LRL | The Tyrant’s Submission

“Ms. Tasha is so fucking hot,” Grey muttered, the words thick with a mix of reverence and resentment. He leaned against the plush leather interior of the van, the tip of his cigarette glowing like a warning light. The boys sat in a tense, hungry silence, their eyes fixed on the main gate—waiting for the one person who made this hellhole of a school worth the commute.

She was the Director’s daughter, a fresh graduate with no experience but enough influence to command a room. To the students, she was a forbidden curriculum; to the three boys in the van, she was a lethal temptation.

Coal didn’t answer. He sat with his hands draped over the steering wheel, his eyes hooded, watching as a luxury red coupe pulled up to the curb. When Tasha stepped out, the air in the van seemed to vanish.

She was a study in contrasts: the professional crispness of her dark red blouse against the scandalous length of a black miniskirt. Inside the school, Tasha wore her strictness like armor. Every sharp reprimand, every cold glare she directed at Coal was a desperate attempt to drown out the voice in her head that noticed the way his uniform strained against his shoulders or how his dark, knowing eyes seemed to strip her bare in the middle of a lecture. Her pulse thrummed a frantic rhythm against her collar, a traitorous physical response to a boy who represented everything she was supposed to look down upon. She hated how her intellect felt like a brittle glass house whenever he looked at her, and she hated even more the terrifying suspicion that he could see the cracks forming in her foundation.

Coal remained in the light as she scanned the street, his eyes locking onto hers. He saw the flicker of panic behind her irritation—the telltale sign that she was fighting the very pull he felt. He exhaled a cloud of smoke, a silent, brazen challenge. Tasha turned on her heel and marched inside, her heart hammering a rhythm her “tyrant” persona couldn’t quite mask.

The English classroom was a pressure cooker of humidity and unspoken threats. Tasha stood behind her desk, her posture so rigid it looked painful. She felt like a fraud, a little girl playing dress-up in her father’s authority while her skin burned with a fever only the boy in the third row could ignite. She gripped the edge of her mahogany desk until her knuckles turned white, trying to ground herself in the reality of her position. She stared at Coal, her eyes fixed on his mouth for a fraction of a second too long before she snapped, “I want an essay response to every question on that board. You don’t leave until I’m satisfied.”

She watched him for the next hour, pretending to grade papers while actually memorizing the way his jaw set in defiance. To her, Coal was the “devil”—a reckless, beautiful disruption to her perfectly ordered life. She hated how much she wanted him to break her rules. Every time he shifted in his seat, a bolt of electricity shot through her, forcing her to look down at her red-inked grading pen. She found herself imagining that red ink on his skin, then recoiled at the thought, disgusted by her own lack of control. She was supposed to be the one in power, yet she felt like a prisoner waiting for a sentence she secretly hoped would be life.

When the bell rang and the room cleared, Coal dropped a blank sheet on her desk.

“Everyone can go,” Tasha announced, her voice trembling—not with rage, but with the sudden, terrifying realization that she was about to be alone with him. “Except for Mr. Coal.”

She locked the door. The click was the sound of her own trap closing around her. The sound echoed in her skull, a finality that made her stomach flip. She was terrified of what she was about to let happen.

“You think this is a joke?” she demanded, stepping toward him. She tried to summon the icy authority of the Director’s daughter, but Coal just leaned back with a languid, predatory arrogance.

“I didn’t think I needed to write anything,” he murmured. “You’ve been reading my mind all semester, Tasha.”

Tasha reached his desk, leaning over until she could smell the smoke and salt on his skin. “You’re pushing your luck.”

“Then do it,” Coal whispered, his voice a low vibration that traveled straight to her core. “Suspend me. Call your father. Or admit that you locked that door because you’re tired of pretending to hate me.”

Tasha’s mind raced, searching for a biting retort, a way to reclaim the high ground, but her thoughts were a tangled mess of “shouldn’ts” and “mustn’ts.” She thought of her father’s disappointment, of her career, of the scandal—and then she looked at Coal’s lips and realized none of it weighed as much as the gravity he exerted on her.  Before she could form a lie, Coal moved. He rose from the chair, his height instantly eclipsing her, and slammed his hands onto the mahogany desk, pinning her in place. Tasha’s breath hitched. She saw the smirk on his face—he knew. He had seen through her strict “Ma’am” act from day one.

“Don’t play with fire, Mr. Coal,” she whispered, her lips parting involuntarily.

“I’m not playing,” he growled.

He closed the gap, his lips crashing against hers in a relentless, territorial kiss. Tasha fought him for a heartbeat—a final, pathetic stand for her dignity—before she crumbled. It was the collapse of a dam she’d spent years building. The shame she expected to feel was instantly incinerated by a white-hot wave of relief. She hated herself for being so easy to break, yet she leaned into the kiss with a desperation that bordered on worship. She let out a soft, broken moan, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer until there was no space left between her hidden desire and his raw intent.

He hoisted her onto the desk, the wood cold against her thighs as he swept the essay papers away. His hands weren’t gentle; they were the hands of someone taking what was already theirs. He tore at the buttons of her blouse, his mouth never leaving hers, as he finally dismantled the tyrant she had pretended to be. Even as her clothes were stripped away, a part of her mind screamed that this was professional suicide, that she was losing everything she had worked for. But as his skin met hers, that voice was silenced by the sheer, overwhelming reality of him. She wasn’t the Director’s daughter anymore; she was just a woman being unmade, and the loss of her identity felt like the greatest freedom she’d ever known.

The encounter was a blur of friction and heat. Coal carried her across the room, her legs locked around his waist, her head lolling back as he trailed biting kisses down the sensitive column of her throat.

He slammed her against the whiteboard, the sudden bang echoing through the silent halls. The cold surface against her back made her arch toward him, seeking the heat of his body. As he drove into her, Tasha lost every shred of her composure. Her hands searched for purchase, her nails digging into the skin of his back, marking him as the boy who finally broke her. She felt the sting of the whiteboard markers against her skin and the bite of his teeth on her shoulder, each sensation a brand that told her there was no going back. She was a ruin of a woman, a disgraced educator, and she had never felt more alive.

“Coal… oh god… Coal…” she sobbed, her voice a wreckage of what it had been an hour ago.

He didn’t slow down. He increased the intensity, each thrust a reminder of who was really in control. He watched her face—the way her eyes rolled back, the way she bit her lip to keep from screaming too loud—and he smiled. He knew she had been starving for this.

The whiteboard rattled rhythmically against the wall, smearing the ink of the midterm questions onto her skin—a literal staining of her authority. She wasn’t a teacher anymore; she was his, unmade by the very “devil” she had tried to discipline. She looked at the blurred ink on her arm—the remnants of a lesson on ethics—and felt a hysterical urge to laugh. The irony was sharp enough to bleed: she had spent the semester trying to teach him discipline, only for him to teach her exactly how little of it she actually possessed.

“BRRIIIIINGGGG!”

The second bell rang, a jarring reminder that the world still existed outside these four walls.

Tasha opened her eyes, her chest heaving, her skin flushed and sensitive. Coal stepped back, his movements calm and clinical as he adjusted his uniform. He looked at her—at the disheveled hair, the torn blouse, and the lingering look of submission in her eyes. He reached out, his thumb tracing the swell of her lower lip.

“Class is dismissed, Miss Tasha,” he whispered, his voice dropping to that dangerous, low register. He leaned in, pressing a final, searing kiss to the ink-stained skin of her shoulder. “Try to keep that ‘strict’ attitude tomorrow. It makes the punishment so much better.”

He walked to the door, unlocked it, and vanished into the hallway without a backward glance. Tasha remained slumped against the desk, the silence of the room now heavy with the ghost of his touch. She looked at the blank paper he had left behind and realized he was right. Words weren’t necessary. The lesson had been taught, and she was already waiting for the next one.

THE END (A Standalone One-Shot)