Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 67

Adrian’s POV

I stare at the whiskey glass in my hands, amber liquid catching the lamplight like trapped fire, but I haven't taken a single sip.

The alcohol sits untouched because I need clarity right now, not the familiar haze of avoidance I usually retreat into when emotions threaten to overwhelm my carefully constructed control.

"I called you because I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do," I say finally, my voice rough with exhaustion and something that might be desperation.

It's past midnight, and I'd paced my living room for hours before finally breaking down and calling Lolita. She'd arrived within thirty minutes, still perfectly put together despite the late hour, like she'd been expecting this call for weeks.

Lolita sits across from me in my leather armchair, elegant legs crossed, studying me with the kind of clinical interest that once made eighteen-year-old me feel like the most fascinating person in the world.

Now it just feels like being dissected by someone who knows exactly which parts of me are most vulnerable, which wounds never properly healed.

"She's pregnant," she states simply, no judgment in her tone, no surprise either.

"Yes." The word comes out strangled, like I'm admitting to some terrible crime instead of acknowledging the creation of life. "And I panicked. Completely fucking panicked like some teenager who's never faced consequences before."

The memory of Sophie's face flashes through my mind with brutal clarity—the hope in her eyes when she told me, the careful way she'd chosen her words, quickly replaced by devastation when I recoiled like she'd confessed to carrying plague.

The way she'd gathered her dignity around herself like armor before walking out, leaving me frozen in my own horror.

"I saw her face change," I continue, running a hand through my hair. "From hopeful to hurt to... resigned. Like she'd expected this outcome but had dared to hope for something different."

"And how did that make you feel?" Lolita asks, her therapist training showing through despite the personal nature of our conversation.

"Like a monster," I admit quietly. "Like everything Lisette ever said about me was true."

"Because you have feelings for her?" Lolita probes gently.

My head snaps up, every defensive instinct flaring to life. "I don't—That's not what this is. I don't do love. That's completely off the table, always has been."

"Adrian."

Lolita's voice carries gentle amusement, like she's watching a child deny the obvious while standing in a puddle of spilled milk.

"You threw away a perfectly good cigarette because the smell made her nauseous.”

Each observation hits like a small revelation.

“You've been celibate for months despite having every opportunity to seek satisfaction elsewhere. You spent an entire evening wandering through bookstores and art galleries simply because she wanted to, without complaint."

I'd been so focused on maintaining emotional distance that I hadn't noticed how thoroughly that distance had already been compromised.

"You called me instead of running back to familiar territory with someone who won't challenge your emotional walls," she continues. "Say it, Adrian. Say what you're really afraid of."

The silence stretches between us, heavy with the weight of truths I'm not ready to acknowledge.

"I..." I swallow hard, the words feeling foreign on my tongue. "I feel things. Things I don't understand, things that don't fit into any of the frameworks I've built for myself."

"More specific," she prompts.

"I think about her constantly," I admit, the confession feeling like pulling splinters from under my skin. "When I wake up, when I'm reading, when I'm trying to work. I find myself wondering what she's thinking, what she's doing, whether she's safe."

"And?"

"And I want to protect her from everything, including myself." The words come faster now, like a dam breaking. "I want to give her things she's never asked for, want to make her smile the way she did in that bookstore tonight. I want..."

"Yes?"

"I want to be worth choosing," I finish quietly.

"There we are." Lolita smiles like a proud teacher whose student has finally grasped a particularly difficult concept. "Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know how," I admit, setting down the whiskey with hands that aren't entirely steady. "Everything I know is control, dominance, carefully negotiated arrangements without strings. I can't just—I don't know how to be different."

"My dear boy."

Lolita laughs, the sound warm and oddly maternal. She reaches over to stroke my cheek the way she used to when I was eighteen and drowning in feelings I didn't understand.

"Being addicted to something doesn't deprive you of choosing another path. You can love power, control, psychological experimentation—but when that one person appears, all those things only matter if you can have them with her."

I lean into her touch despite myself, craving the comfort of someone who's seen me at my most vulnerable and somehow still finds me worth saving.

The idea terrifies and thrills me in equal measure. "What if I can't? What if I try to be what she needs and I just... fail?"

"Then you fail trying," Lolita says simply. "Which is better than succeeding at being miserable for the rest of your life."

I process this, feeling something that might be hope flickering in my chest for the first time since Sophie walked out. "Did you eventually find someone like that? Someone who made you want to be different?"

"Oh God, no." Her smile turns wistful, almost melancholy. "This definitely isn't my story, darling. I'm too selfish, too set in my ways, too addicted to the game itself to ever want to change the rules for another person."

She stands, smoothing her skirt with practiced grace.

"But it's yours. I knew it from the day we first met in your mother's backyard—you became who you are because of the wound I left when I disappeared. You built all these walls and defense mechanisms around the fear of being abandoned again."

The observation cuts deeper than I expected. "You're saying this is your fault?"

"I'm saying I'm sorry," she says quietly, and the genuine regret in her voice catches me off guard. "I should have said that a long time ago. I was young and selfish and I thought I was teaching you about desire, but I was really just teaching you about fear."

"Why now?" I ask. "Why tell me this now?"

"Because you've found your cure, Adrian."

She moves toward the door, then pauses. "And I'll be damned if I let my mistakes cost you the one person who sees past all that armor to who you really are. Don't make me think you've grown stupid after all these years."

"What if she won't forgive me?" The question comes out smaller than I intended, revealing the terrified eighteen-year-old still living somewhere inside me.

"Then you grovel until she does," Lolita says matter-of-factly. "You show up consistently, you prove with actions instead of words that you can be trusted with her heart, and you don't give up when it gets difficult."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then at least you'll know you fought for something that mattered."

She fixes me with that penetrating stare that always made me feel completely seen.

"But I don't think it will come to that. Sophie loves you, Adrian. The real you, not just the performance you put on. Don't miss your chance to love her back."

After she leaves, I sit alone in my living room, staring at the space where Sophie had been just hours ago. The couch still holds the impression of her body, and I can still smell her shampoo lingering in the air like a ghost of possibilities.

For the first time in twenty years, I know exactly what I want.

Now I just have to figure out how to fight for it.