“Time to get back to the lab,” she says.

The lab. The first thing I hear when I get up. The last thing I hear before I fall asleep.

“Dr. Faulseit will be expecting you,” she says in a voice too sleepy to sound sexy. “You know what will happen if you’re late.”  Or threatening.

But, yes, I know what she means.  And I haven’t stopped regretting my association with Herr Doktor Faulseit since the day I found out. The contract seemed so innocent when I signed it. I shudder a bit and am fully awake.

And hungry.

I step out of the sixth floor single where I sleep when I sleep with her and make my way to the elevator.  The vomit inside reminds me that someone had a more eventful night than me. So I take the stairs, two at a time.

The cold air hits me like a brick wall.  It snowed again last night.  Shit.

I trudge across campus, the first footprints in six inches of new, wet snow.  Making the journey in the usual 15 minutes means I’m working hard, my head full of sweat and my heart racing. The door is difficult to open against the drift, but once inside I know I’ll make it.

I catch my breath.  No sense in letting the bastard see me this way.

With fifteen seconds to spare I enter.  Faulseit is there looking at his watch.  Something like regret shows in his face. He glances first at me and then to his left.

Next to him, a steaming bowl.  Of oatmeal.

I always smile when I see oatmeal.