Love of Learning 7
When William woke, he was alone.
The thought made him start for some reason. Still in his sleep–addled state, he reached across the bed, as though expecting to find someone else there. No one, of course. Strange he should imagine even for a moment that someone else would be on the opposite side, because he was more often than not alone. Elizabeth was still in England, and she wasn´t due to visit him until the holidays arrived.
Still, this time felt different, as though something was wrong. He breathed in and out for a moment while he tried to make sense of it. Had he been dreaming?
"Oh, lord," he muttered as he began to reach full consciousness.
The rush of images from the evening before started to play in front of his eyes. He and Xander, deciding to watch the film in the bedroom; Xander falling asleep, burrowing into his lap, getting closer to him; soft words, heated looks, stroking touches; Xander saying please; and then . . .
He rubbed at his face with both hands as he remembered everything: Xander´s tongue on him; Xander´s mouth around his cock, so warm and wet; that first intrusion of fingers that William had adjusted to so rapidly as he pushed against them shamelessly; pleasure heightening as the dual stimulation rushed him along to release . . . then, through the languid after part, helping Xander take his clothes off; catching his own legs to help get in position; the feel of Xander inside of him as Xander fucked him . . .
"I can´t," William gasped aloud, the words startling and strained in the stillness of the night.
Oh, god. He had –– they had –– what had he been thinking, to allow such a thing?
But even now, the thoughts of what they had done, of the expression on Xander´s face as he´d pushed inside him, sent a buzz along his skin. Another moment while he remembered the way Xander had twisted his hips just so, how he had ridden into him with such passion, and William moaned. He could feel himself growing hard, and part of him wanted nothing more than to wrap his fingers around his prick, to finish himself off to thoughts of the boy who had been in his bed only hours before.
Yet he wasn´t in the middle of a fantasy, was he? How much easier it would have been if he could pretend the entire thing had been a dream?
But no, the room smelled too much of sex for that, and his body ached more than enough to remind him of what he´d done . . . what he´d allowed Xander to do.
He rolled over to look at the alarm clock. 2a.m. Xander must have gone back to the dorms at some point.
That very thought –– that he´d become intimately involved with a young man who lived in the dorms, who was his student –– made him swing his legs over the mattress quickly. But in his haste to get to his feet, he stumbled, and jammed his foot against the night stand.
"Fucking hell," he spat. When he closed his eyes, the pain washed across him, and all he could see was red against his eyelids.
Finally the sharp pain faded, and his mind gradually cleared. He went through the motions of getting ready for bed, using the bathroom and then making sure he had his briefcase with the appropriate lesson plans and papers by the door.
Then, uneasily, he went about the apartment, checking to see whether Xander had perhaps left him a note before leaving. But there was nothing in the bedroom, or in the main room, no quick jotting in Xander´s sloppy script to indicate what he had been thinking or feeling when he decided to leave.
Before William realized what he was doing, he was holding the phone in his hand. But when it dawned on him that he was actually thinking of calling Xander, phoning to see if he had gotten back to his room on campus all right, or perhaps even to try to read some kind of cue in Xander´s voice in order to learn his state of mind, he slammed the receiver down.
He sighed as he wandered into the kitchen. Much as he wanted to continue for at least a little longer not thinking about the repercussions of what had happened, it didn´t seem he would be getting more sleep any time soon. So he put on a pot of coffee, and flicked on the television to stare at some black and white film he didn´t recognize.
The coffee announced the end of the brewing cycle with a hiss. After pouring himself a mug, he returned to the couch and sank down onto it.
It seemed like only minutes later that the mug he held was cold. With a groan, he set it down, and then let his head fall into his hands.
He should never, ever, have let things between him and Xander get to this point. At every step, when Xander had nudged at or toed across the boundaries that naturally should have remained defined, William should have been firm. Kind, but insistent. At no juncture should he have allowed Xander´s maneuverings, their inappropriate attraction for one another, or his own loneliness, to rule him, to blur the divide between them that by every ethical and moral measure should have stood impassable.
When he lifted his head, the room around him seemed foreign, as though he´d been transported into a space, a life, not his own.
What was he to do? The answer did not come quickly, but in any case, he didn´t doubt that he would have to be the one to take action. After all, there was no question that he was the one in error. What sort of teacher was he –– no, what sort of man was he –– that he´d allow little affectionate gestures to blow up into something so incredibly dangerous? He could lose Elizabeth over this; he could lose his job, his future in teaching. Worst of all, should anyone learn of what had happened, he could be charged with a crime.
And yet . . . had he been so very flawed at every step? Looking back on the past few weeks, it seemed hard to spot the transgressions, difficult to pinpoint where exactly he ought to have put a stop to the situation. Could he be blamed, really, for offering mentorship and a sort of friendship to a boy who needed academic help and the guidance of an authority figure? After all, he´d been asked by Headmaster Giles –– no, not really asked, but required –– to meet with Xander, tutor him, help him adjust to the school.
As for who began making overtures, he felt increasingly sure as he thought through the matter that he was not the one to initiate anything. Truly, would any of this have happened had he not been so lonely, something that Xander had surely picked up on? Xander was better at reading people and situations than he let on, William decided with some concern, if he, such a young man, had been able to position William in this way, encouraging or even setting up this encounter between them that William had never wanted.
"That´s it," he said to himself. "All of this –– there´s no way this can continue."
Full of the assurance that there had been wrongs, but that he could still remedy things before it was too late to make corrections, he decided to try to get some sleep.
But when he got back into bed, he hesitated when he thought of changing the sheets. It was so late; he had better take care of it tomorrow. Then it would stand as the start of a series of actions he must take, the beginning of changing the tenor of these interactions that had gone so terribly off course.
For now, he made himself lie still, breathing in and out slowly in an attempt to relax.
As he fell asleep, he inhaled Xander´s scent. His last thought was of Xander´s face close to his, those full lips meeting his own in a kiss.
