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He's in the middle of a lecture when I sneak into the auditorium. As he stands tall and proudly in front of a wall of black boards, his white hair has the effect of a spotlight on his face- it's even slightly reminiscent of a halo. Adding to that is his charisma- his booming voice and smile seem to have had their intended effects. Nearly all his students seem transfixed by him.
"...And one of the most common complaints I hear young people have about Mathematics is 'How does that impact my actual life?'. It seems the youths crave practical applications. Well, as much as I love theory, let me tell you, the Mathematics I'm teaching you have plenty of practical applications." he rants, not unlike a stand-up comedian doing his routine would.
"Take integrals, for example. What 'real life' use are they?" he explains as he starts drawing schematics on one of his huge black boards with differently colored chunks of chalk. "Let's say you need to get an abdominal ultrasound done to diagnose some stomach issues you've been having. What's gonna happen is, using the density of the tissues measured on both sides of your abdomen, we are going to deduce what's in the middle. Isn't that amazing? And there is no actual medicine involved in that specific process, only an integral transform- specifically, the Radon transform."
After taking a step back to catch his breath a little and admire the scientific fresco he just willed into glorious existence with chalk, Cy pivots on his heels to face his students.
"The very foundation of medical imaging, everyone!" he exclaims, pure glee just radiating out of his beaming face, and the entire room spontaneously erupts into sincere, enthusiastic applause, taken by the energy of their professor.
"That's him. That's my husband." I can't help but think proudly.
It's only been a few weeks since he started as a college professor here, and already he's looking so much more lively. I was getting really worried about him, fearing that this big change wouldn't actually change much, but I'm relieved to see him with a genuine smile on his face again, displaying the passion he has for teaching. I almost thought I would never see it again.
Last year, he had a falling out with a former student of his and it hit him much harder than anyone could have predicted. I don't know the details exactly, but it's pretty clear to me now that they'd been having an affair- probably since her first year of high school, given what I remember from her when she was my student as well. To my surprise I didn't have the heart to scold him for it, because for maybe the second time in my life, I was seeing him actually cry over something, and openly at that. Given he hid the best he could to grieve the loss of his mother, the fact he sought comfort from me this time instead of trying to push down the pain and tears told me enough to understand the severity of the situation. Him losing over 30 pounds from lack of eating wasn't very reassuring either.
I chuckle to myself imagining what my friends and mother would think of me if they could hear this. "Really, Evelynn, you're gonna reward your scumbag of a cheating husband with affection because he got his heart broken by a girl young enough to be his daughter?" I can hear them say in my head. The answer, of course, is a resoundingly obvious yes. We're not about to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary for nothing.
I laugh again just thinking of Mom. She was so happy when I told her Cy was becoming a college professor. "Finally, your good for nothing husband is waking up!" she said when I last saw her. It's painfully ironic to me that Cy's greatest crimes in her eyes are his abandonment of an engineering career to become a high school teacher with me and being biracial. That's something that warranted her eternal ire. Meanwhile, she has absolutely zero idea that my husband is a pedophile. Remarkable.
I don't know why I get a weird sense of pride whenever I bring this up- not only is there no pride in being a pedophile, but I'd argue there is even less so in being the wife of one, especially given the lengths I've gone to to keep him out of trouble. Try it, think about the kind of woman who would go above and beyond to protect the husband who's cheating on her with young girls from having to deal with any consequences. Pathetic, right? But maybe it's because I feel like I've tamed a monster, in a way, although I would be lying if I acted like I had no part in creating that monster in the first place. If anything, it seems that girl who gave him a reality check managed to make even more progress than I did- the heartbreak made him leave high school and its barely pubescent targets for good.
He'd been wanting to leave for a while, anyway. Time hasn't been very kind to him and his ego, and the disconnect he'd been feeling from his teenage students seemed to only get bigger as his self-consciousness grew. "It's all about confidence!" he always preached. Well, he was right. Now that he's in this new environment, with students who are slightly more grown but no less impressionable, he's flourishing again. He loves teaching for the sake of it, of course, but he also clearly revels in the attention. My husband loves a highly localized spotlight- wider recognition is just fine, sure, but I've noticed it's the individual stories that really make him happy. It's being able to look at a specific successful student and go "I did that." In that sense, I think he's geared for success here. I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid once he starts missing the touch of teenage girls.
"Why, hello, Miss Wu, I don't think you enrolled in my course!" he says when he notices me from across the room. Most of the students have already packed up and left to get to their next lectures. I walk down the stairs of the auditorium to meet him at his desk. I notice the sparkles in his eyes when he looks at me are slightly more intense than when he gleefully gives his lectures to receptive students- he must be delighted to see me.
"No one's called me Wu in decades, you do realize that?" I say as I brush his hair with my fingers- it's a little messy from the frantic pacing and gesturing he did during his lecture, and he's only gotten more theatrical with time.
"What brings you here?" he asks softly as he leans into my touch.
"I wanted to see how you were doing here, to make sure no longer being able to ogle teenage girls didn't irreparably harm your spirit." I think but don't say. Instead, I simply whisper "I missed you", and Cy melts on the spot.
"Oooh, Lyyyn, babyyy…" he coos as he literally sweeps me off my feet to kiss me. He's so dramatic. "I missed you too."
"Not too much, I hope?"
"I never realized how much time we spent together at work until now. Honestly, I wouldn't mind more impromptu visits like this one in the future." he indicates. I smile.
When he quit his job at Trinity, I almost considered doing the same and retiring early, since we have plenty of savings to cover for only having one source of income. But then I realized that as much as I enjoy having free time, I also need work. In a way, it’s having a schedule I like. Cy would say I ‘need discipline’, which I guess isn’t exactly a wrong assertion either, but more than anything else, I need to keep the little girl inside me content. I need my inner 13 year old to know I’m not a full-blown housewife. I’m sure she’s already very happy I never became a mother, but I think she would be a little offended if I let Cy do all the work while I spend the entire day at home doing nothing productive. So, after discussing it with him for a bit, we decided I would work part time at a new high school that’s only a short commute away from his University. I’m happy because, so far, the kids seem less rowdy there than at Trinity, and also my schedule allows me to visit Cy like this when I’m in the mood.
I will admit, I don’t think I miss seeing him at work as much as I expected. I guess having to be on high alert all the time, being wary of running into his little girlfriends and having to deal with all that stress outweighed what I gained from having him around to comfort me whenever I was feeling down. All things considered, I think he might be the more codependent of us two now, which is oddly endearing. When Cy started getting soft with me, at first I feared I might lose respect for him because being a ruthless dominant man played so much into our dynamic, but the opposite has happened. Seeing him get so clingy and schmaltzy in spite of his violent nature, it’s made me appreciate him more as a man and as a husband. What can I say, I like feeling needed. I like feeling loved.
He mentions it more often too, nowadays. How he’s in love with me. I feel a bit silly getting so worked up over it, he is my husband after all, but since he pretty firmly maintained that he didn’t love me and never would for over 15 years of our relationship, I think I’m allowed to be excited about this. I’m allowed to feel good that the man who asked me to be his wife when we were “just” best friends turned out to be genuinely romantic after all. And all things considered, it wasn’t that bad a basis for a relationship anyway. I know many people would disapprove of my choice to marry a man who said he didn’t love me that way, but is there anything stronger than a marriage built on friendship first and romance second? Or, well… third, actually. I think kink comes second. Even if I wasn’t in love with my partner, I think being friends is the bare minimum. There’s a deeper kind of love involved in that, a type of respect that men don’t give out to women willy-nilly.
“You wouldn’t believe how many dual Majors there are in this course. It’s like a dream come true.” Cy excitedly informs me as I walk by his side in the faculty halls. “Mostly Math-Physics, and a lot of them plan on going into engineering later on.”
I notice he's walking slightly bouncily, as if he were listening to music right now. But no, it's just the happiness in him making it almost look like he's dancing.
"Oh, and the black boards here are so big, and just the right texture too! You know there were too many white boards for my taste at Trinity, I really didn't like how fast they felt. Wayyy too glidey. And their black boards weren't that great either, the ones we have here have the perfect amount of resistance for my favorite brand of chalk." he keeps rambling, apparently capable of finding satisfaction in what seem to me like the smallest things.
“Right at home, hm?” I observe, and I realize how genuine my smile and happiness are because I feel my eyes get squished by the little pouches underneath.
Cy gave up on a lot just to be with me, that’s something I will never forget. His parents were really mad at him for it, at the way he threw away his career for the sake of some low-class girl without a penny to her name. And not only that, but I know how much he liked designing planes, how much he enjoyed defying gravity with the power of his brain. He gave up on all that just for me, and now, at last, he gets to indirectly go back to that passion combined with his love for teaching.
Like he can read my mind, Cy frantically nods at me as a foxy smile devours his face. He looks so much younger whenever he grins like this, but I’ll never tell him about it. I want those smiles to remain 100% genuine. I need to be able to take in his pure joy like this.
“Crushing on any students yet?” I ask casually, in a way that makes it sound like I’m only half-joking at most.
Cy raises his eyebrows.
“I’ll have you know I am wholly dedicated to my job and-” he starts saying then freezes in the middle of the hallway, looking pensive. “...No, actually, there might be a Physics Major who caught my eye.”
I burst out laughing. Cy chuckles in response, he seems to find it funny too, if a little embarrassing.
“I swear I’m not going out of my way to seduce anyone.” he assures me. I smirk.
“You better not be, you just got hired. If you were having any problems at Trinity, you’d have your seniority as a buffer, but here, you’re the newest guy, you can’t have any scandals when you’re just starting out.” I gently lecture him.
“I promise not to MeToo anyone.” he says solemnly, raising his right hand and placing his left over his heart.
I smile awkwardly. I live in fear of one of Cy’s former students suddenly waking up years after the fact, realizing they were groomed and deciding to go to the police about it, or worse, the press. I don’t want to have to deal with any of it. I wouldn’t like having to throw my husband under the bus just to be able to have a normal life. I also wouldn’t enjoy seeing his hard work diminished by allegations of misconduct. Those would be true, of course, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a shame for his legacy as an Ivy-League-star-maker to be outshined by his putrid love for young girls. I don’t care that much for appearances, but I would hate for people to think my husband isn’t actually talented, because he is. Just because his methods were amoral doesn’t mean they didn’t work.
As for what people would think of me… Honestly, I don’t know. I get a weird kick out of telling people at the BDSM club about the horrendous things Cy has done to me. I used to take their reactions quite hard, but nowadays I kind of revel in seeing their horrified faces.
“You let him do that to you?!?”
“You didn’t call the police??”
“Do you want to know where the nearest abused women’s shelter is?”
It not only amuses me to no end, but it also makes me a bit proud, and quite horny too. I feel extremely lucky to still be desiring my husband so carnally after all these years.
“Yeah, I let him do all those things to me. Yeah, I let him get away with it. Yeah, I’m never leaving him.”
So I don’t think I’d be all that worried for myself if Cy was outed. What can I say, I love standing up for what’s wrong.
“I like your hair.” I suddenly blurt out, out of nowhere. Cy seems taken aback, but very pleased too.
“Really?” he asks.
“Yeah, you’ve grown into it, I think. It suits you. You look like a proper silver fox, now, all wise and handsome. I like it.” I say, and I really do mean it, but I also think he needs the confidence, which is why I’m bringing it up. I know he hates his white hair more than anything because of how brutally it ages him.
He timidly smiles as he awkwardly runs his fingers through his hair- he got it cut recently, it seems he’s still getting used to it being so short now.
“Thanks. I was afraid to change it, but I am feeling rather good about it, right now.” he mutters.
“You’re on your way to steal hearts, I can tell.” I tease him.
“Only yours.” he replies.
I snort. I’m giving it one month tops until he starts sleeping around again- used to it as I am, I can't even bring myself to call it cheating anymore. I guess I don't mind it so much when I know there's no risk of police ever getting involved. That being said, I don’t think he’s lying. As much of a womanizer as he is, I believe him whenever he says he only has eyes for me. He’ll never love anyone like he loves me, that’s a guarantee. It probably helps that he knows I’ll never love anyone else either. Truly, we are a match made in Heaven.
I laugh again when I think of that. Made in Heaven. Neither of us will be going there.
Oh, well. I look forward to rotting in Hell with him anyway.