"Ring18

Chapter 18
	
	I stared at Melisa, waiting for her to spill it.
	Rachel had finally calmed down. Our first class inspired another
panic attack. Melisa calmed her down as quickly as she could. Rachel had
run into her room a few minutes before to start reading the first assigned
book. Melisa and I read it for a previous class so we only needed to skim
it.
	Melisa tried very hard not to make eye contact. I wanted to know
why Rachel was involved but it seemed a question I was not allowed to ask.
I could get some answers about Dr. Lawren though.
	I continued staring at Melisa.
	"Why are the etchings on Dr. Lawren's ring different?" I asked.
	"Susan is different from Doris Alex and me," she replied without
looking.
	"Continue."
	"She likes to be dominated," she said somewhat unsure of her
words.
	I guess like Brothers, Siblings do not understand some Siblings
either.
	"Don't you?" I asked.
	"I want to be with you," she said staring into my eyes. "Susan
wants you to make her want you."
	"A hunt through the woods with the hounds of desire calling their
master to his prey."
	She smiled widely and shrugged her shoulders as if I already
understood Dr. Lawren better than she did. She stood up and walked over to
kiss my forehead.
	"Have fun!"

						------

	I sat in my room thinking about Melisa.
	She planned every one of my movements in the preceding weeks: my
introduction to the Brotherhood, her and I becoming lovers, Doris Alex and
I coming together, Janet's temporary rejection, the threesomes, and now
Dr. Lawren.
	Even Gerald.
	The Brothers thought that was Doris Alex's planning, but I
recognized it as Melisa at her most subtle. She knew what Doris Alex would
do and followed the redhead where she wanted to go anyway.
	Someone who knew me better than anyone since Jason had handled me
exquisitely.
	The scope of her manipulations would have been amusing if not for
the danger inherent in giving someone like her that much control.
	Melisa needed to learn limits.
	I stood up and walked into the living room. Melisa, Doris Alex,
Michael, and Rachel were socializing around a pizza and the television
set.
	"Melisa," I said dangerously.
	Everyone turned to look at me.
	"I'd like to talk to you in my room."
	Doris Alex smiled an 'I told you so' at Melisa's back as my First
walked into my room.

						------

	Rachel was pissed at me.
	Melisa sat lightly in her chair when our second day of class
began.
	Professor Ryan could barely contain his laughter at the nervous
glances that Melisa gave me. Dr. Lawren looked between Melisa and me with
more than a touch of interest in her eyes. The class could sense there was
something going on underneath the surface but no one could figure out how
to get deeper.
	I ignored all of them.
	Professor Ryan announced initial appointment dates with our lead
professor. We were working closer with them than in any class before. I
was not surprised I was scheduled to meet Dr. Lawren later that day.
Melisa confessed that a few things could not be changed so I accepted
them; Dr. Lawren was the biggest of those. I looked at Melisa; she turned
quickly towards Rachel to talk about their appointment times.
	Rachel shot me an evil glare that I let slide through me.
					
					----

	I walked into the office after the voice invited me in. Dr. Lawren
had a small office, maybe as payback for her popularity with students and
certain members of the University administration. She reclined back and
gestured at a chair to the right of her desk. I sat down and continued
studying the room. It was exactly like her; organized, the stack of books
showed a variety of intellectual interests, and with a backbone of
femininity.
	We entered a staring match, but it was not a contest. We studied
each other at the same time. She was my height, short black hair, and
brown eyes. She favored Melisa's build; compact, and slim with feminine
curves. She was good-looking but my attraction lay in the wealth of
confidence she projected.
	"As unfortunate as I might think it, you and I will not be, Mr.
Feather," she challenged.
	The fox saying 'no' to the hound?
	I thought foxes did not have a choices.
	"Why not, Dr. Lawren?"
	"I have a lot to lose should I be caught in, or should there even
be a rumor that I am having an affair with a student," she explained with
a smile.
	Her words said no but the bead of sweat that moved slowly from her
neck to the barely hinted at cleavage spoke differently. I closed my eyes
and breathed her in.
	Her excitement would be an easy scent to follow.
	I nodded.
	The rest of the appointment was spent discussing what was expected
of me in the class.

				-----

	Dr. Lawren was an experience in frustration.
	My teenage years had not lacked in sexual relief so the mental
frustration of wanting and not having was new to me. Dr. Lawren was a
crystal globe that shone in the middle with gold coins, but I could not
keep the coins if I shattered the globe.
	Thinking I had to somehow prove myself, I tried everything.
	I mean everything: flowers, good work, bad work, great work, an
apple, making unnecessary appointments, etc. She let me do it all and made
things worse by making sure my appointments were the last in her day.
	She changed before I arrived. Sometimes subtle; two buttons loose
on her shirt, her shirt pulled out from her skirt, or maybe her hair a
little mussed. Sometimes, she trumpeted the change: a mini-skirt, perfume,
or no bra where there had been one in class.
	It was fairly embarrassing for me.
	Our appointments went long and sometimes the summer darkness had
begun when I accompanied her to her car. Those were the moments I thought
I was close. As I stood holding her car door open, standing closer to her
than I could get in her office, it felt like we were inches from a kiss.
	We were not but it felt like it.
	The Siblings were put through their sexual paces as the
frustration built but their pleasure did nothing to relieve me. I focused
on Melisa since she was the one who found a reason to put me in that
situation. I wanted Melisa sexually but a majority of the time I was
trying to scratch a sexual itch I could not get to. Melisa spent most of
her time trying to hold in smug laughter so I doubted my lack of focus
offended her.
	I wanted Dr. Lawren.
	She told me to call her Susan in private. I continued with her
title and last name. She whispered the request with her lips an inch from
mine but the closeness was a tease.
	Rachel knew something was going on but like the rest of the class
could not get beneath the surface. I spent the most time of any student
with Dr. Lawren but because of my late appointments no one knew it.  I
gave not a second's thought in the five weeks that I chased the fox down
every hole and up every tree in our sexual landscape to what Melisa was
telling Rachel. Those two got closer as I concentrated on the hunt.  Dr.
Lawren started to ride our work in class and nothing we turned in was good
enough. We were not doing badly enough to fail but being in the class and
not getting good grades stressed Rachel. Melisa took my place as the
person Rachel talked to when life seemed to be beating her.
	I did not notice the transition.
	Rachel's fear triggered the change in tide though.
	I came home after another frustrating conversation with Dr. Lawren
to find Rachel reading in the living room from the next book we were
covering in class.
	"Is anyone else home?" I asked.
	She smiled knowing what I was really asking. I figured Melisa told
her I always needed relief after my late appointments.
	"No one is here to service you," she teased.
	I opened my eyes wide and took a deep breath. She laughed like I
meant her to. I sat down and looked at the books in front of her. The
class was entering the last week of the first summer session and I would
have sworn Rachel was studying for a final.
	"There's no exam, Rachel," I pointed out to her.
	She threw the book she was reading across the room.
	"I KNOW THAT, DAVID," she hissed.
	I stared at her.
	She tried to take her anger out on me with her eyes but there was
nothing for her to push against. She stood up, stomped over to pick up her
book, stomped back, and threw herself on the couch.
	"How do you do it?" she asked.
	"Do what?"
	"Deal with this bullshit!" she said, close to losing it. "There's
no right answer. 'It's how you put together your opinion.' Well, I don't
fucking have an opinion on this shit."
	I waited for her anger to burn down.
	"I didn't want you to take this class because you've never taken a
class where you had to think," I said calmly.
	"Stop!" I said with my hand raised when she looked ready to blow
up at me again.
	"You only took the early language classes which are about
memorization and using a new skill. The science and math requirements were
trying to give you knowledge or break you out of a major. You never had to
understand what you were doing."
	"I don't get it, David."
	I thought about it for a minute.
	"Have you ever put a problem through a math equation, you know,
this is a, this is b, this is c, do the math and here's the answer."
	"Yeah, what's your point?" she asked.
	"Did you ever get an answer and know it was wrong? Maybe even know
what you fucked up?"
	"Sure," she said leaning towards me.
	"Why did you know it was wrong?"
	"Long form formulas sometimes have certain cancellations that
always occur. Those cancellations prove shorter formulas or rules."
	"Right," I said with a nod. "You understood what was happening in
the process so you could recognize when the answer was badly formed."
	She nodded.
	"That's the point to this class, Rachel."
	She looked confused.
	"You're not supposed to read all these books and try to memorize
what the author said," I told her. "You're supposed to read them, think
about what the author is trying to convince you of, and decide whether you
agree or disagree. In your papers, you need to show that you understand
why he is saying something and why you agree or disagree with his
position."
	"What's the point of that?" she asked clearly frustrated.
	"It teaches you how to learn, and not to stop until you understand
something rather than just know what substitutions need to be made," I
said.
	She looked at me like I was missing many, many brain cells.
	"You want to be a doctor," I said.
	She sat back, surprised.
	"You live and die by your father's opinion of you, but until
college you were restrained by your mother's limited view of the world.
Exercise science is only a step towards what you really want."
	Her eyes were stunned. I picked up a book from the table and
handed it to her.
	"Unlike this writer, you never told me any of these things but I
don't just listen when you talk to me, Rachel."
	I got up and walked into my room. With no Sibling in the house, it
was safe to close my doors.

				------

	"The class thing stops," I said when I sat down in Dr. Lawren's
office for our next appointment.
	"What?" she asked.
	She was wearing a gray shirt with loose buttons and no bra. I
focused on her brown eyes.
	"You're riding my group," I said.
	"I think you can do better work, Mr. Feather," she said with a
little hardness in her voice.
	"You involved Rachel in this, and she doesn't understand what's
going on," I clarified for her.
	"I did not involve Rachel. Your First involved Rachel," she said
angrily.
	"Rachel has no business in this class. Professor Ryan would not
have let her in regardless of Melisa."
	"She lives in your house," she said trying to dodge the issue.
	"You should not have let her in the class," I replied calmly.
	"You do not tell me how to run my class, Mr. Feather," she said
returning to her angry stance.
	"You are responsible for her now," I said ignoring her emotional
state. "You want to push me, that's fine, but Rachel doesn't deserve the
extra stress because Melisa and you want something that has nothing to do
with her."
	She sat back, looked at me and made a mistake.
	"Melisa thinks what she has with you is like what you had with
Jason," she said savoring what she thought would be a pointed knife-thrust
into me. "Were you lovers?"
	I looked at her as she nearly crowed in victory over what she
believed was a hard point scored.
	"I held five people responsible for Jason's death, Susan," I said
in the voice that always came out of me when I spoke about Jason. "Through
the blood that was drowning him, he asked me not to kill our lieutenant. I
would have staked that fucker on a cross above Jason's grave."
	Dr. Lawren backed away from her desk and me.
	"Eusebio Carta paid for the information about our mission. His
second in command hired the man who ran the woman I gutted in Cancun out
his stable of informants. She seduced our lieutenant. Being young and
stupid, he talked about things he shouldn't have."
	I stared at her with the coldness I felt during that hunt.
	"I cut the information broker's throat while he slept. I painted
his face like a street whore with the blood that flowed out his body."
	I smiled remembering the pleasure feeling the warmth of his blood
on my hands gave me.
	"Cutting his throat felt so good, I did it to Eusebio's
second-in-command. I walked through his guards, and dogs like I did not
have to fear they would see me. His wife looked peaceful sleeping beside
him. She screamed for an hour when she woke up that morning. Listening to
her, I felt like I had written a symphony for Jason."
	I closed my eyes and heard the echo of screams.
	"I had Eusebio in my sights when he stopped by the house to
investigate. I let him go."
	I opened my eyes to see the fear in hers.
	"He didn't live long after that, but maybe he got to hug his
children, his wife, or even a childhood friend one last time."
	We sat in silence until the sun set.

				-----

	"I'm sorry, David," Melisa said as I stood staring out my window.
	Memories of Jason are a storm. I do not feel guilty or
responsible. Jason followed where I led. He followed into the military,
into a jungle where he died in my arms.
	I AM responsible.
	I turned so that she could see the profile of my face. It is as
far as I have ever been able to turn from the storm when it is carelessly
summoned.
	"Susan shouldn't have..." she started and stopped. "Jason is
not..."
	Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the pleading look on her
face.
	"I guess a Brother is supposed to make things easy for Siblings,
right?" I asked with the shadow of Jason's death on my voice.
	She nodded looking to grasp any lifeline.
	"Do Siblings know how to obey, Melisa?" I asked.
	There were tears in her eyes as she nodded. I turned back to the
storm before speaking.
	"Never mention him in my presence again."