An Exchange of Services

I’ve been kept from this blog lately, which is a bother because I had yet to conclude my 30 Seconds to Mars story (I had a couple readers complain to me about that, which is reassuring). The trouble is that I’m heading into finals week, and as it happens, my professors think essays come from magic and that I’m goddamn Merlin. There aren’t enough hours in the… hour, to accomplish what I need to. Combine that with Adelphia’s flickering broadband service at my house, and blogging has been nigh impossible. (At the moment Adelphia is being taken over by Comcast, so as of yet I’m not sure who to mail the king cobra to).

I’ve been equally occupied at my work. I tutor at my school’s Writing Center, and we’ve been getting some… interesting cases… in there lately, which I blame on the end-of-semester stress and the phase of the moon. Of the handful of stories I’ve accumulated in the last few weeks, here’s the most recent one of note.

During a session this week, one of our writing tutors was... propositioned for sex.

According to Patrick’s personal account, a 40-ish woman came in one evening especially harried. Her Art History papers were routinely mutilated by any pen-wielding professor who attempted to comprehend them, and she needed help with an especially important analysis assignment. When her alotted 45 minutes was almost up, the woman told Patrick, who is in his late 20’s, that she was dyslexic and couldn’t edit the rest on her own. She began speaking to him in hushed, confiding tones. If he could find the time to “come over” later and help her finish, she said, placing her hand on his leg with a smile, she would “take good care of him.” She slid her hand further up on him with a wink. Patrick was, it’s safe to say, taken off guard, and he reacted much like I would have under these circumstances (“she didn’t really just do that, la, la, la, la…”).

The woman saw that his uncomfortable disregard for the comment signaled her failure, and the session soon concluded without any home addresses being exchanged. That doesn’t change the fact, though, that this lady was willing to exchange sexual favors for proofreading.

Yesterday I learned who this student was, and I’m going to tell you that I’d had a couple one-on-one sessions with her, myself. Now, two weeks earlier I critiqued one of her feminist film analysis essays that she submitted to our online service, and seeing that there was too much going on in the paper to handle through email, I advised her to come in for some live tutoring. She showed up asking for me, and we sat down to review the parts of her essay that I hadn’t gotten to. The woman made a few disclaimers about how she was a horrible writer who hadn’t been back to school in eons, and even then her papers would be looked over by a boyfriend – a resource she no longer has. She was clearly a wounded ego, and I adopted honest yet euphemistic language that I use when I have to tell vulnerable writers why their papers are shit. She was much more accustomed to “direct” criticism, and when she noticed that I was sugar-coating a bit…

She: “I know, I know – this paper’s just terrible.

Me: “No, it’s just not ‘there’ yet.”

… she seemed half-surprised and half-appreciative, remarking that I was “very cute”. I blushed.

“Well, I’m just telling you…”
“No, really, you’re cute.”
("She didn’t really just say that, la, la, la, la.")
We moved on. Later, during a pause, she looked at me and said that I resembled her nephew in New York.
“Okay,” I acknowledged. “Now, if we move this phrase to the front of the sentence, does it sound any bet—”
“Oh, but he’s a very handsome young man,” she assured me.
“Really? Well… thanks, I guess.” I blushed. “That’s funny that I would look like—”
“His name is Giovanni.”
“Uh, okay.”

The next week I worked with her, she was better behaved. I suspect this was due in part of her having her two young children in tow. The prepubescent boy and girl played on a nearby computer, and their mother managed not to hit on me once.

I know what you’re going to say. First: poor kids. Second: I wasn’t the one being offered sex for editing, so what do I have to talk about?

Now granted, Patrick’s a tall, well-spoken man with a deep voice for radio, but if you ask me, it was all a matter of timing. She came to see me at 9:30 the morning; her appointment with my compadre happened to be in the evening. And don’t forget that this Writing Center temptress was likely more stressed as deadlines drew closer and closer, presumably bringing her desperation (if not her libido) to a boil by the time Patrick tutored her. Again, that’s not to say that Patrick doesn’t appeal to many females who receive his counsel: I know for a fact that he does. I’m just saying that had I been in his place that Wednesday night, I’d have undoubtedly received the same offer, that’s all. Which, mind you, I would have declined, but still, I’d have that story to tell instead of the one where I’m “cute”.

Right. Glad to clear that up.