Kept

by Cate Corvin

  Professor Spears’s cool, clipped tone filled in for Thayer. “You have the evening to consider your options, Jane. Leave Bourdillon in disgrace as the scholarship student who couldn’t last a day… or prove yourself a good pet.”

  The inhumanity of it ripped at me. Pet. Like a dog.

  No, a mouse. But it wasn’t in a trap, it was cornered by three hungry cats, and the slow death promised to be much worse.

  “Your first instruction is simple.” Thayer leaned over the desk and handed me a small white business card. The first side was blank, creamy white. The inverse was inscribed with a phone number in angry black strokes. I didn’t need to be a genius to know the number was likely attached to a burner phone. “Film a video of you touching yourself. Not a pathetic twenty-second clip, Miss Fawkes. A full video, with your fingers in your pussy until you come.”

  The flush had spread from my face to the rest of me at his language, and god help me, but my nipples tightened to hard pebbles and heat swelled low in my stomach.

  I hated them. I hated them so much, but if everything I wanted was a video away…

  I was dimly aware that sitting down, my face was on a level with Professor Spears’ crotch, and he was hard as a rock, a thick length laying against the inside of his thigh. With his tight grip on my shoulder, he was getting off on this, watching the beginning of my degradation. His pet.

  The heat didn’t abate but flared higher. Masochist was too kind a word for me.

  “Send the video to that number by midnight. One minute past is too late, Miss Fawkes. Midnight.”

  Professor Spears’ hand left my shoulder and I shot to my feet, feeling light-headed and clutching the card hard enough to bend it.

  “If you fail to send it, don’t bother yourself to show up tomorrow.”

  I rushed out of the office, swallowing gulps of air, the nickname ringing in my mind.

  Pet.

  I splashed cold water on my face in the bathroom, but there was no evidence to wash away.

  I hadn’t cried.

  I hadn’t locked myself in a stall to spit and curse alone until the rage left me.

  I was a mouse.

  And plain-Jane mice accepted what they got.

  I dried my face, shouldered my messenger bag, and headed to the library. Professor Harlow’s classroom was dark as I passed, and even if he was there, I didn’t have the words yet to confront him. I mulled over their demands even while Mrs. Clarke admonished me for my tardiness to my first real shift and sent me off with a two-hundred-pound cart of books to shelve.

  One by one, I put them in place like an automaton and straightened the rows with ruler-like neatness. Thayer wanted a video of my pussy, and even though I wanted to loathe him for that, there was a deeper, secretive part of me that was uncurling in satisfaction, wondering if I should wear my lace panties and take my sweet time getting to the finish line, giving him his blackmail’s worth. Wondering if he’d take his cock out as he watched it and stroke himself…

  If he’d pass the video on to Spears. If Superman wasn’t so cold when he was jerking off to Plain Jane’s pussy.

  I licked my lips, coming back to reality with a snap. I was holding Gone with the Wind.

  Rhett.

  With a low growl, I shoved the book into place. I didn’t owe them a damn thing. I could walk out right now and never come back, never see their hated faces again.

  Mrs. Clarke locked up at eight on the dot. I followed her to the parking lot and ducked into the trees, taking the little trail home. The lights were on, and Mom was in her chair, her nose buried in a book. “I saved you some dinner, hon. How was the first day?”

  It was like I hadn’t grown up at all. I went through the motions even though my limbs were wooden and sat at the table. Tonight the soup was tasteless. “It was great. Met some new people, love all my classes…” Got blackmailed into sending a sex tape to the Dean of Students. “The library is gorgeous.”

  “That’s wonderful, Jane.” Mom smiled at me. Today her wig was a short, black flapper bob, but her face was drawn and strained beneath. “I think this is exactly what we needed.”

  I paused with a spoonful of soup halfway to my mouth. This was exactly what we needed. My degree, a stable job that paid the bills, and by the end of the year, our medical debt would be chipped down by another fifth.

  All I had to do to keep it was touch myself.

  The not-so-mousy part of me purred. The rest shivered.

  “I’m really tired,” I said, rinsing out my bowl when I was done and counting out her nightly pills. “I think I’m going to bed early.”

  “Oh, me too, honeybuns.” Mom slipped a bookmark in her place, and I noticed how thin her arms still were, the papery texture of her skin. She was still frail, and Mulholland had the treatment center she needed. “I’m so proud of you.” She stood on her toes, pulling me down to kiss my forehead.

  My choices tore at me. Mom’s health and school. Disgrace.

  A full video, with your fingers in your pussy until you come.

  I kissed her goodnight and washed the dishes, staring out the window into the dark woods the entire time.

  At 9:30 I swept the house. 9:45 was taking out the trash. I puttered slowly, finding things to dust, magazines to stack.

  At 10:30 I tiptoed down the hall, pausing outside Mom’s door. Her soft snores were the only sound. She slept lightly these days, and a good night’s sleep was a rare occasion for her.

  I could give her more of those, as long as she was near the treatment center.

  I showered and blew out my hair, and it was 11:20 by the time I slipped into bed, leaving the bedside lamp on. My phone was a brick in my hands, the crumpled card with Thayer’s number weighing me down like a thousand pounds despite its true weightlessness.

  It would all be so easy. All I had to do was follow their orders.

  I tossed a pillow in the middle of my bed, unlocked my phone, propped it against the cushion, and opened my legs. My pussy was reflected on the video screen. I’d never really looked at this part of myself before; I was quiet, plain, boring, and so was the rest of me. The one boyfriend I’d had back in Northeast was fine with me leaving the lights off. He’d never asked for videos, pictures. The nicest thing he’d ever said was that I ‘was an active participant’, which made the deed sound more like a task that needed to be regularly completed. He was as bland as I was, content with the mediocrity of our situation, fine with the status quo as it stood.

  The status quo here was completely upside-down.

  It was dangerous, gut-wrenching, exciting.

  I pressed the record button with a trembling finger, and when the second-counter began running, I paused with my hand in the crook of my hip.

  I could have everything I wanted. Everything we needed.

  My fingers slid downwards, parting my lips and touching myself tentatively. It didn’t feel like much of anything at first, just awkward, nervous fumbling.

  I closed my eyes, ignoring the video, and thought of Rhett pushing into me. It was instant gratification, heat sinking into my abdomen, and my breath rasped when I mentally played back his lips sucking my clit with perfect clarity.

  In a fit of pique, I substituted Thayer’s mouth for his, imagining what his beard would feel like brushing the inside of my thighs, looking up at me with feral brown eyes. Or Superman, cold and calculated, his hands warm as he pulled me closer and put that perfect mouth to work.

  I forgot the phone. My breasts felt tight, needing Rhett’s hands all over me, and I’d grown wet, my fingers slipping over my clit. Thayer’s instructions had been clear, though.

  I slipped a finger inside myself, then another, pushing them in and out and imagining his hand in my place, Rhett’s teeth grazing my hard nipples. How degraded I was, but I’d never felt a fever like this before. Not for anyone but them.

  My muscles tightened, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, giving myself what I needed to go over the edge. If Thayer hadn’t just asked for a
video, but bent me over his desk right then and there to thrust into me…

  I gasped before I could swallow back the sound, my legs shaking uncontrollably when I came. I stroked my clit again, drawing it out until dark stars burst behind my closed eyelids and I felt like I’d been completely wrung out.

  I realized my fingers were still on my pussy, stroking my wet lips, and pulled my hand away. I’d given them what they wanted to keep my place. No more.

  I hadn’t bargained on the next part being the genuinely hard portion of the deal. Touching myself on video had sounded like the worst part at the time. But typing in that number and clicking send… worse.

  Much worse.

  I flopped back onto the bed, snapped my legs firmly shut, and pulled up a new, blank text message. I wasn’t even going to watch the video before I sent it, or I’d definitely chicken out.

  The number slowly appeared in the bar across the top as I hit each digit. When it was done, the empty text box still flashing, I glanced at the clock.

  11:55. I’d spent much longer making that video than I’d meant to.

  The remaining minutes ticked by at the speed of light. When 11:59 popped up, my thumb was still frozen over the video I’d pulled up. I held my breath for thirty seconds, counting each number, then tapped the video and hit send, my heart in my throat.

  It was marked as delivered. Then read.

  12:00 AM ticked into place, ringing in the new day, the new status quo.

  I set my alarm, flipped off the light, and buried myself in the covers, but sleep was not forthcoming. My limbs were tight as wires, stomach roiling with an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint. Regret and shame were the most likely candidates, but those didn’t feel quite right.

  Nervousness? Was I genuinely afraid of what Thayer might think of my body? If it was just adequate, a task to be accomplished?

  When my phone lit up the room with a new text, I didn’t hesitate to snatch it off my nightstand, unsure of what to expect, let alone what I wanted to see. My thudding heart skipped a beat in my chest.

  All it said was:

  Beautiful.

  Chapter Six

  “Earth to Jane. It’s been hours since you spoke. Are you in there? Helloooo?”

  Rachelle cupped her hands around her mouth, calling to me from what felt like a thousand miles away. I blinked and she sighed.

  “Sean, we’ve lost all signs of life. Abort the mission.”

  He crunched a potato chip. He kinda smelled like potato chips to me, mixed with that chlorine-athlete-boy smell that some guys had. Nothing like the Three Demons, who smelled like sin and made you want to join in. “I wasn’t aware we had a mission.”

  I forced myself out of my thoughts. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any of those demons today, and I had no doubt if I hadn’t sent the video on time, one of them would’ve stopped me from entering the university today.

  My sacrifice had been accepted as a worthy tribute.

  “I’m just tired,” I said, giving them my most pale, wan smile. It wasn’t hard. “I was up all night reading.”

  Half-true. I was up all night reading not a book, but one word, dissecting and analyzing it like a formaldehyde-preserved specimen stretched across a steel tray.

  Beautiful. What did Thayer mean by that? That watching a woman touch herself was beautiful, no matter the woman doing it? That his power over me was beautiful?

  He couldn’t mean me, my body, because no one would think that. Mice weren’t beautiful. They were convenient fodder, kept in cages until they were trotted out for the snake pit.

  “Don’t go overboard with the extracurricular nighttime activities,” Sean said, wafting potato chip breath my way. “You’re going to have it hard enough with classes and a job.”

  My breath shallowed as the last students filtered into English 510. Rhett would be right behind them. I’d have to look him in the eye, accept that I was his pet, and make my peace with it.

  I wasn’t ready for peace. I wanted to throw a sharp-cornered hardcover at his head.

  Right on cue, he strolled into the classroom, dropped his books and briefcase, and hooked his thumbs in his belt-loops.

  Pale blue eyes met mine, and he smiled. “Good afternoon, everyone.”

  I didn’t smile back. A dull flush touched my cheeks, but I wasn’t hiding behind my hair today. Or ever. If he wanted to blackmail someone, he could look me in the face and know he was doing that to another human being.

  “I’d like to have some extracurricular nighttime activities with that,” Rachelle sighed.

  Oh, if only she knew.

  I’d been wrong about the kind of man he was. There was another one hiding under his skin. My stomach clenched with an infuriating mix of desire and rage. There was a monster in there, but I… still wanted him.

  He started talking. We flipped to the appropriate page in our textbooks. I let my mental gears grind back into a halt, going to that peaceful place where there were no consequences to actions, no words to analyze.

  I waited before the bells chimed before coming back out of my Zen state. Rachelle was bickering with Sean about gerunds and infinitives. It was easy to let them walk ahead of me, and when I was the last one left, I quietly shut the door behind them, locking myself in with the beast.

  I turned, an accusation already fully-formed in my mouth, but Rhett was on me in a heartbeat, kissing it away. His tongue slid in and filled the space where the words had been.

  That was how he kept me, devouring my mouth, hands pushing up my shirt and stroking the swell of my breasts down to my waist. Hunger filled me, a craving to be touched, bitten, pinned in place by the cat’s paw.

  He popped the button on my jeans and slipped his fingers inside, groaning in his throat when he parted my lips and found how wet I was.

  Maybe that made me the fucked-up one here. See Jane come for her blackmailer.

  Rhett shoved his leg between mine, angling himself so all the pressure of his thigh and fingers was placed squarely on my clit, and leaned in.

  My eyes rolled back in my head as pleasure roared to life. The entire world was reduced down to the pads of his fingertips rolling over my clit, the hard bulge in his pants straining against my hip, nowhere close to being inside me, and it was still some of the best sex I’d had in my life.

  He made me ride his thigh until I came, one arm flung around his neck, the other clawing his shoulder like I meant to draw blood. My breath came out in harsh pants and he swallowed those, too, leaving no trace of what we’d done here.

  I was quivering when he finally let me have my mouth back, and all the accusations came back with full force.

  “You lied to me!” I tried to shove him away, planting both hands on his chest and pushing, but he was an immovable object.

  “I did.”

  Somehow, that splashed cold water on my anger like nothing else. I’d expected excuses, maybe an apology- but not a cold, hard affirmative.

  The mask had dropped. Rhett’s eyes were as frosty as Spears’s, no smile on his lips. At least, not the kind I was used to seeing on him, the one where kindness seeped out of every pore.

  This one was amused, like I’d said something funny.

  “You knew someone was taking pictures.”

  “I sure did, Pet.” Somehow I knew there was a capital P on it, the way he said it. “Gabriel’s decided to branch out into photography. You were the perfect subject.”

  I just stared up at him, feeling like I’d taken a step forward expecting solid ground and had fallen off a cliff instead. Gabriel Spears had been up on the balcony, taking pictures and listening to every noise I made. “Why?”

  Rhett gently chucked me under the chin. “The question isn’t why. You know why.”

  I knew why. I was a mouse, and they were hungry cats, and they’d herded me neatly into a corner. I’d let them begin the hunt the moment I’d ignored the scholarship’s morality clause and accepted Rhett’s invitation to stay after hours.

  He read
my eyes like an open book. “The question is who. Who deserves to be the Pet? I think that’s you, Jane. I read your essay first, by the way. Lovely way with words. When you showed up, all swan, no duckling left… well, I knew I’d made the right call.”

  “Professor Spears manages the scholarship essays.” I was back to whispering again, not even a bark to go with my nonexistent bite.

  “I read them, too. It was pure luck I came across yours and recognized your name. You can thank me for the SCS, Pet. I pushed your essay on to Gabriel. If it makes you feel better, there’s no nepotism involved. Even if I’d never met you, I would’ve chosen it for the scholarship. You’re here on merit alone.” He ducked his head, lips moving along my cheekbone. “The rest of the package is the bonus I was hoping for.”

  Even though the thought that my being here was completely premeditated by his hand made me want to be angry, I couldn’t summon the emotion again. It was swamped under my inexplicable desire for a man who didn’t really exist.

  This was the true face of Rhett Harlow, but that didn’t diminish the magnetic pull I felt towards him. It perversely made it stronger.

  I’d always daydreamed about the day I’d have the guts to go for it, but he’d neatly turned the tables on me without me noticing a thing, and made sure I was theirs, and theirs alone.

  There was some strange relief in their first rule: I wasn’t allowed to touch any man but them. I didn’t want other men, not the kind who smelled like potato chips or thought ‘adequate’ was an actual compliment.

  A deep, twisted Jane liked the kind of man who wanted a woman so deeply he’d crush her into it.

  Rhett watched my eyes like he was reading every emotion that flashed through me. I dropped my gaze, not wanting him to read that last thought.

  I took that twisted version of Jane who enjoyed this, folded her up, and dropped her down a well somewhere in the back of my mind.

  “What do you mean by, ‘who deserves to be the Pet’?” I asked, forcing myself to find my voice. The squeaky mouse gets the grease. “Have you done this before to someone else?”