One fog-smeared Tuesday morning, the whole class was having a heated discussion about fascism and Nazism when I noticed that Grace was looking at me intently. Studying me. Like I imagined she studied her history lessons at night. For a warm moment I felt uncomfortable, strung too tight. Her expression didn’t seem to be focused on the topic at hand—Adolf Hitler. Who could blame her? I felt an unexpected coil of attraction in the pit of my stomach. We both looked away at the same time. One of the students at the back of the class asked me if Hitler had really been obsessed with the occult. I managed to snap out of it and told him, jokingly and with a lisp of charm, to sign up for an archeology class. I didn’t look at Grace again for the rest of the day.
*
She found me in a coffee shop, off campus. What followed was partially my fault because I didn’t say anything to indicate she shouldn’t when she pulled out a chair at my table. Instead I felt myself smile, and in an effort to do something with my hands I poured myself a third cup of coffee. I wouldn’t have pegged Grace for a smoker, but she was. I’m addicted myself, but I’ve been trying to quit for years without much success. (I don’t really know why I feel the need to defend myself, by the way.) They say that after thirty, you can never turn back the effects of smoking completely. But I’m stubborn, so I will keep on trying regardless.
Grace wasn’t one to beat around the bush. She lit two cigarettes and said, “It’s inappropriate, isn’t it?”
I played the fool. “There’s nothing wrong with having coffee with one of my students.”
She smiled, and the muscles in my thighs jumped. “No, there isn’t, is there?”
And so we decided nothing was amiss and we had coffee.
*
I have become increasingly aware of Grace’s presence in my classes. Every time she catches my eye, I have to regroup. If I blushed easily, I would be in hot trouble.
In due course, Grace began to wait until everyone else had left the class before getting out from behind her degradingly pockmarked desk. She always dressed in soft textures. Over the past few weeks I’d imagined how she would feel, fully clothed, against the coarse textiles of my pantsuits.
I’m not sure why, but I kept my pose in the beginning. I felt it was the prudent thing to do when having an affair. So that is what we were doing? And besides, I didn’t want Grace to think that I found the idea of sleeping with a twenty-two-year-old hot. A twenty-two-year-old student of mine. People don’t think I’m a lout. They’d be surprised.
*
I told myself that it would be a one-off thing. An annoying itch that needed scratching. After my libido jumped into the driver’s seat I got over the concern of Grace being my student. My conscience told me that it was wrong. At least, it tried. But the needs she had roused in me circumvented any rational behavior I might have expected from myself.
Coffee—such as it is—became foreplay. She would brazenly put a hand on my leg beneath the table in broad daylight. When she leaned in close to light my cigarette, she’d use the cover of this everyday gesture to propose something dirty.
Once, in class, I almost wrote “sex” on the blackboard instead of “sensationalism.” This happened right after I’d told Grace, in front of everyone else, that just because she was older than the rest of her fellow classmates it didn’t mean she didn’t have to pay attention.
It was after exactly such a messy exchange that she stormed out of my class, deeply offended. At least, on the surface. While she might have felt affronted, I was so aroused that I had to make up some hackneyed excuse to my students and leave too. Two minutes later class was over. I smoked a cigarette and returned to a room full of empty desks. It was the end of the day.
*
I couldn’t wait any longer. That same night, I went to Grace’s apartment. She’d told me she lived alone and I was relieved to find out that it was the truth. That night, at least, it was.
I knocked and waited in the hue of the streetlight for the front door to open. For an instant I thought she would ignore me; I’d seen her in the kitchen through the open window before getting out of my car.
I didn’t wait long. She let me in. We didn’t talk.
She kissed me, right there, at her front door. Her intent contradicted her age. I’m sure I forgot all about things like students and teachers. I’m sure I forgot it was a mistake.
What I do recall, in quiet, erotic detail, was the way she forcefully flattened her back against the wall as I held her, opened her, entered her. My knees kept getting weaker as I fucked her but she grabbed a handful of my shirt and begged me not to stop. I didn’t; I was, however, slightly disappointed that I’d never see her bedroom.
When she came, tightening around my hand, Grace bit my lip and I tasted blood. That’s when I knew that I could never have her again. Next time, the hurt would be worse.
*
Because Grace studied drama, too, I wasn’t surprised at her indifference toward me in class after that night. Two weeks later she passed her final exam with flying colors—on pure merit, if you must know.
We only had sex that once. Afterward I forgot every single thing we’d ever talked about over coffee. Not that Grace was a bore—certainly not. It had all just been foreplay. Preparation for when our skin would finally meet.
I have a new class now, fresh faces. Yet still, each time I look at the third desk from the front on the left-hand side, I have to take a moment, sit down. And cross my legs.
Not Another Buffy Rerun
Therese Szymanski
I walked fast, but purposefully, down the dark street, focusing on the woman a hundred feet in front of me, but also glancing around to take in all that was happening around me. Us.
Suddenly she turned toward a dark alley I hadn’t noticed before. I broke into a run. I didn’t run full speed because I could not afford that sort of attention, but I knew I would reach her in time regardless.
I threw my arm out, grabbing her by the shoulder.
“No!” I yelled, stopping her.
She looked at me in shock, as if I were some sort of psychotic serial killer. She pulled away, starting to scream, and that was when the fist hit me.
Almost.
My assailant pulled back on the punch at the last second, but I dropped nonetheless, hitting the pavement and twisting as I fell so I landed on my shoulders and was able to spring upright almost immediately.
“Cut!” Stewart, the director shouted. “That was great!”
“Oh, c’mon,” I replied, “he was so far off on that punch, he hit some guy in New Jersey.”
“Kirby, I can’t actually have these guys hitting you. We can’t spoil that pretty-boy face of yours. It looked great on camera, and we actually got it all this time around.” To the crew and others standing by he said, “Okay, let’s take it from where Kirby turns back. Kirb, you fight with the bad guys, stake two of them, and then the cops arrive. So you’re standing here when Keri shows up.”
“The cop cars end up here, and here,” Gwen chimed in, pointing appropriately, “and I’ll pull up here?” Gwendolyn Pierce, who played detective Keri Sullivan, knew Stewart so well after six seasons she could guess a lot of what he was planning. But he and the scriptwriters were so diabolical, even they could surprise her on occasion.
This wasn’t one of them.
*
Stewart barely had to say two words to us—we had read the script and already knew the layout—and although I had only been with the show for three seasons, and not as consistently as Gwen, I knew the basic routine. So while he was working with the crew and other actors, I sidled up to Gwen.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said before I had a chance to grouse about the scene. “It looked great.” Leaning back against the wall, she said, “He still doesn’t realize how resilient you are.”
“Yeah, I don’t bruise easily.”
“I’ll say. I know I’ve hit you with all I’ve got, but you sure do
take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
” She looked up at me with those big green eyes and pushed a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Y’know, when they first brought you on, I didn’t think that much of you. I mean, you’re not as tall as most of the other actors, but you sure are a surprise.”
“Hmm. Not sure to take that as a compliment or a... What?” Gwen was hardly one to talk; after all, she was so short I wasn’t really sure she could’ve been a cop in Chicago. It didn’t matter, though, because enough people found it believable enough to give Keri Sullivan, Chicago PD a real following. So many viewers paid attention, in fact, that Keri was promoted from the beat to be a full detective, one who was respected and paid attention to.
Besides, in my time, I was practically an Amazon.
“Take it as a compliment,” Gwen said with a wink.
*
Gwen—Keri—and the cops played their scene, and only after did I step out from the shadows.
“Keri,” I said, advancing on her like some sort of a wild animal, ready to mate. The electricity between us had a number of publications running pictures of us on a regular basis.
“I knew you were around here somewhere,” she said. “This has all the marks of you. One scared woman saying she was attacked by a group of men, and we can’t find any of them.”
I kicked a pile of dust. “I should carry a dustpan, though.” I turned to walk away, but then I felt her hand, her warm hand, on my shoulder. Even through my black leather jacket, I could feel her heat.
“Wait,” she said. I looked at her, aware of the two cameras on us, and her hand went from my shoulder to my cheek. “I never got the chance to thank you for the other night. When you saved my life—”
“Keri, you’ve done the same for me.” I put my hand on hers and slowly pulled them away from my face.
“Hardly.”
“You’re right, you’ve done more for me. You haven’t just saved me, you’ve brought me back from the dead.” At that point, I was supposed to touch my lips against hers, and then disappear. And I could’ve done it, because I’ve done it more times then I can count—kiss and leave, do more and leave...but...
...when our lips touched, I couldn’t pull away. Our lips brushed and the jolt of electricity that torched through me was more than even I could ever deal with. I went back for seconds. And thirds. And fourths. Actually, our lips brushed, and I started to draw away, but she brought my head back down to kiss her again. And this time, her lips parted, and I couldn’t resist the temptation—I brushed them with my tongue, and then entered her, slipping my tongue between those full lips. Her tongue and mouth were warm.
I dropped my hands to her hips to bring her closer to me.
And that was the least perfect time for Stewart to yell, “Cut!”
While I was hoping the shooting could go on all night, just that one bit, over and over again, I knew what I had to do.
Gwen didn’t release me until a few moments after Stewart’s word. When we broke off the kiss, and her mouth was still wet and swollen from my kiss, I whispered into her ear, “Will you go out to dinner with me?”
“Gwen, stay put,” Stewart yelled. “Kirby, get to make-up! We’ll shoot Gwen opening her eyes, without you there, then we’ll do the cops showing up again.” Then, to me, “By the time you’re done getting your face on, we can shoot the fight, and then call it a night.”
“Yes,” Gwen said. To me.
The simplicity and quickness of her reply made me wonder why I hadn’t asked her before.
*
“You’re amazing,” she said over her chicken Caesar salad. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
I met her gaze over my own salad. “A few women have told me that, yes,” and then I let fly with an insinuating little smirk. I didn’t act just on the set.
A tinge of pink grazed her cheeks before she forced her attention back to her salad. “I meant, you’re a really good actor, and you didn’t need to learn any of the hand-to-hand or martial arts techniques so
many actors new on the show need to learn,” she said to her plate.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “You just sometimes pick up things, as an actor. It helps to be prepared for whatever a role might require you to do. And I’ve had some time to learn some things.” I lightly caressed her fingers, which were playing with the stem of her wineglass, even as I remembered the power of that last kiss, and all the kisses before that. She’d told reporters we were like brother and sister, and I might’ve bought that except for the current that ran through me whenever we kissed. Or touched. Or looked at each other. “But you know all about that. After all, you’re pretty amazing yourself.” I took both her hands in mine and ran my thumbs over her palms. “You’re the only reason the show’s lasted so long. No one thought it would at the beginning—you’re the one who brought it to where it is today.”
She placed her hands on the napkin in her lap. “Oh, c’mon, we’ve got great writers—fabulous writers, in fact—and although Stewart can be oh-so-annoying and all, and these days I can almost predict what he’s gonna think before he thinks it, he and the writers are really the heart behind the show. I mean, that he, and they, can still sometimes surprise me says a lot about them.”
Before I could reply, a man came up to the table. “It really is you,” he said to Gwen. “I told Sarah here that it was, but she didn’t believe me.” He yanked forward a very cute blonde I assumed to be his girlfriend, saying to her in a stage whisper, “It is her! I told you so!”
She inched forward, saying very sincerely to Gwen, “I really love the show, and you’re...you’re just great.” She glanced at her boyfriend, then nervously pulled a piece of paper from her purse, along with a pen. “We hate to interrupt you,” she continued, looking over to also address whomever Gwen was having dinner with, “but...” Her mouth fell open and her eyes got very wide upon seeing me and she stopped, her hand still outstretched with pen and paper toward Gwen.
Boyfriend followed his girlfriend’s gaze and noticed me. A lecherous smile spread across his face. “Oh, you. She’s got it bad for you.” He took the pen and paper from her and handed them to Gwen, asking for an autograph. “And can you make it out to Stan?”
Meanwhile, I met her gaze, ran a hand through my hair down to my neck, and slowly let a grin slide across my lips. Then I undressed her with my eyes, taking in every inch of her slender, yet shapely, form. I stood, took her hand, and leaned over to gracefully to brush my lips over the back of her hand. “Very pleased to meet you.”
I was next to her by the time macho man realized what was happening and finally reacted, yanking her from me, “She’s a really big fan. Good thing I’m not the jealous sort.” He looked lustfully over at Gwen. “Thank you so much.”
I laid a hand on his shoulder, holding him for a moment. “Don’t worry, I’ve stopped being Evil, after all.” I bowed elegantly to her. They both stared at me until I said, “Just because I play a vampire on television doesn’t mean I’m not really one.” I winked at them.
I continued standing until they were out of sight. Just before disappearing from sight, they both turned to get one last look at me, then hurried off, whispering.
I sat back down across from Gwen. “No matter how far back we sit, no matter how well hidden we think we are, they’ll always find you,” I said.
“Looks like she found you just fine.” Gwen’s emerald green eyes were flashing.
She was jealous. I wanted to touch her, bring her into my arms. I hoped she was jealous of the attention Sarah paid to me, but she could just be envious I was noticed at all. So I shrugged. “They came for you, she settled for me.” I knew being jealous of fans wasn’t her style at all.
“So is she your type?” Now she was studying me. Intensely.
“I’m sitting across from the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and you’re wondering if I’m checking out some little airhead who stops by with Mr. Macho Man?”
“Didn’t look as if you were not interested.”
“Yea
h, well I was just playing all evil and flirty and mysterious. Really, I’m harmless. Or at least mostly so. Besides, I have to keep my fans happy too.”
“You’re a flirt is what you are.”
“Yes, that too.” I smiled and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m bad to the bone.”
She studied me silently for a few moments, then said, practically whispering, “Your hands are too soft to be as bad as you always claim.”
“I’m mysterious,” I continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, pulling my hands from her. “It’s the part I play: big, bad and lecherous, and I just play that in real life as well. I mean, the only reason anyone wants to interview me is because I don’t really do interviews. I play hard to get. I’m a tease, what can I say?” I signaled for the waiter.
Gwen reached across the table and took my hands. It felt almost as if we were playing a game of tag. She rubbed them between hers. “Are you cold? Your hands are.”
“Cold hands, warm heart.” I looked up at the waiter. “We need the check, please.” But this time she was really studying and examining my hands. “I like women with soft hands,” I said. “I like how their hands feel on me. I use lotion—a lot of really nice lotion—so I can give them the same thing.”
“So that’s why they’re so soft,” she said, apparently to herself, closely studying my palms and fingers while I studied her, enjoying the sensation of her warm, velvety hands on my own.
I had seen her long, golden hair in almost every conceivable arrangement. Sometimes she let it flow down naturally around her face, gently caressing her forehead before it went back behind her ears, eventually ending in not totally natural waves. Sometimes she put it into little spiral curls that were totally sexy and made her look a bit wild, or maybe she put it back in a simple ponytail that made her look young and innocent. Sometimes she wore it in a French braid. That was so hot...it pulled her long locks away from her face and down her back so it looked restrained and tight, but you knew underneath it all was passion waiting to be let loose.
Extreme Passions Page 29
