Creep - Jennifer Hillier [21]
It was never supposed to be anything more than a convenient affair. Screwing the professor had yielded some nice perks. Flexible deadlines, a reduced workload, more one-on-one help with his thesis. Plus she could hoover him senseless.
It had never once occurred to him that it would end this way, on her terms. That she’d try to get rid of him, as if she were taking out the trash. She’d caught him off guard, and it was his fault for being surprised. He was normally never surprised.
He normally couldn’t feel surprise.
He might have been able to accept the sexual relationship ending, but trying to pawn him off onto another professor? Unacceptable. She was flexing her muscles, and that was not okay. And then that gaudy display with Morris and the bracelet, sitting on his lap, batting her eyelashes like a lovesick teenager? Making wedding plans as if everything were all right with the world?
That was very not okay.
Ethan thought of the picture he’d e-mailed her—the one with her ass in the air—and finally allowed himself to feel a twinge of satisfaction. It was Photoshopped, but she didn’t need to know that. Hopefully it had done its job.
Okay, he needed to think of something else. Anything else. Forcing Sheila out of his thoughts, he surveyed the large room.
Dozens of dirty heads were bent over plates of hot food, open mouths consuming whatever slop St. Mary’s was serving tonight. The room was filled with skin diseases, lice, and respiratory infections he was sure you could catch just by breathing. His skin itched thinking about it and he pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket. The ventilation system worked well and air fresheners were scattered everywhere, but the smell of filth was never completely masked.
A few feet away, Abby was at her station handing out cups of apple juice and milk. Ethan watched her mouth form words he couldn’t make out over the constant din of chatter and eating. Even wearing an apron stained from the grease of a thousand meals past, Abby looked beautiful, her un-made-up complexion making her look even younger than her twenty-three years.
Abby Maddox was Ethan’s live-in girlfriend. He adored Abby.
But he craved Sheila. Nothing in life was ever simple.
A guffaw of laughter drew Ethan’s attention to the corner of the room, and he saw that Marlon was here tonight, looking no better or worse than normal. The old black man sat in his usual spot by the window, under the sign that read BELIEVE IN MARY BECAUSE SHE BELIEVES IN YOU. He was muttering to himself as he scanned the newspaper. Ethan hadn’t seen Marlon in a month, but knew the schizophrenic man wouldn’t be able to explain where he’d been. Even if he could articulate it, he wouldn’t, because Marlon believed himself to be a spy for a supersecret government agency disguised as a homeless man, right down to the feces- and urine-stained clothes. His job was to find old newspapers and circle code words. During one brief hour of clarity a few months back, Ethan learned that Marlon had once been a high school custodian in Portland with a wife and daughter. But as far as the volunteers could ascertain, Marlon had been off his meds for at least a year. And nobody was looking for him anymore.
The young woman with the old face sat at the table nearest the restroom. Her name was Marie, and she was a prostitute, thief, and crystal meth addict. For twenty bucks, Marie would tell you anything you wanted to know about her life, and for another twenty, she’d throw in a blow job. She’d been pretty once, a runner-up in the Miss Teen New Mexico pageant when she was sixteen, but looking at her in this place, her hair greasy and sticking to her pimply forehead, it was hard to believe.
Ethan had talked to Marie every week for the last four weeks and she’d agreed to be one of his long-term case studies. He was planning to follow her progress