He pulls out carefully. Steps back.
The soft clink of his belt.
The terrible sound of professionalism being reconstructed piece by piece.
I turn around.
He’s leaning back against the seminar table now, one hand braced behind him like standing upright requires concentration.
‘We’re out of control,’ he says quietly.
‘I know.’
‘This can’t happen here again. We said?—’
‘I know.’
I tuck myself back together mechanically. Zip. Belt. My legs still shaking.
The glasses go back on. Tie straightened. Every visible part of Dr Haldrey restored to factory settings except for the flush still spread high across his throat.
‘You should go first,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait five minutes.’
Five minutes.
His grip still aches around my hips. The come cooling against the inside of my jeans is going to be a problem in approximately thirty seconds.
‘Laurence.’
‘Go.’
Quiet rather than cold.
I know that voice. Heard it after every line we’ve crossed so far, and we are rapidly running out of lines.
I leave.
The corridor feels too bright. My phone heavy in my pocket.
Ron’s messages sitting there unanswered.
I care.
That’s the unbearable part.
I care so much it’s making me stupid—him, warm and shaking against my back, or my brother closing in from two hundred miles away.
Both of them asking for something I don’t know how to survive giving.
Outside. The air hits different after you’ve been fucked. Colder, sharper, the campus is enormous around me. Students crossing the quad with coffee and purpose.
My legs haven’t stopped shaking. It could pass for the cold.
In two weeks, Ron will be here. He’ll walk these corridors with that investigative look he gets. The one that maps exits and catalogues inconsistencies. He’ll sit in a pub and ask questions I’ve used up all my answers for. He’ll know. Ronan reads people like I read proofs, structurally, ruthlessly, searching for the contradiction that brings the whole thing down.
And there is one. There’s always been one. The relationship between student and lecturer contains an axiom that invalidates every theorem we build on top of it. We fuck against doors anyway.
The tram, the seat, the window. Manchester is sliding past in its usual grey. My phone buzzes once, Laurence:Get home safe, and then, underneath, ten minutes later: Ron:Two weeks. Booked the train.
