The Professor

I can't remember the first time I saw a grainy penis photo or when I first learned that BBW means "big beautiful woman" or that men use the internet to find BBWs for casual DDF (drug and disease free) sex. But I do know that those moments changed my life. From then on, Craigslist was no longer a website, but an invaluable source of entertainment.

Some afternoons my friends and I would spend hours browsing casual encounters ads scouring for photos of transvestites wearing lingerie with their penises smashed like miniature hams, uncomfortably against a pair of fishnet tights. We would pump our fists into the air when we would stumble across a rare photo of an anonymous vulva, cheering even more if the vulva was awkwardly shaped or partially shaven. We would read pieces of illiterate erotica to each other in our creepiest voices until our eyes were watering and our abdominals hurt.

We became so hooked on the vulgarity that we began to browse the ads on an individual basis, sending links over MySpace or MSN Messenger if we found anything particularly disturbing. We even began exploring other cities. We discovered that Las Vegas and New York City were always the best bets.

A month after I moved to Chicago, I realized I hadn't seen what Chicago's Craigslist had to offer. I browsed around for about fifteen minutes, and then it occurred to me that it'd be much more gratifying to read responses to an ad than reading the ads themselves. Without hesitation, I went to work on my first piece of amateur erotica:

Shove my face in your filthy prurience! - w4m - 21Ignore me all night, while I sulk in the corner drinking copious amounts of shit wine, occasionally shooting you glances, which you acknowledge with a sadistic hunger, but only for a millisecond. Grab me by the arms and slam my face against your headboard. Tease me until I'm squirming and unbearably wet. Hit me! Abuse me! And when I can't take it anymore, continue to give it to me, my body smothered by yours. Ignore my moans. Then shove your cock into my tight lips. Continue until you please, then release me, and let my tongue have its way with you. Ejaculate on me. Degrade me. Then allow me to pleasure myself as you clean up--the most immaculate orgasm of all. I want to leave your place with bruises and no goodbye, alone on the L at four-thirty in the morning, completely disheveled and dirty. Vibrant!

My new email (slutttbucket@yahoo.com) inbox filled within minutes.

hi, i'm vince....35, 5'9.5' 250, teddybear, intelligent, educated, caring, open minded, articulate, cultured, good sense of humor, stunningly handsome (see!), and interested in connecting (not just physically) with someone perhaps like you....i am an s&m "dom/master" but i can be very gentle....i think i can help you...i'm stunningly skilled at all types of physical contact, especially oral....vincei know it's a silly pic, but there it is....

[Attached was a photo of an Asian man with a pointed mustache, glasses, sailor cap, and very serious expression]

you fucking cunt get over here and put your face against my balls..~b

[The email came with two photos—one of him baking, and the other of him wearing a chef's jacket.]

WHAT EVER U SAYI DONT THINK YUR REAL

Hey. I'm Alijon. I was bored at home when I came upon your page. I'm by Foster and Lake Shore Drive. I'm 5'10, 140 lbs, wavy black hair, brown eyes and light skinned. I'm trimmed and circumsized. I'm quite freaky, pretty kinky and very hardcore. I love makeing girls deep throat, gag, and I also like name calling, slapping, spitting, choking and talking during fucking. I love ass fucking and I have no problem using condoms, so let me know if you want to try me out. If you're interested please reply with pictures. Thanks. I want us to have fun. I'd love to meet you. Bye

Reply after reply, I wondered how anyone could legitimately want to meet someone off Craigslist for casual sex. But after about 25 replies from inarticulate sadists, I received an email I couldn't stop reading.

You likely got a lot of messages in reply to yours.Most of the men who respond are posers. They don't understand you.I do.You will cry when you leave because you loved it so much and hate yourself too.I am a college professor and I like to lick and suck and bite and slap. You sound like you need to be taken. I would love to use you and ignore you at least a few times tonight. My condo needs some excitement.Can you handle that I'm older than you? I'm 42. You want me to be your professor? You want to work to get a better grade from me? You will cum tonight--you will hate yourself. You will wish you were worthy of my attention. You will get an education in sex from me.I'm free tonight if you are, you wet cunt.I am your Dom for the night.

Not only did the man use proper grammar, but he claimed to be a professor—a, perhaps sick, fantasy of mine. Despite my shame for being completely intrigued by an email from a creepy, old Craigslist man, I responded. Our bizarre sadomasochistic correspondence went on for a little under the week when the Professor insisted on meeting for drinks. In an attempt to ease my apprehension about meeting a Craigslist stranger, the Professor sent me his full name, the name of the college he worked for, as well as the department he worked for. With the power of Google, I found the Craigslist Professor. He seemed legitimate enough. But with that same omnipotent power, I also managed to find a photo of the Professor. I tried to swallow my superficiality and hesitantly made the decision to meet him. I wrote one last journal entry before I left to put my life in the Professor's domineering hands:

I'm very nervous about meeting the Professor. The thing about it is, I'm not nervous about the prospect of getting murdered. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was right in the moment of the murder, but otherwise I would hardly care if he turned out to be a psychotic internet predator that takes college sluts' lives. It would be an interesting story, to say the least, if a professor killed me after a tantric massage.

What I'm nervous for is that I'll be so completely superficial and not be able to feel aroused by him. He is, after all, a 42 year old. There are many attractive older men, to be sure, but he has unfortunate genes from what I've seen in his photo. He is white. You know? Not exotic at all. He has a goatee and a mustache. The only time I've ever liked goatees was when I was 11 and living in the nineties. I love facial hair, but not well kempt facial hair. He has a dirty smile, which I don't find charming or intriguing, but instead, disgusting. He told me he'll be wearing black pants and a red shirt. I can picture the shirt as one of those late nineties bowling shirts--the kind of shirts with dragons or flames or something. It will be either blowing around his gut in the Chicago wind, showing his whimsical take on adulthood, or tucked into his pants, accentuating his hairy man gut.

He's going to pick up wine. We're going to his place three blocks away, where he is going to have me wear something from his collection. I'm very apprehensive about this. I'd rather be fully nude than in some filthy, unflattering lingerie. He's given me the safety word "elephant." He's also given me safety motions for when my mouth is busy. And an alternative for when my hands are restrained. His goal, he says, is to make me cry and come and cry and come and etc. It may very well be too much for me. I'm not sure I'll be able to tolerate his man foot shoved into my mouth or him trying to fist me. Oh god. I hope he doesn't fist me.

That night, I sat outside my building for two cigarettes in a row, hoping the nicotine would somehow erase the Professor's photo from my memory. "Maybe he's just not photogenic," I tried lying to myself. A friend in my building came down and asked my plans for the evening. I told him the entire story interspersed with uncontrollable bouts of pink-faced laughter. When I explained how hesitant I was to meet the Professor, he invited me to his friend's apartment. At the apartment, I text the Professor my approximate location, but before I found the courage to finally meet him, I was hit with the first wave of sensibility I had felt that entire Secretary-online week: "Amanda Lee, do not fuck the Professor! Do not even meet the Professor."

Relieved that I was no longer in a nerve wrecking fantasy world, my friend and I decided to go on a beer run. Walking and laughing at how absurd it was that I had nearly gone home with a professor from Craigslist, I noticed something from the corner of my eye. My heart stopped. It was that wretched goatee! The Professor was leaned up against the wall inside an unlit doorway waiting for his disillusioned college slut.