Learning Curves

Chapter Three





From her miniscule office window, Leanne saw students, well wrapped against the fall chill, hurrying across the quad below. Located in an old, cramped building near the center of campus, the English department was understaffed and overcrowded.

And while she’d tried to make the space a little more cheerful, bringing in a small plant and hanging some funny—well, okay, relatively funny—quotes from great writers, the window remained the only perk in an otherwise awkward space that was sweltering in summer and damp in winter. But Leanne knew that as a graduate student, she was lucky to have secured any office, even this one.

Sighing, she abandoned the view and sized up the thick stack of term papers she’d collected during the last lecture. Determined, she opened one, but before she’d corrected the first run-on sentence, memories of the weekend hijacked her thoughts.

Brandon.

Ever since their wild encounter and subsequent humiliating discovery, she’d undertaken some serious soul searching, asking herself again and again what kind of person would abandon her so-called principles at the drop of a hat—or a bathrobe—for a pathetic thrill with some guy she picked up in a strip club. Even if he did have washboard abs and a killer smile.

And was hung like a Greek god…

Her devil-may-care side had chipped in a lot over the past forty-eight hours.

Until Saturday, she hadn’t even known it existed. She’d always played it safe. Done the expected and never strayed outside the lines. Now, she was discovering that she also had a Leanne-cares-a-lot side too.

The aftermath of their encounter had been awkward and tacky. Although the other dancers apologized profusely for their ill-timed interruption, there was no ignoring the subtle signs of approval they telegraphed their coworker. Or Brandon’s stony embarrassment, clearly conveyed despite his near-catatonic silence.

Dressing hurriedly, trying not to meet his eye, knowing the scorn and condemnation she would see in his face, she’d barely been able to look up from the floor. Only as she left the room had he spoken.

“Are you okay to get home?”

She’d turned, perplexed, all her thoughts focused on escape. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you have a way to get home? Will your friends make sure you get there safely?”

She shook her head and tried to overcome the after-effects of their incredible sex. There was no way she could face Gillian and the bombed bridesmaids. She’d rather be drawn and quartered. “No. But I can grab the bus or find a taxi…”

His lips thinned. “You’re not walking alone at this time of night,” he’d said angrily and picked up the radio from the dressing table. “Jay…Jay…come in…”

“Hey, Brandon. What’s up?”

“I need you to do me a favor.”

In the end, the bouncer waited with her out front until the taxi arrived. And when she reached her apartment, she discovered Brandon had also arranged for the fare to be taken care of, the driver making a show of the brightly colored chit he’d collected at the club.

Yet as she lay awake in bed that night, her body still thrumming with the incredible sensations he’d awoken, it hadn’t been his sexual prowess she remembered as much as his thoughtfulness, his protectiveness. He’d made sure she’d been looked after.

Maybe, she thought, if I went back to the club, we could meet again…

The notion of returning to the strip club brought her back to earth like a cold dash of water. What the hell was she thinking? Brandon was an exotic dancer; she was an academic in training. The sex might have been great but what would they ever talk about outside of bed? They had nothing in common. Nothing at all.

Now, as she shifted restlessly in her rickety office chair, she knew she had to put Saturday night behind her. She’d been over this and over this all weekend and the conclusion was always the same. So what if she’d had the greatest sex of her life? For him, it was probably just another anonymous sexual encounter. She should treat it the same way.

Trying to muster her willpower, she turned her attention to the next paper.

Bryon’s poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is an important poem because it’s a really romantic poem about Harold and not the crazy sister that Bryon liked to sleep with.

Oh boy. Not an auspicious start, when even the poet’s name was spelled incorrectly.

The office door opened, and Cassandra Murphy, a fellow doctoral candidate and Leanne’s best friend, rescued her from reading another torturous line.

“Tell me again why earning this degree was a good idea,” she moaned as she laid a stack of books on the adjoining desk. “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs—I should be clear of it shortly before retirement—and Julia and I decorate with milk crates while eating no-name macaroni. My comps are in two months and I already feel like flinging myself from the observatory tower.” She threw herself dramatically into a chair. “I have been reading, I am reading, I will be reading.”

Leanne smiled sympathetically. She remembered how harried and emotionally drained she’d felt when she faced her own monumental two-day comprehensive exams last year.

“You’ll more than survive. You’ll blow them all away and get the green light to begin writing your thesis, which will wow the entire academy and make them say ‘Judith Butler who?’”

At the mention of the oft-controversial lesbian theorist, Cassandra grinned.

“I’d be willing to share the stage with her. As long as I get top billing in the conference programs.” Reaching for the shelf where they kept their not so emergency cookie stash, she continued between mouthfuls, “Julia had good news, though. She’s had her abstract accepted for the next MLA conference. It’s in St. Paul.”

For a moment, Leanne was distracted by the great news. Only the best humanities scholars were accepted to present at the Modern Language Association’s annual conference and being chosen was a huge feather in Julia’s cap. “That’s fantastic. I hope you took her out to celebrate.”

“I never need a reason to celebrate with the woman I love.” Cassandra laughed. “But yes, I let her supersize the fries and the drink. If that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.” Her eyes sharpened. “Wasn’t this the weekend for the ghastly Gillian’s hen party? Did you end up going? How was it? Really, really awful or just sorta-kinda awful?”

I had the best sex of my life and three orgasms, all within half an hour of meeting a perfect stranger.

“Not bad.”

“Right.” Cassandra snorted. “I’ve met Gillian. Fun and Gillian don’t usually travel together. So, tell me, did the bride-to-be get falling-down drunk and do something tacky and embarrassing? And if she did, puh-lease tell me you got pictures.”

“Well, Gillian didn’t…”

“Ooh, that sounds promising.” Cassandra rolled her chair over, straddling it with her long legs. Leaning over its back, her chin resting on her arms, she smirked. “Let me guess. You went to the strip club, got wildly drunk and had noisy, kinky, public sex with a total stranger before being discovered in a compromising position.”

“Um…yeah. That’s about the size of it,” she admitted before hastily qualifying her statement by adding, “but I wasn’t drunk.”

Dead silence.

For the first time in their friendship, she discovered just what it took to render her voluble friend speechless. Visibly regrouping, Cass closed her mouth with an audible click before running an uncertain hand through her short, spiky hair, trying to look as though Leanne’s pronouncement hadn’t knocked her for a loop.

“Okay, well, if you’d said you’d had noisy, kinky, public lesbian sex, I would have been excited that you’d finally seen the light, but really, sounds like the same old, same old heterosexual routine…” Her voice trailed off as she took in Leanne’s face. Her joking tone disappeared. “You okay?”

Leanne tried to nod but how could she explain to anyone, even her best friend, what she’d been thinking when she couldn’t even explain her behavior to herself?

“Lee? Are you okay?” Cassandra’s voice was sharp with concern and Leanne felt her panic ebb a little in the face of her best friend’s warm care. “Did anything happen that you weren’t good with?”

“No, it was definitely mutual. Completely, totally unexpected but mutual.” She smiled weakly. “I really am good, Cass. I’m just still trying to process it, I guess. It’s not really my style, you know.”

“Gee, really?” Cassandra said lightly, but her dark eyes filled with sympathy as she enfolded Leanne in a warm and reassuring hug.

After a moment, she recovered and lifted her head from Cass’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” The doubtful look on her friend’s face didn’t inspire confidence. “Really, I’ll be fine. And unless they start offering degrees in pole dancing at the university, it’s not like I’m ever going to see him again. That’ll definitely make things easier.”

“You got it on with one of the strippers?” Cassandra’s jaw dropped for the second time in as many minutes. Sitting up in the chair, she faced Lee and in a tone that brooked no disobedience said, “Start from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out, my friend.”



The monthly faculty social was a motley assortment of faculty, administrators and students typical of most university social events. The rain that had been threatening most of the day finally arrived but despite the poor weather, attendance was good and the Faculty Club filled up quickly, groups of chatting colleagues dotted around the room. Near the windows, a long buffet covered in finger foods attracted a steady stream of visitors. If Leanne had learned anything during her eight years of higher education, it was that the promise of free food would always ensure a lively turnout.

Of course, she really should have skipped out and stayed in her office grading papers, because she and Cassandra hadn’t made much progress on their marking. Truth be told, they hadn’t made any progress. Instead, they’d spent their office hours talking, going over the weekend’s events.

It hadn’t been easy telling her best friend all the details and admitting to her reckless behavior, but in the end she had to admit she felt better about the whole situation. Calmer. After all, she was a big girl and if she wanted to have an anonymous but satisfying sexual encounter with a member of the opposite sex, who was to stop her?

So there, Mom.

Cassandra and her partner, Julia, were ensconced in a spirited conversation with another member of the campus GLBT committee, while Leanne made her way along the buffet.

“Ah, Leanne!”

When pretending a sudden indecision between the mini mushroom quiche and the veggie samosas didn’t suffice, she forced a smile and greeted her thesis advisor.

“Professor Armstrong,” she said politely. “How’s the new book going?”

At the mention of his most recent project, the academic’s face brightened. “The usual muddles with the publishers, I’m afraid, but overall, very well if I do say so myself. So, can I buy you a drink?” he joked, gesturing to the modest open bar and chortling at his thread-worn pleasantry, delivered without fail since the start of term.

“Thanks, no.” Her concentration wandered as the professor began extolling the difficulties the publisher kept erecting as he prepared his work for press.

“And I’ve been able to read through the latest Chapter you left for me. While I don’t want to monopolize your time when you’re relaxing like this, I have to say, I do have some concerns.”

Concerns? Her attention riveted again, Lee felt her stomach roll. She knew she’d been lucky when Armstrong agreed to supervise her research—for the past two years, he’d been her principal advisor on her doctoral dissertation—but he was a taskmaster, forever suggesting revisions. But she needed his approbation or she’d never secure the necessary references for a chance at her chosen postdoctoral fellowship, the Walters Prize. The competition was fierce and good enough wasn’t anywhere near the level she was required to be.

Her panic must have telegraphed across her face far more clearly than she’d intended, because the aging academic, whose strong point had never been emotional sensitivity, touched her arm in a show of concern.

“Now, don’t worry. They’re minor revisions, I assure you. Your work is always exemplary.”

This was where she should smile and share a superficial pleasantry but since the weekend, everything felt raw and off-kilter, her judgment suspect and her goals, firm, longstanding and concrete, even more significant because of her unprecedented gaff.

“That’s great news. I—I wasn’t really worried.”

His face cleared and he patted her arm reassuringly. “You’re one of the faculty’s rising stars. I’ve always expected great things of you academically and one of things I respect about you the most, Leanne, is your unwavering focus on a life of the mind. It’s rarer and rarer these days.”

She tried to look pleased at his compliment but his turn of phrase still rankled. Life of the mind? She wanted to shout, “I have a body too, you know. And I like sex as much as the next person.” But as always, she bit her tongue and simply nodded. And if her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes? Well, Armstrong wouldn’t notice anyway.

“Let’s meet on Thursday. Does eleven o’clock work for you?” At her nod, he continued, “I’ll see you then and we’ll discuss your latest draft.”

He moved away, leaving Leanne alone to survey the room while she munched from her napkin of lukewarm appetizers.

Then she saw someone across the room and the food lodged in her throat. Tall. Muscled. His dark blond hair cut short. A well-worn sweater attested to his likely status as a student. She’d never seen him at any of the faculty events before—she’d remember a hunk like this for sure. But it was less his looks than his smooth, fluid presence as he gestured that reminded her of Brandon when he took the stage.

Whoever this guy was, he moved the same way. With an easy confidence in his body that made watching him a pleasure.

It’s not him, her common sense shrieked. Was she going to spend the next who-knew-how-long comparing every guy to her one-night stand? As he stood with his back to her, speaking to the dean, she tried to think logically. So what if this guy was roughly the same height? Sure, his shoulders were broad and defined. She could see that clearly, despite the casual sweater he wore. And so what if his butt was tight, hugged by a pair of well-worn jeans? It wasn’t the same firm, muscled bum she’d clutched as she’d lurched and spun into orgasm…

She blinked and looked down to see mangled crumbs ground into the now clenched cocktail napkin that had held her appetizers. She needed to get a grip.

A serious, serious grip, she repeated to herself. Just ease up on the nibblies.

Yet even as she argued with herself at the impossibility, telling herself the resemblance was only a figment of her oversexed imagination, she discarded her ruined food and moved across the room, skirting the groups of chatting people, working her way ever closer to where the dean and the unknown man stood talking. Try as she might to convince herself that she was just circulating, she needed to see his face.

To prove to herself that her imagination was working overtime.

“Leanne.” The dean’s voice carried clearly over the clattering hubbub. Trying to look casual, she turned to face the woman calling her name. Dressed in one of her signature caftans, her hair in its usual immaculate bob, the administrator was a force to be reckoned with in campus politics. Leanne looked upon her as a valuable mentor. And a friend. Today, she found herself wishing the dean was a million miles away instead of waiting politely for a greeting from Leanne.

Because even as Leanne turned, still insisting the man the dean was talking to was a stranger, her body knew better. It hadn’t forgotten the way they’d moved together or the way he’d made her feel. So while her rational brain refused to concede, her body welcomed the sight of him like a long-lost friend.

When her eyes finally, reluctantly, came to rest on his face, there was no denying the truth. In the bright room she could see the unmistakably rugged planes of his face.

Crap.

“Hello.” Her voice dry and scratchy, Leanne was overcome with the need for a drink to soothe her parched tongue. But short of turning and fleeing, there was no escape from this mortifying reunion. Her only consolation was that Brandon looked as stunned as she felt.

Clearing her throat, Leanne tried again. “Hello, Dean Rose.”

“How are you, Leanne? I haven’t seen much of you this term. Busy with your research, I assume.”

Carefully avoiding meeting his eyes, Leanne said, “I’m fine, thank you.”

Oblivious to the tension, the dean made a gesture of introduction. “Have you met each other? Brandon’s one of our new PhD candidates. In fine arts though, not English,” she clarified.

“Dance. Twentieth-century choreography.”

A student? He’s a graduate student at Wellington too? Her brain still reeling from the sight of her fantasy-man-turned-real in the flesh, Leanne could barely assimilate this startling new information. The possibility of running into her one-time fling again and again made the veggie samosas rise in her throat.

What if he spreads the news of our encounter around? The damning thought skittered into her brain before she could stop it. Because no matter how people claimed the rules had changed for female academics, gaining a reputation for dubious one-night stands was hardly going to endear her to any hiring committee looking for signs of intellectual commitment.

Despite the innocuous nature of his reply, his dark, smooth voice slithered across her skin like an unwitting caress and forced to her to abandon her increasingly frantic thoughts. His lips quirked in a crooked half-smile that hinted at, but didn’t reveal, the dimples she knew were there. Her nipples tightened at the sight of his mouth curved in undeniable sensual appeal.

Bad, bad nipples. Apparently they weren’t concerned with the vagaries of hiring committees, regardless of Leanne’s sensible admonitions.

Crossing her arms to hide the signs of her body’s eagerness, she waited to see how he would respond to the dean’s introduction.

“Actually, we’ve met, Dean Rose, but we’ve never been formally introduced. Of course, Leanne may not remember. It was a very brief meeting.” His eyes glinted with sharp humor, and he held out his hand, an unmistakable challenge on his face. Unable to avoid his gesture without appearing rude, Leanne put out her own hand in response.

When his agile fingers wrapped around her slender ones, she couldn’t help but remember the feel of them inside her. A warm flood of moisture followed as she considered not only where those fingers had been but what they’d done too.

“Of course I remember,” she said, angry at the breathless hitch in her voice but unable to avoid it. “Leanne Galloway.”

“Brandon Myles,” he said evenly. “I’m glad we finally have a chance to be properly introduced. Because I have to tell you, Leanne, I’ve been wondering who you were since the first time we met.”