Free One Plus Two Minus One by Tess Mackenzie Page B

her favorite color
first.
    “I’m me,” she said.
    “I want to know who that is.”
    “ Yeah,” she
said. “How about we fuck for a bit first,
then we decide if we want to be best friends forever?”
    He
shrugged. She ate for a while, and now
felt guilty. She supposed there was no real reason he shouldn’t
ask. “You really want to know?” she said. “To know me?”
    He nodded.
    She
thought. “Nerd at school. Geek, whatever.
Not cool. Not that many friends. I used to skate a bit.”
    “I can see that.”
    “Oh really?”
    “ Yeah. The tattoos, the swearing. And you’re
fit.”
    “I walk to work.”
    “ Yeah,” he
said. “Of course. That’s it. Do you still
skateboard?”
    She pointed
to the hall cupboard. “I used to commute
on it, when I was a student. Decided it was a bit undignified in a
professor. And you can’t with heels on.”
    He nodded, said, “What else?”
    “ You tell
me. What have you worked out?”
    “ You like
sex. A lot. More than you like to admit
to yourself.”
    “Yeah, that’s probably true.”
    “ It’s
true. You’re taking risks, having me
here. But are. So…”
    That made sense.
    “You’re ambitious,” he said.
    “Obviously.”
    “You aren’t sure if you need more people in
your life.”
    She looked at him.
    “ Because
you’re talking to me like this. Not just
fucking me and telling me to go. Or telling me to stop asking
personal stuff and actually meaning it.”
    “ Okay,” she
said. “You’re good at people. Smartass.
Better than me.”
    “ You used to
be more nervous about lecturing. When you
started.”
    “ You can
stop,” Then, “Why’s that?”
    “ You used to
dress up. Now you don’t.”
    That was
true. “It got hot, too.”
    “Not in the middle of winter, when I’m
talking about.”
    She glared at
him. After a while said, “Yeah, fuck you
too.”
    “Why do you swear so much?”
    “No fucking idea.”
    He grinned.
    “ Okay,” she
said. “What about you? If we’re doing
this, tell me about you.”
    “ Same,
really. Too smart for school. Not many
friends. More than some people because I had music and girls, but
not many. College was a big thing. Like starting life over
again.”
    “Same here.”
    “ It’s a pity
all the same people follow you here though. You know, the ones you’ve always been hoping to
avoid.”
    “ Stay a
bit. They’ll get bachelor’s degrees and
piss off. Then it gets better. I never really talked to anyone
until honors.”
    Ethan nodded.
    “ I hate high
schools,” Beth said. “Everyone in them. I
really fucking hate them. And teachers. I don’t have time for
people who are just going to end up there.’
    “That’s obvious.”
    “How’s that?”
    “ In
class. You pretty much ignore questions
from people you think are stupid. Don’t give them any time. Try and
shut them down if they want to talk.”
    “I’m not that bad.”
    “Yeah, you are.”
    She chewed,
decided to be honest. “Maths is hard. If
they can’t do it, they can’t. The whole class doesn’t need to hear
me explain everything two or three times because someone doesn’t
get it.”
    “The whole class might not understand
either.”
    “One person does.”
    “What if they don’t?”
    “ One person
always does. That’s the one I care
about.”
    “ And the rest
of us? Me?”
    She shrugged.
    “Seriously?”
    “ Yep,” she
said. “I don’t give a shit.”
    He looked at her and she just looked
back.
    “ It’s a
university,” she said. “I teach at the
right speed. I teach the speed I was taught. And the people who
taught me. And people before them. All the same, at the same pace,
for hundreds of years. We know how to do this, and it’s not an
evolving field. Most of it doesn’t change. Just now we have all
this white noise, all these pointless people running around buzzing
in the air about how I should do my job.”
    He seemed to be waiting.
    “ I teach at
the speed you need,” she said. “You and
three or four others