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Chapter Text

It was bad enough that no one had come to Professor Slade’s office hours the first six weeks of Roman Military History 205. Not that he wanted to hand-hold these overgrown high-schoolers through one of the university’s most rigorous courses, mind, but he found their arrogance and poorly placed self-confidence... insulting. And, as always, the week after midterms grades found Slade rolling his eyes at the sniveling students who filtered through his office, one after the other for the full two hours.

He was halfway through pulling his office door shut when he caught sight of one last student, sitting with a backpack on her knees on the hard wooden bench outside his office. He recognized her as the unfortunately dressed freshman who split her time in his class sleeping or asking stupid questions.

“Oh,” he sneered. “It’s you. What’s your name again?”

“Leah.”

“Come in, then.”

She followed him into his office, closing his door uncertainly. He sat behind his desk; she stood meekly in front of it. His eyes darted over her, catching on the lunchbox in her hands. It was a cheap plastic lunchbox, the kind Slade’s young daughters carried to elementary school. Rather than talking ponies or sword-wielding turtles, however, Leah’s had a silly child’s painting of a black cat on it. She was wearing a denim jumper and a green cardigan today. He put all these details together before recalling that she was the student who had been raised in a commune by a cult.

“How old are you, Leah?” he asked, making the disdain was in his voice clear.

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen. I would have guessed you were one of those socially inept child prodigies.”

“Well, I was homeschooled my whole life,” Leah said.

“Ah, that explains it. Except...” He opened her file and threw her test papers, all marked with red ink, onto the desk between them. “Except that you have to be the stupidest person who’s ever taken my class. A 20% on the midterm? Did you even try?”

“Yes.”

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

She didn’t even flinch, just stared him straight in the eye. “It was a hard test.”

“Plenty of things are hard, Leah.” He shifted in his seat, trying not to smirk at his own joke. “Are you actually stupid, or are you just too lazy to study?”

“I study.”

“Then you’re just stupid. How many hours a week do you study?”

“I dunno. A lot. At least two or three.”

He laughed at her. “You should be studying a minimum of ten hours a week for this class, Leah. At this point, it’s probably better if you withdraw.”

“I can’t. I’ll get a WF on my transcript, which counts as an F. The deadline to withdraw with a W was the day before you gave us back our tests.”

“I guess you should have withdrawn sooner, then.”

“I didn’t know I’d make a 20% on it. We didn’t have any other tests or papers or anything.”

Slade did all of that deliberately, to teach these overconfident brats a lesson, but he pretended that wasn’t the case.

“I’m going to be brutally honest with you, Leah. I don’t think this is the class for you. This exam was 50% of your grade. You would have to make a 100% on the final to make a 60%, which is a D-. You should take the WF in my course and focus on your other classes.”

“I don’t want to do that unless I have no other choice. My friends took a vote, and they thought my best course of action was to come beg you to have mercy on me, so…” She blinked up at him. “What are my options?”

“I don’t think you have what it takes.”

“Try me.”

“Well, for starters, you have to convince me to let you retake the midterm. If you can somehow do that, you still have to pass the midterm, so you’d have to convince me to give you special one-on-one tutoring. And that tutoring would have to extend through the whole semester so you can pass the final, which is another 50% of your grade. You’d have to be pretty damn convincing.”

She blinked at him again. “So? How do I convince you?”

He leaned back in his chair. “You’re a pretty young woman. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

Leah pondered his words for a moment. Then she opened her backpack, pulled out a plastic wallet, and produced a bus pass. She set it on the desk and slid it toward him.

He was so surprised that he actually laughed. “What are you doing?”

“It’s a bribe. That’s what you’re asking for, right? It has almost a whole month left on it.”

“I don’t need a bus pass.” He slid the card back to her. “I have a car.”

“Okay, well, I have seven dollars and some change,” Leah said. “And it has to last me the entire rest of the semester.”

“I don’t want or need your money,” he said. “I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Come on, drop the act. No one is that stupid.”

She crossed her arms. “Look, I’ll do whatever dumb thing you have in mind if it’ll convince you. But I’m not a mind reader. You have to actually tell me what to do.”

“Fine.” He pushed his chair back and unzipped his pants.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell?” She set her lunchbox on the desk. “What are you doing?”

“Do you want to convince me or not?”

“Yes, just… what am I supposed to do?”

“Ideally, you’d get on your knees.”

“And… then what? I don’t understand what you’re asking for.”

He grimaced. “On second thought, just bend over the desk.”

Looking bewildered, she did. “But why ?”

He sauntered around the desk to her.

“Ohh, are we going to have sex?”

He didn’t answer.

“If I… you know… have sex with you... then will you give me an A on the midterm?”

“No.” He pushed up the skirt of her jumper, revealing a pair of panties as modest as they were floral. “But I will let you retake the midterm, and I’ll give you a study guide.”

She hesitated. “I’m not very good at studying.”

“I know. That’s why I’ll give you a guide even you can understand.”

“Okay.”

He held one hand on her back and, with the other, pushed two fingers into her. She startled, flinching away from him.

“Ow.”

“Stop tensing up.”

“I’m not.”

He relented and used one finger on her until she finally sighed and slumped forward completely. She relaxed around his finger, and he fit the second inside.

“How does that feel?” he asked.

“Boring. Are you almost done? My next class is in half an hour and I’d like to be able to eat my lunch before then.”

He snorted and straightened. “I’ll get it over with for you, in that case.”

“Thanks.”

He found a condom in his drawer without looking, opening it and rolling it on with a practiced hand. He pulled her panties all the way down to her ankles. When she didn’t step out of them, he shrugged and stood up. She jumped a little as he entered her, but less than she had for his fingers.

“Ow,” was all she said.

“It’s not that bad.”

“How would you know?”

She had a point. Despite his annoyance, he moved slowly at first, basing his speed on how tightly her leg muscles tensed. She lay across his desk in awkward silence, straining her neck to read the upside-down answer key.

He yanked her ponytail. “Trying to cheat for your retake, Leah?”

“No! I’m just bored.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“What is there for me to do wrong? You’re doing everything.”

He could feel the resentment radiating off her back at him, but he ignored it. He picked up the pace until he was ramming into her hard, shoving up against her low cervix.

“Ow.”

He ignored her.

She kicked his ankle. “Seriously, ow! What’s your problem? Stop doing that.”

He slowed, going ever so slightly more shallow. “You’re not very good at this.”

“I’m not very good at most things. Especially ones I’ve never done before.”

“Huh. The news said your cult was highly incestuous and that sexual misconduct was rampant.”

“Well, the news got it wrong. They got almost everything about my family wrong.”

“Like what?”

“Can we not talk about my family while we’re doing this?”

“Fine.”

He picked up the pace again. This time, Leah didn’t complain. She just grabbed the edge of the desk until her knuckles went white, staring intently at the map of ancient Rome on his wall.

“You’ll have to study very hard for your midterm,” he said, breathless now. “It’ll be a different test than the one you already took.”

“Whatever,” Leah said. “I’ll study.”

Her shoulders were defiant—not defeated, like he’d expected. He liked that. She might be unintelligent, but at least she made up for it by being stubborn. It turned him on more than he’d expected.

He shoved in hard, one final time, and held still as he pulsed inside her. She didn’t move.

“I’m finished. You can stand up.”

He pulled out and slipped the condom off, scowling at the thin streaks of blood on the outside. He knotted the rubber, dropped it into a tan grocery bag, and pushed the half-empty box of tissues her way. She wadded up a handful and put one dirty, knockoff Keds-type sneaker on his desk so she could clean herself. He rolled his eyes and held the bag open for her to drop the tissues in. They reminded him of the red and white carnations he’d bought his wife right after the separation, when he’d still cared about winning her back. Before she’d taken the girls and moved back in with her parents in Atlanta.

He tied the bag up as Leah lined her underwear with carefully folded tissues.

“Bleeding is normal your first time,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve read the Bible.”

He started to ask where in the Bible it mentioned that, then realized he didn’t care. As she pulled her panties back up and smoothed her skirt, he pulled a binder off the shelf and handed it to her.

“Here are the notes from my lectures,” he said. “Study them, do all seven of the practice tests, and come back to my office in two weeks to retake your midterm.”

“Okay.”

She stuffed the binder into her already-bulging backpack and turned to leave, grabbing her lunchbox off his desk.

“And get rid of that ridiculous lunchbox.”

She froze in the door, her backpack hitting the ground with a deafening thunk. “What did you just say to me?”

“I said to get rid of the lunchbox. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Whump. Leah’s left fist came up from her side, connecting squarely with his still-sensitive cock and balls. He doubled over, pain jolting all the way up to his forehead and down to his feet. She struck again, this time with her right hand, which was holding the lunchbox. From the way it crushed Slade’s junk on impact, it must have been full of heavy food. Maybe a thermos of milk. He fell on the ground, holding himself as he writhed in pain.

“My little brother painted this lunch box for me, you ass!” She whacked him again with it, smashing his hands as well as his groin this time. “The police took him away and put him in foster care, and now I only get to see him twice a month! That’s the only reason I’m in your stupid class! And the only reason I'm failing is because I’m overloading every semester so I can graduate as soon as possible so I can get a good enough job so I can get custody of Jonah, because he’s mute and his foster parents scream at him, and I’m worried they’re hurting him and he can’t tell his social worker." Despite the tears sparkling in her eyes, her face was murderous. "And you want to make fun of my family for sexual misconduct that didn’t even happen while you, my professor, are having sex with me, a teenage student? Why are you such a jerk?! Why do you have it out for me?”

He groaned, holding up a hand to stop her as she raised the lunchbox again. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Most of my students are spoiled brats. I didn’t realize you had all that going on.”

Her hand (and the lunchbox) dropped to her side. “Well, now I’ve probably ruined my shot at passing the class. Great. Are you going to call campus security on me?”

He sat up, still guarding his crotch and eyeing her lunchbox. “No. I should, but I won’t.” He didn’t want to risk her going to the dean about their… arrangement. Better to make her think she was at his mercy than to be at hers. “Just go study.”

“Thanks.”

She shouldered her backpack and left without another word.

Slade groaned again and grabbed an ice pack from his office mini fridge.

Chapter Text

Punch Slade in the Dick Pt. 2

Slade had expected Leah to do well on her midterm retake, despite her taking it while wearing the cheap sunglasses the freshmen had all received at orientation. What he hadn’t expected was for her to stick around after turning it in.

“Why are you still here?” he asked. “I won’t grade your exam while you wait.”

“Do you have any work I can do?” she asked.

“Work? Why?”

“I’m trying to get a hundred dollars for a bus ticket,” she said. “My brother got hurt really badly, and they airlifted him to a hospital in Chicago.”

Of course he had work for her. He’d barely thought of anything but her weird, awkward presence over the past two weeks.

“A hundred dollars for three hours of work,” he said.

“Yes! What kind of work?”

“The kind of work you’ve already done for me.”

“Oh, more sex stuff?” she asked.

“Yes, Leah, just say it a little louder so the president can hear it all the way in his office.”

“Sorry.”

“Yes, it’s ‘sex stuff,’” he said. “Are you interested?”

“Yeah, that’s....” She did the math on her fingers. “That’s more than thirty dollars an hour! Quality.”

“Your grasp of math is impressive.” Slade scribbled his address on a sticky note and gave it to Leah. “This is my home address. Be there at ten.”

“Okay,” she said. “I will.”

~~~

She arrived at 10:07. He would have been more annoyed if he couldn’t see her hurrying off the bus from his office window. He strolled downstairs and opened the front door for her before she could knock.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “The bus was—”

“I know,” he said. “Come in.”

He locked the door behind her. She was wearing a long skirt and a thin jacket, swinging her student ID and bus pass on her lanyard with each step.

“Can I have something to drink?” she asked.

He led her to the kitchen and retrieved a glass from the cupboard, filling it with sweet white wine from the refrigerator. He handed it to her, and she drank it so fast she choked and spilled it all over herself. Slade just watched her, hiding his amusement.

“Are you done?” he asked when she finished coughing.

“Yeah,” she croaked, but then downed the rest of the glass.

He gestured for her to leave her glass on the counter and follow him upstairs. Although he was ahead of her, he could sense her peeking into his daughters’ old rooms as they passed them.

“You have kids?” she asked.

“Daughters. Three of them.”

“Are they on vacation?”

“They live in Atlanta,” he said. “With their mother.”

“You have a wife?” Leah asked, a whole package of guilt and regret and fear in those four words.

“I had a wife,” he said. “We’re separated.”

“Separated,” Leah repeated. “Not divorced?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw your kids?”

Two years. “That’s none of your business.”

“Right. Sorry.”

He led her to the master bedroom. The furniture was everything his wife had picked out, back when they’d first moved into the house. Back when everything had been so hopeful and the girls had been so tiny.

Leah unzipped her jacket and hung it on the bedpost, tucking her lanyard into the pocket. “Do I just…?”

“Undress completely.”

He kicked off his shoes while watching her. She was such an odd mix: innocent yet completely unabashed about being exposed in front of him. She stripped off her T-shirt and draped it over her jacket, following suit with the rest of her clothing. Her training bra was falling apart, and her underwear was a similar pattern to the ones she’d worn last time, leading Slade to suspect she didn’t have a lot of clothing to her name.

When she was completely naked, he finally undressed too. She sat on the side of the bed and watched, curiosity in her eyes.

“I want you to pretend tonight,” he said.

“Okay. What am I pretending?”

“For starters, I want you to call me ‘Daddy.’”

“Ew. Why?”

“I’m not paying you to ask questions.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Daddy .”

“Good girl. Second, I expect you to be convincing.”

“What does that mean?”

“Make me believe you really want whatever I’m doing to you.”

“But… I don’t…”

“You want to get paid, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Then think about that.”

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

Leah shrugged. “Okay, I guess I can try.”

He sat down next to her on his bed and kissed her. She recoiled, but he grabbed a firm handful of hair and resumed kissing her.

“Be convincing, remember?” he said into her cheek.

She sighed and then made a noise that sounded more like a giraffe than a human. Slade tried not to laugh.

“Let’s try something else.”

He climbed up on the bed and pulled her toward the middle. She flailed as he stuck a pillow under her head.

“Leah. Could you try to act like an adult for five minutes?”

She bristled. “I am acting like an adult. You’re the one who’s treating me so weirdly.”

He spread her legs and parted the wild curls between her legs until she was exposed. So she was not a fan of trimming. He didn’t particularly care, but he filed the information away as another facet of her weird personality.

“Hey, what are you—Ohhhh…”

Her hand, which had been poised to push him away, now pulled him closer instead. It only took a few moments for her wiggles to turn to cooperation. He pushed her knees up toward her chest, darting his tongue lower. Leah squealed as his tongue found her asshole.

“Professor Slade!”

He stopped, and she realized her mistake right away.

“Sorry. I mean… D-Daddy?”

It was a start. Slade rewarded her with his tongue again. As she relaxed more and more, he tested her with a finger. She whimpered but took it without flinching in pain. He turned his attention back to her clit, working his finger slowly in and out of her impossibly tight little ass. Her feet twitched near his head.

“Good?” he asked, raising his mouth for just long enough to ask it.

“Yes, Daddy,” she said breathlessly.

He tried another finger, and she opened right up for him with a little squeak. It was… cute.

“Are you ready for the real thing?” he asked.

She nodded.

He raised himself up, his joints creaking so loudly that Leah giggled until he silenced her with a fierce scowl.

“Put your ankles on my shoulders.”

When she did, he took her hand and rested it between her legs. She gave him a quizzical look, so he used her own middle and index fingers to demonstrate how she should touch herself. She closed her eyes and imitated his movements.

“That’s a good girl.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” she asked. “It makes me feel like a dog.”

“Does it also make you feel like getting paid?”

“I guess…”

“Then don’t complain about it.”

“Sorry.”

He pulled on a condom from the nightstand and applied a little extra lube to it. He pushed slowly into Leah’s ass, prompting her to yelp and nearly throw herself off the bed. Slade stared at her in disbelief.

“Really?” he asked. “What did you think I was warming you up for?”

She blinked sheepishly up at him. “I thought you’d do what you did last time.”

“No. May I continue?”

She shrugged, which he interpreted as a yes. She wasn’t exactly in a position to say no. He rubbed up against her, smearing the lube over her. After some awkward finagling, he managed to get his hand on her throat.

“What are you doing?” she asked, a little nervously.

“Applying some pressure to your carotid arteries,” he said. “It will help you relax.

“Is it safe?”

“Safe enough. I know what I’m doing.”

He squeezed, and a few seconds later, Leah started to squirm. “Prof—Uh, Daddy?”

“What, Leah?”

“I don’t really want you to OH WHOA HEY—”

He had pushed gently into her asshole while she was distracted by him choking her. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

She looked unconvinced. “I guess not?”

He pushed a little deeper, seeing what she could take.

“Ow—”

His hand tightened around her throat.

“Good girl, Leah.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want—”

“Don’t cry. Think about how I’m helping you see your brother. Pretty nice of me to help you out, isn’t it?”

Leah closed her eyes, and the tears spilled into her hair. She nodded.

He reached across the bed, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He took five crisp twenties, straight from the ATM, and pressed them into her hand.

“Does that help?” he asked.

She crumpled the bills in a tight fist, as if afraid he’d take them from her. “Yeah, actually, it does.”

“Good. Touch yourself again.”

Her empty hand moved reluctantly, her arm trapped at an awkward angle.

“Perfect.”

He kissed her on the mouth again, waiting for her tears to cease before moving inside her. She didn’t pull away from his mouth this time, but she did press her lips together so he couldn’t French kiss her.

As she relaxed again, he began thrusting.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, wow.”

“Do you like it when Daddy fucks your ass, Leah?”

She nodded, eyes still closed. He kissed her face, her ears, her neck, her chest until every area his lips had touched was flushed. Her hand trembled frantically, pressed between their bodies.

“Yes, Daddy!” she gasped. “Oh god, Daddy!”

“Are you going to come for me?”

“Yes!”

“Good girl. That’s what Daddy likes to hear.” He fucked her harder, his hand firm but still around her neck. “Go ahead, Leah. Just relax.” He kissed her on her red cheek, right next to her mouth.

“Ah! Ah! Ahhhh!” Her head lifted off the pillow. She was so perfectly tight around him, clenching rhythmically with each spasm of her body. “Fuck me, Daddy! Harder!”

He grasped her hips tighter and thrust into her, his movements hard and erratic. “Leah…” He clamped his mouth onto hers, forcing his tongue inside. He shuddered in pleasure, thoroughly savoring the sensation of ejaculating so deep inside her tight, warm ass.

When he regained his senses, Leah was rolling away from him, her hand over her eyes.

“What?” he asked.

“Just a little dizzy.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Lunch.”

He left her curled up in the bed and went to the kitchen. He didn’t have many groceries, but he did have fresh bread and milk, as well as some unopened peanut butter and jelly his wife hadn’t bothered to take when she’d left. Slade made a sandwich and poured a glass of milk and returned to Leah, who was talking quietly under the duvet.

“Don’t cry, Jonah. I’m coming to visit you, okay? I know it must hurt a lot, and those machines are really loud and scary, but I’m going to sneak in and visit you as soon as I can. I’ll be there tomorrow. I just have to go home and pack, and then I’ll be on the very next bus. Okay. I love you.”

Her head emerged from the blanket, her hair a staticky mess. He put the sandwich and glass of milk on the nightstand next to her.

“Eat,” he said.

“Thanks.” She sat up in bed, tossing her battered iPhone onto the duvet. “Uh, do I still have to call you ‘Daddy’?”

“No. That would be… weird.”

“Right?” She took a bite of the sandwich, chewing with her mouth open. “Mm. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How come there’s no crust?” she asked, the disappointment evident in her voice.

He looked down and realized he had subconsciously cut off the crust to her sandwich.

“Habit,” he said.

“Oh.”

While she ate, he dressed again and tossed her clothes onto the bed. Her shirt was still damp—too damp to wear outside in March with such a flimsy coat. He left her and raided his daughters’ closets. It would have been better if there were something appropriate in the master bedroom closet, but at least Leah was petite, and the Slade girls ran tall.

The girls had left their heaviest winter coats, presumably since Atlanta rarely dipped below freezing, let alone zero. Slade laid the biggest one over his arm and then dug through the drawers for an appropriate shirt. When he returned to Leah, she was licking a smear of peanut butter off the plate. Her expression immediately turned to guilty embarrassment when she saw him watching.

“I can go dig the crusts out of the trash if you’re that hungry.”

“I’m good. What’s that?”

“Clothes,” he said.

“Okay, but why?”

“Because your shirt is still wet, and it’s cold outside.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks.”

The shirt was snug on her, but the coat fit well. She left it unfastened in the front anyway, even though wind was picking up outside.

“When does your bus come?” he asked.

“Like five in the morning,” she said. “I figured I’d walk home.”

“We’re ten miles from campus and it’s below freezing.”

She shrugged. “What’s the alternative? Spend all my bus money on a taxi?”

He sighed. “I’ll drive you. It would put me in an uncomfortable position if you disappeared on the way home from my house.”

“Gee, thanks.” She wadded up her old jacket. “How altruistic of you.”

~~~

She didn’t say a word on the drive home until he prompted her.

“Which residence hall is yours?” he asked her.

“What?”

“Where do you live?”

“Oh. Gries.”

She was slumped down in the passenger seat, staring pointedly out the window.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, already regretting the question.

“My dad,” she said. “My brother.”

“Ah.”

He didn’t know what else to say, so he turned the radio on. After a moment, she sat up a little straighter.

“What?” he asked.

“Can I ask if— I won’t tell anyone, but I just wanted to know… Did your wife leave because.... Did you and your daughters ever…?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I have no interest in them like that, and even if I did, I would never, ever act on it.”

Most of the tension in her shoulders disappeared. “Okay. Okay, good. Sorry, it’s not like I was accusing you of… You get why I wondered, right? It’s kind of weird.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “At all.”

But as they fell into silence again, he couldn’t help but imagine one of his daughters in dire straits like Leah was, destitute and frantically trying to get to an injured sibling. He couldn’t help but imagine one of the “trusted” adults in his daughter’s life taking advantage of her situation and paying her literally five percent of what anyone else—anyone with the choice to say no—would demand. It made his hands shake to imagine, so he gripped the steering wheel hard and tried to force his thoughts elsewhere.

Anyway, he could hardly be blamed for the situation. He would have agreed if Leah had simply negotiated a higher price. She was the one who’d decided access to her body was worth a mere $33 an hour.

“And you?” he asked. “You said your cult wasn’t incestuous and sexual, but you seem awfully comfortable with the concept for a virgin.”

“A family doesn’t have to be incestuous to be open about sex,” she said. “It was private, but it was never something shameful.”

“That sounds… not unhealthy.”

Her homesickness was palpable, infecting the whole car.

“Where is your father, anyway? In prison?”

“Dead,” Leah said. “My parents were asleep when the police raided and threw a smoke grenade into the room. Apparently it landed in the bed. I don’t know. They suffered a lot. It was slow. I didn’t want details once I got the gist of it.”

“And your brother? How did he get hurt?”

She didn’t answer for so long he decided she hadn’t heard him.

“How did your brother—”

“He was trying to come find me,” Leah said. “I didn’t really understand his text so I don’t know why or how. Either he got pushed out of a moving car or hit by one.” She swallowed. “He has a lot of broken bones. He sent me a selfie and he just looks so out of it from the pain.”

“Children heal fast,” Slade said, unsure how else to comfort her. “Maybe he’s ‘out of it’ from the pain medicine.”

“Would they really give him pain medicine just for broken bones?” Leah asked in surprise.

What kind of cult had she— “Yes, that’s standard.”

She sighed in relief. “Good. Maybe he’ll just sleep until I get there.”

Slade pulled up to the front of Griesedieck Complex and put the car in park. “Do you have any pictures of him?”

She produced the old, banged-up iPhone and showed him the lock screen. A skinny, shy-looking boy smiled at the screen.

“I took that picture right after he gave my this phone,” Leah said. “He found it somewhere and wanted me to have it so we could keep in touch.”

“I see the resemblance?” Slade said uncertainly.

“Oh, we’re not related by blood,” Leah said. “He’s adopted.”

“Okay, here’s what I found on the web for ‘adopted,’” the phone said.

“Shut up, Siri,” Leah said. “Sorry, the phone is a little broken. Siri randomly talks to me. My own personal rogue AI.”

“I live to serve, Leah.”

“That’s great. Go away.” Leah unlocked her phone and showed him the text message thread from her brother. There were pictures of the hospital room, as well as one of him. His head was bandaged, his jaw wired shit, and his left eye was so badly bruised Slade suspected he had a fractured skull.

“My friends keep saying he’s probably okay if he can take selfies,” Leah said.

“Your classmates?”

“No, I don’t have any friends on campus. They’re internet friends. I ask them for advice when I’m feeling lost. Which is kind of always, lately.”

“I see.”

A couple of students walked past, ignoring the car in favor of talking and laughing. Suddenly the car’s occupants were strictly professional again.

“Can I be excused from class for a few days, Professor Slade?” Leah asked. “I’ll be in Chicago, visiting my brother in the hospital.”

“Yes, you may be excused, but I’ll expect some documentation when you get back,” he said sternly. “Especially if you want notes from the missed lectures.”

“Yeah, okay,” Leah said. “Thank you, Professor.”

Her hand touched the door handle.

“Wait.” He dug out his wallet and pulled out the rest of the money he’d withdrawn earlier. “Take it.”

“What? Why?” Despite her confusion, she quickly snatched the twenties out of his hand. “Holy shit, this is… twenty, forty, fifty, sixty… wait, I lost count. Twenty. Forty. Sixty. Seventy— ”

He cringed. “It’s another two hundred. Consider it a tip for good service. Most people I hire don’t have real orgasms, nor do they call me Daddy quite so... enthusiastically.”

“Quality,” she whispered. “Thanks! Seriously, this will be a big help. I’m gonna buy a new book and read it to Jonah. No, I’m gonna buy three books for him, and I’m going to buy snacks for the bus trip, and… and…”

He pulled her in for a kiss, and this time she tolerated his tongue without prompting. He felt her stuffing the twenty-dollar bills into her bra. She waited patiently for him to finish kissing her before shifting away.

“Chapters eleven through fourteen,” he reminded her.

“Uh huh.” She opened the door.

“Take notes on the material. I’ll be quizzing you in our next tutoring session.”

“Sure, I’ll definitely do that.” She waved, then slammed the door shut and ran off toward the tall building.

Once she was out of sight, the loneliness hit him like a punch in the dick.

Chapter Text

Leah showed up for the first day of her last semester tanned, well-rested, and ostensibly ready to kick graduation’s ass.

Slade showed up to that same day sunburnt, exhausted, and still behind on syllabi creation. He couldn’t help but resent Leah a little as she snored in the back row of his second MWF class, “American Military History from 1910 to Present.”

“Would it kill you to pretend to pay attention sometimes?” he snapped as the car doors shut around them.

“Yeah, maybe,” Leah said. “I have a lot going on right now.”

“And I don’t? ‘Spoiled brat’ isn’t a good look on you, Leah.”

“Why are you such a grouch today?” Leah pouted. “I didn’t do anything to you!”

He didn’t answer. Leah sulked for a moment then rested her hand on his thigh.

“You don’t have to be a total jerkass to get me to make you feel better,” she said. “I don’t know why you can’t ever just ask nicely. I mean, this is what you want, right?”

Her hand rested on his stomach, then followed his shirt down into his pants. Her fingers rubbed over his half-erect cock through his boxers.

“Not in public when we’re on campus,” he said.

She didn’t move her hand. “You didn’t have a problem with it when I sucked you off after the homecoming game.”

“That was different.”

“Only in that sports are stupid.”

“I said stop.” He grabbed her wrist and flung it away from him.

Her fingers struck the console with a painful-sounding crack. Leah cried out and stuck them in her mouth, glaring at him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she demanded, then slumped down in the passenger seat and buried her nose in her phone. “You’ve been in a bad mood since before the cruise.”

Leah had spent the majority of their month-long swingers’ cruise dancing, swimming, rock-climbing, and otherwise living it up with their travel companion, a girl named Harrow. It had been at Slade’s insistence, of course—he’d sent the girls out every morning so he could finish his publications and prepare for the upcoming semester, and they’d dutifully left him alone, suffering through hot stone massages and day drinking without his company.

(They’d just as dutifully kept him company every night, though, so it was hard to be too bitter.)

She wasn’t wrong about his mood, though. Leah might be in her last year at the university, but Slade still had a long road ahead of him there. And even though her graduation wasn’t for another five months, he was still sour over the idea of her moving on with her life without him.

To say nothing of Leah’s girlfriend.

“Is Harrow coming over tonight?” he asked.

“Probably. Do you want me to tell her to prep for a threesome?”

“Yes, though I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Leah lowered the phone and glared at him. “You don’t just get to demand she dress up and shave and all that before coming over if you don’t 100% plan to pay her. Her time is as valuable as anyone’s.”

“Maybe I’ll have a private session with her.”

“You don’t even like her!”

“Maybe I’d like her more if I got to do more with her. Tell her to prep.”

“ Quality .” Leah sneered. She tapped out the message and hit send. “Fine. It’s done.”

~~~

Harrow beat Slade and Leah to the house. She was perched on a barstool, eating a sandwich made from Slade’s bread and spilling crumbs and flax seeds into his half-read paper. Her key to the house lay near her phone on the counter.

“Harrow!” Leah ran to her girlfriend and kissed her cheek. “Mm, you smell like that yummy witchy cologne I like so much. Is that for me, or did you have a client earlier?”

“I did have a client earlier, but it’s for you,” Harrow said, softspoken as always. “I showered already.”

“So it wasn’t an inconvenience to ask you to prep for a threesome?” Slade asked.

“Not today, no, not really. Normally it would be, though.”

Leah buried her nose in Harrow’s cleavage and inhaled deeply. “Mmmmmm. I missed you. And this perfume.”

Harrow laughed. “You saw me yesterday.”

“I’m allowed to miss you overnight!” Leah said.

Slade rolled his eyes and went to remove his tie and jacket. When he returned, the half-eaten sandwich was sitting in a pile of crumbs on the newspaper, and Leah and Harrow were making out against the counter. Slade joined in, nibbling at Leah’s neck and fondling Harrow through her sweater. He ignored their annoyance at the intrusion. After all, he was just getting what he was paying for. He undressed Leah, and she in turn undressed Harrow.

“Wow, those are some serious bruises,” Leah said, admiring the watercolor patches on Harrow’s skin. “When did that happen?”

Harrow beamed. “That nasty wipeout I took during the last jam? Yeah.”

“So badass.” Leah leaned in and kissed the purple splotch on Harrow’s ribs. “It look’s like Ambrist’s art final,” she said, and they both giggled.

“Who’s Ambrist?” Slade asked, irritated.

“Harrow’s old roommate,” Leah said. “Sorry, it’s like… a private meme?”

“You mean an inside joke?” Slade asked.

“Exactly,” Harrow said.

Leah’s face brightened. “I haven’t had an inside joke with anyone since… well, for a long time.”

“If you can’t have inside jokes with your girlfriend, you’re doing it wrong,” Harrow said. She kissed Leah.

Slade rolled his eyes again behind Leah’s head and rubbed his cock up against her bare cheeks. She leaned forward, well-trained by now in all the ways of pleasing him. That thought lessened Slade’s sour mood. He fucked her slowly, watching her suck on Harrow’s pierced nipples. Harrow caught his eye and stuck her tongue out at him, showing off the metal bar in her tongue.

Harrow had never been Slade’s type. He’d only hired her because Leah had requested a threesome with a girl for her birthday present, and Harrow’s ad had been the one Leah had selected. Harrow was too… alternative for Slade. Sure, her many piercings and tattoos and hair colors and bruises had had a certain appeal at first. Variety was the spice of life, after all. And watching how excited Leah got, how she flushed and stuttered and bit her lip any time Harrow spoke to her—that was cute enough to make Harrow’s exorbitant price worth it.

But then the two of them had started dating. Slade hadn’t realized how possessive he’d gotten of Leah, given that their arrangement was far too casual to be called lovers, even. He hadn’t realized he would get jealous when his sugar baby found true love. And for some reason, the more time he demanded from Leah, the more he tried to keep her too busy to see Harrow, the more she resented him.

But fucking Leah while her girlfriend watched? That was satisfying. Slade found Leah’s clit, rubbing it the way she liked it and finding satisfaction in her moans. He knew it didn’t mean anything. He knew that as soon as he finished, the two girls would hop into Harrow’s mustang and get hot chocolate and get high and make out under the winter stars until dawn. Or whatever they did together when he wasn’t around.

Even when Leah got into the sex, she was never into him . Not the way she was into Harrow. Slade didn’t know why that depressed him so much. And yet...

“You like taking Daddy’s cock, don’t you, Leah?” He massaged her where his thumbs were pressed into her hips.

Leah released Harrow’s nipple. “Yes, Daddy,” she said demurely. “I love the way your hard cock feels inside my pussy.”

She backed up her words by clenching tightly around him, just like he’d taught her to do.

“God, I love how hot and wet you are,” he groaned. “You’re my good girl, Leah.”

She gave her trademark non-committal whine and squeezed harder around him.

“Show me how else you use your mouth,” he said.

Harrow hoisted herself onto the counter and propped one foot next to the bunch of bananas. Leah bent over to lick her, and Harrow petted her hair.

“Oh, yeahhh,” Harrow sighed, winking at Slade. “I love the way she works my hood piercing. She has a talented tongue, doesn’t she?”

Slade nodded. He had a perfect view of Leah’s pink tongue on Harrow’s cunt. Harrow grasped Leah’s hair to get it out of her face, and then she massaged her own breast.

“Oh! Oh, Leah, I’m coming!” Harrow kicked her legs dramatically. “Oh! You’re so good, Leah! Yes!!!”

Slade gripped Leah’s hips and held on tightly as he shot his load into her. While he was still slumping against the island, recovering, Harrow hopped off the counter and kissed Leah.

“Want to get some hot chocolate?” she asked. “Don’t worry. I’ll have you home in plenty of time for you to study.”

“Yeah!”

The two of them were dressed and gone before Slade even had his breath back.

~~~

Leah was still out with Harrow when Slade got the call from his girls that night. Not to tell him the best time for their mid-winter break visit, but rather to tell him the visit was off entirely. After hanging up, Slade poured a glass of bourbon and watched television while waiting for Leah.

She arrived at the fairly reasonable hour of ten. Leah, like everyone in Slade’s circle, was practically nocturnal.

“You’re home early,” he said.

“Yeah, my CFP exam is tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“Ah,” he said. “Of course.”

“When are your girls coming to visit?” Leah asked.

“They’re not.”

“Oh, no! Is it because of me? I told you, I can go stay with Harrow for a week—”

“Nonsense,” Slade said. “This is your house, too.”

“I am sorry, though,” Leah said. “That sucks.”

“Yes. You’ll make it up to me, though.” He patted his lap.

“I can’t tonight,” Leah said. “I really have to pass my exam tomorrow. I’m going to study and then try to get to bed early.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Can you turn the volume down so I can study in the kitchen?” she asked. “It’s hard for me to concentrate in my bedroom.”

He indulged her for an hour. When he finally got bored enough, he stood behind her chair and pulled her earbuds out.

“Take a study break,” he coaxed her.

“I can’t,” Leah said. “I have maybe an hour to go, then I’m going to try to sleep.”

“Ten minutes won’t make or break the exam.” He leaned in, groping her breasts and kissing her neck.

“Later,” Leah said. “You understand that this is really important, right? I have to pass this test so I can work as a CFP so I can get my 6,000 hours in so I can be a real CFP so I can get custody of Jonah. I have to study for this exam.”

Slade’s last bit of restraint broke.

“Why bother?” he asked. “You’re not going to pass no matter how hard you study.”

She recoiled like he’d struck her. “Wow. That’s really fucking mean. You don’t have to be an ass.”

“You really think you have a chance? You’re delusional. You’ve barely scraped by in a public college.”

“Stop.”

“You had to take it up the ass twice a week just to make a B in my class. I usually hand out A’s for a single blow job per semester.”

“Stop!” She was crying now, but rage quaked through her skin under his fingers. “You’re the fuckface who has to bully his students into sex just to get laid. It’s not my fault you’re such an awful human your wife and kids won’t talk to you.”

She’d hit a nerve, but he tried not to show it. He pushed her onto the table, shoving her books off the side.

“Stop!” She elbowed him. “I’m not in the mood, dickhead!”

“Don’t forget whose house this is,” he snapped. “Don’t forget who’s paying for your tuition and groceries. Now stop crying and pay your rent like a grownup.”

She wiped her face with the oversized sleeve of her sweatshirt, her tears gone with a single gulping sob. If there was one thing Leah was good at, it was being tough. She tolerated him pulling her pajama bottoms down, and she barely grunted as he pushed into her. She was unusually dry, but that problem solved itself after a few minutes.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Her voice was flat. “A little.”

He didn’t want to slow down; he was so angry he could barely contain it. But he controlled his pace nonetheless.

“Now?”

“It’s fine.”

He took her at her word. She was tight, and he bottomed out easily inside her. If she minded him hitting her cervix, she didn’t say anything.

“Stop worrying about that stupid test,” he said. “You act like I don’t take care of you.”

Leah’s phone buzzed on the table. She grabbed it and replied to the text message, completely ignoring the fact that he was balls deep inside her. Slade couldn’t read anything but the name “HARROW” at the top with an emoji heart on either side. Furious, he snatched the phone out of her hands and threw it across the room. The screen shattered, but it continued buzzing with incoming texts.

“What the fuck?” Leah asked incredulously.

Slade pulled her hair until she cried out.

“God! Why are you being like this?” she complained.

He didn’t respond, except by pushing her cheek to the table. Leah shut her eyes and didn’t make another sound the rest of the encounter.

Five minutes later, he finally let her up. He expected her to glare at him, but she didn’t even make eye contact. She simply pulled her pajama bottoms back up and retrieved her broken phone. She turned her back to him and tapped out a message on the cracked screen.

Slade laughed.

“What?” Leah asked sullenly.

“I just remembered that I’m the reason the police raided your compound.”

Leah froze, unable to move or speak for a moment. Finally, she stuck her phone in her hoodie pocket. “What?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I visited your little compound the month before the raid. I was doing interviews for my ethnography. For my publication.”

“So?”

“I called child protective services after I left. I… may have exaggerated the living conditions there.”

“ What. ” Leah was shaking visibly now.

“I figured some drama might help my article get accepted for publication. I didn’t expect it to explode the way it did, but it’s definitely helped my career. And other things.”

Leah stood up to her full sixty-four inches and turned around. The look in her eye was almost terrifying. Almost.

“So what you’re saying is that every bad thing that’s happened to me the past two years… you did that?”

“I guess so. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Leah calmly picked her textbook off the floor. “Are you sorry about it?”

He smirked. “Considering how often I got laid because of that one phone call? No. I can’t say I am sorry.”

“Cool.” Leah clenched her teeth. “Then I don’t have to feel guilty about this.”

“Guilty about wh—” Slade doubled over as she whacked him with the heavy book, knocking all the air out of his lungs.

She went for the groin next, hitting so hard his testicles must have jammed into his abdomen. He fell on the floor in the fetal position, and Leah beat him on the shoulder. She slammed the book against him one last time, on his lower back, and then dropped it on the floor next to him.

“Shit!” she said.

He didn’t move while she ran upstairs. He could hear her faintly, yelling into her phone while ransacking her room.

“Harrow! Harrow, please come pick me up. It’s an emergency. I fucked up really bad! Yeah, he finally did, but that’s not what—he killed my parents! No, you heard me right. HE KILLED MY PARENTS! So I kind of beat the shit out of him with a book? Fuck, just come get me, please! I’m going to walk to the McDonald’s by the house. Please come pick me up!”

A moment later, Leah dashed down the stairs. Clothes were sticking out of her backpack, and her laptop and charger were tucked under her arm. She grabbed the textbook near Slade and crouched down next to him.

“Hey,” she said. “Asshole.”

“What?” he demanded, still clutching his groin.

“If you call the police, if you even look at me ever again, I’m going to call the dean and tell him you fucked me and half the rest of your class.” Her jaw was firm. “I’m friends with a bunch of the other girls you screwed for better grades. They’ll back me up. And then I’ll call each of your daughters personally and tell them how you took advantage of me when I was starving. I’ll tell them exactly what you made me do the past two years. How you like to be called ‘Daddy’ in bed. How you hire sex workers because you can’t even talk to a waitress without insulting her. How you always threaten to kick me out onto the streets if you want sex when I have a headache or a paper due. How you coerced me into anal sex in exchange for bus fare and a sandwich when I was 19. Everything.”

“Coerced?”

“Yes. Like I had a choice at that point?”

There was no malice or deception in her eyes—that must really be how she remembered it. Fucking Harrow. If she hadn’t been poisoning Leah’s mind against him… if his wife hadn’t been poisoning his daughters against him...

“Also, Harrow is a part-time assassin,” Leah said, very seriously. “So don’t come after me. Drop me from your class and say I was a no show. I never want to see you again. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

She nodded, then rose to her feet and hurried out the front door. Slade groaned and fell back against the floor as she slammed his door shut for the last time.