The next day, Ethan turned up at five to six. Beth had waited for him at the lift.
"We should go somewhere," she said.
"Okay."
She'd been thinking about it. She couldn't think of anywhere that was really safe except her place, and she'd resigned herself to taking him there.
"I live two minutes away," she said.
He nodded.
"But any shit. Any weird crap at all, and I call the police, then call security too."
He seemed surprised, but said, "Yeah, fair enough."
She took her laptop and her bag, and he offered to carry something but she said no, it wasn't heavy.
"Let me," he said.
"It's fine."
He tried to take it, and she held up her hand, looked at him, annoyed. He shrugged, let it go.
He tried to hold her hand in the lift, but she snatched it away. Tried again as they cut across the sports fields, but it there were still people around and she said, "Fucking stop it."
"I can't believe how much you swear."
"Oh, fuck off."
The air smelled of cut grass and heat and summer. Dry still air, filled with the buzzing of cicadas.
They walked in silence. Beth knew she was being too hard on him, but was anyway.
*
Beth lived in a townhouse one street over from the campus. She rented because she'd wanted something near, immediately. That close to the university she couldn't have afforded to buy, and part of her was a bit scared by the idea she could, suddenly, just buy a house. After most of ten years scraping by on scholarships and grants, she'd come here, got this job, and was suddenly earning eighty thousand dollars a year. She had clothes and shoes and some very nice furniture, and one day soon, when she felt like a grown-up, she'd buy a house. But not yet.
She opened the door and let Ethan in, and did the alarm trying to stand in front of it so he couldn't see. She didn't think he'd be a problem, but she wanted to be careful anyway. She trusted people more once she'd had sex with them. That was just brain chemistry and meant nothing, but it happened, so she was going to be slightly more careful until she knew him better. It had already happened. She probably wouldn't have wanted him here at all if they hadn't had sex already, so now she made herself be a bit cautious because of that change in her feelings. Not to get robbed, or taken advantage of, or hurt if it went wrong.
She took off her shoes, dropped her bags, looked at him. "This is it."
"Nice. It's really nice. You live alone?"
She nodded. It was an open-plan townhouse. A big room downstairs, entranceway and lounge and dining room and kitchen all in one. She had more bookshelves than most people, and her study, the second bedroom upstairs, had one wall completely as whiteboards. Other than that, it was just a house. He looked around, like he was curious about the books. Maybe he hadn't been somewhere with so many, unless he made a habit of shagging his professors. She wondered if she should ask if he did. She didn't know if she wanted to hear the answer.
She went into the kitchen, got a bottle of wine. "You want some?"
He nodded, and she got two glasses. She was glad they'd fucked the day before. It had gotten rid of some of the urgency. Then again, that was yesterday, and the urgency was coming back pretty fast.
She poured him wine and went over and gave it to him. He was still looking around, standing in the middle of the room, halfway in from the door. She realized there was a photo of her and Robert on the side-table, and didn't want to explain. She went over and put it face down.
Ethan watched. "Who's he?"
"No-one."
"I already saw it. You look like a couple."
She ignored him, but he kept looking at her.
"Do you really care?" she said.
"Just wondered."
"Are you going to leave if I say we are?"
"Probably not."
"Going to want to fuck me any less?"
"No."
"So why ask?"
He shrugged a little. "Just so I know where I am, I suppose."
And suddenly he wasn't an arrogant little asshole again. She looked at him, and realized it might be a bit rough being on his end of things. This was fun for her, but for him it might be meeting someone and finding out she wasn't as available as he'd thought.
"Kind of a couple," she said. "Together for three years, but then I got the job here, and he's still in Sydney, so I don't know. He's trying to get something here."
"So on a break until then?"
"I don't know. We never really talked about it."
She talked to Robert on the phone. They planned to go and see each other every month or so, meet in a hotel and fuck each other senseless, but never had, one or the other had always been busy. And before she left, they hadn't been as much of a couple as they should have been. She'd been distracted by getting her thesis in and examined, and by finding work. It had been getting more like they were just comfortable friends.
Ethan kept looking at her. Suddenly it had got all serious.
"I'm not going to tell him about you," she said. "If that's what you mean."
He drank some wine, looked at her. He still seemed to be thinking.
"Does it really make any difference?" she said. "Right now? Right this second?"
"Not really."
"If it ever starts to matter," she said. "To you and I, where things are at with him, I'll sort it out. But right now, it doesn't. It's way too soon to worry."
She waited. She'd been a bit unfair, she should probably have said something sooner. She wondered if he would make too much of it, and if he did, she wondered if that meant he was a bit immature and wouldn't cope with a fling with his professor.
It was a test, but it wasn't. She wanted him to decide right, but she also wanted sex. She really wanted sex. She unbuttoned her shirt. She'd had a meeting earlier, had worn one with a collar and buttons. For the meeting, and because a dark little part of her, looking in her wardrobe that morning, had thought about people with fuck-the-professor fantasies and what clothes might help.
"Are we good?" she said, as he watched her.
He didn't answer. She couldn't tell if he was still deciding, or just staring at her tits, coming into view as she unbuttoned. She didn't think anyone could get that easily distracted, but he was twenty-one and really into her. And hadn't seen her topless before.
"Hey," she said, and threw her shirt at him. "You listening?"
"Yeah?" he said, exactly like a student in a tutorial who wasn't. For a horrible, horrible moment she thought she remembered him, then decided she just remembered people like him. She was almost certain he hadn't said a word all last year.
"Listening?" she said. He was still looking at her tits. Watching them move as she reached back and grabbed her bra strap. "Are we good?" she said.
"Yeah," he said. "The guy?"
"Sort it out later? You don't mind?"
"No, of course not."
"Are you listening?"
He didn't seem to be. She thought about picking up a cushion from the couch, decided she didn't really give a shit.
