Anatomy 601 - the first One-on-One By Dreamspinner Portland, Oregon is a city full of odd and unusual people and in 1972, the oddest and most unusual attended Portland State University ... at least that's how it seemed to me. I'd never seen so many hippies, transvestites, nudists, gypsies, mimes, and women with hairy legs in one place in my life ... and those were the professors. Eccentricity seemed to be a requirement for a teaching position. The place was the third strangest I'd been. I had been a hospital corpsman and had done two tours in Vietnam. I had seen some real weird shit in the Central Highlands and the Mekong delta. Portland State wasn't that kind of weird, but in a different way it was just as. And it was safer...at least it seemed to be. My separation from active service had come on April 5, 1972. By August of that year I had found and rented a flat three blocks from campus. I had been in my first semester of pre-med at Portland State before I enlisted in 1968, and I was determined to finish what I had started and then go on to medical school with no more delays. A few nutballs weren't going to stand in my way. To tell the truth, I kind of liked those unusual characters. They were a real change from the squared-away grunts I was used to. The first two semesters were easy, and I did well...so well, in fact, that my advisor recommended I take a graduate course in anatomy at the beginning of my sophomore year. "You'll love it," he had said, holding on to his beard with both hands as he often did. I wondered if it hurt. "The professor is a bit odd, though," he continued, still holding on for dear life. "She's a real study in anatomy, to be frank," he said, finally letting go his beard and laying his arms on the table. He put his hand in the air about four-and-a-half feet off the floor. "She's only this tall, to begin with," he said. "And, in my carefully considered opinion, weighs eighty pounds, if that." I took in a breath and let it out. I shifted my weight slightly. "Why are you telling me how big she is?" I asked. "If she's a good instructor, why difference does her size make?" His hands took up their hold on his beard again. "Ah, well. Hm. How shall I put it?" He was silent. A minute passed, then another. He seemed very far away. Finally he turned loose of his beard and shook his head as if to throw off the cobwebs. "Well, I think...ahh...I know! Good things often come in small packages!" he declared, as if he'd had a great insight. "Anyway," he said, standing, "You'll see what I mean by and by, I'm sure." I stood up and he clasped me by the hand and then sat down again, heavily. I went to the door. Just before I took hold of the knob he called, "Give her my regards, will you?" I turned to face him. "You're in the same department, aren't you?" I asked. "Why don't you give her your own regards?" He shrugged his shoulders and turned the palms of both hands upwards. "It's complicated," he said. If my advisor thought that would satisfy, me, he was wrong. I was full of curiosity, but he didn't look like he was in the mood to do any more explaining. He was holding onto his beard with both hands, looking very far away. I went out. The classroom where the mysterious professor taught Anatomy 601 was on the seventh floor of the Morris Building ... one of the oldest structures on campus. Her class started a mere ten minutes after one I had in the Tower Complex ... on the opposite end of the grounds. I hadn't been thinking when I made my class selections. By the time I got to the seventh floor of the Morris Building it was a quarter after. When I made it to room 714, there were butts in every seat but one, and that one was at the end of the top row, all the way in the corner of the sloping amphitheatre. I scaled the steps, looking at the long-haired oddballs as I went up, and they looked back at short-haired me. At the top, I made my way past bare skin showing through holes in the knees of blue jeans and found my seat. The blackboard was a good fifty feet away. I looked at my watch. Five more minutes and we could leave. That was the rule for assistant professors. Some of the students were collecting their things when she walked in ... 'stalked' in ... to be precise. The ones who had been putting their books and pencils away groaned and slowly took their stuff out of their backpacks like it weighed tons, but I was immediately on razor's edge. The professor's movements had set me off ... I was combat-ready, reaching for my sidearm without thinking. When I didn't feel its textured grip I panicked and began looking around for it. I was back in Vietnam, ready to take out the gook who had just broken our perimeter. I sized her up, looking for a weakness. I was ready to make my move when she spoke. "Class," she announced, "I am Professor Hensley. You may call me 'Doctor Hensley,' or you may call me 'Professor.' I prefer 'Professor.' She paced from one end of the blackboard to the other. She seemed to take extraordinary care regarding where and how she placed her feet on the floor. It was eerily catlike and it seemed reminiscent of the way I had seen another woman carry herself, but try as I might, I couldn't remember where or when. The sounds and smells of the jungle faded. Professor Hensley had taken center stage. "This is 'Anatomy 601 ... the superficial muscles of the extremities,'" she said. "If that is not what is printed on your class schedules, you must leave now." A hundred students pulled out their schedules and pored over them. As if on cue, at least three-quarters of them picked up their packs, clomped down the stairs and went out. Professor Hensley stood ramrod straight until the last of those who had come to the wrong place at the wrong time had gone. "Now then," she said, "The rest of you come closer." We hesitated. "Come on, will you!" "She clapped her hands. "Get down here and fill up the first two rows!" We took seats in the first two rows, per her instructions. I took the end seat in the second row ... I didn't want anyone behind me. I counted heads ... nineteen. Professor Hensley studied our faces, daring us to keep eye contact. I did not drop my gaze. As my advisor had said, she was very short ... four foot eight, I estimated. And, as he said, her weight looked to be about eighty pounds. She wore a tweed jacket over what appeared to be a black leotard, lose- fitting khakis, and leather sandals. I could see veins as big as nightcrawlers running up over her ankles. Her remarkably high-arched feet seemed fastened together at the heels. Her toes pointed outwards at a ridiculously obtuse angle. She was seventy-five years-old if she was a day. Old-fashioned spots of rouge dotted her cheekbones. Her head was small and well-shaped; her neck long and graceful. She had pulled her thick hennaed hair back severely and tied it with a black ribbon. She had her arms crossed and as she looked from one face to the next the fingers of her visible hand rhythmically caressed whatever was under her sleeve. When she had finished inspecting us, she spoke. "I told the head of the department I would teach this class as I see fit. And so, the course title, 'The superficial muscles of the extremities,' as you will see, is a bit of a misnomer. In fact, what we ... I should say 'you' ... will be studying will be limited to the large muscles of the upper arm and lower leg, that is, the biceps brachii and triceps, and the gastrocnemius and soleus." She uncrossed her arms and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her khakis and leaned against the blackboard. One corner of her mouth rose slightly. "'Why only those muscles?' you ask. Because those are the muscles that give me pleasure, and since I teach this class as I see fit, I will teach it in a way that brings me pleasure." Some of the students shifted in their seats. Her eyebrows shot up. "Do some of you have a problem with that?" she asked. A big guy I remembered seeing in the gym three days before stood up. "I think you're nuts!" he declared. "I'm getting my ass out of here." He moved towards the door. Professor Hensley stalked over and blocked his path. He was at least a foot-and-a-half taller than she. "How tall are you?" she asked. "Six-five," he said. "And your weight?" "Two eighty-nine...I weighed myself this morning." She reached up and felt his upper arm. Her eyelids fluttered and her knees buckled slightly. "Pity you'll be leaving us," she said. "I would have enjoyed studying you." The huge man said, "Excuse me, professor...I gotta get out of here." He pushed her aside and stormed out. She came over to face the rest of us. When she got close, I could see beads of sweat had broken out on her forehead. She had slumped a bit through the shoulders and the color had drained from her face. Her rouge spots stood out like dabs of red greasepaint. "Are there others who would like to leave?" she asked. Four raised their hands. "Fine, then," she said. "You may go." They filed out. Professor Hensley squared her shoulders and said, "In addition to the change in the course content I've mentioned already, there will be a change in the course structure." Several students looked at each other. "That is, instead of meeting en masse, we ... or should I say 'you' ... will meet with me one-on-one in my office or other private place." Her toes turned out again at the same ridiculous angle. Three students stood up in unison. One spoke. "I don't think we're comfortable with that, professor...sorry." The other two nodded. Professor Hensley waved her hand as if she were shooing away a fly. "Fine...go, then," she said. The three left. She turned to the remainder of us, her eyes full of fire. "Only eleven?" she asked. "What a cowardly lot they were! Have the rest of you the courage to stay?" she asked, rising a bit on her toes. She was ramrod straight again, her shoulders square, her head held high. Her neck flushed and her hands made fists. We were silent. I was wondering if I shouldn't have taken her out after all. She softened a bit. "Of course you do," she said, crossing her arms again. Her fingers went to work on her upper arm. Our eyes met. "Especially you, young man," she said, her fingers working away. "You were the only one who didn't deferentially drop your gaze like the rest...you didn't realize the others couldn't hold up, did you?" she asked. I was in the habit of facing whatever came my way without flinching. Even though I wasn't in a jungly piece of real estate on the other side of the world anymore, my habit had not died upon my return to the States. I hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention to the rest of the students during her inspection. She had owned my focus totally. "No," I said. "I wasn't paying attention to anything but you." A slight smile played across her face. It was gone in the next moment. "I had your undivided attention, then...is that what you're saying?" "My undivided," I said, flatly. "Just like right now." She uncrossed her arms and began to rub her hands together. I saw she had nightcrawlers on her hands that matched the ones on her feet. They ran from the backs of her hands across the bones of her wrists and disappeared under the sleeves of her jacket. "I've decided," she said, looking me straight in the eye, "That you will be my first one-on-one." She waved her hand again in that fly-shooing way. "I'll be in touch with the rest of you to arrange your one-on-ones," she said without looking at the others. "You're dismissed." They filed out. One girl hesitated a moment at the door, turning to look at me. Her expression was one of profound apprehension I had seen only once before, when I had delivered a Vietnamese woman of her baby. It had happened the moment her contractions pushed the baby's head out. I shook off the memory and mouthed, 'It's OK' to the girl standing in the doorway. She went out. I looked at the date someone had written on the blackboard earlier that day. 'August 21, 1972,' it read. I was glad. Then I turned my attention to Professor Hensley. She looked me up and down, then turned and stalked out the door. I heard her take four steps and stop. "Come on," she said from the empty hall. "We'll have our one-on-one in the stairwell." Her voice echoed. I stepped through the door. Professor Hensley was standing in a shaft of half-light that trickled through glass block. She had removed her jacket and held it by the collar. She was, as I had thought earlier, wearing a black leotard. Her toes were again pointed out, her head held high. I stared. Her arms and shoulders were profoundly sinewy. Even under no load, every muscle was clearly visible and every one stood separated from its neighbors. Even more remarkable were her nightcrawlers. Earlier I had seen them disappearing under the sleeves of her jacket. Now I could see they branched their way up her arms and over her shoulders. Even the thinnest ones made it up as far as the straps of her leotard. A memory came to me of Vietnamese men I had seen working bent over in their rice paddies, their endless work having consumed all but a fragment of a percentage of body fat. I wondered at the time what kept them going and I wondered in the present moment how Professor Hensley had the energy to work, as lean as she was. I would have considered her on the verge of malnutrition if I had not sensed an abundant energy in this little woman. The object of my study cleared her throat. I shook my head. "Sorry," I said. "I was just remembering something." She put her arms akimbo, tilted her head slightly and raised an eyebrow. "It's not important," I said. "Is this where I'm going to have my one-on-one?" She turned abruptly and started up the stairs. "Follow me," she said. She had a four-step lead on me, which put me at eye level with her veiny feet. The old woman had an unusual way of going up a staircase ... instead of simply taking one step after the other, she made the thing an exercise, deliberately lifting her body by extending one deeply- arched foot before stepping onto the next riser, and again with the next step up, and so it went until she reached the landing. There, she turned and faced me where I stood, four steps below. "Let's begin our one-on-one right here," she said. "Right here?" I asked. "Yes. Let me get two steps up the next flight of stairs." "OK," I said. I stepped up on the landing. Professor Hensley took two steps in her slow, exercise way and stopped with both feet on the second riser. She rose up on her toes. "Now," she said. "Kneel down and take hold of my calves ... one in each hand." I knelt and reached out. I was expecting to feel thin, ropey shanks, based on the shape and contour of this old woman's arms and shoulders, but her hard calves filled my hands. "Jesus!" I said. "Are you surprised?" she asked. "I'm surprised." I said, but the size of her calf muscles wasn't the only thing that surprised me ... my groin reaction to having my hands on her big calves stunned me. She seemed to sense my conundrum. "Is that all?" she asked, and then said, "See if you can get both hands around the one on the right." The tips of my two index fingers overlapped a half inch. "How big around is it?" I asked. "I'll pull up my pant leg. Take a good look at it...see if you can guess." The pitch of her voice was a half-octave lower than it had been. Professor Hensley laid her jacket over the railing, bent over slightly and took hold of her right pant leg. She jerked it up above her knee and rose up high on her toes again. My jaw dropped. "Can you guess its circumference?" she asked, her heavy voice echoing in the empty stairwell. "I wouldn't have any idea," I said. "Guess," she said. I knew a baseball was nine inches around. The calf I saw looked to be not quite twice as big. "Seventeen inches," I said. She laughed. "Good guess! How did you know?" I told her about the baseball. "Very interesting," she said. "Are you having any thoughts you'd care to reveal?" I hesitated. "Come on, it's just we two, here on this empty stairwell." "Yes," I said, tentatively. "What is it?" she demanded. "I'm surprised to find how much I like the look of it," I said. "Good!" she declared. "If you like looking at my calf now, you'll like to see it moving even more," she said, and with that, began to go up and down on her toes. "Let's start your lesson," she said, breathing deep with the effort. "My lesson?" "Yes, your lesson. The wonderful muscles you see are: the two heads of the gastrocnemius ... the medial and the lateral; and the soleus ... the long, tapering muscle that lies under the gastrocnemius. Do you see the symphony of concentric and eccentric contraction?" she asked. "Tell me what you see...don't be technical ... use lay terminology," she said, breathing hard now. I swallowed hard and began. "I see two mango-sized lumps sliding up and down under the skin as if they were on a track, and at the top of their slide they contract and at that moment, distinct, steeply-cornered edges appear around their lower borders." "Very good," she said. "Now, what are your thoughts?" I felt like I was being swept away. I spoke without thinking. "My liking of it is strong," I said. "I think you're hedging," she said. "Come on, now ... be frank." She was nearly panting now. "I've got a big hardon," I said. "So do I," she said. I stood up. "What?" Professor Hensley turned around and let go of her pant leg. Her chest heaved. "Homologically speaking, that is," she said, between breaths. "I mean my clitoris is hard as it can be. I love it when my muscles make someone excited ... it turns me on." "Well," I said, "You've got your wish ... they've made me very excited." The old professor stepped down to my level and reached for my crotch. Her practiced fingers examined the length and circumference of my pole- hard dick. "So I see," she said, her fingers working away. She moved closer. Her other arm wended its way around my waist. She pulled me tight against her. She lifted her old face. Her lips parted. I smelled her sweet breath blowing hard. In a moment, we had our mouths glued together, our tongues wriggling like goldfish playing in slow motion. She was standing high on her toes, her hips grinding against me. I let my hands go to her ass. Her buttocks were hard as stones one moment, then soft as bags of farmer's cheese the next, flexing and relaxing as she heaved herself against me. Her size reminded me of an old mama-san I had known in 'Nam. I had liked her very much and went to her often, despite the disparaging comments from the guys in my first unit. I didn't care what they said. She was good to me and good for me. The past and the here-and-now were beginning to become indistinguishable when all at once Professor Hensley pulled away. She looked me in the eye and licked her lips. "This is where your first one-on- one ends, I'm afraid," she said, passing her fingers over her tight hair. "Sorry to bring it to such an abrupt end, but over the years I've learned that stopping just as the going gets good motivates a student to return," she said, and with that, she turned, picked her jacket off the railing and scaled the second flight of stairs two at a time. At the top, she stopped and turned back to me. "One more thing," she said. "Not a word of your one-one-one to the others." Her admonition took me completely off guard. "Whatever you say, Professor," I managed. "That's right ... whatever I say, and don't forget it," she said, and then quickly turned to the right and disappeared down the hall. I could hear her sandals scuff on the old tile ... I counted twelve footfalls. Then the sound of a key in a lock, a door opening, the hiss of a hydraulic closer and finally a soft clicking shut of the latch. I felt the blood drain out of my penis. My balls ached. I felt empty and angry, stung by her words. She had her nerve, talking to me like she was a fucking first lieutenant. I knew if I stayed there stewing on the landing my rage might overwhelm me so I made my way down the seven-and-a-half flights of stairs to the ground floor and walked out of the building. My watch said half- past. The whole thing had taken only fifteen minutes. I looked around to get my bearings. A few students were hurrying across campus through the long, late afternoon shadows. I was hungry and went in my pocket to see how much money I had. I felt a tightly-folded piece of paper next to a few bills. I knew I hadn't put it there. I took it out and opened it. It was a piece three by five office stock. Below Professor Hensley's name and degree were the words: "Be here next week, same time, for your second one-on-one." "I'll be damned," I said aloud. I knew she must have written it before class not knowing which of us she'd end up with. Most importantly, I hadn't felt her slip the note in my pocket. I shook my head in disbelief. I had let my guard down. That could get you killed in Vietnam. If a girl on the street got in your pocket, she might find something that told where your unit was and you might end up getting shot that night. Stuff like that happened all the time. The thought of Professor Hensley's hand in my pocket shook me to the core. I called myself a careless, stupid fuck. Hearing my words reminded me I wasn't in Vietnam anymore. I was on the campus of Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, and as odd and unusual as the professors might be, I didn't think they snuck around at night trying to shoot each other or their students. One of them might want to show me her muscles, but she wouldn't kill me. I'd kill her first if it came to that. Before I could stop them, the memories came upon me. I shook them off; pulled up my collar and headed for a place where I knew there was a cute waitress who would give me a big bowl of bean soup and a beer for cheap. I thought about what had happened in the stairwell as I ate my dinner and speculated about what my next one-on-one might entail. The old broad was right ... I was motivated to go back for the next one; never mind her pulling rank on me. I wanted to see what the rest of her looked like and got stiff thinking about it. The cute waitress acted like she wanted me real bad, but I went home alone. Dreams of my old mama-san pestered me that night and for three nights afterwards. In my dreams she had calves as big and muscular as Professor Hensley's. To be continued