I wake up beside Caleb. I’m in his bed, my head resting on the crook of his shoulder, my body aching a little, but not the way I thought. I let him explore me in every which way, and I want him all over again. I have no regrets about not telling him I was a virgin. I wasn’t saving myself for marriage or the one. It just never happened for me.

Tilting my neck up, I look around the darkness toward a dim light a small distance away, allowing my eyes to refocus and adjust. Then I smile. It’s the door that joins our hotel rooms together. The vague recollection of him asking for my room key card comes to mind. All I’d done was point him to my clutch purse, and he did the rest. He must’ve thrown on his clothes and gone down the hall, because opening that door requires undoing two latches—one in my room and one in his.

It saves me from any case of needing to do the walk of shame whenever I make it out of bed.

He groans in his sleep, and one arm wraps protectively around the flare of my hip. A sigh of new-found need escapes my throat. I cover my mouth, not quite ready to wake him. His knee bumps into my outer thigh as he stirs, but he doesn’t wake up. Looking down at where his knee grazes my skin, I take in his dense leg muscles. My eyes travel up his thighs to the thick length of his cock. That’s all it takes for my core to pulse and ache. As tempted as I am to touch him, I don’t want to wake him, not now. Not yet.

The dim sliver of light hits his lower abs, showing the ridges of his firm, hard muscles. I can stay like this for the rest of the night, admiring every inch of him until he wakes up. Because like the last three times, when he wakes up again, it’ll be to worship me, then ravage me, and make me come yet again.

I still can’t believe that less than eight hours earlier we kissed for the first time, and before that, I believed all I had for him was hatred. And now we’re in his bed, our limbs tangled and our spent bodies connected as one. I couldn’t predict this would ever have happened this suddenly, but it feels so right I don’t want to be anywhere but here. The raw, sore sensation between my legs captures my attention again, and my breath catches. I smile. It’s happened a few times tonight, so natural yet so unexpected that my body knows what it wants. More of this man deep within me, creating an unexplainable pleasure that’s so absolute, so complete that I almost feel guilty for being this insanely satisfied.

And I almost don’t remember that night. It’s the dullest, vaguest, most far away memory. I hear a small hum of a laugh form in my throat as I think this could’ve been exactly what I needed. To have the memory fucked out of me. It’s sick and perverted on one level, but at the same time, I’m just glad it doesn’t dominate my thoughts anymore. I’m much happier to fill my mind with the most intense, most desire-filled, most carnal experience of my life. As I turn my body slightly toward Caleb, the warmth of his torso comforts me like a warm blanket. My muscles relax, and I feel my thoughts calm again as I drift off.

He’s not the only one who’s exhausted while aroused. I love the feeling.

* * *

I can still almost feel him inside me a week later.

Every time that happens, I find myself smiling. My roommates keep telling me there’s something different about me. That I’m radiant and glowing. Everywhere I go, friends, co-workers and acquaintances compliment me. Except, of course at my internship, where it’ll be a cold day in hell if anyone ever notices I exist. It’s as though I walk into Levine Holdings and I become invisible. Perhaps that’s a good thing, considering I’ve been snooping around, little by little, looking for a smoking gun I still can’t find.

Caleb has texted me a couple of times, and we spoke on the phone about nothing in particular around midweek. He’s been patient about my lack of results. On that front, we have a simple communications protocol in place. If I find something, I’m to send a message between two burner phones and then dispose of the one I have. My best guess is that Caleb or one of his partners have a way to access the other. Both are New Jersey numbers that no one can ever triangulate to Caleb or his phone or to me. I suppose I’m exposed while I carry that phone with me. So far, we still haven’t exchanged a word about what I have or haven’t found out since the beginning. Maybe he understands these things take time. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to put undue pressure on me. It could also be that we’re both still getting used to being on good terms with him.

The next Saturday, I fall into a new routine during my lunch hour at the department store makeup counter. As money is tight, I grab the sandwich I made at home and my bottle of filtered water from the break room cooler, and I head outside to get some fresh air. The small parkette on the other side of the street is often empty, but as it’s the weekend, a couple of moms stand around as their young children play on the swings or slides in one corner of the space. I marvel at how clean it is. If this were the park beside my apartment in Brooklyn, I wouldn’t dare sit for lunch. No one maintains it, so it’s frequently overrun by the same demographic frequently seen near there. Junkies, prostitutes, homeless people, and the odd dealer.

I only wonder why this parkette is different for all of three minutes, then the mystery is solved. Two big burly security guards who work the floors of my department store are standing at the exit I took. Above their heads is a closed circuit TV camera pointed in this direction, and even from this distance, I can read the notice informing the public that all activity is recorded twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I suspect that junkies, prostitutes, and dealers don’t like being monitored.

As I sit taking in the sights and sounds, I begin to think about the other issue that’s been occupying my mind. This student loan. I’m doing all the right things, working extra hours, saving every spare penny. But with just a couple of weeks to go, it’s clear to me that even if I worked around the clock, I won’t have enough to make that first payment. I start to get curious about the details of my student loan terms. Is there a penalty for late payment? How much more would that be? Is there’s anything else I can do to defer what I owe, or spread it out?

Using my phone, I log into my student loan account to search for information. I need a lifeline.

Something is different on the home screen.

I stare at my phone for so long that the words seem to swim around the screen. Or maybe I’m dizzy.

There’s a green box below my name and student loan number.

Thank you for your payment.

What?

What payment?

I never made one. In a panic, I scroll down to the section that tells me my total balance owing. The little box that has kept me up at night, the part that usually says I owe more money than I’ve made in all of my part-time and summer jobs combined. It should show as $151,278.27, but it doesn’t.

Above that little box, there’s a line that shows my payment as $151,278.27, not my balance.

My balance is $0.00.

What in the world is going on?

Maybe it’s a glitch. It has to be. Or they’re rearranging the layout, and numbers don’t yet appear where they belong. That has to be it. To be sure, I call up Dahlia. She has the dogs she’s petsitting with her today, but I’m fairly confident she has enough flexibility to pull away for a short phone call. Dahlia’s also a Columbia U student, and on the partial student loan track in her pre-vet program. I’ll ask her to check what she sees on her screen after logging in.

Our phone call is cut short when my roommate tells me her loan balance looks normal. I tell her I have to go back to work, but really, I sit on the faded green park bench, stunned and confused.

Is this Caleb’s doing? Is it an administrative mix-up? In my unsettled state, I send a text to Caleb, asking if he has time to talk. His reply is cryptic, letting me know he’s heading out of town but that he’ll be thinking of me. It’s interesting, the way he manages to avoid giving me a straight answer, and is about to make himself scarce for the next few days.

What is he up to?