Puppy: the story of a boy who got caught .(Part 3)
Previous part: he sent his picture wearing a collar with a leash attached to it, to a female senior student.
He began to type before he even realized it â fingers moving as if on their own, each sentence a small, frantic lifeline thrown toward some improbable rescue. The words came out clipped, then jagged, then almost pleading.
It was a clumsy litany of excuses, each one thinner than the last:
âIt was part of a game â I was supposed to send it to someone in the group.â
âIt was sent to you by mistake.â
âPlease donât tell anyone.â
He hit send, then hit send again, as though repetition could steady the world. His head felt like it was filling with cotton; a slow, pulsing ache bloomed behind his eyes. Every attempt to justify himself felt simultaneously ridiculous and necessary, like bailing water with a teacup while the ship listed.
When the last message disappeared into the little paper-plane icon, he collapsed back onto his bed. He didnât sit up â he lay flat, face toward the ceiling, phone clutched loosely in one hand. For a while he simply stared at the blank ceiling, counting the familiar cracks in the plaster as if they might line up into an answer. Eventually, he let his face fall into the mattress, breathing shallow, the cheap fabric pressing into his cheek. Even then he could not stop looking at his phone; each few seconds he rolled it over in his hand, eyes snapping to the screen as if it might miraculously wink and reveal a kinder world.
Her message was nothing like the tempest heâd expected. No laughter, no immediate condemnation, no blunt âWhat the hell?â from some thunderbolt of cruelty. Instead the text was calm, almost deliÂcate in its ordinariness:
I think a section needs editing. Do you have a minute to come by? Iâm in the meeting room.
His chest dropped so hard he had to sit up. For a half-second everything around him blurred â the bed, the open notebook on the desk, the faint smell of shampoo from his shower â and a single thought hammered in his skull: sheâd seen it. She had to have seen it.
But the message said nothing about the collar, nothing about the photograph that now felt like an exposed organ. Confusion and a fresh spike of panic tangled inside him. Did she not see it? Was it possible she hadnât opened the file? The question hung absurd and hopeful and unbearable.
He moved on a sort of electrical impulse: shower, throw on clothes with fingers that refused to be steady, stuff the bare minimum into his bag. His hands trembled as if with fever. He left the apartment with more force than intention, walking fast enough to feel his pulse in his throat but careful not to look like he was running.
At the meeting room door, time lengthened. He stood there for minutes â minutes that could have been seconds or hours â staring at the brass handle as if ing it could summon courage. His palms were slick. He rehearsed a dozen different exits: text Alexandra that he couldnât come, pretend to have forgotten an appointment, turn and walk back to his quiet life of essays and alarms. Each plan died the moment he pictured her face.
The door opened before he could make a decision.
For one suspended, ridiculous heartbeat the world narrowed to the space between the doorway and the woman who filled it. She stood framed in the cold corridor light, every inch of her composed and casual in a way that made his stomach lurch. The second she lifted her head and their eyes met, those minutes heâd held on to finally let go. He felt small, ridiculous, shame bleeding hot behind his ribs.
She stepped aside with a small, perfectly practiced nonchalance. âHey â you made it,â she said, voice easy, the kind of casual tone that suggested sheâd already decided the outcome of anything they were about to do. âI thought you werenât coming. Come on, letâs go fix that section. We donât have much time.â
Inside the meeting room the air smelled faintly of coffee and printer toner. Bright ceiling panels threw an impartial light across the long table where the draft lay open on a laptop. He kept his gaze down as they moved; every instinct told him to avoid the axis of her face. He hovered near the chair opposite her, hands clenched so tight his knuckles went white. Every small noise â the scrape of a chair leg, the soft click of keys â sounded like an accusation.
They worked in silence for a while, the kind of focused silence that feels like a held breath. He watched the way her fingers scrolled, precise and unhurried. He watched how she bit the inside of her cheek when she concentrated, how a faint crease appeared between her brows. He forced himself to edit the draft with mechanical motions. His heart pumped loud in his ears, jarring against the belt of his ribs.
When the last line was corrected and the document saved, the roomâs quiet seemed to expand, leaving him with an unbearable, hollow clarity. He could feel the old, panicked question crawling up his throat like a tongue. He needed to say it â to test the dangerous air with his voice.
âAbout⌠the photo,â he managed, voice thin.
She lifted her head from the laptop slowly, like someone turning a page. For a second he watched the expression settle on her face: unreadable, glass-smooth. He couldnât meet her eyes. The next instinct was reflexive â look away, not let her see the rawness â and he turned his face toward the window as if the campus beyond could be a shield.
He pushed the words out in a rush, an apology and a plea braided together. âIt was just a dare⌠please donât tell anyone.â
For a long, suspended half-second he thought he might have said enough. Maybe contrition would extinguish the flare of whatever sheâd felt on the other end of that photo. Maybe the world could shrink back to the tidy, acceptable life heâd maintained.
Her smile came then, slow and slight. It was a smile that could have been ordinary â a courtesy smile to defuse a mistake â or it could have been something far colder. He could not tell which; the ambiguity was a blade turned inward.
She said, with that same careful neutrality that felt like judgement and caress both, âJust a game, huh? Interesting⌠Iâm curious why your cheeks went so red.â
Heat flared in his face until it felt like a pain. He wanted the floor to open and swallow him. He tried to shape a response that would not sound desperate or pathetic. What came out instead was a squeak, a small and shameful confession: âUm⌠just a dare⌠please donât tell anyone⌠Iâll do whatever you say.â
The last clause left his mouth and suddenly his own breath sounded foreign. The sentence landed worse than heâd imagined; in its subservience it implied more than he intended. Regret hit him instantly, a cold, hollow regret that made his tongue and limbs go numb.
Her expression shifted. The smile deepened in a way that made something in his chest contract. It was not merciless exactly, but it carried a weight that shook him: a slow, knowing smirk that read him like a ledger. He felt his body betray him again â a tremor through his hands, a short hitch in his breath â and tried, uselessly, to steal a glance at her without being seen.
She met his furtive look with a small, incisive question, the voice soft but bright as a blade: âAnything. Yeah?â
The words hung in the light of the meeting room, precise and loaded, and for the first time he felt the full tilt of what had been exposed â not just an image on a screen, but something about himself that heâd fought to keep sealed.
Alexandra rose slowly from her chair, the legs of it sliding back with a soft scrape that made the hair on the back of my neck lift.
I felt her movement before I fully registered itâfelt the shift in the air, the quiet authority in the way she carried herself.
I didnât dare turn around at first.
Then her hands came to rest lightly on the top edge of my chair, one on each side of my shoulders. Not touching meâjust close enough that I could feel the heat of her skin through the air. My breath hitched despite my attempt to keep it steady.
Her voice drifted down, slow and deliberate.
âYou want me to keep your little secret, donât you?â
âA⌠yeah. Please donât tell anyone.â
It came out too fast, too soft, too afraid.
I hated how obvious it sounded.
Alexandraâs tone shiftedâsubtle, but unmistakable.
A curl of amusement sharpened into something darker.
âThereâs a condition.â
I turned my head toward her instinctively, needing to read her expression, needing to know how much danger I was in.
She leaned down toward the left side of my face, her breath skimming my cheek, her presence overwhelming. Still behind me, still not touchingâbut it felt like she surrounded me.
âWhat⌠what condition?â I managed.
Alexandraâs smile widenedâthe kind that didnât reach her eyes, the kind that felt like a trap closing. Her mouth tilted just inches from my skin.
âKneel on the floor first,â she whispered, her voice smooth and cruelly patient.
âThen Iâll tell you.â
For a moment I couldnât move.
My mind split cleanly in two.
One part of me burnedâangry, embarrassed, wanting to stand up, to push her hand away, to prove I wasnât someone who could be cornered like this.
I could feel my pride clawing its way up my throat, insisting I say no, insisting I walk out the door.
the part she had exposed with a single photoâŚ
the part that feared what she could do if she didnât like my answerâŚ
That part froze me in place.
Because I knew exactly what would happen if I refused.
And the entire university would see what I had tried all day to pretend didnât exist.
I lifted my eyes slowly, meeting hersâsearching her face, begging silently for any sign that she was bluffing.
Her expression was sharp, unyielding, the smile now a cruel little curve that sent a chill down my spine.
âHurry.â she said, low and commanding.
