Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 41137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 206(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 206(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
She has no clue what she does to me, and I’m almost afraid what she’ll do if she ever realizes just how much I feel for her.
I park my car a few houses away from Clara’s and walk the rest of the way. She lives in a typical part of the area, right next to campus and full of other students.
I think of it as the student housing ghetto in my mind, although I know I’m not supposed to. That’s basically what it is, though. It’s a bunch of houses that have been bought out by enterprising individuals, basically slumlords, and turned into apartments.
Some are nicer than others but they’re pretty much all dumps. The students don’t take care of them and the landlords don’t want to fix anything. The places are slowly falling apart, and nothing’s getting fixed.
Clara’s place is in the bottom floor of a duplex house. I knock on the front door and she answers after a moment, wearing a dress with wool leggings and a big smile.
“Hi, Professor,” she says.
“Clara,” I say. “Nice to see you.”
I step closer, kiss her on the cheek.
“Mac’s here,” she whispers in my ear.
I stand still. “What?”
“I’m sorry. She already knows.”
I blink. “Already… knows?”
She smiles at me, ushers me inside. I drift after her, feeling like the floor just dropped out from under me.
The apartment is surprisingly nice. Well, it’s crumbling as much as any of the others are, but it’s clean and well decorated. Clearly, Clara takes care of her space.
Her roommate, Mac, is a pretty blonde girl who stands and smiles when I enter the room.
“Jason,” I say, introducing myself.
“Mac. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She tosses a look at Clara, who clears her throat. “I mean, it’s nice to meet you.”
I glance between the two girls for a second. “She knows?” I ask Clara, just to confirm.
“Yep,” she says.
I sigh. “We don’t have to pretend,” I say to Mac.
“Oh, god,” she says, sighing with relief. “That was really, really hard.”
Grin at her. “Imagine how I feel.”
“I bet.” She looks at me, crossing her arms. “So do you, like, give Clara good grades for sleeping with you, or what?”
I laugh at the brazenness of the question and Clara groans.
“Mac!” she says.
“I give her money,” I cut in. “Cash, usually.”
“Oh, good. She’s a proper whore.”
“Might as well,” I say, shrugging. “Better than grades. I give her investment advice, too.”
“Practical,” Mac muses. “I appreciate that.”
“Thanks. I take care of my girls.”
Clara rolls her eyes. “Okay, this joke is super offensive. Moving on.” She grabs my hand, tugs me along behind her.
I grin to myself as she shows me the kitchen, pours two glasses of cheap wine, and leads me back to her bedroom.
“And that’s the tour,” she says. “Pretty standard stuff.”
I nod, looking around her room. “I have to admit, I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Beer bongs and empty bottles?” she asks.
“Basically.”
“We are in college, after all.”
Being in her room is strangely intimate. It hits me all at once as I look at the pictures of her family, at her books, at the decorations she has on her walls.
So far, we’ve only seen each other in more or less neutral spaces, except for when she came to my place. Being in here though, it reminds me just how much Clara is… herself.
That’s a strange way of putting it. Clara has a way of putting on a mask in public, of being a certain kind of person. But in private, she’s very much herself.
And this room is an example of that.
I pick up a yearbook. “High school?” I ask.
She snatches it away. “You’re not ready for that.”
“Probably right.” I sit on the edge of her bed. “Is it strange having me in here?”
“Actually, yes,” she says.
“Why?” I ask.
She hesitates a second. “It’s the age difference,” she says finally.
“Explain.”
She sighs and sits next to me. “So far, we’ve basically existed in your world, you know what I mean? Your house, the lab, public places, stuff like that. But this is my world, and my world is…”
“Different from mine,” I finish for her. “Younger.”
“Much younger.” She looks around. “I guess I wanted to have you here just to see if it would… fit.”
I nod, understanding all at once coming over me. “I get it,” I say softly. “And does it fit?”
“I don’t know.”
I lean closer to her. “All this stuff is just stuff, you know.”
“Is it? I feel like it’s my life.”
I wave my hand. “These are walls, just wood and sheetrock. It’s temporary. Your things, their context, it changes. You’ll see.”
“Still, it’s strange. You’re here and you just don’t fit in with everything else.”
I laugh softly and lean closer. “Do you really want me to fit in with this?”
She doesn’t answer because I don’t give her time. I kiss her slow and deep, letting her think about it for a moment.