Page 1 of Your Only Fan
Ezra
My heart, and the chest concealing it, are about to explode with need. His mouth opens and closes. A finger comes up and readjusts the glasses. His bronze skin glows like it has every day for the past year. A hand smooths the beard. He’s letting it grow lately and that makes him even sexier, even more irresistible.
Which explains the heat crawling through my body, making me wish I could shed my skin. Or at the very least my clothes. But then, that’d be a different kind of class.
His dark eyes focus on me, and I almost forget to breathe. Has he noticed that I’m drooling?
Crap.
I wipe my mouth and sit up in my chair. I could spend hours, days even, sitting here watching him. If only the chairs were a bit more comfortable. And if only he couldn’t see me stare.
I’m always super aware of myself when I’m in class with him because I know I can’t stop fawning over him, and I don’t want him to know I’m lusting after him. It’d be embarrassing. It’s bad enough that I don’t know if he’s aware of the kind of work I do. All my classmates seem to know. It seems my teachers don’t, but then again, they probably wouldn’t tell me if they did know I make porn.
“The beauty of Legong is the precision and the timing. It takes the minutia of performance to a whole different level that we don’t really see in modern theatre, or, dare I say, even dance,” Professor Rivera says, and the combination of his knowledge, passion, and hotness makes me hang on to his every word, every movement, like he’s a Legong dancer himself.
According to his anecdotes, he studied Legong and Balinese theatre in Bali when he was in college.
It’s impossible not to fall in love with the way his lips curve to the side and how his eyes flutter upwards reminiscing his youth and all his experience, or the way he beams when he speaks of the catharsis of performance.
He gives a gravitas to our degree that few people acknowledge outside of this class. As if studying ancient theatre and performing could save someone’s life.
Someone raises a hand, but I don’t even hear the question because Isaac smiles with his eyes and gives his full attention to his student.
What I would pay for him to look at me like that outside of class with his arms around me!
But he would never see me. Not the way I want him to see me. Not that way I’m dying to be noticed.
“You guys do some research. Go into the Portal and check out some of the resources I’ve uploaded and take notes. We’ll meet back here tomorrow and discuss what you find. I want you to look beyond the obvious. Break down the movements. Go deeper. Notice the hidden,” he says.
He always says it.
Isaac Rivera doesn’t want to teach us world theatre. He wants to help us explore theatre and what it means to us.
“Your body, your knowledge, your history create you. One uniqueyouamongst billions. Find the theatre in you. Only then will you be able to perform with mind, body, and soul,” he says often, especially when we slip into convention or to the expected.
He will never know how much those words mean to me. But that’s okay. At least I get to know him.
Rivera turns off the projector and walks to his desk, packing up his stuff as the rest of the class gets on their feet.
I’m still drunk on his lecture—on him—so it takes me a moment, and when I blink back to the present, the class is almost empty.
And, of course, I’m brandishing a boner. Freaking perfect.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I mean, the man turns me on, full stop. But it’s still embarrassing. I spend so much of my time walking with my backpack in front of my crotch that he probably thinks I’m a weirdo who doesn’t know how to carry a bag.
I get up and walk between the desks, fully aware of Rivera’s gaze on me. I keep my eyes on the floor, wishing the earth would swallow me up and spit me right out of here.
“Ar-are you okay, Mr. Anderson?” he asks when I’m almost in front of him.
My head snaps up and I look at him, at his eyes, trying hard not to melt into his beauty.
“I… I’m great, thanks,” I reply, trying to inject a confidence that I’m not feeling in my words.
How successful I am, I don’t know, but I throw in one of my smirks for good measure and walk out of class and toward the parking lot.
You’d think with distance my boner would go away, but no, it’s still there, harder than ever as I navigate the corridors of Harlow U while the image of Professor Rivera haunts the space behind my eyelids.
I nod at a few people who are going about their business, and when I finally get to my car—a pitch-black Toyota Prius Prime—and sit behind the wheel, my regular house playlist begins to play through the stereo system.
