“You need to get back to your room. Now,” Drake said in a whisper, but the tone was beyond serious. “Here, take your clothes, and don’t make a sound.” I grabbed my clothes out of Drake’s hand and ran naked to the hall that led to the room I had been staying in. I turned around once to see Drake throwing his shirt on and buttoning it up as he stalked back to the front door.

I was petrified. I didn’t know if it was someone from the school, or maybe even Drake’s wife. But that would be silly of her to ring the doorbell. I felt like I had just been caught after hours in one of the boy’s dorm rooms. Like Drake and I were children sneaking around. I slipped inside the room and shut the door and waited there for what felt like forever, but really only amounted to a few minutes. I figured I might as well get dressed, but I didn’t do anything else, so I could make sure I didn’t make a sound.

As I sat in the overstuffed chair in the sitting area of my room, I played what had just happened over in my head. The way Drake’s cock felt inside me and the look on his face as I took him in. His eyes were like black diamonds, glistening with pin points of brilliant light as his intense gaze penetrated my soul. I couldn’t have even imagined losing my virginity any other way. The spankings and the way Drake made me tell him what I wanted. It was all so intoxicating, and absolutely perfect.

After about a half hour Drake came into the room. He was as white as a ghost.

“What happened? Who was that?”

“It was Samantha’s father, the president of the college. He wanted to talk to me about you.”

“About me? What about me?”

“Somehow word got to him that the police found me at your dorm room yesterday. He wanted to know why I was in your room. He’s furious.” Drake was pacing around the room, running his hands through his hair and clenching his fists. I didn’t know what to say. “He wanted to know if there was anything going on between us. He seemed convinced that there was, even though there’s no reason for him to jump to that conclusion. He never has liked me, though, so it could just be that general feeling of disgust that I always get from him. He also told me that he thinks it would be best if Samantha came home right now.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in a mental hospital. She had a complete breakdown after Jessica died. She just couldn’t take anything anymore. All she could see around her was death—our daughter and your parents, my brother—and she just withdrew from everything. She stopped talking, to me or anyone else. She just stayed in her bed for weeks. Finally I took her in, I thought maybe if she rested under the care of some doctors she would get better.”

“Did she?”

“No. If anything she’s gotten worse since she’s been there. I don’t know if it’s the medication she’s on, or what, but she doesn’t want to leave the damned place. They seem to be trying some new drug every month, but nothing helps. She’s goes through phases where she seems fine, then times when she’s practically catatonic. But whenever I’ve suggested coming home, she says she can’t.”

“Why?”

“She won’t say, and then there are times when I’m there and she won’t say anything at all. Won’t look at me or acknowledge that I’m in the room.”

“And her father wants to bring her home?”

“I told him that was the worst possible thing for her, and I doubt her doctor’s would go along with it. But Geoff says we could hire a twenty-four hour nurse and care for her here. It’s insane.”

“But why? Why does he suddenly want to bring her home?”

“He’s just thinking about the school’s reputation. He’s gotten it into his head that appearing like as much of a traditional family as possible would make sure no suspicion falls on me.”

“But why on earth would there be any suspicion on you at all? Just because you were in my room?”

“I don’t know. I told them that you’d been a friend of the family for years and that I was worried about you. What I’m afraid of is they found something on your laptop. Some way to trace me. Now I’m the one that sounds paranoid.”

“But there’s absolutely nothing to link you to me on Daddyland or any of the camming I’ve done. How could they possibly connect you through there?”

“I don’t know.” Drake sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the sitting area, his head hanging down in his hands. “But you’re going to have to go back, Ashley. There’s no way you can stay here now.”

“What? No! I don’t want to leave you! Please, Drake!”

“Ashley, this is wrong. I took you against your will. You shouldn’t even be here. You should be living your life with boys your own age. This has all gotten completely out of hand. I don’t even know what I was thinking, bringing you here. It was stupid and the only way I can even begin to make things right is by taking you back—“

“But I want to be here. Doesn’t what I want matter at all?”

“Not when I’m the dean of your department. Even if what I did wasn’t illegal—which it was—it’s against the rules, Ashley. I could lose my job, my house … everything.”

“What if we went away somewhere … together? We could just leave everything behind. No one would miss me. I honestly don’t even understand what Justin would have been doing busting in to my room. I swear the only thing he ever cared about was getting into my pants.” I paused for a moment, thinking about what my life would be like back in my room and back with Justin after having had Drake for these last few days. I just couldn’t. “Please, Drake, don’t make me go back to my old life.”

“You have to, Ashley. I’m a dean at the college. I can’t just abandon my job, and …”

“—and your wife. I get it.”

“It’s not that I’m staying with her out of love, Ashley. That was gone years ago—if it ever existed between the two of us. I’m just afraid of what might happen. Things are so complicated with her mental state and my job, and now with you. I’ve yanked you out of your life for my own selfish purposes—“

“But I wanted this, you have no idea how much I dreamt about something exactly like this happening. And not just with anyone. With you.”

I could see the fractured look in Drake’s eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me here, I knew that.

“I can’t keep living my life the way I have been. I have to take some responsibility with Samantha. I need to do what I can to help her get better.”

“But you’re not a doctor. If they can’t help her there, what do you think you’re going to be able to do for her here?”

“I don’t know. I can try to make her happier.”

“You’re not responsible for anyone else’s happiness, Drake. Not hers and not mine. You’re only responsible for your own.”

I’d never seen eyes so sad as Drake’s at that moment. “You have to go back, Ashley. I’m sorry.” Even though his voice was stern, his eyes told me something very different. I wanted so badly to wrap my arms around him and make everything—the world and all the judgmental people in it—go away forever, but I couldn’t.

What I had to do was take my own advice. We both had to find our own happiness. I could surround Drake with my love, but in the end there was nothing I could do to make him happy if he wasn’t there. Just like with my suicide attempt and his brother’s. It didn’t matter how many people tried to help, in the end, the happiness has to come from inside or it just doesn’t stick.

* * *

I walked into my dark dorm room and flopped onto the bed. I had stopped at the police station on my way home and told them to call off the search—that I was alive and well—and they gave me my laptop back. I was a bit mortified to think that a bunch of strange men had been looking through the private files and internet history on my computer, but it was another lesson I learned through all this. Password protect your computer.

I hadn’t been in contact with anyone in days and there was no one I felt the need to call or email. Not even Justin. I felt so alone and so sad. All I wanted was to be with Drake. After all this time of wishing he knew that I existed—and terrified that he hated me because of the accident—only to find out that he had been thinking about me too. But now we couldn’t be together because of what the stupid people who had nothing to do with us would think.

I didn’t give a shit about what went on in the outside world. I didn’t watch any news, and I didn’t know who most celebrities even were, let alone who was married to whom and who was cheating on whom. All I cared about was my little part of the world, and I wanted that part to include everything that went on with Drake over the last few days.

I would have stayed with him forever, even if it meant being locked up in that room for the rest of my life. I would have felt a lot less trapped there with him than I have throughout most of my life where I’ve been free to go wherever I wanted. To me trapped was more a state of mind than anything, and I’d kept a straight jacket on myself for years now without realizing it.

As I lay there all I could think about was the way if felt to have Drake’s hands on me, and to have him inside me. I traced my fingers along my body and remembered when those were Drake’s fingers touching me and invading me. The way his touch sent pulsating waves rushing throughout my body and the way one look from him made the whole world fall away.

I still couldn’t believe that he had actually been my first. Drake McDermott, the unquestionable man of my dreams, had been the only one to put his cock inside me. It had been my dream for so long that it almost felt like it was still a dream, because even though it had really happened, it might not ever happen again.

I couldn’t just call him up or show up at his house, and I doubted I would ever hear the ping of one of his chat messages on Daddyland again. I didn’t even want to go back there. It all felt so hollow and cheap now, and it made me realize that the only reason I ever did it to begin with was to have a way to live out my fantasies about Drake. Everything I’d done since I left the hospital had been for him. So that I could feel at least a little bit closer to him. And now that was all over.

* * *

I decided that I didn’t want to stay on at Westshire, even though I had a full, four-year scholarship. I just couldn’t stomach being there anymore. I felt like my heart would break if I ran into Drake, and since he was the head of the department where I had chosen my major, I figured it would just be better for me to leave.

Besides, I still had the money from my parent’s life insurance policy and I knew I could get by on fairly little. And if I ever got into a jam, I knew I could always go back to camming, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen.

So I packed up the things that I couldn’t live without—all of it fitting into a small backpack, with room to spare—and took off. I abandoned everything in my dorm room, including my phone. I barely ever used it, anyway. I wiped everything off of it first, though. I learned my lesson with my laptop. I didn’t want anyone to see Drake’s phone number in there or get him into trouble in any way.

I wanted to say goodbye to him, but I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t want him to lose his job over me. When I left the room I closed the door and walked away. I didn’t have anyone else to say goodbye to.

I wound up hitchhiking down the coast, getting down to Florida just before the summer hit in full force. I stayed at a cheap hotel, spending most of my days wandering around on the beaches and my nights watching an old black and white TV that came with the room. I’d never watched much television and the whole setup made me feel like I was in another time period, like I had somehow been dropped into the 1970s.

I used my laptop a little, and was tempted on occasion to start camming again. Not so much for the money, but because I was lonely and on my own in a strange city. But I didn’t do it. I told myself I wouldn’t go back to that until I was flat broke and I kept my promise. Not because I felt that there was anything wrong with it. I just needed to give myself time and space to be with myself for a while—without the constant high that tipping and compliments brought. I needed to give myself compliments and make myself feel good for a change.

One day I got an unexpected email from the owner of Daddyland. He told me that one of my old clients had been asking about me, and that they normally didn’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. But in his email he told me that this particular client was very insistent that they get in touch with me.

My stomach tightened when I read that email. I read it at least ten times before I could even breathe. I knew it was Drake. I couldn’t imagine any of those other men needing to contact me. It had to be him. And if it wasn’t I was about to be the most disappointed person in the world.