TWO

P E A R L

I have not said one word. He did not say anything either.

Since I excused him, he wore his shirt and when he told me to come in, my ass has been on my seat while my heart pounded so fast. Was I going to be in trouble with him after last night? Why was he even acting as if he did not know me? He barely looked at me or even glanced my way. His attention was on his tablet and the stacks of papers on the desk.

“Do you want something, Miss…”

Ouch. He didn’t even know my name.

I cleared my throat. “Pearl Williams.”

“Hm. What problems do you have?” He asked, his eyes still on the tablet.

I gritted my teeth at his behavior. Why was he acting as if he did not know who I was? There was basic evidence of our time last night on my body and his. I scoffed and leaned back on my seat.

“Why are you acting as if you don’t know who I am?”

He stopped what he was doing for a second before he continued scrolling through his tablet. He dropped it the next second and laced his fingers on the desk then looked at me. The gaze in his eyes was different, almost as if it was unfamiliar. It made me wonder if I was looking at a different person or he was purposely not trying to recognise me.

“What is it that you want, Miss. Williams?” He asked in a grim tone of voice.

I was speechless at the behavior. I didn’t know how I wanted to react to this. It made me even forget what brought me to the office.

“I am a very busy man, Miss. Williams and I would like it if you went straight to the point.”

I clenched my fists when I realized what he was doing. He wanted to pretend as if what happened last night didn’t happen. It made my heart sink but what was I expecting from him? A hug? A kiss to tell me he liked what happened? I was being delusional, especially seeing he was not some ordinary person. He was my professor, a public figure and expecting him to act all lovey dovey was far fetched.

“Professor Marison, I came here to make complaints about your class.” I paused and he nodded once. “I’m sure you’re aware of the massive failure from our class and we feel your assistants aren’t helping.”

“How are they not helping? What they teach in class is what I give them. Are you trying to say my notes are not efficient for your class to understand?”

I gritted my teeth. I was angry, very angry and he needed to act as if he was not being dense on purpose.

“Professor Marison. We do our best but it’s almost as if they aren’t teaching us well. We study well enough but… what we see on our tests aren’t exactly matching. The only place we actually do well is on the homeworks and that is because we can freely express ourselves. We think your assistants aren’t doing well. We want a retake of the test we had.”

His facial expression changed to one of him looking as if he was tired of hearing me talk.

“If you fail the class, repeat. It is basically the same thing as retaking the test, the only difference is that you get extra knowledge.”

The nerve of this man! I had the urge to scream at him, to scream out my frustration he was putting me through.

“Do you think it’s that easy?” I rose from my seat. “Some of us can’t really afford to repeat classes, you know. Some of us don’t have the financial capabilities or even mental strength to do this again. We study hard night and day only to fail. I am one of those people and I cannot take this anymore.”

I stared at him, expecting a response or reaction from him but got none. He remained stiff and blank faced. It only infuriated me more.

“If you’re done, kindly leave the office. I have some guests coming over.”

I bit my tongue, stopping myself from lashing at him. I couldn’t believe this was someone I slept with. Some part of me thought he would at least use the opportunity to help me but he wasn’t.

Angrily, I shoved the seat away and marched to the door. I waited to see if he would stop me or something and when I looked past my shoulder, I saw him staring at his tablet again. I huffed and opened the door then left the office, banging the door in the process.

He was despicable.

+=+=+

“What has been making you hiss and scoff since you walked into the room?”

I glanced at Amy from my bed and scoffed. Anthony Marison was making me lose my fucking mind, that was what. But I didn’t want to tell her that the man I slept with was my professor.

“I wish I never wanted to be a tech girl. Argh!” I covered my face with a pillow.

“Tsk. I understand. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t want to be a lab scientist but my passion is strong.”

I took the pillow off my face and stared at the ceiling. My mind started to drift back to the pleasure I experienced last night in the hands of Anthony Marison.

…

His lips traveled down my bare stomach, making me arch my back at the sensations I was getting from his kisses. I looked down and made eye contact with him. His dark eyes were filled with sinister thoughts, I could tell. And when he stopped between my legs, he smirked and before I could ready myself, he wrapped his mouth around my center.

“Oh!” I grabbed his hair and bucked into his mouth. I cried out when he started to lap at me like a hungry man, dying to quench his hunger.

My legs started to shake as he kissed me harsher, his teeth brushing my clit, making me more heated up and wet.

“Taste so good,” he said, and the rumble and vibration of his voice only made me feel like coming.

…

“Hey!”

I flinched at the sound of Amy’s loud voice.

“I have been talking to you, Pearl. Where the heck is your head?”

I waved her off and frowned at myself for thinking about him again. He was probably not thinking about our time together from the way he acted around me when we met again. Or he probably had someone back at home and he had cheated on them with me.

At the train of my thoughts, a sickening feeling overtook me. It made me want to stab my heart. He was far older than me, in various ways and he probably had someone he was serious with. Now, I could be jumped by anyone for sleeping with their man. Worse of all, what if he was married? I didn’t check for a ring on his finger the two times we met.

I was doomed.

“Oh, lord.” I scratched my scalp as annoyance and disappointment in myself filled me.

“Whoa. Are you okay, Pearl?”

“Just leave me alone.” Maybe if I had not easily followed Amy to that club, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

I only hoped I wouldn't see his face for the rest of this session.

+=+=+

I walked into Data Analytic class the next day, feeling gloomy. I wanted today, especially this class, to end as fast as possible so I can go back to the dorm to sulk.

I took my seat in front of the class as I was feeling too lazy to climb up the steps to my usual seat. I rested my head on the desk and shut my eyes, hoping the assistants would arrive on time for them to teach their crap again.

“Settle down, everyone.”

Speak of the devil and it appears. I raised my head and glanced at the assistant standing in front of the class, looking smug as ever. Out of the two, she was the most annoying one. Always full of herself, putting herself on a high pedestal with pride heavy on her.

“I am hearing that one of you went to Professor Marison.”

My heart sank. The last thing I wanted was attention because of this, coupled with the fact that I had sex with him. It would make me crumble.

“Silence!” She yelled. “Did you think that going to him and trying to ruin us would make him fire us? If you are too stupid to learn things, you should try studying hard instead of spending time being idle during and after class.”

I rolled my eyes at her and in my head, I mocked her words with a sour face.

“Whether you like it or not, if you cannot pass the class, you will always be in this class, with us until you grow gray hairs. It is not my fault that you do not have the perfect brain nor attention span to pass a simple class that even my sister in sixth grade could.”

Someone needed to shut this bitch up. She was becoming a menace to my mental health.

“Besides, I—”

“Enough.”

My eyes widened at the voice. The class started to murmur at it too. I swallowed and slowly shifted my gaze from the front of the class to the door of the class. My breath hitched at the sight of him; Anthony Marison, standing at the door in an outfit that made him ten times sexier than before. Black, long sleeved turtleneck and black pants. The way his hair was swept back and how trimmed his beard was, he made my heart flutter— He was so handsome.

“Pr-Professor Marison. What are you doing here?”

I watched as he walked to the front of the class. He stood beside Nelly, the assistant and scanned the class with his eyes, almost as if he was looking for someone. When his eyes landed on me, I felt small.

“From now on until the end of the session, I will be teaching you all.”

A shade came over his eyes the more he looked at me, making me feel even smaller under his gaze.

“I will pay proper attention to every one of you. Everyone.”

I pressed my thighs together. Even though his words had no sexual undertone, I could not help my body from reacting the way it did.