My dark Professor

8

Caspar

Damn I think as I gulp down another spoonful. I struggle to swallow it down. Hoping desperately my expression doesn't betray me.

To put it bluntly, it was horrible. I was not expecting it to. It smelled so good but tasted like ash.

The little cook was looking at me eagerly, awaiting my comment.

The bandana on her head was almost slipping off showing her dark unruly hair. The knee-length white sundress she had on complimented her chocolate-colored skin making it shine like gold. She was a sight. A beautiful, gorgeous sight.

I couldn't get myself to tell her that her food tasted like shit. I force myself to finish everything in the bowl.

"How was it?" she asks expectantly.

I clear my throat. "It was delicious."

The small, pleased smile she gives me in response was worth every drop of the soup. In fact, I will gladly eat a thousand bowls full of it again if I get to see that smile as a reward.

She takes the dishes away from the table to the kitchen.

I stand up and follow her.

"Lily," I say, but she cuts me off for the millionth time today.

"I would like to finish up here. Or do you have something else for me to do, sir?"

The monotone tone she was using was grating on my nerves, and so was the way she wouldn't stop calling me sir. I hated being called that.

Lily was stubborn. But we couldn't keep up this charade any longer.

She couldn't work here.

I almost lost control moments ago. Seeing her in school and not doing what I wanted with her was torture enough. Seeing her in my home, within my walls, far away from judging eyes and whispers. I couldn't get ahold of myself. I let all moral thoughts vanish. They quickly came back though when I saw the confusion on her face.

Of course, she didn't feel the things I felt for her. How could I think otherwise? She didn't because it was wrong. You don't think of your teacher like that. It was wrong, so wrong. But not to me because I was sick. Sick in the head. Sick in the heart.

"You will listen to me," I say sternly.

The seriousness in my voice gets her to look at me with fear, finally.

"You cannot work here. I would not let you."

The dishes she has in her hands are shaking as a result of her shaking hands. I was scaring her. Or she was scared of learning that she couldn't work here. Why did she want to so badly?

"You could work somewhere else."

She squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head.
"No, that's the thing. I can't work anywhere else," she sniffles.

"Why?"

"I just can't. No one else will hire me, and I need to work."

I don't understand why nobody else will hire her. And why would she even want to work, to begin with? Isn't she a full-time student?

"Why would you want to work?"

She laughs, then sees that I'm dead serious. She laughs even harder.
I watch her. Silent. Confused.

"Are you seriously asking why I would want to work?" She scoffs.

She places the dishes back in the drawers. I hadn't even realized she was washing them all along.
She wipes her hands and faced me, placing both hands on her hips.