Page 66 of Saint Céline
She sat back slowly in the chair, the dramatic energy draining out of her completely while she said nothing. Then, very quietly, she says, “Céline. That’s… that’s not okay.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her pale eyes were wide now, genuinely alarmed in a way I rarely saw from her. “He broke into your boyfriend’s apartment, and you’re sitting here acting like it’s some complicated romantic tension. That’s not tension. That’s dangerous. He sounds like a stalker!”
Miss Astoria purred louder, pressing her face against my stomach as if she could feel the shift in the room. I stroked her back automatically, the motion steady even though my pulse had started racing again.
“He didn’t… hurt me,” I said, the words feeling thin even as I spoke them. “He just… watched. And then he left.” I deliberately omit what really happened.
Anya stared at me. “And you didn’t call the police?”
I looked away. “What would I say? That my professor somehow got into a locked apartment without breaking anything? That I woke up and he was standing there while my boyfriend slept through the whole thing? They’d think I was losing my mind from grief.”
Anya rubbed a hand over her face. “This is worse than I thought.”
The rain tapped steadily against the windows. Miss Astoria stretched across my lap, completely content, and for one brief second, I envied how simple her world was. Food. Warmth. The person she had chosen. No complications. No performances. No dangerous men who noticed things no one else did.
Sophia appeared in the doorway then, carrying fresh coffee. She took one look at my face and sighed heavily. “Oh, she’s spiralling now.”
“I am not spiralling.”
“You’re clutching the cat like an emotional support Victorian widow.”
Miss Astoria purred louder.
Traitor.
Sophia crossed the room and handed me the mug before sitting beside me on the bed. The mattress dipped softly under her weight. “Okay,” she said calmly. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
I stared into the coffee, steam curling upward between us. Safe smells. Soft smells. The kind that made honesty feel dangerously possible. I swallowed once.
Then quietly I say, “He broke into Thad’s apartment… and ate me out.”
The words hung in the air between us. Sophia went completely still beside me. Anya’s expression had already shifted from shock to something quieter and more protective. Rain continued its soft rhythm against the glass while the three of us sat there in the warm dorm light, the cat purring steadily in my lap as if nothing in the world could touch us.
But something already had. And I still didn’t know how to explain it without sounding like I was losing my mind.
The words hung in the air between us. Sophia went completely still beside me on the bed, her mug frozen halfway to her lips. Anya’s expression had already shifted from shock to something quieter and more protective, her pale eyes wide as she leaned forward in the desk chair.
Sophia set her coffee down very carefully on the nightstand.
“Céline,” she said, her voice low and measured, the way she spoke when she was trying not to alarm anyone. “What do you mean he broke into Thad’s apartment andate you out?”
I kept my eyes on Miss Astoria’s white fur, stroking the same spot behind her ears over and over.
Anya whispered, “You’re serious.”
I nodded once.
Sophia’s fingers tightened on my knee. “Did he… touch you? I mean of course did but… oh my god.”
I swallowed hard. Miss Astoria shifted in my lap, sensing the tension, and I kept stroking her fur to give my hands something to do.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I said. My voice sounded small even to me. “He just… he knelt. Between my legs. While Thad was sleeping right there. And he…” I closed my eyes for a second, the memory rushing back in vivid, humiliating detail. “He used his mouth on me. His tongue. He licked me until I came. Thad has never once made me come. Not in all the time we’ve beentogether. Not even close. But Vincent did. In seconds. Like he already knew exactly what my body needed.”
The room went so quiet I could hear the rain sliding down the windows.
Sophia’s hand stayed on my knee, but her fingers had gone still. Anya stared at me like she was seeing a completely different person. The silence stretched, thick and stunned, until Anya finally let out a shaky breath.
