by Sharon Page
I catch a glimpse of myself in the many windows of the Architecture building as I hurry out the door. My figure looks good—at least I have that.
I shouldn’t care really what I look like, going to see Jonathon. I’m not interested in him.
I push through the doors of the University Centre, another glass and concrete building, and am engulfed in noise. This building alone is larger than my high school.
At the coffee bar on the main floor, there’s a line that winds out of it and curves into a vending machine food court. Jonathon is sitting there at a table, and when he sees me he stands. “Too crowded here. There’s another place upstairs.” He motions me to go first, then he follows. I’m aware of him behind me. He’s almost the same height as Ryan and his build is similar—broad-shouldered and well-muscled, but not bulky. His hips are trim. I suspect his ass looks the same in jeans, but I have no intention of looking. To do so would feel wrong, even though it would be just looking.
Is Ryan just looking at girls at his military college? He must be. It’s natural. It doesn’t bother me, since I know that it would be nuts to expect him to not notice another female. I suppose most of them will be in fantastic shape.
Again, it doesn’t bother me. If I lose him, I don’t think it will be over sex. I think it will be due to his loneliness or a need for emotional connection. What would make me worry more is if he found a girl he wanted to talk to and confide in. That’s when I’d lose him.
But I’d have to retreat in good grace. If that’s what he needs, I’d understand.
“How was your first class?”
Jonathon’s soft, deep voice breaks in on my thoughts. I notice that on the second floor of the University Centre there are at least three places to buy coffee. Now I know what they expect students to live off. Jonathon leads me to a small, plain looking room with a coffee bar inside it. The sign reads Beans.
“It was good. Interesting. It was History of Western Architecture and Day 1 was all about burial mounds. Apparently we spend the next four classes covering barrows, tombs, and other burial chambers.”
Jonathon winces with pain.
“Actually, it is surprisingly fascinating,” I say, which is true. With Jonathon I like to banter, argue, irritate him. I don’t know why, but he brings out that side of me.
“What do you want for coffee?”
“What are you having?” I figure he must have come to this coffee bar several times over the last six years.
“Non-fat double cappuccino with cinnamon.”
I blink. I’m used to drinking ordinary coffee in Milltown. “I’ll have the same.”
He looks at me deeply, as if that means something. “I assumed you know what’s good here,” I say.
He puts in our order to a guy who is almost seven-feet tall and rake-thin. Then he rejoins me. He leans on the table. The intensity in his eyes takes my breath away. His eyes look vividly green and I really can’t look away.
“I want to take you to a club tonight,” Jonathon says softly.
Okay, this isn’t about Lara. “No.”
“Don’t judge until you try it,” he says. “No expectations, no requirements, no obligations. Just a night to explore something seductive and exotic.”
“What kind of club are you talking about?” I assumed he meant a dance club. Not I’m not sure.
“BDSM,” he says, at the exact moment the tall guy serves our coffees. I feel my face heat up faster than steamed milk. “There’s a club off campus—a private club developed by myself and two other partners. It’s one of a chain of clubs and entry is by invitation only. I would like to take you there.”
“There’s a club in this little town?”
“I live here,” Jonathon says. “I wanted one, so I built one. There are BDSM clubs on college campuses all over the country. Most of the ivy league schools have clubs.”
I wonder why Jonathon, with his money, isn’t going to an Ivy League college. To irritate his father?
He leans back, sips his cappuccino and I sense he is just waiting for my consent.
“No. There is no point to it, Jonathon. I have a boyfriend. His name is Ryan and he’s from my home town.” Not really my home town, but where I’ve lived and built an entire new life, a new reputation, a new and clean past. “We’re serious and we intend to make a long distance relationship work.”
“What happens at Yardley stays here,” he says softly.
“No, it would stay in my soul,” I say. “I have no intention of cheating on him because I can get away with it. I don’t want to cheat on him.” I should leave. I start to stand but Jonathon gets to his feet at once, his hand gently touching my arm.
“Don’t walk out on your coffee, Mia. Just talk to me.” As we both sit, he gives me a look—as if I’m crazy. “You’re thinking of marrying this guy?”
“I’m not thinking about marriage yet. I’m only nineteen. But I am in love with him, and I recognize that we have is special. I don’t want to ruin it.” If it gets ruined, I guess I’ll have to live with that—but I don’t want to be the one that did it.
“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 it 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 sit 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 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 so 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. Then 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.”
Then 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.”
It’s a repeat of his warning during my pre
sentation. 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’m 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. Then 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 the studio 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?”