Page 55 of Boss of Her

Jade swallowed. “I-I think I’m ready.”

Simone picked up a loofah that was floating in the water and drew it gently down the back of Jade’s arm. “Tell me what’s been troubling you.”

“Well, I…” Jade leaned back against her once again. “I got an email this morning. It was nothing, just a grad school newsletter. But it had an article about one of my professors in it. Except she wasn’t just my professor.”

How could Jade explain what had happened between them? She’d never told a single soul. She’d been carrying that shameful secret with her for two years.

Simone swept the loofah up Jade’s arm, over her neck and shoulders, letting the water cascade down her chest and back. “Just take your time. Take all the time you need.”

Jade drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Her name is Philippa. Well, Professor Roberts, but she always let us call her by her first name. From the beginning, it felt more like she was another student than a professor. She was barely 30, and she was pretty close to her students. There were rumors that she was a bittooclose to some of them, but I figured that was just gossip. Everyone loved her.”

That was why it had felt so easy to trust her. And that was why Jade had felt like she couldn’t tell anyone about what happened between them.

“I ended up with her as my graduate adviser in my first year,” she said. “She helped me a lot, and not just with my grad project. I was a little younger than everyone else in my class. I skipped a grade in elementary school, and after college, I went straight to grad school, so I was only twenty-one when I started. It was hard, trying to navigate everything. But Philippa was there for me.”

Simone listened in silence, drawing the loofah up and down Jade’s back, the soothing motions and the gentle embrace of the water lulling her into a state of calm.

“Over time, we became close,” she said. “Closer than was normal for a student and a professor. I had a crush on her from the beginning, so when she started giving me all this attention, it was exciting. That crush was how I realized I liked women in the first place. So when she kissed me…”

Jade’s voice quavered. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “When she kissed me, I didn’t do anything to stop her. I wanted it. One thing led to another, and we ended up having sex. It happened again and again, until it became a relationship. At least, that was how I saw it. She kept us secret, but that was so we wouldn’t get in trouble. Otherwise, she treated me like I was her girlfriend, inviting me back to her place, spending time with me like we were a couple. She was my first everything. My first kiss. My first love. I even lost my virginity to her.”

Her stomach churned. She didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare look Simone in the eye. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to go on.

“Things were so good at first,” she said. “But Philippa always reminded me that I needed to keep things between us secret. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone to find out about us, would you?’ she would say. ‘You wouldn’t want me to lose my job.’

“At first, her words were just a warning to be careful. But then, they became threats, a way for her to control me. If Idisagreed with her or did anything she didn’t like, she’d remind me that I was breaking the rules by being with her. That if anyone found out about us, I’d get kicked out of grad school. Everyone would know what I did, and I’d be humiliated, my reputation, my whole life, ruined. So I needed to stay in line. I needed to do what she said.” Jade shook her head. “I should have broken things off with her right there and then. But I didn’t, because I was in love with her.”

She braced herself for Simone’s judgment. But she didn’t say a word, didn’t react at all. Instead, she continued drawing the loofah over Jade’s breasts and stomach, massaging gently.

That was what Jade needed from her. To know that she was there. To know that she was listening.

“I was so in love with her that I was blind to the fact that how she treated me was wrong,” Jade said. “And that she wasn’t in love with me at all. The whole time, she was just using me. For sex. For other things. It was only after half the year went by that I realized it. And I only realized it because I was at her apartment one night and she’d left something on the table I wasn’t meant to see. It was a research paper she’d submitted to a journal. And when I read the paper, I realized it wasmyresearch. She’d stolen my project.”

At first, Jade had been confused, thinking it was some kind of mistake. How stupid she’d been.

“When I confronted her about it, she didn’t deny it,” Jade said. “She’d taken the data and my half-written paper from my laptop, tidied it up, and submitted it as her own work. She said she’d helped me with it, so it was justified. That was how it worked in academia, she said. But she didn’t even put my name on it. I was stupid enough to believe her, but that didn’t stop me from feeling betrayed. And when I told her how I felt, she blew up at me.

“She asked me what I was going to do about it. Tell someone? No one would believe a student over a professor. I’d be branded a troublemaker and kicked out of the grad program, so I’d better keep my mouth shut. And I’d better keep my mouth shut about our relationship, too. Because who would even believe me? Who would believe that Philippa would ever wantsomeone like me?”

Something stabbed inside Jade’s chest. Those words had cut her deep. She’d left all of that behind her long ago. The mean girls at school making jabs about her body. The loneliness of being ostracized. The feeling that she’d never be good enough. She’d fought her whole life to feel comfortable in her own skin, to be proud of the person she was. And Philippa had undone it all with just a few words.

“She said that if I tried to tell anyone about us, she’d make everyone think I was crazy. That I was some kind of stalker who was obsessed with her. Thatshewas the victim, not me. Everyone would think I was a liar, a slut. She would make sure of it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe that she’d turned on me the way she had. But…” Jade shook her head. “But the truth was, she’d always been that way. I was just in denial about it. But that night, there was no denying it. She didn’t care about me. She only wanted me to be her obedient little sex doll. And after I stepped out of line, she didn’t want me anymore. She kicked me to the curb like I was nothing.”

Jade’s voice faltered. Simone had her arms around her again, the loofah cast aside. Jade watched it float away, her vision blurry with tears she wouldn’t let fall.

“That realization?” she said. “It broke me. I ended up flunking out of the semester and moving back to my hometown to live with my parents. They thought I burned out. After all, I’d left home so young, moving to the big city all by myself. It wasn’t surprising that I couldn’t handle it. I let my parents believe that. I let everyone believe that. Because I couldn’t tell them the truth.Like Philippa said, who would believe me? Even if they did, what could anyone do about it?

“I spent the next few months at home, barely leaving my bedroom. But eventually, I left my room, then my house. Eventually, I started living my life again. And when the next semester started, I went back to grad school. I was assigned a new adviser, and I did my best to pretend Philippa didn’t exist whenever I saw her. I finished my first year, and then the rest of the grad program. I moved on. But I never really got over what Philippa did. It changed me.”

That innocent girl Jade had once been? That optimistic dreamer? She was long gone now.

“Sometimes, I think about what would happen if I could travel back in time and meet my younger self,” she said. “Would she be horrified by how jaded and cynical I’ve become? Would she think there was something wrong with me? It’s like Philippa broke something inside me, some light, some spark, that I can’t ever get back. And it makes me feel like she won in the end. It’s been two years and I still can’t hear her name without falling apart. That email this morning brought everything back. Everything she did to me. All the ways she used me. And the humiliation, the shame I feel over letting her use me in the first place.”

Jade fell silent, the faint swish of water the only sound in the room. And as sadness welled up inside her again, Simone spoke for the first time.

“Oh, Jade,” she said. “None of that was your fault. Philippa took advantage of you. You can’t blame yourself for that. And you havenothingto be ashamed of. She’s the one who should be ashamed, preying on you the way she did.”

“I know that,” Jade said. “At least, I know that logically. But at the same time, I keep second-guessing myself. We were bothadults. And I wanted it. She never forced me to be with her or anything like that.”

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