Professor Feelgood

  I aspire to be so bold someday.

  “Just out of interest,” I say after a particularly shameful few seconds of focusing on the two dimples above his butt, “do you plan to put on clothes this morning?”

  He turns and leans back against the table. I try to ignore his physique, but dammit, it’s all right there.

  “Oh, I thought our business relationship was clothing optional. I mean, you exposed your chest to me, so I thought it only fair I return the favor.” He gestures to his pecs. “Sure, I have a little more hair than you, but still, can yours do this?” He makes them dance, and I give him a well-practiced eye-roll. If he’d witnessed me doing the boob-a-copter in my bathroom mirror, he’d be embarrassed to even compete.

  “Of course,” he says in a condescending tone. “If you’re having trouble concentrating because of your enormous physical attraction to me, then ...”

  I let out a short laugh. “You know what? Forget I said anything. Doesn’t matter to me if you’re wearing a snowsuit or a star-spangled jockstrap. Your body holds zero appeal for me.”

  When he doesn’t say anything in response, I look up to find him staring at me, an amused expression on his face.

  “What?” I ask, feeling immediately defensive.

  “You think you’re fooling me, but you’re not. It was beyond obvious you had a thing for the professor before you knew it was me.”

  I look straight at him and don’t even blink. “I do not now, nor have I ever, had a ‘thing’ for you, Jacob Stone, no matter who you pretend to be. Feel free to take that to the bank.”

  I sound so convincing, even I start to believe it.

  Take note Streep/Pacino/De Niro. This is how it’s done.

  He shakes his head in disappointment. “Well, you may look different these days, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed about you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  This time, he’s the one who stares me down. “You still can’t lie for shit.”

  I look away from the smug curl of his lips and go back to setting up my laptop. I know color is blossoming in my cheeks, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it except pretend it isn’t happening.

  “Now I understand why he doesn’t have any walls,” I mutter to myself. “He needed the extra space to squeeze in his gargantuan ego.”

  “What was that?” Jake says as he scoops what looks like the world’s cheapest instant coffee into two mugs.

  “Nothing. Just talking to myself. Let’s get started.”

  “Okay. How?”

  I open a new file in my writing app and label it Professor Feelgood Book. “Well, first, we need to establish a narrative in which we can frame your poetry. So, stories from your life, moments of interest in your development. You know, things that will inform your journey up until you met your lady love.”

  He glances over his shoulder. “Stories from my childhood? Are we going to sanitize it? Or go with the NC17-rated version?”

  I shift in my seat. Any detailed examination of Jake’s childhood is going to require a large can opener and some extra-strength worm killer, especially when it comes to our shared history.

  “Uh … well …” I clear my throat. “No need to decide on that right now. We can circle back to it later.”

  Or, never. Whatever.

  Is it possible to feel oneself developing an ulcer? Because right now it feels like my stomach acid is trying to burrow through my skin.

  “Do you have more poetry? We can use some of the stuff from Instagram, because that’s what made you popular, but it would be great to have some fresh verses as well.”

  He points toward a storage box beneath the coffee table. “In there. Knock yourself out.”

  I open the box to see it’s almost full, stuffed with dozens of sheets of loose paper, some napkins, torn sections of cereal boxes, Metro cards, and bar coasters from locations I’ve never heard of. Clearly, Jake writes on whatever-the-hell is in front of him when inspiration hits.

  Looking at this trove of words, I feel like a stoner who’s found a giant, unexpected stash of medicinal-grade hash.

  Lord … so many poems.

  The moment I found out the professor was Jake, I quit his daily posts, cold turkey. But now that I’m faced with this buffet of wordy goodness … how can I resist?

  I have the strongest urge to just sit here and immerse myself in his words. Bathe in their literary richness like Scrooge McDuck bathes in money.

  I pull out some of the pieces of paper to examine them more closely. Everything has been written in Jake’s small, neat writing, and each one has numbers written in the bottom-left corner. “You’ve dated all these?”

  “Yeah.” I look up to see him frowning. “Not sure how accurate all those dates are, though. I wasn’t always sober.”

  “Still,” I say, “It will be useful for us in establishing a timeline for the narrative.” At least that’s something.

  I smooth out a particularly crumpled piece of paper and read what he’s written.

  Hollow bones and lonely skin. Muscles stiff with lust and aching for touch.

  Blood pounding, throbbing,

  Everything growing tighter and harder with thoughts of you.

  I could have other hands, but I don’t.

  I could hold other hearts, but I don’t.

  You could haunt other minds, but you don’t.

  I tug at trails of swollen memories,

  And as I arch and spill my love for you in tight, sharp groans,

  I should call out someone else’s name …

  But I don’t.

  Jesus.

  I realize my mouth is open and dangerously close to overflowing with saliva. I clamp it shut and swallow hard.

  I place the poem facedown so I don’t accidentally read it again. Damn, that stuff is dangerous. I thought the ones he posted online were hot, but they all look like nursery rhymes compared to some of this hidden cache. I swallow again as I skim over phrases about sliding, and thrusting, and how much he wants to watch his woman’s face as he makes her come.

  I close my eyes and take a couple of silent breaths.

  Okay, I can’t read this stuff when I’m around him. I really can’t.

  I want to be immune to how his poems make me feel, but there’s something about him pining over a woman like a lovesick fool that I have zero defense against. And beneath the layers of involuntary arousal and rising self-loathing, there’s another emotion worming its way to the surface. One more odious than anything that’s come before.

  Jealousy.

  Even giving it a name makes me feel ill.

  It’s the type of jealousy that has so many facets, it’s hard to recognize them all. Part of it is Jake finding true love before I have, and part is being jealous of this Ingrid woman. I mean, how amazing must she be to make a man as closed-off as Jake obsess like this? I wonder if any of my ex-boyfriends have boxes full of sex poems about me? Unless they’re writing about how the seemingly confident woman turns into an anxious mess during sex, then I highly doubt it.

  Unlike me, Ingrid is a sexual goddess with a magical, hypnotic vagina. Why else would Jake write so much about making love to her?

  I pull out handfuls of poems and lay them on the coffee table. I think it would be best to sort and catalog them back at my place, in private. Preferably with a full bottle of wine, a tub of ice cream, and my vibrator on standby.

  I breathe shallowly as I sift down to the bottom of the box, urging my blood pressure to return to normal.

  Below all the loose poems is a stack of five notebooks, all filled, cover to cover. It doesn’t escape me that they’re the same brand of notebook I’ve been using all these years for my stories.

  I hold one up. “Blanco? Really?” When we were kids, we used them every year for school. They were an ugly shade of mustard and had paper so thin you could see through it, but they were the cheapest notebooks around, and that was all we cared about.

  Jake shoots me a look as h
e pours steaming water into the cups. “Why not? They do the job, right?”

  I rifle through the pages. “Yeah. They do.” There are so many words, it’s dizzying to see how prolific he is. “When did you start writing? I never knew this was a thing for you.”

  “It wasn’t.” After stirring in creamer and sugar, he brings over the mugs and places them on the scratched table.

  I look at him in shock. “What? No coaster? But you’ll ruin the finish.”

  He narrows his eyes in contempt before sitting beside me. “To be honest, I always thought you’d become a writer, not me. You were the one who wrote plays for us when we were little. I was just the chump who acted in them. I didn’t get into writing until after high school, and once I started …” He shrugs. “I couldn’t stop.”

  “You never thought to write a novel?”

  He takes a sip of coffee. “My brain doesn’t work that way. I get flashes of scenes, not whole chapters. Snapshots of emotions or thoughts.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to work on that. Where’s your computer?”

  He stares at me, deadpan. “Oh, my twenty-seven-inch iMac is right over there, next to my butler’s pantry and media room.”

  “You don’t own a computer?”

  “Look around, princess. I don’t own most things.”

  “So, is this you just trying to out-Brooklyn all your friends? Impress everyone with your apocalypse chic?”

  “Yes. As usual I’m on the cutting edge of style. Nearly everything I own was found on the street.”

  With a shudder of disgust, I look down at the couch upon which we’re sitting. “Oh, my God. This is a dumpster couch?” I can almost feel the bedbugs crawling inside the cushions.

  Jake puts his arm up on the back, wearing an expression of amusement. “Chill, woman; I’m joking. I bought all this stuff from a reputable second-hand dealer. Minimal bodily fluids, I can assure you.”

  I should be placated by that knowledge, but I’m not. In fact, the longer I stay in this apartment and the closer I am to him, the more uneasy I feel. Being near Jake always makes me tense, but seeing him living like this … There are some things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. This ‘apartment’ is one of them.

  Jake studies me, and it’s clear my concern is showing in my expression. “For the record, I’m happy living like this. I don’t need your pity.”

  “I don’t pity you.”

  “Sure you do,” he says, his tone becoming hard. “Because you judge others by what you value. You always have.” He grips his coffee cup tighter. “I hate to burst your bubble, princess, but not everyone wants a McMansion in the suburbs with a white picket fence.”

  “Who says I want that?”

  “Well, when you were five years old you did a whole series of crayon drawings titled, ‘My Huge House in the Suburbs with a White Picket Fence,’ so …”

  “Once again, I’ll remind you that I’m not five any more, and my hopes and dreams may have evolved from what I wrote in crayon.” I gesture to the apartment, irritated with his condescension. “So are you telling me this is your dream home, then?”

  “It suits me for now.”

  “Jake, it’s autumn in New York city, and you don’t even have insulation in here, let alone heating. What the hell are you going to do when winter hits?”

  He stares me down. “Well, since I’ll still be working with you in the third level of hell, I’m sure I’ll be toasty warm.”

  I glare at him. When we were seven, we each chose a soul animal. Mine was an otter. His was a dragon. Over the years, those animals morphed, and now it feels like we’re both rams, knocking heads out of habit, like the obstinate idiots we are.

  With a curl of his lip, he puts his coffee cup on the table and begins sorting loose poems from the box into piles. “I don’t know why you’re so snobby these days. There was a time when you would have thought this place was cool. It’s similar to our loft. Or have you forgotten where we used to spend all our time from the ages of four through ten?”

  A prickle of tension crawls up my back. I haven’t thought about the loft area over his dad’s garage for years. It used to feel magical, but it had nothing to do with the decor.

  “That was different,” I say, not looking at him.

  “No heating there, either, and back then, all our greatest treasures came from other people’s trash.”

  I pretend to read something on my screen. “We were kids. We didn’t know any better.”

  When he doesn’t say anything, I turn to see him staring at me, wearing an expression that’s half-incredulity, half-nostalgia. “Or maybe we just found more wonder in the mundane back then. When you have nothing, you learn to appreciate everything.”

  I turn away and take a long sip of coffee. It’s hotter than I usually like, but I’ll endure third-degree mouth burns if it means avoiding this conversation. I don’t reminisce about my childhood, because I prefer to block out most of it. Being around Jake every day is going to make that more difficult. I need to step up my efforts to subvert and avoid.

  “We should get to work.”

  “You really hate it, don’t you?”

  I grab my notebook and write today’s date at the top of a fresh page. “Hate what?”

  “Thinking about how things used to be. You. Me. The old neighborhood.”

  I stop writing mid-word. It’s too early for this conversation. And several years too late.

  “We’re here to work, Jake, not reminisce. Besides, I’d rather live in the present than revisit the past.” I push my hair away from my face and turn to him. “So, tell me more about this woman of yours. How did you two meet? What does she look like? Was it love at first sight? Or did she need to overcome a natural aversion to your personality?”

  Jake leans forward, and even though his expression is neutral, I can feel anger simmering in him. He may have gotten better at hiding it, but it’s still there.

  “Asha,” he says, the tension in his jaw in contrast to the quietness of his voice. “One day soon, we’re going to have to talk about our shit. You know it as well as I do. I’ll give you a pass for today, but at some point, we’re going to clear the air.”

  I act as clueless as possible. “About what?”

  Angry flecks light in his eyes, and I know I’m pushing him, but I can’t seem to stop.

  “Goddammit, stop acting like you have chronic amnesia about our entire friendship. You can’t be that self-deluded.”

  “Jake, if you want to clear the air by apologizing for all the crap you pulled in school, fine. Knock yourself out.”

  His stare intensifies, and the way his expression hardens makes me feel like he sees every version of myself I’ve morphed through since I was three. “We both know that’s my line, not yours.”

  The words hang in the air like a gust of stale crypt air. So many skeletons on both sides in our past. And he’s trying to bring them back to life. Try the door. Rattle it a bit to see how strong the lock is.

  “How many times have you told yourself our friendship fell apart because of me?” he asks, his patience as thin as onion skin.

  “Jake …”

  “No, really, I want to know. Because if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth. How many times, Ash?”

  A cold hand squeezes my heart, making my pulse run fast. “We did fall apart because of you.”

  “So, you were blameless?”

  My voice rises with my blood-pressure. “You turned into an asshole.”

  “And you had nothing to do with that?”

  I lean away from him, just like I did back then.

  He notices and shakes his head. “You once told me that in the story of our lives, we’re our own flawed narrator. You think I’m the bad guy, and I think you are. Our memories are subjective, and we rarely remember ourselves as the villain, even when we were.”

  I push back into the arm of the couch, as far away from him as I can get. “Don’t you dare throw this back onto me. You w
ere the villain. If you’d embraced the role any more, you would have started wearing a black ten-gallon hat to school instead of a beanie.”

  My voice is shrill in the empty space, and my heart is pounding so fast, it feels like a roar in my ears.

  I can’t do this, a small voice whispers inside me. Stop it. Stop talking. Just stop.

  I don’t know what he sees in my expression, but after a few more seconds of searching my face, he drops the box onto the coffee table and goes over to the bed.

  “Okay, princess.” He grabs some clothes from the baskets on the floor. “If it helps you sleep at night to remember our past that way, go ahead. Stay safe in your delusion.” He walks over to the bathroom and stops when he reaches the door. “But if you ever want to talk about the way things really were, give me a call.”

  Then, he disappears into the bathroom and slams the door.

  I’m still breathing heavy when I hear the water start.

  THIRTEEN

  ____________________

  Write On

  WHEN JAKE EMERGES FROM the bathroom fifteen minutes later, he’s fully dressed. The steam that wafts out the door might smell delicious, but it’s clear he’s still tense. That makes two of us.

  I make myself look busy and unaffected, but the longer I spend around him, the harder it gets.

  “Your phone rang while you were in the shower,” I say, not looking at him. “Several times. Someone’s eager to see you. When you didn’t answer, they sent a text.”

  He walks over to the upended apple crate he’s using as a nightstand and picks up his phone. I watch without being obvious. After he checks the screen, he taps something into it and holds it up to his ear.