Pure Sweet Poison | Bwwm| On Hold

8|Carl

I always wondered if I ever really loved Beth. She came into my life when I needed a woman most. Reina was driving me crazy and the babysitter I hired was not helping much. I had a feeling she only accepted the job for money but not because she had any love for it, or children fort that matter. So, Beth a woman with a big maternal side had come in. Beth was a very beautiful woman and that earned her my attraction but my interest stemmed from her maternal acts. And the fact that I thought we liked the same things. My love for Beth, or lack of was still something I was trying to figure out.

The reminder tone on my phone sounded and I reached out for the phone. Removing it from the table, I leaned back on the couch. Scripts, it said. I stood up and went into the dining room. The laptop was waiting for me on the table. Turning it on, I logged in to my email and started downloading the essays from the assignment id given to my neuropsychology class. After I’d downloaded all the twenty five, I opened my marking guide.

Out of curiosity, I decided to read Aliana’s essay first. From the first paragraph, I was hooked. I knew I could read an essay like that even if I did not have to. There was a certain playfulness to how she approached the topic, a breath of fresh air. There was formality to it but it wasn’t too scholarly. She definitely knew all the ingredients of an excellent essay and she had mixed them well, even I couldn’t do it. It was a fantastic read. What with the aesthetic quality and well reasserted facts. I couldn’t help but feel like knowing how well the woman’s mind worked. She had a lot to offer the world of neuropsychology.

Without Reina, the house had become bigger. It was like a cave. Joselyn had given me the phone number of a babysitter she knew but I was yet to contact her. I felt lonely. Maybe that was why I was thinking of the women that had been in my life a lot. Marlene, Beth…and that’s probably why when I saw Aliana’s number on the screen, I thought of calling her. All the students had to include their contacts on the cover page so it’d make it easy if I wanted to check up about something in the essay. I decided to abandon he idea of calling Aliana and continued marking. When I found an essay of a woman called Natalia mills, I developed a headache and decide id continue the next day and I would mark it last.

The thought of calling Aliana was still in my mind because I was increasingly growing curious about her. I wanted to know what she did for a living, what she loved (or who), and what made her life worthwhile. A picture of our meeting scene at the bar presented itself in my mind. When our eyes had met. Had she felt it too? The spark. Was it just a physiological reaction of two bodies of the opposite sex coming close? Spending time with her was the way to go so I set aside space in my notepad and wrote down what I’d ask her. It made me feel like a teenage school boy in love but I didn’t care.

Hi Aliana. This is Carl Winter. I was just reading through your essay and loved it.

Would that work?  No, I decided. It sounded too fast. That would give an implication that I was nervous. Surely, I didn’t want my students to think I became nervous when talking to them.

I decided I’d go with the flow. I grabbed my phone and typed in the number, hesitated for a few minutes before calling. Five rings later when I was about to give up, she answered.

“Hello,” I heard her beautiful voice.

“How are you?” I asked, with all the confidence I could master.

“I’m okay,” she said. I could tell that she was not sure how to talk to the stranger calling her. “How are you?”

“I’m good. This is Carl winter.”

“Oh the lecturer? How are you, doctor winter?” her voice seemed to have become sweeter.

“Call me Carl.”

“Alright, Carl.”

“I have finished reading your essay,” I said. This was not going the way I expected it to go in my mind.

“Oh, is there a problem with it?”

“No, actually I think it’s great.”

“Oh okay,” she breathed a sigh of relief.

“I love how you presented your arguments” I paused but continued before she could reply. “I’d like to meet you and we talk about it.” I didn’t care about seeming forward at all. I only hoped she’d take it well.

“That’d be great,” I noted some enthusiasm in her voice.

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Where would you like?”

“We can meet at that bar we met in. Do you want a more formal place?”

“No, that’s alright.”

After that call, I took a deep breath.