When Ruby—the brilliant young student, shows up uninvited at her professor’s home seeking amour, a taut psychological showdown erupts. The mercurial paramour meets the wife.

~

It was my birthday. Friday when Michelle left me standing at the front door. On her way out, she planted a kiss on my cheek and apologized for missing my special day. She sort of half-chuckled and was off with her three girlfriends for a weekend conference in Denver.

So, now it’s Sunday. No wake-up alarm to contend with, nonstop football on TV. Burgers, chips n’ dip, and beer. A little time away can be good for a marriage. Especially a marriage on the mend after going through a rough patch like ours last year. I’m a University Professor who had an affair with a student. I lost control of my behavior. Call it a little mid-life crisis. All behind me now. In control of my life again. Oh, I may still admire pretty young ladies strolling across campus, but that’s all. Nothing more.

Michelle is due back today. I’ve cleaned the house, changed the sheets, and vacuumed. It might be nice to have a hearty soup prepared for dinner when she arrives. So, I’d better get started—have everything ready when she walks in the door. I notice her keys under the table on the floor. She must have dropped them in her rush to leave. You’ll have to pick her up at the airport.

While I prepare to make the soup, I can’t help but think about Michelle. She wouldn’t miss doing something special for your fiftieth. Would she?

The doorbell rings.
“Hello, professor.”
Shocked isn’t a strong enough word when I see who it is. “Ruby! My gosh. What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
Ruby the girl that almost ruined my marriage last year. A restless spirit.

I step back, a little wary. “Of course. What brings you here today?”
Leaning on the doorpost with arms folded, she asks in her sultry Bette Davis voice, “I’m here about my standing in your class.”

Ruby Aldana a magnetic personality brainbox from my Comparative Lit Class last year. She may be the most aggressive, intelligent, young academic student I’ve ever had in all my years of lecturing. But there’s also a dangerous side to her. Ruby is a sexy provocateur who uses her allure to attract men with shifty personalities, especially her professors. She gets off on the favors she reaps from professors like me. It was impossible to break away from her magnetism until I came to my senses and admitted the affair to Michelle. To this day, I don’t know how Michelle let it pass like she did with dignity, showing little emotion with hardly any damage to our marriage.

At the beginning of the year, I was surprised to see that Ruby had enrolled in my Drama and Theatre class. Against my better judgment, I accepted her into the class thinking there was no good reason not to accept her. And so far, we’ve managed to give distance to each other in class, as I hoped it would be. But now, seeing her standing in my doorway asking about her standing in my class gives me pause.

Ruby Aldana isn’t here to know about her standing in my class.

I lick my lips.

Be careful with this. Keep it professional.

“Ruby, you’re making an A. What’s your concern?”
“Oh, professor. You know it’s not about my grade. It’s about you and me.”
My jaw drops.
She frowns, “You never notice me anymore. What’s up?”
My brow furrows. “Ruby.” I sigh. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“But I’m the best student in your class, Professor. Right? But it doesn’t seem like I’m your pet anymore? I know you still want me.”
I run fingers through my hair and purse my lips. “I thought we had an understanding, Ruby. What we did last year was wrong. And it’s over.”
“Wrong? How so?”
“How so?” I swallow hard and change the subject. “You’re getting a good grade. Isn’t that enough?”
“No. No, it’s not.” She leaps at me, throws her arms around my neck; we stumble backward, pinning me against the wall.
“Do you have clean sheets on the bed, professor?”
“Yes,” I blush. “Yes, I do, but… No…”
She interrupts, “But not for long. Right?” She grabs my hand just as my phone vibrates and buzzes.
I pull away. “It’s Michelle. She’s due home anytime. You gotta go, Ruby.”
“Oh, no. I need to talk with Michelle.” She knocks the phone out of my hand; it bounces on the hardwood floor.
“What is wrong with you, girl? Are you trying to get me thrown out of my home and lose my family?”
“We’re meant to be together, professor. I learned that with you last year.”
The phone oscillates on the floor, buzzing and vibrating.
“I really need to take this, Ruby.”
“No,” she says, leaning into me, smelling of eucalyptus, full breasts pressing me against the wall again. “Come on professor, let’s go upstairs to the bedroom.”
The phone goes quiet on the floor. I playfully tweak her nose and push her away, considering she might be crazy enough to recant the story she gave to Michelle last year, absolving me of any wrongdoing.

“Ruby, Ruby, come on, Rube. I’m happily married. You know that.”
“Liar.”
I scratch at my chin, deliberating how to go about this, “You shouldn’t be here, girl.”
“Why?”
“You know why. So now leave. Please.”
She glances around. Then runs a finger down my cheek. “Your house is nice, comfortable, and expensive. We can have the same.”
“Ruby, this is not funny.”
With a slight smirk, she turns coy, brushing a finger across my chin. “We can create great programs together you and me.”

This is getting out of hand. “You need to stop this right now, Ruby. This isn’t funny anymore. Now go. Get out. I don’t want you here when Michelle gets home.”
Her face turns severe. She turns and is off in a huff, running upstairs without a word.
“Ruby, where’re you going?” I follow, telling her to stop this charade.
On the landing, she turns to tell me she knows my fire still burns for her. “I’m here to help you with your research, professor.”
“Help me how?”
“Satisfy you any time, day or night. Free up your creative juices.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack, buster.” She walks away, disappearing into the bedroom.
The phone downstairs starts buzzing again. It’s Michelle. She leaves a voice message. “Call me ASAP, John.”
I find Ruby flopped on the bed in our bedroom. “Michelle needs a ride from the airport. I need to go pick her up.”
“She’s a big girl, professor. She’ll find her way home. Are you going to explain about us when she gets here?”
Stunned, I scratch at my scalp and watch her walk into our closet, yanking Michelle’s dresses off hangers for a look. He mumbles as she drops them on the floor. “If you won’t tell her about us then I will, baby.”
“Ruby, you’re not going to be here when she arrives. You’re leaving right now.”
“Hey.” She finds a box and comes out, opening it. “Is this yours, professor?”
“No, give me that.”
She yanks it back and lifts out a handgun. “So, this is hers? Why does she need a gun?”
I snatch it away.
“Man. I don’t like the way you’re treating me, professor. You’re not the same sweet, charming lover I got to know when you were helping me refine my dramatic acting career. What’s gotten into you?”
I toss the gun on the bed and grab her arm in frustration. “Let’s go.”
She jerks free and goes to opening jars and bottles on Michelle’s cosmetic vanity.
I slap her hand away. “Would you quit that!”
She cuffs me across the face. I instinctively respond knocking her to the floor.
“Oh, God, Ruby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
She’s up, grabs the gun, and slams it into my forehead. I stumble back and fall, bleeding from a hairline gash. Over me, standing with the gun pointed at my face, she confesses, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, professor.
“You gonna shoot me, Ruby?”
“What? Are you crazy? Why would I do that? I’m not like Beth in Fatal Attraction, wanting to kill her lover. How does the saying go in performing good dramatic roles? Hold back nothing, act with truth, go for it. Embrace the full range of emotions and physicality of a character. Well, how am I doin’, professor?” She throws the gun into my chest, followed a kick in the side. She chuckles and heads to the bathroom mirror. “I think I’ve got a bruise where you hit me, John. Oh, jeez, professor, look. I do. Look what you did.”
The phone downstairs goes off buzzing again. Michelle. She sounds hysterical. Call me, John. Call me right now. I don’t have my keys. I need you to pick me up.
But I can’t. Fear and anger have frozen me mentally and physically. I’m furious, breathing deep and fast. I stare at the girl who’s about to ruin my life. Nothing else matters except my family, my marriage. Fuck… your entire life will be gone because of this girl.

Ruby struggles to stand up. I grab the gun and stick it in her face. “Sorry, Ruby.”
“You gonna shoot me, John?”
Downstairs, Michelle is leaving another message. John, for God’s sake, call me. Where are you?
In a daze, I shake, holding the gun with the hammer cocked and ready to shoot.

You’ll go to prison for life if you pull the trigger. But what other options do you have?

I wake out of it too late to see her letting loose with a snow globe from Michelle’s vanity. Right at me. I’m not fast enough to dodge it. Terrific pain, a cracking noise at my collarbone. The gun accidentally goes off. I blink. Ruby Aldana, my star pupil, drops like a broken marionette in a jerky fall. A gushing hole above her right eye.
Oh, shit. Oh, no. Oh my God, what have you done?
Frozen in disbelief, the smell of burning gunpowder stings my nose. Eyes watering. I stare down at her. But she isn’t a ‘her’ anymore. It’s an unrecognizable corpse—a mess on the bathroom floor.
I drop the gun. Shock, panic, confusion. My first thought…run. I crush the thought. Think. Get rid of the body. Clean up the mess. Mexico? Canada? Costa Rica?
My back against the wall I slide down to the floor.
Get hold of yourself, man. Running isn’t the answer. Hiding this won’t work. You’re fucked.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in a daze, wondering what to do. The afternoon is darkening when the doorbell rings… ding dong.
I leap to the window to see a cab driving away. Michelle’s fussing with her luggage on the front doorstep. Another car pulls up in the driveway. Three of her girlfriends get out. Oh, my Lord. I press down my hair, heart racing, holding back vomit.
The doorbell again—ding dong…ding dong.
“Oh, God.”
Ding dong.
I stare at the gun on the floor. There’s your answer. Sack up, John. Be a man. End it right here and now.

A text from Michelle comes through again. John, where are you?
The gun is still an option, 

Ding dong.

My wife is banging on the door and shouting, “John, let me in, I have to pee.”
I stagger down stairs reluctantly, collect myself and open the door.
“Where have you been, John? I’ve been calling you.” She frowns at the blood on my face. “What happened? You get into an accident?”
“Something like that.”
One of her girlfriends, Ginger, an obnoxious redhead bitch comes up behind Michelle and squeezes her head in the door. She grins and asks bluntly, “Is Ruby still here?”

I almost swallow my tongue. “What?”
Ginger pushes past Michelle, into the hall, looking up at me. “How’d she do? Was it worth it?
“What the fuck are you talking about?”

She giggles. “Bet it was a surprise, huh? Ruby’s such a good actor. Everything she’s learned, she learned from you. Michelle thought how good an idea it would be to pull off a dramatic performance for your birthday. Let you see how convincing one of your students learned to act.”
I glare at the little pinhead. Then over at my wife. “You did this, Michelle?”
Ginger answers for her. “Yeah, she did. Was she convincing enough for you?”
I feel my face go red with heat. “So, you’re saying an act from a student was planned.”
Michelle grins and slightly cowers, lowering her head, pleased with herself. “I gotta pee.” She pushes past me, climbing the stairs and shouts at Ginger still standing at the door.  “Bye-bye, hon. Catch you later.” At the top of the landing, she stops, looks back down at me for a curious second before disappearing towards the bedroom.

Ginger frowns before I push her out.
I close the door brace for a scream that’s sure to come from Michelle. She’ll find the bloody mess.  
Here it comes, any second.
Any minute now.

The toilet flushes. I frown. I swallow. Any second, now.

Walking casually from the bedroom to the landing, wiping her hands, she leans over the railing. “Didn’t think it would go this far. Oh, well. Better get your ass up here, John. We’ve got some cleaning up to do.”
My jaw falls open. All crystal clear now.

I mumble to my self. “This was meant as punishment for your affair last year. The goodness you saw in Michelle hearing of my fling wasn’t leniency at all. She decided on this. Retribution in one way or the other. Too bad Ruby got the worst of it. This was Michelle’s plan all along.

I reach the bedroom, Michelle sits on her pink vanity stool, smoking, waiting for me with legs crossed, leg bouncing impatiently. Casually holding her cigarette arm at the elbow, she flicks ashes off onto the body and grins.

The horror of seeing her washes over me like ice water. You have to live with the woman for the rest of your life.