Half an hour passed, and Ethan kept kissing her. He was halfway hard again, but didn't seem to want to fuck, especially. Was just hard, like maybe guys that age were always hard around a woman they were into. It was flattering, Beth thought, a cheap thrill. She tried to remember who she'd slept with when she was his age, and couldn't. Maybe nobody, she thought. She might have been working too hard, caring too much about exams. He was stroking her ribs, her armpit, light, but firm enough it was just bearable, and didn't quite tickle. He had played with her breasts for twenty minutes. He was touching her silky-light on purpose, she thought. Teasing her, turning her on again, very slowly. Turning her on, but also just wanting to touch her because she was there.
"You want something to eat?" she said suddenly. She'd realized he would lie there all day if she didn't make decisions for them both.
"If you do."
She slid out of bed, reached for clothes.
"Don't," he said. "Stay naked."
She stopped, looked at him. "Nah."
"Please. I want to look at you."
She liked that he wanted her that much. But still. "Nope," she said. "Another time."
She put on an old tee shirt, shorts, didn't bother with anything else. Her nipples stuck out through the cloth and he looked at them. A lot.
He stayed naked, so she pulled the curtains. The front ones were always shut so people on the street couldn't see in. She hadn't bothered earlier with the back because it was only a private courtyard, but she did now.
She stood in the kitchen and opened cupboards, opened the freezer. "What do you want?"
He stood behind her and looked too.
"Pasta?" she said. "Burgers?" Cheese on toast?"
"Pasta?" he said.
She nodded, put water on to boil. He went sat on the other side of the counter, on a stool. Kept looking at her legs. Hitching up on his elbows to see.
"Don't," she said, but didn't really mean it. She'd needed someone to want her like this all year, and was only just starting to realize. She'd needed something like this all her life, probably.
"Take your shorts off," he said.
"No."
"Your top."
"No," she said. Then, curious, "If it was one or the other, which?"
"Is it?"
"Just answer."
He actually looked unsure. Worried, like the choice really mattered. It was flattering and sweet, and for that, terribly sexy.
"Choose," she said. Lifted the shirt a little, pushed at the shorts.
"Top," he said.
She pulled it off and got things out the cupboards with bare tits. He watched. Watched very carefully.
She kept grinning at him. She was relaxing. He seemed so into her, she was starting to believe he was.
"Why maths?" she said. Then suddenly thought she sounded like a professor and disgusted herself a bit. Then realized he wasn't listening anyway, and put her shirt back on, and asked again. She was fucking a guy who was so into her his brain actually shut off when her boobs were out. She couldn't quite believe it.
"Take it off," he said.
"Nope."
"Please?"
"Not safe to cook with that much bare skin," she said. "Why maths?"
"I'm good at it."
She nodded. "Same here. But there's more than that."
"Not really." He seemed to be thinking. "You're better than me. That makes it different."
She didn't answer because it was obvious. She chopped garlic instead.
"It's different for you," he said. "I think, one lecture..."
She glanced up. He looked a bit guilty, like he'd done something wrong. "Just say it," she said.
"Last year. You were talking about real maths and what people think maths is. How it isn't mechanical, it's like art."
She waited.
"It isn't like that for me. I don't think it is for most people. For you, it's a different thing. You can see these beautiful things all around you that the rest of us can't."
He sounded almost envious. She looked at him, and thought, really thought, what a horrible thing it would be to lose that. Thought how it was for most people, how blind they were.
She was starting to feel guilty. That she had this thing he couldn't share. Normally, when that happened, she'd got angry and bitchy and resented the other person for being stupid. Now, she felt bad, and wanted to make it right. Either she was changing a lot, very suddenly, or she was really into him.
"I could show you," she said, then wondered if that was too much. She didn't want to get locked into some long-term arrangement, didn't want to waste hours on a guy that was just a one-off fling.
"Yeah," he said, and his voice was odd. He was actually a little sad, she thought. "I mean, thank you, but I don't think you could. I think it's something that's there or isn't, not something anyone can learn."
Beth had thought the same herself. She suddenly wondered how it was to be around people like her, people seeing all these wonderful things, and know you couldn't see them yourself. A little like being blind in a world of artists, she thought, and wasn't sure it was a very nice thing to be.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What for?"
"I don't know. You're upset, and I don't want you to be."
"Not upset."
"It's like I showed you something you can't ever have, and that's a bit unfair. Showed all of you that. All the students."
He shrugged.
She didn't know what to do. It was all getting too personal, was turning into more than great sex with a random man she'd found at a party. First talking about Robert, now this.
"You really like that I'm smart?" she said. "Not just... available."
"I really like that you're smart."
She thought about that. She didn't think anyone had before, not really. They all said they did, even Robert, but what they really meant was they'd put up with it. Like small tits. They'd accept her with that flaw, but wouldn't miss it if it suddenly disappeared. She hadn't realized before, but smart was everything she was, the most important part of her. Maths was everything, a secret part she very rarely shared, and only tolerating that, only putting up with that, meant they didn't really know her at all.
Like her tits. Exactly like her tits. She liked them being small, liked how she fit into clothes. She always had, and actually pitied girls with big tits who couldn't wear what they wanted, right up until some asshole made her feel inadequate. But if someone was really into her, they should want her exactly as she was, not have this mental catalogue of shit to change. Ethan was into her tits, and her mind, and it was starting to seem like he might really be into her.
After a while she leaned over and kissed him. She had to climb up a bit on the bench to reach across.
"Thank you," she said. "I think that's rare, and I really fucking like that you do."
He looked at her for a while.
"Liking me smart," she said.
He smiled.
"I don't see software," she said. "Some people do, I know people who do, but I can't see what software is meant to be by looking at the source code. Not like I can a function."
"That's just knowing the language well."
"No shit. Same with maths. Just a bigger language. But it's also thinking a particular way, and I can't. And I think you can."
He was nodding slowly. He seemed unsure, and for a moment she had a horrible feeling he was remembering her wanting to know his grade and thinking she might not fuck him again if he said he couldn't, and came across as stupid. She didn't know what to say, but in the end he nodded, and said yeah, that made sense. She was relieved. She hadn't meant to put him on the spot.
She started cutting an onion. She didn't cry, never did, because she used a sharp knife, and Amanda was the only person who'd ever believed her when she said that made a difference. Amanda had said, yeah, dick, because bruising the flesh releases sulfuric acid, which irritates your nose. So somehow that didn't count.
She chopped, and thought, and after a while said, "So I sound like a total wanker saying this, but maths is like seeing into the mind of god. All that Bertrand Russell, supreme truth and beauty, cold and austere and all that shit."
He was looking at her.
"If you want to know me you have to know this."
"I know," he said.
"This is important to me," she said, feeling a little defensive.
"Yeah," he said. "I know. You said it last year, in..."
Her first lecture. Trying to get them interested. "Yeah, I did. And stop."
