Quick Study - By Gretchen Galway Page 0,30

met, you know—he was checking me out when I dropped Jake off at Happy Bear.”

“Never trust a man sniffing around at a preschool,” Marilyn said.

Lorraine didn't look so sure. She'd gotten to her feet and come over to rest her soft hand on Bonnie's arm. “Maybe you should hear what he has to say. It might make you feel better.”

“To hell with him.” Bonnie wiped away angry tears, leaned over and kissed the tissue-thin skin of her roommate's cheek. “I was crazy to take it so seriously. I mean, what was I thinking? I barely knew the guy.”

“Let's go out to See's,” Marilyn said, heaving to her feet. “I feel your need for a dozen mocha truffles.”

Lorraine didn't move. “Marilyn and I knew on our second date that we'd be together forever,” she said. “If we could get up the courage.”

“If you could.” Marilyn shuffled over. “You took some convincing.”

Lorraine smiled. “Not too much.”

“Two years,” Marilyn said. “With all that praying and crying to put up with.”

They gave each other a poignant look that crossed the decades and made Bonnie ashamed of her small heartbreak.

Obviously, Paul never would understand feelings that rooted that deep.

Unlike herself.

Chapter 10

He continued to call and she continued to ignore him. Each time he left a single message, without any other words or explanation: “I'm sorry.”

For what? she wondered bitterly. For helping her fix her life? Because by the time two entire months had passed, Bonnie had never been as happy with herself and her occupation—or lack of it. For the first time in several years, she woke up early without an alarm and jumped out of bed to start the day. She began running. Painting. Visiting old friends.

Obviously, she didn't need him.

Didn't love him.

Whatever remnants of feeling she had for him—infinitesimal, broken shards of useless sentimentality—she was getting out of her system by crying herself to sleep. Or once, when she was in Trader Joe's tossing an imported frozen pizza into her cart and had to hurry out without paying.

She would not be one of those women. She would not fall apart as though a man was the duct tape holding her together.

Then one Tuesday morning he called at the usual time, while she was helping Marilyn with her morning medication, and left a different message.

“I think I'm in love with you,” he said. Then the recording captured empty air as he lingered in silence before finally clicking off.

“You scumbag.” Standing at the kitchen table, Bonnie felt the air leave her lungs. Without deleting the message, she shoved the phone back into her purse and went back to counting out Marilyn's “old lady pills.”

“What now?” Marilyn asked.

“Hush.” Lorraine said, entering the room. “She's crying.”

“I am not.” Bonnie wiped her nose. “Allergies.”

Marilyn reached over and took the pill bottle from her. “Yeah, I'm allergic to 'em too.”

He called at the same time the next evening and again she didn't answer. But as soon as the red message light began to blink, Bonnie took the phone into her bedroom and braced herself to hear more about his stupid “love,” hoping he'd add some detail about the suffering he was enduring without her.

But all he said was, “I'm in love with you.”

She listened to the message seven times before she deleted it.

Two weeks of this went by. In spite of herself, Bonnie began to thaw. She thought about him when she was awake, and at night, when her subconscious came unleashed, she burned and burned with naked lust.

One dream in particular swam up from her erotic subconscious and had her dripping wet and wired at four in the morning. Instead of Professor Alice it had been Professor Paul, and he hadn't been happy at all with her dropping out of school. In fact, she was much too young to be out of school—just a girl, really, like Britney in the video—and Prof. Paul had locked her into his office to teach her the importance of keeping her nose to the academic grindstone. While she bent over his desk.

“You are a very bad young lady,” he'd said, holding her firmly and sliding up her short plaid skirt. “I'll have to be very firm with you.”

In her dream, his hand had been impossibly large and strong. Resisting him had not been an option and she lifted her ass for a spanking and begged for more.

She woke up before he had pounded his cock into her. Lying sweaty and frustrated in the darkness, trying to recapture the intensity of the dream,