Experiment In Terror

Excerpt

I admit, I didn’t pay much attention to her at first. I was merely interested in getting a break from the small talk, and the endless handshaking and congratulations that seemed a little bizarre. What kind of honor is it to be feted for doing my job well and making millions in the process? Do I score points with Jefferson College because being a greedy bastard is the pinnacle of worldly success? Or because I’m willing to part with a mil or two when they need seed money for their latest building project? I know what they’re after with the tributes and awards, and I can’t let it bother me. I take my accolades, smile, shake hands and go out to the terrace for a smoke when the air gets too thick with admiration I hardly deserve.

So, there I found her, looking as though she was as bored with the champagne reception as I was. Instead of a cigarette, she clung to a champagne glass, trying to casually sip the bubbly, when I imagined she would rather impolitely gulp it down. Of course, this woman wouldn’t do that. She was a pretty brunette, diminutive, with a body she chose to hide behind drab and unfashionable clothes. Still, I liked looking at her, imagining the shape of her breasts and the sensuous swell of her belly underneath the stuffy blue business suit, and what appeared to be a nicely rounded ass. I love the female ass, the hips, the curves, the rise and fall of their soft flesh. The suit she wore was not particularly expensive, something made for a reasonable woman, like one in my secretarial pool, or a teacher, certainly it was fit for a librarian. Yes, that was it. She had the studious look of a librarian or college professor.

I had no illusions about the woman and what a conversation with her might bring, but for lack of anything else to do, I found myself politely moving her way – we were the only people on the terrace and it seemed only civil that I say something. I could get away with being aloof, which I imagined is what she expected.

She stood by the balcony looking out over the campus quadrangle, as if lost in a daydream.

“You remember it like yesterday?” I stared out, mimicking her studious pose while remaining a reasonable five feet away.

“Not really,” she said. She turned to look at me and I felt a shudder of recognition. Suddenly nervous, she stared at my cigarette instead of my face. “I hear it’s bad for your heart to smoke,” she flippantly asserted, her tone quaintly haughty.

“I have to have some vices,” I replied.

“I’ll bet you have many,” she curtly snipped.

After that, perhaps I should have moved on, but I found something in her eyes beyond the first vague and dreamy look, a captivating spark that had me baffled. “Sorry, did I do something?” I asked.

“No, not really. But you’re Jackson Brandt and I don’t imagine that we have a thing in common, so…” she stopped suddenly. Soon as her retort left her lips, she looked as if she’d like to take it back. She turned shy and beguiling, shrugging almost bashfully in an amazing transformation from bitch to bewitching.

“So, why am I talking to you…?” I finished the question she would have asked and waited. When she didn’t respond, I answered. “Because there really is a real person behind all this silly reunion bravado.” I nodded to the reception hall from which a wealth of rich laughter poured and the tinkle of glassware transported the mind into an altered state.

“Is there?” She almost…almost seemed intrigued.

“So, you know me, but I don’t know you,” I ventured on. “I’m guessing you’re about ten years behind me at Jefferson?”

“I am.”

“But do you have a name?” I tried the joke and discovered that she could smile.

A lovely one that turned what was at first an ordinary face into a beautiful one.

“Rachel Linney.” She raised the goblet.

“And what does Rachel Linney do?”

“I’m an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Valley.”

“Ah!” I was right, that explained so much. The clothes, the attitude, the nervousness, as if I were speaking with one of the secretaries in the firm. Our worlds, Rachel’s and mine, would rarely collide within a social context, which made this awkward for us both. Awkward for Rachel Linney because she’d find the world of actors and playwrights in which I lived and worked intimidating. Awkward for me because the more I was with this woman, the more I wanted to know her, yet suddenly, I found myself at a loss as to how to woo an ordinary woman. Why did I bother when I could have had ingénues and gorgeous starlets on my arm? Because Rachel Linney was so much more than she seemed. I knew that without understanding why. I knew the attraction was real, I felt it in my gut. I also felt it lower in my crotch, which, if I stayed with her much longer, would have given me away with an obvious boner tenting my suit pants.

Maybe that’s all it was. Sexual chemistry. I could have fucked her in a heartbeat and left her wasted and wanting; I’d certainly done that enough in my forty-two years. But no, not this time.

“You know, I have to go back to the party,” I finally began my exit.

“Sure, you’re the guest of honor.” She seemed relieved.

“But I can call you at Valley, the English Department, Rachel Linney?”

She was not so relieved now. Almost a look of shock in her eyes. “Yes, I suppose you can,” she said with a bewildered smile.

I smiled back, casually stuffed my hands in my pants’ pockets and sauntered toward the subtle glow of the crowded room.