Page 23 of Shamefully Trained

“I said I don’t want to talk about that.”

“And I said I’d make it simple. If you want ten thousand a month, a subsidized apartment, and my mentoring, then eventually you will tell me exactly what happened and let me decide what kind of correction you need for what you did with your lovely body. If you don’t want that, leave now and we’ll never speak again.” He glanced at his watch. “If you want to test whether obedience to me is something your body and mind can bear, you have five minutes.”

He took out his phone.

Just like that.

The conversation, or that part of it, was apparently over.

He unlocked the screen and began typing with efficient attention, as if he had not just overturned my entire inner life in the space of three minutes.

I sat there in shocked stillness.

My heart had started to pound so hard that my blouse felt too tight. My breathing had gone shallow. I was suddenly afraid I might actually faint, here among marble tables and pastries and people discussing absolutely ordinary things while I sat across from a man who had offered to pay me ten thousand dollars a month to become, in essence, his trained sexual possession.

I told myself to stand up.

I told myself to tell him to go to hell.

I told myself to throw the water in his face, or at least to pick up my bag and leave with whatever remained of my dignity.

Instead I sat motionless and watched him answer email.

As far as I could tell, he was not paying any attention to me at all. That was what undid me the most thoroughly.

If he had watched me, I thought I could have resisted him. If he had smirked, I could have hated him cleanly. If he had leaned forward and coaxed, I could have called it manipulation. But he simply gave me a structure, a time limit, and then withdrew his visible interest as though my choice belonged to me and he had no need to beg for it to go in his favor.

My fingers had gone cold. Under the table my thighs were pressed together so tightly they ached.

I looked toward the back of the café without meaning to. A short hallway. A dark little sign. Restrooms.

My pulse lurched.

No.

Absolutely not.

I picked up my bag. My hand shook so badly I nearly fumbled the strap. Porter did not look up.

Good, I thought wildly. Fine. Good. I’m leaving.

I stood.

The room felt slightly tilted. I had that odd sensation again of watching myself from a step outside my own body: the red-haired woman in the neat skirt and blouse rising from the table where a rich, self-possessed man sat with his phone… the same woman, aware of the sexy lingerie under her clothes, face flushed, breathing too fast.

Leave, I told myself.

I turned.

I took one step, then another.

Not toward the door, but toward the back of the café.

My mind seemed to lag behind my body by a full second. By the time I understood where I was going, I was already crossing the café, passing the pastry case, moving down the short corridor.

I could still stop. I could keep walking, turn left, go out through the service exit if I had to, vanish into the city and delete the app forever.

Instead I reached the restroom door, glanced once over my shoulder, and saw only the corridor behind me.