The Wolf Den

The rain had begun before dinner.

It came softly at first, a whisper against the tall windows of Delaford, silvering the glass and blurring the dark gardens beyond. By the time the servants had cleared away the last of the supper things and the house had settled into its evening quiet, the rain had deepened into a steady, secretive rhythm — the sort that seemed made for closed doors, low candlelight, and the private world that existed only between husband and wife.

You stood near the hearth in your bedchamber, combing the pins from your hair one by one.

Behind you, Colonel Brandon watched in silence.

He had been quiet all evening, though not cold. Never cold. That was not Christopher’s way. His silences had texture — thought, restraint, tenderness carefully held in the palm of discipline. You had learned to read them since becoming his wife. The slight furrow between his brows when he was concerned. The way his eyes softened when they lingered on you. The manner in which his hand would hover at the small of your back in company, never possessive enough to offend propriety, but present enough to remind you that he was there.

Always there.

Tonight, however, there had been something else in him.

A waiting.

A heaviness.

You saw it now in the mirror as you withdrew the final pin from your hair and let it fall over your shoulders.

His eyes lifted at once.

It was not the gaze of a young man overcome by impulse. Christopher Brandon was not ruled by appetite. He was older, steadier, a man who had known disappointment, duty, grief, and the long discipline of wanting what he believed he could not have. Desire in him did not flare carelessly. It burned low and deep, like banked coals beneath ash.

But when it showed, it was all the more dangerous for its restraint.

You turned slightly, catching his gaze in the looking glass.

“My dear husband is very solemn tonight.”

A faint smile touched his mouth. “Am I?”

“Terribly.”

“I had not meant to appear so.”

“You rarely mean to appear anything,” you said, setting the pins upon the dressing table. “That is part of your charm.”

He lowered his eyes briefly, almost bashful despite everything — despite the wedding ring on his hand, despite the fact that you shared his name, his home, his bed. It never ceased to move you, that quiet modesty in him. He could command men, endure pain, carry sorrow without complaint, and yet a tender word from you could still undo him.

You crossed the room slowly.

He remained near the bed, coat already removed, waistcoat loosened, his shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms and the collar open at his throat. The candlelight softened the noble lines of his face, silvering the dark strands of his hair, making him look both severe and impossibly gentle.

When you reached him, you lifted your hands to the front of his shirt.

“You have been thinking,” you said.

His breath moved beneath your fingers. “That is hardly unusual.”

“No. But tonight you were thinking of me.”

His gaze returned to yours.

For a moment he said nothing.

Then, quietly, “Yes.”

The single word warmed you more than the fire.

You began to undo the buttons of his shirt, slowly, not from necessity but because you liked the way he watched your hands. You liked the stillness that came over him, as though every part of him had been ordered to patience except his eyes.

“And what thoughts occupied you so seriously?” you asked.

His hand came to your waist. Not pulling. Merely resting there, large and warm, his thumb moving once over the fabric of your nightgown.

“You know very well.”

“Perhaps I wish to hear you say it.”

That made his mouth tighten, not in displeasure, but in an effort to master himself. You had discovered, over the months of your marriage, that Christopher Brandon was not a man easily persuaded into vulgarity. His tenderness had depth, his passion had force, but he approached even desire as though it were something sacred — not to be thrown carelessly about, not to be cheapened.

Still, there were moments when you could coax the truth from him.

Moments when the husband overcame the gentleman.

His fingers tightened slightly at your waist.

“I was thinking,” he said, voice lower now, “of how much I want you.”

Your hands stilled.

The rain tapped steadily at the windows.

“And?” you whispered.

His eyes darkened.

“And of how dearly I hope,” he continued, with a gravity that made your heart ache, “that I may give you a child.”

The words settled between you with a tenderness almost too large to bear.

It was not the first time such a hope had been spoken aloud. Since your marriage, the possibility had hovered over you both — in glances, in the quiet calculations of dates, in the way his hand sometimes rested over your lower belly after loving you, as if he could will life into being by devotion alone.

But each time he said it plainly, it changed the air.

A child.

His child.

The thought filled you with a strange, aching warmth. Not because it was expected of you. Not because society would smile upon it. But because you had seen Christopher with those who needed gentleness. You had seen the patient sorrow in him, the old wound of having once loved and lost, the tenderness he tried to hide because tenderness had cost him so much. You knew what kind of father he would be.

Not loud. Not careless. Never cruel.

A steady hand. A quiet voice. A man who would stand between his child and the world without ever asking to be praised for it.

You reached up and touched his face.

“You will,” you said.

His expression shifted.

“My love—”

“You will,” you repeated softly. “And when you do, you shall be unbearable.”

That startled a laugh from him, low and brief. “Unbearable?”

“Entirely. Watching over me, worrying over every little thing, refusing to let me cross a room without offering your arm.”

His thumb brushed your cheek. “You make it sound as though you would object.”

“I did not say that.”

“No,” he murmured. “You did not.”

His gaze lowered to your mouth.

That was all the warning you had before he kissed you.

Christopher’s kisses were rarely hurried at first. He kissed as he did everything else — with purpose, with care, with a restraint that made the eventual loss of it all the more exquisite. His mouth moved over yours slowly, deeply, as though he meant to remember the shape of every sigh. His hand slid from your waist to your back, drawing you nearer until there was no polite distance left between you.

You melted against him.

The world narrowed to the warmth of his chest, the scent of rain and candle smoke, the quiet strength of his arms. His mouth left yours only to press against your cheek, your jaw, the sensitive place beneath your ear that made your fingers clutch at his shirt.

“Christopher,” you breathed.

He paused at the sound of his name.

You felt it — the effort in him. The discipline. The man who still, even now, wished to be certain he was not taking more than you freely gave.

So you gave him certainty.

You drew back just enough to look at him, then took his hand and placed it over your heart.

“I am yours,” you said.

His eyes closed for half a second.

When they opened again, something in him had changed.

Not vanished. Never that. Christopher did not become another man in passion. He became himself without armor.

He kissed you again, harder this time, with a hunger that made your knees weaken. His hands moved with reverence and need together, as though he could not decide whether to worship you or gather you entirely into himself. Your nightgown slipped from one shoulder beneath his touch. His mouth followed the exposed skin, warm and lingering, and you felt his breath catch when your fingers moved into his hair.

The bed was only a few steps away. Neither of you remembered taking them, nor exactly when the last barriers of linen between you had been pushed aside.

You were beneath him, surrounded by linen and candlelight, with the rain keeping its quiet vigil beyond the windows. Christopher leaned over you, one forearm braced beside your head, his face shadowed and beautiful with restraint.

“You must tell me,” he said, voice roughened, “if I am too much.”

Your hands slid over his shoulders.

“You are not enough yet.”

His brows lifted faintly.

For one breath, he looked almost shocked.

Then he gave a soft, helpless sound — half laugh, half groan — and lowered his mouth to yours again.

There was no more room for teasing after that. Not at first.

There was only the slow unraveling of him, and of you beneath him.

Christopher loved like a man making a vow again and again. Every touch seemed to say what his voice could not: that he cherished you, that he desired you, that he still scarcely believed he had been granted such happiness. Even when passion sharpened, his tenderness remained. He watched your face as though it were the only truth in the world. He listened for every breath, every tremor, every small sign that told him where pleasure became too much or not enough.

And when he finally joined himself to you, he went still.

His forehead lowered to yours.

The intimacy of it stole your breath.

Not merely the joining of bodies, but the look in his eyes — that solemn, aching devotion. As though this was not only pleasure, not only marriage, but hope itself. As though somewhere in the dark, quiet future, a child might begin from this very tenderness.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders.

For a time, he moved slowly, almost reverently. The rhythm was deep and measured, his breath warming your mouth, his eyes closing only when feeling threatened to overcome him. You could feel the restraint in every line of his body. He was holding back for you, as he always did. Giving you gentleness when you knew there was hunger beneath it.

So, naturally, you decided to provoke him.

When his breath grew uneven and he paused, resting his forehead against you for one long moment, you slid your hands firmly over his shoulders and smiled.

“Colonel,” you whispered, “are you tired already?”

Christopher went utterly still.

His eyes opened.

For a heartbeat, the only sound was the rain.

Then he answered you without words.

His next movement was sudden enough to steal the air from your lungs.

You gasped, fingers tightening on his shoulders, and his mouth curved against yours — not smug, exactly, but close enough to make heat rush through you.

“Tired?” he murmured.

You tried to answer. Failed.

His lips brushed your cheek, deceptively tender, while his body set a deeper, more demanding rhythm that made your teasing dissolve into broken breaths.

“I assure you,” he said, voice low and controlled only by effort, “I am quite capable of fulfilling my duties as a husband.”

A laugh escaped you, breathless and helpless. “Duties?”

His hand slid beneath your back, holding you closer.

“Most solemnly.”

The words would have sounded absurd from any other man. From him, spoken in that low, grave voice while his body pressed yours into the linen, they made you laugh and shiver at once.

“You are impossible,” you breathed.

“I have been called worse.”

“By whom?”

His mouth brushed your temple. “No one whose opinion I valued.”

You would have answered him, would have teased him further if only to see that dangerous softness return to his eyes, but Christopher chose that moment to shift his weight and take hold of your hips.

The change was subtle at first. A firmer grip. A deeper angle. The careful tenderness remained, but something more deliberate entered him, something that made your breath catch before he had even moved again.

He held you as though you were precious.

He loved you like a man who had been starving.

His eyes lowered to where your bodies met, and for a moment he simply watched. The sight seemed to undo him by degrees. His lips parted. A faint crease formed between his brows, not of pain, but of concentration so intense it bordered on reverence. Candlelight caught on the sheen beginning to gather at his throat, along the open vee of his shirt, across the strength of his chest where the fabric clung damply to him.

Then he moved.

Neither fast nor slow.

Worse than either.

Measured. Deep. Mercilessly controlled.

He drew out halfway, enough to make you feel the loss, enough to make your body tighten around the absence of him, and then he drove back into you with a force that sent a broken sound from your mouth.

“Christopher—”

His fingers flexed on your hips.

Again.

Out, just enough.

Back in, hard enough to make the bed shift beneath you.

The rhythm was not hurried. He was not chasing his own end like a careless boy. No, this was something far more devastating. He took his time with you. He watched what each thrust did to you, watched your mouth fall open, watched your hands clutch at the sheets, watched your composure come apart beneath him piece by piece.

And you watched him in return.

You could not help it.

A man had no right to look so handsome in such a moment.

The thought came to you with almost offended clarity through the haze of pleasure. He should have looked disheveled, perhaps even foolish. Marriage, surely, was meant to make a husband familiar. Human. Less untouchable.

Instead, Christopher Brandon looked like some solemn, ruined saint of devotion and desire.

His dark hair had fallen loose over his forehead, damp with sweat. His shirt hung open, sleeves rolled and wrinkled from your hands. His breath came heavier now, restrained sounds caught low in his throat each time he sank back into you. The noble severity of his face had not vanished, but it had changed. Softened. Darkened. Desire had sharpened his features and undone them at once.

You stared at him through half-lidded eyes, caught between moans, helplessly fascinated.

He noticed, of course.

Christopher always noticed.

His gaze lifted from the place where he entered you to your face.

“What is it?” he asked, voice rough.

You swallowed, though your throat had gone dry. “Nothing.”

His hips moved again, and the answer left you in a gasp.

“Not nothing,” he murmured.

You should not have said it.

You knew you should not have said it.

But pleasure had made you honest and bold and quite without sense.

“Do all husbands look like this in the marriage bed?”

He stilled.

Not completely. Not enough to grant mercy. He remained seated deep inside you, his hands still at your hips, his body hot and trembling faintly with the effort of restraint. But his eyes fixed on yours with sudden, dangerous attention.

For one heartbeat, the rain seemed to grow louder.

“What did you say?” he asked softly.

The softness should have warned you.

Instead, you smiled, breathless and wicked. “I only wondered whether all husbands look so handsome while fulfilling their duties.”

His expression changed.

Only slightly.

A gentleman would have laughed.

A lesser man might have preened.

Christopher Brandon lowered himself over you until his mouth hovered near yours, his hair brushing your forehead, his breath warm against your lips.

“I shall make certain,” he said, each word quiet and perfectly clear, “that you never find out.”

Heat rushed through you so sharply that you could not answer.

He kissed you then, but it was not the slow, reverent kiss from before. It was deeper, hungrier, edged with a possessiveness that made your body tighten around him. His hand slid from your hip to your thigh, lifting it higher against his side, opening you further beneath him.

When he moved again, the angle changed.

You cried out against his mouth.

“There,” he breathed, as though he had found something he had been patiently searching for. “There, my love?”

You nodded helplessly.

He did it again.

Your head sank back into the pillow.

“Oh—Christopher.”

The sound of his name seemed to pass through him like fire. His control slipped for a moment, just enough for his breath to break, just enough for his grip to tighten as he thrust into you again with that same deep, devastating precision.

“My sweet wife,” he murmured.

There was tenderness in it.

There was possession, too.

Not the ugly sort. Not the grasping claim of a man who thought love meant ownership. Christopher’s possession was different. It was devotion made desperate. A vow spoken with hands and mouth and body. The fierce astonishment of a man who had once believed himself condemned to loneliness and now found you beneath him, warm and willing, whispering his name as though it belonged in your mouth.

You reached up and pushed the damp hair from his forehead.

The gesture undid something in him.

His eyes closed briefly, and his face turned into your palm.

For one suspended second, he was unbearably gentle again.

Then your body clenched around him, and his composure cracked.

A low sound left him, rougher than any you had heard from him before. His hand caught your wrist and pressed your palm to the mattress beside your head, not hard enough to hurt, only enough to hold. His other hand stayed at your hip, guiding you into each thrust, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.

The bed creaked softly beneath you.

The rain covered the rest.

You were glad for it.

Glad for the rain, glad for the closed doors, glad for the great quiet house that knew better than to intrude upon this intimate undoing of composure. You had thought, once, that a man like Christopher would be silent in bed. Controlled. Almost austere in his pleasure.

You had been wrong.

He was quiet, yes, but not silent.

He breathed your name like a prayer. He murmured praise against your skin, low and broken and almost reluctant, as though the words escaped him despite his best efforts.

“So beautiful.”

Another thrust.

“So warm.”

Another.

“So entirely mine.”

Your fingers curled around his wrist.

“Yes,” you gasped. “Yours.”

His eyes opened.

The effect was immediate.

He looked at you as though you had given him something sacred, something dangerous.

“Again,” he said.

You could barely hear yourself over your own breathing. “Yours.”

His restraint frayed further.

The rhythm deepened. Still not frantic, not careless, but harder now. More insistent. He pulled out halfway and drove back into you again and again, each thrust striking that place inside you that made the world flash white at the edges.

You could feel sweat on his skin when your hands slid beneath his open shirt. Feel the heat of him, the controlled strength, the tremor in his muscles each time he forced himself not to lose all gentleness.

“Do not hold back,” you whispered.

His laugh was strained, nearly pained. “You do not know what you ask.”

“I do.”

“No.” His mouth found your jaw, your throat. “You think you do.”

“Then show me.”

He lifted his head.

For a moment, he looked at you as he might have looked across a battlefield: assessing danger, consequence, the point of no return.

Then his mouth curved faintly.

“You are becoming very bold, Mrs. Brandon.”

“You encouraged me.”

“I fear I have created my own undoing.”

You tightened your legs around him. “Then be undone.”

That did it.

Whatever remained of his careful distance vanished.

He kissed you hard, almost desperately, and the next thrust stole every clever word from your tongue. He held your hips firmly now, using that steady strength of his to draw you back to meet him, making you take each deep stroke until you were no longer laughing, no longer teasing, no longer capable of anything but sound.

He watched you fall apart.

That was perhaps the most intimate cruelty of all.

He watched with those dark, devoted eyes while pleasure built in you beyond bearing. Watched as you tried to turn your face aside and caught your chin with gentle fingers.

“No,” he murmured. “Stay with me.”

“I can’t—”

“You can.” His voice shook, but his gaze did not. “Look at me.”

You did.

And that was your undoing.

The sight of him above you — damp hair across his forehead, mouth parted, eyes dark with love and hunger, body moving into yours with solemn, ruthless devotion — pushed you over the edge. Pleasure broke through you with such force that you clutched at him blindly, crying out his name as your body tightened around him again and again.

Christopher’s face changed.

For the first time that night, he looked truly lost.

His rhythm faltered. His jaw clenched. A hoarse sound escaped him as he buried his face against your neck, still moving, still holding you close as your pleasure took him with it.

“My love,” he breathed. “My love, I—”

He did not finish.

He could not.

His body went taut above yours, his arms gathering you so tightly that you felt surrounded by him completely. His final thrusts were deep, unsteady, stripped of all performance and all restraint. He came with your name against your skin, his voice low and broken, his whole body shuddering as though the feeling had gone through him soul-deep.

Afterward, he did not move away.

For a long while, neither of you did.

The rain continued against the windows, soft and steady, as though nothing in the world had changed.

But everything in you felt altered.

Christopher’s weight rested carefully over you, not enough to crush, only enough to comfort. His face remained hidden against your neck. His breathing was uneven, warm and damp along your skin. One of his hands moved from your hip to your waist, then lower, settling with aching tenderness over your belly.

The gesture made your throat tighten.

You placed your hand over his.

He lifted his head slowly.

The passion had not left his face entirely. It lingered in the flush of his skin, the softness of his mouth, the dark disorder of his hair. But his eyes had returned to that familiar tenderness, made deeper now by vulnerability.

“Are you well?” he asked.

You laughed softly, still breathless. “You ask that as though you did not just try to prove a point.”

A faint, mortified warmth touched his cheeks. “I may have been… provoked.”

“You threatened to make certain I never discover whether other husbands look handsome in bed.”

His gaze lowered, almost shy now that the words were spoken plainly.

“I meant it,” he said.

The sincerity of it made you smile.

You touched his face. “I know.”

His thumb moved slowly over your belly, thoughtful and tender.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then he bent and kissed you there, just below your navel, with such quiet reverence that your heart clenched painfully in your chest.

“Christopher,” you whispered.

He rested his cheek against you, eyes closed.

“If it should happen,” he said softly, “if we are blessed so…”

Your fingers moved into his hair.

He swallowed.

“I would spend my life deserving it.”

The words pierced you more deeply than any declaration of passion could have done.

You tugged gently until he came back up to you. He followed at once, settling beside you and drawing you into the curve of his body. You tucked yourself against his chest, listening to the slow return of his heartbeat beneath your ear.

“You already do,” you said.

His arms tightened around you.

Outside, the rain fell over Delaford.

I've known Eli Michaelson my entire life.

Our moms met in the hospital, giving birth in neighbouring beds. Eli was born on April 20th, 1946 at 3.29pm; I was born on April 20th, 1946 at 5.53pm. He always did love reminding me that he's older.

Trauma bonding during labor made our moms friends, and they would visit each other to bring us on playdates, which my mom later told me mostly involved Eli trying to steal my toys from me and crying until his mom gave in and gave him something to placate him.

That pretty much sums up how Eli's mom always treated him. If he wanted something, he screamed until he got it.

As for his dad, nothing was ever good enough for that man. Mr M was a scientist whose work had been put on hold because of the war, and he never got those glorious pre-war days back, especially once he knocked up his girlfriend and had to marry her. He was bitter, and he expected Eli to make up for his own regrets.

If you didn't know why Eli was so obsessed with winning the Nobel Prize, now you do: it was all his dad. Even after Mr M died, Eli was still determined to prove himself by winning the prize daddy had missed out on.

While Eli was being pushed into science before he could even spell it — I'm surprised he can spell it now, actually, his spelling is atrocious — I was trying my best to get myself killed. Anything stupid or dangerous, I loved it and wanted more. I guess that's what I saw in Eli.

As soon as Eli was old enough to sneak into his dad's lab, he would steal stuff from in there to create the most chaotic mixture he could for me. At first we'd "play experiments," as we called it, in the kitchen. That got too messy, so we moved into the garden. Then, when we decided to take it a step further and blow stuff up, we ended up at the park.

I couldn't tell you the amount of times I got grounded because of some stupid shit Eli and I got up to. My parents tried to ban me from hanging out with him anymore, which of course made me want to hang out with him even more, which led to sneaking out of my bedroom window to go and see him.

All this was completely innocent, by the way. We were just kids, we had no idea about sex or kissing. We knew about marriage, because that was what our parents did, but neither of us were interested in that. We just wanted to blow shit up.

We went to elementary school together, but when it came time for middle school, we got split up. Then along came high school, and he went to some smart ass high school for smart asses, and I went to normal high school for normal people.

It didn't stop us hanging out, though. As we got older, we got busier and even got other friends, so we didn't see each other as much. We always saw each other on our birthday, though, and it was on our 15th birthday that we had our first kiss.

It wasn't romantic, or sexy. It was quite bad, actually. We were both nervous — though Eli would tell you he'd never been nervous ever in his life — and it was less of a kiss than it was us awkwardly pushing our faces against each other and wondering what the hell we were supposed to do.

Still, it was a kiss, and Eli had just hit puberty a few months earlier so he was suddenly much hotter to me than he had been before, and he was growing like a beanstalk. The little chemistry nerd I'd grown up with was becoming a handsome man, and we were both overwhelmed with the new, confusing feelings that came with raging hormones.

We were seventeen when we had sex for the first time. His friend from Nerd High was having a house party, and Eli dragged me along. We got drunk and ended up making out behind a bush, which led to him fingering me behind a bush, which led to him sticking his dick in me behind a bush.

I was young and drunk and a little bit in love, and did I mention I loved doing stupid and dangerous shit? Because losing my virginity to Eli Michaelson behind a bush at some guy's house party was definitely in the top 5 stupidest and most dangerous things I'd ever done by that point. I think there was some poison ivy in that bush with us, because I had a rash on my ass for days after that.

Something changed in Eli after that. I think we all know he's a sex addict, and he'd just taken his first hit of the drug that'd be his vice for the rest of his life.

He wanted it all. the. time.

Thank God this was long before cell phones, because otherwise I would have been hit with a "u up?" text every night. He couldn't call the house phone, because my parents still didn't want me hanging out with him, so he'd climb into the back yard and throw stones at my window instead.

I'd try to tell him to go away when I was studying, but somehow my resolve was never as strong as his, and he'd end up sneaking in through my window. Looking at him now, you'd think he'd never be able to stealthily climb into a second-floor window, but the durability of the young mixed with the hormones of a teenage boy made him what the kids today might call a master of parkour.

First he'd climb onto the dumpster. Then, he'd lift himself up onto the garage roof, and finally, through my bedroom window and very quickly into my bed.

That bed was tiny, by the way. It was a single, and I was growing out of it myself, let alone trying to squeeze Eli in there, who was just a few inches off the full 6'1 he'd end up hitting. But I didn't care, because our bodies were so intertwined we hardly needed the space anyway.

Keeping quiet was the hardest part. Eli's always been vocal, and he often had to clamp his hand over his mouth to muffle his groans when he finished. Fortunately my parents were the kind of old people who needed the TV on full volume to hear anything, and still managed to fall asleep on the couch with it blaring, so I could often hear Bill Cullen's voice much clearer than Eli's, even with Eli right on top of me.

Eli's vice was sex, and mine was danger; so having sex with the risk of getting caught was addictive for both of us. Sometimes the TV would be switched off, and we knew we only had a couple of minutes at best before my parents would start coming up the stairs to go to bed. My bed was pressed up against the wall, and on the other side of that wall was the bathroom; sometimes I could literally hear my dad taking a shit, and Eli would still be inside me. I'm pretty sure the only reason we were never caught was because my parents were so very, very deaf.

If ever I found myself home alone for a few hours, I'd be straight on the phone to Eli. Well, that wasn't quite true — since we weren't supposed to be seeing each other, I couldn't call, because Mrs M always picked up. Instead, I'd call one of Eli's friends, who'd call and ask for Eli on the pretense of having some homework problem, then he'd tell Eli I was home alone. Eli would tell his parents he had to go and help a friend with homework, and then I'd relish being able to let him in through the front door, and we'd have sex on whatever surface of the house we decided we were going to taint that day.

We had our first argument when I got pregnant. "How could you let this happen?" he asked me, as if it wasn't him that had been sticking his dick in me at every possible moment. Abortions are pretty scandalous now, but they were even worse back then. My parents died years later with no idea I'd ever been pregnant, let alone what I'd done about it.

The recovery period was pretty bad for me. I was bleeding a lot, and I did my best to hide it, but I think my mom figured enough out to think that I just had a really heavy period.

Naturally, I didn't want to have sex for a few weeks. Not only was I bleeding, but I wasn't keen on going through all that again, so sex lost its appeal to me for a while.

This, apparently, was too long for Eli. He was the hottest guy in school — which wasn't hard at Nerd High — and he had a long list of girls he could turn to for a quickie in the locker room.

I found out on our 18th birthday. His parents let him throw a house party, and I snuck out to go — only to find him shamelessly sucking on some girl's face when I arrived. And somehow, I was the bad guy for making a scene at his birthday party.

I found a lot of things out that night. Not only had he been happily filling the void I left by taking a few weeks to recover from a secret abortion, but apparently, because we'd never been on a date or talked about a relationship, everything we'd done was just a bit of fun and we were never boyfriend and girlfriend.

I also discovered that the couch he'd been face-sucking on was flammable. As was the rug underneath it. Also, drunk teenagers are really bad at putting out flames before they spread.

And a few days later, I discovered that my college fund was just about enough to bail me out and to pay for the damage, so Eli's parents didn't press charges.

I graduated high school with no criminal record, no college fund and parents who were really, really mad at me. Eli, of course, had all the sympathy for being "attacked" (I threw the lighter at the couch after he'd stood up) by his "crazy ex-girlfriend" (I thought I wasn't his girlfriend?), and all his college fund could be spent on accommodation and food and partying because he was the chemistry genius daddy always wanted him to be, and he got a full scholarship.

So off Eli went to college, and I stayed back in our hometown. I got the odd job here and there, but nothing resembling a career. I couldn't stay in one place for too long. I got restless, I got bored, and whenever I was restless and bored, I was liable to destruction.

I stole from cash registers just for the thrill. I broke men's hearts because I could. And every now and then, for no discernable reason, I took the long way home and drove past Eli's house.

He never came back for the summer while he was at college. I heard from a friend of a friend that he had his own place in Stanford so he didn't bother coming back. His mom went to see him every now and then, but as far as I know, he never saw his dad again until his mom's funeral.

That was when he saw me again too. He was midway through his masters by then, fast on the way to being 'Dr Eli Michaelson'. I, meanwhile, had a success of my own to brag about: I'd managed to stay an entire year in a job without getting fired or ragequitting.

I've heard it said that people get horny after a funeral because all the talk of death makes them want to celebrate life. I don't know if that's true, but what I do know is that Eli fucking me in a janitor's closet at his mom's wake was the biggest thrill I'd felt in years.

How could I have resisted? He looked unbelievably hot in his black mourning suit, and he looked even hotter in it afterwards, when he was doing the social rounds with mourners telling him how sorry they were for his loss, and he'd thank them for their kind words, then casually slip his hand into his left pocket, where I'd watched him stuff my stolen panties just minutes earlier.

Five years later, I missed his dad's funeral because I was in jail for six months — doesn't matter why — and only found out he'd died when I got out.

My parents had no interest in trying to rein me in once I had a prison sentence behind me, so when I got released from prison with nothing to my name except the clothes on my back and a Greyhound ticket, I figured I'd find somewhere new — but I had no idea where to go.

I was at the bus station, looking at the destinations on offer. I was seriously considering Vegas, figuring I could find work there easily, until a college kid walked past me with a Stanford sweater on, and suddenly I knew where I was heading.

What I was actually gonna do when I got there, I had no idea. All I knew was that fate was drawing me to Stanford. The last I'd heard of Eli, he had his doctorate and had gone from postdoc to assistant professor, and he was still thriving at Stanford.

The funny thing about college campuses in the 70s? No security whatsoever. You can just walk in. I don't know why students spend thousands on enrolling when they can just walk into class any time they like. Any rando can just get off the bus, walk over to campus, follow the signs to the chemistry department, and find the door that says 'Dr Eli Michaelson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Chemistry'.

I must have looked a mess. There are hardly any mirrors in jail, and there are none on Greyhounds, so I had no idea how I looked, but I must have been recognisable because Eli looked as if he'd seen a ghost when he looked up from grading papers to see, not a student walking in, but the crazy ex-girlfriend who'd set fire to his couch all those years ago.

"I thought you were in jail," was the first thing the love of my life said to me after several years apart.

"Got let out. How'd you know? Been keeping tabs on me?"

"Gossip spreads fast. What're you doing here?"

I put my hands in my pockets and shrugged. "They gave me a bus ticket. Can't go home, mom and dad don't want anything to do with me, can you believe that? So I… came here."

Eli sat back in his chair and smirked. "Nowhere else to go but to me, huh?"

"I dunno. I guess."

I looked around the room curiously. It was full of Eli. Framed photos showed him shaking hands with people I figure must have been important. His doctorate certificate hung proudly on the wall directly behind him, so if someone sat across from him, they couldn't miss it.

"Doctor Eli Michaelson," I read out as I looked up at the certificate. "I always knew you'd get there. You always get what you want."

"That I do."

Eli grabbed me by the waist and, before I even realised what was happening, he had me sat side-saddle on his lap.

"Y'know, it's funny… I was just thinking about you last night."

My heart leapt at that.

"Oh yeah? What was I doing in your thoughts?"

"Taking your clothes off, mostly — and here you are."

He flexed his fingers over my thigh, as if trying to resist grabbing me.

"You expect me to get my kit off for you here?"

"You'll get your kit off for me anywhere."

He had me there. And he took me there too, right on top of the papers he was grading. Some poor sap was gonna get their paper back all crumpled up, and they'd have no idea why.

If he didn't have to go and teach a class, Eli might have fucked me on that desk all day. But alas, obligations called, and Eli left me with an address, the key to his front door, cash for a cab and a burning between my thighs that couldn't be satiated.

I had some hours to kill at his place before he came back, and said place was a mess — clearly he didn't have a girlfriend, because no woman in her right mind would let a man live like this. There were pizza boxes strewn about, expired milk in the fridge, and stains on the couch I suspected weren't from anything edible.

I did my best to clean some of it up, if not for his sake then for mine — something smelled funky, and I couldn't just sit there for hours breathing it in. By the time he came back, it was semi-habitable, and I managed to forget about the weird smell pervading the air as soon as Eli stuck his hand down my pants.

It must have been past 10pm by the time Eli lit up a cigarette, one arm around my shoulders as I held him, resting my head on his soft body and savouring the feeling of finally holding him like this again after so long.

"So what's your plan?" Eli asked casually after taking a long drag of his cigarette.

"Don't have one," I mumbled against his belly. "Never did. Probably never will. Can I crash here for a bit? Just 'til I can get a job and get my own place."

"You keep riding my dick like that, sweetheart, you can stay as long as you like."

I looked up at him, eyes wide. "Wait, for real? You want me stay?"

Eli shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

I grinned, and Eli reckons I squealed like an excited teenage girl, but that's not how I remember it. We definitely both agree that I kissed him all over, and the cigarette ended up discarded in an ashtray so Eli could give me his undivided attention.

The two years that followed were, and still are, the greatest period of my life. Because I didn't have to pay rent, I didn't have to work much — just a few hours a week, enough to not be reliant on Eli for day-to-day living — and I even managed to hold down one job the entire time.

I transformed Eli's hazardous bachelor pad into a habitable living space, and I always made sure there was food waiting on the table when he got home. I loved waking up next to him in the morning, and obviously I loved having sex with him at night, but by far the best moment of every day was when he'd come home from college, often grumbling about how freshmen seemed to be getting dumber every year, and his face would light up when I greeted him with a kiss and a plate of hot, delicious food.

I didn't even know how to cook properly before then, but for Eli I learned, and by the time Thanksgiving came around, I was confident enough that I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us, and Eli must have been satisfied because he unbuckled his belt and burped loudly, which always meant that he'd had a good meal.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, of course. We had a few arguments. One time I saw that he'd packed a suitcase, and I got upset because I thought he was trying to get away from me, but it turned out he was just going to some chemistry conference.

When I got pregnant again, we argued again, because this time I wanted to keep it, but Eli refused — he wasn't ready to have a kid, he wouldn't have the time, he couldn't afford it, and he wanted to spare me the shame of having a kid outside marriage. "Why don't we just get married then?" I suggested, but Eli didn't want to ever get married, though he promised that if he had to marry someone, it would be me.

So to the clinic I went, and while I was there the doctor suggested I start taking birth control so I didn't get pregnant by surprise again. The pill was a fairly new thing back then, and I've never really paid attention to the news so I didn't even know about it. A tiny pill I could take every day and never get pregnant, and if I wanted to get pregnant I could just stop taking it? It seemed like a miracle, and I jumped at the chance.

All good things come to an end, and in 1979, we had our biggest argument yet. While looking through Eli's drawers — doesn't matter why — I found a checkbook that was nearly at its end. I flicked through the stubs and saw the same name, the same amount, over and over again. Glynnis James. Who the fuck was Glynnis James?

It took a lot of interrogating for me to find out, but eventually Eli caved: Glynnis James was the wife of his best friend, Harriman James. (I thought I was his best friend, but okay.) Five years earlier, he'd killed himself while she was pregnant, leaving her penniless. Eli, apparently, had been helping her out financially since then.

I wanted to believe him, but it didn't make sense. He'd convinced me to have an abortion because he didn't have the money to raise a kid, and yet he was sending checks to his dead second best friend's wife — what, out of the goodness of his heart?

Yeah, no. I wasn't having it. Anyone who knows Eli knows he would never do something like that out of the goodness of his own heart. He's the tightest asshole known to man, why would he send maintenance checks for some kid that wasn't even his?

And that was when it clicked. He was sending maintenance checks because the kid was his!

Needless to say, I was pissed. I'd had two abortions for him, and yet when he knocked up his second best friend's wife, he apparently had no problem with her carrying the kid to term.

I don't remember much of what happened after that. I do remember Eli calling me a "psycho" — how could I not remember that? You'd remember it too if the love of your life looked at you with nothing but fear and hate in his eyes and called you every variant of "crazy" he could think of. I was angry at him for a long time after that, but I forgave him eventually — I guess I can see how he would think it was my fault, given past experience and that he found me right outside Glynnis James' house as it burned down. But I still don't remember doing anything that would result in a fire — the last thing I remember is realising he had a kid, and the next thing I knew, I was standing on the side of some street I'd never been to before, watching a house burn down.

I couldn't stand to be near him after that. It was too confusing. I was angry at him for what he'd said to me, and I was kind of embarassed too. It sure looked like the fire was my fault, and I'd clearly found her address and gone to her house. So naturally I did the healthy thing and moved 3,000 miles away.

I just about managed to hitch-hike my way to New York without getting murdered or raped, and I settled in to my new life as a bum on the streets of New York City.

I actually really loved New York. It was loud and messy and chaotic, just like me. Drugs were ridiculously easy to come across. I worked for a while at a music bar, partly because the loud music was soothing to me, but honestly also because the guy who ran it kind of looked like Eli. Plus he was married, and I always loved ruining marriages, but he wasn't interested and I hate the chase — it's hard to break a man's heart when he's not that invested — so I quit and definitely wasn't fired for shooting up in the kitchen.

It's a blur after that, and honestly, we're not here to talk about the darkest period of my life, so let's skip forward to the next time I saw Eli.

Protip: if you ever find yourself a homeless drug addict, don't bother abiding by the law. Cops just move you on, or maybe throw you in a cell for the night. But as soon as you commit a crime and end up in prison, suddenly you've got tax dollars paying for therapy and a roof over your head, and you're forced into rehabilitation by going cold turkey.

I was three years into my sentence when a guard told me I had a visitor. I thought she must have been joking at first, because I hadn't seen my parents since my last stint in prison, and I'd lost touch with anyone I could call a friend years ago.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the visiting room and saw him.

"You look tired," I said as I sat down, and it was true. There were dark circles under his eyes, and though he'd shaved his moustache, he had a shadow of stubble around his jaw that I had a very strong urge to shove between my legs.

"You look like shit," Eli replied, and it was probably true too. Again, prison, very few mirrors, and the commissary didn't offer a very wide variety of beauty products.

"How'd you find me?"

"I can always find you," Eli said mysteriously, and I decided to let it remain mysterious — I didn't want to ruin the image in my mind of Eli dedicating the last seven years to finding the only woman he'd ever loved.

His hands were folded over each other on the table. I glanced down, trying to resist taking his hands in mine — and I saw a glitter of gold.

I frowned.

"What the fuck is that?"

Eli quickly pulled his hands back and placed them on his lap.

"Nothing."

"Fuck off was that nothing. Was that a wedding ring?"

Eli didn't answer, which told me everything.

"Whatever happened to 'I don't wanna get married'? What happened to 'If I had to marry someone, it'd be you'?"

"That was before you tried to kill my son."

"I did not try to kill your son!" I protested a little too loud, eliciting nervous glances from other tables, and a nearby guard straightened up, paying close attention to me.

I threw my hands up and sat back to show I wasn't about to jump across the table and strangle him, as much as I wanted to.

"Why are you here, Eli?"

"Because someone had to tell you that your dad died."

Surprised? Yes. Sad? Not really.

"And it had to be you, did it?"

"Your mom's in a home, and I don't think anyone else gives a shit about you, to be honest."

My heart leapt then.

"So you do still give a shit about me."

Eli sighed. "Dammit, why do you have to be…"

"Gorgeous? Funny? Witty?"

"Why, out of all the women I've fucked, do you have to be the one I can't get out of my damn mind?"

I blinked, taken aback. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Eli hissed, "you're the only one who's thrown a lighter at me. The only one who burned down a house with my son inside. And still you're the only one I've ever given a shit about. Why? Am I cursed? Do you have some kind of spell on me that makes me fucking obsessed with you?"

My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. He loved me! He loved me just as much as I loved him! Obsessed, he said. He was obsessed with me, he couldn't stop thinking about me, he probably thought about me when he was fucking his wife!

"You know exactly why, Eli," I grinned. "Same reason I'm obssessed with you. We're meant to be together. We were even born together! Which does beg the question of why the hell you married someone else when you made it pretty clear you didn't wanna get married, and if you ever did, it'd be to me."

Eli folded his arms defensively, glancing aside.

"It was… the right thing to do."

I stared at him.

"I'm sorry, what? Since when do you care about doing the right thing?"

"I got her pregnant, okay?" Eli hissed. "I knocked her up, her parents are old-fashioned, so I had to marry her."

I kept staring at him. Eli glanced at me nervously, probably wondering if I was about to set something on fire again.

"You got her pregnant."

"That's what I said, ain't it?"

"What, you hit your lifetime limit on abortions or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous —"

"No, shut up. Why is it, every time I get pregnant, I have to have an abortion, but if it's anyone else, she either gets a lifetime of maintenance checks or a fucking ring on her finger?"

"It's not like that!" Eli insisted. "Glynnis wanted to keep it, I couldn't exactly drag her down the clinic, and Sarah's dad already knew —"

"I wanted to keep it! I wanted to keep our baby! But you didn't, and I respected that, so I got rid of it. How fucking ironic, huh? I love you enough to have an abortion for you, twice, and the bitches who don't love you get to keep theirs!"

"Hey!" shouted one of the prison guards, striding towards our table with her hand on her taser. I glanced around, realising suddenly that I was standing up. When had I stood up?

I threw my hands in the air innocently. "It's alright, I'm not gonna do anything."

"Yeah, she doesn't have a lighter," Eli scoffed.

My fist was hardly in the air before the guard was grabbing me by both arms to restrain me.

"I was right about you," Eli sneered as he stood up to leave. "You're a fucking psycho. You really think I'd wanna marry you?"

I had no words to describe how I felt in that moment, so instead I just screamed, and as the guard dragged me out of the visitation room, all I saw was the love of my life walking out the other door, back to his white pickett fence with his wife and his child and the life that would never be mine.

Two years later, I was out. I once again found myself with nothing but a Greyhound ticket and the clothes on my back, but this time, there really was nowhere for me to go. Mom had died, and that cow had left all her worldly belongings to some stupid charity for stupid kids with stupid behavioural problems. That was her to a tee — she'd walk to the ends of the earth to fix someone else's broken kid before she even glanced at her own.

And then there was Eli. I desperately wanted to go and find him. Every part of me, my mind, my body, my soul, it yearned for him. I wanted to go back to the way it used to be, when we were just kids playing experiments in the park.

But that part of my life was over. We'd never be kids again, and we'd never be what we were. And as much as I wanted to find him, to prove to him that I was the one he was meant to be with, I remembered what the prison therapist told me.

Retribution may feel good in the moment, but it doesn't solve the problem. Real solutions are hard, and they take a long time, but their impact lasts longer than any short-term solution ever could.

I knew, if I wanted to win Eli back, it would take time. I had to make him see that his life and mine were so interconnected that resistance would be futile, so he would eventually give in to fate and accept that we were meant to be together.

I used my bus ticket to get as far away from New York as possible. I ended up in Colorado, found a shelter to stay at, and got a job in a strip club. Yeah, not classy, I know, but it paid well, and I managed to get my own place eventually. Well, I say my own place, it was a shared house, but at least it wasn't a homeless shelter.

Every month, I went to the store and bought the latest copies of every science-related magazine I could get my hands on. I pored through every one of them, trying to find any hint of Eli in the pages. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he still married? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the science magazines didn't have gossip columns, so I didn't get much, though I did see the occasional mention of Stanford.

Eventually, I saw his name — he'd written an article for Chemistry Monthly. I read that article over and over again, desperate for any part of him I could find between the lines.

He wrote more, and I read them all, and somewhere along the way, I started actually reading the other articles too. Most of them didn't make any sense to me, but I wanted them to, and that was how I ended up enrolled in community college.

In my fourth year, we were encouraged to take trips out to visit colleges we might want to apply for to do a bachelor's. And just to prove me right about fate, my chemistry course arranged a trip to California to visit Stanford.

It was 1991 by that point. Seven years since I'd last seen Eli walking out on me, and seven years since he'd last seen me freaking out about him marrying the wrong person.

Over time, I hadn't forgotten about him, but I had other stuff going on. Community college helped me focus my mind, and it was chaotic enough to keep me distracted. I got free therapy from the psych students, and those that couldn't handle me learned pretty quick that they weren't cut out for the field. I avoided drugs — mostly — and didn't set a single fire (small accidental chemical fires do not count).

All in all, I was feeling pretty well-rounded. I was a far cry from the "psycho" Eli had labelled me seven years ago.

And when I saw him again, it was like everything fell into place.

He had volunteered — or been volunteered — to give a short talk to the visitors from the Colorado community college about studying at Stanford. We gathered in a lecture hall, and he sauntered in with all the arrogance and swagger that I'd always adored in him. He knew how to play to a crowd, and his charming smile and witty remarks had everyone hooked and sold on applying to Stanford.

Then he saw me, and he froze in his tracks.

I honestly wasn't trying to be seen. I wanted to talk to him afterwards. I was at the back of the group, wearing a baggy hoodie, hoping to keep a low profile. But just as Eli had said to me nine years ago, he could always find me, and he found me. He was talking about demanding engagement in his classes, and to prove his point he came around the back of the group and targeted me, pulling down my hood as he spoke.

He stopped mid-sentence. His face changed quickly from a witty smile to wide-eyed shock as he stared at me, and probably every person there wondered why the hell Dr Eli Michaelson was staring at me like he'd just seen a ghost.

He cleared his throat, turned away, and sped through the rest of his talk to quickly dismiss us.

As my group began to talk amongst themselves as they got ready to go to the next part of the tour, I tried to speak to Eli, but he was already out the door.

I followed him. For half a moment, I considered not following him, but then I shook that stupid thought away and followed him.

A few steps down the hallway, I was suddenly grabbed by the elbow and pulled into what turned out to be a janitor's closet.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Eli hissed once he'd closed the door behind him.

"College tour. Nice to see you too."

"And what the fuck is this?"

Eli grabbed at my hoodie.

"If you're gonna show up out of the blue, at least do me the courtesy of letting me see you properly."

He pulled the hoodie over my head, and groaned when he saw the V-neck t-shirt I was wearing underneath.

"Fuck," was all he had to say before he was kissing me with wet, open-mouth kisses, hands grasping at my chest like a starving man whose only sustainance was me.

It wasn't the greeting I was expecting, but it was exactly what I wanted.

He fucked me against the wall, one leg wrapped around his waist, and he came inside me with a long groan after less than a minute.

"Sorry that was quick," Eli mumbled in my ear as he came down from his high, nuzzling his nose in my hair as he released his grip on the leg around his waist. "I really, really needed that."

"Your wife not putting out any more?"

Eli shook his head as he pulled out of me and took a step back. "You don't know the half of it." He reached for some blue roll from the janitor's supplies and tore some off to wipe me down between my thighs, where his seed was already overflowing down my leg. "I haven't had sex in six months. You know what that does to a man? She's always busy, or tired, or not in the mood, or Barkley's still awake and he'll hear, or all of the above. And whenever I get frustrated… you appear. In my head, in my dreams. Haunting me. Just last week, I was thinking about tracking you down… and here you tracked me down. Community college, huh?"

"Yep."

"In Colorado?"

"Furthest I could get from New York without bumping into you."

"Yet here you are."

Eli screwed up the blue roll that was now soaked in jizz and shoved it in his jacket pocket.

"My chem class were taking a trip to Stanford. How could I resist?"

Eli looked at me curiously. "You're taking chemistry?"

"Surprised? You know I love blowing shit up."

"You always were the most unstable molecule in my life."

I laughed. "What?"

Eli shook his head. "Nothing. How long you in town for?"

"We're at a hotel tonight, then we're on the bus back tomorrow."

"Fuck that. Sarah's out of town on conference. You're staying with me."

I stayed all weekend. He palmed the kid off with his grandparents — "they made me keep him, they can damn well have him" — and we had the place to ourselves for three glorious nights.

"I'm glad you're doing okay," Eli murmured against the top of my head. He was sitting up on the bed, back propped up against the pillows, and I was sat in front of him between his legs, leaning back against him while we watched some trash on TV that I wasn't really paying attention to.

"Awh, were you worried?"

"Course I was. Can you blame me?"

I shrugged. "Most people don't give a shit about me."

"Yeah, well, I ain't most people, sweetheart. I give a shit about you more than anyone."

"Don't let your wife hear you say that."

Eli leant his head back against the headboard with a sigh.

"I wanted to marry you, you know."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Kinetic persistence."

I laughed. "The chemistry metaphors aren't sexy, you know."

"Yes, they are."

I laughed and turned around in his lap to face him.

"Go on, then. Explain how kinetic persistence stopped you marrying me."

Eli pushed a stray hair behind my ear and smiled with a mixture of adoration and amusement.

"You could never overcome the high energy barrier to transition to a more stable state."

"…You mean I was too crazy and you expect a wife to be stable?"

"Something like that."

"And that's what Sarah is? Stable?"

"Mostly. She has her moments."

"Not a psycho, then."

"…No. Not a psycho." He kissed me on the forehead. "And neither are you. Who can blame you for being obsessed with me, huh? I'd be obsessed with me too."

"Pfft. You are obsessed with you."

Eli grinned cheekily, and seeing him smile again, seeing him happy because of me, it reminded me of why I could never shake him.

"Eli… I can't live without you. My life has been nothing but chaos, and the only time it makes sense is when I'm with you. You can't tell me you don't feel the same."

"Sweetheart, if I'm the order in your life, I hate to think what the rest has been like, because you're nothing but the chaos in mine. When you're not around, life is…"

"Boring?"

Eli laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, it's boring in comparison. I'm always trying to find a way to fill the you-shaped hole."

"Well, maybe… maybe there doesn't need to be a me-shaped hole. How would you feel if I came to Stanford?"

"You come to Stanford? You'd have to get in first."

I frowned. "Hey!"

"No offence, sweetheart. There's a big difference between Colorado community college and Stanford U."

"Earlier you were telling us we could all get in!"

"Yeah, 'cus that's what the Dean told me to say. Look, prove me wrong, please. I'd love to see you get in. Having you there on campus whenever I need a good fuck?" He squeezed my thigh and bit his lip with restraint. "Fuck. What I wouldn't do to have you there on Monday."

"I'll get in," I promised him, and I meant it. "I'll do whatever it takes. Suck whoever's dick I have to —"

"No you will not, unless it's mine."

"I'll get in. I promise you. We can be together, Eli, just like we were always meant to be."

Eli was right. The admissions process was brutal. And the worst of it was, I did get offered a place — but at full tuition. I wasn't good enough for any scholarships, so they'd let me in only if I had $25,000 a year to spare. Believe it or not, as an ex-con turned stripper turned community college student whose inheritance got handed over to some charity, I did not in fact have $25,000 a year.

When I told Eli, I thought he'd be disappointed, and he was — disappointed that he'd be down the best part of 100k over the next few years.

He loved me. He wanted me around. No matter what anyone else might say to me later, my belief in that truth was unwaverable, because Eli doesn't like spending money on anyone, not even his own kid, and yet he didn't even hesitate to cover my tuition.

The catch? Private "tuition" with him three times a week. And by tuition, I mean fucking. And by private, I mean on every spot on campus we possibly could without getting caught, although we lived dangerously close to the edge sometimes.

I wasn't actually taking any of Eli's classes, which was a good thing really, because we would have both distracted each other, and Eli really did take his work seriously. And believe it or not, I took mine seriously too.

That worked in our favour, actually. I was interested in chemistry, I told my roommates, but didn't have room for any chem classes in my curriculum, so I was paying Dr Michaelson for some private tuition. Nobody knew that he was paying my actual tuition, nor that the "tuition" I had with him was in fact just us fucking our way around campus.

It still shocks me to this day that his wife believed his story that he was privately tutoring someone, and I think even Eli was surprised when she suggested he invite me over for Thanksgiving dinner when he apparently mentioned that I didn't have any family to spend the holiday with.

"That is a bad idea, Eli," I said when he suggested it while he was tucking his dick back inside his pants.

"Yeah, believe me, I know. But I got no excuse."

"Eli. I know I have no morals, and neither do you."

He looked at me expectantly.

"But there is no way I am sneaking off to fuck you at Thanksgiving dinner when your ten year old son is at the table."

"Hey, I never suggested sneaking off to fuck!" Eli protested, throwing his hands up innocently, though I'm pretty sure that was exactly what he was envisioning.

"I'm serious, Eli. That's where I draw the line."

Eli sat up in his chair, looking at me with a frown while I tried to find where I'd thrown my t-shirt earlier.

"Let me get this straight. You'll burn down a house with a kid inside, but if Barkley might hear some adult noises, that's where you draw the line?"

I stood up straight, frowning at him furiously.

"I never burnt down a house with a kid inside!"

"Glynnis would disagree."

"Glynnis can go fuck herself. How is your illegitimate son, by the way?"

"Spectacular. Gone to college in Ohio, I think. Or was it Wisconsin? Somewhere ordinary. Your shirt's on Jake, by the way."

"Jake" was the bust of Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff that watched over the office from the far corner. Apparently in life he was the first person to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and now as a bust he was relegated to watching Eli fuck me over his desk. It must have been a relief for him when my discarded t-shirt landed over his head, because at least he didn't have to watch this time.

"I would really like it if you came to Thanksgiving dinner," Eli said as I retrieved my t-shirt back from Jake.

I turned back to him, surprised at how serious he sounded.

"How much does Sarah know about me?"

"She knows we grew up together. She knows you had a rough time of it and you're only just starting college now."

"A rough time of it, huh?"

Eli shrugged. "Not my place to tell her any more. She didn't push."

"She doesn't know about the fires?"

"Nope."

"Does she know about Theodore?"

"Thaddeus. No."

"She doesn't know you already have a kid?"

"Nope."

"Where does she think those maintenance checks go?"

"She doesn't see them, I have my own account."

"Of course you do. How does your wife know nothing about you?"

"She knows what she needs to know."

"Sounds like I know you better than she does."

"You know me better than anyone does."

My heart leapt, and I smiled.

"Damn right I do. Okay, fine, I'll come to Thanksgiving. I'll even make mac and cheese."

Eli groaned as if he'd jizzed his pants at just the thought of mac and cheese.

"God, your mac and cheese. Please."

I'm embarassed to say how long I spent choosing what to wear to Thanksgiving, so I won't. All that matters is I looked damn good in a black ankle-length skirt and a purple V-neck sweater, just sexy enough to show up Eli's wife without being inappropriate for a family dinner.

Eli opened the door, and his eyes lit up when he saw me — or maybe it was when he saw the massive tub of mac and cheese in my hands.

I had to resist kissing him hello, keeping a respectful distance as he showed me in and introduced me to his wife.

I'll admit she was pretty. She had curly brown hair and a heavy side parting, and I don't remember what she was wearing but it was probably plain and boring. She was nice, too, I suppose. Okay, fine, I'll admit she made a good first impression. There wasn't much I could judge her for at the time.

She definitely didn't seem to suspect anything. She tried to call Barkley down to come and say hello, but got no response.

"Probably playing with his Lego again," Eli said with a roll of his eyes. "I swear, that boy spends more time playing with those damn bricks than he does on his homework."

"He's ten, Eli, he should be spending more time on Lego than homework," Sarah contradicted him. "Why don't you go upstairs and say hello?"

"He won't be very talkative," Eli warned me as he led me up the stairs. "When he's playing with those bricks, the rest of the world doesn't exist."

He opened his son's bedroom door without knocking. "Barkley! Put those things down and come and say hello."

"Hello," Barkley mumbled, hardly raising his eyes from the Lego set he was laser focused on.

Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I knelt down opposite Barkley and introduced myself.

"Oh, wow, is that Lego?" I gasped, pretending I'd never seen Lego before.

"Uh-huh," Barkley replied poetically.

"That's so cool! I always wanted Lego but my dad never let me have any. You think you could spare a couple bricks so I could give it a try?"

"I'm making the Enterprise," Barkley told me. "You can make this one."

He reached under his bed and pulled out another Lego set for the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Barkley really liked spaceships, apparently.

"Wow, thanks, Barkley! That's so nice of you. Hey, but this one's still sealed. You don't wanna open it?"

"It's okay, you can open it."

As I opened the box, I glanced up at Eli. He was leaning against the doorframe, his arms folded, watching me with an amused smirk.

"Having fun?"

"I got Lego, of course I'm having fun. By the end of the day, Barkley's gonna have a whole fleet of starships, then he can send them all to attack Dad when he's grumpy."

Barkley laughed. "Dad's always grumpy."

"Is he now?" Eli said with a raised eyebrow.

"He's always grumpy at college, you're saying he's grumpy at home too?" I said to Barkley, ignoring Eli for the moment.

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe if he had more Lego, he'd be less grumpy."

"Dad doesn't wanna play with Lego. He says it's a stupid toy."

Just then, Sarah called up the stairs for Barkley to come and help her set the table. Barkley jumped up, completely disregarding his precious spaceship, and practically ran down to help his mom.

"Wow, he hardly looks at you, but Mom calls and he goes running."

Eli shrugged. "Whatever. One of us has to be the bad guy, and she coddles him too much."

He put his hand out to help me to my feet, and as soon as I was standing, he pulled me close and wrapped an arm around my waist.

"Eli —"

"What?" he murmured, his breath hot on my ear. "They're busy setting the table. Go on, just a quick kiss."

What can I say? I've never been able to say no to him. If he'd asked me for a blowjob right there and then, I'd probably have given it to him.

He pushed me up against the wall, hands grabbing at my ass as he ate my face. I knew something like this might happen, so I hadn't worn any makeup in case it got smeared on his face and gave us away.

"Eli —" I gasped when he started kissing my neck.

He grunted in response.

"You wanna go to dinner with a hard-on?"

"What I want is to fuck you, right here and right now," Eli growled. "I wanna fuck you on every surface of this house, 'til I can't move without looking at something I fucked you on." He took my earlobe between his teeth and tugged, which he knew drove me crazy — then let me go and stepped back.

"Another day," he said casually, as if it were no big deal.

I glanced down at his pants. It wasn't glaringly obvious, but if you looked for it, you'd see the proof of his arousal, and I relished the idea of him trying to hide it from Sarah.

"It'll go soon enough," Eli shrugged, fully aware of where I was looking. "I just need to look at Sarah and it'll deflate."

Maybe any other day, but today I was there, and I was determined to make him suffer through dinner.

We sat two by two at the table. I was next to Barkley and opposite Eli, which was ideal, because it meant I could stretch my leg out and brush my foot against Eli's leg without anyone noticing. He pretended he didn't notice either, but I saw his jaw tighten, and I wriggled my toes under the hem of his pants to brush against his bare skin while forcing myself to engage Sarah in conversation about her work just for the thrill of having her attention on me while I was playing footsie with her husband under the table.

I wasn't going to drink more than a glass or two of wine, as I had to drive home, but Eli altruistically offered to drive me home instead so I could have a couple more drinks. Sarah seemed surprised at the generous offer, but still her suspicion levels were low. Dumbass.

I'd made as much mac and cheese as I physically could to account for Eli's appetite, and still he made sure there was none left by the end of the night, leaving me with an empty tub to take home. I was just saying my polite goodbyes to Sarah when Barkley came running down the stairs, raced up to me and silently handed me a box.

"Oh, Barkley, I don't need to keep that!" I said, realising he was handing me the Millennium Falcon I'd hardly made a start on. "That's yours, sweetie."

Barkley shook his head and pushed it towards me insistently. I didn't really care for Lego or starships, but I wanted the kid to like me, so I took it grratefully with the thought of returning it after a few days on the pretense I'd finished it.

I placed the empty tub and the Lego box on the rear seat of Eli's car and got into the passenger seat. We sat chastely side-by-side until Eli pulled up to an empty parking lot behind an abandoned mall, and the engine was hardly off before I was climbing over the gears and bunching my skirt up to straddle his lap.

That was the start of our ten-year affair. I became a regular visitor to the Michaelson household and often babysat for Barkley, which started off as playing Lego with him and putting him to bed, and as he became a teenager it mostly became sitting downstairs working on my coursework while he locked himself in his room to play video games and telling Eli and Sarah that he'd gone to bed at 11 o'clock even when I'd let him stay up late.

They had dinner parties often too, and I was invited to those — the busier the better, because Eli and I could sneak off for a quickie while Sarah was distracted by entertaining the guests. We could hear people's chatter and laughter downstairs, sometimes spilling out into the garden too, and Eli would clamp his hand over my mouth to keep me quiet while he fucked me on his wife's dresser.

I graduated in 1996 and got a job in Sacramento. It was about two hours away, which seriously limited how often I could see Eli, but when you graduate from college at the age of 50 and have a criminal record, you can't afford to be picky with graduate jobs.

Just outside of Sacramento, the University of California had a campus for its science department — and Eli, altruistic as he was, began volunteering there twice a month, teaching chemistry at the weekends to less fortunate students.

At least, that was what he told Sarah. What he was actually doing was railing me the whole weekend.

You might think, now that we were in our 50s, our appetites for each other would calm down. You would be wrong.

Don't get me wrong; it wasn't all sex. Sometimes we even went out on dates. This was before social media, of course, so it wasn't likely that we'd be recognised — still, it was a possibility, and that was enough to keep the thrill going.

I still visited them sometimes. Barkley stopped needing a babysitter at age 14, but there were still the dinner parties, and I was invited to family events like Barkley's graduation and, in 2002, Barkley's wedding.

Some people will tell you that I cried at Barkley's wedding. Those people are liars. He got married outside in the summer and I have allergies, okay? I coincidentally got hit by a particularly strong gust of wind carrying a lot of pollen at the exact same moment that I looked at the seating chart and saw that Barkley had put me up at the head table next to Eli and Sarah because I had been, he said in his speech, just as much of a parent to him as they were since he was ten years old.

Bullshit, if you ask me. I was his babysitter. All I did was look after him and put him to bed and encourage his interests and help him with his homework and — okay, I see it now. I did more for him than Eli did. Just because I'm in love with Eli, it doesn't mean I don't see his flaws, and I know he was a disinterested father at best and a mean one at worst.

I wish Barkley had warned me he was gonna say that, because now I felt kinda guilty. He saw me as part of the family, he thought I was nice to him because I cared. What would that do to him when he eventually found out I'd only been nice to him because I wanted his dad to leave his mom for me?

Eli kept promising me it would happen. First he wanted to wait until Barkley had grown up, then he wanted to wait until Barkley had finished college. Divorce was expensive, and he couldn't afford both Barkley's tuiton and lawyer fees.

I believed him. Like an idiot, I believed him.

In October 2002, Sarah was away at a conference and Barkley had moved out to live with his wife. I was planning to visit Eli for the weekend, driving down after work on Friday. Instead, I took the day off and drove down on Friday morning to surprise him on campus.

I knew he didn't have classes on Friday mornings. I expected him to be in his office, and he was. With his pants around his ankles. Balls-deep inside some bitch not much older than his son.

They were so preoccupied, they didn't even notice me opening the door and closing it again.

I just stood there, my world spinning. I could still hear them. The desk was rattling, the same desk he'd fucked me on three times a week when I was a student.

How many times a week had he fucked a student on it after I graduated?

I could hear his voice through the door.

"Yeah, that's it. Fucking take it. Take your professor's cock. You want an A, huh? You want it bad?"

"Yes, Dr Michaelson, please, I want it bad, I want it so, so bad!"

"You know the rules. You get an A when you take my cum."

"I'll take it! I'll take your cum, sir, please! Cum inside me, sir, please…"

"I'll fucking fill you up… ugh, you're so fucking hot… fuck!"

As if the muffled sound of his orgasm was what I'd been waiting for, I turned and left.

There are no gaps in my memory this time. I know exactly what I did.

It was almost too easy. I only had to wait outside for her to come out, legs wobbling and hair a mess, and follow her to her car.

I didn't know a lot about chemistry. But I knew enough to know where Eli kept the sulphuric acid in his lab.

I wasn't aiming for her face, honestly. I was aiming for her car. But then she turned around, and her face got in the way.

I ran back into the building before her screams could attract anyone's attention. The parking lot was far enough away from Eli's office that I couldn't hear her screams anymore once I reached his door, and he was glad to see me when I walked in.

When he heard the news, he must have suspected me. Acid wasn't that far off fire, and I would have had a motive… if I knew about her. But I didn't, as far as he knew.

I parked on the street and came in through the back entrance, I told him (true). I hadn't been anywhere near the parking lot that day (false).

Completely separately, I swore, I decided I wanted to end the affair. Either file divorce papers tomorrow, or it was over.

It was over.

I relapsed pretty quickly after that. I almost lost my job because I went on a bender, and it was sheer luck and a lot of begging that kept me hanging on by a thread when I came to my senses.

I kept in touch with Barkley. When his wife filed for divorce, I let him crash on my couch in Sacramento for a while until Sarah convinced Eli to let him move back home.

Barkley told me Meredith had left him because he couldn't get it up. The problem must have been with her, because he had no problem getting it up for me, although it was much smaller than his dad's.

Oh, don't acted so shocked. He needed a rebound and I was still pissed at Eli. What's a little revenge pity fuck between friends?

I guess he was embarassed about what had happened, because we didn't keep in touch anymore after that.

The next time I saw Eli's stupid smug face, it was splashed across the front cover of Chemistry Monthly. I didn't subscribe to it anymore, but I saw it on the shelf at the store, and I got jumpscared by Eli's face appearing announcing he'd won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

I didn't believe for a second he'd really done whatever he'd apparently done to win the Nobel. How could he possibly have time for all that work between fucking every pretty student that enrolled in his class?

The next time I saw his stupid face was on TV. He was on the news, looking uncharacteristically sad. I stopped channel surfing for a moment out of curiosity.

Barkley had been kidnapped.

Barkley? Kidnapped? Why on earth would anybody want to kidnap Barkley? He didn't have any money. Eli had some, but nothing worth kidnapping over. Unless he'd recently come into —

Then it clicked. The Nobel Prize. Didn't it also come with some huge cash prize? That must have been what the kidnapper was after.

"Well, Barkley's dead," I said to my cat. (Yeah, I became a crazy cat lady, so what?)

I knew Eli would never part with that much money for Barkley. He wouldn't even part with the cost of a divorce lawyer for me, the only person he'd ever loved almost as much as he loved himself.

I was genuinely worried for Barkley. The news was reporting that the kidnapper wanted $2 million. If I had that lying around, I might have considered paying it, but I was behind on my own bills, so that was out of the question.

Barkley showed up after a few days anyway, so it was all a lot of hooplah for nothing.

A few months later, I saw Eli on the cover of Chemistry Monthly again, and this time I bought it, because I absolutely had to read the article about Dr Eli Michaelson's Nobel Prize being stripped from him because evidence had come to light that he'd stolen most of the work from some guy called Harriman James who'd died in the 70s.

Harriman James… the name sounded familiar. I was sure Eli had mentioned him before.

Then it clicked. One of the biggest arguments we'd ever had was after I found out he had an illegitimate son with the wife of his dead second best friend, Harriman James.

The article also told me that Dr Michaelson's wife had recently filed for divorce.

At first, I laughed at the karma of it all. I laughed a lot. For a long time.

Then, the damndest thing happened.

My doorbell rang.

I ignored it. I wasn't expecting anyone, so it was probably just Mormons.

Then it rang again, and again, and again.

A fist banged on the door.

Mormons weren't that persistent. Bailiffs? No, I wasn't that far behind on my bills.

…Cops?

It couldn't be cops, surely. The cops had stopped trying to find the culprit behind the acid attack four years ago, and I was pretty sure I hadn't committed any more crimes since then.

"Come on, open the door, it's freezing out here!"

Eli?!

I opened the door but kept the screen closed.

"What are you doing here?"

"Freezing my balls off. Can I come in? Please?"

It was snowing and he didn't have a coat on, of course he was freezing his balls off. I thought about letting them freeze — maybe then he'd stop emptying them in every hole he saw — but I guess I got soft in my old age, and I let him in.

"Why aren't you wearing a coat?" I demanded, as if his lack of coat had personally offended me — which it had, really, because it meant I had to let him in.

"It's not snowing in LA."

My cat jumped on the back of the couch and hissed at him. Eli blinked, surprised at either the fact I had a cat or the fact it had hissed at him.

"That's Michi. Don't mind him, he hates men. Apart from freezing your balls off, why are you here, and what does the weather in LA have to do with anything?"

"When I left my apartment, it wasn't snowing." Eli helped himself to a blanket that I'd left draped over the armchair and dropped himself into the seat. "It got colder as I drove north."

"Rewind. Your apartment in Los Angeles?"

"Yeah. I live there now. Fancied a change of scene."

"You got fired for the Nobel Prize thing, didn't you?"

"Damn, I was hoping you hadn't heard about that."

I folded my arms and perched on the arm of the couch. "Yeah, I heard. And I heard about Barkley. And Sarah."

"Everything," Eli sighed, sitting back into the armchair. "I lost fucking everything."

"And, what, you thought I'd pity you?"

He looked up at me, frowning. "No. But you… you're the only thing I've got left. I thought, if I can salvage things with you… nothing else will matter. Not Sarah, not Barkley, not the Nobel Prize, not my tenure, fucking none of it. I don't care that I've lost it all, if I can still have you."

I barked a laugh, so loud it startled Michi.

"You're joking, right? What, you want me now? After forty fucking years, you've finally got no other options but me?"

Eli shook his head. "No. You were never an option. You were never a choice. You just… were. Constant. Inevitable. And then you… weren't. You left. I took you for granted, I took all of it for granted…"

He ran a palm down his face and sighed.

"Let me get you a drink," I said, reluctantly straightening up to head to the kitchen. "You want a bourbon?"

"Nah, I gotta drive back. Coffee's fine."

I hesitated for half a moment, then continued reaching for the bourbon in the cupboard.

"You're driving back in this?" I said to him through the doorway.

"I'll find a motel, then head back in the morning."

I couldn't believe it. He was being completely serious. He had driven a good five or six hours to see me, and he wasn't expecting to end up in my bed.

When I came back into the lounge, I handed him a glass of bourbon.

"I told you, I gotta drive —"

"No, you don't. Stay here tonight."

I sat down on the couch with my own glass and raised it to him.

"To kinetic persistence," I said.

Eli half-smiled and downed his drink in one go, then burped.

"You know," he said, "a molecule that interacts with other molecules has a much greater potential to luminesce."

"…What?"

He put his glass down on my coffee table carefully, as if he were choosing his words with great thought.

"What's your plan for the rest of your life? We've got, what, 20 or 30 years left, if we're lucky? What're you gonna do with them?"

I shrugged. "Got five years to retirement. Figure I'll stick it out 'til then, then probably go kill myself 'cus I can't afford to retire."

Eli stared at me.

"…You're serious, aren't you?"

"Well, depends if Michi's still around."

"Your cat. Whether or not you kill yourself in five years is dependent on your cat."

"I got nothing else, Eli. This place is a rental. I have no assets, I'm in debt. I have no family, no friends. All I got is a criminal record and a cat."

"You have me."

I scoffed.

"You do," Eli said seriously. "You have me. You've always had me."

"I haven't, though, have I? I've never had you. Not completely. I've only ever had the crumbs of love you leave behind when you're done with other women. Glynnis, Sarah, that girl from school — God knows how many others. Tell me, how many other side pieces did you have while you were married? Were we all at the same time? How many As did you give Laura Green in exchange for sex?"

"Laura —? I knew it! I fucking knew it was you! You threw acid over her, didn't you?"

"How many others were there?!"

"I don't know, I didn't keep count!"

"Did you fuck them all raw, or just her?"

"Don't you flip this! You threw acid on her! She's peramently blind now!"

"Did you get any of them pregnant?"

"No! Well — one. She didn't keep it."

"Oh, well, at least I'm not the only one."

Eli grabbed my arm, looming over me with his height. We were standing up, when did we stand up? I don't remember.

"Did you throw acid over Laura Green or not?"

"I was aiming for her car."

Eli released my arm from his grip. "I was right about you all along. You are a psycho."

"I'm not crazy!" I yelled. "I'm in love with you, and you drive me crazy! Do you even realise that everything — the shit that I've done, everything that happened this year — it all goes back to your philandering dick?"

"You didn't seem to have a problem with my philandering dick when it was you I was sticking it in."

"I begged you to get a divorce! I wanted you, Eli! All of you, all the time, but all you would give me was the crumbs!"

"I know! Alright? I know, I should have married you. We should have kept the baby — both of them. I fucked up both our lives, is that what you wanna hear? I'm sorry!"

The word hung in the air.

He'd never said it before. Not to me, probably not to anyone — not seriously, anyway.

"My whole life has been a series of mistakes," Eli continued, calmer now. "I broke your heart. Broke some others, too, but yours was the one I should never have broken. I'm sorry. I…"

He raised his hand, and I flinched, but he just stroked the side of my face softly.

"I love you."

He'd never said that before either.

Only in my head. Only ever in my head. So much of it was only ever in my head.

"You are the only person I have ever loved. Not Sarah, not Barkley. No one. Only you. And maybe you are crazy, but so am I. I don't know what happens after we die, sweetheart, but if there's a Hell, that's where I'm going. All I ask is to live the rest of this life with you."

I sniffed and placed my hand over his.

"If you're going to Hell, Eli, then I'm burning with you."

"It's already on fire, you'll fit right in."

I laughed and shoved his chest playfully.

"I love you too, by the way."

"I know."

For a few moments, we just stood there, hands intertwined and hearts finally aligned.

"…Can we fuck now?"

"God, yes."