Chapter 4: Right On My Throat

Mia's POV

 I dropped down behind Lila so fast I nearly knocked her off her seat.

"What is wrong with you?" she whispered, grabbing my arm.

I pressed my hand over my mouth and said nothing because there were no words in the English language for what was currently happening to me.

I told Lila everything on the walk home and she was so quiet for so long afterward that it scared me a little.

"Say something," I said.

"I am processing," she said, and then, "Mia. Your professor."

"I know."

"The man you slept with last night is your professor." She said

"Lila, I know."

She shook her head slowly. 

"Okay. Okay, does he know it is you? Like does he know your name?"

"I don't think so," I said, 

 "and as long as nobody says anything, it stays that way."

Which reminded me of something I had been trying not to think about all morning, Derek, my boyfriend. I had not called him last night, had not even thought about him until right now and that alone told me something about the state of us lately.

I tried his number when I got back to the dorm. It rang out.

We had plans that evening, dinner at the place near campus we always went to, and I waited for him outside at seven, then seven thirty, then past eleven before I finally accepted that he was not coming.

I tried calling again but nothing.

I told myself I was not going to go to his hostel but I went anyway because I needed to know he was okay and not just ignoring me, and I walked across campus in the dark and knocked on his door and when it swung open my whole body went cold.

Jade was riding my completely naked boyfriend with her dress rolled up on her breasts and his mouth latched unto her left nipple. They were on the chair with his head thrown aback. They splited apart the moment I came in and Jade stared at me while Derek was still scrambling for his boxers.

We stared at each other and the silence between us was so loud I could hear my own heartbeat and then her expression shifted from shock into something harder and she stepped forward slightly, lowering her voice.

"If you even think about making this into something," she said quietly, her eyes steady on mine, "I will make sure every single person on this campus knows exactly what you were doing last night." She added and I ran off before I even realized it.

Whatever happened In there didn't hurt me. No, it wasn't. I did worse the night before, and it is fine if my said boyfriend had been cheating on me all along.

*********

The money hit my account the next morning and I stared at the number on my screen for a long time before I finally got up and went straight to the hospital to sort out the payment before I could second guess myself or feel anything complicated about where it came from.

The woman at the billing desk processed everything without looking up and handed me a receipt and told me my mother was scheduled for surgery in two days. It was done and I walked out into the morning air and stood on the pavement and breathed for what felt like the first time in weeks.

We had Professor Damien Cross's course that day so I rushed to class.

I had looked up the course requirements the night before, lying on my bed and trying to be practical about everything, and the result was not good. 

Contemporary Literature was a core unit and if I failed or withdrew it would roll over into the next semester and the one after that, delaying my entire degree, and I could not afford that in any sense of the word so dropping it was simply not an option no matter how complicated the situation was.

I was stuck.

I kept my eyes down for most of the lecture, taking notes I did not fully process, and I was halfway out of my seat when his voice called out.

"Miss Calloway, stay back please."

Lila's head snapped toward me so fast I felt the movement and she pressed her lips together like she was physically holding in a comment.

"Not a word," I said under my breath, grabbing my bag.

"I did not say anything," she whispered back, but the look on her face said everything she was not saying out loud and I ignored it completely and waited for the room to empty.

His office was at the end of the department corridor, the door already open when I got there, and he was standing behind his desk looking exactly as composed as he always did.

I stayed near the door.

"You wanted to see me," I said, keeping my voice flat.

"Close the door," he said, and when I did not move he added, "please," in a tone that made it clear the please was a formality and not a request.

I closed it.

He looked at me for a moment, then sat down and leaned back in his chair with the kind of ease that irritated me because nothing about this situation was easy and he seemed completely unbothered by all of it.

"I want to offer you a permanent position," he said, 

"at the club, on my arrangement specifically, structured payments, set schedule, and complete discretion."

I stared at him.

"You are serious," I said.

"I am always serious." He replied.

"I am your student," I said slowly, like maybe he had forgotten, 

"I only went there because I needed money urgently, that was it, that was the only reason, and now you are sitting there offering me what exactly, a job? You think I am that kind of person?"

"I think you are a person who needed money badly enough to show up at my club alone at midnight," he said, his voice even,

 "so yes, I am offering you a solution and you can be offended by it or you can be practical, your choice."

"I am not interested," I said simply.

"Miss Calloway..."

"I said no," I told him, and walked out.

I managed to hold the anger together all the way back to the dorm and then I sat on my bed and stared at the wall for twenty minutes trying to decompress and it was not working because the worst part of the whole thing was that he had not been wrong exactly, he had just been unbearably clinical about it, reducing the whole thing to a transaction.

I was still sitting there when my phone buzzed.

It was an unknown number but the message was short, just a link and one line underneath it: "The offer stands. Whenever you are ready."

I almost threw my phone across the room.

I put it face down on the bed and did not touch it for the rest of the evening.

Three days later he was not in class.

A note had been left with the department instead, it was an assignment, two thousand words on narrative perspective in postmodern fiction, due the following morning, and at the bottom of the printed sheet a line said: Submission to Professor Cross's office directly, 9am.

The girl sitting next to me nudged my arm, "He wants you to submit for the class," she said, nodding at the sheet and I looked down and saw my name written at the bottom.

Of course it was.

I knocked on his office door at nine the next morning with a folder of printed assignments under my arm and absolutely no intention of letting anything happen and he said come in and I went in and set the folder on his desk and turned to leave immediately.

"How is your mother?" he said.

I stopped.

It was such a specific question, too specific, and I turned around slowly and looked at him.

"How do you know about my mother?" I said.

He did not answer that, just looked at me in that way he had, and he stood and came around the desk and I took a step back but the wall was right there and then he was in front of me and his hand came up to brush my jaw and I told myself firmly to move and my body did not listen.

"You are tense," he said quietly.

"Do not touch me," I said, but my voice came out smaller than I intended.

His thumb traced along my jaw and something traitorous moved through me from that one point of contact, warmth spreading outward, and I hated it, I hated how easily he did this, how little effort it took him to make my whole body forget every sensible thought I had.

He leaned in slightly, his mouth close to my ear.

"Tell me to stop," he said.

I opened my mouth and my phone rang.

The sound cut through everything and I grabbed it from my pocket and looked at the screen and felt my stomach drop because it was the hospital and I answered before I even thought about it.

"Miss Calloway," the doctor's voice said

 "your mother's condition has changed overnight, we need to discuss her care urgently and there is a possibility we will need additional funding before we can proceed with surgery."

The room went cold.

"I am on my way," I said and was already moving toward the door, Damien stepping aside without a word, and I did not look back as I ran.