Chapter 8
Daphne
“I’ve decided I’m going to start answering the phone ‘Ahoy, ahoy.’ It’s what Alexander Graham Bell advocated for when he invented the telephone.”
“Bell wasn’t the only one to invent the telephone though,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror before stepping on the gas.
The G-forces pressed me deeper into the seat as he shifted into a higher gear, bypassing a semi. The sound of the acceleration was so delicious I wanted to drink it.
“No, but his name is on the patent. Every invention is built on the backs of someone else’s research and technological advances. Innovations don’t happen out of the blue. Unless you’re Isaac Newton.”
“You really like factoids, don’t you?”
“I have an insatiable intellectual curiosity. That’s what my teachers always told me.”
“I believe that’s called being a nerd. And you won’t hear me complaining.”
I grinned. I could tell it was goofier looking than I intended based on the small laugh that shook his shoulders when he glanced over at me.
We drove in silence for a few seconds.
I loved watching him drive.
He was not at all tentative.
Then again, he wasn’t tentative with sex, either.
He drove like he fucked. He knew exactly what his machine was capable of, knew where he wanted to go, his right hand competently gripping the gearshift while his left teased the wheel by millimeters. He was polite in traffic, waiting his turn, then took it ravenously when there was an opening. I was getting turned on already and we’d barely merged onto the highway.
I squeezed my legs together and squirmed in my seat. Chris’s mouth quirked a little as he looked down. My arousal had not gone unnoticed.
I talked about the invention of the telephone for seven miles. Well, not just the telephone, but outdoor electric light bulbs, the hot dog, the Ferris wheel, peanut butter, and several of my other favorite early twentieth century inventions before I realized I was reciting factoids again.
“You’re awful quiet,” I said.
“Huh? Uh, yeah.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m…” he paused, thinking about his next words, “happy. I’m not used to that.”
Tension had never built up and released so quickly in my guts.
“Me too. Fair warning though, if you don’t start talking, I’m probably going to monologue the whole way to Knoxville.”
His lips parted as if to say something before changing his mind. His eyes moved back and forth between my face and the road, as if he couldn’t decide what to say or think or do.
“Threatening me with listening to you talk for the next three hours while I get to drive this high-performance machine.” He shook his head. “I can only think of one better way to pass the time.”
He smiled that crooked smile again. The adorable one that warmed my heart. Only this time, it was softer, more to himself, as if he was lost in his thoughts.
My cheeks grew hot as blood rushed to my head. I squeezed my lips together so I wouldn’t blurt out the incomprehensible syllables that were flooding my brain. Being with Chris felt so much more , so much bigger than any other emotion. I was proud when I’d graduated summa cum laude from a tough program, at a tough school, while working full-time, but even then, I wasn’t bursting with feelings like I was with him now.
Maybe it was the car. How tiny it was. Maybe I had too much spirit for this car to contain.
Except I’d felt this way at his parents’ house, too. And Decca’s back yard. And in the woods, almost as soon as I’d met him. I didn’t exactly know what I was feeling for him. Because of him. Maybe it was that we were so sexually compatible. Maybe it was some cosmic connection, but I couldn’t contain the energy that was exploding out of me.
“Can you imagine what they thought?” I asked, trying desperately to stop myself from writing his initials inside hearts all over the notebooks of my mind.
“Who?”
“All the people at the 1904 World’s Fair, looking at a cityscape entirely illuminated by electric lights. During that era, you were lucky to have gas lines in your home so you could turn on and off the chandeliers with a key. Then suddenly, bam! A single switch is thrown and the whole exterior of a building is glowing!” I could see it in my head as clearly as if I was actually there, rather than imagining it from blurry black-and-white photographs in books.
“I think it would be scary to see something like that for the first time,” I continued. “Like the world was poised for change. Sometimes technology can be so big, it grows and grows and gets out of hand before humans stop to consider whether or not they should use it. Look what happened. Less than a decade after electric lights, there were armies lining up in the fields of Belgium, just like they would if they were going to be loading muskets, only the new weapons didn’t take three minutes to reload anymore, and instead those poor boys were mowed down by Howitzers.”
“That’s where your mind goes?”
“Sorry. I think it’s a default setting of being raised by a military history buff. War is pretty much the only thing I ever talked about with my dad.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, the ethics of technology is always a timely argument.”
“How so, now?”
“Everything. Look at artificial intelligence. We were all so keen to explore its development for jobs we considered unworthy of human skill. Now it’s creating art instead of cleaning up trash.”
“Don’t get me started on AI.”
“It’ll take over our jobs one of these days.” He shrugged.
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Where does your interest lie? In the tech, or turn of the century history?”
“You mean the turn of the nineteenth century?”
His jaw ticked as he gritted his teeth. “Yeah. That one.”
“I like all of it, I guess. History. Science. The history of science and the way society adapts as a result. The early twentieth century is a time when so much comes together cohesively. For the first time, we have a wealth of primary sources written by the losers as well as the winners, so we finally got a clearer picture of what life was really like for marginalized people.”
He nodded to show he was listening, but he didn’t seem to have anything to add.
Damn. He really was going to let me talk the whole way to Knoxville.
“Blame Daniel Day-Lewis for my latest special interest. I watched The Age of Innocence , and I fell in love with Newland Archer, but I needed to read the Edith Wharton book to get Daniel Day-Lewis’s voice out of my head, and that led me down a research rabbit trail about the Gilded Age, and now I’m slowly moving through the decades. In the last month, I think I’ve read about six pretty thick books, not counting Wharton. Now I’m in the 1900s. Once I start school, I won’t have much time to research new interests that crop up. I’ve been taking full advantage of not having a course load for the first time.”
Chris froze. He hadn’t been moving much to begin with, but now his stillness was shouting at me. Even his chest seemed to stop moving up and down. “When you start school... what do you mean start school? ”
“Grad school? Forensic Anthropology. The Body Farm. Remember me, out there in the field the other day, helping you and Decca? I mean, so much has happened between us now, I wouldn’t blame you if you forgot.”
“No, no. You’re Decca’s assistant. The people she hires have already completed their education.”
“I must be special then.”
Chris didn’t react. Not outwardly, anyway. His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror, his foot grew heavier, and the car accelerated to speeds closer to what it was built for. He passed cars on the left and the right as I listened to the purring engine do what it was built for.
The seat hugged my body close. I looked down to find the side panels automatically shifting to keep me from sliding around on the leather. I’d read about the dynamic seating, but now I was going to be obsessed with its engineering.
We passed a green exit sign. He moved the wheel to the right, pulling into the rest stop and jerking to a stop, perpendicularly across spaces meant for big rigs. Man, I wanted to drive one of those. Maybe I could take a class in my spare time. Get my CDL. Then I could drive the refrigerated body trucks if they ever needed—
“Tell me again. Everything.” He spoke in a measured voice to the windshield, his hands still gripping the wheel at ten and two. “I need to make sure this was just a momentary hallucination. You didn’t actually say what I think you said.” His hands choked the wheel as he twisted them, squeezing tighter.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to..." I pointed to the spaces reserved for cars.
“Daphne.” He warned me through gritted teeth.
What was his problem?
“I— I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I finished undergrad last May—Biological Anthropology—but it took a while. You know I had to work. And I had to take some time off to care for my dad... I mean, he’s capable, but you know I live with him, and sometimes he—”
“I don’t give a fuck about your dad.” His eyes were wide as he spat out the words. He swallowed and took a breath. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sure he’s a... I just need to know about school.”
“I’m starting my master’s in forensic Anthropology. At the University of Tennessee,” I explained slowly, enunciating perfectly. I twisted in my engineering marvel of a seat to face him. “What’s got you in a tizzy? Isn’t it obvious, especially after I was there helping you all day with the remains?”
“It wasn’t obvious you didn’t already complete your education,” he said quietly, breathing it out more than speaking.
“I’ve been told I’m precocious,” I explained. “I studied everything I could get my hands on, on top of my assigned projects. What’s the matter with you? Are you okay?” I reached for his hand, still gripping the wheel. My fingertips brushed across his knuckles. He watched for a moment, his face softening. Then something shifted, and he jerked it away.
His eyes shut tight.
“I teach there, Daphne. Didn’t you realize that when you read my publications? Didn’t Decca tell you? What lab did you think we were going to?”
“Yeah, of course I know that, but... Oh. Shit.”
His words slammed into me like a big rig. I stared at his profile. Neither of us moved.
I tried to breathe but my lungs wouldn’t inflate. My medulla wasn’t regulating like it should. This should be easy. I’d been breathing for years. I’d never had any trouble before. I tried to remember the mechanism. I visualized my alveoli filling with air, knew my ribs should be expanding to accommodate it, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen.
No. That wasn’t true. I’d walked Dad through enough panic attacks to know that wasn’t true. It was just my body creating helpful solutions to problems that didn’t really exist. I could hack this.
“We can’t be doing this, can we?”
He shook his head, slowly, his expression blank except for his eyes frantically darting over the car, as if it held the answer somewhere.
Something shook loose inside me, and I sucked in a gulp of air to calm myself.
“Okay, let’s look at this rationally. A: we didn’t know, so we can’t possibly be culpable.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m faculty. In your program.”
“What actually do you teach? You’re the teeth guy. I’m not studying dentistry or odontology. There’s our B.”
“Everyone studies teeth eventually. I come in for things. Comparative Osteology and Odontology. It’s a short practicum. Teaches you to discern the difference between human and other skeletal remains as they pertain to teeth and the jawbones. I don’t teach a full course in the FAC; I primarily teach at the dental school, but I am a lecturer and I have lab hours there if needed. I have an office there. I take on grad students. I could be your boss if you’re assigned a case under me.”
“That doesn’t seem that bad.”
“It might not seem that bad. I could very well avoid you for two years. I may never see your face, though it would be unlikely.”
“Then—”
“If I’m working on a case, you wouldn’t be allowed to participate. It could potentially cut down on your field hours.”
The weight was beginning to lessen. Really, this wasn’t that huge of an issue. “Oh. Then Decca could make up for them.”
“Yes. She could. But that’s not even the biggest problem. Oh, fuck.” He exhaled slowly.
“What is?”
“The real world is the real problem. I’m an expert witness. If anyone finds out, it could be used against me in court and could sway a trial.” He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Shit.”
“No one has to find out. I won’t tell anyone. Decca suspects, but I think she was not-so-secretly hoping this would happen. And she won’t tell.”
He closed his eyes as he dropped his head back against the headrest. He shook his head against the leather. “They’ll know.”
“Why? If you and I both keep this under our belts—”
“They’ll know because I’m going to disclose it. It’s better that way. I can preserve whatever dignity I have—”
“Sleeping with me is not an indignity to you.”
Finally, he turned to look at me. “Sleeping with a student is ethically reprehensible. That is the definition of undignified.”
“So now I’m just a student. Last night, it was goddess and sweetheart. My pussy was made to sheath your—”
“Enough. I know what I said.” His hand hovered over mine like he wanted to hold it, but now he couldn’t. Because of stupid rules. “You’re... all those things. Except that last one, because you can’t be... we can’t…”
I shrugged. “I’m glad you’re going to disclose it.”
He looked at me for a minute, his mouth in a grim line. “You are?”
“Yeah. If you disclose it, there’s no reason for us to stop. We couldn’t possibly get into deeper trouble than we’re in now.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Well, figure out how to make it work. I have to go to the bathroom.”