Garrett is sitting in the hallway by my door when I arrive home from orchestra rehearsal that night. His blue eyes are wide but expressionless; his mouth, full and relaxed. He almost looks like a child, with that beautiful devil face.

I’m not surprised that he’s here—we both know I belong to him.

He stands and brushes the creases from his pants. “Do you always bring your cello back to the dorm with you?”

“I felt like practicing here tonight.”

“It doesn’t bother your neighbors?”

“I don’t give a fuck who it bothers.”

I think I see a flash of anger cross his eyes, but it disappears before I can be sure, and now his face is smooth again. “Last night,” he says, dropping his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets, “what I did…it was wrong. I was wrong.”

He lifts his eyes to me, and his face is wrought with contrition. Against my better judgment, I soften.

“Will you come home with me?”

My stomach twists. With dread. With desire. “I shouldn’t,” I say.

“Then don’t. I just wanted to say sorry.”

But it is clear in the way he fixes his eyes on me, in the way he makes no move to leave: he knows I will go. He knows he can shrug and be indifferent and that I will be the one to cave. I exhale slowly as the last bit of fight—if there ever was any—goes out of me. “Let me pack a few things.”

“Bring your cello.”

That night he broils a steak and serves it with spinach salad, wine, and strawberries. I’m wearing a sweater, but I’m still freezing, and by some insane trick of the imagination, I feel like it’s my first time at his house again—like everything is new. I notice, as if I’ve never noticed it before, how remarkably dust-free Garrett’s home is. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that this is a revelation.

“Shower with me,” he says after the dishes are done, and I think, this is new, he wants me in his shower, his private place, and my poor, eager heart stutters and dances in my chest like the village idiot. I hear the echo of Garrett’s fist hitting the cinder block behind my head—I hear it often—but his efforts at closeness make the memory seem exaggerated, blown out of proportion. I must have overreacted.

In the shower, he kisses me under the running water, and though I’m sure my mouth tastes like garlic and wine, somehow, unbelievably, his still tastes of wintergreen. It makes me afraid to breathe. I lather his statuesque body with soap, reveling in the privilege: I am the girl who gets to trace the topography of his perfect, rippled muscles. I wash his penis for a long time, staring into his blue eyes and watching his mouth twitch while he tries to remain stoic. He stops me before he comes—I think he doesn’t want me to see his face when it happens.

He washes me too, then, massaging my back and breasts, lathering the hair between my legs but lingering only long enough to leave me throbbing with desire. I’m freezing when we get out, every inch of me covered in goose bumps, and though I want his hands on me, my teeth are chattering—I want to dress or at least get under the covers to escape the cold. But he takes my hand, gently, as I reach for my sweatshirt. “I want you to stay undressed,” he says, “and play for me.”

I remember last time I played for him, how my cello sent thrilling vibrations up my thighs, how I gasped and came, how he punished me by ramming me into the practice room piano. My nipples have gone hard, though this time I don’t know if it’s from the temperature in Garrett’s house or if it’s because I am a sick little slut who gets off on being angry-fucked.

I roll my cello case from the living room to Garrett’s bedroom and unsnap the latches, then sit in a wooden chair in the corner of the room. Goose bumps tighten the skin of my arms and legs. Garrett is watching me with that same little half-smile I’ve grown used to, his dimple a shadow in his cheek: Garrett, settled on his bed, my riveted audience of one.

I have not played the Elgar for him before, but after today’s lesson, I think I can do it. I close my eyes and let my memories of my mother take over the way I did when I played for Yarvik, and though I know instinctively that I should not allow Garrett access to this sorrow, I also think that maybe my playing will impress him. I want him to be impressed by me. The opening notes echo against the walls of the room, filling it so completely that, with my eyes closed, I almost forget where I am. Soon I am impervious to the cold, putting every last shred of myself into the music—letting myself sink beneath the melancholy strains while memories of my mother and all the attendant regrets sweep me away, just like before.

When I finish the movement, I open my eyes, terrified to look up and see the expression on Garrett’s face. Terrified he’ll be bored by me. But then I see his feet—he has moved from the bed to stand beside me.

I raise my face to his and am a little surprised to see that he is panting, his eyes alight with some emotion I can’t identify. At first I think I’ve angered him again, but his eyes are so shiny I could almost believe he’s about to cry. He takes a step closer to me, his breath thick and heavy and labored, and now I understand that I have captured him—I’ve finally done something worthy of his attention. Oh yes, I’ve done well. He is erect, openly wanting me.

I lay my bow in my lap and, with my cello still between my legs, take hold of Garrett’s penis and draw him closer, keeping my eyes on him as I take him in my mouth. He closes his eyes and loses himself in my sucking, and I feel a sudden rush of power at having him submit to me. This is forgiveness, what I am doing, because I denied him, made him punch a wall. I hurt him. And now, sucking him so greedily, swallowing easily when he finally lets go, I am conveying to him that I understand his frustration. It is me telling him You were right, this really isn’t so difficult, why the fuck do I have to make everything so difficult?

The rest of the night, Garrett reads sports news on his iPad while I lie there beside him trying to study, wishing he would at least ask me to get myself off for him.

Maybe I should have begged.

---

Before dawn the next morning, Garrett runs me harder than ever, dismissing me afterward as though he can hardly wait to get rid of me. I’m not upset—I know his indifference doesn’t mean he’s done with me. I’m his now. It isn’t like he can just walk away.

I’m on time to meet Bethany at the practice rooms where she tells me she’s missed me and asks where I’ve been. I tell her honestly that I have been very sick, but I feel better now.

“Oh,” she says. “I was wondering about those purple circles under your eyes. Now I get it.”

Gee, thanks.

In Twentieth-Century Europe, Rome grabs the seat next to mine, takes one look at me, and his jaw drops. He shakes his head.

I tell him, “Save it, Rome.”

“You can’t make me stop caring.”

As always, I take more notes than he does. I write and write, and with my free hand I push and push and push my cuticles until my middle finger starts to bleed, but I don’t realize what I’ve done to myself until I smear a bit of blood on the paper. I cover it with my arm so Rome won’t see.

That evening when I walk into Garrett’s place, he grabs me around the waist and kisses me for ages, intoxicating me with his minty mouth and strong hands, touching me and pulling at me like he loves me. I think it’s because of how I played last night; I think I’ve finally stirred something in him. Before dinner, he makes love to me on the couch; and after dinner, in his room, I am on top—I ride him, slow and controlled, grabbing my breasts and biting my lip at him and asking him how he likes my pussy, and he grits his teeth against the shudders when they overtake him and he finally comes.

I ease myself off him, my face placid, but on the inside I’m thinking, How do you like me now, Garrett?

---

I practice at Garrett’s house every night now, naked. I’m like an art fixture, my metronome ticking along as I fly up and down scales, pour over my etudes, and drill the runs in the Elgar.

He stops me periodically, sometimes to wrench the cello from my hands so he can order me to finger myself, and sometimes because he wants me to suck him. I never say no. We are each other’s possession. We belong to one another. “I’m always wet for you,” I tell him. “Check anytime you want.”

And he does, frequently. We are feral with lust, inseparable. He even comes downtown with me when I play Thursday night, and when he watches me I know he’s pretending I’m naked and so I lick my lips at him. He shakes his head at me—Not here in front of all these people, you little whore. I love that I can read his mind.

Later, as we’re finishing dinner, he makes me scoot my chair out from the table, lift my skirt and finger myself for him, tell him what a dirty slut I am. I’m better at it now, making myself come while he watches.

“Worthless little cunt,” he tells me as I’m orgasming, and I cry at his cruel words, but then he’s up and out of his chair, kissing me and sliding his fingers deep into me, thumbing my still-throbbing clitoris and making me come a second time, whispering again and again how sad it is that such a beautiful girl could be such a dirty, worthless whore, hissing that I’ll do whatever he asks no matter how fucked up it is, won’t I? And I say yes, yes, yes because it’s the truth. For some reason, the thought dries up my tears.

That night, he sleeps with his arms wrapped tight around me, and sometime in the early morning he wakes me by spreading my legs and pressing himself into me. He is breathing hard and fast. I pull him close and wrap my legs around him, thrust my hips at him, appreciative of this small token of tenderness—that his desire for me was powerful enough to rouse him from sleep.

“I’m getting too close to you,” he whispers, and I understand. He’s saying “I’m too close” but what he means is “I’m afraid of these emotions.” What is a person like him, so stoic, so controlled, supposed to do with feelings like this? Am I so different than he is? Neither of us seems able to process emotion unless there is pain attached. He’s just the giver and I am the receiver—we’re two sides of the same coin.

---

Finals are fast approaching, so Rome and I set a study date for Saturday morning. I almost tell Garrett, but we’ve had such a great week that it seems silly to upset him for no reason. I tell him I’m going to meet Bethany at the music school, which is true, but we practice only a couple of hours. Then Rome and I sit with our books under the shade of the oak trees in back of the music school. Rome is in rare form today, forgiving of my Garrett-induced happiness and telling joke after joke in between memorizing dreary facts about the Cold War. And the weather is stunning, a cool and bright December Florida day—it is impossible not to smile.

And then my stomach is in my shoes because there is Garrett, staring at me with an expression that freezes my blood. I’m an idiot. A fucking idiot. I shouldn’t have sat here with Rome out in the open, should have known Garrett would chance by as he always seems to do. Did I do this on purpose? Do I want Garrett to hurt me?

Rome pretends to be oblivious to the tension in the air, but I can feel the stiffness in his wave. “Hey, Garrett! We’re almost finished studying for this week’s quiz. Wanna chill?”

Garrett smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Just passing through on my way to the print lab. You two carry on.” He walks by us without giving me a glance.

My extremities tingle, like all feeling is rushing out of me. I’m going numb. A breeze rustles the canopy with a shushing sound, as if in attempt to soothe me.

Rome looks at me with dark, serious eyes. “If he hurts you, you’d better fucking tell me.”

I sigh, suddenly able to move again. “Why, Rome? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, Mal.” He rubs his face with his hands and I see his haunted brown eyes staring out at me from between his fingers. “I don’t fucking know.”

---

“Are you fucking him?”

Garrett has me by the hair, shoving my face into the floor of his living room. I’m grabbing at his hands, trying to get him to let up, but I have no leverage the way I’m kneeling. My knees and elbows are screaming with pain—I banged them on the way down trying not to land face-first on the wood.

“No, I’m not, I swear,” I moan. If I weren’t so fucking stupid, I would just leave. I wouldn’t have come here in the first place—I knew he’d be pissed. And yet I came anyway, ready to beg forgiveness, knowing he’d hurt me. Maybe I want him to hurt me. There is definitely something wrong with me.

“No,” I say again. “He’s nothing, just a study partner”—wrong thing to say, my face is crushed into the floor again—“I mean, he’s good at, no, I mean, I’m terrible at history and he’s helping me and that’s all, I promise.”

Why am I here, why am I here, why am I here

Garrett pulls my hair again so that I’m forced to standing, and then he shoves me against the couch. I fall over the arm of it, my face pressed into the leather cushions. Even now, even through my fear, even as I wait for him, I am aware of the quality of his possessions, how rich the leather smells.

He’s going to punish me, I know. My hands are nervous fists by my face. I hear him unbuckling his belt, unzipping. I don’t dare move.

“The way you won’t even put up a fight almost takes the fun out of it,” he says, and a rush of humiliation spreads through me like wildfire. I try to muster the will to fight, try to think what I could do to make myself more…fun, but my imagination is useless, disabled by terror. I shift a few inches so I can turn my head to look at him—oh, fuck.

He has his belt raised in the air.

“No—”

“You said you were practicing. You lied to me…again.”

“Please, Garrett—” But the belt silences me, comes down with a hard crack against my thigh, and even through my jeans the sting is agony, a fiery jolt of pain that lights me up and arrests my breath. My body seizes, arches, half-lifting my torso from the couch. I want to scream, but I don’t have enough air left to produce more than a gasp.

“Take your pants off,” he says, and the coolness in his voice is scarier than the belt.

He leans over me, his chest heavy against my back, and he’s reaching around me and fumbling with my pants himself, unzipping me, his hands powerful against my weak attempts to push him away—

“No, please, Garrett, please don’t…” I’m begging, but it’s not the fun kind of begging; there is nothing sexy about it. The pain singing up my leg is not meant to be cloaked in ecstasy, not meant to be enjoyed. I have to get out of here. I’m wheezing with panic—my heart has gone crazy, all the beats running together.

Somehow I manage to slide out from underneath him, my pants half-down, but I can’t escape the belt—he sends it cracking against my skin again and again and I drop to the floor shrieking, begging, crying, scrambling, a tangle of flying limbs, trying to kick him away while crawling with my jeans around my knees. Then he’s got me by the hair and the belt is coming at me faster, a pandemonium of blows against my exposed flesh, and as he throws himself on my back I hear the belt buckle clatter against the floor. But his fingers are between my legs now, rough and probing and unwelcome, and I hear him murmur, “Interesting.”

Something in his voice makes me stop struggling. It’s insane, I’m insane, but I have to know what he thinks is “interesting.” My breath is coming hard and the skin of my legs and rear end are on fire, but I’m still now, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I was wondering how much I would have to hurt you to get you to dry out.”

I can’t see his face. Every hair on my body stands on end. “Please don’t, Garrett. Please. Please.” But my voice is flat and dead, without the slightest air of pleading left.

He pulls my jeans the rest of the way off.