The bell rang, signalling chairs to squeal away from desks and papers to be gathered in a fast rustle. The mass exodus of students was good because it meant I could speak to Ms Tallup and get far away before my temper exploded.
Olin stood, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder. She caught my fingers as I walked past, but I pointed at the corridor. “Go.”
She bit her lip. After a second, she obeyed, disappearing with the throng of other teenagers.
The second she’d gone, I looked at Ms Tallup.
She stood at the front with her arms crossed and a sick smirk upon her lips. “Mr. Clark. Not rushing off to spend time with your girlfriend today?” She cocked her head. “Does this mean the allure has finally worn off? Are you going to focus on your studies instead of your...” Her gaze dropped down my front, locking on my crotch.
She licked her lips.
Thick disgust rippled down my back.
I knew that look.
It was the look of grotesque hunger when a man looked at a whore he’d bought for the night.
I wasn’t a whore.
Yet my teacher looked at me as if I was one.
Thick fear filled me, whispering answers to why Ms Tallup picked on me. Why she watched me more than any other student. Why I felt so on edge around her.
She wanted something from me.
Something sickening.
Something she would never fucking get.
I marched toward her and punched my test onto her desk. “Olin doesn’t deserve detention. Tell her it was a mistake.”
Her face darkened; she laughed coldly. “A student telling a teacher what to do?” She shook her head, clucking her tongue. “Now, that will never do.”
My nostrils flared, doing my best to control my rage. “I’ll do it. I’ll serve the detention.”
“You weren’t the one talking.”
“Don’t care. Olin wasn’t either.”
“Punishment is given to those who deserve it.”
I shivered. Her words were a little too close to the thoughts in my own head. I got it rough at home, but maybe...I deserved it.
Maybe I wasn’t as good as I strived to be. Maybe my dad knew something about me that I didn’t, and his beatings were part of a punishment I did deserve.
I shook those thoughts away. If that was the case, I would weather the storm. But I wouldn’t let Olin be hurt. She’d never done anything wrong in her life.
Removing my fist from her desk, I backed up a step and lowered my voice. “Why do you hate me so much?”
Her eyes widened. “Hate you? Why on earth do you think I hate you?”
“Oh, I dunno. A few reasons.”
“None that are real.” She waved her hand, her gaze once again landing on my body. “Now, run along.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t ‘run along’.”
She smiled coyly. “Oh, believe me. I know you’re not a child, Gilbert Clark.”
I crossed my arms against the sudden chill. “I should be done with school if it wasn’t for you. I think the least I deserve is the truth. You don’t like me. I get it. I’m fine with it. But don’t take it out on Olin. She’s one of your best students.”
“She was.” She sniffed. “Until she started hanging out with you.”
“Her grades are still excellent.”
Ms Tallup leaned over the table, casting a subtle glance at the door and empty corridor. “It’s not her grades I’m bothered about.”
I swallowed hard as her eyes once again skated down my front, lingered on my jeans, then snaked their way back to my face. “I’m worried what you’re doing to her. She’s underage. You could be arrested.”
“Arrested?” I backed up. “For what?”
“For sleeping with your innocent little girlfriend.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t like this conversation at all.
The dynamics were off. The subjects all wrong. No way should a teacher discuss a student’s love life. No way should the power she held be used to condemn and control me.
Terror slicked down my spine. “Why do you care what Olin and I do outside of school hours?”
She stilled. Her eyes flashed as she made a show of fluffing papers into a neat pile. “I don’t. But you should.”
“Why?” Goosebumps dotted my arms as her face sharpened, dropping the pretence she’d held for years.
With a short, tight chuckle, she whispered, “You’re a smart boy. You’ll figure it out.”
She left me standing wordless and disgusted as she swept from the classroom with her hips swaying and a sly smile on her lips.
Chapter Twenty
______________________________
Olin
-The Present-
“WHAT DID YOU mean we both have to pay?”
My question hung in the air as I stepped into Gil’s warehouse. He’d driven us here in a small hatchback that’d seen better days with chipped white paint and ripped upholstery. It didn’t smell like him nor had any sign of regular use.
I’d held my tongue the entire journey.
He hadn’t let me grab any clothes or asked if I needed to check on my apartment. He’d just bundled me into his run-down vehicle and squirreled me away in the same place he’d kicked me out of two days prior.
I tried to be rational.
I tried to be patient.
But I’m running out of restraint.
Gil didn’t answer my question, moving through the cavernous space with stormy steps. He looked angry. Angry at having me back in his space.
Well, that makes two of us.
The poise that’d been drilled into me by my dance master fissured a little. My composure that ensured no one ever knew just how lonely I was, frayed.
Gil wanted me.
That was undeniable.
Gil would protect me.
That was tried and tested.
But...when it came to enlightening me about things happening in his life, he’d always been tricky. It’d always taken an argument for him to be honest. Always been me who’d had to push and push for answers.
If only I’d pushed harder when he’d broken up with me, we might’ve salvaged what he’d broken.
Don’t let him get away with secrets this time, O.
He’ll shut down.
Disappear.
Again.
Chasing after him, my determination not to let him ruin our second attempt overcame my need to be considerate of his pain. “Gil...you can’t just drag me here and then ignore me, you know.”
He kept walking, his shoulders bunching as if my reprimand physically hurt him.
“Gil.” I jogged after him, my heels clicking with each dainty step. My pinstripe skirt wasn’t exactly meant for quick strides. “You can’t avoid this. I deserve an explanation.”
His hands fisted as he stopped beside a metal cabinet holding bottles upon bottles of paint. A rainbow of colour, all waiting to be smeared on some woman’s skin and photographed.
I didn’t like the brushes waiting in their glass jars. I didn’t like the fresh sponges or neat nozzles of his air gun. I didn’t like anything to do with his art because it hurt so, so much that he’d evolved into someone immensely talented after sharing the first origins of that talent with me.