Noah smiled and sent off a message:You know what to say to make it stop.
The reply came less than ten seconds later.
not a quitter. u better make this up to me later i’m dying over here.
Noah’s smile deepened. He sent off a heart emoji and then pocketed his phone, his headache already weaker despite the bright phone screen light. He could already tell that, despite his heavy workload, he would find himself coming up with things he was going to do to Benji later. They’d had a good start, but he wanted to find Benji’s limits. He’d meant what he said in the sugar baby ad: he wanted to dominate, spoil, and overwhelmBenji until he couldn’t take it. He’d pushed Benji pretty far, but his baby could take more.
He just had to find out how much.
CHAPTER 5
There were only eight students crowded into Mr. Jervais’s small classroom, and Dillion’s easel was right across from Benji’s. Every time Benji glanced up, Dillion’s beady stare was unavoidable. Even if he immediately looked away, pretending to examine the clock or his shoes or, god forbid, his own paper, which he hadn’t touched until Mr. Jervais barked at him to pick up a paintbrush or get out.
Benji slotted his paper into the drying rack, green paint smudging onto his thumb. He wiped it on his shirt. He needed to change before his date anyway.
“Move,” came a sulky voice behind him.
Benji turned. Dillion was standing there, glowering, his paper hanging from his hand. Before Benji could do anything, Dillion scoffed, dug an elbow into his side, and shoved his paper into the drying rack.
Benji expected him to storm off. But Dillion lingered, invading Benji’s space as the other students filed out.
“Not so toughnow,” Dillion muttered. “You know people don’t get away with shit like that, right? Not with me.”
Benji was caught between the urge to shove him away and the urge to roll his eyes. Dillion acted like he was still in highschool. Benji couldn’t stand these assholes when hewasin high school, and he wasn’t going to tolerate them as an adult.
“That’s weird,” Benji said. “Because I think I totally did, you creepy fuck.”
Benji stepped back. He was still tempted to snarl, maybe bare his teeth, freak Dillion out a little bit. But he was still clinging to that calm Noah had promised him. It was still there in the background, no cock cage needed: he was beinggood. Noah was taking him out later. Dillion’s little pissing contest didn't matter when he had that to look forward to.
Dillion opened his mouth. But before he could let loose with some jock-ish jab, a loud clap startled the last few remaining students into attention.
Mr. Jervais stood at the front of the class, hands raised. He was a tall, heavy-lidded man with dark brown skin and an unaffected manner, his flat tone making Benji think he was a dick for the first few months before slowly realizing that no, hediddole out the occasional compliment. He just saved them for when he really meant them. And he did it in the same droll manner he did everything else, which made some students—Benji included—think he was being a sarcastic jackass at first.
“Since some of you are still asking,” Mr. Jervais started, adjusting his ever-changing array of turtlenecks. “The exhibition is in two months, on the fifteenth. The due date is thefourteenth. You can’t hand it in on the day.Yes, you have to enter.Yes, this counts for eighty percent of your grade. And shockingly enough,yes, you might get paid.No, that is not a guarantee. It’s a small gallery, and it’s going to be filled with your friends and family, most of whom are not going to be handing out big bucks for a watercolor of a single orange painted by a college student. What day is the hand-in?”
“Fourteenth,” everybody chorused.
He clapped again. “See you next week.”
Benji stepped past Dillion, maturely resisting the urge to slam him into the wall as he did so. As he was about to hit the door, Mr. Jervais spoke up again.
“Caulfield. Stick around.”
Benji stopped. He stepped out of the way of Dillion, whohadbeen trying to knock him into the wall as he passed. He glanced at the door long enough to catch Dillion glaring, then turned to Mr. Jervais and the now-empty classroom.
“What’s up?”
Mr. Jervais didn’t look up from the papers he was sorting. “Your work’s changed this past semester. Brighter. More expressive. Focusing on small things from real life, not those big dark abstract pieces I’m used to seeing from you.”
“Okay,” Benji said slowly. “And you… want me to go back to dark and abstract?”
“No. I want you to lean into whatever you’ve tapped into.” Mr. Jervais straightened, pinning Benji with a look that made him sweat. Mr. Jervais did not fuck around. He got to the point, and he got to it as fast and brutally as he could.
“Your past stuff was decent,” he continued. “But it lacked passion. You hadn’t settled into it properly. That piece you brought in last week, the close-up of that man chopping a tomato. It was very tender. The colorwork, especially. Who did you use as a reference?”
“Oh, just—” Benji shrugged, telling his heart to stop pounding. “A friend let me take photos while he was making dinner. Used that as a reference.”
It was actually breakfast. The second breakfast Noah ever made for him: heirloom tomatoes and soft cheese on crackers, sprinkled with sea salt and cracked pepper. Benji had drawn his hands from memory. It was only Noah’s hands in frame, one hand on the knife handle, juice on the board as the tomato rolled into halves, newly cleaved.
