Someone to Love(44)
“Well, I was sort of thinking of getting a job at Starbucks.” True story. Plus that way I could hang out with Ally and sip lattes for a few hours each day, and it wouldn’t feel like work at all.
“At minimum wage?” She balks. “This is practically a semester’s worth of paychecks in one short hour. It almost seems too good to pass up. She probably doesn’t have any spaces left, though.”
The elderly gentleman shifts just enough to expose us to more of his goodies, then I see it.
Gah! I close my eyes tight and slowly peer from around the side of the easel. I was half-hoping he’d be cleverly holding a book or a magazine or, hell, even a cigar to cover up his spare appendage, but dear God almighty, he is loud and proud. Well, actually…not so loud, more like a whisper. It’s sort of a nub—dehydrated at that, and no bigger than a fun-sized candy bar. Are they really that tiny? Dear God, it’s almost invisible. Lauren said it was like a banana, so I’m actually sort of disappointed. And for sure the Storm Trooper theory just went out the window. Maybe he needed the money to get one of those prosthetic jobs? Or maybe he had it hacked? You hear about all kinds of pissed off wives who go after their cheating husbands with a hatchet. Or maybe it was just your run-of-the-mill not-so-fictitious motorcycle accident.
The visual assault goes on for an hour solid, and to my horror both the male and female models stand around afterwards speaking to the students like it was some twisted social mixer with an optional dress code.
“So, are you going to talk to the professor?” Blair incites the two-hundred-dollar question once again.
“Doubtful. I don’t have the guts to do something like that.”
She pumps her shoulders. “Two hundred dollars can make someone pretty brave. Besides, it’s easy cash.”
“Are you going to do it?” I fully examine her for the first time. She’s pretty in general. Her mid-length hair is perfectly curled and sprayed into position, making it impervious to the constant windstorms that reside outside these walls. She wears a simple strand of pearls and perhaps a little too much foundation in a shade that gives her an unnatural orange glow.
“I will if you will,” she offers.
“Maybe I will,” I say.
Blair escorts us over to Professor Webber and fills her in on the fact we’re willing to expose our youthful flesh in exchange for two hundred hard ones. She’s quick to pull out her planner at the prospect of two potentially nude co-eds.
“Only a couple more female slots left. I’ve got next Monday and the following Friday wide open.” She looks up at us impressed by our decision to bare it all in the name of artistic enlightenment. For a stunt like this I should be guaranteed a B in the class for Baring it all. But I’m gunning for the A, so it really doesn’t matter.
Blair looks over at me nervously. “I’ll take the following Friday.”
“So I guess it’s Monday for me.” That gives me almost a week to chicken out of the idea. “Wait, Monday the nineteenth?”
“That’s right. Is that a problem?” Webber’s fuchsia lips pull into a line.
“No, it’s not a problem.” It’s my birthday.
I’ll simply be wearing the same outfit that I did twenty-one years ago on that very day—my birthday suit.
I come home to find Cruise still in his suit jacket, his wire-rimmed glasses. God its as if he was a total fake these past few weeks and now his real self has emerged as some perverted academic.
“Professor Elton,” I say as I walk past him and pull a bottle of water from the fridge. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I to call you master? I can’t remember. I haven’t quite memorized the syllabus yet.”
“So you’re upset?” He bleeds a nefarious grin as if this pleased him on some level. His eyes secure themselves over me with that get in my bed seductive stare.
“Why would I be upset? I’m always pleasantly surprised to learn the person guiding me in the fine art of physical debauchery is also employed as faculty at the school in which I’m attending. I guess that makes you legit.” I don’t smile, laugh, or leave any room for doubt concerning my slightly ticked disposition.
God. It just occurred to me he’s probably been using me for his thesis this entire time. No wonder he offered to document my journey. I’ve unwittingly become exhibit K for “Kenny.”
“So did I score a place on your thesis?” I ask point-blank. “If an expose on my soon-to-be departed virginity is going to be made available for publication, I should probably be alerted to the fact. Unless, of course, you’re aware of some legal loophole that will exempt you from any litigious endeavors I might throw your way.” As if I would ever sue Cruise. Well, maybe for being too damn sexy.