Note: This is an archived short story. See here.

Sarah knelt on the floor and wept uncontrollably. Moments earlier, she had grabbed a steak knife from the nearby block and pushed it into her exposed stomach. There was a small pool of blood collecting on the linoleum beneath her body, but her injury was minor. She didn’t have the nerve to complete the task she so dramatically threatened. I stood over her, sipping Johnny Walker Green from a novelty mason jar. I was concerned. My roommates were due home any minute. They were all extremely envious of me and my life, I didn’t want this scene to affect that view, not with one month left in the school year.

“Sarah, I’m going to lift you up,” I said in an irritatingly calm voice. “We can talk about this in my bedroom.” I squatted next to her and put my hand on her back.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed as she jerked away.

I reached my arm around her waist and forced Sarah to her feet. Unfortunately, the instant her one-hundred and ten pounds hit her long, skinny feet, she allowed her legs to go limp and began to fall back towards the floor. I applied additional force arm around her waist and, calling upon my other arm for assistance, kept her mostly upright. As I dragged to her to my bedroom, she screamed, yelling for help and flailed about in an outrageously deplorable manner.

After depositing her on my bed, where she lied limp, slowly bleeding onto my Hilfiger down comforter, I walked back to the kitchen and cleaned the mess she’d left. The knife she had used was serrated and the blood had dried quickly. Even under a stream of scalding water from the kitchen faucet, the blood remained. There was a sponge nearby but it was contaminated with the remnants of some previous use. As cleaning it proved impossible, I wrapped the knife in a paper towel and threw it away. Later in the month, its disappearance would become a great mystery, as the knife set was one of my poorest roommate’s few prized possessions.

I returned to the bedroom and locked the door behind me. Sarah was still on the bed, regrettably holding one of my pillows over the cut. I sat down on the edge of the bed, facing away from her and said, “I didn’t actually send them Sarah.”

She sniffled and in a hoarse, hopeful voice said, “Why… why would you lie about that?”

Coldly, and without emotion or thought, I said, “I wanted you to know what it is going to feel like when I do send them. I wanted you to know, so that when I make this offer, you will understand the turmoil and pain you can now avoid.”

Fifteen minutes before Sarah pushed the knife into her midsection, she had broken up with me. Though the breakup was not wholly unexpected, I wasn’t ready for our relationship to be over. This lack of ability to let go, though, was not derived from my love for Sarah. Any emotional feelings I once had for Sarah had long vanished. Rather, I wanted the relationship to continue because, at that stage of my life, I needed to be in a girlfriend-type relationship. I could go, and often went, elsewhere if I required frivolous passion, but those dalliances required substantial effort. I needed the hassle-free, middle-of-the-week sex that only a girlfriend could provide. And as the semester was almost over, and as I would be returning to Dallas for the summer, it didn’t make logistical sense to find someone new to fill that role. In short, I needed Sarah.

So to keep her in her current position, I determined that the most prudent course would be blackmail. As most couples do, we had taken a number of photographs during our most intimate moments. Most of the photos were stored on my desktop computer, and when Sarah broke up with me, I asked her to give me a moment. With her waiting in the other room, I immediately went to my bedroom to write an email to her father with a dozen of the very worst photos attached. Before clicking send, though, I disconnected the computer from the network. I walked back into the living room and found Sarah standing triumphantly next to my door, as though she had accomplished some great task in leaving me. I smiled, walked up to her, and gave her a hug.

“I just sent your father an email,” I said as I pulled away. Sarah cocked her head in confusion. I could imagine the steps she went through in her head: first questioning how I possessed his email address, then remembering the family dinner she’d forced me to attend, where her father gave me his card, and then, contemplating the deplorable content of the email.

Her smile gone, she asked, “What did you say?”

“I merely explained the situation. I told him that you left me and how disappointed I was with you,” I paused as she rolled her eyes,” and then I attached some photos.”

The color sank from her face. I unlocked and opened the front door. I looked into her eyes with a sincere, regretful, almost apologetic gaze. She pushed the door back shut.

“What pictures?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“You can see for yourself, if you would like.”

Sarah stomped through the living room and down the short hallway to my bedroom. Outlook was still open on my computer, displaying my Outbox. Sarah was neither technologically inclined nor particularly intelligent. Add the stress of the situation to the equation and there was never a chance that she would notice that the “Sent” and “Outbox” have different meanings. Shortly after seeing the email, complete with the first attached photo of her kneeling under my softening dick, covered in my seed, smiling in exalted bliss, she threw a fit. She ran around the house in a fury, threatening to kill herself. In the pantry, she found a bottle of vodka and took a large drink, but immediately gagged and coughed it back up on her shirt, which she then removed in an attempt to convey to me that she was too affected to care about modesty.

And that’s when she saw the knife block sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

“What do you mean ‘offer’?” She asked, terrified.

I spoke in direct tone, as one might in a negotiation or a business meeting, “I want you to be my girlfriend until the end of the semester. Then, and only then, I”ll delete the pictures.”

“No,” Sarah said immediately, shuddering at the thought. “That’s not fair; you can’t make me be your girlfriend. You can’t force me to do anything.”

“I’m not Sarah. I’m giving you a choice. You can finish the semester as my girlfriend or have everyone see you naked.” I turned towards Sarah and extended my hand, brushing her foot. She recoiled and pulled her legs up to her chest.

“That’s not a choice,” she insisted as she began to cry, “this isn’t how you get me back Shane, I’m not going to fall back in love with you if you do this. I’ll hate you. I’ll hate you forever.”

I nodded and said, “I know.”

“Then why are you doing this?!” she screamed.

I heard the front door open, my roommates were home.

“Stop yelling,” I scolded. “I just need someone to sleep with until the end of the semester.”

Sarah frowned and turned her face in disgust, absolutely revolted at the proposition. “No, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to be your … slave. You’re sick; you’re a fucking disgusting excuse for a man. Fuck you.”

“Fine,” I responded and stood up, taking a step towards my desk.

“But you are still going to send the pictures?” she asked, almost imploring me to give her another option.

I laughed and emphasized, “yes.”

I took another step and reached my desk, where I began aimlessly pounding on the keyboard. Sarah predictably panicked and said, “Wait, wait, wait.” I stopped and turned towards her, she continued, “what exactly are you proposing?”

I sat down in the desk chair and rotated to face Sarah. “It’s not a big deal,” I insisted, “we just keep having sex until the end of the semester.”

Sarah winced and sighed. “When?” she asked, causing a decided and immediate tension to fill the room.

Now anxious, I inhaled sharply and requested clarification, “When what?”

“When would we have sex?” she sighed.

I reclined in the chair and gazed into the ceiling, considering the question. “Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night, I guess.”

“And what keeps you from doing this again? What keeps you from making me do more next semester? How do I make sure this ends?”

I didn’t know how to respond to the question. I had to lie, obviously, but I didn’t know what lie to tell, which lie she would believe. The photos had been backed up automatically. Even if I went to my computer and permanently deleted them, I would still have the blackmail material. I decided to avoid the practicalities of the problem altogether. “Because I won’t want you when we’re done. I’m doing this out of necessity, not lust or love.” I grinned spitefully.

Sarah met my grin with a stare of pure ice. After a moment, she said, shaking her head, “no Shane, I’m not doing this.” She paused and blotted her eyes. “You won’t send the photos. I’ll tell the school. I’ll tell them that you told me that if I did’t have sex with you, you would send out the pictures.”

“And I’ll deny it,” I said with a brief laugh, “I’ll say it was someone else, one of my friends, someone who stole the images from my computer.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, exhaling as I spoke, “Sarah look, I don’t want to send out the pictures. I will if you don’t agree to do this, but, honestly, I don’t want them going around, you understand?”

Sarah shook and lowered her head. Speaking into her knees, she said, “I wish I never met you.” She convulsed afterwards.

Though I could no longer see the tears, it was clear that she was sobbing. She was close to accepting the deal.

With the hope of moving things along, I got out of the chair and climbed into the bed, where I sat in front of her, Indian-style. She did not recoil when I placed my arm on her shoulder, though her sobs grew more frequent. “So you’ll do it?” I asked presumptively.

Sarah raised her head from knees and shrugged, “I don’t have a choice, do I?” I shrugged back and did my best impression of someone who feels regretful of his actions.

After a few minutes, she stopped crying and I gallantly went to the restroom and grabbed a wad of toilet paper so that she could blow her nose and dry her eyes. Calm and in slightly better spirits, Sarah asked, “Would you get me a t-shirt? My shirt is still in the kitchen.”

I smirked and replied, “No, not right now.”

“Why?” she asked, puzzled.

“It’s Tuesday.”