Thuan watched while Allison looked over her work on the board. She bit her lip slightly when she was thinking hard, common enough for her during his class. He liked that. In truth he liked looking at those full lips, her black hair, her serious brown eyes, her rounded breasts, the glimpse of a lacy green bra --
He forced his eyes back to her work, ashamed. It had been a long day for him to get distracted like that, stealing a peek down her blouse. She was a college student, half his age.
It was a half hour since the class ended, and the other student had left at least ten minutes ago. No matter. Thuan stilled his mind, tried to get inside her way of thinking. An unavoidably intimate interaction, he'd come to understand. But not one that should lead to thoughts about her body.
Her error was clear enough, of course, but the why: that was always the heart of it. She would remember this, if she could find the mistake herself.
Her expression changed slightly, and she reached for the line that needed fixing. Thuan's heart quickened.
"Wait," she said, brow still furrowed. "The integration bounds have an
x
in them. The variable. I can't take the derivative that way, can I?"
Inwardly Thuan cheered, though he only let an encouraging smile cross his face, gesturing her to go on. The flow of logic in her brain had been diverted, new channels forming at great speed, smoothing over the pattern of her flawed thinking. Within a few minutes she had sorted out the whole problem, with only a few leading questions from him. Her smile of accomplishment was the thing a teacher lived for.
On his way out to the parking lot, Thuan thought over the interaction. If only he had more time. Smaller classes. Less material to cover, but more depth. Allison was not a very fast student, but she was assiduous, and so were many of her classmates, no matter their shocking lack of preparation.
It was nearly eleven, but a few other vehicles were still scattered across the faculty lot. Thuan had almost forgotten where he parked that morning, but then he saw it, hidden behind that car with its hood up.
"Is everything all right?" he asked as he approached the woman. She seemed to be a little lost staring into the guts of the car. He kept some distance, mindful of the hour and the unconscious worries women were saddled with.
She turned and he realized he knew her. Julie, that was it. She taught in the English department, which after a spate of cost-cutting now shared its printer room with Math and a few others. They'd had a few brief interactions last semester as they picked up materials.
She smiled in recognition, and then pointed tiredly at the car, an old sedan in even worse shape than his.
"Won't start. Just what I needed tonight," she said.
"Julie, is it?" Thuan asked.
She nodded, and then frowned as she tried to remember his name. An asymmetry he was used to with Westerners. But that was unfair. She was beautiful and she'd caught his eye immediately. Normally he wasn't so great with names either.
"Thuan. Thuan Nguyen," he said. To his pleasure she repeated it nearly perfectly, and returned the small bow he'd given instinctively.
"Well, let's see if we can jump the battery," Thuan said. Julie's weary face lit up with hope as he indicated his car.
She didn't behave as though she realized how beautiful she was, he thought as he brought the car over. Shocking reddish-orange hair, coming undone from its loose braid. Pale white skin, green eyes. A stunning set of breasts for her small frame. Maybe not huge, but they were bigger than those of any women he'd known intimately. She never wore make-up, and even for a faculty member her attire was sedate, unflattering.
Jumping the car did no good, but all of a sudden he was desperate to impress Julie. Thuan knew little enough about cars, but he'd had to learn a few things caring for his own succession of clunkers.
Luckily he got it going after vigorously wiping the battery terminals with a rag. Julie was thrilled, and seemed about to hug him before something in his expression stopped her. She profusely thanked him, and her smile warmed Thuan as she drove off.
So stupid. He could have been warmed by the feel of her breasts against him, the soft pressure of her body, if only for an instant. But he'd flinched back, the same old cultural awkwardness that had dogged him through his life. She was too damned perceptive to miss that reticence, yet not perceptive enough to realize how much he'd still wanted it.
* * *
Julie Callaghan turned into her apartment parking lot and sat at the wheel for a minute. It was nearly midnight. Another day with no time for the book she was writing. And she was too tired to make a dent in the grading.
She got out to retrieve her rolling luggage, full of papers to grade and materials she had no place on campus to store. Of course she needed some of those things for her classes tomorrow at the other campus.
She'd been regretting dropping AAA coverage, and had expected to get home even later. Thank god Thuan had been there. He seemed genuinely nice. In fact, she realized with a pang, that was the kindest interaction she'd had with any faculty in the two semesters she'd been teaching. Not that most of them were rude exactly, but everyone was so busy. Maybe the senior faculty had a bit more time, but then there was that great status chasm that everyone pretended hard not to notice. For the older members of her department it mostly meant looking past an adjunct who probably would be gone soon enough.
