would sit right here, in front of me and lean over. And I would mirror her movements, lean in even closer and I would feel her breath on my skin, would be able to taste her presence in the air and my lips would-