Bad Habits Read online

  “Certainly,” Grady agreed slowly. “This paper will give me a sense of what you’re capable of. Why don’t I just wait until I see it? The Joyner isn’t due for another couple of weeks. Is it?”

  “The last day of the semester.”

  “Excellent, yes. Plenty of time. Just be sure to give me a good paper to work with.” He turned back toward his computer, and I could feel myself disappear in his peripheral vision. “Buñuel,” he said, by way of goodbye.

  “Buñuel,” I responded, and left.

  The envelope held, as promised, $400 in cash. I headed straight to an ATM to deposit it, along with the $180 I had left after last night and $60 of trivia winnings. Still in the kiosk, I pulled out my phone and transferred most of the total to my mom’s account. It left me with no grocery money for the rest of the month, but with any luck the Social Security people would get to the appeal quickly and my payroll forms would go through and everything would sort itself out. Until then, I’d just have to start going to more department events. They were always catered.

  I was about to toss the envelope when I caught sight of a note inside. BQ: Don’t be mad. Fri @ 9? followed by an address and a room number. I pulled out the sticky note and a soft paper sleeve came with it.

  The sleeve held a hotel room key.

  * * *

  Of course, I went. I hated myself for it. I had taken money from her less than twenty-four hours ago, and she had treated me like a servant or worse in return, and I did not have even the excuse of loving her. I did lust for her—​for the thought of what she could do to me, what she could make me into, by wanting me. I supposed it was what women had felt toward powerful men for centuries, and powerful women, too, in the shadows.

  That is why I went to Bethany’s hotel on Friday, parking downtown and riding the elevator up to the penthouse suite. I used the key and found her reading and drinking a glass of wine in an armchair. When she saw me, she butterflied her book, put her hand around the back of my head, and, without setting down her wineglass, drew me in for a long, deep kiss.

  “Lover, if you need anything, anything at all, you have only to ask.” The words licked at my face like a grooming cat. “You don’t ever have to do without.”

  I kissed her back, not for the first time, but for the first time sober. Then, without understanding why, I began to cry.

  “Shhhh,” she said, and started taking off my clothes.

  * * *

  Later, I lay on my stomach facing away from Bethany, who absently traced circles on my back with her nails.

  “We need to get you a project,” she said.

  “Mmmm,” I said without conviction, my body so flushed that the cooling of the sweat-soaked bedsheet felt pleasant. She leaned forward to kiss the spot between my shoulder blades, and I felt the tips of her hair brush my back.

  “This is important, Mac,” she said, close to my ear. “I can’t just tell you what to work on.”

  “Why not?”

  “Darling, be serious.” She settled back. “We’ve got to grab some of what I saw in that essay you wrote for me. That spark, that drive. There’s something there. But it’s got to come from you.”

  I couldn’t really grasp what she was saying, but I wanted her to keep moving her fingers, so I nodded.

  “There are only three questions that matter in life. What do you know? What do you like? And what do you want?”

  “I want the Joyner,” I said promptly.

  “Cross that one off the list, then,” she said, unimpressed. “But you’re supposed to do them in order. What do you know?”

  I hiked myself up on my elbows and turned to face her. Bethany’s body was smaller and leaner than mine, lightly muscled, with breasts the size of teacups and a little belly like an inverted mixing bowl. Lying down, her square jaw was softened by little blobs of migrating flesh that smoothed the path to the delta of her neck, where gravity had lapped her skin into a series of concentric curves. Compared to the men I had been with, she was so neat, so compact, yet so unpredictable, the vectors of her desire coming from every angle at once, coiled into unlikely knots to fit the limits of her body.

  “What do I know.” I put my hand on the dip of her waist, felt the muscle there jump and then soften again, marveled at the sharpness of the hip bone through fat. I slid the flat of my palm into the hollow under her hip, and then down further. “I know how to make you come.”

  “Be serious,” she said again, but gradually succumbed.

  Afterward, she lay on her back panting. “What do you want, Mac?” she said, in a voice close to despair.

  “I already answered that one.”

  There was a long pause. She looked away, a strand of red hair sticking to her cheek. “What do you like, then,” she said flatly.

  I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. “I like this.” I moved toward her again, but she pulled back.

  “Yes, fucking is high on your list,” she said impatiently. “As, I’ve noticed, is caviar. Are you sure you’re an intellectual, darling, and not just a hedonist?”

  Stung, I pulled back quickly. “I work hard.”

  “I know you do.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “I like . . .” I struggled for words. “Knowing things. And . . . wanting things.”

  “So do I, Mac. So do I.” She sighed deeply.

  “Well, then, you answer. What do you know? And what do you want?”

  She looked into my face so intently and non-sexually that I suddenly felt as if I were sitting across from her at a conference table, fully clothed. I thought, at first, she had no intention of answering, but after a moment, she looked away.

  “I know what it feels like to be under someone’s thumb,” she said finally. “I learned it from my first husband. I like not feeling that way anymore. And what I want is never to feel that way again.” She sat up in bed and scooted to the edge, swinging her feet to the floor.

  It was hard to picture. A Bethany who was powerless and weak was an entirely different Bethany than the one I knew. A woman to pity, maybe, not to—​what we were doing. “Is that why you married Rocky?”

  I meant why she had married someone so much younger, but she cast me a startled glance. “I suppose he did look something like a bodyguard back then, fresh from Kiev.” She seemed about to say more, then shook her head. “Forget it. I told you before, it was mostly the sex.” She saw my puzzled expression. “Everyone has things they want to forget, Mac. You’re not the only one. Better leave Rocky out of this.”

  “I thought you said you had some kind of agreement. About”—​I flushed—​“affairs.”

  “About his affairs.” She stood up. “And so we do. He has as many as he wants, as long as he doesn’t leave me powerless. If he leaves me, he leaves his money, too.”

  “His money?”

  “The money.” She waved her hand impatiently. “Money is just an exchange rate, Mac—​it doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a placeholder for things that can’t be given. Never let it distract you.” She was getting dressed, buttoning her red blouse over bare breasts, and I could feel her attention slipping away from me.

  “And what about your affairs?” I said, to get it back.

  “I don’t have them,” she said, matter-of-factly. She walked around the bed in her blouse and underwear and sat next to me, reaching out a hand to stroke my cheek. “Dearest Mac, I see you fighting so hard to forget where you came from. But you never forget. You just get used to the fact that no one around you cares. They’re too busy with their own forgetting. You remind me so much—” She stopped.

  “Of Rocky?”

  “Of me.” She laughed drily. “And that’s a dangerous thing.”

  Dangerous for whom, I wondered.

  She got up and started pulling on her black leather pants. Then she walked to the nightstand and picked up the menu card by the phone. “I’m hungry. How about room service before the kitchen closes?”

  “What about the ones who already
know?”

  She looked back at me, receiver in hand. “What do you mean?”

  “The ones who knew you before. Who know where you came from.”

  “You get rid of them.” And then, into the receiver: “Two steaks bavettes, please, rare. Beurre blanc, asparagus, and a green salad.” She looked at me. “Crêpes suzette or Sacher torte?” When I didn’t answer, she ordered one of each.

  December 30, 2021, 2:17 a.m.

  SkyLoft Hotel, Los Angeles

  Now what?” Gwen’s voice echoes through the stairwell.

  I lean over the railing and look up at the vertical landscape of concrete stairs spiraling tightly upward.

  The fact that she followed me in here tells me something valuable: I have something she wants, too, and it’s not just the ring. It’s time to press my advantage.

  “I have a crazy idea,” I said. “Let’s take the stairs up to the eleventh floor. I’ll show you the view from my room.”

  Gwen cranes her neck. “Here’s another idea: elevator.”

  “And run into some drunk colleague with a bone to pick about Rancière?” I roll my eyes. “No thanks. Come on, it’ll be fun.” It’ll be hard. But that’s the point, for both of us. I want her to remember what it was like, tackling something together.

  She looks up again, wavering. Whatever she wants from me, she’s not sure it’s worth it.

  “It’s only nine floors.” One last nudge: “I’m sure I’ll wear out first. You’re in far better shape.”

  “Hardly.” But she takes a step up. “Fine. I have nowhere else to be at two in the morning.”

  “Except in bed.”

  “Except in bed.” She sighs and takes three steps up, so that she’s next to me on the same step, her hand on the opposite handrail.

  Side by side, we start to ascend.

  “So, what ever happened with that guy up in your room—​Harvard?” She laughs. “Was he still waiting when you got back?”

  Ah, another glimpse of the lost conversation at the bar. I laugh along carefully. “Oh, yeah, he was there. He drank the entire mini-fridge. Cute, though.”

  “Did you . . .” She trails off, either to be coy or because she’s conserving her breath.

  “That would be telling.” I try to sound playful. “Don’t worry though, he’s long gone.” I hope it’s true by now.

  “You’re not seeing anyone?”

  I keep planting one foot in front of the other and hoisting myself up the steps. It feels good to climb. “I see lots of people.”

  “But no one special?”

  “I like to think they’re all special in their own way.” She sighs. “I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me, Gwen. True love.”

  “And in the meantime—​what, you sleep with students?”

  “I avoid my own.” This is not, strictly speaking, true—​or, at least, the policy is not one hundred percent successful. “I’m not much older than the grad students, so I have to keep the boundaries very clear. You can’t depend on students to enforce them. You know that better than anyone.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, you know. When a professor is young and good-looking and shows you a little extra attention—​well, you of all people should know. I’ve had students misinterpret a look, a word, even a grade. And before you know it, they’re throwing themselves at you. All those young, taut bodies. It’s hard to resist. All you have to do is . . . encourage them. An email here. A compliment there.”

  Gwen blushes but stays silent.

  “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  “So you say.”

  She sounds bitter, but I keep pushing. “Anyway, I don’t see what the problem is. Two consenting adults, what’s the harm?” I resist the urge to glance at her reaction. “Right? At least I’m not married.”

  “Shut up, Mac.”

  The strange thing is, even as I needle her, I can’t tell who I’m really talking about: Rocky and Gwen, or Bethany and Mac, or Harvard and Claire, whoever she is, a phantom who seems to vanish a little more with every step. We’ve climbed two flights so far, and while I stop on the landing to catch my breath, Gwen keeps marching resolutely upward. I grin at her back and begin following a few steps behind. Better to trail her for a while and close the gap slowly than wear myself out catching up now. We have time.

  “I’m sorry. I thought this was just girl talk. Like the old days.”

  “We’re not girls anymore. We’re thirty-two.”

  “How old was—”

  “Don’t say his name,” Gwen says sharply.

  “Oh, I remember. Thirty-seven.” I puff out a short laugh. “You are such a hypocrite, Gwen.”

  “Look.” She stops on the landing ahead of me, and I stop too. For once, she has the height advantage. “You’ve been hinting around about this all night, so let’s just get it out in the open. I was in love with him.”

  “Is that what it was?”

  “Yes, that’s what it was. I’m not saying it was particularly noble. But that’s what it was.” She turns the corner and continues walking up.

  “Well.” I reach the landing in one long step and round the corner to catch sight of her again. “I guess that’s just something I’ll never understand.”

  “No, you probably won’t.”

  We climb two more flights in silence. It’s easier to maintain a steady pace that way. We pass the number 7 on the next door.

  I break first. “Explain it to me.”

  “I already know what you think.”

  “Then I won’t say anything, I’ll just listen.” She shakes her head, but I persist. “You weren’t exactly forthcoming at the time. We weren’t talking about it late into the night.” I register her hesitation and take a deep breath. “Now’s your chance. Tell me what happened. I won’t say a word.”

  There’s a pause. I’m betting she’s never told the whole story to anyone, not even Andreas—​certainly not Andreas—​and that she’s always wanted to. I wait, and after a while, she begins.

  “It was like . . .” Still climbing, she speaks in short bursts, panting in between. “I didn’t know why I was there.” She glances down at me over her shoulder. “You were so certain about the Program. Everyone was, but me. That’s why I drank too much. Acted like an idiot. Ignoring the fact that—​I didn’t want to be there.” I wait for her to continue. “Rocky didn’t either. He didn’t feel like he belonged. Inside he was still—​a kid, starving on the streets of Kiev. A frightened little kid.”

  Thug, more like, I think, but hold my tongue, as promised.

  “He played around. Tried to get himself fired. Nothing worked. He just got away with more and more.” Flagging, she uses the handrail to hoist herself up. “I really was taking that class with him to get closer to Bethany, at first. He knew it, and he would talk to me about her. That’s how it started. Then he got more . . . honest. He was burned out, he wanted something different for his life, but he didn’t know where to start. So, he just—​repeated the pattern. Bethany slept with him. He slept with his students.” She flushed. “That night at Connor’s party, I ran into him at the liquor store. We took a long walk. He and Soo-jeong had just stopped—​well, you know about that. She left not long after.” She was silent for a moment. “He was a mess that night. He hated himself for sleeping with her.”

  What a creep. It takes all my effort not to say something out loud, but I can’t keep myself from grunting in disgust.

  “Yeah. I know. That’s why we . . . didn’t.”

  I wait for her to go on, but she goes up four more steps without finishing the sentence. “Didn’t what?”

  “Sleep together.”

  That first night. Surely she means, they didn’t sleep together the first night. Rocky must have wanted to, but because of Soo-Jeong, Gwen held him off. Maybe even a second time. I think of all the nights I couldn’t find Gwen: Connor’s party. Bethany’s dinner. Trivia night. And those are only the occasions I remem
ber. What about when I was with Bethany at the hotel? Or the long days when I was working a double shift? There were a million opportunities.

  “We wanted to. I wanted to.” She’s still climbing. Little black dots have started appearing around the edges of my field of vision, and every once in a while, I blink to clear them away. “Not trying to—​romanticize it. You’re right. I was stupid. I came on to him. He wouldn’t.”

  Worse and worse. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. A sad professor, too in love with Gwen to fuck her? More likely, as Bethany had once suggested, he was too drunk to perform, and Gwen too inexperienced to know the difference. Either way, it was pathetic.

  “After everything came out—​later—​those emails. Never been so—​humiliated.” She stops, huffing and puffing, a few steps shy of the tenth-floor landing. “I knew what—​everyone thought. What you thought.”

  Think, I correct her mentally.

  Bending over to massage her knees, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and exhales forcefully. Straightening, she leans on the handrail and rests her back against the wall. Her cheeks are red with exertion, and she flashes me a dopamine grin as I climb the last few steps and lean against the handrail across from her, the back of my head just touching the bottom rail of the next flight up. “Then why didn’t I deny it. Right? If we weren’t.” She gathers the sweaty hair off her forehead, collecting the dark, glossy mass in one hand and fanning her face with the other. “Because I was embarrassed. Because the difference was academic. Because it was still cheating. And because—​my plan was—” The smile flees, replaced by a sick expression. “It was going to be our first time. That night at the farmhouse.”

  The word farmhouse seems to change her whole body as it passes through her mouth. She goes limp against the wall, releases her hair, drops her hands to the rail. “So now you know everything,” she says dully.

  Do I? Maybe she’s lying about not sleeping with Rocky, but she’s not lying about being in love with him. Maybe she’s still hung up on him. Maybe that’s the real reason she’s so reluctant to talk about her fiancé. Why did she take off her engagement ring in the bar? When I first saw her, she was talking to a man in a suit whose face I never saw clearly. Is virtuous, blameless Gwen here to meet someone for a final fling before getting tied down to her Brazilian director?