One Plus Two Minus One

Beth was taking risks. She had Ethan at her place far more often than was sensible, as if some part of her was tired of lying and wanted to get caught. She felt a kind of desperation to be with Ethan, to touch him. She needed him, and her need seemed to be made stronger by having to keep him away. She took risks, knowing it was only a matter of time until something went wrong, and didn't actually seem to care.

One day it went wrong. Badly wrong.

Robert cancelled a lunchtime lecture because of a broken projector. Cancelled the lecture, and told his students to go home, he'd put everything on the course website, and he went home too.

Beth only found that out later.

She was lying on her back, on the bed, watching Ethan jerk himself off onto her face. She was laughing, was stroking Ethan's balls and telling him to come. His cock was shiny and slippery with her and her spit, and she vaguely thought she heard something downstairs, but ignored it because she knew Robert had a class. She was distracted. Ethan was close, and she was close, and they'd just been sixty-nining and she was waiting for Ethan to get himself off so he could go back down and finish her.

Ethan came. Semen landed on her cheek, and went in her mouth, and she stuck her tongue out and caught what she could because she knew Ethan would be looking.

And Robert said, "Beth," from the doorway.

It was about the worst way to get caught she could think of. There was no way Robert would ever understand.

Ethan said, "Shit," and panicked, and looked around for something to hide his cock behind, found a pillow in the end, and knelt there holding it in front of himself. Beth knew how he came fairly well, and was almost certain he hadn't finished, that a couple more spurts would have gone onto the pillow. Unless Robert appearing had put him off enough he'd just stopped.

Beth wanted to laugh. That surprised her. She wasn't worried and she didn't get a fright. She wasn't embarrassed at what she was doing, not really, or violated by being watched. She just thought it was funny. Robert was there, and she'd been caught, and she was naked with Ethan's spunk all over her face, and she just wanted to laugh.

Robert hadn't said anything, so Beth sat up. She could taste Ethan. She could smell sex in the room, and feel Ethan's semen warm on her chin and cheek and lip. She had some in her mouth, and didn't know if she should swallow, because even here, even naked and caught like this, having someone else see her make a swallowing movement seemed far too personal. In the end she had to, that or choke, so she did, quickly, then just sat there, and Robert still didn't react. After another minute she leaned over and got a couple of tissues, and wiped her face, then pulled the sheet up over her chest.

She didn't know what to do next.

Robert was just standing there, like he was too horrified to move.

"Could you give me a sec?" she said to Ethan.

"I'll go."

"Don't go, just wait downstairs."

He nodded.

Ethan looked around, and seemed to remember his clothes were somewhere downstairs, and kept hold of his pillow while he edged out the room.

Robert almost didn't move out the doorway. Enough Ethan had to hesitate, and look at him, like he was wondering whether to ask.

"Get the fuck out of the way," Beth said to Robert, and then Robert stepped aside.

That was when Beth realized Robert was angry. He wasn't showing it, because he hardly ever did. He was motionless and calm, probably because he didn't know what else to do. He clearly didn't know how to deal with this, if he should shout at Beth, or call her a slut, or throw things, or what. So he just stood there.

Beth sat for a while, silent too. Robert still didn't do anything. She decided he wasn't going to, and wiped her face again, on the sheet, put it down, and went into the ensuite to drink a little water out of her cupped hand. Her hand still tasted of Ethan.

"How long?" Robert said from the doorway.

She hadn't realized he'd followed her. "A while," she said. "It doesn't matter."

"He's your student."

She nodded.

"So this is why we haven't been having sex."

"Nope. This was because we haven't."

"Don't be a bitch."

She looked at him for a moment and wondered if he wanted to hit her. She almost wanted to ask.

"I'm not," she said. "I didn't know where you and I were. I met Ethan. I haven't done anything wrong."

"You should have told me. That was wrong."

"That was inconsiderate, not wrong."

"Beth..."

"Excuse me," she said, and stepped forward, and he got out her way, let her back out into the bedroom. Her clothes were downstairs too, in the hall. Robert must have seen them when he came in and known something was up.

"How long were you standing there?" she said.

"Long enough."

She opened a drawer, got jeans and a tee shirt, didn't bother with anything else. "How long?"

"How could you let someone do that to you?"

She pulled the jeans on. "Come on me?"

He looked at her.

"Just because you don't want to," she said. "Doesn't mean no-one does."

He didn't answer that, either. She pulled the shirt over her head, and said, "I'll go talk to Ethan. You can stay up here, or leave, whichever you want. One or the other. I'll talk to you later, when you've calmed down a bit."

"I'm not un-calm."

"That's the fucking problem. You should be."

He didn't seem to understand.

"I'm kind of waiting for you to lose it," Beth said. "I don't want to be around when you do."

"I'm not going to."

"Even so."

He nodded slowly. "I'll go."

"Okay."

"Could you be here later? In a couple of hours? And make sure he isn't?"

"Of course."

"I'll talk to you then."

Beth followed Robert downstairs. Robert looked at Ethan as he went past, a kind of sullen, angry look, but didn't say anything. He went to the door, went out without speaking, and that seemed to be that. Beth stood where she was for a moment, until she was sure Robert had gone, then went over and kissed Ethan and said, "Sorry."

"You okay?"

She nodded. "I suppose that's been bound to happen."

"What will he do?"

"I don't know."

"He seems weirdly calm."

"Yeah. University people. He's so busy detaching from the world and thinking about what he feels that he doesn't actually have feelings."

Ethan looked at her.

"Almost not joking," she said. "Come back to bed."

He seemed surprised. "You still feel like it?"

"Ah," she said. "Yeah. I haven't yet." After a minute. "And don't look at me like that."

"I'm not."

"You think I'm some kind of monster."

"I think you're sexy and smart and do things your way."

"And haven't come yet," she said. "And I'd like to."

"Okay," he said.

"Fuck," she said. "Don't do that. You got off. I didn't. I want to finish up, that's all. It's not weird."

"It's kind of weird."

"Okay, it's kind of weird, but we're doing it anyway, so come upstairs and eat me out."

He grinned, and followed her up the stairs, and Beth lay there while he licked her and decided not to care about Robert. It wasn't worth worrying, or caring what Robert was going to do, until he came back and told her. So maybe she had no feelings either, but at least she was getting head while she waited.

*

Robert reappeared about two in the afternoon. He knocked before he opened the door.

"He's gone," Beth said, from the kitchen table. She was sitting there with half a bottle of wine, an empty glass ready for Robert, and another she was sipping from in her hand.

"It's a bit early to drink, isn't it?" he said.

"Not today."

He nodded, and sat down, and poured wine for himself. Beth watched him. He was calm. He was still weirdly calm, and Beth didn't understand why.

"You'll be in shit if anyone finds out," Robert said.

She tried to decide if that was a threat or not. "That's what you want to say to me?" she said. "Out of everything you could say?"

He shrugged. "You will be in shit. I'm just being practical."

"So don't tell anyone."

He didn't answer. She assumed that was meant to tell her he might.

"Yeah," Beth said. "Or do what you want. If you want to hurt me, go ahead. I'll just tell the department and get someone else to mark his work. It isn't really a problem."

"Except for being the slutty professor who fucks her students."

She looked at him for a while. "Funny you said slutty then."

"So?"

"You don't think anyone else sleeps with their students? Except I'm a girl, so I shouldn't?"

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not. Don't call me stupid."

"You're trying to turn cheating into some half-assed feminism thing to make it okay."

"It wasn't cheating, and it is a feminist thing, and nothing I did isn't okay."

He thought about that for a while, she wondered if he'd argue about the cheating. "So you don't mind me telling academic services?" he said.

"Do what you want. Be a bully if you want. I don't give a fuck any more."

Another silence. Robert was calm, wasn't raising his voice or trying to hit her, but his eyes were angry and he was worrying about the wrong things. Beth tried to work out if it just hadn't sunk in yet, or if it was something else. That he was so controlling he wasn't going to let himself think about things that hurt him, and would worry about her career instead.

"Tell me what you want to do," she said. "And we can start talking about what happens next. At the moment I'm just waiting to see if you plan to call me names or walk out or what."

"I don't know."

"Okay," she said, and waited.

"Will you stop with this guy?" Robert said. "If I ask you to?"

"No."

"So we're over?"

Beth sat there for a while. "I don't know."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know."

"I don't understand you."

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

She thought about Robert and ending what they had. She was strangely reluctant to let go of him, and she didn't know why.

"All the things we said we'd do together," she said. "I still want to do. You should know that. None of that's changed."

She meant it as a consolation, as something that might help. Robert thought it was a negotiation.

"You just want to fuck your students too?" he said.

She shrugged, was starting to get a little irritated. She seemed to be making all the effort.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine. I'm sorry everything got so complicated."

Silence again. Beth didn't know what to say. This was them. This was how they'd always been, saying things that didn't really matter instead of things that did. She sipped her wine, and Robert watched her, and she ignored him. She did actually want Robert, she thought, want him and almost need him. She needed what they were to each other. Needed the way they fit, the plan they had for their lives. It was just that lately she hadn't liked him very much, and was losing track of herself and what actually mattered.

She knew she was hurting Robert. She was hurting Robert, but she wanted Ethan, and somewhere along the line you had to do what was right for you. She wasn't sure if she ought to care about Robert any more, or just get him out of her life. She didn't know what to think about anything.

She looked at Robert for a while and wondered how upset he really was. He wasn't showing it, so she wasn't sure. This was how she tore his life apart, she thought. She'd wondered sometimes how she would do it if she had to.

Robert seemed to have been thinking too. "You still want us to be something to each other?" he said.

"Yep. We don't have to, though."

"What kind of something?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know what you can cope with."

"What, like forgiving you?"

She sat there for a while and tried to work that out. "Forgiving me how?" she said.

"For this. For what you did."

"I don't want you to forgive me," she said. "I want you to be okay being friends. Having each other in our lives."

"Oh," Robert said, surprised. Like he hadn't thought of that. Then he looked upset, as if he'd just realized this was all a lot worse than he'd expected.

Beth felt a little sorry for him.

"You're really not ending it with him?" Robert said.

"Nope. I don't think so."

"You're serious? I'd just assumed you'd stop with him now I'd found out."

"I just said I wouldn't."

"I know, but..."

"I thought you might," she said. "Assume."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. I thought earlier you'd assume I was ending things with Ethan. I was right."

"You really aren't?"

"I don't know. Probably not."

"You're ending things with me?"

"That's up to you."

"You want both of us? At the same time?"

"Not really. And that wouldn't be fair, anyway."

"You really have to decide what you want, Beth."

"I really don't have to do anything. You really have to decide yourself. You're still here, being vague, trying to find out what I plan to do. Just decide yourself, and tell me to get with the program or fuck off."

"Tell you that?"

"Yeah. Then I'll know. Then I can decide shit too."

Robert looked at her for a while. "Okay, Beth," he said. "I'll leave you if you do this. If you don't end it with him."

"No, you won't."

"I'll try."

"So try."

She suddenly remembered that they'd been here before. That she'd wanted to break up, several times, in the first few months, and Robert had always talked her out of it. By nagging or begging or being sweet enough she felt guilty. It surprised her she'd forgotten that, and it only came back to her now.

"Is there anything I can say to change your mind?" he said.

"We've said too much. I'm sick of talking."

"And this is how you fix it?"

"I told you. I'm not fixing us, I'm fixing me. The us doesn't follow."

"You're really a bitch, you know that."

"Yep," she said, and stood up. "And that pretty much settles it. I'm going back to work. There's a couple of things I need to do."

"That kid?"

"No, you dick. Review a paper. Proof-read someone's grant application."

He looked at her for a moment as though he hated her, then slowly nodded. Beth suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn't normal to go back to her office so quickly after all this, that it might look unkind.

"Tonight," she said. "Come up to bed when you're ready. You don't need to sleep on the couch or anything."

He looked at her for a while.

"And I won't make anything obvious," she said. "I won't be mean. You won't see him again unless you go looking for it. I'll go out of my way to make sure that doesn't happen, while we work all this out."

"Thanks."

She decided she should be clear. "So don't push if I'm being vague. Take a hint. Don't come to my office without warning me."

"Yeah, I got it."

She kissed him quickly and got her shoes and coat and walked back to her office across the playing fields. On the way she phoned Ethan and said everything was all right.

"Do you want to meet up?" he said.

She thought. "Better not."

It seemed the thing to do. Like she should stay away from Ethan, grieve for a day she what she was losing with Robert before she got into bed with someone else.

"Okay," he said. "Call if you need me."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Glad it's out there, now."

"Me too."

Silence.

"Hey," he said. "Can I ask what's happening?"

"With me and you?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated. She wondered why she was so hard and uncompromising with Robert, and so willing to work around what Ethan needed from her. She didn't really need to wonder, because she knew exactly why. She didn't like Robert very much and she did like Ethan. It just didn't seem fair.

"I'd almost promise you nothing changes," she said. "I'm that sure nothing will I'd almost promise. But I won't actually promise."

"Okay."

"Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it does."

"Just give me a couple of days to get him out the house."

"And then?"

"Then we're back how we were. Everything is how it should be."

"Happy ever after," he said.

"Yeah."

"Be safe," he said. "Okay."

"I will," she said, and wondered what he was worrying about. "Nothing like that's going to happen."

"Okay, but still be safe."

"Yeah," she said. "Bye."

*

Beth didn't see Ethan for a couple of days, while she waited for Robert to do whatever he was going to do. She missed Ethan, and got horny, but made herself wait. She called Ethan a few times and explained she was trying to keep everything calm, to let Robert have some time, and Ethan seemed to understand.

She was trying to give Robert space, let him decide things, and adjust, and be there to talk if he needed her, too. She felt guilty. She'd hurt him, and she'd loved him once, and she wanted him not to hurt more than he had to. She thought he'd get over this fairly quickly, if he wasn't left alone to brood. It wasn't like they'd been close the last year. It wasn't like they were much more than friends. Everything that was upsetting him now was really just pride, not like a real partner had been caught with someone else. She also didn't want him running off to report her sleeping with Ethan, wherever he might actually report that. She didn't know if he would, and it wasn't entirely about that, but part of it was.

Robert was avoiding her, she thought, leaving early and staying in his office until late and pretending to be asleep when she was in the bedroom. He was drinking a bit. She could smell it when he came to bed. It was something he'd always done, when he was stressed or upset, and she didn't really care. The silence was starting to irritate her, though. She was making herself available to help, and her help didn't seem to be wanted. Worse, it seemed like indecision as an intentional plan, a delay by avoidance. As if he thought he could win her back by doing nothing until she got over her little tantrum. As if he thought she'd change her mind if he was just around. As if, since she was being polite enough to wait and finalize things with him before she moved on too much, he could just leave her hanging, indefinitely, making sure that if he couldn't have her, no-one else could either, because nothing was resolved. He was probably just dealing with it all, she knew, and trying to avoid a confrontation, but it was starting to get annoying.

By the second day of that she wanted to get on with things. She wanted Ethan. She'd almost decided she was just going to throw Robert out if he didn't start talking soon, and then, the third morning, he did.

He was sitting in the kitchen when she came downstairs.

"Hey," she said, and waited to see what he'd do.

"We need to talk."

"Yeah," she said. "I suppose we do. Let me wake up, okay?"

She put on the kettle and went back upstairs and got dressed. She was a little surprised. She'd thought Robert would stall longer. Maybe she didn't know him as well as she thought.

She went back down and made coffee, ate toast, and Robert watched her while she did.

After a while she said, "Okay."

"Could you tell me what happened?" he said. "I don't understand this, and I really need to."

"I don't know."

"Please," he said. "Just try."

She thought for a while. "We're a mess," she said. "We're so much a mess I don't even know if I care how fucked up and distant we are any more. I think I've wanted to leave you for a while, but I'm not sure, because you weren't here, and we never talked, so I never had to decide anything."

Robert looked like he wanted to cry. "Should I go?" he said. "Move out?"

She shook her head.

"You're sure?"

"Yes," she said. "Not right away. If I say you have to leave, you'll say you've only just started a job and have nowhere to live and can I wait a month, and then it'll be another thing, and another, and on we go."

Now he looked like he wanted to hit her. She held her cup, got ready to throw it. He never had, had never hinted he would, but she'd never completely trusted him. He got too calm when he was angry, and he didn't swear enough. Like he was holding everything inside.