Not Just One Night

Chapter 9

Camila's POV

"Can we talk now," I ask, my voice unsteady and my breathing still labored after the third orgasm of the night.

Lauren giggles, her bare body vibrating against mine.

"I suppose so," she says, nuzzling her face further against my neck. I try to think of the best way to say what I'm dying to ask, but decide there probably isn't one, so I blurt it out. What do I have to lose?

"What if I transfer out? If me being your student is the problem, I'll go to my advisor in the morning and get the paper for you to sign." I offer. "I'll take art history, or intro to oil painting. Just think," I joke. "If I take an art class instead of Film Studies, we could be together and I could paint you nude. That's like killing two birds with one stone." I laugh, "Problem solved."

Smirking, she shakes her head, "I appreciate that but it won't work."

I pout, "Why not?"

She reaches up, pushing against my lip until it's back in it's appropriate place, "Because you're still a student whether you're in my class or not. So if it's not going to help, don't transfer out. Let me be selfish and ask you to stay. If I can't fuck you senseless, then at least let me look at your pretty face for two hours, twice a week."

"But you can fuck me senseless, that's the point I'm trying to make," I'm only slightly joking.

"Camila," she says sternly, disconnecting her face from my neck, looking up at me.

"I know, I know," I sigh. "So all of this is just about the rules?" I ask.

"Don't get me wrong, that's a huge part of it," Lauren explains. "But there are other factors too."

"Like what?"

She shakes her head, burying her face. Against my shoulder, I hear her mumble, "I don't want to have to hide you."

"Hide me?" I question, unsure of what she means.

"Yeah," she says, nodding her head. "I'd rather not be with you at all if my only other choice is to keep you a secret." She sighs and it feels like for the first time in two days, Lauren's finally being honest with me. Her forehead's still pressed against my shoulder, but I turn until I'm on my side, facing her, her cheek now leaving an indention in the pillow. "All of the things that we'd normally do as a couple, we can't. Like going out to a restaurant. We'd have to constantly be on guard, so that we wouldn't be seen. I mean take last night for example."

"Last night?" I knit my eyebrows together.

She nods her head, "You were wrong when you said I didn't show for our date. I was there Camila, at the exact time that I said I would be and I saw you and Ally walk in and I watched as you both sat there for an hour, obviously waiting for me. I wanted to come over to you, in fact I almost did, but then out of nowhere I panicked. What if one of my students saw me approach you? That's how'd it be every single time we went out. What kind of start to a relationship is that?"

"A shitty one, I guess," I scrunch my face in frustration. She reaches up and smooths out the wrinkles on my forehead. "You deserve better than that Camila, and I would know because for three years of my life, I was someone's secret." Her eyes wander around the room, looking everywhere but at me but I still give her my full attention. She brings her hand down from my face, tucking it between my chest and hers.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

She sighs, speaking softly, the low gravel of her voice being passed from her lips to my ears. "I've only been out to my parents for four years," she says. "In fact, I was your age, a senior in college, living out on my own when I did it. I called them up one night, and I told them that I was gay. It was absolutely terrifying but at the time, I thought it was worth it because I had been dating this girl that I went to school with, for a year, and I felt like all I ever got done was keeping my life with her from crossing paths with my life with my family and friends. I hated it. I was hiding. So I thought, fuck it. I'm going to tell my family so I did but she refused to tell hers. She was afraid that the wouldn't support her any more...that they wouldn't continue to pay for college, so she said she would wait. Another year passed, she graduated, got a job and I brought it up again, yet she still refused to tell them about me. We were together for three years. Three years, I was nothing more than a secret that she kept, and it was the worst feeling in the world to be absolutely crazy about someone but not being able to tell a single person."