The rain made it awkward to stand outside and watch today. He would have stayed for the full hour in the park as usual, had it not been for torrents smacking his face and drenching his clothes, an umbrella useless against the wind. Indifferent to news, he didn’t watch television or listen to the radio or log on to the Internet. One step outdoors provided all the information he needed. Merely an overcast sky then. Over the years, he had acquired patience, only having been apprehended once, psychologically probed, institutionalized, and then released with court orders and dire warnings. That had all happened 32 years ago before he became a teacher. Since then, he had chosen to observe and follow a few other likely candidates, who had never suspected a thing, but he always found them wanting and ultimately not worth the pursuit. Only one person at the college knew about his private life: his friend Jean-Guy, who was chairman of the Theatre Arts department.

Jean-Guy tolerated or overlooked much, affecting unconventional attitudes and, embracing his own quirks, or his inner demons as he liked to call them, he loved exploring and acting out his fantasies. Sometimes, he shared them with Ernie over a beer. Staring at a red-haired ingénue in a sequined tank top and fantasizing what you’d do with her was permissible in a rehearsal hall. Ernie had examined her every move, every gesture, probed her face when close enough, the firm buttocks, and she seemed to respond to his penetrating gaze. Indeed, in the early stages, she had often sat by him in the first row to ask if she had spoken the lines correctly. If the action corresponded to the words. What advice could he give?

“Here, let me show you, Karine,”

During and after each rehearsal, he made an extra effort to pay attention to her. He thought he had been managing well without overstepping the boundaries, until, to his chagrin and dismay, she asked him to stop. He didn’t know what she meant, he had exclaimed. And then she complained to the chairman, who listened, advised, promised to look into it. Jean-Guy spoke to him privately. Not that Jean-Guy would do much about it, since on occasion he privately auditioned a few willing students, those lusty and aspiring thespians, encouraging them to absorb theatrical experience. He even took willing aspirants to Ernie’s apartment for private lessons. And he had a way of soothing nervousness, so Ernie assumed Karine had settled down, and he resumed his sweet cajoling. When she screamed into the phone not to call her anymore, and turned away from him when they accidentally met in the grocery store or her favourite coffee shop, he had put it down to adolescent jitters, frustrated desire, and the wonderful allure of being admired, possibly even loved. He didn’t like to believe that he may have been mistaken in her secret signals to him in rehearsals.

His failure to maintain discretion had been caused by unwonted overexcitement, by the roundness of her breasts and the exquisite hair. One hot evening before that telephone call, she had come to a rehearsal of Chekhov’s Three Sisters wearing shorts and a spandex top, her navel pierced by a ruby-tipped ring. She was playing the youngest sister Irina who yearned for the excitement of Moscow, almost desperate to escape from a stifling provincial town. Despite her hesitancy, which he attributed to nerves, he provided private tutorials in his office to help her explore the meaning of the speeches, and sometimes his hand rested on her shoulder. Ah, her body shivered with desire, but he had been patient, not wishing to push his advantage, not until he sensed her willingness to comply.

He did notice the pores on her face seemed rather larger than normal, an imperfection in his mind, but cosmetics would cover them, and there was a hint of sourness in her breath. From a distance, however, her face looked as smooth as a mannequin’s. When she refused to attend any more of the private sessions, he had no choice but to see what she was doing, how she was managing, where she went. He had hoped that Karine as a theatre arts student could imagine him as a more mature Romeo, afflicted by Juliet’s beauty of Juliet and as attentive to her every gesture. After all, Jean-Guy had little difficulty with his chosen ones. Oh, there had been a couple of heated conversations when Karine had raised her voice, a bit too screechy to his mind, and he considered elocution lessons, but he had attributed her outbursts to nerves and self-doubts.

Just last month after she withdrew from the play entirely, refusing to attend rehearsals, she had metaphorically slapped him in the face with a threat of a restraining order, as if admiration and yearning were heinous crimes. This had come to him as a vile surprise, and he didn’t know why she would have considered such a thing. Even Jean-Guy had spoken in less than a friendly tone, suggesting they didn’t want the police to come to the college, or the dean to take too great an interest in the private activities of professors.

“If they’re private, they’re not his business.”

“Listen, Ernie, if the girl follows through with her threat and lodges a complaint against you, and the police come to the college, then it fucking well is the dean’s business and your job could be on the line. You’re lucky I persuaded Karine not to proceed or go public. Not even the union could protect you, and they won’t even try if this blows up. I’m just saying, be careful. Leave her alone. Go after someone your own age, my friend, and ask her out for a proper date.”

Ernie had smiled in agreement, although his mind clouded and his face burned over the reference to his age. Jean-Guy was in no position to offer advice. Just over 40, still fit and attractive in that lean and grizzled kind of way certain middle-aged men possessed, he attracted overly-eager students who flocked around him like pigeons in a park. Being French added to his appeal, not to mention his Paul Newman eyes. Would Karine object to Jean-Guy putting his hands on her? He still trusted Ernie to be discreet about using the apartment for private sessions. And for Ernie’s pleasure, Jean-Guy enjoyed describing what he did with the student, and they even talked about letting Ernie watch somehow without the student’s awareness. Oh, that would be splendid, Ernie had exclaimed. He had to think about installing a two-way mirror. Not one of the students had ever launched complaints about Jean-Guy.

A man of softer parts, which a girdle did little to harden, balding, and with a pronounced tic of the left eye, Ernie relied upon superior intelligence and expertise in mounting dramatic productions to rivet attention. At one time he had been, if not tall, certainly dark haired; if not handsome, then a pleasing young man. Girls, a few, had joined him in bed, although they had not stayed long. An unsuspected difficulty always arose with the females: a disfiguring mole, uncut toenails, inept lovemaking, as if enticing body fragrance had become a stench. More and more, he preferred watching porn with actors of flawless bodies. He expended himself with some satisfaction, a kind of dying on the wrinkled sheets; le petit mort, the French called it. Of course, Cleopatra also died countless times in her lovers’ arms, as Shakespeare wrote: “she hath such a celerity in dying.”

Deepest pleasure, though, now lay in anticipation rather than performance, he had discovered. The best dying happened after deferred excitement, in following and learning how Karine spent her days and where she went; in the longing, in the knowledge that this one girl, the one out of many he could have chosen, was worth the pursuing. He couldn’t do it every day, of course, but he had managed to arrange his schedule and discover her own routines to allow him to realize his dream. Once he had captured her love, he imagined that he would embrace her perfect body to his heart’s content, the way Pluto rapturously carried away the exquisite Proserpina. Endlessly enraptured, she belonged to the hoary god forevermore, and no one else could touch her, not even Jean-Guy. Above all, his desire would elevate Karine to the status of demi-goddess, and no human flaw would corrupt his joy.

She’d leave home at five minutes after eight and walk fifteen minutes to reach the campus. Having retreated to his car, he started the engine and the wipers so he’d get a clear view when Karine exited the house. Perhaps he had let desire overcome discretion by vacating his accustomed vantage point, a little park with tennis court across from her house where he’d sit with a tennis racket or book. Look, there she was! No umbrella. Form-fitting jeans and blousy jacket. The poor girl would get soaked. How fortuitous that he should be on the spot to offer her a ride. She walked directly across the street towards the car. Startled when Karine opened the door and slid inside, rain dripping off her red hair, he would have preferred to offer a ride first.

“I am speaking to you this one last time,” she began without so much as a good morning, “you’ve been warned. Stop following me. I told Jean-Guy I’d go to the police. Stay away from me.”

His mouth dry, he affected a smile, ill-prepared for a direct confrontation not of his choosing. The rain did not improve her looks as it dripped off her face, he noticed. She did indeed look better from afar than she did close-up.

“A little contretemps between us, dear, no harm done, I forgive you.”

He disliked her brazen tone of voice, remembering how she had initially been so compliant and respectful.

“I wish you would come back to the play. The new girl lacks, shall we say, your finesse. There’s a rehearsal tonight and if you were to appear, I’m sure the new girl, after I explained everything, would happily relinquish the part. Let me drive you to school.”

She didn’t answer and slammed the door behind her so hard that his little Toyota shook. He watched her scurry across down the block. He could drive behind her all the way, but decided that today, given her mood, Karine would not approve.

Surprisingly invigorated by the morning’s events, Ernie began the rehearsal that day by lecturing the young actors about voice projection and natural movement on stage. The girl now playing the part of Irina moved like an automaton and spoke in a whisper. No one else being available to assume Karine’s role, only desperation had led to her casting. Jean-Guy had insisted, no doubt having promised her the role after she had let him bed her. Not one to make invidious comparisons, Ernie could not help but notice her pocked complexion and bulging hips, although heavy make-up and turn-of-the-century, flouncy Russian costume would help camouflage her physical imperfections.

All the student actors sprawled in the front row as Ernie gesticulated back and forth. How fresh-faced they looked, what vibrancy they exuded.

“Hamlet, in this regard, was right. You must learn to suit the word to the action. Now I want you all to take your positions on stage and at least try to pretend that you’re living, breathing human beings who know how to speak, and who mean what they say.”

They quickly sprang into action, hurrying to the stage. Even the girl playing Irina stirred out of her lethargy. She perhaps may work out after all, with a bit of extra coaching on his part. He could learn to overlook her imperfections, as Jean-Guy so evidently did. Looking up the stairs to the auditorium entrance, he saw Karine descending, so exquisite from a distance, but flanked by two police officers. A sudden tremor in his knees, a furious tic of the eye. The students also saw the police and Karine, the confused expression on their faces not feigned. They stared and gestured at Ernie standing in the front row and raising his arms as if to ward off an attack. They waited for his directions.