Author Note! For those of you who are eagerly awaiting some very explicit scenes… you may be disappointed these next couple of chapters… Trying to introduce some new characters, build some suspense, you get the idea. I hope.

Cat bounced her knees anxiously as she sat in the stiff wooden chair in the atrium to the dean’s study at 11:55 a.m. She was early and she knew it. She’d had a mysterious patron following her around like a deathly shadow the entire week. It spooked her endlessly. It made her stumble over her answers in at least two separate classes on Monday and Thursday. She’d nearly peed herself in fear when she saw the ghoulish shadow following her back to her dormitory after Latin on Wednesday. This morning, she had seen the cloaked figure standing outside the main door to her house. It had spurred Cat into getting ready too quickly, leaving too early, and arriving here…

The buzzer rang through the room and both Cat and the receptionist jumped. The receptionist did a double take at her watch. Cat did the same at the wall clock above the door.

“What do I do?” Cat whispered. It was 11:56. Since when did he actually allow people in early?!

”Go!” The receptionist answered, wide eyed and alarmed. Clearly, Cat thought, the receptionist was trying to figure out what her own fate might hold in this circumstance.

Cat walked into the study and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the exam table had not been turned out. She took a seat across from the desk from where the dean sat.

“Catherine,” he smiled. Her heart skipped a beat in a way that felt utterly confusing and simultaneously terrifying. “How was your week?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Did you meet your patron at all?” He asked.

”My patron, sir?” Like, her personal patron? Did she seriously have her own creepy personal bodyguard now?

“Your parents insisted, I’m afraid,” the dean rolled his eyes, “After that whole belt fiasco.” Cat crossed her legs tightly. ”The religious zealots always go for the chastity belt first. They just don’t realize how effectively observant our patrons truly are.”

Cat’s mind raced as she immediately tried to think of all the potentially bad things she could have done in the past week. Thankfully, nothing immediately came to mind. It’s not like the patron could see or hear inside of her dorm room with Max…right?!

The dean stood up from where he sat and walked around the desk to stand behind Cat. She stared straight ahead at his empty chair and placed her palms flat on the desk in front of her - just in case. She still didn’t really understand why everyone did it when he showed up for dinner, but… it couldn’t hurt in this current situation, right? She felt the heat of his body behind her and jumped when his hands came to rest firmly on top of her shoulders.

“Your patron has indicated that your hair is being worn loose too often,” she froze as his fingers skated up the back of her neck and pressed firmly into the back of her skull. “Today seems to be no exception.” He grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and yanked her backward with so much strength she nearly lost her seat in the chair. Tears sprang into her eyes as he gathered her hair up high on the back of her head and fisted the ponytail tight.

“Sir?” She squeaked as he forced her face towards his and she saw that look in his eyes again that made her body throb and mimicked the feeling of a leaden anvil being dropped in her stomach.

“You aren’t like your roommate Maxine, are you?” He sneered as he wrapped the ponytail tightly around his hand. Oh god, what had Maxine done earlier? What had HE done earlier?!

“I… I… No…” a flash of white hot pain struck her across the jaw and she fell forward, the chair falling out from under her, the dean holding her off her feet by her hair alone. “Sir!”

He dropped her and she immediately scrambled back up to her feet and stood, shaking, in front of him as tears fell freely down her face.

“I’m sorry, of course,” he bent to retrieve the fallen chair and motioned for Cat to sit back down. She did just that only because she feared of what might happen if she didn’t. And if she didn’t sit down, she was pretty sure she might just pass out instead.

”I apologize, Catherine,” he resumed his stance behind her and again, began his previous ministrations of firmly - but not unkindly - pressing at her shoulders, then trailed his fingers back up her neck and gathered her hair into a tail in the back. His touch was so confusing. Cat had loved it when her mother had done her hair for her. The touch reminded her of that. She relaxed slightly as he fastened the hair at the top of her head, but then she immediately froze again as one of his hands began to trail back down her neck…

It tickled. It felt…weird. Tingly. His two fingers came to still along the carotid artery at her neck and Cat stopped breathing completely.

“Your roommate Maxine,” the dean explained softly as his hand closed around her throat as he checked the pulse from the other side of her neck. “She troubles me. Do you like her?”

Oh god, how could she answer? Lie and she doomed her roommate to a torturous fate. Answer truthfully and what would he do to her right now?

“I like her, yes.” The truth. She would tell the truth. The grip on her neck tightened briefly and then the dean turned his hand downward.

“Has she shared any details about her classes with you?” His hand trailed between the unbuttoned v of her blouse and his fingers skirted towards the right in the direction of her heart.

Surely now was not the most opportune time to be checking her heart rate, pulse and blood pressure, as she assumed he was doing. Very weirdly.

“Some, probably not all.” True enough.

“Did she tell you what happened when she was here with me?” His hand cupped her breast completely, underneath her bra, and she went completely breathless. She was going to pass out. He moved - stroked? - his hand against the soft skin and she felt a sharp jolt of surprise followed by a spark of heat between her legs as she felt a pinch at her nipple. But the brief jolt of pleasure was short-lived as it quickly turned to an aching and burning pain that flooded her chest. He kept pinching, and twisting, and pulling… She involuntarily let out a moan and he removed his hand from her chest as if she had bit him.

“Some, not all,” Cat said, gasping. Also true enough.

The dean chuckled, “Only the good parts, I hope.” What good parts? “We’ll end today’s session with lines.” He nodded to the blank wall and she was surprised to see it lit up like a whiteboard. Was it a whiteboard?? “Key Latin phrases you learned this week. I need 50 of them by the end of our time.” He handed her a pen to use on the wall. “Better get started, Catherine.”

::::

Cat walked back into her shared room with Max. Max was in bed…sleeping? Cat closed the door quietly and went to her closet to pick out a change of clothes for the rest of her day inside. Max had - somehow - smuggled in regular, normal people clothing like sweats and tees for the two of them to wear when they were alone in their room in the evening. They assumed everyone must do the same, but they never saw anyone else outside of uniform.

”How’d it go?” Max asked as Cat walked out from her closet. Cat jumped.

“Sorry, I thought you were sleeping,” Cat said. “What happened?”

“I asked you first.”

“It was creepy, honestly,” Cat shared. “He touched my boob. Or like, grabbed it. Or…” she rubbed at it. “I have no idea what he did to my nipple, but oh my god, it still hurts.”

Max let out a humorless laugh followed by a, “Yeah, I bet.”

“And you?” Cat asked, afraid of the answer.

Max sighed, “He took the belt off, took that stupid goddamn plug thing out finally, gave me another pelvic exam for some reason, and then back in I went.”

”So you…”

“I finally don’t have that stupid goddamn plug thing inside of me all day and night.”

“That’s not all,” Cat said, assessing her friend carefully. “You’ve been way too cavalier about everything so far to…” she waved her hand around in front of her friend, “be like this.”

Max sighed again and gathered herself to sit upright in her bed. Cat sat next to her.

“There’s a thing next weekend. A freshman mixer. I’m sure you’ve heard it mentioned by someone in the dorm or at dinner in the past week. Apparently it’s a big deal. One of the few times a year that they allow the girls and boys colleges to commingle with one another. It’s like… homecoming, I guess. Basically.”

“Sounds like fun,” Cat offered. It did sound like it could be fun. Maybe. Would they let them wear something other than their uniforms to the event? Seemed like a boys-girls social gathering would have Max incredibly excited. Not… this.

“Yeah, I bet it will be. Until I have to leave because I’ve been personally invited by the dean into some super sketchy late night laboratory,” Max said dully.

“What?” Cat was aghast. Laboratories didn’t come until the end of the semester, at the soonest, for the freshmen. Max was invited to one within the first month? For what?

“Apparently there are a couple of seniors over at St. Joseph’s that need to earn some sort of practicum and I guess I’m the lucky undergraduate to be selected to participate. Go figure, what luck!” She went on sarcastically.

“For what?” Cat couldn’t help herself from asking the question. To this, Max simply shrugged.

“The dean gave me a very harrowing warning about getting involved with any of the young men who come to the event, though,” she said, the shadow of a devious smile starting to take shape. “Just to be clear, Cat. I do not - in this very specific college and circumstance - advise you going around kissing boys. But Catty Cat.” She suggestively raised her eyebrows up and down. “Oh. THE boy is going to be at this event.”

Cat smiled, “Who’s THE boy?”

”Uh… earth to Cat, have you been living under a rock? Wait. Don’t answer that.” She jumped up on her bed and reached up to the very top of the shelf that sat high above and pulled down a tabloid magazine.

“Where did you get this?!” Cat snatched the magazine away and held it in front of her like it was a hundred dollar bill. This was definitely not allowed past the patrons. How did Max get this inside?!

“Unimportant,” Max pulled the magazine away and opened up to a dog eared page and handed it back to her friend. “THE boy is the president’s boy.”

“WHAT?!” Cat gasped as she took in the article. The president’s son went to St. Joseph’s? Why?!?

“And apparently,” Max blushed and covered her mouth to hide her smile, “he KNOWS about us.”

“NO!”

Max nodded and laughed. “What the FUCK, Cat? How does the president’s fucking SON know about us and it’s fucking quoted in this article.” She stabbed at the page.

“Fuck,” Cat breathed. Her parents. It had to be her parents. Who else could possibly have the wealth, power (not to mention faith) to pull off planting an article with the tabloids. It explicitly mentioned her by name, along with her family connection. That she was the sweet, wholesome, virginal only child daughter of America’s wealthiest TV evangelist and was living with former bad girl Olympic equestrian Maxine Marks, and the two of them were quote-unquote interested in the first son of the United States.

“At least he’s a total fucking dreamboat,” Max said, scooping up the magazine and flipping through the rest of the pages. “I wonder if he’s a total psycho, too.”