RF Arousal Ch 16

It turns out that ensuring that a wealthy white woman who has done something bad goes to jail is actually harder than it sounds.

Riley lies on her bed in her room at home in Gurlberg, a muggy and underwhelming college town in central Florida. She can faintly hear her sister’s TV through the thin wall, which is infinitely less obnoxious than listening to her have sex.

There’s a new poster on her wall: now that she and Adella are out of FUTA, Ingrid, the busty, Swedish blonde, has become the face, and chest, of the brand. She is radiant in her uniform, holding a soccer ball and smiling like an angel. Ingrid’s always been out of Riley’s league, and now she’s out of reach as well.

Riley is technically on a medical suspension, still paid by FUTA, but forbidden to go near campus for “Liability Reasons.” There has been nothing in the news, and the police will not talk about anything to do with Annette or what happened. An attorney with FUTA advised Riley not to discuss it or try to contact Hana and Adella. Riley’s mother, also an attorney, advised her to comply.

So, she lies there and gazes at the poster of Ingrid beside her venerable poster of Monica Belucci, and wishes she could get back to seething out of loneliness and self-loathing instead of seething over injustice. It’s obvious what’s happening. What Annette did could not possibly have been legal, yet whatever comes next will be about turning her mad science into profit, not seeking justice or trying to deter other people from doing this stuff. Laws really are just for poor people, just like that girl in her Freshman literature class always said, years ago.

Riley grinds her teeth. She gets up and puts on her running shoes. Compulsively working out to exhaustion to keep her mind off things might not be the healthiest way of coping, but it’s better than drinking. And she doesn’t like drinking.

She heads out into the muggy afternoon air in time to see the mail truck pull away. She grabs the mail and heads back inside to throw it on the kitchen island, only to find an envelope addressed to her. No return address. Inside, she finds a plane ticket, records of room reservations, and what amounts to an invitation. This is it, then. They’re going to buy her silence, just as her mother predicted.

Riley puts the envelope down and leans miserably on the island. Who is she kidding? She’ll take the money.

RESIDENT FUTA

It’s Riley’s first time in New York, but she’s too anxious to care about that. This is where FUTA’s headquarters is, and she suspects, whatever legitimate pharmaceutical research organization Annette uses to mask what she’s doing.

She climbs out of her Uber and crosses the crowded sidewalk to enter an admittedly beautiful hotel lobby. New York is a little overwhelming after growing up in Gurlberg. It’s not as though Riley has never visited real cities before, but it feels different this time. It’s not a total surprise when she sees Hana already at the counter, checking in. She’s not totally sure why accepting a payout and signing an NDA requires her to come all this way, and she hopes that she hasn’t just kidnapped herself.