“Your clothes were unsalvageable,” he tells me casually, like everything about today is normal. “Except the skirt. It’s in the wash. I got you some stuff,” he assures me, pointing to a neat pile of clothing. “Should be your size.”

I look at the neat bundle of clothing, but don’t move towards it immediately.

Given everything that occurred, and feeling my clammy skin, I regret declining the bath. Soreness aside, I am filthy. In more ways than one.

“Chill,” Keller tells me, returning into the en suite. “I’ll run you a bath.”

Seconds later, the water’s running inside.

I’ve never felt anything further from chill. Mortified, awkward, shy, angry, frustrated, and to my everlasting annoyance, a bit aroused, yes, but certainly nowhere near relaxed.

I ask the one question that matters this morning. Everything else is irrelevant. “Can I go back to school?”

Because that was the point, wasn’t it?

Keller’s voice answers from the bathroom. "I think so. The council sent a report back to the board to let them know you were very obliging.”

The formal, polite tone, glossing over what I’ve done to be considered obliging, makes this entire situation surreal. Are we supposed to ignore what he did to me, or worse yet, pretend he wasn’t the one under that blue mask, that it wasn’t his fingers, his lips, his cock I felt on and inside me?

“I think they let you back in. Check your emails,” he suggests.

“Oh.” I look around the unfamiliar, tidy, vast room, spotting nothing. “My phone’s in my bag.”

I have no idea what I’ve done with it. I certainly came in the house with it, but what happened to it, I couldn’t say.

“I’ll find it,” he assures me, finally coming back from the bathroom, still unfairly gorgeous, and distractingly mostly naked.

I ease to my feet, taking the bedsheet with me, and sway a little, my legs weaker than they’ve ever been, like I’ve had a hard workout. There’s also an uncomfortable awareness low in my core.

Keller’s next to me in an instant, first steadying me, his hands around my waist. I freeze, electricity shooting through my skin, certainly much more pleasant than when he jabbed a device right at my clit. Before I can tell him to let go, he grasps me under the knees and behind my back, lifting me up bridal style like I weigh nothing.

I gasp, as the sheet pools to the floor. “This is unnecessary.”

“Tell that to your jelly legs. Hold on.”