Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
And, after all, wasn’t that what I had been doing? My stomach twisted. I had no calloused, lustful designs on Ellie, but I had concocted this party as an excuse for spending more time with her. I’d wanted her to see my house. I’d wanted to show off to her. I’d wanted to be near her. I’d dreamed during the day of a chance to spend time alone with her, and at night, my dreams had been of her being in my bed with me.
I took a sip of my brandy and started up the staircase with Ellie. I felt sure that all eyes were on us and began to feel a sinking feeling of shame. And concern.
“Ellie,” I said, under my breath as we walked. “What about what people think? What about gossip?”
She paused on the stairs and looked me in the eyes. “I don’t care about that tonight,” she said.
My heart lifted. Ellie kept on walking up the stairs and I followed her. Maybe she didn’t think of me as an inappropriate old man after all. Maybe this was as real as I’d been dreaming it was.
The upstairs was darker than most of the downstairs had been. I’d left the lights off, and the only light came from the moonlight streaming through various windows and the bleed of dim light coming from the foyer.
“It smells good up here,” Ellie laughed. “Like cedar.”
I smiled. “There’s a few cedar chests in some of the bedrooms. Maybe your nose is just that good.”
It felt different to be talking to her like this. It was as if the darkness and the quietness brought a new intimacy to our relationship. She seemed less guarded, more relaxed. Like a flower unfurling its petals, releasing a perfume of trust.
And she must trust me, I thought, leading the way down the hallway. She was up here alone with me. She must trust me not to…unless she wanted to?Suddenly I felt hot all over. The prospect of being so near her with empty bedrooms surrounding us on both sides while everyone downstairs already suspected we were up here to make love. I looked at her as she gazed out of the window at the end of the hallway. She was bathed in moonlight. It lit up her white dress in an ethereal glow. Her pale breasts rose and fell as she took deep breaths, gazing out at the moonlit landscape.
Her body seemed alert, tense. Humming with energy. Listening.
Listening to me? To what I might do?
“Ellie,” I whispered.
I stepped up to her. Her eyes were huge, gazing up at me. I lifted my hands and placed them on her shoulders.
She drew in a breath. Her eyelids fluttered closed. I held still for one moment, and then began to lean in towards her.
Tap, tap, tap.
Ellie’s eyes opened, startled. The sound had been coming from a tree outside the window, tapping a branch against the glass in the wind, but she turned her head immediately towards the staircase.
Seeing no one there in the darkness, she turned back to me. Our faces were close, our noses almost touching. I could feel the nearness of her lips: my own felt as warm and tingling as if they were already touching hers.
“No,” she whispered, and pulled herself away from me.
She walked down the hallway, hurriedly, almost as if she was running. Almost as if she was afraid of me.
My heart sank. I felt seasick, a slosh of shame and confusion and unsatisfied longing.
She paused at the top of the stairs and looked back at me. Vaguely I realized what it would look like if she went downstairs without me. Everyone who saw her would suspect that I had tried to touch her and she’d told me no. I wondered if she was thinking that as well.
She stood there, looking back at me. I waited for her to go downstairs.
She reached a hand out and beckoned for me to walk over to her.
I swallowed and walked down the hall. I reached her side.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She placed her hand briefly on my shoulder. It was almost a stroke. I felt fire ripple down my arm where she had touched me.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, and started walking down the stairs.
I fell into step beside her, wondering what her words meant.
A week passed. At the Halloween party, I’d retraced my tour of the house several times with various students: Ellie’s friends, one male, two girls and a male, three males. I wanted to do my best to dispel rumors. And I wanted to not have to look at Ellie anymore.
The only thing that had been clear to me about that night was that she did not want to get involved, and I should not have tried to.
Then, the last thing that I would have wanted to happen while I was already dealing with sadness happened. My ex-wife called.
I saw my phone light up with her name. Veronica. I was sitting in my office, just finishing grading tests, when it happened. I swallowed.
I’d better answer it. Get it over with. If I ignored it, she’d just call back again.
“Hello?”
“Jackson, honey.”
Her voice was dripping with sweetness. She wanted something.
“Veronica,” I said. “Hey, how are you?”
My stomach hurt. I’d loved her so much. Now she was just a rare phone call I never wanted to answer.
“I’m going to be in town on Wednesday, and I’m wondering if you can pick me up from the airport,” she said. “And take me out for dinner after?”
“You want to give the tabloids something to talk about, huh?” I said. “Did you pay the reporters yourself this time, or just have someone tip them off?”
“Jacky, please,” she said, laughing gaily. That laugh. I’d heard it in countless rooms, at countless parties and events. She used it to seduce people. Seduce them into friendships or business deals or love affairs. I was the only person she’d seduced into a marriage. “I just need a ride. And I miss you.”
I pressed my lips together. She liked to pretend that we could revisit the past sometimes. Like it was a favorite movie she liked to put on when she was bored.
“I’ll pick you up,” I said. “Text me the details. I have to go now.”
I hung up and sat staring at the pile of tests on my desk without seeing them.
On Wednesday, in the late afternoon, I picked Veronica up from the airport. I drove her back into town, listening to her talk about how great her life was now. All her successes. I think she wanted me to congratulate her, fawn over her, admire her with my words as much as I’d done when I’d been in love with her. All I was hearing was, “My life is so much better without you in it.”