Final

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Recap:
He grabs at my sides and tries to start tickling me. I start squirming and laughing and pushing him off of me. He knows I’m too ticklish for this. I try to reach down to his sides so I can tickle him too, but he’s too fast. He grabs my wrists and pins my arms above my head. And right as he does that, I feel the knot on my towel unfasten. I have no desire to tie it back up though. I guess he feels the loosening of the cloth below him; he looks down.

"Come here..." I urge. He looks back up, his hands still pinning mine down, and he leans in to kiss me...





“Imani, what is this…”

“What do you mean? It's my paper. The assignment was to combine reality and fantasy, and I did that.”

The semester is pretty much over; today is the last day. For my English - Creative Writing I course, we were assigned papers as our "Final". We were to write out stories (mini-novels), minimum 20 pages, combining pieces of our reality and our fantasies. It could be about anything we wanted it to be about. We were given specific times to come in and turn our stories in...of course he scheduled me last. Apparently he can’t even make it through my entire paper though. Too much reality for him, I think.




“This isn’t reality and fantasy, it’s reality and insanity.”

“Is it A-worthy? I’m guaranteed A’s in the rest of my classes and I’d rather not be pulled out of the university after my first semester. You know how my mother is. She’s still angry at me for losing my purity ring. I need to get back in her good graces.”

“You know I’m not going to let you take a B home to her. But this, you have to get rid of this. Shred it, burn it, I don’t care. It’s a ridiculous piece of work and I don't want it lying around anywhere."

“Are you afraid she’ll somehow find it?”

“She is my fiancée, Imani. Why would I want her stumbling across a story that involves her being tied up and shot to death by my niece! And for what? Because my crazed student doesn’t like our relationship. I can't even fathom how you came up with this madness!"

“Crazed student?”

He rubs his temples. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Do not try to make me out to be some sort of lunatic as if this were all in my head.”

“Imani…”

“I hear the passion in your voice every time you address me. You do not talk to her the way you talk to me. I’ve never even seen you look at her the way you look at me. And the way you touch me, the way you make love to me—“

“Stop it. Stop it. We agreed. We both agreed to end this. Why can’t you let it go? Writing this ridiculous story… I mean watching her get killed? Is that really what you fantasize about? That’s sick.”

“No, YOU agreed to end this. You didn’t care about what I wanted! And what’s sick is what you're doing. What's sick is that you and I both know how you feel about me, but you’re going to ruin this woman’s life because you’re scared to tell people about us."

“I’m not going to ruin her life.”

“You will if you marry her. You know you will. But I guess it is your life. I’m just some crazed student who is obsessed with you for no reason at all.” I grab my paper from his hands and stuff it into my bag. “I’ll see you around, Professor.”


If you think this is where I start crying, you are wrong. I’ve spent the past five months going in circles with him. I have shed so many tears already and had too many sleepless nights over him. That story, as crazy as it may have sounded to some of you, was my plea to him. I just want him to fully understand how strongly I feel about him...to understand that he should be with me, not her. Sure he suggested that we end things, but that was a week ago and you know what? He still has not stopped calling me to tell me about his day, or stopped sending me late night text messages telling me he misses me, or stopped writing me little notes and giving them to me as I’m walking out of class. And he asks why I can’t let go?



“Imani. Wait. Imani...baby, wait.”


See what I mean? I close my eyes and press my forehead against the door. I didn’t even make it out of his office. He wants me to let go of him but he cannot even let go of me. “What is it now?” I ask. I hear his steps getting closer. I take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to do the right thing, for you. You have a good reputation around here. It would be completely destroyed if our secret got out. And when it got back to your mother? I'd never see you again. Please try to understand. I never wanted to hurt you. I shouldn’t have let this get as far as it did. That was my fault for not having stronger willpower, for not being able to resist you...”

Sound familiar? He always gives me this same speech. I mentioned it in my story. It is no wonder I was able to capture his point of view so immaculately, right? I know him so well.

I turn around to face him. “How many times are you going to give me this break up speech? You realize that although your words are saying one thing, your actions are saying another. How can you question why I am still hanging onto you when you are still hanging onto me? You make me so angry sometimes!"

He reaches his hand out to touch my face. “You’re so sexy when you get upset. Why do you have to be so beautiful…”

“Why do you have to be so difficult?”

"You hate me now?" He strokes my cheek softly and stares into my eyes. I hate that he does this to me.

"I could never hate you..."


“Come here.” He lifts my chin up and plants a soft and sweet kiss on my lips.


Shoot, here we go again. I don’t even try to understand what he does to make me so weak anymore; I just accept it. He has so much control over me, and he knows he does…so he takes advantage of it all of the time. And I let him.


In no time, I'm against the wall with my legs wrapped around his waist, and he's penetrating my body. It’s like the first time every time we do this. I gave him my virginity over a month ago and my body is still adjusting to him. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve never been with a man before or if it’s the fact that he’s just that big. But my body loves the pain he inflicts on me… oh, how it does. Every time he’s inside of me it feels like I’m in another world.

I wrap my arms around his back and begin sucking on his neck as his heavy breathing echoes in my ear, soft moans escaping his lips every time my nails dig deeper into his back.


“I love you…” I say to him as I bite his earlobe gently.


His thrusts pick up speed, becoming more rapid. I love it fast and so does he. I fall back against the wall so I can watch him, the faces he makes. His eyes lock with mine. He bites his lip and then hoists my body up so he can kiss me. He kisses me so passionately when we make love.

I can feel his body beginning to tense up. And thus in response, so does mine. It’s like our bodies feed off of each other. My eyes begin to roll to the back of my head as I feel my peak coming. Only the slightest sound comes from my mouth before his hand clasps over it to silence me. I try to keep my moaning as quiet as possible, but it’s hard when he feels so incredible. I feel him burry his face into my neck and bite down as his thrusts become erratic and his body starts exploding inside of mine...


And just like that, we’re done.


His hand falls weakly from my lips; he slowly pulls out of me and lets me down. I shake my hair out and grab my panties from the floor as he pulls his pants up. I glance at the clock, and it reads 1:34 pm.

“Aren’t you late for your date?”

He looks over at the clock and slaps his forehead. “S**t.”


I throw my bag over my shoulder. He told me when I walked in at 12:00 that he was scheduled for lunch with Danielle at 1:00. I don’t know why he would do that when he knows that every time we get together we get carried away…


“Later Professor.”

“Wait, let me call her. Don’t leave.”

“Why?”

“I just, think we have more talking to do.”


Translation? He wants to spend more time with me…


“I think we’ve talked enough for now. Like you said, she is your fiancée. Don’t blow her off for a crazed student like me. Besides, I have my last exam in an hour.” I grab the doorknob.


“Mani…”

“Yes.”

“Can I…keep that paper? I’d like to finish reading it.”

“Sure.” I grab the paper from my bag and hand it to him.

He sets it down on his desk and pulls me over to him. He wraps his arms around me and I wrap mine around him right back. “I love you too, you know…so much...”

I nod and kiss his cheek before pulling away from him. “I know. Your fiancée is the one who doesn’t.”


As I’m walking out of his office and down the hallway, a feeling of sadness takes over me. It’s the reality sinking in again. I was so consumed with that paper, day in and day out I would rush back to my dorm to type up another chapter. It almost became real for me. For a minute, I thought he and I were really together…that Danielle was out of the picture for good…and that we were going to live happily ever after traveling the world together. But life doesn’t work that way. That was a miseducation on my part, fooling you into thinking that it could. I suppose you too were consumed with my story, thinking that everything was going to be roses and dandelions for Michael and I.

No, not yet at least.

You should be relieved to know that no actual murders have taken place here, at least none that I’m aware of. Katie was a fictional character. Porsha and Derrick aren’t psychotic murderers. They’re a normal college couple, although the part about him being a philanderer was not exaggerated. And Lauren being one of his affairs was not made up either, nor was the part about her being Michael’s niece. Working on that project with her at the beginning of the semester was indeed how Michael and I began getting closer. Oh...and Shelly? Yea, she's really my awesome roommate. I adore her. We'll probably end up rooming together for the remainder of our time here at UH.

As far as where Michael and I are going to end up, I’m not really sure about that… especially if he continues living the lie that he’s living with that woman. But as long as he wants me and loves me…I’ll be there for him. It might sound like a pathetic existence to you, but I don’t mind it. Call me naive but that man is everything to me and I’ll wait forever for him. I know we’ll be together eventually.


Our story has yet to be finished…