He took her by the shoulders and held her out away from him like an archeologist appraising a find. His arms were long and she was petite. She was screaming at him, no words, not even obscenities, and he shook her, hard, the way you might a child, if you were a sucky parent, anyway.

Turned out I was right, she was a blonde: he shook that rabbit-fur hat right off her head. She had lots of blonde hair, long and flowing, and from my perch she seemed a real doll. But from my perch I knew the prof had already moved on: advance surveillance info indicated Byron’s latest conquest as being a brunette on the tall side, specifically a grad student in his creative writing class name of Annette Girard.

“What we did I’ll never forget,” he told her, clasping her by the arms, working in compassion and regret the way a cook might sprinkle paprika. “But I’m a married man and twice your age. Let’s cherish what we have, and go back to our lives.”

She said something that I couldn’t quite make out; more a whimper than speech, really, but I got the feeling she said she wanted to come in.

That was her best card-she had to play it. If she could get the prof inside that house, then inside her, she was back in the game. I wondered if she knew about the brunette.

“What do you see in that cunt, anyway? She’s a stick! She’s a skinny fucking stick!”

Apparently she knew about the brunette.

“I’m Annette’s faculty advisor,” he said, “and her teacher. She is also my teaching assistant. What we had, you and I, Alice…was special. Unique. My relationship with Annette is strictly…teacher-pupil.”

“Right! Cocksucking 101!”

“That’s enough.” He took her by the arm and he marched her down the stoop’s stairs and the sidewalk, practically dragging her, his bathrobe flapping, belt coming undone, skinny bare legs showing. Her eyes were like a raccoon’s, black-ringed hysteria, the mascara wet and running. Her lips were trembling.