Compliments

by Mari K. Cicero

  When he winks, I crack a smile.

  He sits back in his seat and continues, “In any case, a second set of learned eyes is always a good idea in any sort of professional presentation. Normally I’d hire a student for something like this and pay an hourly rate, but we can consider it a barter exchange. I know how tight money is when you’re a grad student. Maybe we can both assuage your sense of owing me something and keep your bank account in the black at the same time.”

  I find myself fidgeting with the fringe on my sweater. “I don’t know. I have a pretty heavy course load, plus my job with Prof. Ferris.” And I want to have enough time to spend with Hawk, too.

  Harrison muses for a moment, then swivels his chair to look out the windows. “Tell me, Miss Lewis, any further prospects for an advisor yet?”

  His words catch me at the quick, surprised how he just throws the fundamental conflict of my current predicament out like that. “No commitments as of yet.”

  “Still holding out hope for Lamertus?” Grinning, he turns back around. “Or have you considered working with me any further?”

  “You said you weren’t making an offer,” I remind him.

  “I’m not. I’m exploring your thoughts on a possibility.”

  I squirm under his amused gaze. “It’s not that I have anything against working with you, sir, I just...” I need to know why my boyfriend took a swing at you, and why he refuses to talk about it. Care to enlighten me?

  “Are you talking about the rumors regarding me and Hawk Stephens?”

  I can sense my pupils dilate in shock. I’m not certain how to respond, but luckily he fills the silence.

  “What I’m about to tell you is in confidence, Miss Lewis. There’s even a gag order in place forbidding both sides to talk about it. However, since you’re in a position where knowing the facts of the matter will help you feel at ease enough to work with me, I’m going to share. Truth is, I caught Mr. Stephens cheating,” he states plainly, and I feel my stomach ball up. “I’ve heard a few different theories going around, but that’s what happened. When I confronted him, he took a swing and gave me a pretty sore chin for a few days. To tell you the truth, I don’t hold the hit against him. Good men with great ambitions make grand gestures, and grandiose mistakes. The chin is fine, but the cheating is a character issue, one I’m not so easy to overlook. I hope you realize,” he leans forward, and without realizing I do the same, “I’m not supposed to discuss this with anyone. But, because I’d really like a chance to woo you into my group, I don’t want you scared off by rumors and boogeymen.”

  “But, I …”

  Prof. Harrison’s look turns steely, and I can practically hear his inner thoughts racing, wondering if telling me will turn out to be a mistake.

  “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about me,” he says, “but I would like to see if we’re a fit. Also, I think you’d get a lot out of it. Even if you don’t end up in my group, having a strong recommendation from me to one of my colleagues will make it easier for you to catch their eye. Besides, you should know that Lamertus will also be attending this conference and be at my talk. I’ll make sure to give you a special thank you, telling how valuable your assistance was.” He leans back in his chair, threading his hands behind his back and stretching out his legs. “Assuming you do, in fact, decide to take me up on my offer.”

  “Prof. Harrison, I do believe you’re trying to tempt me.”

  A coy smile spreads over his face. “Is it working?”

  I think about it for a moment. Now that my Outreach presentation is more or less settled into a routine, I suppose spending a few hours in the coming weeks wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. Plus, if it also means I don’t have to draw such a big chunk of my next paycheck in an effort to pay Harrison back, and might get a shoe in with an advisor ...

  Standing, I push my hand out to him, across the desk. “It is. Yeah, I’ll be happy to.”

  His hand feels warm in mine, but dry. Harrison stands and shakes with me before telling me to plan on staying after Wednesday’s class so he can go over the outline of his talk with me. When I leave his office a few minutes later, I’m practically floating down the hallway. I’m thinking how I can’t wait to tell Hawk of my great opportunity when the realization hits me …

  I can’t tell Hawk. He’ll be pissed, and I really don’t want him to feel like I’m betraying him. Working with Harrison for a few weeks doesn’t mean much, being that I don’t talk to anyone, and as far as I know, no one else from Manderson will be at the talk to hear my name in the acknowledgement.

  I decide in that moment that Hawk doesn’t need to know.

  X-6, where X=18

  The thing I begin to wonder most is why we even pretend that we’re getting together to study. Hawk tells me that the main part of his nightly duties takes him about three hours, or half of his shift. After that he takes a lunch—which is actually his dinner—spends about another hour performing maintenance, and has the last one to two hours of his shift for studying.

  And studying is what he used to do, before me …

  Over two weeks, I develop a weekday routine. I slip in a few hours in the afternoon of studying, spending an hour here and there researching slash proofing Harrison’s keynote address. Twice a week, Prof. Ferris sends me to an Outreach appointment in the mornings. Every day, no matter when I’ve arrived on campus, I bike home around five or six to grab dinner and fetch a nap. Hawk texts me when he’s getting toward the end of his janitorial workload and I drive back to campus. We hang out in the shipping-receiving room with our books open, but it doesn’t take long before we end up making out until one of us—usually Hawk—has enough sense to draw back. The custom is both thrilling, and becoming painfully frustrating. Add to it that whenever we’ve met on the weekends it’s always been in public. We both decide keeping our relationship under wraps is best for now. Unlike our first encounter in the café, Hawk now acts the perfect gentlemen in public, not even doing as much as holding my hand. He also refuses to come up to my studio again, saying our first time alone almost got out of control.

  For a person who’s always been a control freak all her life, I’m coming dangerously close to losing mine.

  On this particular night, we’re both in fine form. His kisses make me dizzy and breathless, and I can tell that even Hawk is having problems simmering back down. The hunger in his eyes when our gazes meet tells me that we might finally be ready to take this to the next step.

  I throw my leg over him and bring my mouth down to his, my knee-length white skirt billowing out around me and covering his lap like a blanket. I’m not sure what about Hawk draws me out this way, not that I’ve ever been a wallflower or demure. As Hawk’s hands circle around my hips, he fills his grip with my backside and pulls me forward, his erection grinding against my most sensitive area, barely separated between the linen of his janitor’s uniform and the cotton of my panties.

  My breath goes racing out of me. “Oh, wow …”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  I both hate and love the way he’s cut off the arms of his jumpsuit. I can see the full definition of Hawk’s biceps as he grips my hips and begins to handle me like a lover. The fear that he’ll stop teases at me, but I’m so wrapped up in the sensations as he pushes against me, his manhood seeking out what nothing more than a few layers of clothing deny, that I can’t bring myself to stop. I realize with a hint of mischievous glee that I’m close to climaxing. The awareness intensifies my pleasure, and I decide I’m not going to draw back this time. I want Hawk to see me fall to pieces in his arms. I’m no longer sated by a few hurried moments by myself before I go to bed, pretending it’s his hands, and not my own, that brings me to perfection.

  My first boyfriend used to joke a strong wind could get me off if it was blowing in the right direction. As Hawk gives in t
o his impulses, he jerks beneath me, and I gasp. It won’t take much more for me to fall over the edge. As selfish as it is, I let Hawk manipulate my frame as though he were already inside me, hoping to find an end.

  “You have no idea how much I want you right now.” His hands leave my backside. I see only his blond curls beneath me as I wiggle myself closer. He offers no argument when I knit my fingers on the back of his neck and use the leverage to move myself against him.

  “Hawk.” I swallow a mouthful of air and his name in one moment. “I’m …”

  His head turns, and with his chin he pushes aside one side of my open, button-down shirt. His teeth find my nipple, biting through and over the silky fabric of my bra. When he nips, he does so with perfectly balanced pressure, causing just the right mix of pleasure and pain to shoot through me. His act pulls the last threads tying me to the Earth, and I feel myself come apart in his arms. My climax is so intense, even I’m surprised by it; likely a release from all of the pressure we’ve built up over the last few weeks. Instinctively, I rock against him and arch my back. He holds me, keeping me from falling to the floor. I manage not to make too much noise, which might draw attention from anyone in the hall on the other side of the doors, though a tickle at the back of my throat is begging me to scream. Both perplexed and in awe, Hawk holds me as I quiver, as the wave of fulfillment first condenses, then confounds me. When it eases and I fall limp against his body, a chill begins to prickle at the flesh of my bare chest. It’s not until I hear him laugh against me that I’m able to push back against the couch and look at him.

  “Um, wow. You just ...” He runs his hand through his hair, pulling. “You did, right?”

  I feel my cheeks go supernova. I can’t believe what I’m about to say, but there’s not much hope for me to deny it. “I’m … really sensitive.”

  “And you came?” he asks again. Hawk’s blue eyes sparkle. “Just like that. Without me even … Without my—”

  I press two fingers to his lips and still his words. “Yes, just like that. Very sensitive.”

  His plastered grin makes me suddenly feel self-conscious. A laugh tugs at the corners of his mouth as I shift off him and sit back down on the couch, working to button my shirt back up.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “What? No, Robin, it’s nothing like that.” His hand goes to my chin, directing my eyes back to his. “I was just surprised, is all, and maybe a bit disappointed that it wasn’t my phenomenal kissing skills. But I love that you’re like that. I love that it will be so easy to give you pleasure. It just makes me a little nervous, though.”

  “Nervous?” My hands pause on the top button. “Why would it make you nervous?”

  “Because it makes me want to explore.” Hawk’s eyes turn heavy-lidded as he reaches to run a finger down my arm, staring at my shoulder and drawing a line down to my elbow, leaving a demarcation of gooseflesh. “Now I want to test your limits, so how much I can do to you before I’m even inside you. What’s your tipping point? If I touched just your breasts, would you scream for me? If I brushed a feather over you down there, would you howl? If I dusted your whole body with powdered sugar, then licked it off, would you come?”

  It’s the first time he’s said something so sexually charged to me. “You might get an encore just talking that way,” I murmur, hearing my voice waver. I hold back on the temptation to tell him I have a canister of powdered sugar back at my apartment. Instead, my eyes settle on the prominent lap tent he’s still pitching.

  As though sensing what I’m thinking, he waves a dismissive hand through the air. “Don’t worry about me, Robin. I don’t expect anything in return.”

  “You don’t?” I take a sip from a bottled water I’ve just fished from my bag before pouting. “How disappointing.”

  As he sits up, Hawk tries to adjust himself in a way that doesn’t make him look like Michelangelo’s tribute to sanitation engineering. “I want you. You have no idea how much I want you. But I don’t want our first time to be on this couch, like we’re two overly hormone-ridden teenagers making out in my mom’s basement.”

  “Maybe out second time then,” I say more to myself that to him.

  “I want to make it special for you.” He reaches for my hand and brings it to his lips. “Come over to my place this weekend?”

  The bottle stills in my grip and I close my mouth to keep from drowning. His place? The idea fills me with a bubbly effervescence I can hardly believe. How is it that just two months ago, I was determined that I wasn’t even going to date anyone while I was at Manderson, and now I’m bouncing in place at the possibility of making love with Hawk Stephens? Instantly, I remember what happened the last time I got so carried away with my feelings, and I recall with crystal clarity the pain and drama it caused when it abruptly and tragically ended.

  I clear my throat and try to sound nonplussed. “Hawk, I like you. I would love to come over, but are you sure? You know that I was resistant to having any sort of relationship to begin with. Not with you, just at all, and I have to know, if we’re going to keep down that path …”

  His eyebrow raises and he leans his head down, looking at me with one wide eye. “Miss Lewis, are you asking if my intentions are honorable?”

  We both laugh at his poorly executed attempt at a British accent. However, when we stop, I stare at him with an elephant’s weight of sincerity and ask him if he’s looking for a distraction while he awaits his fate, or something else.

  Sighing, Hawk sits up. He takes the water bottle from my hand and pulls a long, quenching draw. He’s silent for a moment before speaking, but when he does, it’s with complete genuineness and patience.

  “Robin, in two weeks, I’m going to have a hearing that determines if I still have a chance of being a mathematics faculty someday, but that’s not going to change the kind of person I am or whether or not I’ll ever be in front of a classroom. I want to teach, be it at a community school like I do with the Outreach Program, or some backwoods high school, or Yale. I know, though, that when I get reinstated, I have six months, tops, before I’m done and can move away. The only thing that’s kept me from just saying screw it and leaving this place, besides knowing I’m in the right, is that I’ve put in too much too walk away without a fight. I was thrilled that I would only have a few months to go, but suddenly …” He pauses, draws in a deep breath, and runs his hands down his face. “Did you know I’ve been looking at the want ads the last few days?”

  Confusion knits my eyebrows together. “Why? Are you going to leave your janitor job?”

  “That’s not what I’m getting at.” Turning to me, Hawk reaches out to take my hands in his, drawing them to his lap. “I’m looking for another job around here, because if I do get kicked out for good, I don’t want to leave yet. I want to stay a little longer, Robin, for you. To give us more time to see if we’ve got something here.”

  And just like that, the tattered remnants of a heart shattered a year ago meld together into a living, pulsing current of emotion. I lean forward to press Hawk’s lips to mine. The chaste kiss lingers, draws slowly through its due motions. We’re both trembling, and I feel like I should say something in return, but I can’t think what.

  Hawk leans his forehead to mine. “So would you consider maybe, possibly, staying over at my place this weekend? I promise it’s not our relationship arriving at someplace, it’s you and me starting off toward someplace together.”

  The tide turns, and I know what I need to say. “Absolutely.”

  44÷4 + √4

  On Friday morning, when I walk into class, I hand off my last set of notes and references to Prof. Harrison before taking my seat. As another student rambles on for minutes about something, my stomach begins to twist. Harrison sits at his desk, thumbing through the stack of papers as his face screws up in disgust or revolt. I try to remember if
there was anything in my findings that should illicit such a reaction, and for the life of me I can’t think of a thing. My insides squirm as class goes on until finally, as he’s wrapping up our session, Prof. Harrison’s eyes drag across the classroom and find my shriveled form in the corner desk.

  “Miss Lewis, see me in my office?”

  His gaze, full of foreboding, worries me, but I have no reason to say no. In fact, I remind myself, I have no reason to worry at all. I haven’t done anything wrong.

  I use the restroom before making my way up the hall. Prof. Harrison invites me in with a quick, “It’s open.” He doesn’t turn to greet me, so I take a seat in the chair across from his desk and wait.

  “Sir?” I finally venture after several minutes of my heart racing faster and faster.

  “Robin.” He sighs and laces his fingers behind his back, turning to me with a half-smile. “I need to ask you something, and I’d appreciate an honest answer. I want you to know there will be no negative consequences.”

  His assurance does little to calm me. “Okay,” I manage to say without sounding too perplexed.

  Grabbing the stack of papers from the table, Prof. Harrison turns to the second to last page. “In your notes, you cited an unpublished paper by Prof. Silas Seymour. If it’s unpublished, how are you aware of it?”