Page 132 of Swallow Your Sorries

I’m not here to beg. To plead for a repeat of what happened in the old greenhouse.

I’m here to dance.

Vertically.

As always, Gant looks like a dream, in all black, a wet, dark lock falling across his forehead. Even though he’s not wearing grey sweatpants, not much is left to my imagination with the sweats he has on. Clearly, he’d forgone the ballet undergarments required during class.

I can practically smell the steam from his shower mixed in with his typical scent of leather, sandalwood and mint as he approaches me. It’s always sandalwood, isn’t it? But its commonality doesn’t stop me from going feral.

I’d taken a bath too, much to Stassi’s horror when the hot water ran out during her second deep conditioning. But I’m already self-conscious about my dancing and pilled leotard. The last thing I need to worry about is my odour as I sweat.

Can he smell the vanilla and honey body scrub and wash I’d soaked in? Stassi was throwing them out for being too basic, but I didn’t think I could get any more basic than my two-for-one bar soap. Aria had gifted me some conditioner too, saying it didn’t have enough slip for her curls. I can only assume that’s a bad thing, but it softened my hair considerably and Stassi offered to blow it out with her round brush.

When I walk now, my ponytail actuallyswishes,rather than just jutting out from my neck and back, held in shape by a layer of my own sweat and natural hair grease.

Did Gant notice that too?

I could lie and say all the primping this morning is merely my usual pre-class routine, but I didn’t often steal Aria’s light-up, magnifying makeup mirror to zoom in between my ass cheeks. I’d made sure every hair had been annihilated with my razor.

Because now that Aria’s given me a little more insight into Gant’s mind and reasoning, I’ve finally accepted my own. There’s no trauma bonding on my end or some deeper, obscure meaning. I’m just horny. End of story.

Once I stop denying myself and play with Gant, my new obsession will subside and I’ll have full mental clarity to enact my next move. But first, we play because I can’t take Gant haunting my dreams anymore. I can’t bear this hyper fixation I have of finding explicit content of men that look like him, only to get mad that the girl isn’t me. I can’t keep hogging Aria and Stassi’s e-readers to download the smuttiest books instead, so I can take away the visuals while inserting myself into the characters.

It’s consuming all my time when I can just have the real thing and be done because then it won’t be so special anymore.

This desire, it’s just a lack of information, and once I’ve had him, I’ll finally be enlightened and then disenchanted.

“Stretching, obviously,” I say, gazing up from a front split. From this angle, I can make out how far his cock juts out and it’s soft. I can only imagine when it’s hard. I lick my lips, thinking about the feel of it pressed against me. He’s seen me bare, but I’ve never gotten the chance to see him yet. Well, when it’s hard and not spraying me with urine. Is it straight? Curved? Which direction? Right, left or up?

Please don’t be curved downward.

“Who taught you to stretch like that?”

“Like what?” I ask unsurely and a little defensively as I push up onto my elbows. Sure, my dancing had been critiqued relentlessly, but mystretching?

Is that another thing I don’t do correctly?

He shakes his head, sliding his water bottle and gym bag onto the floor beside mine. “Seriously, just look in the mirror while you’re doing it. Your form is utter shit. No wonder you dance so stiffly. You’re not loosening up correctly.”

I’d been told my dancing was a lot of things but notstiff.

“I follow a typical stretch protocol twice a day. I—”

“Overstretch and overload your muscles instead of helping them. Your hips aren’t opening up the way they should and it’s preventing you from having a good turnout. We have to fix that.”

I’d always thought my turnout was good. Not great, but good. I stare at my feet now and wonder, not for the first time, just how delusional I’ve been. Just how much of my confidence for the past few years has been based on reality?

I may hate Gant.

I may want to argue with him simply because he’s an ass, but it won’t make him any less right. Mistress Errard is in full agreement and she trusts Gant to teach just like she trusted his mother.

His mother who thought me to be so hopeless that she advised I quit.

But Gant is different from his mother, even if I can’t make out his motives just yet.

We have to fix that.

When had Madame offered to help me fix anything? She was determined that I was beyond fixing. Mistress Errard seemed passively hopeful, and Gant seemed determined that I could do anything becausehecould do anything.

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