Responses
I would like to add that these young women, the Mc and her sister, are from really horrible backgrounds that never truly gave them security and love, which is the reason his simple acts of kindness seem grander than they are.
Whoo...what a total clusterf***. Everyone is messier than a Jackson Pollock.
Still, the professor is the worst of the 3 (or 4, if you count the other girlfriend. Or even 5, if you count the comatose wife, lol.) As soon as she crossed the line, he should've made her leave. Even if he still pities her, he could've made arrangements elsewhere. She's playing with fire, and he's allowing it. Again, because I'm sure her sister pulled similar antics.
Why? I get having to keep up appearances so he can at least pretend to have a life, to cover the no doubt very expensive care his wife is receiving.
I think the professor is trapped in time, but he knows it, and is choosing to stay there. Self-induced punishment? Has his grieving grown twisted, like hers? And he ends up using young women who throw themselves at him, to relieve whatever gets pent-up, be it sexual frustration, or whatever.
And he is frustrated, as we saw, but he's not refusing her outright. He's warning her that it's dangerous to continue, but he's not stopping her. This is a cycle. Did it start with his wife? How many have there been??
And she knows that it's dangerous and messed up, but is gleefully continuing forward, but she's so young. She can't know what years of this agony can do to a person, especially a full-grown man. She has no concept of what time can do yet.
In a way, she's worse than her sister, whose crush grew into an unhealthy obsession. She's not in love. She's in hate, and that hate is obsessive, too. She's liking that she has an effect on him, his behavior. It's what's keeping them dancing around each other, masquerading, as she said.
Perhaps the only way to end this is with mutual destruction.