Free A Stranger Called Master by Olivia Laurel

 
     
    Junior Year
     
    The textbooks and tomes drop with
an echoing thud in the deserted library. Friday 9:45pm,
finals week. Is no one else on this campus stressing except me? I haven’t
cracked open my textbooks all semester and now I’m paying the price. Two
papers, four exams, just shoot me.
    It took a superhuman amount of
self-control to turn down all the parties tonight--one of which was an
exclusive, invite-only hot tub party at some senior’s sweet apartment. Looking
around the empty stacks of the fifth floor reference hall, I wonder if I made
the right choice.
    Nope, definitely
not. But it’s too late now. I’m resigned to slave away the rest of the
night reading dusty books, bullshitting my way through thesis statements.
    Though I’d much rather be soaking
in a hot tub, there are worse places to spend your Friday night than the St.
Ignatius library, I suppose. The library is actually a thing of beauty, with
ornate chandeliers hanging from high ceilings and leather couches facing
baroque windows. It definitely has charm, I’ll give it
that, like it was taken straight out of Beauty
and the Beast or Pride and Prejudice .
If I had the luxury, I’d curl up on one of those couches with a book, but alas.
It is crunch time.
    The faint sound of a laptop booting
up reaches my ears. So I’m not alone after all. Across the room is another
late-night trooper, flanked by towers of books and academic journals. He looks
striking, actually--from this distance, at least. I steal another glance at the
tall, ripped jock, his black shirt holding on to dear life around his biceps.
Sweet Jesus, what’s a guy like that doing here ?
But despite his gorgeous physique, he’s wearing dark-rimmed glasses and
obviously staying in on a Friday night. He stares at the book in front of him,
running his fingers through his hair as he thinks.
    I giggle, realizing how much he
looks like Superman posing as Clark Kent, and
he shoots a glance in my direction, the intensity of his eyes piercing me from
across the room. A tiny bell rings in my head, like deja vu, but the moment passes. I almost give a nervous wave, but I know that’s just
the procrastination talking. He looks back at his laptop and I turn my
attention to the matter at hand: the sympathetic portrayal of Lucifer in Milton ’s Paradise Lost .
    After reading the same sentence for
five minutes--the chandelier’s mood lighting does nothing to help my heavy eyelids--my skin prickles as if someone’s
watching me. I flick my eyes toward Mr. Studious over there, just as he looks
back down at the book in front of him. My heart breaks out into a victory dance
in my chest--so we’re going to play eye tag, are we? I feel my cheeks burning as he almost catches me staring. Play it cool, Giselle . Just because I
haven’t slept with a guy in two and a half years doesn’t mean the next guy
looking my way wants to get it on.
    I sigh. Has it really been two and
a half years? A familiar heat washes over me when I think about the last time.
It was so unreal, sometimes I wonder if I dreamt the
whole thing. But then I remember the soreness of my ass cheeks, my skin pink
and raw from getting spanked. Later that night, I found a violet bruise on my
neck--I hadn’t even remembered him biting me, but I guess he must have.
    And then of course, there was the
rose, the necklace, and the note.
     
    My darling pet-- A pearl necklace for a
collar. A black rose for our
darkest desire. And a map for your (temporary) freedom. Until we meet again, Your Master
     
    For that one night, my darkest
fantasy came true. A stranger in the theater club’s haunted house possessed me
completely, made me his like no other
man ever did before. Since then, no one else could really compare. College guys? Forget it. Not with their glazed eyes, beer
breath, and limp whiskey dick. Even when they’re not drunk, well, boys nowadays
are sometimes too nice--asking
permission to kiss me instead of just capturing my lips.
    I blush