Bound & Free Ch. 01

Stacy sat there one moment - two. Finally she ripped off the gag and blindfold. She glared at him, her cold blue eyes piercing him with deadly, irresistible force.

"Why did you do that?" she squeaked, clearly not quite ready to use her voice.

He looked down, away, unable to bear the weight of her gaze.

"I... I'm s... sorry." Tristan said, his usual breathless, reedy tone back to stay. "I-I-I should have..."

"Why did you stop?" she asked, suddenly, her words escaping from her like convicts from a prison.

His heart stopped for a second, stunned. His head snapped back up to stare her, disbelieving. Had she really said that? Stacy was covering her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide with shock as if she couldn't believe what she'd just said. He definitely didn't. She moved her hands and started to say something else now, babbling a retraction, a threat, an insult, everything and anything she could to recapture that comment with a wall of words. Tristan ignored them, more though wishfulness than insight, wanting to believe her first, impossible words. Wanting the reality that promised rather than his normal gray existence. It was a familiar wish for him. Their eyes met while she was mid-flow and something passed between them. Something which gave him a little inexplicable push even as she ground to an abrupt halt mid-flow.

"Thanks for giving me your virginity." he said, without thinking.

He winced even as he said it - what the fuck did that even mean - so gross - he was filled with regret. Of course that moment would now take pride of place in his highlight reel of shame, showing multiple times daily, no waiting. Of course there are far better last words, but he knew he wasn't going to come up with any, not in this moment. He opened the door and ran away, as fast as he could. As he entered the hall her friends began to laugh mockingly, expecting Stacy to have embarrassed him, celebrating the culmination of her prank. Soon, he thought, those laughs would turn to angry shouts. He barely heard them as he ran toward the main entrance, escaping from her sorority building. Intact, for now.