when the daydreams overcame her in the library, and she could surrender in her struggle to understand the symbolism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and absorb herself in the mysteries of how to surrender to a man who seemed determined not to let her. She was deep in this reverie that afternoon when she heard someone call her name from very far away.
"Teresa. Teresa Kirk." the voice was like a dash of cold water in her face. She looked up to see one of the library aids beckoning her from the desk. "Aren't you Teresa Kirk?"
Still muddled by the abrupt end to her imagined seduction, Trissa bolted to her feet, nearly tripping over her purse in the aisle. "Yes."
"Take your books. There's an urgent message for you at the Student Resource Center."
"Yes, okay."
The Student Center was two blocks west of the library. Trissa used the journey to compose herself, to wipe all evidence of her pleasant, if unacceptably carnal, thoughts from her brain. Her mind flicked over the possible reasons she could be called to the student center in the middle of the day and tried to convince herself it was for advisement and nothing else.
She entered the building and turned a corner heading toward the office. A notebook slid off the stack of books she held clutched against her. She reached to rescue it and ran right into a man bent over the water fountain.
"Sorry, I -- Daddy!" Her heart squeezed and tumbled inside of her, and she didn't know if she should scream or run.
"Teresa, darling, we've been so worried about you, your mother and I."
"I'm fine," was all that squeaked out of her. She had the brief, preposterous notion that that was all he wanted from her, to see she was all right, to know that she still lived, and could go on living without his help. She wished it were that simple.
"I saw your report card. They mailed it to the house. You must be working hard."
"Yes. May I go now?"
"Go? I thought you'd come with me. We could go to lunch. I need to talk to you." He exuded that hypnotic charm that fooled all the women. Like a snake just before it struck.
"I can't. I already ate. I have an assignment to turn in this afternoon."
His teeth showed white, but it wasn't a smile. With deliberate slowness, he drew his thumb down the path of his scar, a trail that ended with his palm flattened over his heart. "Oh, but sweetheart, this is your father. Assignments can be made up."
The cross hatches of his scar burned into her eyes, like the flashing afterimages of the track she'd fled along. She closed her eyes and willed them away. The effort made her voice thin and tremulous. "I'm not your sweetheart. And as far as I am concerned, I have no father."
"See, I knew this would happen if we let this little misunderstanding between us fester into something worse. We have to talk things over, put them behind us, so we can go on." Never once did his cool, measured tone falter. Only the narrowing of his eyes revealed his growing impatience with her resistance. He reached out to take her arm. She ducked away from him.
"It could not get any worse and talking won't make it any better. I won't go with you today or ever. I have a new life now." She should have turned and fled from him then, denied him once and for always.
"Yes, your advisor, Miss Royal, told me all about your Uncle Pete. I didn't tell her I knew of no such relation. You didn't cool those round heels of yours long, did you, girl?" This time when he reached for her, he made sure he had her backed against a wall. There was no escape. He gripped her arm so tightly it brought tears to her eyes.
"Whoever this Romeo of yours is, I'll find him. And when I do, I'll teach him not to kidnap and seduce girls away from their families. And when I'm through with him, the police can have what they can scrape off the sidewalk. Do I make myself clear, Teresa Marie?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now, I'll give you a chance to prove yourself and perhaps save me and your boyfriend from a little unpleasantness. Come home tomorrow after you're finished here, but don't go in the house. Your mother and I are not currently residing together. You have succeeded in tearing apart a marriage of thirty