Professor-student affairs are the stuff of college urban legends. Undergraduates whisper about sexy professors, people gossip about their friend-of-a-friend who slept with a professor and porn screenwriters crank out endless scripts about office hours that veer from chemistry to anatomy. But like most things in life, sleeping with a professor bears little resemblance to fantasy. I would know because I slept with my professor.

It all started when I was just a fresh-faced, barely out of high school 19-year old studying abroad. I was an entire ocean away from my conservative Texas town. I was free, I was of legal drinking age and I was well on my way to becoming an international woman of mystery. Or at least that's how I fancied myself.

I walked into the first day of class late, but not as late as the professor and took one of the only empty seats in the ring-of-fire front row. Not the best seat in class considering my decision to study abroad was mostly based on the fact that I could legally drink in Europe, but I took my seat and the professor walked in.

He was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, and dressed in that uniquely European way that makes American women wonder if they want to sleep with a guy or go shopping with him. I didn't find him particularly attractive until he opened his mouth and unleashed a verbal whipping on another student dim enough to walk in after him. He seemed like kind of a jerk, but how could you ignore that accent? We made eye contact and he smiled. I smiled. That first day I passed a note to a classmate about how I was not leaving the country until I shagged the professor. The eye contact, smiles and my newfound love of the first row continued for weeks, but nothing happened until a few friends and I got tipsy enough to email the professor and invite him out for a drink.

Two days later I found a response. "I'd love to have a drink with you," he'd written, and my heart skipped that proverbial beat. So I gathered the ladies, and we met the professor at a respectable bar. Where I was studying it was pretty regular for professors and students to grab a couple of rounds and discuss important topics of the day. We all had a couple of drinks, talked about the course, then started dishing about the students we didn't like. After several rounds my friends conveniently had to leave to make it to a concert. The professor and I stayed and went to the balcony for a cigarette. That's when the professor laid his lips on me. I was shocked but giddy. I kissed him back.

We stayed for another hour, and he didn't take me home. Instead he walked me to the train station, told me what a lovely evening he'd had and we arranged to go to a movie later in the week. It was strangely ... normal. Compared to the other men I'd played tonsil hockey with in college, things were pretty tame and proper. It felt very adult, and not in the way that's followed by film or video store. We went on several more dates before I even got into his pants.

Of course there was the small matter that I had to sit through a class he taught once a week and he graded my work, but when we talked about school it was something we giggled about. Instead of steamy office hours we mostly went to concerts, cooked dinner and made fun of each other's accents. I even met some of his friends where he didn't introduce me as the student he was banging, but as his girlfriend.

I'd like to say I only referred to him as professor in the bedroom and that we always did it after class on his desk, but I'd be lying. Things were normal. We both knew we were just "dating with an expiration date" and having a good, although not quite socially acceptable time. We remain friends to this day.

The most shocking and hurtful part of my time boning the professor was not that I was living out some collegiate urban legend, it was the way I was treated after the rumor started to circulate. When I returned to the States classmates were doing more than whispering and I fessed up about the affair when I got annoyed with suggestive questions. That did not make things better. Almost a year after the affair I almost broke into tears when a classmate of mine joked about me getting extra time for an assignment because I must be shagging our professor.

I slept with my professor and had a great time. I'm not an example of perfection and I'm certainly not an old-fashioned kind of lady, but I'm no harlot. Oh yeah, after people ask how the whole thing started they usually ask what grade I got in the professor's class. I got an A-. And if you want to say I got an A- in bed, go ahead the joke's not funny anymore.

Cami Loren is a freelance writer and student. She enjoys being mildly offensive, wildly inappropriate and the Spice Girls. When scolded for her bad behavior she likes to respond with lyrics from pop songs. "I can't be tamed" is wildly effective at shocking the scolder so much that they shut their mouth.