~~~
Day’s Verse:
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
Romans 12:19 (Ian’s favorite verse)
~~~

Hunter had had a boring day that Friday. He’d gotten up earlier than usual to accommodate a student’s request to meet before class, but the previous night had turned rowdier than Hunter planned, leaving him with a pounding headache and powerful disinclination to even crack open his bloodshot eyes. As a result, he had put off the inevitable as long as possible—too long, in fact, leaving himself no more than thirty minutes in which to dress and walk to his meeting. Hastily slurping down a bitter and cold mug of last night’s coffee, he had thrown on some wrinkled jeans and, to emphasize the professorial side of his persona, a sports jacket complete with leather elbow patches.

Outside, the shining sun reminded him that he had left his raincoat at Juanita’s place the other night, and would have to retrieve it before the rain started again. A man couldn’t remember everything at 3 o’clock in the morning after hours of passionate and blissfully orgasmic sex.

Continue reading.This place rained more than anywhere Hunter had ever lived, and he had spent plenty of time traveling all over the world. It helped to pick up languages easily, although he’d found Chinese a challenge and Russian nearly equally so. Nothing like a straightforward romance language, and Hunter had found that even a small knowledge of a girl’s native tongue worked wonders. In any case, although Hunter didn’t mind some wetness, but he found the constant fall drizzle limiting to some of his extracurricular activities.

His apartment, a 20-minute bike ride from campus, left much to be desired. Hunter didn’t subscribe to a theory of cleanliness, and although God knew he had learned biology well enough to have a healthy respect for the effects of bacteria and molds on the human body, he tended to allow dishes and clothes to pile and molder. It hardly mattered, as home served as more a storage space and occasional crash-shack than any nucleus of entertaining or living. Then, too, its location didn’t exactly suit his predilection for an exciting night-life. Bothell was a quiet town in Western Washington, little prone to the wild parties and raves that had previously filled Hunter’s nights. Plus, Hunter hardly enjoyed the long ride to his place of employment; along with rain, this state sported altogether too many steep hills. No place had any right to call those steep-sided, rain-slicked, leaf-flecked hills anything less than small mountains.

Hunter thought of the student he had agreed to meet, a girl only a few years younger than him. Her long blonde hair hung, 1970’s-esque, framing her heart-shaped and exquisitely innocent face. Hunter might have found her tempting, had he wanted to risk his already-tenuous position in academia. No; so far, Hunter had strictly obeyed his personal restriction against sleeping with female students. He hoped this girl hadn’t arranged the meeting just to try to seduce him. Who knew? He only hoped that this problem would go away as he left the community college atmosphere, moving into the more rarefied air of a full-fledged University.

Hunter had very few illusions about community colleges—or universities, for that matter. But for a man in his situation, still working towards the PhD that would, he hoped, prove the key to loftier academic positions, this job at Cascadia wasn’t a bad starting-off point. At least he, unlike some of his classmates, had found employment in the academic world at all. Dave, he knew, still worked cashiering at a fancy restaurant…or was it waiting tables there? And Dave supported a wife and infant, as well as conducting research towards his degree. Hunter thanked his lucky stars that he had no woman as a drain on his resources. No regular woman, at least. Girls like Juanita he dropped a hundred or two for, entertaining themselves for a couple weeks, until they mutually tired of one another.

Hunter felt eyes on his back as he pedaled slowly up the hill, but he ignored them. He knew that women appreciated his looks, with his curly blonde hair artfully disarrayed, his long lanky legs with their shapely calves, his “deliciously studious” look (as one girl described him) accentuated by narrowly fashionable glasses. His slender lips and finely-chiseled features echoed the beautiful men portrayed in Greek statues; his keen eyes and keener wit often drew a second and third look from women at parties. And Hunter had, he reflected, unrepentantly exploited his natural good looks to worm his way into many a gorgeous woman’s good graces. Hell, his innate charm didn’t hurt when he discussed his dissertation with his advisor, though she had a good thirty years on him, and children nearly his age.

Feeling almost pleased with himself, Hunter crested the hill and began his glide downward. This evening he would treat himself to a good base-jumping expedition. Downtown Seattle seemed the perfect venue—risky enough for excitement, and with plenty of tall places to jump off of. Now he only had to get through the rest of the day until that evening. Or: My NaNoWriMo profile.