Page 70 of Dark Ink

Trepidation grew in the pit of my stomach as the dean frowned warily at Rian and then proceeded to peel up just the edge. His laugh felt like the nail in a coffin. I didn’t even need to know what was on it as he threw it away from him, snorting in derision.

I covered my mouth in horror when the page tumbled end over end and landed at my feet, facing up. There I was, naked, drawn with a finger in my mouth, a finger in my vagina. I concealed it quickly with my shoe.

“I don’t know what you think you’re up to, Professor Merrick,” the dean said, cheeks red as he leaned forward, belly pressing against his desk. He pointed a shaking finger at Rian. “You and I both know that I did not draw that. Nor would I ever. And if you think anyone else would believe—”

“But Dean,” Rian interrupted, calm as ever, voice almost kindly, “they found several more in your car. And not all of Eithne here. Other girls, too. All, it would seem, scholarship girls. And boys, maybe.”

The dean was stunned into silence for a moment. He looked to me, but I, too, was staring in shock at Rian.

“They did no such thing,” the dean said, a little less assuredly than before.

Rian smiled, a cruel, taunting smile. It made him look like a stranger.

“But they will,” he said, placing his fingertips on the edge of the desk. “In a black Mercedes. 2019. License plate…”

Rian rattled off a series of numbers and letters like it was his own birth date. No pausing. No stammering. No hesitation. Before the dean could respond, Rian continued.

“They’ll find more of your quite beautiful, quite impressive drawings in your lovely home,” he said. “At 3948 Hastings Drive. In the study you have upstairs. In the locked drawer in the bottom of your oak desk. An antique, is it not?”

“There’s something wrong with you,” the dean whispered, fury and fear twisting the features of his red face. “Something terribly wrong.”

Rian shrugged.

“I’m not the one who accidentally mixed-up notebooks with my little seven-year-old daughter, Lily,” he said. “Do you think they’ll believe you didn’t draw them when she goes to draw a unicorn at Rathmines Prep, in Mrs Oliver’s class, and sees things of the female anatomy she won’t even know about for years?”

“Get out.” The dean’s voice trembled.

Rian smiled. Gave a little bow of his head. He stood without looking at me. He didn’t even seem to know I was there as he reached between my feet and picked up the drawing of me and slid it back across the desk.

Laughing easily, he said, “Oops, wouldn’t want to forget about this one of yours, Dean. It’s so easy to mix up the envelopes with your letter to your mother in Cork, now isn’t it? Happens all the time, I’m afraid.”

Rian tapped his forefinger between my expertly drawn tits as the dean’s face went purple. Then he left. I stayed where I sat, dumbfounded. I’d never felt like a stay of execution would feel so shitty, so…wrong. I wondered whether I wanted to cry or throw up. As I stumbled out of the office, I mumbled an apology, though for what I was sorry I couldn’t exactly say.

I found Rian walking down the long hallway lined with windows. I had to run to catch him. He still didn’t even glance at me. Every lashing of a tree branch against the heavy glass panes made me flinch; for some reason I kept expecting to get hit. Rian turned a corner into complete shadows, an arched doorway of stone, and without warning, clutched me by the back of the neck, and drew me roughly into a violent kiss.

For one long moment, the world stilled. My body reacted the same way it always did with him, with raging heat like an angry sun, my hands already coming up to fist in his hair before I knew what I was doing.

Then my mind caught up with me. The realisation of where the hell we were slammed into me, as did the memory of what he just did. I pushed Rian away. Shoved at him when he didn’t let me go.

“Let go.”

“Never.”

“Rian, let go!”

He pressed me against the brick archway behind me. “Calm down, Eithne. Everything’s okay.”

“Okay?” I dragged my fingers through my hair. I felt like I was going insane. “What the hell did you just do?”

“He was going to expel you,” was Rian’s unemotional answer.

“You, you,” I shook my head, trying to wrap my head around everything. “Rian, you blackmailed him. And, and you used my naked body to do it.”

“I had to scare him.”

I rubbed at my eyes on the off chance that I was dreaming.

“We could have—I mean, there had to be another way.”

---