PleasuringtheProfessor (5 page)

“When I was seventeen, my parents died in a car crash.
They’d been pretty old when they had me. Academics, of course.” She smiled
slightly. “I was their only child. But we were a family. I had a family. A
family I loved. Very much. And then they were gone. One minute I was coddled
and praised for how smart and beautiful I was, and the next minute I was no
one. Just an orphan somebody had to figure out what to do with. And my parents?
The people I loved most in the whole world were just ashes in these funny jars
the funeral home gave me. It was…so hard.”

Her voice cracked and he felt as if he should say something.
But he couldn’t think of a goddamn thing. Then he offered, “Kate had never
wanted to be cremated. She always said to put her in the ground like a potted
plant. So we had these—”

He stopped. He didn’t want to think of the elaborate gold
casket, and its tiny white companion one. But he suddenly remembered how funny
Kate had been when she’d joked about the kind of funeral she wanted. He had—they
both had—thought it was a joke. Something that wouldn’t happen for decades. He
swallowed, hard.

Those blue eyes, still trained on him, didn’t waver.

“I guess that’s why your work always meant so much to me. I
felt a connection, I guess.” When he said nothing in response, she added, “But
I suppose it’s not fair to think you would too. Why would you?”

Oh, he should so let it go. Let her think he felt no
connection. He’d been honest when he admitted that he didn’t know if his small
head was overwhelming his big one. He didn’t know what he felt. But he felt
something.

He took her hand and kissed her palm. “I’d be even more of
an asshole than I already am if I took advantage of the connection you felt you
had with me.”

“Didn’t you already do that by going to bed with me?”

The question caught him off guard.
Ouch.
He laughed.
“That was a pretty good line yourself.”

Her smile took a bit of the sting out of it. “I’m not a wily
seductress sent here to trap you, Liam, but I’m not a pretty little porcelain
doll you need to be careful with either.”

“What are you, then?” he asked softly.

“I’m a grown woman you might like to get to know. If you let
yourself.”

He let her palm drop. And let the natural hard edge to his
voice creep back in. “How about we give you a little dose of reality about me
first? You know why Kate died? Why Jimmy died?”

He didn’t bother to clarify that Jimmy was his son. His
baby. She would know that anyway since she’d made such a study of him.

“Because of that puritanical streak you said you didn’t see
in my writing. Kate confessed to me about her affair with Friedman the day she
died and I threw her out. She said it was over, but instead of forgiving her or
trying to talk it out, I told her I wanted a divorce. Just like that. Ten years
of marriage and she was, as they say,
dead to me
.” He’d thought of that
particular line for years. It was so fucking ironic.

“Liam—”

“The fact it was Friedman enraged me. She was so upset, she
was sobbing, but I didn’t give a damn. I told her to just get out. To go to her
lover, or ex-lover, or whatever the fuck he was. I even let her take Jimmy
because frankly I was such a piss-poor husband and father that I barely knew
how to diaper him. And they were dead a half an hour later. She probably didn’t
even notice the fucking truck.”

He started to get up and Clarie, surprising him, tried to
stop him with a palm to his chest. The light pressure wouldn’t really keep him
there if he didn’t let it. But she supplemented the move by climbing right on
top of his lap, facing him.

The erection he started to get at the feel of her on top of
him, the feel of her touch, did make him feel guilty. Even though he knew it
shouldn’t. His wife and son were dead. Seven years now. They were dead because
of him and nothing he did or didn’t do was going to change that now.

Clarie took his face in her hands. “The truck driver who hit
your wife’s car had driven thirty-six hours straight trying to get his haul to
its destination on time.
You know that.
The truck veered onto your
wife’s side of the road. She couldn’t have avoided it. Even if she had been calm.
Even if she had been the best driver in the world. It was one of those
God-awful accidents that just happen. It happened to my parents.”

The erection should have softened him toward her. The fact
that it didn’t just proved she should run away from him as fast as she could.
“I suppose you’re some kind of an expert in horrific car crashes.”

“No. I just know about my parents’ crash. And I know about
yours.”

“It wasn’t mine,” he said before he could stop himself. A
Freudian slip probably, since he’d been dodging the guilt he’d felt for so
long.

“No. It wasn’t.” She leaned forward and kissed him lightly,
then pulled back. “I know you wanted to die with your family. I did too. I felt
all alone in the world. And I did blame myself. Not directly, like you did, but
in the way kids do. Teens think everything revolves around them so if something
happens to them, it must be because of them in some way.”

He stayed silent.

“But I didn’t die, Liam. And neither did you. No matter how
much you may have wanted to.”

Part of him wanted to use sex to shut her up. Or just wanted
sex with her probably. Shutting her up was a bonus.

But he tried to keep up the fight. “You sound like all those
bullshit psychiatrists everybody was always trying to get me to see.”

“How would you know? You didn’t go.”

“How would
you
know?” he shot back with as much
belligerence as he could muster.

“I can tell. Maybe because I’ve been through it, but I can
just tell. You’ve kept all this bottled up inside you for so long, you don’t
know how to let it out. You don’t know how to let yourself.”

“Get the fuck off my lap,” he muttered.

“No.”

They locked eyes. And he took in a deep breath. With the
consequent exhale—her sincere blue eyes on him and her palms on his
face—something went out of him. Maybe it was the fight. Maybe it was something
else.

“I know one thing about you, Clarie Lewis. You’re stubborn
as hell.”

“Right back at you.”

Finally, he said, “What do you want from me?”

“Dinner. A movie maybe.”

He shook his head in exasperation. Of course he put his
hands on her hips, too, and rubbed his hard-on against the crotch of her jeans.
He couldn’t help it.

“Did you minor in psychology?” he managed to get out through
the pleasure that was overtaking him.

“No. I just had a very good counselor at my high school. And
a very beautiful writer to read to take my mind off my troubles after my
parents died.”

“I’m not that writer anymore,” he warned.

Her hips matched the rhythm he was setting with his grip.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not interested in your writing right about
now.”

His chuckle in response was so spontaneous. He tried to
dredge up his anger. But it was fucking impossible.

He unzipped her jeans and slid his hand inside, along her
flat belly and through the delicate curls of her bush to her clit. Rubbing
lightly, he leaned forward to take her mouth, tracing the sweetness of her
plump lips and sucking her tongue as he tended to her clit. She returned the
favor by running one finger along the ridge of his cock and then unzipping him
to take it in hand. At just the clasp of her warm hand around his bare cock, he
was ready to plunge up into her again. He urged her up, so he could pull her
jeans down.

And then the woman had the nerve to climb off his lap.

“Okay, you’re
trying
to piss me off now, aren’t you?”

Rummaging in her bag again, she came away with the
all-important condom and waved it at him. She pulled her jeans off in the
bargain, which did placate him a little. “Not at all. I’m getting an essential
accessory.”

“God, you’re responsible. Don’t you believe me that I
haven’t had sex in, er, I don’t know how long? If I’d had a sexually
transmitted disease, I’d be dead by now.”

“I believe you, but I don’t happen to want kids just yet.”

He didn’t know what must have crossed his face, but she
crouched down beside him suddenly, kissing his cheek, holding his arms. Christ.
If he cried, after not being able to do so during all this time, he was going
to fucking kill himself. But his eyes were dry. His heart, on the other hand…

To ward off the reminder, he snatched the condom from her
and put it on, keeping his mind blank. “Fuck me,” he demanded gruffly, pulling
her onto his lap.

Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she set one leg on
either side of his and lowered herself carefully on to his throbbing cock. She slid
her wet cunt up and then down again a few moments later, but it was too slow.
He needed more. He needed something to make it all go away.

Gripping her hips, he lifted her up swiftly and then brought
her back down again with force. Pleasure shot through him as he repeated the
motion again and again, pounding up into her, feeling her getting wetter and
wetter, his own breath coming harshly. But before they could orgasm from these
wild thrusts, she urged his hands off her hips, and slowed her movements deliberately.
Leaning forward to press her lips to his, she sifted her fingers through his
hair, causing a tingle in his scalp as she kissed him slowly, thoroughly. At
that sweet, deep kiss, and the calm, wet clasp of her cunt taking him in below,
what had been harsh and desperate became smooth, mellow…right.

His hands, no longer trying to control her pace, drifted up
to the delicate contours of her back beneath her shirt. He explored the curves
and valleys and silken smoothness of her skin with his fingers as she pressed
short, feather-light kisses along his brow, his temples, his neck. When her
lips reached his ear, she nipped at his earlobe and he groaned.

“We’ll do this slow, Liam,” she whispered. “Me and you.”

She rose up on his cock, swaying toward him in that sweet
rhythm as she came back down and he took her mouth, bringing her closer as they
kissed, moving together, so in sync.

When he came this time, it wasn’t frantic. He didn’t need to
blank his mind. He felt as if maybe he was starting to open it again.

What
did
she want from him? This, of course. The
sated pleasure he seemed to be able to deliver to her so effortlessly. But she
wanted something more too. She guessed she wanted to help him after all, since
he had so helped her—whether he acknowledged it or not.

She dropped a kiss on his heated forehead and started to
climb off his lap. But as soon as he slipped out of her, he pulled her back,
firmly, cuddling her sideways in his arms and burying his face in the curve of
her neck.

“He was the sweetest little boy.”

She heard the whispered words, but just barely.

“Did he look like you?” she murmured and he raised his head,
smiling.

“A carbon copy. Kate used to lament my domineering genes.
God, I loved that kid.”

She let him hold her, not knowing what to say. The loss of a
child was something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She wanted to say
something trite. Like he had to cherish the memories. Or better to have loved
and lost.

But, thank God, she managed to stop herself. She didn’t know
what the loss of a child felt like. She hoped to God she never would. And that
was all she could do to protect against it.

It
was
better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all. That was true whether she said it or not. She hoped he knew
that.

“But you’re right,” he finally said. “I didn’t die, no
matter how much I thought I wanted to.”

“The drinking…”

Instead of being outraged by her prying, as she’d thought he
might, he laughed. “Christ, your generation is so goody-two-shoes.”

“Except for the sexual liberation thing.”

“Except for that, fortunately. So is that on your to-do list
for me after dinner and a movie? Signing me up for AA? Don’t you know true
writers are supposed to be drunks?”

“I never bought that.”

“Yeah? Well, no AA for me. I’m not a joiner. But don’t get
all worried about saving me from my dissolute ways. The drinking, the hardcore
drinking, stopped a long time ago, if I’m honest about it. Not long after I got
fired from my last teaching gig. I’d even started running again, doing pushups—forgetting
to drink, I guess. Until a gorgeous, soaking-wet blonde showed up in front of
my fire, of course. That drove me to the whiskey bottle again.”

She ran her mouth lightly along the stubble on his cheek. “I
haven’t seen you asking for a drink lately though.”

He read the subtle comment just as she’d meant him to. “I
can’t make any promises, Clarie. I am a fuck up. But I’ve started to try to write
again and since you came into my cabin, I…well, I can’t think straight. I don’t
know. But I’d like to come out of my hibernation long enough to actually take
you to a movie and dinner, if you were serious about that.”

The casual way he said it, the assumption he would want to
see her again, filled her with a quiet sense of wellbeing. She said, completely
honestly, “I was serious.”

She was about to add that any university would be thrilled
to have him teach again. If he wanted to. Even NYU.

But she didn’t want to rush it. New York was not so very far
away. And they had time.

He kissed her. “There is one thing I absolutely have to
venture out to do, though.” His hands wandered down her thigh. “I have to buy
some condoms.”

She laughed. “Just so long as you only use them with me.”

“I promise.”

And he did.

Six Months Later

Clarie fanned herself at the open window of her apartment
with an old copy of the Atlantic. The ventilation in this fourth-floor walk-up
was crap. If there was one thing she was going to buy with her first
honest-to-goodness paycheck—once her fancy degree finally landed her a job,
that is—it was going to be a window air conditioner. Or else a one-way plane
ticket to Alaska.

New York in the summer gave a girl thoughts like that.

The buzzer to the front door of her building sounded,
announcing that she either had a visitor or else somebody was trying to sneak
in.

Dropping her makeshift fan on a nearby table, Clarie pushed
the button to the intercom. “Yes,” she said in her toughest New Yorker voice,
in case it was the latter. “Who is it?”

“Uh oh. You don’t sound like you’re in a good mood.”

Clarie laughed at the familiar voice on the other end of the
intercom and said, “I am now,” before buzzing him in.

She hadn’t expected Liam until the weekend, but more and
more often lately he had been surprising her, showing up in the middle of the
week and staying longer and longer each time. Now that it was the summer,
though, she intended to reciprocate so he wasn’t always the one who had to
travel. Besides, she missed the little mountain cabin that she thought of as
their own personal love nest. It had been too long since she had sat on that
awful plaid couch and watched the fire with Liam.

Although she would get that man a television if it was the
last thing she did.

At the knock on her apartment door, she opened it right
away.

“Hey, you.” She kissed him, noting the four flights up
hadn’t left him the slightest bit out of breath. Running in the mountains was
good training, as it turned out, for a Manhattan walk-up.

God, would she ever get over the thrill of seeing this
man—even better since he was
her
man?

Liam slid one arm around her waist, keeping the other behind
his back, and kicked the door shut.

She tried to look around him. “What’s that?”

Grinning, he darted away so that she couldn’t see what he
held behind his back.

“No, no, no,” he admonished. “You have to sit down first. I
have a surprise for you.”

He wore khakis and a dress shirt—the sleeves rolled up—which
for Liam was tantamount to wearing a suit. In this weather especially, it was
out of character for him.

“What’s going on?” she asked, sitting down at his request on
her couch, which was IKEA student chic, but a step up from the plaid if she did
say so herself.

“Well, first let me ask whether you know what day this is?”

“Ah, Wednesday?”

“No.” He laughed and she smiled, knowing very well what he
meant, but surprised that he knew it. It warmed her in a way not even this
humid summer day could. She wanted to hear him say it, though, so she waited.

He looked at her expectantly. “No guesses?”

“Tell me,” she murmured.

“Well, you unsentimental little Generation X-er, it’s the
sixth-month anniversary of the night we met.”

He hadn’t had a drink in all that time as far as she could
tell and their relationship had gone well beyond the dinner and a movie that
she originally had said she wanted from him. But she had asked for no promises,
and he had offered none, so she didn’t suppose a sixth-month anniversary would
resonate with him.

She was touched that it had.

“And you brought me flowers or candy or something?” she
asked tentatively. “That’s so sweet.”

“Something even better than that for a bona-fide English
PHD.” He whipped his surprise present out from behind him and held it up for
her to see.

Smiling, she said, “The Atlantic? Gosh. Thank you, Liam.”
She only hoped it was the new issue and not the one she’d swiped from the
student center—fully intending to return it, of course, after she was done
reading and fanning. But either way, it was the thought that counted.

He sank down next to her and handed it to her.

“Oh, it’s the new issue. Great. I haven’t read that one.”

He kissed her and said, “Better than that. It’s an advance
copy. It hasn’t even hit the stands yet.”

“Really? Wow.”

He chuckled. “I better be sure to ask you what you want for
all of our special occasions in the future. I can see that you’re absolutely
horrible at faking enthusiasm.”

She laughed, wrapping her arms around him and climbing onto
his lap. “No, it is sweet. I mean it.”

He reached to take the magazine from her hand and flipped it
open to a certain page. Then he held it out to her.

It was a short story. The Snow Girl. When she read the
byline, tears almost came to her eyes. “You wrote a new story, Liam? That’s
wonderful.”

She hugged him tight and he urged, “Read the first few
lines.”

When she complied, she actually did cry. Wiping her eyes,
feeling silly, she said, “Oh my God, Liam.”

“I wrote it about you, Clarie. About meeting you. About us.”
He flipped to the next page and handed it back to her. She absorbed that
byline, the whole piece, with awe. She stared back at him, not sure what to say.

“I used to think that the first time a person sees their
work published—really published—it’s the greatest thing in the world,” he said.
“What you’ve shown me, Clarie, is that it’s not. That being with someone you
love is more important. Is better.”

“Oh my God.” And she wasn’t saying that because the Atlantic
was publishing excerpts from her thesis on Liam alongside his new story. It was
because he said—or she thought he had said—that he loved her. “Oh my God,” she
repeated, and then kissed him, long and hard. “I love you too, Liam,” she
whispered when they finally broke apart.

He grinned, pointing at her name in the magazine. “But being
published is still pretty cool.”

She laughed. “Incredible.” Then a thought occurred to her.
“Oh, but Liam, they’re not just publishing it because you’re making them, are
they?”

“See, that’s why I wanted to present it to you as a
fait
accompli
. But unfortunately, the lawyers got involved and I guess they
can’t push the print button unless they have your written permission to publish
it. So that’s why I had to tell you now. But in answer to your question,
absolutely not. Believe me, nobody makes a magazine like that do anything they
don’t want to do.”

“Not even for a new Liam Conner story?”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “There you go idealizing me
again. But, no. The truth is I went to Friedman and asked him to choose some
excerpts from your thesis to go as a companion to the story. We went to the
Atlantic together. If anything, he’s probably the one who convinced them.”

“Well, he is the foremost authority on you.”

“The bastard…” Liam laughed. “Speaking of which, I know you
have your heart set on a teaching post at NYU, but what would you think of
Berkeley?”

“Berkeley? How about I’d kill for it?”

“How about Friedman recommended you for it and you got it?
He wanted to tell you himself, but fuck him.”

She laughed. “No thanks. I think I’ll stick to you.”

“Good. Because I can get a lot of writing done in
California. I’ve always wanted to live there.”

“Me too.” She kissed him. “But we have to make it back to
the cabin once in a while.”

“We will. But only in a snowstorm. Now, let’s go out to
dinner and a movie to celebrate.”

“Later…”

He kissed her back. “Much later…