Lahat ng Kabanata ng SUBMISSION 101: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

"Oh, absolutely fucking not," I breathe. "What was that?" Linda asks sweetly. "Noth– I... oh fuck," I whisper, my binder clattering to the floor in a heap. The breath is already kicked out of my chest. I struggle to squat, knees squeezed together because my skirt refuses to forgive me, and hastily close the splayed pages. I keep my eyes glued to the carpet, praying that when I look up two of the four people will have vanished. They haven’t. My gaze snaps to his. He’s still there. Real. Inexplicably, terrifyingly real. At least he looks as dumbfounded as I feel. Both Professor Harlan and I gawk at Linda for an explanation. The poor woman looks lost. Harlan clears his throat. "Well. I’ll take her résumé, but I don’t think it’s necessary I stay for this." Meekly, Cora speaks without meeting his eye. "Sir, your branch owns ours; we thought it would be appropriate for you to–" "I won’t be

The next morning at the office is a rough one. The back of my head houses a dull and persistent ache, compliment of my severe lack of sleep from the night before. Every time I pass a reflective surface, I wince at the sight of the grey circles underneath my eyes. I look sunken and exhausted.And I look empty.But at least I’ve had two weeks of uneventful stagnation. Because after Grace approaches me with my new assignment, I’d give anything for some good old deep dissatisfaction instead of what I have on my plate now.“I’m really sorry,” she tells me, “but the receptionist at the Press had her baby, like, weeks early. And her replacement isn’t ready to take over yet.”“Oh,” I mutter, my brain rapidly spinning ideas that might get me out of having to go work in Professor Harlan’s office. Shouldn’t temps replacing employees on maternity leave be prepped for this kind of thing? Isn’t that sort of…the whole point? Has one person been ill-prepared for only me to pay the p

Lips…lips that are soft and hot, but the motion is violent, like he is starving. I am starving too, I realize, and don’t even give question to the possibility of resisting. Professor Harlan turns me, shoving me against the counter.Then, she is gone – the young woman who’d developed a violent crush on her professor a year ago. And I am back. I shove him away but keep my clutches around the collar of his dress shirt. My eyes are dark.“I’ll show you weak,” I spit, giving him another good shove so he is turned around, taking my place pinned against the counter.I grip his tie with one hand and grip his jaw with the other, nails biting into his skin. He groans slowly as I slip my tongue forcefully into his mouth. He steadies his hands on the counter, knocking over papers and supplies. I pin him in place with my hips against his, and the demand within his pants is growing evermore urgent. I don’t ignore it; in fact, I brush against it with my own hips over and over again, ju

Milo and Jax are silent for a long time after I finish talking. Rhea is too, but somehow in a completely different way. While she sits there with her hands in her lap, twiddling her thumbs with the guilt of knowledge, the other two gape at me openly, as if trying to decide whether or not I am playing some sort of sick, practical joke on them. The longer they look at me, the more I feel like I am shrinking, and the more I want to melt into the cracks of the couch cushions beneath me. In my mind briefly flickers the image of Horace Slughorn from the sixth Harry Potter, and in that moment, I too wish I can transform into a piece of furniture to flee from my accountabilities, nondescript and guiltless. And unable to be attacked by my friends.I am exceptionally grateful when Jax finally licks his lips and leans forward in his seat: the tell-tale sign that he is about to say something as soon as he is done grappling with his thoughts. Even if he tells me he thinks I am disgusting and

I walk into work only to be immediately tracked down by Grace, who asks to speak with me privately around 10:00 A.M. in conference room A, I feel my heart hit the floor of my body.This is it.I finally got caught fucking my professor – or, rather, my boss now – and I am fucked.I spend the entire morning in too much crippling, agonizing nervousness to do any work. So instead, I just stare at my computer screen and pretend to work while my fingers tremble violently and I struggle to swallow thanks to the dustiness mounting in my mouth and throat. It is pure agony that I am not in the Press’s office space anymore. If only I can run down the hall and confirm that there are security cameras in the copier room…Not that it matters now.The hour that separates 9:00 and 10:00 feels like a single day squished into sixty minutes. I hate the waiting and want nothing more than to get my sacking over with, until 10:00 comes around, of course, and I am walking into the confe