Mia looked at her professor standing next to the open French doors of the great library. A constant whir from the lively voices of the other guests seeped beneath the hallway door.
“Don’t you ever feel a simple urge to act upon your passions?” he asked.
“Yes, I have overwhelming passion inside; but for another. And I cannot simply displace that passion and hope to rejoice in it later. What is easy for you and gives you a sense of strength and power, only annihilates me and strips power from me.”
“Are you not mature enough to engage in a sexual encounter for the simple liberation of your sexual tension and exaltation of your own sexual desires?” he asked, with a slight condescending upturn of the corner of his lip.
“How easy for you (yet for your own gain) to speak of my sexual liberation. I think it has little to do with maturation and everything to do with self protection.”
“From what are you protecting yourself?”
“From you.”
“But I mean you no harm. I simply mean to engage you in a wonderful night of love-making, with no strings attached.”
“The very strings you discard are the ones that will bind and choke me.”
“How so?”
“Simply. You place little stock in this encounter, save for simple pleasure. Yet, I have met very few women… no, let me rephrase… I have met no woman who can truly have a sexual encounter without placing a very naked part of herself into it. Perhaps that is the very irony that makes men so desire us. You love the very tenderness that does not allow us simplicity in sex..”
“What is it you need to feel from a sexual encounter?” the professor asked, his sandy hair falling forward as he tilted his head down.
“Safety.”
“I think you are confusing things: Sex and love. Pleasure and commitment..”
“Precisely. That is what I am speaking of. Sex and love are not separate for me. I have certainly fallen under the illusion that they could be, several times in my past. But it only ever ended badly for me. Never for the man. But it threw me into a spin; an emotional whirlwind.”
“I have known plenty of women who have been able to discern.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps they simply fooled you into believing they discerned.”
The professor looked out toward the night, seeming to contemplate this for a moment.
“This other that you desire, does he treat you fairly? Provide you safety?”
“Yes, and no. He has provided me safety in the dedication of his love for me.”
“Why, then, are you not with him now?”
“I can never truly be with him. Not in any sort of conventional sense. His life and mine do not allow for it.”
“He is married?”
“No, not any more. He is an artist; as am I.”
“What does that mean?” the professor asked, being of Politics rather than the Arts.
“It concerns the concept of love and freedom. An artist needs inspiration. And inspiration comes only from the freedom to experience life without criticism or guilt. An artist cannot be stifled by conventionality, by demand. It is often a lonely life.”
“Do you not think he has his sexual releases?” asked the professor, with a glint of humor in his eyes.
“I am not such a fool as to believe he does not. He is a man.”
“And you think men are only motivated by sex?”
“I think they are often motivated by sex and can too easily discern between love and sex...though many men, I believe, are first and foremost motivated by the ambition to achieve, to succeed, to attain.”
“And what guarantee do you have that he remains true to you in his heart, if not in his body?”
“None. I have absolutely no guarantee.”
“And where is the safety in that?”
“My safety is not derived from whether he desires another. My safety is derived from the desire he has for me. And the safety, I suppose, comes only from a sort of earthly faith. Besides, I am younger than he. It is coarse to say, I know. And yet, I don’t care. He will always desire my body because I am younger than he. That the pleasure he derives is amplified by the youth of my flesh, I know, and am glad for.”
“But don’t you think that while he is fulfilling his inspiration elsewhere that you could do the same?”
“I wish I could,” she said, her voice tinged with a sincere sadness. “But I cannot. Those experiences take more from me than they give.”
“I still do not understand why.”
“Because to have sex, or make love as you say, with someone who does not really give a damn for me is like standing in a crowd of talking strangers; I feel alone, isolated, overlooked and lost.”
“And you are not alone now?”
“Yes, I am often alone,” she said softly, then pausing briefly, added more strongly, “Rilke says we must embrace our aloneness. Not shy from it, but examine it, glean an understanding of it; that our aloneness gives us strength, gives us time to contemplate the world in which we live, to contemplate our role in that world.”
“And what is your role in this world?”
“To write. Beyond that I am uncertain.”
“To write you need experience.”
“Experience is not always derived from flagrancy and frivolous encounters; although, those experiences have taught me a difficult lesson.”
“Which is?”
“Which is that I have played a leading role in hurting myself. But no longer. I cannot be motivated to participate in frivolous encounters simply because the one I desire may find pleasure in other women. That course of action is only self deprecating.”
The professor set his glass of cognac down and walked over to Mia.
“You are strong to have such a will,” he said, his lowered voice close to her ear.
“I am afraid it is not strength but experience and loss that have formed me this way.”
“If ever you change your mind...”the professor began.
“Of course, of course,” Mia interrupted hastily, and with some irritation, “you will always be interested.”
“Well, of course,” he answered teasingly, “I am older.” And he winked at her before pressing her hand in his for a moment. Then he left the room.
Mia sank down into one of the full leather doctoral chairs and looked at the books lining the shelves from floor to ceiling, relieved another pressure was gone.