Page 69 of Dark Ink

It’s perhaps not very convincing to say “yes, no bother” when your face is white as chalk. But what could I tell her? My world might be falling apart and it was all because I couldn’t stay away from Rian Merrick.

“Do you need me to come with you?” she asked as I gathered my things. “I can come with you.”

It was too much. I could see it now. Clear as day. Aurnia too kind. Too generous. Too willing to be my friend. That wasn’t my life. That was never my lot. I’d been foolish to think it could be. I could add it to the list: slutty, shameful, avaricious.

I smiled sadly and told her no. She couldn’t come. I had to do this alone. She didn’t realise what I meant when I said goodbye. She couldn’t know that this was the end to our friendship, because we barely had a beginning.

In the dean’s office, neither of the two men inside were speaking.

“Ms Brady, please sit down.”

The dean indicated a high-backed chair in front of the desk. In the one next to it was both my heaven and hell. I wasn’t sure if I should look at him or not as I moved timidly forward. Would everything be revealed if I did? Would the dean see it all, the nakedness, the writhing, the mud and paint and cum-smeared tits, if I met his eyes for even half a second?

“Professor Merrick,” I muttered in a sort of last-ditch effort to appear polite as I sunk into the chair next to him.

When I dared a glance at him, his gaze was fixed on me, his eyes warm and hungry. There was none of the spine-straightening anxiety I was experiencing. If anything, I expected him to reach out to brush the hair behind my ears, to call me his Raglan Road girl. Did he have nothing to lose? I thought as I tried desperately to maintain my composure. Was the risk always all on me? Could I have been so foolish?

The dean sighed behind his bridged fingertips and he seemed to draw out the moment. Or maybe it was just that my racing heart was counting the seconds in double, triple time. Either way it gave me more than enough time to imagine the repercussions should what I feared might happen actually happen: a permanent black spot on my record, a forfeiting of my scholarship, an expulsion, a stack of rejection letters from every other art school in the nation, an eviction notice on the door, Stewart glassy-eyed in the morgue, my cheek sadistically free of tears, my world an empty room, empty in every way. There was just enough time to convince myself it was something else, that Rian and I were there for something, anything else. There was just enough time to smile and believe that everything would be fine before the dean at last spoke.

“There’s been an accusation of impropriety.”

I felt faint. This was my worst nightmare come to life. Sexual shame. A ruined career. Destitution and failure and misery, all because of who I was. All because of who I could never stop myself from becoming.

I looked over at Rian in the silence. Because of the silence. He hadn’t denied the charges, hadn’t said in his commanding, easy way that it was bullshite. No, he sat silent. Looking just a bit as relaxed and at ease as when I walked through the door. Was he high? Did I throw my life away for just another junkie? Was my life crumbling while Rian stared at imaginary fucking rainbows?

I thought I might hate him. I thought, too, that I might have always. Because I hated myself.

The dean continued since there was no reply, “This institution has a reputation to maintain, as I’m sure you are both aware. Ms Brady, I dare say that reputation might have been a reason why you selected Dublin Art School in the first place. Which makes it all the more shocking that you would sully it.”

The dean’s focus was on me. His beady eyes, swollen and puffy from too many cigarettes and too little moving, assessed me. I didn’t give the outward signs of a slut, the superficial items of clothing or makeup people ignorantly point to. My sweatshirt was baggy. My jeans loose. If I pulled my hair back it was always in a low, simple ponytail. Style and fashion had been the first thing, the easiest thing to give up after that night my father turned on me.

Because of this, the dean was trying to look through my clothes. To judge my body. To weigh by tits and deem them the tits of a whore. To measure my thighs, to feel the tightness of my pussy, to check my skin for teeth marks. The worst of it wasn’t even the dean himself. The worst was when I looked to Rian for help and found none. A dreamy sigh. Hands folded loosely in his lap. Nothing more.

“Occasionally we hear rumours,” the dean said, leaning back victoriously in his chair; apparently he’d found what he was looking for, “but rarely do we have a witness. Nor is the report so…explicit.”

I wanted to scream. Not at the dean. But at Rian. I wanted to yell in his face, “Help me! Help me, you fucker! You did this to me! You ruined my life! Do something!” I wanted to pound my fists against his chest and shove him out of his chair, out of his pretty little daydream.

“Now, the fact this was,” the dean continued, “as it would appear, consensual, does not change the fact that this debauched behaviour was conducted on school grounds, nor does it alter the punishment that I see more than fit given how widespread the knowledge of this scandal and given how terribly it could impact the generous donations our alumnae may bestow upon our institution come tax season.” The dean rocked back and forth in his big chair as he raised the guillotine above my head.

In those horrible few seconds where the dean drew a big, lumbering breath, I imagined the blade falling. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

In those horrible few seconds before he sentenced us both, I regretted everything: ever knowing Rian’s name, ever drawing him, ever letting him touch me.

Before the dean spoke, Rian did.

“You’re quite an accomplished artist yourself, are you not, Dean?” he said, slowly drawing his attention from the window.

This out-of-the-blue question seemed to throw the dean off. The rocking slowed, stilled. He blustered out a non-committal answer.

“Well, I—I mean I studied at one time, but that’s been years and I—well, I’m devoted more to nurturing artists than, um, becoming one myself.”

The click of Rian’s tongue reminded me too much of a rattlesnake’s warning. I turned to him in confusion.

“Such modesty, Dean. Such modesty.”

I looked between the dean and Rian; the dean seemed to have no clue what the fuck Rian was talking about. Neither did I. What was this? Both the dean and I watched as Rian pulled a piece of paper from his satchel and slid it face down across the desk.

“From what I’ve seen, you have some real talent.”

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