POV Victor
The thing about trying not to think about something is that it becomes the only thing you can think about. Except the thing is the absence of underwear between a student's thighs and the way she let them part just enough to make sure I knew.
I'm grading papers at my desk, or pretending to. Red pen hovering over some sophomore's massacre of Hobbes while my brain replays Elisa's little performance on repeat.
The calculated shift. The uncrossing of legs. The way she'd leaned into Mitchell's space afterward, her hand on his arm.
Mission fucking accomplished.
The worst part is how obviously orchestrated it was. Like watching someone follow a YouTube tutorial on "How to Seduce Your Professor in 10 Easy Steps." She might as well have been reading from cue cards.
And yet here I am. Forty-three years old with a PhD and two decades of teaching experience, completely derailed by a nineteen-year-old who treats seduction like a combat sport.
"DAD!"
Liv bursts through my office door, making me drop my pen.
"Jesus Christ, Olivia. Knock."
"I did knock. You were in your brooding zone." She flops into the chair across from me, the same one where Elisa sat during that first tutoring session. "Mom's having a moment."
"What kind of moment?"
"The kind where Jordan is over again and they're not even pretending to do yoga anymore." Liv picks at the armrest. "I can literally hear them through the ceiling. It's disgusting."
"Your mother is an adult—"
"Who's fucking her twenty-five-year-old instructor in your bed. Yeah, Dad, I'm aware." She looks up with Clara's exact gaze—surgical precision cutting straight through bullshit. "Just like you were fucking Katherine in this office. And Rebecca in the library. And that visiting professor from Prague during that conference."
"Olivia…"
"I'm twenty, not two. I can count the affairs on both sides. Mom with her rotating cast of boy toys, you with your student collection." She leans back, studying me. "Though at least you've been celibate for what, two years? Since Rebecca?"
Oh, I know where this is going.
"There's nothing happening with Elisa."
"Yeah? Because Jess says she practically stripped in our dining room."
"Jess exaggerates."
"And you deflect when you're guilty." She leans back, studying me. "I feel like such an idiot. I literally brought her to you. 'Oh Dad, help my friend, she's struggling.' Like I was serving her up on a silver fucking platter."
"Language."
"Really? That's your concern right now? My language? Not the fact that my parents turned infidelity into a competitive sport?"
She laughs bitterly.
"Your mother and I have an... understanding."
"An understanding? Is that what we're calling it?" She stands, wrapping her arms around herself. "You stay married on paper so she keeps her reputation and you keep your tenure. Great understanding."
"It's more complicated than that."
"You know, I thought maybe this time would be different. You've been good for what, two years? I thought maybe you'd finally figured out that you can't fill whatever existential void you have with grad students."
"Elisa isn't a grad student."
"Wow, semantics. That's your defense?"
"She's nineteen."
"The fact that you know her exact age isn't the winning argument you think it is, Dad."
I set down my pen, trying to gather words that won't make this worse.
That yes, I've noticed Elisa in ways that would end my career and marriage? That she shows up to my lectures specifically to torment me?
"The past is the past," I say finally, going for a reassuring professor voice. "Katherine was a mistake. Rebecca was—"
"Also a mistake?"
"A different kind of mistake."
"Just... don't, okay? With Elisa? She's actually nice. Weird and sad and probably has more traumas than a magazine subscription, but nice. And I don't have a lot of friends who stick around once they figure out how fucked up our family is."
"Olivia…"
"Plus, she's not even interested in you."
If only she knew that her friend spreads her legs in my lectures. That she sent me photos that live in my password-protected folder.
"Besides, she's probably still hung up on that creepy ex Kilian who shows up on campus."
The thought of another man pursuing Elisa hits like a slap.
"You're right," I say, because what else can I say? "I understand you might be sensitive because of our history."
"Whatever, Dad. Just... try to do better, okay?"
She leaves me alone with my thoughts. Rain hammers my office window.
I’m looking for my reading glasses but they’re nowhere to be found. I must have left them at the lecture hall.
Perfect excuse to stop marinating in my own moral decay.
***
The lecture hall is tomb-quiet. My glasses are there, but so is something else: a small black umbrella hooked on Elisa's front-row seat.
Through the windows: biblical rain. The bus stop glows under sodium light in the distance.
She'll be there.
I know it with the same certainty I knew Katherine would be waiting outside my office after that first faculty mixer. The same way I knew Rebecca would still be in the library at 2 AM.
There's a choreography to these things, steps so predictable you could set them to music. The forgotten item. The chance encounter. The plausible deniability that lets everyone pretend this isn't exactly what it is.
Elisa will be at that bus stop, soaked and shivering.
The smart thing would be to leave it for lost and found. The right thing would be to go home to my wife.
Instead, I grab the umbrella and my car keys.
Just returning her property. That's all.
The drive to the bus stop takes two minutes. Two minutes of wipers fighting the rain, of telling myself I'll just hand her the umbrella through the window and drive away.
Simple. Professional. Appropriate.
Then I see her.
She's pressed against the glass shelter that protects nothing from the horizontal rain. Her white blouse is soaked completely transparent, clinging to every curve like it's been painted on.
Water runs in rivulets down her skin, and Christ—her nipples are clearly visible through the fabric, hard from the cold, impossible to ignore.
My hands grip the steering wheel hard enough to leave marks.
Give her the umbrella. Drive away.
Give her the umbrella. Drive away.
I pull up to the curb, roll down the passenger window. Rain immediately attacks the interior like it's been personally offended by dryness.
"Elisa," I call out, holding up the umbrella. "You forgot this."
She turns, and the way she moves is deliberate. Water drips from her hair, runs down her neck, disappears between her breasts that the transparent fabric does nothing to hide.
I have to wait three more months until that vindictive old bastard's will can't touch Liv’s inheritance.
But will she wait that long?
"Professor Larsen," she says, not moving toward the car. Making me look at her. Making me see everything.
"How thoughtful of you."
"Take it," I say, voice rougher than intended. "You're soaked."
"I noticed." And still, she doesn't move.
Just stands there. A shiver runs through her, making everything more visible.
I can't look away from how the cold has affected her body, how obvious everything is through that blouse.
"Get in the car."
The words come out before I can stop them.
She doesn't hesitate, doesn't play coy. Just slides into my car like she's been doing it for years, bringing the storm with her.
Water pools at her feet, her clothes dripping onto leather seats. The interior immediately fogs with the heat of her rain-soaked body.
"I'm taking you home," I tell her, already pulling away from the curb.
Right, home.
We both know that's a lie.