Short Story by Robert Wolf

Copyright © 2025, Robert Wolf. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing 414: L. Parsons. Tu Th 4:00 p.m. Course Description: Business-to-consumer marketing, how visual stimuli can influence consumer memory, persuasion, and choice. Practical applications in advertising, packaging, retail, and design contexts. Prerequisites: MKTG 201, 202, and 301.

* * * * *

“SEX!” I loudly stated after having checked my class notes and giving the class my opening statement for the course plus a serious look to make them certain that I had gems of wisdom to drop at their feet.

Heads jerked up in the class. Some students sat more upright; others reeled in surprise but gave subtle smiles. “Good, I have your attention and can start to extoll the virtues of whatever product or service that I‘m selling, right?”

I posed my real opening remark as a question to the class. I did use the Socratic method in teaching - ask questions, let the students find the answers. I walked up one of the aisles of the classroom, forcing some to turn to follow me. I said, “Well?”

* * * * *

Luke sat in my university office and laughed as he scanned the syllabus, “Lisa, do you plan to spend as much time talking about sex in that class as you spend thinking about it outside of class?” My teaching assistant, Luke, teased as he sat opposite my desk in my paper-packed office. We were both relaxed - prepared.

I grinned, “Oh, the whole course is about sex, just like life. Maybe Rule 34 applies. I’ll find a way to include the subject in almost every class. The subject is genuinely a serious issue for marketing. Companies misuse it at their peril but if done right, it can be a huge success. Besides, as you know, I just like the subject in general - thinking about it, talking about it, and doing it.”

Luke laughed and touched my hand in a loving gesture, “Yes, I know, and I’ve been lucky to be assigned to you for so long.”

“Four semesters as my TA and I’m also your dissertation advisor … and your lover and fuck buddy, plus you could teach the classes better than I could.”

Luke exuded competence, and I’m sure his picture is next to ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ in the dictionary. He just turned thirty-two and we celebrated that event in my bed after a small party at an upscale club that included dinner and some dancing with two other couples tied to the university. He danced like he took lessons all his life. He can shoot me a look across a room that makes me weak in the knees and my crotch wet.

Luke spent eight years in Army Special Forces, doing something he won’t tell me about, except that his exit involved a serious knee injury while on a mission of some kind. That injury put him out of the service after months of treatment and PT; he can walk a lot but not run.

Luke stated with certainty, “As for teaching better than you do, I seriously doubt that I will ever achieve the level of connection with the students that you do or get as much information embedded in memory cells the way you do. I do want to teach here after my doctorate, but I also want some links to the corporate world. You, my darling, are my role model.”

Luke paused, and then gave me one of his loving glances. He crooned, “Strange, but I don’t want to leave this area after graduation next May. Someone that I love is here and that means that I’m staying here. Just so you hear it again today and every day that I’m around you, I love you.”

Luke and I had fallen in love almost on sight. I asked for a TA, he showed up in my office as assigned randomly by the dean’s office, and our affair started two days later. Turns out I am a sucker for injured servicemen. He moved in with me. Love followed. We’d been talking about marriage and that kind of stuff.

I nodded at Luke and continued teasing, “Yes, I love you, too. We know enough about each other to have learned we’d like some others to play with us sexually and romantically, too. Let’s see if we can discover a few individuals from my advanced class that might like to be playmates with us.” The students in that class were slightly older and more likely to enjoy some diversions with us.

Luke got me to reveal my fantasies and perversions early in our relationship. He showed me his, too. The more we spoke, the more we realized what depraved people we’d become, and the more Luke and I were attracted to each other romantically and in lust. My fantasies and dreams revolved around sex - lots of it, with both men and women, and often in group or orgy settings. They were unrealized, so far, except in our pillow talk.

Luke teased, “Using part of your new course to troll for applicants? I approve. Let’s go. I want to see this class.” He stood and gathered up his laptop and notepad.

I grinned like Machiavelli must have and wrung my hands in glee. “I have ideas - nasty ideas, and you’re going to help, of course. The first few classes I want to use subliminal marketing with some messages to prove the point, of course. Yes I’m going to trawl for some susceptible young men and women.”

Luke and I strolled down the corridor from my office to the classroom. There were still fifteen minutes before the 4:00 p.m. start time - 90 minutes twice a week. The registrar’s information provided to me indicated that I’d have twenty-two students: equal parts men and women. There were four juniors, twelve seniors, and six grad students working on their MBAs.

The course was listed as MKTG 414 - basically advanced marketing techniques and issues. The class was an elective, did not cover all marketing methods or possibilities, and I had a reputation as a good and entertaining teacher. I put on a ‘show’ for every class. I’d once conducted an entire class based on nothing but cartoons that I’d collected. My ratings as a teacher were some of the best at Heaton University, regardless of department.

When I counted twenty-two students plus Luke in their seats, I waved a printed copy of the syllabus for the class, “Did everyone read this? Are there questions? Some of you I had in my other courses, but while I get to know everyone and you get to know each other, please give me your name as you ask or comment?”

A young man spoke; “I’m Craig Winston, senior. The syllabus indicated that there will be ‘pop quizzes’ during the semester in lieu of a mid-term. How often will those be conducted and are they announced ahead of time?”

I smiled at the serious young man, “This class meets twice a week. The quizzes will not occur more frequently than that, and there’ll be at least six, maybe a dozen, during the semester. My quizzes are short, no longer than ten or fifteen minutes to complete, if that - one pagers. Yes, I will often give blatant hints about what will be on the next little test, saying things such as, ‘If I give a quiz, I’ll ask you about the ten Ps of marketing.’ Got it?”

Craig nodded and a pretty, young girl posed, “Marianne Tilton, senior. Could you comment about the term paper due near the end of the semester? Do you give us the topic?”

I replied, locking eyes with the pretty girl who appeared to be in her early twenties. “Marianne, you will pick the topic. I will make sure there are no overlaps. That’ll occur about a halfway through the semester. You’ll see some boundaries listed in the syllabus - no more than 10,000 words, no more than ten pages of pictures or graphics, relevant to a class topic, and so on. We’ll address that in more detail in a couple of weeks so you’ll have plenty of time to prepare.”

Another hand went up, “I’m Robbie Meyer, also a senior. Can we use A.I. in the class?”

I laughed, “You may use any resource you can find, but I warn you that all the A.I. tools out there do not yet write good marketing papers worthy of a superior grade. You need to own whatever you submit. I’d suggest you use it as an aid to your own work, but I’m sure that will change over the coming near future.”

After a pause, I introduced Luke to the class. “Allow me to introduce my colleague Luke Dayton, my TA who’s finishing up his doctoral dissertation in Business Marketing. He will teach a few classes or sections when we break you into two parts. He is more than qualified, smart as a Mensa meeting, entertaining besides being handsome, and has a sharp eye and sense of what’s needed in this class and in business. He is ex-special forces and can spot bullshit a mile away, so beware what you say or submit.”

Luke waved and smiled at the class.

When there seemed to be no more questions about the syllabus, I practically shouted, “SEX!” I watched the reaction of a few class members and nearly laughed at their shocked and startled reactions. My next sentence got things started: “Good, I have your attention and can start to extoll the virtues of whatever product or service I‘m selling, right?”

Nobody said anything, so I probed, “Well?”

A sharply dressed blonde raised her hand and started to speak, “Ellie Feer, Junior. I’d be cautious about using sex to sell just anything. I don’t think that approach would work, for instance, if you were selling Bibles or cemetery plots, but it might work if you were selling bikinis or Jacuzzis. I’d need to know a lot of things, including what you mean by the term ‘sex’, too.”

“Good,” I said, “Someone else?” I gestured at the rest of the class.

“Mark Garcia, senior. Could we define what we mean by sex? Do we mean visuals, such as handsome men or pretty women, euphemisms of some variety, slogans that might be double entendres, ambiguity of some kind, or use of slang or asterisked words?”

I didn’t reply. I gestured that someone else should respond to Mark.

“Nicole Sanders, senior. I think it’s all those things, but for me it’s mostly visuals - at least when I hear the term in a marketing context - it’s the babe in a bikini standing next to a used car.” The other students chuckled and nodded.

The class continued and I started to use the white board to summarize the directions the class was taking. They were moving right into my syllabus at just the right pace. I knew that Luke was subtly noting the names and who participated in the class. That would be part of their grade, too.

Luke and I went to the student union after class for a sandwich dinner. After we sat to eat, I asked, “So, who do you like?” I gave him a lecherous grin.

Luke put both hands over his heart and pledged, “Only you, my dearest professor lover.” He looked at me with a playful humorous but longing look.

I whispered loud enough for him to hear, “Bullshit. Come on, who’d you like to nail beside me?”

He leaned forward, “Any of the females. They’re all hot. Marianne and Nicole are kind of my favorites at this point, but … who knows. I got a sense of their personalities from their comments and enthusiasm for the subjects we talked about. They’re smart, too.”

I mentioned, “See who signs up for your mentoring sessions. You ready for the quiz on Thursday?”

He chuckled, “I am. You told them exactly what the question would be. Let’s see who was really paying attention.”

* * * * *

Thursday’s class started with the quiz on the ten Ps of marketing, exactly what I’d told the class I’d do on Tuesday. There were a few groans from those that hadn’t picked up on my obvious clue. That guaranteed their rapt attention the rest of the semester. Luke collected the papers after five minutes. You either knew the 10 P’s, or you didn’t: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, Physical Evidence, Performance, Partnerships, and Positioning.

I then showed slides of sex used in actual product and service promotions, and as a class we analyzed each one using the ten Ps as one of the convenient frameworks. I started to describe some of the analytics known for each of the approaches. One goal of the class was to emphasize using hard data - facts - in establishing a particular marking approach; thus, each example became a mini-case study.

Towards the end of class, I arbitrarily split the class in half for full case discussions in the next class. There’d also be a short video regarding the case study. I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to subject one of the sections to some subliminal suggestions to see how susceptible they were to that marketing approach. Luke would take one of the sections to cover the same case, show the same video, but without the subliminal suggestions.

I had arranged each subgroup to be a cross-section of the overall class. We’d be trying the subliminal approach for several classes to see what we got in the way of results, if any. I’d never done this before.

On the following Tuesday, Luke took his subsection of the class to an empty classroom and set out to deliver the same case study and discussion. That went well. My eleven students went through the video, lecture, and case discussion with what I thought was great learning taking place. I made note of which eleven students I had.

Thursday, we had a pop quiz wanting their AIDA analysis of a mini-case. The response called for no more than ten bullet points covering Awareness - get noticed; Interest - a reason to care about the product; Desire - creating emotional or practical wanting; and Action - motivating prospects to buy or sign-up. The subliminal messages to my subsection of the class had explicitly told them about the AIDA quiz. All eleven ‘aced’ the test with perfect scores. The best that any of Luke’s students got was about an 80 percent. I wouldn’t be using this test in their final grade, but I didn’t tell them that. This had been my own private test about their susceptibility. Simply put, they were.

I showed the class a five-minute video clip of Philip Kotler, a notable marketing guru. The subliminal message spliced into that video for all of five appearances at 15 milliseconds each, left the entire class with instructions about studying certain aspects of Brand Development. On the following Tuesday, I quizzed them again and the entire class aced the quiz.

In that class, after Luke had graded the quizzes at the back of the room and informed me of the results at our break, I innocently asked the class how they had all done so well on the Brand questions. After some blank looks, several said, “I just thought it would be a good thing to read up on.”

Luke and I had planned the video for that class. We both would have been kicked out of the college if anybody knew what we were doing. The suggestion put forth in the subliminal message was that going ‘commando’ in this class for the rest of the semester was encouraged and might influence the final grade. Thursday, I don’t think there was a bra in the room on any of the women. Several of the women and men wore exceptionally tight athletic gear that just about revealed their wares to anybody curious enough to look. Luke and I looked.

In that class, I showed a video of David Ogilvy, a man considered the father of advertising. The messages we spliced into that video suggested that flirting in a sexual manner with either Luke or me was not only acceptable but also desired on our part. We’d phrased the subliminal messages so we wouldn’t be deluged with the entire class when it ended.

Four of the women in the class sought out Luke after class. One suggested a coffee together, and three thought that him tutoring them would be just super. He made sure to have all their contact information so that he could follow-up, probably after next Tuesday’s class.

Three young men came to me after that same Thursday class. Jeff coyly praised my teaching and asked for some one-on-one tutoring. Craig asked me to have a coffee with him sometime soon, at my convenience. He had no agenda other than to get to know me better. Ryan volunteered to help me with about anything I had going on, emphasizing that any task or activity qualified and didn’t even have to relate to my teaching work.

Tuesday, before class, both Luke and I had other students seeking audiences with us in some form. Delayed reactions to the prior week’s suggestions? In that class, I also showed an interview with Rosser Reeves, the man who’d created the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition, and we talked about that relative to various products and services. In that vid, the subliminal message was that if THEY were interested in some kind of sexual relationship with either of US, then so were WE. More flirting was encouraged if they were interested in going further. The emphasis was put on them taking action in some way.

The result was a bit like announcing ‘free candy’ in a group of eight-year-olds. After class, about half the students came up to arrange ‘something’ with Luke and-or me. Only a few were articulate enough to cut through the crowd and make their point that one (or both) of us should get together very soon with them. Although some were vague, we didn’t call them out on it.

I picked Craig to focus on, since he had more of a desire than it appeared any others did. I suggested he join us for ‘dinner and whatever’. He instantly accepted and said that he’d hang around and wait for me to free up.