One Plus Two Minus One (15 page)

“
Yeah, I
know.
And it was the stats for dummies
course too, not the advancing one.”

“How did you fail?”

“
Because it’s
all vague bullshit.
Other than that, no
reason.” She stared for a while at the page. “No, sorry. I really
don’t know how this works.”

“Thanks for trying.”

She
shrugged.
“I could tell you why you can’t
trisect an angle?”

He looked at
her.
“You did.”

She
grinned.
“Do my rings and fields course
next year and I’ll tell you properly. With this, I could ask
someone?”

“That might look a bit obvious.”

“
Yeah.”
She flipped to the back of
the book. “I can get you the professor’s answer book, if you
want.”

“Isn’t that a really bad thing to do?”

“Yep.”

He looked at her like he couldn’t decide.

“
It’s only
calculus,” she said.
“It doesn’t really
matter if you don’t understand it.”

“Ah, what?”

“
If you ever
need this, you use a computer.
No-one
actually does this shit by hand.” She turned over the page she’d
been writing on. It had his notes on the back. “Lose that too. Your
tutor might recognize my writing.”

He nodded,
and sat there looking at her.
After a
minute he said, “So that made me horny. Want to fuck?”

She hadn’t
bothered getting dressed, had come downstairs just wearing his tee
shirt.
She took it off and
grinned.

She put it back on later, so she could take
it off and give it back at the door, like she’d planned.

*

He ate her
out with one of her vibrators inside her.
He’d been licking her, and she was distracted, and it took
her a moment to realize what he was doing.

She said, “Oh fuck no,” when she realized
what the buzzing was, then just, “Oh fuck,” when he slid it inside
her and it worked pretty well.

“Never done this before?” he said.

“
Shut up,”
she said, groping around for his head.
“Lick.”

He asked again when she was done, and she
shrugged, said, “No, why the fuck would I?”

He nodded, but seemed a bit surprised.

“You have?” she said, and he looked like he
didn’t seem to want to answer, but he said yes in the end.

“
Often?
I mean, not just some
weirdo kinky slut you banged?”

“Often,” he said.

“
Oh,” she
said.
It was obvious, when you thought
about it. Everyone had vibrators, and most people got oral now and
then, and sometimes it even happened in the same room. She wondered
what else she was missing out on that all the kids knew to try
these days.

*

Ethan turned up for a quickie on the way to a
lecture, then decided to skip the lecture and stay with Beth.

She told him to go, but was secretly pleased
when he didn’t.

He lay on her bed afterwards, kissing her
hands while he looked at her tits, and she ignored his stare.

“I want to see you skate,” he said
suddenly.

“Fuck off.”

“Please.”

“Not a chance.”

He was quiet
for a while.
She sat up, let go of his
hands. “Okay,” she said. “Why do you want to see me
skate?”

“It’s part of you.”

She thought
about that for a while.
“Are you getting
a crush on me or something?”

He lay
there.
“Skate and I’ll tell
you.”

“Are you?”

He grinned, didn’t answer.

She hit his
chest.
“Tell me.”

“Nope.”

She hit him
again.
“Tell me.”

“
Stop hitting
me,” he said.
“Skate and I’ll tell
you.”

She sat there
for a moment, then slid off the bed.
“You’re a fuck,” she said. “But I’m curious, so okay.” She
pulled on a shirt and shorts, and went and found her old skate
shoes.

“Come on,” she shouted as she went down the
stairs.

Her board was
in the hall cupboard, near the front door.
She got it, and went outside, waited for Ethan to follow
her.

“
I’m not that
good,” she said.
“It was more a friends
thing. Everyone else was skating so I did too. But I just followed
along. I didn’t do tricks.”

“Sure.”

She looked
around in case anyone she knew was watching, then got on the
board.
Went down the road a little, and
came back. She hadn’t been sure how comfortable she’d feel, after
more than a year, but she felt okay. Felt confident enough to speed
up. As she went back past Ethan she said, “I can ride a bike
too.”

He grinned.

She turned
around again and came back faster, popped the board and did an
ollie as she passed him.
Then she
realized her arms were all over the place and he knew she didn’t
have a bra on and he was grinning.

“Dickhead,” she called and did another
pass.

It was
actually fun.
If she wasn’t
embarrassingly old for a skatepark, she might actually go one
day.

She heard a
car, got off the road, and realized it was one of her
neighbors.
She kept her face the other
way and went off down the street for a bit. Made sure the neighbors
had driven into their garage before she came back.

She sped up a
little, went faster, remembering why she’d used to love
this.
She was racing along, proud of
herself, until she clipped a pebble and felt her balance go, felt
speed wobbles start. She jumped off quickly, let the board tumble,
and ran until she could stop.

Ran with no bra on.

“Are you okay?” Ethan called, and he seemed
to actually be worried, not leering at her for once.

“
Yep,” she
said, and went back for the board.
She
went up and down again, got her confidence back at speed, and
decided to get ambitious. She aimed at the gutter in front of her
house. Hers, because it would be rude to use the neighbors. She was
going to do a trick, grind along it or something and show off to
Ethan, but she made a complete mess of it. She hit the loose tar at
the edge of the road and lost her nerve and ended up falling
over.

She still
knew how to fall.
She landed on her
shoulder, grazed her forearm, but didn’t do any more
damage.

She lay there
for a moment, breathing hard.
Ethan ran
over, looking really worried. “Fuck, Beth,” he said. “Are you
okay?”

“Yep.”

“Stay still, you might be hurt.”

“
I’m not
hurt.”
She looked up at him for a moment,
worrying for her, then started to laugh. “This is your
fault.”

“Okay.”

She looked at
her arm.
A shallow graze, weeping a bit.
Nowhere near her wrist tattoo, which was the main thing.

“
Fuck,” she
said.
“Ow.”

Ethan was looking at her again.

“What?” she said.

“You’re fucking wonderful.”

She looked up
at him.
Felt grass under her back,
crinkly on her skin. “That was cool,” she said. “I haven’t done
that in fucking ages.”

“Dude,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

He went and
got her board and brought it back.
Then
sat down beside her, looking at her.

“
So,” she
said.
“Dude. Are you getting a
crush?”

He didn’t answer, just looked up and down the
street.

“You are?” she said.

“
I told you
at the very beginning.
I’ve had one since
the middle of last semester.”

“Not the same.”

“It is.”

“
Nope.
Having a boner for your professor, that’s just
blah. Having a crush on the woman you’re fucking, that’s completely
different.”

“Woman?”

She looked at
him.
“Girl?”

“Dude.”

“Shut the fuck up and answer.”

He didn’t.

She hit his
arm.
“Answer.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a boner for you.”

“I noticed.”

He
shrugged.
“Yeah, I’ve got a
crush.”

“You so fucking do.”

“I so fucking do.”

She sat up,
put her arm around him, kissed him.
Squashed her tit into his arm just to give them both a
cheap thrill.

“I’m getting one too,” Beth said.

“I noticed.”

“
Don’t tell
anyone.
It’s kind of
embarrassing.”

“I won’t.”

She sat a bit
longer.
“Cool, isn’t it,” she said, and
he grinned at her.

After a
while, they got up and went inside and she winced while Ethan put
disinfectant on her graze.
She said not
to worry, that it would be fine, but he’d come over all motherly
and wanted to, so she let him to save finding out if he was a
nag.

She was
getting a crush.
It was a weird
thought.

Weird enough she chased him out, just because
she didn’t like the idea, and once he was gone she actually managed
to do an evening’s work and felt a little better with herself.

*

Amanda came and sat in Beth’s office and
wouldn’t leave until Beth logged into the student system and showed
her Ethan’s record.

“
Cute,” she
said, when Beth finally did.
“Well
done.”

Beth grinned.

After a moment, reading, Amanda said,
“Young.”

“Yep.”

“Smart.”

“Ish.”

Amanda
grinned at her.
“That’s kind of
harsh.”

“I know.”

“You like him?”

“I do.”

“You going to keep going?”

Beth
nodded.
“I think I am.”

“
I’m glad
you’re happy.
You need a bit of
fun.”

Beth didn’t
know quite what to make of that, since she wasn’t unhappy.
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Fuck off now, I’m
busy.”

“I mean it,” Amanda said

“So do I.”

“Okay,” Amanda said, and left, but she was
acting like Beth was going all soppy or something.

*

Beth was
seeing Ethan most days, and actually talking to him most days too,
and she was a bit surprised she wasn’t getting sick of him
yet.
Surprised he wasn’t getting sick of
her, too.

She was still
managing to ignore him in lectures, but couldn’t in tutorials, and
had to tell him not to go.
She caught him
up in the evenings instead. She helped him through worked examples
in bed, naked, and although he watched her tits as much as
listened, he seemed to get there in the end. He made the same
mistakes everyone did, transposed variables or bad arithmetic, and
got confused and gave up. Students did it all the time, and Beth
didn’t understand. When she was an undergraduate, she’d just gone
through the problem again until she found the error. And then
understood it better. She didn’t say anything to Ethan though,
since he still seemed a little insecure about not being smart
enough. She helped him as much as she could, once gave him answers
to another course’s assignment, which would irritate her if one of
her colleagues did it, but she did anyway.

The second
weekend they spent together, Beth didn’t get dressed at all.
She stayed naked all weekend. Ethan turned up
early on Saturday, stayed all day, left and came back and stayed
all day Sunday too. They were in bed most of Saturday, so she’d
wandered around naked like he wanted her to, and by Sunday
lunchtime they’d both realized how long she’d not had clothes on
and were making an effort to keep her that way. Before he left he
made her promise not to put on clothes until midnight, then texted
and checked at five minutes past twelve.

She told him fuck off and yes, then held the
phone and just looked at it for several minutes before she put it
down and went to bed.

She was getting a crush, and she had no idea
what to do about it.

*

In between
having sex they talked.
“You should do
maths,” she said one evening without thinking. Sitting on the bed
with a pizza box, eating. “Compsci is a bit of a waste of time for
a doctorate.”

“Yeah, right,” he said.

“Meaning you’re not, or I should fuck off?”
she said.

“I’m probably not.”

“
If you do,
you should do maths.”
She sat there for a
moment chewing. “Um, don’t tell anyone I said that though. Or where
I was when I said it, or what I was wearing. It might look like a
really dodgy way to poach students.”

“I won’t.”

“
So why
not?
Why aren’t you?”

“I don’t have the grades.”

“
Yeah you
do.
You’re fine.”

He seemed to be thinking.