The downside to working in academia was that while I was sick, the university didn’t slow down. I had a third round of thesis revisions in my box and twenty-five rhetorical analysis papers to grade. As I entered the apartment, a stack of papers in one arm, London sauntered past in his boxers. “Do you own pants?” I asked.

He smirked. “Yeah, they’re on my bedroom floor if you want to grab them.”

Something about the way he said that wasn’t encouraging. “What are you insinuating?” I asked.

I watched as he pulled out a tray of ice cubes and plopped some into a plastic cup. “You know,” London said. “I’ve never known anyone who actually used ice trays.”

“You’d better fill them back up.”

“I will when I’m done,” London replied.

“Done with what?”

“With sex,” he said.

“You need ice to have sex?” I asked. “What are you doing with it? Shoving it up her vagina?”

London snorted. “No, it’s for a game. I can show you later if you like.”

I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. He winked as he sauntered past. What was it like to be that shameless about your sex life?

“Don’t be such a prude,” London added, shaking a cupful of ice.

“I’m not a prude. I’m very widely read on sex—Sade, Rice, Desclos, Cleland. You name it.”

“And yet you’re so reluctant to gain practical experience,” London replied.

He closed his bedroom door behind him, and for a few seconds I stared at it dubiously. He’d brought someone over to have sex. He could do that. There was no reason to be bothered by it. London paid the rent, too.

I took my papers and plopped onto the sofa. If there was nothing to be upset about, why was my stomach churning? Why did I even care? Why did a completely irrational part of me want to barge in there and demand London not have this stranger over for sex?

He was within his rights to do it, and I—

I wished it was me.

I was jealous. Even though my first time having sex hadn’t been the grand, world-shattering experience I’d imagined, I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do it better, and I wanted that easy confidence London had, the shamelessness. And I wanted to know what game he was playing with all the ice from our freezer. Dear God, I was selfish. London could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted.

I went for Dr. Benson’s thesis revisions first. They would take more time and be more complicated, but were also more pressing. The first few pages had minor fixes—a comma here and a change of wording there. The complicated fixes came around page seven, but I’d been formulating a sort of response for her complaints. My main goal was to get the ideas down; I could always polish later. I seemed to be closer to what she wanted. She’d noted in the margins that I seemed to have gotten a more nuanced argument, but I was still missing something crucial in her eyes. You need to look beyond she’s a lonely woman in a loveless marriage seeking sex elsewhere. What else is she missing, Chance?

What, indeed? Like always, Dr. Benson wasn’t going to give me the answer; she expected me to find it myself. That wasn’t wholly bad. She only wanted me to learn to think critically, but sometimes, I felt like she had far too much faith in me. What was missing? Lady Chatterley had money and sex. Towards the end of the novel, she seemed to have gained the emotional fulfillment she’d wanted.

What was missing?

When London’s door creaked open, I’d added three pages to the revisions, but I still felt like I was circling Dr. Benson’s answer. A stunning woman with blonde hair walked from his room. I wasn’t sure precisely who I’d expected to come out—perhaps a goddess-like woman in nothing but a red, lacy bra, and panties. Instead, she wore a pink sweater and blue jeans. “Oh, hey,” she said, as she ran her fingers through her hair.

Like it was nothing.

“Hello,” I replied.

“It’s Chase, right?” she asked.

“Chance,” I replied, “or any mutilation thereof. Chase, Chastity, whatever.”

“Mariel,” she said.

“That’s a nice name.”

She rolled her eyes. “It means ‘bitter’ in Greek. Fitting, don’t you think?” she asked, flashing a bright smile and a sultry wink. “I’m a real ice queen.”

Mariel was snarky, and for that, she had my admiration. “Yes, you do seem terribly bitter,” I joked.

London, still in his boxers, walked out behind her. “That joke was dreadful,” London said, planting a kiss on Mariel’s cheek. “Ice queen, huh?”

Oh. They’d done something with ice. I’d forgotten about that. My face warmed and I looked askance.

“Maybe you can warm me up next time,” Mariel replied.

Next time?

“We’ll see, Your Majesty,” London said.

Mariel smirked and left, swinging her hips as she walked. The second she left, London returned to his room. I followed and watched absentmindedly as he stripped the sheets from his bed. “Don’t worry,” London said, as he folded them onto the floor. “I won’t make you wash these.”

Right. I was doing London’s laundry in return for him covering my share of the rent and paying for my doctor’s visit. I’d forgotten about that.

“I appreciate it,” I replied. “I have absolutely no desire to wash bed sheets covered in bodily fluids.”

“Didn’t think so. I’m going to hop into the shower now. I’ll grab them later,” London said.

His back was very nicely muscled. When he turned around, I averted my gaze, so he didn’t catch me looking.

“Hey, you okay?” London asked.

“Fine,” I replied. “I was just thinking of something.”

“Yeah?”

“Was she good?” I asked.

“Yeah, she was.”

Better than me? Fuck, I definitely couldn’t ask that. The answer was probably “yes” anyway.

“Really into ice play. She let me tie her up, too. That’s always fun.”

“But…you just moved here. She can’t have known you very long,” I said.

“She didn’t. Why?”

“Because she just…trusted you to tie her up,” I replied awkwardly.

“Yeah, but she had a safe call from her friend. Took and texted pictures of my car to her friend, too,” London said. “You know. She’s not a fool.”

“No, definitely not.”

London’s eyes looked a little too discerning. “Why so interested? Do you want me to tie you to my bed and play with you?”

Why did he have to say it like that? In that sultry, delightful sort of way that promised so much?

“I didn’t say that,” I answered, my throat dry.

“Have you always been so suspicious of everyone? If I wanted to murder you in your sleep, I’d have done it when you had the flu. You’d have put up less of a fight then,” London said.

“I’m just not used to people being so…open about their private lives. Or about trusting others,” I admitted.

“How come?”

This was a conversation I’d never expected to have with a mostly naked man. “I guess I’ve always been suspicious,” I replied. “I think that’s normal for coming out of foster care, isn’t it?”

“How long were you in foster care?” London asked.

I sighed. “Since I was twelve. It’s not that big of a deal, and I should be over it. That’s probably where the trust issues come from, though. I moved around pretty frequently. Different families, different people. You know.”

“That’s probably why you always have to have a plan for everything, too,” London replied. “You’re terrified of being unable to control every aspect of your life.”

“Thanks, Dr. Freud.”

“And your sarcasm is a defense mechanism,” London replied. “I see.”

When I glared at him, London raised his hands up as if in surrender. “It’s an odd combination,” London said. “Curiosity and caution.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

“Sure,” London replied. “But being an English major, I’d expect you to know that the origin of that phrase is care killed the cat. Care, meaning worry. As in, worrying too much will kill you. Haven’t you read Much Ado About Nothing?”

Oh, my God. He actually knew that. What an ass. An ass who knew literature. “Actually, the phrase comes from the playwright Ben Jonson,” I replied, “and it may predate even that.”

London grinned. “I impressed you with that,” he said. “Admit it.”

“I’ll give you points for knowing Shakespeare wrote something other than Hamlet,” I replied.

London heaved a dramatic sigh and walked past me. He paused by the door and looked mischievously over his shoulder. “There’s just no pleasing you, is there?” he asked. “Well, should you decide you want to have some fun later, you know where to find me.”

“I have a fun date with my students’ essays,” I replied.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to stand them up and hook up with me instead. Take a chance, eh?”

I winced. London might have a great ass and some good knowledge about English, but his puns were far more terrifying than anything Stephen King could write.

* * *

Freshly showered, London lounged in the living room. To his credit, he responded to the array of papers spread over the coffee table and sofa with only a raised eyebrow. “So what did you make them do?” London asked.

“A rhetorical analysis. They had to look at a building on campus and analyze it for rhetorical devices. I thought it’d be fun—sort of a new twist on studying visual rhetoric.”

“And?”

“I’m never doing it again. My students hate it.” I paused. “Or at least, I’m going to heavily alter any future rhetorical analysis assignments.”

“Huh.”

London kept giving me awkward glances, and I pretended to ignore them.

“So…” London finally drawled. “Foster care.”

“Really?”

“What happened to your parents?”

“I don’t think that’s really any of your business, is it?” I asked.

“Okay,” London said. “But that’s pretty basic ‘I’m just meeting you’ type of information.”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Fine, fine,” London said.

I had the sneaking suspicion that he’d relented too early and had some ulterior motive, but his voice seemed sincere at least.

“Clearly, you got along okay without them. You’re doing well for someone without a family.”

If I was being honest with myself, not really.

“Dr. Benson said that once, too. She said I’m well-adjusted.”

“Your therapist?”

“My thesis advisor,” I replied. “I’d never go see a therapist.”

“There’s nothing wrong with therapy,” London said. “Some people find it very helpful.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine. I just don’t think it’s for me.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

Silence fell. I didn’t feel any closer to figuring out what Dr. Benson wanted, so I put aside her revisions and skimmed through a student paper. It wasn’t promising. Clearly, half the class had missed the point of this assignment. Rhetorical analysis was tricky to grasp. Fortunately, these were only rough drafts, so my students still had time to change things before the major paper was due. I considered emailing Dr. Benson for advice; she’d been teaching rhetoric for a decade and probably knew a few things that could help me out.

“Your roots are starting to show,” London said.

“Don’t you have anything to do?” I asked.

“It’s Friday night,” London replied. “I’m sure I could find something. Don’t you have something to do? Thesis edits, maybe?”

“I’ve hit a bit of a wall. Lady Constance Chatterley is kicking my ass.”

"I’ve never read that. What’s Lady Chatterley about? She must be quite formidable if she’s kicking your ass,” London said.

“She’s a married lady in this loveless relationship with her husband, whose impotent because of an injury in World War I. He’s also very neglectful, which leads to his wife having this affair with the groundskeeper.”

“Sounds sexy. And this book interests you?”

“I realize it sounds like a drugstore romance novel, but it’s really incredible.”

“I wasn’t judging your reading tastes,” London said. “Maybe I should read it. Then, when you’re finished with your thesis, I can read that, too.”

“My thesis won’t be really exciting or anything. It’s very theory-heavy.”

“But you’re excited about it.”

I shrugged. “Of course, it’s my thesis.”

“I just don’t imagine how anything you’d write would be boring, especially after you’ve put such effort into it,” London replied.

I didn’t know what to make of that. People weren’t usually interested in reading my thesis; even my fellow graduate students hadn’t seemed interested in reading it. That was the fate of choosing a very niche, twentieth century novel as my focus. Maybe London was just trying to be polite. But he didn’t sound like he was trying to be polite. He sounded odd, and I felt as though I was missing some vital social cue.

“So now you’re grading papers for students you won’t see until—what? Tuesday? Put them down. Let’s go do something.”

“Little soon for that, isn’t it?” I asked.

A pause.

“What do you mean?” London inquired.

I looked up from my papers. London furrowed his brow and tilted his head slightly to the side, clearly bemused.

“You didn’t mean sex…” I trailed off awkwardly.

“No, I meant we ought to go out to eat or to the movies or something. Were you hoping for sex?”

Oh, God. “No, I just sort of assumed. Because it’s you,” I replied. “I mean, you’re not exactly shy about anything, and…yeah.”

“I thought I was a bad lay,” London retorted. “Oh, this is great.”

“Okay, maybe I went too far with that,” I said. “You’re still an ass, but maybe you’re not a bad lay. I, however, probably am. There. Are you happy now?”

“Absolutely delighted. So are we having sex?”

“But you…”

London shrugged. “Just because you’re a jerk doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to do you. If you don’t practice, you’ll never learn to be good at it. Then, you’ll get old and married and still be a bad lay.”

“So what’s your tragic backstory? You didn’t receive enough love as a child, and you’re compensating by having lots of sex?”

“Ooh. Are you trying to psychoanalyze me back? Well, you aren’t very good at it. No, my parents loved me when I was a kid. It was when I became an adult that we ran into problems. They didn’t want me to be an adult. As for the sex, well, I guess I just discovered I really liked it, so I kept trying it.”

“And you’ve done some interesting things, I guess? Like…kinky things?”

“Well, I’m sure I haven’t tried everything, but I’ve tried a lot, yeah. Only thing I’m really not into is threesomes. It turns out I just don’t like to share,” London replied. “But I have a friend who really loves them. So don’t let me, like, throw you off threesomes or something.”

“Okay.”

“Too much information?” London asked.

I shook my head. “No, I did ask, after all.”

“Do you regret asking?”

“No. I’m just maybe a bit envious. You’re so eager, but when we had sex, I remember worrying that you were going to turn out to be some sort of human trafficker.”

London burst into laughter. “Well, it was your first time. I’m not surprised you were nervous. I mean, it’s not a bad idea to be cautious, but it is a bad idea to become a recluse. Since I’ve lived here, you’ve barely left the apartment for anything besides the university, and you’ve never had anyone over. You need to branch out.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” I replied.

“So are you going to do it?”

I shrugged.

“Dear God, it’s like trying to argue with a strawberry shortcake.”

I raised an eyebrow at that rather odd simile, an action London dismissed with an annoyed wave of his hand. “Get your coat. We’re going out if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you kicking and screaming to my car.”

“Wow. You are such a charmer.”

“I know I am. And every time you complain on this outing, you have to put a quarter in a complaint jar.”

“Dramatic, too,” I said.

But I abandoned my papers all the same and reached under the coffee table for my tennis shoes.