"But if you're too busy…"
Dee simply stared, her lips parting as she absorbed the warmth of his tanned skin, the soft texture of his flannelette shirt and his eyes — the same milky grey as the fierce thunderclouds that had heralded the electrical storms of her youth. She remembered them distinctly, building up along the Western plains. They'd been terrifying in their intensity, but the young Wendee had felt only exhilaration, running wildly through the paddocks as lightning arrowed down around her, knowing that for a brief period of time she was truly alive.
Exactly as she felt now.
"Dr Williams?"
Even his voice was dangerous. Deep. Needy. She struggled to contain her childhood recklessness, damping it down with her adults fears. She was Dr Williams now, not Wendee.
She straightened her shoulders. "Yes?"
"I didn't want to bother you. It's just, I have this problem…" he glanced around her office, either out of curiously or nervousness, she wasn't sure. "The secretary said to come to you."
Dee nodded, seeing the pieces fall into place. The Convener of First Year. She remembered the conversation now. As convener it was her responsibility was to listen to any first year student's problems, either with their work or personal dilemmas, then refer them on to whomever could help. It was a small responsibility she'd been unable to evade, but for which there'd been little call in any case.
Yet now, the one person she wanted to avoid, Billy McKenzie, was calling on that responsibility. Could it possibly be a coincidence? Or had he known she was the convener?
And why now, today?
He'd never spoken to her personally before, merely been one of many in her lectures or tutorials. What force had brought him to her right at this moment in time when her resistance was so low? Two weeks ago she'd imagined herself to have aroused him with her carnal thoughts. Had she drawn him to her now with her guilty longings? She stared at him, feeling the chaotic churn of desire raging just below her surface calm.
He was dressed in faded Levis and an unbuttoned shirt over a navy singlet of the same blue as the briefs she'd seen him in that night — briefs that had strained to confine his erection. Unconsciously, her gaze drifted to his crotch as that scene replayed itself in her mind. She remembered his tight abdominal muscles, the large tentative hand…
"Dr Williams?"
Her attention shot back up to his face, her heart hammering inside her chest. "Come in." The words came out as a croak. She coughed and tried again. "Come in. Sit." She gestured to a chair in front of her desk.
She needed to focus. He had come with a problem. She would listen and deal with it, then after he'd gone she could fall apart if she had to. But not before. There was no need to feel panicked. Nothing could happen in an office in broad daylight.
But she hadn't expected him to close the door behind himself. He was big, at least six foot two, and as he stepped across to the desk she felt cornered, swamped by the awesome sexual pull of his body.
Intellectually, she knew he couldn't be this attractive to all women, and a month ago she'd have said he was a nice looking boy. Yet now, inexplicably, he'd become a fatally attractive man. It was psychological, she was sure, but she could think of no way to negate it.
He sat across from her, looking vaguely nervous and Dee knew she should say something, but all she could manage was a tight swallow. His yellow blond hair, combed back from his forehead, was damp, and the clean smell of him enveloped her. To make matters worse, his billowing shirt had given her a good view of his magnificent chest beneath the thin cotton singlet. Up close he was devastating, and she had a flicker of imagining herself leaning across the table to get at him. Then she cleared her throat. The best thing to do was to get it over with as quickly as possible.
"You've got a problem, Billy?" she asked, in as professional a voice as she could muster.
He looked surprised, then smiled shyly. "You know my name."
Idiot, she castigated herself as she scrabbled for an excuse. "I'm training my memory. I've memorised all my students names," she lied, then was furious at how devastated she felt when the glow faded from his eyes. "The problem?" She only just stopped herself adding Billy. Damn, she wanted to say his name over and over. She wanted to hear him say her name. What was wrong with her?
"Yeah." He looked down at his large hands clasped together on the desk. Dee looked at them too, wondering if they were soft and sensitive, or callused from years of farm labour. "I can't seem to concentrate on the work," he said softly and Dee felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Dear heaven, what was he going to say?
"It's too hard?" She couldn't stop staring at his hands, wanting to touch them. Wanting it so badly her own hands trembled until she clenched them into fists.
"Actually…" He glanced up at her from beneath his lashes. "It's… the math."
That wasn't what he'd intended to say.
"But you're brilliant at math, Billy," she said without thinking. "Your assignments are perfect."
"How could you know that?" He was looking at her as though she'd just given him the most precious gift and Dee found herself slipping. He was so young, so keen… and she was so stupid. Now he'd think she was interested in him, which of course she was or she wouldn't have looked up his old reports. She have to bluff her way out of it.
"It's my job to keep track of my students’ progress," she said, then added gently, "It's not the math, Billy."
"No." He glanced out the window behind her, biting his lip in a way that made her stomach twist. "I guess not," he said softly.
"Then why are you here?" She held her breath, wishing she hadn’t said that and yet crazily desperate to see if he’d admit he desired her.
"Because…" His grey eyes slid into contact with hers, and she felt a sexual pulse, like a pre-orgasmic flutter. But it was more than sex. Much more complicated, and infinitely more volatile. "…it's personal," he admitted, looking back down at his hands.
She swallowed tightly. "You have a personal problem?" Hell, she sounded like a psychoanalyst, parroting back at him, but she couldn't think of another thing to say. Why hadn't she just let him talk about math?
"You see I'm in — " he said in a rush, then caught himself on a hiccupped breath. For a suspended moment he simply stared at the top of her desk, as though memorizing her scattered collection of pens, then he stood so quickly his chair threatened to fall over backwards. "Actually I'm late and I have to go," he blurted, still not looking up. "I'm sorry to have bothered you, Dr Williams." He edged around his chair, still looking at the carpet.
Dee knew with painful certainty that he wouldn't be back, and inside herself an emptiness yawned so deep and wide she was afraid to move in case she fell in. She'd been a fool, denying the obvious. Now that Billy stood in front of her in the flesh, she could admit she wanted to be unfaithful — admit she wanted to forget her husband and give herself up to the voluptuous pleasure of Billy's magnificent body. She wanted to touch him and kiss him, and she wanted to watch the wonder in his eyes as he made love to her.
"Thanks for your time," he said softly, backing out, his head down. Some of the wet fringe had fallen forward to veil his eyes but he was blinking and Dee felt her shock deepen as she imagined he might be about to cry. "I know you're busy," he whispered, and Dee lurched up out of her chair and stepped around the desk, knowing she couldn't let him go without…
She reached out her hand. "Good luck, Billy."
He raised his head, and at the same moment as his large hand enclosed her slender fingers, their eyes met. It jolted her — not so much her body, but through her soul and her peripheral vision narrowed down until his face was all she could see. Warm skin, hungry eyes, a tentative smile. She was at the nexus then, her own personal decision time. One step towards Billy and she'd slip out of her world and into his. It would be a deep world, rich with sensations and fraught with emotional insecurity.
Or she could stay in the world she knew. The world of James and her work, where the pleasures were shallow and the dangers known.
What would she do?
Billy's smile had disappeared under the crushing intensity of the tension surrounding them. "Goodbye, Dr Williams."
But neither of them broke the connection and they stood for the longest time staring into each other's eyes. Dee felt her grip on reality slipping as the warmth from his hand, with its slightly rough skin, seeped up her arm.
"Billy." It wasn't a question, or even a plea. She just said his name. This was the moment, the jumping off point.
The phone rang.
Billy flinched and pulled his hand away as though he'd been bitten, but Dee wasn't as quick to react.
"Thanks, Dr Williams," he said backing out, and was into the hallway with the door shut behind himself before she could even think to lower her hand.
The phone continued to ring for what seemed like minutes before she could motivate herself to turn and lift the receiver. Even then she held it mutely, unable to move past what had just happened.
Hello?
James! She forced her lips to move. "Hello."
Oh, hello Dear. I'm sorry this is sudden, but I'm afraid I'll have to fly out this afternoon. That wretched administrator's conference has been brought forward to this weekend.
"Oh. Right." Dee swallowed past the sick taste in her mouth.
Are you well, Dear? You sound odd.
"Mmmm?" She went to her chair and sat down, her gaze drifting to the closed door.
Wendee?
"Yes…"
Are you ill?
"No…"
Perhaps I shouldn't -
"No. I'm fine." She pulled herself together. "It's just the phone. I'm having trouble with it."
Shall I call maintenance for you?
"No, I…" She closed her eyes. "I'll sort it out."
As you wish. I'll see you early Monday then. Have a nice weekend.
"Right…" She added a lame, "See you Monday," but he'd already hung up. He'd have several other calls to make before he could leave, and she'd long gotten out of the habit of wondering what priority hers had been given.
Reaching across blindly, she replaced the receiver, rattling it against the body of the phone before it fell into its cradle. Then there was quiet in the room, and into that silence one word kept repeating itself over and over again inside her mind. The one word she'd never been able to understand.
Love.
Outside her door it was all Billy could do to fall back against the wall, his trembling legs barely keeping him upright. She hadn't treated him like a school boy or a dumb bush-bunny. She'd listened to him, actually looked at him, and for a agonisingly exquisite moment she'd touched him, and he was sure he'd seen more than sympathy in her eyes.
She was so beautiful. So sexy. All that shiny dark hair that he knew would fall past her shoulders if she'd only let it loose, those eyes that could make you hard just by looking at you, and that mouth…
Billy groaned softly, levering himself off the wall to shuffle uncomfortably down the hallway towards the toilets. Once inside the tiny white cubicle he let himself think about her mouth, really think about it. How soft and red it looked. How her tongue came out and touched her top lip when she was thinking. How it moved so seductively when she was eating, especially icecream. He knew she liked rum-raisin icecream and every time he bought one for himself he thought of her.
He was sure she'd never seen him watching her. He was careful to keep in the background, never following her off campus and only in the daytime when there were groups of other students around. It was easy really, although he knew it wasn't right.
She belonged to Dean Williams, and she was faithful to him. That was another thing Billy loved about her. The other blokes talked about her, and Billy was hard put not to tell them to shut up sometimes, but one thing he'd gleaned was that according to the campus grapevine she'd never been unfaithful. She was as virtuous as she was beautiful, and so incredibly sexy that Billy would willingly give ten years of his life just to kiss her.
Of course he never would, but the familiar aching warmth suffused his body as he imagined her nestled in his arms, her soft lips against his and that pink tongue of hers sliding into his mouth, her breasts pressing against his chest as he stroked her soft hair…
" Oh God," he groaned, then looked down in shock to find his idle hands had been doing the devil's work.
"God," he repeated blankly, blaspheming again as the precious seeds of creation, his seeds, trailed down the stained white tiles at the back of the cubicle. Then he trembled as the reality of what he'd done hit him full in the face.
"Oh, God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he whispered hysterically, stuffing the sinful organ, still pulsing, back into his pants. "Please, God. I didn't mean to do it." He snatched handfuls of toilet paper and scrubbed frantically at the wall. "Don't send me to hell."
Billy knew as sure as he was a sinner that Dr Williams wouldn't be going to hell. She'd be going to heaven and he couldn't bear the thought of spending eternity separated from the one woman he truly loved. He'd have to read his Bible. He'd have to write to his mother and go to church twice on Sunday to make up for what he'd just done.
In a hurry to get away from his transgression he dropped the sticky paper into the toilet and flushed it, then he went to the sink and scrubbed his hands over and over again with soap. Only then did he rejoin his fellow students, keeping in the pack for as long as he could, unable to bear the thought of what he might do if he was alone.
He was dirty and untrustworthy and he'd have to keep away from Dr Williams or he might corrupt her as unconsciously as he'd corrupted his own body. Besides it'd take all of his attention to work on repenting his sins.
He should never have gone to see her, but the from the moment he'd discovered she was the Convenor of First Year he'd been unable to think of anything else. To see her up close, to actually talk to her. Touching her had been beyond his wildest expectations, but he was sure now that he'd had time to think about it, what he'd taken as interest on her part must have been something else.
She'd probably been busy and he'd distracted her from her work. He wouldn't do it again. He'd also stop thinking about her lips and pray his love for her was pure enough to wish her happiness in her marriage. She deserved that. Unfortunately, that afternoon as he'd heard a fellow student talking, Billy realised his good intentions would never work and that he was hopelessly beyond redemption.
Pog, a short Lebanese boy whose obsession with American slang consistently grated on Billy's nerves, was relating a story to an avid group of undergrads. The details of his latest adventure had been of no interest to Billy until he'd heard Dr Williams name mentioned.
Apparently Pog had been helping with the family bottled water business by making weekend deliveries to gymnasiums. He'd just entered an exclusive Gold Coast health club when he'd seen 'Legs' as they called Dr Williams, emerging from an aerobics class wearing lime green leotards that, hugged those curves like a Ferrari, dude.
"What about her tits? Has she got big tits? You can never tell under those baggy suits she wears?" another had asked.
"Well she ain't no Dolly Parton, but they ain't pimples either. A good handful," the smarmy bastard had replied, his eyes taking on a far-away look. "You should have seen her, dude. All hot and sweaty in those leotards the same colour as her eyes, just clingin' and stretchin' over those high tits and that tight ass. And those legs. Oh man…"
A collective sigh rose, and Billy found he had to leave. Not only was he likely to put Pog in hospital if he heard another filthy word come out of his mouth, but he was seriously in danger of bursting into tears. Back in the dorms he turned his shower on cold and stepped under it fully dressed, but the pain inside his mind wouldn't go away. Tears coursed down his cheeks and he knew no amount of running or reading or praying was going to save his soul.
He didn't just love Dr Williams, he wanted to pull that slender body against his and hold her. He wanted to take her clothes off and see those beautiful curves for himself and he wanted to touch her and kiss her and…
He wanted to fuck her.
" Nooooo," he wailed, smashing his head against the tiles, cracking them, then softer, "No," as he slid to the bottom of the shower, blood mingling with the water that ran into his eyes. "No. Please," he sobbed. "What am I going to do… God?" If only he could hear the voice inside his mind as his mother did. God always listened to her, but then, she wasn't corrupt like Billy.
"Don't let me hurt her, God," he prayed, hugging his knees as the icy water ran over him. "Just make it stop. Make it stop."