I Know My Value

Flashes and memories of Blake came back to me in an instant. The feel of his hands on my body and his lips on my skin and the flush of my whole very being as I exploded, as he made me explode.

Sure, getting fingered in the bushes wasn’t exactly the most demure thing I could have done tonight, but I didn’t think that made me particularly slutty. This was college and it was the time to be free and have fun and if I’d gotten the chance to be on the other side of things back when I was a guy, well I wouldn’t judge the man me so why should I judge the woman.

But I didn’t have the sensibilities of Eddie. Eddie was a piece of shit sexist who probably would add that label to me and never to a guy because he was a hypocrite who only ever cared about getting his dick wet and didn’t have the perspective to see how it made him a fool.

So him calling me that chilled me, like a knife made of ice in my gut. Not because I didn’t want him to think poorly of me so much as that I was terrified that he’d seen me.

Because Eddie’s little hobby was photography and if he had seen me that would mean that he had pictures and if he had pictures he’d be looking for the first opportunity to share them.

“Don’t call me that,” I snarled, but there was more than a little fear behind my words.

“You are,” he sneered, “You all are. Every single girl in this place is a fucking slut and I know it. I’m aware of it. I can see it in your eyes and in your body and know that you’re just looking to give it up and spread your legs for some asshole who calls you pretty.

“But I’m not going to play that game. That’s why I’m the smart one. While you were grinding on the dance floor on some dick all night I was out here getting drunk.

“Because the only thing worth doing on this fucking campus is drinking. And I like to do that alone.”

He pulled back from me, once more grabbing his bottle out of his coat and taking a swig from it. He gave me the finger again and turned his back on me, stumbling off into the dark.

All night. The whole dance long he’d been sitting on that bench which means that he hadn’t seen me and he didn’t have any photographic proof. I tried to take comfort in that, but the fact that he put me into the category of ‘slut’ by default really wasn’t much better than him trying to spread information about what me and Blake had done, at least not considering what I was here right now to do.

It was a him problem, and while that only made it marginally better it still did make it better for me.

Stubborn as a mule I chased after him again. This time finding him back on the same bench I’d found him on originally. I fell down onto it next to him when he was halfway through taking a swig and he coughed a bit, sputtering out a curse and not really in control when I snatched the bottle from him and took a swig of my own.

It burned going down but it was fuel for the fire I needed. I wasn’t going to leave things like that with him. I needed to build at least part of a bridge between this asshole and me before heading home for the night because if I left things how they stood now then I’d never get a chance to connect with him.

And I needed to connect with him. Even if he was being a dick about it.

“That’s my drink,” he protested.

“You’re sharing it,” I said bluntly, taking another swig and handing it back to him.

He looked at it suspiciously as if it was poison now which I suppose it was but it was poison before as well.

I scoffed, “I don’t have cooties.”

Eddie didn’t like the joke but he took a drink anyways, muttering bitterly, “I drink alone.”

“Eddie,” I sighed, “We’re freshman. Everyone here is a freshman. We haven’t lived long enough to know whether or not we drink alone. We have to try drinking alone and then we have to try drinking with others to see what we like and what we don’t like. We have to do both a couple of times, like an experiment, and get a big enough sample size to know it. So this is just broadening your horizons. It’s just pushing things a little to see if it makes you too uncomfortable to continue. Just for tonight, at the very least, you’re not drinking alone. You’re drinking with me. Now hand it over again, I’m thirsty.”

He seemed to consider it for a second but he did pass it over, and that was at least something.

For a limited time you can join my Patreon for only $2 and get access to over a month's worth of new pages of My Second Chance as well as SEVEN FULL STORIES with a new one every month! Join here: https://www.patreon.com/SophiePert