Chapter 38

"Good morning everyone. Come on in." Jen warmly welcomed her first class of the day, smiling at them all as they entered, in spite of what had just happened.

Her outer control belied the conflict raging inside her, which was a mixture of deep-seated emotion over Angel and the worry of what Tilly had witnessed, if anything, and how it could affect her: her concern was made more poignant and powerful because of their new-found verbal intimacy and because she was missing her so much already. As soon as she saw her, all she wanted to do was scoop her up in her arms... Her self-control in public was being sorely tested, under the watchful scrutiny of Angel's piercing gaze!

Tilly had moved from the front of the waiting line to nearer the back, making her one of the last students to enter, alongside a very spaced-out Bart and a surprisingly cheerful Esther, with George in tow. She breezed past Jen and gave her a cursory nod and a polite smile, just as any student would to any teacher, and calmly took up her place at one of the easels furthest away which already held her canvas, ready and waiting, just as the other students' easels were already prepared and waiting for them too.

Jen didn't detect any edge to her behaviour at all, which was a relief, even when she could feel her own inner struggle of emotion at being so near to her and being able to look, but not touch. She could feel her heart and her body aching for her and wanted more than anything to reach out to her across the room and hold her and stroke her and make beautiful love to her and kiss away the violating, sickly-sweet taste of Angel which still lingered obscenely on her lips...

But despite these emotions surging through her, Jen barely looked at Tilly at all. She only glanced in her direction briefly, as part of a sweep of eye-contact across the room; across all of them, during her introduction of the lesson task which was to continue with their canvas paintings from their preliminary sketches and today create more depth and perspective by using a new tool - applying some of the paintwork with a spatula instead of a brush.

Likewise, Tilly barely looked at Jen too - she just stood at her easel, wholly engaged in the task at hand and seemed almost completely absorbed in applying the different shades and thicknesses of acrylic to her canvas to create different effects of three-dimensional depth...

Angel stood back and watched them both, dissatisfied with what she was seeing. She'd expected tension between them, and embarrassment and discomfort, or signs of an obsessive attraction they couldn't fully control - Tilly especially, given her age. She wanted fireworks, and emotional mess. Lots of emotional mess. Yet, to anyone who didn't know their secret, they appeared to have a perfectly ordinary, quite mundane, student-teacher relationship just like everyone else's. She burned with jealous frustration, determined to test them; expose them; punish them. She stood there wondering just how she could spark things off...

Jen began to circulate the room, making sure to keep to the opposite side of the space from Angel, convinced she'd try something else. She had been going to introduce her formally to the group but after what she'd just tried, Jen decided against it for now. There'd be time enough for that later - it wasn't necessary - and anyway, Jen felt much happier with her students seeing Angel as she was: some kind of advisor or classroom assistant, rather than what Angel would choose to be seen as - someone more important who was equally in charge. So Jen shrugged off the feeling of Angel's icy eyes boring into her and started helping the nearest student, Adam, with developing his ideas and his technique... She was soon engrossed in the medium of the paint, showing him different effects and patterns that could be created, both blatant and subtle, with the spatula; her natural talent and love for the medium shining through for all to see: her enthusiasm was infectious.

Then something caught her eye from the other side of the room. Jen looked up.

There, in the corner furthest away, Angel was standing leaning closely into Tilly, whispering intensely to her and shooting Jen a half-challenging, half-amused, mischievous look momentarily around the side of Tilly's easel. Jen immediately dropped her gaze to concentrate on the sweeping motions of Adam's hand as he moved the paint-laden spatula across the middle of his canvas... But she couldn't help herself: she looked up again, seconds later.

This time, Angel was purposefully not looking at Jen at all; instead, she seemed wholly focused on Tilly and Tilly's technique - but to the point of holding her hand which held the spatula and masterfully guiding it across her canvas in jagged, jarring arcs. As Jen half-watched (she was still pretending her whole attention was on helping Adam), Angel guided Tilly's hand with even more expression and power - so that the paint was being slapped on with such energy it splattered small specks all over the two of them, but Tilly in particular, who instinctively jumped away, with a tiny shriek, to try to dodge them, which made Angel and the girl beside her, Rebecca, laugh out a loud guffaw at the comedy of the moment and turn everyone's head their way.

Then it was as if, once Angel knew she had everyone's attention, she took things just that little bit further, without acknowledging that she now had an audience... She leaned in closer to Tilly and laughing lightly, innocently, wiped the paint drops from Tilly's face with the gentle tenderness of a lover about to move-in for a lingering kiss. It was the briefest of moments but it was powerful nonetheless: there was an audible intake of breath from the room - from the male students in particular - and a sudden tension of erotic anticipation.

Jen's heart screamed inside her. Her blood boiled and she wanted to commit murder - or so it felt! Hating herself for being the first to break the stalemate silence between them, she tried to make her voice light and cheerful when she called across the room: "Are you ok over there?"

Angel was still laughing and made sure that Jen could see how much she was enjoying herself, and Jen could see that it was at Tilly's expense because she was standing back now, beetroot red behind her adorable freckles, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Yet Angel was still standing too closely inside her personal space, pretending she was unaware of that fact.

Jen hated seeing Tilly look so awkward and knowing how much she was being manipulated. Before she was even aware of it, her feet had taken her over there to stand beside Tilly in a secret stand of solidarity against Angel, under the guise of being the supportive teacher who was taking a light-hearted, healthy interest in a student's work. She made sure that she was smiling at the comical paint spraying incident but also made sure that she looked suitably watchful at a colleague's need to touch a student's face, as if it meant that something must be wrong and Tilly needed to be checked that she was ok. The look in Angel's eyes was gleeful again and was just there for Jen's benefit: she wanted Jen to feel that she'd been played and manipulated once again.

Jen was livid with her.

The air crackled once again between them; this time, even the students began to pick up on it: the two students closest by, Rebecca and Esther in particular feeling very tense and uncomfortable.

And then to make matters worse Tilly tripped - at least, that's how it appeared - although Jen did notice Angel's right foot moving back as if it had been out of its natural position somehow. But whatever the cause, Tilly tripped and fell hard - right into Jen, pushing her back suddenly with the full force of her falling, grasping body, mid-flight, completely out of control.

The full force of Tilly was too much, even for Jen, considering that it took her completely by surprise, and it made her stumble backwards until she landed, thankfully still standing, with a hard thump against one of the bigger, sturdier easels. Tilly's body moved and stumbled with hers until it landed with a hard push against her, a full-frontal impact, face-to-face... Tilly's head knocked into Jen's breast-bone, while her instinctively outstretched hands ended up pushing against Jen's shoulders... Thank goodness they hadn't landed on her breasts! both of them thought in a matter of seconds... But it wasn't over...

"Are you ok?" Jen asked in a half-whisper, concerned. Their faces were just inches away. Jen studied her face for signs of hurt, trying not to linger too long on her enticing lips, knowing they were being watched. Tilly looked up into her chocolatey-hazel eyes, wanting to drown there, and muttered a breathless "Yes I think so"...and then the easel gave way behind Jen's back and completely collapsed beneath their combined weight, throwing them both to the floor with a shocking, heavy smash!

That second fall seemed to happen in slow motion. The surrounding students knew it was about to happen, could see the easel start to buckle, but everything moved so slowly, including their helping hands, so they didn't reach them in time and could only stand and watch helplessly as they crashed to the floor, instinctively holding onto each other, amid a dust cloud of flying splinters and broken wood.

Both were dazed. In fact, for a few moments Jen was knocked-out cold; a slack look to her face... When Tilly came round almost immediately, shaking her head with a horrible headache, and looked down at Jen's beautiful, slack face beneath her she panicked, completely forgetting herself: "Jen? Jen? Jen?" she cried out in shocked whispers, scared and heart-broken.

Luckily, just as something began to dawn on the faces of the students closest by, who were the only ones to hear Tilly call Miss Gilmore by her own name (which seemed oddly revealing somehow and reminded two of them of a rumour they'd heard, months ago now), Esther came to her rescue: she squatted down and leaned over Tilly, to shield her face from the others so they couldn't see how intensely upset she was at Jen's state, and asked her loudly if she and Miss Gilmore (she said her name with emphasis) were okay. It was enough to make Tilly remember herself, and when she continued trying to rouse Jen she remembered to use her more formal title: "Miss Gilmore? Miss? Are you ok?"

Watching, Angel was torn between feelings of jealous satisfaction and shock - she hadn't meant for this to happen and for Jen to seem so hurt - but then she suddenly saw the expression on the red-head's face for her, even though it was only there briefly before she remembered herself and hid it again from everyone, and seeing that look was excrutiating. It was proof enough to her that what Jen had found with this girl was deeper and more powerful than she had ever realised; perhaps stronger even than what she remembered ever having with Jen herself. And she couldn't bear it. So she did the only thing she could: she tried to destroy it again. She took control over the situation and sent two of the students to get Mr Keeler immediately. She was determined to make him see the truth between them!

In the meantime, hidden by Esther's close body position of concern, Tilly was gently shaking Jen's shoulder and once - again forgetting herself until Esther nudged her - she stroked the side of her face lovingly, urging her to wake up. Angel was the only other person to witness this private sign of affection, because of where she was standing on the other side from Esther, and it made her heart burn with even stronger hatred - if that was possible. But Esther was the only one who was able to hear Tilly's breathless whispers to Jen, pleading her to wake up and come back to life and come back to her...

It was Tilly's touch against her face that did it. Slowly, very slowly, Jen's eyes began to flutter open until she was looking up - at the ceiling first, trying to gauge her bearings, and then at Tilly. She immediately smiled up at her... a lazy, secretive smile, which lingered lovingly on her lips as it would always do whenever they were alone together being affectionate. And Tilly saw with a jolt that Jen didn't have the faintest idea where she was or who was watching. It was a good job that Jen's voice was faint and husky after the fall and concussion; it meant that, once again, it was only Esther who could be sure enough of hearing what she said and how she said it as she spoke to her student lover, who was still awkwardly positioned on top of her:

"Hey you, this is a nice surprise." Jen smiled again at her lovingly as she spoke the words in an emotional murmur. "I've missed you. I thought -" then she stopped as Tilly froze, her heart thudding; absolutely certain that everyone in the room had just heard that. Jen saw the look of blatant fear in Tilly's face and looked up at her quizzically, stopping short of stroking her arms affectionately, suddenly aware that Tilly lying on top of her was unusually sore and painful and was not quite what it seemed.

She began to look around her then and saw Angel's look of jealous fury where she was standing towering above her, just to her right, and then Esther's close-up expression of surprised concern, immediately to her left. She looked again into Tilly's eyes and suddenly remembered what had happened and where she was, blushing with the exposed honesty she'd just shown for Tilly in the dangerous classroom situation.

And that's when the pain burst through.

She was suddenly acutely aware of a sharp, shooting, throbbing pain all over her back which felt like it was on fire, and a sore, dull ache beginning across her breast bone and collar bone combined.

And then she saw the blood.

It seemed to be coming from two places: one was from her hand which she had lifted up to brush Tilly's fringe out of her tilted face as it looked down closely at her, and the other was from the side of Tilly's face, from what appeared to be a gaping cut just by her left temple. It looked bad. She could almost see bone, she thought, and Tilly looked unhealthily pale, as though she was about to faint.

A feeling of protectiveness overcame her and she momentarily forgot her own pain and struggled to sit up, to try to help up her younger lover. But that was a mistake. No sooner had she struggled upright than a sharp intake of breath came from the students standing staring behind her, followed by Bart's slow voice:

"Wooh, Miss, your back's a right mess! Look at all the blood guys! That's gotta hurt like hell!"

It was at that moment that Keeler rushed into the room, closely followed by Jayne, or 'Miss Hughes' as the students knew her: the new English language tutor, who had just happened to be having a meeting with Keeler at the time it was interrupted by the emergency messengers.

Both of them were faced with a scene of devastation: Jen was barely sitting upright on the floor surrounded by a circle of splintered wood with blood beginning to pool around her right hand side and cuts across her face and arms and a nasty bruise starting to appear on the top of her chest and spreading up to her collar bone. And one of the students, Tilly Evans, was sitting immediately to the side of her with her feet touching Jen's, beside another student, Esther, who had her arm around her shoulder, having seemingly just helped lift her up off Jen and drag her to the side. And Jen wasn't the only one covered in blood: Tilly had a nasty looking gash to the side of her forehead with a steady stream of blood pouring from it, down her left side and onto her shoulder and down her top. Both of them looked dazed and fearful and very, very pale; almost on the verge of fainting.

"What on earth has happened here?" Keeler demanded, surveying the damage and quickly adding "Are you all right Miss Gilmore? Tilly?" Both nodded vaguely, clearly shaken up.

"Sir, you should come and look at this" Bart said from across the room to the principal and pointed at Jen's back. Keeler and Jayne walked around the devastation to look behind Jen and immediately gasped. Jen's top was torn all over, so it seemed, revealing strips of bloody skin which seemed covered in large chunks of broken-off wood which were embedded there, penetrating the skin's surface which was leaking blood from the many wounds. There was even a twisted nail protruding from the top of her back on the right hand side just above her shoulder blade. And the blood was still coming. Even Angel held her breath as she looked at the bloodied mess that was the sight of Jen's back and felt a momentary flash of concern (though it was over quickly). It was no wonder Jen had blacked out, or looked so very pale!

"Miss Hughes, call for an ambulance straight away please," Keeler took charge immediately, "and as for the rest of you, today's lesson is cancelled. Please spend the time in private study in the library. I will probably be speaking to some of you about what happened too, so don't be surprised. You seem to have been close to the action, Esther, so please wait behind with us. I'll speak to you now. Thankyou everyone. Off you go."

But Angel didn't miss a trick, and wasn't going to miss this opportunity: "Erm, actually Mr Keeler, I can tell you everything you need to know about this - er - situation between Miss Gilmore and her student," Angel butted-in before anyone had chance to move away and follow his instructions, apart from Jayne who had immediately disappeared to phone for an ambulance. "I don't think there'll be any need to call upon the students and disrupt any more of their study time with this..." she continued. Esther looked at her quizzically while Keeler nodded his head in instant belief and agreement and both Jen and Tilly suddenly seemed to look even paler than they already did.

"Well thank you Miss Stirling, that would be most helpful, thank you. Well, it looks as though you are somewhat off the hook everyone, and you Esther. So go now please and get on with using the time productively with your studies please all of you. Off you go."

Esther took one brief look at Angel and another at her friend and seemed to come to a sudden decision, speaking out across the room with confidence: "Excuse me Mr Keeler, but I was very well-placed to see everything -" She was very forthright and determined that she be given the opportunity to state her case as she saw it. She was immediately supported by Tilly, who nodded and spoke for the first time then too:

"Yes sir, Esther was right next to me when I tripped and fell into Miss Gilmore. I think she'll have had a much clearer view of everything than Miss Stirling did."

"Very well then Esther, stay behind with us while we wait for the ambulance please. Now, everyone, off you go I say." Keeler insisted.

Angel kept her annoyance in check: this wasn't exactly going to plan at all! Especially when Esther then began with a straightforward, believeable explanation of it being a simple accidental fall which had turned-out more serious than anything anyone could have anticipated... Especially when she spoke so earnestly... It completely took the power out of her planned assertion of events in which she would have told everyone her version of what happened - with just the right amount of suggestion to allude to some sort of unusual and illegal connection between the student and her tutor...

She inwardly frowned, yet again, when Keeler turned to her and thanked her for her input but said it didn't seem as though it would be necessary after all - unless she could add to Esther's account or disagreed with it in any way. But with Bart still hanging around, taking his time to leave and agreeing whole-heartedly with Esther's account as he passed beside her, it seemed suddenly impossible to manipulate away from the truth as she would have liked. And in any case, it was clear that Keeler just wanted to get Jen and Tilly away to hospital as soon as possible so that they could be properly checked out and attended to. He was more distracted by this than by sifting through the details of what outwardly seemed to be a straightforward accident. He was particularly shocked by the state Jen was in.

Angel could see she was going to have to bide her time: now, this minute, was not her time to plant the seed of rumoured doubt about Jen and Tilly's relationship and watch it take root...

Nevermind, there'd be lots of opportunities to do that once Jen was out of the way recuperating in hospital, which by the look of her back could well be months!

Keeler was busy speaking to the Head of the Art Faculty, Mr Atkins, who had also been called to the scene, and Jayne had returned to say the ambulance was on its way, and then she sat down beside Esther and Tilly, talking to both girls in more depth to try to assertain how a simple trip up and fall could have caused such a bad injury to Jen in particular, while Jen kept feeling dizzy and looking paler and paler and Jayne kept stroking her hand for reassurance.

Angel felt, suddenly, like a spare part, and was partly relieved, partly resigned, when Keeler then turned to her and thanked her for her time but said she was free to leave and take the rest of the day off from Jen's classes but was more than welcome to participate in Mr Atkins' lessons instead.

She nodded sweetly her agreement to that invitation and walked around the splintered accident scene in the room on her way to meet Mr Atkins at the door, just in time to witness a furtive, secretive, look of deeply felt concern and longing pass between Tilly and Jen.

Fuming, she left the room with Mr Atkins, who was talking animatedly to her about the planned lessons for the day ahead. She was only half-listening though; her jealous, hateful, dangerous mind was already plotting...