Teacher's Pet Ch. 07

Helena's dreams were as vivid as her waking world had been blurred, but the intensity of the colors was almost dazzling in its own way.

She dreamed she was driving with Amber. In the logic of dreams, they'd gotten back together. Amber had forgiven her, and she had forgiven Amber, and everything was perfect again.

Only she had suddenly forgotten how to drive.

She heard the tires scraping against the asphalt, and panic raced through her. She fumbled with the controls, but anything she touched just seemed to do the opposite of what she meant it to. As the car started to go out of control, she turned and saw Amber's face.

And Amber looked so disappointed in her, Helena burst into tears.

She knew now that she was dreaming, but that just made it harder to think clearly. Amber just looked even more frustrated with her. Helena tried to explain, but none of it came out as anything more than muffled mumbles. Amber's red hair burned like wine in firelight.

Amber opened the passenger door of the car. She said something cruel--Helena didn't know what, only that it felt like a hammer strike to the stomach, and it felt familiar. Then she stepped out of the car.

Helena had driven right onto on a railroad bridge, she realized, and she felt a rush of embarrassment as Amber looked back at her, annoyance etched in her meticulously flawless features.

Fuck. Helena was so stupid. She couldn't do anything right. She could only watch as Amber calmly stepped right off of the railroad ties.

Those perfect dancer's feet settled on thin air. Amber made her way down an invisible staircase, and she didn't look back.

Panic overtook Helena. At first she couldn't move, and then she had moved, she had moved too far, she had launched herself off the bridge--and of course she couldn't find the stairs, of course she was too stupid to use them, of course she would fall, fall, fall--

Helena's scream pierced the veil of sleep, and her eyes flew open with a strangled cry.

She was not falling. She was in a big, soft bed, under heavy, sweltering blankets. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. It was pitch black in the room, which felt odd to her, because she always slept with a nightlight. It must have died during the night.

Her heart was still racing, and she felt smothered under the sweat-sticky sheets, so she flung them from her, gasping for clear air.

Instantly, the night chill rushed in. It was brutal. It was freezing tonight. She could swear she heard a heater running, but it might as well have been the air conditioning. If it weren't so dark, she'd have assumed windows were open. She was already shivering.

Relief lasted for about five seconds--she tried to wait for her heartrate to slow, made herself count the sixteen beats--before she could take it no longer and had to burrow under the covers again.

She was starting to feel a familiar swimming ache throughout her body. Even moving the weighted blankets aside had been exhausting.

Normally, Helena always went for a walk after having a nightmare. She'd walk through the halls of her dorm, maybe get a cup of hot apple juice, and try to browse on her phone for a bit, to let the dream fade. But she couldn't imagine leaving her blankets in this cold, especially with a hangover. She couldn't even feel her phone on the nightstand.

The bed smelled strongly of her own sweat, along with a thick, heady cinnamony scent. It was almost hard to breathe, but Helena felt too weak to pull any off of them, to separate the layers and get rid of the unnecessary heated blanket that seemed to be folded between them.

Every muscle in her body felt limp and asleep. Fuck, how much had she had last night?

Wait. She managed to force her head above the covers, gulping in fresh, clean, dry air. It tasted like air conditioned air, but that wasn't what she was registering.

These weren't her blankets.

This wasn't her cinnamon perfume.

She didn't... wear perfume.

This wasn't her room.

The realization set in like a headache, dull at first and then pounding, splitting, incessant and overwhelming.

She was in Professor Wood's guest bedroom.

She tried to sit up in bed, but the aches set in harsher, like binding chains constricting her every motion, like pulsing drumbeats in her mind. The only lights in the room were the glittering sparks filling her vision, and...

... and then the pain ebbed, it all fell away, and she felt sudden, seeping relief. She let out a sigh, stretching happily.

A moment later, she realized it was because she'd let her head fall back down against her pillow.

But she couldn't just stay there. Her memories of last night were submerged beneath a pool of some of the smoothest, sweetest, strongest liqueur she'd ever had in her life, blurred in a sweet, bubbly strawberry-amber glow. She knew she'd humiliated herself, though. That was clear enough from where she was and how she felt.

She'd relapsed. She'd relapsed into drinking, and she'd done it in front of the professor she'd come here to confront. Something in her felt soft and weak as her mind cringed away from vague memories of leaning right into Diane's arms. She'd admitted such... shameful things.

And Diane had put her to bed. Helena could melt from shame.

But there were also other memories. Memories that made her not embarrassed, but afraid.

Diane had kissed her, she was pretty sure. Or she'd kissed Diane. But she'd been drunk, and Diane had poured her the drink, and... and Diane had known that. That she was an ex-alcoholic.

But hadn't she told Diane it was okay?

But why had Diane even asked, if not to gain the advantage? To ply her? So many things Diane said sounded so different when Helena played them back, but they also sounded faint and staticky, muddled amid dreams and half-memories.

It was a breach of professional boundaries, at least. That was for sure. Did that become okay if Diane knew she was about to be fired?

Helena rubbed her eyes, trying in vain to get them to adjust. There wasn't even a crack of light peeking from under the door.

Had Diane been trying to convince her not to tell anyone? Was Helena remembering that right? She hadn't fully registered it at the time, but when Diane had asked for her...

Her heart stopped. The phone.

She reached over to the headdesk, pinpricks traveling up her arm from the chill, muscles aching horribly. Her hand groped for her phone, and then for a light switch, and then for anything. She could feel a lamp, but it seemed to be the kind turned on by a wall switch.

She thought she could feel the latch to a drawer, though. To her melting relief, it wasn't locked. She thrust her hand inside, daring to hope. Her heart was thudding--her head was thudding, drum, drum, drum--when her hand touched something glassy and smooth.

She went still. Her fingers slowly encircled the object and brought it close, careful not to tip it in case it was open.

It wasn't her phone. She could already ttell that.

It was a liqueur bottle. Half-full, from the feel of it. Her fingers traced the bumpy protruding letters.

C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E

M-E-L-T

W

Helena gulped.

It was the liqueur bottle.

She licked her lips. How bad was it--how disgusting, how pathetic did it make her--that every memory was blurry and scattered except the taste of the whiskey?

She could already taste it on her tongue--that sweet, chocolatey richness, the cruel burn of alcohol barely noticeable on her tongue as sugar overwhelmed it, the thickness, the heaviness, the weight filling her head...

Drum. Drum. Drum.

Helena held the bottle to her chest, whimpering softly. No. No, she couldn't.

Drum. Drum. Drum.

The pain would go away so quickly. So easily.

She licked her lips.

She could taste it.

She was so tired.

It would feel a lot better. Just until the morning. Just to be sure she got a full night's sleep. Just until... but if Diane saw her drunk again...

As if summoned, Helena heard something rattle from the darkness. She froze.

There came a click.

Helena instinctively shoved the bottle beneath the blankets and tucked it between her knees. Before she could wonder for more than a split-second if the door had been locked, the door swung open.

Pale light flooded in.

Helena actually gasped in pain. It seemed to be blindingly bright in the hallway, as if Diane had turned on floodlights, even though she knew it was just the hangover making her vision more sensitive. She buried her face in her pillow, groaning.

"Oh, wow." Professor Wood was clearly trying to conceal the disappointment in her voice. Helena's cheeks heated the pillow. "That bad, huh?"

Helena tried to lift her head to respond, but even with her eyes closed, it took her a moment to adjust to the light's intensity. She shaded them with a hand. "W-Wh--"

"You had a little to drink." Diane's voice could have worked for kindling. "I thought it would be best for you to stay here for the time being."

"I didn't... that's..."

Helena trailed off. She realized dimly she'd been hoping Diane would interrupt her again, that she wouldn't have to explain, that it would be explained for her, to her. Her head still felt completely... fucked up. Even with her eyes closed, her head wouldn't stop throbbing from the light, and she still felt exhausted.

"... what time is it?" she managed lamely, abandoning the original line of thought. She knew that was effectively the same as conceding the issue, but what else could she say? Diane was right. And it hurt that she was right.

Diane's voice had a small smile in it. "Don't worry about the time, Helena. Okay? I want you to take all the time you need."

"Oh." Helena hoped her cheeks weren't as red as they felt. She shifted in the blanket, slipping the bottle between her knees to disguise its bulk. "Well, I... appreciate that. But I'd still like to know."

She knew her words were slurred from fatigue, and she wasn't surprised when Diane asked, after a pause, "What was that, sweetie?"

"Oh." Helena's voice fell briefly to a whisper. She cleared her throat, trying to sit up. "I--I just want to know--"

"Stay down." A hand settled on her shoulder and gently, firmly pushed her back down. Helena's entire soul shrank to a pinprick, and every muscle in her body tensed into trembling paralysis. Diane was much closer than she'd thought. "You aren't well. You're definitely not fit to get up and walk around."

"But--but I need to--"

"No."

The word sliced through every syllable, every vowel Helena felt capable of making. She was shaking from fear--and from something else, something horrible, something shameful.

She needed to leave. Or at least get up. Go outside. Get some food. Get some water. Get away from here.

"God, you're soaked." Helena felt Diane's hand gently brush her forehead. Diane seemed to be on the other side of the bed now.

Helena nearly let out a whimper. Still blinded by the light from the hallway, Diane was able to move around her like a ghost. Helena was totally at her unethical professor's mercy.

The smooth glass bottle felt ice-cold between her knees.

Helena squirmed.

"You have to stay. Don't you see?" Diane brushed a lock of Helena's hair from her face. Her fingertips spread heat through Helena's skin like hot pokers plunged into ice. Helena thought she might melt. Diane's voice was soft, gentle, cozy, soothing. If Helena opened her eyes, she would see Diane, her face radiant in the pale light, that sly smile crossing dark red lips, that unbreathable swell to her figure pushing out against her sweater as she leaned over Helena and they bounced right above her head...

"... s-see what?" Helena whimpered.

The fingers traveled down to caress Helena's cheek. Helena felt like she was about to catch ablaze, and yet she shivered, trembled, shook like a fluttering moth.

"You're cold."

Helena felt Diane's hot breath against her cheek, against her ear, the heat briefly banishing the unbearable numbness.

"Yes," she whispered. She didn't know why it was so cold. How the air was so dry. She could hear the heater running. That was the heater, wasn't it? It was night, wasn't it? It was so dark, so cold, so ... so...

Diane's voice slinked into a molten purr in her ear.

"The bed is warm~"

Helena squirmed.

She realized numbly that she could barely feel the hangover right now. The drums had faded.

But she felt those lips. Those soft, luscious lips grazing her ear, that hot breath, that sultry coo. She felt Diane's closeness to her, and suddenly she didn't care about propriety, didn't care about dignity, didn't even care about ethics, she just wanted--needed--it was like liqueur, better than liqueur, sweeter, heavier, Diane's voice, Diane's lips, Diane's touch, Diane's control, even the fear Diane filled her with--

"Relax, my sweet girl," Diane said softly, cupping her cheek. Helena felt her lean in close, brushing against Helena through the blankets, mercifully shielding her from the light at last. "You're safe here."

Helena didn't move. She didn't dare disturb this moment. If she moved, she either had to go along with it or move away, and she mustn't go along with it...

... and she wouldn't move away.

"Helena?" Diane's voice was still soft, but had a slight curve to the end, a gentle, firm prompt.

"Okay," Helena whispered.

"What was that? Are you still awake?"

She wanted to be. She wanted to stay awake as long as possible. To stay close to Diane as long as possible. But with the light gone, with Diane's closeness making her hangover fade to the background, sleep seemed to grow nearer and nearer. Her lips moved, struggling to parse the words to show Diane she was awake, to convey she was still... listening.

"I'm... safe here," she whispered, and ripples of shame, fear and desire sent shivers through her whole body.

She heard Diane's soft chuckle. Diane's laughter smoked and crackled like burning liquor.

"Good girl," she cooed, and planted a kiss on Helena's cheek. Her lips were soft. Plump. Sticky. Wet. "Sleep for me."

And as hard and for as many of the wrong reasons that Helena tried to fight, that was all it took.

Helena sank.