Adult Education: Tales Told Out of School
Chapter 4
by
Mo
Acknowledgements: As always, a great debt of thanks is due to LS and SW, tireless researchers, beta readers, and helpers of all kinds.
I knocked on his door three nights running. Either he wasn't there or he wasn't answering. Finally, I tracked him down in one of his classes. Just stood in the back of the room, watching him. It was a side of him I hadn't seen before. Oh, I'd observed him teaching a few times before, but only the practical parts of his classes, putting the kids through assorted physical routines in the gym or simulations in the Danger Room. This was the first time I'd seen Logan giving an actual lecture in a classroom, and it was fascinating to watch. The theme of today's class was the importance of military intelligence. I don't know if he started with Carlin's joke about that phrase being an oxymoron or not. Right now, in the middle of the class, he was clearly deadly serious. He had "Knowledge is Power" up on the board and was talking about theory, about strategy, about tactics, bringing in relevant historical examples with an ease that spoke of an impressive breadth of knowledge. The kids were all attentive and appeared to be enjoying the class. I was too, both for the material itself and just for seeing Logan in action in a way I never had before.
The kids filed out when class was over. "You're really good at that," I said, smiling at him.
He just glared at me. "You want something, Cyclops?"
I stopped smiling. "What goes around comes around."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, I was just remembering that a long time ago I was avoiding you, and you tracked me down teaching. And here I am doing the same to you."
"You looking for a blow job?"
"No, I'm not. I'm looking for answers. And, I confess, I have this tendency to view a blow job as the answer to most things, but not this time." He smiled at that, at least. I rapped my knuckles on the board. "I'm looking to increase my knowledge." "Well, maybe I was looking for answers that other time, too, but I settled for a blow job."
"What did you want answers to?"
"Why you were staying away from me all of a sudden. What you wanted from me, anyway. How Jeannie fit into it. That kind of thing." He didn't say anything for a minute. "I sort of figured you were using me to get started or something. You needed a man first, get you turned on. Then you went to her."
"You thought I was using you for foreplay and then having sex with Jean?" He nodded. "Do you still think that's what was going on?" He nodded again, a little more tentatively this time. "You're so wrong." He looked skeptically at me. "Nothing could be further from the truth, Logan. I wasn't even having sex with her all that time I was meeting you at night."
"What? You didn't want to cheat on me?"
His tone was mocking and hostile, but I answered him seriously. "I was scared to have sex with her, scared she'd find out I was cheating on her. I hadn't been with a man for a long time and thought I was over all that. And then you showed up and I found out how wrong I was. I was totally sexually fixated on you, Logan. I was scared I'd think of you any time I got aroused. It's not easy keeping secrets from a telepathic lover. And it's pretty much impossible during sex. There's just no way to shield your thoughts then."
"I didn't know that." And then, after a minute, "So, what did she think was going on? What'd you tell her?"
"I didn't tell her anything. She came to her own conclusions. She thought I was jealous of you, thought I was worried she was going to have an affair with you. And that my jealousy was getting in the way, making me avoid her." I paused, remembering how strained my relationship with Jean had been at that time. "I hate how I treated Jean back then, you know."
"I know. I kind of hate how I treated you back then, too." He sat down on one of the desks and gestured to me to sit opposite him. "What do you want to know, Scott?"
"I want to know what's really going on," I told him. "I've talked to Charles. He tells me you never accepted his theory that I'm better off without you. In fact, he says you told him you thought he's jealous of you."
"I still think it. He never wanted me near you. He's been against you and me being together, from the start. He wants you, Scott, no matter what he says."
"I don't think so. He's pretty in touch with his feelings, I think. Denying what you feel is more my style. Charles is the type to acknowledge his feelings, even incestuous ones, and then just control his behavior."
"It wouldn't be incest. He's not really your father."
"He's the only father I've got, Logan. It's real to me, as real as anybody else's family." Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes. "So what's going on really? Did you just get bored? If you're thinking it's easier for me to hear that you're doing it for my sake, you're wrong. I want to know the truth."
He took a deep breath, looking like he was considering what to say. "Okay. I'll tell you the truth. It wasn't all lies, though. It is real hard for me to be with somebody. I do think he had a point about me not totally healing, even if I have doubts about why he said it." He paused again. "But there's stuff you don't know. Stuff I didn't know 'til the professor helped me get it back. It's kind of a long story. Hard to know what to say." I waited, anxiously, for him to begin. "I mean, I guess the first thing to tell you is you're not my first."
"Somehow I figured you weren't a virgin when I met you."
He glared at me again. "Do you want to hear this or don't you?"
"I'm sorry. Yes, I want to hear it. I make jokes when I'm nervous. I'll try not to. It doesn't mean I'm not taking this seriously. I really want to know. Okay?"
"Okay."
"So, I wasn't your first. Your first what?" He looked like he might be getting mad again. "I'm not joking now. I'm just trying to understand."
"My firstÖ I don't know. The first time I got really close to someone. The first time I had somebody that we were trying to make a life together. The first time I was in love." He looked away saying the last part. "I know I told you there never was anybody like that before, anybody I got close to. I wasn't lying. I just didn't remember."
"I understand, Logan. I didn't think you were lying." He didn't say anything more, so I thought I'd prod him a little. "Okay, so there was somebody else. Or a few somebody elses?"
"Two. Well, two that I know of. I don't think there are more but I can't be sure." He sounded in real pain saying that. I tried to take his hand but he pulled it away.
"Okay, so you had two serious lovers before me. Men or women? Not that I'm insecure about whether you're really interested in men or worried that this thing with me might just be a fluke or anything."
That got a smile out of him. "One of each. Okay with you?"
I nodded. "And what happened to them?"
"They're both dead. It was a long time ago."
"Yeah, I guess it would have been. You outlive everybody." I waited a little for him to continue, but he didn't say anything more. "I think about that sometimes. Or used to, when I thought we were going to stay together." He winced at that. "You're going to outlive me, too. I know that. And it's not that part that bothers me, really. I mean, after I'm dead what do I care? But I did think about not even having a chance to grow old together. Sometimes at night, Logan, I'd think about me getting old while you're still like this. It would be a little much to expect you to give 'blessings on my frosty prow' when you're perpetually thirty-something. I figured I still had a few years, though, before that became an issue. Usually I hate it that I look younger than I am. I feel like I have to work so much harder just to be taken seriously. But I thought it would come in handy for you and me, give us a little longer." He still didn't say anything. "So, anyway, are you going to tell me any more?"
"Yeah. I just don't know what to say, how to say it."
"Well, tell me about your lovers. Who was the most recent one? What was his name? Her name?"
"Her. Yasuko."
"Japanese?"
"Yeah, but I wasn't in Japan. Not then. I met her here."
"When was this?"
"A long time ago. Before the war."
"Which war?"
"The Great War. World War I. Whatever you want to call it."
"And the other one? The man?"
"A long time before that."
"Okay, so basically you're telling me that every 100 years or so you fall in love."
He smiled at that. "I guess I'm not the romantic type."
"I guess not. So, you met her. You fell in love. Did you get married?" He nodded. "Kids?"
"Yeah, two of them."
"What happened, Logan?"
He took a deep breath. He started talking softly, in that dead tone. "They died ñ all three of them. Murdered. I wasn't there to stop him. Should've been."
"I'm so sorry, Logan. How awful."
"I'm the one who found them. You wouldn't think someone could forget something like that, would you? What kind of man finds his whole family slaughtered and then just lets that slip his mind? Whatever kind of man that is, that's me. I didn't know, didn't remember. Not until recently, anyway. Now I remember it all. I can still see them, can remember just how it felt to come home and find them like that." His tone was still really flat but tears started falling down his face. "You know what was the worst part, Scott? Not knowing who he did first. And it's not even like I know which would be worse. I mean, I thought about that a lot. Was it better if the kids never saw what he did to their mama, or better if she never saw what he did to them?"
I got off the desk and put my arms around him. He didn't stop me. "I'm so sorry," I told him again, whispering in his ear this time. "Did they ever find out who did it?" I asked after a while.
"I know who did it." He pushed me back from him, held me at arm's length now, hand on my shoulder. "The same guy who tried to do you. Same one I been dreaming about."
"Sabretooth?"
He nodded. "It's like I'm cursed with him or something. I don't know what it is about him and me. But anything bad happens in my life and he's connected to it somehow. And he's already had one crack at you, Scott. I just can't stay with you. Don't you see? We can't be together. It's not safe. I can't let him have another chance to get you. If we stayed together, he'd find out somehow. I can't let it happen again."
"But it wasn't about you and me that time. You know that, don't you? He was working for Magneto ñ he and Toad both were. They were going to kill me to get to Charles ñ it wasn't anything to do with you."
"I don't know. I know they said that. But there's something about that guy. It's like he's haunting me or something." Now the anguish wasn't only on his face; it was in his voice, too. "We can't be together, Scott. I can't risk him finding out what I feel for you. He'll kill you, I'm sure of it."
He stood up and turned around to leave but I took his arm and he turned back to me. I put my arms around him again and this time he held me, too. I thanked him for telling me and told him I knew it must have been hard to say. I said I wanted to share his life, wanted to know it all and help any way I could. I begged him not to leave the school, not to leave me. "We don't even know where he is, Logan. And he doesn't know where we are. We'll probably never see him again. And if we do, we'll deal with it together. You and I as a team are more than a match for him. We fought him together once, Logan. If it comes to it, we can do it again. Damned if I'd let him get away alive again, though." He looked like he was going to say something else, but didn't. Just clung to me there, letting me say soothing things in his ear. Finally, I asked him what I'd been wondering. "Your other lover, Logan? From before Yasuko? What happened to him? Did Sabretooth kill him, too?"
He disengaged and stepped back a couple of paces, looking at me. He shook his head and spoke softly. "No. I did."
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