I never knew an afterglow could last for a full week and a half.

Every time I think of that first release into Nicole, the hairs on my arms stand up. I get goosebumps, and my cock twitches as if I was inside her again.

I’ve been avoiding her.

After I left her apartment, I turned off my phone.

This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m not supposed to doubt my resolve. Every relationship is on a timer, but the way my cock fit her, with her wrapped around me like a glove. The way she obeyed all of my orders just right, I had a sudden and primal urge to protect her. To never let her go.

And that’s dangerous. I can’t lose my edge like this. So the only thing to do is avoid her, to gain some distance before I talk to her again.

She’s teaching a class right now. I didn’t go to my office in case she came to look for me.

I’m sure she’s hurting, but she can tell herself that I’m doing this as some kind of exercise in pain. That I’m intentionally avoiding her to make it that much better when I fuck her again. When I spank her, order her around, choke her…

I look down and see a huge bulge. I’m outside the cathedral on a bench, so I lean back and focus on my breathing, hoping the erection will subside.

I look up at the cathedral, knowing she’s inside. As if the whole cathedral was built around her just to contain her radiance. I could go see her right now.

There’s no way I’m going to break it off with her now. It’s dangerous that I feel this close and connected, but it’s not within my power to give her up yet. I’ll have to just keep going, and eventually I’ll make an exit plan.

Surely I’ll tire of her. The first time is usually the best. I’ll be able to toy with her, make my orders more demanding, and see how much pain she can still enjoy and endure. Those will all be fun things to explore, but the shine of it being new should fade with time, and that will make things easier to finally break off entirely.

Or am I just telling myself that? I’ve never felt such a strong connection after a first time. I always feel this thrill and rush, but never do I feel a real and meaningful connection. Could it be that the sex was just so good that I think I feel that connection?

I find myself walking. Toward the cathedral. Toward her. Maybe if I just see her again, I can get it over with.

After about ten minutes, I’m outside the door to the class she’s teaching. I wasn’t planning to go in today—even before I fucked her—because I wanted to give the message that I trusted her to teach on her own. I don’t think she needs me babysitting her. I know she can handle teaching this class.

But I’m not visiting the class to see how she teaches. I just want to see her.

I open the big wooden door and step inside. The students turn around, and some whisper. Nicole looks up at me and pauses mid-sentence.

I wave for her to go on, and I grab an empty seat near the back. She’s wearing tight black pants and a white blouse. She looks a lot more professional and a lot less like she’s trying to get my attention than before. It fails, though—she gets my attention. My eyes run up and down her body, and memories of what we did flood through me. I struggle to control my breathing as I watch her speak. I can tell she’s distracted by me. Her usual confident tone sounds cautious and tenuous. She keeps trying to not look at me, which means she looks at me just from the corner of her eyes, and usually after each time she finishes a thought.

Go on, Ms. Faria, teach. Don’t let me distract you.

Nicole stumbles on for a while longer, and eventually someone raises his hand.

“I’m still lecturing,” she says.

He wiggles his hand, but doesn’t interrupt her.

She sighs. “Yes?”

“Can I ask Dr. Leeds a question?” he asks, and he begins to turn toward me before Nicole can even answer.

“No!” she snaps. “You cannot. He’s not even supposed to be here.”

I turn up my palms at the student—I think his name is Craig—hoping he won’t ask me the question and further enrage Nicole.

The students all start snickering and whispering.

I raise an eyebrow at Nicole, hoping she’ll take the hint to calm down. If she’s visibly angry at me in front of her whole class, they might get suspicious.

She glares at me just long enough that I know she’s well and truly angry with me, but she at least starts to gain control of herself, which essentially means ignoring me. She gets back into her groove teaching, becomes more animated, and her lecture becomes interesting and engaging again. She doesn’t so much as look at me again throughout the whole lecture.

When she finishes, some students try to come ask me questions, but I wave them off. “Ms. Fa—Ms. Weissman is your teacher now. Ask her.”

I wait in the back while she handles her students, and when she finishes with the last one, I see her hurriedly rushing toward the door behind the student.

“Ms. Weissman,” I say in my deepest, most authoritative voice.

She stops, her hand still holding the door open, one step away from walking out on me without saying a word.

She finally looks at me, tears filling her eyes, but she bites her lip and flips back to anger. “What?”

“I thought you’d be glad to see me,” I say. It’s not fully ego, I’m testing her reaction, though I do admit I did think she’d be happy to see me.

She scoffs, still hanging in the doorway. She really should close the door.

I step toward her, and she takes a half step back, nearly falling out into the hallway.

“You’re upset,” I say. “That I didn’t talk to you afterward.”

She rolls her eyes. “You think? Honestly, Dr. Leeds, I thought it was already time. You’ve been avoiding me for two weeks! I thought you’d moved on. You said it wouldn’t be forever, so why not just once?”

I shake my head. “That’s not it. Once is not nearly enough.”

She looks at me like I’m an idiot. I can see how she’d think my actions over the past few days don’t quite match my words.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I say.

“How?” she asks.

“Everyone has a deep, dark fantasy.” I point to the door. “Shut that door.”

She looks at me with hesitation, but then realizes I’m ordering her. She lets go of the door. It slides shut.

“Tell me yours,” I say. “I’ll make it happen.”

Her face turns red.

“Tell me,” I hiss, leaning closer into her.

“Not here,” she says.

“Whatever you want,” I say. “That’s what makes it a fantasy.”

“For so long,” she says, “you’ve been my fantasy. And I thought I’d had you, and—”

“It’s rare, Ms. Faria, for a man like me to let you choose like this. Don’t squander it. Whatever you ask will be with me, that’s a given; dig deeper.”

She shakes her head. “Forget it.”

“No,” I say, pressing her against the door, my wide shoulders and chest looming in front of and above her, just inches from her breasts.

“It’s stupid,” she says.

“Nothing you want is stupid,” I whisper. “I want to give you exactly what you want. If you hold back just because of embarrassment, it will be so much less than it could be.”

“Turn around,” she says, her cheeks going totally red. Burning red.

I turn around. I feel her breasts press into my back, and she wraps one hand around my waist, while grabbing my cock through my trousers with the other.

“You promise you’ll do it,” she says. “No laughing at me, no questioning, you’ll just do it?”

“I promise,” I say, facing toward the front of the lecture hall. I’m unable to see her eyes.

“Okay,” she says. “This is what will happen. Tonight I’m going to text you a location and a time. You don’t respond to it at all…”

Yes. Yes. She’s thought about this before. In detail. It’s not some vague fantasy she’s going to fumble out to me, it’s something she’s thought about numerous times. She’s run it through her head, asking herself how each little step would go down, I can already tell from how she started, and my cock stiffens hard beneath her hand as I anticipate her fantasy unfolding before me.

“You’re going to go there at the time I tell you,” she says. “And you’re going to be someone else. Not Elijah Leeds. You’ll need to buy some clothes this afternoon, something that Elijah Leeds wouldn’t wear.”

The temptation to tease her now is strong, but I resist. If I tease her or joke around, I risk her clamming up and telling me to forget it. She’s made me look away from her out of embarrassment, it wouldn’t do to poke fun at her now. Still, the irony is not lost on me: she told me I was her fantasy, but now she’s telling me I can’t be Elijah Leeds. I settle for twitching my cock against her hand in response, a way of nodding to her that I’m listening and intrigued.

“When you get there,” she says. “I should be flirting with another guy. I’m not actually interested in him at all, but I want you to steal me from him, humiliating him in the process.”

My cock twitches involuntarily now. This is too good.

“You’re a man who takes what you want, and you want me. I want the fucking opposite of these past two weeks where you ignored me. You look at me, and there’s no resisting it, you have to take me, by force if necessary.”

She pauses, squeezing my cock but not stroking or moving. Is she waiting for me to say anything? I put a hand on her wrist, and I move her hand up and down along my long, hard shaft.

I hear her moan, and she presses her cheek into my back. She continues speaking, and I feel the vibrations of her voice echoing through me as she speaks.

“You’re going to take me to a hotel,” she says. “That’s your goal, and you’re going to fuck me as if it was your last night on Earth. The thing is, I’m going to protest. I’m going to tell you no. I’ll put up a fight the whole time, and I’ll tell you I don’t want it. I’ll tell you it hurts, and I’ll beg you to stop.”

She moves her other hand from my waist to my chest, and she runs her hand up and down my six-pack abs through my shirt. “The thing is, Dr. Leeds, I don’t want you to stop. I just want to feel you fight for it. I want you to take it from me. Tonight, ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no,’ it just means ‘push harder.’”

“Unless I say ‘morning bell,’” she continues, “then you don’t stop. That’s the only word that really means ‘stop,’ do you understand? That's the safe word.”

“I understand,” I say, my voice heavy and shaking with anticipation.