The "Brit a Day" series

What does a months-long parade of attractive British men have to do with fiction, you might well ask? These gentlemen have inspired some lovely scenes, part of the life I live in my head. Over time, some of these scenes reach out to one another and begin to form a story. For the present, each one of these pictures provides a writing prompt for me, a way to keep me writing with a sense of passion and narrative, even when the stories are not yet fully formed.



Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Mathematician Cannot Create Things at Will, part 4


They stayed on campus together over the week school was out for the Thanksgiving holiday. Their roommates were all gone, and they lived together in his dorm suite, making love every morning, afternoon, and night in his bed. They ate out breakfast and lunch, but in the evenings they let themselves into the student kitchen in the basement of the dorm to make dinner. Because the basement was so eerily quiet, they felt like they were going to a bomb shelter, and Graham started bringing a radio to keep them company. He caught up on reading from his Milton and Frost classes as Selina fixed their meals, turning down the radio sometimes to ask if she needed his help. They ate just one meal on Thanksgiving Day, some sliced turkey they bought at a deli the day before and a loaf pan of instant boxed stuffing that Selina garnished with canned cashews. While they were in the kitchen that day they made love twice, one time with her sitting on the counter and the other as she straddled him on a chair, her bare legs warmed by the oven as it was browning the pan of stuffing. With Graham’s approval, she kept on a stained terrycloth apron she had found in the basement as she imagined some young housewife would wear it, using it to coyly cover their sex.
On Sunday night before classes resumed, he sensed something was wrong as she took some biscuits out of the oven, and he stood and held her while their dinner got cold on the plates someone had pilfered from the dining hall. She crushed the fabric of his shirt in her fist and pressed it to her nose. "I loved this week. I could do this Suzy Homemaker thing with you for a long time, Graham, and I honestly believe that’s all it would take for me to be happy."
"Don’t say that," he said quietly. She felt is unshaven cheek moving against her hair as he spoke. "You’re too intelligent to believe something like that."


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