A forbidden student-teacher obsession. A queer coming-of-age thriller. A story that lingers like a bruise you can't stop touching.
Liam is just trying to finish high school and keep his secrets to himself. Mr. Hilton, his English teacher, is everything Liam shouldn’t want—straight, married, and way off-limits—but possibly...interested. What starts as an innocent crush blurs into something more real, more intense, and more dangerous than either of them can control.
Because some lines should not be crossed. Some lessons can't be unlearned. And some desires come at a terrible price.
Originally racking up 2.6 million reads by a global audience on Wattpad before it was banned, this newly revised and completely uncensored edition invites you back into the shadows—rawer, deeper, and more haunting than before.
"The Teacher Inside Me" is an emotionally charged LGBTQ+ psychological thriller about longing, power, and the darkness within us all.
A forbidden student-teacher obsession. A queer coming-of-age thriller. A story that lingers like a bruise you can't stop touching.
Liam is just trying to finish high school and keep his secrets to himself. Mr. Hilton, his English teacher, is everything Liam shouldn’t want—straight, married, and way off-limits—but possibly...interested. What starts as an innocent crush blurs into something more real, more intense, and more dangerous than either of them can control.
Because some lines should not be crossed. Some lessons can't be unlearned. And some desires come at a terrible price.
Originally racking up 2.6 million reads by a global audience on Wattpad before it was banned, this newly revised and completely uncensored edition invites you back into the shadows—rawer, deeper, and more haunting than before.
"The Teacher Inside Me" is an emotionally charged LGBTQ+ psychological thriller about longing, power, and the darkness within us all.
I can’t believe he’s wearing that cologne again. Today of all days. A test day. A day when we get handed an exam with a series of questions about the Anton Chekhov play, The Seagull. A day when we have to scribble answers in the form of short essays to prove not only that we read the play from beginning to end but also that we thought about it deeply. First line: “Why do you always wear black?” Last line: “The fact is, he’s shot himself.” And everything in between.
I’m sitting in the front of the classroom, dead center, because we all were randomly assigned seats at the beginning of the school year and I guess I happened to be unlucky. Never before have I willingly chosen to be this far up front, an open target for questions posed, stripped of the privilege of blending in. But in this class, I don’t mind all that much because it means I get to be close to Mr. Hilton, closer than any other student.
I can smell him from here, and it’s making me swoon. I know it’s an old-fashioned word, “swoon,” but that’s the best way to describe how I’m feeling. How am I going to make it through this test? The scent—his scent—has managed to crawl far up my nose. And that may sound like a complaint. But it’s not.
I’ve always been sensitive to smells. And when the smell is wafting from a man I find extremely attractive, a man in his early thirties who seems simultaneously young and mature, a man whose rugged stubble covers a boyish face, a man whose wavy dark brown hair is short enough to be considered clean-cut but long enough for someone like his wife to run her fingers through, a man whose slim blue jeans and red dress shirt reveal the contours of his fit body, a man who doesn’t belong in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles teaching English but does belong in between the pages of a men’s fashion magazine . . . well . . .
The room is spinning a little, the way it does when I sometimes get up out of bed too fast. A comforting warmth fills my entire head and melts down onto my shoulders and the rest of my body. My heart: is it beating faster? My stomach: is it tightening up? Down further: what?
To put it simply: his cologne is driving me crazy. Like I want to leap out of my chair, pin him against the chalkboard, and ram my tongue down his mouth so deep and so long that I could tell exactly what he had for breakfast. Gross, I know. But these are my thoughts. And if I can’t be honest in my thoughts, then life would suck even more than it does now. I mean, I can’t be honest in my words and actions. And that’s one of the reasons I can’t wait to graduate. To get out of this city, Point Liberty, where I was born and where I don’t want to die. I want to move to a place where nobody knows me and I can finally be myself.
The first time Mr. Hilton wore that cologne was two weeks ago, the day after his birthday. (His birthday is the third of October—I know it by heart.) My guess is that his wife bought it for him. (Her name is Dixie. Dixie!) I can imagine the night they had together, but I don’t want to imagine it.
After I caught a whiff of this cologne that first time, I rode my bike directly to the mall the next town over, right after school. I had to know what it was. So into Nordstrom I went.
Since it was a weekday, it wasn’t crowded at all—just other high school kids and old folks. And since there weren’t a lot of people buying things—kids and old folks have limited income—it meant the chances I would be approached by a salesperson were high. So I kept my head down, my fists tucked inside my black hoodie, as I moved from tester bottle to tester bottle, holding them up to my nose and seeing how fast I could find which one was Mr. Hilton’s.
My mother told me once that sniffing tester bottles like that was unsanitary. She worked as a salesclerk at Marshalls, a discount department store, and she had seen people touching those bottles right up against their noses. She swore that sometimes those spray caps went up their nostrils far enough to touch hairs and mucus and whatever else was lodged up there.
But I figured the clientele at Nordstrom was a bit classier. Plus, I didn’t have time to spray cologne on test strips. I had to get in and out of there before anyone approached me. Social anxiety was a real thing, and I had it hardcore.
Sniff. No. Sniff. Nope. Sniff. Not the right one. Must go faster. Sniff sniff sniff. No no no.
“Liam?” The voice behind me was female, middle-aged probably.
I froze.
“Liam, is that you?”
I turned around to face Veronica Cahill, a neighbor in her forties who lived a few doors down from us and who was really good friends with my mother. They went to the movies together and went out for cocktails—strawberry margaritas, I think. They called it “Girls’ Night Out.”
A lot of the boys in my neighborhood thought Mrs. Cahill was hot. Some of them called her a MILF. She liked wearing really tight clothes, especially when she was out for her morning jog. And whenever she was jogging, she liked wearing makeup, as if she were headed to a red-carpet event instead of just up the street one mile and back.
When a student named Henry Rochester suddenly moved out of state with his parents last year, there was a rumor going around that it had something to do with him having some kind of an affair with Mrs. Cahill, who had been married forever and who was more than twice his age. I didn’t know if it was true or not, and I didn’t care.
“Uh. Hi. Mrs. Cahill.”
“Oh, don’t call me that. You make me sound ancient. Call me Veronica.”
“O-okay.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Um. Veronica.”
She smiled wide. “Your voice has gotten so deep. And you’ve gotten so tall. Look at you. Take a step back. Let me look at you.”
I wanted to die.
“Wow. You’re really turning into a man. What are you—a senior now?”
“Yeah.”
She gestured at all the colognes displayed behind me. “Is that why you’re here? Cologne? Because this is what men wear.”
“I, uh, I’m just walking through. It’s, it’s nice and cool in the mall, and our air conditioner at home is old.”
“Well, you really should think about finding a cologne for yourself. I mean, you’re so handsome, and with the right scent on you, girls won’t be able to resist you.”
“No, thanks. I, I have to go meet my friends on the other side of the mall.” It was a lie of course.
“Wait. Here, here, try this one.” She eyed the dozens of fragrances scattered throughout the section, and her eyes landed on a square bottle with rounded corners that looked like it was wrapped in white wicker material. “It’s from John Varvatos. ‘Artisan Pure.’ The ad campaign for it features Nick Jonas. You know, the singer?”
I remembered seeing that ad somewhere online. It was black and white, and the camera lingered over Nick Jonas’s bare body for like thirty seconds.
“Yeah, I know who he—”
And before I could say anything else, she sprayed the cologne onto my neck. I smelled wood. I smelled ginger. I smelled lemon. I smelled . . . Mr. Hilton. Damn, Mrs. Cahill. She found it. Without knowing it, she found the scent of Mr. Hilton.
His face, his handsome face, filled my mind. But the image instantly disappeared when I felt Mrs. Cahill’s fingers stroking my neck. She was presumably smoothing the cologne onto my skin—but her touch was much too slow, much too gentle, much too inappropriate.
I pulled away. “Thanks, Mrs. Cahill.”
I hurried towards the exit.
Behind me, I could hear her say, “Veronica!”
Back on my bike. Flew down the street. Through the front door of my house. Ignored my sister watching TV in the living room. Fell onto my bed, the scent of Mr. Hilton still stuck on me.
On the bed, I gave myself a hug. I inhaled. I held my breath. And with my airflow cut off like that, I moved my hand down to my crotch and began stroking myself over my pants, feeling myself through the fabric. My face started to turn red, as I continued to keep the trapped air in my lungs and as my hand moved up and down, faster and faster.
RIIIIIIIIIING!
I snap back into the present and exhale so forcefully that some of the other students look at me.
The period is over, and I discover, while leafing through the exam in front of me, that I have somehow, through all this daydreaming, managed to finish all my essay questions. How did this happen? Did my hand just move the pencil across these sheets of paper on its own? Was I possessed by the spirit of a great scholar—or, perhaps, by Chekhov himself—and he wrote through me?
Quickly scanning the pages in front of me, I notice complete and seemingly coherent sentences. I don’t know if they make sense on the whole, but it’s too late to change anything now.
The other students are tossing their exams onto Mr. Hilton’s desk and already heading to third period. I clumsily shove my pencils into my backpack and gather up the pages of my exam. I’m the last student here.
I place my test onto Mr. Hilton’s desk. “Th-thanks, Mr. Hilton.”
He’s texting on his phone. He nods at me without looking up.
Questions, nothing but questions, flood my mind. Why do I want what I can’t have? Why can’t I be older? Why do I have to be eighteen, and why does he have to be thirty-something? Why can’t Mr. Hilton like guys? Why can’t I ever tell him how I feel about him? Why can’t we be together?
I’m about to walk out the door when I hear his voice. “Hey, Liam.”
I stop and turn around. I can’t think of anything to say.
So he continues. “What’re you doing after school?”
“Uh. Nothing. I guess.”
“Could you stop by here after school then? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Um. Okay.” Our eyes connect, and I can’t look away.
A few seconds pass, but it feels like an hour.
“Great.” Mr. Hilton goes back to texting.
As soon as I’m in the hallway, I run towards the restroom. A football bro shoves me, and I bounce off a locker, but I can’t even bring myself to get upset. I lock myself inside the first empty stall. I just stand there. I close my eyes. The smell of piss and shit and body odor fills the air in here. But when I breathe in deep, all I can smell is Mr. Hilton.
Thanks to Reedsy for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I think a more apt title for this book should be Chekhov’s Gun, because my oh my, everything that was set up early in the book was satisfyingly paid off: from the gun, to the concept of karma, to the forbidden desires, to even the manifestation of teenage angst in the form of a metaphorical darkness. This was so well-written and so well-paced that I couldn’t help but finish it in its entirety in about 6 hours of non-stop reading. IT IS THAT GOOD AND THAT NAIL-BITING!
What started off as a regular erotic fiction that centres on a young 18-year old’s crush on his English teacher, developed into something that is so much more, filled with lust, yearning and so many forbidden desires. It goes without saying but this book is HORNY. This world that I had the pleasure of getting to know is so rich and the characters feel so real that I can’t help but wonder if the author is drawing from some real life experience. It’s not just that Liam had a crush on Mr. Hilton and that eventually that crush is reciprocated and the end - that’s the story; on the contrary, Liam’s experience feels lived in. He has conflicts with Mr. Hilton and his wife; his close friends; and his family members - and those conflicts are so well-designed and placed that you can see why Liam is the way he is and how he is justified in making the choices that he made throughout the story.
But it is not just a straightforward journey into the darkness either. We are prompted to celebrate his triumphs with him when he confronted his abusive father for the first time when he struck his sister, and we are also there with him when he is dropped to his lowest point: when he lost his friend, Andrew and at a separate moment, his home. I think this is how a coming-of-age narrative should be written because Liam’s growth in the book feels so much more believable and organic than most of the manufactured motivations that I’ve seen in other stories. They are never contrived and are always surprisingly pretty well-restrained until the moment calls for Liam to step up and stand up for himself. And to top that off, it’s never just a simple good conquers evil and all is right in the world type of situation either. Liam is highly grey and the choices he makes carry heavy consequences. I previously alluded to a confrontation with his dad for the years of physical abuse, culminating in Liam standing up for his sister and himself - and while the dad cowers initially, in the end, he won because he managed to kick Liam out of the house and turned his entire family against him, leaving him alone in the world.
You might be thinking, for a story that is called A Teacher in Me (pun intended), there is surprisingly lack of information about the eroticism in this review. And that’s because the eroticism only covers the first half of this story and it suddenly shifts into a very exciting psychological thriller in its second half - and boy oh boy, that half kept me on my toes. The yearning for that unforbidden fruit was great - it’s highly sexual, and very graphic. It is very well-done and captures the teenage sexual angst very well. Through Liam’s pursuit of Mr. Hilton, we definitely see hints that Mr. Hilton’s not psychologically sound: we see it in the way he manipulates Liam by encouraging him to exchange secrets with him to enhance their bonds, how he always offers kindness with an underlying motive, and that he always tries to isolate Liam to be in situations where he can’t question his judgment rationally. While oblivious to Liam, these situations make us feel uneasy reading it. And when the Chekhov’s gun finally fires and we have the confirmation that we had always suspected during the confrontation in the mountains, we are not thrown off course because the hints of this personality have been peppered in Mr. Hilton’s character all along. (Side note: unsure whether it is intentional, but Liam almost exclusively calls the teacher Mr. Hilton and never by his first name, Jared, even after they had sex, which invokes the dynamic between Professor Humbert and Lolita, to ensure that the reader never forgets this power dynamic between the two).
Like his father, Mr. Hilton continuously abuses Liam though more subtly and psychologically. Unlike his father, Mr. Hilton seemingly takes on the more submissive role in the abuse in the attempt to give Liam more power and ultimately the illusion of control, i.e. all that happened in the book stems from his choice. But we know that this is all an illusion, because we see that he has been the power player behind the scenes, manipulating situations to ultimately frame Liam for a certain murder this entire time and that, the satisfaction his perverted sexual desires is just an icing on the cake for his nefarious plans. He has the power all along behind the scenes, and we are encouraged to juxtapose this with the loss of power that Liam felt when he is faced with his father’s abuse.
All in all, I love this story and I think it is well-written, well-paced, and well-developed with a very compelling arc that all of our characters go through. If anybody has a chance to read this book, I would highly encourage it. You might be able to finish this in one sitting too.