The Seducer: A Gone From Daylight Inspired Story - 6. William Harker's Journal: Entry 6

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Thursday, September 6, 1989

“I dunno, Man! Sounds pretty weird to me. Come to think of it, I think this Dr. Wallee, or whatever, might be one of those ‘Sugar Doctors’. Not a diabetes guy, but, you know . . . one of those kind that if you give them a bit of honey you might just get a little sugar back?” Mike explained to me.

I wasn’t getting it. ‘Honey for sugar’ - what the hell is that even supposed to mean?

I corrected Mike saying Dr. V’s name right, ‘Valahi’, which I learned today meant Son of Walachia or One from Walachia. Walachia is a province of Romania right around the Carpathian Mountains.

Come to think of it, isn’t that where Dracula’s Castle is supposed to be?

Anyway, Mike meant that there are some Profs that, apparently, trade favors for good grades and that if one likes you, you can ease yourself right through a class with no work. Personally, I was offended on Dr. V’s behalf! My new mentor has done nothing to make me think he wants any ‘favors’ from me! I’m not so young and naïve as to not see a sex perv on the make for me!

Dr. V seems to appreciate my enthusiasm for the history of the Balkans, that’s all! It is something of an esoteric subject, to be sure. So many European history majors go in for the juicy British, French, or Italian histories when studying the various heritages. Few regard the complexities and enmeshments that the Balkan countries have in their history. Because of the Iron Curtain, this might be why not too many people like studying the region. It’s been cut off from the West for decades and so many of their cultures have been crushed under socialist tyrannies! But, history students forget, World War I was set off by the political craziness that the Balkans can get up to! It is always a forgotten part of the world, but when it raises its Double-Dragon Head, the Balkan roar can be heard all across the globe!

Wow, I just read that paragraph above and I guess I can say I’ve been paying attention to my ‘Sugar Doctor’! I swear he tells the history like he lived it! It’s like sitting down at the foot of a Wallachian warlord, listening to the glory days of a world so long forgotten that it seems like legend!

I’ll say one thing, I’ll never look at Turkey the same way again! The Turks . . . were a brutal bunch back in the day!

I was expecting another invitation to ‘tea’ tonight, but Dr. V didn’t offer one. He was, actually, pretty cold to me today. I hope I didn’t anger him with any of my behavior at his Salon Rouge place! I’m just so inexperienced around people like that, I really don’t know how to act a lot of times. Maybe he’s just busy. I mean, he’s a published expert in Balkan History and, since Gorbachev has lifted a lot of the bans on free expression in the Soviet Union, I can only imagine that this ‘breath of free air’ has been blowing through Eastern Europe too. I figure it has been blowing particularly hard in Yugoslavia and Romania. Those places were never as ‘communist’ as places like East Germany or Bulgaria. Perhaps Dr. V is thinking about going home? Maybe he’s sensing something new happening in his old country that he wants to be a part of somehow?

That makes me . . . sad, for some reason.

In the short time I’ve had my association with the good doctor, I’ve come to like him very much. There is such a strength and wisdom about him that I’ve never seen in any other man. He seems like such an old soul! Already, he’s shown me things and taught me things I’d never have even imagined! I’ve met people that I would never have met at all living my ‘normal’ little life!

I really hope he’s not lost interest in me! I would wonder how I could make myself more interesting to get back in his ‘good graces’.

Wow, maybe Mike is right! Maybe . . . the Sugar Doctor is looking for some ‘honey’!

Somehow, even that doesn’t seem out of the question! It’s weird, but Dr. V attracts me in other ways. Ways I never thought I’d feel about another man at all.

Anyway, his class tonight was about as dry as my relationship has become with Dr. V. We had to work the timeline and get all the dates and things straight. That’s the part of History that can be pretty tedious, but it is important. You need it to build a scaffold so that all the sequential events snap in place and start to make a pattern. I have some dates to memorize now. I’ll need to get to that if I’m going to make it through next Tuesday’s exam.

Maybe if I ace it, Dr. V will find me interesting again . . .

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Friday, September 7, 1989

What did I do wrong?

It’s funny, when my mind goes to that very question, that’s the time I feel really drained!

Maybe it’s just a side effect of that Rockstar stuff they gave me at the club. Actually, come to think of it, between Tuesday evening through to today . . . I must admit, I haven’t slept much! That would explain this tiredness. The ‘stuff’ seems to have pulled out of my system finally. I don’t know if I should take that stuff again - not unless I really need it. The past couple of days seem to be a blur! If not for this little journal I’m keeping, I wouldn’t remember half the things I’ve done these past couple of days.

But, that one question sticks and pricks me! Why has Dr. V suddenly dismissed me and, maybe more to the point, why do I care so much?

I just read my ramblings from my last journal entries and it’s almost like I am a different person! Jumping from one subject to the next and then obsessing over why an eminent history authority shouldn’t want to hang out with an 18-19 year old kid like me!

I’m honestly thinking of editing parts of last night’s entry, particularly the part where I seem to be professing my undying hots for my professor! What would people think if they got ahold of that? Well, I suppose a diary has to be the one place you can put private things like that, but part of me feels the danger of putting such things into writing.

That said . . . the feeling of loss still aches in me. It’s like I’m missing a part of myself. Like some part of my person, my soul even, seems to be gone! Certainly some of my ‘pep’ is gone.

Then again . . . maybe it’s just the Rockstar pulling out.