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She took me to her place, making sure to lock the door behind us. She was on the tenth floor, so I felt perfectly safe.
“You look like you could use a drink,” she told me.
“Actually—”
I almost said, ‘I don’t drink any more,’ but something about the way Stephanie looked at me made me reconsider uttering those words.
Aside from our parents, she was the one I trusted most to know what was best for me. Even better than I did, sometimes.
She had known me my whole life, after all, and I wasn’t always known for making the best decisions. Like when I died my hair pink because I thought it would look cute, or when I went camping alone in the back country, blissfully ignorant about how to bear-proof a campsite.
Both of which pale in comparison to my choice of major. Dad was pretty cool about it, but Mom actually cried, certain I would end up starving on the street. If only she knew about my current circumstances— but of course, I couldn’t tell her. I could only tell Stephanie.
“Okay, spill,” Stephanie said, putting a glass of red wine for each of us on the glass coffee table.
“I’m not really sure where to begin; it’s kind of a twist.”
“The beginning is usually a good idea.”
“Okay, well remember when I was 12?”
“Going back that far, are we?”
Stephanie always did have a knack for cutting through some bullshit. It was a characteristic that was seen as admirable in an adult but that got her sent to the principal’s office a lot as a kid.
“I just meant when I first discovered Suspicious Activity Records.”
“Oh yeah, that label started by that musician you liked.”
“Seth Black, from Autumn Corrosion.”
“I see,” Stephanie said, looking pointedly at my T-shirt.
“Yeah, that’s even more of a coincidence than it looks.”
“Do tell.”
I wanted to, but I was having trouble finding the words, and not just because of embarrassment on account of the sexcapades I’d embarked on with Seth.
“Well, about two weeks ago, I got the opportunity to intern at the record label, and it was great for a while but then, things changed.”
“Oh my God, he didn’t hurt you, did he? Are you still a virgin?”
“No, but he didn’t hurt me. He is really great, or at least I thought he was. That’s where it gets confusing.”
“Take your time, hon,” she said, taking my hand.
“It was really cool at first. I shadowed him during his days at the studio for a week: listening to demos, going to shows, sitting in on recording sessions. I really learned a lot. He was never remotely inappropriate, going out of his way to not even touch me, even accidentally.”
“Okay, I won’t murder him yet.”
“Then the lockdown came, and he said he wanted to keep things going. He invited me stay at his house, so he could mentor me. I want to make it clear: I wanted to go. He is really sexy, and I’ve always had a thing for him. The fact that he might be even slightly interested in me made me giddy. Everything was normal the first day. The morning of the second day, after breakfast, he made a sort of proposal.”
“Not a wedding proposal, I assume.”
“No, but there was a jewelry box,” I said dreamily.
“Did it have that in it?”
Stephanie pointed to the collar, which was still around my neck. That was no doubt the same way that the crazy lady who had waltzed right into Seth’s house had known what was going on between us.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“I think I’m starting to get the picture.”
There was no judgement in her tone, just concern that I was alright. I hadn’t had time to really check.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“A few days of wonderful, mixing a continuation of the internship with, um, other activities, all consensual of course. Then this morning, he says we should take a break from what we’ve been doing,” I told her, hating this part. “He said too much can be overwhelming. I didn’t want to stop. I realize now that that was because I was too far into it, which was exactly what he was afraid of, so I can’t really fault him. Then, just after he gets done explaining that, and how he still likes doing this with me, this, um, woman comes storming in.”
“His wife?”
“I don’t think so, because I think I would have heard about if he’d gotten married. I thought maybe girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend or no, it doesn’t sound like you should be seeing him anymore,” Stephanie said resolutely. “It’s not safe.”
She was right, of course. I was beginning to love Seth, in more than a crush way, but I didn’t want to risk getting hurt, which only made it worse, somehow, because it might not even be his fault.
There was every possibility that the woman was his girlfriend, enraged at his continued infidelity. Or she could be a jealous ex-girlfriend who couldn’t let go.
