10.
I lay on the rug, completely naked, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as the shock of what had happened finally set in.
The adrenaline crash was brutal, leaving me hollowed out and incredibly fragile.
My thighs were wet and cold with the drying mixture of my pussy juices and Richard Davies' cum.
My ass cheeks burned with a dull, throbbing heat where he had slapped me.
But the deepest ache was inside—a bruised cunt that seemed to pulse with my heartbeat.
I looked up at him.
Richard stood a few feet away, his back to me, pouring himself a fresh scotch. His suit trousers were zipped, his crisp white shirt perfectly tucked. He didn't look like any kind of monster to me. He looked like a CEO who had just closed a successful merger.
I waited for him to toss me a few crumpled bills—or maybe an envelope of my own—to tell me to get dressed and get the fuck out of his penthouse, to send me back down to the street where I belonged.
He left the room. Returned with a heavy, plush white bathrobe. Tossed it onto the rug next to me.
"Put that on," he said, quietly.
I scrambled to obey, my hands shaking so badly I struggled to find the armholes. I pulled the thick terrycloth tightly around my body, tying the sash with a frantic knot.
"Your apartment isn't safe," he said, taking a sip of his scotch. "Tyler is an idiot. The men he owed are professionals, but they are still criminals. They know where you live. They might decide that settling Tyler's debt wasn't enough and come looking for something more."
My gut dropped, the sick memory of the concrete garage choking the air right out of my lungs. "What ... what am I supposed to do?"
"You're going to stay here for the weekend," he said. "The building has 24-hour security. And well, they know me. I promise you, you'll be safe."
He didn't wait for my response, just turned and walked down a short hallway. I followed him, my legs trembling, terrified to disobey.
He opened a door and waved me inside. “You can use the guest suite. Make yourself at home.”
It looked like a room at the Four Seasons. A massive king-sized bed with crisp white linens dominated the space. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a different, equally stunning view of the city. There was a private marble bathroom attached.
"Sleep," Richard said, his tone entirely neutral. "We'll talk in the morning."
He pulled the door shut. I heard the faint click of the latch.
I stood in the center of the immaculate room, clutching the robe to my chest. I walked over to the door and engaged the deadbolt, my hands still shaking.
The man who had just bought me, humiliated me, and fucked me so hard I couldn't walk straight, was now offering me sanctuary.
And I was accepting his offer, gladly.
First things first. I needed to wash. I needed to scrub the last hour out of my pussy and off my skin before they soaked into me and became part of my permanent record.
The guest bathroom was larger than my entire apartment. A massive, free-standing soaking tub sat in the center of the room, positioned next to a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city.
I turned the chrome handles, letting the steaming hot water rush into the deep basin. I found a bottle of expensive, amber-colored bath oil on the counter and poured it generously into the water. The scent of sandalwood and jasmine filled the air.
I let the robe drop to the heated marble floor.
Stepping into the tub was both an agony and a relief. The scalding water bit into my bruised skin, stinging the red handprints on my ass cheeks. I sank down until the water covered my chest, closing my eyes, letting the heat seep into my trembling muscles.
I took a washcloth and a bar of soap, scrubbing my skin raw. I washed my arms, my shoulders, my face. I wanted to erase all memories of Tyler and the men who assaulted me in the garage.
Then, I reached down between my legs.
My pussy was tender, swollen, and aching with a deep, persistent throb. The hot water stung the sensitive, overstretched flesh. I used my fingers, gently but firmly, to clean myself out.
Even underwater, I could feel the thick, heavy residue of Richard's load. I pushed my fingers deep, scraping the walls of my cunt, flushing the cum out into the soapy water. It was supposed to feel like a cleansing. A return to normalcy.
But as my fingers moved inside my aching, ruined cunt, my mind betrayed me.
I closed my eyes, and the darkness wasn't empty. It was filled with the memory of the living room.
I saw Tyler, weeping in the chair, a pathetic, broken boy who had watched his girlfriend get destroyed because he was too weak to protect her.
The disgust I felt for him was cold and absolute.
I remembered the sight of the dark, wet stain on his shorts.
He had gotten off on my humiliation. He had masturbated while I was being pounded. He was dead to me.
The image shifted.
I saw Richard. I saw his dark, tailored trousers against my pale skin. I felt the phantom sensation of his massive, thick cock burying itself to the hilt, stretching me wider than I thought possible. I heard his voice.
You take that money, Tyler. You walk out that door. And you never speak to Sloane again. You delete her number. You cross the street if you see her on campus. She doesn’t need you ruining her life.
That was a real man.
Oh, fuck no. I scrubbed harder, trying to erase that thought, my clit, which had been numb with shock, suddenly flared to life.
What the actual fuck?
I had been assaulted. Prostituted. I had been treated like a piece of meat on a rug.
But there was another deeper truth. A jagged little pill that was impossible to swallow. I hadn't only been used by Tyler and Richard. I had surrendered.
When Richard had pulled my hair and slapped my ass, the pain had been eclipsed by a dark submission.
His overwhelming dominance had turned me on like nothing ever had before.
It was the antithesis of Tyler's weakness.
Tyler had always made me feel responsible, like I had the weight of the world on me.
Richard had made me feel helpless and light.
And there was a sick, deep sense of relief in that.
I stopped trying to clean myself.
My fingers slowed, shifting from a desperate scrub to a hesitant, searching caress. I found my swollen clit, the nub hard and aching.
"No," I whispered to the empty bathroom, tears pricking my eyes.
But I couldn't stop.
I pumped two fingers into my aching hole.
My body convulsed under the water.
It didn’t take long, but it hurt when it came.
I lay in the cooling, cloudy water for a long, long time after the spasms subsided.
I felt utterly empty. I didn’t know who I was.
I finally stood up, shivering, and pulled the drain. I dried off with soft, thick towels and crawled into the massive bed, pulling the heavy duvet up to my chin. The sheets smelled like lavender and clean cotton. My body was a bruised ruin, but I was lying in the lap of luxury.
I lay awake for hours. Every time I shifted my weight, my aching pussy throbbed.
I stared at the ceiling, waiting for morning, wondering about the man who was sleeping somewhere else in this penthouse, and questioning the woman I was becoming.
I finally fell into a deep, exhausted sleep just as the sun began to light the skyline.
I woke up without an alarm. The room was bathed in bright, mid-morning sunlight.
For a moment, disoriented, I expected to feel the springs of my cheap twin mattress digging into my back, or to hear the rumble of the garbage truck outside my apartment window.
Instead, there was only silence and the soft, cool touch of Egyptian cotton.
I sat up and winced. My host had really done a job on me last night. But that didn’t matter right now, because I needed to pee. There was a brand new, still wrapped toothbrush by the sink.
When I felt up to it, I wrapped Richard’s robe tightly around myself and walked out into the main living area.
The penthouse was flooded with natural light. Richard was sitting at the dining table, wearing a cashmere sweater and dark jeans. He was drinking coffee, reading something on his tablet. He looked completely relaxed, completely normal.
I felt anything but.
He looked up as I entered.
"Good morning," he said, polite and distant. "There's coffee in the carafe. Breakfast is on the counter."
I walked to the kitchen island, feeling entirely out of place. Laid out was a spread that belonged in a high-end bistro: fresh fruit, croissants, smoked salmon, and scrambled eggs. I poured a cup of coffee, my hand shaking slightly, and plated some food. I hadn't eaten a real meal in three days.
I sat down at the opposite end of the long dining table. We ate in silence. The only sound was the clink of silverware and the soft hum of the city far below.
" I need to study," I finally told him. "I have a midterm on Monday. Econ 201."
Richard lowered his tablet. "Where is your textbook?"
"In my apartment," I said, a hot flush of shame creeping up my neck. "I couldn't bring it."
Richard picked up his phone, tapped out a quick message, and set it down. "My driver will pick up a new copy from the university bookstore. It will be here in an hour."
"But I can't pay you for that," I stammered, horrified. The book was nearly two hundred dollars.
"I'm aware." He returned to his reading.
An hour later, the heavy textbook arrived. I sat at the dining table and opened the book. I tried to focus, but the words swam on the page. The anxiety caused by the impending test, combined with the trauma of the last few days, made it impossible for me to concentrate.
I sighed in frustration.
"What's the issue?" Richard asked. He had come from nowhere and was standing behind me.
"Macroeconomic elasticity," I mumbled, rubbing my temples. "I just don't understand the formulas. If I fail this, I lose my academic standing, and I lose my scholarship."
Richard didn't mock me. Didn't tell me I was stupid. He sat down next to me. He smelled like expensive coffee and more expensive cologne.
He took the textbook from my hands.
"You're looking at the math, not the concept," he said, his voice calm, pedagogical.
"Think of it like real estate. If I raise the rent on a luxury high-rise by ten percent, the demand won't change much, because the people who live there are inelastic to that price shift.
But if I raise the rent on a student apartment by ten percent, the building empties out. They are highly elastic."
He spent the next thirty minutes breaking down the entire chapter.
He didn't use jargon. He used real-world examples, translating the dense academic theories into cold, hard logic.
He was brilliant. He was patient. He was intellectually dominant in a way that was entirely different from his physical, sexual dominance, but just as powerful.
For half an hour, I wasn't a whore. I was Richard’s student, and he was a master class. I found myself leaning in, absorbing his words, the panic receding, replaced by a strange, quiet awe.
Then, my phone buzzed on the coffee table. It was a harsh, jarring intrusion.
I picked it up. It was a text from Jessica.
Sloane, where are you? The electric company called. They're shutting off the power on Monday. My dad won't help with the Visa. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared.
And just like that, the real world crashed back down on me, crushing that one brief moment of peace. While I was sitting here in someone else’s ivory tower, the real world was still moving on. The electric bill. My broken car. Jessica's suffocating debt.
"What is it?" Richard asked.
"It's nothing," I lied.
"Don't lie to me, Sloane." His hand reached out to cover mine on the textbook. His grip was firm. "I paid forty thousand dollars to take care of your problems. So, tell me. Let me help."
The dam broke. The exhaustion, the terror, the relentless, grinding poverty all spilled out.
I told him everything. I told him about the $7,400 Jessica owed on her Visa.
I told him about the $800 my car needed for the steering pump.
I told him about the past-due electric bill, the late rent, the fact that I was eating granola bars for dinner because I couldn't afford groceries.
I sobbed openly, the ugly, snotty tears of a girl who had completely run out of options.
Richard didn't interrupt. He didn't offer empty comfort. He just listened, his face an unreadable mask.
When I finally finished, gasping for air, he let go of my hand. He picked up his laptop from the coffee table and opened it.
"Does Jessica have Venmo?" he asked, his fingers poised over the keyboard.
"What?" I sniffled, confused.
"Venmo," he said again.
I numbly recited Jessica's Venmo handle.
Richard typed for a few seconds. The click-clack of the keys sounded incredibly loud.
"Done," he said, closing the laptop with a soft snap.
"Done what?" I asked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
"I wired eight thousand dollars to your roommate," he stated casually, as if he were talking about ordering lunch.
"That covers her card and the electric bill.
I also transferred five thousand to your checking account.
That will fix your car, cover your rent for the rest of the semester, and allow you to buy actual food. "
I stared at him, my brain completely unable to process what he had just said.
"You ... you gave me thirteen thousand dollars?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Just now?"
"It's handled," Richard said, standing up. "You don't need to worry about it anymore. Go back to studying your elasticity."
He walked away, heading toward his study, leaving me sitting at his dining in stunned silence.
I picked up my phone and opened my banking app.
Available Balance: $5,043.12.
The green numbers glowed on the screen. The crushing, suffocating weight that had been sitting on my chest for two years was gone. It had vanished in less than sixty seconds. It cost him less than a thought.
I looked toward the closed door of his study.
The man who had pounded me, slapped me, and degraded me in front of my boyfriend was had just saved my roommate from ruin, bought me my textbooks, and secured my future with a few keystrokes.
Tyler had used me to save himself. Richard had used me, and then he had saved me.