Adult-FanFiction.org : Celebrity

As the Seasons Grey	By : christinecornell Category: Celebrities - Misc > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 46 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Started life as kinky Christmas-related short stories in 2022 and took on a life of its own shortly thereafter. 100 fiction, none of this is real, and I own nothing except for the character of Christine.

Chapter List
- 38
- 39
- 40
Christine walked out of the classroom with a warm feeling embedded in her face and a good feeling in her chest. It would be some time before she could find a moment to herself there in her round of study hall in the front part of the library with the notes that she had to take and catch up on, especially when the thought of getting together with him for some lunch seemed like such a decadent dream to her. Her heart fluttered a bit when she strode up to the double front doors of the study hall itself and she expected to see him there. His voice was so warm and round, and it stayed with her even well after the fact.
It seemed a bit strange that he would ask her to lunch, of all the students in that classroom, and especially since he was the substitute teacher as well. But nevertheless, she knew that she had a little date with the sub, and yet, there was simply no way that she could pay any attention to her studies in the meantime.
She merely wished it could be one o’clock at that point, and she was eager to have all that she had to do there over the course of that hour completed at the snap of her fingers.
She glanced up at the ceiling overhead: it was a rather large, spacious room with a series of arch-shaped alcoves from the doorway back towards the bay window on the other side. She imagined herself and Alex nestled up together over there with a pair of books to read and a pile of mischief at the helm. It was all fantasy at that very moment, but she had hope that there was something behind it. That fantasy came to her for a reason, and such that she thought about writing it down in the back of her journal: too many times she would envision something happening and then when she returned to it to address it, it had escaped her mind.
She sauntered her way past the rows of bookshelves on the left side of the room, all the way towards the bay window and the last table at the very end. She passed Eric there at the card catalogue right next to the second table up from her: it was right then she took a glimpse over her shoulder at him and the long smooth inky black hair down to the middle of his back. He turned his attention towards her as she walked by him: a fleeting glimpse, but she was able to make out the shape of his nose as well as the softness of his features.
“Hey, Mr. Crow—” she overheard him say in a hushed voice, even though there weren’t a lot of people in there with them.
Christine continued to the table, and she rested her bag down on the surface before her. Her heart fluttered once again as he burst into her mind yet again. She gazed up at the clock on the wall over the doorway: ten o’clock in the morning. But then again, there was all the time she could ever find for herself for the time being. Not to waste any moment whatsoever, she took her binder out of hiding and opened the loose-leaf pages to the one spot with her Cornell notes for history.
Her teacher Mr. Crow happened to stand right there before her in conversation with Eric about something, and she knew that she would have to hand in those notes for the few points of extra credit that she could vouch for during the one class that she struggled with. He was a tall wiry man with a sensible haircut and little half-moon glasses, and yet, he lacked the looseness that Alex had. He was the kind of man who would surprise everyone with mentions of older music, and to the point that Christine wondered if he did in fact have his fingers in the world of music like Alex.
She held her pencil in hand and scanned the page before her for anything to tip off her train of thought from the last class period.
It was much like all those days back in high school where she took those exact notes for her old history class, and she often wrote in a keyword at the last bullet point before the class period was finished so she could remember where she had left off when she picked them up again to study for the next session, but this time around, she gazed at the word there at the bottom of the page, and she wished that she had had a little more time during that last period. Nothing more than a scribble there on the smooth blue line at the base of the paper.
There was also a time in high school where she had hidden her body away from the crowd of eyes all around her, and she never could find the right words to talk about the problem, either. The feeling that she simply could not suffice as she was at that very moment. There always had to be something behind her, something to show everyone that she meant business and she had the time and the resources at her fingertips, and she could do it if someone asked her to do so. There always had to be a note of some kind, a bit of proof of some kind, an explanation, a reason to measure up and be there with everyone else. Part of why she struggled with school as much as she did was the feeling that she could never measure up, even with as much as she wanted to measure up to the best.
She worked hard, and she could feel the strains of it all in her body, especially as she leaned back in the chair and her spine cracked a bit. She took a glimpse down to her body, to the little roll around her waist as well as the width of her thighs. She never became fat or overly heavy, but she could feel the weight on her body most days: this was one of them.
One of the reasons why she remained so quiet in class was the fact that she could feel everyone staring at her body, even though they had known her by her heavier self rather than what resided in the past.
She knew that she would have to tell Alex about her past at some point, and yet, she lacked the feeling of comfort about it in the meantime. She tucked her elbows closer into her body as if to hide her curves even while she sat down there in the chair.
The memories were still fresh with her, even though she had long since begun her recovery. They remained there still fully intact just underneath the surface.
She never ran away from anything ever: she knew that she would have to face the monsters in the closet soon enough. She did when she began the whole process—
“Christine?”
She raised her gaze to Eric right there at the other side of the table with his lips ever so slightly parted as if he was taken aback by something.
“Yeah?” she asked him as she broke out of her train of thought.
“Oh, nothing, I just thought something was wrong,” he said to her with a shake of his head and a little wave of his hand. “You looked like something was bothering you.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Just—thinking is all.”
He cleared his throat and ran his stubby little fingers through his rich black hair.
“Uh… is there someone sitting here?” he asked her with a gesture to the chair before him, to which she shook her head, and he tugged the chair out from underneath the table, and he took his seat there across from her.
“You mentioned you were just thinking,” he recalled with a little wag of her finger to her, and she raised an eyebrow a bit at that. “I was just talking to Mr. Crow back there and he was just telling me about the next class period today. And—” He peered over his shoulder; Christine followed his gaze to the aisle between the tables, where Mr. Crow headed on to the doorway of the library. When he ducked out of there, Eric returned to her with his head bowed forth.
“Okay, let’s get down to it,” he quipped right then.
“No need to ruminate on memories, either,” she pointed out. Eric nibbled on his bottom lip as he lingered closer to her.
“I really haven’t paid much attention to you before,” he admitted, and she raised both eyebrows at that.
“What’s to know?” she asked him, taken aback.
“Everything. What’s your story?”
Christine pursed her lips together at that, and Eric shook his head and leaned back in the chair right then.
“I’m sorry, that was too much,” he stammered, and she frowned at that.
“I don’t think it was,” she confessed to him with a slight chuckle. “Believe me, Eric, there’s a lot that’s happened to me in life where it was literally too much. What you did just there doesn’t even scratch the surface.”
“Shhh!” the librarian behind them hissed right then. Eric nodded his head at her, and then he returned to Christine with a long, low whistle as if he had had life scared right out of him.
“Well, I hope he can see you again,” he confessed to her in a near whisper.
“Who, Alex?” He nodded his head at that.
“I will,” she assured him, also in a near whisper. She opened her binder before her to a freshly completed page of notes. “I really will, Eric. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will see him again.”
“By the way, I think it’s interesting that he warmed up to you so quickly,” Eric noted with a little drumming of his fingers on the table’s surface right next to him.
“Why is that?” Christine knitted her eyebrows together at that.
“Nothing. I just—whenever I got to know someone else, they were never that quick with it. They usually took it a bit on the slow side…” He cleared his throat, and he brought a hand to his chest. Christine never moved a muscle as he straightened himself out. Nothing could deny the rich blush within his face, especially since it wasn’t that harsh of a cough, either.
“Eric?” she asked him in a low voice, and he fanned the side of his neck.
“Sorry, I—don’t really know where that came from.” He cleared his throat again, but it lacked anything of substance. Christine leaned back in the chair with her hands on either side of her binder there before her.
“Eric,” she stated in a soft voice as the librarian had surfaced from behind the bookshelves again with a stern expression plastered on her face. Christine waved her finger at her to ensure everything was alright there at the table.
“Hm?” he asked her, and the pinkish blush faded out from his face again.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
There was a look in those big dark eyes, a look that she couldn’t exactly put her finger on, either. His bottom lip trembled, and his fingers flinched upon the table’s surface. He glanced off to the side again: the librarian had disappeared back behind the shelves and Mr. Crow had long gone as well. Eric returned to her again, that time with a little swallow and a bow of his head as if he was about to spill the beans to her. He then shook his head.
“Never mind, it’s… it’s stupid,” he sputtered.
“No, please tell me,” she insisted, and Eric shook his head.
“I can’t. It really is that ridiculous. I feel bad for having imposed on your space from the very start of it all.”
“What if I told you that we can keep it a secret?” she suggested, and he peered over his shoulder yet again: no one else was in there in the library with them. Christine leaned forward and folded her hands together over the top of the binder as if she was in a business meeting with him. “Really, I can keep a secret between us.” She lowered her voice down to a whisper at that point. “I can keep it close, under lock and key if you absolutely need me to do just that. I’ll do it—I’ve always been a good secret-keeper.”
He swallowed and cracked her a small smile.
“If we keep it a secret between us, could you tell me a thing or two about yourself as well?”
“Of course. That’s what friends are for. I’ll tell you about a secret on my end, and we’ll lock it all up, safe and sound.”
Eric leaned forward so his face was right up in her own.
“I had anorexia growing up,” she told him in a low whisper, and he raised his eyebrows at her.
“My god, really?”
“Yeah. I had a couple of friends who had anorexia, actually—one succumbed to it, the other got healthy and heavy like me.”
Eric closed his eyes and shook his head.
“I think you look great,” he quipped so fast to her, and she showed him a smile.
“Thank you,” she told him. “I feel great, too—sometimes I feel heavy and round, but often, I feel like I’m more myself now than ever, like… I needed to put on all this weight.”
He kept the smile plastered across his face at that.
“Okay, now what’s the thing that you want to tell me?” she asked him, and he swallowed, perhaps from the nervous feeling within him.
“Let’s run away to California together,” he suggested. “You and me. Together.”
“You and me? What would we do in California?”
“Lots of stuff,” he duly replied. “California’s the Golden State. You could go from Yosemite to the Bay Area or from San Diego out to the desert within a couple of hours.”
“And… why California, exactly? Why not a place like—Reno, Nevada, or Portland, Oregon? Or—hell—Hawai'i?”
“You wanna run off to Hawai’i?” he chuckled, to which she shrugged her shoulders.
“I’ve never been to Hawai’i,” she pointed out.
“We could hang out on the beaches together,” he said with a little gyration of his head.
“I imagine the beaches being all warm and whatnot,” she declared with a glimpse past him again. “I thought I saw Miss Stay Quiet Even Though There’s Nobody Else in Here at the Moment.” He snorted and chuckled at that, and then his expression turned serious yet again.
“What were the other places you said? Reno and where else?”
“Portland,” she recalled. “Oregon. I’ve only been to Reno a couple of times in the past, but I’ve never been to Portland, though. I hear it’s the best place to be if you’re anything along the lines of a freak.”
“Freak like the saggy sub we just had,” he quipped.
“He’s not saggy,” she said with a shake of her head. “I guarantee you—that man isn’t saggy. Just—from what I’ve seen during the class period.”
Eric swallowed again: she noticed that his skin was smooth, almost delicate, in appearance, like the finest bone China to have ever emerged from out of the kiln.
“He’s not saggy, and he’s not crusty, either,” she assured him as she picked up her pencil and leaned back in the chair. “He’s like—pleasantly round and plump.” Her eyes wandered over the rounded shape of his face. “Pleasantly full and tight and very smooth—like a heavier Jack Lalane.”
“Jack Lalane with a streak of gray in his hair, too,” Eric added with a little raise of his eyebrows at her.
“I am utterly mesmerized by that little streak of gray,” Christine confessed, and she gave her pencil a little twirl with her index and middle fingers. “It’s like a wisp of smoke.” She gazed at Eric, who ran his tongue along his bottom lip at the sound of that, such that the pinkish color of his skin enriched a bit. There was that look in his eyes yet again, the look that he was about to tell her something that he should not be telling her.
“So… you really are going to see him again today,” he recalled in a low voice.
“Yup, I meet him for lunch in a couple of hours. In the meantime, I don’t have much else going on for today.”
Eric peered over his shoulder again: when he saw there was no one there, he returned to her for the umpteenth time.
“You wanna go somewhere else? This librarian’s making me nervous.”
“Well, I was just going to look over my notes and then go to ceramics,” she explained with a shrug. “I don’t really have anything else going on besides the little lunch date with Mr. Skolnick.” She peered past him again and frowned. “I do agree that that librarian sorta gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Like she’s about to jump right out and strangle us with the phone cord if we talk too loudly,” he joked, and he leaned back and picked up his bag from the floor and slung it over his shoulder. Christine followed suit right behind him: they both padded out of the library together and into the hallway, where they were met with a low wall of noise from some students at the far end.
“You still want to run away with me to the West Coast?” he asked her in a small voice.
“We can allot time for it and get to come back, sure,” she said with a nod.
“Of course, we get to come back,” he assured her with a slight smile. “We have our things here in New York, and we have our lives here as well.” He paused for a second. “At least, I hope we do.”
“We do,” Christine assured him, and she took a small writing pad out from her purse as well as a pen. “Mind giving me your phone number?”
“Uh, sure—I also want to give it to you because—you know. Studying and everything.”
“Of course! Of course.”
“You gotta be careful with it because it’s literally one digit away from the phone number to the hospital over on Long Island. You ever get wrong numbers?”
“All the time,” she assured him with a shake of her head and a careful scrawl of his number on the paper. “All the damn time.”
“When I got my phone number upon first moving here, I would get calls left and right for the hospital. You know—’we’ve got an ambulance coming with a burn victim!’ or ‘I’m coming with my nine-months pregnant wife who’s about to give birth any second!’, shit like that. And I’d just stand there and be like, ‘alright, I’ll be waiting for ya.’” Christine gaped at him, and he chuckled at that.
“So… I’ll talk to you later?” she asked him as she looked over the paper again before she tucked it into her bag.
“Yeah. And don’t worry about Colette and those other girls who sit behind us, either.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about them at all,” Christine assured him. “I am taking their words with a pinch of salt, though. I can’t really say for sure if Alex really does like me in that way, and I wouldn’t know what it’d look like, either.”
He gaped at her as if she had said the most shocking thing he had ever heard in his life. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said in a low voice, and with a clearing of her throat. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
As she stepped away from him, he watched her all the while. No tears to fall anymore, but she knew a shockwave when she saw it.
- 38
- 39
- 40
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

As the Seasons Grey