Synopsis:
Layla Dahamrai has just begun her second year at university. She's acing every class and is one of the department's best students in her cohort. However, she's not getting along with her professor in her East Asian Regimes & Empires class, not that it's really her fault. It doesn't help that she's hot for her teacher either. Sebastian Henderson expects the best out of his students, given he's teaching at one of the most prestigious universities in London. He's had enough of Layla stumbling into his class late at the beginning of the semester. In the six years he's been teaching in academia, he has never desired a student until now. Layla and Sebastian will soon come to realise they have more in common during, and definitely out of, office hours.
Chapter 1: Office Hours
01/09/2017
"Look who finally showed up!" Delilah yells from the kitchen as I walk in with a bottle of champagne in my left hand and a bottle of vodka in my right. Her mind is already out of this world, yet she continues to huff on her joint and follow it with a beer. "And you've brought the good stuff! Thank you for finally leaving our house long enough to enjoy the outside world." Rolling my eyes at her, I place the bottles on the table, walk over and kiss her on both cheeks.
"I'm here for five minutes then I have to go," she rolls her eyes at me. As I make the rounds I try my hardest not to wriggle my nose at the pungent smell of the weed wafting throughout Digby's flat. There are too many bodies in the room, I can scarcely move between them. It's warm, humid and too much for me after working on the preliminary readings for my module next week. I have spent too much time in the library today to be in the mood for partying; the next week will definitely be filled with parties for me again.
Walking past each of the bedrooms in the flat, I found people the rest of my housemates scattered around different rooms of the house with their favourite goods. Aurelia had her tongue down Lucas' throat. They were sitting on his bed as his hands wandered gingerly between her legs. She grabs another tablet of MDMA and swallows it down with a swig from the tequila bottle in her hand as his mouth descends on her neck. I swiped a few tablets from his bedside table, tucking them away inside my pocket if my mood changes and I can hack the entirety of this party. Florence is laying on the floor with Lola and others as they all snort lines of coke and ket on random surfaces of the room surrounded by bottles of vodka and whisky. Alice stumbles out of the bathroom and jumps into my arms. "Layla! You're here! Want a drink?" She thrusts her cup into my hand. I take a whiff and smell the familiar mixture of gin and tonic water.
Wrapping my arm around her waist to hold her up, I take a swig from her cup. "Just what were you up to in there, Miss Rutherford?" I frown at her. Alice looks as if she's dreaming and in her own world. She's not even paying attention to my probing. "Seriously Alice, what have you been doing in there?" She giggles when I shake her.
"I'm not sure where she is, Barney," she whispers and giggles into my ear. Tossing the contents of her drink and the cup into the plant next to us, I lean her against the wall. I start searching for the drugs that she has taken. There's no evidence to be found in her pockets or in the mini backpack she's carrying. I stop Digby before he can take a girl into his room.
"Digby, what's in the bathroom?" He wraps his arms around my shoulder from behind me, kisses me on the cheek, nuzzling me with his nose. The girl with him gives him a tug to bring his attention back to her.
"There's nothing to worry about, Layla. We haven't put anything in the bathroom except condoms. Our little Alice here has just taken a little bit of acid. She's in her own world now." I scowl at him as he scampers off to his room with the girl. Sighing, I take her by the hand, locate her denim jacket and take her back to our home since no one is in their right mind to take of her.
The ten minute walk from boys' flat to our house turns into twenty minutes as Alice stops walking and starts pointing to the fictional characters in her mind on the street. She's laughing and talking nonsense to them on her trip. When we get home I settle her in her bedroom, making sure all the windows and doors in the house are locked. She starts playing music loudly on her stereo as I head upstairs to my room. I don't even have the energy to take off my boots. I flop over onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling. Brushing my fingers delicately over the duvet, I close my eyes and listen to the bass drumming in the background. Even after washing them, I can still smell Alice and Lola on my sheets from the other night mingled with the scent from my tryst with Florence and Delilah the night before.
Today has been a long day. I just need some rest. A few hours later, a freshly showered Aurelia slips into my bed, wraps her arms around my waist then slips her hands into my panties. I throw my head back against the crook of her shoulder and cry out as she makes me come.
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25/09/2017
I can't believe they did this to me again for a second year. How did they expect me to make it across campus from one class to another in the space of five minutes? It doesn't help that Professor Nathanial Williams always runs his lectures over by five minutes, either. He just never stops talking until he realises he has another class he must run off to. I need to transfer to another that ensures my classes are closer together soon. Preferably one that was not taught by Professor Henderson. I'm only in the second week of classes, yet he is already riding me hard in the seminars and was a total dickhead about being a mere five minutes late.
Rushing into the building across campus, the worst scenario has occurred once more as the lifts are wide open with electricians trying to fix the problem that seems impossible to solve.
That is absolutely fantastic
. "I guess I'm sprinting to the seventh floor," I angrily huff under my breath. When I reach the classroom door I am panting, tired, and no longer in the mood to discuss anything to do with the state of the economy in China in the 1960s. There is no subtle way to enter Professor Henderson's class late, especially since he thrives on making a spectacle of latecomers. Nonetheless, I slowly open the door and attempt to sneak my way in.
"Another day of running late to my class again, Miss Dahamrai?" Professor Henderson turns around from the whiteboard where he was jotting down the questions for today's seminar. "Perhaps you want to check your watch every now and then, or if that small number on the corner of your phone screen as you aimlessly scroll through videos before my class." He motions me into the room and takes his rightful seat at the front of the conference table. Dropping my head, I attempt to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks from my sprint across campus and from the embarrassment by his public admonishment of me.
"Sorry, Sebastian," I say as I quickly slide into the seat that was saved for me and unpack my laptop. Holding my hands to cheeks, I hide the how my brown complexion has become flushed from running across campus. There is not time to fix that right now, I must focus on this seminar. Alice is busy jotting down the arguments presented by our classmates as she smirks at my perpetual tardiness for Professor Henderson's class. Since they are already discussing the first question, I have no clue what direction the current argument is going in. "Where are we at?" I whisper to Alice.
Before she can answer, Professor Henderson calls me out for talking. "We're in the middle of discussing the reading on the economic policies of the late-1950s and early-1960s. If you weren't late to my lessons very week, then maybe you'd start off the seminar on the right note." He glares at me and allows another student to continue the 'profound' thought they clearly took from someone on the internet. While history is a passion of mine, Professor Henderson's seminar was difficult to concentrate in. Usually, it's rare fro find me without an argument or some form of an answer. However, Professor Henderson makes the fifty minutes we spend together unbearable. My God, I still remember how the other women in the lecture theatre were aflutter at the sight of him in our first year World History module.
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Before fully settling into the seat next to Eliza, a classmate from my advisory group, she jumps at excitement over the teacher she has been assigned for her own World History seminar. "
Yes! Oh my God! Do you have Henderson?"
"Who's Henderson?" I ask absentmindedly, setting up the materials I need for the lecture on my laptop. Eliza and her friends gasp and squeal at my lack of knowing of who this Henderson character is. "What? Is it something I was supposed to know before I came to the lecture or something?" I smile at Alice as she takes the seat next to me.
Eliza shakes her head. "No, Layla! Sebastian Henderson is this super fit lecturer that my mate Albert got for the inaugural Global Theory lecture on Monday. You know Albert, right? I think you met him at his flat's party at Downing House. Anyways, I was meeting up with him for coffee after his seminar, and I swear to you that he is the hottest man I have seen in a long time. I don't normally go for Indians or Pakistanis or brown people or whatever, but for him, I am totally ready to do anything for him." Wow, Eliza you truly are the white and non-intersectional feminist everyone proclaims you to be.
"First, as an Indian woman myself, that is offensive to be reduced to that. Second, isn't he a teacher? Ergo, totally unavailable." I sigh as she rolls her eyes at me. "Fine, who am I supposed to be looking at?" Eliza jumps in her chair and points at the man helping set up the lecture podium for his colleague. As much as I hate to admit it -- she wasn't wrong. Sebastian Henderson was not bad to look at all. "He's okay, I guess."