CHAPTER IV

"Plus vil que le baiser de Judas"

(Lorenzaccio, Alfred de Musset)

Too young

too eager

inexperienced, you hope your looks will go

unnoticed

until one day

they don't

James Hook was deeply bothered.

He had thought himself clever, allowing that girl – this damned, foolish Wendy – to take an interest in him. Only too obliged to corrupt the thoughts of the young girl, he let the game go on, ignoring her – only to tease her more. And finally, without even having to lift a single finger, the girl fell for him, entirely and utterly. He read it all in her anxious features, her craving eyes raised to him in that corridor.

She was now most likely tortured day and night by this forbidden attraction. It was all going according to plan, then. All to make her pay for those young years of neighbourhood rivalry.

What James Hook didn't expect, however, was that, gazing at her in that corridor on that dreadful day – something shifted inside him as well. Yes; he couldn't possibly ignore the latent deep and warm feeling that filled him at this moment. Thinking about it, Wendy – that terrible, awful, darling Wendy – appeared to him.

There she was, complete, ready. Those sweet eyes, waiting, begging. Those soft lips, oh so welcoming. Her chest, swiftly rising up and down with feminine delicacy. Wendy. Her clothing, finally slipping from her snow-white shoulders. Wendy, so complete in her charming nudity. Ready for him. He could almost –

Fuck!

What in the seven hells possessed him? Was he ever so easily distracted? He had his revenge. She fell for him; that was all he needed. No longer should he ever think about her. Yes, he was sure to cast that girl aside from his thoughts forever.

Hook could cast Wendy away from his thoughts – but it didn't cast her away from his life. He was still confronted to her presence almost every day – confronted to her, being near. And with a deadly fever did he expect theses days.

As though the roles were now inverted, Hook couldn't help but glance at Wendy – that sweet temptation – as she, strong and incorruptible, would ignore him. He arrived later to his classes, hoping she would seek him as she waited. Opening the door, he peered at her from the corner of his eyes – and there she was, always, acting as if he had never existed. During the lesson, it appeared that her notebook was the most important thing there ever was, never raising her eyes from it, imperturbable.

The burning sensation inside him warned him that this couldn't go on.

This couldn't go on; he needed something else. He wanted her to acknowledge his presence – to finally, look at him once more.

But he knew that if she ever did, she would initiate their undoing.

Hook wasn't a patient man – and less so, a reasonable one. He would get to her, even if it would set out their downfall. Because he craved for that hidden message in the corner of her lips.

"What do you mean, oral exams?" Asked a voice, lost in the crowd of the surprised class.

"Yes, oral exams, you heard well, Mr. Nibsson." The rumor in the class got slightly louder. "This is a truly beneficial exercise for all of you. Literature should be written, surely – but it also must be told, spoken. Think about the oral tradition of epics during the Antiquity; or the Medieval chansons de geste in Europe."

"So what, you want us to, like, write a poem for ya', sir?" Said another voice with bravado.

"Certainly not, Ms. Nerissa. This class doesn't teach you how to write poems; you need to be capable of analyzing the finest pieces of literature before thinking about doing any of that. Therefore, you will be given a random subject. You will have to do profound and thorough researches about it, so that you can present it all in a 30 minute lecture. I expect it to be professional and concrete. You are not in high-school anymore; it is time to give you a real challenge, after all."

"Oh, so it's like a powerpoint presentation in front of the whole class, then?" Risked somebody else.

The academic professor shuddered at the mere thought of it. He had always wanted to keep his teaching as far away from those modern complications as possible, favoring classic and old-fashioned ways instead.

"No, Mr. O'Toot. No 'powerpoints' - and no show-off in front of the whole class either. You will all present your analysis to me individually; one by one. About that, please do consult the schedule prepared for that reason on the papers I will give you." And with that final explanation, Hook then proceeded to hand out the different subjects to every student, as the rumor and exclamations sprang from all other the place.

As for Wendy? She was mortified.

She couldn't care less about the amount of work this project represented. But what this oral exam meant made her want to disappear from the surface of the Earth at this very instant. Thirty minutes. An entire half hour spent with Hook in a room; only Hook and nobody else. She would have to speak to him. To look at him. To bear the overwhelming sensations of being with him.

How could she withhold her sentiments then?

A hand placed on her desk made her shudder; but she didn't look up, fully knowing whose hand it was. The hand remained there for a little too long, her subject underneath. She could feel her professor's eyes laid on her, expecting. But she kept on looking down, vaguely and poorly. At last, the hand and the man went away, slowly. "The evolution of the rules of theater in Hugo's Cromwell", the paper read. "To present on the thirteenth of November." She knew exactly what to say about it. But she would rather jump from the nearest roof than present it all to that man. The heat in her cheeks seemed to spread and burn her very being.

She had to present her lecture on a Wednesday. Yet another reason for her to loathe that precise day of the week. Every fiber of her being wanted to turn around and run away; but her mind cruelly kept on telling her this was pointless. From now on, there was no turning back.

Damn him, she thought as she waited by the door. Nervous fingers kept on fidgeting with the papers she held close to her chest, as if she wished she could merge with them once and for all. Her lower lip was turning red with the many assaults of her apprehensive teeth, nibbling and biting. She was ready, she knew it. But this obviously wasn't the reason she worried so much. Anyone else seeing her at this moment would have thought she was on her way to a deadly trial. Perhaps this was worse.

Contain yourself. Just read your damned notes, Wendy Angela Moira Darling. She played the careful advice in her mind on repeat. Just imagine you are in front of someone else; like Michael, or John! Anyone but him.

And suddenly, the door opened.

James Hook stood there, a hand on the handle and the other firmly laid on the door-frame. He looked down at her, with something hidden in his eye – something she unfortunately recognized only too well. An infinity of moments passed, before he finally opened his mouth – his cruel and tantalizing mouth.

"Wendy, Darling. Please do come in."

She stepped inside the room as if she stepped inside the very mouth of Hell.

The usual classroom had been taken by the drama club, and therefore Hook had to pick another one. He chose the archive room. A single table, two chairs facing each other. And walls, too close, encircling them both. Taking the air out of the place.

"Please, do sit, Ms. Wendy." She didn't like the way her name tasted on his lips. Or perhaps she did, a little too much. And that was why she hated it as well. With shaky hands hardly concealed, Wendy pulled the chair and sat down, the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"Then," began Hook as he sat down in front of her, dim lights making him look like a macabre figure from a chiaroscuro painting. "You may begin".

She took two breathes in. Two breathes out. Her eyes flitting close for a single heartbeat, she opened them, focused. She was ready.

"The rules of unity in dramaturgy appeared at first in Italy and France, during the 16th and 17th centuries. Expanding Aristotle's definition of tragedy, the critics and writers – such as Racine or Molière – managed to structure plays according to three unities…"

James Hook listened. He truly listened – he still was her professor, after all – taking notes, stoical. Within her, Wendy felt grateful for that; strangely enough, she didn't feel uncomfortable. Perhaps she was being carried away with her lecture; perhaps he truly wanted her to succeed, after all, by being professional. Perhaps she had simply imagined all of these ideas of mutual and dangerous attraction.

"By 1827, Hugo had published his famous 'Préface de Cromwell', attempting to replace those classic unities by more romantic standards."

Everything was going much better than she would have thought. In-between two sentences, she had glanced at her wristwatch, noticing that fifteen minutes had already gone by. It was all perfect.

"Unfortunately, the quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns at that time…" Wendy stopped. A foot had abstractedly slipped towards her legs. She swiftly pulled back her feet, burying them as far away as possible, as James Hook looked up from his notes, an inquisitive – and falsely genuine – look of questioning on his features. His eyebrow was raised and his mouth slighly opened.

"…The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, yes?" He encouraged her, a mocking smile teasingly tugging at the corner of his lips. That wretched man.

Gathering herself, Wendy continued. She spoke faster now, writhing the corner of the pages she held, trying to get herself out of this situation as fast as she could. Slipping the last words incomprehensibly, she finally concluded her lecture. She almost let out a heavy sigh of relief as she put down her paper. And she looked up at her professor, expecting to be dismissed. As he kept on scribbling notes, Wendy decided she couldn't wait any longer; she gathered her bag and attempted to stand up, when he put down his pen and interrupted her actions.

"Well, Ms. Wendy. Now, for some questions." Wendy fell back on her chair, a look of dismay crossing her features. "What could you tell me about the Romantics' mores at that time? How do they have an impact on dramaturgy?" Thank god, she thought. She didn't know why she had expected worse types of questions.

"The Romantic mores were quite liberal, especially opposed to the political repression… Some fought this political repression with plays, like Musset did with Lorenzaccio."

"What could you tell me about the themes found in that play?" Carried on Hook.

"Well, there is the romanticism of the eponymous character, who is not unlike Hamlet, or Musset himself… He is, like most romantics by the 1830's, hopeless yet striving for change."

Hook did not respond immediately, and instead scribbled some notes before returning to her.

"I feel like you are also forgetting the depravity of this character, Ms. Wendy. The games of seduction found throughout the play." Wendy felt a burning knot tying her throat. She swiftly dried her palms on her thighs, before attempting to answer. But her mouth was desperately dried out. So she simply nodded, hoping the questioning would end here. Hook's eyes, imperturbable, were once again fixed on her elusive ones.

A profound and heavy silence weighed in the room, filled with what was left unsaid. Wendy crossed her legs, sharply conscious of the heat, the burning, the desire – it was too much. Suddenly, she glanced up, looking full and straight at him. He was smiling, beguiling as ever. Unconsciously, she bit her already damaged lower lip, hard. Hook's gaze was irresistibly drawn to it. And his vicious smile broadened.

Finally, with a look filled with implications, James Hook broke the tense atmosphere of the place. Standing up, he took two steps towards the door.

"Thank you, Ms. Wendy, for that lecture. Quite scholar-like, certainly. But you might want to go… Deeper into your researches, next time." Wendy simply nodded and stepped quickly towards the door as well. She couldn't be more relieved to be finally done. But as she wrapped her hand onto the handle, she felt fingers doing the same.

James Hook had intended to open the door for her at the same time she did. And now, she felt his hand, burning – or was it hers? - onto her fingers. She wouldn't look up – her entire body had frozen, although her mind was set on fire by that contact. Fingers moved. Not hers. Slowly at first, his fingertips, caressing, slipped down, following the shape of her knuckles. A hot and heavy feeling seized her stomach, which slid down, and down. Then, without being able to further control her own motions, she felt her thumb, acting on its own design, move against his.

Hook's hand carried on its exploration of Wendy's soft skin. Slithering down, and down. Breathing heavily, haphazardly; sometimes even forgetting to breathe, Wendy felt her eyelids close gently at the softest touch. She could give in. She could. She should.

A second hand took her by surprise. It approached her waist, slowly; and she felt it before it even touched her. It was as if a violent shock of electricity brought her back to her senses. Wendy suddenly opened her eyes and jerked back, before opening the door in a decided hurry. She rushed through it, her heart almost beating out of her chest. With great strides, she made her way down the corridor, never looking back. And with two steps more, she was gone.

James Hook simply smiled, standing at the door-frame, as he curled his hand into a fist.

"Until next time… Wendy, darling."

Thank you all so much, Pest, LaurieReads, Persephone A. Black, AmyPond31, Ann, Dafne, and my dearest Guest for all your kind and great reviews so far! It really motivates me to write more of this story.

If you love Hook (and I suppose you do – he is a great pick, after all), maybe you can check my other story, To Believe In Fairies, while you wait for the rest of Dead Because You're Mine. It is a complete story – and although it isn't as, well, bold as this story, there is a touch of romance to be found!

Thanks again for the wonderful support!

– VelvetGoldie