Wicked Woman

It’s almost funny how much I want to bite this man. Normally I wouldn’t say let alone think such things. It’s so vulgar. So unladylike. I was taught to keep my hands to myself. 

Luckily, I wasn’t told jack about my teeth, so I guess that’s fair game.

The ticking of the clock that’s too close to the ceiling grates on my nerves. It’s a blank clock with a ticker that moves too slow. The walls are a dingy yellow that reminds me of an underfunded parish basement. The ceiling cracks spread like spiderwebs—this place could collapse on top of us at any moment. The seats are plastic and the bolts pull out my hairs one strand at a time with every move. I hate this place. It smells like depression hangs itself in here. 

The people in this room are even less interesting. All curled in on themselves waiting for the time to tell them they can leave. Honestly I don’t know why any of them are here if they aren’t here to learn. But I would be a hypocrite if I said that. I know why I’m here and it’s not about learning the subject. My reason strolls in–punctual as ever.

Part of me wonders what about him captures my attention. After all, he’s just a man. A mentor, yes, but a man all the same. He feigns kindness and vulnerability the same way I do. If I look at him for a second too long I start to believe it myself; that he does truly care about us. Yet every so often I get a glimpse of him grinning and it's like I’m looking at something else. Something with even sharper teeth than me and I can’t look away. 

His voice is like kryptonite, deepening with every word, sapping the strength in my knees. Good thing I’m already sitting. Each syllable slides down my spine like a fingernail. My skin skitters from head to toe. He speaks like he wants his words to linger, to stick on all parts of me. As the sounds ease into my skull—soft, cajoling—coaxing something dark inside me to raise its head, crack a smile, and wait. It feels like something in him calls to something in me, a language of old only we understand—a dance of the ages, forgotten and impossibly familiar.

We are circling each other with each encounter. Intrigued and patient. I imagine his fear tastes like power. Ambrosia with the tanginess of ichor. Perhaps it would be sweet and satisfying. Or maybe it would make me sick. What would he look like, caught by me? Would his voice soften, trying to placate me? Would he beg? Would he snap and fight back? I ache at the thought. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I was never known to be out of control. Every emotion follows a specific path, carved in meticulous routes as it makes its way to my senses. My joy glimmers like starlight, distant and blinding. My amusement is velvet warming under touch in a heated room. My irritation is a biting static shock. I feel it zip through me at the sounds of my classmates shuffling.

But my rage…my rage burns like frostbite. Sharp, efficient, sudden— a needle piercing skin. My silence is my most trusted weapon, my way of containing others, or perhaps containing myself. I’ve never been able to tell the difference. My face, equally beautiful and blank, is a mask that commands hesitation—unreadable, unpredictable. Yet it’s like I feel him always coming closer. When I stare back at him, he meets my gaze as if I’ve betrayed something. Something hidden. His eyes catch something dark beneath my surface, mirroring his own. The question rises unbidden, swirling in the charged air between us: 

Am I calling to him as well?

What if he hears it–my unspoken invitation–and answers? Would he flash his teeth back? Would I let him get away with it?

I look him up and down from his curled dirt brown hair to his bourbon Derbies. His fingers give me pause with the way they twitch and curl. They look like a pianist’s hands, elegant and precise. Hands like his are dangerous, designed for soft caresses or an intimately cruel touch. What heights could I reach while at his mercy? 

He could create a playing board out of me. What shocks me is that I might not even mind. Black and blue spaces strategically executed by a master at work. His presence demands my submission. My mind screams for my control. My body demands my claws at his back. I’m at a crossroads. Teetering on the very fine line of madness he’s tied within me. He moves and my chest tightens from the tension of war in my marrow. One wrong step and I’ll fall into his clutches. Or perhaps… I was too far gone to begin with. 

His gaze is predatory, sharp and unyielding, like a wolf’s–eyes fixed on prey it has no intention of sparing. For a split second I see the maw of something licking its chops—and then it’s gone, frozen in my memory once again. But when his eyes meet mine, his pupils dilate, the frost shatters into lightning—crackling heat branches through my veins. It alighting each nerve, as though he might rip me apart. I’m electrified.  My instincts are primal and vicious as they scream to life like Frankenstein’s bride. 

Some days I can take it. But other days my voice is torn from me as if by the wrath of a forsaken God, raw and furious. The weight of his gaze presses against my skin, testing me and unrelenting. My body locks up, muscles twitching from the onslaught. My jaw grinds at the thought of him getting too close. God, how I want him to get close. 

Then a cough rings out in the room. 

“Are you paying attention?” His shoe taps less than a foot away from mine and I don’t have to look up to see how his eyes lick at my jugular. 

The fantasy collapses like the clock struck twelve. I’m dragged back to the group by the scrapes of chairs and the muffled hum of conversation. The heat curling in my gut goes dormant, coiled tightly back to sleep. His glasses cover his eyes. The kinder parts of me yearn to smooth out the tension lines on his face. 

“Yes I am paying attention. I’m just a bit distracted is all.” 

“So are you paying attention or are you distracted? You can’t have double vision and then claim to be blind.” 

My spine straightens at the challenge in his tone, irritation blooming hot beneath my skin. He pisses me off. That smug air, the deliberate tone in his words—it’s annoying. His glacial eyes, shielded behind those damned lenses, remain distant, unreachable, like a fortress designed to keep me out. Fine. 

“Unless you were born with one eye. Then you could be both.” His lips twitch–barely perceptible. 

Gotcha. 

He leans in just slightly, just enough for the air to heat, charring my next snarky thought. Another cough rings out and my irritation comes swinging back for round two. 

“One eye? Having double vision in one eye sounds awfully pointless.” His voice is low, soft with a trace of amusement, but it doesn’t hide the edge beneath it. 

“Perhaps it’s the only way you’d ever see things clearly. Unless you can prove otherwise” I dare him to hear the double meaning. My pulse quickens, at my declaration, delicate yet sure. The room, the group, the world around us blurs to faded black. It’s just the two of us now in the spotlight, locked in this quiet, dangerous performance. Over and over again we circle and bow. I zero in on his throat bob. My teeth almost crack from the urge to bite. 

“Is that so?” His voice may be silk, but I catch his jaw grinding. 

There it is. The crack in the armor. The chink to exploit. The silence between us stretches like an overused rubber band, cresting like a wave about to break. I lean forward, just a fraction in this pathetic plastic chair to even the playing field.

 “Shall we put it to the test with a blindfold?” 

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move. His gaze locks onto mine, stern as steel, not even blinking. But I can feel it now, the slightest shift in the air, the charge. The smell of rain as the hurricane closes in. Play with me, Professor, I promise I’m a good sport.

Somewhere in the distance I hear the tower clock ring, time’s up and the rest of the world bleeds into my peripheral vision again. With my focus returning to the room comes the weight of my audience watching and I sit back with satisfaction that I finally won our little game. I know when to push and when to pull back. Except with him. This man seduces me into my own messiness. But I’ll be damned if I don’t take him down with me. 

I take one more glance at him to get me through the day before heading out.

This time I hope he heard me thinking, Until next time ...checkmate.