Teacher's Pet - The Complete Series: Books 1-4

by Avery Phillips

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Simon’s hands curled up in balls. Anger radiated from his skin, and I felt as though I could feel it in waves. It wasn’t that I was afraid he would hurt me, because he didn’t strike me as the violent type, not really, but all that I said had struck a bad chord, so our song was likely to end on a distinctly sour note. “What makes you think you were a plaything? Is that why you think I’m here sleeping against the wall, risking my job like a lovesick puppy? Because I don’t care about you? Are you serious?”

  “Just admit it, Simon.” I was going too far and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop now. I was in it up to my ankles. “I was only for your entertainment, like Meghan was. You never cared about me and you don’t care about her. As soon as you thought I was out of the picture, you replaced me with someone else within seconds. Now, I admit what I did was absolutely wrong, but you could at least give me the chance to explain myself. You know? Kind of like the one I gave you.”

  Simon shot me a steely look. “Only if you take it back.”

  I let out a thin, seething breath, feeling my blood boil to a thousand degrees. “Take what back?”

  “What you said about me not caring about you.”

  “Well, you don’t.” I paused. “Do you?”

  “Of course I do.” His eyes met with mine. “But the fact that you’re even questioning it tells me all I need to know.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  My room door flew open. Sonja stood in the entryway, hair in her eyes, wearing a thin white t-shirt that showed glimpses of her vagina, depending on how she decided to move. Her nipples were tightened into little pink knots because the hallway was so cold in the mornings. They could clearly be seen through the thin cotton material, but of course, as usual, Sonja didn’t give a damn.

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. Her mouth opened wide in an unavoidable yawn. Her face scrunched to fight it, but the yawn won out. “Look, you two.” She glared at the both of us. “If you insist on arguing so early in the morning, could you please take it out of the halls? The weekend is the only time I get to sleep in, and you’re ruining my dreams of cute American boys massaging my special parts in a steam room.”

  “I should go.” Simon was clearly agitated. He kept glancing up from the floor and averting his eyes, trying not to stare at Sonja half naked.

  “Yes, please go,” Sonja said, shooing him along. “I’m sure Lynn has had enough of you for the night. Look at her. She’s all worn out. Looks like you did a great job.” She clapped. “Thumbs up.” She yawned. “I’m sure she’ll tell me all about it later on. Good night!”

  Sonja retreated into the room and slammed the door behind her. Why did she say that? Why did she… I turned around and realized Simon wasn’t there, and he was halfway down the hall before I had the mind to stop him. He turned a corner before I could plead for him to wait, and I was left all alone in the hall feeling abandoned.

  ***

  What did I do? I didn’t understand where my outbursts came from or why I was so emotionally charged all the time. It wasn’t Simon that I was mad at—not at all. The truth was I was upset at myself, and disappointed for getting in this position.

  I opened the door to my room and walked in. Sonja was lying on her bed with a book in her hand and her feet propped up on a pillow. She looked up from the book, and as her eyes met mine I found myself turning away from her gaze. My shame had officially extended beyond my reach, and I couldn’t pull it back for the life of me.

  “Well?” She sat up, resting her back on the headboard.

  “Well what?” I tossed my shoes on the floor and began to unzip my dress without a second thought of her eyes being on me.

  “How did it go, silly?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Uh-oh.” Her forehead wrinkled. She placed the book to her side and pulled back her sheets. “It didn’t go well, did it?”

  “Nope,” I admitted, feeling a tinge of sadness. “Not at all.” I pulled off my dress and laid it across my bed, looking at it like it was a foreign object. I wanted to burn the things I’d had on last night, because now they seemed alien to me. The dress I had on, the shoes that I wore, the memories I held of Dane’s head between my legs.

  “Well, what happened?” Sonja’s voice invaded my thoughts. “What went wrong?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I bet I know what it is. Simon couldn’t get it up, right?” She smiled, thinking it was all fun and games. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? He got… what’s it called… performance anxiety because he made such a big production of it with the fancy clothes and the limousine. I heard it can happen when men put that kind of pressure on themselves. The good news is he must really care about yo—”

  “Shut up!” I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Hey, why what the—”

  “I said shut the fuck up, Sonja.” She retreated toward the corner of her bed. “It wasn’t him, okay? It wasn’t Simon that sent the box to me, it was fucking Dane. Dane did this to me. He ruined everything.” When the dam breaks, it breaks. Everything I felt inside spilled out on the floor, draining my resolve to contain my emotions. My fortitude failed, my self-respect was crushed and Sonja was the witness as it happened.

  “Oh no, Lynn, don’t cry.” Sonja leapt off her bed and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, squeezing tight like my father used to do, hard enough where I almost couldn’t breathe but soft enough so I could release my emotions. I felt comforted. I turned my body and leaned my weight into her chest as she slowly sat us down on my bed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about it anymore at that moment than I could go back in time and change it all.

  “If you don’t talk about it, it will twist your insides into knots. You know that, right? Secrets have a way of doing that. They tighten around your conscience until it becomes so painful you have to get it out.”

  I looked up from her chest like a suckling baby bonding with its mother over her milk. “I slept with him.”

  She questioned me with a glance. “Slept with who?”

  “Dane…” I looked away, breaking eye contact. “I slept with Dane, Sonja. I might not have had actual sex with him, because I was too drunk to remember, but what we did do was definitely more than friendly.”

  She let out a breath. She loosened her arms around me as if she was debating letting me go. “How much more… friendly?”

  I bowed my head toward my waist and down to my feet. “He went down on me…” Heat rose in my cheeks. “He licked me… until I came.”

  “Shit! I knew that guy was trouble.”

  I wiped tears from my eyes and observed the stunned look on Sonja’s face. She was at a loss for words, and so was I. The silence between us from that point on turned out to be therapeutic. We sat supporting each other, turned back to back as she read her psychology book and I stared out the window. We sat that way for nearly half an hour.

  “So what are you going to do?” Sonja asked, breaking the silence.

  “I have no idea. I think I’m more confused now than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “You think you lost Simon for good?”

  “I'm sure of it.”

  “Did you want to?” She turned.

  “No, not necessarily. I just can’t… I don't know. I can’t seem to stop messing up lately. Maybe relationships aren’t really my thing. Put it in a book, I can handle it. But this real-life stuff? I don’t know.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not it, Lynn. There’s nothing wrong with you. That's what we’re here for, right? To learn? And that’s what you’re doing. So I’d say you might be on the right track.”

  We talked for more than an hour until my eyelids grew heavy, and although it was technically morning I felt the need to crawl into bed. I pulled the covers over my head to create the darkness that I needed. My world became a blur and
quickly faded into black. I slept a dreamless sleep with Sonja curled up beside me.

  Lesson # 2

  Confidence means you just have further to fall

  “Things you hope to possess you’ll eventually lose, given time.” -Simon Foster

  Simon

  I pushed through the exit doors, hearing them slam against the wall, stepping out into the night to fill my lungs with crisp, cold air. I had to find my calm. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough, as I was going to lose my mind if I was near her any longer. My composure was nearly at its limits. I had shoved my way past Lynn as she dropped to the floor and was crying in a ball uncontrollably. I had to admit I felt bad—thought of turning back—but the feeling was fleeting.

  My experience at the moment was much greater than pain, far worse than despair, more in the line with devastation. Worse than anything I’d had to experience in my life, and I needed to see if I was up to the task of making it through to my healing. When those words were spoken… when they slithered out of her mouth, like a venomous snake emerging from between her lips, I felt hurt, but even worse… I felt betrayed.

  The rain was coming down like it threatened to storm. A strong gust of wind blew past as I tilted my head up to let the raindrops fall on my face, hoping it would wash away my misery. Streaks of oil rose up from the road, causing veins of rainbow colors to run slowly into the sewers. I took it as a metaphor for my life: strong, yet fleeting moments suddenly falling into the darkness. A reminder that things you hope to possess you’ll eventually lose, given time.

  I let out the haggard breath trapped in my chest so my body felt lighter while things weighed heavy on my mind. I hopped on my bike and keyed the ignition. The engine roared to life, rumbling underneath me, a comforting sound of something I controlled. I zipped my jacket up, torqued the throttle with my wrist and I was off like a bat out of hell down the road. The rain and the wind whip hurriedly through my hair and connected with my face with just enough pain to keep me present.

  The streetlights were a blur as I sped by them doing somewhere in the range of eighty to ninety miles an hour. My destination wasn’t far, but I wanted to feel it all: the pain and the fear until there was nothing left but numbness.

  I was half a mile away from home when my impatience got the best of me and I opened up the throttle, gunning my bike to pick up more speed. My back wheel slid in rain. It started fish-tailing as I lost control and flipped over the handlebars end over end, sending my body crashing to the street. My motorcycle skidded away. Sparks were flying in the night like bright shooting stars as I landed on my side, twisted over to my back and slid until I stopped after tumbling several feet.

  Fuck!

  It hurt like a bitch! I was lying in the street as the rain soaked my clothes. There was pain shooting up my limbs. I had to wait for my head to stop spinning, for my nerves to settle, for my heart to stop thumping at a pace to which it wasn't accustomed, like a jackhammer in my chest.

  I could've died from being so reckless. How could I let a woman affect my mind in such a way that I lost my focus and could’ve lost my life? I shook my head in disgust and tried to get to my feet. Next time this happened it would kill me.

  There were no broken bones or badly mangled limbs; my jeans were ripped to shit and there was pain in my knee—but all things being considered, I was okay.

  I picked up my bike, feeling its heaviness. My knee screamed in protest as I pulled it upright and wheeled it down street for three blocks. I limped in through the gates where I lived, said hello to the guard and held up my hand before he inquired about my appearance.

  I wasn't in the mood for socializing, nor was I in the mood for scrutiny. I wasn’t in the mood to explain myself to him or anyone else. I moved on down the pathway at a snail’s pace, dragging, and catching my feet on the grass until I finally reached the end of my driveway.

  I had always meant to bring Lynn here—to my place—to give her a peek into this part of my life, but I hesitated too long and pondered it too much, and now… now it was too late. I set the kickstand on my bike, briefly forgetting about my injury until a sharp pain shot up my knee. I bent down to massage it, but it didn’t help much. The pain had to subside on its own.

  I looked up at the towering brick of a place where I laid my head down, preferably by myself. It’s a three-bedroom house—red with white trim—built on a manufactured block, full of neighbors I hadn’t spoken to even once.

  My parents had money, and plenty of it. So that meant I had money as well. Sometimes I loved it, but other times I didn’t, because wealth becomes a curse if you let it. When I brought a woman home—which I hardly ever did—I’d eventually have to explain how I could afford to live in this way. An impressively sized house in an exclusive neighborhood, behind closed community gates on a professor's meager salary? They would come to realize something didn’t add up, and that was when I would have to come clean.

  Once I told them the truth, and eventually I did, before I later learned in life to keep my mouth shut. My wealth became an issue. Their eyes would start to sparkle whenever they saw me approach and they'd get this sort of soft, agreeable tone to their voice.

  “You can't blame them, Simon,” my mother would say. “It's a natural thing for women to want to settle down. Your wealth equals security, and security equals marriage. They can’t help it any more than you can help that it puts you off. You’re a rich and handsome man, son. You should consider it a blessing that women look at you the way they do.”

  My mother never said anything I actually wanted to hear. And she never considered what I wanted to do when she said it.

  I had a sour attitude once I stepped into my house. I was sopping wet and cold, soaking my rug through to the floors. My jeans were shredded and my boots were caked; mud turned my black boots brown. I threw my keys on the counter, watched them slide into the wall, took off the rest of my clothes, balled them up in a pile and tossed them in the trash. They were garbage.

  I thought a warm bath should do me good, but a shower would do me better. Wash off some of the grime that was caked on my skin and clean out the nasty wounds from the accident. I hobbled into the bathroom and turned the water on, then sat on the edge of the tub and had a thought force its way into my head.

  Was I somehow responsible for that shit-storm back there? Did I somehow push Lynn into the arms of another man? Could it be possible this entire thing was my fault?

  Playing back the last few weeks, I began to realize some things I could’ve done differently with Lynn. For one, I hadn’t let her know much about me personally, a mistake I’d made previously in past and often regretted.

  If I had let her know more about me, there was no way she’d believe this imposter was my brother. She’d know for a fact that he wasn’t. Anyone could claim anything about my life and Lynn would have no choice but to believe it. I had her stewing in ignorance to retain my mystique. It’s sexy, but often can backfire on me.

  I turned off the water in the shower and slumped against the warm tiles. Tendrils of steam still hung in the air as I stretched to help relieve the tension knotting in my shoulders. I was beginning to recall what happened hours ago: showing up at Lynn’s dorm room, waiting throughout the night, watching her appear in that little black dress as she sauntered down the hall looking stunning.

  How the feeling in my groin went from a mild harmless throb that turned into an ache, and then a need I could hardly control. Made me want to take Lynn right there in the hall and ravage her until we both were left breathless and exhausted. But then… that was when I saw the look on her face: reddened and blotched, guilt-ridden and weary. It killed my hard-on quicker than exposing my dick to the freezing cold. And that was the feeling I had before she uttered a word.

  I still—despite myself—missed Lynn's supple breasts and how taut her nipples got when I teased them with my tongue, brushing them just a little at the tip. How I would lick and suck on her neck until her clit became slick and swollen. How she
put her mouth on me whenever we…

  Ah! I couldn’t do this to myself. The fantasy fell flat right there at my feet and floated in the water like driftwood. I looked down, and my hand was tightly wrapped around my cock, so I stopped mid-stroke, as I was uninterested in continuing. What that woman did to me apparently affected my libido.

  I banged my fist against the wall and stepped out of the shower, feeling filthier than I did before I went in. I wrapped myself in a white body towel and took a long look in the mirror over the sink. Was I losing my self-control? The thing I prided myself on most? Had I lost my ability to not let things like this affect me? I felt I was on the verge of being humbled.

  I checked each side of my profile, turned my head to the left to right, backed up and pinned my shoulders back to square up my chest. I knew I wasn’t unattractive—in fact, I’d heard myself described as an extremely handsome man, and that was said on more than one occasion. I was in shape, decent musculature, slight golden tan to my skin. I had bluish-green eyes that women loved to stare in, especially as a prelude to sex.

  There had to be something I was missing.

  I heard my cell phone ringing, so I rushed to dry my feet before I slipped on the floor and had another happy accident that could’ve been avoided. I dried off my body as quick as I could, but before I reached the phone it stopped ringing. The call could’ve rolled into voicemail. It was probably a good thing, because I was starving anyway. My hunger pangs echoed off the walls.

  I took a detour to the kitchen. As I passed my spotless chrome appliances, white granite countertops and ceramic double sink, I could envision Lynn bending over the counter, looking back over her shoulder and smiling the way she did when we were in the throes of sex. How her face would tense during her orgasms. A smile crept over my face. Lynn felt so tight when my cock was in her fully. Her pussy was always wet, ready to receive me at a whim.