SWNOVELS Nocticadia: Chapter 51
I needed to clear my head.
Running had always been a source of stress relief for me, and since I couldn’t sleep, I decided a jog around campus might unkink the tangle of thoughts in my head.
Clad in my Dracadia sweatshirt and a pair of black shorts, I grabbed my pepper spray and headed out into the dimly-lit early morning. Dawn wasn’t for another forty five minutes, and a peaceful calm blanketed the campus. It’d been a few weeks since I’d last gone for a run, and it felt good to work those muscles that’d gone soft with my insanely busy schedule.
At the beginning of the semester, I’d acquainted myself with Devryck’s running schedule. According to what I’d observed, he wouldn’t be setting out for another hour, which meant I was probably safe not to run into him, and earbuds in, I took the path along the dorms, where a few other joggers waved as I passed. Athletes, most of them, given the Dracadia warmup garb I’d seen them wear on the field while practicing. My playlist was a wild mix of rap and alternative, with the occasional pop song thrown in.
Unbidden memories of my night with Professor Bramwell arrived in erratic flashes, though.
The intense stare. His hands on me. His face between my legs.
Running shoes pounding the concrete, I kicked up my pace, my ponytail whipping around my face. I dashed around the Rawlings academic wing and up the small hill toward the Sigma Phi House, as if those thoughts chased after me.
More images poured in.
His lips on mine. Fist threaded in my hair. His palm cuffing my throat.
Mist blew from my mouth as my pulse ramped up, and I pushed more speed from my legs.
Fingers inside of me. Dirty, whispered words. Filthy thoughts. Teeth grazing my jaw.
I ran even harder, my breaths becoming erratic, my heart hammering in my chest. I was no longer jogging, but sprinting across the campus, my muscles growing weak with the exertion. The cool air thickened in my lungs, and I ground down my pace to a brisk walk, heaving for breath. Eyes clenched, I willed myself to banish the visuals of him, because, for fucks sake, I knew it couldn’t work. He was my professor. He had the power to affect my grade and maybe even my scholarship. I couldn’t afford to lose that. I couldn’t afford to leave Dracadia.
Tugging one of my earbuds out, I paused, resting my palms on the tops of my thighs, and breathed. Once sufficiently oxygenated, I stood up, preparing for another circuit around campus, when in the distance, I saw Professor Bramwell round the corner of Pryther Hall, wearing his gray sweatpants and the black muscle shirt that emphasized his brawny arms.
Oh, shit.
A glance down at my watch showed I still had another thirty minutes before he typically headed out for his run. What the hell!
Spinning on my heel, I darted ahead of him.
To my utter horror, he caught up to me, coming alongside me. He pulled one of the black earbuds from his ear. “What are you doing, Miss Vespertine?”
“What does it look like?” I sprinted ahead of him, my face burning with humiliation. Jesus, the guy probably thought I was trying to stalk him, or something. Once again, he caught up to me and grabbed my arm, bringing both of us to a slow halt.
“It’s fucking dark out,” he said, his furious voice only mildly affected by the run. “You shouldn’t be running by yourself.”
“I was trying to avoid running into you, Mister Jogs-At-Precisely-The-Same-Time-Every-Morning-Except-Today.”
“I have an important board meeting later and had to bump my run. So, you put yourself at risk to avoid running into me?”
“You won’t even look at me. Now, you suddenly care?” Shaking my head, I turned in the direction of my dorm, but felt a tight grip of my arm.
“What do you want, Lilia? Want me to proclaim my attraction and fuck you in front of the student body and administration? To let everyone know that I’m so bitterly obsessed with you, I’ve rubbed my dick raw since you left? Maybe I should apologize to the board this afternoon for a half-assed report, because my student’s pussy was all I could think about when I was writing it.” He ran his hands through his hair, pacing in front of me. “No, I can’t look at you right now because I’m crawling out of my skin wanting to touch you.” A look of disgust claimed his face as he gestured toward my legs. “And if you think, for one second, I’m letting you jog around here in the dark in those tiny fucking shorts, looking like a midnight snack, you’ve grossly underestimated just how much of a prick I can be.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was literally speechless standing there, watching him pace with anger and frustration. Because of me. Because of what we did.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.”
Two joggers approached, and he cleared his throat, turning away as if to put some distance between us, as they passed through.
Once they disappeared over the hill, he turned back to face me and dragged a hand down his face. “Let’s just call it what it was–one amazing night. One I hope you remember with the same relentless longing and anger and ache that I feel every time I look at you. It fucking hurts to know that I can’t have you, Lilia. I lose in that respect. But that is the tragic reality in all of this. What we did that night cannot be repeated. Understand?”
“Yes. I understand.” As much as it troubled me, I understood.
He gave a quick nod, ushered me back onto the path, and trailed after me. Watching me, as he jogged at a distance behind me. Instead of taking another circuit around campus, I headed straight for my dorm.
A text popped up from Jayda.
Say hello to Henry Michael Fuller.
A picture followed, of a small little bundle held in the crook of an arm.
As much as it hurt to smile right then, I texted back:
OMG. He’s perfect. How are you feeling?
Exhausted. This baby eats every hour. Got my boobs feeling like two boulders hanging off a toothpick.
Sounds painful.
You have no idea. But I don’t want to talk about motherhood right now. Whisk me away to academia. What’s going on with you?
I bit my lip, debating whether, or not, to tell her about Bramwell. It wasn’t like she knew him, or would ever meet him.
I think I screwed up.
How?
My mind spun with how to frame the answer.
Did you fuck your professor?
Leave it to Jayda …
Define fuck. On second thought, don’t. I hooked up with him. But we didn’t get that far.
Hang on, this isn’t a conversation for text.
Not a minute later, my phone rang, and I answered it.
“Oooh, Lilia.” She spoke low, obviously not wanting to wake the baby.
“I know. It’s bad.”
“Was it, though? Or was it fucking good?”
Screwing my eyes shut, I let out a pained sigh, and at a flash of his head between my thighs, I willed the thought away.
“Is he hot? Does he have a big dick?” she whispered through the phone. “C’mon, I need details.”
“Really?”
“I have five more goddamn weeks before I can get dicked again. I’m living vicariously through you right now. Please.”
I groaned, trying to hold back a smile. “Yes, and yes.”
She made a noise of excitement, quickly followed by a broken, “Sh-shhh,” like she was bouncing the baby. A moment of quiet, and she whispered, “Where did all this nastiness go down? His office?”
“Yes.”
“Mmmmm. Are you guys a secret forbidden thing now?”
“We’re not anything.” I hated the bitter taste of disappointment on my tongue from saying that aloud. It was only weeks ago that I’d sworn off all men, determined to focus on my studies, and there I was pining after my moody professor.
“Does he have a history of hooking up?”
“No. I’ve never seen him so much as look at another student.”
The insensitive chuckle that followed left me frowning.
“What’s funny about that?”
“He is not over you, Lilia. Trust me.” The baby cried in the background. “Shit. I gotta go. Hungry again. Make sure you send me a pic.”
“I don’t have a pic.”
“Get one.” She didn’t even wait for me to argue before the phone clicked.
I arrived at his lab that evening dressed in something a bit more conservative, after the conversation with him earlier that morning. A sweater and jeans that scratched at my legs. Every brush of our hands, and he flinched. Every stare, and he looked away, scowling. It was as if he’d grown angrier at me since our last encounter.
While on the way to sterilize agar in the autoclave, I paused alongside the glass dome, noticing Achilles and Patroclus vigorously flapping their wings, their ends attached to one another. Mating. Achilles broke loose and almost looked like he stumbled away, before Patroclus returned again, wings flapping so fast and frantically, I could hear a soft hum through the glass. “Jesus,” I muttered. “Somebody’s horny.”
As I hung up my lab coat in the autopsy room, Professor Bramwell pushed through the door, a look of sheer misery screwing up his face.
“Lilia…” He exhaled hard through his nose, like even the sound of my name brought him grief. “This arrangement is no longer workable.”
My heart withered like a deflating balloon. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll put in a word with Doctor Friedman to have you work in his micro lab, if you’d like the ex–”
“I don’t want to work with Doctor Friedman. I want to work here! With you! On this project. It’s important to me.” I searched his eyes for humor, or even the slightest bit of doubt, but found nothing but a steely resolve burning there.
“It’s not going to work.”
“Why? Because of what happened between us?”
He winced, as if the mere mention of it wounded him.
“I need this job. I need the cash. Please, I’m begging you.” God, I sounded like Gilchrist.
“This is my fault. I should’ve stayed away. It was on me to stay away, and I didn’t. And now …” A muscle in his jaw twitched with the clenching of his teeth. “It’s just not going to work.”
“My sister … she’s going to be kicked out of school. I’m begging you, Devryck. Nothing has to happen between us. I get it. It was irresponsible of me, too. Reckless. I shouldn’t have pushed. Please. Please let me stay. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
He handed me an envelope, presumably a check for the wages I’d earned for the measly few days I’d worked. “Go, Lilia. And do not come back tomorrow.”
“Please, Devryck.” The pathetic tone in my voice sickened me, how quickly I’d shifted from feeling in control to feeling completely helpless, and I hated that this man held the reins. That, no matter what, he would always be in control, because that was the dynamic of professor and student. He didn’t have to have a good reason to kick me out of his lab. He’d let me in on a bribe, and now he was trying to dissolve the arrangement like a bad case of heartburn. “Please don’t do this.”
As he turned to leave, I fought tears.
The options for making up the extra cash had just slipped from my fingers like water. Jobs on campus paid half of what I’d have earned working for him.
My cheeks heated with the shame I swore I wouldn’t allow myself to feel. The realization that my sister would be kicked out of the one place she felt safe, and thrown into whatever hell awaited her back at Conner’s, because I’d had a reckless moment with my professor.
It was my fault.
All of it.
The bus pulled up to my dorm, and I climbed out, my body weak and exhausted with stress. I made my way through the commons area, where students laughed and watched TV, up to the third floor. Once inside, I pressed my back into the door to close it and slid to the floor.
Tears finally broke free.
On the ride home, I’d contemplated logging back into the porn site, just to claim the money I’d been too scared to collect, fearing that my video would’ve shown back up on the site. Did dignity matter at that point? I had ten bucks in my account. The coins I’d earned would’ve given me another few hundred, almost a thousand, if memory served me right. I unsealed the envelope from Devryck and pulled out the check from inside.
Five thousand dollars.
A personal check made out to cash.
My throat constricted, the air trapped in my lungs, and I was glad to be sitting on the floor right then because I probably would’ve passed out.
Five thousand.
I double-blinked, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks. The amount was written out in mostly illegible writing, but I could definitely make out thousand. Not hundred. Five thousand dollars. I’d never had so much at once in my entire life. It’d cover all of her tuition until Christmas, including Conner’s share, so even if I had to get a job paying a hundred bucks a week, I’d have enough to be two months ahead by then.
Stop, I chided. Stop right now.
As much as I wanted to slip into the excitement of it all, the weight of reality pressed down on me. I couldn’t accept this from him. While it was a noble gesture, it’d be wrong for me to take the money. I hadn’t earned it. Which brought to mind another thought–was this his way of paying me off to keep my silence?
That would’ve hurt even worse. Part of me wanted to storm back to the lab, to his office, and throw the check in his face like a strong, independent woman with scruples would’ve done. The other part of me decided to sleep on it.
Perhaps I could come up with an arrangement to pay him back.
Who was I kidding?
It’d take a decade, or more, for that amount. Perhaps in sleep I’d formulate some kind of plan to make it work, because I sure as hell didn’t want to do something rash and emotional like throwing it back in his face when I really needed it.