Page 18 of The Arrangement

To be fair, Quinn did see me with an old beach towel and raccoon eyes, so maybe this was just a me thing.

"Natalie mentioned that you like to have a conversation about boundaries and that there was paperwork. I brought over my last testing paperwork, by the way." I awkwardly shoved it over to him, and my nerves spiked. "I also have an IUD. I still have four years left on it."

Quinn took a healthy sip of his wine before looking over the paperwork until he frowned, a deep line creasing between his brows as he looked over my medical records.

"You sure this is the right one?" He asked, turning it over as if to see if there was another sheet behind it.

"Yeah, why? Is it missing something?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious at whatever he was seeing on my file. Did I miss something? Do I have an STD I just didn't know about? No, stop it, Georgia, that's ridiculous.

He shook his head and set them down, looking at me perplexed. "No, it's just dated over a year and a half ago. I usually like to have the newest testing results after the last date of, you know, intimacy. For safety's sake."

Oh. Fuck. I flushed scarlet and took a long gulp of the wine, wincing as it burned going down. "Yeah, so that would be current."

Quinn looked at me even more perplexed than he had a moment ago, leaning on the table and looking at me hard as if he was trying to decide whether I was lying. "Are you saying you haven't been sexually active with anyone in over a year and a half?"

I nodded, praying for a sinkhole to open up underneath me. Those still happened, right? Were there mines on the east coast?

He lowered his chin, looking me dead in the eye. "Nothing? Oral, nothing?"

"Nope," I popped the p sound and folded my hands on the table infront of me, wishing he would stop studying me so hard because those were the same eyes I had looked at on my phone while I’d fucked myself with a vibrator for the past year. "I can get another test if you want. It's really no big deal?—"

He just held up his hands as if in surrender. "No, I believe you. Um, here's mine." He set down a stack of paperwork in a neat manila envelope in front of me, dated and tabbed for the last six years.

"Oh, um, thanks?" I said, taking the folder and opening it to the first one. I scanned it, trying to take it in while he sipped his wine across the table from me. Like he said, a clean bill of health. I even went so far as to flip back a few more pages, which showed he never seemed to have had any sexual health-related issues. "Impressive," I all but squeaked as I handed it back to him.

He quirked a smile as he set them in a black briefcase,."I told you I take my health seriously. Especially in this industry."

Quinn leaned forward suddenly, all business. "And I want to make something really clear, Clark. Anytime you decide you don't want to do this anymore, it's done. Anytime we're filming a scene and you start to feel uncomfortable? I stop. I'm big on communication and I am very picky with who I film with." He took another sip from his glass.

I nodded, mouth suddenly dry. "Why did you pick me then? It's not like we're very…close."

He didn't look away from me as he said, "Because I think you'd have just as much to lose as I would if you told anyone my secret."

I was quiet, his words settling over me. I raised my glass, "To mutually assured destruction?" A smile spread over his face, meeting his dark eyes as he raised his glass to click mine.

"To mutually assured destruction, Clark."

Quinn sentme home with his contract, just an NDA and filming agreement—homework, he had called it. The homework included a page labeled "Boundaries" in bold print, and my eyes widened as I sawthe list of different sexual acts with three boxes next to each one:yes,no, ormaybe.

There were things I didn’t even know had names. I shooed Hannah off of the chair and grabbed a blanket; the apartment was chilly, and I reminded myself to stuff some towels at the base of the windows soon. Taking a deep breath and grabbing the tea I had made myself as soon as I had gotten home, I tried to chase the chill of the fall night away without raising my thermostat.

The first paper was a standard NDA, which was no big deal as he was also signing one for me. The filming agreement took me a moment to get through; it seemed a pretty standard release of my likeness. I also had access to the files before posting to the hosting website, just to make sure I was all alright with the content and the editing, which he did himself. He said this just cut out more people knowing about him and his work, and I appreciated that. I signed and dated it.

I took a healthy gulp of my now-lukewarm tea to look over the paper that gave me the most pause because it was probably the most important one there was.

Oral (giving and receiving).I checkedyesfor both.

Penetrative sex (vaginal).I swallowed and checkedyes.

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