“Ms. Brown?” he says. “I’m here to take you to the airport.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” I say, following him without another question. I have developed a really disturbing habit of just doing what I am told when men tell me what to do.
Except for that time I punched the principal in the face.
I get shown to a car, which sweeps me off to the airport. No need to take a bus this time. Sam takes good care of me when he knows I’m around to take care of.
Am I being spoiled by my stalker? Yes. Pretty much. I try not to feel satisfied about that. I am, after all, still being sexually controlled by an older man who is living a double life.
I expect to be dropped off at the terminal, but I find myself being driven into the actual tarmac itself, where a private jet is waiting. I don’t believe it even as I’m driven up to the little staircase.
“Is this for me?”
“Yes, madam,” the driver says.
“My god,” I say under my breath. I am dressed in my plausibly professional outfit, so I don’t look as out of place as I could, but I know I’m still very underdressed as I climb up into the plane.
I’m starting to feel like none of this could possibly be real. Me. Put on a private jet to go to school. If my mom were to see this she’d think I was fucking a real bad guy. Iamfucking a real bad guy, so she’d be right.
My life has become a whirlwind of strange events. I’m acting oddly, more erratically, more violently. I don’t know if I know myself anymore.
The plane takes off. The flight isn’t very long, less than twenty minutes. We’re landing almost as quickly as we took off. My first experience in a private plane is over before it starts, and I am driven from the airport right to college.
I have to go to all my classes dressed like I think I’m a professor, which is quite funny. I try to concentrate, but it’s not easy. My head is full of sex and submission, and money and probablydanger. I know this isn’t actually a good situation to be in. This man hides who he really is. He does terrible, dark things.
So why do I miss him so much when I’m at work? Why does my every thought revolve around him? And not out of fear, either. I keep thinking about how good he looked when he was naked and out of the shower. I think about how his hands feel on me. And how I feel when he takes complete control…
“Table two’s order has been at the window for five minutes,” my shift manager chides me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I must have forgotten.”
She gives me a look that I know from having seen it given to others indicates that there is a strong chance I’m going to be fired. A few weeks ago, that would have freaked me out. Now I’m not sure I care so much. This job is starting to feel like an old pair of shoes, restrictive and worn out at the same time.
At the end of my shift, they want to talk to me. Alana, the shift manager, and Morris, the actual owner.
“You’ve been skipping shifts without warning, and your performance has dropped significantly. We’d like you to take a drug test.”
“What?” That’s not what I expected to hear. “Why?”
“It’s standard procedure when we suspect that one of our staff is using drugs,” the manager says. Morris has never questioned me once in the entire time I’ve worked here.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Then you will be fired.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll take the test then.”
“Good.” He hands me a little bottle that I am supposed to pee in.
This is humiliating, and unfair and weird. I hesitate for a second. If this had happened a month ago, I would have been freaking out and embarrassed as hell. Right now, I’m…
I hand the bottle back to him and take off my apron. “Thank you for the experience,” I say politely. “But I’ve never taken drugs, and I’m not going to start being tested for them now.”
“We will send your last paycheck,” he says.
“Okay, thanks.”
The feeling of walking out of my job having been fired is a weird mix of freedom and shame. I really never thought I would be the sort of person to get canned, but I guess I did miss a couple of shifts and I’ve probably been off lately because being the fuck toy of a psychopath is kind of a huge distraction that you can’t really explain to anyone.
