The Professor's Secret

6 - Fishing Lessons

The city seemed to be considerably emptier now than it was an hour ago when I arrived at the lab, I observed as we left the cab in front of the hotel. The bright, lively and crowded streets from the noon now carried the most eerie air, and not a living soul apart from Calem and I could be seen anywhere around us. I shivered to think about it, and felt quite glad that Calem had come to pick me up.

"So Shauna kept saying I was being silly, exaggerating... Uh... She also used the word 'overprotective'. She thought I'd only get you annoyed..."

My cautious feet knocking on the soft, fancy carpet produced a mute thud. My heart began to beat at a normal pace...

"And she said that... That she knew just what I was doing, and why." – His voice suddenly assumed a pensive tone – "What do you think?"

We had just stopped before the twin doors that led to each of our separate rooms. Though I had heard his voice, I only then realized that I hadn't listened to a single word, and only then did I face him, lifting my eyes from my feet and my thoughts from what had arrested them, whatever that was. I had no idea what he was talking about then, but a grave expression about his eyes demanded answer like a lost pet begs rescue.

"Do you think... Shauna's right?" – He repeated with sensible apprehension after interpreting my lag as uncertainty.

"I think she's... mistaken..." – I risked.

"You do?!" He sighed a relieved smile, and I stepped into the darkness of my room.

"It's good night then, huh, neighbor?"

"Yeah. Good night, Calem."

Looking cheerful again, he stood in the doorway and faced me in the dark for a while longer before actually deciding to let me go. When he did begin to leave, a hastened pace brought him back, and his words began to scrabble:

"Well, you know, about today... About... uhm... I'm kind of glad that Sycamore was just teaching you some weird mojo, because... Because deep down I thought that... It's stupid, but..." He laughed half-heartedly.

I grimaced, confused, and he sighed in defeat... or overtaken by a new, rash resolution. I would learn it was the latter...

"For a moment, I thought he would have done this..." – His semantics finally restored, he put his hands around my face and in a quick, surprising second, his lips touched against mine.

I felt his inexperienced lips explore nervously that attempt of a kiss, and then retreat, probably running out of the determination that started it in the first place. He smiled at me embarrassedly, and I didn't know what to say or do.

"Good night, neighbor!" – Fortunately, he didn't linger and wait for a response.

"Good...night..." I muttered, recollecting, when he had already closed the door behind himself.

I closed mine, crossed the room, dropped on the bed, completely astounded. A few hours ago, I had hardly an idea of what was the touch of a foreign skin against mine. Now I lay in suffocating confusion of sensations: the two events too close together, the contrast too great – The fresh, bold, stingy and consuming kiss the Professor had virtually forced upon me, arrayed in all the strange and unknown feelings it brought into me... The quiet, calm, quivering lips of Calem's attempting to overthrow the first.

Calem's was definitely a depiction of what a first kiss should be: the uncertainty, the youthful curiosity, his delicate, small hands holding me as if I could break, or fall, if he dared move a finger... but it wasn't the first. I had been gravely robbed! Sycamore's large shoulders encircling me, his large body pinning me down, his hands caressing me, moving me, running freely across the uncharted surface of my body, while his mouth so much as devoured mine in a burning and intimidating flame from which I couldn't pull away. A strangely pleasant mingle of fear and surrender, that disturbed and excited me in equally extreme levels just by calling back to mind. The unexpected, unasked-for wave swept me from the sweet summer breeze of a first-kiss pleasure, swept me from Calem's careful hands...