Chapter 4 – Chapter 4

By my return to school, it had been six weeks since I'd had a 1-1 interaction with him, and I assumed those interactions were over. After all, I didn't have a class with him that semester.

"We can get that drink now, Mr. Denton."

"Huh?" I asked. I was in the lounge of the law building, and I hadn't seen him approach from behind.

"The drink. The one you suggested. You are no longer my student and, considering you're in your final semester, never will be again. So, we can get that drink, if you'd still like to get a drink."

"I, uh, sure. When?"

"No time like the present."

I looked at my watch. It was 5:15.

"Don't you need to be home soon?"

"Claire and the girls are having a 'Girls Night Out'," he said, air quoting. "They are seeing a movie at 5:50. I'm all yours until 7:30 or so."

"All mine?" I wanted to ask. But, I feared pressing my luck and getting a whammy, as I had six weeks earlier. So I instead suggested an elegant restaurant not far from campus that had six chairs at the bar and a friend of mine behind it.

"I know the place. I'll meet you there."

We didn't sit at the bar. "I prefer to sit low," he said, taking a chair at a four top and signaling that I was to sit adjacent to, not across from, him.

"I missed you," I admitted, unable to stop myself, just before taking my first sip of a Long Island Iced Tea.

"I missed speaking with you," he answered, just before running only the tip of his tongue along the edge of the neat Gin that had just arrived.

His answer wounded me. I wanted him to have missed me, not speaking with me.

"I like to flirt with my drink," he said, putting it back down and then sliding the glass gently around the table so as to swirl the Gin only a little.

"I like to flirt," I answered.

"I'm well aware," he answered back, confirming that my barely disguised attempts at subtlety had failed.

"You are incredibly intelligent," he said, changing the subject before picking up his drink and taking a large, adult sized swallow that made his Adam's apple bob up and down in a way that made my breath catch.

"As you know, there were eight students in the seminar. When I graded the final opinions, one stood out from the others, both in its bold analysis and in its sly cleverness. 'This one,' I said to myself. 'This one is a cut above.' It was yours, as I discovered when I matched the numbers to the names. You received an A+. You received the only A."

"Wow," I said.

"I was wowed. So was Claire. I had her read all eight. She asked if I had written yours, whether it was the 'key' I used to grade the others. I assured her I had not and it was not. She was terribly impressed. She'd say she was gobsmacked. She likes to use that word, gobsmacked."

"Wow," I said again. I was a good student, not a great one. I wasn't accustomed to As, much less to accolades.

"What are you doing when you graduate?"

In all our talks, I couldn't believe we had never discussed my future.

"I'm going to work for the Attorney General. I want to be in Government. Politics."

"What a shame," he said. "You could do so much more."

"I think Government and Politics are noble professions."

"I think they are ignoble. And, I think they render ignoble the noble people who engage in them. Slowly but surely, they rot you. It's so slow and so sure that you don't know you're rotten until you're rotten to your core."

"So, I assume you won't be going into politics?"

"Me? Never. It's tawdry, the money hounding and the vote whoring. It's, well, it's soul selling and soul sucking, that's what it is."

I was surprised by his use of whoring. It seemed beneath him.

"We disagree on everything else. So, it's not surprising we disagree on this."

"You and my father. He has ever dreamed of me being a Governor or a Senator. The more he pushed, the harder I pushed back."

"We all rebel."

We each had two drinks. Mine were stronger than his, and I was feeling fuzzy and warm when he paid for the drinks.

"Not necessary," I said cheekily as he took the check. "I'll let you in on a secret…. I'm a sure thing."

He didn't frown or smile in response. He just cocked his head at me, as if he was trying to think of something clever to say in reply but could not.

It was a brutal January night. At the door, we paused to exchange pleasantries before bundling up and facing the cold and the wind. When he extended his hand, I took it and pulled him toward me, forcing him into what could only be described as a very awkward embrace.

"Well," he said, pulling his stiff body back from mine, after I patted his upper back and made the awkwardness even more awkward.

"Sorry," I said, "I didn't mean to…."

"No need to apologize," he said. "Next time, just give me a warning. I was caught off guard and fear that I failed the embrace."

He was out the door before I could assure him that he had not failed the embrace, that although he didn't really hug me back, the smell of his hair as I hugged him had cleared my mind of the Long Island Iced Teas and then intoxicated me in a totally different way.

That night, I pleasured myself thinking about his "next time." As I did, I imagined he was inside of me, moving his hips slowly as he took me for the first time, his hand wrapped around me as my hands gripped the sheets and I arched my back, his eyes on me and then mine as he watched for the first time what he could do to me.