Dr. Michaels couldn't seem to overcome to memory of Jason's fuzzy head burrowing between her legs as the day's second class came and went. It was a course on precolonial literature, far more interesting than that morning's Intro to Rhetorical Analysis. Yet the class dragged on for a lifetime without a pet under the desk keeping her pulse quick. In the end she let the class out ten minutes early and had a pair of cigarettes, back-to-back, in her car before setting out for home. She had promised herself on her 25th birthday that she would quit before she turned 30, but luckily 30 was still several months off. Quitting was a bleak notion - withdrawals aside, bumming smokes to students was one of the only ways she could get them to talk to her outside of class.
Not that she cared if they did or not, Michaels reminded herself as she flicked the butt out the window and started the engine of her trusty old Volkswagen, a hand-me-down gift from her parents from a lifetime ago.
Michaels stopped off at the grocery store for some beer, a pack of American Spirits, and a handful of frozen dinners. Dr. Michaels was annoyed, if unsurprised, when the young cashier eyed her selections with amusement and mild judgment. Michaels swallowed back a sharp word and scowl. With this store so close to campus, this kid may well be a student who could wind up in one of her classes. There was no reason to be antagonistic, and every reason to be an adult. Still, Michaels memorized the black and white gauges in the boy's ears, just in case she one day couldn't decide whether to give him a C- or an F.
Walking from the parking lot into her apartment complex with her light groceries in tow, Dr. Michaels happened to spot Jason's bicycle—a garish yellow mountain bike—locked up at the rack in front of the building. Good. She wasn't ready for him just yet, but it was nice to know he was near. Though is was something of a miracle that Jason lived in her building, Michaels often felt cursed by his constant presence. It was a plain fact that they wouldn't have the kind if relationship they did if Jason hadn't moved in and fractured Dr. Michaels' life, and yet, of course, Michaels wished most days that her life had never been fractured at all.
Wished fervently that she had never sat outside at that rusty table...
Michaels shook her head hard and slipped out of her car, lugging a shoulder bag thick with papers to grade in addition to her light groceries, trying not to dwell on past summers and pretty men, much less the silly little pet. Though he had sent her life spiraling off in an odd direction, there was no reason to give him any consideration when they weren't playing together, even if he was a neighbor.
Dr. Michaels honestly didn't even know what Jason did with his alone time. Homework, hopefully—he really had been underperforming in her rhetoric class, even when sitting in a chair rather than on his knees. But other than that? The boy mentioned videos games sometimes, which was no surprise - Jason was a loser and a dork to his core. She also well-knew that he read quite of bit, of course, respectable titles and utter crap in equal volume. But what else did he get up to in that little efficiency unit? She had never been inside, or even stood in the doorway. Michaels supposed he had friends she wasn't aware of, and they probably visited him occasionally. Maybe even girls.
Dr. Michaels' feet missed a step at that last thought as she walked into the building.
She shook her head again. Why was she thinking of the pet so much today? It must be the lingering rush of what he'd done beneath that desk durring rhetoric.
Walking through the halls and up the stairs of the apartment building—the loftily named Jacksonian—was much like walking across campus. There were many familiar faces, many offered smiles, and not a moment wasted on anyone for chitchat. It was a diverse mix of tenants, yet with surprisingly few students. Jason claimed that the landlady herself had admitted to him that she was biased against renting to young people. That suited Dr. Michaels just fine—she already mixed her professional and private life far more than anyone would consider healthy.
Her apartment was a corner unit on the third, and topmost, floor. A bit pricey, but the youth-biased landlady liked her, and hadn't raised her rent in the three years since she moved in. The place was chilly, as always. As much as Michaels liked the cold outside, she at least wanted to option to be cozy in her own home. It was fairly spacious for an apartment, the front door opening into a large living room that Dr. Michaels preferred to light with heavily-shaded floor lamps in opposite corners. A couch longer than she had any use for was shoved against the far wall, facing a TV propped on an old chest, with a low coffee table in between. A short hall near the couch led to the unit's only bedroom. The roomy kitchen lay beyond an arched entry—a shame, Jason liked to tease, as operating a microwave didn't require much room. A flimsy desk that she had built herself from a kit sat beneath a broad window that overlooked a short stretch of lawn ending abruptly at the fringe of a patch of forest. That window was always curtained.
Michaels put away her groceries, claiming one of the beers as she kicked her shoes away in random arcs. Jason claimed she was "disgracefully messy", as he put it, but she preferred to think of her lifestyle as comfortable. So what if there were some empty cans and fastfood bags on the coffee table, and some laundry on the floor. At least never cooking meant her sink was always pristine.
Michaels turned on the TV and tossed the remote aside without looking at what came—she eventually realized that it was a marathon of Cheers moments before not caring again—and sipped her beer while starting in on a stack of Freshman Studies papers. Awful, terrible stuff, but she would have those kids whipped into shape by the end of the semester. She always did, even if "always" represented only three years worth of a teaching career. Experience wasn't a prerequisite for being a good teacher, no matter what most of her high-horse, boring-ass colleagues thought.
Before long, though, the flood of terrible grammar, stilted sentence structure, and alcohol made Dr. Michaels drowsy, and she decided to try for a nap. She laid out on the couch, turned the TV low and squished a pillow over her head. But as always, it just wouldn't take. She rolled around, trying every position possible. She laid on top of the pillow, hugged it, squished it between knees. She turned off the TV and all the lights.
Nothing made the smallest difference. Somewhere over the past year she had lost the ability to sleep with any ease. It was a fight every night, and one which was increasingly finished only hours before dawn. Casual naps simply weren't a part of her life anymore.
After over an hour, Michaels at last gave up and muttered a trail of expletives into the kitchen to microwave a meatloaf dinner from the freezer. She ate quickly while watching Cheers, the volume still turned so low that she couldn't make out a single distinct word. When she was done with her sorry little meal, she tossed the empty tray onto the coffee table, knocking over a couple of empty cans.
At last, Michaels stood with a resigned sense of relief and began to get ready.
There wasn't much to do, really, but it was satisfying to finally be on the way. Michaels washed her face with a grainy apricot scrub, then brushed both hair and teeth. She used the toilet, made the bed, cleaned the smudges from her glasses, and changed into slinky, pale lavender silk robe. It all took less than ten minutes, and none of it really mattered. The only truly important part was spritzing her neck, breasts, and lap from a bottle of Rose Lemon perfume. The pathetic little boy had a Pavlovian response to the scent at this point.
Finally—finally!-it was time to stride into the middle of her living room, raise her foot, and stomp hard three times.
Jason had lived in the Jacksonian over a year and a half now, but shortly after their...arrangement...had begun, he had managed to snag the tiny unit directly below Dr. Michaels'. The Jacksonian was old and solid, with thick brick walls. Usually no one could hear anything that their neighbors got up to (and thank God for that), but Michaels knew that those three distinctive thuds came through loud and clear.
Michaels stood near the door and began a count under her breath. She figured that she must sometimes catch him in the middle of a phone call or a shower, yet the longest Jason had ever taken to make his way up to her apartment after a summons was still under two minutes. The average was around forty seconds. Tonight, he made it in thirty five.
After a casual knock at her door, Michaels waited a painful ten seconds to answer. No one prowling the halls needed to know she had been waiting with her hand on the knob. Jason stood there grinning, a cocky hand in his back pocket. Michaels immediately felt her blood surge with rage and need. She pulsed with it, from hair to toes. A white T had replaced that morning's cartoon print. Not that it would matter in a few seconds.
"Hello, Professor!" the pet chirped, and Dr. Michaels had to ball her hand to keep from slapping him on the spot. "I was wondering if we could go over a couple of things from class this morning. It was a pretty intense lecture."
That kind of speech—innuendo notwithstanding—was a code that meant he had passed someone in the hall on his way here who could possibly overhear them. Michaels had no choice but to play along.
"Oh, hey, Jason. Sure! Come on in. Soda?"
As soon as he was over the threshold, and the door was carefully closed and locked, the greetings began anew.
Jason dropped to his knees with a thunk that could only be heard from his own apartment and said, "Hello, Ma'am. Thank you for calling on me to serve you."
Michaels proffered both of her hands, and Jason took each in his own and kissed her two palms in turn. Immediately after each kiss, Michaels slapped Jason across the face.
"Professor?" she growled, offering up a backhand to compliment the first two slaps of the evening. "You do that just to annoy me."
Jason merely smiled up at her with all the love in the world and began to strip. As rule, he wasn't allowed to wear clothes around her more than two feet from the door while in private. Michaels waited with little patience while shirt, shoes, and jeans came off and were folded into a neat bundle by the door. Michaels knocked the boy under the chin and he stood for her to survey with hungry eyes. He was so damn beautiful, and it made her furious. All that working out was really starting to pay off. Nearly all teenage baby fat was gone, and if he didn't quite have a sixpack, his stomach was at least enticingly taught. His chest was just as hard, with a developing outline of real pecs and a pleasant dusting of light hair branching out from his sternum. Michaels could swear that Jason's shoulders were twice as broad as when she met him, and his arms were starting to show actual veins through building bulk and definition. She would never let him become a bulky cover model type—what was one even supposed to do with so much hardness?-but her pet was certainly becoming pleasing sight indeed.