Becoming His Muse, Part Two (13 page)

Upstairs, I tell Logan I’m feeling sick from lunch and ask him to take me back to campus. I don’t want Dean Ascott to notice the Aston parked out front.

Logan’s disappointed, naturally, but he hugs me sweetly and says, “I can wait.”

On the ride back to campus I keep up my pretence of sickness, but I hate pretending. Even though I do feel kind of sick with a feeling that walls are closing in on us, on our affair. Now Ronnie knows, too. At least he was able to warn me about Dean Ascott. But we won’t be able to go back to the Newshire Inn and Pub again. We can’t risk it. We’ll have to find a different place.

I wish things weren’t so complicated. I wish it didn’t all have to be a secret! It’s hard to keep a secret so essential to who I feel myself becoming. If only we’d met a different way. If we could just wait until after I graduate. Then we could be open about it, and no one would be able to tell us what to do. I wish we could be together and not have it be wrong.

We won’t be able to meet the following Sunday, since it’s Thanksgiving, and I have to go home for the holiday. Logan’s not too happy when I stop by his office to break the news.

“Do you have to go?”

I nod. “You don’t know my father. He’d be irate if I didn’t come home.” It’s one of our biggest family traditions. I’ve never missed one in my life.

“But I need you
here
to inspire me,” he says, looking sullen and pouty, like the spoiled child he likes to accuses me of being.

“It’s only four days. You can get a lot of work done on your novel,” I say encouragingly. That’s why he took this teaching position after all. So he could write his damned novel.

He rakes his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. Then he sighs, and says, “You’re right. I’ve got to send something to my agent soon. I have a lot of work to do before that. It’s just that after last Sunday…”

I know what he means. We didn’t get our fix of
inspiration
.

He gets up from his desk, pulls me into an embrace. I’m nervous being in his office — anyone could come in — but the feel of his arms around me is stronger than my caution.

He whispers, “I suppose the times apart make the comings together all the more electric. Pun intended. Without a little loneliness, togetherness isn’t so divine.”

His fingers tangle in my hair as he draws my lips to his. The spark of his kiss makes me tingle all over, makes me feel divine.

“Four days isn’t so long,” I murmur. I think I’m trying to convince myself. I know it will feel like forever.

“Each day without you feels twice as long as the others.”

It’s one of the sweetest, romantic things he’s ever said. Just as I’m about to give in to another delicious kiss, I hear voices and footsteps in the hall. I stiffen.

“I should go,” I say. Reluctantly, Logan drops his arms.

We’re both left feeling frustratingly aroused.

***

The day before I leave, Dr. T summons me to his office.

“Ava, come on in. Sit down.” His office is cozy, artsy, like a den you want to take a nap in. His gauzy curtains let in the weak autumn light creating a diaphanous yellow glow in the second floor room. I feel immediately calm in this office. I feel safe and protected.

“Your productivity is impressive,” he says. “What’s gotten into you? Derrick and Casey aren’t selling you drugs, are they?” He laughs at his own joke. He doesn’t know I’m taking a different kind of drug, one you can’t get over or under a counter; it’s the kind you can get only get over or under another human being. I have been fueled by lust.

“I feel the pressure of the new year exhibit,” I say by way of explanation. “I need to produce a lot and I just feel lucky that I’m able to do it right now.” Geez that sounds lame.

“I’m seeing some interesting narrative themes in your recent work.” He turns his computer monitor toward me so that I can see the digital snaps I emailed him of my studio canvasses.

“This is reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno. And this one calls up themes from James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And this one makes me think of The Lady of Shallot.”

“I haven’t read those pieces.”

“That’s what’s so interesting. And I’m not saying you have to read them necessarily, but some unexpected literary elements are coming out in the work. Obviously, there are the Genesis references, the Garden of Eden and all that, and art history invocations, but the unintended literary allusions are quite unique. I’m wondering if you might benefit from some more support in that department.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you open to consulting with a Lit mentor?”

“Um…”

“You remember the author Logan O’Shane? You showed him the way back to the faculty apartments after the meet and greet?”

I clear my throat and will a rushing tide of blood headed for my cheeks to please turn around and drain down to my feet. Of course I remember. That was the first night we… I stop my brain from going down that path.

“Um, yeah. I almost forgot that.” I smile innocently. “He’s the writer in residence, right?”

Dr. T nods happily. “A great guy. And really smart.”

Dr. T’s admiration is obvious. I clear my throat again.

“You think he’d work with me?” Work me into a frenzy is more like it.

“I’ll talk to him. I’m quite sure he’d be delighted to do me a favor, and to work with a student as artistically promising as you are.”

Is Dr. T actually pushing us together? Having an authorized excuse to be seen with Logan occasionally on campus would make this whole secret affair feel less like a crime.

“If you think that’s a good idea,” I say, trying to contain my excitement.

“It can’t hurt,” he says. “After Thanksgiving you can pull out all the stops.”

***

I’m feeling hopeful when I leave Rich Tennenbaum’s office. I wonder when he’ll talk to Logan. I’m not sure if I can wait. I decide to risk visiting his office again.

Crossing the quad, I see Casey. She’s standing on a bench taking pictures of an abandoned nest in a tree. Behind the tree, Derrick is filming something on the ground. Something too small for me to see.

As I get closer, Casey sees me and waves. She climbs down off the bench. Her eyeliner looks extra smeared today and seems like it’s been a while since she washed her hair.

In a slow, absent-minded drawl she says, “Hey, Ava, I’ve been meaning to return your message.”

Which I had left weeks ago. I’m surprised she even remembered.

“I guess you and Derrick have been busy with your art project. Dr. T told me it was top secret.” I wonder if what they’re doing now is part of the project.

“Yeah, it’s pretty hush hush. We work on it
constantly
so we hardly ever leave the loft. But starting next week we won’t be there on Thursdays. You can work at the loft if you like.

“But next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I’ll be away.”

She shrugs. "There’s always the next week, and the one after, and, you know,
Thursdays
.”

This is an answer to my dilemma of where to meet with Logan. Between DnC’s offer and Dr. T’s idea to ask Logan to mentor me, it seems like my wishes have been granted.

“Thanks, guys. This is great.”

“And we have an easel so just bring your canvases and paints,” says Derrick.

I’ll be bringing a little more than my painting supplies but I don’t mention that.

I make my way to the English Department hoping I’ll find Logan’s alone. I can think of a few ways to celebrate the good news I have to share…

Approaching his office, I hear voices through the half open door. Logan’s deep velvety voice plus two female voices. I’m sure one is that busty transfer student, Sherriann, and the other is a friend of Ruby’s, but I can’t recall her name. I linger in the hall for a few moments and then wait outside, flipping through my sketchbook, until I see them emerge from the building. They take no notice of me because they are tittering together like pre-teens.

“He is so
hot
,” says Sherriann. “I’m definitely going down on him first chance I get.”

My jealousy surges.

I slip back into the building and walk unabashedly through Logan’s door. He is surprised but unperturbed when I tell him I eavesdropped on them for a few minutes. I don’t share what I overheard from Sherriann, even though her single toss-away sentence is eating away at me. It’s made me forget what I came here to tell him.

“Why do you have to be so flirty with them?” I say with a pout.

“Students perform better when they like the teacher.”

“Perform? We’re not circus acts.” I cross my arms, feeling annoyed.

Logan sighs at my petulance. “Ava, the better students do in class, the more they learn. This is research-validated fact. I’ve been hired here to teach. In addition to that I have a paid position while I finish my novel, which is
my
work, not the university’s. So essentially I have two full-time jobs. Don’t blame me for using my charms to make one of those jobs a little easier.”

“Your
charms
? When you talk to students you sound like you’re seducing them. And I’m pretty sure they think that, too.”

He shoots me a charming smile, “But the fact is, I’m only seducing you.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Of course.” He looks at me with steady green eyes and I believe him. “Is it Sherriann you’re worried about? She comes on strong, like your friend Jenny, but she’s all bark and no bite.”

I’m not so sure about that, but I sigh now and drop my crossed arms. “I guess I just want you all to myself. All the time.”

“You have the best parts,” he says with a wink. He adds, “You have the
real
parts. Remember that.”

I know my feelings don’t make sense. I want everything all at once, like a kid in a candy store, but I know that the best way to savor sweetness is one mouthful at a time. I just feel a fear, a deep-seated anxiety, that I’ll wake up one day and all that sweetness will be gone and I won’t have tasted nearly enough.

“Is it so wrong to want to be with you all the time?” He looks up, across his desk, and I’m expecting one of his searing green gazes to take my breath away but this look is different, this look is serious, thoughtful, and a little distant.

He sighs. “Sometimes I forget you’re so young.”

That is the
last
thing I want to hear. I stiffen in my chair, his grandfather’s leather chair. I place my hands on the armrest to push myself up. I don’t want him to speak down to me. “Forget it,” I say. “Nevermind.”

“Ava.” His voice is firm, but gentle. He wants my attention. I stay seated. “There’s nothing wrong with
wanting
anything. It’s the expectations we attach to that wanting that gets us into trouble. You have some expectation that being with me all the time will somehow make you happy.”

I’m about to start nodding. That’s exactly it. More time with Logan equals more happiness for me.

“But it won’t. I can guarantee that.” He looks away, past me, toward his photos on his shelf, toward some memory or other.

“You’re wrong.” I lean forward. “You already make me happy. All the time.”

His gaze returns to me. His eyes search mine briefly, but then they seem to darken, cool, as if he’s made some kind of decision. He leans back in his chair.

“Passion is a fast fire. It burns hot and short. More time, more togetherness, douses that fire. You’re too young to know this. You haven’t had enough fires burn out on you yet. You haven’t lived among ashes.”

I stare at him, anger begin to smolder under my surface of surprise at his condescending tone.

“That sounds like part of your hard luck writer act.”

He shrugs. “Is that what you think?”

“Do you want to know what I
really
think?” I lean forward, my body tense with anger and hurt. “I think you’re afraid. Of getting too close to someone. Of loving someone.”

I regret my words immediately, feeling as if I’ve crossed an invisible line.

He clenches his jaw and narrows his eyes.

“Who said anything about love?”

Two days go by without a word from Logan. I feel an ache from not seeing him or hearing from him. As I pack my bags and head to the train station, I’m feeling full of regret about our last conversation.

I shouldn’t have brought up love. I should have known better. It’s not part of my job as his muse. He only wants me to inspire him. But I can’t help wondering, isn’t love the greatest inspiration of all?

Logan doesn’t want love. He made that rather clear.

Well, if Logan doesn’t need love then maybe I don’t either.

I tell myself I’m glad to be going home for Thanksgiving. I have been so immersed in school, painting, and my affair with Logan that I need a change of scene. A chance to clear my head. Some time to put my feelings in perspective.

Logan can use this time to focus on his damned novel — the original reason for our affair — but maybe he’ll miss me while I’m gone. Maybe he’ll realize there’s more to us than inspiration and lust. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s too hurt, too afraid, too set in his ways, to let love in. I don’t know.

As I stand on the train platform waiting to board, I realize there’s one thing for sure: love
is
the greatest inspiration of all, and no matter how hard I might try to convince myself that lust is enough, deep down in my heart, I want so much more.

End of Part Two

BECOMING HIS MUSE by KC MARTIN

BECOMING HIS MUSE is a 3 part series.

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About the Author

I write about discovering the true power hidden in pleasure and living with an open heart.

Stories have the power to change hearts and lives. Love, eroticism, and sensuality provide the greatest inspiration for the heart. When we claim our pleasure, we activate our power and embolden our hearts to create lasting change in our lives and the world.

Some of the simple pleasures I enjoy: