Chapter 3

Deflated and dejected I turn to leave, my embarrassment giving way to panic and I am stopped as the intense choking desperation rears it's head and controls, no, rules my actions. On a fleeting thought I realize that there isn't anything I could possibly do now to make a bigger ass of myself. Throwing all sense of pride aside I turn back and before I know it or can stop it I hear myself pleading, "Professor Bono, I can't lose my scholarship! I have no other way of affording this education! I just… I need your help. Please."

He stops midway into the motion of seating himself behind his desk and he straightens himself again to look at me. At least I've got his attention anyway. Knowing this my mouth takes it upon itself without my permission and betraying me with shaking and stripping me naked of any dignity I've left and revealing all of my fear and despair. "I can't fail this class, I just can't! I'm sorry for this…here…all of this… I was desperate." I worked too hard for this to lose it this way… I realize this sounds ridiculous now but I assure you I've NEVER done anything like this before… ever… and I understand you being disappointed in me, I do, I'm disappointed in me… it's just… I…"

My voice trails off not quite ending that thought before I move into another… one that has crept into my thought process, sparking a sense of anger with it.

"Do you know that this is the first time you've dared condescend to speak to me? This here adds up to the most words you said to me directly all semester. Of course you must know that. What is it about me that you dislike so much? Is there anything about me that you DO like?"

I shake my head as if to erase that last question from it, it just sounds so damned pathetic hearing it out in the open now.

He stands there without movement or speech and I take it as a green light and just ramble on with my tirade, " I worked hard… I work hard and I deserved that scholarship and I deserve to PASS this class! I'm a GOOD writer and I don't care what you think anymore!"

I am shouting and I think I have been all along. I've only now noticed it. And I'm using this power now. Standing straight-backed, chin high and standing up for myself, I notice his momentary surprise but continue on without giving him the chance to speak and ruin this moment for me until I've said what I need to.

"What is it that you WANT from me? What? I study hard and I pay attention and I try my damn ass off to meet your expectations! But no matter how hard I try, no matter how good I think I've written something, it's never good enough for you! I can't seem to write anything good enough for you!"

I have now changed pitch from a simple shouting to out and out screaming. It's high pitched and deeply rooted in pain but I swallow that, I can't afford to fall apart now with tears. I need to stand firm behind this moment no matter how ridiculous I may seem to him now.

He barely regards my outburst with any notice that it even happened as he casually moves to slide open his top desk drawer drawing out a slim dark cigar and lights it, taking a drag and blowing out a steady stream of smoke before he looks up at me through the haze of lingering smoke with those analyzing blue eyes that he has narrowed to look upon me before he let's out a laugh. He laughs! I hear the laugh rumble from deep in his chest from where I'm standing and I just want to punch him!

He slowly smiles before speaking, "That. That right there. That's what I want."

I must have looked confused, surely I was wearing that on my face because I sure as hell felt like I missed something important. What could he mean by that?

Before I can ask he continues on first, giving the cigar in his hand a good looking over before returning the aim of those incredible blue eyes on me again.

"Right there. That unbridled, not worrying about measured words or calculated facts, passion, that you just unleashed on me… that's what your writing is missing. Put that in your writing, darlin'. Take that energy from wherever you just pulled it from and remember what it felt like just now. Focus on it; channel it into your writing. Use it."

He moves to his desk, crushes out his cigar in the ashtray before picking up the stack of papers that he was reviewing when I first arrived at his office door and holds it out to me. I take it, they're all of my writing assignments from this semester and he holds the stack out to me.

"This… this is shit. Just words and facts and stats, aligned perfectly, perfectly boring. It's shit. Anyone can do this Rebecca. Anyone."

He drops the stack back on his desk in a heap and sends my anger reeling. I think my head just may explode from the power of it and I can feel the heat of it flushing my skin and I know he senses and sees it as well. He smiles and starts to move in my direction, the smugness of this action just fuels my already skyrocketing anger and I can barely contain it anymore. "C'mon, let's have it then. Let it out Rebecca."

"You're a fucking LUNATIC! Do you know that! Reporting IS facts! You state the facts, clearly and concisely… that's the whole purpose of the JOB! I do that well… you said so yourself!

Swallowed now in my own anger I haven't noticed that he's now standing close, toe to toe even, as if he's spoiling for a fight; a showdown as he so eloquently eluded to earlier. How dare he! But I can sense the temper and the anger and… something else swirling just beneath the surface of that cool exterior of his.

He speaks and I realize that while his words may be calm and measured that this isn't calm at all but a deep and intensified temper that is much more dangerous delivered this way then shouting it. He speaks in that soft voice that holds so much emotion back and delivers the words in calm and measured tones. "Yes. But you can deliver it with passion. Open yourself to what you're feeling about those facts and let it bleed through in your writing. Expose yourself in them, Rebecca."

I'm backing away from him now and from this calm attack that's battering all of my senses at once. It isn't until I feel the door at my back, the noise of it shutting, jarring my senses, that I've realized that I've been retreating from his oh so calm on the surface attack. I shudder in what I think is fear at first but soon recognize as excitement. There's a cracking energy in the air around us and I swear I can all but see its tendrils surrounding us, sending a thrilling shudder coursing through me. He speaks again, softly, only now his voice as taken on a hoarse-ness and it comes out in husky deep tones.

"Put that passion in your writing and you'll have me…"

His voice trails off as he stops to pause there and grins over what I can only guess is his enjoying himself and his obvious play on words about the situation that taken place earlier… much to my horror.

"…You'll have me alright…dancing a bleedin' jig if you like and you'll have the satisfaction like none other after you've finished the piece yourself."

He is now standing close; so close his face is mere inches from mine

"You release enough of that passion love and you'd might just find yourself feeling… sated." This last word is whispered and punctuated by his lips brushing over mine. I've tensed, my arms and hands splayed behind me on the door and groping for some sort of grip on sanity and stability. But he continues his assault on my senses and I'm losing my touch with reason. He continues on in that low seductive voice that makes my knees weak, "Let it go now, Rebecca… you'll find a different reaction". And he takes my mouth with an intensity that stops my heart from beating a quick hot second. I'm lost in the sensation his tongue brings, stroking, demanding access and seeking mine. He has his hands braced on the door on either side of my head and I'm trapped between him and the door. He closes off the remaining space and light between us with his own body and I'm torn between the sensation of the hard door at my back and the hard line of his body against mine. I've lost all sense of rhyme and reason as I feel the heart of my desire build within me and I respond to his kiss with an intensity of my own, meeting and matching his with demands of my own. I grab hold onto his hips in an effort to steady myself and pulling my own body closer, moving against his and drawing a moan from him that escapes his throat, the sound of it giving me a sense of power I have never felt before. But he ends the kiss, licking my top lip with his tongue as he breaks the contact of his mouth from mine and I softly whimper because of the separation. He places his forehead against mine and I'm suddenly aware that I'm kissing my Professor and how this is not at all how I thought this little meeting would play out for sure.

His voice brings me back to the fold of the dream, "So you are alive in there after all. I've been hoping to see this in you… I didn't quite expect to have it happen this way." He chuckles to himself softly.

Feeling embarrassed at my reaction to him now I tense as the beginning feelings of humiliation rise in me once more. I hear that soothing voice again and feel his hands on my face, gently forcing me to meet his eyes with my own.

"No… don't crawl back inside of yourself again. Don't bottle this up too. That's your problem… all sense and no feeling. You're too good a writer to settle for less and to not use all of yourself in your work, Rebecca."

And I'm stunned, completely and utterly stunned. Was that just a compliment about my writing? I never thought I'd ever hear a compliment from him and my eyes begin to fill again partly from the compliment from him and also because of the conflicting emotions that are battering me all at once. Somehow I manage to speak. "You think I'm good?"

"Aye... you're good, but good isn't enough when you've the talent to be great. I wouldn't compliment you on good, when you've the potential to be more. And watching you turn in writing that was just "good enough" pissed me off beyond measure and left me wanting to shake some sort of sense into you"

"Yeah, I'd noticed that," was all I could manage. He releases me then and backs away and I suddenly feel exposed and cold and left wanting. Longing for his body to cover mine again.

"There's more," he continues. And now I'm intrigued. "I'd found myself attracted to you early on and I'd thought that it would be obvious for everyone to see. I was sure in thinking it could be read on me. So I deliberately went out of my way to cover it up by being distant toward you and I am sorry for that. It wasn't right of me to do to you".

I cannot speak words have completely failed me at this point and I've begun to even question my hearing abilities. Surely I'm not hearing this correctly. Did he just say that he was attracted to me?