Now she was saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” how many times I lost count.

At her car, he looked to his left but not to his right-this I took not to be checking on the neighbors but seeing if anybody was coming from the main drag half a mile or so down. I got the impression this scene with Alice was not one he would like Annette to come in on.

Then it occurred to me that Alice and Annette were both A’s, and were in alphabetical order, at that. Maybe Professor Hefner was working his way through his female students. If so, he was using the second semester list, and starting over. This stud would have covered more ground in the first semester than just a couple of damn A’s.

He deposited her in the car, though the driver’s side door remained open. “Can you drive?”

She responded, behind the wheel, but I couldn’t hear it.

“I tell you what. At the end of the school year, when you’ve graduated, when seeing each other would be more appropriate…we’ll talk again.”

Her body straightened as hope sprung. This I could hear: “Really? Really, my darling?”

My darling motherfucking, dick-licking son of a fucking bitch?

“Yes. It will be hard for us…”

Right. This prick was always hard.

“…but we’ll wait, until you’re twenty-one, and a college graduate. And if you go on for your MFA? Perhaps I’ll need a new teaching assistant…”

This seemed to please her, and he leaned in and gave her a kiss. At least I think that’s what he did- couldn’t quite make it out, though it lasted a while and was not just a peck. I could only wonder why Alice hadn’t realized he was tacitly admitting that he boinked his teaching assistants, but logic was never that big in Wonderland.

He shut her in the little red car and she drove off, and he watched, and waved, and smiled, and then the smile drooped and he shivered, not with the cold I didn’t think, and he stooped his shoulders and trod back up and inside his cobblestone cottage.