Chapter Four: It Always Ends Bad, Apparently
Author's Note: For all the lovers of shirtless Argentineans out there, especially Storm, I bring you this chapter. He's not shirtless, but you can imagine, right?
* * *
The next day was a Saturday, the most blissful of days where Christian wasn't assaulted by the street-slang of his students. He normally spent his weekends in happy solitude, reading from his novel-of-the-week. Right now, it was A Tale of Two Cities, his second time through the book. He had just reached Lucie and Charles Darnay's wedding, when he put the book down.
Love... everyone had love, it seemed, or at least had been in love at one time in their life. Everyone but him. What was it that so alienated him from women? Was it just his high standards, or was there something about him personally... his looks, his manners... something... He'd hardly had a date in the past two years.
There was a knock at his door. "Enter!" he called, slipping a bookmark into the faded volume and standing to greet his visitor.
The door breezed open and his friend Paul Martinez breezed in with it. Paul was another professor at the college, specializing in the Spanish language. He had just returned from a vacation in Argentina that morning, Christian remembered. "Buenos dias, amigo!" he growled in his accented Spanish.
"Good morning, Paul. How was your trip? Pleasant, I hope."
"Pleasant? Lighten up, old buddy. It was bien! Muah!" His kissed his fingers in a gesture of someone sampling a fine cuisine. He glanced at Christian. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've got a bug up your ass."
"It's nothing, really..." He turned away, pretending to observe one of his French paintings that hung on the wall. It was a Toulouse-Lautrec, one of his favorite painters. "This may sound strange, Paul, but is there something... unattractive about me?"
An explosive laugh came from his friend's mouth. "I don't swing that way, and you know it, Chris!"
"You know what I meant."
Paul sobered. "Sorry, friend." He paused, looking Christian over. "If I must say so, Chris, you're almost as handsome as I am."
The English professor turned, a frown on his face. "Paul..."
"I'm being serious, here. Girls should be falling all over themselves for you." Christian didn't even have to voice his question, Paul did it for him. "But you want to know why they aren't, no? I can't answer that. But I can tell you that you're lucky they don't."
"How do you mean?"
"Love, my friend, always ends badly."
"What makes you say that?"
He shook his head, flopping down into a chair. "After all, Chris, I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric wish, who likes to live his life free of strife, doing what ever he thinks is best... for him." He stood up abruptly. "But! Let a woman in your life and your serenity is through, she'll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome, and then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you! Let a woman in your life and you're up against a wall. Make a plan and you will find that she has something else in mind, and so rather than do either you do something else that neither likes at all!"
Christian's forehead wrinkled in thought. He knew that Paul had been through his share of bad lovers and live-ins, but surely... "It can't be all that bad, can it?"
"That's where you're wrong, mi amigo," he corrected, pacing back and forth across the floor. "If you want to talk of Spain and Panama, she only wants to talk of love. You go to see a play or concert and spend it searching for her purse. Let a woman in your life and you invite eternal strife! Let them buy their wedding bands for those anxious little hands... I'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling... then to ever let a woman in my life!"
"I see," murmured Christian. "So I would do better to be without love than to go through all that you speak of?"
"In layman's' terms, Chris, screwing a woman only means screwing with your entire life. It's not worth it. Look but don't touch, you know what I mean?"
"Exactly." After all, it was what he'd been doing his whole life, though that wasn't really his decision...
Paul glanced at his watch. "Well, it's been good talking to you, but I have to run. I'm meeting this hot piece of work for lunch, and if I'm lucky, I can be buying her breakfast, if you know what I mean..."
He could only smile. Paul was too much of a ladies' man to ever take his own advice about women. In under a week, Christian would be hearing about the evils of the fairer sex once again. "Have fun, Paul."
His friend winked at him over his shoulder. "You know I will."
The door shut behind him, leaving Chris back where he was in the first place. "Some advice," he muttered to himself, going back to his Dickens. But he couldn't concentrate on the words. There was something mulling around in the back of his brain.
He considered his problem thus far. What he wanted... needed... was a woman with a perfect grasp on the English language. But as of yet, he had not been able to find someone who met those requirements. They had all fallen despairingly short. Was it possible to find such a woman?
After pondering the question for several more minutes, he came to his solution. What he needed was a project to determine the capabilities of the female mind. He would take someone totally untrained in the art and wonder of the English language and attempt to turn her into a stunning mistress of language itself, enough to pass her off as an English aficionado among the greatest professors of English. Then, then he would have a driving force behind his pursuit of a mate, some hope that he could find a woman completely devoted to English, as he was.
A smile crossed his face, lighting up his blue eyes. It was the perfect plan, flawless in all aspects. All he had to do was to find this woman, this pitiful creature to transform in the course of his project. And he had the perfect person in mind.
END CHAPTER FOUR
Author's Note: For all the lovers of shirtless Argentineans out there, especially Storm, I bring you this chapter. He's not shirtless, but you can imagine, right?
* * *
The next day was a Saturday, the most blissful of days where Christian wasn't assaulted by the street-slang of his students. He normally spent his weekends in happy solitude, reading from his novel-of-the-week. Right now, it was A Tale of Two Cities, his second time through the book. He had just reached Lucie and Charles Darnay's wedding, when he put the book down.
Love... everyone had love, it seemed, or at least had been in love at one time in their life. Everyone but him. What was it that so alienated him from women? Was it just his high standards, or was there something about him personally... his looks, his manners... something... He'd hardly had a date in the past two years.
There was a knock at his door. "Enter!" he called, slipping a bookmark into the faded volume and standing to greet his visitor.
The door breezed open and his friend Paul Martinez breezed in with it. Paul was another professor at the college, specializing in the Spanish language. He had just returned from a vacation in Argentina that morning, Christian remembered. "Buenos dias, amigo!" he growled in his accented Spanish.
"Good morning, Paul. How was your trip? Pleasant, I hope."
"Pleasant? Lighten up, old buddy. It was bien! Muah!" His kissed his fingers in a gesture of someone sampling a fine cuisine. He glanced at Christian. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've got a bug up your ass."
"It's nothing, really..." He turned away, pretending to observe one of his French paintings that hung on the wall. It was a Toulouse-Lautrec, one of his favorite painters. "This may sound strange, Paul, but is there something... unattractive about me?"
An explosive laugh came from his friend's mouth. "I don't swing that way, and you know it, Chris!"
"You know what I meant."
Paul sobered. "Sorry, friend." He paused, looking Christian over. "If I must say so, Chris, you're almost as handsome as I am."
The English professor turned, a frown on his face. "Paul..."
"I'm being serious, here. Girls should be falling all over themselves for you." Christian didn't even have to voice his question, Paul did it for him. "But you want to know why they aren't, no? I can't answer that. But I can tell you that you're lucky they don't."
"How do you mean?"
"Love, my friend, always ends badly."
"What makes you say that?"
He shook his head, flopping down into a chair. "After all, Chris, I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric wish, who likes to live his life free of strife, doing what ever he thinks is best... for him." He stood up abruptly. "But! Let a woman in your life and your serenity is through, she'll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome, and then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you! Let a woman in your life and you're up against a wall. Make a plan and you will find that she has something else in mind, and so rather than do either you do something else that neither likes at all!"
Christian's forehead wrinkled in thought. He knew that Paul had been through his share of bad lovers and live-ins, but surely... "It can't be all that bad, can it?"
"That's where you're wrong, mi amigo," he corrected, pacing back and forth across the floor. "If you want to talk of Spain and Panama, she only wants to talk of love. You go to see a play or concert and spend it searching for her purse. Let a woman in your life and you invite eternal strife! Let them buy their wedding bands for those anxious little hands... I'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling... then to ever let a woman in my life!"
"I see," murmured Christian. "So I would do better to be without love than to go through all that you speak of?"
"In layman's' terms, Chris, screwing a woman only means screwing with your entire life. It's not worth it. Look but don't touch, you know what I mean?"
"Exactly." After all, it was what he'd been doing his whole life, though that wasn't really his decision...
Paul glanced at his watch. "Well, it's been good talking to you, but I have to run. I'm meeting this hot piece of work for lunch, and if I'm lucky, I can be buying her breakfast, if you know what I mean..."
He could only smile. Paul was too much of a ladies' man to ever take his own advice about women. In under a week, Christian would be hearing about the evils of the fairer sex once again. "Have fun, Paul."
His friend winked at him over his shoulder. "You know I will."
The door shut behind him, leaving Chris back where he was in the first place. "Some advice," he muttered to himself, going back to his Dickens. But he couldn't concentrate on the words. There was something mulling around in the back of his brain.
He considered his problem thus far. What he wanted... needed... was a woman with a perfect grasp on the English language. But as of yet, he had not been able to find someone who met those requirements. They had all fallen despairingly short. Was it possible to find such a woman?
After pondering the question for several more minutes, he came to his solution. What he needed was a project to determine the capabilities of the female mind. He would take someone totally untrained in the art and wonder of the English language and attempt to turn her into a stunning mistress of language itself, enough to pass her off as an English aficionado among the greatest professors of English. Then, then he would have a driving force behind his pursuit of a mate, some hope that he could find a woman completely devoted to English, as he was.
A smile crossed his face, lighting up his blue eyes. It was the perfect plan, flawless in all aspects. All he had to do was to find this woman, this pitiful creature to transform in the course of his project. And he had the perfect person in mind.
END CHAPTER FOUR