Someone to Love (15 page)

I tumble out of bed and find a note on the
kitchen table.

Have an early meeting. See you in class.

I’m pretty sure he meant at school. I doubt I
have any classes with a graduate student.

I rush through my morning routine and put on
the warmest clothes possible. It looks like a nuclear winter has
set in out there. God, I hope those classrooms at Garrison have the
heaters turned up full throttle.

I step outside and the icy wind knifes
through all four layers of clothing like a sickle hacking through
weeds. My skin enlivens from the blowtorch effect. This is what I
imagined love would be like, the beauty of the landscape luring you
in then the surprise of the flames as you burn under the guise of
your own foolishness.

And, as foolish as it sounds, I wish Cruise
would step into that fire with me. God knows I’m looking forward to
the burn.

I’d do anything to melt with Cruise.

Garrison University is a superhighway of
bicycles, bodies, and brick buildings as tall and ornate as
cathedrals. A tower sits in the center, erect, proud, and well, in
every way a monument to all things phallic. A giant metal-framed
globe sits on top, declaring it the tallest structure on campus. I
gaze at it an inordinate amount of time and wonder how frightening
it would feel to be perched on top of its skeletal frame, how
fragile the world would look from that vantage point.

I move through the crowd and soak in the
people, the luxurious landscape that puts to shame the tiny junior
college I went to back home. The stone benches with students
sitting beneath the trees, expensively dressed girls with tall
leather boots, warm wool coats and supple leather handbags. I keep
forgetting most everyone at Garrison is a child of privilege, save
for the few like me who managed to score a scholarship. But I’m
here. I’ve escaped the soup kitchen that was my mother’s home, the
dreadful beat box neighborhood where she landed us time after time.
And now, Morgan and I are both quasi independent, freeing my mother
of the lead shoes we had been for the better half of two decades.
Here I am at Garrison, officially on my own. It feels as if the
very next step I take will usher me over the threshold into
adulthood.

I love it here. I can finally breathe.

Then there’s Cruise, who perhaps is the best
thing Garrison, Carrington, and Massachusetts as a whole have going
for them, at least in my eyes. Everything in me soars at the
prospect of seeing Cruise today, as if living together could never
be enough.

Bodies begin to thin out, and the bicycles
whirl by more spastic than before, so I hustle over to the liberal
arts building for my first class of the day, gender relations. I
hike my way to the second floor of an over-bright building.
Everything looks new and immaculate inside with its glossy white
walls and floors to match. The walls are devoid of the graffiti and
informational posters I’ve grown accustomed to at my last school.
The hint of fresh paint lingers in the air—the scent of pine
cleaner layered just beneath that.

Room 228A. This is it.

I peer inside. It’s nearly full with row
after row of students crammed behind tiny desks, the same ones they
had at my old J.C. I’m not sure why this surprises me.

A girl swoops inside, and I slide in after
her taking a seat in the second row. I hate sitting anywhere near
the front. It’s the not-so-fun zone because everybody knows your
odds of getting picked on go up astronomically. My backpack hardly
fits at my feet, and I find this more than slightly irritating. For
some reason I thought the forty thousand dollar price difference
would add some square footage to my seating area.

The professor stands with his back turned to
the class. He’s tall, dressed in a tweed jacket and brown
cords—looks nice enough. He busies himself writing something on the
chalkboard.
Chalk
. For sure I thought they’d have those
interactive whiteboards gracing this institution of overpriced
learning. My mother used to joke you could replace the S in
Garrison with a dollar sign.
It’s nothing but the best at
Garrison
, she would chime. But even my J.C. had the slightly
more appealing whiteboards to tool around on.

The professor remains diligent in his
primitive communication endeavor as a trail of dust snows down from
his fingertips. God, he looks gorgeous from behind. He sort of
reminds me of Cruise the way his hair narrows to his neck in neat
waves. In fact, the way he just jerked his shoulder reminds me of a
muscular twitch I’ve seen Cruise demonstrate on more than one
occasion. I would know. I’ve been watching Cruise Elton like a
freaking hawk these past three weeks. I memorized his nuances,
studied them like it were a new field in science, his breathing
pattern could keep me mesmerized for years.

He turns around and inventories the
population until he lands right on me with that killer smile.

A breath gets caught in my throat.

Shit
!

It
is
Cruise!

I straighten in my seat completely caught off
guard by the fact I’ve secretly been devising a plan to sleep with
faculty
of all people. It feels innately dirty and oh so
delicious all at the same time. I give a private wave before
sinking in my seat a little.

“Love.” He steps away from the blackboard and
reveals the word scrawled out in large block letters. “Welcome to
Gender Relations. Professor Bradshaw is out indefinitely for the
semester, and until he’s able to reprise his role I’ll be stepping
in. You can call me Cruise or Mr. Elton if you feel so moved.” He
glances up at me and the curve of a wicked smile ignites. “Master,
if you like.”

Half the girls in class have a Cruise-gasam
at the quasi innuendo.

A thin girl with a razor-sharp haircut leans
in and whispers. “Can you believe this?” She looks completely
unfazed by Cruise’s godlike qualities and sudden desire to be
addressed in such an egotistical manner.

“Nope, I can’t believe this at all.” I give a
wry smile, never taking my eyes off
Mr. Elton
.

God, he cleans up nice. He even shaved for
the occasion—he’s wearing a tie and shiny brown shoes, which
totally make him look official and everything. To think I came this
close to raking up against one of my professors. Not that he’s a
bona fide professor. He’s more of a sexy fill-in, but still.

A wave of heat spreads through me as he
passes out the syllabus. He hands a thick stack to the girl seated
to my left and one to me before moving on.

Gender Relations Spring Semester

Syllabus

On your Knees

Tongues and Tickles

Art of Whoredom

Touch me, Tease me, Lick me, Please me.

The Fine Art of Moaning

Skin on Skin

Ask and You Shall Receive

Strip Xbox

Body Frosting

Role Playing and Erotic Fantasy; A journey into
mental imagery

Show and Tell

Master and Servant

Sex Video

Sex Video?
What the hell is this? Porn
101?

Oh my God, this is completely perverse.
Cruise is going to get himself sued or fired, or worse. Obviously,
he’s got some sex addiction if he plans on living out these
scenarios with each one of us. I scan the room quickly, expecting
half the class to burst out laughing or screaming, but they don’t
say a word.

The extras get passed in my direction and I
gloss over one.

Gender Relations: Spring Semester

Read:
The Great Gatsby

Essays and quizzes are listed, and I take a
paper for myself before shooting a look to the not-so-funny man in
question. He’s got his arms folded across his chest, and he’s
leering at me with his lips curled to the side. He’s so enjoying
this, I can tell.

It’s illegal and unethical to proposition a
student, let alone gift her with incriminating evidence should I be
moved to initiate legal action. But I’m not. I’m moved to see what
the “Fine Art of Moaning” might entail. The rest of the class fades
to nothing as I negotiate the deep recesses of my mind and envelop
myself in a warped fantasy that involves a whole lot of vocal cords
and very little clothing.

“Good morning.” Cruise paces until he sits on
the edge of his desk. “I’d like to open the class with having each
of you introduce yourselves and share your position on love in the
sensual, sexual sense. And why, outside of the preservation of the
species, do you feel it continues to prosper as the single most
valued human desire.”

He starts in the front and goes student by
student as they give a dry, rather morose view of their position on
sensual love. Three girls in a row give an expository on how love
degrades women and reduces our species to nothing more than a
sexual porthole of pleasure, and I nod in silent agreement.

Cruise twists his lips as he considers the
words of the last girl. You’d think Cruise himself just knocked the
feminist movement down three full decades the way the girl in the
bright pink rain slicker cut him off at the balls for implying that
love was the “single most valued human desire.”

Things are falling to shit quickly, and a
part of me feels sorry for him. Although, I’m still a little miffed
he didn’t tell me he’d be morphing into my teacher in the literal
sense since he was already sort of filling that role anyway. Plus
that whole sexual syllabus just makes me roll my eyes, even though
I plan on going over it in detail as soon as I’m alone. I have to
admit, the “Role Playing and Erotic Fantasy; a journey into mental
imagery” does sound interesting.

“Ms. Jordan?” Cruise calls from the front and
I spike up in my seat.

“Yes? Oh, right, love. Um…” I pull a strand
of hair over my lips the way I do when I’m nervous and consider it
a moment.

“Your views?” He leers into me with those
bedroom eyes, and my stomach bottoms out. “You could share your
past views, present views, that is, if they’ve evolved at all.” He
says it low with the deep register of his voice, while smoldering
at me openly in front of the class. Something about this forbidden
foreplay lights an inferno around me, makes me choke on the
prospect of every item on that syllabus occurring in real time.

What am I saying? Cruise Elton looks at
every
girl that way. And to think otherwise is only setting
myself up for a spectacular fall.

“I think love is nothing but a fallacy
propagated by the greeting card industry and a billion-dollar
bridal enterprise that feeds into the fantasy of every little
girl.” I say it a little louder than called for. “I think the
divorce rate in this country is solid evidence that love and all of
its trappings are nothing more than an illusion propagated by
fairytales that promise ‘happily ever after’ in a world where
neither
happy
nor
ever after
truly exist. At the end
of the day all that really remains is high-octane lust—enough to
fuel a rocket ship—still doesn’t make it real.”

His cheek cinches to the side and his dimple
goes off, but no smile. He still manages to melt me in the process.
There’s that high-octane lust I was talking about. It’s as if my
hormones insist on making the point for me.

“Perhaps, Ms. Jordan”—he locks me in with a
heated gaze—“you simply haven’t met the right person yet.” He moves
onto the next student, but that cold steely look he gave makes me
shudder. Why do I get the feeling I’ve just done something terribly
wrong—like stomped out the rosebush of our love before it ever had
a chance to blossom.

The thin girl next to me clears her throat
before giving an answer. She turns to face me fully. The harsh
lights from above annunciate the fact she’s sporting a rather
burgeoning girl-stache as she frowns. “I’m sorry for you.” She says
it short and simple, and my face burns with color. She reverts her
attention back to Cruise. “My parents have been married for almost
thirty-years. They say ‘I love you’ and kiss each other hello and
goodbye. They’ve raised four kids together, and they still go out
on dates.” She cuts me a look as if I’ve just slashed open the
bellies of a hundred newborn puppies. “I believe in love because it
exists. I don’t take other peoples’ failures and make them my own.
I will find love, and it will prosper.”

A stunted applause comes from the back of the
room and builds until the entire class is roaring and cheering,
spontaneously jumping to their feet, with the exception of a well
beaten down me.

The class goes on that way with everyone
declaring themselves team love, while I seem to be garnering more
than my fair share of dirty looks. You would think I were secretly
spearheading a matrimonial apocalypse, or I’ve made it my personal
crusade to take down Valentine’s Day.