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Dammit, I thought again. I couldn’t help liking him. In a moment of honesty, inside my head, I saw that my virginity was definitely on the table. Not the other stuff—the twisted stuff Mary and Patty had seemed to take for granted: not ‘guidance’ and ‘discipline,’ whatever those words might mean.
The server came to take our order—she had ignored me completely, of course, before Christian arrived.
“I’ll have a Woodford Reserve, neat,” he told her, “and the lady will have a glass ofVeuve Clicquot.”
My lips opened, but no sound of protest came out—either to say that I was under age or to object that I would order for myself, thank you very much. The blood heated my cheeks yet again, and to my horror I squirmed in my seat as I felt a matching warmth between my thighs. At least Christian had his attention focused on the waitress for the moment; he couldn’t have noticed my humiliating little movement.
“What’s…?” I asked in a whisper as the server receded, hesitating before I tried to pronounce the foreign words.
“Champagne,” Christian replied, smiling. “You’re going to love it.”
He didn’t seem to feel any need to apologize for ordering for me, or to call any attention to it. I spent a moment trying to figure out if I should say something, because the clarity I thought I had found a few seconds ago seemed to have vanished. I forced the smile back onto my face, and I thought of the goal: one month’s allowance.
“Have I seen any of your movies?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t watch arty things—very much, anyway—but I love rom-coms and a lot of sci-fi.”
Christian’s mouth twisted to the side a little, as if he had to suppress a smile. I could tell that the expression meant that he was going to name a film I would certainly have seen, or at least heard of, but when he spoke I had no need to fake my wide-eyed, openmouthed reaction.
“Did you seeMoonglider?”
“Really?” I gasped, much too loud. Christian nodded, the full smile breaking out on his lips. “Only like a hundred times—twice in the theater, even.”
“A movie like that,” he said, “has alotof producers, but I was the guy that put the deal together. You liked it?”
I couldn’t help giggling. The way he asked the question said that he knew the answer, and it didn’t matter at all, because he had of course made so much money fromMoongliderthat my opinion was utterly meaningless—and yet hedidcare what I thought of the best movie of the past decade.
“Well, yeah,” I told him.
“That’s great,” he said, his smile making my heart pound. I had no idea how he could possibly mean it, but I knew that he did. He wanted the girl he had watched getting her picture taken naked to like his incredibly successful movie.
The drinks arrived. Christian raised his bourbon. Tentatively, I followed suit with the elegant champagne flute. I had drunk cheap beer and rotgut wine with scofflaw friends, had gotten drunk, had thought I knew about alcohol. The smell of the champagne, mingling with the scent of bourbon, made me realize I knew nothing.
“To our story,” Christian said, and touched his glass to mine.
CHAPTER11
Leah
I sipped the champagne. It tasted somehow like adulthood: a flavor without sugary sweetness but that somehow had something light, and indeed sweet in some other way, about it. As I swallowed I thought about the toast.
Our story.
Had he heard Mary the photographer talking aboutmystory?
Of course he heard that. Why would Selecta let him watch the shameful photoshoot if they didn’t let him hear the equally shameful sounds of it?
For the first time, the full implications of what the app had so casually told me—that Christian G had watched my session with the photographer, including my very first time playing with myself and my very first orgasm—came into focus for me. I had known that my apartment didn’t really belong to me, but that represented a given—even a regular apartment in any given ordinary building didn’t belong to the tenant, right? But to have my home belong toSelecta—that obviously meant something different.
I had supposed it would just allow my sponsor to open the door, as if I had given him a key… a little anxiety-inducing, but really just what a young woman might do for a steady boyfriend. In those thousands of unread words on the contract I had signed, though, must lurk my granting of permission to qualified platinum-level sponsors to watch me any time—or at least whenever Selecta decided it would turn a profit.
I looked into Christian’s eyes, and I swallowed hard at how his handsome features seemed to combine themselves in my mind with this realization about his potential power over me. Dismayingly, I found that I didn’t feel the way I knew I should, about the surveillance and this arrogant man’s knowledge of my intimate secrets. Ishouldget up and walk away. I should block Christian G on the SA app. I had shown up for this date, and so my subsidy was safe for the moment. I should reassess and, if I decided I had to, I should get ready to save as much of my money as I could and get the hell out of LA.
I didn’twantto do any of that, though. I wanted to see what Christian would do next.
No, I realized, that wasn’t right. A big part of me didn’t want that at all.
Ineededto see what this gorgeous, wealthy man would do next.
He only kept me waiting a moment.
