by Blaire Drake
“Spoken like a true law undergraduate,” he muttered, smirking. He reached into his drawer once more and pulled out another stack of paper. This one was a few thick, each one stapled together, and from what I saw as he handed it to me, each one already had his signature.
He had known what I’d ask.
He had known I’d request a legally binding contract.
“Is this negotiable?” I asked, swallowing.
“No,” he responded once more.
He had me in a corner once again. I took a deep breath and read through it. To his credit, nothing deviated from his words. It all made total sense. Nothing was unfair—if you discounted the whole fucking situation, of course—and I had no grounds to reject it, except for my moral one.
And let’s be honest. I was pretty goddamn thin on my moral ground at this point.
Regardless, I accepted every point. Mostly because I had no other choice.
I held my hand out for a pen, and he placed one in my palm almost instantly. I closed my fingers around it and signed on the dotted line. I felt a lot like Ariel signing her voice away to Ursula, and I was sure that was the closest description I could come across.
I was signing away my dreams, my future, my certain grades.
Every one of them now belonged to the asshole in a white shirt in front of me. The very same asshole that was supposed to provide me those grades.
I slammed the pen down on his desk with a vigor that I hadn’t known previously existed. The bang was loud, despite the contract, and I took a sick delight in it.
Yes, pen. You slam like the badass fucker you are. You slam like the fucking badass little ink-filled shit you are.
I saw it for what I was.
My attitude was all I truly owned at this point. And my fuck… I was going to work that bitch into the fucking ground.
Professor Keaton looked up at me. His eyes held the same brightness they had before, except now, they had a glint of ownership. It was thrilling and scary at the same time. The thought that I’d just signed my body over to someone else. That its control was no longer my own.
I had no excuses. I’d read the contract. I knew what I’d done.
And what I’d done was fucked myself.
Dear Professor, I wonder if you have any idea what you’ve done. Xoxo, Darcy.
My journal was my best friend. It was the only thing that had gotten me through Griffin’s death. Writing my emotions down every morning had kept me sane and able to face the day with a semblance of strength. I’d learned in the days following his passing that words had power, and the coping technique that had helped me grieved had become a habit.
I’d gone through seven since I’d started college, and I’d bought a new one in preparation for this. Or maybe I’d bought it because the cover was cute but the timing was right.
I’d just agreed to fuck my professor on a regular basis. I’d just given him everything he wanted.
The irony didn’t escape me. I’d spent two years trying to convince myself that I wasn’t a slut, yet I’d just taken every single drop of my dignity and handed it to him.
I was no longer a slut. I was his slut.
And, in my mind, that made one hell of a fucking difference.
I won’t lie. It made me feel like I was thirteen when I wrote in my journal, but sometimes, there are emotions you can only tell yourself. A lot of those were connected to my job, and I’d felt just about every single one known to man over the last two or so years.
Disgust. Self-loathing. Guilt. Anger. Frustration. Helplessness. Worry.
The negative ones were the only ones that ever made it into the journals. It was my way of letting them out, and the best part was that, when I closed the book, they stayed on the pages. The ink dried and sank into the soft paper, taking my crappy feelings with them. There was something about writing them down that made me feel like I could fly.
I guessed that was because words were the most powerful things in the world. It didn’t matter if they were spoken or written, whispered or screamed… They could maim, devour, and destroy as easily as they could lift, heal, and soothe. Even if the only place the words exist is in your head.
My emotions existed inside my head in the form of words, destroying me internally, until the moment they shone in the black ink on the page, where their destructive effects became oddly soothing.
I hated words.
As my hand flew across the page, the fresh, wet gel ink glinting as the light skated over it, I realized just how much. They were binding and permanent, and it didn’t matter even if you burned the pages you had written them on—they still existed. Words could exist in any form, even if that form was charred, black ashes.
I wanted to do that to the contract sitting on the desk next to me.
Burn it. I wanted every inch of the perfect, white paper with its solid, black type to go up in flames. I knew that it wouldn’t undo what had been done. It wouldn’t take the agreement away, but it’d sure as hell be cathartic.
I wanted to burn it the very way its presence burned me. It was almost as if it had eyes with the way it glared at me. It was terrifying and unnerving that a small stack of paper could do such a thing. That an inanimate object could affect a living, breathing human being so strongly.
I hated it. I wanted to cut it. Tear it up. Rip it. Kill it. Burn it. Slash it. Crumple it.
I wanted to make sure it never existed again.
The contract was airtight, and that was perhaps the worst part about it. There was no wriggle room. I’d read it clearly enough after class. He’d made it perfectly clear. What had been written was written, and to be fair, it wasn’t totally unreasonable. Despite his initial words to me about his desires, everything really was an agreement. The word no would be understood and respected for what it meant. I had the power to veto anything I wasn’t comfortable with.
But I came on camera for a living, so there wasn’t much I wasn’t uncomfortable with.
Still, I was so torn. For the last two hours, I’d been going back and forth on whether or not to tell him I had been clearly insane and I hadn’t mean it when I’d signed. That was an acceptable response, right? I could back out? The contract itself said that I had forty-eight hours to do so.
I just needed to e-mail him and tell him so.
I figured that was why I’d been staring at my e-mail for thirty minutes with a new message box open on the screen.
So, why couldn’t I do it? I didn’t know. I wanted to. I wanted to type his address into the “To” bar, write, Fuck You, in the subject one, and tell him what he could do with his contract.
Yet my fingers still didn’t move to the keyboard.
They didn’t move for another ten minutes. One hand was poised on the keyboard, the other writing in my journal what I was sure was nonsense, but most of it was. It was the rambles of a crazy cam girl. If I ever wrote a book, that’d be what I’d call it. The Rambles of a Crazy Cam Girl.
After another few minutes, my right wrist seized up from all the writing, and I shut my laptop. The blank e-mail died when the screen did, and I found myself too tired to care.
I put my pen down, the nib still out, and stumbled across my room. Then, clad in my soft shorts and tank top, I crawled into bed.
My light was still on.
I didn’t care about that, either.
The weekend passed in a swirl of indecision and regret. I’d written the “fuck you” e-mail around ten times a day, and I’d deleted it every single time. It had been too brash, too ridiculous, too what-the-hell-are-you-doing? It hadn’t ever seemed right. Even when I’d cut out every F-bomb, it just hadn’t worked.
I would have bet my savings that the reason I couldn’t do it was because, every time I closed my eyes, his kiss was right there.
It was why I still had my e-mail open on another tab as I closed out of the show I was doing.
The cam client screen went blank, and I hit the X in the top corner, ignoring the other open tab. That was my
last show of the weekend, and now, Sunday night, I would get to think.
I wrapped the vibrator in a towel on my bed to clean later and grabbed my robe. My freshly laundered towels were sitting in a pile on my desk, so I grabbed two and headed for the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and turned the shower knob for the hot water.
Steam filled the room as the hot water rushed down to the shower floor, and I took my robe off. Hanging it up before I turned, I let out a long, heavy sigh. I stepped into the shower, and that sigh became a gasp as the red-hot water burned against my skin.
It felt good.
I let it beat down on me for a minute before I reached back and turned the temperature down a little. Each pound of the water against my back felt like the ticking of the clock, and each one took me a step closer to not being able to back out of this agreement.
I didn’t like the uncertainty of it. It threw me. I was almost anal about my schedule. I knew where I had to be and when I had to be there, and it was that simple. It was how I balanced my school life, my work life, and my personal life. My planner was my best friend—next to my journal, of course.
It didn’t pass me by that my planner would be essentially useless if I was now a booty call.
I washed my hair and my body and then stepped out of the hot water. I wrapped myself in the fluffy towels and meandered back to my bedroom. It was eerily quiet through the house, but as I paused in the doorway, I heard the unmistakable sound of a moan.
Must be cam time.
I scurried into my room and shut the door. The quicker I could bring up Spotify, the better. I opened my laptop with a little too much excitement and clicked on the bright-green icon as soon as I could. Another moan echoed through the walls—and fuck it. This was why I always made a point to be out when Lou was doing a show. She wasn’t only a loud snorer; she was a loud every-fucking-thing.
I shuddered as the sound of “Irresistible” by Fall Out Boy and Demi Lovato filled my room. It drowned out the awful sounds from next door, and I found myself singing along as though I were part of the band. I stopped myself short of grabbing a hairbrush because I wasn’t six anymore.
I dried myself, put clean underwear on, then stopped. The break in the music had me slowly turning toward my laptop. It was only a second of silence, but long enough to tell me that I had an e-mail.
I glanced at the clock.
Fuck.
My “fuck off, fuck you” e-mail was no longer valid.
I swallowed hard and grabbed my laptop. The underside was cold except for the battery as it landed on my bare thighs, and I clicked on the Internet browser. It was clear for me to see.
Email (1).
I took a deep breath and refreshed the page. As I did, the message showed up in highlighted, bold text at the top of my inbox.
Jordan Keaton: Are you ready?
My heart thumped erratically as I clicked on it and my screen filled with his words.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Are you ready?
Darcy,
I assume by your silence for the last forty-eight hours that you’re in full agreement with the contract. I’d appreciate your confirmation now.
J
I ran my tongue across my lips, knowing there was no way out. I was screwed. That was it—I had to fuck my teacher.
That sentence. It was like a ten-ton truck full of fucking solid brick as it hit me. It was over. Any kind of resistance, any refusal—I couldn’t do it now. The legally binding contract I’d signed made sure of it. He was playing with me, I was sure. But, for all of his years of experience on me, he hadn’t learned the most important rule of the game.
Don’t fuck with the girl who makes the rules.
I was ready to play, and play I would. I was certain this man had a skeleton of his own, ready to be unearthed, and if we were going to do this, we’d be doing it fucking properly.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Are you?
Dear Professor,
Yes, I accept. Although I would appreciate clarification on one point: in clause two, where you detail in not so many words the sexual obligations. I’d like you to expand on the point regarding a third party.
Xoxo, Darcy.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Really?
Darcy,
I do believe it’s fairly self-explanatory.
J
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Yes, really.
Dear Professor,
I don’t agree at all. There’s no stipulation regarding the gender of the third party, nor do you lay out the specific relations determined by gender. If the third party is a woman, am I expected to lick her pussy while she fucks you? Will she do that to me? If the third party is a man, am I expected to suck his cock while you fuck me, or vice versa?
I’m sure you can understand my issue with this highly vague clause. Your response will be appreciated now, sir.
Xoxo, Darcy.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: This isn’t a conversation for here.
Fifteen minutes. Meet me outside the old abandoned house just off Mercy Road.
Mercy Road.
The irony. It was a bitch.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dear Professor,
You got it.
Xoxo, Darcy.
Mercy House—the street had been named for the house, not the other way around—had been standing in town for two hundred years. It’d undergone many reservations in the last century, but fifty years ago, it had been abandoned without reason. The family who owned it had just upped and left, and now, all that was left of the majestic building with a Victorian wraparound porch was a shell of what once had been, its outer walls decorated in ivy. It came with many of the rumors that old houses did—ghosts, tragic stories, untimely deaths.
Still, it was just a house, a central landmark in town. Most commonly the site of dares and pranks by tweens and teens. And it was about to add another thing to that list—the place where I would meet my professor for a conversation that could change my life.
I wish I’d been more prepared.
The gentle evening breeze held a slight chill as it pushed my dark hair over my face. I reached up to push it back and shut my car door. My stomach rolled with nerves, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm them.
It didn’t work.
In the ten minutes it’d taken me to drive there from Dalton House, I’d gone from sassy as hell to scared as fuck. My fight instinct had done exactly what I wanted to—it’d run away. But I’d agreed, I was there, and I had to deal with the consequences.
I still didn’t like it though.
I leaned against my car and checked my phone. There was an e-mail icon blinking at me, so I opened the message. My heart jumped into my throat as I read the instructions that told me to walk around the corner. I felt like I was entering into a drug deal or something… or trying to get the last cappuccino pod for the coffee maker on a Monday morning.
I forced my feet to step one in front of the other. It was possibly one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but there was a niggle of uncertainty behind my apprehension that just felt…out of place, almost. As though I were firing the uncertainty at myself because I wasn’t feeling as scared as I thought I was.
No, I realized with a sobering hit. I wasn’t scared.
I was a little bit excited.
I felt very much like a good girl gone bad… Well, badder. There wasn’t much left of me to go bad, if I was being honest with myself. But this… This was bad. This was forbidden. Risky. Dangerous.
I liked it.
I shook those thoughts off as I rounded the corner of Mercy House. A black SUV was parked against the cu
rb, and as I approached it, the passenger’s side door opened. The dim light lighting up the interior glimmered over the features of the man sitting on the driver’s side, and even in the almost-darkness, his eyes were unmistakable.
Swallowing hard, I clutched my phone and got into the car. He didn’t say a thing as he leaned over me to grab the door. He slammed it shut and sat back in his chair. Silence rang out, deafeningly loud, as the seconds ticked past. My mouth went dry, which forced me to lick my lips.
His gaze burned into me. I felt his eyes as they followed the sweeping motion of my tongue as it moved over my lips. It didn’t help—instantly, my lips dried out again. I resisted the urge to lick them again and, instead, parted them to take a deep breath.
He was like a hawk waiting for its prey to cross his path. Except I already had. I was simply waiting for him to sweep in and devour me.
“Nervous, Darcy?”
I turned my face toward him, hating the way his lips quirked to one side. “Should I be?”
“Do you think you should be?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Honestly? Yes.”
His smirk grew into a smile that reeked of self-satisfaction. He gave the impression that he got off on my being uncomfortable, that he liked the idea of my being nervous around him.
Shit—what would the man do if he knew just how afraid I was?
Professor Keaton leaned in and brought his hand up to my face. He softly cupped my chin, his thumb grazing along the line of jaw. His eyes dipped down to my mouth before skating their way back up to meet mine. It had been nothing more than the barest of glances, so maybe it’d been the startling brightness of his blue eyes, but it felt as though it’d lasted a lot longer than it had.
It felt like, when he looked at me, he could see every little flaw on my face the way I could his.
