Jessica Martin was a dirty rotten cheater.
Wickeston High School’s resident princess didn’t sit next to me in every class because she liked me, although I’d been foolish enough at first to think she did. There I was, fifteen years old and awkward as hell, sitting next to the prettiest girl in school. She couldn’t keep her eyes off me either. Every time I glanced up, she was looking back, those big green eyes with her long lashes mesmerizing me.
It turned out she wasn’t looking at me at all; she was looking at my tests. Every single one of them.
I got the hint when Kyle cornered me in the hallway one day and “convinced” me to start writing his essays. Jessica was tucked under his arm the entire time, smirking at me like she thought it was funny that her caveman boyfriend could shove me around. I was fresh out of a tiny private Christian school, accustomed to uniforms, tight schedules, and a stringently merciless disciplinary policy. Wickeston wasn’t like that. To a shy, quiet kid like me, that place was the wild west.
Kyle had about six inches of height on me and fists the size of bricks, so I went from being the quiet AP kid to the popular crowd’s personal homework dispenser. I tried to make a game out of it, convincing myself that I was getting more studying done by doing their work for them.
I cringed when I thought back on it. God, I’d been naïve.
Then I met Vincent, Manson, and Lucas. We were all a bunch of outcasts, but together, we were stronger, accepted by one another. It made me bolder to fight back, to branch out, to explore.
It made me fall in love, too, with this goofy clown of a guy who talked about concepts like free love and sexual acceptance. He gave me words to describe how I felt; he didn’t lose his shit when I told him I was so damn confused because I liked girls, but shit, guys could get it too. Vincent Volkov turned my world on its head.
By the time senior year came around, everything changed.
My parents kicked me out over the summer and Vincent’s family took me in. Adulthood hit me like a ton of bricks and suddenly I was free. Free to act, talk, and dress however I damn well pleased. Free to love who I wanted, free to have sex how I wanted.
I was free to stand up for myself.
I had to be clever. I had to play to my own strengths. I couldn’t best these assholes physically, most of them anyway. But blackmail became my favorite pastime. I learned how to gain access to social media accounts, collecting private information as if it was a sport. It helped that Vincent supplied most of the jocks who bullied me with their party drugs. He got his money, and I got life-ruining information I could hold over their heads.
But there was one person I was particularly looking forward to getting back at — Jessica Martin.
I probably took a little too much joy in planning how it would go down, but really, there wasn’t much to plan. I considered getting her account passwords; a quick phishing email from a spoofed address would do the trick. I imagined going through her DMs, finding the nudes she sent to her boyfriend, threatening to leak them. I imagined it…but I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. It felt too personal, like something I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for doing. I wanted to get back at her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do something that could very well ruin her.
I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her.
So I was going to keep it simple. If she wanted to use me to cheat, she was going to pay me one way or another.
I waited until after cheer practice, when she was the last one to file into the showers after nearly everyone else had gone home. I had to give her props — she worked hard when she wanted to. She hadn’t become cheerleading captain without reason. She’d practice for hours, long after everyone else was done. The weather was cold, but she was red-faced and sweating when she finally trudged into the showers.
I followed.
“Don’t take the shower at the end, it’s mine!” she called. The door swung shut behind me, a row of lockers separating me from the shower stalls on the other side. My heart was pounding with every step. The girls’ locker room smelled different than the boys’. Not necessarily better, but different.
She froze when I came around the lockers. She was bent over her gym bag, wearing her uniform, a change of clothes clutched in her arm.
“Uh, hello?” She straightened up, staring at me. “You can’t be in here.”
“I don’t see anyone else around to get offended about it,” I said. “I figured you’d want our conversation to be private.”
She folded her arms. “Our conversation? Hmm, yeah, no, I don’t remember putting waste time conversing with a random loser on my schedule today.” She scoffed, brushing past me toward the mirrors. I watched her face in the reflection, keeping my distance.
“You used my answers for your test,” I said. She swiped her finger over her lower lip as if touching up her lipstick, but the motion seemed fabricated. She was nervous. Trying to look disinterested. “I expect to be compensated.”
“Compensated?” She laughed, glancing back at me over her shoulder. “Compensated for what? For me sitting next to you? A lot of people would pay me for that privilege.”
I had no doubt they would. But lucky me, I had something she wanted, something she needed.
Feeling this much confidence was such a head rush. I just wanted to see her squirm. “Sorry to break it to you, Jess. Things are going to operate a little differently now. If I do the work, I’m getting paid. That goes for your boyfriend too.”
I had plans for Kyle. The amount of blackmail I had on him could probably put that bastard in prison, but I considered myself a pretty nice dude. Nothing had to happen as long as he backed off.
“Is this part of your whole new thing?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me in the mirror. “The dark clothes, dyed hair, piercings. You shouldn’t let Manson and Lucas influence you like that, you’re better off staying a nerd.”
I’d changed my look, it was true. After a lifetime of wearing uniforms to school, polo shirts and khakis had been all I knew. But without my parents breathing down my neck, I let loose. Lucas helped me buzz my hair short and dye it. Manson pierced my ears and I’d stretched the holes. I was envious of Lucas’s tattoos, but stick-n-poke wasn’t my style, so Vincent and I were both saving up to get pieces done.
Maybe to Jess it looked like I was trying too hard, but it didn’t stop her from staring.
She looked at me differently this year. It was like something surprised her every time she saw me. I wasn’t going to fool myself into thinking it was an attraction, but it was something.
It was a crack in her armor.
“I’m not joking.” I stepped closer until my reflection filled the mirror behind her. She smelled so good. Strawberry and vanilla, sweet cream and sugar. I wasn’t sure if it was shampoo, perfume, or that gloss she put on her mouth, but it practically made me salivate. “Either you start paying up every time you use me to cheat or I’m telling the principal.”
There it was, nice and simple. No real blackmail other than the simple threat that I would tell someone exactly what she’d been doing.
Her eye twitched. “Fucking snitch.”
I grinned as I reached around her, bracing my hands on the edges of the sink and caging her in. I’d never been that close to her, close enough that I could see the freckles on her shoulders and a tiny scar on her arm. The iridescent pink glitter from her lip gloss shimmered on her mouth, and it made me want to bite her. I wanted to take her lip between my teeth and hear her groan, feel her shudder. But it was enough to see the way she looked at me as I brought my lips close to her ear.
There was uncertainty, yes. But there was excitement too, a sudden light in her eyes that I hadn’t expected. It caught me off guard, and I lowered my tone as I spoke.
“A hundred bucks,” I said. “Every time.”
“Wow. Overpricing yourself a little, aren’t you?” Her voice had grown softer but her gaze hadn’t. “I think the principal will be a little more concerned about you following me into the girls’ locker room than me maybe taking a little peek at your test.”
“Let’s try it,” I said. “We’ll go talk to him together.”
Her eyes left my face, skating down my arm beside her. She seemed to stare at my hand for a long time, focusing on my knuckles wrapped tight around the edge of the sink.
“Fine. Back off so I can get my purse. Oh, wait…” She turned around. Chest to chest, toe to toe. Her tits were right there and I couldn’t stop myself from looking down at them. She looked so soft, her skin so smooth. When I forced my eyes back up to her face, she was smirking. “I don’t have any cash today. Oopsie. Too bad.”
But I wasn’t the only one whose eyes wandered. She looked at my neck, a flicker of confusion going over her face as she focused on the hickey my t-shirt didn’t cover. I used to be so paranoid about those marks, and with good reason. It was part of what tipped my parents off in the end, what made them start asking questions.
But without them to worry about, I loved the bruises. I loved looking at them in the morning and remembering how they came to be. Like last night, while Vincent’s teeth and hands left marks all over me, he’d made me talk about Jess. He’d made me say aloud all the ways I dreamed of fucking her — by myself, with him, with Manson and Lucas, everywhere and anywhere.
I had to stay focused. I backed away from her, shrugging like none of it mattered. “That’s too bad. So are you sitting in on this conversation or what?”
I turned and walked away, rounding the lockers but keeping my pace slow the closer I got to the door, giving her the opportunity to change her mind.
“Wait!”
I stopped, allowing myself a self-indulgent smile. It was a good thing she couldn’t see me, because what she said next almost made me choke on my own saliva.
“What if I gave you a nude?”
I poked my head back around the lockers so fast I almost got whiplash. “Nudes? Of you?” Thank God, Satan, and any other deity out there that my voice didn’t crack. I had to keep it cool. “Overpricing yourself a little, aren’t you?”
She didn’t look happy about me throwing her own words back in her face. “Frankly, sending you a nude is overpaying,” she said, waving her hand. “But whatever. Give me your number.”
“Hey, woah now. I’ll take your nude as payment, Jess, but I have conditions.” She glared at me, but since she’d suggested it, I was going to milk this for all it was worth. “I don’t want some old pic Kyle has jacked off to. I want you to take a new one, just for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, fine.”
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. She was serious. She was actually going to do it. “Take one and send it, now,” I said. “Not later.”
She laid her hand over her heart, an expression of mock offense on her face. “Jason, don’t you trust me? I think you’d show a little more appreciation. It’s not like I send nudes to just anyone.”
“I really don’t give a fuck how many people have seen you naked.” I leaned back against the lockers, trying to figure out a way to keep myself calm. “All I care about is that this photo is meant for me.”
She shifted slightly. There it was again, that spark of excitement in her eyes. Like this was thrilling for her. Like it was a game.
“Fine, it’ll be a brand-new shiny nude just for you,” she said. “Bye. Leave. I’d like to shower before they start locking up the campus.”
My entire body tingled. “Go ahead. Do your thing.”
“You have got to be kidding,” she growled in frustration. “Ugh, at least face the other way. I’ll scratch your fucking eyes out if you turn around.”
“Easy, kitty.” I turned around, arms folded. I didn’t need to stare at her naked and I wasn’t going to push for it. But I didn’t want her sneaking out of paying me either. I did the work, I deserved something in return. If this was what she wanted to give, fuck, she could pay me with nudes anytime she wanted. “I’m not here to be a creep, just to make sure I get paid.”
“Yeah, sure, this isn’t creepy at all.” There was a shuffle, then the soft sound of fabric hitting the floor. My cock jumped. She was getting worse at trying to keep up this “bored and irritated” act. There was tension in her voice but it wasn’t anger.
I took a risk and spoke my mind. “Personally, Jess, I think you like it when you get a taste of your own medicine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you like it when someone is an asshole back to you.”
There was a long pause, and I knew I was right even when she finally said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
Her camera clicked multiple times, a pause between each. Damn, was she doing a whole photoshoot back there?
“What do you prefer?” she said. “Tits or ass?”
Christ. Was both a good answer? Because it was both. “Surprise me.”
“Something tells me you’re an ass man,” she said breezily.
“What makes you say that?”
“Vincent has a nice ass.”
I stiffened, my muscles snapping into high alert in an instant. Regardless of whatever strides of equality and acceptance the rest of the country made, Wickeston remained homophobic as fuck. Vincent and I kept things subtle, but it wasn’t exactly a secret. So I braced myself. I got ready for a snide comment, a poke at my masculinity, maybe worse.
“Don’t tell him I said that,” she said quickly. “Or I’m retracting all future nude payments.”
That…wasn’t what I’d expected.
“Won’t say a word,” I grunted, nerves making my voice hoarse. “Vince doesn’t need the ego boost anyway.”
I’d definitely be telling him. Absolutely, no doubt about it, I was blabbing the second I got the chance. He was going to completely lose his shit. I wasn’t the only one who was perving out over this girl.
After another minute of her snapping photos, she finally said, “Alright. Give me your phone number.”
I rattled them off, my heart rate skyrocketing. I waited with my back still turned to her until my screen lit up when her text came through. I opened the image attachments, keeping my breathing steady. My cock was so hard now there was no hiding it, the tent in my pants was almost cartoonish.
But God, she was…perfect.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The words slipped out in a whisper, reverent and disbelieving. I quickly tucked my phone away. She was still naked behind me, so I didn’t look back even though the temptation was there, simply waving at her over my shoulder. “See ya’. Nice doing business with you.”
“Are you going to show anyone?”
Her sudden question made me pause. She didn’t sound worried. She sounded…curious? Intrigued?
Did I dare to think she sounded hopeful?
“Do you want me to show someone?” The question hung in the air, a long pause without an answer. But her silence was an answer in itself.
I prodded experimentally, “Who do you think I should show it to first? Vincent? He’ll be jealous as hell to know I have it. Or how about Manson? Every time he stands next to your locker, he’d be thinking about it. What about Lucas?”
Her gulp was audible. Her voice didn’t carry as much of her usual confidence as she said, “Very funny, Jason. Now, would you get lost?”
I left the girls’ locker room that day with a lot more than vindication for all the work I’d been doing without pay. There was more to her than I’d thought. Beneath that perfect exterior lurked a masochistic little creature longing for someone to take control. It was a side of her I could actually understand, something I could relate to.
Something I could play with.
