My head is screaming. The sun is too bright and the hour is too early, but all in all, today is an improvement on yesterday. Last night with…Claire? Carrie? Cadie? Whatever. Last night was good. Not the best I've ever had, but good nonetheless. Elena's girl was experienced and had a respectable pain threshold. A natural, too. Always a bonus. My inner demons are sleeping now. The slumber won't last for long though. In fact, the need is even stronger after a brief feed. A revitalised rebellion against the civilised façade.
I drank way too fucking much after…Cassie? Clara? Whatever. After she left.
The perks of being me include private accommodations on campus. I have another thirty-three minutes before I have to drag my miserable ass back to another soul-destroying lecture hall. I've managed to shower, my hair will just have to dry whatever way it wants, and I have my legs encased in subtly expensive jeans and my torso in my trademark navy blue pullover. As mornings go in this shitstorm of a career, I'm making pretty decent progress. The phone rings as I stare into my third coffee and I can't quite help the wince when I see Elena's name pop up.
It's entirely too early for her.
The call rings off and a voicemail alert slides in.
I ignore it for now. She wants a performance review on…Cindy? Connie? Whatever.
It'll wait.
But the new and aspiring commercial generation wont. My time is up. It's probably dramatic to compare my walk across the courtyard to a condemned man's walk to the gallows… but I'm going to compare my walk across the courtyard to a condemned man's walk to the gallows. I drink in the freezing cold air as I stride along, giving the impression that I'm confident and purposeful about where I'm going.
I'm a pretty convincing actor.
Elena calls again. I roll my eyes down at my cell. During our brief hiatus, I'd conveniently forgotten how overbearing she can be. Flicking it on silent, I throw it back in my pocket and entering the drudgery of my allotted lecture hall, I throw myself behind the pristine desk on the pompously raised dais. The class I'm so eagerly expecting contains the captivating Miss Steele. The only highlight of what is sure to be a day full of grey. Soon, all too soon, the room begins to fill with bodies and chatter. Mindless chatter from mindless bodies. Wonderful. I ignore them all as they file in, keeping a sharply subtle eye out for her.
I can't touch, I know that, but I can look.
She's one of the last ones in, again. But this time she's flanked by three or four laughing girls. She's laughing too. My French toast does a strange sort of exercise in my stomach. She's downright ravishing when she laughs. They walk past me, I wait for her to glance at me, watching for it out of the corner of me eye. But she doesn't. I frown. Heavily. She walks right past me with her new-found group and spares me not a single rove of her eyes.
Well that's new.
More than slightly wrong footed, I realise they're staring at me and waiting for words to come out of my mouth. Stifling a scowl as I see her in the fifth row, lazily ignoring my very existence, I start the lecture. Walking up and down the dais, wasting both my cardio intake and voice in the process, I hum and haw about the theory of elasticity. I keep her in the peripherals of my vision. She's paying attention, but not rapt attention. She's glancing up and down, but only out of habit. Her eyes don't fixate on me the way the same three blonde girls' from yesterday in the front row do. She and her friends don't giggle about some private observation of my physique the way the blonde girls do and she almost certainly dozes off here and there, jolting awake intermittently, unlike the three blonde girls.
What the fuck?
Is this the same jittery, stutter for Christian Grey girl that I met yesterday?
The sleepily stirring demon inside me says yes. Yes, it is.
I'm annoyed by the growing annoyance that plagues me as I hammer on and on, boring myself, waiting once again for the hour to finish itself off. Mercifully, it comes sooner than it usually does and I dismiss the semi-conscious masses with an admittedly abrupt parting comment and stalk moodily, albeit artistically, back to my desk. They trickle out, some waking up, some somehow managing to fall even more deeply asleep. They earn my ire, with their breathing and their being. I scowl down at my timetable, trying hopelessly to brace myself for the next cohort of the hopeful leading the hopeless.
Her group is the last to leave, chattering animatedly amongst themselves.
I don't know what comes over me.
I do, I do know, I just can't control it.
"Miss Steele? A moment of your time?"
She glances back at me, mid-grin, as if I'm some kind of fucking afterthought and bids adieu to her equally unimpressed and unaffected friends. I feel my eyes widen at the complete and utter lack of an effect I seem to be having on her. I have an effect on every woman I meet. I'm Christian Grey. She slings her bag over her shoulder, oozing a nonchalance that nearly has my draw dropping, and strolls over to my desk.
No blush. No falling, no muttering, no flickering gaze.
Just a calmly, if quizzically, confident smile.
"Professor Grey?" she offers softly, when I merely stare like some kind of drug-addled imbecile. "You wanted to speak with me?"
My eyes blink of their own accord.
Shit.
Think, Grey, think.
"Yes," I hear myself say calmly, racking her poise to sense knocking knees, a reaction, any reaction. There is none. I swallow. "Yes, I wanted to ask you if you were planning on signing up for the inter-collegiate EcoPol debate series next semester? I appreciate that it is very early days, but I'm responsible for putting the team together and I'm just trying to ascertain any possible candidates."
Jesus H Christ there is no EcoPol debate series.
What is this utter shit that is coming out of my mouth?
Please say no, please say no, please say no.
She smiles a smile that results in a strange abdominal sensation within me. It's not all together unpleasant, but it's certainly an unknown. She licks her lips and I cross my legs immediately. I don't need to be sued for sexual harassment. She nods. How can someone be so fucking attractive simply by moving their damned head up and down? Man…the things she could do with that mouth, with that head…
Focus Grey, focus.
"Sure, Professor. I'd love to. I'm actually looking to bulk up my extracurriculars."
I know how I'd like to bulk her up-
Focus, Grey.
"Excellent," I clip out, trying painfully to regain control over the situation. "I will inform you when the particulars of the series are released. I suspect it won't be for some time, but it's good to know that you're interested." I glance at the door, suddenly desperate to put some space between me and this fucking alien power of a girl. "That will be all, Miss Steele."
She nods with all the confidence of a gold-medal Olympian, smiles an easy smile and nods.
"Thank you, Professor."
I don't even have the ability to throw together something suitably supercilious as she takes her leave, walking with a grace that she sure as shit did not possess yesterday. I stare at her retreating back, confusion burning me, not understanding the total transformation from delicate, trembling little flower to grinning, confident young woman. People don't just change like that overnight. I know people, and people don't do that.
And then it hits me.
Like a freight truck.
"Miss Steele?"
She turns once again, utterly serene and unperturbed, and flashes me an almost lazy and not-quite-there smile.
"Professor?"
I study her intently. My eyes bore in hers. I conduct a sweeping assessment and affirm my slow but still there intuition. I feel my head shake and my hand sweep towards the door.
"My mistake. It's slipped my mind. Thank you for your time."
She grins at me and nods, slipping out the door without a backwards glance. I stare unseeingly after her. I'm not sure how I feel about the explanation that had been staring me straight in the face. I've been there more than enough to know without question or equivocation that I'm righter than right. I swallow. I swallow deeply. I have my answer.
High.
She's high.
…
TBC
…..
