Chapter 32: The Rumor Mill and a Surprise Visit
The numbers on the page blurred into grey smudges. Aidan’s pen slipped from his fingers, rolling across a half-graded calculus midterm. A deep, systemic ache pulsed in his groin and thighs—a lingering full-body echo of Prae’s rooftop audit two nights prior. He’d been moving like an old man since. The fluorescent light in his tiny office hummed a monotonous, headache-inducing tune. It was a sterile, depressing box: cracked linoleum, a wobbly Ikea desk, a whiteboard still smeared with last week’s Fourier series. The only signs of life were a struggling spider plant and the persistent, ghostly scent of jasmine oil that seemed to have permanently woven itself into his clothes.
A sharp, rhythmic knock cut through the hum. Not the tentative tap of a student. This was confident, playful.
“It’s open,” he called, voice gravelly with disuse. He didn’t bother getting up.
The door opened and Prae slid in, a vision of chaotic life against the dreary backdrop. She wore denim cut-offs and a tight black tank top, her jet-black hair piled in a messy bun. Two other women followed, closing the door quietly behind them. Aidan recognized Nok, who offered a shy, knowing smile. The third was new—older, perhaps mid-thirties, with a sharp, intelligent face and glasses. She wore a neat linen blouse and a skirt, looking profoundly out of place.
“Grading papers?” Prae asked, her eyes scanning the dismal room. “This is where the legendary farang hides? It’s sad.”
“It’s where he works,” Aidan said, leaning back in his chair, which emitted a dangerous creak. His body tensed with a familiar, wary anticipation. “To what do I owe the committee visit?”
“Field trip,” Prae announced. She perched on the edge of his desk, scattering a pile of essays. “Nok you know. This is Ploy. She teaches sociology in the next building. She didn’t believe our report.”
Ploy pushed her glasses up her nose, assessing Aidan with a frank, academic curiosity that mirrored his own when examining a complex proof. “The anecdotal data was statistically improbable,” Ploy said, her English precise. “The variance in self-reported male endowment is typically minor. Your case, as described, would be an extreme outlier.”
Aidan let out a short laugh. “Right. So this is peer review?”
“Verification,” Prae corrected, her tone light but her eyes dark with intent. She nodded to Nok, who moved to the door and turned the lock with a soft, definitive click. The sound was louder than a gunshot in the tiny room.
The hum of the light seemed to intensify. Ploy remained near the door, her arms crossed, an observer setting the parameters of her experiment. Nok drifted to the room’s single narrow window, peeking through the slats of the blind at the darkened campus below.
Prae slid off the desk and stood before him. Her hands went to the button of his shorts. “Don’t move,” she instructed, her voice dropping to that familiar, thrilling command. “Just… present the evidence.”
He was already half-hard, his body responding to the sheer audacity of the situation faster than his mind could protest. The fabric of his shorts and boxers was pushed down just enough. Prae’s warm, small hand closed around him, guiding him out into the cool, recycled air of the office.
A low, soft whistle came from the window. Nok. Ploy uncrossed her arms, taking a step closer. Her analytical gaze dropped, and her eyebrows lifted slightly behind her glasses. “I see,” she murmured. “The initial measurement appears consistent with the claims.”
Prae grinned, that deep, throaty laugh bubbling up. “Told you.” She looked back at Aidan. “Now, for the dynamic testing phase.”
She turned, bending over the cracked surface of his desk, sweeping a stack of ungraded papers to the floor with a rustling crash. She glanced back over her shoulder, her shorts already peeled down to reveal the perfect, round curves of her ass. “Ploy was skeptical about the anal compliance reports, too. The stories about Gam.”
“The tissue is less elastic,” Ploy commented clinically, though her breath had hitched just slightly. “Excessive girth often presents a hard boundary.”
“Let’s check the boundary,” Prae said.
She was already wet; he could see the glistening proof. But she reached for his desk drawer, rummaging past paperclips and dry-erase markers until she found a half-used tube of personal lubricant he didn’t remember buying. She squeezed a generous amount into her palm, slicking him with a few efficient strokes that made his hips jerk. The cold gel quickly warmed.
This was different from the languid, oil-slicked marathon on the rooftop. This was urgent, clandestine. The sterile office air warred with the scent of sex and artificial coconut. The wobbly desk protested as Prae braced her hands.
He guided himself to her entrance, the tight, furled ring of muscle yielding slowly, then all at once, to the relentless, slick pressure. She took him in one slow, deep push, her breath escaping in a shuddering hiss that fogged the cheap wood of the desk. “Dao,” she whispered, a reverent curse.
Aidan’s hands found her hips, his fingers digging into the soft skin. He was buried to the hilt in that incredible, clenching heat. The visual was obscene: his academic prison, the scattered student papers on the floor, the equations on the board, and Prae’s exquisite ass pressed back against him.
He began to move, a slow, testing rhythm. The desk squeaked in syncopation. Prae’s murmurs turned to gasps.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Ploy finally break her observer stance. She leaned back against the locked door, one hand slipping under her linen skirt. Her eyes remained fixed on the point where their bodies joined. Nok, by the window, had unbuttoned her jeans, her own hand moving in a gentle, lazy circles under her shirt, her mouth slightly open.
“See,” Prae managed, her voice strained as he drove deeper. “The boundary… is negotiable.”
“The data is compelling,” Ploy breathed, her own movements becoming less discreet. Her head fell back against the door with a soft thud.
Aidan lost himself in the sensation, in the brazenness of it. The risk of being caught, the sound of someone walking down the corridor outside causing them all to freeze for a heart-stopping second before the footsteps faded. It heightened everything. His pace became harder, more possessive. Each thrust slammed the desk against the wall with a dull, rhythmic thump that sounded catastrophically loud.
Prae’s climax was a silent, shivering event, her entire body locking, her internal muscles fluttering around him in a violent, milking pulse. It tipped him over the edge. He held himself deep, grinding as he emptied himself into her with a guttural groan he muffled by biting his own lip.
For a moment, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the relentless fluorescent hum. Prae slowly pushed herself up, wincing slightly. She turned, a look of profound satisfaction on her face. She didn’t pull her shorts up.
She looked at Ploy, who was adjusting her skirt, a faint blush on her cheeks. “Satisfied with the methodology?”
Ploy cleared her throat, pushing her glasses up again. Her composure was mostly restored. “The experiment was… well-designed. The results are conclusive.” She looked at Aidan, a new, non-academic curiosity now blazing in her eyes. “I have a friend in the history department. A married friend. She is very… stressed.”
Nok, still touching herself gently by the window, giggled. “The committee is expanding.”
Aidan pulled his clothes back into order, his body humming with spent energy and surreal disbelief. He looked at the papers on the floor, at the faint smudge on the edge of his desk. The room no longer felt sterile. It felt charged, contaminated with secret life.
Prae finally pulled her shorts up, leaning in to kiss him quickly on the mouth. “We’ll let you get back to work, Professor,” she said, her eyes dancing. She unlocked the door.
The three women slipped out as quietly as they’d entered. The corridor was empty.
Aidan stood in the center of the room, the scent of sex and Prae’s jasmine shampoo clinging to him. He looked at the fallen papers, at the equations on the board. The simple, elegant logic of mathematics now seemed like a childish fantasy. His real work, the chaotic, undeniable calculus of flesh and reputation, was just beginning. And his classroom, it seemed, was everywhere.