Chapter 11
Laura
He’s gone. He’s left me in his wake absolutely dripping with cum. I stand up slowly, nibbling on the edge of a croissant. This is the most decadent thing I have ever done. I am in the lap of total luxury, albeit needing another shower.
I meander around the suite for a bit, snacking on endless breakfast, getting showered again, dressing myself. He told me I had to go back to school, but he didn’t tell me how and part of me just wants to stay here.
At ten in the morning, there’s a light, professional, respectful tap on the door. I open it to find a man wearing a cap.
“Ms. Brown?” he says. “I’m here to take you to the airport.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” I say, following him without another question. I have developed a really disturbing habit of just doing what I am told when men tell me what to do.
Except for that time I punched the principal in the face.
I get shown to a car, which sweeps me off to the airport. No need to take a bus this time. Sam takes good care of me when he knows I’m around to take care of.
Am I being spoiled by my stalker? Yes. Pretty much. I try not to feel satisfied about that. I am, after all, still being sexually controlled by an older man who is living a double life.
I expect to be dropped off at the terminal, but I find myself being driven into the actual tarmac itself, where a private jet is waiting. I don’t believe it even as I’m driven up to the little staircase.
“Is this for me?”
“Yes, madam,” the driver says.
“My god,” I say under my breath. I am dressed in my plausibly professional outfit, so I don’t look as out of place as I could, but I know I’m still very underdressed as I climb up into the plane.
I’m starting to feel like none of this could possibly be real. Me. Put on a private jet to go to school. If my mom were to see this she’d think I was fucking a real bad guy. I am fucking a real bad guy, so she’d be right.
My life has become a whirlwind of strange events. I’m acting oddly, more erratically, more violently. I don’t know if I know myself anymore.
The plane takes off. The flight isn’t very long, less than twenty minutes. We’re landing almost as quickly as we took off. My first experience in a private plane is over before it starts, and I am driven from the airport right to college.
I have to go to all my classes dressed like I think I’m a professor, which is quite funny.
I try to concentrate, but it’s not easy.
My head is full of sex and submission, and money and probably danger.
I know this isn’t actually a good situation to be in.
This man hides who he really is. He does terrible, dark things.
So why do I miss him so much when I’m at work? Why does my every thought revolve around him? And not out of fear, either. I keep thinking about how good he looked when he was naked and out of the shower. I think about how his hands feel on me. And how I feel when he takes complete control…
“Table two’s order has been at the window for five minutes,” my shift manager chides me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I must have forgotten.”
She gives me a look that I know from having seen it given to others indicates that there is a strong chance I’m going to be fired.
A few weeks ago, that would have freaked me out.
Now I’m not sure I care so much. This job is starting to feel like an old pair of shoes, restrictive and worn out at the same time.
At the end of my shift, they want to talk to me. Alana, the shift manager, and Morris, the actual owner.
“You’ve been skipping shifts without warning, and your performance has dropped significantly. We’d like you to take a drug test.”
“What?” That’s not what I expected to hear. “Why?”
“It’s standard procedure when we suspect that one of our staff is using drugs,” the manager says. Morris has never questioned me once in the entire time I’ve worked here.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Then you will be fired.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll take the test then.”
“Good.” He hands me a little bottle that I am supposed to pee in.
This is humiliating, and unfair and weird. I hesitate for a second. If this had happened a month ago, I would have been freaking out and embarrassed as hell. Right now, I’m…
I hand the bottle back to him and take off my apron. “Thank you for the experience,” I say politely. “But I’ve never taken drugs, and I’m not going to start being tested for them now.”
“We will send your last paycheck,” he says.
“Okay, thanks.”
The feeling of walking out of my job having been fired is a weird mix of freedom and shame.
I really never thought I would be the sort of person to get canned, but I guess I did miss a couple of shifts and I’ve probably been off lately because being the fuck toy of a psychopath is kind of a huge distraction that you can’t really explain to anyone.
I’ve still got money from selling the car, though. I can pay my rent for a bit. And I can get another job too. It’s not like they’re going to stop needing waiters any time soon. Besides, now, if I’m not working, I can catch up on some schoolwork and get that done.
So that’s what I do. I go home, I get into my pajamas, and I study until I fall asleep.
The next day I go to school, study, then at some point, fall asleep.
The day after that, same. And the day after. And the next one.
I don’t hear from Sam. I tell myself I shouldn’t be surprised. There was a big gap between seeing him and hearing from him in the first weeks and I guess men who stalk and fuck women while being international psychological superstars aren’t exactly the type to be consistent in contact.
It’s not like we’re dating. I followed him to Vegas, and he fucked me, but that wasn’t anything serious. That was two crazies being kind of crazy.
I tell myself I’ll see him when I next go to his class. It’s on Monday. I daydream about the dark sexual tension between us, the fact that nobody else in the class knows what goes on.
Monday comes and I am in class early, center front row, wearing a cute little skirt and a cardigan that’s tight enough to draw attention from pretty much every guy on campus. Sam won’t be the exception, I’m sure.
The door opens and a woman wearing a long floral skirt and neat black blazer walks in. She has black hair and black-rimmed glasses and she is very clearly not Sam.
“Morning, class,” she says. “I’m going to be taking over lectures for the foreseeable future, as Dr. Rollins has been called away unexpectedly.”
I feel like I can’t breathe. What the fuck is going on? Did he just leave completely? Fuck me, put me on a plane from Vegas, and walk out of my life forever?
The rest of class passes in what I can only describe as a panicked blur. I try to tell myself that it’s a good thing if he’s gone because he’s a vicious, dangerous predator, and I still don’t know what the fuck happened to Dave.
Then I tell myself he was the hottest person I ever met and I will literally never have sex that good again in my whole entire life.
Then I tell myself that he’s probably not gone, he’s probably just off on a tour murdering people.
And then I get a bit jealous that I’m not worth putting a European murder tour on hold for, and then I tell myself I’m being entirely insane and loop back around to this is for the best. If he’s lost interest, that means I’m safe.
At the end of the class, I approach our new lecturer. Her name is Mrs. Bloom, and she is very pretty and middle-aged and I bet she is good at her job. From what I managed to pay attention to while she was talking, she seemed to have a good handle on the subject.
“Professor Bloom? I was just wondering,” I say, trying not to sound suspiciously wound up or nervous. “Is Doctor Rollins not going to be coming back to the college at all?”
She looks at me with a gaze that I find uncomfortably knowing. “This class has been transferred to me,” she says. “I’m sure it’s disappointing to lose such a high-profile lecturer, but I can assure you…”
“Oh, I’m not worried about how good you are,” I seek to reassure her. “I just wondered what happened?”
“It’s a private matter,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’m very familiar with the material, and you will do just as well now as you would under him.”
She has no idea how well I do under him.
“Oh, okay, thank you,” I say, gathering my books up tighter in my arms.
I leave class, reminding myself that he’s been away before and come back, but this feels worse for some reason.
It’s like he owes me better than this, right?
Or I guess not. Do predators worry about their victims’ feelings?
Does he care about me at all? Or do I stop existing the moment he no longer needs me for anything?
I know it’s absolutely mad to think that someone I first had sex with because they broke into my house and forcibly seduced me is going to be the love of my life, but I’ve paid enough attention in class to know that I’m attached to him.
This is a good thing, I loop back on myself. If he’s gone, then I can move on, and everything is fine.
After a long and frankly, quite boring day, I get home, sling my books on the table, and slip in a puddle of blood on my kitchen floor.
Wait, what?
Looking down, there’s a good-sized small pool of what I am guessing is human blood unless someone broke in and sacrificed an animal.
I have that horrible hot and cold prickly feeling that accompanies every single hair on my body standing upright.
I go to my bedroom. I should run back out the front door, but there’s a sort of locking in that happens when shit gets weird in your house. It’s like I need to see what’s around the corner.