Chapter 7 #2
A woman rides a bike, a tiny dog in the basket, eyes slanted toward the bright sun. Two kids kick a partially-deflated ball, both in Messi jerseys. A floral delivery truck with peeling PRISON TRANSPORT lettering on the side comes to a sharp stop in front of a church.
But Noah kissed me, and no amount of distraction will work.
I run my hand up my chest, bare but slick with sweat, curving my palm around my neck, discovering the ends of my hair damp. I close the slider, and immediately, my glasses fog.
Noah kissed me.
In the kitchen, I check to see if my tea is cool enough to drink, and it isn’t and that’s the final straw in my choice to stay sane.
Crouching, I reach around my pots and pans to pull a bottle of whiskey from the back cupboard.
The lid skids across the floor as I hastily unscrew it and tip the bottle back, sucking down a few burning gulps.
I don’t have anywhere to be for hours and hours.
I slide my glasses back on, and take a deep breath.
I know what I have to do.
Turning off everything aglow in my living room since the distractions weren’t doing anything but running up my electricity bill, I slip into my bedroom and close the door.
The curtains are always drawn, because even on the third floor of my place, I enjoy my privacy.
My father has led his life in the public eye, what with being a speakeasy mogul.
I saw the toll it took. The expectations that came with it. And I’ve chosen privacy ever since.
And I’ve never been more glad to be alone as I position myself in the center of the bench at the foot of my bed.
Reaching into my pocket, I produce what Noah has said is the real review.
I didn’t check my email to read it, and my laptop is off and closed in my bag.
After that kiss, knowing my next class isn’t until evening, I booked it home to…
process. And by process, I definitely mean sweat and freak the fuck out.
Carefully, I unfold the two pieces of paper, worn from being in his pocket and then mine.
I stroke my thumb along the tattered edge, desire flaring in my groin when I think about where this paper has been, and where it is now.
Pressed up against Noah’s thigh with nothing more than a thin pocket liner keeping it from his flesh.
Warm, private, not only was this stashed on his person but he held this paper, smoothed his large hands over it as he wrote this.
My glasses grow foggy again. I take them off, and leave them off, bringing the paper only a bit closer to my face.
In my years of education, I have never encountered a professor who so completely embodies what higher education should be.
Professor Cade Mercer does not simply teach literary theory—he lives it, and he invites every student into that living conversation with a rare combination of intellectual fire and genuine care.
During the lecture I was fortunate enough to sit in on, it quickly became clear this was no ordinary class.
Professor Mercer remembers everything. He recalls a comment a student made three weeks earlier about narrative and folds it seamlessly into current discussion, making each student feel both seen and intellectually valued.
He's sharp, yet never makes it feel performative. It’s simply who he is: a mind that is always present, always listening.
His lectures are dedicated, concise and clear.
In fifty minutes he can move from one author to the next, to reader-response theory, all with perfect organization.
Yet he manages not to feel dry or scripted.
Every point is concise, every transition is logical, and every example is chosen with for a specific reason.
Students leave class with a clean set of notes that actually make sense when they review them at 2 a.m. before an exam—something I have rarely experienced in upper-division courses.
What sets Professor Mercer apart from the rest, though, is the way he teaches with his heart on full display.
Literature, for Professor Mercer, is not merely a job, it is a force that shapes how we understand power, identity, and justice.
Students who walked into the lecture lukewarm about theory left it with plans to reread their favorite novels from youth with entirely new eyes. Myself included.
Professor Mercer never talks down or dismisses an idea, yet he gently pushes you toward greater precision and depth.
In office hours he is the same: generous with his time, quick to praise a strong insight, and even quicker to offer the exact reading or counter-argument that will take his student's thinking to the next level.
In short, Cade Mercer is the kind of educator who makes you want to be better—not just as a student of literature, but as a thinker and a person. The English department would be wise to grant him early tenure.
I cannot recommend and praise him highly enough.
If you have the chance to take any course with Professor Cade Mercer, seize it.
You will leave a sharper, more compassionate, and more intellectually alive version of yourself.
He is, quite simply, one of the finest professors I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.
I don’t read it again. I can’t. My eyes are fuzzy, heat burning through my skull, making my throat tight. Heart racing, I very carefully fold the review and slip it back into my pocket, then get to my feet.
Unlooping my belt, I free it from my slacks and shove them down, taking care to pinch the cuff to pull them off.
Folding them, I lie them at the foot of the bed, and collect my glasses, putting them on the nightstand.
My shoulders rise as impatient, starved breaths huff out of me, struggling for composure.
My eyes roll closed as a soft groan lifts from my lips, my hand traversing my bare chest, gliding over my belly.
Most of the time, I ignore this side of myself, uncomfortably but successfully. When I feel a sneeze coming on but don’t want to make a sputtering, snotty fool of myself, I look up, and the desire to sneeze goes away.
This is like that.
I don’t need to be a sputtering, gasping, sticky mess, lying in a sea of my own tawdry fantasies and release. That’s for teenagers. For hungry college students. For those with a singular, all-consuming focus. That’s not me.
Right now, though.
Right now I’m too hard to fight it, and my mind is a mess. If someone peered inside, they’d see the aftermath of a tornado tearing through a formerly comfortable and sleepy little town. Now my mind is awake, my body is alert, and I have to chase this feeling or else… I don’t know.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I can’t do anything but run toward that kiss in my mind, sprint toward those words on that paper, chasing this ethereal feeling of being seen, of being free, of feeling.
After retrieving my favorite lounge pants from my drawer, I slip them on and climb into my bed. Closing my eyes, I drag the sheet up to my waist. Shoving a hand through my damp hair, I close my eyes.
I picture Noah wearing his baggy green pants and his cream colored sweater-shirt.
I don’t even know where this man gets his clothes, and had I passed a fuzzy short sleeve sweater-shirt in a department store, I’d have given it the stink eye.
But on Noah, it works. And it defines the shape of his chest and shoulders so well.
Slowly, I drag my palm along my chest and belly again, all of my nerve endings sparking, the wick of patience rapidly dwindling.
I smooth my hand down my waist, and slide it over my erection, guiding it slowly down the impossibly hard ridge.
My stomach tightens, the back of my eyes burning.
Peering down my chest at my hand, I lift it, eyeing a dark spot pooling in the blue cotton fabric of my pants.
Wet dreams are something that boys grow out of at a certain age, but they grow out of them because they learn about masturbation, and eventually, sex.
The body has no need for wet dreams after a certain point.
Sometimes a few strokes is all I need to alleviate this nagging need, but tonight, I need more.
Unless I want to be changing my pajamas and bedsheets at 1am, I need more.
Noah flashes through my mind. The way he commands a room with a smile.
That isn’t an easy feat when it comes to college students who have cell phones, laptops, energy drinks and about a million other ways to be distracted.
But that smile. A little lopsided but gorgeous, his grin has my eyes snapping closed again as I feed my palm down the length of my covered cock.
I toss the sheet off my legs and get out of bed long enough to grab a bath towel from the ensuite bathroom. Laying it out on my bed where I normally sleep, I turn the lights to dim, and get in, over the towel, propped up on my knees and elbows.
Sweat peppers my hairline and curves into my eyebrow.
My breaths are short and hot as I balance on one elbow, using my other hand to slide the waist of my pants down my thighs.
My cock and balls spring free, and just the jostling and position change has me gritting my teeth, pressing my face into my down pillow, groaning.
Noah kissed me today.
I thrust my hips, and my cock surges against the soft terry towel, engulfing me in the most delicate, perfect friction.
Keeping my face pressed to the soft cotton, I press my hips down into the mattress, the thick bulge of my cock trapped between my body and the soft, rumpled towel.
With my curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, and my door closed, my bedroom feels like a pressure cooker, thick with my own body heat.
Sweat beads along my spine as I shift my weight, letting my full length grind slowly forward.
The friction is immediate, electric, a rough drag of sensitive skin against the towel that makes me clench my abs and ass.