Chapter Three - No One Has to Know

Lena watches the closet longer than is strictly necessary.

It’s just one long day, she tells herself. That’s all. It has nothing to do with tonight’s class.

Nothing to do with the student who sits two rows from the front—quiet, unreadable, built like he teaches hot yoga in the mornings and breaks hearts at night.

The one who rarely speaks when the class is whole, who watches her with that steady, too-knowing gaze, scribbling on his paper like he's already written the ending.

The one with the half-smile, she hasn't been able to stop thinking about.

She chooses her old black pants. Blouse, modest. Neutral.” (Her hair was pulled back just as unapologetically.)

But then her eyes fall on the soft, light blue camisole, pushed to the back of the drawer—those thin straps, that barely there fabric—and her hand hesitates.

She folds it neatly and tucks it into her tote.

Just in case, she tells herself.

Not that she'll need it. The room runs hot.

But something about tonight feels different.

It’s not for him.

Her heels are only slightly clunkier than normal. Not by much. To put it simply, I wanted to be seen. She doesn't avoid her reflection in the teacher's lounge window as she passes it.

She doesn’t smile, either.

But her pulse gives her away. There was only one traitorous clap, loud and white under her ribs.

She fills a glass of water and rests against the kitchen counter. A minute passes. Then two.

She almost picks up her phone, hesitates, and opens her browser.

Searches for his name.

Jace Maddox.

It's harmless. Curiosity. She's just … loving her students! That's what good instructors do.

But then she looks at a photo of him — jaw set, sleeves rolled up, turned away from the camera, standing next to a lifted black truck — and something squirms in her lower belly. Some of his images are outdated, but that’s neither here nor there. In fact, you need to make her thumb linger on the screen one extra beat, Close enough that her legs do go a little rubbery, that she will have to do something or die.

She closes out the app. Puts her phone down face-first.

A shower. She needs a shower. Cold, maybe. Or nearly hot enough to wash him from her thoughts.

She sheds her clothes, steps into the spray, and lets the water carry away everything but the fire raging up her spine.

She doesn’t touch herself.

Not really.

Let the warm water wash down her chest, water down her belly, water down the ache she’s too much of a stubborn ass to admit is there. Her thighs press together. Her breath hitches.

But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t chase it.

She has no idea what to do except stand there and wait, her heart hammering.

And then when she comes out again into the open world, she puts her clothes on without thinking — layer until it’s all a clean, sharp thing.” Safe.

By the time she arrives at her first class, she’s marching with military precision. Notes on the board. Marker in hand. Controlled.

But there are no warning signs for anything she has seen that stands on the other side of that door.

There is no sound of the door opening.

She doesn’t turn. Doesn’t acknowledge him. She’s already halfway through narrative-structure-diagramming on the whiteboard, and she quite literally has a lock on the marker.

“Evening,” comes his voice.

Low.

Unhurried.

No backpack slung over one shoulder. No clumsy, leaden boots stomping down the corridor.

Jace—present. Intentional. "Take a seat," she responds, without first even glancing to check. It's a normal, natural response.

And to her surprise, he does. No comments. No games. He sits. Quiet. His pencil scratches lightly on the paper. He doesn’t even look at her during the first 40 minutes of the scene.

He must be trying to seem less pushy and less forward, or it could just be because there are more people in class tonight.

Instead of setting her at ease, it throws her off. It’s a pregnant silence — like waiting for a storm, except not the sound of thunder, just a quality of air that is too quiet.

Her voice lowers, in a few telling examples (on the issue of “tone”), and then it slowly rises.

"Does that make sense?" she asks the class, turning from the board to face them. She's lost them. It's time for an intermission.

She gives them a break. Ten minutes.

The students around her are whispering to one another, clutching their possessions, and inching away toward the vending machine. Laughter spills into the hall. The door slams loudly behind them.

And two of them again.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even pretend to.

He is reclining, doing it, folded arms, a black T-shirt stretching snug across his chest. Watching her.

Unscrews the cap of the water bottle, drinks deeply, draws the frigid liquid into her gullet. “You okay?” finally says, casual in tone.

He lifts his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You’re quiet tonight.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t want you getting freaked.”

That’s right to the chest.

“You didn’t,” she says, a touch too swiftly.

He tips his head. "Sure, I did." He does it discreetly, without pointing any fingers — it's the way it is. "You think I don't notice?"

She folds her arms and turns away. “Notice what?”

“The way you look at me.” Smiling.

It’s as if an electric wire is joining one person to another.

“You think you’re so slick,” he says, easing closer. “But you’re not. Smart? No question. Slick? Not even close.”

She doesn’t move. Her breath snags.

He steps forward — not charging, just smooth, like he’s got all night. He stops just shy of touching distance. Not an arm’s length, but near enough to shift the air between them.

Close enough to feel.

He doesn’t reach for her, but he could. And that’s the thing. The space between them hums, warm and waiting, like gravity’s playing favorites — like the rules don’t apply to him when it comes to her.

 “I don’t have to,” he says. “I mean, I can just be professional if you want,” he says. “But don’t lie to me.”

Her lips part. No words come out.

‘Jace—’ she mutters a couple of minutes later, softly, quietly.

“I’m not a kid, Lena.”

There is something almost feral it does to her throat when he says her address. Unsettling. Familiar. Too much.

A hand is gliding along the edge of her desk — and no, no, no, not in the least, not touching her at all, in no way touching her, but the proximity makes her pulse falter.

"This is insane and stupid," she whispers.

“Yep,” he says. No smile. No apology.

“We can’t—” she breathes.

“I know.”

“But you would have wanted to,” she says, a tad accusingly

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

The silence the two of them share as it falls over them is a stubborn pulse, a heartbeat.

Let me know,” he says quietly, smoke curling up into her chest, his warm voice.

She wants to tell him no. She wants to be the adult. The professional. The example.

But it is his face that the hand hits, not words.

She tells herself she’s going to push him — actually make him, give him that shove away, the one right from the viscera, just to prove a point, to establish a line, once and for all.

But her hand doesn’t push.

It just rests there. Her fingertips are flowing against his muscle through his shirt and over it, and oh, there it is, there’s his heart, and it’s beating and so calmly, eternally, unattainably so. Because he’s waiting for this. As if he had known it all the while — and known she would come looking for him someday.

He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe too loudly. He's just standing there, soaking it all in.

The air feels weighted. Dense. Saturated with heat.

Her fingers twitch, and she draws back her hand as if it has been scorched.

“This break’s over,” she says. She has a funny voice — hoarse, quivery.

He recoils, but not by much — not even enough for her to detect, and grins at her ever so slightly.

“Copy that, Ms. Hayes.”

It’s not sarcastic. Not smug.

It’s worse.

It’s warm.

She walks with her back to the whiteboard, each step deliberate, and she tells herself not to tremble.

The class filters back in. She lectures. They take notes. Jace just sits there, being sane and answering calmly, as if it weren’t two inches of the girl’s mouth a minute ago.

But it’s different now.

Everything he says is steeped in the memory of it. Every look carries an echo.

And then, finally, with class time running out, her voice heavy with emotion, the other students pulling together into clumps and streaming out, smiling, nodding.

All except him.

Jace lingers.

Of course he does.

No sooner has she sat into her seat than his voice is with her again.

“Got something for you.”

She straightens slowly, warily.

He approaches and slams a small black box on her table.

“What is it?” she asks, suspicion rising.

But he doesn’t answer.

He just nods slightly, limps off and out — cool and mute as if he hadn’t just tossed a grenade into her night.

“Jace,” she calls after him. “Hey—”

But he’s gone.

The door clicks closed behind him.

She stares at the box.

It’s matte black. Velvet. No branding. No explanation.

They appear as if they were removed from a jeweler’s case.

It looks… dangerous.

And now the waiting is nigh unbearable.

She doesn’t immediately grab it. She stands there, staring — not at the box, exactly, but at the weight of what it might mean. Her hand twitches.

Her breath stalls. Then, just like that, she turns away. Instead, when she gets home, she bypasses the bath and heads straight for the wine — one glass poured, then another before the first is halfway gone.

Her shoes come off. Her hair comes down. But no matter how many times she moves from room to room, her eyes keep drifting back to the small box on the kitchen counter. She frowns at it, as if it has done her some injury. Like it dared her.

It’s a line. A violation. She should be furious. In fact, she should be marching with her department head, the one with the phone. She should be filing complaints.

But her skin is flushed. Her pulse keeps stuttering. Not that the ache in her thighs is louder than common sense.

She crosses her arms and paces, her stocking feet moving the length of the kitchen. “You’re out of your mind,” she mutters to herself.

And, of course, she then does open the box.

A toy, along with the black satin, is inside it. Not crude. Not bulky.

Elegant.

An infantile, foreign object resembling a diminutive, curved silicone vibrator — it was even colored pale blue and not much larger than two finger widths. Small enough to hide. Smooth enough to wear.

It has a handwritten card folded under it, as if it's concealing an illicit tryst.

With shaking fingers, she tears it open.

Lena —

Fine. You won’t let me have you. But there’s no reason to leave all the craziness on the doorstep.

Smart girl! Tomorrow, when you have the in-class writing assignment, slip out. Slip this in.

Then look me up on Snapchat. Add me. Share the device.

I’ll be across the room.

You’ll be at your desk. Still. Grading. Composed.

And I’ll drag my finger across my screen and do it myself, thank you very much.

Just thirty minutes.

Let me own you.

No one will know.

Unless you moan.

– J

(jface8989)

Like a live wire, she drops the note.

“Oh my God,” she breathes.

Her hands are shaking. Her mind was a blur.

Who the hell is he?!

Does she or anyone else think she or they are 'all that and a cookie'?

She grabs the trash can, ready to toss it — maybe harder than necessary —

but stops halfway, her hand frozen in midair.

Why was she letting him get under her skin like this?

Why did one look, one line, one presence from him throw her whole night off course?

With a sharp breath, she drops the can instead.

She won't throw the toy away.

Not yet.

She swallows. Her lips part slightly. Her breath was uneven.

This is insane.

It’s wrong.

It is reckless and dumb and shit she was not allowed to be, shit her shrink said she wasn’t supposed to be.

And yet—

Her phone is already in her hand.

She opens Snapchat.

Searches: jface8989.

A single name pops up.

She stares at the screen.

Her thumb hovers.

And, one final gasp of humiliation and of subordination -

She adds him.

She doesn’t sleep much.

Her sleep is troubled, a prism of heat and guilt, desire and discipline. She wakes before the alarm has time to sound, and the sheets are wrapped around her ankles, a damp slick beneath her camisole. Her muscles hurt in that aching/semi-achy sort of way that no cold shower is going to take away.

She shouldn’t be doing this.

But she’s already half-volunteered to do it by the time she’s done brushing her teeth.

And then, dressed, she put on her blouse, took it off again, and changed her panties three times. Nothing feels quite right. Nothing feels safe.

She begins with her bathroom counter. Then moves it to her purse. Then pulls it back out.

Stares at it.

It stares back.

She checks her phone.

He hasn’t messaged.

It makes her feel as if she’s among the luckiest people in her city now, and she tells herself that she’s relieved by that. That’s a sign that he’s washed his hands of the whole affair. That she’s safe.

But deep down?

Whether she can be, she will not disclose.

She’s had to be the adult all day. Grading papers. Answering emails. Greeting a classroom of 17 1/2‐year‐old juniors in high school who are in the business of lying about their age, but who also couldn’t be anywhere else.

But her mind keeps drifting. Not just to the toy. Not just to his note.

To him.

The way his eyes don’t blink. The cadence of his voice, saying her name. And how he stares at her, like he knows her already, like he’s been waiting for her to get there.

By the time she gets to the community center that evening, her stomach has tied itself into knots of nerves and something else, something blacker than that, and both of her hands are shaking. She is already in her black slacks. A white button-down. Hair pinned up. Except that her heart is racing, the insides of her thighs are hot, and her little secret blue at the bottom of her purse is another burden.

She pauses in her car. Ten minutes early, as always. That felt-lined box in her purse has never lost its meaning. Her hand hovers above it.

She doesn’t have to do this.

She ought to walk in, teach her class, and act as if nothing had ever happened.

She disregards the map and pops the top again.

Forever yet, the toy in its satin, little nest. Innocent. Waiting. The folded card is there beside them, that smug, defiant, exasperating note.

Let me own you. No one will know. Unless you moan.

Her body learns to know the line before her eyes can see it. And the terrible thing is, she wants to give it a whirl.

She pushes it — not using it yet, no — but feeling its weight up against her palm. Her breath stutters. She drops it back in place, then, after a pause, and as quick as anything, yanks it out as if it has burned her.

Snapchat.

Already, her brain lags behind the hammers hurtling at it. She presses the home button on her phone, opens the app, and keys in his handle.

Jface8989.

He pops up immediately. Of course he does.

She stares at his Bitmoji. It’s smirking. Of course it is.

Add a friend.

Her thumb hovers — then taps.

A second passes. Then three dots appear.

Jace: Thought you’d chicken out.

Her heart thuds. She doesn’t reply right away. Just watches the screen. Waits.

Jace: Still thinking about it? Or already wet?

You’re overstepping, she types, but she deletes that before hitting send. She’s not trying to puff him up.

She twitches her thumb anyway.

Lena: I’m not on some kind of crazy head trip.

His reply is half a beat.

Jace: The cleverer a woman is, the more wicked she feels when she plays the Silly Girl.

She hurls the phone to the passenger seat and takes a deep breath, trying to will the blood racing in her chest to slow.

She will not bring the toy out and play with it. She’s not giving him control.

Which is not to say she deletes him, not at all.

She slams the box shut and shoves it into her bag — the cat excluded, not out of rejection, but postponement. Because something basic in her — some electric underworld thing — doesn't yet know how to say no.

She walks into the building, ever so slightly, too carefully in her heel clicks for the flush she's pulling. And then into the corridor, where the smells of floor polish and fake coffee from a machine somewhere down the corridor filled the air. Normal things. Safe things.

And then she sees him.

I step into my first period, and yup, Jace is in the halfway row, in the seat with the slump. That Mollye black T-shirt. That fucking forearm thrown over the dumb desk like it fucking owns the place.

She enters, and he looks up.

She doesn’t say a word.

He doesn’t either.

But some kind of current thrums in the air between them — it’s less about what you or your characters say or do than the crackling dance of what can be.

Her blouse pulls in a few places. Not enough to be unprofessional, but sufficient that Mrs. Devlin, the vice principal with a ruler-straight moral compass, would probably arch an eyebrow. The skin under her collar feels hot.

And then just before she finally opens her laptop to get going, her phone buzzes momentarily in her bag.

She doesn’t check it.

Not yet.

But her thighs clamp shut just a little more.

The lesson proceeds in fragments. Letters and numbers on the board. Diagrams. A soft rustle and the sound of a pencil scratching against a pad of paper follow. It’s a staple of this curriculum, which has some version of it every year, and it’s a little tinny tonight; she’s as if playing a song all the words of which she knows, and yet she is thinking of another, unfamiliar, instrument, a slightly off one.

She doesn’t glance at Jace. Not directly. But she feels him. Each time she crosses through his orbit, it’s like walking into a room where the lights have come up slightly too high.

When she calls on another student, she hears him laughing in his throat.

While she writes chalky lines on the board, he pictures his eyes sliding down the slope of her back.

Her mind is playing tricks on her, and worse — it’s letting her believe them. Like muscle memory for a version of herself that doesn’t exist here. A shadow-self from some quantum split where she did give him control. Where surrender wasn’t just imagined, but lived. That version of her knows exactly what he’d do next — a flick, a tease, a threat wrapped in tension — and it floods her with a pressure so tight she can barely breathe.

The folder in her hands snaps shut too loudly on purpose. A few loose pages shuffle free, tumbling sideways.

“Everything alright?” a voice calls from the third row.

Not Jace. A girl. Marissa. Newer student. Bright-eyed, warm. Early twenties. The type who tries to read between lines that haven’t even been drawn yet.

“Okay,” Lena replies, managing a smile — thin, practiced, and nowhere close to real.

Marissa tilts her head. “You just seem… off tonight. Not bad off. Just…” She hesitates, then shrugs. “You’ve got a glow.”

Lena stiffens. “A what?”

Marissa laughs. “Not pressing charges or anything. Just — you look like you’ve got a story. Something from the weekend, maybe?”

Across the room, Jace’s pencil freezes mid-sentence. Still.

Lena forces out a dry chuckle. “Stop overanalyzing me.”

Marissa winks. “Too late.”

Lena turns back to the whiteboard, her pulse hot beneath her collar. The heat rising isn’t just embarrassment. It’s because Jace still hasn’t looked away.

For the rest of the class, she stays buttoned up. Locked in. Professional. Focused.

At least on the outside.

Yet it is teaching with a fuse burning on her desk.

And when she calls the final five-minute break, her body doesn’t open. It coils tighter.

Jace doesn’t stand.

Marissa and the others come clattering out into the hall, already babbling about some silly thing — test days, vending machine Twix. The door closes behind them.

But now it’s just the two of them.

Again.

Lena stands at the front of the room, glancing up at the clock. She doesn’t look at him when she speaks.

“You just going to sit there in silence anytime something breaks?”

Jace shrugs, slow and unbothered. “Didn’t think you wanted to be alone.”

She exhales through her nose — steady, measured. “This isn’t a game.”

 “No,” he says, voice low. “It’s not.”

Her eyes snap to him. “Then don’t pretend it is.”

He stands. Not threatening. Just calm. Confident.

“I’m not playing, Lena.” His voice is steady. Measured. “I’m waiting.”

She blinks. “For what?”

He takes one step forward. “So you can stop acting like you don’t like being a little out of control.”

Her throat tightens. The room is too quiet. Too warm. The toy had never touched her skin all night, and here she was, she thought — as if the goddamn thing had remembered she had skin; as if someone had dared her.

“I’m not faking any of this,” she says, but her voice wavers, folding inward like it doesn’t believe itself.

Jace watches her closely — the way her fingers tremble just before she gathers the papers she’d scattered in a moment of frustration, the way she tries to collect herself with forced precision, as if she can pack away whatever just passed between them. Her breath catches in the middle of it, and he sees it — how deeply affected she is, how much effort it takes to pretend otherwise.

“You sure about that?” he asks, quiet, but pointed.

She doesn’t answer.

“It’s like you dress to disappear,” he says, voice lower now. “Like you don’t want eyes on you. But then…” He tilts his head, just slightly. “Then you go and wear those heels that echo down the hallway. You spray that perfume like it’s part of the lesson plan. And tonight?” He gives a quiet laugh. “You slammed that bathroom door open like you were about to raise hell. Last day and everything.”

She starts to answer, but he’s not finished.

“I didn’t need to see on Snapchat,” he says, “to know you thought about it. You sat with the bag of shells in your lap, your hand on the zipper, and you waited for five minutes. I know you did.”

“How could you possibly—”

“Except I would have done perfectly the Mollye thing.”

Her pulse thrums in her ears.

Jace takes another step forward. His face is now directly in her face. “You said no. I respected that. But it isn’t the no that’s the issue here. It’s the yes, all the yes, you meant to say.

His hand lifts — not a touch, just there between them, like a word half spoken. “Do you think I can’t hear you catch that hitched breath every time I walk into your line of sight? How you arch your back when you know I’m looking at you?”

Lena swallows. Her voice is smaller now. “You’re too confident.”

His eyes don’t waver. “And you’re too scared.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“Nah,” he says, half rising in his chair, slumped in two dimensions along the rickety arm, one corner of his mouth curled up. “You make me scared of the lines that I would cross if I ever made you take one mile over that line down in the dirt where I’ll draw pictures with the shards of your ego.

Her body flushes. She wants to step away. She also wants to lean in.

The other students are settled in their chairs, but she’s restless — shifting, fidgeting, unable to match their stillness. She’s not sure what holds more sway over her: the tension in the room or the urge to escape it.

And then, just like that, the door slides open. That Mollye hallway. That Mollye out.

But she doesn't take it.

She stays.

With him.

Jace leans in again — too close — his breath warm against her temple. It lingers there, not quite a kiss, but close enough that her skin tingles. His voice is softer this time. Slower. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“I’ll be good,” he murmurs. “I’ll pass the class. I won’t touch you.”

It sounds like a promise.

Or a dare.

She’s not sure which one unnerves her more. A beat passes.

“Unless you ask me to.”

Her eyes flutter shut — just for a second too long. “You should go.”

“I will,” he says. “After you ask me one thing.”

He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t kiss her.

Just hovers — close enough for her to feel the pull, the almost of it.

“Ask me if I wanted you to say yes.”

She doesn’t ask.

Not out loud.

She just stands there, breath shallow, not stepping back.

And somehow, that’s louder than anything she could’ve said.

The charge between them is dimmed, not sundered. It’s an air thing, thick and electric; here is a world of snap and hush. He steps back, slowly and gently, giving her space. Giving her time.

She sees his shadow go to the door, where it is just shadowy in an empty classroom. One more look behind him.

Then he’s gone.

Silence descends, and the silence is loud.

Lena breathes out through gritted teeth and spins in her chair, her heart pounding like it never got the memo that things were supposed to be less heavy. She taps on it softly, slowly. She feels her pulse there. Everywhere.

She just stands there for a long time.

Eventually, she gathers her things. Folders. Laptop. Purse. The tiny box, unopened, in the side pocket, too; that was a memory of what he had been condemned forever not to be. What still might.

Running from somewhere up in the hall. It’s cool out, but she’s not. She breathes deeply. Once. Twice.

Still not enough.

At home, she takes showers that are too hot and drinks excessive amounts of wine. (She props the futon against the wall right underneath the ceiling, straddles it, lets herself flop back until her knees are on the insides of her elbows and her eyes looking up at the ceiling all hazy:) And then just stares at the ceiling until she can stop repeating the mantra, and then she can’t see the line anymore (what feels to her like hours of meditating but that can’t be more than one).

[Author’s Note]

🔥 The black box was only the beginning. In Chapter Four, Lena’s control slips further—and Jace isn’t done testing her limits.