Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I found myself talking more freely than I had with anyone in months. About the hiking trails I’d discovered near campus before everything fell apart. About the used bookstore in the Mission I’d stumbled upon once and spent hours browsing. About how much I loved the fog, the way it rolled in over the hills and made everything feel mysterious and new.
Mike listened like he actually cared, asking follow-up questions, laughing at my descriptions of getting hopelessly lost trying to navigate BART. The knot of tension in my chest gradually loosened. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he really was different from what I’d feared.
We finished our main courses, and he cleared the plates with the same ease of movement he’d shown earlier. When he returned with the tiramisu, setting it between us with two forks, I realized we’d been talking for almost an hour.
An hour, and he hadn’t mentioned the seal. Hadn’t mentioned punishment. Hadn’t mentioned anything about what was supposed to happen tonight.
I picked at the dessert, the creamy sweetness suddenly cloying on my tongue. My mind started racing. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Was he waiting for me to bring it up? Was this some kind of test?
I watched Mike take a bite of tiramisu, his expression thoughtful, and the silence stretched between us until I couldn’t stand it anymore. My hands twisted together in my lap under the table, and I could feel the desperate need building again, that constant aching throb that the seal made impossible to satisfy.
“Laura,” Mike said finally, setting down his fork and looking at me with those dark, knowing eyes. “I think we need to talk about what happened at your college.”
My stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”
“Tell me about the cheating.”
My face went hot, and I couldn’t meet his gaze anymore. I stared down at my half-eaten dessert, my throat tight.
“I… I don’t…”
“Use your words, sweetheart.” His voice was gentle but firm. “Tell me what happened.”
I swallowed hard, my hands gripping the edge of the table. There was no way out of this. He wanted to know, and I’d already agreed to be here, to let him into my life, to give him the right to ask these questions.
“It was my Introduction to Algorithms midterm,” I said quietly. “I hadn’t studied enough. I’d been… I don’t know, I’d been spending too much time on other things. Parties. Hanging out with friends. Telling myself I’d catch up later.” I paused, forcing myself to continue. “When I sat down for the exam, I looked at the questions and I just… I panicked. I knew I didn’t know the answers. So I pulled out my phone under the desk and looked them up.”
“And?”
“And I got caught.” My voice came out barely above a whisper. “The TA saw me. She reported me to the professor, who reported me to the dean. They have a zero tolerance policy for academic dishonesty. I was expelled within a week.”
Mike was quiet for a long moment. I could feel his gaze on me, assessing, judging. My face burned hotter with every second of silence.
“Did you try to lie about it?” he asked finally.
The question made my chest tighten. “Yes,” I admitted, my voice cracking. “At first. I tried to say I was just checking the time, that I didn’t use my phone to cheat. But they pulled the surveillance footage from the exam room. They could see exactly what I’d done.”
“So you lied, got caught in the lie, and then what?”
“Then I admitted it.” Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. “I told them I was sorry, that I’d made a mistake, that I’d never do it again. But it didn’t matter. They expelled me anyway.”
Mike leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. “Do you think you deserved to be expelled?”
The question caught me off guard. Did I? I’d spent the past few weeks telling myself it was too harsh, that everyone made mistakes, that everyone deserved second chances. But sitting here across from Mike, with his eyes holding mine and demanding honesty, I couldn’t hide behind those justifications anymore.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I deserved it.”
“Good girl.” The praise sent a confusing rush of warmth through me. “Now tell me why you deserved it.”
I forced myself to look at him, even though every instinct screamed at me to look away. “Because I cheated. Because I lied about it. Because I didn’t take responsibility for my own failures.” My voice broke. “Because I took the easy way out instead of accepting the consequences of not studying.”
Mike nodded slowly, and something in his expression shifted. Not anger, but something more intense. More purposeful.
“Laura,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “I can see you’re in desperate need of an old-fashioned spanking over the knee of a man who knows how to take a girl in hand properly.”