Educated

by Gray Gardner

  “She doesn’t know Emmy and I came here. She feels very betrayed by you but… she didn’t exactly give you the chance to properly reject her after full disclosure.”

  He paused and frowned at her over the lip of his glass. Then he threw his head back and finished the drink. She had close friends willing to stand up for her. He felt a twinge of jealousy as he watched the very conservative blonde tighten her white cardigan around her body as she considered what to say next. She loved her friend. He couldn’t blame her for that.

  “Sam and Mary Madeline dated for a couple of years after college. They got married, got the house, had the dog and cat, car payments, fights about whether or not it was worth it to get HBO… just the relationship everyone envied,” she sighed, running her hand over her forehead and looking up into his eyes. “I mean, she dated guys, but he was her first real love. Anyway, right after their third anniversary he started to… change…”

  “He treated her badly,” Dr. Frasier said in a low voice, almost a growl. Why would that upset him? He’d treated her badly, too. But if she was still married to this guy he couldn’t be with her. He just couldn’t. And she shouldn’t have let things get as far as they had.

  Patty gave her head a single shake. “They quickly discovered he had a brain tumor,” she whispered, recalling the look of the once proud, funny, slightly overweight six-foot tall man wasting away in a hospital bed. His harsh words towards loved ones. The confusion as he discovered he didn’t recognize anyone who visited him. “He died only six months after the diagnosis…”

  “He’s dead?” Dr. Frasier shouted, causing Patty to jump and grab her chest. Of all the scenarios he’d run through his head, this most certainly had not been one of them. Then it really was true. She wasn’t really divorced. “She’s a… she’s a widow?”

  “Yes,” she replied, raising an eyebrow at the judgmental professor. “Now feel free to run and hide from Mary Madeline.”

  “I didn’t,” he began, not really knowing what to say. Shit. He didn’t know. “I just… I thought…”

  “You assumed she was a cheating whore,” Patty smirked, hands on her hips.

  “No,” he quickly replied, not liking the sound of those words but wondering if that was exactly what he’d assumed. “She never even tried to tell me about any of that…”

  “Don’t make this her fault! You had sex with her and then kicked her out!” Patty yelled, holding out her hands. She was seconds away from smacking him across the face if he didn’t start saying the right thing.

  He thought about how things had gone down in his bedroom. She wasn’t inexperienced… she was apprehensive. She didn’t want to get sexually involved and get her heart broken. Which was exactly what he’d done to her.

  “I take it I’m the first man she’s gotten involved with since her husband?” he quietly asked, rubbing his whiskers and watching the blonde toy with the pearls around her neck.

  “It’s not like she hasn’t had offers,” Patty sighed, eyeing the tall professor. “I mean, just look at her. But… until you… she’s never shown any interest in dating again. Something about you made her feel like she wanted to pursue a relationship again.” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously, a mistake.”

  “No,” he choked, clearing his throat and trying to swallow down the horrible feeling of guilt. “No, it wasn’t a mistake. I was wrong… I just didn’t know. I didn’t know!”

  Patty watched him recoil and grab his hair in fists. Pressing her lips together, she sighed heavily and said very deliberately, “Mary Madeline deserves to be happy. You seemed to have made her happy… and judging from how miserable she is now I think she really cares about you.”

  He stopped brooding about what he’d lost and looked over at her. Could he still possibly have a chance? “Do you really think—”

  “If you’ll just stop being such a fucking asshole!” she stated, shoving a finger into his chest. “Can you do that for her, you smug Ivy League pansy?”

  “I…” he began, then sighed and turned away. This girl was driving him crazy. He much preferred Mary Madeline and her sweet sarcasm. But… how could he fix this? Where did he start? For once she was the one with more experience. She was the relationship expert.

  Patty took pity on him as he hunched his shoulders miserably and deliberated about ways to get Mary back. “You still have a chance,” she quietly said, walking for the doorway. She’d need Emmy to back her up on this. If Emmy thought it was a bad idea then she wouldn’t push it, but after seeing how miserable both Mary and this professor were, she knew they had to at least try once more to be together.

  “I don’t… I really screwed up,” he sighed, following her out and into the deserted hallway. He felt so out of control and he hated it, but he was willing to do what this tall, blonde Texan said. A month ago he never would have believed that.

  “She tried to drop your class,” Patty said, pausing in the hallway and looking around.

  What? No, she couldn’t do that. His heart beat faster. The Add/Drop period was over. She’d risk a failing grade. She was too smart for that.

  “But she can’t,” Patty continued, deciding to walk in one direction. “Add/Drop period is over; but… she’s willing to take an Incomplete…”

  “I don’t give Incompletes!” he loudly said, rubbing his whiskers and trying to calm down a little. “I fail students for a lot less than that.”

  “Then you’d better get to apologizing,” Patty demanded, glaring at him. She finally sighed heavily as she looked around and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Where is Emmy?”

  The custodial closet on their left began ringing. Patty grunted as she yanked open the door, then quickly sucked in her breath before she could let out any kind of shocked shriek.

  Dr. Frasier peered inside with a surprised look, then grinned and winked. “Carry on,” he chuckled lowly, swinging the door shut. It felt good to smile. It felt good that he wasn’t the only one affected by this southern charm thing.

  Emmy and Brad watched the door close with expressions resembling deer in the headlights. Patty would never forgive her, Emmy groaned. Brad couldn’t believe he’d just been caught by his professor, having animal sex in a broom closet with a girl he’d just met. Totally awesome, mind-blowing, skin-searing sex with a platinum blonde sorority girl.

  She looked up at him in the glow from a strip of light under the door. Giggling, she leaned forward and let her head fall on his shoulder. She didn’t care why she’d just done that. It was amazing and he was so cute and smart and sexy… and Patty was going to kill her. “I should go,” she whispered.

  “Okay,” he replied, still holding her thighs as her legs wrapped around his waist. He leaned forward and kissed her slowly. “So sweet.”

  “Mostly sweet,” she giggled, finding the ground with her feet and leaning down to get her underwear. “Sometimes spicy.”

  “Perfect,” he growled, biting his bottom lip as he smacked her skirt. She squealed and stood up, grabbing his shirt and kissing him again.

  “Okay you sexual deviants!” Patty’s muffled voice called through the door. “We have a plane to catch!”

  Emmy and Brad stumbled out into the hallway, grinning like idiots. Patty frowned at Brad before looking down at her friend.

  “Any advice for our professor friend or should he just nail her in the nearest supply closet the first chance he gets?” she sarcastically asked, pulling a black broom bristle out of Emmy’s hair.

  “Sorry, I know this is serious,” Emmy sighed, smiling like an idiot up at Brad. “With Mary Madeline it’s going to take… like…”

  “Perseverance and perhaps a little humility,” Patty stated, finishing what her friend couldn’t quite convey.

  “Yes,” Emmy nodded, pointing up at the professor. “She deserves someone who’ll fight for her. Make her see that she’s worth a fight.”

  Dr. Frasier nodded, as there were goodbyes and threats and a little making out on Brad’s part.

  �
�Thanks for the quickie, Junior,” Emmy smiled, giving a small wave as Patty pulled her down the stairs.

  Brad gave a quick wave before turning to Dr. Frasier and tucking his shirt in, hastily trying to look halfway presentable. “Why does she keep calling me Kid and Junior?”

  Sighing, and wondering why he hadn’t picked up on it earlier, he answered, “Because they’re 30.” It had come as quite a shock when Patty had revealed that little gem. He’d simply deduced that Mary was around 23 like most of the other grad students. Fresh out of college. But she wasn’t anywhere close to being a kid.

  Brad frowned and managed to choke out a shocked, “What? Does that mean Mary Madeline is 30, too?”

  “Next month she’ll be,” Dr. Frasier said, distracted as he slowly walked back into his office and began a plan of action. What would it take to get a broken, brilliant little thing as sweet as Mary Madeline to take him back?

  Chapter 12

  Mary hated that her friends had left to go back home. She’d almost hitched a ride to the airport, but told herself that it wouldn’t do any good to be miserable there, too. The distraction of Patty and Emmy was gone and she was alone with her thoughts… and desires. Even if she could manage to expel him from her thoughts during the day he still haunted her dreams at night. Sexy, dark, authoritative… ugh! She hated that a quality like that turned her on so much. No, not just that. The fact that it was him telling her what to do and disciplining her, yes, that was the real turn on. The handsome professor who could have anyone he wanted, and much more easily than it was getting her, and he’d chosen her to focus on… to pursue.

  Too bad she hadn’t been honest with him. And too bad he was an arctic asshole.

  Shivering as she walked towards the campus in the morning sunlight, she wrapped her navy hoodie tighter around her body even though it wasn’t any cooler than 70 degrees. She could get through her Tuesday classes and then make a decision about whether or not to attend his class on Wednesday afternoon.

  She didn’t. She couldn’t. The thought of watching him speak in front of the room, glaring at her from behind those glasses, accusing her of being a cheater… she just couldn’t face him. She’d wait until Friday to decide if she could return to the classroom.

  But she never got the chance. Judging from the emails circulating around the student body it was Spring Break. And Spring Break at Eastland University began Wednesday at midnight, giving everyone a nice week and a half break.

  So, the universe wasn’t out to get her, after all. As there was a mass exodus from campus to get to the warmest, nearest beach, she strolled quietly along the sidewalk in the crisp dusk air towards the Racquet Club she’d joined in the fall. She had a lot of nervous energy and they had excellent workout equipment… not to mention rooms where it was completely acceptable to bash things as hard as you could with a racquet and a ball.

  She grunted and even yelled out a few times as she smashed her tennis racquet against the helpless yellow ball again and again. It crashed into the green wall, above the white line, below the white line, everywhere before sailing through the air just to be whacked again.

  The lights flickered overhead and she glanced down to her big black Ironman watch. It was 10:55. She’d been in there for almost five hours. Heaving for air and wiping her forehead, she drank a couple of paper cups of water and gathered up her white Nike bag. Well, it had been slightly therapeutic. And she was almost too tired to think about…

  She opened the glass door in the glass wall that led to the hallway and dropped her bag to the ground, gasping for air that just wouldn’t come fast enough. Was she imagining this?

  “What did that ball ever do to you?”

  Mait Frasier was only seconds away from sending Mary a scathing email threatening to fail her if she didn’t get her shit together and start attending his class, but he decided against it. News like that would be better if delivered in person. Accompanied with a sharp smack to her round ass. After his final class on Wednesday, when the entire school evacuated the city like there was a hurricane coming, he thought he would do just that. But she wasn’t home.

  Panic hit him as he feared she might have decided to throw in the towel and go home with her friends. Something in the back of his head told him she wasn’t a quitter, though. Judging from her life experience, she couldn’t be.

  Deciding a quick dinner at his club followed by a steam and then maybe a run were in order, he abandoned his current pursuit and tried to go about his business as usual. But by the time he’d showered after his run and had changed into jeans and a faded green tee shirt, she was the only thing on his mind. Which was why when he saw her practically banging a hole in the wall in one of the singles tennis rooms he thought he’d been hallucinating.

  No, it was her. He leaned back against a glass wall on the opposite side of the white tiled hallway with a grin. God, she was irresistible. Her white tank clung to her tightly. Her short tennis skirt was bright pink with ruffles on the butt. Her legs were firm and moved quickly as her strong arms swung back and forth, her ponytail swishing around with every hit. And her grunting proved that she wasn’t just a crying mess, as he’d imagined she might have been, curled up in her big bed with a box of tissues, feeling sorry for herself. She was angry. He loved that about her.

  “Mait, what are you still doing here?” the club president, Allan Bowman greeted, holding out his hand as he shifted his squash paddle to his other.

  He dropped his own bag and shook his friend’s hand. “Just… admiring the view.” He smiled, trying to pay attention to his Tuesday evening squash partner as his eyes betrayed him and drew back to Mary.

  “No doubt an arduous task,” Allan grinned, slapping Mait on the back as they both watched the incensed little tennis player. “Uh, I’ll tell Jorge you’ll be staying for a while after closing.”

  Mait frowned as the president indicated that he would tell the guard at the front to let him and the hot tennis player have free reign over the place even though it was after hours. “Oh, uh, Allan…”

  “She has most of the members here in a state. Well, the male members,” he nodded, watching her unabashedly. “Nah, who am I kidding, some female members, too. You’re the first one I’ve seen who’s been brave enough to approach her, though. I actually think most people here believe her to be married. I mean look at her. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  Mait swallowed guiltily, but then something stuck out in his mind. “You don’t normally permit single women to progress past the first stage of the membership process… and you definitely don’t admit students,” he frowned.

  “She paid all of her fees and for two years of membership in cash. In the current economy our board of directors couldn’t say no to that.”

  “Indeed,” Mait absent-mindedly replied, wondering why she’d indicated that she didn’t come from a wealthy family. Yet another mystery to solve.

  “Well, happy hunting,” Allan called, already halfway down the hall.

  Mait waved as the light flickered and Mary ceased her punishment on the yellow ball and blue racquet. God, now he had to talk to her. What would he say? How would he say it? Should he come right out of the gates with an apology or try to flatter her a little first? Why was this so hard?

  The door suddenly opened and he was met with eyes the deepest shade of blue he’d ever seen. Oh, the trifecta: blue eyes, pink cheeks, and pink pouty lips turned into a frown. He cleared his throat and spoke the first thing that popped into his head. “What did that ball ever do to you?”

  She blinked as she stood motionless in the deserted hallway. A full range of emotions swept across her face then. Surprise, curiosity, gloom, remorse, reflection, anger, and finally… fury. The first whack he absolutely did not see coming. The racquet swung out of nowhere and made contact with his arm and shoulder.

  “Gah!” he hollered, jumping back and rubbing his arm as another swing came. A backhand, this time, aimed at his head. He leaned back in just enough time, but stumbled and caught an
other blow to his side.

  “You… think… you’re so… clever!” she shouted, swinging her racquet wildly and nailing him every third blow. He spent too much time holding his hands up defensively to actually try and stop her, so she continued to assail him while she had a weapon handy.

  This was not how she’d foreseen their first encounter going down but… the way he was standing there, the way his voice sounded, what he’d said, he was so arrogant. She couldn’t have stopped the tennis racquet from flying at his head even if she’d wanted to.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry!” he finally huffed, fumbling around and trying to get a good hold on the racquet. “I’m sorry I was an asshole and wouldn’t listen to you! I’m sorry I thought the worst of you when I know you deserve better. I’m just… sorry.”

  He now had the blue racquet in his hand and gripped it tightly as she jerked back a few times, trying to free it so that she could hit him again. “Let go!” she growled, holding the black grip tightly. She wasn’t done with her attack. He needed a few more seconds of sense smacked into him.

  “Aren’t you listening to me?” he asked, almost losing his hold as she jerked back again and again.

  “I don’t have to listen to a fucking thing you say!” she shouted, finally abandoning the confiscated tennis racquet and pushing open a glass door to the squash court behind him. It was barely illuminated by the dim lights from the hallway, shining through the glass wall. She quickly returned with a navy squash paddle and he barely had time to drop the racquet and cover his head as it crashed into his elbows.

  “You’ve got… ow! To stop this and… shit! Listen to me!” he pleaded, taking a few more of her angry hits, hoping she’d get it out of her system. This was getting a little ridiculous, though. He wouldn’t take much more.

  “Kiss my ass!” she grunted as he wrapped his hand over hers as they gripped the squash paddle and spun her into him. She was finally subdued as he lifted her kicking feet off of the ground and spoke in a low growl in her ear.