Chapter Text
“The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car.”
That was one of Professor Kennedy’s favorite quotes to recite anytime a student asked him anything of his earlier days. Should they inquire about his youth, of what he studied when he himself was just a young man— he would say nothing but those words. Perhaps it was a hint— as to how absolutely sickening the mister really was. Such a pretty quote would make no one bat an eye— however, it was a dog whistle. A dog whistle for the girls who wished so very much to be noticed by the man, allowing him to handpick them like a farmer picked the ripest berries.
You, dear, darling girl, were one of them. He noticed it, the glint in your eyes when he first said it. He noticed it, when you’d furrow your brows and think oh so very hard about it, knowing that you’ve encountered the sentence before, but where? Oh, how he loved, how he adored it! Seeing those well-oiled gears in your mind turn, making his terrible, horrible mind conjure all kinds of way to rust them just enough so he’d be able to toy around with them.
And not too many moons had needed to pass before he had you in the palm of his calloused hand— and the two of you, darling lovebirds, had fallen madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; and hopelessly too, I should add.
The light of his life, the fire of his loins.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
At first, it was mere curiosity. An itch in your brain, poor girl. It was your first week of classes, and all seemed far too overwhelming. A babe, learning to walk and talk at the same time— and not seeming to catch onto the trick at all. How disheartening.
And just as impostor syndrome had started setting in, that perhaps, just maybe, you did not deserve to be in the college that many others your age would’ve killed to get in to, on a scholarship, no less, you enter your classics lecture. The professor was up and waiting until every last little duckling filed in their seats. An older man well into his 40s, if the graying hairs, stubble, and the fine lines on his face had anything to say about it. His eyes crinkled like the pages of the books he held when he smiled, and his cheeks drew back like curtains to let those pearly whites (although, it was more of an off-white) show through. Everything about Professor Kennedy reeked of comfort, from the way he addressed his students to the way he was leaned back onto his desk.
“You all came into my class today, for two possible reasons. One, you need easy credits, or two, you want to hear an old man ramble about other old men who are long dead. Some of you may not even need this for your degrees, in which case, I applaud you for the dedication it takes to take a 6PM class on a monday.”
One had no better way of describing his voice than saying that it sounded like whiskey and honey. A smooth sound, that poured from his mouth and rolled sweetly in his student’s minds.
Oh, sweet girl, who could blame you if you were to develop a slight affection in that very moment?
A student raises their hand, and the professor, always an enabler of curious minds, allows the question.
“Sir, you said some of us won’t need this for our degrees. Are you saying you also studied something different when you were young?”
“The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. My studies were meticulous and intense, although not particularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many manque talents do; but I was even more manque than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in; and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds.”
You knew that quote from somewhere, and he seems to have caught on, if his eyes flicking to you in the first seat was anything to go by. Clever girl.
As the clock struck 8, and the ducklings started falling out, you remained behind. He liked that, liked that a whole lot.
“Can I help you, miss?” He asks lowly, eyes travelling over every part of your body, taking in everything from the red ribbon holding your hair back, to the skirt and sweater you were wearing. Your necklace did not escape his sight, either, rather reminding the older man how much young girls such as you liked to spoil yourselves with trinkets of all sorts. He filed it away for later.
“Mister Kennedy, was it?” you ask him, and his lips draw in that smile again. “I was wondering— the quote you mentioned, uhm. It scratches at my brain. Is it— Is it one of Nabokov’s?”
He knew it, then, that you’d be the doll that he’d play with all year long. Not one girl before had gotten his hint beforehand, but you, what a lovely thing, indeed— a brilliant girl, to have understood it so quickly. To take up on that invitation, by visiting him after class. He was the most thrilled, yes!
“Yeah, it is. Good job,” he praises. “Think you can name me the novel, too? You know, extra credit for the lady.”
Ohh, the way your eyes lit up, by the gods it had him going. He felt it, then, the ever-addicting rush of adrenaline he got whenever he got to play his favorite game.
“I believe-…hm.” Oh, sweetness. “Is it Lolita?”
“Yes- yeah! Look at you, star scholar on your first day.”
His praise feels so very comforting that it makes you a little stupid, a little blind. Like the sun’s rays after a far too long time in darkness— you stare at it for a little too long, and your vision pales just the slightest bit. Not having much more left to say, you murmur your thanks and bid the man goodbye before walking away, feverishly aware of his eyes on you as you shut the door behind you.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
It became a game, after. He would sneak in a quote, and you, ever the adored scholar, would go after class and tell him where it’s from. It started simple. Dickens, Elliot, Shelley. With time, it got more niche, he started branching out internationally, and you, clever, cunning darling of his, guessed even Eliade, Cioran, and some that even his colleagues could not name. Each and every time it sent shivers down his spine, just how lucky he had gotten to have picked the ripest of the fruits, the most docile of lambs.
Surely, your mere minutes of praise in his office turned to hours, as he dissected you the same way one would dissect a fascinating specimen. He spent all your time together asking you questions, varying in difficulty, as if he were an oracle and you were his favorite pack of tarot cards.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The professor’s apartment was not too big, just large enough for him. His coffee table, upon which you have previously danced for him, had your discarded mary janes on it. His couch, where you have made love to him, had your lacy bra on it, under a cashmere blanket that was thrown across it carelessly. The mug that stayed unwashed on his kitchen island had your lipstick on the rim. You were peppered everywhere, not only in his mind, but in his home as well— an indicator that you, sweetness, had burrowed inside his soul. Whether that’s good, or not, not even he himself knew.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
You have no idea, honest to god, when it turned into this— thing, as you could only call it that. By mid-december, you found yourself in his apartment, eyes heavy and knees aching, hair loose and his hand petting you the same way one would a house cat. His hands, you’ve always been fascinated by his hands, by the thick scars that cross them, the years of wear on his knuckles. They’re warm and heavy on your skin, and they knead your brain like dough. Silly girl.
“Comfortable?”
Not able to find it in yourself to answer, you simply look up at him through your lashes, and press a slow kiss to his palm.
“Ah. Spoiled.”
Lips curl upwards, both of you. Your hand reaches out, wrapping around his wrist, as if jealous of the watch that always gets a place there. In your opinion, it looks far better than that old thing. Part of your body, an accessory for his.
“Yes, yes, very gorgeous, sweetness,” he muses. Professor Kennedy allows you to play with him for a while before he loops his hands under your armpits, dragging your limp body in his lap. His finger traces along your spine, tutting as he lays you down upon the bed, in a slight arch. You shiver as his touch awakens little nerves and neurons.
In his mind, sick and twisted as it may be, he was imagining you the same way one pictures poetry. In his eyes, you were not woman, nor girl, but his favorite verses strung together to create a face, a half-alive form that he had conceived in the grotesquerie he calls a brain.
When he is done admiring the dip of your spine on your back, he manhandles you back fully in his arms, smiling indulgently at the way you melt into him the same way ice melts in one’s hand. Some of you spills out, but his warmth and the dips of his own body keeps you in place.
“You fit into me, like a hook into an eye…” He recites, lips pressing tenderly against one of your eyelids, relishing in the feeling of your lash fluttering against his skin. A butterfly trying to escape its captor.
“…A fish hook,” your voice sounds out. “An open eye.”
The grin returns to his face, as it always does when his love completes his lyrics. He is nothing short of thrilled, at the moment, feverish with want for more and aching for you. Yet, he remains still, almost content with just holding you like this.
“Atta girl,” the whiskey pours into your ear, getting you drunk on his word. “Look how you complete me.”
Gently, very gently, he reaches for the marker on the nightstand, careful not to jostle you too much. He couldn’t forgive himself, should he bother his dear girl too much.
The cold tip of the marker on your stomach draws a slow whine out the back of your throat, a sound that Leon gladly kisses away before continuing. He always writes so slowly.
The man doesn’t let you see, instead takes you back under the covers and is very sweet, and very tender, to distract you. The next morning, he makes sure to adore you briefly before leaving you in his shirt, and leaves you all alone, you poor, poor thing.
The melancholy of missing a lover absorbs you for a slight moment, before you get yourself out of his bedroom. In a makeshift palla, you make your way to his mirror, brushing past the usual marks of pure brutality that he had unleashed on your skin, and instead focus on the markings just on your womb, sitting nice and pretty in his writing and not smudged by the many fluids that have visited your skin overnight. It’s a mess of his thoughts- and what you recognize as a poem.
I like to think of you naked.
I put your naked body
Between myself alone and death.
If I go into my brain
And set fire to your sweet nipples,
To the tendons beneath your knees,
I Can see far before me.
It is empty there where I look,
But at least it is lighted.
I know how your shoulders glisten,
How your face sinks into trance,
And your eves like a sleepwalker's,
And your lips of a woman
Cruel to herself.
The unbelievably complex
Tissues of your brain all alive
Under your coiling, splendid hair.
Perhaps, just maybe, your professor is in love with a little more than you.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·