Page 22 of Director's Cut

I sigh. “I have to nail these next two classes to impress her, but I have no idea why I’m trying to impress her so hard when she’s being such a dick.”

Charlie shrugs. “Maybe she’s not being a dick?”

I glare at him. “We’re not arguing about that.”

“Then, and hear me out on this, maybe your clit’s the one running the show and it doesn’t matter if she likes you as a person if she’ll get naked for you.”

“And how pathetic is that?”

“We respect horniness in this platonic living situation.”

“Charlie,” I say, looking him in the eye. “I’m not gonna sleep with her.”

“You also said you weren’t gonna sleep with your PA, so…” Charlie laughs as I turn red. “Look, fine, just say your most gay lizard brain thing, and I’ll say my gay lizard brain response, and then we’ll stop and finish this workout. Cool?”

I exhale. “Fine.”

“Go.”

It spills out like a badly rehearsed presentation in middle school. “Maeve’s not only gay, but she’s seen Needlepoint.”

Charlie grins. “Spicy. Well, now you can freely touch yourself to her and know she’s probably done the same.”

“She might not even think I was hot in that.” And she might not think I’m hot in her classroom.

He looks me up and down, a smirk on his lips. “Trust me, Val, there’s no way.”

And just like that, the conversation ends. We return to our workout. Leaving me with only my thoughts.

Thoughts that carry me up to my room, through a shower, into pajamas before dinner. My brain feels foggy, except for one thing: I want to watch Needlepoint. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. I’m not one of those actors who can’t watch their own performances, but that’s just one of those movies I can’t really watch with company. The tightness in my stomach returns as I shut and lock my bedroom door. Slide back onto my bed. Flick open my laptop and pull the movie up on a streaming service.

I don’t even manage to click Play before I set the laptop to my side. All it takes is looking at the banner for the film. I inhale sharply as I stare at it. A moonlit silhouette of a woman arching her back in ecstasy. Me: a younger, lither, more tortured version of myself who watched movies where two girls kissed with that same arched-backed body. I slide my fingertips down shower-damp skin under my waistband, and the motion tugs at memories nearly as old as this banner.

Maeve watched this movie. Maeve sat in a luxury movie theater and watched me be kissed, be touched, be fucked. I can imagine it so clearly. Maeve thinking she’s seen a billion erotic indie films that’ve been analyzed to death in her grad school career, but then this one is different. Maeve crossing and recrossing her legs, thinking she’s fidgeting but really she’s just trying to get pressure between her legs. She tells herself it’s just the general eroticism of the film, but she’s looking into my eyes through the silver screen. She thinks that the feeling will dissipate once she’s in the car, but curiously, the feeling doesn’t just go away. It sticks in her head until she’s back behind a closed bedroom door. My heartbeat flutters as I tease circles on my skin. It’s been so long since I did it like this. So long since I wanted someone and wasn’t just chasing plastic-induced pleasure. My fingertips feed a sensation that almost feels new.

Does Maeve touch herself like this? Is she still proper and elegant in her most private moments, when she’s set alight by thoughts and fantasy? She seems like she’d light candles. Bourbon-vanilla candles and her perfect red nails sliding around slick skin thinking of me. Fuck. My stomach jerks at the thought, winding a tighter and tighter grip on me as I think of it. Her wanting me. Her gaze, the way she stares at me in class. The way her eyes travel up my legs and across my necklines and over my lips. I’m trying not to pay attention, but her gaze is like hot wax.

God, I want that timbre of her voice in my ear. Her hands on my jaw, my neck as she leans in to speak. I saw your movie, Val, she’d say to me, hot breath making the fine hairs on my neck stand up. Do you really sound like that? My muscles clench as my circles grow faster, tighter, harder. My wrist cramps, but fuck it, the pain feels miles away. I want to be across from her again I want her to cross her legs I want her to let me run my fingers up her skirt I want to cradle her jaw god I want to kiss her. I want my lips on hers. I want to stop with the academic debates and I want us to just be honest and for her to tell me I drove her crazy in that movie.

Tighter and tighter I go, my breath catching in my throat. I arch my back, muscles taut and ready from my thighs to my abdomen. Everything’s sore, I’m sweaty, I’m hot, everything’s on fire. The breath knocks out of my chest as the pressure builds to a crescendo. Tell me I drive you crazy, and I’d say it right back. I can’t think straight knowing how much I need you, Maeve Arko—

The pleasure rips through me like a bomb, and a high-pitched sound barely stops at my teeth. The feeling simmers on my nerves, and my muscles heave softly, weakly, from too much use too soon. My vision’s even a little blurred around the edges, heart hammering, but my anxiety is gone. I just feel the electric buzz of euphoria. I even find myself grinning as I stare at my laptop’s abstract screensaver and pull my sore fingers out of my shorts.

I manage another two minutes of happiness before the reality of what I just did hits me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

True to her word, Maeve isn’t in class for the Rocky Horror lecture, and Ty takes over her office hours after mine. Being out from under her scrutiny should’ve made the Rocky class my best yet, but I found myself teaching as if she were in the room, giving me dirty looks whenever I went off on tangents. I’m still not great, but I’m feeling better at reacting on my feet when students chime in with questions and comments. It was a good class, but I missed the way Maeve fields student interaction to give me time to regain my spot in my notes, the ease with which she talks about film theory. I fucking hate admitting it, but not only was her critique of my lecturing style correct, but her presence makes the classes better.

Speaking of Maeve, I don’t hear a word from her all week. Even reviewing our latest email chains (which I do daily now) have me burning like I have a fever, a feeling that only subsides after I delete my mail app off my phone and it doesn’t go off again within the hour I allot for playing video games to try to take my mind off her while Charlie reads the HBO script.

It was a moment of weakness. Weakness, loneliness, horniness. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything, yet the shame hasn’t faded. In fact, it hasn’t faded for the entire two weeks since it happened. And now I’m sweating through my antiperspirant on a mild September day, my heart lodged in my throat, as I wait for Maeve’s return to the classroom.

True to her word, she’s back for week four, the Little Shop of Horrors lecture. There are only two more classes before the midterm, and I’m tense wondering if all the students are learning enough to pass. I take a deep breath and set my stuff on the desk in the lecture hall. As per usual, I’m fifteen minutes early and only Cory is here, clicking away on her phone.

“Have you seen Little Shop before?” I ask her, hovering near her seat. Anything for a bit of distraction. She’s been popping by office hours every week since week two, and we’ve begun chatting normally. Once you get past that initial layer of shyness, she’s actually quite a sharp student, equally invested in her technical animation classes as her film students’ electives. No offense to any of my costars, but it’s refreshing talking to a young person who didn’t take the California High School Proficiency Exam to escape high school early.

Cory puts away the phone. “My school did a performance in high school, so I’m familiar. Are you and Professor Arko focusing on a particular angle?”

---