by Claire Adams
Catastrophic consequences? My stomach tightened, and my heart rate quickened. I looked around, even though I knew no one would be sitting there in my apartment, watching me. But still. Someone had figured out what we were doing. I realized now how foolish it had been, how brazen, to hook up with him in the bar like that, to not wear any underwear to school after he requested it. We hadn’t been making out in the middle of campus, but we definitely hadn’t been as careful as we could have. There was no excuse for it, other than I just felt so caught up in the moment, he made me feel so good, that I was happy to go to any lengths to keep that feeling alive.
I took a deep breath and tried to tell myself that this was nothing, to just ignore it. But I knew I couldn’t do that; it wasn’t nothing. It was someone with an agenda, someone who wanted something, and I was the one they wanted it from.
I got my phone. I needed to talk to Leo. I wanted to hear his voice and for him to tell me that it was going to be okay. I was about to call him, but then I put the phone down. No, the letter didn’t say anything about not telling him, but I was starting to think that maybe it would be better if I didn’t. He seemed like the sort of person who would tell me not to do it, not to give whoever wrote this letter what they wanted, because that would be letting them win. He wouldn’t care about the consequences; even if he got fired, he’d go get another job somewhere, even if it wasn’t a teaching position. I kind of got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded that at all. No, I couldn’t let him find out about this.
Instead, I called Lindsey.
“Hey, what’s up?” she said.
“Can you come over?”
“Right now?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yeah. I know we were just hanging out, but . . . I need to show you something. I just need you to come over.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. I didn’t know if I was scared, angry, or both. The black print stood out in stark contrast on the white page.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
I paced my apartment until the doorbell rang. I buzzed Lindsey up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately when she got inside.
I opened my mouth to start to tell her, but then I just handed her the piece of paper. I watched her face as she read it, her frown getting deeper and deeper. Then she examined the letter very closely, as though it might provide clues over who sent it.
“When did you get this?” she asked.
“Just now. I don’t know if it came today or yesterday, though; I haven’t checked the mail in a couple days. Usually there’s never anything that interesting. Not that this is interesting.”
“That is super sketch,” she said, handing the paper back to me. “Who the hell sent that? How did they know where you lived? And why the fuck do they want you to write a paper? I’d think they’d be asking for money or something.”
“I guess it’s not money that they’re after.”
“So it must be someone at school then. A student. Whose class assigned that topic? Is there any way to find that out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but not without making people suspicious.”
She took a deep breath and puffed her cheeks out as she exhaled. “That’s crazy, Tessa. It really is. What are you going to do?”
I put the letter down on the coffee table. “I don’t know. I just can’t believe that someone found out about this. Maybe that’s naïve, but I didn’t think people actually noticed me enough to really figure out what was going on. And you’re the only person I’ve told.”
She held her hands up. “Tessa. I promise you that it wasn’t me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I said. “I don’t think that it was you. But have you mentioned it to anyone else?”
“No! I’ve been totally quiet about it. I’d tell you the truth if I hadn’t. Have you told Leo?”
“No, and I don’t think I’m going to. I could see him telling me to just let whoever sent this go forward with outing us. And I can’t have that happen. It might not be as big of a deal to him, but if I end up getting expelled . . .that is the absolute last thing that can happen.”
“So you’re going to write the paper?”
“I have to! I don’t really have another choice.”
“It’s so weird. Who have you told about this? How would someone know? It’s not like you’ve been broadcasting it to the whole school. Unless . . . do you think he told someone? You know how guys are—always bragging about the pussy they get. He probably told someone, and they’re jealous, and they’re trying to come up with whatever they can to get back at you.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but why would they have me write a paper?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That seems pretty torturous to me.”
I put my head in my hands. “As if I don’t already have enough shit to do! I wasn’t really planning on writing a five-page paper, too.”
“If you can find the time to fuck him, I’m sure you can whip this up in no time. You’re smart. If it were me, on the other hand, well, that’s a different story. But . . . don’t you think you should tell him? I would tell him if I were you. He might have some idea about who it is.”
“I really don’t think I should tell him. I’ll just write this paper, send it to that email address, and hopefully that’ll be the end of it.”
“Let me see that again,” she said, holding her hand out. I gave her the paper. She re-read what it said, as though it might have changed in the time we’d been talking. “Of course it’s typed,” she said. “Do you think we should have it dusted for fingerprints? Could we take it somewhere and have them do that?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “That would probably be insanely expensive. And then they’d want to know why we needed it dusted for fingerprints. Or they’d just read what the letter said and then they’d know. I can’t let anyone find out about this.” I felt foolish for being so brazen, for walking into the bar the other day and having sex with him in the bathroom, for not wearing underwear to class and then flashing him. How could I have been so stupid?
14.
Leo
Life was suddenly great.
More than great, it was excellent, as though I were now seeing everything through rose-colored glasses.
Everything had taken on a nice sheen, and even the most mundane tasks were made tolerable now, because for the first time in a long time, life actually felt good. I knew I was walking around with a smile on my face. People noticed; on more than one occasion one of my colleagues would say something along the lines of how something good must’ve happened to me because I now seemed happy all the time.
I didn’t say anything to confirm or deny this, but I liked to think that sort of positive energy might be infectious.
Tonight, Jack and I were sitting at the Corkscrew, and he kept looking toward the door as though he was expecting Tessa to walk through at any moment.
“I really can’t believe that you’re going through with it,” Jack said. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and looked very stressed out, as though it would be his ass on the line if I were to get caught. “I really can’t. And that she just came in here like that the other day, and you two went and . . . I just can’t believe it.”
“Is this your way of fishing, trying to get me to give you details?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know anything about it, actually! But now that you’ve done it, it’s over with, right? You’re not going to keep doing it?”
I scoffed. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since I left the magazine. I forgot what it was like to wake up in the morning and actually be excited about life. To look forward to something. There’s no way in hell I’m stopping that now.”
“You’re telling me you never looked forward to anything until this thing with Tessa? I don’t believe you, Leo. I’m calling bullshit on that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
&nbs
p; “Because . . . well . . . look at you! It’s not like there’d be any shortage of women that you could get involved with.”
I knew that, when it came to dating, Jack did not have as much luck as I did (though could it really be called luck?), and that there was a part of him that was envious about it. And I didn’t want to make it sound trite, that just hooking up with someone wasn’t exciting enough, because I’d been there, done that, hundreds of times over. What I’d never had, though, up until now, was a situation like I did with Tessa.
“It’s more than just sex, though,” I said.
Jack raised his eyebrows. “You mean you like her?”
“Of course I like her. The novelty of hate sex wears off really quick, so trust me when I say, if I didn’t like her, I wouldn’t still be doing this.”
“I’ve never even had hate sex.”
“It’s fun like, the first couple of times. But after that, it just seems to get more and more tedious.”
“Well, I guess it’s good that you like her, anyway. Though that’s the only good I can see in it.”
“Oh, there’s plenty more good.”
“I just don’t want to see things get completely messed up for you, Leo. I know it’s all fun and good right now, but who’s to say that’s going to last? Who’s to say that someone isn’t going to find out about this and try to make your life hell? Or what if you get fired?”
“There’s so many what-ifs,” I said. “I really don’t want to sit here thinking about all of them. And who’s going to find out? You’re the only one who knows. Well, and my brother, but he’s happy for me. No one else knows. And I intend to keep it that way.”
“You might be planning to keep it that way, but what about her? You don’t know who she’s told. You don’t know if she’s suddenly going to decide that this whole thing is wrong and she doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore. Or—what if she says you forced yourself on her? What if she tries to play that card? It’s one thing to be involved with someone when it’s consensual, but it’s a completely different thing to have someone try to say you sexually assaulted them.”
I sighed and patted his arm. I was touched, really, that he was this concerned, but it was primarily because Jack was incapable of living a life that included any risks. The thing was, there probably were plenty of instances where he would have enjoyed taking a risk, but the stress of it would overshadow anything positive. I wasn’t going to sit there and dwell on the what-ifs, on the possibility that we would get found out, that Tessa would decide to say that I tried to take advantage of her. Could it happen? Sure, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities, but right now, I was enjoying things too much to take anything else into account.
“She wants the good grade,” I said. “I don’t think she’s going to do anything like try to say I forced myself on her. And I know you said you didn’t want details, but, trust me—this is enjoyable for her, too. I’d even venture to say that she’s having just as much fun as I am.”
“Just because something’s fun, doesn’t mean it’s good,” Jack said.
The fun part wasn’t surprising—what I did find somewhat surprising though, was the fact that I actually really liked her. Not just because we were having amazing sex, but I liked being around her, which I wasn’t expecting. In fact, I’d been assuming that once the sex had started to get routine (which it almost always did) that I’d have to think of some excuse to try to get rid of her.
In fact, lately, I’d been thinking that I wanted to take her out to dinner. Or do something along those lines, something that wasn’t just sex (though that could certainly happen, too). I asked to speak with her after class, and I waited until the room was empty before telling her I wanted to take her out.
“Out?” she said, a surprised look on her face. “Out where?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Out to eat somewhere. I’m not too picky.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Well . . . that would be fine. Maybe it would be better to go somewhere that wasn’t in the city, though? I don’t want to risk someone seeing us together.”
“Sure. We can go wherever you want. Though if someone does see us, you can just tell them we were talking about an extra credit assignment for you.” I expected her to laugh, but she didn’t; she only gave me a tight smile and nodded.
“I guess,” she said, though she didn’t sound certain.
“We don’t have to,” I said. Was it possible she didn’t want to go? Had I been misreading this situation the whole time, and she really was only doing this with me because she wanted the grade? “I just thought it might be . . . nice.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it will.” She smiled again, though it still seemed forced. “I’m sorry, I’ve just got some other stuff on my mind, is all.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
She hesitated, her gaze going around the room as though she was expecting someone else to be there.
“No,” she said. “It’s fine. Yes, let’s go out somewhere. That sounds like a nice idea. You can pick; just let me know.”
“Okay, I will. Anything you’re totally against?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure whatever you choose will be fine. I’ve got to run, though. I have a ton of work I need to do.”
She rushed off, and though she had agreed to go out, it seemed as though she wasn’t as excited about it as I might’ve thought she would be. My phone started to buzz, and I looked at the screen. My brother. I usually didn’t take calls when I was at school, but since class was over and I had some time to kill before my next one, I answered.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I said when I picked up the phone. “It’s barely been a week since I last talked to you.” Usually, we’d go months.
“Hey, bro,” Aaron said. “Just got some downtime for the moment and was thinking about you—thought I’d give you a call and see how it was going.”
I laughed. “You can’t fool me. I know you’re calling because you want to hear about how it’s going with that student of mine.”
“Well . . . a little curious maybe. And you know, I don’t think I mentioned it before, but I’ve decided to take a break from hooking up for a little while.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s just . . . something I’m doing.”
Which was probably code for he had another STD that the antibiotics hadn’t cleared up yet. “So you’re calling to live vicariously through me,” I said. “Ironic. Unfortunately, Aaron, I’m not the sort to kiss and tell, so maybe go log onto xvideos or something.”
“You’re not really doing her, are you? There is no student you propositioned.”
“Actually, there is. And I’m still not giving you details about it. I will tell you this much though—it’s going better than I would have thought.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me! But fine, fine, if you don’t want to share the details, I’m not going to force you. There was a reason for my call, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. The team had this guy writing an article about us over here in Paris, at the new indoor skate park they just built, but he broke his arm last night, so he’s going to be out of commission for a little while. You want to fill in? They’ve got a couple other people they were thinking about asking, but I said I wanted to ask you first. You’d need to take about a couple weeks off; there’s an opening ceremony they want covered at the end of this week and then a couple promo events, too. It’s gonna be pretty off the hook, and I thought you might be interested. It’ll pay pretty well, too. How does that sound?”
Of course it sounded good, and there was a part of me that was ready to hop on a plane that very second, but more than that, I didn’t want to leave Tessa. I wouldn’t really be leaving her, though—It’s not even like we were in a relationship. We were . . . well, I wasn’t quite sure what we were, but call it a sixth sense or instinct, I had the strong feeling that if I were to take my brother up on this offer, it would mean the end of
things between Tessa and me. Maybe in the time apart she’d realize what she was doing and wouldn’t want to do it anymore; maybe she’d meet someone else, maybe I would . . . I couldn’t ever remember feeling this sort of conflict over anyone before, and I wasn’t quite comfortable with the feeling, but it also wasn’t something I could just ignore.
“You know, I think I’m just gonna stay put,” I said.
“Really?” Aaron sounded surprised. “I thought you’d be psyched.”
“It sounds like a great opportunity,” I said. “It really does. And I definitely wouldn’t mind getting to chill with you, but . . . I really shouldn’t take that much time off of work.”
“You can bring your girl with you, if you want,” Aaron said.
“Maybe next time,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him that a week away with me might not be exactly the thing Tessa wanted to do, considering she seemed so unenthused about the prospect of going to dinner.
I put all of those thoughts out of my mind, though. That Saturday, I picked her up and
we left the city and drove up to Fairfax, where there’d be less chance of us running into anyone we knew. It seemed like there was something that she wanted to say, or that something was bothering her, but when I asked if everything was okay, she smiled and said that it was.
We went to this little Italian place and got glasses of red wine and ate bread and salad and lobster ravioli for me and linguini and clams for her, though she mostly just pushed it around her plate.
“Food okay?” I asked.
She nodded.
I gestured to my plate. “You want to try any of this?”
“No, I’m all set. It looks good, though.”
The conversation wasn’t flowing exactly as I’d imagined it. I took another sip of wine. Were we, perhaps, only compatible when we were fucking? Was it possible that she and I didn’t really have anything else to talk about?
“Is everything okay?” I asked as I put my wine glass down.