Bad Influence

I tried to forget my encounter with Katherine and focus on being a normal student. Luckily, it didn’t take long until our afternoon in her office felt more like a dream. A very sexy dream.

Most of my class decided to go to a festival in San Myshuno to get a break from our studies. I really needed the distraction.

It was great hanging out with my friends, and I got to catch up with Jamie. We hadn’t been working out together for weeks because she was too busy preparing for some fitness competition.

Jamie was not up for getting high with us, though. Said it messed with her metabolism.

While we were smoking, Ivan suddenly got serious.

“Eric, there’s a rumour on campus that you hooked up with Dr. Gilscarbo. You gotta tell us if it’s true, man, she’s so hot.”

I tried to play it cool.

“Seriously, Ivan, don’t listen to rumours. If I had scored with the dean, don’t you think I would have bragged to you guys about it already?”

Ivan’s words stuck with me, though. I didn’t like that rumour going around. My future – and probably Katherine’s job – was at stake.

I figured that maybe the rumour would die down if I had a girlfriend on campus.

It was probably because I was high as a kite, but it seemed like a great idea at the time. Some dude had been trying to chat up Cierra, but I decided to distract her from him.

It worked. The dude left, and I did my best to charm Cierra.

We ended up kissing behind the toilet stalls, but there was no spark between us at all, and after a while we laughed it off and went back to campus.

One afternoon, a few weeks after the festival fiasco, I came back to my room to find a note that seemed to have fallen off my nightstand. I had no idea who had delivered it, but it was clearly from Katherine.

I showed up at the time and place on the note, unsure what to think. It didn’t escape me that the mailbox outside said Antony & Katherine Gilscarbo. She was married? It made sense. The house seemed too expensive for a dean.

As I knocked, I felt tense. I didn’t know why she had asked me to come, but we definitely needed a serious talk about what happened in her office.

But when Katherine opened the door, my mind once again went blank. All the things I had thought about saying to her – completely gone.

Speechless, I took her in my arms. She giggled, but quickly dragged me inside before we could be seen by any neighbours.

Like in a trance, I lifted her up.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

She laughed.

“Upstairs, first door on the left.”

Without putting her down, I kicked off my shoes and carried her upstairs.

I climbed onto the large bed with her still in my arms.

She smiled at me as I gently laid her down.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“One question, Katherine – your husband?”

A brief shadow crossed her face. “Conference. Do you mind?”

So she was indeed married.

To my surprise, I realised that I didn’t care.

We were like fire and gasoline, burning with an intensity I had never known.

It wasn’t until afterwards, when she fell asleep beside me, that I came to my senses.

What was I doing?

The following months were a blur. I felt like I was pretending to be just like everyone else, complaining about the professors and obsessing over exams, while at the same time hiding a terrible secret.

Katherine would walk by me in the library, give me a look, and we would hurry down separate staircases to meet in the rarely used basement.

It was a terrible idea. We were almost asking to be discovered.

But we didn’t care.

When we were together, the rest of the world and all of its silly little problems ceased to exist.

We were fire and gasoline. Nothing else mattered.

There were many evenings when I would come back from seeing Katherine, only to shower and then spend half the night doing my coursework to keep up.

I tried to compensate for all my disappearances by attending every single campus party. I wanted to be seen as much as possible so that people wouldn’t wonder why I was often gone.

I thought it worked, I didn’t hear about any more rumours. But maybe everyone already knew.

Suddenly, I didn’t hear any more from Katherine either. I tried to text her, but she told me to focus on my upcoming exams, then stopped replying. So I did. I still wanted to ace all of them, and whatever I had going on with Katherine had honestly been quite distracting.

But even while writing my final papers, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. We hadn’t seen each other for over a month, which was unusual. I assumed she was also busy. Maybe next year’s students were already sending in their applications?

I was relieved when she finally texted me to come over. Her house this time. I figured her husband must be out of town again. The thought gave me the tiniest pang of guilt, which I quickly ignored.

When Katherine opened the door, I tried to kiss her, but she gently pushed me away. Then I saw that she was crying.

I closed the door behind us and took her in my arms as she started sobbing into my shoulder. Then I noticed that the living room was filled with boxes.

I took her face in my hands.

“Katherine? Talk to me. What’s going on?”

She tried explaining through tears. At first I wasn’t even sure I understood her, but then it hit me.

She had been in denial, ignoring the signs for a while, but she finally took a pregnancy test about a week ago. It was of course positive.

She had to tell her husband – especially because the baby was unlikely to be his.

Antony obviously didn’t take the news of the affair well.

He yelled at her for what seemed like hours, even going so far as suggesting she get rid of it.

But Katherine refused. No matter who the father was, she wanted to keep this baby.

Antony then demanded a paternity test. If he was the father, he wanted to act like one.

Either way, though, he wanted a divorce.

And then he delivered the final blow.

“Kath, you’ve been sleeping with a student. I am very sorry, but I am going to have to report you to the board.”

Then he told her to pack up her stuff.

It was a lot to take in at once. I struggled to wrap my head around it.

I was completely overwhelmed. Katherine explained that the test results had come in yesterday, and Antony was not the father. It had to be me.

My brain struggled to process the information. I was going to be a father?

She had also begged Antony not to report her until after my graduation next week. Her career and reputation was ruined, but she didn’t want to risk my education too. I was thankful for that, at least, even as my mind was reeling.

What the fuck was I going to do now?