Mandatory Office Hours

Brandon Bulmyer jogged up the three flights of stairs in the psychology building, his sneakers squeaking against the polished tile. He was late. Ten minutes late. The mandatory office hours email from Professor Kurtz had been clear. Show up on time or watch his already failing grade sink lower. His broad shoulders brushed the doorframe as he pushed into the quiet hallway, heart thumping from more than just the run across campus.

He paused outside her door, wiping damp palms on his athletic shorts. The frosted glass read Professor V. Kurtz, PhD in neat black letters. Brandon rolled his neck, trying to shake off the defensive tension already building in his muscles. He was used to coaches yelling at him, not some uptight professor dissecting his brain. This was just a meeting. He would talk his way out of it like he always did.

He knocked twice and opened the door without waiting for an answer.

Professor Kurtz sat behind a wide oak desk, sleek dark hair twisted into a perfect bun, not a strand out of place. Her tailored white blouse hugged an hourglass figure that Brandon had noticed more than once during lectures, though he would never admit it. The pencil skirt and crossed legs completed the look of total control. She glanced up from a stack of papers, sharp cheekbones catching the late afternoon light from the window. Her full lips pressed into a thin line.

"Mr. Bulmyer. You are late."

"Yeah, sorry about that, Professor," Brandon said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His voice came out cockier than he intended. "Practice ran long. Coach had us doing extra drills. You know how it is."

He dropped into the chair across from her without being invited, spreading his long legs wide. Six-foot-two of varsity athlete taking up space. That was his usual move. Make himself big. Make the other person blink first. But Professor Kurtz did not blink. She simply watched him, pen tapping once against the desk in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

"I do not know how it is," she said, voice cool and precise. "Because I value punctuality. Especially when a student's academic future is on the line. Sit up straight, please."

Brandon felt heat creep up his neck. He adjusted his posture anyway, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. "Look, I know my midterm was bad. But I can pull it up. I always do."

She lifted the stapled exam from her desk and held it between two manicured fingers like it was contaminated. "Forty-two percent, Mr. Bulmyer. You did not even attempt to engage with the essay portion on identity formation. You wrote, and I quote, 'This seems pretty made up.' Care to defend that performance now that you have had time to reflect?"

Brandon's jaw tightened. He had hoped she would not read it back to him. The words sounded even dumber in her smooth, educated voice. "It is just... I do not get why we have to spend so much time on all that repression stuff. Freud is ancient history. I am a psych major because I want to help athletes with performance shit, not sit around talking about hidden desires or whatever."

Professor Kurtz leaned back in her chair, regarding him with clinical interest. Her eyes, dark and sharp, moved over his face, then down to his shoulders, noting the way his hands clenched together. Brandon forced them to relax.

"Tell me about your athletic background," she said, changing direction without warning. "Varsity basketball for three years. Captain last season. That requires discipline. Focus. Yet here you are, failing an advanced class in your final semester. Why do you suppose that is?"

He shrugged, falling back on the bro-y charm that usually worked on teaching assistants. "Basketball is different. I know what I am doing on the court. This class is all theory. Reading between the lines of bullshit that does not apply to real life. No offense."

"None taken," she replied, though her tone suggested otherwise. "And your personal life? Do you have a girlfriend who might be taking up study time? Or perhaps a string of them? Athletes tend to have active social calendars."

Brandon laughed, a short defensive bark. "Nothing serious. I mean, there are girls. Plenty of them. After games, at parties. You know the type." He shifted in the chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. "I am not exactly hurting in that department, Professor."

Her gaze flicked to his hands again. He had started rubbing his thumb across his knuckles, an old nervous habit from the court when a play was falling apart. She noticed. Of course she noticed. Valerie Kurtz noticed everything. She had built her career on reading micro-expressions, the tiny tells that revealed what people refused to say out loud.

"Interesting," she murmured. "You speak about women with such certainty. Yet when I mentioned hidden desires in class two weeks ago, you looked distinctly uncomfortable. Your shoulders tightened. Your breathing changed. Much like they are doing now."

Brandon's green eyes narrowed. "I was not uncomfortable. It is just not realistic. Guys know what they want. I know what I want."

"And what is that, exactly?" She tilted her head, the bun catching the light. Her voice remained detached, almost bored, but there was steel beneath it. Intellectual dominance wrapped in silk. "Passing this class? Maintaining your precious athletic image? Or is there something deeper you are avoiding?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. The office suddenly felt smaller. The scent of her perfume, something expensive and faintly spicy, mixed with old paper and leather bindings. Brandon could hear his own pulse in his ears. This was not how these meetings usually went. Professors were supposed to lecture him about effort and offer study guides. Not stare at him like he was a puzzle she intended to solve.

"I need to pass this class," he said finally, dropping the swagger. "Graduation is in four months. I have got scouts looking at me for grad programs in sports psych. If I tank this, it is over."

Professor Kurtz set the midterm down and folded her hands. The simple gesture commanded attention. "Then we will be seeing quite a bit of each other, Mr. Bulmyer. I have decided to take a personal interest in your case. Call it a research project of sorts."

The word project sent a strange flicker through Brandon's chest. Unease, definitely. But something else too. The way she said it, like his failure was now her property, like he was now her property in some academic sense, made his stomach tighten. He told himself it was just dread. But his eyes kept drifting to the curve of her lips when she spoke, to the elegant line of her neck disappearing into that crisp collar.

"First, you will stop arriving late. You will address me properly. And you will complete the extra credit I assign without complaint. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor." The words came out quieter than he expected. He cleared his throat. "What kind of extra credit?"

She opened a drawer and removed two thick articles printed and stapled together. The titles stared up at him: "Repressed Desire and the Performance of Heteronormativity" and "Fluidity of Identity: Challenging Fixed Sexual Constructs." Brandon swallowed hard. They looked dense. Academic. Dangerous, somehow.

"These readings focus on the very topics you dismissed so casually on your midterm," she said, sliding them across the desk. "Desire. Identity. The ways in which societal pressure can bury natural impulses. Read them thoroughly. Take notes. We will discuss them in detail at our next mandatory session."

Brandon took the papers, his large hands making them look smaller. His fingers brushed hers for half a second. Her skin was cool. He pulled back quickly.

"This is not optional," she continued, voice dropping into that instructional tone that made the hair on his arms stand up. "Your grade now depends on your compliance. I expect full engagement with the material, Mr. Bulmyer. No more defensive posturing. No more bro-y deflections about parties and girls. I want to see what is really underneath all that athletic confidence."

He stared at the top page, the academic jargon blurring slightly. Repressed desire. The phrase stuck in his throat like a dry swallow. He had never struggled with girls. Never wanted to. Locker room jokes were just jokes. The way he sometimes noticed the cut of a teammate's abs after practice meant nothing. Everyone did that. Right?

"I will read them," he said, forcing his voice steady. "But I am telling you, this stuff does not apply to me."

Professor Kurtz smiled then. It was not warm. It was knowing. The first real hint of the authority she held over him, the intellectual dominance that would soon reshape everything. "We shall see. Body language rarely lies, even when the mouth does. Notice how your left foot is tapping right now? How your shoulders have rounded slightly, making yourself smaller in that chair? Those are signs, Brandon."

The use of his first name jolted him. No one called him Brandon in academic settings. It was always Bulmyer or Brandon on the court. Hearing it from her felt intimate. Invasive.

"Come back on Thursday at seven sharp," she said, rising from her chair. The movement drew his eyes to the smooth lines of her hips before he caught himself. "Do not be late again. And Brandon? Start thinking about why this material makes you so defensive. That will be our starting point."

He stood too, suddenly aware of how much taller he was and yet how thoroughly she commanded the room. The papers felt heavy in his hand. That flicker of unease had settled into something warmer, something he did not want to name. Attraction to her control. To the way she saw him. To the promise of more sessions under her watchful eye.

"Yeah. Thursday," he muttered, turning toward the door. His usual cocky walk felt forced.

"One more thing," she called after him.

He paused, hand on the knob.

"You may find these readings... illuminating. Some students discover parts of themselves they did not know existed. Or rather, parts they pretended did not exist. I look forward to hearing which category you fall into."

Brandon did not answer. He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him, the latch clicking like a period at the end of a sentence he had not meant to start. His green eyes stared at the frosted glass for a long moment. The scent of her perfume clung to his shirt.

He shoved the articles into his backpack and headed down the stairs, shoulders squared in that familiar athlete posture. But inside, the first cracks had formed. A flicker of unease mixed with something dangerously close to curiosity about what Professor Kurtz might uncover if he let her.

By the time he reached the quad, the evening air cool against his flushed face, Brandon had already decided he would read every word. Not because he believed the material. But because failing her now felt impossible. And that realization scared him more than any midterm ever could.