His Model Student: A Student-Teacher Romance

34. The gift

[RECAP: Mr Marek has offered Sera a lift home after the excursion to the pub...]

It was dark and icy cold in the carpark outside The Green Man. Sera was glad to get out of the chill wind even if the inside of Mr Marek's car was still cold.

She sat there, wondering what he wanted with her. He reached up and turned the interior light on.

"I have something for you."

He leant over to the back seat and brought across a large wrapped box, handing it to her. "Happy belated birthday. And thank you for all your time over the past weeks."

The package looked professionally gift wrapped and it was very heavy. Definitely not a bottle of wine.

"Can I open it?"

"It's yours, you can do as you like."

Sera was conflicted. She was desperate to know what was inside but she also felt awkward about tearing the paper off in a rough fashion like an over-eager child at a birthday party. Someone like Victoria would doubtless have carefully picked the bow undone

Sera did her best. She managed to tear off one corner and then gasped as she started to realise what it was. A set of oil paints. incredibly expensive, professional quality oil paints - she recognised the brand - and such a huge box! She extracted it from the rest of the wrapping and ribbons and opened the lid.

The top tray was suspended as a separate level, it was beautifully constructed. There were also accessories such as brushes and palette knives.

"I thought it was time you tried oils. You could even use them for your final A-level project," he suggested.

Sera, overwhelmed as she looked at the paints, realised she hadn't even thanked him. "I don't know what to say. Other than thank you of course, but you really didn't have to do this." She couldn't take her eyes off the colours: Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine. Just the names were a poem, imagine what they could do on canvas.

"I want to see how you paint with oils," Mr Marek said simply.

Sera looked up at him. There were far cheaper ways for him to do that: he could simply have lent her some oil paints or even ordered some for school art class.

Normally she would have flung her arms around someone giving her a gift this amazing and hugged them, but she felt too constrained to do that with Mr Marek. After all he was her teacher, even if he had kissed her twice. And said all those things to her that still made her hot to think about.

"I hope I can do them credit," she said.

"You will. I have every confidence in your ability."

Sera currently had no idea what she was going to do for her final exam project. The themes were usually generic enough that you could do pretty much anything you wanted. She hadn't even figured out what medium she would use, but now she had these oil paints she knew it would have to be oils.

Which meant a lot of study and practice in using them. Caressing the tubes, she looked up at Mr Marek. "Will you teach me?"

There was a dark, sardonic gleam in his eyes. "What would you like me to teach you?"

Everything. For a moment they looked at one another, Sera felt spellbound. Here she was with him in his car, in the dark. She knew he was attracted to her. He knew she was attracted to him. The only thing stopping them were his scruples.

She didn't dare to utter what she would have most liked him to teach her. He could almost certainly guess. So she stuck to her original wish. "How to paint with oils."

"I'm sure we can schedule some classes on that."

Sera was a bit dejected by this response, she had hoped that he might suggest private tuition not regular school classes. Overall she was still shocked and elated by the gift. Because it meant that he must truly regard her as having some ability in art.

Also, sexual attraction was one thing, but did this gift mean he actually liked her? And if he did, would he ever make a proper move on her?