Chapter Thirteen
Tessa
I met up with Lindsey at the Haymarket. We had plenty of work that we needed to do, but first she wanted to hear all about what I had done with Leo. I hadn’t told her about not wearing underwear to class, but I did now.
“You really did that?” she asked. “The other day in class?”
“Yes.”
“And I had no idea! Holy shit. Who are you turning into? That time at the bar, not wearing underwear to class, getting tied up . . . and did you say you videotaped it, too?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s so hot. I mean, I know you were originally going to try to get some stuff to use in case he tried to not give you a good grade, but now it seems more like you should just have it because it’s so hot. Have you watched it?”
“No, not yet.”
“Your sex life is more exciting than mine! That is so hot, by the way. I have never been able to find a guy that wants to tie me up! Why is that? Isn’t it supposed to be like every guy’s secret fetish or something?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” I said, thinking back to the way it felt with my wrists trapped against the smooth silk of the tie, my arms yanked up over my head, immobilized. Before that had happened, I wouldn’t have said I was someone who was into that sort of thing, but now that I’d actually experienced it, I realized how great it was.
“I’m kind of jealous, you know,” Lindsey said. “This makes me want to go proposition one of my professors. Except none are as hot as Leo is, so it probably wouldn’t be as fun. Do you think it’s going to stop once the semester is over? It kind of seems like it’s something you guys should keep doing. I know I would.”
“I don’t know,” I said. Originally, that had been the plan, but now I didn’t want to stop it. It was too much fun, too exciting. I had a feeling he felt the same way. “It would be nice if we could keep it going. But maybe that’s why it’s working out so well right now? Because we both assumed there was going to be an end date?”
Lindsey made a face. “Maybe,” she said, “but I would hate to think that good sex only happens because you know you’re not going to have to see the person forever.”
“I don’t think that. But . . . maybe it would start to lose its appeal if we kept doing it. I wouldn’t want this to go from something that had been so exciting to totally monotonous.” I could remember how exciting things had felt with Nick when we first started hooking up. It had felt similar to this, and then Nick had decided he wasn’t interested anymore. I wanted to think that things with Leo were different, but he was, after all, still a guy. And guys seemed able to get sick of things when you were least expecting it.
“Based on what you’ve told me, I highly doubt that it would ever get monotonous. Monogamous, maybe.” She grinned. “Could you imagine if Leo was your boyfriend? I mean, that would be totally crazy. He’s so hot. And once this semester is over, you won’t be his student anymore, so you could totally go public with being in a relationship with him.”
“I can’t even think that far into the future right now,” I said. “I just want to enjoy the way things are going, and keep focused on schoolwork, because really, that’s what got this whole thing started to begin with.”
“And to think that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t gotten a few C’s.”
It was weird the way things worked out sometimes. If I had never gone to him about the extra credit, none of this would be happening right now. “All right,” I said, pulling my laptop toward me. “Let’s get back to work.”
Lindsey and I stayed at the Haymarket for a couple hours, and we were pretty good about staying on task and getting some studying done. I finished a paper I had for my feminist fiction class and almost finished reading three chapters for my moral philosophy course. Was it ironic that one of the chapters I read examined the morality behind doing something pleasurable despite the fact that you knew it was wrong, even if it wasn’t hurting anyone?
As I was driving back to the apartment, my phone started to ring. I came to a red light, so I pulled it out of my purse and looked at the screen. It was my father.
“Hello?” I said, wondering why he was calling me now. “Is everything okay?”
“Hi, Tessa,” he said. “Yes, everything’s fine. How are you doing?”
“Good. I just finished up at the Haymarket; I was there studying with Lindsey.”
“Glad to hear it. That’s mainly the reason for my call—I just wanted to check in with you and see how things were going with your studies. But you sound like you’ve got things back on the right track.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I said. “I think you and Mom would both be pretty pleased with the work that I’m doing.”
“I hope we’ll see that reflected in your grades.”
“You will.”
“Good. You and I didn’t really have an opportunity to talk at all after that day you stopped by the house. I know I came off as a bit stern, but it’s only because we care about you and want to make sure that you’re living up to your full potential. I also don’t want you to think that we’re holding anything over your head. I know it might seem that way, but we’re paying for your apartment and bills right now because we want you to have the time you need to truly dedicate yourself to your studies. And I won’t keep you on the phone long; like I said, I just wanted to check in, and it sounds like everything is going well. I’ll be sure to let your mother know.”
“Okay, sounds good,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
There were a few awkward seconds of silence, then we both said goodbye. My father wasn’t much of a phone person, and I knew that he must have been bothered by the way things had gone down that day at their house if he was calling me now.
There was a part of me that did feel guilty about what I was doing with Leo, if only because I knew how badly my parents would freak if they ever found out. I pushed that thought out of my mind though, and told myself they wouldn’t find out, and that even though I was doing that with him, I was still taking care of my schoolwork. I felt pleased with the amount of work that I’d done, and despite things seeming totally hopeless a few short weeks ago, things had really turned around. I let my thoughts go to Leo, and I wondered what he was doing that very moment, and a part of me ached to be with him and wished that he would be there when I walked into my apartment.
I stopped in the lobby to check the mail, which I hadn’t done in a couple days, and as I stood in the elevator, I flipped through the circulars, a shoe catalog that looked semi-interesting, the phone bill, and then a white envelope, addressed to me. There was no return address.
I smiled as I slid my thumb underneath the flap of the envelope to open it. I had liked that he’d included that note with my last assignment he handed back, but actually sending me something in the mail . . . there was something very tantalizing about that.
The elevator reached my floor, and the door slid open, so I stepped out and let myself into my apartment before opening the envelope all the way. I pulled out a sheet of unlined white paper, folded in thirds. Whatever was written on there had been typed.
I started to read.
We know what you are doing with Leo Rochman. Such activities could get you
both thrown out of Benton College, as it is in direct violation of school policy. If
you would like that this be kept secret, the following is required: You must write
a five-page paper about the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and
whether or not you think the outcome would have been different if New Orleans
had not been predominately black. You have a week to do this. MLA citation
required. Ignoring this letter, taking it to the dean, or in any other way trying
to get out of doing this will result in the whole school knowing about the
relationship between you and Leo Rochman, which will have catastrophic
consequences for you both.
I read the letter again, certain that I had missed something, I’d missed the punchline, or the part where Leo said it was really from him, and it was all a joke, and what he REALLY wanted was for me to let him tie me back up again. But no—there was only an anonymous Gmail address that I was supposed to email the paper to when I was finished.
Catastrophic consequences? My stomach tightened, and my heart rate quickened. I looked around, even though I knew no one would be sitting there in my apartment, watching me. But still. Someone had figured out what we were doing. I realized now how foolish it had been, how brazen, to hook up with him in the bar like that, to not wear any underwear to school after he requested it. We hadn’t been making out in the middle of campus, but we definitely hadn’t been as careful as we could have. There was no excuse for it, other than I just felt so caught up in the moment, he made me feel so good, that I was happy to go to any lengths to keep that feeling alive.
I took a deep breath and tried to tell myself that this was nothing, to just ignore it. But I knew I couldn’t do that; it wasn’t nothing. It was someone with an agenda, someone who wanted something, and I was the one they wanted it from.
I got my phone. I needed to talk to Leo. I wanted to hear his voice and for him to tell me that it was going to be okay. I was about to call him, but then I put the phone down. No, the letter didn’t say anything about not telling him, but I was starting to think that maybe it would be better if I didn’t. He seemed like the sort of person who would tell me not to do it, not to give whoever wrote this letter what they wanted, because that would be letting them win. He wouldn’t care about the consequences; even if he got fired, he’d go get another job somewhere, even if it wasn’t a teaching position. I kind of got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded that at all. No, I couldn’t let him find out about this.
Instead, I called Lindsey.
“Hey, what’s up?” she said.
“Can you come over?”
“Right now?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yeah. I know we were just hanging out, but . . . I need to show you something. I just need you to come over.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. I didn’t know if I was scared, angry, or both. The black print stood out in stark contrast on the white page.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
I paced my apartment until the doorbell rang. I buzzed Lindsey up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately when she got inside.
I opened my mouth to start to tell her, but then I just handed her the piece of paper. I watched her face as she read it, her frown getting deeper and deeper. Then she examined the letter very closely, as though it might provide clues over who sent it.
“When did you get this?” she asked.
“Just now. I don’t know if it came today or yesterday, though; I haven’t checked the mail in a couple days. Usually there’s never anything that interesting. Not that this is interesting.”
“That is super sketch,” she said, handing the paper back to me. “Who the hell sent that? How did they know where you lived? And why the fuck do they want you to write a paper? I’d think they’d be asking for money or something.”
“I guess it’s not money that they’re after.”
“So it must be someone at school then. A student. Whose class assigned that topic? Is there any way to find that out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but not without making people suspicious.”
She took a deep breath and puffed her cheeks out as she exhaled. “That’s crazy, Tessa. It really is. What are you going to do?”
I put the letter down on the coffee table. “I don’t know. I just can’t believe that someone found out about this. Maybe that’s naïve, but I didn’t think people actually noticed me enough to really figure out what was going on. And you’re the only person I’ve told.”
She held her hands up. “Tessa. I promise you that it wasn’t me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I said. “I don’t think that it was you. But have you mentioned it to anyone else?”
“No! I’ve been totally quiet about it. I’d tell you the truth if I hadn’t. Have you told Leo?”
“No, and I don’t think I’m going to. I could see him telling me to just let whoever sent this go forward with outing us. And I can’t have that happen. It might not be as big of a deal to him, but if I end up getting expelled . . .that is the absolute last thing that can happen.”
“So you’re going to write the paper?”
“I have to! I don’t really have another choice.”
“It’s so weird. Who have you told about this? How would someone know? It’s not like you’ve been broadcasting it to the whole school. Unless . . . do you think he told someone? You know how guys are—always bragging about the pussy they get. He probably told someone, and they’re jealous, and they’re trying to come up with whatever they can to get back at you.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but why would they have me write a paper?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That seems pretty torturous to me.”
I put my head in my hands. “As if I don’t already have enough shit to do! I wasn’t really planning on writing a five-page paper, too.”
“If you can find the time to fuck him, I’m sure you can whip this up in no time. You’re smart. If it were me, on the other hand, well, that’s a different story. But . . . don’t you think you should tell him? I would tell him if I were you. He might have some idea about who it is.”
“I really don’t think I should tell him. I’ll just write this paper, send it to that email address, and hopefully that’ll be the end of it.”
“Let me see that again,” she said, holding her hand out. I gave her the paper. She re-read what it said, as though it might have changed in the time we’d been talking. “Of course it’s typed,” she said. “Do you think we should have it dusted for fingerprints? Could we take it somewhere and have them do that?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “That would probably be insanely expensive. And then they’d want to know why we needed it dusted for fingerprints. Or they’d just read what the letter said and then they’d know. I can’t let anyone find out about this.” I felt foolish for being so brazen, for walking into the bar the other day and having sex with him in the bathroom, for not wearing underwear to class and then flashing him. How could I have been so stupid?