The Professor's Secret

17. Sycamore's Couch

I followed him. Lost as I was, both physically and in thoughts, I paid no observation to the path we followed, and never once found myself in that winding city.

I observed Sycamore's back as he peacefully walked before me, his pace untroubled by any urgency, his silence unbroken by my presence. He was quite distant from me in that moment when compared to any other, but I didn't mind it: I was rather glad he perceived I was in no mood to receive his advances and followed straight to his house with not much delay. I could hardly prevent, though, a very tiny and distant shadow in my brain from wondering if something had changed now that he knew I had disobeyed him...

Perhaps the distance was neither one thing nor the other – perhaps it was only Sycamore making sure no one would find it suspicious as he lured me to his house. But... looking around, I could see no one. No one at all!

We at last arrived in front of a grey-walled brownstone, with round windowpanes framed by a shiny brushed iron and a solid metal door colored burgundy. He typed in a code in a small white box and the door automatically opened... I followed him inside and we stopped in the limited space of the hall. I kept myself still behind his back as he pulled a black scarf from around his neck and hung it nearby. As he slid the black coat down his arms, the air so still that I could hear the rude fabric brushing against the silk of his shirt underneath, the automatic door slammed behind me and I skipped in a fright. The Professor didn't move a muscle.

He opened a second door, this one into the kitchen – an also small, though thoroughly well-decorated space consisting of two rows of ebony cabinets and cupboards, and a couple of high stools. He placed the paper bags on the first surface available and sighed, tired of their weight. He then proceeded to emptying them, putting each piece of grocery in its rightful place...

"Hmm... Professor..." I hinted – my voice's tendency to disappear when I was shy did so especially when I was in "foreign" territory.

"Hm?" He absently replied turning my way, almost confused as to where the voice had come from and to whom it belonged, absorbed in a kind of smile he wore. "Still there, are you?!" He perplexedly added once he had spotted me "Come inside at once! Forgive me for my lack of decorum; I was sure it would only strike you as old-fashioned! Apparently it is not the case, as you're standing there in my door like a lost kitty that happened to follow me home?" He smiled to himself, much too amused "This is my humble abode, you can make yourself at home in it!" He bent his body forward in a way that, through the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, I could see the slim yet chiseled chest under it, and bowed his head, spreading his arms in a sign for me to come inside.

"Hmm... Weren't you..." I began, looking around myself as I carefully passed him and his flashing, intimidating torso "weren't you going to make that call so we can go already?!"

"Yes – The call!" He sounded almost as if he had just remembered it. "You wait here as I make it, it won't take a minute..."

He took the phone from a support on the wall near his fridge and, to my dismay, followed to a back door – probably leading to the laundry room or another poorly used room of the sort for, from what I could see, it seemed empty and dark – and closed it behind himself. I listened in the sovereign silence of his house... but could hear not a single murmur of that conversation! It was also over much sooner than I would have imagined – he returned, and I lightened up a bit.

"It's done – they should be on their way!" He sighed, placing the phone back in its original place.

"Who?"

"The police, of course!" He smiled gently, going through his cupboards and coming up with a milk-pan.

I was just beginning to look around and feel myself being slowly surrounded by his calmness... by the closed door... by the lack of conclusion in his talk, and by whatever he was beginning to prepare on his oven. His hand moved the buttons, tinkering with the fire intensity... The other hand busily tried to undo, between two fingers only, one more button on his shirt. I gulped.