BARE SOULS: A STEAMY TEACHER/STUDENT ROMANCE

CHAPTER 2 | ZANE

Why the fuck did I come for? I couldn't say... Maybe I was so fucking bored that attending that stupid reception was the only option I had to avoid her...

Lately, that was all I had done... Avoiding her. Avoiding her to avoid another damn conversation, as she liked to call them. To avoid another useless fight. To avoid another headache.

But clearly, I didn't make the right choice by coming. Rick had insisted though. This whole fuckery was about his fiancee promotion after all, and he had no way to escape. So he begged me to come so he wouldn't feel alone in his own shit. Sometimes, I think I'm too nice to him. But what can I say? He's my only brother and theres's nothing I can refuse him.

He lured me with the excuse of booze and women, promising the finest ladies in town for my first official night out in Oxnard.

Oxnard... Never heard about that city before I was offered a position there. I said "offered" but it was more like "given". Why? Simply put, I never applied for the job. My brother just used his connections to find an excuse to get me to move to his city.

It was not as bad as I had imagined though. It was pretty.... And also pretty far from everything.

Maybe that was what pushed me to accept the position. To be honest, it was not really my specialty. Back home, I was teaching to young adults, spirits in love with literature who could debate for hours about the meaning of a single word lost in dozens of stanzas... But that era was over and I had accepted to teach theater, poesy and litterature to some brats who can't type anything else that shit like "OMG" and #YOLO. Fucking kids!

But it was better than anything, I guess. I could have rotten in my misery, back home.

Home... I missed home. The crowded street full of people pretending they're in a rush, the buzzinng sound of the mass talking pretending they cannot see the person next to them, the madness disguised under the proper kit of the perfect worker, the polluted air, so thick and opaque you almost get asthma in summer... Yeah... I missed it. It was home. Except I will never get back home anymore. Instead, I had to get acquainted to this town called Oxnard, a place I would surely call home someday... Hopefully.

I stood at the bar, asking for another drink. Was it my fourth or my fifth one? Shit, I had already lost count. I didn't really plan on getting wasted that night, but I sure as hell started well.

As I swallowed my Jameson straight up, the burning feeling of the liquor slowly going down my stomach started to kick my head. A light buzz sound rang in my hears and my vision slowly got darker as I felt the small euphoria kicking in. I loved that feeling... I sometimes wished it turned into a permanent state, but it never did. Somehow, reality always win.

I brushed the whole ballroom with my eyes, wondering where my damn brother went. How was he going to ask me to accompany him and just vanish on me? I knew I should have declined.

My eyes stopped on a woman frantically scanning the room. Nothing special here... Except I couldn't take my eyes of her. She was wearing a short black strapless dress showing off her long and toned legs. And what legs! The most perfect legs I ever seen. Tanned, looking firm and soft. And I started wishing her dress was a tiny bit shorter...

My eyes slowly shifted from her perfect legs to her tight waist, fully enjoying the view up to her cleavage that looked perfect. The dress was so tight I could guess she must be a 34C... Easy...

She was biting her lips, looking everywhere, not paying attention to the guy who was talking to her. Her long and wavy chocolate hair was bouncing, following the movement of her head and I suddenly felt like I wanted to dig my hand in them. Why? No fucking idea... They just looked like they might have been fucking soft.