Dear Sir: The Code

Continued from Dear Sir: Part I & Flashes & Time Passes

Her hands were cold, her fingers quivering as she repeated the sequence of numbers to herself under her breath over and over again. She'd been imagining this for weeks now... thank heaven finals were over. She knew he'd be here grading, alone, and the light streaming under the lab door into the dark hall had the somersaults her stomach was doing speeding up. She leaned against the wall, her mind blank with the force of her nerves, her only thought reminding herself to breathe. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and slowly, wiped her palms on her skirt, and reminded herself that this was the last time she'd put herself through this. If he still didn't want her after this she'd walk away and never take another of his classes again.

She moved to the door, one shaking finger poised over the keypad, hearing music coming softly from behind the door and hoping it would cover the sound of her entrance, she began to key in the code. A soft click, and she turned the knob....

-----

He stared at the paper in his hands without comprehension. Lydia. How was he supposed to grade this? Of course she'd chosen to write her final paper on the mysteries of attraction. He remembered the lecture she'd pulled the topic from, weeks past now. Evolutionary psychology. The day she'd come to this very lab and... best not to remember that encounter. As he read it he saw through to the thinly veiled argument for why her attraction to him was no fault of hers, and his to her the same. Such an appealing idea... blame it on your genes, evolution, things outside of your control. He slammed the pages aside as he felt the yearning for her rising again - it seemed relentless. As his body's reaction spun out of his control for what seemed the hundredth time over the last month, he felt the anger rising at the same time. The two were inextricably linked. Never in his life had anger and arousal been so entwined, in some ways he was angry at her but he knew he was actually angrier at his own lack of control. Why did this girl have this effect? He stood up abruptly, planning to head outside into the cold for a short walk to clear his head and hopefully take care of the... other problems. He pushed her paper to the bottom of the pile and angrily grabbed his jacket and scarf off the back of the chair and began to put them on. So his back was to the door as she came in.

After two steps his downcast eyes registered the black mary jane heels at the bottom of the athletic legs in thigh-high socks that were between him and the door. He stopped abruptly, looking up to Lydia's face. She was crying silently, her hands clasped so tightly together before her green wool pea coat that the edges of her fingers were white. She was so bright to his eyes, her pale blonde hair shining in this dark corner of the room, her eyes bright green though the pupil was ringed with hazel, her face a luminescent cream besides her bright pink cheeks - whether that was from the wind or if she was embarrassed he didn't know. For one moment he was awed by her, the next confused, and then he was completely furious.

He reached forward, grabbing her purple scarf and pulling her to within an inch of his face.
"What do you want?", he growled.
"You", she whispered, "please?"
He pushed her back into the door, harder than he'd intended, she let out a little gasp, but he didn't care. He held her there by the scarf at her throat at arm's length. She was breathing hard, looking at him without a trace of fear. She didn't try to reason with him, trotting out the normal excuses that she was over 18, wouldn't be his student as soon as he entered her grade into the system, or anything else that he expected. She just stood there under his vicious gaze, hoping. This was what he didn't know how to handle, this... and his reaction. He was lucky he had his coat on and the room was lit by nothing but the lamp, it hid the erection that had only intensified since she came into the room.

Lydia smiled tremulously, and brought her hand up to his fists, pushing them tighter against her throat.

Something in him broke. He'd have her, if she could handle the payment he wanted first. His eyes narrowed and he began to smile cruelly as he pulled her by the throat and then pushed her down into a chair.

to be continued...