Pretty Thing Pt 02

Annie feels it sink through her as she scans the room: disappointment, laced thinly with relief. She pulls her pastel cardigan a bit more tightly about herself, feels her earrings jangling: she's chosen flashier ones today, half-moons. All dolled up. Not for any specific reason at all.

Where is he? He's always been so punctual, so constant. Just as easily as he's slipped into her life, he's gone and slipped back out -- a temperamental ghost. Annie tells herself to take a breath. Goes to close the door, can hear herself addressing the class on autopilot.

Absences happen, for heaven's sake. Could be anything. Maybe he's sick, maybe he's got other stuff on.

Maybe, through some impossible, telepathic violation, he somehow knows that she fingered herself to him just nights ago. That she made a big stain on her bedsheets thinking about how perfect his orgasms would look, how pretty they would sound. And now he's staying well away because he's young and pretty and she's just some too-old art teacher who can't keep it in her pants.

Annie squares her shoulders back, finds her pencil, spends the next hour deliberating over much more tangible things. Like how the sunlight hits the oranges, how the wet lip of the bowl glimmers with them. How scrawled lines can dive and weave, how they can drift across or away from each other.

---

Annie flicks through her phone absent mindedly, hating the swathes of shirtless pictures and beery smirks she encounters. Too much man. Swipes across into the swathes of flimsy conversations: dry, meandering, one-sided.

She should've deleted the dating apps months ago. What a joke.

Annie casts her phone off to the side, laughs with a hand on her forehead. Looks to her dresser, thinks about the dildo she keeps wedged towards the very back of the bottom drawer.

Plastic cock has always been a much more reliable investment.

Buzz of her phone, she winces. Knows it's likely some desperate hookup-seeker rather than anything substantial.

But it's not the dating app's notification glaring across her screen. It's Facebook. Strange, considering it's well past eleven.

Annie reads the name across the top.

Blinks once, twice. Picks up her phone tentatively, as if it could burn her.

He must've found her profile through the class's group.

(Marcel S wants to send you a message) Hey Annie sorry didn't show up today, personal reasons x

Tangled rush of questions flooding Annie's brain. Why is he even bothering to tell her? Why at this hour?

Why is she moving her hands into position to reply?

He's sent her an 'x.' Maybe that's just something he does.

She takes a measured breath as she weighs it all up. Is it strange, replying to him this late? Should she be feeling weird about it? Yes, she should -- she's masturbated over him.

Annie ignores her tired brain's rambling logic. Fuck it

.

She responds before she second-guesses herself, the echoes of her Tinder frustrations making the sudden development with Marcel thigh-meltingly welcome. She keeps it neat, safe, cordial:

Ah, good to know, Marcel! Thanks for letting me know :)

Marcel responds in an instant:

U reply fast, haha

Annie's fingers flounder, at a loss for what to type. Is she taking this all wrong?

Marcel picks up her slack, adding:

How was your day?

Warmth nudging its way up through Annie's chest. She chews her lip as she types back.

Yeah it was alright.

Then, hesitantly tacked on:

dating apps giving me the shits, tho

Those things are fantastic aren't they

They are. Bloody amazing tbh

Sorry to hear ur not having the best time with it

I'll survive haha.

Annie's palms rub across the edges of her phone, caressing it.

Marcel's next message plunges her right back into her sea of dubiousness.

I should probably let u get some sleep? ik it's late

A polite conclusion? Or an invitation?

Annie takes a beat to work up the nerve, then sends:

I'm actually a bit of a night owl x

Oh so am I dw xx.

He's sent two kisses this time.

Familiar leaking sensation down in her crotch. Glow of the screen on her face, feels so warm knowing it's him at the other end.

They spend the next hour working slowly away at each other's lives, all sorts of random questions, trivial, banal, meaningful -- a bit of everything. Annie forgets her previous shame, actually grins at her phone, actually laughs from time to time. Something in his little kisses and swift replies blunt the edge of her grating guilt.

It's ironic how close he feels over something as isolated as text. She feels her clit throbbing against her sweatpants and reminds herself that such distance is probably a good thing.

New patches of information filling in his mysterious gaps -- nothing that takes away from him, only enriches him, to be honest. He's share housing somewhere in the northern suburbs. He's only been drawing properly since high school. He likes carbonara. He's a cat person.

He's single.

The clock reads 1AM. Marcel's the first to address the vexing reality:

Shit it's getting late haha

Annie sighs, knows he's got a point.

Yeah sorry got a bit carried away didn't we

Not my fault ur such a good listener x

Annie still finds herself blushing as she matches his flirting.

Look who's talking x

Well goodnight then Annie x

Night Marcel x

Message seen one minute ago. Two minutes ago. Five minutes ago.

Annie sits up, rolls her neck, breathes deep -- immensely refreshed.

She paces over to the dresser. Feels herself still smiling stupidly. Endless fantasies and muted self-flagellations duelling in her brain. Pleasantly warm rush from finally having some proper conversation with him, albeit digital. A telling dampness marking the crotch of her panties. His fault, his fault, his fault.

She mutters apologies under her breath as her hands move on their own, cast open the drawer, fumble towards the back.

She disrobes, takes the dildo (sky blue, girthy) and the little bottle of lube to the bed. Splays her legs out like a whore.

She fucks herself breathless. It's the only thing she can do.

---

A week passes, woefully bereft of any further late-night messages. Annie's taken to snapping a hairband on her wrist every time she checks his 'active' status. It hasn't been very effective.

She brushes into the classroom, hides her delight as best she can as she sees him at his desk, shouldering off his bag, rubbing stray dark strands back behind his ears. Feels like it's been so much longer than just a week without his pretty face brightening the room.

Marcel perks up, gives her a cute little wave, his trademark grin.

Annie smiles back with a knowing dip of the head. She turns and addresses the class proper. "How are we, everyone?"

Smattering of replies from the more sociable members. "Good." "Fine." "How are you, Miss?"

Annie giggles. "I'm well, thank you." She fixes her necklace before continuing, "The focus today is on expression -- energy. Let's just pass around these reference sheets. There we are." The stack of laminated paper spreads itself across the desks, travelling from person to person, everyone taking something to their liking before passing it on. Sheets of wrestlers, reptiles, dancers -- all of them alive, explosive. "Remember: no hesitation. You'll barely have time for shading. Focus on striking the lines of energy out first, exaggerate, leave it loose. Okay, starting in your own time, please."

Annie does her rounds as usual. Her students hunker down over their work, some finding the emphasis on spontaneity easier to manage than others. Scratch of pencils, rustle of shifting paper. Soft patter of rain on the windows. A quiet end to the day.

It should all be so peaceful, so calming. But Annie's buzzing beneath her casual façade.

She feels her back arching a tad more than it should be as she leans over to straighten stacks of paper. Catches a glance of Marcel in the old tarnished mirror. There he is, floating in the milky glass, glossy fringe dangling as he tilts his paper to the side, oblivious to all around him. To all appearances, anyway.

She squares her shoulders back, almost walks right up to his desk.

But something stops her from completing the advance. There's something about how immediate and complete he is in person. The trace of his cologne in the air, creeping over like a warning. The creases of his squint as he peruses his work, not looking up.

Too close, too real.

Too much for Annie to handle without the safety buffer of a phone screen.

She makes a sharp about turn, smooths out the awkwardness by retiring to her desk, conjuring an excuse. "You're all doing so well. Keep at it, I'll draft up some examples of what I'm looking for in the meantime."

Murmured, half-attentive approval. "Yep." "Okay."

The class resumes their work. Annie acts as if she's to join them, half-heartedly finding her own drawing supplies and laying them out.

Phone vibrating in her pocket, one short buzz. She puts her pencil down, checks the notification.

Marcel's being cheeky:

Why didn't u come help me againnn x

Annie flashes him a look, but he keeps his head down, smirking into his lap. Familiar, forbidden butterflies in her chest as she falls back into their little game. She types back:

U looked like u were all over it x

Haha that's sweet. Ugh I chose some sucky references tho

Annie hisses in a breath, scans the classroom. As ever, no one seems to notice anything outside of their little bubbles. Satisfied, she allows herself to message back, maybe a bit hastily -- she's missed this.

You got the metal sculptures didn't u??

Yeah. Wish I had something more human, idk

I've got the rat sheet up here that no one wanted, how do u think I feel lol.

Annie stifles a grin.

Marcel takes a while to type his next message. Three little, telling dots next to his profile picture, wavering indecisively.

Then he drops the hammer.

Hmm. Do u want something a bit more fun? <3

They look up at the same time. Marcel has that infuriating half-smirk thing going on, sparkle of his eyes filtering through his eyelashes, even at this distance. Annie raises her eyebrows at him, puts on her best incredulous face -- as if her feet aren't bouncing at his daring words.

She pulls the trigger before she can stop herself.

Sure why not x

Then he sends the photo through.

Annie's screen fills with Marcel's contoured torso. Lump in her throat as she develops a more defensive tilt to her phone, lowers the brightness for good measure.

Divine, compact muscle, feminine tilt to the waist -- more Romantic painting than Calvin Klein commercial. Artfully taken, considering it's just a faceless selfie. Something deliciously soft in the way he stands: nothing like the overdone poses of the endless gym junkies Annie swipes left on. The relaxed fall of his fingers across his collarbone as if he's playing with a choker. The way the corner of the walnut dresser is just enough to obscure his crotch, giving only the ample curve of his well-rounded ass in recompense.

For a quarter of a second, Annie loses it. Sag of her shoulders, thighs edging together -- she can feel her brow crease as she lets out a sigh, wants to lick her screen.

Mortified, she masks the sound with a cough, snapping back into herself in an instant. Prays that Marcel didn't see her reaction.

But he did. He confirms as much with an extra message that makes her toes curl tight in her shoes.

Better control urself miss we're in class rn xx

Annie brushes hair out of her eyes, clicks her phone off. Blush-dusted cheeks running as hot as her cunt. Forces herself to get up, starts giving suggestions on technique, finding concepts to talk about, anything. Anything. Anything but more Marcel.

He's a perfect student for the remainder of the class. As if that's enough to dash the daring texts away to but an imagining. He departs with that same innocent wave, that same toss of his hair. "Thank you, Annie."

Annie matches his playing dumb, bites down on anything further than: "You're welcome, Marcel." Forces her gaze to the floor because she's mentally undressing him again. Melting away his black pullover. Exposing the kissable skin beneath.

She can feel his smirk without seeing it as he glides by. Waft of his flowery scent as he slips out of the classroom like a cat -- slow, entitled, elegant.

Left alone with her swirl of thoughts, Annie shuts the door, presses her back into it. Squats down into her knees. Something between an exasperated sigh and a low moan escapes her lips.

He knows exactly what he's doing. There's nothing else for it.

Tonight, she'll text him first.