His obsession, his muse.

3. Zara

I was woke up in a mess, because my life was a mess, I barely got any sleep because tell me how I'm to handle the fact a lecturer I'm to look up to knows I'm a stripper, a very slutty one at that, i will never be taken serious and combined with that, I wanted him to f**k me, like f**k me so bad because I know with those muscles on his arms, I'll need help wobbling out of his office.

The morning completed its disaster after Iman, my drunk husband, opened his eyes.

“Zara, come on, where are you? I need a cup of water.” He yelled

“Get it your damn self” I called back.

“I'm gonna call the cops on you, your visa is expired you b***h, I'll tell em and they will throw you both, I mean yer son and you, throw you all out” he yelled.

“We are married, they can't do that any more.” I said.

“ you manipulative witch, I want a divorce, I want you out.”

“ you can get one, you make me sick anyways and I pay your f*****g bills.” And that was it , he was out throwing blows at me, few landed on my face and the rest I dodged. I kicked him hard on his stomach, he was done in no time and unconscious.

I just need my marriage to this fool finalised and I'm leaving his ass.

He woke up in the mood sometimes.

Just a general dissatisfaction with his own existence that he had decided years ago was most efficiently directed at me. Words first, then the glass he knocked off the counter that I cleaned up while he watched. I got Caleb dressed and fed with the focused efficiency of a woman operating around a hazard, kissed my son's forehead at the school gate, watched him disappear through the doors and stood on the pavement for a moment just breathing.

Then I went to school looking and feeling exactly like what I was. A woman who had already lived an entire day before ten in the morning.

I found the right room, checked the number against my timetable twice, and walked in. I chose a seat toward the middle, set my things down, and looked up when the door opened again.

He walked in wearing a white crisp shirt tucked into grey flannel pants, clean in the specific way of someone who had never once that morning had to wrestle a four year old into a school uniform or clean up someone else's mess before leaving the house. He looked like he had simply woken up and existed effortlessly into the day. It was deeply irritating. This man was beautiful.

I did the mental arithmetic without meaning to. Twenty five. He was twenty five years old standing in front of a postgraduate class like it was the most natural thing in the world, like age was simply a technicality he had decided not to be governed by. I had almost a decade on him and I looked it up this morning in a way I was uncomfortably aware of.

He set his things on the desk at the front, looked out at the room once, and then his eyes found me and stayed.

Not a sweep of the room. Not a general survey of his students. Directly to me, like I was a fixed point he had already located before walking in and was simply confirming was still there.

I looked down at my notepad.

“ Good day everyone. I'm Cillian Murphy. I'll be taking you the course “ Depiction of the Human body on Canvas 107.”

You've all been carefully selected to take this course. It is an honour. To begin with I'm an artist. A painter at best. Please introduce yourself. I'm good with names, don't be bothered that I won't remember.”

Each person stood up introducing themselves.

“Thomas Jefferson, pleasure to meet you personally sir, I'm a big fan”.

He responded with a nod.

I was next. I stood up wobbling, almost tripping, god! He hadn't even f****d me yet.

His eyebrow raised and I successfully stuttered, “Zara Stapleton, pleasure to meet you.”

“You are alright Zara?” He asked looking me in the eyes and right there, I knew he was aware, he was aware I wanted him to f**k me and he was also aware I'm wet in my panties. He was. I nodded and he gave me his signature smirk.

This man was aware of how attractive he was and how he was wanted. It made me disgusted with myself. Everyone thought I was sexy and wanted to smash me. And I enjoyed the attention. Never in my wildest dreams had it occurred to me that I would want a man and he wouldn't want me back.

It hurt deep. I hate his control, his face and his stupid d**k and from now on, he f*****g me is out of the window.

I sat back with determination, to get through this year and away from him for life.

He began talking about the course, the expectations, the approach he intended to take. His voice in a teaching context had a different quality from his office voice, still controlled but with more space in it, more room for the words to settle. I was trying to pay attention to the content and finding it difficult because he had not stopped looking at me. Not aggressively. Not obviously enough that anyone else would necessarily notice. Just with that steady, unhurried attention that I was beginning to understand was simply how he looked at things he found interesting.

It made me feel like a subject rather than a student and I couldn't decide if that was a compliment or not.

The class ran its length. When it ended and people began gathering their things he said, without raising his voice or directing it anywhere in particular,

"Zara. A moment."

The students filed out around me. I stayed in my seat until the room was empty then gathered my bag and walked to the front, stopping a reasonable distance from his desk.

"You look dull," he said. Not unkindly. Just as an observation, the way someone might note that the weather had changed.

Something in me that had been held carefully in place all morning came loose.

"I look dull," I repeated.

"Tired. Like the day got to you before it properly started."

"With respect," I said, and my voice had taken on a quality I recognised, the one that appeared when I had run out of the energy required to be palatable, "I don't think that's your business. And I'd also like to address the fact that you have been staring at me in a belittling manner since you walked into that room and I sat in your office last week like you had never seen me before in your life, which we both know is not true, and I am so tired of men thinking they can make me uncomfortable about what I do and then act like… Just leave me alone. I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions…"

"Whatever is this about Zara?” He queried innocently.