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The history teacher’s voice was a distant, droning hum, a bee trapped against a windowpane.
Outside, the Texas sun was bleaching the parking lot asphalt.
It was his final year; he should've been paying attention, but Jacques, not yet Travis Scott, was miles, years away.
---
He was in a studio.
Not his cluttered bedroom setup, but the studio.
The air was cool. The only light came from the glow of a massive mixing board, illuminating the sharp planes of his face; Kanye's face. He was frowning at a screen, his posture the epitome of controlled intensity.
Travis was hovering nearby, a bundle of raw nerves impersonating relaxed ones. He’d just played him something; something he’d worked on for weeks, carving every sound, polishing every bar until it shone in the dark of his room.
Kanye didn’t look up. He let the last bar hang in the air, then reached out and tapped the spacebar, killing the sound with a finality that felt like a door slamming.
“This is derivative,” Kanye said, his voice flat, devoid of the performative anger Travis sometimes imagined.
This was worse.
This was pure, unadulterated dismissal.
“It sounds like you trying to sound like me, and you’re failing.”
Travis’s stomach dropped through the floor. His throat tightened.
'I worked so hard on that,' he thought, a pathetic, childish whine that he’d never say outloud.
“I’m not—” Travis started, his voice cracking.
“You are,” Kanye cut him off, finally turning his head.
His eyes weren’t angry. They were… bored.
Annoyed, like Travis was some persistent fly.
“You’re not thinking for yourself. You hear something dope and your brain just… mimics it. There’s nothing in here that’s you.”
He gestured vaguely at the speakers. The words were surgical; precise, if you will.
A hot prickle of tears burned behind Travis’s eyes. He willed them back, blinking rapidly.
“Sorry,” Travis mumbled, looking at his shoes.
“I’ll… I’ll try again.”
“Trying’s not the point,” Kanye said, swiveling his chair fully to face him. The movement was slow, deliberate.
“The point is being. And you’re not being anything right now. You’re just… here. Taking up space.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The proximity was electric. Travis could smell him now: that cedar and ozone scent from his daydreams, mixed with the faint, clean smell of his detergent.
“Why are you even here, Travis?”
The question wasn’t rhetorical. It felt like a trap.
'He’s so mean,' Travis said to himself. Not outloud. Never outloud; but a small part of him squirmed, a hot, confused rush flooding his system.
“To learn,” he whispered finally, his voice barely audible.
“From me?” replied his mentor.
A smirk played on Kanye’s lips. It was anything but kind.
“You can’t learn originality. You either have it or you don’t; and right now… I’m not seeing it.”
He reached out then, causing Travis to flinch. He was expecting a shove, a dismissive wave maybe, but Kanye’s hand didn’t push him away.
His fingers: those calloused, strong fingers, came to rest on the side of Travis’s neck, his thumb pressing gently into the pulse point that was hammering like no tomorrow.
The touch was intimate, in a way.
Like a handler checking the temperature of his prized, albeit disappointing, animal.
“Your heart’s beating so fast,” Kanye murmured, his voice dropping into a register that was just for them.
“You’re scared. Good, you should be.”
Travis couldn’t breathe. The touch has practically stunned him.
'He’s touching me he’s touching me he’s touching me—'
“Or... are you not scared?”
Kanye’s thumb stroked a slow, absent-minded path along his jawline.
“Are you something else?”
His other hand came up; not touching, just hovering near Travis’s hip.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” Travis choked out.
He was melting. The tears were gone, replaced by a dizzying, desperate heat.
'Please don’t stop touching me. Please tell me I’m worthless again. Please—'
Kanye leaned in closer. His lips were mere inches away from the shell of Travis’s ear, his breath a warm ghost against the sensitive skin. Travis could feel the faint scratch of his goatee.
“You want me to tell you you’re special,” Kanye whispered, his voice a low vibration that went straight down Travis’s spine.
“You want me to tell you you’re a genius. You want a lot of things, don’t you?”
His lips brushed against Travis’s earlobe then. A full-body shudder racked Travis as he whimpered: a soft, broken sound.
“You’re not a genius,” Kanye breathed into his ear, the words a cruel caress.
“But you could be interesting. If you stopped trying to be me, and started trying to be… this.”
His hand on Travis’s neck slid down, over his collarbone, coming to rest over his heart, feeling its frantic, galloping rhythm through his thin t-shirt.
'His hand is so big,' Travis thought.
'He could probably feel my pulse. Can he feel how fast my heart is beating? Does he know it’s for him? He has to know. He knows everything. God, I want him to squeeze harder.'
The older man's other hand finally settled on Travis’s hip, fingers splaying, pulling him a fraction of an inch closer. It was an embrace, but far from warm.
“This desperate thing,” he murmured, his mouth now nuzzling against the side of Travis’s neck, just below his ear.
“This starved thing... that’s interesting. I could do something with that.”
Travis’s eyes were squeezed shut. His hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. He was lightheaded, swaying on his feet in the fantasy.
He’d never been so humiliated.
He’d never been so turned on in his entire life.
Every word was both a curse and a promise.
Every touch was both a condemnation and a blessing.
'He doesn’t even like me. He likes this. He likes how pathetic I am for him. He wants to use it. He wants to use me. Please use me. Please—'
Fantasy-Kanye pulled back, just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark, unreadable. He looked at Travis’s flushed face: his parted, trembling lips, his heaving chest.
He gave a short, quiet laugh. It wasn’t nice.
“Go home, Travis,” he said, his voice back to that flat, bored tone.
He removed his hands, the absence of his touch feeling like a physical wound.
“Come back when you have something that doesn’t sound like you’re trying to suck my dick through the speakers.”
He turned back to the mixing board then, dismissing him completely.
---
The fantasy shattered just as the bell rang, a shrill, shocking sound. Travis jolted in his seat, back in the fluorescent-lit classroom.
His face was on fire.
His heart was still pounding against his ribs like a frantic, panicked bird.
He could still feel the ghost of those hands on his neck, his hip.
He could still feel the heat of that breath on his ear.
And he was still hard as a rock.