A Rock and a Hard Place

Caution: This chapter includes light spanking and a sex toy. You have been warned.

A Brit-pick would be welcome.

*

The Professor waved Trudy inside the dirty tavern, and she stepped inside hesitantly. The bartender watched her while polishing a chipped glass with a grubby rag. Trudy got the impression of a piercing blue gaze half hidden behind an untidy beard. He jerked his thumb toward the rear of the bar, where Trudy could dimly make out a staircase. The Professor led her up its rickety height and then up another before opening the door on a room of iffy welcome. Trudy saw a small, tarnished mirror above a cracked ewer and basin, a bed with a sag in the middle, and a wardrobe whose doors wouldn’t quite close.

“It looks haunted,” she remarked.

“Likely it is,” was the bored response.

She shot the Professor a sidelong, unamused look. After a pause, the Professor to her surprise raised his wand and muttered a spell. The wardrobe door opened wide then closed all the way. The sag in the bed seemed to fill, as if it had been a dimple in water. Pictures on the wall hanging at odd angles righted themselves. Trudy’s mouth hung open. The room now looked halfway presentable. She advanced into it and opened the window shutters. Below, the streets of Hogsmeade were waking up in the pale light of early morning. Trudy stared outside for a few moments before turning back to the Professor. He looked, she thought with bewilderment, tense, perhaps almost—uncertain? waiting?--for her reaction.

“It’s much nicer—thank you.” But then she remembered that he would be leaving her here for hours on end. “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone? When will you be back?” She colored. “I didn’t mean to suggest that I’d be waiting at the door. I mean, I’ll be happy to see you, but not—overly happy—" She broke off, coloring more deeply.

“I have no idea what you’ll do while I’m gone,” Snape said irritably. “I am not the ministry of amusement.”

“You—" she started angrily.

“I will see you when I can, whenever I’m able to get away from my lessons and duties.”

“And I’m just supposed to hang around here, waiting for you to call like some teenybopper about to be dumped?”

The Professor’s head snapped around toward the window, and Trudy had the impression that he was groping for self-control. “You are,” he said after a long pause, “supposed to wait for me because we need each other. And because you cannot defend yourself in the magical world.”

“You hate that,” she muttered resentfully. “You hate weakness, dependence—"

His head jerked back around to her. “Weakness, yes. Dependence, less so,” he said brusquely. “For example, where have you packed the clothes we bought some days ago?”

Trudy pointed wordlessly to her single, small bag. Inside was crushed every item she owned. Elizabeth’s clothes she had left in Gryffindor Tower.

“Very good. Then I should like you to wear the black robes and cloak with the black silk knickers, the plain black silk bra, and the black ankle boots.”

Trudy stared at him.

“We are going to Ollivander’s,” he continued. “My time is limited. Please get dressed right away.”

When he didn’t speak or move after a few seconds, Trudy said hopefully, “Then I’ll meet you just outside?”

The Professor’s eyes glittered at her. He crossed the room and shut the window shutters. “No, I think not,” he said quietly.

Trudy looked away, angry at herself to find herself blushing as usual. She thought of protesting, but calculated that he would not have asked her to do it if he hadn’t meant it. She began to silently undress, swinging off the Hogwarts robe and cloak, both inexpensively made, to reveal a Muggle jumper and jeans. She risked a glance at the Professor. He eyes took her in from head to foot, an expression difficult to read on his face. With a half-suppressed sigh, Trudy pulled the jumper over her head, revealing a plain white bra. She kicked off her trainers and wriggled out of her jeans, now a size too big because of the weight she had lost from anxiety and sadness. Beneath the jeans, she had on plain white knickers. She knew the marks of childbirth were softened by the gloom. Still, she half-turned from him to unhook her bra and step quickly out of her knickers. Curse words exploded in her head as she realized that in her nervousness, she had forgotten to lay out her new outfit. She now had to rummage through her luggage stark naked, all too aware of her rump shifting practically in the Professor’s face. At last she found the designated items. She stepped into the silk knickers, dainty and brief. Then she leaned over and lowered her breasts into the plain silk bra. When she stood up, she sensed rather than heard his quick intake of breath. Her breasts were now being hoisted up and forward, two globes being offered up to whoever might want to reach for them. She slid her feet into the low-heeled boots. Then, without looking the Professor’s way, she slung the all-encompassing black robes around her and swirled the cloak over all.

“Put up your hood,” the Professor said.

“Won’t that look strange in daytime?”

“Nothing looks strange at the Hog’s Head.”

Slowly, Trudy put up the hood. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as they left the room: shadowed face, cautious eyes… “You look fabulous, doll, fabulous,” she thought she heard a voice say perfunctorily from the direction of the mirror as the door closed behind her.

In a few moments, she was standing outside a weather-beaten shop whose sign read, in peeling gold paint, “Olli nder’s: Makers of Fi e Wand since 382 B”. The place looked closed. Trudy couldn’t help staring at the display in the shop window. One wand? On a purple cushion? The whole display looked like it hadn’t been dusted since 382 BC. She and the Professor entered the shop. A bell tinkled, and at once, a soft voice said, “Who’s there?”

Trudy peered around one of the stacks of what looked like shoeboxes that rose to the ceiling. A small, stooped man with unnerving, pale eyes tottered toward her. “A friend, Professor Snape?”

“A colleague of sorts,” Snape sniffed. “She’s never had a wand but needs one now.”

“I see,” the man said, turning his eyes on Trudy. Trudy shivered. She had the impression somehow that the shopkeeper’s gaze carried a certain amorality to it, a keen observance, but an unwillingness to judge. He opened one of the shoeboxes next to him and withdrew a gray, crooked stick. “Treated ash, centaur-fur core.” He handed her the stick. Trudy was careful not to touch him in any way when she took it.

“What do I do with it?” she asked in perplexity.

“Anything,” said the Professor in bored tones, surveying the shop. “Wave it about. Say a spell.”

“Um... Evanesco!” she said, pointing the wand at the front window. It was the only spell word she knew, short of the Unforgivable Curse. Nothing happened. The shop keeper gave her an inscrutable look.

“Likes it tidy, then?” he said. “How about this one? Red maple with dragon’s-tooth core.”

“OK. Uh, Evanesco?”

The Professor shot her a warning look. Evidently, her uncertain tone was giving away her non-magical status. She was going to have to put a little more confidence into her spell-casting. Not surprisingly, nothing happened again.

The shopkeeper was now giving her what could only be described as a funny look. “A friend, did you say, Professor?” he asked, not taking his eyes off Trudy.

“A colleague,” the Professor corrected. He sniffed. “Not a very apt one. She’s new to Britain.”

“I see. I see,” the shopkeeper said, turning slowly round. He gazed about the shop. “Try this. Walnut with a phoenix-feather ore.”

Trudy tried to take the wand, but it wouldn’t leave the shopkeeper’s hand.

“Ah. The wand chooses the wizard. This one isn’t for you,” he said.

About ten minutes later, Trudy stood with a stack of opened boxes next to her. The shopkeeper looked puzzled. He started to say something to the Professor, but seemed to think better of it.

“Let’s go,” Trudy said to the Professor. “This isn’t working.”

He glared at her. “It will work.”

“Maybe I’m not what you say I am.”

The Professor narrowed his eyes at her. “Keep trying,” he said, with a rictus of a smile that showcased his uneven, yellow teeth.

The shopkeeper’s eyes darted around his stock. “Well,” he said at last, “it seems you are, perhaps, a little bit of a different kind of witch, perhaps. Yes? Perhaps not a powerful one? Perhaps just in need of a reliable bit of wood, something accommodating and...understanding?”

“Are we talking about a wand or a wizard?” Trudy couldn’t help asking.

The shopkeeper turned pale, humorless eyes on her, and her smile died. She glanced at the Professor, whose expression, if she had to describe it, carried the vague impression that he was trying hard not to think about throttling her.

“Try this,” said the shopkeeper. “Bird’s eye maple—that’s rare; I don’t make many of those—and a core of hippogriff feather.”

Impatiently, Trudy took the wand end in her fingertips and flicked it at the wall. Three weak, green sparks shot out of the end. Trudy started. The shopkeeper beamed.

“We seem to have found a wand for you after all! I’ve never failed, you know. Not in all my years.”

Even the Professor raised an eyebrow. Trudy experimentally flicked the wand again. This time a sullen little spark shot from the end and petered out on its descent to the floor.

“How much is it?” Trudy asked in wonder.

“Have you forgot, Ms. Mills?” the Professor said sourly. “Your vault has not yet been transferred from Gringotts’ branch in the States. I shall add this expense to your tab, of course.”

Her vault? At first Trudy was confused. Then she shot the Professor a grateful look. Of course! He didn’t want her to be embarrassed by hearing the price and not being able to pay it. But she did have money. Dumbledore owed her some wages.

“I can—" she began, but the Professor overrode her smoothly. “Naturally, your wages are coming due, and we can soon even everything up. The cost, then, Ollivander?”

On their departure from the shop, Trudy glanced over her shoulder into the store’s musty interior once more. The shopkeeper was staring at her, holding the wand that didn’t want to be hers. His pale eyes lighted on hers, and in a laser-like moment of clarity, Trudy knew that he knew just what she was. He gazed pitilessly out at her and began making a brushing motion on his jacket, as though something dirty had been near him. Then he took a small broom on the shop’s front steps and began sweeping the entry. Trudy shuddered and stepped blindly after the Professor, not feeling the road beneath her, her feet suddenly numb.

They returned to the Hog’s Head wordlessly. At the doorway, Trudy could not meet the Professor’s eye.

“I’ll go, th—what is it?” he said.

Trudy shook her head, which seemed to be buzzing. She let her hood fall forward to hide her face.

“Go in,” he said. She turned and stumbled over the threshold.

The Hog’s Head pub was empty except for two ancient wizards playing what looked like world’s longest game of gin rummy and nursing two equally ancient butterbeers.

“Something for you, Snape?” said the bartender in a tone not quite friendly, not quite challenging.

“Two firewhiskies,” the Professor snapped.

Almost at once, two smeared glasses with amber liquid in them slid down the bar to where they stood. Trudy took hers, stared at the contents, then tossed them down in one swallow. Almost at once she was coughing and it took several moments to regain her composure. When she did, it was to see the Professor taking a nonchalant sip from his glass. His coolness contrasted with her agitation brought hot tears to her eyes.

The bartender was back, all efficient business. He wiped the wooden counter with a rag, tossed Trudy’s glass somewhere underneath the counter, and brought out a fresh shot glass. This he filled to the rim with firewhiskey, which he then pushed toward Trudy. “On the house,” he said before walking back to his station.

Trudy took a more careful sip this time, letting the firewhiskey burn down her throat.

“What’s upset you?” the Professor said in a low voice.

“That guy in the store. He knows what I am.” The Professor waited, revealing nothing. “He knows what I am,” Trudy continued in a thick whisper, “and I disgust him.”

“What do you care what he thinks?” the Professor said harshly. “He doesn’t know you.”

“He doesn’t have to. He hates me.”

The Professor took a long drink and set down his glass. Then he met her eye. “You will find that,” he said at last.

“Why are Wanderers hated?”

The Professor’s eyes slid toward her assessingly. “It used to be because they were too magical. Then it was because they were not magical enough. It was said they were dirty, greedy—" Trudy could not help sucking in her breath—“that they conspired to topple the rule of wizards.”

“Was that true?” Trudy broke in breathlessly.

The Professor gave her a small, tight smile. “Do you think you could overpower me magically?”

Trudy blinked. “Of course not!”

“Physically?”

“Well—I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want you to overpower me, but—"

“You couldn’t do it,” he said flatly. “It’s not possible.” He drank the rest of his firewhiskey, set down his glass, and stared at the display of chipped glassware behind the bar. “Wanderers can’t overpower wizards. And their numbers are few. They blend in too much with Muggles, and there is much inter-marriage.”

“W-what do you mea—"

“It is all lies,” the Professor said, favoring her with another wry smile. “The Wanderers are hated because they are Wanderers. They are conveniently outside every circle but their own, which is small and shrinking. They are talented and insightful, and many times they hold positions of esteem, but they are vulnerable and often--” he flicked a glance at her—“preyed upon.”

Trudy could not tear her eyes from him. “Have you preyed upon them?” she whispered.

He flicked another glance her way, and his face hardened. “No.” He pushed his glass away. “I should like to see your wand again, if you don’t mind, upstairs.”

“M-my—" In her scattered thoughts, Trudy could not think what he meant. “Oh—oh! Sure!”

They stood, and again, the Professor motioned her up the stairs. Before following her, he walked to the bartender and spoke to him in a low tone. The bartender shrugged and nodded. And then they were climbing the shaky staircases and entering Trudy’s room.

“What did you say to the bartender?” Trudy asked once the door was closed.

“I told him to keep my presence here to himself.” The Professor waved his wand at the grate, and a fire began burning cheerfully. Trudy stood in front of it, feeling cold in spite of the relative warmth of the day, as the Professor closed the window shutters.

“Here’s my wand,” Trudy said, holding it out.

“I don’t want to see your wand.”

She looked over at him in surprise.

“We shall have lessons. I will teach you how to cast one spell. That will be all you need.”

“No other spells?”

He looked at her carefully. “I doubt you will be capable of more.”

“You think I’m—stupid?”

“As I think I’ve proved several times over, I do not think you’re stupid,” he said icily. “I am trying to help you. But you must be honest about your aptitude.”

Trudy swallowed, and in the next moment, she was shocked to find the Professor in front of her, his long fingers at her throat, untying her cloak.

“W-what are you doing?” she said weakly.

His fingers continued their exploration, cleverly undoing the tie and sliding the garment off. He pulled up her robes, yard by yard, and finally lifted them over her head. Trudy stood, watching him wordlessly. Not losing sight of her eyes, the Professor’s fingers began a knowing exploration of her breasts, hoisted up and forward by the bra almost exactly like a pair of buttocks. He bent and set his mouth on the black silk covering one of her nipples. Trudy couldn’t help it—her head fell back. It felt too good. Her pussy was swelling up and beginning to ooze dew.

The Professor circled her waist with his hands. Trudy looked down. His fingers were meeting around her corseted waist, a sight that somehow always made her feel weak with lust. Another surge of dew dampened her knickers. He was pulling her toward the bed.

She swallowed, unable to protest. She watched while he lay his thin form on the bed and crooked his finger at her. As if pulled by strings, she approached the bed. Once she was close enough, he hauled her on top of him. Trudy sucked in her breath. The strength in his whippy form never failed to amaze her. Now she was straddling him, her long hair brushing his face, her breasts presented for his mouth, his fingers wrapped again around her waist. The Professor seemed to struggling to master himself. He half-turned from her for a moment before pulling his wand from his robes and pointing it at her (she willed herself not to flinch), then at himself, muttering a spell. At last he tucked away the wand and pulled her back down—again, a rush of wetness from her labia at his strength—close enough to put his mouth just over her silk-covered nipple, not quite touching it. Trudy heard a mewing sound break from her throat. His black eyes snapped up at her, and he enclosed the nipple in the warmth of his mouth. She arched her back, pushing her breasts forward, letting him have his way with her breasts.

And then she felt his hands slide down to her buttocks, where the black silk only covered half of her firm globes. One of his hands had her securely by the ass cheek, the other slid the silk to one side. Trudy jerked her chin up to stare at him again. Her pussy was exposed. She could feel the air on it. She imagined it as purple-red and glistening, aching for relief. Helplessly, she watched those unfathomable eyes as his long fingertip slid from the back of her entrance to her hyper-sensitized clitoris. When he pressed up into it, Trudy arched her back and ground her swollen sex on him. Her hands scrabbled down his front, eager to find his cock, but as before the fastenings of his robes eluded her. She growled low in her throat. “I can’t get—“

Then his fingers were unfastening, unfolding, and at last, his pale torso came into view, the line of hair leading from his chest to dip down past his navel… Trudy slipped her hand into his trousers to find what lay beneath and pulled out a heavily veined, tumescent, superb penis. She stared at it, mouth watering, running her hand down its shaft and taking in the bulbousness of its tip.

She couldn’t wait. She sank down on his rod, gasping when his cock head reamed open her quim. The Professor took one of her buttocks in each hand. His cock was a rod of thick iron inside her aching pussy. Impatiently, Trudy rode him fast and hard, bobbing on his cock, as he spread her quim wide, her clit in delicious friction with his shaft.

Almost too soon, orgasm rippled through her. She froze above him, back arched, letting the shallow spasms pass through her without sating her. When she slowed, the Professor pulled her off him. Looking down, she saw he was bigger than before, his cock purple-blue, and the sight enflamed her cunt again.

He rolled her onto her back, her legs straight in the air almost over his shoulders. He was kneeling, knees spread. Trudy gave an ah of pleasure as his cock head found her pussy again. He reached down and gently peeled back her labia, letting his cock slide easily up her cunt to her secret, deep spot of excitement. Trudy spread her thighs as wide as they would go, giving him full access. Her eyes were closed, her arms over her head. She could only react, take the pleasure he was mercilessly dealing out. His cock seemed to get thicker, then thicker still, the protruding ridge of his cock head sliding ruthlessly over that inner place. And then she heard that faint sound from him. Her eyes fluttered open. Severus Snapes’ own eyes were closed, his thin lips parted, and Trudy knew just as she came that he was pumping shot after shot of his seed at the entrance of her womb.

He pulled his cock out of her, and Trudy felt a vague disappointment. Somehow the last orgasm had not fulfilled. She was achy and longing still… She would hide it from him and pretend that it was not so, but she wanted, she needed more. She needed to come. She would not pretend to herself. She looked down without hope at his cock. A thrill of delight shivered through her spirit. His cock was still hard. No doubt, she thought, it’ll soften and go down. But in the meantime, she couldn’t help touching it. She admired with her hands its long, veined shaft, the prominent ridge on its cock head, the thickness of the head itself. Tentatively, she explored his heavy balls. Her heart lifted further as she saw his tool responding to her touch, getting thicker and longer. Her mouth watered. She would not even try to stop herself….

She moved down his body and slowly, questingly, took the head of his cock into her mouth. “Mmmmm” she hummed. She wrapped one hand around his shaft, letting her saliva run down it to lubricate it. Her other hand gently fondled his balls. She heard his faint, thready inhalation, the sound of his pleasure. She looked up and with shock met his black, gleaming eyes. She seemed not to be able to turn away, held hypnotically as if he were one of those snakes she had read about—(“But that’s just superstition!” some corner of her mind protested dimly). With their gazes locked, she sucked his cock head firmly, moving her fist down, then up his shaft, following the subtle signs he gave when he wanted to feel her move her hand.

Then suddenly, he set his palm on her forehead. She stopped moving at once. He sat up, setting his legs over one side of the bed. He carefully removed his trousers and the last of his clothing and then looked back at her. Trudy didn’t need words. She slid off the bed and knelt between his knees. Looking back up at him, she took the head of his cock, now more swollen than ever, into her mouth again, cupped his nuts in one hand and wrapped her other hand around his shaft. His sex was being offered to her. She probed his balls gently and moved her mouth from side to side over his cock head, never losing suction. Her hand continued to push down, down that straining shaft, only to pull back up. She could hear the soft slurping of her mouth, feel the nervous tension of his straining cock as it seemed to anticipate her every stroke. His cock thickened, then thickened more under her ministrations. In a clear moment of triumph and disappointment, she realized he was going to come in her mouth.

At that instant, he pulled free and said in a voice that brooked no opposition, “Stop.”

Trudy stopped. What would happen next?

“Kneel over the bed.”

Slowly, she did as he asked. She was still wearing the low boots, the corset, the bra that presented her breasts like delicacies on a tray, and the silk knickers, now very wet at the crotch. The Professor seemed to drink in this sight for a few seconds. Then he pulled the knickers slightly so that they disappeared into Trudy’s labia, the cloth pressed up against her sensitive parts, her buttocks exposed. And then—

A light, tingling smack landed on one ass cheek. Trudy squealed. The tingle seemed to electrify her vulva. Before she could do more than suck in her breath, another expertly aimed slap set the other buttock jiggling. Trudy was gripped with lust. She spread her thighs wide, the silk now lodged firmly between her labia. But the Professor pulled the cloth so that it rubbed firmly against her clit, her swollen pussy lips, and her anus. Trudy arched her back. “Oh, fuck me! Fuck me!” she thought. Instead, another smack came down on one buttock, then another on the other ass cheek. And then, he pulled the silk tight again. “Ah!” she couldn’t help gasping aloud. She reached back to open her buttocks with her hands, and the light smacks prickled her buns again. Trudy kicked her heels up in frustration. Her cunt was burning. This time, the Professor pulled the silk roughly to one side and stuffed his hard cock head up her quim. With two grunts, he had his rod deep inside her. Trudy reached down in front to knead her clit and then…she arched her back as far as it would go and “Ahahahah,” she was coming. She was without shame. She spread her cunt as wide as it would go, letting him fuck it however he would. She was coming, coming, coming hard…

And then, it was over. And she was still hungry.

She lay quiet under him, disappointed. He would think she was done. He would turn her over and shoot his load, and it would be over.

He was breathing hard above her. She felt him pull out his cock, still stiff. She didn’t move.

“Turn over,” he said.

After a second, she did, letting her thighs fall open.

He reached down and pulled off her knickers. Now he was kneeling between her knees. “Let me see it,” he said. “Spread it open.”

After a slight hesitation, Trudy reached down to half-spread her labia with her fingers. It was one thing to spread one’s ass at one’s lover and not have to look him in the face. It was another altogether to have him right before one’s face and open up one’s most secret parts.

He didn’t object to her partial compliance with his request. Instead, he ran a long finger from her clit to her entrance. The finger probed there. It slipped just within her. And then he carefully, slowly introduced another fingertip and nudged them cautiously up her throbbing pussy. Two fingertips were dancing just inside her pussy, pressing up into her special place— And then something wet and firm laved her clit. Trudy gulped and looked down, just in time to see Severus Snape’s long tongue dart out and stroke her clit again. “Ohhh,” she panted. Now she spread the lips of her quim wide. The fingers dipped deeper, stroking strong and sure on her spot. And the tongue was rhythmically stroking her clitoris. And then he sucked it into his mouth as he pushed his fingers firmly inside her and fluttered them. Trudy couldn’t help it. She kicked her thighs up and wide, held her pussy lips as open as they would go, and let loose a grunting scream. Climax after climax ripped through her as her inner walls milked at his fingers. She clutched at his fingers and gasped out her moans and grunts of pleasure for endless minutes. When her hips had bucked their last, Snape stood up and drove his incredibly thickened cock into her. Then he rode her mercilessly, using the thickness of his tool to force a response from her over-stimulated quim. “Severus…!” Trudy ground out before she came one last, desperate time, and he dilated her cunt wide and pumped his come into her.

They lay panting on the bed for long moments.

At last, Trudy ventured, “I thought you had duties.”

“In thirty minutes,” he said. She hadn’t even been aware of the clock. Apparently, his mind could work in two levels at once.

“Was that spell you said conception?” she said.

“Yes.”

His tone did not invite further questions, so she just lay and breathed and thought of nothing.

“I have,” he said after a while, “something I wonder if you might wear. For me.”

His tone was almost tentative, and Trudy glanced at him in surprise. She was already wearing things for his pleasure. What more could he have in mind?

He reached over to his robes, which were lying on the floor, and rummaged through them until he brought out two silver balls, each about the size of a lychee fruit, with a string on each one.

“What do I do with them?”

“I could…insert them…and you would wear them until…I next visit you. If you like.” He was watching her, eyes glittering.

Trudy swallowed. As if on cue, she felt herself getting plump and wet down below. “Yes,” she managed to say.

Snape got between her thighs, gently spread open the lips of her sex, and slowly pushed one of the balls past the ring of muscle inside her. He looked up at her.

She nodded. She was a little disappointed. She could hardly feel the ball at all.

Snape then added the second ball and carefully eased it and its partner an inch or two deeper inside her.

“All right?” he said.

Trudy nodded again. She really couldn’t feel much.

Snape let her go and stood. He seemed on the point of doing something, but what Trudy couldn’t determine—To smile? To kiss her? Then he evidently thought better of it. “I must return to Hogwarts,” he said. He said a cleansing spell and began dressing. Trudy waited a moment before rising to get partially dressed herself. As she took a step, the balls inside her seemed to shift slightly, stroking her special place. She transferred her weight to the opposite hip and felt the balls move again, rubbing her pussy walls. With growing alarm, she bent over to retrieve her knickers (the balls were nearly side by side now, opening up her cunt). She made a squeaking noise.

Snape turned and frowned. “You are all right?”

“Yes,” she said faintly. “I’m tired. I think I’ll lie down for a little.” She lay back on the bed, pulling a blanket over her. If she stayed still, maybe the balls wouldn’t torment her. She had promised to leave them in till he returned.

He nodded. “I’ll return tomorrow, and we’ll begin lessons.”

He went to the door. He looked back at her once, and then the door opened and shut, and he was gone.