In my role at the university, I am responsible for looking into all reports of gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and assault. My office was recently made aware of a report that alleges you violated the University’s Title IX Policy.

Incident Summary: A student alleges that you made inappropriate comments in English 3440 “Star-Crossed Lovers” during a discussion about male teachers in various literary texts having affairs with their students.

This university takes these allegations seriously, and I would like to schedule a meeting to discuss the allegations.

Please know that you are welcome to have an adviser or advocate accompany you. Additionally I would greatly appreciate your not discussing this matter with anyone so as to preserve the integrity of the inquiry.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

The instant he was back in his office, he checked the university website, and there she was: Dr. Elizabeth Sacco, Title IX Initiatives Office. He only vaguely recalled that the university even had such an office, dedicated to sexual harassment claims.

These charges were ridiculous. Never before had he been accused of impropriety. For several minutes he sat trying to compose himself before he responded. If he sounded defensive, it could antagonize Dr. Sacco. If he sounded dismissive, she might be offended that he didn’t take the charge seriously.

He forced out a neutral response and told her he was free to meet the next day, at her convenience.

For the rest of the day, he was weighed down by an indefinable guilt, wondering if he had indeed committed some awful offense. His mind kept spinning awful possibilities, creating an apprehension that the complaint would snowball, take on a life of its own. What if Sacco chose to side with the student, who he assumed was female? What if they made him the sacrificial lamb at the altar of political correctness? How ironic, since he’d always been a proud defender of women’s rights. Now he might be lumped in with the likes of Harvey Weinstein. Or maybe he was overreacting. Maybe this was just a misunderstanding and Elizabeth Sacco was simply doing her job, following up on unfounded rumors.

But the next morning, while he stood outside the door labeled OFFICE FOR UNIVERSITY EQUITY AND COMPLIANCE, he felt as if he were about to step into Kafka’s The Trial, where Josef K. woke up one day to discover he’d been arrested for an unknown crime and faced his own execution.

He opened the door, and the receptionist flashed him a cool smile. “Professor Dorian?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Sacco’s expecting you. Come this way.”

. . . to the chopping block.

He’d been expecting an ogre, but the woman who greeted him seemed pleasant enough, in her early forties and dressed in a somber gray pantsuit. With her short hair and owlish glasses, she reminded him of a clergywoman.

He settled in the chair across from her, suppressing the urge to blurt: Why the hell am I here? This was the office that dealt with claims of sexual discrimination, harassment, and abuse. Last year, it had investigated the rape of a female student by a drunken hockey player. The complaint against him seemed absurd by comparison, and he wondered if this was simply a student’s revenge for a bad grade he’d given.

They exchanged a few tense pleasantries about the recent snowstorm and the miseries of New England weather. She told him she was from South Florida and, until a few years ago, had seen snow only in movies. Then a few beats of silence told him the pleasantries were over.

“I understand how unsettling this may be for you,” she said.

“‘Unsettling’ doesn’t come close. I thought at first your email was some kind of hoax, because I’ve never been accused of anything like this. This is not me.”

“I’m simply trying to determine the facts, and I hope to resolve this in a way that satisfies everyone. As I wrote in my email, a student in your Star-Crossed Lovers class complained about comments you made.”

“What comments?”

“You made this student uncomfortable when you spoke approvingly about teachers having affairs with students. Is that an accurate assessment of what you said in class?”

“Absolutely not! My comment was only in reference to characters in novels. I think I used as examples The Human Stain and Gone Girl. Are you familiar with those?”

“I saw the movie Gone Girl.”

“Then you remember that Ben Affleck’s character took up with one of his students.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And are you familiar with the letters of Abelard and Heloise?”

“They were lovers from the Middle Ages, as I recall.”

“He was a teacher, and she was his young student. I simply pointed out that Heloise and Abelard may have inspired other writers to explore teacher-student affairs in contemporary fiction. And how these situations are driven by the characters’ circumstances.”

She nodded. “I was an English major. I understand the point you were trying to make.”

That was encouraging. “The male characters in these novels are all flawed and vulnerable. They have unhappy marriages, or they’re lonely, and they’re hungry for intimacy. That leads to the affairs. I was not advocating any such behavior, and it’s ludicrous to think that I was. I mean, what instructor would do that?”

“Yes, I understand. But you can appreciate, given current events, that we’re especially sensitive to any hint of sexual misconduct.”

“Of course. I’m all in favor of disciplining men who harass and abuse. But I can’t believe anyone in class felt threatened by a discussion of fictional teachers having fictional affairs with fictional students.”

She looked at her notes. “The student who filed the complaint also reported that you said you understood why it could happen. Why a professor would have an affair with a student.” She looked up at him.

He felt his face flush in anger. “That’s not what I said. In fact—”

“Professor Dorian.” She held up her hand. “I also interviewed other students, and one in particular described the incident exactly as you just did. She was very insistent that you were discussing only characters in a book, and nothing else.”

She. Was it Taryn Moore who’d defended him? It had to be.

“So I’m going to assume this complaint was merely a misunderstanding.”

He released a sigh of relief. “Then . . . that’s it?”

“Yes. However, for future reference, you might consider including trigger warnings on your syllabi. Other professors are doing that, alerting students that some of the course material might be offensive because of violence, sexual abuse, racism, et cetera.”

“I know others are doing that, but I have a problem with trigger warnings.”

“Why?”

“Because feeling uncomfortable is what a college education is all about—being exposed to disturbing aspects of human experience. We’re talking about twentysomething adults who are exposed to a lot worse in the daily news. I’m not going to infantilize them.”

“I’m certainly not going to tell you how to teach your courses. But just consider it.”

He got up to leave.

“Just one more thing,” she said. “The university strictly prohibits retaliation against anyone involved in a Title Nine investigation.”

“I wouldn’t do that even if I knew who complained.” But he did know, or he had a pretty good idea. He could picture Jessica now, exchanging sly winks and conspiratorial whispers with her roommate, Caitlin, whenever they disagreed with anything he said. And he remembered the C-minus he’d scrawled on Jessica’s paper, a grade she’d angrily challenged.

But he would not retaliate. He’d simply show up for class and carry on as if nothing had happened. He shook Elizabeth Sacco’s hand, thanked her for dropping the charge, and walked out, feeling fifty pounds lighter.

And thinking: Thank you, Taryn.

CHAPTER 12

JACK

“What did the student complain about?” Maggie asked as they drove to the clinic to meet Charlie. They were both feeling anxious about his appointment, and to fill the silence, he’d mentioned his meeting with the Title IX coordinator.

“We were discussing the letters of Heloise and Abelard. You know, the two lovers from the twelfth century,” he said, as if that explained things. But it didn’t.

“Heloise and Abelard? Isn’t there an exhibit about them at the MFA? I saw a banner for it on one of the buses.”

“Right. The exhibit opens this week.”

“So what do Heloise and Abelard have to do with your Title Nine issue?”

Suddenly he wished he had never brought up the subject. Since the complaint had been dismissed, he felt exonerated, a victim of a vengeful student. On some level, he’d thought that sharing the situation with Maggie would neutralize any suspicions she might have. But on another level he felt as if he were recklessly confessing to a crime he’d never committed. “I explained to the class that the Heloise-and-Abelard affair served as a model for contemporary stories like Gone Girl and others.”

“Wasn’t Abelard her teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“And he was a lot older than she was?”

“Yeah. As a result of the affair, he was castrated and served out his days in a monastery. And Heloise was shut away in an abbey.”