Gliding on Thin Ice
So…I hope you all liked that little teaser. Anyway, things will be getting intense from here on out, especially when Zyler and Amelia meet. Hehe…that'll be very fun for me to write. By the way, if you want to imagine what Zyler acts like, think Ryan Phillipe's character in Cruel Intentions, but less cruel. I think it's pretty fitting…Ok, well, read and tell me what you all think!
Disclaimer: I don't own jack…or jill for that matter. Anyway, I wish I owned Sailormoon…but I don't…and I'm not even worth suing since I'm as poor as a church mouse…I'm just borrowing the characters for a little while…
Chapter 2
"Hey Zyler. Are you busy tonight?"
Her voice was coy and teasing as she pressed one perfectly manicured hand against his hard chest. Zyler knew what she was playing at, and took off his glasses, laying them slowly on the table in front of him that was currently heaped with various papers and articles. He was starting to get annoyed but managed to keep his frustration in check. Zyler slowly pushed her hand away and looked nonchalantly into her fake blue eyes.
"Whitney, I really don't have time for this right now. I have a very important paper to finish for tomorrow. My professor will fry my ass in a skillet if I don't have it ready."
"But I can always kiss it and make it all better." Now, she had just resorted to plain pouting.
"I'm not in the mood for this right now."
"But I am."
"So what? Look, I really don't have the time or patience to deal with your fucking needs right now, so can you just leave me alone? Why don't you just find someone else to suck."
"But I want you."
"You obviously didn't care who you were sucking yesterday night."
She gasped in planned horror and surprise. Apparently, she was already too familiar with coming up with lies.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You know exactly what I'm saying. Tom Curring's whole hall knows about you and your 'talented tongue', so I hear."
"How did you find out?"
"Hey baby, no hard feelings. Oh but then again, you don't have a hard time getting that sort of reaction from your other boyfriends, do you?"
Her tears started coming and now all of her thousand tons of make-up came streaming down her foundation-plastered face. He knew she was going to beg; they all did.
"Please, Zyler. I was really drunk and didn't know what I was doing. He took advantage of me, I swear. I was going to tell you all along, but I was afraid you'd get mad. Please, don't leave me. I'll never do it again, I promise."
Zyler grinned devilishly as he leaned in close to her sobbing form. The bright lights in his apartment reflected the mocking glint in his bright green eyes.
"Quite honestly, I don't care what you promise me anymore, Whitney. Consider yourself screwed and ditched, baby. I don't like dirty things. Now get out."
Whitney's act suddenly turned from helpless little girl to rampaging ex. Zyler wasn't surprise at all though. He knew her type well. They were a dime a slut. Anyone could get them and anyone could leave them. All he knew was that her time was up.
"You fucker! You messed with the wrong girl, Zyler! I'll be back, and you just wait! You'll be begging me to come back!"
"Don't get your hopes up too high, Whit. I never go digging through the garbage dumps."
Unable to stand his scathing insults anymore, Whitney grabbed her purse and rushed out the door, making sure to slam it soundly on her way out.
"Well, there goes another one. Oh well, no big loss."
He sat back in his chair, giving himself a moment to recover from her shrill shrieks, and then, putting his wire-rimmed glasses back on, resumed writing his paper once again as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. It was all in a normal day's work for Zyler…
Amelia Lason sat in her advanced Victorian Literature class, twirling a pen around in her fingers. Most of the class was still working on the pop exam that Professor Jenkins had just whipped out on them, but Amelia was long finished. Having handed in her paper nearly half an hour ago, she sat there in her desk deliriously bored but unable to leave, as was the teacher's policy during all exams. She slumped further down in her gummed chair, fervently wishing the rest of the imbeciles would just give up their effort and hand in their papers so they could all leave the overheated classroom.
Finally, almost an hour later, Amelia sighed in relief as she gathered her books and quickly jogged over to the door. The exam had finally finished and she was free at last. Glancing quickly at her watch, she did a double-take and started sprinting across campus. She had promised her father that she would be there at 3 o'clock to help him set up the lab he was going to be demonstrating to his Theoretical Physics class that afternoon. It was already 3:05.
She breezed into the lab and quickly set her books down on a nearby table, and made her way over to her father who was currently at one lab table, setting up a complicated piece of equipment. She hoped he wasn't too mad; one of Professor Lason's pet peeves was tardiness. Amelia was thankful she didn't have her father as a teacher; it was a rumor that he took twenty points off every exam if you were late, and combined with his tough grading, it would be nearly impossible to even pass if you couldn't tell the hour hand from the minute hand on your watch.
"Sorry dad, we had a pop quiz in Professor Jenkin's class today, and she let us out late, so—"
"Hand me the tubing."
Amelia complied wordlessly. Her father had the uncanny ability to scare the shit out of anybody without even saying an intimidating word. The rest of the procedures were done in silence, Amelia silently following her father's every direction. When they were all done, her father dusted his hands off on his lab coat, and turned to Amelia.
"So, how did your quiz go?"
"Oh…it was fine. I was the first to finish, but the teacher still wouldn't let us go until the rest of the class had finished."
"I see."
Amelia knew it was time to switch topics. The more she stayed on one thing with her dad, the more critical he got of it, and whenever the topic involved her, she was always on the receiving end of his critique.
"So dad, did you tell this Zyler that he got picked for the fellowship yet?"
"Yes, in fact, I just told him this afternoon."
"Did he accept?"
Her father threw her a doubtful look that completely embodied all his disappointment.
"Of course. Why wouldn't he?"
"There could always be other commitments…"
"No greater commitment than to science."
The silence between them was painful. Even after all these years, Amelia still felt lacking, knowing in her mind that she would never measure up to her father's sky-high expectations. There were times in her life that she had dreadfully wished she had been born a boy. Despite all his scientific prowess and immeasurable archive of knowledge, Professor Lason was still old-fashioned, living in the past and in a world where men still had the upper hand on women regardless of intelligence or diligence. Although Ami had surpassed all of his previous stereotypes of feminine capabilities, she was still a girl, and a girl was never good enough.
Professor Lason cleared his throat audibly, as if to dispel some of the palpable tension that clung to the room.
"Amelia, you Uncle Clark and Aunt Abbie are coming to town this week."
"Oh really? Is Darla coming too?"
"Darline? I suppose."
"Where are they staying?"
"They don't have any definite plans yet. I would offer for them to stay with your mother and I, but with the remodeling job that we're having done right now, the guest rooms are horrid and completely unlivable in its current state."
"How long will they be visiting this time?"
"About 3 weeks or so. Just until Darline's summer break starts. Then they're all going back to Ohio."
"Why now? Doesn't Darline have finals to take?"
"I suspect that that is part of the reason why they're coming now. Apparently, your Uncle Clark struck a deal with all of her professors to let her out early."
"Hm…I wonder how much they paid for that."
"Don't jump to conclusions, Amelia."
"Come on, father. We all know that even Darline can't sleep with every single one of her teachers to get off academic probation. She has to have her father pay her way through college, and I don't just mean tuition."
"That may be the case, but she is still your cousin."
Amelia marveled at the double standard that was always being applied to her. She could even spend one second with her own father without being criticized, yet she was being severely reprimanded for criticizing someone else, even though everything she had just said was without a doubt true! Oh, the absurdity of her life.
"So, are they going to stay in a hotel then?"
"I would much rather have them stay in our house, but I suppose that's quite impossible. Still, making relatives stay in a hotel is rather impersonal and doesn't speak too well of our hospitality."
Amelia immediately caught onto what her dad was implicitly prodding her to do. He was a sneaky one; she'd give him that much. Of course, playing the part of the obedient but unwilling daughter, she could only comply with his unsaid but obvious wishes. She sighed, and silently prayed that her cousin was deathly allergic to her apartment.
"Well, they could stay at my place if they want."
"Where will you stay then? There's not enough room in your apartment for you as well as them to be living there."
"I could stay with Mina and Serenity. I think they have an extra guest room."
"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to put you out of a place to stay."
Amelia glanced down at the floor, rolling her eyes. She really didn't expect her father to be this affected. If he wanted her to share her apartment, he could have just said it outright instead of going to such lengths to evade the essence of the situation.
"Yes, dad. It's no problem. I'm sure they won't mind me being there."
"All right then. It's settled. I'll call up your Uncle Clark tonight and tell him the good news. Thank you for being so generous, Amelia."
"Yeah, sure, whatever. It's not that big of a deal. Besides, I'm sure they'll take good care of my apartment."
Meanwhile, Amelia had finished setting out all the necessary equipment and readied herself to leave. She felt that if she stayed one more moment in the insufferable presence of her father, she would burst like an overripe tomato. And Amelia had rather if she left with her sanity and temper intact.
"Bye dad. I'll be going now. I have to tell Mina and Sere about this whole thing."
Professor Lason merely waved a genial farewell to his daughter as she gathered her things like the apocalypse was at hand and prepared to rush off. However, before Amelia could reach the door, the handle twisted and someone entered, almost charging headlong into her.
"Professor Lason, my most sincere apologies. I got caught in some hallway traffic out there. I assure you that it's quite vicious."
The young man who had stumbled in caught Amelia's eye and gave her a brief but lingering look-over before nodding his acknowledgement of her presence. Amelia could only offer him an open glare. The man's eyebrows raised instantaneously, rendering his clear surprise. He was handsome all right; that was undeniable. Even a blind person could perceive the raw sensuality and confidence that radiated out from him. His curly, dark golden curls were cut short and combed through with gel to give him that "cool" and slick appearance. Glasses elucidated his limpid emerald eyes that glittered with visible intelligence of the highest caliber. A strong jaw line offset his smooth and flawless facial features, completing his tall and lank stature. As he glanced down at her, Amelia felt somewhat dwarfed by his height and countenance.
Still, Amelia was never one to back down from an unspoken challenge. She straightened her back and looked him right back in the eyes and then, without the slightest hesitation, walked out and closed the door with a slight slam behind her.
As soon as she was outside, she let out the shaky breath that she had kept bottled up within herself for the past few minutes. How dare that man look at her like she was….she didn't know what the look indicated, but she definitely knew that she was unnerved. Amelia wasn't used to having someone look at her that intently, a stranger nevertheless. Who did he think he was, staring at her so disrespectfully? Just who was he…?
Zyler stared at the previously slammed door for a moment in amazement and confusion. Just who was that girl? He bristled a bit inside to be turned away like that. The girl obviously didn't know a good thing even when it was right under her nose…well, rather, above her nose. He was at least a whole head taller than she was. She was a petite, nymph-like little thing, her lucid, pale but beautiful features complementing her frigid treatment of him perfectly. Her dark blue eyes still seemed to drill holes through his mind and her short, wavy dark hair, a unique shade of black shimmering with streaks of midnight blue under the bright lights of the classroom, was imprinted permanently in his memory. Her thin frame seemed to carry so much pride on those frail shoulders of hers. But what bothered him most was that she had ogled or stared in the least. No, the little girl had given him a glare of evident loathing and contempt, and the strange thing was that he hadn't even done anything yet to insult her. He shrugged off his discomfort for the moment and turned back to Professor Lason, grinning.
"Well, may I venture to ask who that was, sir?
"My daughter."
Zyler smacked himself mentally. Of course she was his daughter. They looked so alike with their constant frowns and uppity attitudes. He normally wouldn't tolerate being with this sort of people who lived in their own little castle in the sky, but he really needed this fellowship to give him a strong résumé. And Professor Lason, that arrogant asshole, knew that and used it to his full extent. Truth be told, Zyler didn't like him in the least, and Professor Lason knew that, but he also knew that Zyler would accept. Well, there went all his free time for the next few months.
"Well, she's…um…quite a character."
"Yes, Amelia is something. Oh, and don't mind her, she was in a foul mood today and she never takes well to boys anyway."
"Oh, so she's a bitchy prude," Zyler mumbled almost inaudibly. Almost inaudibly, except to the keen ears of Professor Lason.
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that. She not normally so 'bitchy', as you call it, but she was having a bad day."
Zyler flushed red at having said such a rude comment aloud, but Professor Lason wasn't surprised. Zyler usually wasn't one to keep things to himself. Whether or not that was a good thing he didn't know, but Zyler reminded him of his old self when he was young…rather, before he got married. Olivia Lason was a proper wife, no doubt of that, but in other respects, she was rather weak. She was the typical housewife, skilled in cooking, cleaning and things of that nature, but somewhat ignorant when it came to other, more profound matters. He had had the dream of having a boy, raising him under his tutelage, but instead he was granted a daughter, and his wife couldn't have any more children. His disappointment had been hard to mask, but he took a small bit of pride in knowing that Amelia had some spiff and, personality-wise, was nothing like her mother.
Then he turned back to Zyler. This boy was trouble incarnate. Being the observant person he was, Professor Lason had seen the numerous times Zyler strolled into class with a girl clinging to his arm, and never the same one at that. Rash, insolent and never attentive in class, Zyler still always managed to pull the top grades by virtue of his genius alone. Under that head of dark golden curls was one of the most brilliant minds he had ever come across, and Professor Lason meant to push it to its full capabilities.
Zyler, seeing Professor Lason stand there pensive for a few minutes, cleared his throat, hoping to dispel some of the uncomfortable mood in the room.
"Well, shall we get started then, sir?"
Professor Lason snapped back to attention, and nodded at Zyler, walking away to finish the set-up he had been working on. Zyler was left alone for the moment being.
"Amelia Lason, huh? Very interesting, but..."
~So…watcha think about this one? Don't worry, Amelia and Zyler will definitely be having some "personal" interaction soon. Might I mention, that first impressions in this story are very important, and will carry throughout the entire plot. And although Professor Lason isn't an evil character by any means, he is most certainly unlikable. So….tell me what you think. Drop some reviews off. I love reading all of your comments and suggestions, and it spurs on my brain to think faster…hint, hint. ^_^
Icedrop13
