Chapter 9: The Aftermath and a New Challenge
The fluorescent lights in Aidan’s office buzzed like trapped insects. Spread before him were first-year calculus papers, a sea of shaky derivatives and missed limits. He’d been staring at the same problem for ten minutes, the numbers blurring. All he could see was the red shimmer of Jin’s ropes, the calm severity in her eyes as she’d sipped her tea. You don’t have the camouflage.
A sharp rap on the doorframe jerked him back. Prae leaned there, a silhouette against the bright hallway. She wore denim cut-offs and a tight black vest, her smile a slash of knowing amusement.
“Grading is boring you,” she announced, stepping in and closing the door behind her. The tiny room immediately felt smaller, warmer. She brought the scent of night-blooming jasmine with her, cutting through the stale academic air.
“It’s my job,” Aidan said, leaning back in his wobbly chair.
“Your job is being a celebrity. This is just paperwork.” She perched on the edge of his desk, her hip nudging a stack of textbooks. She looked down at the student papers, then back at him, her gaze appraising. “You look tired. Jin worked you hard?”
“You’d know. You made the schedule.”
“I did.” She didn’t deny it. Her fingers traced the edge of his desk. “Was she right for you? The ropes?”
Aidan thought of the aching submission, the furious release. “It was different.”
“Good. Variety.” Prae’s playful tone shifted, grew businesslike. “I have a new thing. A big thing. It’s why I’m here.”
“Prae, the list is already…”
“This isn’t on the list.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “This is a private booking. A party. One night.”
Aidan stared at her. The word ‘booking’ landed like a physical object between them. “What are you talking about?”
“A man. He’s heard about you. He’s wealthy. Connected. He wants you for a party at his villa, up in the hills this Saturday. He’s inviting… guests. Women. A dozen, maybe more. They all want to meet the famous farang professor.” Her eyes were bright, almost feverish. “It’s a test, Aidan. Of your stamina. Your skill. If you do this, if you survive the night… your reputation here, it won’t just be gossip. It will be legend.”
A cold wire tightened in Aidan’s stomach. This was the logical, grotesque extension of everything—the spreadsheet, the whispers, the casual surrenders in bathrooms and neon-lit apartments. He was being upgraded from a rumor to a featured attraction.
“Who is this man?”
“His name is Vit. He’s a friend of a friend. He throws these parties sometimes. Special entertainment.” Prae shrugged, as if discussing a catering order. “He pays. Very well. Half for me, for arranging. Half for you.”
“I’m not a prostitute, Prae.”
“Aren’t you?” The question hung in the air, brutal and simple. She didn’t say it with cruelty, but with a flat, devastating honesty. “You take the gifts, the dinners, the… admiration. You follow my list. What’s the difference if the offer is pooled into one night, with one envelope of cash at the end?”
The truth of it was a vacuum, silencing him. The gifts—the bottle of expensive whiskey from the lawyer, the tailored shirt from the boutique owner—were payments. The spreadsheets were invoices. Jin had seen it immediately. He’d just refused to hold it up to the light.
“Why?” he asked, his voice hollow.
“Why not?” she countered. “You enjoy it. They enjoy it. And this way, you get a real reward. Maybe enough to buy a better motorbike. Or a proper vacation. Think of it as a consultancy fee. For specialized services.”
She slid off the desk and stood before him. Her hands went to the button of his trousers. He didn’t stop her. The numbness was spreading, but beneath it, a treacherous current of excitement sparked. Legend. The sheer, monstrous scale of the challenge appealed to something broken and competitive in him. To prove Jin wrong. To prove he could wear the camouflage.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Prae whispered, her fingers working his zipper down. “But Vit needs an answer by tomorrow.”
She sank to her knees, the linoleum floor cool against her skin. She didn’t hesitate. She took him into her mouth, her throat opening in a practised, effortless glide that made his head thump back against the chair.
The duality was dizzying. Here he was, in his shabby academic office, a woman between his legs, her throat working around him, while she brokered his debut as a party trick for a rich man’s villa. The low, rhythmic sounds she made were a promise and a condemnation.
He tangled a hand in her jet-black hair, not guiding, just holding on. His eyes fixed on a complex equation scrawled across his whiteboard—a problem in topology he’d been puzzling over for weeks. The symbols swam, meaningless.
Prae’s deep, throaty laugh vibrated through him as she felt him swell. She pulled back, catching her breath, her lips glistening. “See?” she said, looking up at him, her dark eyes gleaming with a mix of affection and sheer transactional zeal. “Your body already says yes. It’s what you’re good for. What you want to be good for.”
She took him back into the wet heat, and this time he didn’t think about Vit, or the villa, or the dozen unnamed women. He just watched the numbers on the whiteboard dissolve into static, and let the sensation drag him under, towards a decision he knew, with a sickening finality, he had already made.