My Professor Wants Me Ruined

POV Elisa

Here's the thing about cheap wine: it's basically liquid courage in a $7 bottle, which is exactly what I need walking into Liv's apartment for the first time.

Six weeks of friendship and she's already inviting me over like we're not basically strangers who happen to sit next to each other in International Relations. Some people have this supernatural ability to just trust — must be nice having parents who didn't fuck you up.

Liv practically tackles me onto her couch, all golden retriever energy in human form. The place smells like every Pinterest board's wet dream: vanilla candles and garlic bread.

"Breakup horror stories, go. I'll start."

Two hours later, we're halfway through the bottle and she's describing what might be the most pathetic sexual encounter in recorded history.

"And then—I swear to God—he just started crying." Liv throws her blonde head back against the couch cushions. "Mid-thrust."

I pull my knees up. "What did you do?"

"What could I do? I held him. Patted his back. Told him it was okay." Liv snorts into her glass. "Worst orgasm of my life. Zero stars. Would not recommend."

The laughter comes easier than expected. Maybe it's the wine. Maybe it's Liv's freckled face glowing with that particular flush that makes white girls look like sexy tomatoes.

She's got these swimmer's shoulders that make her oversized hoodie look intentional rather than depression chic, and when she nudges my foot with hers, I don't immediately recoil. Progress.

"Your turn," she says. "Spill."

My smile falters. The words stick in my throat like broken glass.

"Come on," Liv presses, softer now. "That's the whole point of tonight. Plus, my family's so fucked up, nothing you say could shock me. Did I mention Mom brings her yoga instructor home when Dad's at evening lectures? Like, I can literally hear them through the walls. It's disgusting."

"Your mom's having an affair?"

"Affairs, plural. The yoga guy, someone from her book club, probably the contractor who redid our kitchen." Liv drains her glass. "They're waiting for me to graduate before they make it official, I think."

The perfect family isn't perfect.

"That's... heavy," I manage.

"Whatever. Your turn. Spill about your disaster ex."

Tell her. She deserves to know what kind of mess she's befriended.

"His name was Kilian." The syllables taste like ash. "He's forty-five."

Liv's eyebrows achieve liftoff but she stays quiet.

Smart girl. She knows when to shut up and let the trauma flow.

"We were together for a whole year. He had this penthouse downtown with marble everything and windows so big birds probably get PTSD."

I stare into my wine.

"I thought I was special. He said I was 'different from other girls.'"

"What happened?"

"I wanted to go to university. Revolutionary concept, right? A woman wanting an education." The bitterness tastes familiar, like an old friend. "He said it was 'cute' that I thought I needed it. That a woman's place was — and I quote — 'in the kitchen.'"

Liv's hand finds my knee, squeezing gently. "That's disgusting. Though clearly you need the education since you're already failing my dad's class."

"Thanks for the reminder. The Hobbes paper is kicking my ass."

"Dad will help. He's actually great at explaining things when he's not being all professor-y." Liv refills our glasses. "But seriously, what happened with the asshole?"

I drain my glass.

"When I enrolled anyway, he sent photos of me to a professor here. Intimate photos. I took them when I turned eighteen."

The silence that follows could suffocate a small village.

"Wait." Liv sets her glass down with a sharp clink. "He did what?"

"Photos that were supposed to be just for him. He showed me the email he sent. Like he was proud of it."

That bastard.

The memory surfaces with HD clarity: Kilian's smug face as he pulled up his email. The message with attachments I recognized even from the thumbnails.

Victor L…

That was all I could see before the name was cut off.

Here's what I know about men: they're all the same algorithm with different skins. See woman, acquire woman, control woman, punish woman for having thoughts.

"Elisa, that's…" Liv struggles. "That's illegal."

"I know."

"Do you know which professor?"

"No. But I'm sure it's just some random faculty member I'll never meet."

"We're reporting that piece of shit tomorrow." She bounces up. "Tea. And Dad needs to meet you — he'll know exactly what to do."

Before I can explain that involving more men in this situation ranks somewhere between "unnecessary" and "please God no," she's already halfway down the hall.

"DAD! Come here!"

The man who appears in the doorway looks like what would happen if a DILF and a literature professor had a baby and raised it on NPR and craft beer.

Navy henley pushed up to show forearms that have definitely seen both a gym and a library card. Dark hair with that silver-fox thing that makes middle-aged men think they're George Clooney. Wire-rimmed glasses that somehow make him look more dangerous, not less.

I know this face. I sat in his lecture three days ago.

"Elisa, this is my dad, Professor Victor Larsen."

The world tilts.

Larsen.

Professor Victor L.

I'd been so distracted staring at him during lectures that I never caught his actual name.

Our eyes meet and I swear to God time actually stops. Like, full Netflix-pause stops. His knuckles go white around the mugs he's holding but his face stays perfectly neutral.

This man—my best friend's father—has seen me naked. Has those photos saved somewhere, probably. Every man does. They all keep them like trophies.

But his face gives me nothing. No hunger, no recognition beyond polite acknowledgment. Like photos meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

That's not how this works. That's not how men work.

"Dad, this is my friend, Elisa Valenti."

Oh, he knows. He knows exactly who I am.

"She's in your eleven a.m. Political Thought lecture," Liv chirps, oblivious to the nuclear meltdown happening three feet away.

Victor sets a mug in front of me. Our fingers brush and I wait for the tell — the lingering touch, the thumb that "accidentally" strokes skin. But nothing.