One Plus Two Minus One

by Tess Mackenzie

  “Clear?” she said, and he nodded.

  She tore off the sheets and gave them to him.

  “Study for my homework?”

  “Really fucking creepy,” she said. “Watch it.” After a moment. “Weirdest tutorial I ever gave.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nah, I like it. I think number theory’s sexy. I like to fuck and then talk about maths.”

  He started laughing.

  “Seriously,” she said. “I really do. I never have before, not like this.”

  “Not with that guy?”

  “Fuck no, he’s a political scientist and I think he’s a little bit threatened because I’m so fucking clever.”

  Ethan rolled over and kissed her. Said, into her mouth, “What’s the proof of the square root of two?”

  “That’s fucking cute.”

  “Tell me.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then said, “The cool one? Assume it’s rational. That means two distinct positive integer divisors exist. Do some basic algebra and it turns out they don’t. Contradiction.”

  He pushed the paper towards her.

  “Shit,” she said. “I can’t believe no-one ever showed you,” and started writing it out. Lost a symbol halfway through and had to do it again. Threw it at him.

  *

  It was dark outside, was getting late. The rain had stopped, but it would be cold. Beth didn’t need to look, she’d got used to the weather here. Rain and wind and seething cloud for the rest of the evening.

  “It’s getting late,” she said.

  He looked at her, then sat up, and looked around for his clothes.

  “Have you got a car?” she said.

  He shook his head.

  She wondered if she should ask him to stay, She probably ought to offer, but wasn’t sure she wanted to. Eventually they would fuck each other to exhaustion and run out of things to say, and then it would just be awkward. And that would spoil it all.

  “I can give you a lift?” she said in the end.

  “Nah, I can walk. It’s okay.”

  “The weather’s shitty.”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  She lay there for a while, then said, “Take the car, bring it back tomorrow.”

  He looked at her.

  “No biggie,” she said. “I know who you are.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  She nodded. He started getting dressed, so she got up and found him the keys. Went to the front door with him wearing a sheet. “The red hatchback,” she said, and pointed. “Just bring it back tomorrow afternoon sometime. I’ll be here.”

  They stood there. She actually didn’t want him to go. She only realized that, standing at the door. She’d had fun, she’d enjoyed this. She wanted him to stay. It was an odd thing to realize. She didn’t think she’d ever really felt like that about someone she’d just met before.

  He kissed her for a while.

  “Hey,” she said. “Do me a favor. Stay unobtrusive in lectures. Don’t start sitting up the front or asking questions or anything that’ll make me blush or say something stupid.”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  He kissed her again. “Can I have my assignment mark?”

  She looked at him. “Don’t be a dick.”

  More kissing.

  “Go,” she said, and he did.

  She stood in the door and watched until he got the car started and drove away.

  Giving him her car had pretty much guaranteed he’d be back. Like leaving a coat behind in someone’s house. She wondered how much she’d meant it to work out that way.

  *

  Beth felt a bit guilty. She phoned Robert, just to see if he was home.

  Phoned while wearing a sheet she’d just fucked another man in, with the feel of him still inside her, and the smell of him on her skin.

  Robert was home, and they talked for a while quietly, about nothing.

  Once Robert had meant the world to Beth. Once he had been everything, the first person she’d really been serious about, and the only one she thought she’d ever love. For a while she had, utterly. Then something had gone wrong, slowly, over a year, and she still wasn’t completely sure what it was. They’d both moved on, and done it in ways that meant they picked other things over each other. Careers and jobs and finishing degrees. And somehow that counted. Somehow he resented her having this job, and she resented him not coming with her, and everything had gone slightly wrong, like they were both pretending not to care when actually they both did. Pretending meant they weren’t close any more, and the fact she was even willing to go told her a lot about how it had ended up.

  She still felt a lot for him, though. They weren’t what they’d used to be, but they were something. She was fond of him, and felt kindly towards him, and would probably spend the rest of her life with him, eventually, if he wanted her to, because it was comfortable and safe and gave her time to work.

  She felt a lot for Robert, but she didn’t know if she wanted to fuck him. Not like she did Ethan. And she didn’t know how much that mattered.

  She wanted to talk to Robert, and one day be with Robert, but she didn’t want him around right now. She was sitting there with the taste of someone else in her mouth, the dampness of another man’s sweat still on her skin, and she wanted to talk to Robert.

  But not to actually fuck him.

  She didn’t understand herself sometimes.

  She wondered if Ethan was just something she could get out her system, then move on with her life, be happy. With less sex.

  She and Robert were different. He was political, in a way she wasn’t. He cared about things she thought were pointless, a bit silly. She always had, and she usually didn’t tell him. He wasn’t doing as well in his career as her, and was sometimes a little bitter, at the world rather than her, a little frustrated in a way that came out as insecure, but she loved him all the same. Even though sometimes it felt like he was the chick in the relationship, talking about feelings and talking problems out, when sometimes she’d rather just ignore them, let it go. In an awful way he wasn’t strong enough for her. He didn’t push back, he didn’t stand up to her. Part of why they’d ended up like this, she thought, was because of that. He didn’t call her on her shit and tell her to just stop.

  She thought about Robert and strength and about Ethan and sex. She thought about Ethan holding her wrists, and why she was okay with that. She thought about men and sex and what sex was to her.

  She was smart. In a very small way, she was important. She was almost a brilliant mathematician. But at the end of the day any guy she slept with was going to end up on top, in charge, sticking his dick into her while she lay there and got fucked. The fact she got fucked was really important too. At some point it stopped being fucking, stopped being both of them doing it together, and became her getting fucked. It always did. It shouldn’t matter to her. Everyone else had sex the same way and seemed to like it, but somehow it mattered to Beth. Like in a strange way it cheapened her.

  Ethan was different because he was a student. And because he was so into her, but mostly because he was a student. It was a power thing, the worst, most grubby kind of power thing. Ethan was younger, and more desperate, and under her control, and she had to admit that to herself if she was being truthful. He was someone she could tell what to do, and that meant she could have her wrists held, and could get fucked doggy, and be just like everyone else out there. She could kneel down and suck his cock and not care in the slightest, because no matter what she did, she was really in charge. And with Robert, and anyone else her own age, she wasn’t. And being in charge, underneath it all, meant she could relax and not think so much and just fuck.

  She wondered if she was really that controlling. It didn’t seem a nice thing to think about herself. That maybe she could only really enjoy sex if she was with someone she could bully. Or maybe that was bullshit and she bullied Robert too, becaus
e he didn’t stand up to her, so nothing she was thinking made any sense.

  It was an odd idea, made odder because she only started working it all out while she was on the phone with Robert.

  After a while he said he had some work to do, and she said goodbye and went and had a bath. She lay in the hot water and thought about a proof she’d been trying to untangle for a few weeks and made a little progress.

  So maybe Ethan would be good for her after all.

  Chapter Five

  Beth went to her lecture, the lecture Ethan would be in, and made herself not look for him. She wondered what she was doing. Where this could end up, and what he might do if it went wrong. Ethan had behaved, though. He’d stayed out of her line of sight, and she was pleased. She’d been serious, she didn’t want to see him while she was lecturing, and it was also reassuring to know he’d do as she asked. She started a minute early, impatient to think about something that wasn’t Ethan and sex, talked about symmetric groups for an hour, and didn’t look sideways once, didn’t look into the corners of the room where she thought Ethan must be, didn’t see him and didn’t blush.

  She packed up and left quickly, at the end, before any of them could ask questions. Said, “Sorry, office hours,” to one who tried.

  She went back home for lunch and told herself she’d work there. Actually she sat at the table and looked at the wall and wondered if she should just wank and get it over with. She tried to tell herself she hadn’t really decided whether she wanted Ethan again or not, that he was just going to bring her car keys back, but she knew it wasn’t true.

  She was going to fuck him as soon as he got anywhere near her, and she was pretty sure he knew that too.

  The doorbell rang just after one. She sat there for a moment, took a breath, trying to make sure she knew what she was doing. It was a waste of time, stupid to even try. She knew she was going to open the door, and have sex, and worry about the consequences later.

  She went and answered the door.

  It was Ethan.

  “Hey,” she said, and he stepped forward and kissed her.

  She pulled him inside and kissed him back. He tugged at her clothes, said, “Fuck I want you,” into her mouth. He got her shirt off over her head and started yanking at her jeans, trying to get them open. They were tight, fitted, and needed unpeeling.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Shit, I wasn’t thinking.”

  She hopped backwards and yanked them down, got herself out of them in the end. He turned her around and pushed her against the wall with her wrists behind her back. Again. He must really think she liked it.

  She wasn’t completely sure she didn’t.

  He held her there and fingered her and kissed her neck, and was tugging at his own pants sometimes while he did, running out of hands, she thought, trying to get himself out.

  “Let me go,” she said, and he let go of her wrists.

  “Come upstairs,” she said.

  “Here,” he said against her neck.

  “Condoms upstairs,” she said. “I need to fuck you.”

  He stopped. “You need to?”

  She nodded, turned around.

  “Need?”

  “Yeah,” she said, into his mouth, “But don’t be a fucking asshole.”

  He took a couple out his jeans, showed her. “Someone’s thinking,” he said.

  “I’m thinking,” she said. “I’m just thinking upstairs, in the bed.” She licked his chin.

  “Nope,” he said, and tore one condom open, dropped the other, fiddled around with his cock.

  “We can lie down on the bed,” she said against his ear.

  “Nope,” he said, and rolled the condom down himself, and picked her up.

  Just picked her up like it was no effort at all.

  She wrapped her legs around his without thinking, and grabbed at him, and something about it made him go right inside her. She couldn’t quite believe it was that easy. She was spread and wide and he was deep inside her. Every time she moved he went deeper. She didn’t care how he’d got there, him inside her made everything else not matter.

  “Shit,” she said. “Oh shit.”

  He looked worried. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. I’m just…. fuck.”

  He grinned at her.

  “I can’t move,” she said. “Not much. Can you fuck me like this?”

  He did. Hard enough her head and ass banged on the wall. She’d forgotten what like to be with someone who could just pick her up. She thought about it and realized she’d never been with someone who could just pick her up. At least no-one who had. He held her up, didn’t seem bothered by her weight, leaned her shoulders back against the wall. He had his hands up under her ass, so he could bounce her up and down on his cock, but she was mostly helpless. She could wriggle up and down, but not very much. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and leaned back on the wall and held on as best she could.

  He was hard and she was wet and he just held her there and fucked her.

  He came but still held her up. She watched, impressed. “I haven’t,” she whispered, “Keep going.”

  He did. Just did, didn’t argue, didn’t try and put her down. He went a bit soft, but she ground against him and got herself there.

  He watched until she was done, then put her down. Lowered her carefully, until her feet reached the floor, then let go like he wanted to wince.

  She pulled the condom off him and went and threw it in the kitchen bin, then brought two glasses of water back.

  “I’m impressed,” she said.

  He took the glass and drank, and grinned past it. “I really fucking like you,” he said.

  “And I like being picked up and banged against a wall. Apparently.”

  He looked smug.

  “I haven’t done that before,” she said. “Been picked up. Ever.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. Told you, not nearly as kinky as you.”

  He grinned.

  She looked at him and thought about kinky and how he had his own weird shit. “Was that because we had a lecture?”

  “Probably.”

  “You like it that much? That I’m a professor?”

  “Yeah.”

  She kissed him. “Okay. Just so I know.”

  “Say fuck.”

  She looked at him “Fuck me.”

  “Say shit.”

  “Shit I love to fuck you.”

  “Say goddamn fucking cunt fuck.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s really, really hot to watch you talk about group theory for an hour then come here and see the real you. Foul mouth and orgasms and all.”

  “Well, fuck you,” she said, and grinned.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Another lecture. Sorry.”

  She looked at him, a bit surprised. “I don’t care. Go.”

  He pulled up his jeans, hadn’t actually got undressed at any point. “You’ve got my number, right?”

  “No.”

  “From my records?”

  “Creepy,” she said. “Really creepy.” She went over to the table and got her phone. “What is it?”

  He told her and she put it in, then showed him to check it was right.

  “What’s yours?” he said.

  “What name are you going to put it under?”

  “Doctor hot maths professor?”

  She waited.

  “Beth?”

  “Put Liz.”

  “You’re Elizabeth on all the college stuff.”

  “And I walk into lectures and say I’m Beth, your professor, so just fucking do it my way, please.”

  He grinned, nodded, did as she asked. Showed her he had afterwards.

  “And I don’t really do talking on the phone,” she said. “Not with people I don’t know well. So don’t get offended if I don’t.”

  “You don’t know me well?”

  She decided he was joking. “Not yet,” she said. “I know your cock, but I don’t know y
ou.”

  He looked at her like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to fuck her again.

  “I need to do some work,” she said, but she didn’t really mean it. If he’d tried, she’d have had more sex.

  He didn’t though, just nodded. “I’ll text. Hi, want to fuck, a time. Nothing else.”

  “Yep,” she said. “Great.”

  She still didn’t have anything on, so she stood behind the door and opened it. “Um,” she said. “Want to tomorrow?”

  He grinned and nodded, kissed her, left, then came straight back. “Almost forgot,” he said, and held out her keys.

  She took them, kissed him again, leaned out a little far from behind the door, and watched him go.

  Apparently she wanted a lot of sex at the moment.

  *

  Beth worked for a couple of hours, but couldn’t concentrate. She kept looking over at the hall, and thinking about Ethan, and smelling her hand almost certain she could still get a hint of him on her skin.

  In the end she decided she needed a walk, so she went back to campus, found Amanda and dragged her away from the lab.

  They went towards one of the cafes, but Beth only waited long enough they were outside, on a path, and away from other people.

  “The guy I’m fucking,” she said. “I’m still fucking him.”

  “Yay.”

  “It’s good.”

  “I’d hope.”

  “I don’t want to stop.”

  “So don’t.”

  Beth looked at her. “Can I? Just keep doing it?”

  “Why not?”

  “It seems wrong.”

  “You’re just messing your own head up.”

  “Am I?”

  Amanda nodded.

  “He’s my student.”

  “So don’t give him any special treatment. Then who cares?”

  Beth looked at her.

  “I checked the rules,” Amanda said.

  “Okay.”

  “You know there’s rules, right?”

  “I know there’s rules, I just didn’t want to look at them.”

  “As long as you didn’t pressure him into it, it’s okay. I think that’s what it’s saying. And don’t be stupid during.”