Chapter 8: Concealer and Consequences
The concealer stick was cold against Vy’s skin. Katy’s face was a mask of intense concentration, her brows drawn together, as she dabbed the fleshy-toned paste onto the fresh, purpling bite mark just above Vy’s collarbone.
“Hold still,” Katy murmured, her breath a warm whisper against Vy’s neck.
Vy sat perched on the edge of Katy’s desk chair, wearing only her jeans. The early morning light was stronger now, cutting through the blinds and illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air between them. She tried to remain motionless, but the touch of Katy’s fingertips—feather-light as she blended the edges—sent electric shivers down her spine. Each stroke was deliberate, possessive in its care.
“There,” Katy said finally, pulling back to examine her work. Her critical gaze scanned Vy’s throat. “Passable. If David gets within two feet of you, he’ll know. But he has no sense of personal space anyway.”
She capped the concealer and turned to drop it into her open toiletry bag. The moment her attention broke, Vy felt a sudden, dizzying shift. The clinical tenderness was gone, replaced by a tension that vibrated in the small space between them. The memory of the night, of the hours just passed, crashed over her—the desperate, wordless grappling, the way Katy had pinned her wrists, the raw, shuddering sounds she hadn't known she could make.
Katy turned back. She saw it. She saw the flush creeping up Vy’s chest, the dilation of her pupils, the quick, unconscious part of her lips.
“Or,” Katy said, her voice dropping into something low and dark, “we could just give him something else to look at.”
Her hands landed on the arms of the desk chair, caging Vy in. She leaned down, her mouth hovering a breath from Vy’s. “One more time,” she said, and it wasn’t a request. It was a confession of a shared weakness. “Because I can’t think straight with you looking at me like that.”
Vy’s protest was a weak, breathy thing. “The meeting…”
“Is in an hour. Plenty of time.” Katy’s mouth found the sensitive spot just below Vy’s ear. “I need it. You’re in my head.”
The words unspooled Vy completely. To be needed, to be a compulsion—it was a dangerous, thrilling drug. She let her head fall back, granting access. Katy’s lips traveled down her throat, avoiding the concealed mark, seeking new territory to claim.
Then, with a sharp push, Katy shoved the rolling chair back. It glided a few inches before hitting the edge of the rumpled bed. Before Vy could register the movement, Katy was on her, a knee on either side of Vy’s hips, pressing her down into the mattress. The chair dug into Vy’s back, a minor, irrelevant pain.
“You undo me,” Katy growled against her mouth, her fingers already working the button of Vy’s jeans. “You and your fucking models and your quiet eyes. I had a plan for today.”
Vy couldn’t answer. Her brain had short-circuited, reduced to a single point of focus: Katy’s weight, Katy’s hurried hands, Katy’s mouth swallowing her gasp as her jeans were yanked down her thighs. It was frantic, devoid of the earlier slow devastation. This was about conquest, about obliteration.
Katy didn’t bother with preamble. She slid a hand between them, her touch knowing and direct. Vy cried out, her hips bucking off the bed. The angle was awkward, the chair back digging in, but the discomfort was irrelevant, burned away by the immediacy of Katy’s fingers inside her, the ruthless rhythm she established.
“See?” Katy panted, her forehead pressed to Vy’s. Her own need was a visible tremor in her arms. “This is what you do. You make me greedy.”
Vy could only cling to her, her nails biting into Katy’s shoulders through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. The climax tore through her quickly, a sharp, surprised burst of white-hot pleasure that left her gasping. Katy watched her the entire time, her eyes black and unblinking, absorbing every twitch, every stifled sob.
As Vy trembled through the aftershocks, Katy withdrew her hand. She brought her glistening fingers to her own mouth, her eyes locked on Vy’s, and sucked them clean. The act was so flagrant, so deliberately crude, that Vy felt a fresh jolt of heat low in her belly.
“Again,” Katy whispered, her voice ragged.
“Katy, I can’t—”
“You can.” She shifted, sliding down Vy’s body. “You will.”
This time, she used her mouth. It was slower, more focused, a deliberate wringing of a second peak from Vy’s oversensitized body. Vy writhed, overstimulated, pleading wordlessly into the crook of her own arm. Katy was relentless, her hands pinning Vy’s hips to the mattress, holding her captive to the sensation until Vy broke a second time, a slow, deep unraveling that felt less like pleasure and more like being unmade.
When it was over, Vy lay completely spent, a hollowed-out shell. Katy crawled back up her body and collapsed beside her, breathing hard. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breaths and the distant hum of a vacuum cleaner in the hallway.
The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 7:32.
“Shit,” Katy breathed, rolling off the bed. She moved to her dresser, pulling out a fresh t-shirt and jeans. “We have eighteen minutes.”
Vy slowly pushed herself up, her body feeling heavy and used. She found her clothes in a heap and dressed mechanically. The concealer felt sticky on her neck. She caught a glimpse of herself in Katy’s mirror—hair wild, lips swollen, eyes glazed. She looked thoroughly fucked. The thought should have horrified her. A tiny, secret part of her thrilled at it.
Katy, now dressed, was a whirlwind of efficiency—scooping up case files, shoving a laptop into her bag. She tossed Vy’s notebook to her. “Your framework. Don’t forget it.”
Vy caught it, the pages full of her careful, logical work feeling alien in her hands. The disconnect was staggering. One moment she was being taken apart on a molecular level; the next, she was expected to defend a multivariate regression analysis.
Katy shouldered her bag and stopped by the door. She looked back at Vy, who was still standing, slightly disoriented, by the bed. A softened, almost apologetic smile touched Katy’s lips. “Hey. You with me?”
Vy took a breath, forcing the world back into alignment. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Katy opened the door. “Remember, David’s an asshole, but he’s a predictable asshole. He’ll go after your methodology first. Just cite Wooldridge. He hates Wooldridge, but he can’t argue with it.”
They walked to Linder Hall in a bubble of charged silence. The crisp autumn air was a shock to Vy’s system. Students passed them, chatting about weekend plans, problem sets, hangovers.Normal life. Vy felt like an imposter walking among them, her body humming with secrets.
David and Priya were already in the study room, a whiteboard covered in their elegant script. David glanced up as they entered, his eyes sliding from Katy’s composed face to Vy’s. He lingered for a fraction of a second too long on Vy’s concealed neck.
“You’re late,” he said, not looking at the clock.
“By thirty seconds,” Katy said, dropping her bag on the table with a thud. “Let’s move. Vy, the board.”
Vy approached, her notes trembling slightly in her hand. She began to outline her model, her voice gaining strength as she fell into the familiar language of variables and coefficients. David listened, his arms crossed, occasionally interrupting with a pointed question. Each time, Vy answered, citing her sources, her voice steady even as she felt the ghost of Katy’s mouth on her skin.
Katy watched from the sidelines, a silent guardian. She didn’t speak unless David’s challenges became overly aggressive, then she’d intervene with a slicing remark that cut him off at the knees. Priya observed it all, her intelligent eyes missing nothing.
After an hour, David leaned back, grudgingly impressed. “Fine. It’s solid. A bit derivative, but solid. We’ll integrate it.”
It was as close to praise as he would give. Vy felt a surge of pure, professional triumph.It was hers. This, at least, was hers.
As they packed up, David nodded at Katy. “Good call on the framework.” Then, as if as an afterthought, he looked at Vy. “You clean up nice, Le. Look more rested than you did at the mixer.”
The words were benign. The smirk was not. Vy felt a cold trickle of dread down her spine. He knew. Or he suspected. The careful concealment, the performance—it hadn’t been enough.
Katy’s hand landed on the small of Vy’s back, a firm, possessive pressure. “We work hard,” she said, her voice cool and flat. “We don’t have time for beauty sleep. See you Tuesday, David.”
Outside, under the gray morning sky, Vy hugged her notebook to her chest. The triumph was now alloyed with a sharp, metallic fear.
Katy lit a cigarette, taking a long drag. “He knows,” she said simply, exhaling a plume of smoke.
“What do we do?”
“Nothing.” Katy looked at her, her gaze unreadable. “Let him know. It doesn’t change your work. It doesn’t change this.” She gestured between them with the hand holding the cigarette. “It just makes him an asshole with information. He’s already an asshole.”
Vy wanted to believe her. But the world, which had previously been divided into clear compartments—academic ambition, personal desire—was blurring, leaking at the seams. David’s knowing look was a breach. A crack in the façade.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, expecting Sofina.
It was a text from an unknown number.
Unknown: Saw your presentation notes. Impressive.Coffee sometime? - Ben from the Wellesley News. I’d love to profile the case comp team.
Attached was a photo, taken from the back of the room during her presentation. It showed her at the whiteboard, pointing to a equation, her profile focused. And just visible in the corner of the frame, leaning against the doorjamb with a faint, unreadable smile, was Katy. Watching her.
Vy stared at the screen. It was an opportunity. A good one. The kind she’d have killed for a month ago.
She slowly turned the phone to show Katy.
Katy’s eyes scanned the message. Her expression didn’t change. She took another drag of her cigarette, then dropped it, crushing it under her boot. “Journalists,” she said, her voice light, but her eyes were hard stones. “They always want a story. Be careful what you give them.”
She turned and started walking toward the dining hall, leaving Vy standing on the path, holding the phone, the image of the two of them frozen on the screen—one performing, the other observing—a perfect, damning snapshot of exactly what they were.
Vy stared at the retreating line of Katy’s shoulders, swallowed by the stream of students heading to brunch. The photo on her phone felt radioactive. She looked at the text again. Ben from the Wellesley News. An opportunity, a legitimizing spotlight. It was the exact sort of thing her pre-Katy self would have meticulously drafted a reply to.
She deleted the message.
The act was impulsive, the sensation violent. A piece of her ambition, chipped off and discarded. She shoved the phone into her pocket and hurried after Katy, her steps quickening until she fell in stride beside her. She didn’t speak. The silence between them was a third presence, heavy and knowing.
Katy glanced at her, a sidelong look. “You’re quiet.”
“Thinking,” Vy said.
“About?”
“How hungry I am.” It was a lie. She was thinking about the delete button, the finality of it. She was thinking about David’s smirk. About whose team she was really on.
The week that followed was a study in exquisite torture. Priya scheduled back-to-back modeling sessions. David demanded new data runs, citing ‘rigor.’ Vy had two stats problem sets that ate her nights. Katy, meanwhile, was pulled into a senior thesis collapse for a Comparative Lit professor, a crisis involving 14th-century Italian sonnets that left her scowling at her laptop in the library until 2 AM.
They texted. Staccato, functional bursts.
Running the regression again. David’s a monster.
Dante was a monster. Meet Thursday?
Can’t. Priya booked the lab.
Acknowledged.
Then, Thursday night, a single line from Katy: Boston. Saturday. My treat. 1 PM. I’ll pick you up.
No question mark. Just a statement. A lifeline.
Saturday arrived, cold and bright. Vy stood outside her dorm, the wind whipping strands of hair from her bun. She’d spent an hour choosing her outfit—dark jeans, a black sweater, boots that felt both practical and like she was trying. The concealer was applied thick over the bite mark, now faded to a yellowing shadow.
Katy’s beat-up Volvo pulled up, music thumping a low bassline through the closed windows. She leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. “Get in. I’m double-parked.”
Vy slid in, the car warm and smelling of coffee and Katy’s particular scent—sandalwood and clean sweat. Katy was dressed in a worn leather jacket and ripped jeans, her hair loose. She looked tired, but her eyes were bright as she took Vy in. “You look nervous.”
“I’m not,” Vy lied.
Katy smiled, a quick flash of teeth, and pulled into traffic. “Bullshit. It’s cute.”
The drive into Boston was a blur of tunnels and bridges. They didn’t talk much. Katy drove with a focused aggression, weaving through lanes, while Vy watched the cityscape rise. The tension wasn’t the anxious kind from the study room. It was a thick, simmering thing, fed by a week of absence. Every shift of Katy’s hand on the gearshift, every glance she stole, poured gasoline on it.
Katy parked in a cramped spot in the North End. “No agenda,” she announced, killing the engine. “Just walk. Eat. Be somewhere he isn’t.”
“He?”
“Anyone from there.” Katy gestured vaguely back toward Wellesley.
They walked. The narrow streets were crowded, fragrant with garlic and baking bread. They got cannoli from a tiny shop, powdered sugar dusting their coats. They wandered into a used bookstore, shoulders brushing as they scanned the shelves. Katy pulled out a battered copy of The Conference of the Birds, flicking through the pages. “Persian poetry,” she said. “Sufi mystics. It’s about a journey.”
Vy leaned in to look, her temple almost touching Katy’s cheek. The air between them hummed. “What’s the destination?”
“Finding a king. Or maybe becoming one.” Katy slid the book back. “It’s a mess. I like it.”
Outside, the afternoon light was fading into a deep, cobalt blue. They found themselves on a quieter pier, the harbor water choppy and steel-gray. The wind was sharper here, biting. Vy shivered.
“Come here,” Katy said, her voice almost lost in the wind.
She turned Vy to face the water, standing behind her. She wrapped her arms around Vy’s shoulders, pulling her back against her chest. It was a gesture of warmth, practical. But the contact was electric. Vy leaned into it, her head resting back against Katy’s collarbone. She could feel Katy’s heartbeat through their layers of clothing.
They stood like that for minutes, watching a ferry chug toward the distant airport. Katy’s chin rested on Vy’s shoulder. Her lips were close to Vy’s ear. The world narrowed to the circle of Katy’s arms, the smell of her leather jacket, the solid warmth at Vy’s back.
“I missed this,” Katy murmured, the words a vibration against Vy’s skin.
“What? The scenic view?” Vy’s attempt at a joke came out breathy.
“You. Your particular silence.” Katy’s arms tightened. “The way you think so loud it’s almost a sound.”
Vy turned her head. Their faces were inches apart. Katy’s gaze dropped to Vy’s mouth.
The first kiss was soft, a tentative relearning. The salt air on their lips, the cold nip of the wind. It was chaste, almost public-appropriate.
It lasted three seconds.
The second kiss was not. Katy’s hand came up to cup Vy’s jaw, her thumb stroking the edge of her lip. Her mouth opened, hot and insistent. Vy turned fully in her arms, her back to the endless, uncaring water. She kissed back, her fingers digging into the soft leather of Katy’s jacket. All the unsent texts, the lonely hours in the lab, the stifled thoughts—they poured into that kiss. It was devouring.
They broke apart, gasping. Their breath fogged the air between them. A couple walked by, laughing, not even glancing their way. They were invisible, two more students in a city.
“We should go,” Katy said, her voice ragged. She didn’t move.
“Where?” Vy breathed.
“Anywhere. Nowhere.” Katy kissed her again, hard and quick. “The car.”
The walk back to the car was a fever dream. They didn’t speak. Their hands found each other, fingers lacing together with a painful tightness. Every stoplight was an eternity. Every passing stranger a potential obstacle.
Katy fumbled with the keys, unlocking the door. They tumbled into the cold interior. The door slammed shut, muffling the city sounds. The sudden quiet was deafening.
Katy didn’t start the engine. She just looked across the console, her eyes black in the dim light. The streetlight outside painted a stripe of orange across her throat.
“Back to campus?” Vy asked, the question a useless fragment of logic.
“No.” Katy unbuckled her seatbelt. It retracted with a sharp zip. She leaned over the center console, her body a tense, graceful arc. Her kiss was all tongue and teeth and desperation. Vy met her with equal force, her seatbelt digging into her shoulder.
It was clumsy, constrained. The gearshift pressed into Vy’s side. The steering wheel was in the way. A frustration, animal and pure, rose in Vy’s chest. She pulled back, panting. “This isn’t—”
“I know.” Katy’s eyes scanned the street outside. It was a residential block, quiet, dotted with old brick buildings. Most windows were dark. A street away, she could see the bright lights of a main avenue, traffic flowing.
Her gaze fixed on a narrow alley between two buildings, half-shielded by a dumpster. It was pitch black.
“There,” Katy said, the word a challenge.
Vy followed her look. Understanding dawned, hot and immediate. It was insane. Reckless. The ultimate test.
“Katy…”
“Who belongs to who, Vy?” Katy whispered, echoing her words from the dorm. But here, now, it was a different question. It wasn’t about ownership. It was about audacity. It was about wanting something so much you’d risk everything for five minutes in the dark.
Vy’s answer was to push her own door open. The cold air hit her like a slap. She stepped out. Katy was out her side a second later, not hesitating.
They walked quickly to the mouth of the alley. Up close, it smelled of wet brick and garbage. It was deeper than it looked from the car, a slot of pure shadow. Katy grabbed Vy’s wrist and pulled her in.
The darkness was near-total, swallowing them whole after two steps. The world narrowed to sound and touch. The distant hum of traffic. Their jagged breaths echoing off the close walls.
Katy pressed her back against the cold brick. Her hands were under Vy’s sweater, skating up her ribs, cold at first then burning. Vy gasped, her own hands frantic, pushing the leather jacket off Katy’s shoulders, fumbling with the button of her jeans.
There was no grace, no slow reveal. It was a raw and fumbling race against exposure. Katy’s mouth was on Vy’s neck, sucking hard, surely leaving a new mark over the old one. Vy’s jeans were around her thighs, the rough brick scraping her back. Katy’s hand slid down, past the waistband of her underwear.
The touch was ice and fire. Vy cried out, the sound swallowed by the alley. Katy’s other hand clamped over her mouth, not to silence her, but to feel the vibration of the moan against her palm.
“Quiet,” Katy breathed into her ear, her own voice shaking. “Or they’ll hear.”
The danger was the point. The risk of a passing glance, a curious dog-walker, a flashlight beam. It flooded Vy’s system, mixing with the pleasure until they were inseparable. Every nerve was live wire. Katy’s fingers worked her with a ruthless, knowing precision, her own body pressed tightly against Vy’s, pinning her to the wall.
It was over in minutes. A fierce, shattering climax that ripped through Vy with a violence that stole her breath. Her knees buckled. Katy held her up, her own body trembling with suppressed need.
Before Vy could even recover, Katy was turning them, switching their positions. She guided Vy’s hand, insistent, into her own jeans. “Now you,” she demanded, her forehead pressed to Vy’s. “Don’t stop.”
Vy’s fingers were clumsy, driven by a frantic reciprocity. She could feel the heat of Katy through the fabric, the wetness. She worked her, driven by the sounds Katy choked back, by the sharp dig of Katy’s nails into her hip.
Katy came with a shudder, a sharp intake of breath held in her throat. She sank her teeth into the collar of Vy’s sweater to mute her cry.
They slumped together against the wall, a tangled mess of clothes and harsh breathing. The distant city sounds rushed back in. A car honked. A siren wailed blocks away. Reality, vast and indifferent, reasserted itself.
Katy slowly pulled her hand back, zipping her own jeans with a soft click. She rested her forehead against Vy’s shoulder for a long moment. “Okay,” she breathed, the word seeming to ground her. “Okay.”
They straightened their clothes in the dark, not looking at each other. The animal frenzy was gone, replaced by a stunned, vibrating quiet. Katy retrieved her jacket from the damp ground.
Without a word, they walked back to the car. The street felt impossibly bright. They got in. Katy started the engine, the heater blasting cold air that slowly warmed.
She pulled out into the traffic, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. The drive back to campus was silent, the tension now a spent, heavy thing in the footwell between them.
As they neared Wellesley, the familiar gates looming, Katy finally spoke, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “So that happened.”
Vy watched the skeletal trees blur past. Her body felt like a crime scene. “Yeah.”
Katy nodded once, as if confirming a difficult fact. She pulled up in front of Vy’s dorm. She left the engine running, a clear signal. This wasn’t an invitation upstairs.
Vy reached for the door handle, her limbs feeling loose and strange.
“Vy.” Katy’s voice stopped her. She looked over. Katy was staring straight ahead, her profile sharp in the dashboard lights. “Monday. Library. We have to prep for the presentation to the faculty advisory.”
It was a calendar reminder. A return to the script.
“Right,” Vy said. “Library.”
She got out. The cold night air was a shock after the stuffy heat of the car. She didn’t look back as she walked to her door. She didn’t need to. She could feel Katy’s gaze on her until the moment she stepped inside, the door closing behind her with a soft, final click.