Madness in the Method Ch. 01

"I see those boring old hacks at enough department meetings," she said, taking another drag. "Besides, I like the view of the campus from here."

Katrina smiled weakly. She breathed deeply, calming her tense nerves. Iris Adair was wearing a dark gown that went right down to below her knees.

"I'm looking forward to the rendition of Les Miserables next month," Mrs Adair said, clasping her palms over another cigarette and lighting it. "You're part of that production, right?"

Kat nodded. She knew her demeanour was giving away her uneasiness and was trying desperately to relax.

"Why are you so tense?" Iris asked, turning her head to blow another stream of smoke into the cool night air. "Want one?" she asked, holding out the pack.

"No, thanks," Kat replied, taking a few steps back. Abruptly, her back came into contact with a solid body. She turned around to see Hayden standing there.

"Mr Finch won't be bothering you for a while at least."

"Thank you, sir," said Katrina, suddenly very self conscious.

"She makes us out to be much older than we are, Hayden," said Iris with a dry laugh.

"How about we go back inside before someone begins to wonder where the three of us disappeared to?"

"Good idea," Iris said, finishing her last drag and stomping it out.

The three of them made their way back to the main party and mingled with the other guests. Katrina stayed outside the crowd. Crowds made her uncomfortable. She had been sure to take more than her prescribed dose of her bipolar medication in anticipation of the stress of the party.

"Nothing like Dr Winter's finest to get you through the day," she muttered under her breath.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and scrolled down to the newest message.

Hayden Adair: Reserve book storage room beside the Dean's Office. Fifteen minutes from now.

Katrina looked up and scanned the crowd for a few minutes before spotting the professor of theatre surrounded by a group of people. He excused himself and went to shake hands with someone else. En route, he caught Katrina's eye with a sideways glance.

The thrill of subterfuge sent a tingle down Kat's spine all the way to her pussy. She could feel a distinct dampness building in eager anticipation. The seconds just would not tick by fast enough for her. She counted each of them, until the promised fifteen minutes had elapsed.

Hayden broke off the conversation and went towards the stairs. He shot her one last knowing smile before disappearing to the upper level. Katrina looked around to see Iris Adair re enter the balcony, obviously bored.

It took all her self control not to race up the stairs at full sprint.

The afternoon sun shone down brightly on the green grass. A few students were slowly making their way back to their rooms or resignedly trudging to an afternoon class. They all but ignored the blonde running past them.

Katrina was breathless, unable to believe what she had just done. She would not have thought herself capable of it, but it had happened. She walked briskly across the lawn trying to remember the events since the morning.

"Come in, Ms Bauer."

She walked into Adair's office and closed the door behind her. She had no clue why he called her. He had that serious look which never boded well for anyone. He motioned her to sit down.

"I would like to talk to you regarding Mr Finch," he said plainly. "From my interaction with him at the party yesterday, he seems like a most unpleasant human being. Have you considered pressing charges?"

Kat sat down and collected her thoughts.

"I thought about it, but Noah's father is a prominent criminal attorney. He paid me a visit and..." she stopped to choke a sob ".. and said he would cross examine me on the stand and publicly show me up for the 'slut' I was if I pursued this case. Then he threw some money at me like I was a cheap whore and left."

Immediately, Hayden reached out to comfort her. His fingers wiped away her tears.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you. No one deserves that," he said comfortingly.

"It's okay," she said, turning to leave. "I'll survive it. I always do."

"Wait," he said, making her stop in her tracks. He walked up to her and slowly wrapped his arms around her slender torso. His pointed chin brushed her clavicle as his lips pressed against her shoulder, planting small kisses. Katrina squirmed against the sensation.

"You know how much I love you and I hate seeing you this way," he whispered into her ear. "So I have found a way you can get back at him."

Katrina turned around in surprise. He led her to his desk and unlocked a false panel under one of his drawers.

"Don't ask me how or where I got this, but I got it only for you."

Her surprise turned to amazement and shock once she saw what "it" was. Her throat went dry and her eyes went wide.

"It will be risky, but I believe that desperate times call for desperate measures."

Adair turned to face Katrina, who was still reeling from the shock of what she had seen. She raised her gaze to Adair's, trying to come to grips with what lay before her.

"I wouldn't have done this for anyone else," he said. "But you are different. You deserve better than what that cretin did to you. Are you up for this?"

Even as her heart raced, she nodded. The man she loved was offering her a chance at vindication, every fibre of her being craved that. And to do this in Adair's eyes would be more, it would be a redemption.

"Good. Now here is what you have to do."

Katrina skipped past the bridge over the brook on the lawns adjacent to the Sociology Building. It had all been set in motion. The thrill of it caused an adrenaline rush that coursed through her body, making her feel giddy.

The rest of the students walked and chatted around her, oblivious to the events that were about to unfold.

This was it. Katrina stood in front of the wooden door labelled Room 13 with her bag slung over her shoulder and knocked on the door thrice. She cringed inwardly at every knock. The door swung open and the tanned Noah Finch stood in the doorway, sleepy and bedraggled.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, not appreciating being woken up.

"Noah, what you did at the party last night was uncalled for."

"And you came all the way here to tell me that?" he said, his customary drawl returning to his voice.

"No," she said, biting her lip. This was going to be the hardest part, but she was determined to do it. For Adair's sake, if not for her own.

"Then what, slut?" he sneered.

"What will it take for you to delete that video and get out of my life?" Kat said.

"You know..." he drawled suggestively. "You always know what I want. Three more times, one for each hole, and consider yourself forgotten."

The very thought of it was revolting, but it was necessary. Katrina had spent all morning, all the time since her visit to Hayden's office, steeling her resolve for this. She could not fail now.

"Fine," she said through gritted teeth. "Let's get this over with fast."

Noah smiled, revealing all his pearly whites under those dark lips. He felt supremely powerful in that moment. He stepped aside and let her enter.

Katrina looked at her watch, counting off the time before she made the call. She sat under a tree to catch her breath, letting the rush subside to normalcy. She could feel a slight burn with every step as her body was still hurting from the sodomy.

"That felt great," declared Noah triumphantly. His muscular arms flexed around Katrina's slender body. She curled up, still feeling the cum on her. She hated the taste of it, the same way she loathed the sticky wetness down the front and back of her thighs.

"Delete the video now," she said.

"We'll get to it," he said, getting off the bed. "Don't get your panties in a twist."

Saying this, he hopped into the adjoining shower to cleanse the sweat off. It had taken someone of his father's influence to see to it that he got such a luxury room in his dorm. Katrina heard the bathroom door click shut and sprang into action. Time was of the essence.

Quickly, she got on her hands and knees under the bed looking for a loose floorboard. Hayden had assured her that every guy's dorm had one. She just needed to find it. She pushed aside some cases, tapping the boards until she found one with a hollow sound. Carefully, she lifted it to see a small stack of porn, some weed and condoms. This was Noah's secret stash.

"Time to add to it," she thought. Quickly, she retrieved rubber gloves from her bag and carefully took out the all important item. It fit snugly into the space under the floorboard. She replaced the board and put the gloves back into her bag. Katrina then placed the cases back over the loose floorboard.

She got up and finished dressing a few seconds before Noah came out of the bathroom. Moisture glistened off his athletic frame. Grinning widely, he turned on his laptop.

"Do you want to see the video one last time?" he smirked.

"No. Just delete it."

"As you wish," he said, tapping the delete key. He then cleared his Recycle Bin. "There. It's gone."

He stood up, facing Katrina, still with that smirk on his face. She stared at him, hate burning in her brown eyes. She spat on his face and stormed out, leaving him alone.

Katrina checked her watch again. Enough time had elapsed. Inconspicuously, she made her way to the public phone near her dorm and dialled three digits.

"9-1-1. What's your emergency?"

"I'm calling from Oberlin College with some information I would like to give anonymously."

"What kind of information?"

"It's important. Can you take down what I say?"

"Go ahead."

"Harkness dorm. Room 13," she said breathlessly. "The name of the resident is Noah Finch. He has a pound of cocaine stashed under a loose floorboard beneath his bed."

It took a few moments for the lady on the other end to note all that down.

"How do you know this?"

"It doesn't matter. All I know is he got a fresh packet of it today."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Send the police as soon as you can."

Katrina dropped the call. She was still trembling from the sheer magnitude of what she had done. A buzzing distracted her and she pulled out her phone.

"Is it done?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'm proud of you, Katrina. Maybe we should celebrate this. How does tonight after the dress rehearsal sound?"

"Great," she replied, cracking into a smile.

"I love you, Katrina."

"I love you too."

"Did you hear what happened to Noah?"

"Fuck. Unbelievable. I know Noah is a lot of things, but a drug dealer?"

"Did you know about this?"

Katrina snapped out of her daze. Edie and Lena were staring at her. Her mind was so lost in the events of the previous day that she was barely aware that she was in class. She faced her friends with a blank expression.

"No. But I can't say I'm surprised," she said evenly. "Karma is a bitch."

"You must be thrilled."

"Too true," she said. "Fucker deserved what he got."

The conversation abated for a while as the lecturer looked in their direction. Katrina tried to focus on the lecture, but her mind kept returning to what had taken place. From the fateful visit to Adair's office in the morning to the time he pushed her over a desk in the prop storage room and fucked her hard and fast. It was what he said after that, however, that rang in her head.

"What happens to us?" asked Katrina softly, putting on her dress.

"Come again?"

"How long do we have to keep this up? Can we have a real future?"

Adair put on a mask of contemplation for a while.

"There will be a future, Katrina. I'm sure of it."

She replayed the sentence in her mind yet again. It was all she could think about. His voice played in a continuous loop inside her head, each time sounding sweeter than the last. Those simple words had a captivating melody of their own, an aria that made her beat faster than it ever had.

"He keeps saying someone planted the drugs."

Again Katrina was broken out of her dreamland. She turned to face the conversation going on beside her.

"Yeah well, fuck him."

"I know you think he's the Devil's spawn," said Lena. "But he may have a point. After all, we all know how many enemies he had. Plenty of motive right here on campus."

Both pairs of eyes turned to Katrina. She cleared her throat authoritatively.

"Where would I have gotten the coke from?" she asked dryly. "And exactly how would I get into his room?"

"Relax, princess," said Lena. "I'm not saying you did it, but you get the point, right? Lots of people wanted Noah gone. Even Adair."

Kat's head snapped straight.

"What?!"

Edie and Katrina leaned closer as Lena used a book to cover their faces. Lena dropped her tone to a conspiratorial whisper.

"I have heard from certain people in the know that there were several arguments between Adair and Noah, some of them got pretty heated."

"You think Adair is capable of planting drugs?" said Edie, wide-eyed.

"Not likely," said Lena. "Someone would have noticed him there. He would stick out like a sore thumb in a dorm."

"Maybe he got someone to do it for him?" suggested Edie.

"That's absurd," said Katrina forcing some steadiness into her tone. "Who would take such a risk?"

"I don't know," admitted Lena. "But I will tell you this – Adair is a clever bastard. If he wanted something done, he would find a way to do it."

Katrina felt her stomach quiver. The possibility that she might have been used by Adair raised itself in her head.

"No way," she said inwardly. "Not Adair."

Katrina's eyes were clamped shut. Her back was flat against the cool surface of the ornate mahogany desk. Hayden's palms pressed down on either side of her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms were locked around his back, her nails digging into the skin. He kissed her passionately, his rough stubble brushing against her tender skin.

He plunged himself deeper with every thrust. His lips were planted on Katrina's, her muffled screams of pleasure going straight into his mouth. One of his hands reached between them and pinched her clit gently. This was the breaking point and Kat gushed in a flood of orgasmic euphoria.

They lay in a sweaty heap of flesh and limbs for a while.

"So what did you want to ask me?" said Adair, sweaty and breathless.

"Nah, forget it. It's not important," said Katrina, smoothing the hem of her dress back down. "It's really silly to be honest."

She could feel the wonderful pain that always followed a session in the confines of his office. She knew that she would not be able to walk straight for a few hours, but the sensation of Adair slamming into her slender frame; his pelvis colliding against her engorged lips was so worth the residual hurt.

Katrina had come with hopes of getting that niggling question out of her mind, but they had inevitably fallen prey to the fortuitous mix of opportunity and their base desires. The thrill of the risky setting was also a huge turn on. The walls weren't thick enough to contain the sound of stifled cries.

"Are you sure you don't want to ask me anything?"

"Yes," she said, rising on tip toe to plant a kiss on his lips.

"Okay then," Adair said, putting his belt back on. "Drop by later if you want."

Katrina giggled and blushed before leaving. The sexual high was still tinged with the doubt of her unanswered question. Even as she left the main building and took a detour across the old lawns, she could not come to a firm decision. Adair had made her do something illegal and, as much as she wanted to believe there was no ulterior motive to his actions, she could not help wondering.

She leaned against a wall to think. The hopeless romantic inside her wanted to continue floating on the happy cloud of this dream, but the jaded realist needed some answers. Even if it was something like how he got the coke.

Sighing, she turned around and began to make her way back towards the main building. There were times when Katrina wanted to curse her instincts. They inevitably interfered with her happy dreamland.

"It's a silly doubt," she convinced herself. The slightest shred of evidence would calm her fraught nerves.

The corridors ghosted past her. No one who went by her in the building could sense her heart thudding against her chest. Her footsteps slowed to a crawl when she saw his office door. Before she got up to it, it opened and Adair walked out. He was obviously in a hurry.

Katrina was not leaving without her answer this time. She followed him at a distance, which was tough given how he walked with brisk strides down the stairs towards the new library extension. She trailed behind him, wondering what he was looking for.

The new plaster covered empty walls. This wing would soon be full of books. Adair waited for a while, taking a quick look around to ensure his solitude. His eyes missed Katrina standing behind a pillar, her heart racing.

Another set of footfalls came from the opposite direction. Kat dared not turn her head to see who it was. The footfalls became louder before stopping.

"You had something to do with it, didn't you?" said a female voice.

"What happened to Mr Finch? Yes I did," said Adair. "I was cleaning up your mess."

"Bullshit! You were just covering your own ass."

"Covering our collective asses," he corrected. "I hope you haven't forgotten your part in what we did."

There was no reply. Adair cleared his throat and spoke again.

"You jeopardized everything when you decided to get drunk with your favourite student after hours, Joanna. We all know how talkative you get when you've had a few shots too many."

He paused to catch his breath. Katrina's head was spinning.

"We're lucky Noah didn't go to the authorities. That would have been the end. He instead thought he could blackmail me."

"How did you do it?"

"None of your business," he snapped dismissively. "Now here is what will happen. I am going to write you a dazzling letter of recommendation which you are going to use to go wherever you want. Just get as far away as you can. Got it?"

The pair of footfalls made their way towards the main library. Katrina clutched her chest. Blood pounded in her ears. Her face blanched and she suddenly felt faint. Her legs went weak and she dropped to the floor.

She crawled for a short while, before finding the strength once again to walk and then, to run. She sprinted back to the main building. She flung open the door to the nearest ladies' toilet and rushed inside. Her legs just about propelled her to the nearest sink before she doubled over and threw up violently.

Katrina slowly raised her head to face the mirror for a long while. Another wave of vomit made her retch again, emptying her stomach some more. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw her red eyes and tousled hair.

"It's okay," she reassured herself. "It's okay. It's something I wanted as well. He still loves me."

Fake rationalizations were her speciality.

Katrina lay in the improvised ditch where Fantine's corpse had been crudely dumped. The spotlight had moved to the inn scene where Adair and the senior year Thenardier finished the act.

"You have been paid handsomely for the past several months. Everything you have demanded has been paid," said Valjean authoritatively. "And yet the child looks no better for it. Our business is concluded."

Valjean strode off with Cosette under his arm.