Page 29 of Kept

Rachelle’s voice had risen back to normal levels with the departure of Alyssa, and she was answering Sean. I took a deep breath and forced myself out the downward spiral of my thoughts. “I don’t know. They said she smashed up half the stuff in his office when he broke it off. He just manhandled her out while she was trying to scratch his face up. It was a whole big thing, they called the cops and everything.”

I flipped to a new, empty page in my notebook just to do something with my hands.

“She isn’t my type anyways,” Sean said. “Too snooty. You can tell just by looking at her that she thinks she shits roses. She’s probably a gold-digger like all the rest.”

Rachelle snorted into her mocha and I laid my pen down. The urge to write had left me.

What would they think if they knew what I was doing? Would Sean think I was a gold-digger who’d gotten myself into the situation? After all, before the blackmail, I’d been perfectly willing to fuck Rhett, a professor with a loaded family.

My second reaction was to bristle at what Sean said. There was a distinct aroma of white knight in the air.

He glanced at me when he said it, and I turned my gaze back down to my notebook.

So maybe Monday wasn’t worth looking forward to.

But that was okay. All they’d get from me was what they asked, and no more.

* * *

Sunday nightI was curled up in my bed when a text lit up the room.

I reached for the phone with only the slightest tremble in my hands. There was no thrill of excitement, no twist of anticipation, just a deadened resignation.

The Dean of Students wanted something from his Pet. Funny. Who cared about the mouse when you’d once had Aphrodite?

Vincent:A picture, Pet

Despite myself, I felt that familiar coil of heat when I went to obey my owner’s command. Maybe it was because I could imagine those words spoken in that gravelly voice all too easily, or that it practically felt like he was looming over my shoulder even through a few words.

I pulled down my underwear and snapped a photo, sent it. There was no point in saying anything else. This wasn’t a flirtation. There could be no game on an uneven playing field.

Vincent:You’re so gorgeous, I can’t wait to eat you.

The coil became a fire. Heat spread through me and I basked in the glow of being wanted, even if it was all fake.

Jane:Thank you, sir

Several bubbles popped up as Vincent typed something, then abruptly disappeared. It happened again, and I flopped back on my pillow, gazing at the screen with confusion and apprehension.

Vincent:Tell me one thing you want, Jane. Anything at all

Now the confusion had really taken over. What did he care? The only business he had with me was to eat the mouse and let me skitter away when it was over without losing everything I had.

I thought about it for several minutes, and finally typed out my reply.

I could’ve told him I wanted the moon or a Ferrari or to be as beautiful as Aphrodite, but the things I really, truly wanted I could count on one hand, and I didn’t have it in me to be flippant. Besides, if there was one person I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, wasn’t going to ask me that question without expecting a serious answer, it was the Dean.

And he’d called me Jane, not Pet. He was askingme.

Jane:If I could have anything, I’d want my mother to be okay

He didn’t reply, even though I waited for another fifteen minutes.

I went to sleep wondering if he regretted asking, if my answer had made me too real to him. An actual human being with wants and desires and fears.

Not just a Pet.

Chapter Eleven

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