Suicide Med (24 page)

“I should probably go, Dr. Conlon,” I
mumble.

He grins
at me, “You can call me Matt. At least, in here you can.”

Okay, this isn’t a disaster.
Yes, we just had some incredible sex. My
first
incredible sex. But he doesn’t know that. He’s just excited he got to score with a twenty-two year old. Plus, I can tell from the way he’s looking at me that he’s totally smitten.

Nothing has changed.
The game is still on.

I
usually don’t drop the bombshell on them until the second time. Some of them seem to see it coming, although less of them than I would have guessed. I was surprised how many of those bald old men thought that I was genuinely interested in them. For a lot of them, it was a huge blow to their egos. And I usually took pleasure in delivering it. They were mostly a bunch of assholes.

But Dr. Conlon isn’t an asshole.
He’s a nice guy and he really cares about his students.

Oh well.
I can’t afford to fail anatomy. This is just the way it has to be.

I’m in such a good mood the next day that it doesn’t even bother me when I hear Heather loudly singing Taylor Swift in the shower. And then a Justin Bieber song, for Christ’s sake. Anyway, it’s a relief to know that everything worked out with Dr. Conlon just the way I planned. Okay, not
entirely
the way I planned, but close enough.

When I
arrive at lecture the next morning, I notice that Dr. Conlon seems to be in a pretty good mood too. He’s joking around with the class more than usual, and even though he’s generally an animated teacher, I’m impressed by the enthusiasm he’d managed to whip up for the muscles of mastication. Apparently, he really needed to get laid.

Truthfully,
Dr. Conlon is a good teacher. Actually, he’s a great teacher. He’s patient and good at explaining tricky concepts, but most importantly, he so obviously loves teaching. This job is his life. And that’s why this is so perfect. As much as it will hurt his pride, I know that when he figures out what I’m after, he’ll cave immediately. He won’t do anything to jeopardize his career.

After lecture is over, I
give the professor a five-minute head start to get to his office before heading over there myself. I’m pleased to see the way his eyes light up when I enter the room. I could probably get the keys to his car and all his credit card numbers if I wanted.

“
Rachel,” he says, beaming, “I was hoping you’d come by…”

I
close the door behind me and lock it. I smile. “How are you doing, Dr. Conlon?”

“Matt,” he corrects
me.

In about five minutes, he’
s going to hate my guts.

I
cross the room to his desk. He pushes his chair back from the desk to allow me room to sit down on his lap. I settle down on his legs and wrap my arms around his neck. I bring my face close to his.

“Are you busy?” I
ask him.

He shakes
his head, “Nah, just some paperwork.”

T
his is the moment to drop the bombshell. But I see the way he’s looking at me and… somehow I just choke. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not like Matt Conlon is the first professor to become smitten with me.

“What?” He’
s looking at me, dark eyebrows raised. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing,” I
say, forcing a smile.

He starts to kiss my neck, and my body melts against him.
His fingers slide into my dark hair and it feels so nice. Maybe I don’t have to tell him right now. Maybe we can go one more time…

Oh my God, what’s
wrong
with me?

I have to do this now.
Right now.

I pull away from him resolutely,
trying to ignore the confusion on his face as I take a deep breath.

“Actually, there is something that’s sort of been on my mind…”

He frowns in concern. “What?”

“I just… I feel like I can’t stop thinking about my grade on that exam,” I
sigh. “It’s really… distracting me.”

At this point, at least half of the professors
would immediately say something along the lines of:
Don’t you worry yourself about that grade. We’ll fix that right now.
It saves both of us face if they volunteer to change my grade without having to be threatened.

But Conlon
clearly isn’t going for it. Damn. He actually has a lot of integrity. He’s not going to change my grade. He’s going to need to be persuaded.

This is going to get ugly.

“I’m sure you’ll do better on the next exam,” he assures me. His face brightens. “I’d be happy to tutor you myself, Rachel. I do that all the time for students who are having trouble. It’s important to me that you do well.”

“Yes, but…” I
run my hand over the inside of his thigh. “It’s going to be hard to pass with such a low grade on the first exam.”

“
Rachel, honey,” he says, placing his fingers around my wrist, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but don’t you have some studying to do?”

Our eyes meet.
And that’s when I realize it:

He knows.

He knows exactly what I want. And he’s not planning to make this easy for me.

Too bad he has no idea who
m he’s dealing with.

“Matt,” I
say thoughtfully, “how do you think the dean feels about professors who have sex with their students?”

I
watch him carefully for his reaction, expecting his face to drain of color. But it doesn’t. He looks completely calm and collected.

“They probably don’t like it too much,” Dr. Conlon says with a shrug.
“I’ve actually heard of professors getting fired for that.”

“Really?”
I say in mock surprise.

He nods
. “Yeah, sure. And some of them end up wrecking their marriages too. I heard about a professor recently from another university whose wife left him after he slept with one of his students.” He smiles at me, “Actually, I believe he taught at
your
former university. Maybe you knew him? Dr. Michael Hirsch?”

Oh no.
No, no, no…

He can’t know about that.
It’s not possible.

Mike
Hirsch was a middle-aged guy who was just as overweight and balding as Mr. Pritchett had been, and he also happened to teach my biology class in college. He’d actually believed I really liked him, and had thrown a fit when I suggested he alter my grades. I’d been forced to place an unfortunate phone call to his wife. The call to the wife always came first, because a call to the university would have been much more of a scandal. Of course, as soon as I called his wife, Mike realized I meant business.

But how the hell does
Dr. Conlon know about that? Nobody knows. Except, of course, for Mike Hirsch, Mrs. Hirsch and me.

“He’s pretty pissed off at that student who wrecked his marriage,” Dr. Conlon
continues. “Would you believe he was angry enough to call some of the professors here to personally warn us about that student? As if any of us would be dumb enough to get taken in by something like that.”

Oh, Christ.

I climb off Dr. Conlon’s lap and back away, staring at him. He’s not smiling anymore, that’s for sure.

“Personally,” he says, “I wouldn’t worry anyway.
I’m not married, and I’m the only disabled member on the entire faculty and have been for quite a while. I can pretty much get away with whatever I want. I mean, it’s not like they’re going to think that
I
seduced my student, right?”

“You knew all along,” I
breathe, shaking my head.

“Well, it
was nice of Dr. Hirsch to give me that heads up,” he says. “But when you came in here yesterday wearing that short skirt… come on, do you think I’m stupid, Rachel?”

I can’t believe this.
Of all the professors I’ve been with, I can’t believe
Dr. Conlon
is the one who finally caught on to me. The entire time we were having sex yesterday, when he was acting so grateful and amazed, he knew exactly what I was up to. It was all an act. I’m furious.

“Congratulations,” I say
. “You figured me out.”

I
storm off in the direction of the door, but before I get there, I hear his voice.

“Hold on,
Rachel. Where do you think you’re going?”

I tur
n and see him playing with the handle of his cane.

“What?” I
say irritably.

“You’re still failing anatomy,” he reminds me.
“What do you expect to do about that?”

I hate him.
I really truly hate him.

“I don’t know,” I say.
“Jump off the roof of the hospital maybe.”

Dr. Conlon
’s face darkens. He doesn’t seem to appreciate my joke, probably because there was a student who really did that. But honestly I’m not entirely sure I am joking.

“I’m holding special tutoring sessions,” he says.
“For the students who did really abysmally on the exam. I’ll email you the times—I suggest you show up.”

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice now, do I?”
I snap at him.

“Nope,” he says.
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Good luck, Rachel.”

Yeah, I’m going to need it.

Remedial anatomy is like the most humiliating experience of all time.

It’s me, Wendy Adams, and Marissa
Dunne. We are apparently the dumbest three people in the whole class—all female, of course. Dr. Conlon instructed us to arrive at the anatomy lab at four p.m., so here we are, standing in front of a dead body, waiting for him to show up.

I don’t care for Wendy or Marissa.
Wendy is a real girly girl. She has these long, long eyelashes and wears so much mascara on them that I’m a little worried her eyelashes might smack me in the face. She’s also wearing high heels in lab, which is just ridiculous. Marissa, on the other hand, is a huge flirt. She’s got the blonde cheerleader thing going and I’m pretty sure half the class is in love with her. (The male half. Plus maybe the lesbian bit.)

I really wish I weren’t here.

“I didn’t know you were failing anatomy, Rachel,” Wendy says when I walk in.

“Yeah,” I mumble, not wanting to get into a conversation with her.

“I know,” Marissa agrees. “I totally thought you were really smart.”

Where the hell is Dr. Conlon?

He shows up a few minutes later, dressed in blue scrubs, clutching his cane in his left hand. I can’t help but notice that his blue scrubs make his eyes look
so
blue. I shift slightly in my sneakers—I really need to stop thinking about him being attractive. Especially since I hate him.

“All right, girls,” he says, gently tugging the plastic off the body in front of us.
“Let’s get started, okay?”

Wendy and Marissa nod eagerly.
I just stand there and glare at him.

Dr. Conlon starts tugging a glove onto his left hand while he says, “For starters, can you guys tell me the five
major branches of the facial nerve?”

Cricket
s chirp.

“You don’t have to know all five of them,” he adds quickly.
“Just one. Can you tell me one branch?”

“Ophthalmic?”
Wendy guesses.

Dr. Conlon pauses in his attempt to pull on the glove.

“Uh, well, no.
The eye movement is controlled by three other cranial nerves. Do you know which ones those are?”

More crickets.

“Cranial nerves three, four, and six,” he says as we stare at him blankly. Well, he’s got his work cut out for him. Good luck, Dr. Conlon.

“I knew that,” Marissa says.

“Oh, okay,” Dr. Conlon says, not sounding like he believes her. “Anyway, the branches of the facial nerve are the temporal, zygomatic, buccal, mandibular, and cervical. There’s a mnemonic: To Zanzibar By Motor Car.”

At least this time the mnemonic doesn’t involve sex.

Wendy crinkles her nose. “Where’s
Zanzibar
?”

“I think it’s in Australia,” Marissa says.

“Actually, it’s in Africa,” Dr. Conlon says patiently.

“Who’s heard of
Zanzibar
?” Wendy says. “Zurich would be better. That’s in Switzerland. I went to Zurich in college with my boyfriend.”

“Um, fine,” Dr. Conlon says.
“You’re welcome to use ‘To Zurich By Motor Car.’”

“And what’s a
motor
car, anyway?” Wendy adds. “Isn’t that just the same as a
car
?”

Okay, I can’t take another minute of this.

“
God, Wendy, who the hell cares?” I snap. “This is the dumbest conversation I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”

All three of them stare at me.
Long enough that I feel my cheeks turn red.

“Sorry,” I finally say.

I sneak a look at Dr. Conlon, and I could swear there’s a tiny smile playing on his lips.

“All right, girls,” he says.
“Let’s get back to work.”

_____

Yes, this session is humiliating.
But at the same time, wow, I learn a lot of anatomy. As much as I hate Dr. Conlon right now, I have to admire how patiently he explains everything to us. Wendy and Marissa have plenty more stupid questions in the queue, but he fields each of them expertly and doesn’t even make them feel like they said something really dumb.

When the hour is up, Dr. Conlon dismisses Wendy and Marissa.

“Why don’t you clean up here, Rachel,” he says.

“Why me?”
I shoot back at him as the other girls hightail it out the heavy lab door.

He regards me for a minute.
“We’ll take turns.”

“Wonderful,” I say.

He pulls the glove off his left hand. “I’m glad you came today, Rachel.”

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?”

“You always have a choice,” he says. “It’s just that this time, you made the right choice.”

I guess he’s implying that I made the wrong choice when I slept with him.
Then again, I didn’t hear any complaints at the time. So I wish he’d drop the holier than thou attitude.

“Don’t worry,” I say.
“I have no intention of making that particular bad choice
ever again
.”

Dr. Conlon nods, and maybe it’s my imagination, but his cheeks seem to flush slightly red.
It’s kind of satisfying to see him lose his composure, if only for a split second.