“I don’t need to get laid,” I said, turning back to him. “And you don’t need to be falling in love with your clients. It’s wonderful that he’s taking you to Vail. You’ll get to ski and make bank, as long as you keep Hairy Taint happy. But it’s work, not romance. Don’t forget that, or you’ll be heading into your last semester with a broken heart.”
He promised me soberly that he would not fall in love with Mr. Recaro the opera singer, and I gave him one last menacing look. I hoped it was warning enough. I never, ever wanted Andrew to suffer the heartbreak I had.
I drifted through my last classes feeling morose. I wasn’t exactly jealous of Andrew heading off on vacation for the holidays. Well, yes, maybe I was jealous. Andrew’s family lived all the way over on the West Coast, and I didn’t have any family, so I figured we’d hang out together, at least on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Instead, I’d be hanging out in my apartment alone, watching James Bond movies and eating takeout from the cheap Indian place on the corner.
No one else seemed very chipper today either. These were our last real classes at Norton, aside from senior seminar, which was basically just a time to get together and assure our teachers that our internships were going well. I wouldn’t see a lot of these kids again, wouldn’t sit in a classroom and talk about theory and marketing and technical design stuff. I wouldn’t see Cantor every day anymore, wouldn’t get to experience his predatory hovering and extra attention.
Maybe that’s why I was so slow packing up my work space after he delivered our final critiques. Just about everyone was gone by the time I headed down the center aisle.
“Chere,” he said as I passed his desk.
I turned to look at him. He gazed at me with that slow smile, the one halfway between seduction and mockery. “Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”
His smile reminded me too much of Studio Valiant, and the way he’d spanked his sub’s pussy. No, don’t think about that now.
“Goodbye,” I said. “Thanks for everything. Although I’m pretty sure I’ll see you again.”
I meant I’d see him here, at Norton, but I blushed, wondering if he’d misunderstood my meaning.
“That is… I still have one more semester to go,” I clarified.
He nodded, and now I knew he was thinking about Studio Valiant, even if he hadn’t been before.
“Do you have any plans for the break?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“No family in the city?”
“No family anywhere,” I said with a shrug.
“A holiday with friends, then?”
I was so, so tired of being dissected by him, scrutinized, questioned, stared at. I glared down at the floor and refused to answer.
“Well,” he said, “we’re officially not professor and student anymore. I’ve got your final grade here.” He tapped the stack of printouts. “I’m sure you’re aware you have an A. Well, an A minus. I docked you for all the dirty looks.”
I gave him another dirty look. “Are you hitting on me?”
Everyone else had gone. There was only him and me, and his desk between us. He came from behind it and leaned against the edge.
“I’m not hitting on you,” he said. “I’m stating a fact. I’m not your teacher anymore.”
He was hitting on me. His eyes pinned me, dark and intense. The silence went from uncomfortable to stifling.
“Is there someone else?” he asked quietly. “If there is, he doesn’t make you very happy.”
“There’s no one else. It’s just…” I rubbed my forehead. “Why do you have this interest in me?”
“Because you’re interesting.”
“Why?”
He stood up. I took a step back, even though he hadn’t moved toward me.
“Why me?” I asked again. “I don’t understand.”
He put his hands on his hips, then back at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them. “You’re unusual, Chere. I initially noticed you because you were older than the other students. There was more to see in your eyes. From the beginning, you’ve had this drive, this burning ambition. That hasn’t changed, even though you’ve changed.”
“Changed how?”
“You’ve become calmer, more dignified. In the beginning you were so anxious, not that I understood why. But you’ve subsumed all that, little by little. You’ve disciplined it down to the small, manageable things you make.”
I let my bag slide off my shoulder. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”
“Sometimes we get students who make us think, students who fascinate us in some way. Not very often, but we get them. You fascinate me, Chere. It’s your detachment. Your control.”
“My control?” I laughed bitterly. I had very bad control, otherwise I wouldn’t still be standing here talking to him.
“When I hit on you at the club…” He grimaced. “When I invited you to scene with me, it was because you always seem so rigidly controlled. I want—” He paused and looked up to meet my gaze. “I wanted to see if I could break past that control to whatever’s bubbling underneath. I wanted to get at all that pent-up emotion inside you.”