Unpleasant Encounters

Dr. Warsh's classroom occupied the basement of the business building, a windowless mausoleum that smelled of mothballs and the particular desperation of 3:00 PM classes. Delilah found a seat in the back row like always, her heart pounding so hard her brain was getting slammed back and forth in her skull. Warsh himself sat at the front desk, a skeletal figure in a tweed jacket that had fit him sometime during the John Adams presidency. He was eighty—everyone knew he was eighty and well past the minimum age for retirement. It was the subject of constant speculation, and the betting pool on Greek Row had a line for *Will Warsh retire this year* since Warsh turned 68. His dentures clicked when he spoke, ill-fitting prosthetics that turned every lecture into a mumbled mystery.

"And sho," Warsh began, clicking and whistling through his consonants, "we examine the... *clish* ...of 2008, when the... *mumble* ...collapsed due to... *click* ...derivatives."

Delilah leaned forward, straining to understand. The heat generated from the students and Warsh's heater turned the basement into a sauna, and she could feel sweat pooling around her back.

"The... *shmortgage* ...backed shecurities," Warsh continued, writing something illegible on the board. "Created a... *hic* ...systemic risk."

A student raised his hand. "Professor, could you repeat that?"

Warsh turned, dentures slipping, and tried again. "The... *shmortgage* ...backed... *click* ...shecurities."

Everyone pretended to take notes. No one understood. Warsh was tenured, had been tenured since before most of their parents were born, and the administration couldn't fire him because his contract predated any new labor laws by at least four decades. He taught Advanced Financial Instruments because no one else wanted to, and he taught it badly because he'd stopped caring sometime between 1993 and 2002. Delilah tried to focus. Tried to parse the mumbled words into something resembling finance theory. But she felt like the walls were closing in on her. Delilah's pen snapped in her fingers, the stress sending— The lecture dragged on—ninety minutes of clicking dentures and half-heard wisdom about markets that had become irrelevant before the power of the tech sector. By the time Warsh finally dismissed them, her head was pounding, her whole outfit was damp from nervous sweating, and she felt like she'd learned absolutely nothing except that dental technology had apparently peaked in 1887. She gathered her things and headed for the exit, moving against the tide of students flooding up the stairs toward freedom.

"Miss Crowley."

The voice stopped her cold. Deep. Australian. The kind of voice that pronounced "schedule" with a "sh" sound and made it sound like a threat. Dr. Abner stood at the top of the stairwell, blocking the exit. He was tall—six foot four, maybe—with the build of a man who'd played rugby in his youth and still carried the muscle memory. His suit was black, his tie was black, and the briefcase in his hand looked like it probably contained forms for expulsion, or possibly a knife.

"Sir," Delilah managed, her hand flying to her throat, covering the choker. Abner's eyes—pale blue, watery yet somehow dry at the same time, missing nothing—dropped to her hand. To her neck. To the fabric band she was trying to hide. Though probably not possible, her imagination running away with itself, she didn't want to run the risk of her blackmailer getting close to the college's disciplinarian. "That's an interesting accessory," he said, his Australian accent turning the words into something that sounded almost friendly. Almost. "A new fashion trend?"

"It's... vintage," Delilah lied. "Thrift store."

"Mm." Abner stepped closer, and Delilah caught the smell of him—hand sanitizer, old paper, and the faint mustiness of his poetry collections. "You seem tired, Miss Crowley. Stressed. The bags under your eyes suggest poor sleep. Your posture suggests... discomfort."

"I'm fine," Delilah said, too quickly. "Just... long day."

"Long days are the currency of education." Abner's eyes stayed on her throat. On the silver heart that hung there, visible now, glinting under the fluorescent lights. "You know, under Section 14, Subsection C, administrators have the right to launch… well, we've been down this road before, haven't we?"

Delilah's blood turned to ice water.

"Illicit substances are a serious problem, a danger to the student body," Abner continued, his voice conversational, his gaze anything but. "The users and the dealers end up poisoning themselves and the surrounding community. And the American justice system is not as kind as my home country's when it comes to first-time offenders." She mentally cursed out John for taking her on that 'date.' She didn't even do anything, but since she was in the car, her name was at the local police station right along with his... even though the charges were never filed. She probably should have broken up with him at that point, but she chalked it up to being young and dumb.

He smiled. It did not reach his eyes.

"But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Miss Crowley? You're just tired. Just stressed. Just wearing a vintage necklace from a thrift store." He was definitely accusing her of dealing now. Of what wasnt clear but give the reaper enough time he could find or create exactly what he needed to ruin a students day,life,academic career.And Delilah was already on his list so she got the heightened suspicion treatment.

"Yes," Delilah whispered. "That's... that's right."

Abner held her gaze for five long seconds. Then he stepped aside, clearing the path to the exit.

"Get some rest," he said. "You look like you're about to collapse. And Miss Crowley? If this is what I think it is... well. We'll have a conversation soon. A proper one. With paperwork. And law enforcement."

Delilah fled.

The quad was alive with afternoon activity, the October sun casting long shadows across the brick pathways as Delilah stumbled into the open air, gasping, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could feel Abner's eyes on her back, watching from the stairwell, and she didn't stop moving until she'd crossed to the far side of the lawn, near the library steps.

Near the student union, the Queer Student Union had set up their weekly meeting—tables covered in literature, a rainbow flag snapping in the breeze, Dominique standing at the center in her corporate goth best, handing out flyers about the upcoming drag show. She caught Delilah's eye across the distance and raised an eyebrow, as if to say *you look terrible*, and Delilah looked away quickly, her face burning.

The football team had commandeered the fountain area, walk-ons mostly, not scholarship athletes—the big guys who'd come to college to play but hadn't been quite good enough for the starting roster. They were shirtless despite the chill, painted with the school colors, chanting something about Saturday's game against State.

"Come watch us crush 'em!" one of them called to a passing group of freshmen. "Free beer after! Well, cheap beer! Well, beer-flavored water!"

Laughter. The casual, easy laughter of people who weren't being blackmailed, who weren't subject to their own personal audio panopticon, who weren't one administrative conversation away from being expelled.

The phone buzzed.

"What do you care?" she said, not herself caring that this was a public place with other people going about their business and they might have some opinions about the girl getting snippy with the empty air.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Again, a few students were starting to stare at her, but really, even if she noticed her capacity to focus this would hardly be the first time she had a full on angry conversation with herself. At least this time she wasnt pointing the anger at herself

Delilah looked around. No one was watching. Everyone was busy—students studying, football players chanting, QSU recruiting, the normal afternoon chaos of a college town letting its hair down after a long day.

"I hate you," Delilah typed, but her thumb hovered over the send button. She deleted it. Typed something else.

"It feels..."

She couldn't finish. Couldn't send.

The walk back to The Pines felt longer than it should have. The dusk had turned the sky bruise-purple, and the surveillance cameras clicked softly as she passed, their lenses tracking her movement like curious vultures. Her unit looked different from the outside. The door, which she'd left unexamined this morning, now stood closed with a fresh coat of paint—black, with a small silver knocker in the shape of a cat's head. Her style, but still very suspicious. Her key still worked, but the lock turned smoother than it ever had, well-oiled and precise. In fact, looking around, it looked like someone had come in and made some improvements. Given the whole building a fresh coat of primer. Normally this would be a cause for concern. Improvements meant a rent increase that she would have to pull from her ever-unstable Jenga tower of finance. Maybe it was her landlord's new assistant, or maybe the entire place was getting the landlord special. There wasn't much that could make the place any worse at this point.

"Hello?"

The smell hit her first—garlic and rosemary and roasting meat, the kind of home-cooked aroma that made her stomach clench with sudden, embarrassing hunger. She'd been living on ramen and shame for so long that real food seemed almost alien. The apartment had no other obvious mutation. The single room was still small, but now it was... curated. The hot plate remained, but cleaner. Someone had come by, whether that was the blackmailer themselves or someone under their employment was not clear—something she knew she had to tackle. But the smell was serving to distract her, her stomach taking charge of her rational faculties for the purpose of preserving her life for another day at least. On the folding screen that separated her sleeping area, someone had hung her belt like a trophy deer off a cabin wall. Not just that, but polished to a shine. She wasn't sure if this was in her original text, but she was also aware that she was actively going off script, so some minor variations from the source shouldn't be that concerning to her… for now.

The phone buzzed.

Delilah opened the microwave. A casserole dish sat there, bubbling—chicken and rice and vegetables, creamy and golden and perfect. She ate standing at the counter, too hungry to sit, shoveling the food into her mouth with the desperate efficiency of someone who'd forgotten what fullness felt like. It was perfect. Of course it was perfect. Had she considered it was too perfect, she might have been in a better position to handle what came next.

The lights cut out—not like the time her landlord believed that the electrical pole was secretly a world government radio tower. It was like there was an absence of light created by a black hole localized to her apartment. She didn't panic until she heard the bathroom door swing open, followed by muffled chuckling and clinking metal. Delilah started flailing, fork in hand becoming a shiv in the dark, wildly stabbing the air hoping the blunted prongs could pierce flesh. It was all for naught as she felt the fabric be torn from her body, the muffled chuckling getting closer until it was practically ringing in her ear.

Delilah writhed frantically as the concentrated blows rained down faster and faster. She cried out in pain as her bottom became redder and redder. She clenched her fists and her whole body tensed up. The first blow was a statement, not a question—latex against flesh with a crack that echoed in the small room's darkness. She gasped, more from the sound than the pain, which arrived a half-second later as a bloom of heat. The stranger established a rhythm cruel in its precision: two strokes to the right cheek, three to the left, never overlapping, allowing each individual welt its own geography. By the seventh blow, she was counting breaths. By the twelfth, she was breaking into a sweat without anything to show for her escape attempt. When the next blow landed, she forced herself to go limp, and the surrender of it—the conscious decision to accept the pain—sent something cold and electric down her spine.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she bit her lower lip to keep from groaning and whimpering as two oiled fingers worked their way right over her burning flesh. The stranger spread more gel across her burning skin, working it in with cruel thoroughness greasing up Delilah's burnt orb. Delilah trembled with humiliation, but also because the gel was working on her skin, making the well-walloped ass cheeks burn in a whole new way. She whimpered as she suffered from an unexpected heat that the lube produced, adding to the pain Delilah was dealing with. The fingers withdrew their work, leaving her exhausted and pulsing, the reddened skin now cooling rapidly in the Adirondack air.

"No more," she pleaded, her fight spent, and the clinical detachment of the invisible hands cared not for her cries. She heard the click of the lock engaging, the belt tightening to a precise fit—tight enough to remind her with every breath, impossible to remove without the key. When she was lifted off this invader's lap—effortless, as if she weighed nothing—she found she couldn't stand straight. Like she was carrying an extra five pounds right on her pelvis. The belt shifted with her every micro-movement, a rigid presence that denied her the control of her own body. She was aware of her pulse in her orbs, a throbbing heartbeat around the handprints. The sensation wasn't just physical; it was architectural. She had been renovated. The belt wasn't just locked on her—it was holding space, preventing her from ever truly closing her legs, from ever being her own unobserved self again. She stood there in the dark, dripping with humiliation and stunned by the spanking that continued to tingle, and realized with stomach-dropping clarity that she was now stuck with this stupid belt. The lights came back on seemingly as quickly as they had gone out. Delilah found herself on the ground, ass cheeks on fire.

The phone buzzed.

Delilah finished her dinner, the casserole tasting like ash in her mouth, but it was probably the most filling dinner she had had in months. Sitting was out of the question; between everything that had happened to her posterior, she wasn't going to do that even if she was offered a gold bar. She showered in the tiny stall, scrubbing herself raw—not only from the humiliation of being spanked, then belted (though any order of those three would be humiliating), but from falling for such an obvious trap in hindsight. The belt made every move jerky and uncomfortable, like her crotch was playing Airbnb to an upset snapping turtle. The hot water helped a little bit. For every crappy thing about this apartment, the water was always hot and the pressure was always good. All that in mind it was not a total loss , just mostly a loss, in her flailing Delilah was certain the figure that grabbed her was female or femme presenting which is one clue she didn't have before.

When she emerged, wrapped in a towel that was actually soft, the lights were dimmed. The television glowed with a soft blue standby screen, reams of erotism and education gently flowing down the screen. And on her bed, folded neatly, was a sleep mask—the kind for airplanes, black silk with "Property" embroidered across it in silver thread. "Starting to notice a trope, and not a good one either," she snarked and rolled over. She closed her eyes and, against all reason, slept better than she had in years.