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He came to my workstation and leaned his fist on the counter. “You, Ms. Layla Scholarship Tyler, are late again. Late to register, and now late to your first class. Tell me, Ms. Tyler, is this what I should expect from you for the rest of the semester?”
I could feel my blood boil. I was literally only minutes late. The class hadn’t even begun. How dare he mock me in front of the entire class.
“No, sir,” I said, keeping my tone humble and reverent.
I dared to look up at him, wondering how someone so young could get an important teaching job at such a prestigious school. I looked closely at him, considering the possibility that he was a little older than I thought. Perhaps twenty or twenty-one.
“Please, class,” he called out, raising his voice in an attempt to make the point crystal clear. “Do not let Ms. Tyler be an example of what a professional culinary chef should be. Whether it be on the job or here in class, tardiness is grounds for instant dismissal.”
He slowly made his way back to the front of the class. “Contrary to what Ms. Tyler seems to think, this is not the type of work, or the type of class, that you can simply saunter into as you like. Perhaps, Ms. Tyler believes that, as a student here on a special scholarship, she is allowed special privileges.”
At the front of the class, he turned around and once again looked directly at me. “If anything, consider the fact that it is each and every one of your tuitions that has helped make her enrollment here possible. That’s right. Your tuition, the money that you and your parents have worked so hard for, is in part making it possible for her to be here at no cost to her whatsoever.”
My ears were hot, my cheeks were boiling and my eyes increasingly moist as he continued with the onslaught of accusations and belittling comments.
“She needs to be respectful, hard working and earn her keep... right?”
“Right!” the class answered.
Every student turned their angry eyes to me and the student who shared a portion of my workstation picked up his things and moved to a different spot.
“It just goes to show you,” a snotty looking girl said with her nose in the air. “If you can’t be bothered to work to pay your tuition here, chances are you’ll never work hard enough for anything in your life.”
That’s not true, I wanted to say. I’d worked hard and I’d saved up a substantial amount of money. I had planned to go to the community college near my hometown, but winning the scholarship changed all that.
I wanted to stand up and tell them all that. I wanted them to know that I wasn’t just some slacker who was taking advantage of the system.
But I could see it in their eyes. I could hear it in the mean and cruel comments they shot at me.
There was no point telling them anything.
Axel’s word was the law of the land, and I was but a mere peasant with no rights to voice my opinions at all.
After a long moment of silence to ensure the message had sunk in, Axel clapped his hands together and looked at the class. “Well, that’s it for this first class. I do hope that it was informative.” He nodded. “You can all go.”
Over? I thought. But I was only a few seconds late to the class. How could it already be over? I looked at the clock on the wall then at my watch.
Damn it. In my haste to set my watch to California time, I’d screwed it all up and had actually arrived at the class nearly an hour late.
Disappointed in myself, I hopped off the stool and turned to leave. Just as I reached the door, I heard Axel clear his throat.
“Not you, Ms. Layla,” Axel called from the front of the class, his tone hard and reprimanding. “I need you to stay right where you are.”
“Serves you right,” a girl said as she pushed past me.
“You don’t deserve to be here,” another one added.
They all seemed to enjoy knocking into me, shoving me aside as they made their way out the door. When the last of them had made their way out, I simply looked at the floor, wondering what Axel was going to say now.
Everything had been said. What more could he add?
I heard his footsteps but didn’t look up. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to face him again. The steps got closer, and closer still until his shoes came into view. He reached past me and closed the door.
“Let’s get something clear right now,” he said in an eerily calm voice.
Looking up, I met his gaze as he stepped forward, making me take a step back until I was up against the wall.
I felt heated and flushed, but not the same way I had before. No, this time it wasn’t embarrassment or humiliation. It was the lust created by the sexual tension that seemed to arise every time I was in the same space as him.
