When I was finished, I noticed Hunter Blakeley walk into the room. He was preppie-sexy and had the aviator sunglasses on again. He walked directly to the professor and they chatted for awhile.

Marjorie Bittinger transformed into her usual preening, flirty self when Hunter was in close proximity. The way Hunter acted, you’d think they were dating.

“Do you think those two are hooking up?” Romeo whispered.

“It seems that way.”

Hunter walked into the corner and changed into his robe behind a hanging curtain. Marjorie stole glances at him the whole time.

“She’s peeping at him!” Romeo whispered, faux-offended. “You think she’d wait until he was standing naked in front of the entire room. She’s totally desperate.”

I could relate to that feeling of desperately wanting something you couldn’t have. I felt like I’d been seeing as much of Christos lately as Marjorie was getting to see of Hunter at the moment. Glimpses.

With any luck, that would change this evening when I had dinner with Christos. I crossed my fingers. And my toes.

Hunter walked out from behind the curtain and onto the dais wearing his robe. He flung it off with a flourish.

Sigh, yeah, he was totally hot.

I noticed a gleam in Marjorie’s eyes as she pretended to give Hunter’s naked body a cursory inspection. She tried to play it off like no big deal. But her hunger was obvious.

“Hunter,” the professor said, “please take your pose. Class, grab some clay from the warmer, and go to it.”

It turned out the bigger sculpture needed way more clay. I had to go back to the warmerator three times before I had enough. I slapped clay onto my armature, and went to work with a wooden paddle smoothing out the planes. I was getting the hang of this sculpting thing, and had my voodoo man blocked in pretty quickly.

Minutes later, I discovered that working larger was more difficult. There was a lot more room to screw things up. I was getting hung up on one of the legs. The knee looked wrong and the calf was three sizes too big.

“Your paddle,” Marjorie demanded.

“Huh? Oh.” I handed her the wooden tool, which looked like a small spatula.

Despite Professor Bittinger’s lack of interpersonal pleasantries when it came to anyone other than Hunter, she was amazingly skilled at sculpting. She plucked off a hunk of clay from the calf muscle on my sculpt. Then, with three quick swipes of my paddle, she transformed my wonky clay leg into a work of art.

“Wow, Professor. That looks amazing.”

She handed me the paddle unceremoniously and walked away.

I rolled my eyes behind her back. Was that supposed to be teaching, or just showing off? Despite her clinical beauty, she was a robot in the social arena. She was totally hotistic.

During the break, Hunter robed himself and bee-lined right over to me. I couldn’t help but notice Marjorie’s glaring eyes glued on him. I felt like running out of the room, just to get away from Hunter. Either he didn’t realize or didn’t care that he was souring my relationship with my professor, which would probably have an impact on my grade.

“Hey, beautiful,” he smiled. “Been thinking about you.”

I almost said, “That’s funny, because I haven’t,” but realized such a brush-off might sound like flirtation. I didn’t want to be a rude Bitchinger either, so I opted for bland, “Hey, Hunter.”

“You remembered my name?” He grinned. “That’s a start.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” he smiled.

I swear, everything with Hunter was a come on.

“Hiiii, Hunter,” Romeo smiled longingly. I think he batted his eyelashes. At least, he may as well have based on his fawning tone.

Hunter glanced at him dismissively. “Hey, dude.”

“You remember Romeo, don’t you, Hunter?” I shifted positions so Romeo was between me and him. “I need to, ah, get some more clay.” I didn’t, but it was a worthy excuse.

Too bad Hunter followed me to the warmerator. I opened the door and pretended to scan for what I needed.

“How was your weekend?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me about mine?”

“No.”

“It was pretty awesome.”

“I’m sure.”

“Me and some buddies went skiing at Mountain High. Powder was insane. Do you ski?”

“No,” I lied.

“I could teach you. I bet you’d be great, with some expert instruction.”

How the hell did he manage to turn everything I said into an opportunity to hit on me harder? He was a genius. Maybe if I led him toward Marjorie, she could take over for me. But she was on the far side of the room, talking to a couple of students. Weren’t there any other available females for him to honey badger?

Hunter chatted me up for the remainder of the break. Luckily, it lasted only five minutes. It seemed like five-hundred and five. Sigh.

Who would’ve thought a hot guy hitting on you could be so tiresome?

The class resumed sculpting when Hunter returned to his pose in the dais.

At one point, I glanced beside me at Romeo’s sculpture and noticed his had a huge erect dick.

I clapped my clay-covered hand over my mouth before I guffawed.

“What are you doing!” I whispered.

He looked confused. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently

“His thing!” I whisper-squealed. “It’s not that big!”

“You sure?” Romeo asked doubtfully. He lifted his monocle to his eye, squinched it into place, and glanced repeatedly between Hunter and his sculpture. “Looks right to me,” he said seriously, then lowered his monocle, allowing it to pendulum from its string.

“Yours is like twenty sizes too big. And his isn’t at attention.”

Confused, he said, “It was earlier, wasn’t it?”

“No!”

Romeo shrugged sheepishly. “Silly me. I must have been day-dreaming.” He pressed the clay penis down with two fingers, causing it to break off and topple to the floor. “Oops!” He bent over and picked it up, holding it in front of me. “You ever hear that song ‘Detachable Penis’ by the band King Missile?”

“What?! There’s no such song!”

“There totally is. Look it up.”

“Having fun?” Professor Bittinger asked, fists on hips. The toe of one of her shoes machine-gunned on the cement with restrained irritation.

“Definitely,” Romeo smiled at the professor. “Have you ever heard that song—”

I clapped my hand over Romeo’s mouth.

Through my fingers, he said, “Defafaffle Fefis?”

Marjorie frowned at me. “Is your friend all right?”

“No, I need to get him to a doctor or something. He’s sick.”

“Perhaps you should escort him to Student Health. That way, neither of you will waste anymore class time with your obtrusive Tom Foolery. While you’re there,” she said to me directly, “perhaps you should see a doctor as well.” She stalked off on her firecracker heels.

“Shut up!” I hissed at Romeo. “You’re going to get us kicked out.”

“Do you think Marjorie has a detachable vagina?” he whispered. “I think she does, and she lost it at a party, like, ten years ago. She hasn’t been laid since then. That’s why she’s so irritable.”

SAMANTHA

After sculpting class, Romeo walked me to my job at the campus art museum and we said our goodbyes. He had section for acting class again.

When I was behind the counter, I pulled out my notes from History and started reviewing them.

Not long after, Hunter walked through the doors of the museum.

I tried to duck behind the counter, but he’d already spotted me.

“There you are,” he smiled, striding over to the counter. “I thought I saw you walk in here.”

“Hey,” I said morosely. Maybe he’d pick up on my zombie tone and take the hint?

Nope.

“You looked like you were having fun in class with your buddy today,” he smiled. “I saw Bittinger giving both of you guys dirty looks. What was that all about?”

“I think she hates me,” I groused.

“Why? What’s to hate?”

I smirked and rolled my eyes. “I’ve been asking myself that since class started.” Wait. I just realized Hunter was tricking me into a conversation. I wasn’t going to say anything else. I officially zipped my lips.

Hunter grinned. “She’s probably jealous, like all the other women on campus. Speaking of which, I went out with your friend Tiffany.”

Okay, that was worthy of de-zipping. “You what?!”

“Yeah. I took her out for sushi at Japengo. It’s a fancy sushi place on the other side of the freeway. A workout buddy of mine is a waiter there. He always cuts me deals.”

“Okay, wait. Back up. You went out with Tiffany? Like, on a date?”

“Yeah,” he smiled.

I was in shock. I hadn’t actually seen or heard of such a thing. All I knew was that Tiffany was always trying to steal Christos from me. “Well, how’d it go?” I was dying to know.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” he said suggestively.

Bastard! But I wouldn’t let on. The last thing I wanted Hunter thinking was that he had anything I wanted, even if it was merely gossip. I stared at him, waiting him out.

I scrutinized his face. I couldn’t decide if he had really gone out with Tiffany, or if he was lying to make conversation. Sure, I could picture Tiffany going out with a guy like Hunter, but I needed proof.

Then, inspiration struck. “Well, if things went well, she probably wouldn’t be happy seeing you here with me.” That was an understatement. If Tiffany had gone out with Hunter, and the date had gone well, she’d tear me apart if she caught Hunter with me.

Hunter chuckled cagily. “Why, does Tiffany hang out at the art museum a lot?”