Better Than Grey

By Tanya Tsikanovsky

What began as a fun, hot affair between Dani, a college student, and her English Professor, Sahtar, quickly turned into an intensely emotional and confusing ride that completely changed the way Dani saw the world and herself. With hilarious and super sexy scenes, as well as thought provoking commentary, Better Than Grey highlights the pains of growing into an adult, experiencing the agony of misreading a situation, and learning the brutal lesson that the answers we want most are never as clear as black and white.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480814554

Tanya Tsikanovsky

Tanya Tsikanovsky is a Los Angeles native who holds a BA in English Literature and Writing and an MS in Organizational Behavior Management. Her passions include eating, globetrotting, activism, and Israel. She lives in California with her fiancé, Melody, and their pup, Goozoo.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I drove past the parking lot entrance three times before pulling in. It had been eight months since I’d seen the place; I had been studying abroad in Florence, Italy and maxing out my credit card on weekend trips to different countries. I’ve always admired that about Europe. Nothing beats having the ability to grab a slice of pizza in Italy and a crepe in France all in the same day. You definitely can’t do that in L.A.; here we’re lucky if we can get through five miles in less than an hour and whenever we do finally arrive at our destination, we feel like we’ve just spent forty days and forty nights crawling through the desert only to find that we’ve basically ended up in the same place. But in Europe you can hop on a train and be in an entirely different country, hearing a completely different language, experiencing a completely different custom. I loved that. And I loved that she understood that.

She understood the transformative power of travel. Though she wasn’t with me, I took her everywhere I went, especially to the beautiful places, the breathtaking ones above seashores and inside gardens that always flooded my memory with crystal clear images of moments past spent with her. It didn’t matter those moments existed in a different place and at a time already gone because her presence in those moments I remembered her most was just as real as her hand inside my hand, her touch on my skin.

And it didn’t matter that it had been five months since I saw her nor did it matter that Italy was filled with some of the most beautiful women in the world that all seemed to want me. The stain she had left me with had ruined me for anybody else and forced me to dodge the sexy Italian glances that flashed my way as I walked down the dark side streets after a night’s out.

On the surface I was living the college student’s dream while internally wishing to be somewhere else entirely all because of the someone that wasn’t there. It’s crazy how much of my life was missing when I was missing her.

And even though I drove past the parking lot entrance so many times because it was just that nerve wrecking to see her again, I couldn’t wait to give her the gift-wrapped perfume I brought back for her from Amsterdam. It was her favorite, the scent of an angel she most certainly was. She wore it everyday she was on campus, without ever missing one, leaving the sweet smell lingering behind closed doors and hallways. I wanted to make sure she knew I noticed. I wanted her to know I still paid her that much attention, that all that time away in a different country didn’t make me forget, and that the emerald green wrapping paper lined with gold trim was a calculated decision I made based on how often she wore those colors. I wanted her to feel special. And maybe even a little more than that, I wanted her to remember me, to remember that I noticed the things that perhaps others didn’t. And with how many heads she turned and knees she made buckle, I needed all the help I could get.

Not even a month into her first year working and all of a sudden the English Department had a 30% increase in its English majors and a mile long line outside of her office for those ‘must have’ office hours. It’s as if everyone decided that writing was the ticket through the gates of heaven and Professor Sahtar was the ruling Goddess. She was like Helen of Troy; every other department came toppling down while students bribed and threatened the registrar to put them in her class. I guess because English was my major way before we had ever met, I felt like I had an upper hand over everyone else, that somehow she and I were members of our own special club and all she had to do was notice.

It only took the first day of class for it to happen, for that moment with a stranger when the world stops and music plays and everything ends happily ever after, that moment you dream about happening after you finish watching a romantic comedy. It was January 2008 and I had one semester left before my senior year. I was heading to Sahtar’s first class, while anxiously awaiting and worrying about the study abroad application I had just submitted for the upcoming fall semester in Florence. The acceptance and rejection notifications weren’t going to be released for another week, which was sheer torture because there is absolutely nothing worse than waiting for things. In fact, waiting for this was nearly impossible for me. Like Bette Midler believed, I want it now and I want it delivered, was pretty much the slogan for my life.

For a while I didn’t know the root of my absurd level of impatience, but a friend of mine had a pretty good hypothesis. She thought that my impatience was the result of my upbringing, specifically my being on a bottle until the age of five. While I recognize that’s a little odd, I wouldn’t eat anything else. There was a comfort unlike any other when that bottle was in my hands and that spout was in my mouth (insert obligatory bad lesbian pun here), so my mother, who took spoiling to a degree beyond rotten, made sure I got what I wanted. Of course a Jewish mother wouldn’t just let a five-year-old simply exist on milk for five years, so to ensure her child was both happy and healthy, she blended up bananas, cream of wheat, eggs, and milk all together, liquefied it as much as possible until it became a smooth, yogurt-like consistency, and then poured it into this abnormally large baby bottle. She figured out rather quickly that her creation was too thick to seep through the rubber nipple spout so she cut open a larger hole, and then had me get comfortable on the couch to enjoy it. This routine would repeat three to five times a day, all depending on when my mom would get the inkling that I was hungry. Essentially, before I ever even had a chance to feel hungry, food was in my mouth. And my dad was no different; he would hover over me in my crib and wake me up to feed me. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Aren’t babies supposed to be the ones waking their parents up out of hunger? As a result, from birth to five, I never cried out of hunger because they fed me preemptively, as if hungry meant dead.

Is it a surprise then that by the time I found a particular woman attractive, it was already expected she’d be in my bed? Fortunately, my messy faux-hawk haircut, green eyes, and desire to be a knight in shining armor never made getting laid in high school and college something that took too much time. It became apparent rather quickly in my adolescence that as long as you carried yourself confidently and treated a woman with respect, it was never difficult for her to choose to give you a chance.

But when you’re a spoiled and entitled twenty-one-year-old Jewish girl pursuing her forty-five-year-old Persian Muslim professor who everyone on campus knew to be straight, life’s not as easy as sucking on that milk bottle. Especially when it feels like you’ll hit menopause before she gives you a chance. And you know what? After everything, menopause may have been the better choice.

Chapter 2

O ur first class met on the first Thursday night of spring semester, my junior year. Right when it began, we immediately had the movielike kind of eye contact, like a wire connected us by our pupils. When I first got to class, I picked the front seat because the subject mattered to me. Had it been calculus or economics, you’d have found me in the back. But this was a course entitled Fiction 300 and the professor looked like Cleopatra, so she got an attentive and dedicated student, while I got a cure for my ADD. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had ever been able to sustain my attention the way she did, and I knew it instantly. I imagine it’s like your first experience with Adderall, only better because Adderall doesn’t have boobs.

She passed out the syllabus with her gold bracelets housing emerald green gems dangling delicately on her thin wrists. The bracelets were simple, feminine, and of high quality. Her fingers were long and her tan, Middle Eastern skin looked so soft and radiant. She made me understand what someone looked like when their skin tone lit up a room, while my pale ass blended in with walls. Her nail polish was a modest, creamy color that complimented her skin perfectly. She was truly elegant, not showy or boastful, despite her Chanel purse addiction and convertible Mercedes. She fit her Persian stereotype quite well in her liking of finer things, but her aura was of a simple woman who cared far more about a good conversation and a thrilling experience than a flashy car and whose radiant blue eyes were the most stunning blue eyes the world had ever known. Now if you could have those things and still drive off in a Mercedes, well, then you’d have it all. And that’s exactly what she had.

Seeing her stand in front of the class for the first time, the yearning desire in my body melted me to my seat and I was done for. I didn’t even notice the pile of syllabuses that were just resting on my desk needing to be passed back while the rest of the rows had already read onto the second page. I just sat there, blinders on the sides of my eyes keeping my stare in place, watching her bending over her desk, reading through her lecture notes. She wore a light green Banana Republic sweater with enough exposed cleavage to give away her bra size – had to be a 32 D – but not enough to qualify as inappropriate. She didn’t notice my eyes at first; she didn’t see them move up and down her cleavage. She just stood there, bent over her desk, calmly putting her hair behind her right ear and flipping a page of her notes.

When her eyes moved to the top of the next page, she looked up at me. Normally I’d flinch away and pretend I hadn’t just been staring, but her eyes kept me locked in place. We just stayed there, looking into each other without words or motions, just looking. I noticed her chest turn a little rosy and right as the corner of her mouth began forming a grin, I felt a tap on my shoulder nudging me to finally pass back the syllabuses on my desk. The tap zapped me out of the daze I was in and she too had snapped back to reality, now standing in front of the white board addressing the class and avoiding my eyes except for the few moments she could get away with it.

Unlike me who must have been panting with my tongue hanging out and my laser vision on high, she wasn’t nearly as obvious about it. Her age, position, and upbringing made her very much in control of herself. But nevertheless, her chest got warmer at the sight of my stare and her hands began to fidget each time we had the opportunity to lock eyes again. And that was enough for me to know the butterflies in my stomach weren’t alone.

She knew just how badly I wanted her each time she looked at me. She knew how badly I wanted to get up from my seat, to walk up directly to the podium she was standing in front of, slowly back her into the white board, run my fingertips up and down her arms and fingers, all while never moving our stare away. We wouldn’t kiss right away either - that would take all the heat out of it. But we’d stand there, lips parted, sharing each other’s breath, and bating the other to give in first. I’d be the one to do it, of course. I’d be the one to wrap my hands around her petite waist, press her melon-sized breasts against mine, and kiss her. I’d be the one leading the kiss, stopping to gently suck on her bottom lip while she collected her composure. Unlike the college girls whose lipstick I didn’t even notice, Sahtar’s would stain my lips in ways that would take years to wipe off. But it wasn’t just her lipstick that would stick.

She had a commanding presence in front of the room, but still managed to come off approachable and kind. She didn’t have a rough exterior, or a bitter one that most feminists carry, but a solid stance, both feet planted, with a confidence in her intellect and in her teaching. She wasn’t afraid standing up in front of the class, she wasn’t shaky about what she was teaching, or simply regurgitating information she was required to give us. She stood there oozing with passion, with love and appreciation for literature, for words, for expression, and most importantly, the art of teaching. She wanted to make us think, to make us question, to force us to look at life through various lenses. She wanted us to step outside of ourselves and she wanted to be that catalyst. She wanted to make sure that we learned how to stop and look at things for what they could be and not merely for what they were.

The entire class could tell this wasn’t going to be an easy A. This woman was about pushing us beyond the limits we’d typically take ourselves to. The syllabus was detailed, concise, with written assignments every week and tests every other. I wasn’t used to taking tests in my English classes; tests were typically reserved for all other majors, for the exception of midterms and finals, which all too often just required a paper. But Sahtar wanted to make sure we didn’t just skim through our reading assignments and then just color our bullshit papers with long, pretty words. She wanted to make sure we read carefully enough to catch those little details that we would have otherwise overlooked because we would only focus on whatever came through on the surface.

I was a genius at that. I would read through a few pages here and there, get the gist of what was going on, and then go off on a tangent that made me sound smarter than I really was. Most teachers fell for it – appreciating that I was able to tie in something outside of the book that better enhanced the story. They loved that I was able to verbalize what I was thinking, but they didn’t seem to care about what I was thinking; they were just impressed that I could convey those thoughts eloquently and clearly. But all I was doing was being a filler - the lettuce in the sandwich instead of the meat.

Our first assignment was to read the first few chapters of M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang – which, for the entirety of class, I mistook for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and asked if we would be taking a trip to the opera. Needless to say, the entire class laughed, and when Sahtar and I made eye contact, she winked at me in a flirtatious manner, but just enough for her to play off as coy to protect herself from anyone else in class noticing.

When class ended and everyone was gathering their things, Sahtar blurted out loud, I see attention to detail isn’t your strong suit, Puccini. I’m surprised. The few students left in the class could tell it was directed at me so they hurried up packing and left the class. Sahtar stood tall in the doorway, at 5’7, with her purse and book bag in tow, looking at my grabbing my stuff. I walked up to her, getting within a foot of her chest, and replied, I pay attention to the things I like. We got even closer to each other, now just about half a foot away, with our breasts nearly touching each other’s. The world and my awareness of my surroundings stopped. And right as I felt myself inching even closer to her, not for the purpose of making a move but because my body just couldn’t help wanting to be close to hers, she chuckled a little then walked out of the doorway towards the other end of the building. Right before she got to the building’s exit door, she turned around to face me – the now frozen statue still standing in the doorway, wanting so badly for her to walk back – and replied, I hope you like what I teach you because it would sure hurt my feelings if you didn’t pay attention." She backed into the door, flashed me another smile, and wished me a goodnight before the door shut behind her.

It took a while for me to move. Truthfully, not more than a minute, but that minute felt infinite. She had pegged me so quickly and accurately as the slacker – and she was right. It rattled me a little bit, her awareness of my shortcomings made me feel vulnerable and a little weak, which in tern only inspired me to try harder to impress her, to not allow her to think for a second that her teachings went unlearned and undervalued.

When I got home, I sat down to read those chapters and write the assigned, two page maximum description of what we interpreted the story to be about. It seemed like an easy enough assignment but after reading, it was really difficult writing what it was about. It was too soon for me to tell whether it was a love story or a story about convicting a criminal and when considering those two options, both seemed totally off mark. I was educated better than to think it was as simple as one of those two things, or that Sahtar would accept a Wikipedia answer. The story had to be about something bigger than just that. It needed to say something of greater value. It needed to make us think, not just feel.

I knew that M. Butterfly would be that poignant not because of its first few chapters, despite them being great, but because Sahtar had selected to teach it. And because she gave us an assignment that seemed so simple but in reality was really, really hard. She wanted us to understand how easy it was to get lost in our own heads, in our own visions, and in our own pleasures, to the point that we become completely blind to the outside world. That’s what M.Butterfly was really about. And Sahtar made sure it was the first thing we read because it aimed to burst open our limited scopes. She was someone that did so very quietly, operating from backstage. She would challenge us without ever actually saying, I challenge you. She was the deadliest kind of woman, the most powerful kind, because women like that control everything without ever letting you know. They’re the necks that twist the heads anyway they want. And when it came to her, all I wanted was to be her pretzel.

I don’t think I got any sleep that night. I kept thinking about her and how it felt being around her. True attraction is the closest thing to addiction because your desire overwhelms you; it suppresses your awareness of your surroundings to the point where you feel you have absolutely no control. That’s how it was for me. My thoughts of her fogged up my lenses, blinding me from everything else in sight. I’d lie awake at night trying to force my mind into dreaming about her so that sleeping wouldn’t keep me away. I’d imagine what her home looked like. It had to be nicely put together with photo frames filled with pictures of family around and books and newspapers everywhere, scattered cups of tea and orchids she must have had in every corner. The place had to have great lighting, too. She was a woman that needed that light, that visual recognition of freedom, of space outside the confines of her home.

She had lived all over the world she told us, from Iran where she was born, to England where she educated herself, to the U.S. where she made herself. She was freer than a bird and yet it seemed something always kept her very confined. Something always reminded her to take a step back and reassess. And while she was constantly doing that, I was trying to figure out how I was going to become a step she was going to take.

Chapter 3

T he week in between the last class and the next was a daze. I found myself thinking about Sahtar at every turn, during every minute of my other classes, when I’d spend time with my friends, and when I’d be alone. I couldn’t just walk around campus like any other regular student; I had to walk the pathways closest to her office just to increase the chances of seeing her. Everything became about her and I could never settle my nerves down. It was like being on a reality show, knowing that everything you’re doing is being captured on film. I felt that way walking around campus, like she was watching and scrutinizing every move I made. It sounds a little extreme, but I’ve always felt that if someone captures any bit of your soul, they get a little entry-way into that piece of it, too. And so maybe that’s why I felt her there so strongly – she had her own doorway into me and had become my conscience.

When the next Thursday came, it was as if it was date night. I anticipated it just like that, like a standing date every week, and I prepared for it that way, too.