The silence between Brandon and me stretched long and thin. He was staring at the road fixedly, his eyes narrowed in a shadow of the adolescent fury he would sometimes suppress in my classroom years ago. It was the sort of expression he used to wear that would tell me to tread lightly. I fought an impulse to ask him what was wrong, to tell him that everything would be okay. Ten years ago, it's what I would have done.
But now, the man beside me was beyond the kind of comfort I could give him. I couldn't just ask him what was wrong.
Something twisted in my stomach. Guilt? It certainly should have been guilt. I was cheating on my husband. I had just fucked a trucker on the side of the road, for God's sake. And... oh God... I really did find it erotic that he pretended to be my father. These were definite grounds for guilt. Not only guilt, but revulsion. Some of both were definitely inside me.
And there was also humiliation. I thought about the way Brandon had debased me in his office yesterday, the way I had responded to him without much reluctance. Should I have been more squeamish? Shouldn't I have more of a backbone? I should have just said no, no matter what that meant for me personally.
But the twisting something wasn't guilt or embarrassment. It was nerves. I had a feeling that when Brandon spoke, it was going to be bad. Very bad.
I finally broke the silence. "Brandon... I'm sorry. Not just for Todd. I mean... for yesterday. "
He smiled, a flicker of genuine warmth escaping from him. "Miss Parker, if you ever apologize for yesterday again, I will shave all of your hair off of your head. "
"But Brandon... I'm not supposed to use you as a sexual partner."
Then he laughed. "Seriously? You do realize I'm not your student anymore, right? Not fourteen. Hell, not even eighteen. I'm a grown man. Much as I appreciate what you did for me when I was a student, I'm not looking to you for guidance now." He glanced at me, his eyes burning with heat as they devoured my body. "I think you have other things to offer me now."
I shivered. "Well, if it's not me you're angry with, who is it?"
I actually saw his knuckles tighten on the wheel. "Maybe you didn't notice that you have a damn rapist after you now. That would explain why you're wrestling with moral dilemmas instead of calling the police for a restraining order."
I was speechless. He was actually worried about me.
He cleared his throat when he saw the surprised expression on my face. "I never said I wasn't angry with you, Miss Parker. I simply said that it had nothing to do with yesterday. You spread your legs for someone you don't even know. You let him push his cock inside you, knowing full well that your pussy belongs to me. You will be punished for your transgressions when we reach more private quarters. You will be punished until I am satisfied."
A shudder of anticipation went through me that rendered me incapable of speech.
We arrived at his office twenty minutes later. He flicked his eyes over my bedraggled appearance before commanding me to follow him through the main building. A number of people gave me concerned glances. Brandon offered no explanations for my torn clothing and dirt-smudged skin. He walked slowly enough that numerous people saw me, but fast enough that no one asked any questions. I knew my face was scarlet from humiliation.
The worst was Claire, the receptionist on Greg's floor. She was the gossip of the entire office building, and if Jacob didn't hear about this it would be a miracle. Brandon actually stopped to talk to her. "Don't say a word," he whispered to me. "Just stand there and watch."
He walked to her side, his charm rolling off him in waves. She took a break from staring at me to giggle girlishly when Brandon stood over her. His smile was effortless, the sort of smile he had worn in my classroom after a particularly good day in math, his best subject.
"Brandon!" she simpered. "Tell me why no one ever leaves messages for you. Are you that much of a loser?"
"That's the best you can do?" he asked innocently. "You're going to have to work harder if you want me to keep bringing you paper clips on a daily basis. Do you realize you haven't had any messages for me in three days?"
She giggled again. "I did bring you some Jolly Rancher jelly beans, though." She offered him the bowl on her desk.
He pretended to be torn. Then he painstakingly selected two or three green ones. "Thanks, Claire. I owe you."
She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, you do. Make it up to me?"
He nodded and bent to whisper something in her ear. Her pale skin flushed, and I noticed that she was smiling in a much more pleasant way than she normally did. I felt a stab of jealousy.
I didn't have to feel it for long, though. Brandon was walking toward his office, and I followed. I could feel Claire's eyes on me, and I knew I was blushing redder than anyone had ever seen me.
It seemed to take forever for Brandon to close and lock the door behind us.
"Take off your clothes," he said. "At least, what's left of them."
He was rooting around in his desk drawer, and didn't even look up as I let my torn clothes slide to the floor. I was used to Greg making a big deal about seeing me naked. Jacob, frankly, never got to see me naked. Brandon barely seemed to notice.
When he finally looked up, he studied me appraisingly. "You're dirty, and not just in your mind, Miss Parker. Go shower." He gestured towards a door in his office I had not noticed. "Make sure you wash all of Todd's spunk out of your cunt, whore."
He turned away dismissively and picked up the phone. "Greg!" he said in that used car salesman voice that businessmen have with each other. He never glanced at me again. I swallowed and went through the door. It led to an actual private bathroom which included a shower and a hot tub. Brandon must have a really important job. Greg had one in his office, too, but I didn't think anyone else did.
The hot water pounded over my body, and I felt somewhat soothed and relaxed. It hardly felt like a punishment, though, and I felt a new shiver of anticipation. Brandon was just toying with me, I was sure. I didn't know what he would have for me to do, but it could be anything.
When I returned to Brandon's office, I had a towel wrapped around my body. He was still on the phone, so he gestured to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. I went and sat there. For what seemed the thousandth time, I wondered what on earth I was doing. I was in denial, not really thinking of Brandon as a former student. That was the only way I could accept my body's reaction to him, or the way I just obeyed his orders without even thinking about it.
He hung up the phone and turned his piercing eyes on me. "Take off the towel."
"Yes, Master," I said, hoping to get back into his good graces by remembering what to call him. He didn't seem to notice, though. Instead, he studied me, his chin resting on his steepled hands. I felt an insane desire for him to curl those hands around my tits.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
I blushed. "Your hands."
He smiled as he flicked his eyes down to his hands. "What about them?"
"Were they always that big?" I felt like a pathetic groupie.
"You know, Miss Parker, I would feel weird if you had noticed before, but yes. And when you were lecturing us about prepositions, I used to imagine putting them up your skirt, inside your panties, and into your pussy until you screamed my name."
His eyes told me that he wasn't lying. I had always thought he was too studious, too much of a gentleman to think of me that way. I wasn't sure what to say. I started to answer, but couldn't finish my sentence: "Brandon..."
His smile was quick. "A little louder than that, but that's the idea. Don't worry, Miss Parker, I'm not going to do that to you today. You've already had plenty of things inside you for one day." He picked up a permanent marker and began fiddling with it. "I have to admit, though, that I stood there and watched you debase yourself for that trucker today for some time before I intervened. I didn't think you were the kind of woman who would actually want him to fuck you. But you enjoyed it, didn't you?"
