His Prize Pupil

4

Gavin

It’s the first day of the new semester and my mind should be on the lecture ahead. I’ll be meeting a fresh crop of students today. Normally I would be at least mildly optimistic that perhaps there might be a brilliant photographic eye among them. But as I collect my new class roster from the main office, slide it into my leather briefcase and trudge toward the photography wing, I can’t even muster the smallest bit of interest.

Every day of the last week has been a fucking struggle.

Ever since the second I walked back into the room in the brothel and Alana was nowhere to be found, a vise has been cranking tighter and tighter around my skull. No amount of money or bargaining could get her information out of Estelle. Part of me knows the madam made the right decision denying me any info, too, because I blew into her office like a goddamn hurricane, threatening to rip the place down with my bare hands if Alana wasn’t presented to me immediately. It was little wonder she didn’t want to offer up a young girl to a violent, visibly obsessed man. For all Estelle knew, Alana had run away from me for a good reason.

Had she?

I’ve replayed the night over and over in my head. Every time, my actions seem a little more salacious. A little more depraved. Especially when I remember the spot of blood in the center of the comforter, how her innocence felt giving way for my cock.

I fucked a virgin. Hard. I made the whole affair dirty and forbidden, when it should have been perfect for her. She probably did run, you monster.

Of course she pretended to love what you did to her. She was being paid.

I stop outside my classroom and lean up against the wall, massaging the bridge of my nose, not wanting to enter until I’m the cool, collected professor I’ve always been. Somehow I’ve got to get through this day, and the next, and the next, not knowing where Alana has gone. If she’s traumatized. Or equally bad—in trouble. I never stopped to ask her why she needed the money, did I? For all I know, she was running away from an abusive home or…

God, I can’t stomach the possibilities.

My heart is pounding out of my chest now and I breathe to slow it down.

Today is the interview in front of the board of directors. They’ll vote on whether or not to induct me and they’ll definitely decline my membership if I’m a headcase. After receiving my tenure last year, this was the next step in my plan. It’s what I’ve been working toward since I accepted this position at the university. A board member is respected among their peers. They have greater influence on how each department is funded. Once I’m voted in, I plan on turning the photography program into one of the most respected in the country.

Every goal I’ve ever set in my life has been professional.

Raised by a university president and a philosophy professor, I was taught to expect greatness from myself in the form of academic achievements.

I have to overcome the fact that none of it seems important now. Without her.

That makes me crazy, right? I’ve been working toward my professional goals my whole life. I knew Alana for one hour. And yet, I can barely gather enough enthusiasm to push open the door of the lecture hall and walk inside.

Conversation goes silent among the stadium-style seating, letting me know my reputation as a no-nonsense bastard has preceded me. Good. I’m not in the mood for any bullshit today. The sharp ache in the center of my chest hints that I never will be again.

Most of my lessons will be done in the field or in the darkroom, but I’ll spend a week lecturing on the basics of photography, citing work from some of the giants in my field. So I drop my leather briefcase down on the desk, front and center of the lecture hall, snapping it open to remove my notes and the slides I’ll project overhead.

It’s the sharpest intake of breath that causes me to glance up. I know that sound. As slight as it is in the giant room, it sinks claws into my gut and twists.

It’s the sound Alana made when I popped her cherry.

My cock is already stiffening at the memory, at the potential of her being near, when I look up and find her staring back at me.

My little girl is sitting in the front row. Of my fucking lecture hall.

Her mouth has fallen open, her cheeks are bright pink. She’s staring back at me in shock…but there’s relief there, too, in her different colored eyes.

If there weren’t a hundred other eyes glued to my every movement, I might have slumped over the desk with my own relief. She’s there. She’s fucking there—alive, healthy, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. In a loose floral skirt and white halter top, I could eat her alive. Her lithe legs are crossed, allowing the skirt to fall away and reveal the smooth length of her outer thigh. Her tits are round and high in the neckline of her top, hair in a loose ponytail. Effortlessly stunning and young. My God, she’s so fucking young. It was obvious in the brothel, but seeing her among my students really brings it home.