“C’ai bum another cigarette?”
XVIII.
We made thick coffee with cream and sugar to sober ourselves up and prepared dinner, listening to the cast album of Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris. I was Mrs. Lovett to his Sweeney. His easy acquiescence to the situation, and particularly to my deception, made me wary of him; every time our bodies were close I resisted the urge to spring away. Vlad made an herb frittata, I was assigned a salad, and together we assembled a plate of cheese and olives. He was a man who knew his way around the kitchen, slicing, peeling, chopping with alacrity. It was intimidating, after having mostly prepared food for my husband, whose only culinary contribution was the occasional placing of meat on top of fires. My hands felt clumsy as I dealt with the lettuce, and there wasn’t a salad spinner so I used what felt like a conspicuous amount of paper towels to blot moisture from the leaves. I became self-consciously stymied about what a surprising but good combination of salad ingredients might be and went to the bathroom to search the internet until I came upon a lettuce, grape, walnut, and blue cheese salad. I sliced the grapes the wrong way, over-toasted the walnuts, and overcrumbled the blue cheese. When I told Vladimir what I was making he said something about how much he loved the vintage flavor mixtures of the early aughts, which I took, like nearly everything Vlad had said this afternoon, as both a reassurance and a slight.
I felt more comfortable around a cocktail, and once we finished our coffees I mixed us some manhattans. （The main tricks of a manhattan are good-quality cherries and getting it as cold as possible, nearly slushy, so that the bourbon is thick on the tongue.） We drank them while waiting for the frittata to finish in the oven. Our chatter was light and slightly forced—Vladimir kept bringing up “topics.” At this moment, do you think the world is interested in the individual poetic voice? Which contemporary celebrated writers will be considered important fifty years from now? Is it possible to have literature that does not interface with identity without the presumption of a hegemony?
We set the table with cloth napkins, wineglasses, and a candle. Vlad told me that growing up and to this day, his mother exclusively uses disposable plastic dishes and cutlery that she throws out after each use. “She thinks she’s gaming the system,” he said. I was excited by the mention of his childhood: I wanted to know more, I wanted to picture his childhood bedroom, the posters he hung, the bedspread he chose. I wanted to know about his friends and influential teachers.
“I was a standard child of Russian immigrants,” he told me. “Both my parents are scientists. They wanted me to be an engineer. I kept my head down and didn’t tell anyone I wanted to be a writer. When I told my father I was majoring in comp lit at Yale he didn’t speak to me for a month. I don’t think they’ve read my book, but they keep it in a glass case inside of another glass case in a very peach room. The room would be good for a murder; everything is so puffy it would be soundproof. Floridian noir.”
I asked if his parents got along with Cynthia. “They like her body,” he replied, and the finality of his answer prevented me from asking anything more.
The magpies screamed outside the window as the light grayed. We opened a bottle of Sancerre for the meal. At the first taste of wine I knew that there was a strong current of intoxication already at work inside me, but I pushed through the glass, reckless, in search of a confidence that seemed elusive, no matter how much I drank. We ate sloppily and quickly. He held his fork with an overhand grip, which I couldn’t tell if I found off-putting or alluring in a lusty Tom Jones kind of way. When we finished, Vlad asked if I knew how the hearing was going with John, and I said, “Let’s text him and find out.” Like two girls with a scheme to contact a clueless and unattainable crush, we sat close on the couch and huddled around my phone.
how did it go Today?
Thumbs down
what happened?
Same shit. They went through my rec letters.
Ugh.
Wilomena is not good at cross
Ugh.
Costing us so much money.
Right.
I may just resign.
Now?
Soon. So much money to lose.
Is that okay?
Sid says she thinks I’m okay.
To resign
Yeah. She went through evidence.
No good case for civil suits.
I thought of Sid reading through a flirtatious text exchange, a testimonial of an intimate act— hello?
Was she okay with doing that?
Okay with what?
Looking through evidence
Fine Ok
She says they have no case.
Ok
Only in BS academia.
Yeah.
so How are you?
Fine
Where are you?
…
hello?
I’m fine
When are you coming home?
…
hello?
…
what happened?
…
hello?
Vladimir lifted my hair. His mouth was a centimeter away from the space behind my ear. He brought his mouth against it, less a kiss, more a light smear. He reached his hand between my legs, but I pulled it out. Then he took my hand and pulled it toward his lap. I let it rest there, lifelessly, as I felt him stir underneath. I felt petrified, and annoyed at myself. Could I be any more idiotic? For the first time in what felt like my life I was getting exactly what I wanted, what I had fantasized and dreamed about, and I was reacting like a frigid spinster. I tried to relax as he pressed my hand against him harder and moved his mouth up and down my neck. Despite the terror that my skin was emanating wafts of Roquefort and garlic, I softened a little and let myself feel him through his thin cotton pants. His mouth was soft and dry. He worked his way up to my ear, then whispered.
“Professor,” he said. “I didn’t hand in my final exam. Am I in trouble?”
I reeled. I thought about the phrase “turned off” and how apt it was to sexual situations, because that was what I felt immediately at his words—as though the switch that controlled my arousal had been flicked to the off position. I went cold, and nausea rose in the back of my throat. Feeling as removed from sensation as a corpse might, I moved my hand from his lap and rose from the couch.
“What?” he asked. He had a grin on his face, like we were still playing a game.
“Sorry,” I said. “I need some air.”
He smoothed down his front and crossed his legs. “Okay.” He laughed a little—half irritated, half self-conscious. He rubbed at his chin where a bit of stubble was beginning to grow and looked toward the wall opposite from where I stood.
The screen door was starting to come off its track and I made myself slowly lift and place it back into the groove so I didn’t have some sort of hectic reaction and tear it down. I neglected to turn on the porch light and fumbled my way toward a seat. Scuttling sounds came from a nearby bush—nighttime feeding activity or fighting or mating.
My body collapsed in the chair, heavy with depression and self-mockery. Naturally it followed that any desire that Vlad had for me （if he had any, and wasn’t simply acting out some inscrutable, self-destructive urge） belonged to a taxonomy that placed me in the category of pervy older-woman teacher and him in the category of a fresh-faced, innocent youth. I was a camp act for him. Some corny old fantasy from his adolescence.
And—this was the most embarrassing—I realized my fantasy had relied upon me being a sexy colleague, an attractive peer. I had imagined passion, something wordless and animal and back-brained. My feelings for Vladimir were beyond thought, and certainly beyond scenario. I had wanted him to allow me to forget who I was. I began to cry with disappointment, then laughed at myself for my tears. I had kidnapped him, essentially, I had drugged and deceived him, all because I wanted to satisfy my desire, and now I was finding fault with his perception of me. As if men who took advantage of women ever thought about how those women perceived them.