Chapter 1: Detention or Domination?
The detention hall smelled of floor wax and stale air, the kind of institutional scent that clung to the back of the throat. Desks had been pushed to the walls in a hasty semicircle, leaving the center of the room bare except for a single chair where Joey sat hunched over a notebook, his pen scratching slow, reluctant lines across the page.
Victoria stood over him, one hand braced on the edge of his desk, the other pointing at a paragraph she wanted rewritten. Her blouse was crisp white, tucked into a pencil skirt that hugged her hips with deliberate precision. When she leaned forward to correct his work, the fabric pulled taut across her backside, and Wang caught himself staring before he forced his gaze back to his own empty desk.
He had been there for forty minutes already, silent and still, watching the clock tick toward the end of detention. His own punishment was a formality, a missed homework assignment that had somehow ballooned into an hour of supervised silence. But now the hour was almost up, and Victoria had not even glanced at him since she started helping Joey with his essay.
"Start the sentence with the argument, not the evidence," Victoria said, her voice low and patient. "You have the right idea, but the structure is drowning it."
Joey nodded, erasing a line with more force than necessary. "Sorry, Miss."
"It's not about sorry. It's about doing it right." She straightened, rolling her shoulders, and finally turned to face the rest of the room. Her eyes swept over the empty desks and landed on Wang. "You're quiet today."
Wang shrugged, keeping his expression neutral. "Nothing to say, Miss."
"That's a first." She crossed her arms, and the movement pressed her breasts together beneath the blouse, a detail Wang noticed with the same clinical detachment he might give a math problem. He was good at noticing details. "I've heard a lot about you, Wang. From the other teachers, from the students. Your reputation precedes you."
He let the silence stretch a moment before answering. "What reputation is that, exactly?"
Victoria's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. She walked toward him, her heels clicking against the linoleum, and stopped at the edge of his desk. Up close, she smelled like vanilla and something sharper, maybe the faint bite of coffee. Her eyes were green, and they studied him like she was reading a test answer she wasn't sure she believed.
"I've heard you date a lot of girls," she said. "And I've heard those girls walk a little differently afterward. A little sore."
Wang felt his pulse pick up, but he kept his voice steady.