Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

The night was muggy. A heaviness hung in the air that wasn't typical to Fort Worth, but the humidity must have followed me here.

It was Saturday night, the city was abuzz. And as I walked down the sidewalk I observed the passerby's. Memories of my college years washed over me… seeing plays at the Bass, private shows at McDavid studio, eating lobster at The Chop House, staying at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel, outings with my sorority sisters, pizza and drinks at Uno's, parties at the Flying Saucer. 

But I wasn't in town to stroll down memory lane. I was here to get away. 

So far my efforts were failing. It may have been a five hour drive to get here, but every stress, every worry, every fear, had followed me here. I came for a distraction, but had yet to find it. Which is exactly why I was making my way towards a nondescript bar with a rich lounge feel. 

A sweet melodic sound emanated from the live band and floated through the relaxed atmosphere. The lights were a soft glow of yellow that draped the well-dressed patrons. This wasn't a snooty bar by any means, but it had a more sophisticated feel. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if I was dressed appropriately. 

My feather-soft black dress clung to the curves of my body, and it was too tempting to pass up the opportunity to offset the dark fabric with bright gold earrings. I wasn't trying to impress anyone, or pick anyone up…I just relished the chance to get all dressed up, to pamper myself, to become someone else.

As I strode up to the bar, I made a conscious effort to untwist my thoughts - to relax. I deserved the opportunity to enjoy myself, to step out of my role as a teacher and into the real world. It was a relief to know that here, in this town, I wouldn't run into any of my students. Still, the possibility remained that I could bump into college friends. It wouldn't be the worst thing, but I was savoring my anonymity.

I guess the dress was working. I garnered more than a few glances from men…and a woman or two. The bartender gave me a beaming smile as I lent against the bar and eyed the selection behind him. "What can I get you sweetheart?" he asked.

"It's Rector," I corrected him, "and I'll have a bourbon and coke." 

He chuckled as he turned to prepare the drink. There was no word on earth I couldn't stand quite like "sweetheart." I might have been a bit harsh, but the term of endearment pissed me off. 

He set the drink down in front of me, I opened a tab, and took the drink. 

Shaking my head of the nasty taste "sweetheart" left on my tongue, I turned around to face the lounge. My elbows rested on the cool surface of the bar and my eyes scanned the scene before me. 

It was so easy to fall back into this city. It was as if a hundred years had passed since I graduated, and yet it also felt like yesterday. 

I have a tendency to become to introspective, and while I stood, replaying my own life in my head, I felt a pull. The weight of a gaze pulled at me from my left, so I turned my head to the side and met with very familiar eyes. 

My professor. 

Well, former professor.

He sat, looking at me with such an intensity that I began to walk towards him. I was drawn to him. 

It surprised me that he didn't avert my gaze or ignore me altogether. When I left the university, we weren't exactly on the best of terms. 

"Liz," he said with a tinge of surprise in his voice. 

"Scott," I said squarely. 

"What are you doing here?" 

A smile danced on my lips. I very much relished the expression of confusion on his face. 

"I'm enjoying a Saturday night, just like you," I said, taking a sip of the bourbon in my hand. 

"Why are you in Fort Worth?"

"I missed it," I stated honestly. "I needed an escape."

The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly. I could tell that he wanted to ask how I was, but he suppressed the question before it made it to his mouth. 

He lent against the bar with his right arm, and I with my left. The blue shirt he wore made his eyes glimmer. Soft stubble dusted his jawline and chin, and he looked so good that I thought it should be criminal. Unsuccessfully, I tried to keep these sorts of thoughts at bay - just like when I was his student. 

The silence between us was becoming too deafening, so I broke it.

"How have you been?" I asked, my eyes roaming over his face.

"Good."

"For a man with such a way with words, you sure don't seem to have any," I replied with a smile. In my glances I noticed that he no longer wore a wedding ring. He must have caught my gaze because he ran a nervous thumb across the glass of his whisky.

"Divorced?" I asked tentatively.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry." 

A sea of unspoken words rushed between us. This time it was his turn to carry the conversation. 

"How about you? Do you have anyone special?" he asked, mentally chiding himself the second the words slipped past his lips. He was trying not to take any sort of interest in me, but failed. To anyone else, our small talk would appear to be just that, but it was so much more. It was a balancing act. 

I took a breath, cleared my throat and shook my head. "Nope…still haven't found Mr. Right," I said, taking another drink. 

"Hard to believe," he said looking at my dress, taking a sip from his own glass. Maybe it was the whisky, or the clothes, but he had just lowered a wall that couldn't be put back up.

A smile stretched across my face and it seemed to relax him further. 

"What is your type anyway?" he ventured, staring down at his drink with a furrowed brow. 

I puffed a breathless chuckle. "Oh the irony," I whispered. 

"What irony?" his eyes shot back up to meet mine.

But I moved on. 

"Hmm…my type…he'd be intelligent, empathetic, introspective, appreciative of the arts I suppose."

"Sounds like your saying that I'm your type," he cut me off.

Mischief darted across my features. "Hence the irony," I said, nearly into my glass. "Although, you are a huge asshole…and that doesn't really fall in line with my ideal 'type.'"

"I'm an asshole?" he scoffed playfully, knowing full well that he was. "Well, I'm not the one who went on a rant on my blog about a certain professor being an uncaring dick."

Jest still lingered in his voice, but my expression fell into something more serious. We had been friends on social media, and then one day he just let me go and never said why. Thus, the blog post. 

A lump gathered in my throat and the pain on my face must have been obvious. 

"Yeah…sorry about that," I said, my eyes staring at his chest, but really focused on some distant point that didn't exist. I shifted the glass in my hand and looked down at it. I don't know if I was speaking to him or myself at that point but I said, "yeah…it's been my experience that people either leave me or betray me." 

"And I left you," he said, his words mirroring my hurt.

My big brown eyes looked up at him and surely revealed all of my insecurities, all of my abandonment issues. I was being vulnerable, and I hated it. 

"Anyway…I'm sorry," I said, still hanging on to a tinge of disappointment and the root question of why he had dropped me to begin with. 

"Excuse me Rector," the bartender said, sliding up to the counter, between me and Scott. "But the gentleman in the red tie sends his regards," he said, plopping down a fresh bourbon. 

"What perfect timing," I said, setting down my empty glass and picking up the fresh one. I turned and looked at the handsome man in the red tie. He smiled back at me, raising his glass in a mock salute. The man was handsome, with slick blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Suddenly, I was pissed off that I still found myself so attracted to my former professor. Suddenly, I wished that he hadn't been in this bar on this night. 

Not trying to be rude, I turned back to Scott, a smile still reaching across my face. But the smile lessened when I observed Scott's features. At some point he had managed to move closer to me. His jaw was set in stone and his eyes were piercing, accusatory almost. 

I huffed at this unexpected turn of events. And in realizing that he was jealous, I suddenly felt powerful, which of course went straight to my head - and some other places. 

"Relax prof," I said, putting a hand on his bicep. The flesh beneath the fabric of his blue shirt was hot, and his skin tensed under my touch. So I drew my hand away. I didn't know that he would immediately miss the contact.

"You know, I'm surprised we're even having this conversation right now," I said truthfully, trying to return the conversation to us.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Because…I know that I'm not exactly your favorite person."

"Well, you were pretty insufferable the entire last semester you were here," he said with venom. 

"I couldn't help it," I nearly whispered, my eyes dropping to his lips like they unintentionally had so many times during this conversation. 

"And why was that?" he queried. 

"Oh come on Scott…use that big brain of yours to figure it out. I was frustrated." 

His attention had once again settled solely on me. I could almost hear the gears turning.

"What do you mean," he said, drawing impossibly closer to me.

"You can't figure it out?" 

"I want to hear it from you."

A flush was creeping up my neck and had settled into my cheeks and ears. I wanted to blame the alcohol, but I couldn't. Suddenly, I was hyper aware of his proximity to me, the way his shirt shifted with his movements, the way his cologne clung to the air around us, the intensity with which he looked at me was too much. 

"I liked you," I ventured. "I wanted you, and I couldn't have you."

"You're using past tense," he said, the breath from his words skating over my lips. 

"Well, you disappeared from me…not only could I not have you as I wanted, I couldn't even have you as my friend. It was like I was less than nothing to you. It stung, and the hurt was only compounded by a similar situation I had experienced in the past. I have enough hurt in my life, I can't take any more." My eyes burned as tears threatened to gather there. 

His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, but no words emerged. I knew that he never meant to hurt me and that he was searching for the words to express that. All the while, I watched him struggle to gain his footing, to move the conversation in whatever direction fate had intended. But he must have gotten side tracked, watching my face watch his. 

"You know…you stare at my lips an awful lot."

His off-topic comment caught me by surprise, brought me back to reality, and I immediately focused on his eyes instead. 

"Why is that?" he asked with genuine curiosity. 

"I like them," I said matter-of-factly. "I like how they form the shapes of words, how the corners twist shut when you're trying to censure yourself, how they stretch into a smile when I say something you appreciate. And it makes me wonder…"

"Wonder what?"

"What else they are skilled at."

He took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to pull me close, to rest his hands on my hips. 

"Ever the poet," he said with quiet admiration.

"Thanks to you," I replied, putting a hand on his chest. 

I could feel his heart pounding beneath my fingers and a familiar heat spread through my body. I wanted to be closer, I needed to be closer. The bar melted away, the music was noise, and all I could focus on was my own desire. The sensation only intensified when he put his hands on my waist and brought his forehead to touch mine. 

"This is insane," he said, so close to me that I could almost taste his words. Yet, not close enough.

"I don't suffer from insanity," I quoted, "I enjoy every minute of it." 

His grip on my body tightened as he mentally grappled with himself. "Let's continue this conversation at my house," he said finally. 

My heart skipped a few beats as I nodded 'yes.' 

A part of me was scared that I would lose him between here and his house. That we would get there and he would back out. I certainly knew that I wouldn't, but he might. And rejection was not the most pleasant feeling, and certainly not the reason for my having come to the city this weekend.

The older man had turned to the bartender and paid for both of us. He waited impatiently for the receipt and then signed it in haste. As he did so, I studied his profile. I reveled in the notion that I might get to see a side to him that few others have. I savored his intelligence, I craved our verbal sparring, our fight for dominance. 

"Ready?" he asked, taking my arm. 

"Yes," I lied.