She knows him by reputation. He's the premier heartbreaker at Manchester Prep, he seduces girls then dumps and humiliates them, and enough rumors have gone around about him by now (junior year) that you'd think most girls would just stay away, but it seems there's always another one stupid enough to think her love is going to be the thing that changes him. He knows her by reputation too: student body president, debate team, French Language and Culture Society, Philanthropy Club, National Honor Society, and a string of popular jock boyfriends from rich families. They pass each other in the hallways and sometimes fuck each other's friends, but they don't really talk. She would like, theoretically, to have him as a boyfriend—taking him off the market would be the ultimate score in popularity points, and he's more handsome and probably better in bed than her current one—but she has no intention of risking her reputation on the likely outcome of such an attempt. As for him, he thinks she's pretty enough, and she has a way of unbuttoning the collar and hiking up the skirt of her school uniform just under the administration-acceptable limit that sort of intrigues him, but at heart he doesn't like her, in fact he despises her and all she pretends to stand for.
Nevertheless he does have a habit of making a pass at every reasonably cute girl within eyesight, so one day he corners her in the school library and strikes up a conversation.
"Let me ask you something, Kathryn."
"Ask away, Valmont."
"Do you ever get tired of it? Being the perfect proper princess all the time? Don't you ever want to just let go, do something reckless and entirely for your own pleasure?"
"Is this a come-on?"
"Don't flatter yourself. Uptight society bitches aren't my idea of a good time."
"Oh no! My poor self-esteem is broken. I will now proceed to fall into your arms."
"Again, don't flatter yourself. I was merely curious." In a way, he is telling the truth: he is curious.
"Well, to answer your question, no, I don't. Because I have a life and a future, unlike some people." She turns heel and walks away fast. He just stands there, surprised at the venom in her reply. She tells herself she'll forget the whole encounter, but later that day she finds herself being unnecessarily bitchy to her boyfriend, to the boring suck-ups she calls her friends. "Do you ever get tired of it?" You have no idea, she thinks.
...
The next time they speak to each other, it's by accident. In the morning before classes start, Sebastian, still hung over from the party last night, enters the ladies' room by mistake to find Kathryn there in front of the mirror, snorting coke from what looks to be the inside of that tacky cross pendant she always wears. He isn't too hung over to say, "Well well," and smile at the ramifications.
"Get out, moron," she says, not looking at him.
"Hmm, what an interesting discovery. I wonder who'd be more pleased to hear of it, the headmaster or your parents?" He walks toward her, slowly, wearing that cocky smug bastard's grin she's always hated. By this time she's dumped the rest of the contents in the sink but her mind is still racing with fear, thinking of the stashes in her locker, her bedroom. He rests his fingertips lightly just under the edge of her collar and inches them slowly downward.
"Get out," she says in a low voice, "or I will cry rape. We're in the goddamn girls' bathroom, how do you think it'll look?"
"I'm insulted, Kathryn. Do you really think I built my reputation on quick fucks in the bathroom before first period? Meet me after school, in our Literature classroom, where we can discuss the matter...more deeply. Til then, princess."
He leaves. She goes into a stall to catch her breath, still her rapid heartbeat, plot her next move. That's what you get for snorting up in a public restroom you idiot, she tells herself.
He walks to his first class with the grin still pasted on. That tight little ass is mine, he tells himself, concentrating on all the things he'll do to her body to distract himself from the growing sense of unease in his stomach. Because he does coke a little, at parties, when it's offered, and he knows other girls who do a lot at parties, but what he's just witnessed was something entirely different. In daylight, far from the whole party scene. A maintenance hit.
...
AP Lit is the only class she shares with him. They're both juniors but her classes are all Advanced Placement with the exception of Physics (Mrs. Keller, old uptight bitch and notoriously tough grader, not worth the effort), and his are all regular classes except for Literature, because although indifferent as a student he actually does enjoy reading and it pains him that most of his classmates prefer gossip magazines to Hemingway and are only there because it looks good on their college applications. He passes her a note: room 802, don't forget. He doesn't think she will, but he wants to see her squirm.
If she does, it's on the inside. She barely looks at the note before sliding it under her other papers and raising her hand to continue participating in the class discussion. Unreal, he thinks. He could almost still believe she's the perfect little role model he thought she was yesterday. Except—
(her eyes half closed as she raised the spoon to her nostrils, the ritual of it, her eyes meeting his in the mirror, a twisted form of intimacy)
—he's got a feeling now that she's much more of a bad girl than she lets on.
...
"I'm assuming this is what you want?" As soon as she comes into the room she locks the door and begins to strip, moving towards him with slow, sensual movements like she does this for a living. Push-up bra and thong underneath, damn. Even better than he'd hoped. She walks to where he's sitting on the teacher's desk, positioning herself right between his outspread legs. He licks his lips. But as soon as he moves to put his hands on her waist, she jumps back.
"Okay, ground rules. Number one, no photos. Number two, no anal. Number three, no bondage or weird S&M crap. Got it?"
"Ground rules?" He pulls her back and up onto his lap and holds her there. "You're hardly in a position to negotiate."
I'm in exactly the position where I have to negotiate, Kathryn thinks. She knows she'll have to hold something back from him as long as possible. She has no illusion that she is buying his silence; she is only buying time. She knows that as soon as he's gotten everything from her he'll get bored, and from then it's only a matter of time before he exposes her dirty laundry in the most publicly humiliating way he can think of. Because this is what Sebastian does.
She decides she'll let him do what he wants with her body for now and just go on as if she hadn't heard him. "And rule number four, no photos. I mean it. I know how you operate, Valmont."
"Are you sure? You're really beautiful, you know. You could be a model." Sebastian chuckles and runs his hand up her thigh. "You've got killer legs."
"I sure do. Just like Marci Greenbaum."
(Years later, this will become a private joke between them. "You've got killer legs," Sebastian will say, and Kathryn will say "I do?" all wide-eyed faux-innocence. And he will take photos, lots of them, and Kathryn won't care, in fact she'll take photos of her own, Sebastian with his frowny face, Sebastian just after cumming, Sebastian closing a business deal while stroking his cock. And they will keep their photos of each other in an album in a locked safe-deposit box in their Manhattan condo, and take it out and leaf through all the pages together when Kathryn's company founders and later when Sebastian gets cancer and thinks he might die. But right now, Kathryn doesn't think it's funny.)
Sebastian wanted to coax a smile, to let the electric current of knowledge run between his and her eyes because he knows she knows. That's why he mentioned it. But Kathryn is having none of that. So he doesn't bother to reply, just slips the thong off, kneels in between her legs and starts eating her out. Kathryn's surprised for a moment—she didn't think someone willing to go so low as to blackmail a girl into sex would give a shit about anyone's pleasure but his own. But then she realizes, of course, that's part of his plan—it's not just about the sex for him, or even about bringing down the high and mighty Kathryn Merteuil, no, he has to seduce her first. Make her come, make her beg for his cock, make her say her boyfriend's nothing compared to him. This is the campaign he wages with all the other girls and is now waging with her. A perverse part of her finds it thrilling. A commonplace thrill, though, she tells herself, and one she can't afford. But oh fuck is he talented with his tongue. No, she can't come so soon, not yet, not with him—to distract herself, she asks him how he got the key to this room.
"Screwing the Headmaster's daughter has its advantages." He looks up at her and gives her an evil grin. Oh yes, Lisie. Freshman at the time, a sweet vivacious girl who everyone seemed to like. When Sebastian was through with her, her father transferred her out of his school to a boarding school somewhere in Europe, to broaden her cultural horizons, was the official rationale. "So now she can slut it up with all the French boys," had been the assessment of Kathryn's second-in-command. Kathryn herself, of course, had sweetly wished her nothing but the best. Thinking of it now, she can't help but grin back, even though she knows it's the last thing that asshole deserves.
And she comes all right, hard, grabbing his head and shoving his nose in it, letting out a long continuous moan. He pulls his head away finally and gets up, only to push her against the desk and finger her cunt. She reaches for his cock and strokes it. He closes his eyes for a moment, lost in the sensation (and when was the last time that happened? He's gotten so bored with girls), then whispers in her ear: "You want this hard cock inside you?" But she decides to play the bitch again.
"So you agree to my terms?"
"Yes, yes, whatever you want."
She stiffens. "I'm serious, Sebastian. No anal, no bondage, no photos. Do we have an agreement?" Way to kill the mood, he thinks, even though his cock is still rock hard.
"Yes, I already told you yes, you want me to write it in blood?"
"You can write it in cum," she says, sitting on the desk and spreading her legs wide open for him, "Do it," her voice pure command. He rubs his cock against her inner thigh, wanting to tease her a bit more, but the instant cock touches cunt something takes control of him and he can't, it's all he can do to get the condom on before driving it deep inside her, pounding the hell out of her tight pussy. And after he's come she only waits a few seconds before pushing him into a chair and straddling him: Round Two. They come at the same time this time, letting out groans and curses, anything but the other's name.
Her cell phone beeps. "That'll be my date."
"Tell him to date his right hand."
"Don't be ridiculous," already putting her clothes on. "Tell Mr. Bianchi you need a tutor for AP Lit. It'll make all this much easier."
"Ironic that I should need a tutor in the one class I usually do well in."
"Then start fucking up in it. Or tell him you want a perfect grade for your college application, so they'll ignore all the other classes—whatever, I really don't care. Don't mention names, just ask him to recommend one for you."
"I'm sure he'll be touched. Gimme your phone number." She gives him the number for her cell phone. "By the way, who's your dealer?"
"Blaine Tuttle." She shows what must be only the second genuine smile he's ever seen on her. "Just tell him you need a little blow. He'll be happy to oblige."
And as it turns out, though he doesn't tell her this until much later, he's enormously grateful to her. Because Blaine is a ruthless seducer of closeted jocks and frat boys, essentially a gay version of him, and he ends up being the one real friend Sebastian has in his entire high school term.
A/N: This story is a belated Christmas present for ResidentEvilChris, winner of the prize for correctly answering the trivia question at the end of "Hatefuck". Hope you like it!
