Jane Air

ended up including him in some way.
“I’m glad you’re making friends out there, because I’ve got something for you.”
I lay back against my pillows, stretching on arm overhead as the blankets pool below my navel. “I’m taking time off. I’m not signing on to anything for at least six months.”
“I know, but you don’t want to hop off this ferris wheel too soon. There’ll come a time when these offers stop coming in, and that’s when you focus on other things.”
I shake my head slowly. We’ve had this conversation a lot, the two of us. The direction of my career. He argued that the ten film contract I signed for Agent Carson was the best choice, strike while the iron is hot, make bank while it’s available. He was right.
But I’m older now. I want to move on from Agent Carson. Angelo and I don’t see eye to eye on that. The few indie films I did in-between the big studio shoots were met with eye rolls and small smiles.
“Business first,” he said at the time. “Art later.”
Angelo didn’t know when to stop.
“I’m gonna pass.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet.”
“I need time, man. I need time to think.”
There’s a silence. He’s calculating his next move, I can feel his brain working even across the phone lines.
“Well, if you want to amuse yourself while you’re taking time,” he says these last two words slowly, as if he has never had them in his mouth before and doesn’t know how to pronounce them, “you could take a class at that college next door.”
“It’s summer.”
“Get tutored.”
“In what?”
“Anything. Mechanics. Literature. Shit, I don’t know. But I’ve seen this before, David. You’ve been riding a high for a decade. You can’t just decamp to bumblefuckville and take time. It’s going to fuck with you.”
“Nothing is going to fuck with me. I’m just laying low for a bit.”
Another pause. Another calculation. It’s sweet, I suppose, the way he worries about me. Angelo is agent and representation for the biggest names in Hollywood. He’s seen more shit go down than anyone else on this planet. But, thinking back to all the years I’ve worked with him, I’ve never known him to take a day off, a vacation, or even a shortcut. Even when we were young, both starting out, no money, no connections. Even then, he never took time off, never took a break.
“Well, then don’t get into shit.”
My sigh is audible.
“Fine.”
“I’ve got to go to the clinic. I’ve got two more who went off the rails. Don’t you be next.”
I smile and hang up.
Take a class.
For a man who barely went to college, I sure feel like I spend my life studying- characters, plots, memorizing lines, reading scripts. Writing one, hopefully, but that’s a private thing for now.
I don’t want to enroll in a class, all that homework, the uncomfortable chairs, the professors…
I pause.
What did my forest nymph tell me last night?
I pick up my phone, searching for the local college, scrolling through the webpages to find the faculty site.
I doubt my naked elf is actually a professor. The last stalker I had told me she was my surrogate mother. At least, I think that’s what I heard, above the sirens when I did call the police that time.
I roll my eyes. That was a night.
And my god, if professors looked like my naked visitor, then I sure made the wrong choice to drop out of college and move out to LA at 19, but-
And there she is.
Professor J. A.
In a dowdy photo. With terrible glasses. A stern look on her face that makes me want to bend her over and spank it out of her.
Professor of Romantic Literature
I lean back against my pillows, feeling the blood travel south for the dozenth time since I’ve thought about her.
So, my little trespasser is an actual professor?
A thought wiggles into my mind, something dark and devious.
I never did call the police. I meant to. I should have. It would have been the responsible thing to do.
But then they would have come.
And interrupted.
A grin spreads across my face.
And I know just how to amuse myself in this small town.
I stretch farther overhead and plan my attack.
Angelo, I think to myself. Don’t you worry. I’m about to get very, very busy.

5
Jane
“Professor Air, I meant to tell you-” Cynthia, an undergraduate interning with the university administration team cuts herself off as I open my door and stop short.
David Jacobs is in my office.
He is not supposed to be here.
Technically, no one is supposed to be here.
How did he even get a key?
And here I am again, standing in front of him, dressed this time, thank god, and not knowing what to say.
I turn to Cynthia, who is so flustered I wonder if she’ll start to cry or scream or just pass out in front of both of us.
“You have a visitor,” she blurts out, eyes wide.
“I see that.”
“He’s an actor,” she adds, helpfully.
“Yes.”
“He…he said it was urgent,” Cynthia bites her lip, eyes darting between my death stare and the amused smirk of the man sitting in my office.
My office.
Behind my desk!
Jerk.
“I thought I had locked my office the last time I was here, Cynthia.”
“Oh, you did, for sure,” she nods, thrilled to be able to contribute something of value. “But I used the spare key in the main office to let him in.”
“When I wasn’t here?”
“Yeah, you weren’t here,” she nods again, so vigorously this time her massive gold hoops bounce against her chin. “So you couldn’t let him in.”
“Thank. You. Cynthia.” It’s hard not to grind out the words.
“Oh, you’re welcome!” Cynthia smiles brightly, her confidence up in the wake of what she thinks is my praise. “I know you come in on Mondays, and he was here so I decided to show some initiative and just let him in.”
That gorgeous bastard behind my desk smiles and nods approvingly. Cynthia grins wider, thrilled with her accomplishments.
“Ok then,” I force a smile and move into the doorway,