Lisa rang the doorbell once. Then twice. Then again, this time holding in the buzzer for a long moment. She knew there was no way that Rick had time to get to the door, not unless he happened to be standing right next to it, but she wanted to establish right off the bat that he was dealing with someone who was not going to take any of his shit. Oh, she knew all about him, even though they'd never actually met. Rick Gallo had left his fucking signature on at least a dozen girls, and she'd let it go for about as long as she could stand.
It was one thing for him to go pick up some townie girl and leave her the next morning with an empty wallet, a stupid grin, and a vague urge to get tied up. Hell, except for the urge to get tied up, that was probably par for the course on a Saturday morning in this town. But Cassie...she didn't deserve someone like Rick taking an interest in her. Sure, it was probably unrealistic of Lisa to expect Cassie to go through life without someone putting a few dents in her bright, shiny optimism, but a guy like Rick? He'd leave her a smoldering wreck without even realizing how much damage he'd done, unless Lisa stepped in.
She jabbed the buzzer sharply a few more times, knowing that at least some of the anger that she was about to vent onto Rick was really directed at herself--she'd noticed plenty of girls with bits of little pink fog drifting through their heads where thoughts used to be, and it didn't take much poking around in there to find little traces of one Rick Gallo, perpetual college student and full-time "guy who knew a guy". But there had always seemed to be bigger targets, worse guys, and new guys every year who needed to be taught a lesson. Lisa was only one woman, after all. He'd never seemed worth the effort of tracking down.
Tell that to Cassie, she snapped at herself, furiously stabbing her finger against the doorbell again. If there's anything left of her to understand you after Rick gets through with her. The moment when Sarah came to class, with a fog in her memory where last night should have been and no idea where Cassie had gotten to, stabbed at Lisa like a needle in her mind's eye.
But self-recrimination could wait. For right now, Lisa had a nice, big, juicy target to focus all of her anger on, and he was in this apartment with Cassie. Lisa held her finger down on the button for another long, satisfying moment. Oh, he had no fucking clue what kind of shitstorm he'd called down. That clumsy, sleazy, low-rent Svengali wannabe was about to learn just what Professor Lisa Stensgaard did to fuckers who preyed on women on this campus. She was actually looking forward to his feeble attempts at fighting back--if he actually had a chance to make any. Rick probably wouldn't even know what hit him.
Lisa wondered if he even knew that there were other telepaths out there.
*****
Rick took his sweet time getting to the door. He could feel the anger radiating out from Lisa all the way to the bedroom, and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to be able to calm her down, so he figured he might as well let it build up a little more. Anger wasn't really all that much use in situations like this. You had to keep your self-control, or otherwise who knew who might wind up controlling you instead?
Not that Rick got into many fights. Really, there never seemed to be a profit in it. Who wanted to be one of those big hot-shots with harems full of bikini models and piles of cash? All you ever did was attract attention to yourself from someone like Professor Angry out there, who felt like she was more than willing to castrate his fucking brain over one tiny little freshwench. God alone knew what she'd do if she thought he had a harem.
No, Rick generally liked to keep a low profile, live a modest but comfortable lifestyle, and let everyone else have the dick-measuring competitions. He'd always avoided taking Women's Studies classes for that very reason; why draw attention to yourself when you kept finding guys on campus who'd had their libidos stamped flat and Lisa Stensgaard's fingerprints all over the inside of their minds? But it looked like she'd finally found him, and oddly enough, Rick found himself looking forward to it. Screw it, he figured. Let her take her shot at him. She was bound to come gunning for him sooner or later, and Cassie was the kind of girl that was worth fighting over. She was a real peach, that girl--all she needed was just a little more experience sucking cock and she'd be downright perfect.
Rick fumbled with the chain, deliberately rattling it around a bit to make it sound like he was having trouble getting the door open. He wasn't sure if she'd be even more annoyed by the delay, or if she'd think he had a case of nerves, but it didn't much matter. Either one would be good. He finally slid the chain all the way off and opened the door. "Hi," he said, adjusting his robe just a little to make it clear that he'd just gotten out of bed.
He figured he'd get a little mileage out of that. Lisa had to know who he'd just gotten out of bed with.
*****
Lisa glared daggers at him, but Rick didn't even seem to notice. "Um, if you're looking for Cassie," he said vaguely, thumbing back towards the door, "I don't think she's up quite yet. She had a little too much to drink last night, and I brought her back here so she could sleep it off..."
Even as he rambled, Lisa could feel tiny little feelers of mental energy crawling against her thoughts, pressing against her defenses and testing for signs of weakness. Her estimation of him went up just a tiny bit--he might still be acting like a dim-witted incoherent shell of a man, babbling feeble excuses because he was still too hungover to realize just how pissed-off Lisa actually was, but his mind was sharp and alert and not nearly as weak as she'd imagined. She'd figured him to be the kind of guy who just barely got by with the tiny amount of power he had, using it to influence the weak-minded so he never had to do any real work in life.
Telepaths like that were a dime a dozen; some of them didn't even know they had any powers, they just figured they had a knack for "reading people" and a talent for being persuasive. The ones that figured it out tended to get cocky, fast; they'd start thinking they could do anything to anybody. They'd try to build up a harem of slaves or something, and then they'd run into Lisa or someone like her, and get smacked down flat.