Summary: Reader has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which her Professor is hellbent on making a little bit better.
A/N: If y'all thought you hated Kyle (bathroom bitch boy), just wait until you meet the new antagonist (of the female variety) here... I hope you all enjoy! 😚
Content Warnings: Sexual themes/fantasies
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Einstein once attributed his genius to his childlike sense of humor. Studies performed since then have largely proven his point — funny people tend to have higher IQs, which makes sense when you consider the cognitive and emotional intelligence required to produce humor.
Spencer Reid was no exception. The only problem was that his humor was so remarkably niche and impossibly specific that barely anyone could understand the punchline. He insisted to me that he'd gotten better over the years, which I only barely believed... until he told me a joke that hadn't left my mind since. A joke that he described as 'just crude enough to make it palatable to the layman.'
"Caffeine and Viagra are both phosphodiesterase inhibitors," he'd said — a slow start if there had ever been such a thing. But I held on to hope, hanging on the ecstatic, guileless smile he wore. And boy, was I glad I did, because what he'd said next broke me into a frankly embarrassing fit of giggles that returned with the memory every time.
"Which explains why both of these drugs keep you up all night."
The poor barista stuck working the busy early morning shift eyed me like I'd grown two heads when I once again devolved into laughter for no apparent reason. I almost felt embarrassed about it, but then I reassured myself that if she'd heard Dr. Spencer Reid tell a drug-induced-boner joke, she would also laugh about it forever.
I'd been thinking about him a lot lately. Not in a perverse way, either, despite his increasing comfort in breaching such topics in my presence. It was more like I'd started to infuse him into my every day, finding him in whatever way my brain would allow. While I made my way to his office, I breathed in the soothing scent drifting from the cups that were precariously perched in flimsy cardboard.
The smell took me back to quiet moments in his office. The kind of simple serenity that accompanied silence between two people who need not speak to share ideas. Where the second you looked away, you felt their eyes follow you, like the universe couldn't maintain its structural integrity without one of you looking at the other.
It was intoxicating and alluring; so easy to lose myself in. Something I knew was dangerous for a number of reasons.
For example, when I am not paying the utmost attention to my surroundings, I have a tendency to lose track of where I am and what I'm doing. I also tend to... drop things. Especially hot and otherwise dangerous things.
Things like the two cups of coffee that finally became too much for shallow, defective cardboard.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I screeched as I became acutely aware of every place where scorching hot, drenched clothing hung on angry skin. Normally, I would at least try to sound more dignified while on my way to work, but it hardly seemed like it mattered anymore.
I was too busy hurriedly tearing at my shirt and dropping everything else I was holding. I'd gotten three whole buttons on my shirt popped by the time I remembered it wasn't technically necessary. I dropped my bag immediately at the thought, tugging on the hem of the shirt and trying to bring it over my head.
Unfortunately, I still hadn't regained my grace, and in the muddled mess of fabric, I'd also grabbed hold of my undershirt. Which meant that whoever was walking through the empty halls of the early morning in academia would find me, with my stomach exposed and clothing dripping while unintelligible curses flowed freely from my lips.
I expected most people would probably just turn around and leave. I probably would've. The giant splatter of coffee and the absolute idiot slipping in it were beyond saving.
But there was at least one person who saw the mess and stayed.
I smelled his cologne before I felt his hand was pressed over the bare skin of my lower back. Despite the fact my skin was burning, it welcomed the warmth of his touch. My body stopped at his command, waiting for him to break me free of the paradoxically frozen state I was in.
He pulled the shirt back down, just enough that I could see him when he wrapped his cardigan around my shoulders and started guiding me into his office, which I'd somehow managed to almost walk straight past in my daze. I wished that I could go back there, to the imaginary world where he hadn't just seen me half disrobed and cursing while covered in the coffee that I'd meant to give to him.
Spencer's hands left me once the door was shut, probably trusting, or at least hoping, that I could figure out the mess on my own. Oddly enough, I didn't notice any signs of him staring at me. Like he only felt comfortable looking when I was clothed.
I tried not to think about it. Once I did manage to free myself of one of the shirts — without further flashing my boss — the anxiety brewing inside of me burst out in the form of frantic shouting.
"Hi Professor! I'm so sorry, I spilled the coffee!"
"Yeah, I... saw the puddle," he mumbled, throwing a cursory glance back at the hallway before his eyes met mine with a terrifying level of compassion, "Are you alright?"
"Besides the boiling liquid on my skin and the horrid embarrassment? I guess," I mumbled back before shouting, "Shit! This is why that woman sued McDonald's! Why do stores serve coffee like that?!"
Spencer didn't really say anything. In fact, he kind of just stood as frozen as I had been, staring at everything around me rather than meeting my eyes again. But while he seemed somewhat cool and composed, I continued to tug at my clothes to try and avoid the friction. It was then that he cleared his throat, covering his face just like he'd done when he saw me in an arguably more provocative position the week before.
Arguably, I said. I should have known that Spencer would win any argument. I should have considered why he was making such a point of not looking at me while I clawed at the white undershirt turned beige. But I didn't. Not until I looked down to inspect the state of my skin.
I realized then that Spencer had been trying to figure out a way to inform me that not only had the coffee turned my shirt a different shade — it had also eliminated the opacity.
He could see my bra. Spencer Reid, my boss, was trying not to stare at my very clearly visible bra.
"God, this is the worst Monday of all Mondays!" I whined between half-sobs, "and Mondays are already bad, Professor!"
There must have been something else in that cry, too. Something akin to permission. Enough for him to step closer, managing to avoid looking at my chest in the process. I'd entirely forgotten that he'd wrapped me in his cardigan until he pulled it tighter around my shoulders like his own version of an embrace.
"That they are, Bunny."
If my skin had been heated before, it turned to flames at the use of the nickname. It was honestly a pure work of magic that the liquid on me didn't turn vaporize the second I'd heard the word.
Bunny?
I pushed the thought away as quick as humanly possible, focusing instead on the way my clothes were going from uncomfortably hot to frigid as a result of the usually refreshing air conditioning. But when I was once again reminded of the obvious undergarment, I sighed.
"I can probably ask a friend to bring me a replacement shirt, or just go to class like this," I thought aloud, "No one really looks at me, anyway..."
Spencer's response came immediately, his hands flying up in protest as he shouted, "No!"
I wasn't quite sure how to reply to that, or even which part of the statement he was objecting to, so he was met with a wide-eyed, slow blinking stare.
"I-I mean, I have a shirt you can borrow. I don't want to subject you to any further embarrassment," he explained at a significantly more appropriate volume, "You can just wear my extra shirt."
He turned away from me before I could respond, shuffling through something hidden beneath his desk that created more questions than answers for me.
"Why do you have an extra shirt?"
"Go bag," he said in the most nondescript manner. It wasn't necessarily abnormal, either. The question I'd asked didn't spark any concerns in his mind, but it also wasn't the question that I felt needed to be asked.
What I really wanted to say was caught in my throat. My hands clamped together in front of me tighter than my jaw that resisted opening to make way for the thoughts that felt more scandalous than they should've been.
"U-Um, Professor don't you think—"
"Here you go," he offered with a smile. I took the large, plain black shirt with a hefty dose of caution, my hands shaking along with my broken voice that still couldn't finish the sentence from before.
Spencer finally noticed the struggle on my face, and I watched his body move from comfortable to defensive in a matter of seconds. Like he was worried he'd done something wrong in trying to be kind.
He hadn't, but I felt like I had.
"Won't people... you know?" I mumbled, motioning a hand between the two of us, "I'm showing up to your class at 8AM wearing your clothes..."
I thought that the words alone would be enough. I thought that the gesture was overkill. But Spencer was still staring at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed in thought.
I was going to have to say it.
Won't they think we're having sex?
There was no way I was going to be able to say it.
"Aren't you concerned about people getting... the wrong idea?" I blurted out, instead.
The confusion on his face shifted to a clever little self-assured smirk so fast that I almost missed the transition. My stomach flipped from the sight, but then he spoke again, and what had felt like it was filled with butterflies turned to rocks.
"I'd much rather them gossip about something that's not happening than watch the young boys ogle you instead of paying attention."
It wasn't the words, but the way that he'd said them. Like they were silly, like the idea of us being together was so preposterous it could only be entertained by people he perceived to be children.
I was foolish, too.
"Don't worry about them," he said with a wave, "Just worry about making this Monday a little bit better."
"O-okay. Thanks," I whispered, turning and running from the room only to be reminded of the mess I'd made. But the pool of tawny liquid on the floor wasn't the most disastrous thing anymore. That honor was reserved for the state of my heart, begrudgingly continuing to beat despite being broken.
Scooping up my bag that I'd abandoned before, I tried to allow myself to be happy about the little things. For instance, the fact that the shirt Spencer had handed me was probably the softest thing I'd ever felt in my life. It made sense, considering the sensory issues he always described.
Still, I waited until I was in the safety of a bathroom stall before I buried my face in the fabric. It smelled just like him, a mixture of freshly done laundry and vanilla. Much better than the cheap, burnt coffee that covered me. Funny enough, that sort of smelled like him, too.
By the time I slipped into his clothes, I had almost forgotten his joke entirely. I was too lost in the joy of sweater paws from his cardigan and fabric that felt like a hug. Or at least, what I'd imagined a hug from him would be like.
The energy it provided me was a better pick-me-up than any cup of coffee had ever been. I kept my squealing as quietly as I could, bouncing in place just like the nickname he'd chosen to let stick. But before I returned to him, I felt something. A small, noticeable weight in one of the cardigan pockets.
If I'd thought about it for longer than five seconds, if I'd reminded myself that they were his clothes and not mine, I would've let it be. I wouldn't have pulled the little object from its safe hiding spot. It would have stayed locked away, leaving me none the wiser of its presence.
But I didn't think about it, and then there I was, holding onto the sobriety token I should've seen coming.
Not that it was a bad thing; I already knew Spencer had a history with drugs. He'd mentioned it in passing in class and was deeply involved with a number of volunteer programs around the area. At one point, I'd even taken it upon myself to research his history.
That research, while I regretted it now, feeling that it violated his privacy some way or another, led me to a second conclusion. As my thumb ghosted over the embossed number five, I realized that Spencer had been sober since he was released from prison.
My heart swelled with pride and relief that felt shameful. I didn't want the token to have such a profound effect on the image of him I'd already crafted in my mind. Lord knew I didn't need any more reasons to idolize him. And, at the end of the day, I'd only discovered this information by happenstance.
Part of respect, I decided, meant ignoring the way that fate seemed to push us together. If Spencer ever wanted my opinion on his sobriety or strength, surely, he would just ask. So, I slipped the chip back into the pocket and made my way back to him without worry for what it meant.
While I had no worries, Spencer was another story. I'd barely even made it through the door when he saw me. All of the papers he'd been holding immediately fell from his hands the same way the coffee had fallen from mine.
"Oh no! My clumsiness was contagious!" I laughed, bolting over to help him only to find his face an unhealthy shade of red. He chuckled back but said nothing else as he scrambled to pick up the loose-leaf that had splayed itself all over the floor.
Once we were back on our feet and as collected as we could be considering the circumstances of the morning thus far, his eyes met mine again. His cheeks were still flushed, unable to focus on anything specific and choosing to traverse my body the same way his hands had on Halloween.
"Sorry," he mumbled in a way that made me wonder if he knew I could hear him, "I was distracted by how unfair it is that you look better in my clothes than I do."
It was my turn to be flustered, but Spencer didn't let the moment drag on. He tore himself away from me in every sense of the word, marching past me and halfway exiting the room before he found the courage to look at me again.
"Are you ready to head to class?" he asked as if it were an option.
I suppose to him, it was. For a second I imagined what the future would hold for us if I'd said no. What would he have done if I begged him to stay with me, instead? What if we rebelled against expectation and remained locked away in his office until we grew tired of one another? What if we never did?
My mind filled with fantasies of Spencer's hands freely feeling my skin the way his clothes could. I could hear soft, breathy sounds of desire shaped like my name. For all of my inexperience, he would still find me intoxicating. He would grow drunk on me the same way a child finds endless joy in sweets that really ought to make them sick.
Then again, maybe he had grown used to the sugar. Maybe he wanted something more mature, a bitterness like molasses that was only earned from years I hadn't had yet.
Regardless, I couldn't really get into any of that. Instead, I just flashed a very awkward thumbs up to the man fifteen years my elder when I droned, "Sure am, Professor man."
As stupid as it felt to do something so juvenile, the smile he gave was worth it.
"Alright then, Bunny," he answered with his own little peace sign, "Let's hop along."
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It hadn't even been a week since I saw her, scantily clad in the plush, socially acceptable equivalent of lingerie. It'd been even less time since I admitted my own weakness to her. I'd replayed the memories of her visceral responses to my touch enough times that I should be sick of it. But there was no tiring of her.
I considered deleting the photos she'd sent me, convinced that it was cruel to keep them when she'd only sent them while inebriated and undoubtedly exhausted beyond belief.
But when I woke up in the morning, my stomach still reeling from the knowledge of what I'd done, all that she'd sent was a curious collection of emotes and a very brief note.
"Oops!" she'd written, "Bad bunny?"
I put that phrase out of my mind immediately, unable to handle the way it incited the desire for destruction in my veins.
"I'm always glad to hear that you are safe."
That was the end of the conversation, and I was grateful for that much. Even the few words we'd exchanged would haunt me until I saw her again. Of course, the torture ended there, but only for a few seconds before it was replaced with other images and words.
It'd been hours since I'd found her flailing about half-naked in the hall while uttering rushed curses that sounded too crude for her lips. It'd been hours since I felt the soft skin of her lower back and became lost in an entirely different set of fantasies.
It'd been even less time since I saw her standing at my door, pulling on the sleeves of my sweater and staring at me with nervous, shifty glances. Completely unaware of just how beautiful she was in her simplicity. How much more torturous it was to see her wearing my clothes than any lustful suffering that lingerie or nudity could elicit.
I thought that it would get better throughout the day, but it didn't. It only got worse.
I'd stepped out of my office for barely half an hour, but I returned to find her curled up on the plush chair. Her shoes were slipped off, revealing colorful socks that clashed with every other neutral color she wore. It somehow made me want her even more.
I stayed stuck for a few seconds longer, watching her with bated breath and shameless admiration. She was so caught up in the papers on her lap that she didn't even notice my presence until the door clicked shut. It was then that she turned to see me, allowing a smile to blossom across her face despite eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"What's all of this?" she asked, gesturing to the collection of bags hanging from my wrists.
"Did you know..." I started before my heart stopped at how she always leaned forward with excitement whenever I started a sentence that way, "that food is one of the best ways to solve a terrible Monday?"
"Which scientific study did you get that from?"
I paused again, debating telling her the many studies that would support such a theory, but then decided against it. Instead, I sought out her laughter and childlike joy that always brought out the best of her.
"Garfield," I answered.
Sure enough, the office filled with the melodious sound of her happiness. I moved as quietly as I could, thinking back to when I was younger and thought of how powerful bottled laughter would be if I could capture it. Hers would surely right so many wrongs.
"You don't have to take it if you don't want to, but I figure it's the least I could do."
She approached me to assist before I'd even made it to my desk, and although I thought her hands were far too soft to be bothered with something like this, I allowed her to help.
"You could do nothing, you know. It was my own fault."
"Yeah, but I wanted to."
She laughed again, shier and shrinking into the sweater as she tried to find her place in such a domestic activity as sharing a meal with me in private. I thought of how it was a taste of my dreams.
Because as often as I did fantasize about her, undone, bare-skinned, and defenseless to my desires, I just as often envisioned her just like this. In fact, I found those fantasies more dangerous. They couldn't be written off as mere lust. They were another, scarier thing.
"Well, lucky you I am an exhausted, broke grad student, so free food will always win me over," she muttered, half-sarcastically but just sad enough to bother me.
"Duly noted," I said.
I hid away the promises I wanted to make. That if she were mine, she would want for nothing. That I would give her everything she needed to bloom. That I would prune away any neighboring flower that dared get in her way or block the sunlight. There would be no need to worry of predators or pollinators intruding, because she would belong to me and only me.
I would be her earth, her rain, and her sun. I would be surely and shamelessly selfish.
Her shoulders rose with a cheeky, excited little giggle once she had collected her food. I wanted nothing more than to let her enjoy it to her heart's content... but there was a problem.
"Nuh-uh, no way," I chuckled before she had a chance to return to the chair with her precarious paper plate, "Get in the other chair."
Her face scrunched up, bouncing back and forth between the two seats in the room like she'd heard something so strange that it must have been a mistake.
"Wh— your chair?"
"I will not have you ruining another shirt today," I explained. It caused the confusion to quickly shift to an embarrassed frustration within seconds. Just as she opened her mouth to protest my teasing, I continued with something I knew would tie her tongue until she could no longer argue.
"If you're so worried about what they'll say when you show up in my shirt, just think of how they'll talk if they catch you wearing nothing."
That stubborn little thing still tried. Her mouth floundered, strange sounds of protest starting but never finishing until she gave up. She sulked over to the seat with an odd amount of self-satisfaction. She settled into my space as comfortably as she always did. With an ease that was almost unsettling to my tired, tortured heart.
Swapping places with her for that little bit of time was a good idea. I hadn't expected that it would bring me as much serenity as it did. My usually busy lips kept their focus on the food, opting to listen to her ramble about any and everything that came to mind.
It wasn't until she was fifteen minutes into an explanation on her paper that I realized how little I'd tried to learn about her life outside of me. Whether it was self-preservation or narcissism, I'd never decided. But what I was certain of was that it had been a brutal form of self-sabotage.
Because as I sat there, watching her clumsily, excitedly swinging her fork and proving my point that it had been a good decision to give her the desk, I saw her for in a different light than before.
She was not just a beautiful, mysterious flower peeking through the concrete. She was the trembling giant, the clonal colony of thousands of quaking aspen trees. An extravagant network of roots that flowed far beyond the seed that started them.
This sprout might be new, but her soul was ancient and celestial, wise and immortal.
"Who knows?" she sighed, coming to a natural conclusion of a story I had almost missed while lost in daydreams and metaphors, "Maybe one day I'll be a professor, too."
"You'd be good at it."
For once, it felt like she accepted the compliment without a fight. I considered it progress all the way up until she shot back a thinly veiled taunt.
"Thanks. Means a lot from someone who has 4 stars on rate my professor!"
"Don't forget the chili pepper," I jokingly returned.
"Not sure I'd get one of those."
I knew that my disagreement wouldn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for a slightly-self-centered flattery instead.
"Just show up in that outfit," I said with a nod that barely hid my actual intention of focusing my eyes on the rest of her, "you'll be golden."
"You gonna let me borrow it in ten years?" she hummed.
It was a dangerous proposition, an implication that made the pitter-pattering in my chest unbearable. Rather than chasing her down the rabbit hole of fantasies, I just chuckled before I answered, "You know how to find me."
Then it happened again. Her face slowly changed, growing from a cautious optimism to a yearning. A subtle hint of words left unsaid. And although she wet her lips and set down her fork, the words never came out. They stayed stalled in her throat, and there was no discernible way for me to drag them out of her without hurting the both of us.
When a loud knock resounded through the room, the thought ended altogether.
"Come in," I grimly announced, recognizing the intrusive sound as the death rattle for whatever might have been said.
As the door opened, I realized the same time (y/n) did that we had forgotten that the rest of the outside world wasn't familiar with our dynamic. They didn't have the backstory of how she'd perched herself on my chair with her shoes off and wearing my clothes.
Torn between scrambling to take more socially acceptable positions and the knowledge that our hurry would make us look even more suspicious, we both opted to remain frozen in place like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.
When the door opened, however, I was somewhat relieved to see someone I found completely unthreatening. My closest colleague, a woman that should really terrify me all things considered, seemed mostly perplexed when she found a young girl in my seat.
She quickly turned to me, drawing out her words as she asked, "Oh. I'm sorry, am I... interrupting something?"
"No, what can I help you with, Candy?"
"I was hoping we could talk about my current paper proposal."
She paused, and I took the moment to follow her glower to the flower still stationary behind my desk. (Y/n) stared back, seemingly frightened by the presence of the other Professor.
"If you're busy with... office hours..." Candy muttered before turning back to me, "we can always set up a meeting for a better time."
Before I could address the possible tension or implication, the girl at my desk sprung to action, clearing off any sign of her presence as she spoke.
"You know, I actually need to get going."
"Are you sure?"
She didn't look at me when she answered, "Yeah, I'm sure your papers are more important."
If I'd turned back to Candy, I might have seen the condescending scowl that was driving her away. If I've had any inclination or desire to look at Candy, I would have realized that (y/n) wasn't trying to escape from her connection to me. She was just trying to get out of my way.
It didn't make it any harder to watch her leave. I took solace in the fact that she held tighter to my cardigan, trusting me to keep her warm by proxy as she ventured back into the real world. The world where we couldn't be in peace.
"Thanks for the advice, Professor," she said before she left, "You were right. As usual."
One last smile was shared, somber but sobering. A necessary break from the intimacy of the moment.
"See you in class."
The office felt so much duller without her radiance, but my disappointment would have to wait. As much as I actually didn't mind the world knowing how my heart hurt from her absence, I knew that it was best I didn't let it impact her academic career.
"Sorry again for the intrusion," my colleague said in a much happier voice.
"It's not a problem at all."
She must have noticed the way it sounded like a lie, because her tone quickly shifted back to a slightly disgruntled confusion.
"I didn't realize she was your student, too. What class is she in?"
It was juvenile, really, the way my heart fluttered so ridiculously at the mere mention of her existence. The excuse to discuss her again.
"Oh, did she not tell you?"
Candy just shook her head with a blatantly false smile.
"Unsurprisingly modest," I laughed, making my way back over to my seat and running my fingers over the wooden armrests like it would be the same as touching her ghost, "She's my TA."
"Oh... I see."
"She was the only one who would put up with me," I offered with a chuckle. Self-deprecating humor was the only reliable personality trait I had. It was also, unfortunately, one that most women in my life despised and refused to let sit.
"I'm sure that's not true."
It sounded less sweet coming from her. I wrote it off as a product of the differences in their species. While the hummingbird of a girl who'd just flittered away was used to only drinking the sweetest, purest nectar, the bird of prey who'd entered relied on the work of others to gather the sweetness before they were devoured.
That wasn't to say she was cruel; hawks are as much a miracle of nature as hummingbirds. I simply related to one more than the other. I understood one while the other remained a mystery. And I loved mysteries more than myself.
"So, you wanted to talk about your paper?"
"Oh! Yes," she chirped, passing the packet over to me now that I'd found my way back to what she probably deemed my rightful place. "The conference is coming up so much faster than I anticipated, and I would love to hear your opinions on my first draft."
I'd already started to read the first page when she spoke again, uncharacteristically bashful and anxious, "Since we'll be presenting together, I figured..."
"Yeah, no problem at all," I interrupted, not wanting her to dwell nor expand on the thought of us doing anything together any more than necessary, "I can send you mine."
It felt curt, blunt, and off putting when I said it, but she didn't take it as such.
"Wonderful. You have such a unique voice when you're writing. It's very refreshing."
Immediately, a memory appeared at the forefront of my mind and led to a laugh that I couldn't contain. Candy seemed pleased at the sound, and I felt the need to explain.
"Thanks. (Y/n) likened it to Ray Bradbury at one point, although in different and less flattering words."
I could hear her clear as day, quoting my words with an overdramatized effect before laughing, 'Pack it up, Bradbury, you've got more science stuff to explain.'
Of course, we both found her laughter-ridden explanation of the 'meme' far funnier than the original joke. She was probably the only person in the world who never seemed bothered by explaining everything to me ad nauseam.
"She is... certainly a choice as a TA," Candy strained upon scrutinizing the smile that had returned to my face for the first time since (y/n)'s departure, "Will she be joining us at the conference?"
But then the guilt returned, wiping the smile from my face and replacing happy memories with deviant thoughts and fears.
"Oh... you know, I haven't asked her."
"That's perfectly alright! I think we'll do just fine without her."
"Right..." I whispered, glancing back down at the stack of papers in my hand before setting it in the tray designated for (y/n). "I'll have her look at your paper just in case."
A lull in the conversation stretched past the point of comfort for both of us, and I glanced up at the woman I actually felt guilty for ignoring in place of fantasies that would probably never come to be. She hadn't even done anything to warrant my disregard. She was an attractive woman — as beautiful as she was brilliant, really — she had worked very hard to garner my trust and academic collaboration. At one point, I had considered her one of the few potential candidates for something more than a purely academic partner.
But there was something about the way she looked at the honeyed girl that made my hair stand on end. A defensiveness and instinct that couldn't be ignored.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"No, that was all," she said as she broke from what I presumed to be her own daydream, "I hope your semester keeps going well."
"Thanks, I hope yours does, too."
I meant it, despite the aforementioned concern. I wished her well in the semester for both selfless and selfish reasons. I wished her well because she deserved it, certainly. But the other reason, the larger one, was that I hoped she would remain distracted. I hoped that she didn't notice the way I would slip away from her affections to chase those from a more interesting challenge. One that remained mysterious, with hair covered in pollen and lips sweet with ambrosia.
"I'll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid."
I failed to respond to her again before the door shut because my hands were already busy with rekindling contact with another.
"I have a proposition for you, Bunny."
"Sounds ominous. I'm in."
The fact that the response came before I could even shut off the display was so characteristic of her that I had to laugh.
"You haven't even heard it yet," I observed, to which she once again immediately responded, "Your point being?"
"I'm afraid this is an obligation that does require some expansion before agreement."
Her response was slower, then, and I could almost see her with a slight panic and overwhelming curiosity that grew stronger by the second.
"Ominous and vaguely unsettling," she said.
I considered drawing it out further, letting her imagination truly run wild with the possibilities. But then I realized that if she thought hard enough about it, she might reach the same place that had immediately come to my mind.
"Would you like to attend the upcoming conference with me?" I relented, almost stopping there but then frantically tagging on the conditions I knew would be most likely to cause hesitation. "You'd have your own room, of course. The department and I will help with funds."
But, as it turned out, I didn't need to be worried.
"A cheap weekend away from school where I get to be a nerd with you?" she sent with another set of small, smiling faces I was only just starting to understand, "Of course I'm going to say yes, Professor!"
"Perfect. I'll arrange it."
"I can't wait!"
Although I felt the same, I forced myself to end contact again. I put my phone out of reach to prevent myself from spoiling any more of my fantasies than I already had. I didn't need her to second-guess the possibilities of a weekend away together now that she'd already agreed to it.
The thought alone sparked guilt anew. Through the entire interaction, I'd infused each word with a charge that shouldn't have been. Each line was far more provocative than it needed to be.
It was just an academic conference. Most people found them terribly dull, not to mention physically exhausting. It would not be a time away like most couples dreamed of because we were not a couple in any sense of the word.
Yet... I couldn't help but feel that perhaps there weren't as many differences as one might think. Because while yes, most people would be bored, I didn't think Bunny would be. Clandestine meetings made between conference meetings sounded exactly like the kind of dreams we would share.
I believed it so strongly that my mind had already drafted several narratives that would suit her. I pictured her and I sharing company in public, unafraid of public displays of affection — innocent, childish kinds, of course — because we were miles away from those who might care.
That drunken, lust-inducing, half-lidded gaze from the week before would return. Except this time, I would taste the wine on her tongue, my hands sliding not over fluffy fabric, but the same skin that I'd felt for the first time that morning.
Behind our door, I would teach her so many things. Things that she would have begged me for. Things that others would see written on her skin in the shape of my fingers and mouth. Things that she would carry with a straighter back and dripping down her legs.
I didn't just want to destroy her. I wanted to break her so that I could build her back with gold-laced lacquer. She would be my kintsugi creation full of sugar and honey, just imperfect enough that the sticky residue of her sweetness would slip through the cracks to coat everything she touched.
And then she would touch me, and I might finally feel like I deserved anything at all.