Jan. Week 4: Tuesday afternoon: Nathan-Leah Rejects Nathan's Advances (Silence: -25% Luck: +20, Suspicion: -5)

“Nate,” she finally said, her voice small and uncertain. “I really, really can’t today. I have papers to grade and stuff to prep for tomorrow—also, Jonathan’s waiting at home.” She put an extra edge on his name, hoping it would ground her, remind her that she was a woman with commitments and not some desperate, panicked animal responding to the scent of pheromones and blackmail.

“Not even just like five minutes?” Nate looked at her with those big, wounded-puppy eyes, the kind she’d seen on students who’d just been handed back a failing test.

“Nate. We can’t make this a routine. If word gets out, both of our lives are over. I mean it. I could lose my job, my marriage—” (never mind that she wasn’t married yet, but the idea was close enough) “—and you’d end up in juvie or, I don’t know, on some kind of registry. Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not. I just—well, this is the only thing I think about anymore. I can’t focus. I can’t even jerk off without thinking about you.” He looked mortified by his own admission, but also a little proud, as if hoping the confession might flatter her into compliance. “Please?”

Leah picked up a dry-erase marker and began absently doodling on her desk calendar, anything to avoid his gaze. “I told you, I can’t today,” she repeated, but the words felt like a lie in her own mouth.

Nate shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other, buying time. He chewed on his thumb, then asked.

“What about tomorrow? Sometime this week?”

She almost laughed at the absurdity—he was negotiating a blowjob like it was a favor, a chore to be exchanged for chores done. But then, wasn’t that what it was? A perverse barter, her silence and complicity traded for his own?

“If we keep doing this, eventually someone will find out. It only takes one text, one rumor, one weird look from a student who sees us together at the wrong time. I—we—can’t risk everything. We have to just…not draw attention to ourselves is all. Or else we can’t ever…do anything. You know?”

“Yeah…alright. I guess. I get it.” Nathan began to almost pout. But he wasn’t stupid. Even though he was disappointed, he knew some of her words—even if they were excuses to get out of their perverse exchange carried weight. And he sure didn’t want to blow the chance of Leah well…blowing him again or even more. He turned and left defeated.

Leah soon strode down the hallway, heels clacking over the polished tile. She told herself she’d done the right thing. She slid into her car, shut the door, and rested her forehead against the steering wheel and tried to consider all the things that led her to where she was. And it was just Tuesday…