Chapter Text
“It will atone — it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her?”
-Charlotte Brontë
He'd noticed her on the first day of class. How could he not?
Teaching was a necessary evil. He did it adequately, because it offended his sensibilities to do a job poorly, and he did it with a minimum of fuss.
He distributed a substantial syllabus. Outlining expectations with absolute clarity spared him irritation later. The roomful of students had first-day expressions on their faces: anxiety, rebellion, boredom, the desperate look that settles in towards the end of the first day when they realise its promise of a fresh start is a lie. They would settle down when they saw he had no desire to torment them. His eyes passed over the class as he spoke. Gaps would appear in the seating plan as they transferred to other classes, seeking warmer, happier instructors. That was not the point of today's lecture, but it was not unwelcome as a side effect. Was there a scientist among them? If so, he wished them luck.
He was musing along these lines when something stopped him dead. One face out of the sullen late-adolescent throng glowed with an unexpected emotion: fascination. It was a girl with golden hair confined in a regulation braid. Her uniform was neat and threadbare, and she was showing wrist at the cuff. No-one could be that purely enraptured by his classroom rules, yet she was hanging on his every word.
He almost paused in the middle of his late-submission policy (it was brief: he had, he told them, no late-submission policy). He collected himself and finished the lecture. “If you, your parents, your attorney, or your aunt on the board of directors wish to register a complaint with the administration, please take a form out of the wall file by the door.” The wall file and its sheaf of papers were covered in dust.
His eyes drifted back to the girl. Was she delighted? Her expression was subdued, a private smile, but he could see the glee in the way her hands tightened on her elbows. “Review the course package. Read the marking scheme in detail.” A few of them actually did. The girl pretended to, but she watched him covertly; never mind her. No doubt she found something about him amusing. Yes, that could be it. He reframed her fascination as mockery, her smile as jeering. A creature as powerless as a student grasped at any kind of superiority.
Murmurs started as his attention relaxed. A handsome young man with an air of easy self-confidence raised his hand. “Professor, would you tell us something about yourself?” It was an interview question, Cabal decided, meant to undermine his authority. How tiresome. He cared nothing for his authority over these pupae, except inasmuch as it made his job simpler: but he cared very much about that.
He applied his own Socratic method. “Mr. Kirkwall, is it not? Do you doubt my qualifications?” He should, at least the specific ones that had appeared on Cabal’s curriculum vitae when he applied for the teaching position.
Kirkwall looked uncertain. “No, professor.”
“Is this the appropriate forum for a chat about housepets and my favourite colour?”
“N- no, professor. I mean, I just thought-”
Cabal timed his interruption with surgical precision. “Did you expect me to make revelations of a more personal nature?”
The young man was flushed and in full retreat. “No, sir.”
“Do you have,’ and he let his accent crystallise just faintly around the words of this last question, “any further questions, Kirkwall?”
“No, sir. I'm sorry, sir.”
“In future, when you raise your hand, wait to be instructed to speak.”
There. One chore done for the year. He glanced over the class as he took his seat behind the desk.
Barrow. The girl’s name bubbled up from the memorized seating plan, and it was Barrow, Leonie. She didn't look amused now. She stared at him, mouth barely open. His eye caught the single rock of her hips against the hard shaped composite of the chair seat, her thighs tucked tight together, and he heard a rushing in his ears.
A dangerous theory occurred. He searched for flaws in it eagerly, then desperately. His heartbeat spiked, and his hands were clammy inside his gloves. He had imagined it, he insisted to himself. It was a coincidence. She had probably been thinking of her rugby-playing beau or the girl across the aisle.
He did not look at her again. The left side of the classroom was dead to him. He could feel her gaze. Could she be trying to attract his attention with those enraptured looks? It was rare, but a few students of any gender might try to exchange a few gazes of youthful adoration for some consideration from their instructor.
Well, he would find out shortly. There would be a lineup at his desk at the end of the period. The ingratiating ones, the perfectionists, the few who were so desperate to be seen by someone, anyone, that they tried the unlikeliest of mentors. And in his limited experience, the manipulative ones couldn't resist that first point of contact.
But when the line formed, she was not there. Never mind. His real work was about to start, after the wearisome prelude of the school day. But she would not be dismissed.
By mid-term, he was infuriated. She was enraging. She arrived late, she wore her uniform artfully askew, and her scrawled and blotted homework could have been completed by a left-handed dog. She addressed him as anything but ‘sir’ or ‘Herr Cabal.’ And what of her inexplicable failure to retain section two - and only section two - of the nomenclature unit? This disability had vanished at exam time, to be replaced with near-flawless recall. He knew she hadn't cheated. He knew it. What the hell was she doing?
His own behaviour had been, if anything, worse. She was a student. He had some standards, didn't he? But no, he didn't. If he had, he wouldn't be thinking about that wildly curling lock that escaped her braid most days. He wouldn't be showing off in front of her, as he was undoubtedly doing. Well, he replied to himself, the behaviours that intrigued her came naturally to him. Should he change? A ridiculous idea.
But he could see what she wanted. Oh, it was written on her, if you knew how to look. The self-conscious way she would sometimes follow a direct instruction, though she loved thwarting him, as a rule. The way she stilled when he was close, hardly breathing, but her colour rising.
But no. That was not, even, what she really wanted, or at least she didn’t want it from him; she would be justly horrified if he touched her. He was safe because it was impossible. He was older. Not, something whispered, so much older. Older, he insisted. Old enough, at least, to know better than to lust after a co-ed with father issues. He clung to that thought when his eye caught hers in the middle of class, and the look that ignited in hers imperilled the gas lines that ran to the lab benches.
She only met his eyes across the classroom. When he was closer, to return an assignment perhaps, her eyes dropped to his shoes or his hands. So bold in your head and so shy when I’m beside you, Leonie? He shook himself mentally. But the surer he became, the more intoxicating it was.
He shouldn't have touched her. It had been nothing. He was walking up and down the rows, ostensibly to be available for help but really to keep them on task. She had, unusually, asked him a question about the problem he had set them. “Professor, I don't quite follow this.” She was thinking about her work for once. He relaxed a little.
He couldn't see the page over her shoulder. Absently, he put two gloved fingers on her shoulder and pressed her back into her chair.
Why had he touched her? It had encouraged her. It had encouraged him. It had made him think about kneeling in the aisle, pulling her head back, and marking her throat with his mouth. The reality had been bad enough. That light, impersonal touch made her eyes snap to his in surprise, and he he suddenly wanted her on his lap instead, straddling him, his mouth on her neck, rocking herself against his thigh for the clumsy bit of friction. He craved it, him at that desk right there, her spread out on its surface….
He straightened away from her desk, from her scent. “Reread the instructions,” he rasped and cleared his dry throat. That was usually the issue.
Her class fell at the end of the day. The room had emptied. She never stayed behind: was that pride or good sense? He was about to leave. As he crossed to the light switch, something caught his eye. It was her datebook. Each student was expected to keep one with time marked out for homework, clubs, prayer, study. She doodled in hers; he'd seen her doing it while he lectured.
He should call after her, or take it to her at the tram stop where he had seen her waiting in all weathers (she tended to forget her umbrella). Or, he could take it for safekeeping and return it to her later. The custodial staff had a generous interpretation of ‘waste paper,’ and it might not be there tomorrow. He could flip through it to establish its owner, though it was clearly under her seat. He could find out what she drew while he spoke.
He flipped the heavy switches that extinguished the classroom lights and left the book untouched behind him.
He walked down the hall. Excellent. He took a breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps when he saw her next, the spell would be broken.
She was walking towards him. Now. Towards him. He considered turning around, seeking the safety of his classroom, but no, that was ridiculous. She was tall. Her breasts moved with her determined strides. She was intent on some thought; it took a moment before she registered his presence. She coloured, and he thought his heart might stop at the loveliness of that pink glow mantling her neck and cheeks, at her sudden confusion. He wanted to put a gentling hand on the back of her neck to calm her, but that would never do and….
He did the first thing that popped into his head. “School policy clearly forbids lip paint.” His voice might have been a stranger’s, crisp and clear.
***
***
***
He’s like several men, she thinks. The first likes gardening, argues with his brother over the telephone, cooks an omelette she would cheerfully kill for. He will lie naked in her arms for hours. His pale eyelashes catch sunlight like sparks in the morning. He sang her a lullaby once, voice cracking sweetly over simple German words she couldn’t understand. He surprises himself when he’s with her. He's a secret from the world.
The second is an irritable academic - of sorts. He spends days in his laboratory, wouldn't know a flirtatious look if one walloped him across the face, hates practically everyone, is capable of endless work and infinite pains. He owns five guns she knows of. He isn't a secret from anyone, except maybe, she wonders, certain representatives of law and order. She still doesn’t know what he’s working on.
The third is the one she's facing now. He's silent. He's often silent. He will position her or gesture rather than speak. She's getting better at following his lead.
Sometimes she disobeys to see what he’ll do. Kneeling on the floor, she raises her hands to her breasts. She pinches her nipples and sighs in her throat, not without some calculation. A moment later, her wrists are wrenched behind her and cuffed. She knows he's staring at her nipples now, pink and erect. She tries not to smirk.
She hears his belt. He unbuckles, works his buttons open. He’s trying to look calm, but she can see it in his hands, how much he wants it. She does, too; he know how easy to please she is after he takes her mouth for a few minutes, how accommodating her pussy is, how wide she'll spread herself for him, hoping. There are so many reasons to take her mouth. Later, he’ll penetrate her, hold her in place, and stay inside her, immobile. She lies there, shuddering, trying not to succumb to the urge to move on him: because as much as she wants it, she wants to submit more.
This is the thing she would never have guessed about herself: what a relief it is to fall into their simple little story of pleasure and rules. It’s sublime, and she sinks into its warm bath as often as she can. Every once in a while, there is another man. Once she was blindfolded, and she will always wonder if that was one she knew. She loves wondering if that was one she knew. He will have guessed that about her.
But these days, the other man is dismissed before she's exhausted. Because after the other man goes, her professor claims her back again, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, slow. He makes her come until she's shaking, he fucks her sore and weeping with happiness. He loses himself in it, too, and sweet, filthy words fall from his lips. And when he's exhausted them both, at those times her deadly, narrow master and her sweet blond lover blur, and as he holds her, after, some of the remoteness and some of the awe both touch him.
And then, they clean up and he puts the kettle on.
“What? You don't speak any German?”
“My timetable didn't allow it. I did do some French -“
“Ha. Even that simpleton Dupuis found your progress sluggish. You didn’t apply yourself.” He snaps the tea towel, folds it, hangs it on its hook.
She looked at him strangely. “That was in my progress report. That exact wording.” She let the implied question hang.
He struggled for a moment, then relented. “Yes. You kept looking at me. I had to know more about you. So. We must do something about your German.”
“A student was looking at you so you looked up her progress reports. Did you break into the files?”
“Why bother? The office clerk pulled them for me.”
“Didn't you think that might attract attention?” He was so careful to ignore her in public, only give her the notice he gave any other student.
He dabbed at a tea stain on the pot. She thought he was going to ignore the question for a moment. “I didn't intend to- you must understand, this was before that day. That day you stood in my classroom and took your verdammt blouse off.” Leonie ignored the curse. He had been begging for it. He continued. “I meant to ignore it, ignore you. But you were giving me looks I could feel in my fingernails. I was beginning to behave inappropriately. So: I looked you up and found out the student testing my patience in every conceivable way, with her sloppy work and untidy uniform and impertinent forms of address-“
“Those bothered you? I'm so glad.”
“-that she was described by others, including by her previous science instructors, as an angel of order and sweetness.” His voice had become very dry. “I have yet to meet this - ow.” He rubbed his side. “So your bad behaviour was not your habit. It was not caused by the subject, even. It was me.” And the way he said that last word, as if he was hesitant to believe it even now, made her heart rise.
“Of course it was you, Herr Professor.” She kissed him.
***
The next day, at the school, there was a box in his case. It was hand-sized and meticulously wrapped in navy blue tissue. A dull gold satin ribbon was tied around it in a single bow. It was a lovely thing, but it provoked deep suspicion in Cabal. He had received more death threats than gifts by a comfortable margin.
He had the resources of the school lab, at least. He would not jostle the item through the streets to his home before investigating it. He picked up the case by its handles and carried it, at arm's length, into the lab at the back of the classroom.
When Leonie arrived he was wearing a thick apron, gauntlets, and a welding helmet he had borrowed from the technology department. She had a moment of disorientation before realising it was him. “Oh! Professor.” She tried not to call him Cabal at school, let alone Johannes. “You look like a Martian. What are you doing? May I…. Oh.” She giggled.
She couldn't see the face behind the mask, but she could see his shoulders straighten in pique.
“It's from me. It's not fatal, I promise. Were you very frightened? I'm sorry.”
“I was taking sensible precautions.” He removed the protective gear hastily.
“Open it.” She sat on a stool and beamed at him. He couldn't stay annoyed when she looked like that. He assessed her furtively; she was happy and relaxed, but the shadows under her eyes were still dark. He wanted to sigh. Her aunt’s health was bad, and she spent much of her time caring for her relative. He took the stool opposite her. He would be convincingly pleased with the contents of the box. He swore upon the secret altar of his soul that if it was wearable, he would wear it, even if she had lost her infuriating, brilliant mind and bought him a patterned cravat.
The bow was already gone, severed by a scalpel and removed with an eye to hidden wires. He unwrapped the paper, his eyes on her face more than his hands. “Is there an occasion?”
“The occasion is that you won’t tell me your birthday, and I’m too well-bred to go through your wallet to find out.”
“You wouldn’t have found it there.” He had to stop doing that. Was he trying to make her curious?
“No. But it would have been something. As it is, I’m choosing today.”
“Are you?” It was a nothing thing to say. He closed his mouth. He was turning into an idiot.
It was a simple black box. Inside, under a layer of batting, was a handle. “You gave me a knife handle.” At least it wasn’t a cravat.
“Take a closer look.”
“Oh.” It was a flick knife. He depressed the switch, and the blade arced out faster than the eye could follow. He almost smiled in pleasurable surprise. “A knife? Have you joined a street gang in your plentiful spare time?”
“I had to go into this squalid little shop to get it. It was thrilling.” She was smiling back at him fondly. “Do you like it?”
“I like it very much, Fräulein. Thank you.” He dropped it in his pocket. It would need a better sharpening than the factory had given it, but the mechanism seemed sound. And to think he had maligned her by thinking she would buy him accessories. He had restitution to make, even if she didn’t know it. “Did you lock the door?”
Her smile widened. “I did.” She drew the key out from under her shirt. It made a warm feeling spread through his chest to see her wearing it. He stood up casually. She choked back her undignified squeal when he scooped her off her stool and ran towards his desk.
A gift, he thought. He could give her a gift. It was a pleasing thought, and it simply hadn't occurred before.
…
“I have something for you.”
“A present? Really, a present?” They’d had a long and lovely afternoon at his house, and she was mentally preparing herself to go home and go back on duty, but now she was excited. Gifts usually meant some new idea he'd had. When he dropped the item into her hand, her brow folded on itself. “A car key? Is this a car key?” She seemed not to understand, despite her statement of fact.
He rolled his eyes. “And yet you are a top student. Yes, it is a car key, which unlocks and starts a car. The car is yours. The car is parked at a garage across the street.” He smiled. “Would you like to see it?”
His smirk faded as she stayed silent and turned the key over in her hands. “Cabal, you can't buy me a car.”
“I already have,” he pointed out. “You could take lessons. It will be easier for you to get to school, and,” he said delivering the clincher, “it would be useful when you take your aunt for her medical appointments.” Her face had not brightened.
“I can't possibly accept it.”
He was downcast by her refusal, and that irked him. He had thought the idea was a good one. “Why. Because you think I am trying to buy you? To oblige you to me somehow?”
“No! You wouldn't do that. But… I don't know. Let me think. This is extravagant. I couldn't hope to return the favour, and that would bother me.”
He wished, grumpily, that he could deny it. “Why would I want you to return the favour? That isn't rational.”
“Perhaps not, but it's a fact, and it's one you should care about. And I don't ever want anyone to think that I'm with you because of gifts. I have my pride, you know.”
His tone went caustic. “This ’anyone’ would be the mythical first person we tell about our relationship? You are worried that this imaginary person may judge you?”
Her brows flattened into a hard line. “They'd never believe it was your personality that attracted me.”
They could bicker all night. Think. There must be something she didn’t understand, or she would accept the gift. He loosened his cravat, thinking his motivation through. He threw himself into a chair. “I would like to make your life easier. Better.”
Her eyes filled. “Oh. Johannes. You do.” She knelt by his chair. “You do more than anyone, and you let me close to you. That's all I want.”
He drew her into his lap and embraced her as if someone might take her away. Every day she was more precious to him.