ONE PLUS TWO MINUS ONE Tess Mackenzie ... - Smashwords

ONE PLUS TWO MINUS ONE Tess Mackenzie

Copyright 2013 Tess Mackenzie Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten About the Author

Chapter One Beth needed one night of not being herself. A night away from work and mathematics and people who assumed, because they knew her, that they knew everything she was. She was at a warehouse party. She hadn’t realized they still had them until some friends took her along. It was loud, and badly lit, and full of strangers, and that was what she needed. Lights too dim to see and music too loud to think. It was warm, muggy from too many people packed too close together, and the bass was so deep and full she could feel it in her chest when she breathed. She was sweaty and sticky with spilled drinks, and had been hit on so often she was just shaking her head no without even speaking any more. It was perfect. She was having a perfect night. She was dancing, had been dancing with the same guy for ten minutes or so, and as far as she could tell in the darkness, he was hot. She had a fuck-me dress and heavy makeup around her eyes and stripper heels. The shortest dress and the highest heels she owned, so high she shouldn’t really be able to walk except she’d skated as a kid and still had good balance. Her legs looked good. She looked good. She looked nothing like a mathematician, and that was the point. She pressed herself against the guy and could feel the heat of his chest through their clothes. “I need a drink,” she shouted into his ear. He looked at her and grinned. “Drink,” she shouted, and mimed it, then waved goodbye and turned away. Beth assumed she’d lost him then, that he’d forget her and dance with someone else. There was a bar set up in a back corner. She wasn’t sure how permanent or legal the whole place was, but they had a bar. She got some money out her bra, warm and damp from her skin, leaned over the counter and shouted, “Water,” and pointed. She stayed where she was, leaning forward, waiting for the bartender to come back. She didn’t want him losing track of her in the darkness. Someone put their hand on her hip, but she ignored it. It happened fairly often. Usually it was gross and creeped her out, and occasionally she didn’t mind. Right now, she’d been dancing and forgetting and felt like the sexiest woman alive, so she didn’t mind being felt up a little. She stayed where she was, pretending not to notice. The person moved, got right close behind her, leaned past her to get water too. She realized it was the same guy, the dancing guy. He must have followed her. She looked at him and grinned. He kept leaning forward, pressing against her a bit, so she was trapped against the bar. It felt good, that contact. It felt good to be a little bit trapped. He moved his hand slightly, put it on her ass like it being there was an accident, and she just grinned at him and let him. He might have been meaning to touch through her dress, she thought, but the dress was so

short that he got bare skin. He looked surprised, for a moment, like he hadn’t expected skin, but left his hand there, touching gently. Stroking Beth’s ass, while she looked at him. She hadn’t quite decided if she should get upset or not. His hand felt good. Far too good for the kind of pervert who’d grope her at the bar. She decided not to make a fuss. She opened her bottle, and sipped, and he watched her from inches away. She thought he was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. He was still waiting for his water, so she held her bottle out. He took it. Took it with his other hand, still feeling her up with the first. He drank, and she pushed back against his hand a little, just because. His fingers slid ever so slightly down between her legs. He leaned over and said something in her ear. It might have been his name, but she couldn’t really hear. She shook her head anyway, said, “Don’t talk. Don’t tell me.” He shrugged. He couldn’t hear her, and she couldn’t hear him, and that was kind of hot. He was younger than her, she decided Definitely younger than her, probably only just old enough to get in here. She liked that, liked the idea of a one-night toyboy fling with a guy ten years her junior. She took her bottle back, and he looked at her wrist as she reached over. She had Euler's identity tattooed there, quite small, black. She’d got it the night she finished her last undergrad exam, a bit tipsy, before she decided having pi tattooed anywhere on yourself was tacky. She’d probably been older then than the guy with his hand up her dress was now. “Maths,” she said, and he heard her that time. “Yeah,” he shouted, like that was obvious. “I know.” That was kind of hot. No-one had reacted like that before, even though any engineer or scientist ought to recognize it. She nodded, and looked away. Looked around the room. He still had his hand up the back of her dress. He was rubbing the back of her leg, rubbing her ass, trying to get his fingertips into her underwear, into her. It was pretty deliberate now, he wasn’t just feeling her up, he was trying to turn her on. She leaned on the bar, breathing hard, resting. Breathing hard from all the dancing, obviously. She glanced around, checked no-one was looking at them. It was dark. No-one had noticed. She was being felt up in the darkness, in a crowd of hundreds of people, strangers bumping her arm, her shoulder, reaching past her to the bar. It was hot. He waited until she looked towards him, and kissed her. She’d been expecting it, and kissed him back. Standing at the bar, pressed together, ignoring other people jostling them while trying to get their drinks. She thought he’d stop, after a minute, but he kept going. For a long time, far longer than anyone had bothered kissing her lately. He might have been high, since people got a bit funny and started touching strangers for hours at parties like this. He might have been worried she’d change her mind if he stopped. She didn’t care why, she kissed him back. His mouth felt good against hers, soft lips and no spit and no tongue at all until she got desperate and opened her mouth first. And she had to respect that, making her do it, so she looked like the needy slut. She leaned on the bar to keep her balance, and just kissed him, and whole minutes

passed. She was standing at a bar and kissing a total stranger, and that was exactly what she’d needed to do tonight. After a while, after five minutes, someone poked her in the back. One of the bar staff, smiling, but waving them away. “Hey,” she said, into the guy’s mouth, “We have to move.” He couldn’t hear her, shrugged. She pointed across the room, pushed him gently. He got it, and took her hand, and led her across the room. Took her hand, she thought, in case she wandered off. She liked that. They pushed into gaps, worked their way through. There were people everywhere, and it took a while. A lot of corners were taken. He stopped and kissed her a few more times, just turned around and kissed her for no good reason, and that made her feel horny and wanted. They found a space against a pillar, right at the back of the warehouse. The pillar was wide and square, unfinished concrete, and there was no-one on the hidden side away from the room. He tried to lean Beth’s back against it, facing her towards him. She didn’t want that, and resisted being put there. She wanted to be how they’d started at the bar, facing away, an anonymous hand up her dress. She didn’t want to see his face, or talk to him, or know who he was. She shook her head, and kept turning herself around, and he got it after a moment and stopped trying. She leaned against the pillar, facing it, and he kissed her neck. She’d ended up with him holding her arm in the small of her back. He hadn’t let go of her hand when she was turning around, and her wriggling and turning meant it had twisted around with her. Her hand was now bent into the small of her back, behind her, like a bouncer’s arm-lock, and he was pushing her forward, pressing her against the pillar, holding onto her wrist. Basically holding her there, helpless. She knew she shouldn’t like it, but she did. He seemed to know it too. He pushed a little more firmly, so she was flat against the pillar, her face sideways, her cheek against rough concrete. He pushed his hips against her so she could feel his cock hard against her back. He kissed her neck, and held her arm, and she was so turned on she couldn’t think. Then he put his hand inside her underwear. Beth should have screamed or jumped or told him to fuck off. She shouldn’t have let him finger her in a crowded party. She should have. Instead she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the pillar. It had been a long time since she’d got any, and he had just the right touch. He was barely inside her, parting her, just bumping down her lips. Gentle and faint and hardly there, compared to her wrist in her back and his hard body pressed against her. It made her concentrate on his hand. It made her forget the rest of the party around them. She moved her feet a little way apart, so he could reach. He went inside her. She closed her eyes and pushed onto him and felt him open her, up inside her. She felt spread and wet. He was rubbing in time to the music, although he probably didn’t realize. She realized she’d been holding onto the pillar, grabbing it with one hand, clutching tight against the concrete edge. She realized she was being rude. She reached down, reached back, and did her best to rub him too, to rub him through his trousers like he was her. It seemed to work. His breathing against her neck got faster.

They stood there and felt each other up and barely moved. The music began to get louder again. It made her pulse faster, made her breathing shallow. Music and darkness and standing here, hidden, made this intimate, made it just them. She was horny, wet, just tipsy enough to want this. The concrete scratched her arm as she moved, snagged her hair. She closed her eyes, and turned her face backwards, and kissed him. She needed this. He moved, and it took her a moment to realize. He knelt, pulled her underwear down quickly. Did it without letting go of her wrist, still pushing her against the pillar. Beth just stood there, a little disbelieving, impressed he’d pulled that off. He touched her ankle, and she lifted up her feet so he could get the undies off. She put her hand down, fingers open, and waved until he gave her undies to her, then tucked them into her bra. She wasn’t going to leave her underwear behind with a stranger at a party. She wondered if he was actually going to try and fuck her here, and wasn’t sure if she minded. There were people around, but no-one really clearly in sight, and it was dark, and they were hidden, and her face was under all her hair, besides. She realized he hadn’t come back up. She’d lost track of him. She looked down. He was trying to squeeze in between her waist and the pillar, and she didn’t understand, but she let him. He looked up at her, and smiled, and lifted up the front of her dress, and looked at her pussy. Then he opened his mouth and started giving her head. She could have stopped him. He was still holding her wrist, but not so hard she couldn’t have pulled away. He put his other hand on her ass and pulled her forward onto his mouth and she went, willing. Pushed forward, and leaned her face on her arm, on the pillar, and tried to pretend they weren’t here and she wasn’t getting eaten out and there wasn’t an audience of hundreds nearby. She didn’t look around in case the audience was actually there. Oral seemed worse than simply fucking, like it was too private, too personal, for a seedy warehouse. He was good. He ate her out exactly the way his kissing had made her think he’d eat pussy. He drank her. He breathed her in. Her legs felt weak, and she couldn’t think. He was holding her up, taking some of her weight with the hand on her ass, and she needed that because her legs weren’t working that well any more. She tried to move her feet to balance better, but couldn’t manage. She couldn’t make her feet work any more. She came. She felt it starting, and pushed down against him, and lost track of the world for a while. She was pretty sure he actually had to hold her up. When she was done, he slid himself up, slid up between her and the pillar, and kissed her for a while with a mouth that tasted of her. Kissed her until her breath came back and her knees stopped shaking. Then he turned her around, so her back was against the pillar, and finally let go of her wrist, and started gently pushing her downwards. She looked at him, and couldn’t quite decide. Getting head had been bad. Being caught giving it seemed completely undignified. She hesitated, then let him do it. Slid down into the dark space between him and pillar, and knelt, with his hands on her shoulders, and used both hands to undo his pants and take out his cock. She held him. He was hard, so hard he trembled slightly in her hands, and hot like he

might burn her skin. She glanced around, unsure. They were right up the back, and no-one could see them without stepping completely into this last few meters of space, behind the line of pillars. She had a feeling people doing that weren’t going to be looking at her. It was dark, too, and although it would be obvious what she was doing, it wouldn’t be obvious it was her. Her face would be pressed against him, hidden by his arms and body. She put him in her mouth. She’d meant to go slow, to tease him, but he didn’t seem to be able to wait. As soon as she opened her mouth, as he touched her lips, he lurched forward into her mouth. It gave her a fright but was flattering. She sucked, and after that first lunge he was still. Like he was holding himself there, she thought, being careful not to thrust again and scare her. He was leaning over her, slumping like she had. His weight was on her shoulders, pressing down, enough she had to move her foot to balance better and hold him up. One hand made a fist on her shoulder, rested there, and one knee was trembling against her arm. She sucked his cock. She knelt on a floor in a seedy party with a stranger’s penis in her mouth, and tasted him, and felt him, and hoped no-one came along and found them. She couldn’t really use her hands. She needed one to balance on her shoes, and the other to hold his pants out her way. She did her best with just her mouth, sucking hard, her face almost pushed into the cloth of his pants. The taste of him changed a little, and his knee shook a little more. He reached down blindly, like he was trying to find her, to grab her face or tap her shoulder or something. Either he was about to come, or someone else had turned up and he was trying to warn her. She could have jumped up, but it seemed a bit late now. She didn’t really care at this point if someone was watching. She stayed where she was, sucked harder, and he came. He jerked and spurted and filled her mouth with semen, all thick and warm and salty, more than she could manage. She swallowed, dripped a little onto her dress and knee, did her best. She knelt on the floor in a crowd of people and let a stranger shoot his load in her mouth, and was so turned on she wanted to rub one out herself right there. She slid back up the pillar, and kissed him with her mouth still sticky. He kissed her back, and didn’t seem to care. She liked that. She always liked it when someone would kiss after a blowjob. She wondered if he wanted more. She wondered if he was actually game to try and fuck her here, and wondering if she would. She was about to try and see, and then her phone started to ring. It was a bit annoying, vibrating in her bra, but she supposed the timing could have been worse. * She didn’t get the phone out in time. It stopped ringing, then beeped, said, slut. Nothing else. From Amanda. Beth looked at the message, realized Amanda must know what she was doing. She looked around, trying to find her, but couldn’t see properly from behind the pillar.

She leaned out the side and saw Amanda waving. She must have seen where Beth went. Amanda texted again, we're leaving, and Beth waved to her. “My friends,” Beth shouted, and wasn’t sure if the guy she’d just blown understood or not. She looked at the phone, looked at him, and couldn’t decide. She showed him the message, and made a waving gesture. It was too loud to talk about whether he should go with her. He shrugged. Seemed a bit disappointed, but not very much. He wouldn’t care, she thought. He’d just come in her mouth. She quite liked the idea of swallowing him, and walking away, and never seeing him again. He took her phone, and put his number in it, and she thought that was kind of sweet. She wasn’t going to call him, ever, but it was nice of him to try. She kissed him, and he kissed back. She kissed once more, and then pulled free, and left. She could still taste him in her mouth. She could still feel his tongue on her body. Her undies were still in her bra. She followed Amanda outside, because apparently they were sick of the place and going to a real bar. She ducked down an alleyway and put her underwear back on, and Amanda spent the next five minutes laughing at her. The rest of the night was dull, but Beth wandered about in a smug, happy glow. One of Amanda’s friends had a fight on the phone with her boyfriend, and Amanda kept calling Beth names, and Beth just grinned and didn’t care. Later, when the night was over, she walked back through town in her fuck-me dress, barefoot in the spit and dirt of a Saturday night. Her feet ached, and she didn’t care enough about what she was walking on to put her shoes back on, and the pavement was cool and scratchy and pleasant against her skin. She walked past drunks who called out to her, and past late-shift police who didn’t give her a glance. She walked through the cool early summer’s dawn, the sky turning pale blue and golden, through town and the edge of the university campus and back to her office, where she sat and worked for most of the day. She was still tired and a bit hungry, but she could feel it again. Sex had cleared her head, got her concentration back. She liked her life. Sometimes she forgot, and sometimes she needed to do things her way to remind herself of it, but she really liked her life. She was pleased to be her.

Chapter Two Beth came out the lift without looking, hurrying, reading as she walked, carrying a pile of assignments. There was someone waiting beside the door, but she didn’t notice. She bumped them with her elbow, and dropped everything she was holding. Her students’ assignments spilled all over the floor. It wasn’t the best way to end the morning. She knelt down and swore and started grabbing at the assignments, and only then looked

at the person she’d bumped into. She glanced up, then stopped, and just knelt there, looking long enough to make sure. It was the guy. It had been a week, and it had been dark, but she wasn’t going to forget that easily. She was certain it was the guy. He was looking at her like he recognized her too. Was smiling, like he’d blown his load into her mouth at a party a week ago and that was his big fucking secret. And also like he thought he’d done pretty well when it had been his turn to try, could get her again any time he wanted. He probably could, Beth decided. She was wet. Suddenly, instantly wet, kneeling there looking at him. There were times when she hated how slutty her body was. “Oh fuck,” she said. “Oh fuck no, not you.” She didn’t know what to do so she went back to collecting her assignments. She thought about it and decided he was probably a student. He looked like a student, and was the right age to be one, and all the college people went to the same bars, so it wasn’t surprising she’d run into someone. Unsurprising, and a bit awkward. She didn’t want to meet people afterwards, when she’d had a night like that. The university had a lot of rules, too. So many Beth just ignored them all and got in trouble for unintentionally breaking them. She didn’t know most of the rules, and she didn’t try to find them out, but she was pretty sure there had to be something about performing oral sex on students. The grey little busybodies who ran the place were bound to have an opinion about that. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she said. “Looking for you,” he said. Just like that. Like that was a perfectly normal thing to be doing. “Yeah,” she said. “Fuck. Of course you are.” He reached out for some of her assignments. “Leave them,” she said, but he helped her anyway. Of course he helped her anyway. Like he didn’t care she was being a bitch, and like he didn’t mind her getting off and then walking away the other night. He got a bundle of assignments, straightened them, and held them out to her. She knelt there for a moment, glaring at him, then held out her hand. Their fingers brushed and a spark jumped between them. She jumped. “You okay?” he said. She nodded. It was just static. The weather was dry. There was static in the air, a storm had been building all day. Storms had been happening all summer, so much that even people who never talked about the weather had started noticing. Everyone except Beth who just said yeah, she didn’t know, she’d only been here a year, but they usually told her anyway. The spark was just the weather and the carpet and the building being all charged up. It meant nothing, and by the look of his face, he knew it meant nothing too, but they were both kneeling there looking at each other and getting sparks between them. Their hands were still touching, both holding the same bundle of assignments. He reached over and pushed some of her hair off her face. “Don’t,” she said, almost ready to make herself angry.

He left his hand on her neck, leaned towards her. “What the fuck are you doing?” she said. He kissed her. And she kissed him back. Like she had last time, her mouth open, breathing the air out his lungs. She kissed him for all same reasons she had last time he’d done that, but this time she was kneeling on the floor in the middle of the fifth floor lobby of the math building. And he was sliding his hand up her skirt. He kissed well, really well. Much better than a week ago. He must have been off his game last time because of drinking. He kissed like someone who knew he could have anyone, once he’d got his lips on her, and from the way his hand was pulling at Beth’s underwear, he was going to make the most of it. “Fuck,” she said. “Stop. Not fucking here.” He did. She was actually a bit surprised, and liked him a little more because he knew when to do his player shit and when to let it go. She glanced around. There was no-one in sight, no-one coming she could hear, but someone else might turn up at any second. She should tell him to fuck off and never come back. She should, but he kissed like a god. “Shit,” she said. “Shit fuck shit. Come to my office.” He stood up, then looked around. She stood up too, and pushed him, got him going the right way. There were doors open all the way along the hall. The older people seemed to like to work that way, to be collegial. She hated it, had things she needed to do, wanted to think, not to get distracted by noise and casual visitors. She always closed her door. As they walked, she tried to look calm and bored. Like she was meeting a student. Like her heart wasn’t racing, her breath wasn’t shallow, her knees weren’t trembling with how intensely she needed a fuck. She held the door for the guy, gave him an angry look as he went through. Warning him, she hoped. She closed her door and put the pile of assignments down. Then leaned on her desk and looked at the guy. It was summer and warm and she’d been a professor for most of a year, so she’d mostly given up on looking professional and gone back to a singlet and skirt. A short skirt and a strappy singlet, so she probably looked more fuckable and less like a professor than she really wanted right now. He was standing close to her. “Hey,” she said, and leaned back to make some space. “I want you,” he said in his normal voice. “Shut the fuck up,” she said, angry. Then, “Talk a bit quieter.” The walls were soundproof, but not that soundproof. You could hear music, voices raised for phone calls. “I really fucking want you,” he said softly. “I’ve been thinking about you all week.” “Stop it,” she said. “I remember how you felt,” he said. She looked at him. “How you tasted.” She bit her lip. Clenched her hands on the edge of her desk. Leaned back, and looked at him, and wanted him, all at once.

She’d planned to warn him off, to say it was once, sorry, and wouldn’t happen again. Go away and leave her alone. She’d meant to say that as nicely as she could manage, and never see him again, but she wasn’t saying it. She was just looking at him, remembering the feel of his mouth on her, the taste of his cock in hers. She was turned on by the wrongness of him being here, and by how much he wanted her. She knew she should stop this, should get him out of here, but she didn’t seem to be going to. “Fuck,” she said. “You fucking asshole.” She still wasn’t sure what to do. She was probably just turned on by the situation they’d been in a week ago. Turned on by the crowd, and the chance of getting caught. He wouldn’t be nearly as good this time, she told herself, so maybe it was better just to make out for a while and convince herself of that then tell him to fuck off. He kissed her. Again. Kissed her mouth and her neck and made her breath get all shallow and her legs a bit weak. She grabbed his hair and his shirt and kissed him back. She tried not to make any sound, but wasn’t sure she managed. Like last time, but more and stronger and better. He reached up under her skirt, hitched her forward on her desk and reached up under her skirt and tugged her underwear down. She had a short skirt, so they were pretty sensible, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was wet. She was so wet his fingers were straight into her, and his mouth was hot on her neck. She couldn’t believe he had his fingers inside her again, but she wasn’t going to stop him. She’d been thinking about him constantly for the last week, going a bit crazy wanting to do it again. Not necessarily with him particularly, but not someone else. She hadn’t been keeping up with her grooming. She could feel a week’s worth of little stubbly hairs rasping under his fingers. He knelt down. She couldn’t quite believe it. He knelt down on her office floor and pushed her knees apart and started going down on her. And he was as good as last time. It hadn’t just been the party. He was so good she couldn’t bring herself to stop him. She grabbed his head and held him there and spread her knees and just hugged him against herself until she came. She came in his mouth in a minute and a half flat and had to bite the side of her hand to make herself not moan out loud. She sat there, and he didn’t stop. She sat a little longer, as her breathing went back to normal, and he kept licking her. Gently now, his tongue almost not there. She looked down at him for a moment. The back of someone else’s head, between your own legs, that was kind of a hot sight. “Hey,” she said, and he looked up. “I did already.” “I know,” he said. “So stop.” He stood up and kissed her some more. She kissed back, not sure what to make of this. Tasted herself, and tasted his mouth, and felt all warm towards the universe from her orgasm. She should do him. She should do him, or let him fuck her, or something. But now she’d come, she needed to think for a moment before this went anywhere else. She pushed him backwards with one foot. Pushed him back and put her knees together

and just sat on the edge of her desk and looked at him. The computer beeped. An email arriving. She slid off the desk, locked her door and put on some music and went and closed the blinds. Picked up her underwear on the way back and put them in a drawer. Then leaned on her desk, where she’d just been, and said, “Sit down.” And he did. It was a power thing. She wanted it to be a power thing. She’d just come on his face, and it was her office, so she was going to tell him what to do. “What’s going on?” she said. “Is this some prank? A bet?” He looked surprised. A bit hurt. “No.” “How’d you find me?” He looked a bit puzzled. Like maybe she’d forgotten which one he was. Like there were so many guys giving her head in her office that she couldn’t keep track of which was which. “I knew who you were the other night,” he said. “When I saw you at the party.” She thought about that for a while. “You knew who I was?” “I was pretty sure.” She wanted to be angry. Part of her did. “You didn’t tell me.” He looked surprised. “Yeah I did.” She realized he might have. He’d said a lot she hadn’t been able to hear. “The first thing I said was you were my professor and I wanted you anyway. Something like that.” “Oh.” After a moment. “Yeah, I couldn’t hear.” She liked that. She really liked that he knew she was her and groped her like a bimbo anyway. She shouldn’t, but she did. On half the days of her life it would really piss her off, and on the other half she’d be pleased. Today, he was lucky. He pointed to her wrist. “Euler.” “Yeah.” She rubbed it without thinking. There weren’t so many tattoos like that around. She considered that then lifted up her arm. Had another on the back of her bicep. Three semi-circles, three lines crossing them. “Yeah,” he said. “Bisecting angles. We all noticed last year when you talked about it.” She liked old Greek geometry. In her first abstract algebra lecture she’d showed her students bisection and trisection as a gimmick, showed them you couldn’t do trisections with a straightedge and compass, then the algebraic proof, then that you could trisect with origami because it left marks on the paper. “I think it’s incredibly hot that you’re a professor and have tattoos.” She looked at him and didn’t really know what to say. “And go out to get picked up,” he said. “Not exactly,” she said, but not very firmly. “I spent all of last year watching you. Wanting to do that to you.” “Yeah, right,” she said. “You sat there wanting to give me head in my office?” “Yep,” he said, and got all smug. She looked at him. “And fuck you. I mean, obviously. But head, definitely.” She looked at him and wondered what she was getting into. She couldn’t quite decide if he was serious. She tried to remember if she’d ever wanted someone so much she’d have

blown them with nothing back, and she thought maybe she had. Perhaps it was different for guys, anyway. They kind of had to give head. She sat there for a moment thinking. Trying to decide whether this was creepy. Whether he was a stalker, and him following her to her office was incredibly hot, or incredibly dodgy. After a moment she realized what he’d just said. “Ah,” she said, belatedly. “You were one of my students last semester?” That made it worse. She was pretty sure that was actually worse, if she’d taught him rather than just he was here, where she worked. He looked at her, and nodded, and seemed a bit puzzled. Students got that way, forgot there were lots of them looking at one of you. Especially since Beth was bad with names and faces and didn’t really care anyway. “Your intro crypto course,” he said. She took that as meaning he wasn’t a student any more, and nodded. She had two undergrad courses, the second-year intro one, and third-year advanced cryptography that followed from it, but she’d lost a lot of them over the break. The engineers and computer scientists did the intro course to get an idea, disappeared before the theory got too intense. She was more relieved than she wanted to admit. She wasn’t afraid of the grey little people who ran the university, except a little part of her was. They could get in the way, be obstructive, make her life difficult. Beth stayed out their way as much as she could, but she was a little worried. Fucking a student probably wasn’t that bad, but it definitely wasn’t good either. “What’s your name?” she said. “Ethan Wilson. But, um…” “I don’t remember you. How did you do?” “Does it matter?” She looked at him really cold, really herself. “It matters.” He was cute enough. Had a kind of charming grin that probably got panties off. She liked that. But she was smart and pretty and not that hard up for sex, and she’d spent too much of her life getting into this room, getting this office, to fuck it up for nothing. Apparently he wanted to fuck smart and pretty, and good for him. If she was going to be fucked, then she wanted to be fucked by smart and pretty too. Smart like she meant smart, smart in a way she could deal with. “An A,” he said. Which was better than she’d expected. She felt a little mean. “Okay,” she said. “That’s an okay mark. There were only two A-pluses, last year.” They looked at each other. “I pass?” he said. Said it like he knew he wasn’t joking. “Maybe,” she said. He stood up and kissed her again, but she turned her face away, pushed him back again with her foot. “Wait,” she said. “Let me think.” “I want you,” he said. “I got that.” “I want to make you come again.” “Yeah, I fucking got it. But just wait.”

He looked around her office. Looked at equations on the whiteboard, but probably wouldn’t understand. She’d been explaining something to someone else’s honors student. He glanced at her books and seemed surprised she had as many non-specialist books as maths ones. “I’m not going to fuck you in my office in the middle of the afternoon,” she said. He nodded. “Yeah, fair enough.” “I know I kind of owe you now.” He shrugged. Like he wasn’t saying that, but he also wasn’t dumb enough to make a case against it. “What,” she said. “You’re fine, any time I need it just call, that kind of shit?” He grinned, and she liked that he didn’t jump, or get nervous, or get annoyed. Even though she’d sounded a bit bitchy. She sounded bitchy half her life and couldn’t stand to be around people who didn’t understand she didn’t really mean it. “If you like,” he said. Giving her a look. “Sure, any time. But if you wanted to give a little back, that’s good too.” And she was pretty sure he was serious. Maybe she should be preying on the students more often. That was a lot different to what she was used to. Maybe it was just him. “I can’t,” she said. “Okay.” “Seriously?” “Yeah, sure. If you can’t, you can’t.” He was getting points for not minding that she’d had her orgasm and then decided to knock him back. “You really don’t care?” “I get it. You’re a professor.” She was suspicious. Just outright suspicious. Couldn’t understand why this guy, unlike all the others, wasn’t running around holding his balls and complaining how frustrated he was. “Why’s it okay?” she said. “Next time I’ll just fuck you before I let you come,” he said. And grinned again to make it seem like a joke. Except it wasn’t. She looked at him for a long, long time. Thought about calling him on the next time, but knew, just knew, he’d smirk and tell her of course she’d want a next time. Which was probably true. She’d had crushes on people like him before. Had watched from a distance, knew how they worked. He’d made her come twice, in half the time any decent girl takes, and she didn’t want to make his smugness worse. Instead she said, “How old are you?” “Does it matter? Do you care?” She shrugged. She didn’t really. She’d just wanted to put him off a little, kick a dent in his cockiness. That hadn’t worked, now he was grinning twice as much. She knew she shouldn’t like him, knew his smartass shit probably hid a bastard or someone deeply insecure or both. Knew that ten years ago someone like him wouldn’t have looked twice at someone like her. But this wasn’t ten years ago, and he was cute and kissed good and if she was some fantasy he had, then why not let him fuck her. Before she decided she thought really hard about what she was doing. It wasn’t the rules,

exactly. Not the actual rules on paper. There were other rules, more important rules. Things everyone understood. She was a woman, and she did maths, and that meant they were doing her a favor by letting her in, no matter how good she was and how great she could become. She shouldn’t make trouble, and this was trouble. This was exactly what you weren’t meant to do to help your career. She should tell Ethan to go, and she almost did, except that dozens of male professors were married to women half their age, and it wasn’t fair they got to and she didn’t. And Ethan was here, the opportunity was here, so she couldn’t see why she shouldn’t. “Are you doing anything tonight?” she said. “Not yet.” “Have a drink with me. At six.” He nodded slowly. “Where?” She thought. The bars on campus were swill-pits for students, and the staff club was out. That meant town, she supposed, but she didn’t really want to walk hand-in-hand across campus. “Come back here,” she said. “We’ll work something out.” He nodded. “Hey,” she said, and kissed him. “You’re really fucking good. That was wonderful. I just can’t, during the day.” He kissed her back and said, “I know.” She almost didn’t like him again. “Five to six,” she said. “The doors and lifts will lock and you won’t be able to get up.” He nodded and opened the door and left. * Beth sat at her desk all afternoon and wondered what she was doing. She was wet. She was wet and distracted and excited, and kept trying to tell herself what a stupid idea this was. She’d spent a long time working to get here. She had a plan, knew where she was going. She’d taken a job at a second-tier university because they wanted her more, had tried harder to get her, had let her negotiate less teaching and have more research time. That was good, but it meant she had to produce something, had to prove herself to get out. Otherwise, it was here, in this office, forever. She wanted to be in a research position by the time she was forty, and although it sounded like a long time, it wasn’t. She’d started off slow, had more to catch up. She needed to produce something, and to do that she needed free time, and no distractions, and Ethan was a threat to both. She was almost brilliant. Only almost. Somehow you just knew. She wouldn’t set the world on fire, but would have one or two good ideas and make do. Her life would count, but she would never be one of the greats. She’d almost not done maths at all, had failed calculus at high school because she didn’t understand it, and drifted into an arts degree, had taken a discrete math course out of interest and realized she was good. As good as the professor. She’d wasted a year on that, and another year taking all the core maths papers she hadn’t done the first time around and needed. She’d got her scholarships and her doctorate but had always known she was just that little bit older than everyone else now.

That made her worry about time just that little bit more. She had to be where she wanted to be by forty, or it was all over. And from the age she’d started doing maths properly, she had already been halfway there. She worried she was wasting time on teaching when her mind was at its best, that she’d never get this time back, and now she was horny instead of thinking. She had to fuck this kid, or not fuck this kid, whichever it was to get him out her system. One or the other. She couldn’t afford the embarrassment he could be to her, but she also couldn’t afford the distracted horny time. She tried to work, but couldn’t think, so she marked assignments instead. She gave out a couple of large projects to cut down the risk someone good would crack in an exam and completely fail. With assignments, half the time she could just turn to the back page and check they had the right answer, then give them full points and go to the next. She gave out assignments where that worked on purpose, so marking was quick. It was dull, but needed doing. Halfway through she came to an assignment by Ethan Wilson. She sat there and looked at it and wondered what the little fuck was up to. She checked her class lists and he was in her advanced crypto course, and had been coming to tutorials all semester. She sat there for a moment, stunned. She should pay more attention to her students. She knew the best students by name, but Ethan was just below those. She tried to remember, and was fairly sure he’d never asked a question, good or bad, so she’d never noticed him before. She checked his record. He was a maths and computer science double major. Third year, in the pre-honors program. Doing better at compsci than maths, but doing okay. He wasn’t her, he wasn’t going to get one of the few academic jobs, but he wasn’t going to end up a high-school teacher. She scrolled up the page and found his date of birth. He was twenty-one. That made her feel a little better. She wondered what to do. She wanted to see him. She wanted sex. She wanted more head like he’d given her, about a month of that without doing anything else. But his being her student, in her course, was very bad. It would be painfully complicated if anything went wrong, and probably end up very public. If nothing else, she was pretty sure she should be having someone else to mark his assignment, right now. She looked at the last page. He had everything correct. She thought. Right now, her wanting to fuck him didn’t make any difference to his mark. So probably she should fuck him. She could get someone else to look at his other work, she supposed. Say there was a personal relationship, that he was a family friend. She’d marked for someone else earlier in the year, checking an exam against a model answer for a professor’s friend’s son. After a while she thought to herself that the worst was already done. If she hadn’t been too horny to work, and marking this afternoon, she wouldn’t have noticed until later. So it didn’t actually make any difference. She could fuck him tonight then realize again tomorrow and nothing would actually change. About five she went and had a shower. The building had a couple of toilets with bathrooms, so staff could bike in or run at lunchtime. She had gym gear in the cupboard,

including a clean towel. She was still a little suspicious of what Ethan was doing, and annoyed with him for not saying he was in her class. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say if he turned up. She was back by twenty past, then sat at her computer staring at the screen for half an hour wondering if he’d turn up. At ten to six she got up and closed the blinds. At two minutes to six someone tapped on her door. She stood up, and opened it. Ethan. “Hey,” he said. “You lied to me.” “Ah…” he said. “By omission,” she said. “It fucking counts.” She’d been making herself angry. She was almost going to tell him to fuck off. Tell him that whatever he thought this meant, it didn’t, that she was going to own up to the head of school tomorrow so whatever his plan for blackmail had been, it was over. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I did.” She pulled him inside and closed the door. A lot of people worked odd hours, anyone could still be around. “You’re a shit,” she said. “You should have told me.” “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you just assumed, and you were already upset about last semester.” That was true. “How long did you think it would take me to realize?” she said. “Ah,” he said. “Well, since apparently you don’t recognize anyone in your class…” “I would have eventually.” “At least until tonight. Hopefully longer if I didn’t go to lectures.” “You’d skip lectures to fuck me?” “Of course.” She liked how he didn’t need to think about that. How he thought wanting her was obvious. “And I could ask you for notes, anyway,” he said. “Afterwards, when you realized.” She just looked at him for a while, then said, “Dickhead.” “How did you work it out?” “Marked your assignment.” “Ah.” Grinning. “Um, yeah. That was kind of a fuck-up of timing.” “Yep.” “How’d I do?” She almost told him. Then said, “Find out when everyone the fuck else does.” “You swear more than when you’re teaching.” “No fucking shit.” She looked at him. “So what?” “It’s hot.” “Hot?” “Yeah, it turns me on. You’re a real person, when you’re like this.” “You’re a shit,” she said. “You really are.” He just stood there. She didn’t know why she’d said it, really, but he was. He was too

confident, for twenty-one. Too confident for someone trying to bang their professor. “Come here,” she said, and kissed him. Kissed him for a while. He tried to pull her top down, get to her tits. “No,” she said, and grabbed his hand, “Clothes on, here.” He got his hand inside her skirt and underwear, and she sat there and kissed him and let him finger her. He knelt down, tugged her underwear to the side. She owed him, she should be getting him off, but he was doing her again and didn’t seem to care. He started licking her, and she melted. Felt herself go all warm and gooey. She closed her eyes and tried to balance sitting up. Held his head with one hand and the edge of the desk with the other and wriggled around knocking things onto the floor. She ended up bent forwards over him, holding his head against herself, hugging him. Trying to lift herself onto his mouth. Breathing hard, trying to stay quiet. The desk was moving, things were tipping over. A few pens rolled off the side, and fell. A badly-placed book. Her computer hummed and switched on. She felt it very close. Felt it building up. Her knee twitched and her tits ached and she couldn’t breathe. She said, “Shit, oh shit,” very quietly, and came. And kept coming. She was a bit surprised by that. She’d been doing herself for too long, had forgotten what someone else felt like when you had the time to enjoy them and weren’t already pulling your clothes back into place as it started. She opened her eyes and looked down at him and wondered what the fuck to do now. He kissed her a few more times, licked her, acted like he really wanted to be down there. That was kind of hot. She was sitting on her desk, in an office she’d worked her whole life to get, with a student kneeling between her legs. His hands on her, his chin wet with her. Licking her still. She watched him for a while and decided this was turning into a thing. It wasn’t just once, and she needed to think about that. After a while she said, “No-one can know. No-one from around here.” “Okay,” he said. “And not your friends. Definitely not your friends.” “I won’t tell anyone.” “I mean it.” “I get it. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.” She felt a little better. “And if you have some plan with this, if this is some bullshit scam to get something out of me, it won’t work.” “It isn’t.” She was still suspicious. “You’re beautiful and brilliant and I just want you,” he said, and he seemed sincere. She almost believed him. She knew she wanted to, and told herself to be careful. Part of her felt like the punch-line of a joke waiting to happen, but maybe she shouldn’t be so suspicious and insecure. Maybe he just liked her. Perhaps if she’d ever had a crush on a professor she might get this more easily. “You spent all last year perving at me,” she said. Watched him carefully. “Yeah,” he said. “Tell me.” Still watching.

“Every lecture, all last year. You’re clever. And hot. You dress well. You have tattoos. And when you talk about maths you forget you’re in a lecture and for a moment think of us as people.” “I’m not that bad.” “You are. You really are. You’re arrogant and dismissive and that’s hot too. But it’s okay, because you’re smarter than anyone in the room and actually doing us a favor by talking to us.” “I know that,” Beth said. “How do you know that?” “It’s just obvious. All the other teachers I’ve had, all the other professors. You answer questions differently, you just know how to explain it.” She sat there for a while. “I really like that,” he said. “You’re hot, but smart too.” “It doesn’t scare you?” “A little.” She decided she believed him. She didn’t know why, probably just vanity, but she decided she did. “Get my bag,” she said, and pointed. He handed it to her. She took out a couple of condoms she kept in a zipped inside compartment. Stood up and tugged her undies down, and sat back on the desk. She bit the condom wrapper, and opened it. He started undressing. Half lifted his shirt off. He had a nice stomach. Pretty firm, for a compsci and maths nerd. “Don’t undress,” she said. “For fuck’s sake.” He pulled it back down. “Christ,” she said. “Just get it out and fuck me. Try and be subtle. And lock the door.” He stood there for a moment like he couldn’t work out which order to do things in. Suddenly he seemed nervous, so maybe his cockiness was an act and he was a bit insecure too, not the smug asshole he was pretending to be. She sat there, swung one leg, kept her face expressionless, let him suffer. He decided in the end and went over to the door. “How?” “Put the snib up.” He came back over, looked like he was going to kneel down again. “Fuck,” she said, grabbed him. “Lay off.” She pulled him close, kissed him some more, unzipped his pants. He was hard. He was twenty-one and hard and twitching like he was about to come in her hand. She rolled the condom onto him and looked down at him and just savored that moment. That cock, that thick hard cock in her hand was about to be inside her. He was breathing roughly, had his eyes closed. Her hand, she supposed. She liked that, liked having the power now. Not always being the one getting head and being desperate. She held him, pressed her lips to his neck. Breathed on him, and bit, and kissed. He was shaking, almost. Hot and solid in her hand. He felt too substantial, more than flesh ought to be. She put her foot behind him, pulled his body against herself, slid his cock into her. She wanted to be all controlling this time, like he’d done to her, but couldn’t manage. She felt all spread and wet and tingly, and he was this hard bar inside her. She gasped and moaned and felt like she just about fainted as he went in.

She hadn’t been fucked in a year. She’d forgotten what it was like. Someone else’s breath on her neck, warm skin against hers, his face pressed to her shoulder. Some else’s groans and grunts and murmurs that she felt so fucking good as she made the same noises herself. She suddenly realized she was making noise, and tried to bite it back. She put her free hand over his mouth, to try to keep him quiet, but he sucked her fingers instead. He was clumsy. Only a little, but not as smooth as he’d been giving head. Once he was in, he started fucking her a bit frantically, a bit uncontrollably. More energy expended than was necessary. The desk shook beneath them. Things started falling off again, more pens, her lamp sliding towards the edge, so she had to let go of his face and grab it. The edge of the desk banged on the wall. She moved a bit, tried to sit differently so it didn’t rock as much, to wrap herself around him and control how he moved. She held his head, pressed his face to her shoulder to shut him up, pressed hers to his to just feel him, to know he was real, another actual person was inside her for once. She breathed in the smell of the shirt he’d been wearing all day. She listened to his grunts and gasps and the squelchy sucking as he went in and out. He went quiet, and she listened to his breathing, all hoarse and needing, listened to her own. She was close. She was startlingly close, and hadn’t noticed. “Oh shit,” she said. “Harder.” She tried to grab her clit, push down, got tangled in her clothes. He understood, pushed his fingers up against her. She came. Came on his cock, around his cock. She was surprised she was again, must be turned on by illicitness. When she was done, she just sat there, quietly, holding him. Lifting herself, as best she could to make his angle easier, while he pounded away at her, fucked her madly, with everything he had. In a couple of minutes, he came too. She pulled him out, rolled the condom off, and bundled it up in tissues. Then sat there and looked him and said, “Shit.” He kissed her, leaning close into her. His cock still out, soft and hot and damp on the inside of her leg. She put her hand out and felt it, wanting it again. “I really shouldn’t have done that.” He seemed proud. “But you did,” he said, smirking again. “Yep,” she said. “I did.” She looked at him, trying to decide. “Was it okay for you?” he said suddenly. She’d been thinking of him as cocky, but then he asked that. He was nervous, not sure if he’d done well. She actually liked him right then, a lot. She’d been turned on by him until now, hadn’t disliked him, but had thought him young, a bit shallow, a bit of an asshole. Now, suddenly, he was a person, and she liked him. He was confident, but a little bit unsure. There were cracks in his smug asshole armor, just like there were in hers. “Yeah,” she said. “Of course you did. You’re twenty-one and you know what a clit is. You did good.” He looked puzzled, like he didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure why. Either he didn’t actually know where her clit was, and it had all been wild good luck, or he did, and it was obvious, and he didn’t know why she’d said it. Maybe they didn’t have clit jokes any more. Maybe they explained properly in schools now, or he’d seen so much porn he couldn’t help

but know. She was less than ten years older than him, and she felt crabby and ancient. “Never mind,” she said. “Doesn’t matter. I’d better throw you out of here.” “You don’t want to again?” he said, and sounded surprised. She looked at him for a moment. He wasn’t being cocky, wasn’t being a dick. He was actually just astonished she didn’t want to go twice. She had a horrible feeling she was missing out on something compared to women his age. “Don’t get too full of yourself,” she said, because she did want to go again, but she was also getting sick of what he could do to her. It was a little cruel, but he looked at her and grinned like he knew she didn’t mean it. She had no idea how he could be so sure, maybe just arrogance, or maybe girls telling him he ate good pussy all his life. There were times when his smugness made her want to slap him. “You’re great,” he said. “That was great.” His cock moved just a little, like it was getting hard again. “Go away,” she said. “I need to think.” “Weren’t we having a drink?” “You got a fuck. We don’t need to have a drink.” He grinned and kissed her for a while. She pushed him backwards. “Go.” Her head was clearer. She could chase him away and think about what she was doing, now. Having had him inside her had helped. He went to the door, and hesitated. Like he wanted to ask. She sat there, looking at him. Swinging her feet, feeling the ghost of him inside her still, the memory of his tongue and hands and cock. “Come back tomorrow,” she said. “Same time.” He grinned, and nodded, and left. * Beth decided she need to talk. The next day, at lunchtime, she went and found Amanda. Amanda was a lab rat in chemistry, spent her time setting up classrooms and running banks of experiments for the professors. Beth had never really managed to have a lot of friends, but Amanda got her. Science chicks with tatts had to stick together, Amanda said. Beth tapped on the lab window until Amanda let her in, and put on some of the visitor safety glasses from the box beside the door. It was an odd place to work, compared to what Beth was used to. Glassware and extractor fans and pull-chain emergency showers, which Beth always wanted to pull. The air conditioning worked properly over here, though, so that was a good thing. The maths building had a glass atrium that dripped in winter and leaked heat from the vast area under glass into all the offices in summer, a design someone hadn’t quite thought through. Beth looked around, and made sure they were alone. The lab was a communal space. It had side-doors through to chemical stores and other labs as well as the locked door into the hallway. Amanda pointed to a chair. Beth checked for spills and sat. “I have to wait for this,” Amanda said. “Sorry. No lunch.” Beth nodded. “So the guy, from the other night…” Amanda had been staring at a something she was boiling, sticky and bubbly, in a beaker.

She looked up at Beth. “I saw him again,” Beth said. Amanda grinned. “Saw him?” “Kind of fucked him.” “Kind of?” “Did. Completely. He found me.” Amanda waited. “He’s a student.” Amanda shrugged. “There’s thousands of them.” “In the department.” “Doesn’t really matter.” “Have you?” “Wanted to, sure. Some of the PhD people. Not an actual student though.” Amanda slept with who she wanted. That was part of why Beth liked her. The chemistry people were whores, basically. Tended to sleep around a bit at conferences, far more than anyone Beth worked with. From what Beth heard. Amanda said the geneticists led them astray. “He’s one of my students.” Amanda actually looked a bit surprised. “You didn’t notice that at the time?” “There’s a lot of them.” Amanda looked at her. Beth’s biggest class was forty. The biggest first-year maths classes were nine hundred. “Yeah,” Beth said. “So I don’t really look at them that much. So what?” “Does anyone else know?” “I don’t think so.” “Will he tell?” “Not if he wants to again.” “And?” “He seems to want to again.” “Probably doesn’t matter then, does it? Just hope he doesn’t go all stalker on you.” Beth was actually reassured. “You think it really doesn’t matter?” “Who’s going to care?” Beth nodded. She supposed that made sense. “What about the other guy? The boring one. The maybe boyfriend.” Beth sat there for a while, thinking that she should really be more concerned about where Robert fit in all this. After a while she said, “He isn’t here.” Amanda looked at her and grinned. Then the stuff in the beaker started to congeal and Amanda got busy adding new things to it, so Beth said goodbye and left.

Chapter Three The next day, Ethan turned up at five to six. Beth had waited for him at the lift. “We should go somewhere,” she said. “Okay.” She’d been thinking about it. She couldn’t think of anywhere that was really safe except her place, and she’d resigned herself to taking him there. “I live two minutes away,” she said. He nodded. “But any shit. Any weird crap at all, and I call the police, then call security too.” He seemed surprised, but said, “Yeah, fair enough.” She took her laptop and her bag, and he offered to carry something but she said no, it wasn’t heavy. “Let me,” he said. “It’s fine.” He tried to take it, and she held up her hand, looked at him, annoyed. He shrugged, let it go. He tried to hold her hand in the lift, but she snatched it away. Tried again as they cut across the sports fields, but it there were still people around and she said, “Fucking stop it.” “I can’t believe how much you swear.” “Oh, fuck off.” The air smelled of cut grass and heat and summer. Dry still air, filled with the buzzing of cicadas. They walked in silence. Beth knew she was being too hard on him, but was anyway. * Beth lived in a townhouse one street over from the campus. She rented because she’d wanted something near, immediately. That close to the university she couldn’t have afforded to buy, and part of her was a bit scared by the idea she could, suddenly, just buy a house. After most of ten years scraping by on scholarships and grants, she’d come here, got this job, and was suddenly earning eighty thousand dollars a year. She had clothes and shoes and some very nice furniture, and one day soon, when she felt like a grown-up, she’d buy a house. But not yet. She opened the door and let Ethan in, and did the alarm trying to stand in front of it so he couldn’t see. She didn’t think he’d be a problem, but she wanted to be careful anyway. She trusted people more once she’d had sex with them. That was just brain chemistry and meant nothing, but it happened, so she was going to be slightly more careful until she knew him better. It had already happened. She probably wouldn’t have wanted him here at all if they hadn’t had sex already, so now she made herself be a bit cautious because of that change in her feelings. Not to get robbed, or taken advantage of, or hurt if it went wrong. She took off her shoes, dropped her bags, looked at him. “This is it.” “Nice. It’s really nice. You live alone?” She nodded. It was an open-plan townhouse. A big room downstairs, entranceway and

lounge and dining room and kitchen all in one. She had more bookshelves than most people, and her study, the second bedroom upstairs, had one wall completely as whiteboards. Other than that, it was just a house. He looked around, like he was curious about the books. Maybe he hadn’t been somewhere with so many, unless he made a habit of shagging his professors. She wondered if she should ask if he did. She didn’t know if she wanted to hear the answer. She went into the kitchen, got a bottle of wine. “You want some?” He nodded, and she got two glasses. She was glad they’d fucked the day before. It had gotten rid of some of the urgency. Then again, that was yesterday, and the urgency was coming back pretty fast. She poured him wine and went over and gave it to him. He was still looking around, standing in the middle of the room, halfway in from the door. She realized there was a photo of her and Robert on the side-table, and didn’t want to explain. She went over and put it face down. Ethan watched. “Who’s he?” “No-one.” “I already saw it. You look like a couple.” She ignored him, but he kept looking at her. “Do you really care?” she said. “Just wondered.” “Are you going to leave if I say we are?” “Probably not.” “Going to want to fuck me any less?” “No.” “So why ask?” He shrugged a little. “Just so I know where I am, I suppose.” And suddenly he wasn’t an arrogant little asshole again. She looked at him, and realized it might be a bit rough being on his end of things. This was fun for her, but for him it might be meeting someone and finding out she wasn’t as available as he’d thought. “Kind of a couple,” she said. “Together for three years, but then I got the job here, and he’s still in Sydney, so I don’t know. He’s trying to get something here.” “So on a break until then?” “I don’t know. We never really talked about it.” She talked to Robert on the phone. They planned to go and see each other every month or so, meet in a hotel and fuck each other senseless, but never had, one or the other had always been busy. And before she left, they hadn’t been as much of a couple as they should have been. She’d been distracted by getting her thesis in and examined, and by finding work. It had been getting more like they were just comfortable friends. Ethan kept looking at her. Suddenly it had got all serious. “I’m not going to tell him about you,” she said. “If that’s what you mean.” He drank some wine, looked at her. He still seemed to be thinking. “Does it really make any difference?” she said. “Right now? Right this second?” “Not really.” “If it ever starts to matter,” she said. “To you and I, where things are at with him, I’ll sort it out. But right now, it doesn’t. It’s way too soon to worry.”

She waited. She’d been a bit unfair, she should probably have said something sooner. She wondered if he would make too much of it, and if he did, she wondered if that meant he was a bit immature and wouldn’t cope with a fling with his professor. It was a test, but it wasn’t. She wanted him to decide right, but she also wanted sex. She really wanted sex. She unbuttoned her shirt. She’d had a meeting earlier, had worn one with a collar and buttons. For the meeting, and because a dark little part of her, looking in her wardrobe that morning, had thought about people with fuck-the-professor fantasies and what clothes might help. “Are we good?” she said, as he watched her. He didn’t answer. She couldn’t tell if he was still deciding, or just staring at her tits, coming into view as she unbuttoned. She didn’t think anyone could get that easily distracted, but he was twenty-one and really into her. And hadn’t seen her topless before. “Hey,” she said, and threw her shirt at him. “You listening?” “Yeah?” he said, exactly like a student in a tutorial who wasn’t. For a horrible, horrible moment she thought she remembered him, then decided she just remembered people like him. She was almost certain he hadn’t said a word all last year. “Listening?” she said. He was still looking at her tits. Watching them move as she reached back and grabbed her bra strap. “Are we good?” she said. “Yeah,” he said. “The guy?” “Sort it out later? You don’t mind?” “No, of course not.” “Are you listening?” He didn’t seem to be. She thought about picking up a cushion from the couch, decided she didn’t really give a shit. “Hey,” she said, loudly. “Motherfucker. Pay attention.” He looked at her face. “You can’t have me except to fuck. That’s all. Do you care?” “No,” he said. “Course not. Take that off.” She decided he’d been distracted by tits all along. This must be a moment for him, his daydream professor undressing for him. It bothered her a little that it turned her on too. She undid the bra, threw it on the couch. Stood there and let him look. He did, terribly seriously. Studied her carefully. “Well?” she said, but he kept looking. “Want to play with your professor’s tits?” she said, then regretted it straight away. He came towards her, around the couch, pulled his tee-shirt over his head and threw it somewhere, and kissed her. She loved that. She loved that moment, naked chests scraping together and someone’s mouth opening hers and hands drifting around everywhere. She liked men’s bodies. The only time she’d wondered if she should try being gay, she’d realized she couldn’t. She liked the shape of men. Wrists as thick as her upper arms, flat slabs of muscle on shoulders and chests that she could press her hand into, push hard against, and not move. He kissed her. Kissed her for a while then stopped. “You’re shorter. Than the first night.” “Bare feet.” “Like this much,” he said, and showed her with his hands. “Twenty centimeters.”

Not that much, but, “Big heels. Tall heels.” “Right.” He stroked her breasts. Gentle, like he just wanted to hold them. He looked at her. She sighed, bit her lip as he touched her, made herself stop making noises. She didn’t want him knowing how easily he could turn her on. He was still staring. “What’re you doing?” she said. “Looking.” She liked that, watching him get all horny playing with her. He looked at her third tattoo. Ran his finger down it, tickling slightly. Numbers along her ribs, under her arm and beside her left breast. A sequence, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23. He looked at numbers, couldn’t not get it. “Primes.” he said. “Yep.” “Why?” She shrugged. “Why stop there?” “Symmetry. Visual symmetry. From 2 and 3 to 23.” He looked at it for a while, then said, “That’s cool.” She grinned. “I thought about going all the way down to my foot, up to a hundred. But they’d show in a skirt, and I don’t know how serious and grown-up I’m meant to be.” He nodded. “And it hurt like fuck and everything. That too.” She turned around and pulled up her hair, showed him the fourth one. On the back of her head, at the top of her neck, where she could cover it with her hair. The two-dimensional faces of the platonic solids. A triangle inside a square inside a octagon inside a circle. “I know that shit,” he said. “Had this professor once who was obsessed with Greek geometry and kept going on about it.” “Oh yeah? Sound like a good professor.” “The best. Absolutely the best.” He traced the tattoo. He rubbed his hand down her neck. He was behind her. They both knew what happened when he ended up behind her. He pulled her hair out the way, and started kissing her neck. She closed her eyes, and tried not to shake or anything that might give herself away. He reached down, for the zipper of her skirt, but it was small and fiddly and he didn’t seem to be able to get it. She reached too, got her fingers past his while he kissed her, pulled it down. He grabbed her wrist. “Hey,” she said, not completely sure she meant it. He held her wrist, just enough she knew he was strong and she might not be able to move. Somehow, each time he did shit like that, it wasn’t as threatening as it should be. Threatening in a good way, and she wasn’t sure she was even comfortable having a category like that. He held her wrist in the small of her back with one hand, and shoved her skirt and underwear down with the other. Shoved it all down in a bundle, without a glance. Good undies, she’d picked out specially, but he didn’t notice and it didn’t really matter. She still had one hand free. She reached back and undid his jeans. Had to pick at it a bit,

distracted by his mouth, trying to do it backwards and one handed, but she got his fly open. His cock was hard, warm and hard and smooth in her hand. He breathed harder, sighed against her skin. His cock was against her back, hot and thrusting against her, and she liked how much he wanted her. It was like at the party, but with more time to enjoy it, and what they’d done at the party had been the best she’d had in a very long time. Maybe he was thinking that too. He pushed her forward, bent her over the back of the couch, and she wasn’t really sure she was okay with that. Except for how she was. “Watch it,” she said, but he didn’t listen. He pushed her foot with one of his, moved her legs further apart. He was still holding her wrist. “Don’t be so fucking rough,” she said, irritated, but knew she wasn’t really. He disappeared for a moment. He was still holding her, pushing her down, but he wasn’t standing pressed up against her skin like he had been. She wasn’t sure where he’d got to until he licked her. He bent her over her sofa, and held her by her bent arm, and ate her out from behind, and she wriggled back against him and tried to pretend she wasn’t turned on by being held down like this and tongue-fucked. It seemed wrong. It just didn’t seem right, but it was hot. She moved her feet further apart, and lifted her hips to help him reach. He seemed to be trying to push his tongue right inside her. His breath was hot and fast on the skin inside her thigh, and his hand, around her wrist, was holding her very firmly. He stood up. He kept holding her wrist, and twisted his hand around her hair too. He stood up behind her, holding her down like that, and she knew his cock had to be inches away from her. Her feet were apart and she was ready and his cock had to be right there, behind her. She wanted to push back onto him, but he was holding her down enough she couldn’t easily more. She waited, aching with wanting, all curled up inside. She wanted it. She was breathing hard, would have gasped for him to fuck her if that wasn’t a bit undignified. He just kept standing there. She was about to tell him to stick it in, to fuck her, that she couldn’t wait, when he said, “I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t have a condom.” She lost a little of her held-down fantasy. She twisted sideways, looked back at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think…” She bit her lip and wondered if she should tell him to stick it in anyway. She was tempted. She was achingly tempted. She’d already had him in her mouth bare. Having him in the rest of her wouldn’t really matter. She was about to say stop fucking talking and fuck me, when he pushed his fingers inside her, and started fucking her fairly hard with those. It was a bit mechanical, but it worked. She pushed back, felt herself spread open, decided those would do instead. Probably better, she decided. Far faster fucking than his hips could have done. He held her down, bent over the furniture, and pushed his fingers up inside her, rubbing fast. She was trying to climb backwards up his hand by the time she got there. She came, and lay there panting, a bit horrified at what she’d done.

He was trying to pull her up, probably to kiss her and be all sweet, and she didn’t want sweet right now. She didn’t want to be held down for a rough hand-job, and then to be sweet and tender. She shook her wrist free and turned around, grabbed him and tugged, pulled him over the back of the couch on top of herself. She wriggled down, and put his cock in her mouth. He was half on top of her, leaning on the back of the couch. She sucked him, bobbing up and down to move, like doing crunches. Normally she wouldn’t dream of doing this, wouldn’t ever let a guy get on top and fuck her mouth, but she was feeling dirty and brave and doing all sorts of strange things she didn’t expect of herself. He was pretty good about it, didn’t move too much until right at the end, when he lost control a bit. She realized she must trust him, at least during sex. It helped he was only rough when he was doing her, she thought. Having her wrists held while she got head, that was sexy. Being held down while he fucked her mouth, that would probably be too much. He came in her mouth, then flopped a bit, slumping onto her, so he was relaxed but his cock was still in her mouth. She sucked it gently, bringing him down. Sucked, until he lifted her up, dislodging her. She didn’t quite understand, but then he sat down again and put her head on his leg and she did. He wasn’t looking at her. He stroked her arm and breast, but he didn’t look at her, like maybe he was embarrassed by what he’d just done too. She liked him more for that. She was draped along the couch, sprawled out and feeling all lazy and happy, and she realized he was looking at her. She felt suddenly nervous, wanted to press her knees together, fold her arms somewhere. She didn’t, mainly because she wasn’t going to turn into that person. She wasn’t really that uncomfortable with her body, it was just the intensity of his stare. He stroked her face. Her lips, touching her mouth like it was a kiss, wiping away a little of the taste of him. Her neck, so she shivered. He was taking her all in. Like she was something important, something he admired and didn’t want to break. “Stop it,” she said. “Let me look.” “No.” She didn’t entirely mean it. His interest was flattering, kind of sexy. Like he really, really wanted her. Her, not just anyone available and with the right bits. “I love your body.” “Stop it,” she said, and closed her eyes, so she didn’t have to watch him staring. “You’re fucking hot. Really fucking hot.” She lifted her hand, pretended she was about to hit him. “Stop.” “What’s wrong?” “Just stop.” He grinned, kept looking. “I want to fuck some more,” she said. “You’re pissing around too much.” “Okay.” “You can?” He shrugged, like he didn’t quite get why she was asking, and that made her wet again. “Come upstairs,” she said, and sat up. She walked around naked at home when she needed to, and didn’t really think about it.

Now he was staring at her, watching her ass go up the stairs, and she did. She might have to walk around naked a lot more, when he was here. She went into the bedroom, and didn’t quite realize she was standing in front of him again, until he grabbed her. Things kept happening whenever she stood in front of him. He pushed her onto the bed, and she said, “Hey,” but before she could get up or roll over he had knelt down and started eating her out. Again. She knelt there and felt his tongue on her and told herself she was lucky, unspeakably lucky. After a while she decided she really needed a fuck. There’d been too much with hands and tongues. She needed cock inside herself. She had condoms in her beside drawer, with her vibrators. She slid forward, tugged the drawer open, yanked too hard and the whole drawer came out and landed on the floor. Ethan looked down, grinning. Just grinning. And now she was the nympho professor with the drawer full of sex toys. “Oh fuck off,” she said. “Everyone has them.” She decided she wasn’t going to get embarrassed. “Sure,” he said, and picked one up, looked at her. It was a rabbit. She took masturbation seriously enough to own a rabbit, and she didn’t care if he knew. It looked a bit industrial, had a few too many appendages, she supposed. It wasn’t discreet and sleek like the others. “Another time,” she said, and pushed it away. He kept grinning. She pulled him over and kissed him again. “Did you think about me?” he said into her mouth. “This week. Using them?” “Nope,” she said. “You didn’t?” “Nope I’m not talking about that.” “So you did?” “No fucking way am I answering that.” He kept looking at her. “Why?” she said after a moment, stopping kissing him. “Did you?” “Jerk off thinking about you?” he said. “Shit, yeah. A lot.” That was interesting. “How much?” “A lot.” She waited. “Most days.” “Thinking about me?” He shrugged. “Shit.” She lay there, considering. He started kissing her neck. “Did you come to the lectures this week?” she said. “You didn’t see me?” “I didn’t fucking know to look for you. Did you?” “Yeah.” “On Tuesday?” He nodded. “Thursday?” Another nod. “Then, what? Had a good look, went home and…?” “Pretty much. I could still remember how you felt. How wet you were. How your mouth felt.” She lay there for a while and looked up at him, and decided it was hot, not creepy. It was

fucking hot to be wanted that much. “Um,” she said. “Yes. Don’t ask me shit like that, because it’s rude, but if you must know, yes.” “How much?” “A bit.” He kept looking at her. “Shit,” she said. “Most days.” They looked at each other and she was suddenly breathlessly turned on. “After lectures?” he said. “When I got home. On Thursday I think, yeah.” “Straight after?” “A bit after.” “So while I was at home, thinking about you, you were at home thinking about me.” “Oh shit,” she said. “Oh shit, fuck me.” He fumbled around with the condom while she bit her lip and made herself wait. She wanted to scream, or snatch it away from him and do it herself, but she stayed still. He got it in the end, and slid on top of her, and she grabbed his cock and pulled it inside herself. Pulled this hard solid thing inside herself, and couldn’t think or breathe for a moment as it went in. She’d had it before, but this was different. She had time, and was in her bed, and he wasn’t hurrying now. She’d never quite got the hang of comparisons, could feel a difference when they were inside her, but couldn’t remember one against the next to look at. Ethan was about as long as her hand, and as thick as her fingers would go around, and that was perfect, more than enough. He was fucking her wildly again, enthusiasm rather than finesse, and she left her hand between them, her fingertips steering him back inside when he slipped. He fucked her until she couldn’t think. He watched her, and told her she was hot, and told her he loved her body, that he wanted to watch her come. “Soon,” she said. “When I do.” He said he couldn’t believe he was doing his professor, and Beth glared at him. “Don’t say that,” she said. “Fucking seriously.” “Sorry,” he said. She was too. “Just don’t,” she said. “Fuck me.” He turned her over and did her doggy, and filled her. She’d forgotten sex could be like this. He was pushing into her hard, bumping her up the bed. She had to grab the bed-head and hold on to keep her balance. She was close. Closer because she was face-down, not being stared at and she didn’t want him seeing her orgasm face. Closer because he was behind her and she kept fucking him like that. He was trying to grab her clit from behind, getting tangled, messing up his timing. “No,” she said, and pushed his hand away. Pressed on it herself. After a minute, wondering why she said it. “Hold my wrist.” He did, and she came. She must have been closer than she realized. She came, a long, breathless, gaspy orgasm, and worried as she finished that she’d been louder, more whoreysounding, than she’d meant to.

“Yeah?” he said. Gasped. “Yep,” she said. “Go.” He must have been holding back. He shifted, went faster. She put her face down, leaned on her arm. She could see his face in the mirror, under her other arm. He was staring down at her, watching her. Watching his cock go into her, maybe. Or just watching her back, the back of her head. She couldn’t quite work that one out, then she did. He was watching like he couldn’t believe he was inside her. Like he had a crush, and wanted this, and he couldn’t believe he’d got it. She liked that. She was starting to trust him, to believe he meant everything he said. She knelt there and watched his face. She could feel when he did, inside herself, but she could see it on his face too, when he closed his eyes and stopped moving for a second, and opened his mouth, and was done. He lay down on her back, so she slowly tipped forward. Lay on her and hugged her and kissed the back of her head. She was hot. Her skin was sweaty. She couldn’t breath properly underneath him. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t worry about that.” He looked at her. “You don’t have to,” she said. “Hold me afterwards and all that shit.” “I don’t mind.” She pushed him off. “I do. It’s too hot.” He kissed her. “Don’t do that either,” she said. He rolled over onto his back and looked the ceiling, breathing hard. “And hey,” she said, while she was criticizing. “Don’t talk so much about me being your professor, okay? It’s kind of creepy.” “Yeah, okay.” They took turns in the bathroom. Him first, because he had the rubber on. “Out there,” she said. Pointed. “Closed door across the way.” She sent him to the main bathroom, not the ensuite. It wasn’t really thought out, but it felt right once it was done. She didn’t want him hearing her pee that close by, didn’t really want to hear him either, but most of all she didn’t want him in her space. Guests went into the main bathroom, it was kind of a public place. Since she’d been living here she’d been the only person in the ensuite and she’d got used to not sharing. She heard the flush and the delay after was long enough he’d probably washed his hands. She got up and went herself, was quick because she didn’t completely trust him, half expected him to be gone, but when she came back she found him sitting on the bed. He watched her come back. She perched beside him. She found this moment a bit awkward. Basically making smalltalk to prove you cared about his mind and therefore weren’t a total slut. Or while you waited to see if he could get it up again. Ethan started looking around her room. In the wardrobe, in her drawers. He didn’t get up, but he didn’t need to, because she wasn’t that tidy. The wardrobe doors were always open, as were two drawers of the dresser. He was peering. “Stop it,” she said. “I’m not doing anything.”

She had a pile of books beside the bed. He rolled over, picked them up. “Stop.” “I just want to look.” The books were all work ones, all dull and too advanced for him to understand. Mostly in maths you read papers on your computer. Very occasionally someone printed an actual book, and she took those home to read at night. He looked at the spines, then rolled over and put the whole pile down again. He stood up and started wandering around the room. “Hey,” she said. “Watch it.” “I’m just curious.” “Why?” “Why not? I’ve already seen the worst.” He looked at the vibrators on the floor. “How do you know that’s the worst?” He looked at her. “I’m just saying, there could be whips and a gimp mask in the hall cupboard.” He looked out towards the hall, almost interested. “Nope,” she said. “Fine, poke around in my life.” She lay there and watched him. He looked at her underwear, and said, “You’ve got some nice stuff.” “Yep.” “Do you wear them to lectures?” She looked at him for a moment. “Yep.” He looked in her wardrobe. “I remember some of these.” “Careful.” He grinned, pointed to a dress. “That goes see-through when the light’s behind it.” “I know.” He sat beside her and kissed her some more. Kissed her face, her neck, then slowly tipped her over, laid her down so he could kiss all down her back, down her spine, to her ass. “What are you doing here?” she said. “I mean really. I’m too old for you.” “I’ve had a terrible fucking crush on you for a year.” “I can’t decide if I should believe you.” “You should.” “I can’t. I haven’t yet. It’s pissing me off a bit.” “Just believe me.” “Why should I?” “You’re smart. I like smart.” She was a bit surprised by that. “Not that I’m your professor?” “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that?” “Just this once.” He slid off her, sat beside her. “Not really,” he said. “Kind of, but not really. If you’d just been someone in the class, I’d still want you.” “Someone smart?” “Yeah, the chick who always talks to the professor, who always asks the right questions. Her.” “I used to be her,” Beth said. “I don’t think anyone thought it was sexy.” “They just didn’t know how to tell you.”

She at him for a moment, then grinned. “I’m older than you,” she said. He shrugged. “Do you mind I’m older?” “One way or the other, I don’t really care. You’re not that old.” “Huh,” she said, and lay backward, tired. He lay down beside her, not quite touching. They were both quiet for a while. She listened to the wind in the trees outside, and thought he might have dozed for a while. She felt sleepy too. Sluggish and sated and fucked more than she was used to. It started to rain, heavily. Some thunder boomed a long way away. “Maybe I should go,” he said. “Wait until it stops,” she said. “You’re fine.” He nodded, and kept lying where he was.

Chapter Four Half an hour passed, and Ethan kept kissing her. He was halfway hard again, but didn’t seem to want to fuck, especially. Was just hard, like maybe guys that age were always hard around a woman they were into. It was flattering, Beth thought, a cheap thrill. She tried to remember who she’d slept with when she was his age, and couldn’t. Maybe nobody, she thought. She might have been working too hard, caring too much about exams. He was stroking her ribs, her armpit, light, but firm enough it was just bearable, and didn’t quite tickle. He had played with her breasts for twenty minutes. He was touching her silky-light on purpose, she thought. Teasing her, turning her on again, very slowly. Turning her on, but also just wanting to touch her because she was there. “You want something to eat?” she said suddenly. She’d realized he would lie there all day if she didn’t make decisions for them both. “If you do.” She slid out of bed, reached for clothes. “Don’t,” he said. “Stay naked.” She stopped, looked at him. “Nah.” “Please. I want to look at you.” She liked that he wanted her that much. But still. “Nope,” she said. “Another time.” She put on an old tee shirt, shorts, didn’t bother with anything else. Her nipples stuck out through the cloth and he looked at them. A lot. He stayed naked, so she pulled the curtains. The front ones were always shut so people on the street couldn’t see in. She hadn’t bothered earlier with the back because it was only a private courtyard, but she did now. She stood in the kitchen and opened cupboards, opened the freezer. “What do you want?” He stood behind her and looked too.

“Pasta?” she said. “Burgers?” Cheese on toast?” “Pasta?” he said. She nodded, put water on to boil. He went sat on the other side of the counter, on a stool. Kept looking at her legs. Hitching up on his elbows to see. “Don’t,” she said, but didn’t really mean it. She’d needed someone to want her like this all year, and was only just starting to realize. She’d needed something like this all her life, probably. “Take your shorts off,” he said. “No.” “Your top.” “No,” she said. Then, curious, “If it was one or the other, which?” “Is it?” “Just answer.” He actually looked unsure. Worried, like the choice really mattered. It was flattering and sweet, and for that, terribly sexy. “Choose,” she said. Lifted the shirt a little, pushed at the shorts. “Top,” he said. She pulled it off and got things out the cupboards with bare tits. He watched. Watched very carefully. She kept grinning at him. She was relaxing. He seemed so into her, she was starting to believe he was. “Why maths?” she said. Then suddenly thought she sounded like a professor and disgusted herself a bit. Then realized he wasn’t listening anyway, and put her shirt back on, and asked again. She was fucking a guy who was so into her his brain actually shut off when her boobs were out. She couldn’t quite believe it. “Take it off,” he said. “Nope.” “Please?” “Not safe to cook with that much bare skin,” she said. “Why maths?” “I’m good at it.” She nodded. “Same here. But there’s more than that.” “Not really.” He seemed to be thinking. “You’re better than me. That makes it different.” She didn’t answer because it was obvious. She chopped garlic instead. “It’s different for you,” he said. “I think, one lecture…” She glanced up. He looked a bit guilty, like he’d done something wrong. “Just say it,” she said. “Last year. You were talking about real maths and what people think maths is. How it isn’t mechanical, it’s like art.” She waited. “It isn’t like that for me. I don’t think it is for most people. For you, it’s a different thing. You can see these beautiful things all around you that the rest of us can’t.” He sounded almost envious. She looked at him, and thought, really thought, what a horrible thing it would be to lose that. Thought how it was for most people, how blind they were. She was starting to feel guilty. That she had this thing he couldn’t share. Normally, when

that happened, she’d got angry and bitchy and resented the other person for being stupid. Now, she felt bad, and wanted to make it right. Either she was changing a lot, very suddenly, or she was really into him. “I could show you,” she said, then wondered if that was too much. She didn’t want to get locked into some long-term arrangement, didn’t want to waste hours on a guy that was just a one-off fling. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice was odd. He was actually a little sad, she thought. “I mean, thank you, but I don’t think you could. I think it’s something that’s there or isn’t, not something anyone can learn.” Beth had thought the same herself. She suddenly wondered how it was to be around people like her, people seeing all these wonderful things, and know you couldn’t see them yourself. A little like being blind in a world of artists, she thought, and wasn’t sure it was a very nice thing to be. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What for?” “I don’t know. You’re upset, and I don’t want you to be.” “Not upset.” “It’s like I showed you something you can’t ever have, and that’s a bit unfair. Showed all of you that. All the students.” He shrugged. She didn’t know what to do. It was all getting too personal, was turning into more than great sex with a random man she’d found at a party. First talking about Robert, now this. “You really like that I’m smart?” she said. “Not just… available.” “I really like that you’re smart.” She thought about that. She didn’t think anyone had before, not really. They all said they did, even Robert, but what they really meant was they’d put up with it. Like small tits. They’d accept her with that flaw, but wouldn’t miss it if it suddenly disappeared. She hadn’t realized before, but smart was everything she was, the most important part of her. Maths was everything, a secret part she very rarely shared, and only tolerating that, only putting up with that, meant they didn’t really know her at all. Like her tits. Exactly like her tits. She liked them being small, liked how she fit into clothes. She always had, and actually pitied girls with big tits who couldn’t wear what they wanted, right up until some asshole made her feel inadequate. But if someone was really into her, they should want her exactly as she was, not have this mental catalogue of shit to change. Ethan was into her tits, and her mind, and it was starting to seem like he might really be into her. After a while she leaned over and kissed him. She had to climb up a bit on the bench to reach across. “Thank you,” she said. “I think that’s rare, and I really fucking like that you do.” He looked at her for a while. “Liking me smart,” she said. He smiled. “I don’t see software,” she said. “Some people do, I know people who do, but I can’t see what software is meant to be by looking at the source code. Not like I can a function.” “That’s just knowing the language well.”

“No shit. Same with maths. Just a bigger language. But it’s also thinking a particular way, and I can’t. And I think you can.” He was nodding slowly. He seemed unsure, and for a moment she had a horrible feeling he was remembering her wanting to know his grade and thinking she might not fuck him again if he said he couldn’t, and came across as stupid. She didn’t know what to say, but in the end he nodded, and said yeah, that made sense. She was relieved. She hadn’t meant to put him on the spot. She started cutting an onion. She didn’t cry, never did, because she used a sharp knife, and Amanda was the only person who’d ever believed her when she said that made a difference. Amanda had said, yeah, dick, because bruising the flesh releases sulfuric acid, which irritates your nose. So somehow that didn’t count. She chopped, and thought, and after a while said, “So I sound like a total wanker saying this, but maths is like seeing into the mind of god. All that Bertrand Russell, supreme truth and beauty, cold and austere and all that shit.” He was looking at her. “If you want to know me you have to know this.” “I know,” he said. “This is important to me,” she said, feeling a little defensive. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. You said it last year, in…” Her first lecture. Trying to get them interested. “Yeah, I did. And stop.” He grinned. “Did I say about Hardy and his inevitability?” she said. “Yep.” “Oh.” She cut a little. “Can I again?” she said. “Please.” “You’re sure? I don’t want to be boring.” “I’m sure. This is you, right?” She nodded. “I want to know you.” She kissed him again, and almost cut herself leaning over. “Tell me,” he said. “You remember Hardy?” she said. He nodded. Hardy thought a good mathematician could see a result and just know it was right before they started on all the tiresome proving, and that this ability was important and powerful and what maths really was, what made maths an art. You used intuition to discover things, and reason merely to confirm what you already knew was true. “Just once,” she said. “I got that thing he was on about. A couple of years ago. And honestly, it was like being fucked on a beach at midnight by someone whose name you don’t know.” He grinned. “Hey,” she said. “I mean it. Number theory’s sweaty dirty fucking, not some symphony floating around the rafters of a cathedral.”

He was grinning. “What?” she said. “You said that last year.” “Oh. Did I?” “Twice.” She looked at him, tapped the knife on the board. After a minute, “I was trying to make an important point.” “And everyone heard it.” “Yeah?” “Oh yeah. You know you said sweaty dirty fucking, right?” “Fucking is sweaty.” “And the second time you said good sweaty dirty fucking.” “Shit, really?” She probably had. “I mean, fuck. I shouldn’t talk like that in lectures.” “You only do when you get excited.” “Yeah,” she said. “But still. Try and, I don’t know, wave or something if it starts happening again.” “Okay.” She pushed onions into the pan, started frying. “You know I fell for you because you swear in lectures about important things, right?” “You didn’t fall for me,” she said, not turning around. Trying to be cool, to keep him at arm’s length. He didn’t say anything. “You hardly know me,” she said. “You can’t fall for me.” “Not yet.” She turned around. “Hey,” she said. “Be a bit careful....” “Got a crush, I mean.” She nodded. “Just…” “I know.” She fried for a while, wondering if this was a bad idea after all. She needed him, really needed what he made her feel, but he seemed to be falling hard, taking this too seriously. At least for what it was at the moment. “I can tell you it,” she said. “The maths. I’ll tell you all of it, if you want me to. It’ll take years. But if someone does, properly, you might understand.” Another promise, she thought. Another long-term commitment if he went for it. But it didn’t seem to bother her as much all of a sudden. “Yeah,” he said. “You’d probably lose me.” * Beth started chopping tomatoes for the pasta sauce. She thought. She wanted him to understand. She wanted to try, even if it meant she was making implicit promises she wasn’t really ready for. While the onions were frying, she looked at him and thought. She looked across the room. She had two big framed pictures on the far wall. Dots arranged in grids, looking random but not. The one on the left was all the primes from one to a million. A dot was a prime, with white space left where a non-prime would go, and different colors

to show different types of primes. She liked to look at the internal structures within the primes, and know there was a deeper structure she could describe if she wanted to. That picture told her that the universe had order, down to its most fundamental, basic, level. Derivatives of order, in that the underlying structures had structures of their own. The other picture was similar, a spiral rather than a grid, black dots on a white background. She pointed to it. “That’s an Ulam spiral. If you write numbers in a spiral out from one in the centre, the primes are black dots and the non-primes are white dots, all the primes line up along diagonals and axes. No-one knows why, but it works out to huge numbers. That picture graphs all the numbers up to two hundred thousand.” “You showed us that last year.” “Yeah,” she said, looking at him. “I did.” “And I shouldn’t point that out each time?” “Probably not.” He grinned. “Sorry.” “You remember the rest? No-one can explain it. It just works. The guy who discovered it was doodling on a pad at a meeting and realized there was a pattern. Seriously.” “I remember. And that’s kind of cool.” “That’s completely awesomely fucking cool, actually.” He grinned at her. “Yeah.” “Just saying. It’s fucking brilliant. Just the random chance in that. Welcome to the chaotic universe.” “I get it.” “I have a book somewhere that lists all the numbers from one to a thousand and their significance. Odd patterns and unusual factors and all. If you’re interested.” “Maybe another time.” “Yeah,” she said. “Right.” She stood there for a while, thinking. “Okay, so abstract algebra is simple. And elegant. It’s one thing, no bullshit with real numbers and limits. Like…” She ran the tap and dabbed spots of water across the bench, in a line. “Just simple, neat, tidiness. Like prime numbers. They’re so clear and obvious what we’re talking about, you can explain it to a child, and we can start counting them off, work it out in our heads, but you never stop. Never.” He nodded. “If you think about the sequence of primes for too long, you start realized how fucking big it all is, compared to you, and you come face to face with… eternity. Mortality.” Not infinity, because that meant something different. “With life and death and everything. Because you suddenly realize it’s so big you can’t count up to the biggest prime we know of even if you did nothing else for your whole lifetime.” He was looking at her. “We’re tiny, against the universe. But we can think about anything we want to, with the right symbols, because underneath it all, anything is just a language, and that’s something we know how to do. Once you have the language in your head, you have the symbols to describe reality. And so much more. You can think your way into universes that can’t possibly exist, and that’s very fucking cool.”

They looked at each other. “You being so passionate,” he said. “Really turns me on.” “Really?” “Yep.” She stood there for a moment. “So last year must have been fun. Sitting funny. Not standing up until ten minutes after I finished.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and she was pretty sure there was something here. “Thank you,” she said. “For letting me talk.” “I want to hear you talk.” “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, thank you for that. For wanting me to.” He shrugged. “No-one has before.” “Not even the guy?’ Ethan glanced over at the face-down photo. “Don’t talk about him,” Beth said. Then, after a moment. “Not even him. But don’t talk about that, okay?” He nodded. She stood there for a while, thinking. “Listen,” she said, and put down the knife. “I know I already said this, and I don’t really know for sure, but I think I could get in shit if anyone find out about this. It looks bad, you know?” “I’m not going to tell anyone.” “No-one? Not even your best mate?” “I’ll say I hung out with someone, but I don’t have to say anything about you.” “Okay.” “I swear.” He sat there for a while, and started to smile, looked like he was trying not to. “Just say it,” Beth said, resigned. “I’ll tell everyone I met you in a lecture, and went home with you.” She looked at him for a moment. “Dickhead.” He grinned. “What’s weird is I think people would think it’s worse than the other way around. If I was a guy and you were a woman it feels like no-one would care. But by fucking you I’m being…” “Unladylike?” “Yeah. It’s fucking stupid, isn’t it?” He nodded and looked at her tits through her shirt. She dumped the tomatoes in a pan and started stirring them. “Take off your top,” he said. She shook her head. “Later.” “Please,” he said. She put down the spoon and pulled her shirt off and didn’t look at him while she stirred the sauce. Then, while it simmered, she sat on the bench in front of him and he kissed her for a while. * They sat at Beth’s dining table and ate. She liked to sit there, liked the feel of smooth

polished wood and the rituals of owning furniture. She’d spent ten years as a student on broken sofas, renting year by year, giving away what she had each time she moved and starting again. It was good to be settled, to have a table. To have polished wood that was big and heavy and an utter shit to move. They sat across a corner, at one end, and she watched him as they ate. She still had her shirt off, and her tits were moving slightly every time she moved her arm. Not much, because she didn’t have much to jiggle around, but enough Ethan was watching. She liked that he was. They weren’t really talking much. She wasn’t sure if she still wanted to talk, or if she was just being polite before they fucked again. Liking her mind implied they should talk, though. She got up and put her shirt back on. He watched her, and grinned. “You were distracted,” she said. “Yep.” She sat back down and wondered what to say. Nothing came to mind except another lecture about maths. She supposed they didn’t have that much in common. “Have you ever been in love?” Ethan said suddenly. Beth was surprised. “What?” “Have you?” She chewed for a while. “Why do you care?” “I just wondered.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?” “I just wondered.” “So don’t.” “I wondered who you are, when you stop being a professor.” She sat there for a while, thinking about people liking her mind, and how far that went. He’d jumped straight past small-talk to really big shit and she was a little annoyed, feeling a bit pressured. Like he should have asked her favorite color first. “I’m me,” she said. “I want to know who that is.” “Yeah,” she said. “How about we fuck for a bit first, then we decide if we want to be best friends forever?” He shrugged. She ate for a while, and now felt guilty. She supposed there was no real reason he shouldn’t ask. “You really want to know?” she said. “To know me?” He nodded. She thought. “Nerd at school. Geek, whatever. Not cool. Not that many friends. I used to skate a bit.” “I can see that.” “Oh really?” “Yeah. The tattoos, the swearing. And you’re fit.” “I walk to work.” “Yeah,” he said. “Of course. That’s it. Do you still skateboard?” She pointed to the hall cupboard. “I used to commute on it, when I was a student. Decided it was a bit undignified in a professor. And you can’t with heels on.” He nodded, said, “What else?” “You tell me. What have you worked out?”

“You like sex. A lot. More than you like to admit to yourself.” “Yeah, that’s probably true.” “It’s true. You’re taking risks, having me here. But are. So…” That made sense. “You’re ambitious,” he said. “Obviously.” “You aren’t sure if you need more people in your life.” She looked at him. “Because you’re talking to me like this. Not just fucking me and telling me to go. Or telling me to stop asking personal stuff and actually meaning it.” “Okay,” she said. “You’re good at people. Smartass. Better than me.” “You used to be more nervous about lecturing. When you started.” “You can stop,” Then, “Why’s that?” “You used to dress up. Now you don’t.” That was true. “It got hot, too.” “Not in the middle of winter, when I’m talking about.” She glared at him. After a while said, “Yeah, fuck you too.” “Why do you swear so much?” “No fucking idea.” He grinned. “Okay,” she said. “What about you? If we’re doing this, tell me about you.” “Same, really. Too smart for school. Not many friends. More than some people because I had music and girls, but not many. College was a big thing. Like starting life over again.” “Same here.” “It’s a pity all the same people follow you here though. You know, the ones you’ve always been hoping to avoid.” “Stay a bit. They’ll get bachelor’s degrees and piss off. Then it gets better. I never really talked to anyone until honors.” Ethan nodded. “I hate high schools,” Beth said. “Everyone in them. I really fucking hate them. And teachers. I don’t have time for people who are just going to end up there.’ “That’s obvious.” “How’s that?” “In class. You pretty much ignore questions from people you think are stupid. Don’t give them any time. Try and shut them down if they want to talk.” “I’m not that bad.” “Yeah, you are.” She chewed, decided to be honest. “Maths is hard. If they can’t do it, they can’t. The whole class doesn’t need to hear me explain everything two or three times because someone doesn’t get it.” “The whole class might not understand either.” “One person does.” “What if they don’t?” “One person always does. That’s the one I care about.” “And the rest of us? Me?”

She shrugged. “Seriously?” “Yep,” she said. “I don’t give a shit.” He looked at her and she just looked back. “It’s a university,” she said. “I teach at the right speed. I teach the speed I was taught. And the people who taught me. And people before them. All the same, at the same pace, for hundreds of years. We know how to do this, and it’s not an evolving field. Most of it doesn’t change. Just now we have all this white noise, all these pointless people running around buzzing in the air about how I should do my job.” He seemed to be waiting. “I teach at the speed you need,” she said. “You and three or four others like you. That’s who I’m there for. The rest of the class are just high school teachers waiting to happen. They don’t need to understand what I’m talking about, they just need to sit there for three years and leave with a degree.” “That’s pretty fucking brutal.” “That’s what a university is.” He kept looking at her, and she wasn’t sure if he was offended or upset or something. “I said I was teaching you,” she said, in case he hadn’t noticed. “What if I’m not as smart as you think?” he said. “What if I slip?” “I’ll still fuck you.” “You sure? Because sometimes it doesn’t seem like it.” “I’m sure.” He looked at her for a while longer, and she wondered if he was getting insecure. “Maybe I wouldn’t have at first,” she said. “But I’m getting used to you. I’ll still fuck you if you turn out to be stupid.” He looked at her for a while, then said, “Thanks.” Beth grinned. “Yeah, that might have sounded a bit up myself.” “A bit.” She ate another forkful. “Don’t worry,” Ethan said. “I’ll give you a really nice teaching survey. Since everyone else is going to hate you.” “No offence, but they’re all twenty. With twenty-year-old brains. I’m hot and I’m rude so they give me good scores. And I don’t give a shit anyway.” “Sexy,” he said. “Great fuck, tastes better than any other professor.” “Don’t you dare.” “It’s anonymous.” “Yeah, sure it is.” He looked surprised. “I know all your handwriting. Or I would, if I read the surveys or cared.” “You do. Whoever collects them doesn’t.” “And if you write that it means one of my students thinks I’m a good fuck. Or want to find out. They just don’t know which one.” She thought. “And they’d probably hunt you down anyway thinking you were a danger to me. So don’t.” He grinned and chewed and looked at her. “What’s with the guy in the photo?” Beth shook her head. “You don’t need to know that yet.”

“Another thing about you,” Ethan said. “You’re controlling.” “No shit. I’m your professor.” She grinned at him and said, “Eat, I want to fuck you again.” * They went back upstairs and he looked at the vibrators, still on the floor, and said, “Which is your favorite?” “Nope,” she said. “No way. I don’t know you nearly that well.” He kept looking at her. “No,” she said again. Sharply. “Use one.” “Not a fucking chance.” “Please,” he said. “Eat me instead,” she said. “Then we’ll see.” He made her come with his mouth, then looked at her all expectantly, like she was actually going to get herself off again with a dildo. She shook her head and laughed at him when he reached for one anyway. Reached over hopefully, but didn’t really seem to mind when she refused, like he’d known she wouldn’t all along. He was still hard, though, from thinking about that, or from having her in his mouth, or something. She lay there and looked at his cock and wondered how to get him off. She’d come a few times, and didn’t need sex again, and she’d never quite understood the rules about oral. You definitely didn’t have to the first time, if you were a girl and he fucked you, maybe not the first few times, but at some point you started looking like a selfish bitch, and she didn’t want that. He was a bit ahead of her on giving each other head, and she wanted to even it up. “Lie down,” she said, and sat up. He kissed her, and grinned, and did. She bent over him, then stopped. “It won’t be as good as the other times,” she said. “In the bar and downstairs.” “Don’t care. And it will.” “Nah, not without all the rest of it. All the hurry and horny.” “I don’t care.” “I’m just saying. Don’t be disappointed. Don’t think badly of me.” “I’m not,” he said, and looked at her, and she wondered for a moment if she shouldn’t have said that, if he was going to worry she’d meant something else, that it hadn’t been good for her. He seemed to just be horny, though. He reached up and grabbed the side of her face, and kissed her, then pulled her slowly onto his cock. She shouldn’t let him do that. She shouldn’t like it when he pushed her around like that, but she did. He was hot and hard in her mouth, felt him twitch as she tasted him with her tongue. Her hair kept getting in the way, and she didn’t want to stop and find a hair tie, so he held it for her, stroked her shoulders, and told her how wonderful she felt. She was pretty sure it was some head from the teacher fantasy, but she was starting not

to mind. She was here too. She slid off the bed, said, “Over here,” and knelt in front of him, on the floor. He stood over her, and she slid her mouth up and down his cock, and kept her hands away, behind her back, except for when he popped out. If she was going to be a fantasy, she may as well do it properly. He came. He came a lot, even now, so it spilled out onto her lips and chin. She swallowed him and licked him clean and got back up on the bed. Kissed him with some of his come still sticky on her lips, just to see if he would. He seemed to know what she was doing. “I don’t care,” he said. “Good.” “Was I supposed to?” “Just checking.” He started stroking her. Just to touch her, she thought. He seemed to really like her body, and him noticing made her like him. He started licking her tummy, fingering her gently. Just enough it got her horny and lazy, not enough to bother doing anything. “What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?” he said. “Why?” “I wondered.” She lay there. “You first.” “Threeway.” She rolled onto her side, looked at him. “Go on.” “Go on what?” “Details.” “A friend and his girlfriend. Everyone a bit pissed.” “Shit,” Beth was actually impressed. Actually kind of turned on. Suddenly, “When? You’re only…” “That’s cruel,” he said. Then, “Last year.” She kept looking at him. Almost seeing him again like she had at the beginning. A troublemaking player, not trustworthy. “Shit,” he said. “Don’t look like that. It was once.” She shook her head. He kept looking at her. “You like that idea?” he said suddenly, and she was almost embarrassed it was that obvious. “A little,” she said. “Two guys?” “Yeah,” she said. “I like it. Stop fucking smirking.” After a minute. “How does that work. I mean, one after the other, or…” “Both at once?” “Yeah.” “That. She wanted it like that.” After a minute. “How? Like, one at each end?” “Pretty much.” “Shit,” Beth said. “I mean, fuck.” Another hesitation, then, “So, she’s on her back, or side, or what?” “Her kneeling, was how it turned out. Which was kind of awkward since him and me were looking at each other the whole time.”

Beth just looked at him. “I think she wanted it like that,” Ethan said after a while. “Like a turn-on for her or something.” “I get it,” Beth said. Ethan looked at her. She realized. “I’m not doing that with you.” “I didn’t ask you to. Not yet.” She glared. “What? You’re turned on by the idea.” “But it’s never, ever going to happen. I mean, shit, imagine the fuss if I got caught having threeways with my students…” “That might be bad.” “It might.” Silence for a while. “What about you?” he said. “Kinkiest thing ever?” “Shit, forget it. You win.” “Nothing like that? Not ever?” “This, here, last weekend and here, is probably the kinkiest ever. Other than that, just, you know, one person and sex.” “I’ve got a friend whose dad saw her home-made porno,” he said. Beth looked at him. “Ouch.” “Shit yeah. She left it on her computer so she deserves it, but yeah. Ick. That must have been creepy.” Beth lay there. “Imagine if you didn’t realize at first, were sitting there watching then suddenly, oh fuck, that mole looks familiar…” “Except for how you’re looking around in your daughter’s porn collection.” “Ah, yeah, except for that.” “Have you got some?” She didn’t move. “Yep.” “What kind of thing?” “None of your business.” Silence for a while. He stroked her tummy. Ran his hand up to her breast, down to her hips, long, slow, silky strokes. “Do you play chess?” he said. “Why would I play chess?” “Maths professor…” “Supposed to be moving on from that. And deeply fucking offensive stereotype, by the way.” He grinned. “I don’t play chess. I’m pretty sure I could play chess, but why? It’s just memorizing shit. You can write software to play chess better than any human, so why bother?” “What do you do for fun?” “Maths.” She grinned, stretched. “And fuck.” He grinned. Another silence. “And you really don’t care about teaching surveys?”

“I really don’t. Self-selected survey. It’s meaningless data.” He grinned. “Stop smiling, it’s true. And they don’t correlate the comments against the students’ grades, so what’s the point. Why would I care about results that include everyone I failed?” “Do you fail a lot?” “Nope.” He kissed her side. “You seem like you would.” “My bell curve’s way higher than everyone else’s.” “Seriously?” “Yep. Don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to be seen as an easy course, but yeah. I pass most people, and it’s a theory course, meant to be harder, so no-one objects. I don’t give a shit if I pass a bunch of incompetent maths teachers. But your A, you fucking earned that.” She lay there for a while. He took her hand, kissed her tattoos. “Is this turning you on?” she said suddenly. “Lying in bed with me talking about me being a professor. Since you thought that was hot.” “I was just talking.” “Better fucking be.” Silence for a while. “There’s something you said in a lecture…” “No,” she said, and sat up. “No way.” He looked at her. “Okay,” she said. “What? But you have to stop reminding me.” “Linear feedback shift registers,” he said. “Why aren’t they random?” She lay there for a minute. “It repeats. It has a finite number of possible states.” “Yeah, you said. But why?” “It’s a function. But not. Don’t think about input and output, it’s a sideways shift of the bits. Engineering rather than maths.” He looked at her. “I don’t get why. Why you can’t just have an infinitely big register?” “It’s still deterministic. And a just a bunch of XOR gates. Or a polynomial. So either way it can’t be arbitrarily infinite. But even if it was, it’s still running through a fixed cycle, even if it’s enormous, so eventually it repeats.” He lay there for a while. “Still no?” “Sorry.” “An example?” “Maybe. If that isn’t too weird.” She tried to explain drawing equations on the sheet, then realized he couldn’t see them like she could, couldn’t imagine them and fix them in his mind and keep track of what she’d said a minute and three lines ago. She got up and found paper and a pen and wrote out a whole proof for him, then did a worked example, step by step. “Clear?” she said, and he nodded. She tore off the sheets and gave them to him. “Study for my homework?” “Really fucking creepy,” she said. “Watch it.” After a moment. “Weirdest tutorial I ever gave.”

“Sorry.” “Nah, I like it. I think number theory’s sexy. I like to fuck and then talk about maths.” He started laughing. “Seriously,” she said. “I really do. I never have before, not like this.” “Not with that guy?” “Fuck no, he’s a political scientist and I think he’s a little bit threatened because I’m so fucking clever.” Ethan rolled over and kissed her. Said, into her mouth, “What’s the proof of the square root of two?” “That’s fucking cute.” “Tell me.” She looked at him for a moment, then said, “The cool one? Assume it’s rational. That means two distinct positive integer divisors exist. Do some basic algebra and it turns out they don’t. Contradiction.” He pushed the paper towards her. “Shit,” she said. “I can’t believe no-one ever showed you,” and started writing it out. Lost a symbol halfway through and had to do it again. Threw it at him. * It was dark outside, was getting late. The rain had stopped, but it would be cold. Beth didn’t need to look, she’d got used to the weather here. Rain and wind and seething cloud for the rest of the evening. “It’s getting late,” she said. He looked at her, then sat up, and looked around for his clothes. “Have you got a car?” she said. He shook his head. She wondered if she should ask him to stay, She probably ought to offer, but wasn’t sure she wanted to. Eventually they would fuck each other to exhaustion and run out of things to say, and then it would just be awkward. And that would spoil it all. “I can give you a lift?” she said in the end. “Nah, I can walk. It’s okay.” “The weather’s shitty.” “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” She lay there for a while, then said, “Take the car, bring it back tomorrow.” He looked at her. “No biggie,” she said. “I know who you are.” “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.” She nodded. He started getting dressed, so she got up and found him the keys. Went to the front door with him wearing a sheet. “The red hatchback,” she said, and pointed. “Just bring it back tomorrow afternoon sometime. I’ll be here.” They stood there. She actually didn’t want him to go. She only realized that, standing at the door. She’d had fun, she’d enjoyed this. She wanted him to stay. It was an odd thing to realize. She didn’t think she’d ever really felt like that about someone she’d just met before. He kissed her for a while.

“Hey,” she said. “Do me a favor. Stay unobtrusive in lectures. Don’t start sitting up the front or asking questions or anything that’ll make me blush or say something stupid.” “Yeah, of course.” “Thanks.” He kissed her again. “Can I have my assignment mark?” She looked at him. “Don’t be a dick.” More kissing. “Go,” she said, and he did. She stood in the door and watched until he got the car started and drove away. Giving him her car had pretty much guaranteed he’d be back. Like leaving a coat behind in someone’s house. She wondered how much she’d meant it to work out that way. * Beth felt a bit guilty. She phoned Robert, just to see if he was home. Phoned while wearing a sheet she’d just fucked another man in, with the feel of him still inside her, and the smell of him on her skin. Robert was home, and they talked for a while quietly, about nothing. Once Robert had meant the world to Beth. Once he had been everything, the first person she’d really been serious about, and the only one she thought she’d ever love. For a while she had, utterly. Then something had gone wrong, slowly, over a year, and she still wasn’t completely sure what it was. They’d both moved on, and done it in ways that meant they picked other things over each other. Careers and jobs and finishing degrees. And somehow that counted. Somehow he resented her having this job, and she resented him not coming with her, and everything had gone slightly wrong, like they were both pretending not to care when actually they both did. Pretending meant they weren’t close any more, and the fact she was even willing to go told her a lot about how it had ended up. She still felt a lot for him, though. They weren’t what they’d used to be, but they were something. She was fond of him, and felt kindly towards him, and would probably spend the rest of her life with him, eventually, if he wanted her to, because it was comfortable and safe and gave her time to work. She felt a lot for Robert, but she didn’t know if she wanted to fuck him. Not like she did Ethan. And she didn’t know how much that mattered. She wanted to talk to Robert, and one day be with Robert, but she didn’t want him around right now. She was sitting there with the taste of someone else in her mouth, the dampness of another man’s sweat still on her skin, and she wanted to talk to Robert. But not to actually fuck him. She didn’t understand herself sometimes. She wondered if Ethan was just something she could get out her system, then move on with her life, be happy. With less sex. She and Robert were different. He was political, in a way she wasn’t. He cared about things she thought were pointless, a bit silly. She always had, and she usually didn’t tell him. He wasn’t doing as well in his career as her, and was sometimes a little bitter, at the world rather than her, a little frustrated in a way that came out as insecure, but she loved him all the same. Even though sometimes it felt like he was the chick in the relationship,

talking about feelings and talking problems out, when sometimes she’d rather just ignore them, let it go. In an awful way he wasn’t strong enough for her. He didn’t push back, he didn’t stand up to her. Part of why they’d ended up like this, she thought, was because of that. He didn’t call her on her shit and tell her to just stop. She thought about Robert and strength and about Ethan and sex. She thought about Ethan holding her wrists, and why she was okay with that. She thought about men and sex and what sex was to her. She was smart. In a very small way, she was important. She was almost a brilliant mathematician. But at the end of the day any guy she slept with was going to end up on top, in charge, sticking his dick into her while she lay there and got fucked. The fact she got fucked was really important too. At some point it stopped being fucking, stopped being both of them doing it together, and became her getting fucked. It always did. It shouldn’t matter to her. Everyone else had sex the same way and seemed to like it, but somehow it mattered to Beth. Like in a strange way it cheapened her. Ethan was different because he was a student. And because he was so into her, but mostly because he was a student. It was a power thing, the worst, most grubby kind of power thing. Ethan was younger, and more desperate, and under her control, and she had to admit that to herself if she was being truthful. He was someone she could tell what to do, and that meant she could have her wrists held, and could get fucked doggy, and be just like everyone else out there. She could kneel down and suck his cock and not care in the slightest, because no matter what she did, she was really in charge. And with Robert, and anyone else her own age, she wasn’t. And being in charge, underneath it all, meant she could relax and not think so much and just fuck. She wondered if she was really that controlling. It didn’t seem a nice thing to think about herself. That maybe she could only really enjoy sex if she was with someone she could bully. Or maybe that was bullshit and she bullied Robert too, because he didn’t stand up to her, so nothing she was thinking made any sense. It was an odd idea, made odder because she only started working it all out while she was on the phone with Robert. After a while he said he had some work to do, and she said goodbye and went and had a bath. She lay in the hot water and thought about a proof she’d been trying to untangle for a few weeks and made a little progress. So maybe Ethan would be good for her after all.

Chapter Five Beth went to her lecture, the lecture Ethan would be in, and made herself not look for him. She wondered what she was doing. Where this could end up, and what he might do if it went wrong. Ethan had behaved, though. He’d stayed out of her line of sight, and she was pleased. She’d been serious, she didn’t want to see him while she was lecturing, and it was

also reassuring to know he’d do as she asked. She started a minute early, impatient to think about something that wasn’t Ethan and sex, talked about symmetric groups for an hour, and didn’t look sideways once, didn’t look into the corners of the room where she thought Ethan must be, didn’t see him and didn’t blush. She packed up and left quickly, at the end, before any of them could ask questions. Said, “Sorry, office hours,” to one who tried. She went back home for lunch and told herself she’d work there. Actually she sat at the table and looked at the wall and wondered if she should just wank and get it over with. She tried to tell herself she hadn’t really decided whether she wanted Ethan again or not, that he was just going to bring her car keys back, but she knew it wasn’t true. She was going to fuck him as soon as he got anywhere near her, and she was pretty sure he knew that too. The doorbell rang just after one. She sat there for a moment, took a breath, trying to make sure she knew what she was doing. It was a waste of time, stupid to even try. She knew she was going to open the door, and have sex, and worry about the consequences later. She went and answered the door. It was Ethan. “Hey,” she said, and he stepped forward and kissed her. She pulled him inside and kissed him back. He tugged at her clothes, said, “Fuck I want you,” into her mouth. He got her shirt off over her head and started yanking at her jeans, trying to get them open. They were tight, fitted, and needed unpeeling. “Sorry,” she said. “Shit, I wasn’t thinking.” She hopped backwards and yanked them down, got herself out of them in the end. He turned her around and pushed her against the wall with her wrists behind her back. Again. He must really think she liked it. She wasn’t completely sure she didn’t. He held her there and fingered her and kissed her neck, and was tugging at his own pants sometimes while he did, running out of hands, she thought, trying to get himself out. “Let me go,” she said, and he let go of her wrists. “Come upstairs,” she said. “Here,” he said against her neck. “Condoms upstairs,” she said. “I need to fuck you.” He stopped. “You need to?” She nodded, turned around. “Need?” “Yeah,” she said, into his mouth, “But don’t be a fucking asshole.” He took a couple out his jeans, showed her. “Someone’s thinking,” he said. “I’m thinking,” she said. “I’m just thinking upstairs, in the bed.” She licked his chin. “Nope,” he said, and tore one condom open, dropped the other, fiddled around with his cock. “We can lie down on the bed,” she said against his ear. “Nope,” he said, and rolled the condom down himself, and picked her up. Just picked her up like it was no effort at all. She wrapped her legs around his without thinking, and grabbed at him, and something

about it made him go right inside her. She couldn’t quite believe it was that easy. She was spread and wide and he was deep inside her. Every time she moved he went deeper. She didn’t care how he’d got there, him inside her made everything else not matter. “Shit,” she said. “Oh shit.” He looked worried. “Are you okay?” “I’m okay. I’m just…. fuck.” He grinned at her. “I can’t move,” she said. “Not much. Can you fuck me like this?” He did. Hard enough her head and ass banged on the wall. She’d forgotten what like to be with someone who could just pick her up. She thought about it and realized she’d never been with someone who could just pick her up. At least no-one who had. He held her up, didn’t seem bothered by her weight, leaned her shoulders back against the wall. He had his hands up under her ass, so he could bounce her up and down on his cock, but she was mostly helpless. She could wriggle up and down, but not very much. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and leaned back on the wall and held on as best she could. He was hard and she was wet and he just held her there and fucked her. He came but still held her up. She watched, impressed. “I haven’t,” she whispered, “Keep going.” He did. Just did, didn’t argue, didn’t try and put her down. He went a bit soft, but she ground against him and got herself there. He watched until she was done, then put her down. Lowered her carefully, until her feet reached the floor, then let go like he wanted to wince. She pulled the condom off him and went and threw it in the kitchen bin, then brought two glasses of water back. “I’m impressed,” she said. He took the glass and drank, and grinned past it. “I really fucking like you,” he said. “And I like being picked up and banged against a wall. Apparently.” He looked smug. “I haven’t done that before,” she said. “Been picked up. Ever.” “Really?” “Nope. Told you, not nearly as kinky as you.” He grinned. She looked at him and thought about kinky and how he had his own weird shit. “Was that because we had a lecture?” “Probably.” “You like it that much? That I’m a professor?” “Yeah.” She kissed him. “Okay. Just so I know.” “Say fuck.” She looked at him “Fuck me.” “Say shit.” “Shit I love to fuck you.” “Say goddamn fucking cunt fuck.” “Why?” “It’s really, really hot to watch you talk about group theory for an hour then come here

and see the real you. Foul mouth and orgasms and all.” “Well, fuck you,” she said, and grinned. “I have to go,” he said. “Another lecture. Sorry.” She looked at him, a bit surprised. “I don’t care. Go.” He pulled up his jeans, hadn’t actually got undressed at any point. “You’ve got my number, right?” “No.” “From my records?” “Creepy,” she said. “Really creepy.” She went over to the table and got her phone. “What is it?” He told her and she put it in, then showed him to check it was right. “What’s yours?” he said. “What name are you going to put it under?” “Doctor hot maths professor?” She waited. “Beth?” “Put Liz.” “You’re Elizabeth on all the college stuff.” “And I walk into lectures and say I’m Beth, your professor, so just fucking do it my way, please.” He grinned, nodded, did as she asked. Showed her he had afterwards. “And I don’t really do talking on the phone,” she said. “Not with people I don’t know well. So don’t get offended if I don’t.” “You don’t know me well?” She decided he was joking. “Not yet,” she said. “I know your cock, but I don’t know you.” He looked at her like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to fuck her again. “I need to do some work,” she said, but she didn’t really mean it. If he’d tried, she’d have had more sex. He didn’t though, just nodded. “I’ll text. Hi, want to fuck, a time. Nothing else.” “Yep,” she said. “Great.” She still didn’t have anything on, so she stood behind the door and opened it. “Um,” she said. “Want to tomorrow?” He grinned and nodded, kissed her, left, then came straight back. “Almost forgot,” he said, and held out her keys. She took them, kissed him again, leaned out a little far from behind the door, and watched him go. Apparently she wanted a lot of sex at the moment. * Beth worked for a couple of hours, but couldn’t concentrate. She kept looking over at the hall, and thinking about Ethan, and smelling her hand almost certain she could still get a hint of him on her skin. In the end she decided she needed a walk, so she went back to campus, found Amanda

and dragged her away from the lab. They went towards one of the cafes, but Beth only waited long enough they were outside, on a path, and away from other people. “The guy I’m fucking,” she said. “I’m still fucking him.” “Yay.” “It’s good.” “I’d hope.” “I don’t want to stop.” “So don’t.” Beth looked at her. “Can I? Just keep doing it?” “Why not?” “It seems wrong.” “You’re just messing your own head up.” “Am I?” Amanda nodded. “He’s my student.” “So don’t give him any special treatment. Then who cares?” Beth looked at her. “I checked the rules,” Amanda said. “Okay.” “You know there’s rules, right?” “I know there’s rules, I just didn’t want to look at them.” “As long as you didn’t pressure him into it, it’s okay. I think that’s what it’s saying. And don’t be stupid during.” “I didn’t pressure him. He hit on me. Several times.” “Then I think you’re okay.” Beth nodded. “I mean, you’ve got a whole other bunch of issues being young and a girl and banging one of the guys in your class.” “I know,” Beth said. “Like them queuing up outside your office door, and how you blush easily. But not an official one.” “Yeah,” Beth said, glaring at her. “Thanks.” “So fuck him as much as you want to.” “I will.” Amanda opened her mouth. “Could we stop, please?” Beth said. Amanda grinned. * Ethan texted while Beth was in a lecture. Her other course, not his. She told him to go to her place in an hour, sent it from the front of the lecture theatre, in front of a room of other students, while she kept talking and they ignored the phone in her hand. It was kind of hot. She went home and Ethan turned up ten minutes later.

She opened the door, horny and wet, pulled him inside and started kissing him and then realized she still had her glasses on. She snatched them off. She didn’t need glasses all the time, only to read whiteboards and so she didn’t squint at books. She hadn’t had them on around Ethan until now, didn’t really want her younger fucktoy seeing her with them on. “Yeah,” he said into her mouth. “I saw you wearing them all last year.” “So?” “I like you with them on.” “You would.” He shrugged because it was probably true. “Put them on,” he said. “Please.” “No,” she said. “My eyes look better without.” “Okay.” “Are you looking?” she said. “Nope,” he said, and pulled her shirt off. He kept kissing her, opened her jeans and fingered her leaning against the door, and she kept saying she wasn’t going to come just from that right up until she did. He pulled her over to the couch and started again there, in some confused mix of sex and oral and bending her over the furniture until they were both done. She went and put her contacts in, while he laughed at her, then came back down and lay on him and slowly kissed his chest. “Apparently we aren’t breaking any rules if I didn’t pressure you into this,” she said. “You didn’t.” “I know.” “Almost the other way.” She grinned and pulled his hair. “Those shoes you had on,” he said. “You should put them back on.” “Just the shoes?” “Anything else you like, but the shoes, yeah.” “Why?” “I had an idea.” She pulled his hair again, harder. “Why?” “Put them on.” She looked at him for a moment, then pushed him off her. She went upstairs and looked in her wardrobe and found them. Sat on the bed and put them on, and then went back down to him. “Okay,” she said. “There.” He stood up, and looked at her. She sat down on the couch, where he’d been. “Stand up.” “Why?” “Just stand up.” She did, stood there with her arms folded over her chest, a bit uncomfortable. He stood beside her, looked at their hips. Like he was measuring. “Turn around,” he said. She did. “Bend a bit.”

“Why?” “Just do it.” She did, feeling very awkward. “Yeah,” he said. “I think that would about work.” “What would?” He put the end of his cock against her, the very slightest part inside her. She jumped, and almost shrieked, and then tried to push back against him. “You like?” he said. “Shut up,” she said, trying to get herself onto him. “Shit, that isn’t going to work.” “It is. Move your feet.” She did. “I’m not tall enough.” He put his hand on her hip and slid into her. She blinked, surprised and couldn’t believe anyone could fuck her quite that easily. “Okay,” she said. “We’re going again.” “Yep,” he said, and held her hips so she didn’t fall over forwards. She went limp and toppled onto the couch when she came, and he went with her. “Yeah,” he said afterwards. “So actually I was going to get you to lean on the kitchen bench like you were leaning on the bar that night, then fuck you standing up.” “Okay.” “Okay?” “Yep,” she said. “We’ll do that sometime. Dress and all, if you want.” He lay beside her for while, breathing hard. She slid her hand up and down his chest, slippery with his sweat. “Tomorrow,” she said. “I’m not going to see you. I need to stay here and work.” “Okay.” “You don’t mind?” “Of course not.” She looked at him. “We’re fucking,” he said. “It’s fun. I really like you. And I’m pretty sure that being needy is going to turn you off quicker than asking if you’re into bestiality.” “Maybe.” “Is the guy in the photo a bit clingy?” She lay there for a while then said, “Don’t say things like that.” “So it’s true?” “Don’t.” He kissed her and said, “Okay.” “He is,” Beth said. “And I’m not.” “Not what?” “Bestiality.” He grinned. “Thanks for making that clear.” “Yeah, you know. Thought I should.” * Ethan texted again when Beth was tutoring. She did extra tutoring because she’d been

around Robert too much, listening to his complaints about the world being unfair. That annoyed her a little, that he’d got to her, but she tried to fix it anyway. Sometimes people had trouble with maths. Bad schools or bad teachers or not trying hard enough when they should have. Beth had spent years sitting in rooms where everyone looked the same, and wasn’t sure she liked that. She wanted to be cold and brutal and see the world as a jungle where you had to make do or fall by the wayside, but she didn’t. Sometimes the difference between success and failure was so small it just needed a little push, and sometimes that difference wasn’t the person’s fault, but the fault of this huge overwhelming system so big and complicated you couldn’t possibly fix it. And if the system was too big to fix, you didn’t bother. You just fixed the particular problem in front of you. Beth understood, and fixed problems one by one while Robert tried to fix them all and never got anywhere. So Beth tutored. She was sitting there watching a student get his head around Kepler’s laws and elliptical orbits and areas swept out under a function. She’d been reading, looking through papers she needed for her research, stopping when the student needed help. She texted Ethan back. Told him to come up and see her, to knock but she was with someone, so not to come in. After a while he knocked, and she suddenly had a very good idea. “I’ll just be a sec,” she said to the student. She went outside and said hi to Ethan and looked at him and thought. “Want to do me a favor?” she said. “Ah, yeah. Sure. Of course.” “I’m tutoring. But I think you’d be better at it than me.” “Ah… Not really. Not for your courses.” “It isn’t my courses. This is, ah….” She suddenly didn’t know how to explain. “It’s just someone who needs a bit of help. And I’m doing my best, but it’s calculus, and you’d be better at it.” “Okay.” “So want to be a tutor? You don’t get paid and there’s no credit in this. There’s nothing in this except doing the right thing. But want to? For me?” “Yeah, sure, but…” She opened the door, said, “Hey, um. This is Ethan. I thought he might be a bit more useful than me.” And they said hi to each other and seemed a bit awkward. “Give it a try,” she said. “It’s just an idea. If it doesn’t work, no problem and I’ll take over again. But I’m shit at calculus and Ethan isn’t, so he might be able to explain it better.” They both looked at her, like neither could quite believe she was serious. “I mean it,” she said. “And now I’ll get coffee and leave you to it.” She looked at Ethan. “You turn on my computer, or you look in my drawers, I’ll fucking kill you, you understand?” “Yeah, of course I won’t.” “I’m serious. No poking around looking for exam papers or anything.” “I won’t, I swear.” “Okay. I need the office back at the end of the hour, and I’ll sort out a room for you for

next time.” “Yeah,” Ethan said. “We’ve got it.” “Okay.” * Beth went and found Ethan later that afternoon. She could see his timetable on the student record system, so she walked over to the computer science building when once of his lectures was finishing and waited outside. Fiddled with her keys, hadn’t bothered to bring anything else, so jingled them and twisted them around her hands and got annoyed wondering where he’d got to. A couple of other students looked at her as they went past, like they were wondering whether to say hello. She suddenly realized Ethan probably wasn’t the only one taking her crypto course over here. He came out, was taking to another guy, and Beth called, “Ethan.” He seemed surprised, came over. “Tutoring,” she said. “How did it go?” She said it loudly enough she hoped the other students could hear. “Yeah, seemed to be fine.” “Better with you explaining it?” Ethan didn’t answer for a second, like he was trying to work out how to say it politely. Then he just said, “I think so.” “Can you again? I mean, do you have time?” “Yeah, of course.” “You get why this matters? Helping him?” And he just looked at her like she was the biggest idiot alive. Which pleased her. It meant he really did understand. Not just helping, but never talking about why you were helping. “Dumb question,” Ethan said. “You don’t know his name, do you?” “Whose name?” “The guy you wanted me to tutor. That’s why you told him mine, but didn’t tell me his.” “I can find out what it is if you need me to.” “I just asked him. I know what his name is. But you don’t, do you?” Beth shrugged. “I can’t remember anyone’s name.” He kept grinning. “What the fuck’s wrong with you now?” “And you’ve never told him not to look in your drawers, have you?” She didn’t get that one. “Of course not.” “So why me?” “Ah, because the first time you went to my house you started looking in my undies drawer.” Ethan seemed surprised. “That’s why?” “Yeah, of course. Why?” “Nah, no reason.” She thought about that, and realized. “Don’t do that.” “Do what?”

“That. All that bullshit, thinking you know why I do shit. Just don’t.” “Okay.” “Seriously. The guy in the photo? Every moment of my life with him I had that shit going on. Oh Beth, you’re so enlightened and crap, even thought you pretend you’re not.” Ethan was grinning. “I’m not. And if you start doing that too, we’re over. I’ve had enough of that shit in my life already.” “I won’t. I promise.” “Okay. Are you doing anything now?” “A lecture.” And she was actually disappointed. That surprised her a bit. He was looking at her face. “I can skip it.” “No, I can’t…” “It’s databases. It’s boring as fuck and I already read the whole text.” And she looked at him and remembered that he had his things he was good at too, even if she didn’t always see them, and that was sexy as hell. “Okay,” she said quietly. “My place.” “Now?” “Now. But don’t follow me.” And she walked straight there, didn’t even go back to her office for her bag. He must have almost run, because he beat her there. She kissed him on her front path, hoping no-one came along, and was wet and horny and desperate enough by the time she got to the front door, she couldn’t get the key in the lock. While she was fumbling around, Ethan looked around, then pushed her down onto her knees and took his cock out. She knelt there for a second, and looked at it, and couldn’t decide. She should be horrified, she thought. She really should. Then she opened her mouth. On her front doorstep. In the middle of the day. Hidden from the road, but only just. He came in her mouth, then pulled her back up and kissed her. “Hey,” she said, and pushed him down. He grinned, and let her. She had a skirt, which helped, but he pushed it up so high she was bare from the waist down, so not really. Did it on purpose, she thought. He was grabby and pushy and a bit too into holding her down, she thought, but he was always fair. She got a turn too. She came, and almost couldn’t think to stay upright and pressed back so she was hidden, then peeled herself off his face and got the door open, finally, and pulled him inside. She’d left condoms in the hall cupboard because it was pretty obvious neither of them had any self-control, and eventually someone would want to fuck at the front door. So they did. She quite liked how Ethan didn’t seem to know men were supposed to come once and then go to sleep. Afterwards, sitting on the hallway floor, facing each other, breathing hard, he started looking at her all meaningful and touched. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said, and got up to get water. “If you’re going to do that you

can fuck off.” “Sorry.” “Just stop.” “I have.” “Fucking do.” “Can I just say…” “Nope. Don’t. Ever.” He hesitated. “I’m serious.” Because saying things like this out loud made them real. The world was an awful place, but you didn’t have to go around talking about it all the time. You could just do what you could, and hope a thousand other people each did a little of the rest, instead of blathering on and on about it all the time. She didn’t want another Robert. She didn’t want anyone remotely like Robert, and if Ethan didn’t get that without her saying it they might have a problem. He shrugged and said, “Okay,” and told her a long story about the professor of computer science and a goldfish tank and someone forgetting whiteboard pens, which she couldn’t really follow. He realized she wasn’t listening and said, “Want to again?” She wasn’t getting much work done. Then again, him asking was enough to get her wet. “Yep,” she said, and they went upstairs.

Chapter Six Beth liked Ethan around. He was at her place a lot, often fucking her, but also just keeping her company as well. He was fairly quiet, when he wanted to be. He would talk to her while they ate, then leave her alone while she worked, and she was surprised to realize she could actually work when he was around. She usually had to fuck him into exhaustion first, but she didn’t really mind. The sex was good, although she couldn’t quite work out where some of things he did to her came from. He carried her around and fucked her up against walls and held her down by her wrists. One afternoon they finished with her lying on her back along the kitchen bench with her chest above the sink and the cold tap running water over her tits. It just happened, and it was kind of weird, and made enough of a mess she needed a mop afterwards, but it felt good too. Very good, the contrast of cold and sex and his body against hers. She’d never really got into untidy before, but she was starting to learn. He wiped pasta sauce on her tits, and left condoms on the floor, and didn’t bother washing between sex and oral. She’d forgotten the arrogance of young guys, and was surprised sometimes when he just did what he felt like, without warning her. He grabbed her wrists, or slipped his finger into her ass, or pulled out of her during sex and turned around to sixty-nine without

bothering to check she wanted to. She didn’t actually care, and that surprised her too. Inconsiderate partners had always infuriated her, so she assumed the difference was either that it was Ethan, or that she got to be inconsiderate too. She did what she liked as often as him, made him wait while she came or changed positions or wandered off during sex to write something down. That they both took turns holding the other down and humping their mouth made a big difference, she thought. She was still sometimes surprised, though. One afternoon he pulled out of her mouth while she was giving him a blowjob and pointed himself at her face, wanking. “Hey,” she said, and pushed him away. “I want to come on you.” “No way.” “Why not?” he said, and actually seemed surprised. She wasn’t completely sure she should even be kneeling down in front of him so much, and now he wanted to blow his load on her face. She looked up at him, and couldn’t decide. He was being pushy, but he also seemed to think this was normal. She was only eight or nine years older, and she seemed to be having some kind of generational thing, and that annoyed her, a lot. “You really want to do this?” she said. “Please?” Brainwashed by porn, she thought. Then realized she wasn’t that horrified either, so perhaps she was too. And she supposed she was curious to see him wank, even if only the last fifteen seconds of it. “I’ve got a doctorate,” she said. “I shouldn’t be doing this.” “I know,” he said, grinning. “I’m a professor.” “Yep.” “Okay,” she said, and leaned forward to suck him a little more, to make up for the pause. He pushed her back when he was ready, held her head, aiming, and came on her lip and cheek. She kept her eyes open, watched him, and saw his face get all intense and focused on her. She liked that. She really liked how he reacted to her. He was always tender, even when he was doing shit like this. She was starting to realize that nothing of itself had to be meant badly. Some men were pricks, and did mean things because they were pricks. Ethan wasn’t necessarily being mean. Sometimes he was just having fun. Ethan was still looking at her, at the semen all over her face. He stroked her hair, gently. She could feel semen starting to drip. Some slid down her chin, went off towards the floor. “Could you get me a tissue?” she said. “Wait.” She sat there a moment and grinned. She really liked how he looked at her sometimes. He was still hard, still holding himself without realizing. Maybe keeping the end up, so he didn’t drip. She kept forgetting he didn’t necessarily have to go soft when he finished. She leaned forward and sucked the end of him again. He tasted more, and more salty. She sucked, and he closed his eyes and put his hands back on her head. After a while she stood up, and pulled him against herself and said, “Lick it off my face.”

He did. She didn’t know why, but that really turned her on. * Ethan came on her face more often after that, and while she didn’t mind, she also didn’t quite get why. It seemed like her pushing his mouth away from herself just as she started to come, like a waste of sensation rather than anything else. “You really like doing that?” she said one afternoon, wiping it off her cheek. “I really do.” “Why?” He shrugged. “Because I’m me? The lecturer thing?” He looked at her for a while. “Maybe a little. But not really.” “I don’t get it.” He shrugged again, like he didn’t really mind if she did or didn’t. “I just do.” She nodded, and didn’t ask again, but kept an eye on it. She noticed that after the first time he did more often after sex, rather than oral, and usually after tender, intimate sex. Like he thought it was a deeper bond between them than just coming inside her, or something. She wondered if she should call him on it, but decided not. He might not even realize, and she didn’t want him realizing he was feeling tender towards her. That would just complicate everything. * Ethan started studying at Beth’s place. The first time, after sex, he’d suddenly pulled out a textbook in her bedroom and asked if she minded, and she’d given him a really long, nasty look, thinking about professor fantasies and doing his homework at her place, until he’d said he had a tute in a couple of hours and needed to do this, but he could go over to the library or something if she’d rather. If she didn’t want to fuck again. “Okay,” she’d said. “Fine,” and went to have a shower. And shouted, “But you’d better not run out of time before you actually fuck me.” He didn’t run out of time. And after that, because she didn’t mind, he’d sit on her bed, or her couch, and look at textbooks that looked vaguely familiar, like she’d seen other students in her course carrying them around. Once, curious, she went and sat beside him, and glanced at the page he was working on. “Please,” he said, without looking up. “I need help.” “Not a chance.” “It’s not your course.” “Not that. It’s differential equations. I can’t do those.” He looked at her. “Seriously. I’m a number theorist. I haven’t got a clue.” “Could you look?” “Shit no.” He looked a bit desperate, so she picked up the book and struggled through it. She

remembered half of it, had made herself do this at one point because not knowing was stopping her doing research, but she’d never actually done a calculus course because she hadn’t wanted a failure like this screwing up her GPA. “I can’t do calculus,” she said. “What do you mean can’t?” “My brain doesn’t believe in real numbers. Or complex numbers. Or limits as things you do equations with, rather than use as defining parameters.” He looked at her. “No idea why. I can look at a polynomial and see its curve in my head, but I can barely solve those fucking min-max equations. Don’t know where to start. I don’t even know what half of this means, and it’s painful.” “Like a headache?” “No, you dick, because I’m not an insane genius with stabbing head pains. Just awkward painful. I sit here like I am now and it’s embarrassing.” She took his pen, started writing on the back of one of his pages. “What are you doing?” “Trying to turn it back into a set of fields. Then I can understand it.” “Don’t worry too much.” “It’s okay.” He watched her for a while, and probably knew enough to understand how utterly silly it was to do what she was doing. “You really can’t do calculus any other way?” he said. She shook her head. “Failed it in high school. I almost didn’t do this. I can get through ODEs when I have to, but it’s a lot of work. I don’t get integrals and limits at all. Because they’re approximations. I don’t believe in them.” “You don’t believe in them?” “Nope. Like how people believe in god or don’t. I don’t believe in approximations. So I can’t do calculus. It isn’t real like algebra is real.” He was staring at her. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that.” “I’m not.” “You’d better not be.” She worked a little longer. “I failed first-year statistics,” she said. “The same year I got a prize for maths. A lot of people thought that was pretty funny.” He looked at her. “Yeah, I know. And it was the stats for dummies course too, not the advancing one.” “How did you fail?” “Because it’s all vague bullshit. Other than that, no reason.” She stared for a while at the page. “No, sorry. I really don’t know how this works.” “Thanks for trying.” She shrugged. “I could tell you why you can’t trisect an angle?” He looked at her. “You did.” She grinned. “Do my rings and fields course next year and I’ll tell you properly. With this, I could ask someone?” “That might look a bit obvious.” “Yeah.” She flipped to the back of the book. “I can get you the professor’s answer book,

if you want.” “Isn’t that a really bad thing to do?” “Yep.” He looked at her like he couldn’t decide. “It’s only calculus,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter if you don’t understand it.” “Ah, what?” “If you ever need this, you use a computer. No-one actually does this shit by hand.” She turned over the page she’d been writing on. It had his notes on the back. “Lose that too. Your tutor might recognize my writing.” He nodded, and sat there looking at her. After a minute he said, “So that made me horny. Want to fuck?” She hadn’t bothered getting dressed, had come downstairs just wearing his tee shirt. She took it off and grinned. She put it back on later, so she could take it off and give it back at the door, like she’d planned. * He ate her out with one of her vibrators inside her. He’d been licking her, and she was distracted, and it took her a moment to realize what he was doing. She said, “Oh fuck no,” when she realized what the buzzing was, then just, “Oh fuck,” when he slid it inside her and it worked pretty well. “Never done this before?” he said. “Shut up,” she said, groping around for his head. “Lick.” He asked again when she was done, and she shrugged, said, “No, why the fuck would I?” He nodded, but seemed a bit surprised. “You have?” she said, and he looked like he didn’t seem to want to answer, but he said yes in the end. “Often? I mean, not just some weirdo kinky slut you banged?” “Often,” he said. “Oh,” she said. It was obvious, when you thought about it. Everyone had vibrators, and most people got oral now and then, and sometimes it even happened in the same room. She wondered what else she was missing out on that all the kids knew to try these days. * Ethan turned up for a quickie on the way to a lecture, then decided to skip the lecture and stay with Beth. She told him to go, but was secretly pleased when he didn’t. He lay on her bed afterwards, kissing her hands while he looked at her tits, and she ignored his stare. “I want to see you skate,” he said suddenly. “Fuck off.” “Please.”

“Not a chance.” He was quiet for a while. She sat up, let go of his hands. “Okay,” she said. “Why do you want to see me skate?” “It’s part of you.” She thought about that for a while. “Are you getting a crush on me or something?” He lay there. “Skate and I’ll tell you.” “Are you?” He grinned, didn’t answer. She hit his chest. “Tell me.” “Nope.” She hit him again. “Tell me.” “Stop hitting me,” he said. “Skate and I’ll tell you.” She sat there for a moment, then slid off the bed. “You’re a fuck,” she said. “But I’m curious, so okay.” She pulled on a shirt and shorts, and went and found her old skate shoes. “Come on,” she shouted as she went down the stairs. Her board was in the hall cupboard, near the front door. She got it, and went outside, waited for Ethan to follow her. “I’m not that good,” she said. “It was more a friends thing. Everyone else was skating so I did too. But I just followed along. I didn’t do tricks.” “Sure.” She looked around in case anyone she knew was watching, then got on the board. Went down the road a little, and came back. She hadn’t been sure how comfortable she’d feel, after more than a year, but she felt okay. Felt confident enough to speed up. As she went back past Ethan she said, “I can ride a bike too.” He grinned. She turned around again and came back faster, popped the board and did an ollie as she passed him. Then she realized her arms were all over the place and he knew she didn’t have a bra on and he was grinning. “Dickhead,” she called and did another pass. It was actually fun. If she wasn’t embarrassingly old for a skatepark, she might actually go one day. She heard a car, got off the road, and realized it was one of her neighbors. She kept her face the other way and went off down the street for a bit. Made sure the neighbors had driven into their garage before she came back. She sped up a little, went faster, remembering why she’d used to love this. She was racing along, proud of herself, until she clipped a pebble and felt her balance go, felt speed wobbles start. She jumped off quickly, let the board tumble, and ran until she could stop. Ran with no bra on. “Are you okay?” Ethan called, and he seemed to actually be worried, not leering at her for once. “Yep,” she said, and went back for the board. She went up and down again, got her confidence back at speed, and decided to get ambitious. She aimed at the gutter in front of her house. Hers, because it would be rude to use the neighbors. She was going to do a trick, grind along it or something and show off to Ethan, but she made a complete mess of it. She hit the loose tar at the edge of the road and lost her nerve and ended up falling over.

She still knew how to fall. She landed on her shoulder, grazed her forearm, but didn’t do any more damage. She lay there for a moment, breathing hard. Ethan ran over, looking really worried. “Fuck, Beth,” he said. “Are you okay?” “Yep.” “Stay still, you might be hurt.” “I’m not hurt.” She looked up at him for a moment, worrying for her, then started to laugh. “This is your fault.” “Okay.” She looked at her arm. A shallow graze, weeping a bit. Nowhere near her wrist tattoo, which was the main thing. “Fuck,” she said. “Ow.” Ethan was looking at her again. “What?” she said. “You’re fucking wonderful.” She looked up at him. Felt grass under her back, crinkly on her skin. “That was cool,” she said. “I haven’t done that in fucking ages.” “Dude,” he said. “Fuck you.” He went and got her board and brought it back. Then sat down beside her, looking at her. “So,” she said. “Dude. Are you getting a crush?” He didn’t answer, just looked up and down the street. “You are?” she said. “I told you at the very beginning. I’ve had one since the middle of last semester.” “Not the same.” “It is.” “Nope. Having a boner for your professor, that’s just blah. Having a crush on the woman you’re fucking, that’s completely different.” “Woman?” She looked at him. “Girl?” “Dude.” “Shut the fuck up and answer.” He didn’t. She hit his arm. “Answer.” “Yeah, I’ve got a boner for you.” “I noticed.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve got a crush.” “You so fucking do.” “I so fucking do.” She sat up, put her arm around him, kissed him. Squashed her tit into his arm just to give them both a cheap thrill. “I’m getting one too,” Beth said. “I noticed.” “Don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.” “I won’t.”

She sat a bit longer. “Cool, isn’t it,” she said, and he grinned at her. After a while, they got up and went inside and she winced while Ethan put disinfectant on her graze. She said not to worry, that it would be fine, but he’d come over all motherly and wanted to, so she let him to save finding out if he was a nag. She was getting a crush. It was a weird thought. Weird enough she chased him out, just because she didn’t like the idea, and once he was gone she actually managed to do an evening’s work and felt a little better with herself. * Amanda came and sat in Beth’s office and wouldn’t leave until Beth logged into the student system and showed her Ethan’s record. “Cute,” she said, when Beth finally did. “Well done.” Beth grinned. After a moment, reading, Amanda said, “Young.” “Yep.” “Smart.” “Ish.” Amanda grinned at her. “That’s kind of harsh.” “I know.” “You like him?” “I do.” “You going to keep going?” Beth nodded. “I think I am.” “I’m glad you’re happy. You need a bit of fun.” Beth didn’t know quite what to make of that, since she wasn’t unhappy. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Fuck off now, I’m busy.” “I mean it,” Amanda said “So do I.” “Okay,” Amanda said, and left, but she was acting like Beth was going all soppy or something. * Beth was seeing Ethan most days, and actually talking to him most days too, and she was a bit surprised she wasn’t getting sick of him yet. Surprised he wasn’t getting sick of her, too. She was still managing to ignore him in lectures, but couldn’t in tutorials, and had to tell him not to go. She caught him up in the evenings instead. She helped him through worked examples in bed, naked, and although he watched her tits as much as listened, he seemed to get there in the end. He made the same mistakes everyone did, transposed variables or bad arithmetic, and got confused and gave up. Students did it all the time, and Beth didn’t understand. When she was an undergraduate, she’d just gone through the problem again until she found the error. And then understood it better. She didn’t say anything to Ethan though, since he still seemed a little insecure about not being smart enough. She helped him

as much as she could, once gave him answers to another course’s assignment, which would irritate her if one of her colleagues did it, but she did anyway. The second weekend they spent together, Beth didn’t get dressed at all. She stayed naked all weekend. Ethan turned up early on Saturday, stayed all day, left and came back and stayed all day Sunday too. They were in bed most of Saturday, so she’d wandered around naked like he wanted her to, and by Sunday lunchtime they’d both realized how long she’d not had clothes on and were making an effort to keep her that way. Before he left he made her promise not to put on clothes until midnight, then texted and checked at five minutes past twelve. She told him fuck off and yes, then held the phone and just looked at it for several minutes before she put it down and went to bed. She was getting a crush, and she had no idea what to do about it. * In between having sex they talked. “You should do maths,” she said one evening without thinking. Sitting on the bed with a pizza box, eating. “Compsci is a bit of a waste of time for a doctorate.” “Yeah, right,” he said. “Meaning you’re not, or I should fuck off?” she said. “I’m probably not.” “If you do, you should do maths.” She sat there for a moment chewing. “Um, don’t tell anyone I said that though. Or where I was when I said it, or what I was wearing. It might look like a really dodgy way to poach students.” “I won’t.” “So why not? Why aren’t you?” “I don’t have the grades.” “Yeah you do. You’re fine.” He seemed to be thinking. “Shit,” she said. “I’d supervise you. Even without all this.” “No, you wouldn’t.” She grinned. “No, I wouldn’t without all this. But I would now.” “Really?” he said, like he was thinking over an offer. “Ah,” she said. “Hold on.” He looked at her. “I would, if it happened,” she said. “But it probably isn’t a good idea.” “Why not?” She didn’t look at him. “Because as far as I know we’re just fucking, and at some point between now and ending a doctorate we might stop doing that.” “Why?” She thought about that. “Do you want something other than this?” He shrugged. “It’d be complicated,” she said. “Me supervising you.” “Yeah,” he rolled over and kissed her. “Not what I meant. Are you happy with this?” “For now,” she said, then, warning, “Don’t.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m not saying anything. But I don’t think it’s a given we’ll have stopped in a couple of years.” “Okay. But don’t say anything.” “I’m not.” “So don’t.” He was grinning at her. “Anyway,” he said. “Isn’t there something you can do if you have a big shitfight with your supervisor?” “Fail.” He looked up, like he wasn’t sure. “Nah,” she said. “Not fail. You can switch. It’s just a hassle, that’s all.” He nodded. “Hey,” she said, and got up, and went downstairs. She got a book from the shelf in the hallway, came back to bed and opened it to page eighty-seven, which she knew from memory. She pointed. He took a while. He was trying to read the equations, and you couldn’t do that cold, in the middle of an advanced theory book, without seeing the rest of the chapter. “Look at what they’re developing from,” she said, and pointed again. He didn’t get it at first. She had her finger on her own surname, and he couldn’t quite see what she meant. “Howard’s work. What’s that?” She sat there, and he suddenly realized. “You?” he said. She nodded. He looked again for a while. Looked at the front cover. “This guy’s using your proof in his thing?” She nodded again. “Isn’t that cool? I’m in a book.” “You are.” He looked at her. Seemed really impressed. “You really fucking are.” He kissed her, sat there grinning for a moment. Then kissed her again. “Shit.” He seemed almost too impressed. Like he was mocking her. “You’re really impressed?” she said, suddenly not quite sure. “I really am.” She closed the book, relieved. “I’m part of the thing,” she said. “Shoulders of giants and all that shit. I’m like the tiny insect on the elbow of the little guy standing somewhere way down back behind the giant in the group photo.” “You are.” “You’re really impressed?” “I really fucking am.” She got up again, went and got a copy of her thesis. It was heavy. She’d always wanted to do one like Gauss, thirty pages, one proof, but it wasn’t quite that simple any more. And her supervisors wouldn’t have let her submit it, like she wouldn’t let someone now. You needed heft for credibility. She dropped it on the bed, said, “Have fun.” He actually tried to read it. He looked at the acknowledgements page, and pretended not to notice Robert’s name, then started reading from the introduction and got about twenty pages in before he said, “I’m lost. I don’t know what half the shit you’re talking about

means.” She’d been lying there, watching him, waiting for that. He’d got further than she’d expected. “It’s sweet that you tried.” “Yeah.” He leaned over and put it on the floor. “The other guy, who used your proof.” She pointed to the thesis. “Right. Was what it did important?” “Not really.” “Significant?” “About ten people in the world probably cared. Me being one of them. Nine others who work in his field.” She grinned. “But I’m still there.” “Yeah,” Ethan said, and kissed her head. “Yeah, you are.” * Late one night in their third week together, when Ethan sat up and said he should get going, Beth said, “Stay. If you want to.” He looked at her for a while and seemed to be thinking. “Is that what we’re doing now?” “Do you snore?” “Don’t think so.” “That’s all I’d care about.” “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. Thanks.” “And we’re both going to the same lecture tomorrow anyway,” she said. Then she started to think. There was a silence. “Um,” Beth said. “Yeah, the lecture.” “Is that going to be a problem?” “Let me think about it and I’ll let you know.” She ate breakfast with him, watched him make toast and coffee and was kind of interested in what he did. She watched him dress. Yesterday’s clothes. He watched her dress and kept grinning. She walked around in her undies deciding what to wear, and took far longer than was sensible to choose. He watched like he was getting turned on by the idea of her in underwear now, and that she’d be wearing the shirt she was holding in an hour. “Walk over with me,” she said. “But if you touch me, if you even smile at me funny, I swear to fucking god…” He nodded. They walked across the field and he behaved. He touched her hand, just once, as they reached the first buildings, smiled at her, and that was all. He sat up the back in the lecture, and off to the side, and before she started she found him, looked around until she saw him and made sure he was there. She looked at him, and made herself not smile in his direction, but she looked. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but something had. *

After spending a night together, Ethan stayed at Beth’s place more often. Beth told herself it was less disruptive to her work to fuck in the evening and then go to sleep, and it wasn’t fair to make him get up afterwards and go home, but she knew that wasn’t true. She liked having him around, liked him warm and still in her bed, liked listening to his breathing at night and knowing he’d be there when she woke up. She painted her nails one evening, had done her feet and was trying to do her right hand with her left, and making a mess of it. “Let me,” he said. She looked at him. “Do you know what you’re doing?” “Give it here.” He wiped the brush so it didn’t glob, did quick steady strokes. He was almost better than she was. “Should I ask?” “Up to you.” He did the next finger, and she watched him and decided not to. She thought about old girlfriends, and him doing this for someone else, and she was surprised how much she didn’t want to know. “Hey,” she said, while he stared at her hand. “You can leave a toothbrush here, if you want.” He looked up at her. “If you’re going to be around a bit, is all I mean. If that’s easier.” “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.” “It doesn’t change anything,” she said. “I know.” He brought a toothbrush, and hair goop and a few clothes as well. She made space in a drawer in the bathroom, and another in her dresser. It was changing, she thought. They were changing. They were turning into something settled, something more stable. When she thought about him, she assumed he’d be there the next day, and the one after, and that was an unusual thought for her. * Ethan rang one afternoon and said, “There’s a woman standing in front of me staring at me. She won’t go away.” Beth took a moment to realize. “Ask if she’s Amanda.” “She says yes.” “Right. Um. Yeah, say hi. I know her.” “I got that. I wondered how she knew me.” “Yeah,” Beth said. “Ah, she might have seen your ID photo at some point.” “Really?” “Yeah, dickhead. Because we’re staff and that’s what we do, is perve at hot boys in the student records system.” “That would be funnier if it wasn’t so obviously true.” “I know.” Beth thought, and realized there was no reason Amanda shouldn’t know Ethan. “Tell her to come over tonight. If you both want to.”

“She says yes.” “And you?” “I asked her.” They came over, and they seemed to get on. * Beth thought about Ethan, and wondered if she was being fair. They’d never really talked about the situation between them, other than the first day. He seemed to accept Beth was as available as she was, and not to push for more. She put the photo of Robert away, and didn’t mention him again, and if the phone rang when Ethan was there she let it go to her messages. Ethan realized why, she thought, but didn’t mention it either. “Hey,” she said once. “I’m giving you as much of me as I can, okay?” “I know.” “I just want you to know that.” “I do.” “I have a lot of work.” He nodded. “And the situation with Robert, it’s more complicated than it seems from the outside.” “I understand,” he said, and kissed her. “You’re okay for now?” “It is what it is. Just wait and see what happens.” She looked at him for a while, and couldn’t decide if he thought he could win her over, or just didn’t care because he got sex on tap and she still sucked his cock. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said. He smiled a little. “Me either.” “I won’t,” she said. “I’ll try my best not to.” “Me too.” She nodded, and left it at that. She had a crush, she knew. She was falling for him badly, and she was having the best sex of her life, and somehow, since he was happy and she was entangled, it just didn’t seem important to talk the whole thing through and decide what it really meant. * One afternoon, Ethan said casually, “Are you sleeping with anyone else?” “Nope,” she said. “Why, are you?” “No, of course not.” She lay there looking at him for a while. Stroking his face. “Want me not to either?” she said. He nodded. “Not that I am. Not that I was planning to, but if you’d rather I didn’t, then I won’t.” “I’d rather you didn’t.” “Then I won’t.”

Silence for a moment. “You too,” she said, a little unsure. “Right?” “I assumed.” She looked at him for a moment, then got up, and got the condoms from beside the bed, and threw them into a bathroom drawer. “Okay?” she said, and he nodded. “Want to try?” she said, and he jumped on her, and came in about a minute, and spent the next hour telling her how good she felt like that. She liked it too, him flooding her and filling her, almost so she thought she could feel it spurting inside her when he came. He didn’t come on her face for a week after that, or in her mouth, seemed quite taken by the idea of doing it inside her. * They went to a bar. They went to a bar because Beth wanted to do something outside the house for a change, and because she wanted to see how people reacted to them. No-one reacted at all. Ethan had been telling her that if she wore normal clothes they didn’t look that far apart in age, but she hadn’t quite believed him. She felt older. She felt a bit seedy, like people were going to point and call her a cradle-snatcher. She sat in the bar and looked around and realized, after a while, that this thing could actually work. There was no reason she couldn’t go places like this with him. The only time who they were mattered was at the university. The rest of their lives could be like this. It occurred to her that as time went on, the age difference would matter less. That right now was the worst it was going to be. That thought unsettled her, since it implied she was planning on keeping him for years, and she wasn’t sure why she’d think that. They went out again, and she kissed him once, at the bar, and held his hand under a table. She liked it. She actually liked being out with him, and that bothered her enough she took him home and fucked for an hour until she couldn’t think. “What do you want?” he said once. “Where do you want to be in the end?” “Trinity at Cambridge. You?” “I used to say Google, or the Google that’s coming that they don’t know about yet.” She caught something in his tone. She asked, thinking maybe she shouldn’t, “And now?” “Trinity at Cambridge,” he said, not meeting her eye. “With you.” She nodded slowly, and kissed him, and didn’t say anything more. It was turning into something more than fucking, and Beth wasn’t sure she minded. They seemed to be friends, had become friends fairly easily. They got on, and they had good sex, and there was something comfortable about being around him. She was surprised how much she liked him even though they spent most of their time in rooms alone, and that normally made her hate people almost right away. He was good for her. He reminded her who she’d used to be, before she’d started worrying about teaching and her career and what Robert thought. She skated again. In the middle of the day, no tricks, just up and down the street. She tried to remember why she’d stopped, and had an awful feeling it was Robert’s idea. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed like something Robert would have wanted her to do. Robert had ideas about what she should do, and told her them, and then kind of guilted her into doing what he thought was best without her really noticing. Ethan just watched her skate. Watched, then followed

her inside and pushed her onto her knees, grinning, on the hallway floor, and stuck his cock in her mouth. Then made her come with his, halfway up the stairs, too horny for her to wait until they reached the bed. She couldn’t work out why kneeling in front of Ethan with his hands twisted into her hair made her feel less controlled than just listening to Robert talk, but it did. Ethan didn’t want her to do anything particular, she thought, and that was the most important thing about him. Ethan let her be who she was, and he was who he was too, and part of being him was pushing her around during sex. But it was just him being him. Robert wanted her to be someone else, to be who Robert was, and that just pissed her off. Beth was happy. She wasn’t used to being happy, and she started to like it. She didn’t really notice time passing until it was the week she had to hand out her midsemester assignments and she hadn’t actually written them yet. Then she realized it had been most of two months, and she was still spending whole days with Ethan, fucking Ethan, doing Ethan’s homework for him, and she still wasn’t bored. Then summer ended, and the leaves turned, and Ethan was still at her house all the time. One morning, as they walked to their lecture across the sports fields, the grass was white with frost, and they were wearing coats and scarves, and their breath was misting in the air, and Beth let Ethan hold her hand until they reached the actual campus, and she realized she’d been in this thing, this sort-of relationship, for so long the semester was almost over. It was good. She needed this. She wasn’t bored with him, and usually she got bored with people very quickly. He gave her space, and the sex was good, and other than his being a student, everything was right. They might actually get through this, she thought, and was quite surprised how much she wanted to.

Chapter Seven One day Beth looked at her phone and saw she had two missed calls from Robert, two hours apart. She hadn’t answered the first because she was in a lecture, and hadn’t answered the second because she was fucking Ethan. Robert rang again, a third time, after they’d finished, but by then Beth was worried, wondering why he kept calling back, and didn’t want to pick up and find out. Robert left messages saying he needed to talk to her, but not what he needed to talk about. She’d hoped he’d get clearer as he left more messages, but he didn’t. Just the same thing three times. In the end, wondering what was wrong, she went outside and phoned Robert and said hi and sorry she’d missed him earlier. Her breath was misting in front of her face and she needed a scarf and a coat just to stand outside, but she didn’t want Ethan listening, and didn’t want him to leave either. Robert said he was interviewing for a job in the polisci department. He’d applied months

ago, but hadn’t told her because he didn’t think anything would come of it. What he’d heard now was that an internal candidate had pulled out, and now they were actually interviewing for real. Beth listened, and felt her world coming apart, and made herself sound pleased, for Robert, made herself sound happy. She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. It was too soon for this. She didn’t know where things were with Ethan, and if there was anything real beyond the sex, and she didn’t know where things were with Robert, either, and if she still even wanted him. She needed more time to work both out, to let the fling with Ethan run its course, but she didn’t have it. She was angry, a little resentful, that she wasn’t going to get that time. She said goodbye, and went inside. “What’s up?” Ethan said, as she took the coat off. “Nothing.” “Because you always go outside to make phone calls.” “Nothing yet.” He thought about that. “Tell me when there is something wrong, yeah?” She nodded. “Do you want head or something?” he said. Because that was all they ever really did, she supposed. A solution to everything. And it probably made sense that he asked. He must have seen her a dozen times start off all stressed and angry and worried after a shitty day, and then half an hour later be calm and happy because he’d eaten her out. “Nah,” she said, and sat down beside him. “Just hang for a bit, okay?” He put his arm around and pulled her over, and after a while, despite herself, she leaned on his shoulder. * Robert flew in for the interview two days later. He stayed the night with Beth, and seemed glad to see her, but it wasn’t like it had used to be. They didn’t have sex. Beth would have, had expected to, but Robert was thinking about his interview. She supposed it was the interview, but he didn’t actually say. That was what decided her, though. Something wasn’t right between her and Robert, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to fix it. She wanted fun with Ethan over hard work with Robert, and she didn’t know quite how to tell Robert that. She couldn’t tell him, not really, not while he was getting ready for the interview, and then not on the way to the airport afterwards, so in the end she didn’t say anything at all. He flew away, and was gone, and Beth decided telling him probably didn’t matter. It had been a year, and they weren’t really together any more, and he wasn’t likely to get this particular job, so they’d probably just drift apart, amiably, without anything needing to be said. She’d told Ethan that Robert would staying with her, had asked him to clear his things out, and Ethan hadn’t seemed bothered. Not like Beth would have been if she’d been suddenly cut off from sex. Ethan came back a couple of hours after Robert left, and Beth knelt in the hallway and blew him, and then took him up to the bed and fucked him, and everything seemed normal again. Normal from him. She still seemed to be in a slightly odd

mood, and she didn’t know why. He finished behind her, and she knelt where she was, breathing hard, feeling him still solid inside her. “Fuck me,” she said. “Again. When you’re ready. Like this.” He nodded, still panting. She knelt there still and waiting, watching him in the mirror. He started moving again, after a few minutes tried to turn her over, but she shook her head. “I want to see your face,” he said. “No, like this.” “What’s wrong?” “I don’t know. I feel odd. Like everything’s ending.” He stroked her back, and held her hips, and said, “Are you okay?” “I’m okay. I just want to fuck like this.” He nodded, and started moving faster, and that made her forget whatever her mood had been. She leaned on her arms and watched him in the mirror, and thought she caught him doing it back to her. Like he’d worked out the trick, the right angle to see, and he was watching her as she came. After sex, she felt better. Ethan kept stroking her back while she knelt there, and looking at her like he was worried. “I’m fine,” she said, and slid off him. “I’m good now.” “Okay,” he said, agreeable. She would have gone and wiped, but he liked her to drip, so she flopped onto the bed and dripped slowly instead. “Are you sure you’re all right?” Ethan said. “Yeah. Just people from the past. It put me in an odd mood.” “The guy?” he said. “The guy.” “Is everything all right?” “Yep. He’s gone now.” Ethan nodded, and kissed her, and went to get a textbook. Beth watched him and was pretty sure she’d done the right thing. Robert was gone and it seemed like that was the last of him, and she was actually relieved. She wanted this, with Ethan, and to see what came of it without complications. * Two nights later Robert phoned again, and said he’d got the job. They were in a hurry, everything was happening fast, and that he could start immediately had helped with his application. “You got it?” Beth said, wanting to make sure. He got it, he said. They needed him to start in two weeks. He was so glad he’d be back with her, he said, that he was packing already. “I’m glad too,” Beth said, dully. “I’m really pleased.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound odd on the phone. She was horrified inside. *

It happened that Ethan hadn’t stayed that night, that he’d been out with his friends and gone home to sleep. She phoned him the next morning, at ten, as early as was reasonable for him to answer the phone. She phoned rather than sent a message because she had no idea how to explain in a few words. “Could you come over?” she said. “As soon as you can.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing sudden or urgent or important. Don’t worry. I just need to see you.” “Is it the guy?” he said. “Just come.” “Is it me?” “Please,” Beth said. “Don’t do this over the phone.” “Half an hour,” he said. “I’m on my way.” After twenty minutes she got undressed and sat on the couch, watching the door. After twenty-five he knocked. She stood up and opened it. He came in, realized she wasn’t wearing anything, and stopped. She pushed the door closed, kissed him, and started pulling off his clothes. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Fuck me.” “Is that all?” She looked at him and shook her head. “There’s something wrong but fuck me first, okay?” She unzipped his pants and he was already hard so she climbed up onto him, and he leaned her against the wall behind the front door. She’d miss that, the wall thing, if she had to give it up. They’d been doing it there so often she’d started leaving a cushion behind the door, for whoever was kneeling down with the other in their mouth. Today wasn’t giving head, though, it was just sex. He held her up and had her against the wall, then carried her up the stairs without pulling out. He dropped her on the bed, and kept going but every so often he stopped and looked down at her, holding her face in his hands, and each time she shook her head and said, “Just fuck me. Later.” He did twice, and she liked that, would miss that too, if she had to give this up. She liked the way he filled her, then rested for a moment and fucked her again, and how all the semen he’d left inside her all oozed out. She liked how messy and fun sex was with him. How he came inside her, and carried her around, so she dripped these splattery trails all through the house, from the door to the stairs to the bedroom. She liked how when she sucked him he tasted like them both, himself and her mixed together on his cock. She liked that togetherness. She lay there and watched his face as he was inside her, and suddenly started kissing him, quite desperately. She wanted this. She didn’t want Robert. He was too cold, and dry, and impersonal. He was self-important, and worried about serious things, like Beth ought to be, but wasn’t. She didn’t want Robert, she wanted sticky fun sex with Ethan, all dripping and sweaty and hours of fucking. She wanted to be lifted up against walls and bent over chairs and she wanted to be looked at like his cock in her mouth was the most beautiful fucking thing he’d ever seen.

She wanted that. Ethan came again, and went down on her until she was done, and she didn’t want to stop yet. She wanted this to be epic, in case it was the last time. He lay back, grinning at her, smug and thinking he was done, so she blew him again, just to make it last. Sat there and bent over and sucked him slowly, half-hard, until he came. Then she was done. She went and got a drink of water and came back to the bed and looked at him sadly and said, “We need to talk.” He nodded. He looked at her too, like he was trying to take her in. Looked at the sweat on her breasts and the shape of her legs and a little smears of drying semen on her thigh. “Don’t.” he said. “Please.” “Ethan…” “Beth, please. I know this is complicated, but don’t end this. Just don’t.” She sat there and wondered what to do. He was good for her, and good to her, and the sex was brilliant. “I’m not begging,” he said. “I’m just saying. This is a good thing. You and me are good. Don’t end this over something stupid, something that isn’t a problem yet.” She wondered what he thought the problem is. There wasn’t any reason not to ask. “What do you think I want to talk about?” “Someone found out? Someone at college?” She shook her head. “Not that.” “So what?” “Robert,” she said. “The guy in the photo.” She didn’t know what to say. “He got a job here. He’s moving here. I’m sorry.” Ethan lay there for a while. Beth stroked his arm, his shoulder. “I don’t really understand,” Ethan said. “What does that mean?” “For us? I don’t know.” “Are you going back to him?” She sat there for a while, still stroking, thinking about guilt and obligations. “I don’t think I was ever not with him.” “Yeah,” Ethan said. “Fair enough. Is that what you want? Us to end?” “I don’t know.” “I’ll just go if you want me to. Quietly, I mean.” Beth nodded, and leaned over and kissed him. “I don’t want you to.” “But I might have to?” She smiled a little sadly. “Maybe.” “Do you want me?” he said. “Yes.” “Him?” “I sort of owe him.” “But do you want him?” “I don’t know.” “So, what? You want us to be an affair?” She’d thought of it, but hadn’t. She hadn’t known what Ethan would say. “I suppose it’s kind of the obvious thing to do,” she said. “Isn’t it?” “I don’t know if I’m okay with you fucking someone else.”

“I don’t know you get to decide that.” He seemed hurt. “Yeah,” he said. “Fair enough.” He slid over, sat up at the edge of the bed, like he was about to leave. She grabbed his hand. He tried to pull free, but she held him. “Sorry,” she said. He waited. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve just had all this in my head all of last night, and I don’t know what to do. I’m going a bit crazy.” “Talk to me.” “I’m trying.” “Okay,” he said, and looked at her for a while. “So what do you actually want?” “I want everything to be how it was until now.” “Why can’t it be?” “Robert needs to stay here.” “So they’re not paying him?” Beth smiled a little. She deserved that. “Robert has no reason to think he can’t stay here unless I tell him otherwise,” she said carefully “Which I haven’t.” “So tell him.” “I don’t know if I can.” “You don’t know if you want to,” Ethan said. She looked up, didn’t quite understand. “You don’t know if you want to,” he said. “That’s what you mean. Not that you can’t.” “Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. If I want to.” She sat there and thought about everything he was, everything he’d begun to mean to her. She kissed him, and said, “I don’t want to lose this. To lose you.” He seemed wary. “We’ve never really talked about what’s happening here,” she said. “Not really. What this all is.” “I know.” “And we’ve never asked each other for anything more than what this is. Than what we are when we’re together. So I suppose I never really thought about it. Never realized I wanted more. And how much I’d miss you if you were gone.” After moment he said, “Me either.” She squeezed his hand. “So what do we do?” he said. “Have an affair, I suppose,” she said. “Just until I work out what’s happening.” He was looking at her, still thinking. “I know I’m being unfair,” she said. “Not really. You told me about him, and never promised anything else.” She nodded, but didn’t want to agree. She had, on purpose, and she was glad he wasn’t resenting her for that caution. “Can we try it this way?” she said. “Please. Just see what happens? Work around this for a while.” “Work around this?” “Just see what happens.” “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, after a while. “I’m not trying to be difficult,

just… Are we still fucking? Are we still not sleeping with anyone else?” “If that’s okay,” Beth said. “Just for a while.” “Except Robert,” he said. “For you.” “I’ll try not to sleep with Robert without talking to you first.” He sat there and looked at her and seemed completely baffled. “I’m being honest,” she said. “That’s what people really mean when they promise each other things. So I’m saying that to you. I’m not promising you forever, but I’ll try to be fair. I’ll try not to let anything happen that changes things for you until I’ve told you what’s happening first.” “Okay,” he said. “Yeah.” “That’s okay?” “It’s not okay, but I see what you mean. It’s fair.” She looked at him for a moment, and wanted to be sure he understood. “And if something happens with Robert,” she said. “And it doesn’t turn out how we want?” “Then something happens with him, I suppose, and I live with it.” “And that’s enough for now?” He shrugged a little bit, looked like he was annoyed at himself. “Yeah, it’s enough.” “Is it really?” “I don’t want to lose you. This is complicated. So yeah, for now, I’ll deal with it. It’s enough.” She sat there for a while and waited, in case he wanted to say anything else, but nothing seemed to come. “Thank you,” she said, after a while. “What for?” “Letting me fix this my way.” “It’s fine,” he said, and kissed her. “We’ll sort it out.” She nodded, and kissed him back, and for some reason felt like she wanted to cry. “Fucking thank you,” she said. “I mean it. I was terrified for a moment you’d just go.” “You’d care if I did?” “Of course I’d fucking care if you did, you prick.” He grinned at her for a while, and seemed suddenly a bit more cheerful, and kissed her. Then she did start to cry. She didn’t know why, right then, but tears started running down her face, and he held her and stroked her hair and told her it was okay, and she sobbed and hated herself for being so weak and wondered what the fuck was wrong with herself. * The day before Robert arrived, Beth spent the whole day in bed with Ethan. She stayed awake half the night and had sex until she could hardly walk, until she felt tired and achy and dehydrated. She kissed him goodbye, hugged him in the lounge, clinging like she’d never thought she would to anyone, desperately not wanting to let him go. She didn’t want to let him go, and she didn’t know how to fix this, and she wasn’t used to feeling either of those things. Ethan left, and she had a shower and changed the sheets and walked through the house

checking for any sign of Ethan. Like she was having an affair. Then she went to the airport and collected Robert and brought him home. It wasn’t like it had used to be with Robert. It was polite and proper and filled with assumptions he’d never have made when they were first together. He didn’t know her any more, but he thought he did, so he didn’t bother checking before he acted. He put his things places she didn’t want them, and spread papers out where she sat to read, and suddenly her home wasn’t hers any more, it was theirs, and he hadn’t even asked if that was okay. He didn’t suggest sex for several days, either, which offended her a little. She’d been expecting to have to fight him off, and didn’t know why he wasn’t trying. When he eventually did, he wasn’t especially serious about it. He let her put him off with a shrug and by saying she was tired. She felt invaded and unsettled and annoyed he didn’t want to fuck her. She missed sex, because she’d suddenly gone from twice a day, every day, to none. What really irritated her was Ethan was there, and had never got in her way, and wanted her so much he’d probably fuck himself to death like a lab rat if she let him, and all she had to do was tell Robert to go away and she could have Ethan back. And she didn’t. Because she’d once loved Robert, and once he’d meant a lot to her, and even now he still wanted all the same things from life as she did. She and Robert fit together, and Ethan was ten years younger and a fling, and in her heart of hearts she was calculating and sensible and couldn’t make herself throw away everything she had with Robert without being completely sure that was what she wanted. So she had to wait. She got horny and irritated and got no work done, but she made herself try. And having to make herself do anything always irritated her even more. * Beth hadn’t seen Ethan for three days when she next had a lecture for his course. She’d been trying to work out how to meet him safely, and had been trying to get herself over him and pay attention to Robert, and it had halfway worked. She was texting Ethan a lot, and they’d spoken on the phone twice, but she hadn’t actually seen him. Then she walked into the lecture, and looked at him, and wanted to grab him and fuck him right there. She made herself stop. She made herself not even look his way. She was wet. She’d got wet walking over to the lecture theatre, and she’d made herself look good because she knew Ethan would be there. Right now, damp undies and all, she was probably the closest thing he’d ever have to his professor fantasy, and he didn’t even know it. She taught. She avoided looking his way until the class was over, then told them all to clear off. He started dawdling up the back, packing up slowly, waiting until the room was empty. There were always a couple of students who hung around after a lecture. Usually one with a question, and one an older student, returning to study, wanting to make friends or trying to impress Beth. She chased them away, told them to come to office hours, and wiped the board down slowly until the room was clear.

She knew Ethan was watching her, almost as if she could feel his eyes. She knew where he was without turning to look, knew when he stood up from the squeak of his chair, and knew when he was coming towards her from his footsteps on the floor. He stopped beside her, and stood there without a word. She kept facing the whiteboard, holding the cleaner. She didn’t turn around. “I want you,” he said softly. “I really, really fucking want you.” “I know,” she said. She turned around and started putting course guides and notes in a box. “I’m working out how.” “Your office?” She shook her head. “People will see.” “My place.” “You have roommates.” “Please,” he said. “Just wait.” People started coming in, the students for the next class. They would wait a while to come into a mostly empty room, but not forever. She heard voices, the soft thuds of fire doors swinging open and closed. She looked at Ethan and ignored the rest of them. “Your office,” Ethan said quietly. “Just once, tonight.” She hesitated. “Okay.” “Six?” She bit her lip. She wanted to say later, that she’d go down and let him in. She wanted them to be able to make more noise, but she didn’t know what Robert was expecting from her yet, or when he thought she should be home. She realized she was thinking like she was having an affair, and that she shouldn’t be. Even though she was. “Six,” she said, and picked up the box of papers. As she left she glared at him, then looked at the other door to the room. He understood, and went the other way, out the other door, instead of following her. He got her. He got her well enough that any choices she needed to be making should be easy, but somehow they weren’t. * In her office, on her desk, with Ethan deep inside her, Beth came, and bit his shoulder, and sighed into his ear, “Fuck, I need you.” He looked at her, and seemed surprised, then she squeezed herself and licked his neck and he came too, distracting him. When he was done, even while he was finishing, he said, “I heard that.” “I know,” she said. “Was it true? Do you?” She nodded. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, was embarrassed for some reason, but she nodded. He reached back, felt around for the chair behind himself, and sat down. His knees were shaking. They often did if he came standing up. He looked up at her, and she perched on her desk and looked back. She should wipe, had

picked up tissues to do so, but he was looking right at her and he liked that kind of view and she wanted him to remember her. She might not see him as much, for the next little while. She squeezed a little again, tried to drip, but wasn’t sure how well it worked. She sat there and let him look. She was naked from the waist down, because she hadn’t expected this and had worn jeans today. She could have pulled them down to her knees and bent over, got him to do her from behind, but she’d wanted to be held, wanted to look at his face while he was inside her, and that surprised her a little too. She sat on her desk with a bare ass and wasn’t bothered by getting caught any more. She relaxed after she came, was less anxious about things like that. The door was locked and the building was quiet and she didn’t especially care if they were caught, not really. It would solve a lot of problems. Ethan had teased her about that before, about being anxious until she got off and then not giving a shit. He thought that was funny, because he said most people were the opposite, only started worrying after they came. She’d wanted to ask how the fuck he knew that, but didn’t, because part of her was starting to get possessive and jealous and she didn’t want to know. She’d surprised herself one morning a week ago by getting herself off thinking about his threeway, imagining the other two with him. Surprised herself because she’d never fantasized about someone’s past partners before, and also because she’d felt a sour little taste of jealousy after she came. There were things going on she didn’t quite understand, and she really didn’t like that kind of confusion. She sat on her desk and looked at him and felt him, a little of him still left, sticky inside her. He looked at her and was so serious he wasn’t staring at her naked bits, he was looking at her face. She put her knees wide apart just to see if he’d look, and he did. It felt too much like a medical exam though, a bit of a weird one with semen up inside her, so she put her knees together again and grinned instead. “What did that mean?” he said. “That you need me.” “I don’t know.” He looked at her for a while. “Fuck,” she said. “I really don’t. I just said it.” “Did you mean it?” She nodded. “I do, yeah.” He was thinking. “So you’re not trying to end this?” he said. She was surprised. “Shit, of course not.” “Oh.” “You thought I was?” He shrugged. “Like a non-confrontational thing, you know. Just ignore me, let it drift until it ends.” “When we talked,” she said. “I said…” “I know.” She didn’t understand. “Well, I said that,” she said. “And it was only the other day…” “You would say that. If you were trying to let things end.” It was true, but still. “That’d be kind of cold.” “Yeah.”

“Is that what you’d think I’d do?” He shrugged. Then said, “No, I know you wouldn’t. Just part of me wondered, that’s all.” She should remember he could be as insecure as she could. She should remember he wasn’t really that cocky little fuck she’d met at the party months ago. He’d probably actually feel worse, right now, more unsure, because she knew what was going on, and was distracted by Robert, and had Robert, and Ethan was just wondering, suddenly missing her all the hours she’d normally have filled in his day. Her worries about being used, being tricked, were probably now his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean you to think that.” “It’s fine. I was just being…” “No,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss him. “No, I’m not doing that. Not ever.” He looked at her. “Never,” she said. “I can’t promise you much, but I fucking swear to you I’ll be honest with you no matter what, and that I won’t be cruel.” “Okay.” “Fuck me again.” He stood up and slid into her again, slid in all slithery and warm because she was still thick with him. She liked this, now they’d started doing it, him always wanting twice and not using condoms. One time just became the next, in one long squelchy fuck. He didn’t seem to care about the mess they made, almost seemed to like it, and he never went completely soft, so she could just start again when she wanted to. She wanted to tell him how she felt, to say how much she wanted him, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to say he was a better man than Robert without it coming out wrong, and she didn’t know how to say how much she liked sex with him, without it sounding like all she cared about was that, rather than him, and who he was. He was thinking about sex anyway, not feelings. She could see it on his face. He was being a guy, just fucking her, not thinking about anything else. She stayed quiet, and kissed his mouth, and felt him inside her. She hugged him as she came, held herself against his chest so she could feel him close, and kept hold of him, made him stay where he was, as he came too. She held onto him a little longer, breathing hard. “I just need time to sort this out,” she said after a while. “I want you. And if I want this to end, I’ll tell you. But I don’t.” “Okay.” She looked at him and wanted to ask, to know how much he wanted her too, but it wasn’t fair to try and make him tell her. He might be trying to protect his feelings, trying to hide them from himself. She pushed him back, and wiped herself. He grinned at her, happy enough because he’d just got off, she thought. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, a bit desperately, wondering how they were going to get through this, and if it was even fair to want to. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t look like that.” “Yeah,” she said. “I know.” He held her for a while, and told her it would be okay, and she just nodded, and then

said, “I should go.” He walked out with her, kissed her again in a pool of darkness under a tree, and left her to walk home. Robert didn’t seem to have noticed she was gone, just said hi and went back to what he was reading, and that irritated her too. She’d wasted time she could have been with Ethan and Robert didn’t even bother paying attention to where she was. She went and had a shower, and only then thought she should have done that at her office. She still had Ethan inside her, must smell of sex, and of another man on her skin, and she hadn’t even thought to worry. Maybe she’d stopped worrying so much, or maybe she wasn’t very good at cheating. Or perhaps she really just didn’t care if Robert caught her, even though she was going through the motions. She washed herself, and made herself come again in the shower, and Robert still hadn’t noticed how long she’d been in there when she went downstairs to get something to eat. * Robert started going to political demonstrations. He’d always done this sort of thing, and always seemed to think Beth was going to go with him until she laughed and said no. Sometimes she actually laughed. He had causes, dozens of causes, and although she understood he thought a lot needed doing to fix the world, she also thought a bit of focus might help. “Beth,” he said. “Please. This is important.” “No, it isn’t,” she said. “It’s a waste of time. No-one cares.” She took her chance to sneak away and see Ethan while Robert was distracted. And the rest of the time she schemed to avoid having sex with Robert. She started going to bed early or late, so he was asleep when she got there or she could pretend to be. She started sleeping in clothes, just so she didn’t turn him on by mistake, even though she had trouble getting to sleep with anything on. He noticed and asked why she was sleeping in a tee shirt now. She said it was colder, so he turned the heat up, without asking, until she said, sharply, that he should watch the fucking power bill. One night he caught her, obviously still awake, and started kissing her, so she lied and said she had her period. Because he was fussy, unlike Ethan, and had never wanted to then. It worked for that night, and the next few, and she was pleased, except then she had wear sensible undies for a week, and leave a box of tampons out, and flush one every so often in case he checked, and then remember to take her pill without a break, so she didn’t get it two weeks later and make him think she was pregnant or miscarrying or had ovarian cancer or something. It pissed her off she had to bother, because he wouldn’t leave her alone. Having a period pissed her off at the best of times, but it really irritated her now. She saw Ethan again, and got laid, and that helped, and then a week later Robert asked her for sex directly, and she was trapped. He said they hadn’t in a while, and should, and said it all sweetly like he was worried they were drifting apart or something. So Beth had to say no directly, or let him. Or say she’d been worn out by her toyboy, sorry.

So she got undressed and he went down on her, and she didn’t feel a thing. It was strange. Even though she wasn’t really interested, she’d have thought the basic mechanics would mean she got something out of it. A tongue on her was a tongue on her and he’d never been that bad at it before, but she just didn’t care. She sighed a bit and gasped now and then and she didn’t exactly mean to fake, but she started off implying she was enjoying it more than she was, then followed through on the lie. It was odd and very unfair that Ethan was better than Robert without even trying, while Robert did all the things she was supposed to like. It was unfair because there was no way Robert could fix it, no matter how hard he tried. He just wasn’t what she wanted any more. When he tried to fuck her she told him to wear a condom. She was thinking of Ethan and how she wasn’t using them with him, then realized somehow her loyalties had got mixed up, and it wasn’t Ethan she owed the condom to. Robert seemed surprised. “When did we start doing that?” he said. “You weren’t here,” she said. “I went off the pill.” “It’s in the bathroom.” Beside the sink, next to her toothbrush, where she’d left it last night. But he probably wouldn’t have noticed whether any pills were actually getting used. She knew, from the one time they’d talked, that being grossed out by her period went as far as being grossed out by the pink bit on the foil around the inactive pills. “Yeah,” she said, “I just left it there. I’m not taking them.” “Your phone alarm still goes off.” “Hadn’t bothered changing it. Stop fucking interrogating me.” He looked at her for a while then said, “You’ve got some somewhere? Condoms?” She almost said no, to try and get out of sex, but he’d probably already found the boxes she’d used with Ethan, still in the bathroom drawer. He’d probably already noticed them. He shouldn’t be in her bathroom, poking around, but he probably had been. “Bathroom,” she said. “Bottom drawer.” Robert went and got them, and they had sex, and Beth laid there and didn’t really feel anything. She just watched him, and didn’t care he was there. Not how she watched Ethan when he was inside her. The next day she had to change her phone alarm, and hide her pill, and start taking it at lunchtime, when she was at her office and Robert wasn’t around, all just to keep from getting caught in one lie. Everything was getting complicated. Robert didn’t interest her any more, and she couldn’t think of any way to tell him that which wasn’t utterly horrible, so she let him fuck her instead. She’d never felt as despicable as she did then. Robert tried again a few nights later, and Beth just lay there again, on her back, passive, watching. She felt like her grandmother. “What’s wrong?” Robert said, and she shook her head. He tried to get her to go on top, but she said she didn’t want to. After a while she said, “Hold my wrists,” and he looked confused, but did, and then at least she enjoyed that a little. He held her arms down, and she watched him, but whatever she’d felt for a moment was gone. He held her arms together, over her head, like Ethan did, but it wasn’t the same. He was rubbing her, fumbling between her legs, and she watched, waiting, fairly sure

what he was about to do. He pressed his finger against her ass. It was wet enough to go in without hurting, but it was probably just spit. Or her. She moved, put her foot on his chest, pushed him back. “Don’t,” she said. “What?” “I don’t want to.” He tried again, grabbed her wrists tighter, and was probably rougher than he should have been. She got more interested, suddenly. It felt like that was wrong. He turned her over, pushed her face-down on the bed, and held her arms. Like Ethan had sometimes. She lay there for a moment, while he got lube from the drawer and squeezed some out, and she was co-operating enough she didn’t go anywhere while he did, and pretended not to notice that awkward little pause. He held her down and slid a finger up her ass, then two. She lay there and didn’t stop him. He pushed his cock into her, which was a bit sudden, and she’d have said so except she actually wanted him to, a bit, despite herself. He started fucking her, and let go of her arm, and that spoiled everything. So she tried to bang her elbow into him, backwards, to make him grab her again. He did, and she actually felt excited. It still hurt, though, a little. She hadn’t been nearly ready enough. It got worse, started to sting. “Hurry,” she said. “I can’t…” He did. Then lay there on top of her while they both panted. She was confused and a bit revolted by herself. Apparently she only wanted sex with Robert if he made her, and she really wasn’t sure she was okay with that. “I didn’t like that,” she said after a while. “You seemed to.” “Go fuck yourself.” She wriggled out from underneath him and sat up. He’d had a condom so she didn’t need to run off to the bathroom straight away. “I told you not to,” she said. He looked at her and didn’t answer. She was right. She’d told him not to, and he kept going anyway, and to Robert, at least in theory, that was an unforgiveable sin. “I don’t like doing that,” she said. “Not in my ass.” “You never minded before,” he said. “And now I do.” She sat there for a moment. “Back then I did too,” she said. “I just didn’t tell you.” He seemed a bit hurt. “You should have said something.” “I am.” He nodded. “Has it ever occurred to you,” she said. “That we’re both professors now. I’m a professor. And you’re still trying to stick your cock up my bum like we were kids.” “I don’t think our jobs have got anything to do with this.” “Yours doesn’t. Mine does. I have a proof. People write about my work. In a few years I’m going to be tenured. And you want to ass-fuck me like I’m sixteen.” “I don’t understand.”

“Me either. Just don’t do that, okay. I never liked it. It hurts.” He nodded. He still seemed upset, and she felt bad. “I don’t mind doing things with you,” she said. “Sometimes I like it. But I get sick of you just doing it without asking me.” “Yeah, I understand.” “Okay.” She sat. She wasn’t sure why, until she suddenly realized she was expecting more. She’d been around Ethan too long. A guy came inside her, and she just hovered, waiting for him to start again. That wasn’t going to happen with Robert. “I didn’t come,” she said. “I know. Sorry.” She looked at him for a while, and decided he really wasn’t getting the hint. “Could you do something about that?” she said. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” He still didn’t move. “Well?” she said. “Aren’t you going to have a shower?” She sat there for a while and wondered what to say. He stuck his cock up her ass without asking, and she ended up dirty and needing a shower before he’d put his tongue on a completely different part of her. “Never mind,” she said, and stood up. “Beth…” “Never mind.” She got herself off in the shower and by the time she’d finished, the whole sex thing seemed to have been forgotten. * Beth was missing Ethan. She wanted to see Ethan. There were other ways she could have organized it, but they would be complicated and take time out of her research and it was about to be poker night anyway. She wanted him at poker night. She wanted him to meet her friends, and pretend everything in her life was normal and Robert just wasn’t here, and that the way things should have been evolving with Ethan by now would keep evolving anyway. Sometimes she didn’t make sense even to herself. She phoned Amanda and said, “Can Ethan come to poker night?” “Is he a girl?” “Not really.” “Only girls at poker night.” “Please. Just this time?” “Just go fuck him, then come find us.” “I want him to meet you all.” “Aw, that’s kind of sweet.”

“I know. So yes?” “So maybe.” “We can have it at my place.” They smoked cigars, so whoever’s house it was stunk for a week. Everyone wanted poker night and no-one wanted to host it. “Yep,” Amanda said. “Deal. If no-one else minds.” “I’ll ask.” “You will. And hey, Beth, remember he’s poor and we’re not. You might need to lend him money or something.” They played for fairly large amounts of money. Because when Amanda started it, she’d said that it wasn’t fun unless you were playing for more than you wanted to lose. And they all had disposable income and no commitments and that wouldn’t be the case forever, so they had. Getting your first academic job meant doubling your income at least. For Beth it had meant tripling it. Beth phoned everyone, and pleaded and blackmailed, and in the end they all said yes. All were scientists, all early career over-achievers who needed an outlet. Keri in chemistry, Anna in mathematical physics, Sofia in computer science. Beth warned Sofia that Ethan might be one of her students, but she didn’t seem to care. She seemed more interested in meeting him. Then she phoned Robert and said he needed to go to a hotel tonight, that she had girls’ poker night and she’d forgotten, sorry. It would go late so not to bother coming back. Then she phoned Ethan and said, “What are you doing tonight?” “You, I assume.” Ha ha, she thought, but was glad he was free. She hadn’t thought to check first. “Yep,” she said. “Hope so. Want to meet my friends too?” “Sure. Are you okay with that?” “These friends, yeah. Do you play poker?” “Not really.” “Do you know how?” “Kind of.” She thought for a moment, suspicious. “Like don’t right up until you hustle me, or really don’t?” “Really don’t. I get lost with the seven card draw and all that shit.” “Yeah, that’s okay. It’s just basic poker. You sure?” “Yeah. I’d like to meet your people.” “Come to my place. After seven. Be a bit late, I’ll text when it’s clear.” * Poker night happened once a month and was loud and rude and they all got very drunk. Beth didn’t text Ethan until she was sure Robert had gone for the night, so the others were there, drinking, teasing her, making her wonder if this was a terrible idea. When Ethan knocked she got up and met him at the door. She was holding a cigar. She handed him whiskey, and kissed him like she’d been wanting to for a week, all open and needy and desperate. He pulled a face when he tasted her mouth.

“Man up,” she said, grinning. “That’s the taste of testosterone.” “Yeah,” he said. “Just what I always wanted in a girlfriend.” “More,” she said, and kissed him again, and he didn’t seem to really mind her smoky mouth. He was touching her back, sliding his hand around. He reached up her front and put his hand on her tit. “Yep,” she said into his mouth. “Poker night. No girly shit. This is a night to be men and do manly things.” He thought about that for a moment, then said, “That’s just creepy.” So she flashed him, and he stared, and got interested in kissing her again. “Nope,” she said. “Come and meet everyone.” She pulled him backwards towards the lounge. “Oh yeah,” she said. “By the way. You perve, we all kill you. Just so you know.” “Perve at what?” “Ah, dude. A night to be men, manly things?” He looked blank. “No-one’s got a bra on, you dick, and some of them are your professors. So you perve, and first I kill you, and then they all do too.” He grinned, and nodded. “Okay.” They were sitting around the kitchen table filling her lounge with vile smoke. She had the ranch sliders open and the kitchen extractor fans on in the hope it would help, but it didn’t really. It never did. Beth pulled Ethan over and told him everyone’s name, and felt like she was fourteen and introducing her first boyfriend. They said hi, and Amanda said they knew about him, but he didn’t seem too worried. “Hi Doctor Dimitrova,” he said to Sofia. “You know each other?” Beth said. Sofia was looking blank too. “Last year,” Ethan said. “Information theory.” “Right,” Sofia said. “How did you do?” “Shit,” Ethan said. “Not you as well.” Everyone looked at him. “Yeah,” Beth said. “Her too. I asked him that.” A few smiles. “So how did you do?” Anna said. “An A. In both.” “Good,” Anna said. “Can’t let Beth have a sub-standard toyboy.” For a horrible moment Beth thought this was going to come unstuck. Ethan stood where he was, surprised. The others looked at him, wondering what to do. Beth grabbed his hand, and squeezed, a bit worried. “Fair enough,” Ethan said, and kissed Beth. “I’ll try not to be.” Anna grinned. Sofia looked annoyed, like she was jealous. Ethan seemed to be okay. Beth decided she’d had enough, and pushed Ethan into a chair, the one next to hers. “Sit,” she said. “Play. You know the rules?” “I’ll remember.” Beth got him beer, poured him a whisky, stuck a cigar in his mouth and lit it. Then sat

down, and pushed a stack of chips towards him. He looked at the cash in the chip box. “Are we playing for money?” “I paid yours,” Beth said. He took out his wallet, and she wondered if she should have warned him about that. She leaned over and whispered, “Don’t be a fucking asshole in front my friends.” “I should pay.” “We all earn a lot. A lot more than you. And we’re playing for a fair bit of money.” “How much?” She held up a chip. It had a ten printed on it. “Dollars?” he said. “Yeah.” He looked at the rest. Some fifties, one or two a hundred. “How much is on the table?” “Don’t worry about it.” She kissed him. “We’ll talk about it later.” He didn’t seem sure, but let her talk him into it. They started playing, and played fast. Ethan was the slowest one to make decisions for the first few hands. Beth wondered if she should have warned him. About the money, and that they did this a lot, and were all quite good. Part of her wanted to see how he’d react. The others had brought guys to poker night before, despite Amanda making a fuss. Most of the guys got sulky being beaten by a bunch of girls, even the sensitive academic ones. Robert wouldn’t take it very well, Beth was pretty sure. The couple of times they’d played strip poker she’d got him naked while she was still mostly dressed. Ethan lost money for a few hands, and people folded a lot. Then Beth beat Amanda, bluffed Amanda while Amanda tried to bluff her back. Ethan was watching, and thinking. Beth could see him out the corner of her eye, and it was a bit distracting. “What?” she said. “You’re good.” She was pleased, but didn’t let it show. She sucked on the cigar. “Yep.” “How? Why?” “What do I do?” He looked at her for a moment and didn’t understand. She liked when people didn’t think this through. Everyone know probability theory was invented by eighteenth-century card hustlers looking for an edge. They knew it, and they never thought about it when it really mattered. Beth looked at Amanda and smirked. “Hey Beth,” Amanda said. “What’s the odds of getting dealt a full house in five-card poker?” “Six hundred and ninety to one. Roughly. Hey Amanda, what’s the odds of getting dealt two pairs?” “Twenty to one, about.” They both looked at Ethan and grinned. “Oh, fuck,” he said. Beth liked that. She liked it a lot. “I thought you hated statistics?” Ethan said. “This is combinatorial maths, that’s completely different.”

“No, it isn’t.” Beth kept grinning. “It’s much worse,” Amanda said. “Hey Beth, seven-card draw. What’s the odds of completing an inside straight draw on the turn?” Beth sat there for a moment and worked it out. It was a pretty basic binomial calculation, n choose k where n was the outcomes you wanted and k was the cards left in the hand. She’d expect any of her grad students to be able to do it, but she was the only mathematician in the room so she could impress. “Ten and a half to one,” she said. “Ten point seven, maybe?” “Is that right?” Ethan said to Amanda. “No fucking idea.” “It’s right,” Beth said. “Which is why we play five-card draw,” Amanda said. “We can all memorize these odds. Otherwise, she wins all the time, just sits there looking expressionless so you can’t even bluff. Because she knows she’s the only one at the table who can work out the odds as she goes.” “Shit,” Ethan said. “That’s awful.” “Isn’t it?” Beth said. “Play cards.” Anna shuffled and dealt. “I thought you didn’t like real numbers,” Ethan said to Beth. “This is probability. One minus some shit. It’s a fraction.” “I really don’t think it is.” “That one multiplies out to eight hundred and fifty-one over a thousand. That’s a fraction, not a fucking real number.” He looked at her. Just sat there and stared. There was something in his face, like there had been the first few days. “What?” she said. “I really fucking like you, you know that? I really do.” “Get a fucking room,” Amanda said. “Stop trying to distract me,” Beth said. “Play the fucking cards.” They were loud. They swore too much. They drank a lot. Anna sat there and blew smoke rings and looked smug while everyone else tried. They were all themselves here, with each other, and Beth watched Ethan out the corner of her eye and hoped he liked them. It almost mattered more than if he liked her. It was hard being them. It shouldn’t be, and it was easier than it used to be, but it was still a little hard. They were all pushing into places that some people assumed they didn’t belong, and the little irritations grated sometimes. When people asked about Beth having children and how long she’d be around, as if her career didn’t actually matter to her. When she was asked why she’d chosen the field she had, as if it was something unusual, but noone ever thought to ask the guy standing next to her. They were tiny irritations, nothing more, but they became a burden when it was day after day. She pushed back. Everyone had their own way of pushing back. Beth was rude and bad-tempered, to show she was an unstable genius, and it actually worked, people treated her as if she was. The others all had their tricks too. They all kept up a pretence a lot of the time, and then they came here, and had their monthly game, and were loud and themselves, and it was fun.

The strange thing was, Beth had noticed, the average woman in science was always slightly smarter than the average guy. You didn’t do this if you were a girl and only average, you didn’t even try. She watched the game, and decided Ethan was able to deal with them. She liked him a lot more for that. She poured another round of shots and put her feet up on his lap, and smiled when he looked over. Ethan seemed to be able to cope. He could cope with fucking his maths professor, and he seemed to be coping with drunken high-stakes bra-less poker with his compsci professor too. He was trying to blow smoke rings while Anna told him what to do, and as far as Beth could tell he hadn’t glanced down once. Robert wouldn’t have managed. He wouldn’t have been able to fit in. Ethan was younger and a student, and that might have made a difference, but it was probably mostly because he was him. He didn’t have to control the room, like some guys did. He just went along with everyone else. Beth looked at him and wondered if she’d found the only smart guy who could stand her in the whole world. The only one without an ego so big it got in the way. They played more cards. Ethan was slowly losing but didn’t seem to mind. They reached a hand in which everyone folded except Beth and Ethan. Beth kept bidding, pushed out a couple of hundred dollars in chips, all the time looking at Ethan and pressing her foot against his leg. He got the hint and kept going, right up until she folded. “You bitch,” Sofia said. “That’s cheating.” The others seemed to think so too. “What? I decided I was wrong about what he had.” “You never fold.” “I did that time.” “Because you’re fucking him.” “Maybe because I know him better.” Anna tried to grab Beth’s cards, turn them over, but Beth snatched them up and shuffled them into the deck. Two hands later, Beth and Ethan ended up in another bidding contest and this time, because Beth had given Ethan a stack of chips, it was her who was running low. “You’re out of chips,” Ethan said. “You’re playing with my money.” “So?” The others laughed. “How do you guys do this?” Ethan said. “Do you go all in or something?” “Nope,” Amanda said. “You can take an IOU if you want.” Ethan grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think so.” “Low,” Anna said “Really low.” “I want to call,” Beth said. “You don’t have enough,” Amanda said. “I know. I call with me.” Everyone looked at her. “How do you mean you?” Ethan said. “You win, you get me.” “Don’t I anyway?”

“Probably not if you’re going to be a dickhead playing cards,” she said, but grinned. He looked at her. “Shit,” Beth said. “You get me anyway, just in less of a trophy kind of way.” He thought about that. “So put something in the pot.” Beth looked around the table. “Dare you,” Ethan said. Beth pulled her top off, and threw it on the table. Sat there with bare tits, grinning and puffing on her cigar, while everyone else laughed. Ethan was staring at her. “What?” she said. “You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.” “Good,” Beth said, and took the cigar out her mouth. “So we’re all in?” He nodded. Amanda stood up. “I really want to see how this ends, but you know, I don’t. Time to go I think.” She started counting chips, cashing herself out. The others did too. Ethan and Beth sat there and stared at each other. Everyone left, and he kept staring. “Go on,” she said. “Dare you.” He leaned over and kissed her. Pulled her shorts down and tipped her backwards onto the table and ate her out, then fucked her, with the cigar still in her mouth. Beth kept wanting to giggle, right up until she came. When they were done, still beneath him, she reached over and picked up his cards and looked. “You shit,” she said. “I’d have won.” “I know,” he said. “You just did that so I wouldn’t call,” she said. “Yeah.” “Dickhead,” she said, grinning. “You’re a cool fucking woman,” he said, looking down at her. “Dude.” “I am,” she said. “I really fucking like you,” he said, then stopped quite suddenly. She understood. “Don’t,” she said. He kept looking at her. “Hop off,” she said, and pushed until he let her up. He was still watching her. She started picking up chips, putting them back in the box. “Beth…” he said. “Not yet,” she said. “It’s too sudden.” “No, it isn’t.” “Just let me sort out what’s going on,” she said without looking at him. “Then we can start saying that shit to each other.” Ethan nodded slowly. She looked up. “Thanks.” “It’s okay.” “So what did you think?” she said. “Of the girls?” “Scary.” She laughed.

“Seriously. I thought you were a one-off.” “Yeah,” she said. “You should see the staff club on a Friday. Real lampshade-on-thehead shit there.” He looked like he couldn’t decide if he believed her. “I’m lying,” she said. “That isn’t true. Those four are special people. Pretty much everyone else around the place is boring as fuck.” “That’s kind of a relief.” She looked at him, a little concerned. “I liked them,” he said. “I really did. Don’t worry.” “Okay,” she said, relieved. “Seeing you like that, with them. You’re different.” “You keep saying that. About lots of things.” “You are.” She wasn’t sure if she should be pleased. She reached into the chip box, took out the remaining cash. It should be about six hundred dollars. She pushed it over. “I can’t take that,” he said. “It’s yours.” “You won.” “My cards would have won. You called. I didn’t have enough money. You won the hand, so you get this.” “What about your shirt?” “Didn’t count,” she said. “You said you wouldn’t take an IOU.” “You’re not annoyed?” he said after a moment. “Not much.” He seemed undecided, until she grinned. He still hadn’t taken the money. “You paid anyway,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who won, it’s still all yours.” “Fair enough,” she said, left the money where it was, and went to the stairs. “Should I be following you?” “If you want.” She heard him coming up the stairs behind her. “I’m going to have a bath,” she said. “If you want. Just because.” She lay in the bath and finished the cigar and blew smoke towards the extractor fan, and Ethan stared at her breast and the way her nipple poked up all hard and wet through the bubbles they were sitting in. “I love how smart you are,” he said. “But fuck you have nice tits.” She grinned. “Are you sleeping with him?” Ethan said. “The guy.” “Sleeping,” she said. She pointed. “One bed.” “Having sex,” he said. She sat there for a while, then said, “Are you sure you want to know?” He looked like he was suddenly wondering that himself. “Yeah,” he said. “Three times since he got here. And I didn’t like it.” “Okay,” Ethan said. “I want you,” she said. “Not enough to have me.”

She didn’t answer. “That’s true, isn’t it?” She shrugged. And her tit moved. And he watched it, like he was hypnotized. She stretched, and let the water run down her, and that seemed to be the end of talking about serious things. Later, after more sex, after she’d tasted him and felt him and remembered everything she was missing, she lay there exhausted and said, “You can stay if you want, but you have to go at six in the morning. No bullshitting around, just go.” “Six?” he said. “Not later?” “I can’t risk it.” “Yeah, I’ll stay, of course. But shit, we couldn’t wait a bit later?” Beth looked at him. “Seven. With an alarm at five to, and you’re out by seven exactly. Out and down the road.” “Okay.” “Promise.” He smiled at the ceiling. She watched him and didn’t think he realized. “I promise,” he said. She stroked him, and almost said something, said she liked him or wanted him or couldn’t stand to be without him, but none of that was fair to say, so she stayed silent. Later, though, going to sleep, she whispered, “Fuck I’ve missed you at night, like this.” “Yeah,” he said, “Me too,” and she thought his voice sounded a little hoarse when he spoke, but it might have just been the cigars. * When Robert came home the next day he sniffed and said, “You don’t want hippies in the house because they smell?” She looked at him and said, “What?” “Years ago. You said you didn’t want people around because they smelled.” “Did I?” Beth said. “What do you mean people?” “My people.” “That seems kind of rude,” she said. “Are you sure I said that?” She was in a good mood. He just looked at her, and she grinned. “Cigars smell better than pot,” she said. “And it’ll clear in a day or two. Stop fucking moaning.” He shrugged, and looked annoyed. Him looking annoyed irritated her, and suddenly she was angry, wanting a fight. “My house,” she said. “My rules.” “You never used to smoke inside.” “I never used to smoke. Now I do.” He shrugged. “Just fucking deal with it,” she said. “Okay?” He nodded. “Okay.” She waited a moment more, in case he wanted to add anything else, but he just went and sat down and picked up a book and that seemed to be the end of it.

She was being a bitch on purpose, trying to provoke something. She knew why. She knew exactly what had got into her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to stop.

Chapter Eight Beth and Ethan went to a hotel for a night. She told Robert she was going out with her poker friends and would stay over where she ended up, and he just nodded, and didn’t ask her anything else. She’d been anticipating another complicated lie, like with the condoms, so she could get out the house without him making a fuss, but he didn’t seem bothered at all. She couldn’t decide if he was confident enough not to care where she was, or worried enough he didn’t want to start a fight. She was pretty sure it wasn’t worry, though. Robert never saw problems until they slapped him in the face. She felt a little self-conscious checking into the hotel with Ethan, as if everyone knew why they were there, and knew he was her student, and half of them were on their phones right now to all their friends. She looked around at a roomful of strangers ignoring her and told herself she was imagining things. Like the time they’d gone out to the bar, no-one noticed them and no-one cared what they were doing. They made out in the lift. They made out in the lift so Beth got weak and dizzy and felt like she just wanted to stay where she was until she came. She mumbled a protest into his mouth when they got to their floor, not wanting to stop kissing. Ethan picked her up, over his shoulder, and carried her down the corridor looking for the room. It hurt her tummy a bit, and she gasped that he should put her down, but he ignored her and held onto her by her ass and she didn’t really mind. Which was odd, since Robert doing anything at all like that would have infuriated her. The hotel room was what they needed. They had sex on the floor which turned into sex on the bed, and then got mostly undressed and had sex again, while Ethan tried to get a drink of water and Beth kept saying she wasn’t done yet. They lay there a while, panting, then Ethan turned on the air conditioning and they had sex again, and after a third time, they finally seemed done for a while. At least with the sex. “I missed you,” Ethan said, and she kissed him for five minutes then said, “Me too.” “So what now?” Ethan said. “Is this how we do it?” “I suppose. Is that okay for a few weeks? Just until things sort themselves out.” He nodded slowly. He was lying on his back, stroking her hand, staring at the ceiling. He seemed to have gotten into a gloomy kind of mood since they’d finished fucking. “Are you sure?” she said. He shrugged. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. She moved, deliberately put her knees in front her chest in case that helped him concentrate. He hadn’t looked, though. She wasn’t sure what that meant. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I’m doing my best,” she said. “I know.” “I really do want you. How we were.” He nodded slowly. “Just until things get sorted out,” she said. “I promise.” “I don’t know they will,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. “Unless you make it happen.” She didn’t know what to say, so she decided to ignore him. She leaned over and got the room service menu and started looking at food. “Want anything?” she said. “I’m fine.” “I’m getting something.” “Okay.” After a moment. “Can you afford this?” “Food?” “The room. A lot of rooms, if we keep doing this.” “It’s fine.” “You’re sure?” She was surprised. She wasn’t sure where this was coming from. “Go look up how much we’re paid,” she said. “Really, it’s fine.” He nodded. “Want something to eat?” “Yeah,” he said, and took the menu she was holding out. * Beth spent whole days horny and didn’t really like it. She wasn’t seeing Ethan as often as she was used to, and she was seeing him with their clothes on, and both those things seemed to make her horny even worse. As if merely talking and looking at each other reminded her what she wasn’t getting and made her concentrate on that. She knew she should avoid him, just not see him except for sex and lectures, but she didn’t seem to be able to actually do that. She made excuses to see him. She agreed to meet when he texted her. She wanted to talk to him, and touch him, and see the way he looked at her. She wanted contact any way she could have it, even just messages through the day or the accidental brush of fingers as he passed her sugar in a café. She was avoiding sex at her house, because she didn’t want to get caught and didn’t know if Ethan wanted the reminder Robert was around, and she was avoiding sex at her office so she wasn’t in there with Ethan all the time, and she didn’t know how they were going to manage except by spending whole days in hotels. Which was a little planned and organized for how she usually was. She was distracted and horny and needy, and she didn’t like it. She was sensible, though, and managed to keep her head, right up to the day she suddenly couldn’t stand it any more, and just phoned Ethan and said, “I need to fuck you. Just come here, okay?” “Where?” “My place. I miss you.”

“Is the guy around?” “Shit, of course the guy isn’t around,” she said. “Sorry. He’ll be a couple of hours.” “A couple of hours?” “Yep.” “So I should hurry?” “I would.” He was ten minutes and didn’t get more than five steps inside the house. She met him at the door, and he pushed her against the wall, and kissed her. He seemed to kiss her for half the time he was there, and she liked that he wanted to do that so much. He kissed her, then she got impatient and knelt down, and suddenly realized Robert had moved the cushion she’d left behind the door, but it didn’t matter. He was quick. He came in her mouth, and she came in his, and then they had sex against the wall again. And then he left, and she went upstairs and had a shower and wondered if that, just fucking, was enough to make a couple. If constant, very good sex could actually keep them together, as people, for years and years. She was getting self-indulgent She almost thought it could. Whatever she and Robert had, all the sensible things, that wasn’t working, so maybe sex alone would be enough. Or maybe she was thinking with her clit and needed to stop. * Beth hadn’t really thought about how difficult the situation might be for Ethan, not properly, until he said one day, “I’m going to take your advanced course. So I can see you.” They were in her office, in the middle of the day, dressed and talking while she ate her lunch. He had been fingering her, gently, just enough she knew he’d been inside her, not enough to come. He’d stopped when she started eating. “My advanced course,” she said. She was torn. “I wouldn’t.” “Why?” “It’s too hard.” He looked at her. “I’m not being a bitch. It’s a tough course. It’s meant to be.” “I’m not good enough?” She thought about that. “You’re not a maths major.” “I’ll cope.” “You should be taking papers to push your GPA up,” she said. “Not getting sidetracked.” He nodded slowly. “You could just sit in the lectures,” she said. “Not actually enroll.” “How many students are there?” “Five, at the moment.” “So I’d kind of stand out.” He was right. “I don’t care about the grade,” he said. “I’ll take it anyway.” She decided he was serious. She decided he was sweet. “I’ll help you,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Go through things with you again, extra tutoring.” He nodded. “I need you to sign a form. To say it’s okay for me to enroll without the prerequisites.” He looked in his bag and gave her a form. She wrote her name, signed it. “And the head of department,” he said. “Could you talk to him?” “Just take that to him and say I said it was okay and I’ll talk to him next time I see him.” “Will you?” She grinned. “He’ll forget.” She sat there for a while and looked at him and thought she had someone who was willing to fuck up their career to see her. It was touching and terrifying at the same time. She kissed him for a while, longer than was really safe in case someone opened the door, then chased him out so she could work. * After two weeks Beth was still horny and Ethan was already struggling with her paper. She tutored him in an empty tutorial room. There was a window in the door, but they could sit down the side wall, and be out of sight. Enough to touch, to hold hands, not enough for anything more. Even so, Ethan just wasn’t understanding. She kept going over the same proofs, but they didn’t seem to stick. The material she taught, her course structure, hadn’t changed much in two hundred years. You sat down and worked through some equations and eventually they all fit together, into an evolving structure, so after a few years you understood the whole thing. Before he’d started, Ethan had been vague on some of the basics. He was sitting in her class, but he wasn’t understanding the details she was trying to teach him. Maths was a process, and everything new built on the last thing learned, and Ethan had never learned the basic things he needed. He wasn’t just struggling, he was falling further and further behind, so far he was never going to catch up to where the rest of the class had been weeks ago. Beth sat in their tutorial room, watching him struggle through a proof, and knew she’d done this to him. He was going to end up with a bad B on his record, and since he was barely holding an A average, that could cost him jobs or scholarships after he finished. More than that, treading water in her course was going to take up all of his time, and that might mean he didn’t do as well in everything else. “Stop,” she said, and closed the textbook they were using. “I’m almost there.” “You’re not,” she said. “Just stop.” He looked up at her. She had no idea how to say it. She had no idea, because she’d never cared about someone who wasn’t as good as her before. Not someone in maths, where she could compare. He’d be worrying too, thinking she’d lose interest in him if he couldn’t hold his own, and didn’t know how to say that wasn’t how she felt any more. She took his hand. She held both of his in hers, and he looked worried. “Thank you for trying,” she said. “But drop out.”

“I can do this.” “No, you can’t. Drop out. If you do now, it won’t go on your permanent record.” “No,” he said. “You can’t do this. You can’t keep up.” He shook his head. “I’ll manage. And if I don’t, seeing you is worth it.” She looked at him, and couldn’t make up her mind. “It is,” he said. She thought. She thought hard. What she was about to do was terrible, but actually it wasn’t. The point of a university was to do research, and train new researchers. Despite all the students as customers bullshit that was taking over, undergraduate courses didn’t matter. Undergrads didn’t matter. There was nothing she did in the classes with Ethan counted for anything, except to select the new research candidates coming through. It was a terrible thing to think about doing, but it actually wasn’t. Not to anyone who understood why she was really here. “I’ll give you an A,” she said. “You have an A right now. So don’t spent more time on this than you can afford.” “No.” “Yes. You’re going to struggle, and it’s going to take up time you don’t have. And noone will ever know. So make sure no-one else in the class sees your work, and hand in what you have, and I’ll give you an A.” “What if you get caught?” “I won’t.” “Beth, you can’t do this.” “One guy in your class is going on to something else important, and I already know who he is. He’s competing with half a dozen others in the department, and their marks really matter, and I won’t fuck with those. There rest of you are just…” “Future high school teachers?” “Not you. You aren’t one of those, but you aren’t going to be a star either. You’re in the middle somewhere, so your mark doesn’t really matter.” He didn’t answer. He was thinking. “I’m taking something from the high-school teachers, and giving it to you,” she said. “It’s a little unfair to them, but I’m not going to cost you your future. I’m just not.” He opened his mouth. “I’m doing this,” she said. “You can’t stop me. All that matters is whether you waste time studying for a mark you’ve already got.” He opened his mouth again. “So don’t fucking argue,” she said. “Okay,” he said, after a while. “Thank you.” “This is my fault. So I’ll fix it.” * Over time, Beth found herself becoming more and more obsessed with sex. Where to have it, and when, and how to meet. She was being fingered in empty lecture theatres, and in odd corners of the campus around behind the maintenance buildings, she was getting

head in her office, and giving it empty tutorial rooms, and masturbating in the shower most mornings which made her too happy to work properly for the next few hours. She was filling her day trying to work out how to have sex with Ethan, and not with Robert, and it was getting far too complicated. She was getting mopey too. She was organizing her day to see Ethan in a lift, or a stairwell, somewhere she could touch him for a moment, and that was costing her research time. She was supposed to be a rational person. This kind of horny shit wasn’t meant to take over her life, but it was. “You’re going to have to come to my place,” she said in the end. “I can’t think of any other way.” “Okay.” “Can you deal with knowing Robert’s there?” “I think so.” “And we’ll have to be careful. Fucking careful.” He nodded. “All right,” she said, and kissed him for a minute, until she couldn’t breathe. “Soon.” She went home and told Robert she was going to start tutoring one of her students there, that she’d do it when he wasn’t around. Then she sat down with Robert’s timetable, and hers, and Ethan’s, and worked out four hour-long slots a week when she and Ethan were free and Robert wasn’t. She started dashing home in those four hours, meeting Ethan, fucking him frantically for forty minutes, then rushing back to college before anyone caught her. At her place, often in her bed, since Ethan didn’t seem to care if he fucked her where Robert slept. They met in her office at the weekend, or in the evenings, when she couldn’t stand to not see him for a whole extra day. When Robert asked, she said she needed the mainframes in the department for her work. Like everyone else, she wasted time big-prime hunting as a hobby, and she needed the department’s mainframes for that. Not as much as the analysis people did, but sometimes. Robert was too proudly technophobic to point out she could have logged in from home. She saw Ethan, and breathed and moaned and panted into his mouth, and felt his skin against hers, and tasted him in her mouth, and they still hadn’t talked about what they actually were, what this thing between them should be, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. It just was. They both understood that, and needed it, and she kept going, with a kind of madness, needing to see Ethan. * Amanda met Robert, at Beth’s, by accident one afternoon. Robert came home early, and Beth didn’t chase Amanda out because she didn’t want Robert to wonder what the problem was. Beth told her to be careful, and watch what she said, and Amanda said she would. Amanda talked politely for a few minutes, and then left, and outside, getting into her car, she whispered to Beth, “I like the other one better.” Beth looked at her. “Shut up.” “Just saying.”

“Shut the fuck up. Just don’t.” Amanda looked at her face, and saw something there. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry.” “It’s fine,” Beth said. “But don’t. Be careful, okay?” Amanda nodded. “Please,” Beth said. “I mean it.” Amanda hugged her quickly and said, “I will, no shit, okay?” “Thank you.” Beth went back inside and listened to Robert and wanted to strangle him. She was finding him annoying, so annoying she couldn’t stand him, and she knew it was only because she wanted him gone so she could fuck Ethan, and that wasn’t fair. Being unfair to Robert made her feel guilty, and guilt made her annoyed, and that made her even more of a bitch. She wasn’t sure where it would end. * There had been a man with a drill outside Beth’s office for an hour, and she couldn’t think with him there. The tempo was just erratic enough she’d decide it had stopped, and then it would start again. She was trying to be patient, because she knew she was in a bad mood all the time, and didn’t want to take it out on bystanders. Then he got a phone call, and stood right outside her door, talking about his weekend to a friend. She opened it, and said, “Go somewhere else.” “Hold on,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute.” “Go away,” she said. “Please.” He looked at her but kept talking. She closed the door, furious, then decided that actually, she was going to make a fuss after all. She opened it again. “Hold on, love,” he said. “Go the fuck away,” she said. “Right fucking now.” He looked at her for a moment. “You don’t need to talk like that.” “Hang up. Pack up. Fuck off.” He hesitated, then started packing up his tools. “And if you call a woman in this university “love” again, I’ll have your fucking job,” Beth said. “I’m going,” he said. Beth looked up, and realized Ethan was down the corridor, watching. “Yeah, and fuck you too,” she said to him. “What do you want?” He looked at the maintenance guy. “I needed some help with my assignment.” “So ask a fucking tutor.” Beth stood there a minute, and then said, “Come in.” The maintenance guy seemed about to leave. “Sorry,” Beth said. “But just have some sense about where you are and who you’re talking to.” He ignored her, offended, and walked off. “Or be a fucking dick,” Beth said after him. “You’re an angry woman,” Ethan said.

“So fucking what?” “It’s hot.” “Oh,” Beth said, and grinned and calmed down right away. She was having mood swings. Maybe Ethan had given her early menopause. Ethan was looking at the note she had taped on her door. Do not clean this office. Do not maintain this office. Do not empty the bin or open the window. Do not touch my papers. Do not ever touch my fucking whiteboard. “What?” she said. “The whiteboard? Someone did once.” He nodded. “And once I threw something away and I realized I needed it a week later, so I don’t want the bin emptied.” “Right. Don’t people mind the swearing?” “They don’t have to look at my fucking door if they don’t fucking want to.” Ethan grinned. “And that guy just then?” “He’d been making noise for an hour. He could work around my lectures.” “Do they?” “Nope,” she said. “And that’s the fucking problem with this place.” “Are you okay?” he said. “Yep,” she said. “Now.” She closed the door and kissed him. Kissed him for a long time. “Was there something?” she said. “Or just to see me?” “Just see you.” She kissed him a little longer. “That’s fucking cool,” she said. “I know.” “I was trying to do something,” she said. “I’ll go.” She hesitated, still kissing, not sure if he would be offended. “Do you mind?” “Not at all.” He opened the door, kissed her again, said, “Bye.” She watched him go and grinned to herself and wondered what was wrong with her. Three hours later she got an email from the head of maintenance about her abusing one of his staff. It had been copied to her head of school. She deleted it without bothering to reply. * Robert was getting more involved with his political friends. There was going to be an election, or a law change, or something. Beth didn’t really care. Robert talked about it a lot, about his new friends who cared as much as he did. “It’s nice you have a hobby,” Beth said, and that shut him up for a few days. Not forever. “I wondered,” he said a week later, “If it would be okay to have a meeting here.” Beth looked at him, surprised. “Ah, no.” “It’s close to the campus.” “And still no.” “Why not?”

“What did I say about having a bunch of hippies in my lounge?” “They’re my colleagues.” “Like that’s better.” He looked at her for a moment and seemed annoyed. “Shit, Beth…” “What?” “Do you have to be like that all the fucking time?” “Like what?” “Yes, Beth, they’re political scientists, and what you do is far more important, but you don’t have to be such an utter bitch about the people in my department. They’re my friends.” She thought about that. She probably took it too far sometimes, but then again, she didn’t want him here, and he didn’t have to talk to her like that even if she was being rude. “It’s not that they’re political scientists,” she said. “It’s that they’re hippies. Like I said. You fucking dick.” “We’re going to have a fight about this?” he said. “Really?” “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.” He looked at her. “This is my fucking house,” she said. “You’re a guest and you don’t get to try and bully me into having your dodgy friends over.” “I’m a guest?” “Yeah, you fucking are. I’m paying the rent and I’m paying for the food and since you haven’t once offered to help, you’re a fucking guest.” He looked in his pocket, took out two twenties. Threw them on the floor. “That’s all I have on me.” “Thanks,” Beth said. “Big spender. That fucking helps.” “I’ll get as much as you want. And I’ll go right now if you want me to.” She looked at him for a long, long moment and almost said yes, he should go. She wanted to, quite desperately. She could have him out of here in an hour and Ethan inside her in two. Because she wanted to so much, she didn’t. “That’s not the point,” she said. “I’ll pay rent.” “I don’t want you to.” “Because then you’ll lose this power you think you have.” “No, Robert, because I’m fucking sick of all this political bullshit, and I used to put up with it because I was stupid and I loved you and it had always been like that, but I’ve got a life here now and I don’t want that shit to be part of it.” He looked at her for a moment. “That’s really what the problem is? My political activism?” No, she thought. Not at all. “Yes,” she said. “There’s an election on, Beth. It matters. Maybe for the first time in a decade.” “I don’t care, Robert. You’re not going to change anything, so why bother?” He looked at her like he didn’t know her at all, and part of her welcomed that. Part of her wanted him to get so confused by this woman he didn’t know he just went away. “I’ve told you over and over,” she said, and this part was true. “I’ve told you I don’t

care. I’ve told you I don’t want to be part of all that, and you never fucking listen. So listen to this. No hippies in my house. No fucking activists, no political agitators, fucking no-one. You understand me?” He nodded slowly. “Yeah, Beth, I understand.” He looked around for his jacket, picked it up. “Fuck off then,” she said. “Run away.” “Yeah, Beth.” “Coward.” He got his shoes, and started putting them on. Ignoring her. “Are you fucking listening?” “No,” he said. “Well, fucking listen to me.” He sat there, and waited. “I don’t want any of that shit in my house. No posters, no paint, no fucking signs. Nothing, okay?” “Okay, Beth, I got it.” “I’ve had it with all that student radical bullshit. I just want a normal life in a nice house for a while.” He nodded, and went to the door. “You’ve changed,” he said. “I know. About fucking time I did.” He looked at her for a moment, and left. He closed the door gently behind him. She would have slammed it, and she thought Ethan would have slammed it, and she wasn’t sure why Robert’s calmness annoyed her so much. * Robert came back that night, while Beth was sitting on the couch watching TV. Robert didn’t approve of TV, so Beth had been watching it more lately. He sat down beside her and handed her an envelope. She looked inside. Money. A lot of money. “How much is that?” “Two thousand. Enough for rent for a while.” “On this place, that’s enough for rent for about three weeks.” She tried to hand it back, but he wouldn’t take it. She held it out for a moment, then got sick of him being childish and threw it towards him. Then got up, and got his two twenties from that morning off the bench, and dropped them in his lap too. “Don’t be so controlling,” he said. “Just take it.” “Your whole fucking problem,” she said. “Is you never listen to me. You always think you know what I want when you don’t.” He looked at her. “My life,” she said. “My house. My rules. No hippies, and you’re not paying fucking rent. You’re a guest.” “I thought I was your partner? That we were a couple?” She didn’t answer. “Aren’t I?”

“Fuck knows.” “What does that mean?” She looked back at the TV and ignored him. “Beth…” “I’m watching this.” He looked at her for a moment, then stood up and went towards the stairs. “Hey,” she said, and threw the envelope towards him. He stayed where he was, didn’t pick it up. “I’m fucking controlling,” she said. “You won’t even take your money back.” He went up the stairs. “Hey, Robert?” Beth called. He stopped. “Sex with you bores the fuck out of me and I hate anal. I just want normal sex.” “You said.” “I’m saying again. So you get it.” “Yeah,” he said, and was finally starting to sound impatient. “You could have just told me ages ago. You don’t have to go so completely fucking mad about it.” She picked up a book from the coffee table and threw it towards the stairs. One if his books, that he’d left lying around. Then another. “Fuck you,” she shouted, and, “Welcome to the new fucking me.” He just stood there and looked at her. The books hadn’t gone anywhere near him. After a moment he went upstairs. Beth felt satisfied. She actually felt quite calm, like that was something she’d needed to do for years and it had just got done. She liked shouting at him, she realized. She liked being angry and acting all aggrieved. It made her feel alive, it was almost addictive. She was starting to understand what he and all his political friends saw in being angry about shit. She hoped the walls were thick, though. She couldn’t usually hear the neighbors, but it might be they just didn’t shout at each other. She didn’t really want them knowing what was going on in here. She stayed up late, went to bed at two, shut the door loudly and tossed around and pulled the blankets off him and did everything she could to make sure he woke up. Now she’d started, she had days and days worth of rage inside her ready to come out. * Robert was in the shower when Beth woke up. She could hear water running. She got up and went downstairs, made coffee, put muesli in a bowl for her breakfast. She sat at her big wooden table and chewed slowly. Robert came downstairs and put on toast. “Should we talk?” he said. Beth shrugged. Robert stood there until his toast popped, and she ignored him. He spread peanut butter on his toast, looked at the chair beside her, then sat on the couch. “Don’t eat on the sofa,” Beth said. He looked up at her, and kept eating.

She got up, walked over, and dropped half a bowl of muesli and milk into his lap. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Robert said. He didn’t stand up, didn’t shout. “I’m going to have a shower,” Beth said, and went upstairs. She went into the bathroom, and saw Robert’s razor and shaving cream and deodorant on the bench. She scooped all three up, went to the top of the stairs, and threw them down. “Don’t leave your shit lying around,” she shouted. The cans and razor bounced down the stairs. The top of the razor came off, and clattered away somewhere. The shaving cream hit a step top-down and spurted some foam out. It reminded Beth of Ethan coming on the stairs, coming on her, and suddenly she couldn’t be bothered fighting with Robert right now. Robert was standing there watching her. He didn’t say a thing. She went back into the bathroom and slammed the door, and was pretty sure Robert had no idea what to say. Half an hour later she walked past him without a word and left the house. She phoned Ethan, and took him to a hotel, and had some of the slowest, dirtiest, sweatiest sex they’d ever had, until all the anger and irritation and annoyance she felt for Robert was burned out of her. * Beth went home. Robert had cleaned up the muesli and shaving cream before he left, and had put everything he’d had in the bathroom away somewhere. He must be trying to calm her down. He didn’t come home until late. Beth cooked, pasta and a tomato sauce, and was eating it at the table when he walked in. He stopped in the hall and looked at her. “Want some?” she said. He looked at her, a little wary. “Yeah, sure.” She got up, and put some food on a plate. “Wine?” she said. He nodded. She put the plate opposite hers, across the table, and handed him the wine. “Cutlery in the drawer.” He sat down and looked at her. After a while he ate some pasta. “I don’t understand you any more,” he said. “I know.” “I love you.” “I know that too.” “Are we okay?” She looked at him and chewed slowly and didn’t answer. “Beth, I just want to understand what’s going on.” “You want to understand what’s going on?” she said. “I do.” “I don’t know what’s going on.” “Well, maybe you should try harder to work it out.’ She sat there for a moment, the pushed her plate towards him. Pushed it slowly, right across the table, so it hit against his and both of them slid onto his lap. One plate fell onto

the floor and broke with a crash. He sat there and watched her, like he’d thought she was going to stop, right up until everything landed on him. She stood up and walked around the table and tipped half a glass of wine onto his lap too. “What was that for?” he said, still quite calm. “Don’t patronize me.” “I wasn’t.” “My mistake. It sure as fuck sounded like it.” She was wondering what she was turning into. “If you want to understand me,” she said, “Just listen to me. Instead of talking all the fucking time and asking me such asshole fucking questions.” “Beth, I…” “I’m going to bed.” He watched her go like some unknowable monster had suddenly appeared in his life, and she was pleased. Beth lay down in bed and read, the most complicated of her maths books, because for some reason it irritated Robert to have equations in bed with him. He came upstairs after ten minutes and got in the shower, then came into the bedroom. “I cleaned up,” he said. “Okay.” He climbed into bed behind her. “How do I ask you what’s wrong without pissing you off?” She lay there for a while. “I really don’t know if you can.” He put his hand on her hip. She was still sleeping in clothes, so it wasn’t as rude as it would have been if she was naked, but it was still an interruption while she read. She didn’t move, didn’t respond, but didn’t push him away. She was lying with her back to him. After a while he slid over and kissed her neck. “No,” she said. “You’re tired?” “Yeah,” she said. “Sure.” He looked at her for a while. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” “But you don’t want me to touch you?” “Yep.” “Got your period, got a headache, hate the sight of me, what?” She put down her book, and turned off the light. “I don’t want to fuck right now, Robert, it doesn’t have to be for a reason.” She wanted to tell him about Ethan, and just get it over with. She didn’t know why she hadn’t. She wanted to tell him, and get him out her life, and get Ethan back here where he should be. Except she loved Robert and couldn’t. That was probably why she felt so angry. After a while, in the darkness, he said. “Are you trying to drive me away?” “No.” “It feels like it.”

“I’m not. I’m really not.” He didn’t answer. “I’m angry,” Beth said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Still no answer. After a while he rolled over and seemed to go to sleep. * Robert wasn’t in bed when Beth woke up the next morning. It seemed late. The sun was up and she could hear traffic outside. He tended to run away after problems, so he might already have gone. She lay there for a moment, then shouted, “Robert.” No answer. She shouted again, then rolled over and got a vibrator out the drawer. She needed this. She needed this most days. It inside her, hugging herself, thinking of Ethan. Robert came in halfway through, saying, “Did you shout?” and then, “Oh shit.” It was warm, so she’d pushed the covers back. She’d taken her underwear off, to reach, and had pulled her tee-shirt up so it didn’t get marks on it. She was lying on her back, and had her free arm over her face, pressing her mouth against it, like she did during sex, and like he knew she did during sex. The vibrator was on her, buzzing loud and madly. She hadn’t put it inside, where it might conceivably have been hidden, and let her somehow cross her legs and muffle the noise and pretend it wasn’t there. It was obvious what she was doing. There was no way he could misunderstand, and he just stood there and looked at her. Too shocked to move, she thought. “Fuck off,” she said, “For fuck’s sake. Let me finish.” He pulled the door closed, and went away. And she made herself come twice, because apparently being horrible felt sexy. “Should we talk?” he said, when she went downstairs. “Not a chance.” He looked at her for a while. “I thought you were gone,” she said. “I know.” “What do you think I do when I’m not fucking you?” she said. “For fuck’s sake,” and left. * Beth had a lecture at the same time as some kind of big political rally near the library. She could hear them in the distance as she walked to her class, shouting and chanting. Robert’s political rally, the one he and his friends had been organizing. Beth looked around her class and realized a few of her students were missing. They might be there, but they might just be lazy. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if Robert hadn’t been irritating her about it lately, talking about the rally, all the time. “This will be on the exam,” she said, and wrote a proof on the board. They all started writing. “And don’t say that to anyone who isn’t here,” she said.

Most of them looked confused. A few of them seemed to understand. Someone must have complained. She got bailed up by two of the older professors on the way back from the tearoom later that afternoon, and asked what she thought she was doing. She almost said something awful, something she couldn’t have got back from. She thought at the last minute, and instead just smiled and said she didn’t know what they were talking about. “In your lecture today.” “Sorry, still no idea.” They didn’t push. No balls, she thought. The whole problem with people like that. Chattering gossips, but they wouldn’t just stand up and say what they meant. Someone told Robert, though, and he was sulking and whiney that night. “Like you aren’t writing political shit up on the board all day,” she said. “I’m actually not.” “Because you say it?” “Because I don’t let my political views interfere in my teaching. Even when I believe them strongly.” “Bullshit.” She looked at him for a moment, then decided he was serious. “Okay, but you must be the only one in the whole polisci department.” “No idea,” he said. “I’ll do it again,” she said. “I know.” “Are you angry?” He shrugged and walked away. She went to her office and fucked Ethan on her desk, and wondered why she was still trying so hard with Robert.

Chapter Nine Beth was taking risks. She had Ethan at her place far more often than was sensible, as if some part of her was tired of lying and wanted to get caught. She felt a kind of desperation to be with Ethan, to touch him. She needed him, and her need seemed to be made stronger by having to keep him away. She took risks, knowing it was only a matter of time until something went wrong, and didn’t actually seem to care. One day it went wrong. Badly wrong. Robert cancelled a lunchtime lecture because of a broken projector. Cancelled the lecture, and told his students to go home, he’d put everything on the course website, and he went home too. Beth only found that out later. She was lying on her back, on the bed, watching Ethan jerk himself off onto her face. She was laughing, was stroking Ethan’s balls and telling him to come. His cock was shiny

and slippery with her and her spit, and she vaguely thought she heard something downstairs, but ignored it because she knew Robert had a class. She was distracted. Ethan was close, and she was close, and they’d just been sixty-nining and she was waiting for Ethan to get himself off so he could go back down and finish her. Ethan came. Semen landed on her cheek, and went in her mouth, and she stuck her tongue out and caught what she could because she knew Ethan would be looking. And Robert said, “Beth,” from the doorway. It was about the worst way to get caught she could think of. There was no way Robert would ever understand. Ethan said, “Shit,” and panicked, and looked around for something to hide his cock behind, found a pillow in the end, and knelt there holding it in front of himself. Beth knew how he came fairly well, and was almost certain he hadn’t finished, that a couple more spurts would have gone onto the pillow. Unless Robert appearing had put him off enough he’d just stopped. Beth wanted to laugh. That surprised her. She wasn’t worried and she didn’t get a fright. She wasn’t embarrassed at what she was doing, not really, or violated by being watched. She just thought it was funny. Robert was there, and she’d been caught, and she was naked with Ethan’s spunk all over her face, and she just wanted to laugh. Robert hadn’t said anything, so Beth sat up. She could taste Ethan. She could smell sex in the room, and feel Ethan’s semen warm on her chin and cheek and lip. She had some in her mouth, and didn’t know if she should swallow, because even here, even naked and caught like this, having someone else see her make a swallowing movement seemed far too personal. In the end she had to, that or choke, so she did, quickly, then just sat there, and Robert still didn’t react. After another minute she leaned over and got a couple of tissues, and wiped her face, then pulled the sheet up over her chest. She didn’t know what to do next. Robert was just standing there, like he was too horrified to move. “Could you give me a sec?” she said to Ethan. “I’ll go.” “Don’t go, just wait downstairs.” He nodded. Ethan looked around, and seemed to remember his clothes were somewhere downstairs, and kept hold of his pillow while he edged out the room. Robert almost didn’t move out the doorway. Enough Ethan had to hesitate, and look at him, like he was wondering whether to ask. “Get the fuck out of the way,” Beth said to Robert, and then Robert stepped aside. That was when Beth realized Robert was angry. He wasn’t showing it, because he hardly ever did. He was motionless and calm, probably because he didn’t know what else to do. He clearly didn’t know how to deal with this, if he should shout at Beth, or call her a slut, or throw things, or what. So he just stood there. Beth sat for a while, silent too. Robert still didn’t do anything. She decided he wasn’t going to, and wiped her face again, on the sheet, put it down, and went into the ensuite to drink a little water out of her cupped hand. Her hand still tasted of Ethan. “How long?” Robert said from the doorway. She hadn’t realized he’d followed her. “A while,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“He’s your student.” She nodded. “So this is why we haven’t been having sex.” “Nope. This was because we haven’t.” “Don’t be a bitch.” She looked at him for a moment and wondered if he wanted to hit her. She almost wanted to ask. “I’m not,” she said. “I didn’t know where you and I were. I met Ethan. I haven’t done anything wrong.” “You should have told me. That was wrong.” “That was inconsiderate, not wrong.” “Beth…” “Excuse me,” she said, and stepped forward, and he got out her way, let her back out into the bedroom. Her clothes were downstairs too, in the hall. Robert must have seen them when he came in and known something was up. “How long were you standing there?” she said. “Long enough.” She opened a drawer, got jeans and a tee shirt, didn’t bother with anything else. “How long?” “How could you let someone do that to you?” She pulled the jeans on. “Come on me?” He looked at her. “Just because you don’t want to,” she said. “Doesn’t mean no-one does.” He didn’t answer that, either. She pulled the shirt over her head, and said, “I’ll go talk to Ethan. You can stay up here, or leave, whichever you want. One or the other. I’ll talk to you later, when you’ve calmed down a bit.” “I’m not un-calm.” “That’s the fucking problem. You should be.” He didn’t seem to understand. “I’m kind of waiting for you to lose it,” Beth said. “I don’t want to be around when you do.” “I’m not going to.” “Even so.” He nodded slowly. “I’ll go.” “Okay.” “Could you be here later? In a couple of hours? And make sure he isn’t?” “Of course.” “I’ll talk to you then.” Beth followed Robert downstairs. Robert looked at Ethan as he went past, a kind of sullen, angry look, but didn’t say anything. He went to the door, went out without speaking, and that seemed to be that. Beth stood where she was for a moment, until she was sure Robert had gone, then went over and kissed Ethan and said, “Sorry.” “You okay?” She nodded. “I suppose that’s been bound to happen.” “What will he do?”

“I don’t know.” “He seems weirdly calm.” “Yeah. University people. He’s so busy detaching from the world and thinking about what he feels that he doesn’t actually have feelings.” Ethan looked at her. “Almost not joking,” she said. “Come back to bed.” He seemed surprised. “You still feel like it?” “Ah,” she said. “Yeah. I haven’t yet.” After a minute. “And don’t look at me like that.” “I’m not.” “You think I’m some kind of monster.” “I think you’re sexy and smart and do things your way.” “And haven’t come yet,” she said. “And I’d like to.” “Okay,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Don’t do that. You got off. I didn’t. I want to finish up, that’s all. It’s not weird.” “It’s kind of weird.” “Okay, it’s kind of weird, but we’re doing it anyway, so come upstairs and eat me out.” He grinned, and followed her up the stairs, and Beth lay there while he licked her and decided not to care about Robert. It wasn’t worth worrying, or caring what Robert was going to do, until he came back and told her. So maybe she had no feelings either, but at least she was getting head while she waited. * Robert reappeared about two in the afternoon. He knocked before he opened the door. “He’s gone,” Beth said, from the kitchen table. She was sitting there with half a bottle of wine, an empty glass ready for Robert, and another she was sipping from in her hand. “It’s a bit early to drink, isn’t it?” he said. “Not today.” He nodded, and sat down, and poured wine for himself. Beth watched him. He was calm. He was still weirdly calm, and Beth didn’t understand why. “You’ll be in shit if anyone finds out,” Robert said. She tried to decide if that was a threat or not. “That’s what you want to say to me?” she said. “Out of everything you could say?” He shrugged. “You will be in shit. I’m just being practical.” “So don’t tell anyone.” He didn’t answer. She assumed that was meant to tell her he might. “Yeah,” Beth said. “Or do what you want. If you want to hurt me, go ahead. I’ll just tell the department and get someone else to mark his work. It isn’t really a problem.” “Except for being the slutty professor who fucks her students.” She looked at him for a while. “Funny you said slutty then.” “So?” “You don’t think anyone else sleeps with their students? Except I’m a girl, so I shouldn’t?” “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not. Don’t call me stupid.” “You’re trying to turn cheating into some half-assed feminism thing to make it okay.” “It wasn’t cheating, and it is a feminist thing, and nothing I did isn’t okay.” He thought about that for a while, she wondered if he’d argue about the cheating. “So you don’t mind me telling academic services?” he said. “Do what you want. Be a bully if you want. I don’t give a fuck any more.” Another silence. Robert was calm, wasn’t raising his voice or trying to hit her, but his eyes were angry and he was worrying about the wrong things. Beth tried to work out if it just hadn’t sunk in yet, or if it was something else. That he was so controlling he wasn’t going to let himself think about things that hurt him, and would worry about her career instead. “Tell me what you want to do,” she said. “And we can start talking about what happens next. At the moment I’m just waiting to see if you plan to call me names or walk out or what.” “I don’t know.” “Okay,” she said, and waited. “Will you stop with this guy?” Robert said. “If I ask you to?” “No.” “So we’re over?” Beth sat there for a while. “I don’t know.” “What do you want?” “I don’t know.” “I don’t understand you.” “Yeah,” she said. “I know.” She thought about Robert and ending what they had. She was strangely reluctant to let go of him, and she didn’t know why. “All the things we said we’d do together,” she said. “I still want to do. You should know that. None of that’s changed.” She meant it as a consolation, as something that might help. Robert thought it was a negotiation. “You just want to fuck your students too?” he said. She shrugged, was starting to get a little irritated. She seemed to be making all the effort. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s fine. I’m sorry everything got so complicated.” Silence again. Beth didn’t know what to say. This was them. This was how they’d always been, saying things that didn’t really matter instead of things that did. She sipped her wine, and Robert watched her, and she ignored him. She did actually want Robert, she thought, want him and almost need him. She needed what they were to each other. Needed the way they fit, the plan they had for their lives. It was just that lately she hadn’t liked him very much, and was losing track of herself and what actually mattered. She knew she was hurting Robert. She was hurting Robert, but she wanted Ethan, and somewhere along the line you had to do what was right for you. She wasn’t sure if she ought to care about Robert any more, or just get him out of her life. She didn’t know what to think about anything. She looked at Robert for a while and wondered how upset he really was. He wasn’t

showing it, so she wasn’t sure. This was how she tore his life apart, she thought. She’d wondered sometimes how she would do it if she had to. Robert seemed to have been thinking too. “You still want us to be something to each other?” he said. “Yep. We don’t have to, though.” “What kind of something?” “I’m not sure. I don’t know what you can cope with.” “What, like forgiving you?” She sat there for a while and tried to work that out. “Forgiving me how?” she said. “For this. For what you did.” “I don’t want you to forgive me,” she said. “I want you to be okay being friends. Having each other in our lives.” “Oh,” Robert said, surprised. Like he hadn’t thought of that. Then he looked upset, as if he’d just realized this was all a lot worse than he’d expected. Beth felt a little sorry for him. “You’re really not ending it with him?” Robert said. “Nope. I don’t think so.” “You’re serious? I’d just assumed you’d stop with him now I’d found out.” “I just said I wouldn’t.” “I know, but…” “I thought you might,” she said. “Assume.” “What does that mean?” “Nothing. I thought earlier you’d assume I was ending things with Ethan. I was right.” “You really aren’t?” “I don’t know. Probably not.” “You’re ending things with me?” “That’s up to you.” “You want both of us? At the same time?” “Not really. And that wouldn’t be fair, anyway.” “You really have to decide what you want, Beth.” “I really don’t have to do anything. You really have to decide yourself. You’re still here, being vague, trying to find out what I plan to do. Just decide yourself, and tell me to get with the program or fuck off.” “Tell you that?” “Yeah. Then I’ll know. Then I can decide shit too.” Robert looked at her for a while. “Okay, Beth,” he said. “I’ll leave you if you do this. If you don’t end it with him.” “No, you won’t.” “I’ll try.” “So try.” She suddenly remembered that they’d been here before. That she’d wanted to break up, several times, in the first few months, and Robert had always talked her out of it. By nagging or begging or being sweet enough she felt guilty. It surprised her she’d forgotten that, and it only came back to her now. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” he said.

“We’ve said too much. I’m sick of talking.” “And this is how you fix it?” “I told you. I’m not fixing us, I’m fixing me. The us doesn’t follow.” “You’re really a bitch, you know that.” “Yep,” she said, and stood up. “And that pretty much settles it. I’m going back to work. There’s a couple of things I need to do.” “That kid?” “No, you dick. Review a paper. Proof-read someone’s grant application.” He looked at her for a moment as though he hated her, then slowly nodded. Beth suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn’t normal to go back to her office so quickly after all this, that it might look unkind. “Tonight,” she said. “Come up to bed when you’re ready. You don’t need to sleep on the couch or anything.” He looked at her for a while. “And I won’t make anything obvious,” she said. “I won’t be mean. You won’t see him again unless you go looking for it. I’ll go out of my way to make sure that doesn’t happen, while we work all this out.” “Thanks.” She decided she should be clear. “So don’t push if I’m being vague. Take a hint. Don’t come to my office without warning me.” “Yeah, I got it.” She kissed him quickly and got her shoes and coat and walked back to her office across the playing fields. On the way she phoned Ethan and said everything was all right. “Do you want to meet up?” he said. She thought. “Better not.” It seemed the thing to do. Like she should stay away from Ethan, grieve for a day she what she was losing with Robert before she got into bed with someone else. “Okay,” he said. “Call if you need me.” “Are you all right?” “Yeah, I’m fine. Glad it’s out there, now.” “Me too.” Silence. “Hey,” he said. “Can I ask what’s happening?” “With me and you?” “Yeah.” She hesitated. She wondered why she was so hard and uncompromising with Robert, and so willing to work around what Ethan needed from her. She didn’t really need to wonder, because she knew exactly why. She didn’t like Robert very much and she did like Ethan. It just didn’t seem fair. “I’d almost promise you nothing changes,” she said. “I’m that sure nothing will I’d almost promise. But I won’t actually promise.” “Okay.” “Does that make sense?” “Yeah, it does.” “Just give me a couple of days to get him out the house.”

“And then?” “Then we’re back how we were. Everything is how it should be.” “Happy ever after,” he said. “Yeah.” “Be safe,” he said. “Okay.” “I will,” she said, and wondered what he was worrying about. “Nothing like that’s going to happen.” “Okay, but still be safe.” “Yeah,” she said. “Bye.” * Beth didn’t see Ethan for a couple of days, while she waited for Robert to do whatever he was going to do. She missed Ethan, and got horny, but made herself wait. She called Ethan a few times and explained she was trying to keep everything calm, to let Robert have some time, and Ethan seemed to understand. She was trying to give Robert space, let him decide things, and adjust, and be there to talk if he needed her, too. She felt guilty. She’d hurt him, and she’d loved him once, and she wanted him not to hurt more than he had to. She thought he’d get over this fairly quickly, if he wasn’t left alone to brood. It wasn’t like they’d been close the last year. It wasn’t like they were much more than friends. Everything that was upsetting him now was really just pride, not like a real partner had been caught with someone else. She also didn’t want him running off to report her sleeping with Ethan, wherever he might actually report that. She didn’t know if he would, and it wasn’t entirely about that, but part of it was. Robert was avoiding her, she thought, leaving early and staying in his office until late and pretending to be asleep when she was in the bedroom. He was drinking a bit. She could smell it when he came to bed. It was something he’d always done, when he was stressed or upset, and she didn’t really care. The silence was starting to irritate her, though. She was making herself available to help, and her help didn’t seem to be wanted. Worse, it seemed like indecision as an intentional plan, a delay by avoidance. As if he thought he could win her back by doing nothing until she got over her little tantrum. As if he thought she’d change her mind if he was just around. As if, since she was being polite enough to wait and finalize things with him before she moved on too much, he could just leave her hanging, indefinitely, making sure that if he couldn’t have her, no-one else could either, because nothing was resolved. He was probably just dealing with it all, she knew, and trying to avoid a confrontation, but it was starting to get annoying. By the second day of that she wanted to get on with things. She wanted Ethan. She’d almost decided she was just going to throw Robert out if he didn’t start talking soon, and then, the third morning, he did. He was sitting in the kitchen when she came downstairs. “Hey,” she said, and waited to see what he’d do. “We need to talk.” “Yeah,” she said. “I suppose we do. Let me wake up, okay?” She put on the kettle and went back upstairs and got dressed. She was a little surprised. She’d thought Robert would stall longer. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she

thought. She went back down and made coffee, ate toast, and Robert watched her while she did. After a while she said, “Okay.” “Could you tell me what happened?” he said. “I don’t understand this, and I really need to.” “I don’t know.” “Please,” he said. “Just try.” She thought for a while. “We’re a mess,” she said. “We’re so much a mess I don’t even know if I care how fucked up and distant we are any more. I think I’ve wanted to leave you for a while, but I’m not sure, because you weren’t here, and we never talked, so I never had to decide anything.” Robert looked like he wanted to cry. “Should I go?” he said. “Move out?” She shook her head. “You’re sure?” “Yes,” she said. “Not right away. If I say you have to leave, you’ll say you’ve only just started a job and have nowhere to live and can I wait a month, and then it’ll be another thing, and another, and on we go.” Now he looked like he wanted to hit her. She held her cup, got ready to throw it. He never had, had never hinted he would, but she’d never completely trusted him. He got too calm when he was angry, and he didn’t swear enough. Like he was holding everything inside. He just sat there, though. Strike two for not knowing him as well as she had thought. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “You don’t need to say anything. We’re talking. To see if we feel better, I suppose.” “Are you going to keep seeing him?” he said. “That kid?” She shrugged. “You don’t know?” “It’s not your business.” “How’s it not my business?” “It just isn’t.” They sat there for a while. “It feels like I don’t know you any more,” he said. “Since you moved here. That being apart has broken us.” They were quiet for a while. “You’ll always be close to me,” she said. “This is about the worst conversation anyone can have and we’re having it together. That means something.” “Worst for me.” “I mean it. You’re closer to me than anyone. That isn’t going to change.” It was already changing, but she couldn’t tell him that either. “So we can be friends? You want to be friends?” “If you want us to be.” “Why?” “There’s a lot I like about you. About us. But I think I was starting to lose myself in us. I needed to get me back. So I need this to end.” “I don’t want us to end.”

“It has.” “I want to try again. Try harder.” “No,” she said. “It’s done. We’re over. You can’t have me back.” “Keep you,” he said. “What?” “I don’t want you back. I want to keep you. As far as I know you haven’t left.” She shrugged. “Would you have sex,” Robert said, “With me?” She thought about that. About how it might make him feel better, patch his ego a little. About how she still did actually like him, somewhere inside, and wanted him not to hurt. “Yeah,” she said. “If you like. Now?” Robert shook his head. “I don’t want to. I just wondered. If you said no then he’d have more of a claim on you than I did, and that’d mean I’d be losing you.” “Or I just didn’t feel like it…” He didn’t answer. So just some competition thing, Beth thought. Proving himself. Not trying to make himself feel better, or anything else involving feelings. She thought a little more, and decided she wasn’t actually that comfortable sleeping with Robert after all, so perhaps Ethan did have that claim. Or she had that claim, and no-one else did. Everything was getting confusing. “Actually,” she said. “Um…” “Don’t tell me.” “Okay,” Beth said, and decided this was just getting awkward. “I think I’m done,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you about who I’m sleeping with.” “Yeah,” he said, sounding bitter. “Of course not.” “You can stay a while if you want,” she said. “I mean, it’ll be a bit weird, but stay if you need somewhere. I’m not going to throw you out.” He nodded, and didn’t answer, and after a while she went back upstairs to brush her teeth and get ready for work. * Beth stayed out late, saw Ethan in the afternoon in her office, but didn’t let him feel her up like he wanted to. Because it felt wrong, somehow, before Robert was sorted out, and because she was a little wary of who Robert might have told, and someone bursting in to catch her all sweaty with her student. She waited until after dark to go home, but Robert still wasn’t there. She went to bed, wondering if he’d be back at all. He woke her up about two, fairly drunk, crashing around downstairs. He came up the stairs, and seemed to be trying to be quiet. Slid into bed next to her, smelling of whisky and beer. “How much have you had?” she said. “Not much. You were serious this morning? This isn’t a joke?” She lay there for a while, irritated, but she supposed she’d have wanted to check too. Maybe. “I’m serious,” she said. “Shit.”

Silence for a while. She wondered if maybe this would be easier. If talking in the darkness, unable to see each other’s faces, would make it hurt a little less for him. She reached over and took his hand and squeezed it. “I love you,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.” “I know. I love you too.” “I don’t want to lose you.” She didn’t answer. “But I have,” he said. “Haven’t I?” “You have.” He started to sit up, clumsy and drunk. “I’ll sleep on the couch.” “Don’t. Just stay.” “I should sleep on the couch.” “Robert, just fucking stay here. I can hug you or something if you want.” “No.” She stroked his back instead. He turned a little so she could reach. “We both fucked up,” he said after a while. “I should have tried harder too.” “I know.” He turned over, seemed to be groping around. She wasn’t sure why until he put his hand on her breast. He squeezed. She lay there for a moment. “Don’t,” she said. He took his hand away. Silence again. His breathing changed fairly quickly, and he went to sleep. Too drunk to stay awake very long being upset, she thought. * Then next afternoon she sat with Ethan in one of the cafes near the student services building. He’d wanted to come to her office, but she said no, knew they’d just fuck if she saw him somewhere with a closing door. And right now fucking was dangerous. She didn’t know what Robert had said. “How’s it going?” Ethan said, and seemed worried about her. “Shit. The whole thing’s shit.” “I imagine.” They sat a while. “I miss you,” he said. “Me too.” She looked around. She checked no-one she knew was nearby. “Hey,” she said. “I want the thing with you. Just so you know.” He nodded. She moved her hand. Slid it across the table, against his, so the tips of one finger touched. “You’re worried we’ll get in trouble?” Ethan said. “That I will, yeah.” “Will he say anything?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he has. He’s still hoping we can work it out, I think, so he’s behaving.” “Can you?” “Nope.” He seemed relieved. He sat quietly a little longer, looking down at their hands. “How bad is it, if he does tell someone?” She shrugged. “You’ll be okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” “And you?” “I actually have no idea. There must be a rule somewhere, but I’ve never seen it. And I don’t want to start asking around right now.” “Giving me marks is bad, though?” “Yeah. But no-one knows about that.” “And if they work it out? Because suddenly someone checks my work and it isn’t good enough?” She wondered if he’d been worrying about that all along, not her getting in trouble. Then she decided she was being too suspicious, was too used to Robert. “Yeah,” she said. “That’d be bad, for me. Very bad. But for you, I’ll just make them unenroll you, take it off your record. You won’t get hurt either way.” “But you’d be in trouble?” he said. She looked at him very carefully, and decided she couldn’t see any relief at all. He was concerned about her, not his transcript. “I’d probably be in some shit, yeah.” He nodded, and seemed worried. “We’ll wait a bit,” she said. “Okay? Let Robert sort his shit out and then, probably, nothing bad happens.” “Okay.” “And even if it does, you’ll still have the credits you need to graduate, right?” He nodded slowly “But that isn’t the point.” “It’s part of the point. I can look after myself. I don’t want you paying for this.” “Can you really?” he said. “Look after this. I mean, I know you talk like it, but…” She wasn’t sure how honest to be. She didn’t want him worrying. “I’m taking care of it,” she said. “But yeah, I mean, some people would make a fuss, and some other people would go along with the fuss hoping no-one looks at them too closely. But they can’t really afford to lose me.” “Lose you?” Ethan said. “Shit, they could fire you?” She realized she’d made a mistake. “Nah,” she said. “That isn’t how it works. I do research. I get funding for research. And I’m a woman in a male-dominated field. And I’m good. The department won’t let me go, and maths is still a department that matters. If Robert makes trouble, they’ll fire him rather then me. You can get a new political scientist by turning over a rock.” He looked at her. “Seriously, there’s a guy over in sociology who isn’t allowed to be alone in his office with a student. And that’s sociology. I’m fine.” “I want you,” he said. “I know,” she said. “Me too. Just give me a little time.”

“And you’ll really be okay?” She smiled and nodded and told him not to worry, but wasn’t quite as sure as she was making herself sound.

Chapter Ten Robert came home at three in the morning, drunk again. Beth woke up when he opened the front door. She heard him drop his keys in the hallway, heard him stumble coming up the stairs. From the noise he was making, he was worse tonight than he had been the night before. She rolled over and hoped he’d hurry up and quiet down. She owed him something, and a bit of this was understandable, but if he got into a habit she was going to get sick of being woken up very quickly. He came into the bedroom. He left the hall light on and the door open and didn’t seem to realize, and she didn’t bother telling him. He took his clothes off, fell onto the bed, climbed in. “Hey,” she said. “I’m awake.” He was fumbling around under the covers. It took her a minute to realize he was looking for her, groping around until he found her. He slid over, pressed against her back, hugging her, whispering, “Beth,” like he was trying to wake her up or something. “What?” “Are you awake?” “Course I am. You fucking stink.” “I’m shitfaced.” “I know.” He put his hand on her tummy, seemed to be pulling at her shirt. “Really fucking shitfaced.” “Yeah.” “I want you.” “I know, but you can’t have me.” “No,” he said, his hand under her shirt, on her bare breast. “I want you.” She lay there for a moment, not quite sure what to do. He tried to kiss her. His breath stunk, and when he found her cheek, he was slobbery too. “Stop it,” she said. “I want you, Beth.” “I know, but fuck off.” “You’re mine, Beth. I can’t let you go.” She reached over and turned on the light and then looked at him for a moment. She was almost worried by that. He didn’t normally say such things. She didn’t like the idea he thought she was his, and she really didn’t like the idea he couldn’t let go of her. She wasn’t

sure if that meant he’d hurt her, or he’d hurt himself, but whatever he meant, him thinking that was her fault. “What do you mean?” she said. “That you can’t let me go?” “We’re meant to be together.” “We might not be,” she said carefully. “Not meant to be.” “We are.” He was still playing with her tit. He pinched her nipple a bit hard. He didn’t mean to hurt her, she thought, was just drunk and clumsy. He reached down, rubbed her through her underwear. “Oh shit no,” she said. “Fuck off.” He shook his head, and kept trying. “Robert,” she said. “You fucking asshole.” “You’re mine, Beth.” Her sympathy was fading fast. “I’m really not.” He’d got his hand inside her underwear, and pushed his fingers into her. She wriggled, tried to get away. She still wasn’t sure how seriously to take this. “Hey,” she said. “What the fuck are you doing?” He slid over, on top of her, trying to pin her down. Holding her down, she thought, on the bed, like Ethan had a dozen times. She thought about what she liked, and what she’d found out she liked, and how the one time with Robert she’d enjoyed it he’d been holding her wrists. She thought about how she did actually care for Robert, in a way, and whether it was okay to have one last quickie with someone she was breaking up with. She wondered if Robert would feel better if she did, and she thought about guilt and the mess she’d made. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she minded if Robert wanted a goodbye fuck. “Wear a condom,” she said. He shook his head. “Don’t be difficult or I won’t,” she said. “I don’t want to. Not for your other guy. Not to keep him happy.” “Fuck,” she said. “Fine. But go brush your teeth.” “Nope,” he said, and kissed her. He tasted pretty bad, and she pushed him away. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to kiss him anyway. She didn’t want intimacy, even if they were going to have sex. He started. He pulled off her underwear, moved her legs. He was kneeling over her, looking down at her now. Not looking down at her, looking down at someone he thought was his. Someone he thought he knew. Someone else entirely, who he’d never listened to, and wasn’t listening to now. She lay there for a moment and thought about that. Robert lay down on her. He was heavy on her, was trying to get himself inside her, but not managing to aim right. He was poking into her leg, and she didn’t try and help him. He was trying to fuck her, she thought, and she didn’t really feel anything. She was a bit wet, and she didn’t mind if they did, but she didn’t really want to do this. She probably shouldn’t, she thought, if she didn’t really want to. That wasn’t right. “Robert,” she said. “I don’t want to. Get off me.”

He stayed where he was. She’d almost started to think she might like something like this. To think that Ethan and his wrist-grabbing meant something. She realized she didn’t. Ethan and his wrist-grabbing meant a whole lot of different, slightly confusing things, but this here, with Robert, wasn’t one of them. This wasn’t right. She didn’t want to have sex like this. “Last chance,” she said. “I mean it.” He ignored her. He was pissed, and not especially a threat, but he was still planning to fuck her and ignore her telling him not to, that was fairly obvious. She pushed upwards, tried to get him off. He grabbed at her wrists, tried to hold them. He was drunk and clumsy, so she shook herself free. She pushed again, and he put his whole weight on her, squashed some of the breath out of her. “Hey,” she said. “Stop it,” and hit his shoulder. He seemed to ignore it. He was trying to get himself inside her, and she was starting to get scared. “Robert,” she said. “You fucking shit. Get off.” She could feel him hard on her leg. He seemed more turned on now, and that surprised her. Then it didn’t. Of course he was turned on. Unlike Ethan holding her down, this was the fantasy he’d never had the balls to ask her to act out. He was actually going to do this, she realized. She had trouble believing it. He was actually planning to do this to her. He was drunk, and he might be too far gone to know what he was doing, but this wasn’t him not hearing, or messing around like Ethan playing kinky games. Robert was actually going to try and fuck her, to rape her, and she couldn’t quite believe it was happening. She punched him. She punched him as hard as she could. Up between them, into the underneath of his jaw with a closed fist. It made a thud and hurt her hand, and he stopped moving, and looked down at her. “You hit me,” he said. “Shit.” He’d lifted up a little, made some room for her. She hit him again, quite carefully, on his nose. Something got bent inside it, she felt a little squish, like crushing garlic under a knife. She pushed, but he didn’t move. She hit him again, missed his face, got his shoulder. By then he’d lifted up enough she could get out from underneath him. She slid sideways, got off the bed, and went halfway to the door before she looked back. He was sitting on the bed. She stopped. There was something sticky on her hand, and on her chest. She looked down. His blood. “What the fuck was that?” she said. She pulled down her shirt, got herself covered. Pulled on the jeans she’d been wearing earlier. He didn’t move. “What the fuck, Robert?” she said. “Fuck. You scared me.” “It was just…” “You thought I wanted you to? “ He looked at her. “I don’t know. I was angry.” “You were going to fuck me because you were angry?” He shrugged.

“Fuck,” she said, still getting it clear in her own mind. “You were going to fucking rape me. I know there’s some shit going on, and I know you were pissed, but that one was rape. You knew I didn’t want to and you did it anyway.” “Beth…” “Jesus fuck, Robert.” “Beth, I’m so sorry.” “Don’t talk to me.” She wanted to cry and wasn’t sure why. Relief perhaps. That pissed her off. She was her. She was tough. It was Robert, and she’d fought him off, and she was okay. She should be proud, not upset. “I’m so sorry,” Robert said. “Get the fuck downstairs and don’t come back up here.” “Beth…” “Fucking go.” He nodded and went. She thought about a shower, and about vomiting, but decided she wasn’t going to let him matter that much to her. She stood there for a while, until she’d calmed down, until her breathing was back to normal, then went down the stairs. She stopped two from the bottom, where she was higher but could see him. He was on the couch. “Sleep down here,” she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” “Are you okay?” “No.” “Are you going to be?” “I hate you.” He went still, looked at her. “While you were doing that I realized I hate you.” “I didn’t mean....” “I hate you. How could you do that to me?” “I was angry. I was upset.” “God, I know. That’s why I’m so pissed off. I understand. I sort of understand. And part of me still loves you. But I’m so fucking angry at you that you actually did.” He sat where he was for a while. “Beth, I’ll do whatever you want.” She shook her head, and went back up the stairs. She hated him. Whatever guilt or concern or obligation she’d felt were gone, and she was actually just glad. She wasn’t going to make him leave, she wasn’t going call the police. She still cared for him, somewhere inside, but now she hated him too. And that made everything so much simpler. * Beth left early, before Robert was awake. She wasn’t sure how she felt, or how seriously she should take what he’d tried to do. He’d been drunk, but he’d also been a horrible person and she’d never known that he was capable of something like that. She was angry. She was angry because he’d betrayed her, and in a way humiliated her,

and also because it somehow showed no respect for her mind. In an odd way that was the worst of it. She avoided Ethan, deliberately. She didn’t want him noticing something was wrong and getting it out of her by being nice while she was feeling vulnerable and weak. She wasn’t sure what would happen if Ethan knew, but she could think of a few bad outcomes without even trying hard. That he’d treat her like she was dirty, or needed extra care, or that he’d go off and punch Robert, which would probably get him expelled, since Robert was still staff. Worst of all, he’d probably stop grabbing her wrists and holding her down on beds. She was pretty sure he’d do that, would just assume he shouldn’t without even asking. He would if he was any kind of decent person, anyway, and the conversation to convince him to start again would just be too unbearably awkward. She avoided Ethan, and thought all morning, and got very little work done. She decided she and Robert probably ought to talk. At least she should throw him out herself, decide that herself, not just let him drift away. She went home at lunchtime and Robert was still there, probably waiting for her. She put down her bag, and went and made coffee. He followed her into the kitchen and watched her. “I’m sorry,” he said. She shook her head. “Don’t.” “Do you want me to move out?” he said. “Yes,” she said. “Obviously.” “I will.” “I don’t know if I’m going to tell you to move out. Any sooner than you were, I mean.” He looked at her. “I really don’t know,” she said. “I’m thinking. I don’t know if I can trust you.” “I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry. I don’t know what I was doing.” “Stop drinking so much.” “I will.” “Some fucking social justice activist,” she said. “That’s not…” He stopped. “You’re a cock,” she said. “Are you hurt?” “What, like bruised or something? No.” He looked relieved. “Are you okay?” “Emotionally?” she said. He nodded. “You tried to rape me, you fucking asshole. I’m a little bit upset.” “I didn’t really…” She threw her coffee at him. It was hot coffee, and she thought about that and then threw it anyway. The cup hit his face, bounced onto the floor, and broke. He stood there and looked at her and touched his face. She hoped it had burned him. She threw the next thing she could find, a bowl. That hit his chest, hard, like it would leave a bruise. Bounced off and broke too. Then she turned around and went upstairs.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a while and realized she was shaking. She wasn’t sure what she should be doing now. Telling him to leave, telling him never to come back. She didn’t want to do either, but didn’t know what she did want to do. She went back downstairs and sat on the step two from the bottom. Feet on the bottom step, sitting on the next one up. Not touching the actual floor. “Hey,” she said. He sat up. He’d been lying on the couch. “I don’t know,” she said. He waited. “I don’t know if I want you to go. I also don’t know if I want you to stay.” He nodded. “That can never happen again. Nothing to even make me think it will. Nothing to worry me.” “I promise.” “No more drinking. Not more not listening when I tell you something.” “Okay.” “If I ever do get worried, I’ll cut off your balls and then call the police.” He looked at her. “I fucking mean it. I’ll get a kitchen knife and do my best to stab you. I might not get it right, but it won’t be much fucking fun for you. Then I’ll call the cops while you’re lying there bleeding.” “I believe you.” “Okay.” She sat a bit longer. “You need to keep trying to find somewhere.” “I am.” “Actually try. Not putting it off. Not some bullshit where you tell me you are, but end up getting your own way and staying because it’s too much hassle for me to get you to do anything.” “I don’t…” “Yeah, you do,” she said. “So shut up.” He went quiet. “I won’t have Ethan around here for the next few days,” she said. “Probably. But no promises.” Robert looked upset for a moment. “Yeah,” she said. “Tough shit. I can’t go to his place, but we’ll make do.” “Okay.” “And you’re not living here, you’re a guest, you’re staying, and I’ll throw you out at a moment’s notice if I get worried. I’m not promising you a thing.” “Beth, please…” He looked miserable. He had no right to look miserable, but he did. “Oh yeah, and fuck you,” Beth said. “By the way. You caused this.” “Do you actually want me to stay?” “No.” “So why this?”

“I feel guilty. I owe you.” He was looking at her. “Guilt,” she said. “That’s all. So do it my way, or make it easy for me to tell you to fuck off now.” “Okay.” She looked at him. “Okay,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about it, so okay.” “Good. You’re down here, don’t come upstairs.” He nodded. “Okay,” she said, and didn’t know whether to be upset or relieved that he was staying. “I want you gone. Try and make it quick.” * Beth was letting Robert stay, but she was still angry with him. Twice the next day she threw things at him, for no real reason, just walked past and was unaccountably angry and hurled whatever was to hand. It actually helped. It was strange, but having him around to treat like that made her feel a little better. “Hurry up and find somewhere else,” she said after she’d thrown her wooden fruit bowl towards his head. There were four apples on the floor. “I’ll go,” Robert said, picking them up. “Do you want me to go right now?” “Yes,” she said. Then, “No.” She went upstairs, then came back down, and said, “You have until the weekend.” Then she phoned Ethan and told him that too, that Robert would be gone in a week, no matter what, and then everything would be fine. She avoided Robert. They didn’t see each other that much, and part of her was glad. She hoped maybe they could just drift apart, and he would go, without them really seeing each other any more. It seemed to work. Robert stayed out later, was at his office more. Beth got used to wandering around the flat alone, being in bed before he got back. She saw Ethan, but not at home, and kissed him, and wanted him, but managed to make herself wait. Except one night when they had sex in her office, and she was glad of that too. Everything was normal. Everything was fine. Robert hadn’t changed anything with Ethan, as far as she could tell. She came home late that night, and Robert asked where she’d been. “Fucking, Robert. What the fuck do you think I was doing?” “Oh,” he said. “Why ask?” she said. “Why push it when you know, and make me actually say it, and hurt you?” “I was worried,” he said. “What?” she said. “That I’ll get raped?” Robert went pale and looked away and didn’t speak to her again that night. *

The next evening, the Thursday, she got home and found him in the kitchen eating a sandwich and drinking whiskey. “Sandwich for dinner?” she asked, and ignored the liquor. He nodded. She held up a supermarket bag. “Frozen dinner.” “Have dinner with me?” She stood there for a while, then said, “Yeah, okay.” She put her box in the microwave, and watched it spin around. “How are you doing?” she said, feeling she should ask. “Honestly?” She shrugged. “I suppose.” “It could be worse.” She turned around. She didn’t quite understand, but she was glad that he felt that way. “How so?” “You could be with someone I envy.” The microwave beeped. Beth got her dinner, peeled the plastic off the top, and left it to sit for a minute. She decided not to ask about the envy thing. Robert was older, she supposed, and had a career. Something like that. “The hardest thing,” Robert said. “Is knowing you’re doing things to someone else you used to do to me.” “To?” “Yeah, to. Does that make sense?” “Like not with? What I do is what counts? Not what he does to me?” Robert nodded. “Yeah, that kind of makes sense.” “Thank you for giving me time to find somewhere,” he said. She shrugged. “And I am sorry,” he said. “Don’t.” He nodded. Beth scooped up her dinner and went and sat at the table. Robert pushed a placemat over, so she didn’t get steam on the wood, and she thought for a moment that they did actually fit together, as a couple, surprisingly well. Except for how he was a shit. “I always respected your work,” Robert said. “And I don’t think you ever did mine.” Beth didn’t answer. She couldn’t, because it was true, and had been from the very beginning. “It’s not you,” she said at last. “It’s just I don’t get…” “Anything that isn’t abstract algebra?” “Yeah.” “I just thought it might make a difference if you knew that. That I respect you, and your work. That I never meant to put you down or anything.” “Okay,” she said. They sat there for a while. “This is nice,” Robert said.

“Yeah,” Beth said, and actually meant it. “You look like you’ve lost weight,” Robert said. “Yeah, maybe.” Hours of sex a day for months. “Not eating properly.” “Take care of yourself.” He seemed to be looking at her. “Are you wearing a bra?” She wasn’t. She’d been with Ethan in her office, had only dressed enough to get to the supermarket and home. It was in her bag. It was the strangest thing. She felt grubby and awkward, like her dad had caught her without one on, and that was a really worrying sign for how she felt about Robert. “Nope,” she said. Robert just that there. He seemed to feel awkward too. “Just trying something,” she said. He nodded. They talked about work for a while. About where they’d always wanted to go on holidays. Beth wondered if they’d ever get to travel together after all, then realized they wouldn’t, and realized that planning those trips they’d never taken might have been the strongest connection they’d ever actually had. “Hey,” Beth said, because she’d been needing to say it for days, and they were actually talking. “Don’t say anything about Ethan and I won’t say anything about rape.” “Yeah,” Robert said. “I know.” She looked at him for a while. “Of course that’s what we’ll do. I assumed. I know you. I haven’t said anything.” “What do you mean of course?” “You’re kind of calculating, Beth. Of course you don’t care what I did to you, and of course you’ll use it to get what you want.” “I care,” she said. “You’re using it to get me to do what you want.” “I’m not,” Beth said, astonished, unsure where this had even come from. “You don’t know me at all.” “And yet I’m right about that.” She sat there for a moment, hurt and angry and filled with this horrible darkness inside herself. “I wish I’d never loved you,” she said quietly. “I really do.” She’d had enough to eat. She wasn’t hungry any more. She put what was left of her dinner in the bin. Robert was watching her. She was about to go upstairs to bed, then changed her mind. “Get the fuck out,” she said. “What?” “Go. Fuck off. I want you out my life.” “Beth…” “I’ve had enough. I want you to go.” He looked like he couldn’t decide if she was serious. “You heard me. Get the fuck out of here. I tried to be nice, but I don’t want you around any more.” “I haven’t got anywhere to go.” “I don’t care. Get a fucking hotel. I had to, when I wanted to fuck Ethan.”

He didn’t move. “You’d better start looking like you’re going,” she said. “I fucking mean it.’ “You want me to go right now?” “Yeah. I don’t want you in this house. I don’t want you in the house tonight.” “What difference does it make?” “It does.” He stood up and walked over and put his plate in the sink. He looked annoyed, and she decided she might be being unreasonable. Now he was doing what she wanted, she gave a little ground. “You can stay tonight,” she said. “But you have to pack first. You have to be ready to go first thing in the morning. And you actually have to go, just fuck off, without making a fuss.” He stood there looking at her like he didn’t know what to say. “Do it my way, or fuck off,” she said. “How is this hard to understand?” “All right,” he said. He went over to the couch, and started to pack, to pick up clothes and put them in his suitcase. “Do you have to be in control all the fucking time?” he said. It was meant to be a last jab, an insult, and she looked at him and wondered if he knew her at all. “Of course I do,” she said. “Fuck.” She stood there long enough to make sure he was actually putting his things in the suitcase, was actually packing, and then went upstairs and texted Ethan, tomorrow. * In the morning Robert had left before she woke up, and she was actually surprised. He’d left the key on the kitchen bench. He left a note. He said he’d get in touch about a few things he’d left, and some he didn’t know if they were his or hers. He said goodbye. He’d still be around, she supposed. He’d still be somewhere on the campus, and she might run into him, but he was actually gone from here. She felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. * Beth was going to meet Ethan. She’d realized a while ago that she’d never worn the dress for him again, the one she’d had on the night they met. She realized she’d never let Ethan fuck her in it, or even see her in it again, and that she wanted to do something good and sexy and nice with him, and forget Robert and his weird and threatening shit. She needed to be her as she started with Ethan, or at least the her she was becoming, and wanted to be. It didn’t quite make sense, but it seemed right. She put on the dress, and heels, but not the actual heels. These ones she could walk in easily. She texted him when she was ready and said to come and meet her outside the maths building. She wanted to be somewhere new for this. In the dress, and some different place, without

all the memories of sneaking around making it sordid. There was a waist-high concrete retaining wall around the front of the building, and the students sat there a lot, waiting for each other. Ethan was there, waiting for her. There were a few other students around, but none of them were hers. She walked over, and he looked at her, and the dress, and grinned and said, “Fucking wow.” That was enough. That was exactly, perfectly enough. “Help me up,” she said, and he held out his hand and let her pull herself up onto the wall beside him. She sat there for a minute and swung her feet. It was the middle of a winter day and the air was cool on her skin. “He’s gone,” she said. “It’s over. I have lots of time again.” Ethan leaned over and kissed her. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t.” “We can’t do that?” She looked around at students and the building and decided she didn’t care. One of the students was looking at her, a woman, but Beth was pretty sure it was the dress getting noticed, odd here in the middle of the day, not her. “Yeah,” she said. “We can do that.” He kissed her again, and looked really happy, and she was pleased. He looked like waiting for her was worth it. He kissed her for a moment, then tried to take her hand. She moved it. “Don’t get carried away,” she said, and he grinned. They sat for a while. “What happens now?” Ethan said. “Yeah,” she said. “I was meaning to talk to you about that. I hadn’t really got a plan from here on in.” He looked at her and grinned. “You want me?” she said. “You really fucking want me.” “Yep.” “Like be a couple and live with me and get all my crazy all the time. Like me leaning over your shoulder telling you when you’ve made a mistake, and everyone looking at you thinking you only got where you are because you’re the teacher’s pet.” “Yeah, I do.” “You’re sure?” “I don’t mind you fixing my mistakes, and I don’t really care what a bunch of maths professors think.” “And the rest?” “You’re not that crazy.” She sat there for a while, and felt tremendously relieved. “You wondered?” he said. “Of course.” “I told you. Crush since your first lecture.” “That might have changed.”

“Nope.” She kissed him, then slid forwards, wriggled off the wall. “Something I need to do,” she said. He nodded. He didn’t look disappointed. She was pretty sure he really didn’t mind how much she worked. “You’re glad it got to this?” she said, wanting to check one last time. “You don’t want to change your mind?” “I’m glad.” “Okay,” she said. She took a folded sheet of paper out her bag, rummaged around and found a pen. “Sign that.” He looked. “I’m out your course?” “Yep. You don’t need it to see me any more.” “So I don’t get an A?” She looked at him for a moment. “Nope. Do you care?” “Shit no,” he said, and scribbled his name. “Didn’t want it in the first place.” She was relieved by that too. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t go on your record, okay?” He nodded, gave the form back to her. “Now we’re honest,” she said. “No more secrets.” “Except…” he said. “Yeah,” she said. “Thinking of which. I’d better go talk to the head of school. There’s a couple of things I need to sort out.” He grinned, and kissed her again, right there, outside the building, and she didn’t mind at all. “Bye,” she said. “Come over later.” “Yeah,” he said. “I will.” “Do,” she said. “I really fucking want you right now,” and then went inside to own up. ### Hi, this is Tess, who wrote this story. I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you for reading! If you’d like to read some more, here’s how! So mostly, I write short fiction, and usually when each story is finished I put it up here at Smashwords, or here on my website, and also at a place called Wattpad. Those are all free to read or download from, by the way. Then, when enough single stories are written to make an anthology, everything recent is collected together into an anthology book to sell. But just to be really, completely clear, so no-one is upset when they realize later on - the anthology books collect the same stories as are already around the place for free. Exactly the same! So if you would like to buy a book, I would really appreciate it, and that would be fantastic! But please don’t feel obliged! Because if you’d rather try reading things first, or would just rather not pay for whatever reason, then please don’t! So if you would like to have a look at the anthologies, they are this one, this one, and this one. Otherwise, there are single ebook stories here.

And either way, thank you for reading!