I jerked my hands guiltily out of my panties. "You never... but here you are..." There was something in his voice that was quite different from any tone I had ever heard him use. Part of it was something wolfish: something that sounded almost hungry to me. Part of it was that he seemed to be genuinely angry, to my astonishment. I've always thought that my reaction caught him by surprise, too. I was defiant, in a way that I had never been before about anything. As a professor, I have authority in my classroom; when conflicts with the administration arise, while colleagues protest, I simply throw up my hands and adopt the fatalistic attitude of one who knows that no lasting good ever comes from something called "the administration," but very little lasting bad comes from it, either. In my adult life, there has never been a need for an emotion approaching defiance. But there was something happening now with George that was taking place outside that adult life—or at least it seemed like it might be taking place there.
