Chet smells it before he looks. He hears the voice before it can parse. Just after that goldilocks zone of reverb strikes—

“Good evening, class.”

—some woman in a heady perfume (like her), same curves, hair about the same length (different color: black instead of red), walks into the room wearing a mask around her nose, lips, and neck. Even her eyes pool those same clouds of black ink.

If she notices Chet, she doesn’t say, just jet hair ribboned about the shoulders, glossy sheen to the curls, subtle matte to her cheeks, and figure-hugging pants alluding to there not being any underpants.

The title of the class reads Ultimate Sin on the digitized blackboard behind her and near the top of the assignment she had them fill out before the evening lecture, this first meeting of theirs began. Beside Chet’s name on the quiz, written in red: See me after class. 1/10 grade.

It’s just an introduction. Thirty minutes pass by easy.

All of Chet’s classmates—Riley Voss, Jade Carrington, Mina Ortega, Harper Sloan, Talia Knox, Camille DeWitt, Zoey Harlan—Chet knows their names but none of the associations—he places the names with whatever face seems right at the time—memories of their introduction, twenty five minutes prior, barely registers—and in this turn of things, each face with a false name seems to know what Chet Burns has planned. Brainwaves harmonized in a silent accord for all members of Ultimate Sin. Chet Burns was staying late.

Yeah, he was—he packed his things slow. The rest of the class leaves at a regular pace. The door behind Chet clicks and double-bolts. Blonde freckles and brunette lacquer flutters at the periphery on either side of him.

Professor P—her—says, “I think what you need, Mr. Burns, is a much more hands-on course curriculum.” SHE walks from HER desk, from the decades of anxious fingernails and ballpoint graffiti, toward him.

“The only way to understand good is to revel in true evil.”
– Professor P, Ultimate Sin