Please talk to me. I can't bear it when you are distant like this
3 hours and still no response.
Sarah checked the cut of her top one last time. She had agonised over it, deliberately chosen a happy medium between prude and slut. She knew she had pulled it off, but that didn't stop her being nervous. She wasn't used to performing in such a crowded room, not liking the thought that someone she knew might be watching. Students were stomping all over the university cafeteria, carrying food and phones and textbooks, chatting, unworried. She found the right table and sat down.
The unhappy looking adolescent opposite watched her warily. He muttered an introduction and reached into his bag. The manila folder he withdrew looked more professional than Sarah was expecting. MATH283 was printed in big block letters, and beneath that her name. She peeked inside and saw a dozen or so pages crowded with text.
"The money?" the boy asked.
Sarah made one last survey of the flocks of people around her. Turned on her most radiant smile, looked the man straight in his faltering eyes, and leaned forward at an obliging angle.
"So, I was thinking...," Sarah started.
"I know what you're going to say. But we agreed."
She placed her hands on his clenched hands, her fingers soft on his.
"There's no way I could get a discount?"
He looked away, muttered something under his breath. She could feel the clamminess of the man's skin. He cleared his throat.
"What did you have in mind?"
------
I know you're reading these.
The cafeteria had nearly emptied, but Sarah remained alone at the table. Class was about to start but she didn't want to move. She opened up her camera roll on her phone, skimmed through the images of herself she found there. None of them seemed likely to induce a reply. The problem wasn't that her tits weren't perky enough, her figure not toned enough, her lips not beguiling enough. Instead, it was because... She paused, not wanting to give words to the thought. Her skimming ended on the first selfie she'd sent him, before she'd even thought of him that way. She was wearing a bikini in a changing room, bright yellow to match her mood that day.
Beach just like we used to?
Her back was arched, shoulders back, the curves of her slim body accentuated.
Outside in the sunlight there were people everywhere, some chatting, some jabbing pamphlets in her face, others smiling at things that could never possibly include her. She tried to not think about what she'd agreed to. She quickened her pace down the main avenue, floating through a sea of people, making eye contact with none of them. The maple trees spread their red-stained fingers overhead, where the pigeons squabbled and played.
All the way in distant C-block, she stiff-armed open the door of a bathroom and hurried into a cubicle. Licked the tip of her finger thrice before finally plucking apart the pages of the purchased coursework. Her throat was sore as she pored over the writing, she couldn't even tell if the answers written there were for the right assignment. Her bag was full of other things too, uniform for the university coffee stand she'd worked blearily at for 4 hours this morning, a novel unblemished by any hint of use, pages and pages of writing, her thoughts, sometimes of Aaron, sometimes of her parents. Writing about the people she loved gave them a solidity that helped, a place she could check on them and they'd still be there smiling back at her, obedient statues waiting in a dark room.
Sarah sat down and held her phone in trembling hands, but there still wasn't a response. Retrieved again the front page of her assignment, and using her knee as a desk, wrote her name and student ID. The letters looked small and childlike. She opened the front door of the bathroom and peeked out, but there was no-one approaching and only the faint murmur of nearby classrooms could be heard. Back in front of the mirror, Sarah sized herself up and tested out a bright smile. It worked. She looked good, and now she felt good. She'd send one more message before re-armouring herself completely, just one more moment of weakness.
Why are you punishing me
.
----
"How much did you pay for it this time?" Maria asked with eyebrows raised. Sarah had dashed in to the class room late, paying reparations with a sheepish smile. Then dumped her assignment on the desk of the unappeased Mr Caldwell, and slunk to the back of the class where Maria awaited. Halfway through the hour, having already finished this week's problem set, Maria was beginning the inevitable probing. It would've pained Sarah to admit that Maria was her best friend, but there weren't really any other candidates. Sarah had had a 3 year gap between high school and college, opting out altogether from the social carousel of early adulthood. Instead working her skin raw in the back of some kitchen, then hopping up the chain to work eventually at front of house, where she stood proud and taut every night, blouse stiff, chin up.
That was where the founder of an events company noticed her, appraised her decorum, her neatly formed sentences, and of course her figure. As he had left, he had slipped her his card, and on the back, an invitation to apply for a job. What followed was 2 giddy years of travel, excitement and achievement. By the time the company had declared bankruptcy, Sarah had saved up a tidy sum, and her brother Aaron had graduated high school. None of the several career options open to her sang to her particularly melodiously, and with Aaron no longer dependent on her income, she decided instead to get an education. But things hadn't been so easy. Her pile of cash disappeared faster than anticipated and, whatever her talents were, they did not suit the classroom. And then there were the days when despite the strength she'd grown over the years, she still felt completely alone.
"Nothing actually," Sarah said. She smiled sweetly, immediately regretted it. Maria would take her satisfaction as invitation to query further. Sarah quickly returned to her textbook, where various squiggles and symbols clamoured. But they were mute, what could she expect having paid and scammed and wheedled her way through two years of Mathematics subjects. 5 minutes later, having unsuccessfully deployed and re-deployed armies of her own squiggles, Sarah was ready to give up. Up the front of the class, Mr Caldwell observed the rows of bowed heads with great satisfaction, his expired blond hair radiating outwards from his face. Leaning over, Maria crossed out an errant Theta, and the two sides were at last equally matched.
"Well, I can tell you didn't do the assignment yourself."
"Oh shut-up," Sarah snapped, over-loud. Two bowed heads turned to stare, but the rest of the class remained still.
"So how much did you pay then?"
"Nothing, I swear."
"Then what did you promise?"
"To meet him at his dorm on the weekend."
"And will you?"
"Of course. Otherwise he'll rat me out."
Maria mulled this over, her eyes still sparkling. The steady wumpfs of Caldwell's shoes alerted them, and the two girls whipped their heads around to the front. Caldwell stood there between the rows of desks, glaring, and the girls returned to their books.
"What will your man say?" Maria whispered quietly after a moment. Sarah resisted the itch to check her phone yet again.
"When he finds out I went on a totally innocent visit to a friend's dorm?"
"You did say he was the jealous type. You finally got your first boyfriend and now you're going to screw it up?"
Sarah paused. He was the jealous type. The image of him loomed in her mind, tall, broad, shrouded in darkness. Just as he was that first night, and the many subsequent nights he came to her, announcing his presence with a swift but silent yanking open of the door, then a patient, modular undressing. That first night it was his smell that identified him, and soon his taste - how could he have tasted any other way? That inevitable intoxicating tang, a transposed version of her own. He was bold, firm, unyielding, and she the reciprocal, pliant and receptive. They soon learnt though to explore different configurations of yin and yang.
Maria was staring at her.
