Chapter Twenty
Kane
Over the next week, I managed to lay all the hardwoods in the living room, demoed the kitchen cupboards, and stripped the linoleum. I also learned, quite effectively I might add, to use a paint roller while talking on my cell phone at the same time.
Helene filled my evenings with her voice, even if not with her physical presence, and I smiled the entire time I was painting over the dingy blue wall in my old bedroom with a lighter gray color. There was no way in hell this woman was going to sleep in this bedroom again that hadn’t been painted since before I was born. She didn’t care. I knew she didn’t care. But I cared.
I’d grown up being accustomed to how much prettier her world looked, how much cleaner it smelled, how much brighter the light was in her space. I’d never been jealous. Not of her. She didn’t inspire jealousy. But one thing I’d learned in this life was that you could look at a thing and want it without despising the person who had it. It was all a matter of who it was you envied.
I could easily envy Helene without resenting her. I envied her in an odd … reverence sort of way. Pathetic maybe, but I did. I always had, because she’d always envied me in the same way, and that was somehow understood between us. She was who she was, and however different that was from who I was, she still genuinely accepted me.
I’d not seen her since the Thursday before, and by the time I was jogging into the lecture hall for class, I was nearly late and more than nearly ready to be around her again. When I walked in, I was clearly the last to arrive, and the room turned in unison to look at me.
I held my hand up in an awkward wave aimed at the sea of gawkers. “Howdy,” I said to the silent room.
Helene was leaning against her desk, casually lounging with her textbook in her hand, and when she glanced at me, she instantly pushed her reading glasses up to the top of her head.
Her smile was professional and kind. “Have a seat, Mr. Thorson.”
I barely managed to keep the smirk from touching my lips. “Of course, Professor Hess.”
I looked at the front row, seeing Tia sitting right near the center and, consequently, right near the seat I’d been in the week prior. What a lucky coincidence for me. But rather than sit by her, I let my eyes glance casually past her, and I took the desk two down from her. It did not go unnoticed. Tia looked at me, and when I glanced at her, I smiled quickly and looked at Helene.
Helene was wearing a dark orange corduroy button up dress that was belted at the waist. She looked adorable. The skirt hit a few inches above her knees, and she’d rolled the long sleeves casually up just shy of her elbows. The top couple buttons were undone, and the light brown knee high riding boots she wore were the perfect laid-back look for her. She’d been so professional looking the first night of class, but she’d not once worn a stiff suit since then.
I liked the way she looked regardless of what she wore, but this outfit reminded me of something she might have worn in high school. Of course, she’d have chosen Mary Janes over riding boots in those days, but still… Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, but strands of loose hair and her long bangs wisped around her face. And then there were the black rimmed reading glasses. All I could think about was touching her.
Helene spent the next hour and a half lecturing, and I struggled to pay attention not because the content was boring, but because her voice seemed to send me to another place. By the time she finished, students were getting antsy. When she lifted the stack of tests from her desk, she stood up. Students were suddenly on high alert, and they sat up straighter as Helene started wandering with the stack in her hand.
“I was impressed with the tests,” Helene said as she passed the tests back.
As she walked, my eyes followed her, and when she stopped in front of my desk, I peered up at her. She set my test in front of me. Ninety-five percent. Not bad for the smart-ass who never gave a shit about school when I was young. But that didn’t mean I was a stupid person—never had been. I just lacked the same drive and discipline Hell had.
Until now.
I liked this. Pursuing something. Pursuing her—in whatever capacity that might mean. I was doing something worthwhile when I was with her—even if it was only talking. I’d more of less promised to be open with her when I asked her to give me a second chance, and I intended to as much as that terrified me. I wanted Helene to like me, love me, revere me, and there was a very good chance being open with her would destroy that before the end. But I couldn’t walk away, not when she’d agreed to let me stay close to her. I hadn’t even defined what a second chance meant when I’d begged her for one—only that I needed one and it involved being a part of her life in some way.
When she was finished handing out the tests, she leaned against the desk again, crossing her ankles.
“So now that we’ve discovered Plato’s Republic, we’re going to look more closely at one of my favorite topics within philosophy. Justice. What it is. What it is not. What it should be.”
“You just want us to help you write your dissertation, don’t you?” I asked loud enough for the class to hear.
She smiled and chuckled, and laughter erupted around me when she shrugged.
“Maybe,” she responded as she smiled at me again. “Justice is a foundational question in philosophy, starting with Plato’s Crito, and rehashed time and again ad nauseam through the course of philosophical history. Who can tell me what justice is. Define it for me in your own terms. Don’t look it up in your glossary.”
A number of hands rose around the room, and she chose a young man sitting a few rows behind me.
“Well, like equality for all people. Fairness.”
She nodded. “Does everyone agree with that?” She looked around the room, and I did too. It was a sea of nodding heads. “Any dissension? If you disagree, raise your hand.” She gave the room time to respond, and when nobody did she said, “So, we’re in agreement. Justice is based on equality. Who else can tell me what justice is?”
Another student was called on. “Laws, legal systems?”
Helene nodded again. “Okay. What laws? What legal system? Remember back to your days in Western Civ. for those who’ve already suffered the inhumanity of the humanities,” she said with a sly smile.
More laughter followed that comment.
“Are we talking Hammurabi’s code or Hebrew law?” she continued. “Laws based on man or based on religion?” She paused waiting for input but none came. “My point is, justice is a broader topic than simply policing people, because justice itself is all very much dependent on how and who has authority to mete out that justice.” She was silent for a moment. “Who else can tell me what justice is?”
Another hand rose, and another student was called on.
“What about politics?” the student asked.
“Sure.” She nodded. “How about human rights? How about theology? What does religion have to say about justice?”
A middle aged woman rose her hand, and Helene called on her.
“Well doesn’t it depend on whether you’re referring to the Old Testament or the New?”
“Ah,” Helene commented. “Very good. Furthermore, does it not depend on what religion in general you’re referring to?”
Heads nodded around the room.
“But for the sake of our discussion, let’s focus on Christianity since it’s part and parcel of western culture and most heavily influences our society. Does our society follow the teachings of the Old Testament? An eye for an eye? Or the New Testament? Turning the other cheek?”
“An eye for an eye,” someone hollered from the back of the class.
Some heads nodded, some shook. I remained still, watching Helene.
She shrugged. “Sometimes. Depends on the crime. Depends on the state. Depends on the government, politics, etc. of that state. Yes?”
More heads nodded.
“So, the death penalty is just?” she asked as she crossed her arms?
“Of course it’s just. You kill. You get killed,” a middle aged man said plainly.
“You can kill the pedophiles too while you’re at it,” a young man added.
Helene glanced down at the floor, but however casual the move was meant to be, I could see the tension in her throat as she tried to swallow. When she glanced back up, her expression was calm, but her eyes flit to me, pausing for just a moment.
She cleared her throat. “So a man who sexually molests a child in general should be put to death. He’s not killed a person or even the child necessarily, but that particular crime is heinous enough to warrant death?”
It wasn’t one or two students who agreed with that statement. The yeahs, hell yesses, and nodding heads resonated around the room.
“Could you make that decision?” she asked the young man.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Then you’ve made one person’s life more valuable than another’s. And bear in mind thereby doing so means you’ve just rocked the equilibrium of mankind. If we’re all equal and all things also being equal, are you not saying this criminal’s life is worth less?” She stared at him for a moment. “If justice is based on equality, how then can you say your actions are just?” The room was silent. “Now, are you prepared to make that decision?”
“Fuck, yes, I could,” the boy stated more emphatically.
“Fuck, yes, you could?” I asked as I craned my neck around to see him.
My voice bordered on incredulous, and my heart was pounding. I regretted the eruption instantly. I didn’t want to get into this discussion, but my hackles were raised. I stared at the kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty at the most, and I hated him for his naiveté, and his ignorance made me want to yell. He stared right back, his chin jutting up in defiance.
When the kid’s eyes flit away from mine to Helene beyond my shoulder, I turned back to face her. She was already looking at me.
“How about we stow the F-bombs, gentleman,” she said easily, but her eyes lingered on mine. She inhaled deeply. “Clearly you have an opinion on the matter,” she said to me, holding the eye contact as the rest of the room stared at us.
“Not really.” My words were casual, but my chest was tight. It wasn’t the room, it wasn’t the other students, it was her. She was looking directly at me and asking me to define my opinion on something that touched my life so much closer than even she understood. My opinion was also not something I could wrap my head around, and this was not the time or the place to try to work it out.
She said nothing for a moment, but then she cocked her head challengingly to the side. “So, yes to an eye for an eye?”
“I don’t know.” I stared right back at her.
“Yes to the death penalty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, to the extermination of pedophiles?”
“I… Don’t… Know…”
Her eyes never left mine, and it seemed to go on too long.
“Your position then, Mr. Thorson…?” She waited patiently for an answer.
“Is that it’s complicated.”
Her lip twitched, nearly a smirk that never quite made it. “It is… Yes,” she agreed. And then she finally looked away.
And I breathed again.
“How can you fight injustice with injustice?” Helene stood and started walking. “Goes against the very nature of what justice means. Does it not? One of the oldest arguments within the study of this particular topic.” She paused, looking around. “Who deserves justice? Do we all deserve justice on equal grounds?” She shrugged.
The room was silent, and she let it drag on for many long seconds.
“And with that, we embark on the medieval world. No quiz tonight, folks. Instead, I want a five hundred word essay on St. Augustine. You’ll find everything you need to know about the man in the assigned reading for next week.”
The room groaned.
“Give me a break, people,” Helene scoffed. “I’m letting you out an hour early with nothing more than a writing assignment that will take you at most thirty minutes if you do your reading. You’re welcome.”
Students stood, jackets were tossed over shoulders, books were slammed shut, and feet shuffled from the room. And I … took as much time as I could closing my book and tucking my pen behind my ear. Once those three seconds had lapsed, I stared at my test on my desk as though deep in thought about something.
Tia eyed me wearily. “Hi,” she said as she slowly passed my desk.
I glanced up. “Hi,” I said quickly, but then I looked back down at my test, ignoring her.
Helene was smiling at students, saying goodbye to others, and occasionally letting her eyes wander to me too. When the door latched behind the last student, I stood up and walked toward her. But as I reached her desk, she turned and walked toward the door. I leaned against the side of her desk, watching her, and when she reached the door, she clicked the lock into place and flipped the light switch off, leaving us in nothing more than the faint hallway light that filtered in through the narrow window on the door. But I could still see her in the dimness, and she was walking back to me.
When she stepped up to me, I parted my legs, waiting to see if she’d step closer. She did. She stepped between my thighs, and I gripped the side of her desk with my hands to stifle my need to touch her. I’d not touched her since the Thursday morning before, and I wanted it. I didn’t care what kind of touch. Just touch, her touch.
“Were you chastising me, Professor Hess?” I asked when she was fully between my thighs and close to me.
“Were you using foul language in my classroom, Mr. Thorson?” she asked right back, and I could see the corner of her lip pulling up.
I leaned forward, letting my forehead touch hers, and her breath tickled my lips.
“I fucking well was,” I responded.
She pulled back and looked at me for a moment. I couldn’t see enough of her expression to know what she was thinking, but I could see the shimmer in the whites of her eyes that picked up the dim light around us, and she was watching me just as closely as I watched her.
And then she kissed me. Again.
Her lips pressed against mine, and I moaned as every nerve in my body came alive. I’d wanted this from the very second it had ended the week before. I returned the kiss harshly, my mouth pushing her head back with the force, but she groaned too, and her body met mine as she sank against me.
Kissing had always been little more than a way to tell a woman I wanted to fuck her—just a step in the progression of sex. But kissing Helene was an entirely different thing, and it took on a life of its own. I wanted sex to follow, of course. I wanted a whole lot of things to follow. But kissing was its own thing with her, and it didn’t need to lead anywhere to be important. Even the sound of our lips smacking was enough to satisfy me, and the taste of her mouth was such an incredible payoff that it required nothing more.
But fuck my body wanted more.
I gripped her cheek, holding her mouth tight to mine as I pulled on one lip and then the other, sucking and then releasing. I was hard, rigid, and straining against the front of my jeans, and the closer her body pressed to mine, the more painful that pressure became. I ran my hand down to her throat as my mouth kissed and sucked and nipped at her lips, and then my hand kept going, needing to touch more of her. I paused, though, when I reached the top of her chest, and as I groaned, I slid my hand back up to grip gently into the sides of her neck.
But I couldn’t seem to control what my hands wanted to do, and I ran them down her sides as she clutched at my face, and then I slipped them past the lower hem of her dress, grazing my palms up the backs of her thighs. Her breath caught in her lungs.
“Oh, God,” she whispered against my mouth.
It was the only thing that stopped me from going farther, and I cursed as I once again pulled my hands away from her skin. I stopped kissing her then, worried what my hands would think they had permission to do if I didn’t. She brought her forehead to mine again, resting it there as we panted against one another’s lips. We stayed that way, breathing heavily, not moving, not even kissing, just cooling down slowly.
“Baby, you know we can’t do this here,” I finally said.
I felt her nod, but she remained quiet.
“Ask me to come home with you,” I whispered.
She leaned back, staring at me in the near darkness. I reached out, brushing her bangs off her forehead.
“Nothing has to happen you’re not ready for. I have no expectations. I just want to be with you.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. There were expectations, because she’d kissed me again. She’d made a decision. She wanted to move forward, and she wanted to do that in a decidedly sexual way. This was going to get complicated.
I was okay with complicated.