Page 42 of Caught Up

Ryan stood. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head so fast the room blurred.

“Lauren? You’re scaring me.”

They crowded close to one side while Walter pressed in on the other, whining, knowing something was wrong.

“My diary,” I managed. “He has my high school diary.” How did he have my diary? My gaze darted from the basement door to the couch to the closed curtains, imagining perverts hiding behind every corner of the house. No, that couldn’t be. If there was someone else in here, Walter would have sniffed them out by now and tried to convince them that he was starving to death and needed to be fed.

Ryan scooped the phone up, and it immediately beeped with another message. Their eyes flashed wide as they read it.

“What does it say?” I squeaked, cringing down in my seat like if I somehow made myself a small enough target, I wouldn’t be hit with whatever was about to come out of Ryan’s mouth.

Their gaze lifted to mine. “Please, Lo.”

I nearly fell off my barstool.

Holy shit.

NT95 was Junior.

Junior was a sub.

My first sub. Myfavoritesub.

And he had my high school diary.

I reached for the phone, my voice eerily steady. “I need to see something.”

Ryan handed it over, and I finished reading the journal page Junior had sent and then looked up the address he’d asked me to meet him at. As I’d guessed, it was the location of the arcade. I set the phone back down and turned to Ryan, explaining what I’d pieced together.

They frowned. “And he wants to what? Pay you seven grand to go play out your final request?”

“I can’t think of what else he could possibly want for that price. Unless this is all some elaborate ruse and he plans to kill me, skin me, turn me into Lauren jerky and spend the next ten years slowly consuming me piece byhard-to-digestpiece.” What can I say? Thanks to Taylor, I had cannibals on the mind.

Ryan scrunched their nose. “I doubt that. One bite, and he’d realize how bad you taste and throw the rest away.”

That startled a laugh out of me, but it soundedlow-keyunstable, and I quickly cut myself off. “It was Junior all along.”

Ryan slowly dropped onto the stool beside me, their expression wary. “I know.”

“He was my first subscriber.”

They grimaced. “I know.”

I buried my face in my hands. NT95 had spent thousands of dollars on custom PPV. We’d spent hundreds of hours sexting each other. I’d even commiserated with him over what a narcissistic asshole his father was, which, hahahahaha, what an understatement.

My mind reeled. I couldn’t reconcile what was happening. I liked NT95. I valued him as a sub, borderline thought of him as afriend, and it was fucking Junior Trocci this whole time?

“Sooo,” Ryan said, “I think it’s safe to say the stalking didn’t start recently.”

I laughed again, and yup, it was definitely hysterical. Ifelthysterical. My entire body buzzed like I was standing too close to a downed wire. Emotions flashed through me, one after another, betrayal and confusion and rage and something giddy that felt oddly like...glee? No, no, that couldn’t be right. I must have been having a stroke.

“What are you going to do?” Ryan asked.

I lifted my head up. “Change my identity and move to Europe. I hear Denmark has pretty strict stalking laws.”

“I’m serious,” Ryan said.

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