Page 41 of Speak

I sit back in my leather recliner in my home office, the light of my desk lamp the only thing on except for the dim glow of the fire I have going on behind me. I grab the tumbler of scotch, my third, ice clinking against the glass. I wasn’t going to grade it tonight… but I had toknow how her thought process was. Seeing her Monday and this morning in her little skirt, ignoring me, watching Jonas paw on her, having his arm wrapped around her shoulders, playing with her dark hair, leaning over and whispering things in her ear that made the tops of her cheeks blush pink… had me on the verge of screaming out “STOP TOUCHING HER!”

As if my own permanently poor, grease-stained hands wouldn’t dirty up her perfect porcelain skin. But it wasn’t perfect, was it? There were scars on her soft body. Old fractures that would still show up on an x-ray. Brutally forced trauma that probably kept her from sleeping well at night. A patch of silver hair that revealed her stress. Her scars ran deeper than the ones on her flesh. Was that what made her perfect to me? All those beautiful, harsh imperfections that screamed,“I survived! I’m here!”

God, even that fucking tattoo of hers, intricately placed over the scar she was probably hated the most. Where she probably saw it as ugly I would have roved my tongue all over it to prove to her she was still beautiful.

There was something in Raven Monroe that screamed at my soul and no matter how much I wanted it to stop, my soul wanted all the depraved things she had to offer. I even tried going to a special nightclub, one where all of your dirty sexual fantasies could come to life for a certain hefty membership price on Saturday night and it had done nothing for me. Even the name of that club had angered me upon entering.

Inferno.

There was no name, just a neon red flame above a door, signaling the entryway.

I watched the half-naked women dancing in their cages, others get fucked, others servicing their doms and their friends, being beautiful little sluts, and yet, the only one I wanted… couldn’t or wouldn’t even talk to me. When a gorgeous little blonde with big, natural, pretty tits and pillowy red lips came my way, sinking to the ground on her knees before me, I feltnothing.

Nothing but anger at my own lame dick unwilling to work until I started letting myself remember those moments in my office when Raven was bent over and I was spearing her ass with my tongue. Ishot my load down the blonde’s throat thinking of what it would be like to feel Raven’s plush lips around me instead.

During my time in the FBI, I had helped profile and track down killers with stalking tendencies, their obsessions growing so extreme, wild and untamed like vines that have been left unattended and to their own devices.

Isthishow they felt?

During the week I’d catch glimpses of her in the library. I’d found myself going there almost daily, hoping, almost praying I’d catch her down in the restricted section alone again, but no. She’d be on the main floor, one of the football twins, the bigger one, beside her, staring at her as she kept her nose in a book or staring out the window, as if completely unaware of the beast sitting beside her, a predator waiting to pounce. I saw the gleam in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure her out, same as me. When she would turn away from the window, he’d go back to his book or his laptop and continue whatever the fuck he was working on.

I supposed nothing at all. He was there to studyher. He took notice of every move she made, sometimes peering at her paper, whatever she had written down. After the second day, he’d huff a slightly irritated annoyed huff, get up, and come back with a different book for her. A tactic, to gain her trust. She’d peer up at him behind those thick lashes and take it from him with a small gracious smile.

She had stayed after class today as I took my seat in my office, looking down and avoiding my face, defiant little mouse, put her paper on my desk, turned, and then walked out. Not a fucking word. Not a fucking glance. Not even a goddamn knock on my door. I hadn’t even known she’d entered my office until the handwritten paper was before me, I looked up and she already had one foot out the door.

Quieter than a fucking church mouse.

I throw her paper into the fire behind me and chuckle darkly.

Oops.

Just as well, I need a reason for her to come into my office on Friday.

_____

She’s not in my class on Friday.

I count her as absent. Which will hurt her GPA since attendance is ten percent of her grade. Oh well. She should’ve turned in her paper.

I keep the rules to the debates short. 1) No cursing. 2) Keep your wits about you. 3) No shouting.

None of their arguments, including Jonas’ come close to the arguments Raven wrote down. No philosophical jargon or thoughts. They state facts, wrong opinions, throw in circumstantial and hypotheticals, which I fail them on. It’s all so fuckingboring. They’re spouting the same shit, just twisting words, and tweaking their sentences so they aren’t verbatim. If I’ve learned anything about theelite, is that they ever hardly think with their own lizard brains.

Those that believe they’re more intelligent than others is because they regurgitate things they’ve heard and make themselves believe they believe it, too.Notbecause they have their own thoughts. None impress. None invoke or awaken my own thoughts or opinions.

I sigh, relieved when they leave.

After my last class, I spot her leaving the music hall, carrying the large case I can only assume is her cello. She passes by me, taking her sweet scent with her and as per usual, ignores me. I almost reach out to stop her.

Off campus, the streets are buzzing, alive with students going to watch the game at the pubs and sports bars all across town.

I visit Inferno that evening.

My dick doesn’t work again.

I’m thirty-five years young, and my fucking dick will only work at the sight of a silent siren, a brown-haired vixen with caramel eyes in fishnet stockings and a tiny yellow-and-black plaid skirt. I’ve been reduced to jerking off to memories of her like a teenager.

I’m pathetic.

---