His Model Student: A Student-Teacher Romance

61. Revealing

[RECAP: Sera and Mr Marek are officially back together, but her parents still don't know about him...]

Now the aftershocks of the painting story had worn off and she'd gone so far as to spend the night with Tarq in London, Sera decided she was going to have to confess the rest.

"There's something I need to tell you," she began. Marisa was preparing dinner and her father was sitting at the dinner table, not yet laid, trying to fix some odd piece of machinery. It was a typically domestic scene and she was reluctant to shatter their peace.

"It's about the artist who painted me."

Marisa, slicing carrots, tried to second guess her. "He wants you to pose for him again, I assume?"

"Not that. Well, maybe some time, I don't know." It was now or never. "The thing is, we're sort of dating." I'm having the most amazing, passionate affair of my life and I'm madly, hopelessly in love. Even if I'm not really sure where I stand, a small voice reminded her.

Both of her parents' jaws nearly hit the floor at this point. Sera couldn't meet their eyes. She had dreaded their reaction and it was even worse than she had feared.

"You're dating your art teacher?" Marisa was horrified and incredulous. "If it wasn't bad enough him compromising you by getting you to pose for him in the first place..."

Sera protested. "He hardly compromised me. He's featured me in an amazing artwork, I mean there are people who would pay tens of thousands of pounds to be painted by someone like him."

"Exactly how old is this man?" Marisa asked, in a tone of pure ice. She reminded Sera of frosty Victoria without the vampiness.

"He's older than me, but I'm eighteen and an adult, so it doesn't matter, does it? It's not like he's any more likely to get me pregnant or break my heart or whatever else than if he was the same age as me, is it? And Dad's several years older than you." She was getting defiant now: defensive, but also genuinely angry and a bit scared that they were treating the news like this.

"That is not the point. I wasn't a schoolgirl when I met your father, I was a mature, independent woman well established in my career. You're still at school. And he's your teacher!"

Sera's father practically had his head in his hands. "Is it something we've done, love? That this man could use you in this way?"

Sera's anger melted, replaced by contrition that her father was actually hurt by this. "It's nothing you've done. He hasn't used me, I'm happier than I've ever been. He's even helped me with my university application and everything."

"It's not right. We'll have to call your school. He should be sacked," Marisa insisted.

"If you do that they'll expel me too and then I won't be able to sit my A-levels and I'll be really screwed," Sera pointed out.

She had them over a barrel.

Her father looked resigned. "We'd better meet him then. And if I find out he's mistreating you in any way..."

Sera pre-empted him. "He's not. You'd know if he was, because I'd be unhappier, and I'm on top of the world. We're taking it slowly for now anyway. I'm not about to move in with him."

"God forbid!"

Little did they know that Tarq had pretty much deliberately avoided suggesting anything of the sort. His weird silence still stung. He had kissed Sera tenderly and arranged to take her out the following weekend but there was still nothing concrete in terms of his future plans.

"And I've got my place at Saint Martins so that's all set.  I know you're both worried about me doing Fine Art but if I can't make a go of it, I'll get a job and do a business course at night school." It was the biggest compromise she had ever offered. She had thought they would both be mollified but Marisa looked even more concerned.

"That's hardly going to set you on the path for a top career, is it? The big London firms take graduates from the top universities. You won't have a hope of that," Marisa said.

Sera decided there was no point repeating yet again that she had no plans whatsoever of a corporate career. If she couldn't do art then she would do something else a bit different. Horticulture, even, like Elizabeth. That had always sounded very interesting.

At least Marisa cared enough about her to want her to kind of follow in her footsteps. She could have focused on her sons but she showed just as much concern for Sera's future.

"Dad never did all that, and he still made it." It wasn't as though Marisa had married some hot shot city executive after all. Sera's father was hugely successful but he'd done all his diplomas through sandwich and correspondence courses.

"I suppose so." Marisa still looked dissatisfied but she didn't protest any further.

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Would your parents freak out if you were dating your art teacher?!!

I think mine would have imploded ;)