The cool temperature brought on by dusk had begun to creep into the air now, forcing the warmth of the day to dissipate in its wake. I ran the bath, lit some candles (trust a drug house to have a good stock of them) and added some orange oil to the water.

I slipped in and shivered as the hot water stripped me to the bone. I relaxed back against the porcelain and sighed all of the tension out of my body. His face kept popping into my thoughts, like those computer viruses screaming at you with neon colours saying "Congratulations, you've won $500,000!" My firewall was no match for him, and I was thoroughly infected and some wicked part of me liked it that way.

~·~

I needed a fix.

When I get myself off, it's usually a utilitarian thing. Sex logic. The shortest path to what I want.

Not tonight.

I parted my knees, let a hand trail along my thigh and settle wherever gravity decided. My eyes fluttered shut as I slid further down into the water, letting it crush me the way Corazon did that night. I imagined the gentle grizzle of his cheek grind between my breasts as he explored my flesh with his lips. I craved his hardness, that smoky leathery smell of his front seat, that overwhelming sense of masculinity all around me, forcing its way inside of me. Candlelight flickered against my eyelids. I touched myself the same way, lightly, flickeringly, warm water swirling around my fingertip. It almost could have been a tongue. I remember him teasing me with the head of his dick, making me tell him my name first. I breathed harder. Bit my lip. Slipped my finger inside. Water lapped at the porcelain, like a wet slap of skin.

God, if only he was the one fucking me right now.

This was his finger, I thought. Not mine. This was him shoving me against the classroom wall, his hand inside my underwear, his finger snaking inside me, fucking me as I grew tighter around him. His thumb circling my clit without touching the tip. His finger sliding in all the way to the knuckle, stiff and quick, that I took as deeply as I could, that made me ache in a place so far inside me it didn't seem real-the root of me. His finger fucking me and filling my belly with heat that built higher until I couldn't contain it anymore and it spilled over in a white-hot rush. His hand making me come, making my thighs tighten and my voice cry out and my honey spread all over him, giving myself up to the water, to this man in my head.

~·~

He looked up when I walked in.I waited and let a few other kids go in first, so I could walk in alone. So he could look up nervously and see me and break into a smile, that smile I remembered from that night, that small, private one. He looked down quickly at his desk, but his lips were still curved.

"Remy,"

What the fuck was Law doing in my class?!

"What the hell? What are you doing here?" I said.

I shot an anxious look between him and Corazon. Could he know? Was this some kind of intervention?

He smirked. "Funny you say that, I half expected you to be out fu-"

"Law." I heard Corazon warn in a tone I'd never heard before. It kind of had me dazed and electrified at the same time. The blood in my veins humming with the vibrations of his voice.

"Someone dropped. I took their place." Law's voice interjected my daze. I eyed him as he took to the desk in front of mine.

"Oh." The disappointment in my voice didn't go unnoticed but it seemed to have fueled that crazy fire behind Law's eyes. I tested the edge of my nail between my teeth. A bad habit. I let my mind wonder on the subject of being Law's subject but not for too long as Corazon tapped a handful of papers against his desk before shifting to the front of the classroom.

He didn't look at me. I looked down at my desk. Someone had carved NAMI=SLUT. I thought about carving THAT WILL BE $50 FOR THE USE OF MY NAME-NAMI, but Corazon-I mean Mr. Donquixote-probably would've caught me before I finished.

I was not going to entertain the insane detention fantasy that instantly popped into my mind.

All my stoked-up happiness evaporated. I wasn't the self-made teacher-seducing minx who'd walked in. I was a banal teenage girl with depressingly typical problems.

I glanced up at Cor-Mr. Donquixote. It was like he had a Remy radar: his eyes rose to mine immediately. Or maybe he'd been looking at me more often than I realised. I remembered the bathtub (involuntarily) and blushed, but didn't look away. I can do this, I thought. I can't touch you but I can eye-fuck you. He wore his collar open today, his hair a little mussed, and I wondered if it was for me. I let my eyes move over him, shoulders to waist, then a slow return. His gaze stayed steady on mine.

Movement in my peripheral vision.

Law, training a video camera on me.

"Jesus," I snapped, whirling away. "Will you fucking ask me first?"

"I was simply capturing a moment."

My heart throbbed in my throat. "What moment?"

"Homicidal rage."

Despite myself, I laughed, relieved. I couldn't even begin to try and understand Law. He was like a one thousand piece puzzle and I had no idea what the bigger picture was supposed to resemble. I wasn't even entirely sure that I wanted to know him, but I wasn't going to lie and say there wasn't something about him that was absolutely compelling.

The final bell rang.

My teacher stood up, smiling. An open, ordinary smile. He spoke to us, asked questions, spent more time listening to our answers than he lectured. Showed us film clips on YouTube, nodded enthusiastically when we began to recognize them for ourselves. Asked about our favourite directors, actors, composers. I managed to answer like a normal human being. I got into a debate with a guy about whether Alien was a feminist movie. Law pointed out that Ripley was originally written as a man and someone called him EncyLawpedia (brilliant), and Law cutting the guy down with some witty remark as if his tongue were a sharp edged sword. Mr. Donquixote listened to us earnestly, his face filled with curiosity, amusement, respect. HE was smarter than us but not smug. He shared his intelligence like a secret, making us conspirators in it. I could feel the whole class falling in love with him.

And every time his eyes touched me, the air jolted.

Heat lightening.

~·~

I started to follow Law out of class when Mr. Donquixote called my name. Law raised his brows. I shrugged, pretending to have no idea what it was about. Law shrugged too, though I could feel something stir within him.

I kept my gaze on Law's back as he lost himself in the sea of bodies, but no-one could quite swallow him up, completely make him disappear into the background. I figured Law was just one of those people. He made you see him or he didn't.

And I was dragging this out because I was nervous. This could be something amazing, or this could be the turning-in-my-resignation/you'll-be-better-off speech.

And this would be the absolute first time I'd been alone with him since the night we met.

I turned around. He stood behind his desk, a solid obstacle preventing untoward contact between teacher and student.

"Close the door."

My heart did a kickflip.

I closed it, lingered over the lock, left it open. I walked slowly toward his desk, wondering where I should stop. My knees hit the cool steel.

"Hi." He said.

We hadn't talked until now. All that stuff in class had been between other selves.

"Hi."

He seemed about to say something rehearsed, his bangs shifting up and down from the movement of his eyebrows, mouth ajar, but he just looked at me and it melted away. And he kept looking.

"Is this weird for you?" He said finally.

"Yes. Is this weird for you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

The corner of his mouth lifted. My stomach mimicked it. My center of gravity grew wings and took off.

"I keep hoping this is some elaborate practical joke."

"How do we make this work?"

My eyes widened.

"Shit," He said, laughing. "I didn't-I mean, how do we have a class together without it being weird?"

"I don't think that's possible."

"If it.." He trailed off, his blue eyes seemingly darker than I remembered. "If it ever gets too weird for you, tell me. Anything you need, I'll do it. No questions asked."

I hated that he was treating me like a victim. Someone he needed to make reparations to.

"What about you?" I said, propping my hip against the desk, folding my arms. "What happens if it gets too weird for you? You just get to pack up and leave?"

"It's not like that."

"What is it like?"

"And it's already too weird for me," He said, ignoring my question. "I have no memory of the last 24 hours. There was the moment you walked into my class, and then there's now. Nothing else."

My mouth opened, an involuntary breath coming free.

"But I don't want to impose that shit on you. It's not your problem."

"Impose," I said.

He winced. Put a hand on his desk, leaned into it. The space between us was finding ways to close, even with solid objects intervening.

"I don't want to screw your life up, Remy."

"Do you have a class third period?"

"No."

I unfolded my arms and before he could do anything, I took that open collar in my hands, lifted on my toes, and kissed him across the aircraft carrier he called a desk. He didn't fight. He kissed me back, oh so lightly, lips barely parting. Careful. I could taste the slick film of peppermint in his mouth but it didn't quite mask that bitter tang, like cigarettes and liquor-that masculine flavour my taste-buds were quickly growing accustomed to liking.

"This is dangerous." He whispered against my mouth.

"I know." I said.

He pulled me onto his desk and I swung my legs across to his side. We never stopped kissing. One hand at the back of my neck, the other gliding between my thighs. My legs tightened but my mouth opened in response, as if my wires had crossed. I thrust my hands into that hair I'd wanted to mess up so badly. I was short of breath but kept kissing him anyway, not getting enough off that tobacco tang, those lips that were somehow firm and yielding at the same time, opening me, parting me. Giddily I thought, Have you been eating mints on the off chance that this would happen? Have you been obsessing about this as much as I have?

A knock on the door.

Hands instantly demagnetized. I hopped off his desk, smoothed my shorts. He dropped into his chair and crossed his legs.

"Yes?" He called, deep and steady.

I stepped back to an appropriate distance, but our eyes never left each other.

Thank fucking god, it was just some random kid. "You got the projector here?"

"No." Mr. Donquixote said. "It's in 208."

"Sorry." The kid closed the door.

We both breathed audibly.

"We can't do this here," He said.

"Where can we do it?"

He laughed. "Nowhere," He said, but his words were at odds with his eyes.

"Don't give me the fake Boy Scout routine," I said. "You're sitting there with a hard-on." My bravado was slightly spoiled by the breathless delivery. The way he looked at me from under his shaggy bangs, slightly sheepish, slightly intense, turned every girl part in me to jelly. I clenched my hands to keep them from idle evil.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"I don't know, Remy."

Say my name. God, keep saying it.

"You won't break me," I said, my voice low. "I'm not a doll. I'm not fragile. And you can't possibly screw up my life more than it already is."

That furrowed look, the mournful angel observing human tragedy. "It's not just about damage control. It should be more than that."

"Then give me more." I said.

The third-period bell rang.

I walked out, but my heart stayed right there where I'd planted it, a tender little seed waiting for sun.