Page 31 of Blurred Boundaries

A beat of silence stretches between us. I’m not sure I heard him correctly.

“What do you mean?” I ask cautiously.

“I wanted us to be close when you arrived here,” he says. “But I got the impression that you were straight. I guess I should have persisted.”

I try to keep my expression as neutral as I can manage. “What are you saying?”

I discreetly reach for my phone in my pocket, turning on the voice recorder. Since I can’t look at the screen, I just trust my muscle memory and hope my hand doesn’t betray me.

He gives a humourless laugh. “You want me to spell it out? I’m more than happy to do that,” he sneers. “You and Taj Badmus gave a really great performance, I even got hard watching you. And all the while watching your little show, I wished to be in his place.”

I’m still keeping my face devoid of any emotion, though I can feel my pulse in my ears now. My thoughts are running in too many directions at once, none of them particularly helpful. I feel like I should say something, but bile rises in my throat at the thought of him touching me like that. I also know I should be disgusted that he caught us in such a moment, that I should focus on the threat and the blackmail, and the fact that my career is sitting on a knife’s edge right now.

Instead, all I can think about is Taj. Taj’s hand mapping my body, his stupid laugh when he thinks he has gotten away with something, the way he looks at me like I’m the only thing that matters. And how nothing about this man in front of me even compares. Dean Horák is conventionally attractive, I suppose. But he doesn’t leave a lasting impression.

Taj is not like that. He doesn’t fade. He isn’t forgettable. He’s like the sun to me, not something I choose to look at, but something I end up turning towards anyway, like everything only makes sense when he is there. There’s no one else who can take his place. Not in my head, and not in my heart. Even my body belongs to him—I belong to him.

I love him.

The realisation hit me so hard, it almost makes me dizzy.

Damn it! I shouldn’t be realising this now, not here. Not while this arsehole is trying to squeeze something out of me. Yeah, I know it was reckless of me coming apart on my student’s dick in a lecture hall, but I wasn’t thinking properly. I look at the dean properly, forcing myself not to slap him senseless no matter how strongly I want to. He’s still young, yes, but surely, he knows two wrongs don’t make a right.

“No,” I tell him. I don’t like how strained my voice sounds.

He tilts his head, like he’s amused by that answer. “No?” he repeats. “You would fuck up your whole life for a boy who’d move to the next willing hole once you leave?”

I know he’s being purposely cruel with his words, and they hit the bullseye because there is a silver of truth in them I can’t ignore. I’m not sure Taj and I will keep in touch. These past eight months may well end up becoming something I’ll only be looking back on, something I’ll hold onto. A memory that I’ll cherish forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to cower in front of this man.

I straighten myself, even though my stomach is still twisting. “It’s my life, isn’t it? And aren’t you doing the same thing here? You’re also married, by the way. To a woman.”

He waves that away, but I see something flicker across his face; annoyance or maybe it’s calculation. He then catches me off guard by moving blindingly fast. One moment there’s space between us, and the next his hands are on me, gripping my waist and pushing my back against the wall. The impact knocks the air out of me, but its more shock than force. The feeling of his hands on me makes my skin crawl instantly, I’m about to shove him off me when the door opens.

“Look who’s—” Taj starts, but the rest of it dies in his throat the moment he takes in the scene.

His confusion doesn’t last longer than a blink of an eye. He moves, ripping Horák away from me. Kingsley is there, too. He appears out of nowhere, holding Horák firmly in place with a knife at his throat. My brain struggles to keep up with what I’m seeing. Where did the knife come from? Why would a hockey player be carrying a knife around?

Taj is in front of me now, close enough that I can see the tension in his jaw, and the focus in his eyes as they flick between me and Horák. “What’s going on here?” he asks.

“He knows,” I say, and it comes out quieter than I meant for it to be. “He saw us earlier. He’s asking me to sleep with him to make it go away.”

Horák eyes the knife at his throat with open disdain. “I guess you’re not taking me up on my offer,” he says calmly, looking unimpressed. “I won’t just make sure you lose your job in Nigeria. Little Mr Badmus here will also be expelled for gross misconduct.”

My vision goes white. This is exactly what I didn’t want, and yet it happened anyway. My first thought is Taj and how to fix this for him. How do I make sure he doesn’t lose the last three years he’s spent working on his degree because I couldn’t keep it in my pants? I’ve never felt murderous towards anyone before, but something inside me lurches forward now, a violent surge that is not rational in any way. And I’m sure if I had a gun right now, I wouldn’t be above using it on Horák.

I’ve never once had a visceral reaction to all those times Rita would complain about the women stalking her because of me. And even when her car was burned by one of them, I remember feeling sorry—but not this immediate, consuming need to act. Never this. I really need to apologise to her.

Taj’s laughter pulls me out of my thoughts, out of place in an atmosphere that feels anything but light-hearted. I blink at him, trying to read his expression, to work out if I’ve missed something obvious—because he couldn’t have heard what Horák just said and found it funny. Or does he genuinely not care that his entire degree is on the line? Like it means nothing at all?

Taj glances at Kingsley, and something unspoken passes between them. Kingsley adjusts his grip, pressing the knife a little more firmly against Horák’s throat. It’s not enough to cut, but there’s something unsettling about how comfortable he looks doing it. And that reminds me of something Taj said when we were watching Kingsley play. Is this what he meant by King’s intensity?

Fuck. Are they going to kill the dean?

20

TAJ

—Home by Edith Whiskers