The place was old, one of those rickety fixer-uppers young university couples buy when they’ve made a bit of money. Their pet project, a bulwark of their love against all the teaching, the papers. The politicking. “Marvelously engaging,” they’d told their friends, at least till spending a few upstate winters rattling around the place like a couple of ball bearings in a lab flask. While they were still talking.

The boy dressed quietly. She was flat on her back, snoring. He took a last glance: the bottle, the ashtray, her short skirt still on the back of the chair. In the morning light, she looked kind of ridiculous. Different than in class, for sure.

The floorboards creaked no matter how he tiptoed. He hoped to hell she wouldn’t wake up.

In the hallway, they’d been replacing the old windows. A pile of sash weights sat at the top of the stairs.

He grabbed one, just in case. You never knew what crazy ideas these academics were going to develop. Her poor bastard husband might have analyzed Straw Dogs one too many times and decide to come in with a shotgun.

He didn’t know what a sash weight was gonna do against a shotgun, but it was better than nothing. Maybe he could throw it.

But really, there was going to be no shotgun anyhow. These were two professors.

He was just bugging out, as usual.

Besides, he only had to make it this one flight down and onto the street. After two steps, he’d be just another stranger, nothing to look at. Home free.

The damned stairs sagged too, squeaked like a son of a bitch. Wasn’t anything in this place tight?

When he did get downstairs, he felt like chucking the weight through the picture window. No reason. Just for the hell of it. But why, after all? Nada y pues nada.

 He dropped it in the bushes, just to mess up the reassembly later. 

But he wondered if there ever was going to be a next time. He didn’t know what she wanted. In class, she’d told him she was going to give a surprise quiz on Monday. Inside info. 

That’s how it started.