Chapter 3: School day
The next day passed in a blur of fluorescent lights and echoing lecture halls. For Beth, it was a marathon of avoided sightlines. She kept her head down, sunglasses perched on her nose despite the overcast sky, her shoulders hunched as if making herself smaller could erase the memory of the dirt under her nails, the ache in her muscles, the deep, throbbing soreness that was a constant, shameful reminder.
She saw him once, from a distance. Zack was leaning against a brick wall outside the science building, laughing with some guy from his economics class. He looked normal. Relaxed. As if he hadn’t taken something from her in that dark park, something she was only now beginning to realize she’d willingly handed over. The casual ease of him ignited a simmering coal of fury in her gut. He got to walk around like nothing happened. She was the one walking funny, feeling phantom hands on her hair, hearing his voice in the rustle of notebook pages.
Her pride, bruised and feral, began to stitch itself back together with threads of resentment. He thought he’d won. He thought she was just some broken thing now, waiting for his command. The heat of the anger felt good, familiar. It burned away the confusing, liquid shame that had followed her home. By the time the sun bled out behind the administration building, the anger had hardened into a plan. A stupid plan, but it was hers. She would find him. She would lay down the law. She would show him he didn’t own her. The memory of her own choked pleas in the dirt was shoved into a mental lockbox. That wasn’t her. That was the shock. The fear.
She found him just after nine, near the library’s back entrance. The area was poorly lit, a concrete no-man’s-land between the buzzing study halls and the silent dormitories. A single, flickering payphone booth cast a sickly yellow glow on the pavement. He was sitting on a low retaining wall, scrolling through his phone, a half-eaten sandwich in wax paper beside him. He looked up as her shadow fell across him.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other. The hum of the library’s HVAC system droned in the silence.
“You look like shit,” Zack said finally, his voice neutral. He took a bite of his sandwich.
Beth’s carefully rehearsed opening line evaporated. “Fuck you.”
“Already did.” He chewed slowly, watching her. “Twice, if you count the blowjob. What do you want, Beth? I’m on break.”
His calm was a physical provocation. She stepped closer, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “I want you to listen to me. Last night… that was a one-time thing. A freak-out. It doesn’t change anything between us. You don’t get to look at me like you know me. You don’t get to think you’re suddenly in charge. You keep your mouth shut, I keep mine shut, and we go back to how it was.”
Zack set his sandwich down. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up. He wasn’t much taller than her, but in the uneven light, he seemed to occupy more space. “How it was,” he repeated, his tone flat. “You mean where you treat me like garbage for your own entertainment? That arrangement?”
“Yes,” she spat, her confidence bolstered by his apparent engagement. “You’re nobody, Zack. A gas station loser. Last night was a… a mistake. A moment of weakness. Don’t get cocky.”
The word ‘cocky’ hung in the damp air. A slow, ugly smile spread across his face. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the smile of a chess player whose opponent has just moved their king into the open.
“Cocky,” he said, tasting the word. He took one step forward. She didn’t retreat, but her breath hitched. “You came at me with a rock, Beth. You kneeled in the dirt. You swallowed my cum. You begged me to fuck you harder. And now you’re here, on my break, trying to renegotiate terms?” He shook his head, a mockery of disappointment. “You don’t get to decide how it is. I decide.”
“You don’t decide shit—” she started, her voice rising.
“Kneel.”
The word was a whip-crack. It wasn’t loud. It was absolute.
Beth stared, her blood running cold. “What? No. You’re insane. People could—”
“The library side door is locked after eight. The dorms are around the corner. No one’s coming here.” He didn’t move. His eyes held hers, dark and unblinking. “You came here to show me you’re still in charge. So show me. Or kneel and show me the truth.”
Tremors started in her knees. It was the voice. The same cold, directive tone from the park. It slithered past her anger, finding the hidden lockbox and prying it open. The shame flooded back, but with it came that other thing, that terrifying, electric current that had melted her bones in the grass. Her mouth went dry.
“I’m not doing this,” she whispered, but the defiance was crumbling.
Zack reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. He thumbed it on, the screen illuminating his sharp features. He tapped a few times, then held it up. It was a video, paused. A frame of her on her knees, eyes wide, his flesh in her mouth. The evidence of her utter surrender.
“Last chance,” he said softly. “Walk away right now, and this goes to the campus group chat. I’ll title it ‘Beth’s Hidden Talent.’ Or you kneel, and we keep this… private.”
It was no choice at all. It was a demolition. With a ragged, shattered sigh, the fight left her body. Her shoulders slumped. Her gaze dropped from his face to the grimy pavement between his worn sneakers. The concrete was cold, gritty. She felt the rough texture through the thin fabric of her leggings as first one knee, then the other, pressed down. The position was achingly familiar. Submissive. Defeated.
He looked down at her for what felt like an eternity, saying nothing. The power of his silence was worse than any insult. He was letting her feel it, letting the reality of her posture sink into her soul. Then he put the phone away.
“Good girl,” he murmured. The praise was a violation. It made her flinch and tremble simultaneously.
His hands went to his belt. The clink of the buckle, the rasp of the zipper, were sounds that now lived in her nervous system. He freed himself, already thick and heavy, and rested the head against her parted lips. The heat of him was a brand.
“Open,” he commanded.
She did. She took him into her mouth, the salt-skin taste flooding her senses. This wasn’t like the frantic, chaotic scene in the park. This was methodical. Punishment. He set a slow, deep rhythm, one hand tangling in her hair to guide her. There was no passion in it, only ownership. She gagged softly as he pushed to the back of her throat, tears springing to her eyes. He held there, making her adjust, before pulling back.
“You thought you could just reset,” he said, his voice conversational even as he fucked her mouth. “You think this is a game you can quit when you’re losing. It’s not. This is what you are for me now. A set of holes. A stress relief. You understand? Nod if you understand.”
She nodded, a miserable bob of her head around his girth, a choked sound of acknowledgement vibrating against him.
“I own the photos. I own the video. I own the memory of you coming apart in the dirt. And now,” he said, pulling out of her mouth with a slick pop, “I’m going to own this too. Stand up.Turn around. Bend over the wall.”
Dizzily, she obeyed. She pushed herself up, her legs shaky, and turned to face the cold, rough concrete of the retaining wall. She bent at the waist, her palms flat on the gritty surface. She heard him spit, twice, into his hand. Then the cold, wet pressure of his fingers against her, through her leggings and the thin cotton of her thong underneath. He rubbed roughly, then hooked the fabric aside.
He entered her in one solid, tearing thrust. She cried out, the sound swallowed by the vast, empty plaza. The soreness from the night before was still there, a raw tenderness that made his invasion feel even bigger, more brutal. He didn’t pause for her to adjust. He just started moving, a hard, relentless pace that shoved her forward against the wall with each drive.
“This is how it is now,” he grunted, his body slapping against hers. “You don’t talk to me unless I tell you to. You don’t look at me unless I’m using you. You’re my fucking secret. My dirty little cunt on campus.”
Each filthy word was a nail in the coffin of her old self. And with each one, that traitorous heat built again in her core. The pain blurred into a devastating fullness, the humiliation kindling a desperate, rising fire. She pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts, a low moan dragged from her throat.
“Yeah, you like it,” he sneered, his breath hot on her neck. “You love being used like a cheap slut against a wall. Tell me you love it.”
“I love it,” she sobbed, the admission tearing free. “God, I love it, please…”
He fucked her harder, faster. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, the burning stretch, the coil of pleasure tightening in her belly until it was agony. When she came, it was a silent, shuddering convulsion that locked her muscles and ripped a silent scream from her lungs. He felt it, his rhythm faltering, and with a final, deep plunge, he emptied into her with a harsh, guttural groan, his hips grinding against her as he pumped his release deep inside.
He stayed there for a moment, his weight heavy on her back, both of them panting in the cool night air. Then he pulled out, the sudden absence making her feel hollow, used. He rearranged his clothes with a few practical tugs.
Beth slumped against the wall, her forehead on her arms, unable to move. She felt the warm trickle between her thighs, a stark physical proof of her defeat.
Zack picked up his sandwich from the wax paper, took another bite. He chewed, looking at her disheveled form bent over the wall.
“See you around, Beth,” he said, his voice once more casual, conversational. As if he’d just commented on the weather.
He walked away, his footsteps fading on the pavement. She didn’t lift her head until long after the sound was gone. When she finally straightened, her body ached in places she didn’t know could ache. She pulled her thong back into place, the damp fabric a chilling reminder. She was his secret. His dirty little cunt on campus.
And the worst part, the part that truly terrified her as she walked stiffly toward her dorm, was the terrifying, electric certainty that hummed beneath the shame: she couldn’t wait for him to use her again.