Wednesday by Clare James

“I think he’s been
done with school for quite a while.”
    “No, dummy,” she says. “He’s a
professor. You didn’t know that?”
    “No,” I say. “I didn’t.” 
    Sure enough, she’s right. I find
him in his university office a few days later.
    “Oh shit,” he says when I barge in.
    “You are such an asshole.”
    “I was going to tell you, but
you’re so touchy these days, I thought you might think it’s weird that I teach
here.”
    “I have to find out from my sister
that you’re a professor at my university, really? That’s where we’re at?”
    “Settle down, Ari. It’s not that
big of a deal.”
    “Maybe not for you. But how cliché
can I be? First I go after the high school football star and now I’m hooking up
with my professor.”
    “I’m an adjunct professor, Aria,”
he says. “And we’re not even in the same school. I don’t go anywhere near
nursing. I’m strictly technology. Are you taking any tech courses?”
    “No.”
    “Okay then.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him,
but he just doesn’t get it. “It’s how it looks, Tristan. I’ve given people
enough to gossip about. I don’t need this.”
    There it is. I can’t go through
with this no matter how much I want it. We can’t keep our Wednesdays and have
our lives too. Things just don’t work that way.
     

TRISTAN
     
    When Aria says something,
she means it. The whole scene at the school put her on edge. Though I didn’t
quite understand just how much.
    I wait at the beach house the
following Wednesday. She doesn’t show.
    So I go to her. Fuck it, I’m not
taking this lying down.
    I know she’ll be at the library.
It’s her one free evening of the week, and if she’s not letting me get her
rocks off, she’ll be getting down to business in another way.
    The library is empty in the west
corridor where she usually barricades herself with nursing books. Her back is
facing me and I can tell just by her posture that she’s tense. She fucking
needs me. Or at least needs my cock.
    There, crude and concise. That’s
the way I have to keep it with Aria, because she is dangerously close to weaving
her way in. And I don’t have time for it. A woman. A kid. A sick dad. Teaching.
And securing a V.C. to take me away from the nightmare that is Gulf Bay.
    Yet I’d be an absolute moron to let
this good thing we have go to hell.
    I move slowly up behind her and
place my hands on her shoulders. She tenses, until I move my mouth to the shell
of her ear. I swear, in that moment, I can feel the stress leave her body.
    “You didn’t show.”
    “I told you I wouldn’t, Tristan. Or
should I say Professor Green? I’m not going to be that girl again.”
     “Well, since IT is about as far
from nursing as you can get, I’m not sure what you think people will accuse you
of. I can’t give you good grades.”
    “Semantics. It just looks bad. I go
back to school and start fucking a professor? That’s lovely.”
    “First of all, I’m adjunct faculty.
Second, our arrangement is a secret.”
    “I don’t care, Tris. It just feels
sleazy.”
    “It’d only be sleazy if I was
asking to see your panties in return for a good grade.”
    She tips her head to look up at me.
Her lids are hooded and her breathing becomes labored.
    Fuck me. She likes role play.
    “Is that what you’re asking?” she
says, her voice rough.
    Damn, she needs this.
    “Maybe it is.” I go with it. “Let’s
have a look, shall we?”
    I sit next to her at the table… waiting. 
    She angles her body toward me and
slowly inches up her skirt.
    “I shouldn’t do this,” she says.
    “If you want a good grade, you
should,” I tell her. “It’s okay. Nobody has to know.”
    Aria opens her legs: long, toned,
tan, bare. Inching up her skirt a little more, she flashes me her white cotton
panties.
    Shit, if they weren’t sexier than
black lace. So good. Pure. Perfect for our little game.
    “If I would’ve known you were
coming for me, I would’ve worn