Page 24 of Collin: Episodes 1-3
“Gotcha. What about my security deposit?”
“Dude, you’re leaving me in a lurch here. I don’t have that kind of cash on me. I’ll need the next person who takes your place to cough that up before I could give it to you. And that’s if they have it. I have ten days to make rent, I’ll take whoever I can get.”
Collin pressed his fingers between his eyebrows. The headache he’d already had was getting worse. Jinx’s rough voice grated on his ears.
“Fine. Whatever. But I do need it back, Jinx. We have a contract.”
“I’ll try. That’s all I can say, dude.” Jinx hung up.
Collin’s shoulders slumped. He held out the phone to Mr. Reevesworth. “Thanks.”
“That’s ‘sir’, Collin. And ‘thanks’ is not the standard of language in The Residency.”
“I apologize, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Reevesworth took the phone and moved the white chair by the door to the side of the bed, facing Collin.
Artemis meowed at the door and jumped on the bed, making her way up Collin’s leg and into his lap.
Mr. Reevesworth sat down and smoothed the legs of his pants. Then he folded his hands on his thigh and sat back. “Collin, we need to have a conversation, one that is going to strongly highlight the disparity of power between us. Especially now that you are homeless.”
Collin lifted his chin. Verbal answers. He was supposed to answer out loud in this house.
“I’m listening, sir.”
“You will have to do more than listen because this is going to be a conversation, as in there will be speaking and communicating in dual directions. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Collin stroked Artemis’s back and held one of her paws in his other hand.
“When I first approached you, I asked you if you had ever submitted to someone before. You struggled with that question. Do you have more of an idea now what that means?”
“I submitted to you. Yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“And you told me to submit to Damian. Or maybe that was showing him respect. I’m not clear on that, sir.”
“That was showing him respect. Damian submits to me. He was my instrument to care for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When I first approached you, I did so with the consideration that you might end up here, in this residence. Usually, I take longer than this.”
“But I slipped and fell.”
“Yes.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“We’ll discuss your apology or lack of apology later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There are two kinds of people I approach, Collin. By the time you received that email from me asking you to interview for an internship with my company, I had already run a background check on you, your closest living relatives, your roommates, your boss, and your most regularly appearing friends on your social profiles. I myself, or someone close to me, had already interviewed all of your professors in the last two years, as well as your last three employers and several of your coworkers. Some of these interviews were clandestine. They did not realize they were being interviewed. Damian, especially, is skilled in these matters. I know more about the information to be had about you than perhaps you do yourself.”
“You never intended to just interview me for an internship. I kinda figured that out on day one.”
“You are correct.”
