Stella Barey: I am bad Anal Girl!

Stella can’t stand old movies, but she can’t pull her eyes off her professor. Maybe after his film appreciation lecture this campus bad girl can show him the merits of contemporary hardcore.

The film was black and white, which was already strike one. It was in French, strike two. And it was three hours long, which would have been strike three if Stella hadn’t been too distracted to care about strikes at all.

Professor Davies stood at the front of the lecture hall, silhouetted against the flickering images on the screen. He was explaining something about cinematic symbolism, about the way the director used light and shadow to represent moral ambiguity, but Stella wasn’t hearing a word. She was watching the way his hands moved when he talked. The way his glasses caught the light when he turned a certain way. The way his voice dropped slightly when he was explaining something he particularly loved.

She’d signed up for this class because she needed an elective and Film History 201 fit her schedule. She hadn’t expected to find herself utterly, hopelessly captivated by the man teaching it.

Professor Davies—James, though she’d never dare call him that—wasn’t conventionally handsome. He was maybe forty, with grey at his temples and lines around his eyes that suggested he smiled more than most academics. He dressed in rumpled jackets and wore bow ties that should have looked ridiculous but somehow didn’t. And when he talked about film, about the art and craft and magic of it, his whole face lit up like he was seeing something no one else could.

Stella had never cared about old movies. She’d grown up on Marvel and Netflix, on fast cuts and louder soundtracks. But sitting in his class, watching him watch the screen, she started to understand that there was something here she’d been missing. Something about patience. About attention. About letting a story unfold at its own pace.

“Miss Chen?” His voice cut through her reverie. “I asked for your thoughts on the final scene.”

Stella blinked, realized the film was over and the lights were up, and found thirty students staring at her. Including him.

“I… sorry, could you repeat the question?”

A few students snickered. Professor Davies just smiled, patient and warm. “I asked what you made of the final image. The woman at the window. What do you think the director was trying to communicate?”

Stella looked at the screen, frozen on a single frame—a woman’s face, half in shadow, half in light, her expression impossible to read. She thought about what he’d been saying earlier, about light and shadow and moral ambiguity.

“I think…” She paused, gathering herself. “I think she’s caught between two things. What she wants and what she’s supposed to want. And the light and shadow show that she doesn’t know which is which anymore. She’s literally torn.”

Professor Davies’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s excellent. Truly. Anyone else want to build on that?”

The discussion moved on, but Stella caught him glancing at her twice more before the class ended. Each time, her heart did something complicated in her chest.

After class, as students filed out, she lingered at her desk, pretending to pack her bag slowly. Professor Davies was at the podium, gathering his notes. When the room was nearly empty, he looked up.

“Miss Chen. That was a very perceptive observation. Have you taken many film classes before?”

“No, this is my first.” She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’m actually a business major. This is just an elective.”

His eyebrows rose. “A business major who reads ambiguity in a 1960s French film. I’m impressed.”

Stella felt heat rise to her cheeks. “The professor helps. You make it interesting.”

Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe, or recognition. “That’s kind of you to say. I’ve always believed that the right teacher can open doors students didn’t know existed.” He paused, then added, “If you ever want to talk more about film, my office hours are open. I mean that.”

Stella nodded, not trusting her voice, and fled before she could say something embarrassing.

But she took him up on the offer.

The next week, she appeared at his office hours with a list of questions about the films they’d been watching. Real questions, mostly—she’d actually done the reading, actually watched the movies, actually found herself curious about the answers. But underneath the academic curiosity was something simpler: she just wanted to be near him.

His office was small, cluttered with books and DVDs and student papers waiting to be graded. He cleared a chair for her, made tea in a chipped mug, and talked about cinema with the kind of passion that made her forget to breathe.

“You really love this,” she said during a pause. “Not just teaching it. The films themselves.”

Professor Davies smiled, and it transformed his face. “I do. I know it’s silly, caring so much about things that are decades old, made by people long dead. But great art doesn’t die. It waits. It sits there in the dark, hoping someone will come along and see it for the first time.” He looked at her, and something in his gaze made her heart stutter. “Like you, with that scene last week. That film had been waiting for you to see it that way.”

Stella looked away, overwhelmed. “I don’t know if I believe in all that. The waiting, the meaning. I just… I saw something.”

“You did. That’s the whole point.” He leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you really in this class? Business majors don’t usually end up in Film History 201.”

Stella considered lying. Considered giving the easy answer about needing an elective, about fitting it into her schedule. But something about the way he was looking at her—open, curious, completely without judgment—made her want to be honest.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I signed up because I had to take something. But then I walked into the first lecture, and you were talking about cinema like it mattered, like it was alive, and I couldn’t look away.” She met his eyes. “Not from the films. From you.”

The silence that followed was heavy with implication. Professor Davies’s expression shifted—surprise, then something more complicated, then a careful professionalism sliding into place.

“Stella,” he said quietly. “I’m your professor.”

“I know.”

“There are boundaries. Ethical considerations. I can’t—”

“I know.” She stood, suddenly needing to move. “I’m not asking for anything. I just wanted you to know. Because you talked about honesty, about seeing things clearly, and I couldn’t keep pretending I was here for the films.”

She was at the door when his voice stopped her.

“Stella. Wait.”

She turned. He was standing now, his hands shoved in his pockets, his expression torn.

“I can’t have this conversation with you. Not now, not like this. But I can tell you that I’ve noticed you too. That I’ve looked forward to your questions, your observations, the way you see things no one else sees.” He took a breath. “If you’re still in this class at the end of the semester, after grades are submitted and I’m no longer your professor—if you still want to have this conversation then—I’d be open to it.”

Stella stared at him, heart pounding. “You would?”

“I would.” He smiled, sad and hopeful at once. “But until then, we’re professor and student. Nothing more. Can you do that?”

She nodded slowly. “I can do that.”

The semester stretched ahead, full of old movies she was learning to love and a man she was learning to wait for. Every class, every glance, every question and answer was charged with the knowledge of what might come after.

And when finals ended, when grades were posted, when he was no longer her professor—Stella walked to his office one last time.

The door was open. He was waiting.

“Miss Chen,” he said, but his eyes were smiling.

“Professor Davies.” She stepped inside. “I was hoping we could talk about film. Among other things.”

He stood, crossing to her, and for the first time, there was no desk between them.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”