Dr. Bertrand was in his middle thirties, blonde and blue-eyed. He had a great, grizzly blonde-brown beard that he let go untrimmed. It grew way up over his cheeks and down the front of his neck. As usual, he was dressed casually, wearing a striped t-shirt, Bermuda shorts and sandals. With his longish hair, that beard, and his deep, reddish brown suntan, he looked more like a life guard than a full time professor. He was a very handsome guy and he knew it too.

"Excuse the mess," he said, indicating the debris with a wave of his hand. "I'm trying to get things organized for the new quarter."

Joselyn tried her best not to smirk.

"Push the print outs off that chair," he said, "and sit down."

She did as he asked, shoving the phone book sized stack of paper off onto the floor and taking a seat across from him. As she did so, she felt his eyes drop to her breasts, licking over them, then dropping lower, down to the smooth, flat plane of her bare tummy that lay between the bottom edge of her tube top and the top edge of her cut off jeans. He seemed particularly fascinated by her belly button. His interest in her body was anything but "scientific". And the doubts she'd felt earlier surfaced once more. Could she really hope to control a man like Bertrand? He was not only big in stature in his field, but big in stature, period. A great golden bear of a man who could toss her about like a little doll if he chose to. She shivered at the thought.

"Have you decided on a student to be your assistant for this year?" she asked, much more abruptly than she had intended to.

The professor's eyes swept up from her crotch and her long, silky legs. For a second, the leer on his lips remained, then he seemed to regain his composure.

"An assistant?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"That's right," she continued, pushing on gamely. "If you haven't made up your mind yet, I'd like to be considered for the job. I'm very interested in your atom surface scattering experiments. I think I'd like to do my thesis work in the same general area."