the dust dancing in the stale air, and returned my attention to the man.
‘You need to leave,’ I said.
My body had grown sticky, nervous energy emanating from my every pore. I slowly lifted my hand and placed a finger between my shirt collar and bare skin; I moved it back and forth, seeking relief from the starchy material.
He smiled knowingly at me. ‘You don’t want that.’
I dropped my hand, laid it on my thigh and willed my leg to stop shaking. ‘This isn’t right.’
He reached behind him, felt for the key, and turned it in the lock. Click. His gaze remained on me. ‘You don’t really want this to end, Freya. We have plans, don’t we?’
I gave a small shake of my head. However, knowing I needed to be clear, I shook my head again, with greater force. ‘Robert, I have never wanted this. Any of this.’
I had reverted to the tone I used in lectures. Matter-of-fact.
He walked to the edge of the sofa and sat, crossing his long, muscular legs. I wished he wouldn’t sit there. Not like this. Only an hour ago, he had sat in the same position, his large frame filling the room, laughing loudly at a joke our colleague had made about Henry the Eighth.
I knew I had to end it all. It was wrong.
He leant back against the cushions and I noticed the way his shorts rode up. I knew I shouldn’t look, that it would only make matters worse. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as the shorts crept up his tanned skin. Forcing myself to swallow, I tried to forget how good his skin had felt. He pushed his T-shirt sleeve up. Then, I saw it. I gasped.
A wry smile spread across his face. ‘You remember?’
I nodded.
‘I knew you’d like it.’ His hand rubbed the area where the new tattoo prickled angrily. ‘I had it done yesterday.’ He laughed. ‘The guy asked me why I wanted it. Told me he’d done a few Latin quotes before. All the normal ones: “Seize the day” and all that.’ He grew serious. ‘It’s right, isn’t it? The Latin, I mean.’
My throat had closed up, my mouth cotton-dry. ‘The kiss of death.’ I looked away, concentrating on the fly once more. ‘It means the kiss of death.’ I eyed the glass of water on my desk, yearned to drink from it.
‘That’s what you said to me. That night. You said kissing me was the kiss of death.’
My breathing had started to quicken, my head reeling. I needed air.
He rose from the sofa and edged towards me, stopping a foot short of my chair. ‘Freya, you called it that because you want this. You need this. We both need this. I’ve fallen in love with you. Madly, deeply in love with you.’
I gave a sharp shake to my head. ‘No, I called it that because I can’t have a relationship with you. You’re my student… It’s unethical.’ I stopped, let out a long, shuddering breath.
He placed his finger under my chin and lifted my face, giving me no option but to stare into his eyes. They were a deep blue. But I already knew that.
‘You wanted it as much as I wanted it, that first time we kissed. I felt it.’ He smiled again: his ridiculous, youthful excitement shining through. ‘I felt you respond.’ He whispered this last word. I understood, now, what it meant when people claimed that it had only taken one second for their whole world to come crashing down around them. The moment Robert had walked into my office last September was that moment, but the attraction was too great. Lethal. Whenever I was with him, I felt an energy I hadn’t felt in years.
And Robert knew my weak point: he knew how much he brought me alive.
But it was now that I needed to take control. My voice, however, had left me. A deep-seated fear that I would never truly be able to push him away, when I knew I wanted him so badly, rose up within me. He made me feel good about myself; he made me feel like the young, exciting Freya I used to be.
‘Do you want to kiss me now?’
I shook my head vehemently but my eyes never left his. We both knew I was lying. ‘No.’
‘I know you’re fighting your real feelings.’ His words came out softly, gently, and I clamped my hands around the chair frame, fighting the urge to go to him. ‘You don’t really want this to be over. I know you don’t.’ His eyes glistened with tears, forcing the breath from my lungs.
He never cried. I had never seen him cry in all the time we had been together. Together? I almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous that sounded: there was nothing public about our relationship. ‘Freya, I can’t just let you go.’
‘Rob, please.’ I waited a beat and, when he didn’t move, I tried again. ‘I’m asking you to leave. This is wrong. I can’t do this any more. Not now. I need to focus on my job.’ I paused. ‘They’ve noticed my standards slipping.’
He dropped his hand and took a step backwards, a small sound – like a wounded animal – escaping his lips. ‘It’s not wrong, Frey. What we have is so very right. That’s what you’re scared of… You’re scared of feeling happy again. You can have your career and you can have me.’ He released an abrupt laugh and my eyes snapped towards him. ‘In fact, I know that’s what you’re scared of. You believe a woman like you doesn’t deserve the level of happiness and attention I give you. Well, you do, Frey. You deserve it all.’ He cleared his throat. ‘That’s what happens when people fall in love; they want to make the other person happy.’
Who was he talking about when he said people? My heart hammered with both an overwhelming delight that he was expressing his love for me – and the dark reality of my actual life.
I stood now, forcing my jelly-like legs to display some sort of fight. ‘Robert, are you saying…?’ I paused. ‘You know I feel the same way but we just can’t…’
He smiled, his eyes lighting up: the cloud lifted and then, as it occurred to him that I was being serious, they darkened once more. I realised I might have admitted to something – to loving him; I might have opened up too much, and I stammered, ‘B-but I’m not sure we can go on. No, I know we can’t. Something will happen. People’s lives will be turned upside down by what we’re doing.’
He moved towards me once more. ‘Frey, sometimes you need to be more selfish. Forget everyone else, think about us. People will get over it. No one’s life will be turned upside down.’
I flinched. If only he knew the full extent of it.
‘It’s not that easy.’ I looked at the floor. ‘I can’t let people I know down. I need to act my age. We,’ I said, clearing my throat, ‘are not possible.’ I gestured to Robert, then back to me. ‘And we have to end it.’
And then he grinned: I was amazed at his ability to shift effortlessly from one mood to another. ‘I need you in my life. I know you want me and I know you don’t want to be alone any more.’ His hand ran over his tattoo. ‘You’re everything that’s right in the world.’
‘You’re twenty-five, Robert, a postgrad student. You’re still so young. You’ll get your DPhil and that’ll be that. You’ll move on.’ I paused. ‘You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.’ I paused. ‘I’m almost fifty.’
He laughed; it had the same youthfulness that I had noticed in September when he first arrived at our weekly meeting. We had become a cliché: professor and research student; initially bound by our passion for academia, but it had been more than that. Even as he had walked through the door and our eyes had locked, I knew. I felt weak around him. I had fallen in love – or was it lust? – with this man in front of me and I didn’t know how to stop it.
He nodded slowly. ‘You really think I need to move on?’ He met my gaze and I immediately averted my eyes.
‘Robert, don’t push me. It’s over,’ I sobbed. ‘Please.’