บท 8: A New Transgression
Somewhere along the way I was promoted to his "little assistant" – or so he told the scientists once we arrived at the Fossil lab, in order to let me through without having to answer too many questions. I shyly followed as he let himself in, leaving all the talking to him – I did, however, wonder what his excuse would be – or mine, for that matter – once I returned there the next day with Calem and the gang, and his colleges realized that I was nothing but a student, just like my friends.
After showing me around the big, white lab, Professor Sycamore wheeled me upstairs to his "improvised" office – A large space, equally white and cold looking, which had apparently been a storage room before. Apart from all the counters packed with tubes, glasses and bottled fluids, one large desk stood in the middle and some shelves spread across the walls with a handful of books filling them. A sofa turned to the window, probably serving as both rest space and sleeping bed, and, on the other wall, some complex machinery completed the picture of a mad scientist's lab; and though I looked their way in curiosity, I decided not to inquire after them: As soon as Sycamore opened the door to his office and ushered me in, he instantly disappeared behind his desk and left me to wander as I pleased. Now seated, he hurriedly ran through a mess of papers: urgent matters, for sure, that could not be interrupted by his babysitting a student so she wouldn't tell on him – I comically thought to myself, and resumed my careful paces around the lab.
"So... uhm... Anne..." He distractedly began.
I turned my head to see him, but his bright eyes had not left the paper. "What are they like... your friends?"
"They're... okay,"
It took him a while to realize I had answered him already.
"Uhum! Tell me more about them..." He pursued, his voice distant and dull. I unwillingly began, knowing he wasn't paying attention: He was planning to keep me talking in an attempt to hide the fact that he was too busy to mind me, I was sure. But how could I be mad? It was sweet of him to care, anyway... Or was that still his sweetness trying to buy my silence? I sighed.
"Calem is... competitive. As much as it gets, actually." I now looked into a glass with a green liquid inside, watching my own reflex "And Trevor is a nerd..."
I somehow fell into his trap, and when I realized it, I had been talking nonstop in some sort of confession about how I didn't share any of my friends' interests or enthusiasm in that journey – and if by intervals their hard work happened to inspire me, in times like these – when I was left alone to analyze it – the expectation buried me! I specially hated having to battle against them: I didn't want to do that! I didn't want to see who was better, and who was worst, lest someday I might end up last. I didn't want to be the outsider, the foreigner... because I was!
Charmander called me away by dropping something – I had decided to make it a general rule letting him out of his pokeball when Sycamore was near, so they could see each other again; and this time, after rubbing against the Professor's legs waiting for a pet in the head and receiving none from the busy man, he had gone about his business exploring the lab just as much as I had. I was distracted enough to lose track of him and now, looking over, he was hanging from the counter; his clumsy little arms barely holding his weight, dropping tubes and the likes to the floor as he strained to climb up.
"Oh crap! Hey, Charmander!!" I quickly grabbed him and dragged him away from his newly found toys. The angry creature began growling and biting on my arms trying to cut loose.
"Professor, I'm so sorry! I got distracted for a second and he just..." I looked gravely towards him.
But all Sycamore did was smile to himself, still looking at his papers, and just as he wasn't paying attention to me, he also didn't hear the sound of his experiments dropping to the floor and shattering into glass shards.
He left his desk and walked in quick paces towards me, carefully grabbed charmander from my arms and placed him on the floor – the little beast looking quite confused – and took hold of my hand, pulling me with him to the back of his office.
"Now, now, Anne..." He started, hopefully not caring to look at my face and see me blush. A charming enthusiasm covered his voice, and distracted him from everything else but the mysterious reason inspiring it "Remember what I told you about catching up with your oh-so-neglected Pokédex?"
"Y-yes..." I answered, although I seemed to miss the part where he regarded it as neglected.
He opened a hatch door to what looked like a safe deposit – except for all the wires and fuses – and placed there a tiny piece of a rock.
"If I can adjust this to work with 15% of the needed material and rebuild an entire DNA chain from scratch.... Then you might have something else to defeat Grant with... And Calem, too, if you please."
"Grant?"
"Why, yes!" He closed the door tightly, pressed a few buttons and turned a switch, finally turning back to me with a soft, confident smile: "The leader at Cyllage's gym. You should know by now that he specializes in rock types...
"Does he?" I mumbled to myself, following Sycamore across the lab.
"And now?!" I asked, standing in front of him as he sat on his desk and studied his watch.
"Now we wait..." He placidly declared, pocketing it after setting an alarm.
His eyes weighed on me for an instant then, the awkward silence announcing itself and threatening me.
"Then I promise you shall be dismissed from my presence" He faintly smiled, his eyes moving from the different corners of my face, most likely misinterpreting my discomfort.
Under his blue, fresh, enthralling examination, I couldn't help but feel spiked by his words – by the careless goodbye he announced. I turned away so he couldn't see further into me, and walked to the window on the other side of the lab. The view from there, however, decided not to help with my case: Thick clouds gathered around the sky, and they lit up from time to time with an announcing thunder. I could see the ocean in the distance moving more wildly, lonelier and colder than it was before: That's what waited me out there, and I had to go.
I was no scared child, but facing the grey of a storm wasn't easy when you had to exchange it for a warm room like that, and a pleasant company. I should have kept in mind that it was all only an exaggerated apology – a "take this plush doll and don't tell your mama what the professor did to you" date, and reminded myself of it throughout the day... But, somehow, I let my heart best my brain, and judge with the warm feelings the delicate attention Sycamore gave me. The air around me grew chilly, parting from the cold walls, and the song of a gush of wind shaking the window gave me shivers. I thought I could feel his warm hands involving my arms...
"What a pity, is it not?" His voice sounded like a distant whisper, but I could feel the hot breath too close to my ears.
It wasn't my imagination, after all: Now his fingers ran up my arms so softly that my nerves could hardly tell. He was behind me, I could feel his hair lightly brushing against mine as he leaned down to talk into my ears.
"A... pity?" I faintly repeated.
"That the day started as such a fine one, and now it should end in rain!" He concluded, placing his warm hands on my shoulders and resting them there.
I turned to look at him and his otherwise placid expression changed, his eyebrows tensed:
"And you look so too, darling: As gloomy as that sky, if not more... Could it be something I've said?"
"No... not at all, really..." I mumbled unwillingly, and the Professor immediately let go of me.
The air grew colder, much more unbearable, and I embraced myself to stop a shiver while my eyes sullenly traced the ground.
"What is it, dear?!" He lifted my chin in his hand and his eyes investigated into mine.
I pulled away before he could see the truth – the one that I hardly admitted myself.
"Nothing, I'm just cold..."
I heard a quick smile cross his lips "So cold you didn't want me to let go of you?"
"No! It's nothing like that!!" Pride answered angrily.
Sycamore smiled and casually walked closer to me, placing his hand on my back and pulling me against his chest. I blushed, paralyzed with embarrassment. My chest lit up again in that weird mixture of pleasing surprise and apprehension – after all, that's what was making me sad: That I should leave him without receiving any of that special attention he mistakenly gave me the other day... But I seemed to have forgotten how weird they made me feel, in a way that made me almost regret not leaving immediately.
"If you didn't want to go, you should have said so already. What is the point in holding back?"
My breath picked up – his tranquil face was too close to mine, too untroubled by my clear discomfort.
"I brought you here to make it up to you. To apologize for a transgression I must admit I don't fully feel guilty of committing - not the only guilty, at least, for now I can better understand what let me to transgress in the first place. You, darling..." he smirked "You are stiff as a stone in my arms, and yet..." His arm circled my waist and pulled me closer, yielding a gasp out of me, but his free hand quickly silenced the beginning of a fit by taking hold of my face in his warm palm. It made me feel numb...
"You're doing it again, little Anne..." He smiled maliciously. My eyes felt heavy...
"Doing what, Professor?" I mumbled faintly.
"Acting as if you couldn't resist me..."
My eyes grew wild, his narrowed and his smile stretched farther:
"...as if you couldn't bear this lack of distance I hold between our bodies. But aren't you too young for such feelings, dear? ...To feel like you actually want me to hold you close?"
I must have unconsciously jerked away, moved by crude embarrassment, cause I felt his arms tighten around me and his voice grow meaner:
"Ah yes... Poor little Anne..." Here he held my cheeks between his rigid fingers, keeping me from looking away from those hawk, predatory eyes "too young and too innocent to know that her body will sometimes speak in a different language, function with sensations in spite of the brain's logic..."
Still keeping his hold on me, he ran his thumb through my lower lip and pressed it there for a while, proving his point by controlling how my nerves responded, then smiled, somehow managing to see the sign of an electric current running down my spine.
"Your scared eyes tell me 'what was that? I shivered, and yet I'm not cold...'" he giggled "'I want to tell him to stop, but I can't'" He verbalized my thoughts through a most composed and low voice, then pulled me closer with his fingers and observed in cruel fascination. "I, too, would like to stop, dear... But cannot! Not when you look at me as you do now, with a pair of scared eyes that so much as beg me to devour you gently... Not when your feverish body overreacts to the slightest touch, longing for the unknown with nerves you didn't know existed..."
I put my hands on his chest – it made me feel ready to push him away whenever I felt he had gone too far, giving me a faint sense of security; but he grabbed my wrist then, and the burning sense of danger returned, doing more damage than the first time – utter terror somehow pinned me to him even more, my muscles no longer responded to my despair.
"I, as a man, should know not to meddle with such pristine innocence... To keep from tainting it with these claws, though this one in particular tempts me so! It is just not right." His eyes looked merciful for a second, and then narrowed again, his brows tensing "But you see, Anne, I am much stronger a scientist than I am a man, and I wish to make your body react to me until it can't turn away no more... To pull every single nerve into existence and watch as you become aware of them, agonizing between that pleasure and hesitation, shyness and lust of yours... All expressed in those young, unaware, half developed features..."
He pushed me back and I dropped on the soft couch. He leaned quickly, keeping me from escaping – both his hands held the armrest behind my head, serving as bars; and he approached, placing his knee between my own and making me gasp as his pants brushed on the skin around my thighs.
"One word, Anne – it is all it takes! Give me the word, and I shall teach you the meaning of each one of those strange sensations clouding your mind..."
"No..." I moaned lazily, trying to center my thoughts through his treacherous words. He giggled lightly, as if I had made a cute joke, & my failed attempt served as nothing but amusement.
His knee drew closer between my legs. Simultaneously I could feel his soft, warm breath caressing my face... I could hardly breathe between it all!
"Are you sure you don't want me to?" He smiled into me, placing his knee under my skirt.
I could not answer... I could only gasp and look into his eyes begging for a break as he pushed his leg deeper between mine. I moaned, and suspected it wasn't for a pause that my eyes seemed to be begging.
"Why don't we decide that after I have kissed your lips again? ...I'm sure you remember how to do that, don't you?" – He teased.
The image of his lips pierced into my mind – the remembrance of their touch burned deep, returning stronger than it was. My eyes grew numb, closing and preparing for it... Professor Sycamore took the lead: his lips pressed lightly against mine, and I quickly looked away, escaping it in an ultimate fit of cowardice. I heard him laugh again...
"I see... it is a no, then? Well... I shall take the liberty to consider this an invitation..." I felt my shirt moving, being pulled around my neck, exposing my collar bone "That I can at least taste you... for now..."
His fingers brushed on my heart and up my neck, leaving a warm trail on their way that made me grunt and squirm.
"You don't even have to..." I felt the sound of his voice growing distant, muffled against my chest "...compromise yourself with a word, good girl as you are..."
I felt it then: the feeling I so dreaded. The uncomfortable, unstoppable wave, the long fall to whatever impact awaited below: his lips touched me, warm – no, too hot! – and kissed their way up to my neck in gentle, repetitive pecks that began to grow in pressure. His body moved, jerked... He wrapped his arm against me, firmly securing my back as he sunk his face into my collar; traces of his wet tongue could be felt here and there on my skin.
He pulled me under himself, his grip tightened whenever I tried to move... His left leg folded by my side kept me from rolling away... His knee between my legs kept me from fighting too hard.
The unwelcome, confusing warmth of his large hand penetrated my blouse, sliding up until I could feel the contours of his bony fingers pressing against the base of my breast. My heart began racing in a treacherous panic – treacherous because it filled me with fear, telling me exactly what would happen if I didn't manage to stop him... but it also infused my veins with a hot flow that made it harder to decide to leave.
"S-Sycamore!!" I groaned weakly, gathering the will to hold his chest in a faint attempt to push him away.
"I can make it feel even better..." he whispered, grabbing my mouth in his before further protest.
And there it was again – his taste, his tongue, the unashamed invasion that, the more unsought, the more belonged... I moaned lightly, melting, fainting beneath his touch. And when I felt like it was done, like I could drown in there, I didn't care to fight anymore... He stopped kissing me and stopped moving, now gazing calmly into my eyes.
"What did I tell you, dearest?" He smiled, proud of himself in face of my defeat. I looked away, too embarrassed to give him any other confirmation than my giving up.
His eyes moved and his lips stretched more, his fingers picking up the first button on my blouse. "Allow me to do it, and I shall give you a taste on the core of all the burning..." he unbuttoned the first one, then slowly slid his fingers to the next, leisurely savoring it as he savored his words "And make you feel things you didn't imagine your body was made to feel..." One more button popped open "All you have to do is..." he bent closer "Promise to keep it a secret..." He whispered as his lips closed around my ear.
I panicked, my body finally recalling what type of response to give to all that adrenaline the brain had been desperately pouring forth: I made a sudden jump, falling to the floor and half bringing Sycamore with me.
"NO!!" I screamed, picking myself up and running to the door, even escaping his quick grasp on my arm.
Sycamore gazed at me in extreme surprise, and then smiled as he pulled himself together and pulled back the locks of hair falling over his eyes.
"My dear Anne... I'll be so bold as to promise you will be mine!" – A conceited smile lurked in the lips he ran his fingers by, wiping it from how much it had been consuming my mouth.
I picked up Charmander, who had been distracted on the far corner of the lab, and slammed the door behind me.
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