“Didn’t think you were into bondage like that, Professor. Good to know. Makes me wanna run my mouth even more.” She wondered if that was his intention, or maybe he hoped she’d be one of those delicate flowers in his class that easily backed down because he was older and in charge. No luck of that with Faye, to all the professor’s disdain, she was sure. She had a definite vibe of not giving a fuck and it showed well.
His words, though, brought her eyebrow lifting in a curious way, a challenged way and even a scoff to leave her lips. “It is when it’s written to be the only example of the relationship dynamics. If it’s the only representation the masses are gettin’ and those that are more confident and self assured ‘bout their bodies and attitudes ‘bout sex are bein’ shamed in being as such and the like ‘cause that’s not bein’ a proper woman. When it’s portrayed that only the man is allowed to teach the inexperienced what she likes instead of her just knowin’. It’s damagin’. It’s toxic. And it’s borin’.”
If he had hoped to keep her quiet in this argument, to back down, he had another thing coming. “Tropes are playin’ it safe, and that trope has been done to death. They don’t make people perk up and read and want to explore a dynamic they don’t see, ‘cause maybe it’s somethin’ they yearn for or want for themselves. Maybe they see themselves in them. When the standard is anythin’ but the representation they want.” Shaking her head, she continued, “Why not have a story of exploration of two men? Two women? We know it’d capture a whole generation’s imagination — and one doesn’t have to be experienced, one could be a mess of a human bein’ and the other put together and the two seemingly work. Or two messes gettin’ together and bein’ the only stable thing they’ve had in so long. Why not? If you wanna be brave.”
She was starting to forget she had found him attractive in the first place. Faye was pretty sure she had wandered in here to seduce the living hell out of him. He seemed to push her buttons and was doing it well. Firing her up, crossing her arms in front of her as he had the gall to defend Andrew and seemed to judge her. “What, like this?” she countered, and did just that, straddling his lap, settled as she put her hands at his shoulders, fitting snug atop of him. “This the kinda woman I am, then? Not blushin’ and talkin’ ‘bout how shy I am and whining no, no like the lasses in Andrew’s stories — oh, stories are bein’ kind, his spank bank material? The way he views women? What he expects of them?” She laughed, “Maybe what you expect of ‘em? Hm? Is that the kinda women you’re into? That blush and sputter and pretend they don’t want you, don’t want your big, fat cock but oh, you just know they do.” Which would have been severely disappointing. “Or do you favor the kinda women that could excite you?” Arching a brow, “Maybe those type of tropes of women are valid, I’ll cop to that, but women like me are valid as well. Or d’you….not feel that?”
Faye’s words spoke of passion but a certain degree of inexperience that he doubted she’d ever admit that she had. She acted as though she knew the whole of the literary world, had read everything there was to find, had interviewed every member of a genre’s audience to understand what they wanted. As she spewed her fervent opinions, his lips quirked just at the edges - just barely.
“Faye, for all your shit about capturing a generation’s imagination, you are so fucking young,” he drawled. He wasn’t here to be nice or sweet or sugarcoat anything. “I can honestly say that anything you think doesn’t exist has already been written. It’s already been published. You simply haven’t looked for it. You think you can’t sell an entire series of books just by marketing it by a single trope? You think people don’t have specific comforts they find and read? You think there aren’t women who sweat every time they read books about a powerful man teaching some naïve ingenue how to pleasure herself?”
He had more to say. So much more. More to lecture about - hell, he was close to assigning homework, if she kept running her mouth like that when so much of what she believed was ridiculously wrong. But then she stunned him.
She slid into his lap instead.
Marlin’s eyes widened as he went completely silent, his hands gripping the arms of his chair painfully. Student, he thought as loudly as he could with one half of his mine, while the other railed that she’s an adult, she can drink, she can smoke, she can fight, she can do all but rent a car, it’s not like she’s a child. It took a long moment for her words to sink into his mind - he was far too distracted by the shape of the lips saying them.
Marlin sucked in a slow breath to try and steady himself, as though the heat and pressure on his lap wasn’t stirring something else entirely. “My job isn’t to say my opinion,” Marlin murmured, his heart thudding a bit faster - hard enough he could half hear it. “My job is to let every student write what they want to, then critique it on the basis of grammar and craft, and push them to grow. That’s what I do for Andrew.” His bright blue gaze flicked all over her face. He’d push her away. Eventually. But right now he felt as though they were both making a stand, and he had no desire to flinch first. “You want my opinion? Andrew isn’t going to get laid for another decade, and he’s never going to be picked up by a publisher as long as he keeps copying what his favorite filthy authors have written time and time again. But my job is to make him keep writing, because otherwise he’s never going to learn how to write better.”
Fuck, the weight of her was intoxicating. He hadn’t realized he’d leaned back slightly in his chair so she loomed above him like a stunning statue. “As for my opinion about the women I fuck, I don’t believe I owe it to you when you’re demanding it so rudely.”
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