Julia Casey allowed her students to address her in two ways and two ways only. Their options were “Professor” or “Doctor”. She had worked hard for her PhD and for her tenure track, dammit.

That was not to say that she did not enjoy teaching. She made it a point to learn all her students’ names. Students who sat quietly in the back of other classes asked questions and offered opinions in hers, and she was damn proud of that.

The main reason that she insisted on being addressed as “Professor” or “Doctor” was that otherwise, her students and even her peers tended to forget that she was brilliant. And eccentric. ‘Absent-minded Julia’ would be quickly written off. ‘Absent-minded professor’ was a statement of positive regard.

It was not that her mind was absent, strictly speaking, so much that it was in so very many places at once. When she was trying to think, really think, her mind expanded to absorb every possible idea, every present stimulus.

An unfortunate side-effect of that was that she would become acutely aware of the rub of her pants against her skin, the stray tag in her shirt, the elastic of her bra digging into her sides.

When she was trying to think, really think, Professor Casey needed to be naked.

This was one of the reasons that she’d insisted that one of the old workshops that was now too small to fit a class would become her office and workshop. It was in the basement of one of the older buildings on campus and while the lack of windows would have annoyed another professor, it was quite perfect for Julia. She could think however she pleased, whenever she needed to.

And today was a day when she needed to do quite a bit of thinking. The grant deadline was nearly upon her and she could feel it tightening its claws around her. She was onto something, she really was! But she just needed to put it in the right words, the words that would convince the committee to give her further funding. She had a working prototype and everything!

So Professor Casey paced, back and forth in the cluttered little workshop, wondering how she could possibly explain to the small-minded grant committee just how important her invention truly was.

Women were at a disadvantage when it came to personal protection, you see. Not just in the obvious ways. Tools could be used to overcome physical disadvantages — tools like firearms and pepper spray and tasers — but there was one very direct issue with these tools when used for home defense. They required that your ‘fight’ instinct be triggered.

Professor Casey knew plenty of happily violent women, but she also knew plenty of women and men who were much more likely to ‘flee’ or ‘freeze’. So, she had set out to create an autonomous home protection device. Most importantly, it needed to be non-lethal, so that it could err on the side of being over-protective.

And she had created just such a thing. It really worked! She just needed more time and a bit more money to refine the design to replace some of the more expensive and complicated parts.

As she paced, Professor Casey remembered that she’d spent a late night in the lab a couple days back and had scribbled down some ideas for the grant and crammed them in one of the back shelves. Eagerly, she hurried over towards them.

There was a soft snap, a whoosh, and then Professor Casey was on her side on the floor, the wind knocked out of her, and her limbs fully restrained.

She had forgotten that she’d left the prototype live. She’d tested it many times before, but always with the release in-hand. Now, the release was ten feet away on her desk. Or, was it in her bag? No, she’d left it on the bookshelf?

The clever bit about this invention was the detainment device. It was created from a special polymer that would become firm or limp depending on how much electrical current passed through it. It was folded into the ejector in such a way that as a pulse of electricity first activated it, it spread into a net. Then, specially timed pulses of electricity manipulated it to maximize the tangling coefficient. Once it was completely tangled around the target, the current would stay live to ensure that it was stiff and inescapable. Once de-activated, the fibers became limp and the target could extricate themselves.

It was incredibly effective. Nearly infallible.

Professor Casey struggled against the fibers, to no avail. The slight current of electricity within them raised the hairs on her arms, on the back of her neck.

She didn’t have time for this, the grant deadline was approaching! She—

Her phone dinged a reminder tone.

Wait, what was that about? She thought she was clear for the rest of the afternoon? She wiggled around so that she could see the clock over her door. It read 6am. Fuck, she’d forgotten to replace the batteries.

Julia wracked her brain. It was Tuesday afternoon, and on Tuesday afternoon, she had…

Open office hours.

And here she was, completely naked, tangled up in her own invention in the middle of the office floor.

She’d set the reminder for five minutes before office hours. Or was it ten? Or two? She didn’t usually cut it this close with her thinking time, but this grant deadline had her all out of sorts.

Her heart raced, her body preparing itself for fight or flight, though neither of those was an option.

Had she been able to crawl over to her phone, she could have used her nose to phone another faculty and request a rescue. But she couldn’t so much as wiggle. 

That was the genius thing about her invention, actually. The fibers formed a sort of perfectly molded cage from head to toe, holding her arms against her sides, her legs together. She couldn’t even bend at her hips.

And though it covered enough of her to totally restrain her, her breasts and her ass were still totally exposed.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not in the slightest.

The worst of it was actually that her heart rate rising, the heat flushing through her body, the tingling in her fingers and toes, wasn’t really fight or flight. It was abject arousal.

One of the electrified strands lay across her nipple, subtly stimulating the area. Another wrapped under her ass, digging into the skin and muscle and pulling tight enough that it just brushed the edge of her outer labia. That contact became firmer and firmer as her labia swelled with arousal.

Julia gulped, her mouth watering.

This was another one of her eccentricities. As her friend Emily, a professor of sexual health, had explained: most people were turned off by stress. Some people were turned on by it. Julia was really turned on by it.

But she needed to get a hold of herself. What if a student walked in?!

And that very thought aroused her further, worsening her predicament.

Thank god all of her students were legal, at least.

The more aroused she became, the more difficult it was to think.

And the more difficult it was to think, the more sure she was that she was going to be found like this.

And the more sure she was that she would be found like this, the more aroused she became.

And the more aroused she became, the more her labia swelled into the electrified fiber. And it felt good. And the better it felt, the wetter she got. And the wetter she got, the more the electricity tingled through her vulva.

The same hypersensitivity that had lead her to get naked in the first place filled her senses. She was so aware of every place the fibers pressed into her, of every electric tingle, the prickle as her hairs raised, a shift of air over her naked skin.

She was breathing heavily now. Her students would find her worse than naked. They’d find her naked and so aroused.

But then, a logical thought cut through the haze and she relaxed a bit. She always locked the door when she was thinking. So, they’d just find the door locked and think she’d forgotten about office hours. That happened often enough, they wouldn’t think too much of it.

There were footsteps in the hallway.

Julia’s heart skipped, sweat beaded on her upper lip. She licked it off, liking too much the way her tongue felt against her skin.

She had locked the door, right?

The handle turned.

She had not locked the door.

“Oh fuck,” she said.

The door swung open.

Julia froze.