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“Perfect. How’s tomorrow sound?” he asked as we walked out of class.
“That would be fine,” I answered, then the two of us headed back across campus. Right now in the early fall, the temperatures made this multi time a day trek tolerable but I shuddered to think about how it would be in the middle of winter with snow covering the ground. I was excited about the white stuff, but also becoming aware of the downfalls of it, too.
CALLUM
My students were hard at work taking their midterms, so I sat at my desk with my feet propped up. I tried to keep my eyes off of Nicole, but it was hard to do so. We’d been seeing each other discreetly now for a few weeks. We couldn’t go out in public together on a date, or openly walk around campus together, but she could with another student of mine.
Travis Harrison.
I noticed how close the two of them had gotten over that time, and she’d even canceled a date or two with me to hang out with him. She’d called it studying, but I couldn’t really be sure about that. I didn’t know what sipping margaritas at a local taco joint had to do with a marketing assignment, but it was what she’d told me more than once.
I didn’t really have a right to be mad. After all, she was young and single. Well, maybe there was an asterisk where the latter was concerned, but there was one thing she was indisputably, and that was mine. Even now, I could see the two of them smiling at one another. It was like a dagger to the chest, and not a sensation I was accustomed to feeling. Sure, I’d made others feel that way over the years, and probably more times than I could even count, but knowing this was karma didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.
She’d told me how much she loved being with me just two nights ago as I‘d held her in my arms. She’d snuggled up against me, and the warmth of her naked body on mine felt right. It wasn’t often that I’d experienced something like that, and I knew it meant one thing. I was starting to fall for her which scared me. It also brought me a peace I had never expected to feel.
A rustling of paper caused me to look back over at them, and I watched as he took her test, then placed it alongside his in the basket in the center of the desk. With a little less than fifteen minutes until class ended, the two were able to just sit there and whisper freely amongst themselves. I watched and I scowled when I saw her smile. It was the same kind she greeted me with when I’d show up at her place most nights. I hated having to treat her as if she was my dirty little secret, but that was essentially what she was whether we’d intended for it to be that way or not. If she’d just transferred classes, we could be together for all to see. It’d then be us sitting there laughing with one another, and taking selfies.
“It has to be a woman. I’ve never seen Callum so damn distracted in my life. We should go ahead and pay for a private lap dance for him,” Noah had told the others at the Vault the other night. I hadn’t wanted to see any other woman dancing provocatively in front of me. The only woman I wanted to see naked and to fuck was Nicole, but it was the night she’d canceled our plans to eat tacos and drink margaritas with Travis.
I was really pissed off when I found out what she was doing, so I relented. Accepting my friend’s offer, I’d allowed the dance with Barbie if for no other reason than to stop their curious natures. One day, they’d all end up with someone, just as I knew I would. For me, it wouldn’t be anytime soon. I wanted Nicole, but I didn’t need her. Those conflicting thoughts waged war in my head until I finally let Barbie dance a few numbers for me.
After, I dropped a few bills in her G-string, then went home. Later, when alone in my shower, it wasn’t the busty blonde I’d pictured with my dick in my hand. I pictured my dark-haired beauty and imagined it was her hand stroking me. I was slowly losing my ability to keep things casual between us which irritated me. I hadn’t gone to Costa Rica and that damn ayahuasca retreat to fall in love, but I’d at least tripped and landed in lust, because I’d wanted this woman since first laying eyes on her, and that desire had yet to wane.
I could make Nicole a thousand promises about what would happen with us once we shed the teacher/student tags holding us under water. I could tell her that we could finally be together, but what did that really mean? Yes, I could wine and dine her the way Travis was doing, and I could take her home where I’d wring orgasm after orgasm from her, but what after?
Would I want to follow her wherever her career led her? I didn’t. I enjoyed living in Chicago, and I had no plans to relocate anywhere else. If she wanted to leave, would I be holding her back? Likely so, and it would just cause us to sink faster and harder than a ship lost at sea. We’d eventually go through the motions until neither one of us felt a damn thing anymore. She’d leave, and I’d let her, then we’d both be left bitter and hollow.
Every time I admitted that to myself, I would then think about the little things. I’d remember the soft noises she made in her sleep... the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when either nervous or concentrating hard on something... I’d even remember the way she’d tap her eraser against her chin as she worked on her assignments... And her eyes... I’d remember the way they’d glisten as she spoke passionately about her family, and how they’d darken when she was aroused. They’d also glaze completely over when I made her come.
The sex was the worst thing to think about. It’d make me hard like I was now, and I’d stay in that uncomfortable state for hours. Sometimes, I’d go home and use my hand to relieve the immediate pressure, but I usually waited until I got to her place, then I’d take her right there in the living room. Many of the boxes from that one day had since been unpacked, but I’d fucked her over the arm of the couch, recliner, and on the island in the kitchen. I was driving myself crazy with thoughts of her. Realizing how obsessive I was becoming, I picked up my cell phone and pulled up her name.
I don’t think we should see each other tonight.
I sent a message to her, and watched as she slowly retrieved her cell phone from her open bag, then looked over at me. Her expression was strange, almost hurt, and she quickly typed back a single word.
Okay???
The bell rang before I could respond. I swung my feet off of my desk, then stood up so I could grab the tests from the trays. When I neared her table, Nicole’s words made my blood boil.
“I guess we can go and catch that movie after all, Travis.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, and I could tell she knew why I’d sent that message. She then turned back around and the two left class. Others left right behind them which cut off my view. And just like that, jealousy reared its ugly head once more. I wanted to message her back to either tell her that I’d changed my mind about seeing her, or to forbid her from going to the movies with him. Both were things I couldn’t do, so as the students for the next class started to filter in, I returned my focus to them.
An hour later, I’d graded the tests for both classes, and as much as I wanted to be petty and give Travis a bad grade, his responses were correct, as were Nicole’s. They were two of my brightest students, which just figured. During my free period, I spent it in my office scowling. Eventually, I must’ve drifted off because the shrill ringing of the bell had me straightening up in my seat. I looked down at my desk, and I could see the imprint of my head on the stack of graded papers.
After a quick glance in the mirror, I was happy that I hadn’t gotten ink on my face, and I went out to greet my next class. As I’d done with the previous two classes today, I handed out their tests, then sat at my classroom desk. While the students had their heads down as they concentrated, my head was still a clusterfuck of thoughts. Evidently during my nap, I’d gone from imagining Nicole naked underneath me, to thinking about my parents and their own marriage. For as in love as they were, both of them had secrets, and ones I was more than fully aware of. My father adored my mother, and vice versa, but it’d never been just the two of them. Both had stepped out on their marriage, but my mother’s romp with her personal trainer had been the reason it’d almost fallen apart.
“What do you mean that you might be pregnant,” he’d roared at her.
“I’m not sure, but I have a blood test scheduled with the doctor in a few days,” she’d told him.
I’d been around twelve, and I remember clearly asking them for a sibling over the years. Excited, I’d almost ran into the room until my mother’s voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
“If I am, I’ll get rid of it, discreetly. No one will ever know about me and Jean-Paul.”
Jean-Paul? I’d later learned he was the one who came to the house and did individualized personal training with my mother. I’d also learned that my parents had an open marriage, which was something else not that uncommon among our kind, and that she had broken one of the cardinal rules set in place. To this day, I still didn’t know if she’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion, or if she’d dodged a bullet. All I did know was that my father gave her the same passive-aggressive treatment I was giving to Nicole, and that realization filled me with shame.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to break down my pride, so after school was over for the day, I made plans with my friends. Gabriel, Daxon, Romeo, Noah, and I went to the Vault, then later back to Gabe’s place to shoot pool. Harper was out of town at a design conference, so there was no one to interrupt us.
