Paint Me, Professor | Student-Professor Erotic Novel | 18+ | ✔️

86 - Love

Alison
***

We spent the the rest of the day cooking. It gave us something to do, a task to keep ourselves busy. Cooking provides structure, a beginning, middle, and end, and that's exactly what we needed after Chris told me about his brother Oliver. We needed normalcy so we could give our emotions a rest.

First we made soup.  Chris' stomach was virtually empty, so he had to eat something light. It felt nice to chop and peel the vegetables in silence, concentrating solely on one task. We made a simple creamy carrot and potato soup. Chris didn't eat a lot, saying he was feeling nauseous. I suspected his lack of appetite was due to his sadness rather than his upset stomach, but I didn't push him.

We just kept cooking and cooking, even going as far as making dinner at five in the afternoon just so we had something to occupy our minds with. It was either this of face the silence, the thoughts, the memories, the reality of Chris' mental state.

I still had so many questions, yet I asked nothing. I didn't want to bring up unpleasant memories or even trigger a reaction in him. I decided I'd call Kent when I had some time alone so I could get a little more backstory, especially related to Chris' parents. I wanted to get to the bottom of why the hell someone would do that to their own child.

After dinner, we settled on the couch and watched the news. Chris asked me to reply to a few e-mails for him. His inbox was full with students asking if he would replace the lectures he missed, complaints about the surprise tests, and professors asking why he hadn't shown up at meetings. More importantly, he asked me to write an e-mail to the Dean stating he'd call him personally on Monday to explain what happened. He also wanted me to state in the email that he'd be off work for the next seven days and that he had a doctor's certificate to justify his absence.

Even these simple bureaucratic tasks took a toll on Chris. I didn't mind helping him at all. In fact, it made me feel extremely useful and like I was helping him in a meaningful way. It was so hard to know what he really needed because he was so closed off, so whenever he gave me clear instructions I followed them.

With all the e-mails sent, I leaned into Chris' chest and closed my eyes as the news anchor went on about the construction of some bridge. Even though it was still nine thirty, sleep was already taking me under. The emotions of that day made me very fatigued, so I could only imagine how Chris felt.

"Hey," I called softly after checking the time. "Do you wanna go to bed?"

Chris shifted under me, his eyes never leaving the TV.

"I want to stay here a little longer," he replied, his arm pulling me closer to him. I snuggled into him, my hand resting on his chest. I closed my eyes, and before I knew it, he was caressing my hair.

"Do you see now why I said the safe word that time?" He said out of the blue. "And why I got your head out of the water in the bathtub?"

Those things hadn't even crossed my mind the whole afternoon, but as soon as he pointed them out they became painfully obvious.

"Oh..." I said, still unsure how to react when he offered up information without me asking for it. "Yeah, it makes sense... Don't worry about it baby."

He kept caressing my hair.

"You're not mad, are you Ali?"