A different angle

Selena Kitt

It was a 1978 Nova, technically a classic according to Paj. It was all hers, a summer waitressing job at Denny's later-only she couldn't bring it home. It sat in the school shop, dark green looking almost black in the garage. She liked to visit him. She called it "him." In fact, she named him Stu. She knew it was weird to name a car but it had just come to her. Paj said it happened that way sometimes with cars. He'd been working with them all his life, and some just had names that they liked to be called, he said. She often sat on Stu's hood and commiserated with Paj about parents and grades and SATs and what a bummer they all were. Bummer. That was Paj's word, but she liked it, she found it apropos, considering her situation. Apropos wasn't Paj's word, however, it was a vocabulary word in the SAT study book.

Ted was determined that she was going to U of M next fall-his alma mater. She didn't care. The University of Michigan was as good as any school, as long as she could work on cars somewhere. Of course, he wanted her to be pre-law or pre-med. She was going to be pre-whatever until she could figure out how to wrangle her way into the racing circuit and begin qualifying. As long as she was keeping up her grades, her stepfather didn't seem to care. It was the SATs that were killing her. Her verbal pretests were top notch, it was her math that was the problem. Geometry to be specific. Until she made a solid 500 on her math SAT, Stuie was stuck in Paj's garage. No score, no car. She found it rather unfair, and ironic, considering Ted the real estate attorney didn't know the difference between an isosceles triangle and a parallelogram, but she couldn't argue with him. At least, not while her mother was around.

"Paj, they're getting me a tutor," Cat lamented, sprawling her books on Stu's hood and using the bumper to hoist herself up into the midst of them. "I feel like such a failure, like I'm some Special Ed reject or something." She sighed.

"Well hey, maybe they'll letcha bring Stuie home so you can drive yourself to the tutor?" Paj hadn't looked out from under the Neon's hood. Rebecca Watson's car-she recognized the retro bumper sticker she thought should have gone out with the Reagan era: If You're Rich, I'm Single. Brilliant.

"Ha! I wish. This guy lives around the corner. They made sure I could walk and no one would have to be bothered to drive me, or that I would have to, god forbid, drive myself. Eighteen years old and I still ride the friggin' bus to school.

It's pathetic. Isn't that Becky's car again? What'd she do to it this time?" Cat swung her long legs down, and came over to inspect the engine, interested.

"Forgot to put oil in her… again."

"Cheerleaders suck." Cat snorted. Paj grinned and shrugged. Yeah, that's exactly why she's getting her car fixed for free, too. Cat rolled her eyes.

Paj glanced over at her, then raised his eyebrows. "Hey, you don't wear skirts. What is it, national suck up to your math teacher day?"

"Do you like it?" Cat did a little twirl, flaring the navy blue pleats a little, exposing one pale, thin thigh. "It's my English school girl outfit. Navy skirt, white button down, knee socks, Mary Jane's." He cocked his head, as if waiting for a punch line. "The new tutor is English. You know, from England. Thought it might help."

Paj chuckled, ducking his head back under the hood. "Girlie, he's not the one giving you the test. How's it gonna help you get a better score?"

"Well it can't hurt." Cat pouted. "It works for girls like Becky."

Paj cleared his throat, flipping the wing nut back on the oil pan. "Well sweetie, and I'm going to say this with all honesty and as much tact as this old man's got-Rebecca Watson has…a figure."

Cat crossed her arms over her admittedly small chest and frowned. "Gee thanks, Paj. You think just because a girl doesn't have big tits, she can't turn a guy on?"

Paj shrugged, his face turning slightly red as he cleared his throat. "Cat, we prolly shouldn't be talking about this. I know the bell rang already, but technically I'm still a teacher, and you…"

"I'm just some skinny girl who can't get a man's attention, yeah yeah." Cat hurriedly collected her books. "You know, being a teacher never stopped you from taking favors from Becky Watson."

"Hey, Missy, I never-" Paj started, turned redder.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say." She brushed past him toward the door.

"Cat!" he called after her, but his only answer was a bright rush of sunlight into the dim garage followed by a slamming door.

* * * *

"Are you Mr. Slater?" Cat peered curiously over her books at him. Taller than she'd expected. Older, too-she noted a few silver streaks in his dark hair as he leaned forward into the sunlight to open the screen door. It was his eyes that were interesting, though-dark blue and quietly watching.

"Miss Warren?" he inquired, and she couldn't help but smile to hear his accent. She found accents so interesting.

"You can call me Cat." She stepped into the foyer as he waved her in.

"Is that actually your name?" He looked a little surprised and slightly disappointed.

"Well, no… technically, no. It's Catherine. Although everyone calls me Cat, since I was little."

"Ah. Well, good to meet you, Catherine. Would you like some tea?" he offered. "You have to be cold in that." He nodded to her skirt and bare legs. She flushed, remembering her conversation with Paj. It was March, and she had run out of the garage without stopping at her locker for her jacket. Her books and crossed arms covered her chest, but she could feel how hard her nipples were from the cold.

"I am a little," she admitted. "I forgot it was going to be so cold today. I should have worn pants." He stopped, and she looked curiously at his bemused expression and raised eyebrows. "But I don't really drink tea. Do you have Coke?"

"Sorry, I don't have any soda." His eyes flitted briefly back to her skirt hemline, waving her further into the house. She thought proudly that her little English schoolgirl outfit must be the reason for the sudden interest in her skirt, and she was glad that she didn't know that it was actually her reference to not wearing "pants." In England, she later discovered, they called underwear "pants."

It was sparsely furnished, but nice anyway, somehow. Huge book shelves lined one wall, but there were no other real decoration. Sparse. That was another vocabulary word. "Besides, soda wouldn't keep a girl very warm when she's not wearing pants, would it?" He smiled then, and she found herself smiling back, warm already. "Come on, live a little! Experiment…try life on the edge."

"Ok." She realized he was teasing and unable to come up with some witty reply, but wanting to. He winked and went into the kitchen, and she followed.

"So, geometry… your father says you'd like a little help?" He ran water into a kettle and lit the gas burner.

"Pul-eeeze. Get real." Cat snorted, forgetting herself and plopping down into a kitchen chair. "Is that what he told you, Mr. Slater?"

"You can call me David." He glanced at her wide sprawl and crossed arms with something that bordered between interest and amusement. "So what are you telling me? You don't need any help?"

"Well no, not exactly. I mean, geometry is not my best subject, I admit. Ok, so it's my worst. It's just my SATs. He wants my SAT score to be up to a certain level." Cat eyed some sort of cinnamon bakery confection sitting on the kitchen table.

"Ah. So we're really here to help you improve your geometry skills, hm?" He had his own arms crossed now, leaning back against the counter.

"Hey, that looks really good, I'm starving." She pointed to the puffs of pastry, her finger touching the frosting. "Oops." She licked her finger, and she gave him an appreciative look. "Mmm, that's yummy."

"Would you like some?" he asked a little wryly.

"Sure!"

When he sat at the table with their tea, watching with a small smile as she licked her fingers, he remarked, "Well I hope your enthusiasm for geometry is as fervent as your enthusiasm for Danish pastries."

"Highly unlikely," Cat replied moodily, mouth full. "But I guess we have to get to it, huh?"

"Well, I do have another student at five." He glanced at his watch. "Let's see how much we can do over frosting, hm?"

Cat reluctantly finished the last of her sweetness, downed the rest of her cup of tea, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She glanced over at him looking at her, his mouth fixed in a funny little smile, and was struck again by his eyes, how they seemed to miss nothing. She felt suddenly self conscious and tucked her short brown curls nervously behind her ears and cleared her throat.

"Geometry?" she asked.

"Yes," he affirmed. "Let's see your book, and we'll start there."

And so that's how the torture began every day, with a little sweetness, washed down with a warm dose of tea, following by an excruciating hour of math-induced hell. Cat threw books across the room, tore papers in half, swore-

although she always apologized to him, somehow it didn't feel right to swear in front of someone who was British-and slammed her fists on his kitchen table.

She knew he was being patient with her-really his patience was beyond human comprehension-but his sighs, his attempts to show her yet again, a different way this time, something new, somehow it just never sank in. She was a senior in high school, and yet she couldn't seem to grasp middle school geometry concepts.

She didn't know how many hours she spent in his kitchen trying to use some guy named Pythagoras' theorem to figure out some strange angle. Long enough for Paj to start asking where she went every day, since she wasn't hanging out in the garage now. Long enough to know that, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he had a boy named Stephen who came to learn algebra, and on Wednesdays it was a girl named Christine who needed help with Trig-who Cat thought looked like one of those kewpie dolls you win at a county fair. On Mondays and Fridays, thought, David was all hers.

On those days, after the books were thankfully closed, she would linger as long as she could, eyeing his shelves, picking up his trinkets. He seemed to be collecting more of them, odd things, small statues, strange metal objects, and she liked exploring his house, her fingertips brushing the perimeters, as if testing the boundaries every time she came. And he always watched her. He would sit quietly in the large black easy chair, or on the soft leather sofa, and just watch her wander around the room. He looked casual, his arm across the chair or sofa back, his leg crossed the way guys do, his ankle resting on a knee, but his eyes were like beams that followed her wherever she went.

And they would talk. In fact, she tried to keep talking, or keep him talking, just so the time would pass, hoping he wouldn't notice her lingering. She told him about her mother and stepfather and the pressure of getting ready for college.

She told him about Stuie, and Paj, and even hesitantly revealed her dream of becoming a race car driver. She had expected him to laugh, like everyone else did, but he hadn't. He'd just nodded appreciatively and probed a little more. She loved him for that.

And then she hated him. That was a Friday, and she stayed quite late, until it was actually growing dark. The doorbell rang and their eyes met quickly, furtively, as if they had been caught doing something secret. David made some comment, she couldn't hear what, but it was a woman-a very tall, very blonde, very beautiful woman-at the door. He had apparently forgotten he had a date-

Cat took some pride in that, she wanted to believe she'd distracted him- but she found herself rushed out the door with a brief "see you next week" and a wave.

She stood at the end of his street in the orange fluorescent haloed glow of a streetlamp and watched them get into her car filled with a feeling she didn't quite recognize, something that burned her eyes and her throat. She watched the blonde laugh, lean over and touch his thigh. When she put her hand on the back of his neck and fingered the hair there, a familiar gesture, Cat seethed, surprising herself with the heat of her outrage.

And so she didn't go to his house on Monday. She told her stepfather that David couldn't meet her, but she hadn't counted on him calling to ask where she was. On Tuesday, because Ted insisted, she met David at the door, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. She refused tea and some new delectable treat-she later found out they were called scones-and just opened her book and pointed to the problems they were on. Pythagorean again. She hated that guy. Almost as much as she hated David as he sat with her and attempted, once again, to explain the reasoning behind the mathematical mysteries of the universe.

"Cat, you can tell me off the top of your head just exactly what Pythagorean's Theorem is, word for word, can't you?" David looked at her curiously. She managed to reach the tip of one of her dark brown curls to her mouth and sucked on it, concentrating hard on not looking at him. She just shrugged. "Well, tell me then."

"The sides of a right triangle are related by the equation a squared plus b squared equals c squared, where a and b represent the lengths of the legs and c is the length of the hypotenuse," she muttered, turning her right shoulder toward the opposite wall, away from him.

"Right." David shook his head, thoughtful. "I don't understand… you're so smart…

"Well obviously I'm an idiot when it comes to geometry, ok?" Cat stood up fast, the chair clattering over behind her. "Just put a dunce cap on me and put me in a corner, all right? There is no point to any of this! I'm done with geometry!

I'm done with Pythagorean's Theorem…and I am most especially done with you, David Slater!"

She kicked the chair as she passed it, heading for the front door-no books, no coat- tears making the world fill with sudden prisms. David caught her arm, and she tried to jerk away, but he was too strong. She stood there, head down, tears falling onto the hardwood floor between them. David saw them, and tilted her chin up. When she met his eyes, his quiet, watchful eyes, she simply burst into tears.

"Catherine, Catherine…" He folded her into his arms and held her, rocking with her. "Beautiful Catherine…you are so bright, please don't ever believe I don't think the world of you." He murmured into her hair, words and more words-

brilliant, lovely, smart, delightful, wise and wonderful. She found herself holding onto him, wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against the buttons of his shirt. The more he whispered, the harder she cried. He finally eased them both down to the floor of the foyer, leaning against the door while she attempted to curl her long limbs into a small enough shape so she could fit into his lap.

She found her forehead pressed against the side of his neck, her fingers hesitantly rubbing at his collar, grazing the skin at the hollow of his throat. His rocking slowly subsided with her tears. She sniffed as quietly as she could. She was afraid to move. She thought if she could match her breath, even her heartbeat with his, he might forget she wasn't a part of him, that they shouldn't be tangled here in a heap on the floor together, that this was the way it should be.

And then his hand crept to her hair. At first she thought he was just brushing the unruly mess out of his face to keep it from tickling him, but slowly, as the sensation of being petted tingled from her scalp down her spine, she realized he was doing it intentionally.

She very bravely lifted her head to meet his eyes. She didn't want it to stop- didn't want to break whatever spell they were under-but she needed to see him. It was all there, in the way his lips were slightly parted, they way his eyes moved over her face. She held her breath and leaned into him and did it quickly, without thinking, just letting her body lead her. His mouth was soft and he tasted like oranges and cloves. The feel of his tongue, the jolting realization- he's kissing me back! — made her squirm in his lap for more. His mouth slanted across hers as he pulled her head closer, his hand now a fist in her hair, He made a soft, hungry sound in his throat when she rolled her lanky frame to stretch out between his legs and press fully against him.

The angles were all wrong, with David leaning against the door and Cat trying to arch her back to keep her mouth on his and still have every single part of her body touching him all at once. Cat sucked greedily at his lips and tongue, oblivious to the discomfort, but David found a solution. He grasped one of her thighs with his hand, hooking her knee, and pulled it toward him. It forced her to pull her other leg up, too, and she found herself straddling him, discovering the frustrating friction of denim against denim as his hands pulled her tucked-in t-shirt out at the waist and slid up the length of her back.

She delighted in running her hands through his hair and especially thrilled at touching that spot at the nape of his neck where she'd seen that woman touch him the other night, feeling as if she were defiantly telling someone a deeply kept secret. She was all arms and legs, trying to encircle him completely now at odd angles. David hoisted her a little higher on his waist, using his legs as leverage against the door to lift them both to standing. Her eyes opened in surprise and she looked at him in wonder as he smiled and carried her wrapped around him across the room. Her mouth sought his again, aching for more of the sensation, and he obliged, kissing her deeply into a reclining position onto the sofa.

She sank, the weight of him making it harder than it was already to catch her breath. His mouth slid hotly across her neck, his hands working her t-shirt slowly up as she arched against him. She pushed at him a little, gasping for breath, and tugged his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, working at the buttons with one hand. He kneeled up to give her easier access, watching her flush more deeply as she fumbled with each upwardly successive button. As he watched her, his eyes darker and even more serious now, she realized he was letting her do this- this was David's very clear "yes." This was not a drifting, or an accidental staying-too-long, an errant kiss or glance or touch. He meant this.

He wanted this.

That realization made her hands shake as she exposed his belly, his chest, her hands as awed as she was when they met smooth skin. His eyes closed at her touch and he drew in a deep breath. Her hands explored him eagerly, with unskilled wonder, fascinated by the smooth planes of muscle, hard in all the places she was soft. Her breath caught as her finger found his navel and followed the length of dark hair that disappeared below his belt. She lifted her eyes to his and found him watching her intently again. She bit her lip and smiled a little mischievously, her attention drawn to the silver buckle that had found its way into her hand. She tugged at it, shivering at the sound of the snap and zip that followed. Boxers. She smiled, pleased.

"Catherine, wait." He caught her hand, moving to stretch out beside her, propped on his elbow. She shook her head and he smiled. "I know, but listen…"

He traced slow circles on her bared belly with his index finger. "If we don't stop now, we may not be able to stop…"

"But David…don't you…you don't want me?" Her voice was very small.

He groaned, dropping his forehead to touch hers. "You have no idea how much, girl, and how long… no idea!" He closed his eyed and drew a deep, shaky breath. "Bloody hell! Do you know the amount of self-restraint I have to maintain around you? Your flashing eyes, your bouncing little curls, the curve of your neck, your cheeky smile, the way you pout and fight and spit…my god, you are just like a little cat sometimes, all sleek and purring."

She was blushing now, still shaking her head. "I don't understand. So you do want me?"

"Want you?" He groaned again, pressing his hips against her thigh, and she could feel him through his jeans, a clear pronouncement. "Do you feel that?

That's all you, Catherine. Since the very first day you walked into my flat…

bending over to get another biscuit with your knickers showing under your skirt…

She blushed more, her face on fire. "But listen to me," he continued. "I'm your tutor, and as such, I'm in a position of a bit of responsibility here. One of us has to keep our wits about us… while we still can."

"So you don't want to… do anything?" The look of disappointment on her face must have been clear.

"Don't be daft, girl," he teased, kissing her again, softly now, a sweet apology. "Of course I want to. But I want you to be clear, and I want to be clear, before we get carried away. I don't know that you are used to having a man, and I am most definitely not some high school boy who will simply fumble with your bra strap and settle for sloppy wet kisses." His hand rested fully open and warm at her navel. The heat was incredible.

"I'm not wearing a bra," she whispered, smiling a little lopsided smile. He laughed and the sound rumbled through her like the beginning of a storm.

"Minx…" He kissed her forehead. "You know what I meant."

"Ok, I guess you should know… that I'm a virgin," she admitted quietly after a moment. "And I… oh, I don't know, part of me wants to wait until I find the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And… well, you know, guys don't much like the flat-chested types who hang out in the shop at school… so…"

She left it there with a shrug, avoiding his eyes again.

"So are you telling me you haven't because you haven't had the opportunity, or because you are afraid?" His fingers brushed the fine hairs on her belly. It made her wiggle, as if she were a cat being petted the wrong way.