by Anthology
“I don’t intend to marry until I hit forty,” Jonathon says.
“You might change your mind, if you fall in love. Everyone is capable of falling in love. I know that a vow like that is meaningless. Someday even you will meet a woman you want more than anything, and you’ll be eager to marry her.”
He quirks his brow—something I’ve read in many a Regency-set romance. It gives him a jaded look.
“Anyway, even if I were unattached, I can’t date you since you were my roommate’s boyfriend,” I say.
“This wouldn’t be dating. I’m inviting you to a party. I am extending an invitation for you to explore. Aren’t you curious?”
Well, yes. But not necessarily in a ‘curious-to-try-it’ way.
“Have you ever been to a BDSM club?” he asks, in a voice as smooth as sin. He’s gorgeous and wealthy—half the women in this coffee shop would take up his invitation in a heartbeat. Why is he pursuing me?
Okay, I’ve had fantasies about being tied up. “Curious, but not that interested. Look, I intend to be faithful to Ryan. I have no intention of doing anything—what’s the point of going to a place where the expectation is to have sex?”
“Some people go to observe.”
“I’m not a voyeur either.” Though I have gotten aroused when I’ve seen sex, nudity, or erotic adult situations in movies.
“No, just to learn what the lifestyle is like. I’m a Dom, on my way to becoming what is called a ‘Master’ in our clubs.”
“Like in chess?” I say it cheekily, but his response surprises me.
“The concepts are not that different.” He says it coolly.
“Chess is a game that’s about victory,” I point out. I’m feeling uneasy. Yeah, I’ve thought about being tied up. I have some pretty weird fantasies. Are they related to my past? I don’t know. Would I want it for real?
I think about doing it with Ryan. My heart hammers; heat washes over me. I feel a throbbing in my pussy, and I know I’m getting wet. All because I’m thinking about being tied up and having Ryan whisper roughly against my ear that he’s going to make love to me until I scream—
I shift in my seat and sip my coffee, trying to cool down.
“There is no victory,” Jonathon says. “But it’s a game of strategy, of patience, of rules and skill.”
I’m still not sure. Jonathon strikes me as a guy who likes to win.
He tips his drink to his lips, swallows. “You and Lara are both judging me and I want you to see the allure before you reach your verdict.”
“Maybe, but your conversation should be with Lara.”
“You’re open-minded, willing to explore.”
“No, I’m not.”
“What if your boyfriend wanted this?
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know? Just because he hasn’t asked doesn’t mean this isn’t his thing. It just means he wasn’t willing to talk to you about it.” Jonathon shrugs, an elegant shrug of his broad shoulders. “I like to be honest. Most men don’t.”
That unsettles me more than I want to admit. I have things—many things—I would never tell Ryan. And some of them are my kinkiest fantasies. Even if he knew everything about my past, I would never reveal the wicked things my brain can invent. But to Jonathon, I say, “Then I’d deal with it. Maybe, if I loved him, I’d be willing.”
“Mia, I would really like to take you to my club.”
“I have no reason to go,” I say. “I’ve got to get to class.”
My next class, at 11:30, is First Year Architectural Studio. I end up in the room full of drafting boards that I saw from outside. I’m late, having argued with Jonathon about kinky clubs. There’s an empty board in the corner of the room near the door. All the others are claimed. I suppose that one is going to have to be for me.
***
The next email comes at the end of the week. It’s a picture of Lara and me walking to the residence cafeteria on a grey evening, sharing an umbrella. We both wear bright colored raincoats—mine is teal blue and hers is scarlet, and she’s holding an umbrella of sunshine yellow over us. The rest of the scene is blurred.
I want to delete it right away. Obliterate it. But I stop. Maybe I’ll need it to give me some kind of clue. Why would someone take our picture, send it to me, and write nothing about it?
To stalk you, my brain says.
But still, why? What’s the point? Just to prove he’s watching us? Is it to scare me since the emails are addressed to me? Or is Lara the target of this guy’s creepiness? Lara is gorgeous and I can understand a guy being obsessed with her.
That day, after getting that second email, I decide to stop running by myself even in the early evening. In fact, by Saturday morning, after I have nightmares of being attacked in the dark, I decide I am not going anywhere on campus where I won’t be surrounded by people. I toy with showing the two emails to campus security. But what are they going to do? It’s not a crime to send my picture to me. In some places, cyber bullying is considered a crime, and my high school was covered with posters warning students not to sext or post naked pictures. But this can hardly be described as online torment, and I suspect Security won’t do anything. What can they do?
I warn Lara to be careful. She agrees with me about informing Security—this guy hasn’t done anything wrong yet.
But I’m getting the paralysed feeling I remember: I’m tense with fear all the time, fearing that something bad is going to happen to me and I don’t know when it will happen or where. And I’m scared that when it does happen, I’ll be too weak to stop it.
A couple of days later I wonder: could Jonathon be sending the pictures? Revenge for Lara rejecting him? Or is it aimed at me because I said some rude things about his BDSM interests?
In my gut, I don’t believe it of Jonathon.
Unless I have read him completely wrong and Jonathon has a really dark side.
***
It’s the third week of September and I’m making my first presentation in Studio.
I stand up and walk to the front of the room. My hand trembles as I flick on the lights. The project is an exploration of form using positive and negative space. Half the class has already presented, using slideshows projected from their laptops. I made a papier mache model in my dorm bathroom.
Everyone blinks as the lights come on. I’ve been awake since 6:00 a.m. the day before. I sway unsteadily on my feet as the lights also blind me.
I’m struggling to remember my presentation speech.
Oh God. What was I going to say? What was this project even about? I feel so punch drunk and exhausted I can’t remember. There are two professors in attendance: our studio prof, black-haired Anton Brut who sports a pomaded mustache, and another prof who teaches third year studio and is sitting in. Both look at me as I set down my model—
They look at me like I’m something the cat dragged in. I’ve seen how they responded to some of the other women, the ones in fashionable, expensive clothes. They straightened in their chairs, smiled, and acted chivalrous. When they see me in my jeans and a clean shirt (which I remembered to bring from my dorm, thank God) they look surprised.
“Are you ready, Miss Reynolds?” Brut asks.
“Yes.” God, I’m so tired. It’s like someone drilled a hole in the side of my head and my brain leaked out.
I stumble through my prepared speech. Adrenalin helps me remember most of it, but I stutter too many times. The professors get the chance to grill me—I mean, ask me questions. At first I can handle it, then questions come faster.
“How have you used negative space to determine the form?” Anton Brut asks.
Uh, because it’s the space that’s not the positive space. What’s not there defines what is there. I think.
“Why is your form so misshapen and blobby?” The third year prof asks. People titter.
Late night work with strips of glue-soaked paper that wrinkled, what do you think?
“What does your form represent?”
It’s a form. No one said it has to represent anything.
Finally Brut takes a deep breath and glares at me down his nose—an impressive feat since I’m standing and he’s sitting. “Miss Reynolds, you did not meet the requirements of the project brief. You haven’t used negative space correctly. Technically, this is a fail.”
That stuns me. My jaws flap. I can’t have failed.
The two professors are waiting for me to defend myself. I start to explain about my form, trying desperately to remember what I was trying to achieve. Then I make a killer mistake—I admit I had made a mistake. It seems like the best thing to do. Be honest.
“My process didn’t work like I’d hoped,” I explain. “I got behind in my work and I started the model too late. I didn’t get the result I wanted.”
The two professors start conferring with each other as if I’m not even in the room.
“I’d fail her outright,” says the guest prof.
Anton Brut is considering. “Do you have anything else to say in your defense?”
What can I say? I misunderstood and screwed up. Do I admit that? No one said I had to use negative space a certain way. This was supposed to be about exploring form. I still don’t understand how there can be a wrong answer.
I should say something. But anything I can think of sounds like whining. I don’t have any defence.
Just like my past—my messed up past. Sure, I can make excuses for being young. But I knew those things were wrong and I didn’t say no. I didn’t fight to make it stop.
I haven’t changed. I haven’t grown. I’m making the same mistakes again—assuming things, being too scared, and not confronting stuff.
This time it’s going to make me fail.
They’re still waiting. I have to be honest. “I can’t say anything in my defense. The model didn’t work. I didn’t do it right.”
There’s a gasp. I guess I was supposed to talk my way out of this. But I can’t do that. I’m not glib and confident.
“Are you certain, Miss Reynolds?”
“I—I guess.”
He launches into a general speech about people who don’t belong in the program, people who aren’t creative enough, who aren’t going to cut it.
I stand there, listening. They haven’t told me I can sit down and I won’t walk away until they do. It would look like I was fleeing. Even though I really want to run.
I’m sitting there thinking: I’ve failed. Already.
They finally tell me I can sit—after all, my humiliation is over and they need to bring the next person up. I stay, listening to every other presentation, but I don’t hear a word.
I’m done.
At the end of class, Anton Brut asks me into his office. He leaves the door open. “I don’t like to be in my office alone with a female student. Never with the door closed.”
He gives me a repeat of his warning during my presentation. Some people aren’t good enough. He means me.
“It’s a crowded profession,” he says. “Only the best succeed. There are other things you can do that don’t involve design work. You could be a technologist and do drafting if you have those skills. You could be an administrator. You could—”
“Brew the coffee,” I mutter. It’s only the first project. He isn’t giving me a chance.
As if he reads my mind, he answers the question. “Chances are for high school. Here, you should be ready to perform. If you aren’t, there is no place for you.”
I’ve been judged. Executed.
He suggests I consider leaving.
“No,” I say. I won’t leave; they will have to throw me out. But I don’t say that to him. For some reason, I can’t make my mouth say anything beyond one syllable.
He stands. “Then do better. I’ll give you two weeks to redo the project.”
For a moment, my heart soars. Just as fast, it sinks. I have other work due. He tells me to go.
I’m shaking when I leave the building. I know what abuse is all about. My entire puberty was haunted by it. But I’ve never had this.
I’ve never had anyone tell me I’m a piece of garbage to my face. While I listened to it—in studio (as we call being in our First Year Architectural Studio class) and in Brut’s office—I was damned and determined not to cry. I suspected that was the point of the exercise: to break me and drive me away. Some kind of Darwinian game where only the toughest should make it through first year.
I know that is garbage. I know I should stand up for myself.
But I’ve never stood up for myself.
The women’s bathroom is two steps away, and I retreat into one of the stalls. Sticking my thumb knuckle between my teeth, I bite hard.
The finger-biting doesn’t stop my tears. When I come out of the bathroom, I can feel them brimming in my eyes. I brush them away. Then slam into a tall, male body.
“Mia.” It’s Jonathon and he stares down at me in shock. “What happened?”
Chapter Six
“Say the word,” Jonathon says, after I’ve told him everything about my presentation and the meeting with my prof afterward. “I can have his career destroyed in days.”
I don’t know what to do. Cry? Laugh? Say yes? Laughing wins. “No, I don’t want that. I want to win fair and square. On my own merits. I want to make Anton Brut eat his words.”
From across the table, his gaze holds mine. “A warning. Guys like that do not eat their words. The only message they understand is when you grind them into the ground.”
He says it coldly, but I can feel the restrained anger inside him.
We’re sitting in an Irish pub that is on Westingham’s main street. There’s a huge bar of dark, polished wood with a gleaming brass rail and panels of stained glass. Scarves from British football teams hang on the walls, and a set of bagpipes is mounted above a huge stone fireplace. In the middle of the afternoon, it’s almost empty. Jonathon and I share a booth. Sunlight spills in on us, making dust motes sparkle. We have coffees in front of us. Since I’m half groggy from lack of sleep and half-wired on panic and hurt, I need something to keep me from collapsing.
I’ve barely emailed or spoken to Ryan since I started to cram on this project. Since mid-September, I’ve been so busy I’ve been only sleeping four hours a night and I forget to eat. I’d love to be able to be with Ryan. Wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. Use sex and loving to forget all this pain.
But I can’t do that with Ryan so far away.
I just want to be able to talk to him. For a day. An hour. Even just a minute.
Jonathon’s been really good to me. He’s made me feel so much better about the disaster of today. He’s made me laugh. He’s made me believe one screwed-up presentation is not the end of my life.
He told me about a prof at Yardley who singled him out because of his wealth and tried to take him down a few notches. What Jonathon describes sounds like abusive behavior on the part of the professor, but Jonathon doesn’t seem to care. He aced the course, then switched his major.
I can’t understand why he’s being so nice, why he spends so much time with me, why he lets me talk and rant to him. He knows it’s not going to lead to sex, because of Ryan.
But we’ve gotten together for coffee a few times a week—when I can spare some time from work—and he just listens to me.
Ryan hasn’t texted or called me much either. He’s just as busy as me. I worry about how he’s handling all the studying, but he keeps telling me everything is fine. His roommate, Philip, is helping and tutoring him, he says. In returns, he trains with Philip and is pushing his roomie to meet the physical tests.
The waitress comes to our table.
“More coffee, Mia?” Jonathon asks.
I have a weird buzzy feeling in my head. I’m starting to get juiced on caffeine, but am still exhausted. “Yeah,” I say. “That would be great.”
I draw out my phone. Should I tell Ryan about today? Probably not. He has enough worries.
Looking at my pho
ne reminds me about the weird emails. I decide to tackle it bluntly. I wait while the waitress sets down more coffee, then ask him, “Did you send me a couple of pictures of Lara and I?”
He looks surprised. It has to be genuine.
I tell him about the photos. The email addy has been different for each one. The first was YCStudent1002. The second came from YCStudent2002. Uber generic, which makes it disturbing.
Jonathon’s green eyes narrow. “What kind of pictures?”
That I didn’t fully explain to him. “Nothing racy,” I say quickly. “Nothing of us naked, or topless, or anything. I’ve received four. One of Lara and I talking at your party, and one when she and I were walking to the res commons for dinner. One when I was leaving the School of Architecture building in the middle of the day to meet you for coffee. And one in the morning, when I was leaving the dorm. Since you know both of us, I thought you might have taken our pictures.”
My reasoning sounds lame. What I’ve described sounds creepy and strange. And I realize that it sounds like I’m accusing Jonathon of being a stalker.
His hand is tight around his coffee mug. “No, I didn’t. If you get anymore, tell me about them. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. You look stressed about this,” I point out. His reaction is making me stressed. “Do you know something about this?”
“No, I don’t know anything about it. If someone is sending you pictures anonymously, I don’t like it.”
I feel bad. Jonathon has been a good friend. Looking at him, at the steely, determined look on his face, I suddenly get it. “You don’t have to protect me, you know. Oh—are you protecting Lara?”
He jerks his head a bit, looking surprised. “Both of you. If someone’s stalking you, I want to know about it. I can have it taken care of.”
“What are you—the mob?”
He grins. “Something better. Son of the CEO of Amalgamated Potter Industries.”