The Angel from Psych

Author's Note:

This is a romance and a work of fiction. All characters are entirely fictional and any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

There is some sex in this story related to the romance, but these events are loving encounters and are not presented in very graphic detail. If detailed descriptions of hardcore action is what you're seeking, please consider looking elsewhere.

While part of this story takes place at Christmas, like Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," it's not primarily a traditional, cutesy Christmas tale. Part of the story is rather dark, involving an often difficult and controversial topic, but I've tried to deal with it in an appropriately intimate manner between the affected characters.

Finally, as a new author on this site, I really appreciate everyone reading this and my other stories. Please vote and let me know your thoughts when you've finished reading. Thanks!

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Prologue

Present day...

It was 7:45 on Monday evening a few days before Christmas and I was getting ready to walk out when my office phone rang for the second time in less than two minutes. As a partner in and operations manager of a mid-size consulting engineering firm, it wasn't uncommon for me to be working that late, but it was quite uncommon for someone to be calling then and actually be expecting someone to pick up unless we'd arranged the appointment in advance. That was especially so during a holiday-shortened work week.

It had been a long day so I let it ring, allowing it to roll over to voicemail again; assuming it wasn't a wrong number, I'd deal with it in the morning before taking the rest of the week off for the holiday. Divorced with no children and without any family except for a few distant cousins I hadn't seen in ages, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, though being in Jacksonville, at least I didn't have to deal with snow. Other than attending the Christmas Eve service at church on Wednesday night, I didn't have any plans so I'd volunteered to help with Meals on Wheels for Christmas dinner on Thursday. Afterward, I might head out to the beach for a walk with the wind and waves.

What was really depressing was that I would probably be one of those lonely shut-ins in another 20 or 25 years. Perhaps, though, since both of my parents had died in their mid-to-late fifties of cancer, I might never get there, despite being proactive with regular exercise and annual medical checkups.

My recent luck with women had been equally depressing; no one interested me, and I wasn't really into one-night stands. Oh, I'm not proud of myself but there had been a number of those in the first few years after the divorce. While I'd desperately wanted children when Annie and I were married, it wasn't in the cards and I'd eventually given up on that goal. Following the divorce, my initial plan was to be with a different woman rather frequently to make up for those last few years of what amounted to wasted time, so I'd gotten a vasectomy to avoid any unexpected surprises in case of a technical failure on the protection side.

Unfortunately, those frequent interactions over the first couple of years after the divorce left a very bad impression on me and I'd returned to my former practice of making love to my relatively few lovers rather than frequently to strangers. Thus, I hadn't seen much action or received much affection in recent years, which made Christmas an even sadder, lonelier time. I told myself it wasn't quite to the Ebenezer Scrooge-level, but it felt fairly close.

I finished packing my briefcase and flipped off the few lights and the lighted angel at the top of the little Christmas tree that graced my side table. All done, I was heading toward the door when the phone started ringing yet again.

"Shit. Persistent bastard, aren't you?" I said aloud, figuring it was some contractor having trouble making the proverbial square peg fit in the round hole. Whoever it was, their persistence had paid off, so I picked it up and answered with my professional voice, fully prepared to tell them I'd look at their problem tomorrow after getting a name and number.

"Good evening, this is Jason Langley. How can I help you?"

An audible gasp sounded on the other end of the line. "Jase? Is it really you?" asked a feminine voice.

"Last time I checked," I replied with a chuckle before asking, "With whom do I have the pleasure..."

My voice trailed off as I realized she'd called me by that name. Only two people had ever called me that since I was a kid. Though we'd been divorced for just over ten years, I knew it wasn't Annie's voice.

Therefore...

My breath caught, much as hers had done just seconds earlier. My eyes focused on the angel atop my little Christmas tree. It sported brown hair and bright green eyes. "You called me Jase," I said, haltingly, accusingly. My mind was almost spinning as I thought back to another angel over thirty years before.

*****

Chapter 1

Thirty-something years ago...

Several engineering friends and I took Psych 1001 in the fall semester of my junior year of college. As engineering students, this was one of those electives selected from a short list of qualifying courses. None of us wanted to be there, but we walked in to the theater-style classroom shortly after the 8 AM class was dismissed since we didn't want to be too far back. See, as upperclassmen, we had the advantage of having heard about Professor Rebecca Sorenson, Ph.D., in advance.

The teacher was a very pretty woman, probably in her mid-40s, with a body that was perfectly proportioned to her almost 5-foot height. She wore her dark brown hair rather short, and her dark-rimmed, round glasses seemed to match her hair and her face. The consensus among the four guys in our group was that, if the opportunity presented itself, she would be most welcome in our beds despite being twice or more our age, and our two female friends, while frowning at us for our familiarity at her expense, agreed that we could do a whole lot worse.

We'd heard the prof really knew her material, but since she was so short she couldn't reach as high on the chalkboard as some of her less stature-challenged comrades in the Psychology Department. Still, she had the same amount of material to cover, so she accommodated by writing a bit smaller. In addition, unlike the majority of the female professors we'd encountered, her handwriting was worse than most men's, so it had been described to us by friends who'd taken the class as being like trying to read small chicken scratchings rather than normal size scrawlings of her male counterparts. Therefore, we knew to sit up close. Walking in, we grabbed six seats together in the center of the third row and marked the sheet accordingly when the professor's teaching assistant passed it around.

We still had a minute before class started so I took the opportunity to look around to see if I recognized any other friends in the huge classroom behind me.

It was like there were two hundred bored-looking faces and the face of a brown-haired angel looking toward the blackboard as the professor walked in. The angel even had a halo, though I later speculated from an engineering perspective that it was probably the effect of the can light above reflecting off a shiny hair beret. One second I'm hating the class and dreading Professor Sorenson's lecture, and the next it's my favorite class. I couldn't wait to come back because of that beautiful angel; my appreciation for the actual subject slowly grew as the semester continued, too.

That morning, I sneaked a few peeks back over my shoulder by pretending to yawn. Each time I looked, she was more beautiful than the time before, and by the time the class ended, I was determined to meet her. The bell rang, everyone stood up, and the aisles were full of scurrying students, doing their best to escape. By the time I got to the upper level where she'd been sitting, she was long gone.

I'm sad to say my courage level dropped from that point. I was like a balloon pricked by a pin, with my emotions sending me spinning erratically before bringing me crashing back down to Earth. At the time, I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence around young ladies as it was, so as the following classes came and went, I peeked back at her and I pined. To make matters worse, I was stuck in my seat assignment on the third row and she was in hers, two rows from the back with a couple of empty seats next to her.

"Jason, what the hell are you looking at back there?" asked Rick, my friend and apartment-mate, as we walked to our next class a couple of weeks later. "You can't need to look back that many times. And it's not just today, it's like every class this week and maybe last. Is somebody flashing you their tits back there? If so, I wanna' look, too."

"No, idiot. I, ah, see someone I want to meet. She sits near the back, so I can never get back there in time."

"Right. You ever thought of meeting her before class one day? Skip your 8 AM class; I'll let you borrow my notes. Or take off a couple minutes early like we did the first day. Professor Johnson won't get that mad at you. You're a fucking President's Scholar so I'd think you'd have enough sense to figure out a solution to that little problem. Personally, I think you're just chicken."

It was true. While I was quite smart, I had little experience with women and I was afraid to push what little luck I had. I'd had two short-term girlfriends who were as inexperienced as me, so I'd only dreamed of the pleasures of what lay beyond first base despite having lightly dusted around the edges of second a few times without ever actually touching base. Of course, I'd heard the stories of those who'd claimed to have been lucky enough to actually round the diamond, but that was still a far-distant goal for me.

Yes, I was afraid, but it wasn't just that I was afraid to meet her. It was more than that; I was afraid of what I might learn on meeting her. In all likelihood, she had a long-term steady boyfriend with whom she might already be regularly doing it, and the angel would come crashing down off the lofty pedestal to which I'd elevated her, shattering the wonderful image I'd created, crushing my dream. Therefore, each class session passed with me wanting to meet her but being too chicken to act.

As the fall passed and the number of remaining class sessions dwindled, Rick pointed out a little problem. "Jason, once this class is over, you'll probably never see her again since this campus is so big and since the chances of you ever having another class with her are about as big as you getting into her panties either way. If you're not a complete pussy, you need to meet her now."

Therefore, I eventually made my plan. Being on scholarship, having a 4.0 so far, and having aced all the tests and papers in the class, I would whip through the exam, finish it early, and be waiting on her when she exited the upper level as she always did. It was brilliant in its simplicity...as long as I didn't chicken out again.

On the day of the exam, I looked back and saw the angel sitting there, waiting, I hoped, for me to sweep her off her feet, or at least to give me her name and number. Therefore, I went through the first parts of the exam quickly but became bogged down in the essays, reinforcing points that probably didn't need it and offering my own thoughts on the issues presented. Still, I finished early with everyone around me writing furiously, so I grabbed my bag, took the paper forward, and then started up the steps toward the back, where she would almost undoubtedly turn in her paper to the T.A. I was almost half way to the top when I realized that she'd already left.

I rushed to the top and out the door, looking around but didn't see her anywhere. I'd missed my chance.

Instead of congratulating me on my success, my friends gave me a hard time when they came up top a few minutes later. Leave it to Rick to rub it in; he slapped me on the back and said, "Sorry you missed her, buddy. Maybe you'll run into her next semester...or more likely next century."

He and the others laughed at his joke, but it served as yet another reminder that a haphazard meeting on a campus the size of ours was rather unlikely. Therefore, I decided on a radically different plan.

Late that afternoon, I visited Doctor Sorenson's office during her regular office hours. She looked at me questioningly when I entered following her invitation.

"Mr. Langley. Welcome. I have a question: is it my class boring you or do you just never get enough sleep?"

"Uh, sorry." I felt my face flush red.

She smiled before giving me a questioning look. "Okay, Mr. Langley, I'm confused. Traditionally, my students visit me during office hours before the exam, not after having taken it. Of course, you've exhibited surprising insights into this subject, so I'm confused...what brings you here? Did you have a question about the exam itself?"

"No, Ma'am," I said. "This is pretty embarrassing, but I'm hoping against hope that you can help me."

"Well? I'll be glad to debate many of the more interesting psychological questions of our times, but I won't know which one until you ask. Spill it."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. See, there's a girl—"

"Ah, Mr. Langley, with the world population edging ever nearer to five billion people and with roughly a fifty-fifty split on the sexes, there will always be a girl." She leaned toward me with a serious look before she added, "Whether it's the right girl for you should be the real question."

I nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. The one I'm desperate to meet was two rows from the back. She would have been on the left as you faced the auditorium. Beautiful, green eyes, I think, cute dimples, with dark brown hair similar to your own, cut kind of like..." I waved my hands trying to give her some idea, before adding, "I was wondering if you could give me her name?"

Professor Sorenson looked somewhat surprised and then stared sternly at me for several seconds before taking off her glasses to clean them. She had, I discovered, piercing green eyes.

"I guess that explains your pitiful play-yawning. Tell me, why are you attracted to her?"

I was even more busted than before, and my face burned a bright red, but I had to push on. "I'm not sure. She was there, she was beautiful, and she seemed so perfect. Angelic, even."

She laughed. "Perfectionism. It is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. However, it's a horrible little psychological trait when taken too far, either by the subject or by the observer."

"I know, Ma'am. No one is perfect. Still, to me, she seemed as perfect on the surface as anyone I've ever seen. I'd like to meet her to see what she's really like."

"Hmm. Mr. Langley, I have a question. Do you regularly fall for young ladies in the back of the classroom and then go to your professors seeking a willing accomplice to help you get into their panties?"

I shook my head vigorously. "Oh, no, Ma'am. Nothing like that. I've never even had ssss..." I turned even brighter red when I realized what I was admitting, but she'd already connected the dots.

She smiled, replacing her newly cleaned glasses and looking over them at me as if I was a lab specimen. "So you're a virgin in lust with a schoolgirl?"

I felt like crawling out, but in for a dime, in for a dollar, I told myself. "I don't know," I answered, deliberately ignoring answering the first part. "But I would like a chance to meet her, to see if we have anything in common, to find out if we'd be good together. Can you help me?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. If you'd come to me earlier, I might have been able to give an assignment and teamed you together—I don't know that I would have, but it would have been a possibility. At this point, there's nothing I can do. University policy prohibits me from giving you what you seek."

My head dropped forward and my shoulders drooped. "Thanks for listening to me."

"Mr. Langley, your records show that you're a President's Scholar. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Since my parents run a farm, that's how I'm here. It takes care of tuition, room, board, and books. I work summers and a few hours a week at the computer help desk for a bit of spending money."

"Yet you've kept up a 4.0 average for your first two years."

"That's what they really expect of President's Scholars, Ma'am."

She picked up a blue book from her desk and showed me my name written on the front. "I just finished grading this. I see your reasoning but still had to count off a couple of points since no one ever scores a one hundred on my final. Are you sure you wouldn't like to go into psychology?"

"Yes, Ma'am. It's not perfect but engineering and engineering solutions are more my style rather than deep mumbo-jumbo—oh, sorry."

She laughed. "Well, I can't say you aren't a straightforward cuss. But, like I said, I can't give you her name and number."

I sighed. My last connection to her was gone, but then she threw me a possible lifeline.

"However, there's nothing that says I can't pass along a little note if I run into her again...if you'd like to write one." She waved to a little pad and pen on her desk.

Grinning, I wrote a note with my name and number at the bottom.

Looking up at her, I said, "Thank you, Professor Sorenson."

As soon as I'd handed it to her, I realized how stupid it sounded and almost asked for it back, but she was looking at the paper, nodding. Then I saw her cute little grin that made me think she might have been suppressing laughter. Holding it up between two fingers, she nodded and said, "No promises, Mr. Langley. Good afternoon."

*****

Chapter 2

I never heard from the angel.

I suspected that Professor Sorenson either never saw her or, after a fit of laughter, tossed the note within seconds of my exiting her door. Or, on the off chance that she received the note, the angel probably trashed it after having her own great laugh at my expense.

Christmas and the New Year of my junior year came and went, and January soon turned to February. A few days after Saint Valentine's Day, my service fraternity hosted its semi-annual blood drive. Having donated several units since I'd been in college, I was working the Thursday evening shift, serving as a floater to help those in the donation area. It's surprising how many people get hot, cold, thirsty, or worse once that huge needle gets stuck in their vein and they can't get up. I was also surprised to find that, as an experienced blood giver, I could serve as a calming influence for those getting nervous as their blood flowed into the donation bag.

"Hey, Jason. Got a live one for you in the intake line," called Rick.

When I shook my head and pointed to my duty station, he gave a nod of his head and a sharp motion with his thumb for me to get out there. He walked my way and whispered to me, "I'll swap stations with you for a little while. Thank me later."

I walked out to the waiting line and saw what he meant. There in line stood the angel, her coat drawn up tight around her and her hands clasped nervously together. I wanted so desperately to meet her and tell her how I felt, but in truth, I didn't know exactly how that was so I would have probably been tongue-tied. Fortunately, I had a duty to fulfill anyway so I put the other part out of my mind and walked right up to her.

"Hi, my name's Jason and I'm a blood donor. I hate to say it but you look just a bit nervous. Is there anything I can do to help make it easier for you?"

She shook her head, a tiny little shake that told me she was a lot more scared than she wanted to admit.

Gently, I asked, "Is this your first time donating blood?"