[FMK] Her Reluctant Slave - CHAPTER 8 (Patreon)

CHAPTER 8

I probably should have spent the time practicing for the ‘scene’, but I used that mental power trying to think of some way out of this predicament I’d found myself in. Kate had me in the palm of her hand, and it really seemed like there was no way out.

I thought about running: getting on the first bus headed east, and then deleting my social media accounts, throwing my phone in the trash, changing my name, starting a new life…

But I knew that wouldn’t stop Kate from leaking those photos as revenge for leaving. Maybe I would never know what people thought of me, but that somehow made it even worse.

I didn’t sleep. I didn’t pay any attention during class. I was so zoned out that I slipped my pants down in the changing room with all of the other guys there. It took me five seconds to remember that I was wearing panties, so I quickly pulled my pants back up; nobody saw thanks to some miracle or another. I scurried into one of the changing stalls and I had to sit down to let my heart rate settle.

It was right after lunch when thoughts of running away came back to me. I asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom. Then, I turned down the back hallway and headed towards the back exit. My heart was pounding hard. I was actually thinking about running away.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that she wouldn’t actually bother to release the embarrassing photos if I wasn’t around to be embarrassed by them… or maybe she would; it was a complete gamble—but at least it was a gamble that didn’t involve becoming the star of some trans porno, posted on the internet for everyone to see. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to identify me, but it would still be me in the video… and it probably wouldn’t end there. Kate would send me home and then she would be back the next day. I had a feeling this didn’t end after a little porn movie was filmed.

I went straight for the back door. It’s not like I planned on leaving forever; I just wanted to get away for a few weeks—maybe a couple of months. My parents would be terrified and devastated, but I could find a way to reach out to them, to let them know that I was okay…

I opened that back door, and then I nearly screamed, seeing her standing there.

Kate was blocking the path to the parking lot. She looked at me with raised brows. “Andy. Funny seeing you here. Where are you going?”

“M—Me?” I said. What was she doing there? Had she just been standing there randomly, or had she been spying on me?

“School is still in session, isn’t it? What’s the matter? Why are you so frazzled? Okay, Andy. Show me your panties. Don’t tell me that you aren’t wearing them again. I told you that I’m not going to give you any more chances.”

“I’m wearing them!” I gasped, and then I showed her, pulling out my waistband to show her the white cotton panties that I’d picked out that morning.

“Okay, good,” she smiled. Her body seemed to relax as that smile came onto her face. “Then I assume you’ve been preparing for your scene too? It’s going to be a lot of fun: a real treat for you. I’ll drive you home as soon as you’re done school. I have everything set up for you. Go on now—don’t end up with a detention. We have to stick to a schedule.”

And that gave me an idea: a detention. I could mess up her whole plan by getting a detention. Would she punish me? Maybe—but maybe it would be enough to get out of doing that scene… at least that afternoon.

So I tried to get a detention. Once I returned to class, I took out my phone. I started playing a game. But my teacher didn’t notice. I tried to get her attention, coughing, sneezing—any noise I could come up with. I even interrupted her at one point, calling out to my friend sitting two desks away, but the teacher was in a strangely numb mood, not seeming to care about my infractions.

I tried swearing when she was within earshot, walking down the desks to see how we were making out with our work. I said, “This assignment fucking sucks,” but she didn’t seem to hear me—or she didn’t care. I doodled on the worksheet instead of filling in the answers. She looked over my shoulder at my page, and then she kept walking, as if my lack of work meant nothing to her.

Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe I should have thrown a punch or pulled some girl’s skirt down. I wasn’t that kind of kid. I ended up being sent off at the end of class, with nothing more than a, “Try a bit harder to focus tomorrow, Andy.” That was all the teacher said to me.

And then school was over. It was time to go home. Sneaking away wasn’t an option; she was there, in the hallway, watching me, waiting for me. The other students didn’t seem to notice her there, as if she was just another teacher monitoring the kids. “Let’s get going,” she said, and a minute later, I was in her car, sitting next to her. The air was silent. She didn’t even have the radio playing. She didn’t ask me how school was and she didn’t ask me if I was ready for my scene; we just drove in silence.

Then, we were at her house. I looked over at my place. It seemed to quaint, so peaceful, and so free of being a slave. Sure, my parents made me do chores, they didn’t let me stay up past midnight, and they didn’t let me drink even though they both admitted to me that they used to drink (and smoke) when they were my age. We had rules, sure, but I wasn’t a slave.

But at Kate’s house, I was a slave.

And now, I was being pulled into her house. I wanted to run to my house, but I didn’t have the energy.

“What’s all this?” I asked, looking around. The living room was sectioned off with curtains, hanging from moveable stands.

“It’s to keep your space separate from Kay’s space,” Kate said. “Now stay on this side of the curtain. Follow the blue markers on the ground; those are yours. If you see any red markers, you’re on the wrong side of the house. So you can follow your markers to your own bathroom and your own area in the kitchen.”

“Is—Is Kay here?” I asked.

“She will be here any minute, so you need to get inside.” She pushed me through a curtain, and now it seemed like I was in a sort of maze.

“Why are you splitting us up like this?”

“I want the reveal to happen on camera. I want genuine reactions.”

“I know what she looks like. I looked her up,” I said. “You told me to look her up.”

“She doesn’t know what you look like. And she’s changed quite a bit since I last had her in for a scene. She’s come a long way. Let’s just save that for later. Now you need to get ready. Filming starts in three hours and you still have lots of work to do. I’m expecting you to do your own makeup, and you still need to shower and shave. Oh, and your asshole. There’s a douche next to your shower. I need you to clean yourself out. Here’s a trick: play with a dildo for a minute first; that pulls everything down. Then douche. That way it will be really clean—and stretched out for your scene.”

I felt sick; I couldn’t believe she was speaking so casually about putting me into a porn scene. I was literally her daughter’s age!

I went to the bathroom and saw the razor sitting there on the edge of the tub. She had other supplies out for me too: moisturizer, shampoo, conditioner, and even perfume. The whole vanity was covered in makeup supplies. There was everything, and I knew that it was expensive, because a lot of it was unwrapped, still with price tags. One little eyeliner pen was apparently ninety dollars!

I knew that Kate had a lot of money, and it made me sick to think that the money came from turning men like me into porn sluts, against our will. Now, in a few hours, I was going to be the star of a porno—and I had a feeling that I was going to be the ‘bottom’ in the scene. I was going to be sucking cock. I was going to be rammed in the ass. I was going to get a face covered in cum. And it probably wasn’t going to end there. I knew that Kate enjoyed the hardcore stuff. I knew that she liked to push her fetishes to the extremes.

I began to tremble as I gazed around the room. I started to run the tub, even though my legs had been shaved recently; I didn’t want her to see even the slightest tinge of stubble and get angry. I was so afraid of making Kate angry with me.

While the tub ran, I looked again at the makeup supplies. Doing some quick math, I figured that she spent almost five hundred dollars on the haul. Then I went to my ‘changing room’, which was just her guest room. I picked up the lingerie, which also had a price tag: $280. Then there was the dress that I was supposed to wear over the lingerie: $320. The heels were still in the box: $330. There was at least fifteen-hundred dollars’ worth of stuff, still with price tags. She wanted me dolled up like a high-class escort.

In the guest room closet, I found more outfits, many still with price tags: more dresses, more shoes, more lingerie.

There was jewelry everywhere, and a lot of it looked genuine—not just costume jewelry. “Jesus,” I muttered. I figured I could fill one of the suitcases in the closes with eight-thousand dollars’ worth of items. That would be lots to live off of if I decided to run away.

If I decided to run away…

There was that thought again. This time, it was tempting. This time, I actually had a bit of a plan. I wasn’t sure where I could go, but I could take that haul and get away. I could sell it all, back to the stores where it came from. With the tags on, I wouldn’t need the receipt or the credit card; most stores will take stuff back if you’re enough of a pest with customer service.

I pulled out a suitcase. Now my heart was racing. Where was I going to go? What was I going to tell my parents once I found an opportunity to reach out to them?

I could figure that stuff out later. Now, I just needed to get out of Kate’s house. Then I needed to work on getting out of that town, so she wouldn’t be able to find me, so I wouldn’t be able to see the damage of whatever revenge she decided to roll with. I stuffed those dresses into that suitcase. I dumped the makeup into the suitcase. I stuffed multiple boxes of expensive heels into the suitcase. Then, I snuck into the hallway. I could hear Kate in the living room, talking to someone. I’m sure it was Kay, so I had to move fast. I heard Kate saying something about taking a hot bath before getting herself ready for the shoot.

I turned and went to her back hallway. Her house was big and mazelike, even after being inside of it more than a half-dozen times.

I rushed to the back door. I quietly pulled the door open. I slipped out. I looked at my house from across her backyard. I so badly wanted to run to my house and tell my parents everything. Maybe we could call the police. Maybe there would be some accusations and some trial, but at least I would have the comfort of my parents…

But somehow, running away just made more sense. I just thought that I could literally run away from my problems. I could go to a big city, make up a new name, and then I could get a job washing dishes or something—a job that didn’t require a social security number. I could work like an undocumented individual. I could live like one, in one of those apartment buildings that was happy accepting cash. After a few months—or maybe a few years—Kate would have moved onto a new victim. I could reach out to my parents and tell them what happened. Maybe they would forgive me, or maybe they would scold me for succumbing to naughty sexual urges—horrible urges that caused me nothing but pain.

There was a bus station not too far from my place—just three blocks. I made a dash for it. I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to run, and I felt like I had to hide, constantly dashing behind garbage bins whenever I heard a noise, as if Kate was pursuing me. I was constantly looking back, over my shoulder. Even when I reached the bus station, I stayed away from the windows until there was a free space at the desk, then I scurried up and bought a ticket for the furthest possible destination. The sales woman stared into my eyes, looking a bit concerned—looking at me as if she knew that I was running away from home. “I’m eighteen,” I said, even though you don’t have to be eighteen to buy a bus ticket. People were always thinking that I was fourteen because I had a young face and a small body.

She gave me the ticket, and then said, “The bus doesn’t leave for another hour. Feel free to grab a coffee across the street.”

But I was too afraid to go across the street. I didn’t want to go out and risk being seen by Kate, even though I was three full blocks from her house, and she probably hadn’t even realized I was gone yet.

The seconds ticked by slowly. I knew that I could return that ticket. I knew that I still had time to run back to Kate’s house—still a couple of hours before the shoot started. I could just tell her that I slipped out to get a coffee or something. I could return in time for the shoot and there would be no risk of those pictures being leaked…

But I was too afraid; I couldn’t take anymore of her. I couldn’t be her slave. I had to get away from her and from the pain she created, and the only way to do that was to run away from my life completely. I knew that it was going to be so tempting to check my social media pages, to reach out to friends and asked if they’d heard anything about me, to ask my parents if they ended up seeing the photos. Hell—it was going to be tempting to check the police’s wanted-list, to see if I was there, wanted for raping my mature neighbor. Kate was possibly crazy enough to make it happen.

A couple more people sauntered into the station, buying tickets for various trips. Only one other person bought a ticket for the same bus ride as me: a sad-looking girl, eyes reddened as if she’d been crying. She was wearing a fluffy fur coat that was so long, it was impossible to see if she was wearing anything else. Her blonde hair was tied into a tight bun on the top of her head. I heard her say that her name was Rae. When she got her ticket, she did the same thing that I did: found a spot in the station that was hidden from windows, so she wouldn’t be visible from the road.

I watched her carefully as she sniffled, wiping her eyes. Then, I watched as she took her phone and walked it to the trash bin. She reached it out, hesitated for a moment, and then she dropped it in. I figured I should probably do the same, so that nobody would be able to track me. If Kate did tell the police that I was a rapist, then they probably had ways to track my phone.

So I sauntered over to a garbage bin. I pulled out my phone. I thought about messaging my parents, to tell them that I loved them, but I didn’t want to tip anyone off. I reached the phone out, turned it off, and then I dropped it into the trash.

I looked over and saw that the blonde girl was watching me now. She stared at me for a long moment and then she looked away—I did the same thing.

It was a long hour, but the bus eventually came. I was quick to run onto the bus, not wanting to be seen by a searching Kate. I took a seat at the back and I slouched deep into my chair. I had a long journey ahead of me: twenty-six hours until we reached our destination. There were five stops along the way, all with two-hour breaks. I was dreading it, having already suffered through a tedious trip to get to that town when I moved with my parents.

I peeked out the window, afraid to show my face to the world (and more specifically, to Kate). I thought about getting off of that bus and running to my parents, telling them everything while breaking down. Maybe they would hate me for what I did, but maybe they could help me.

No—this seemed easier: leave it all behind. Make a new life for a while and then come back once this has all blown over… if it ever blows over.

The girl with the blonde hair took a seat across the aisle from me. She peeked out the window and then she sunk down low, just like me. I looked at her for a moment but managed to look away before she looked at me.

“Running away, I’m assuming?” she said a minute later. I looked over and saw that she was looking at me.

And then I felt the need to clarify that I was legally an adult. “I’m eighteen.”

“Okay,” she said with a giggle. “So are you running away or not?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Same,” she said. And then she stared into my eyes for a long moment. I tried staring back into hers, but I suddenly felt awkward. I cleared my throat and turned my focus away from her. Now I was wishing that I kept my phone. What was I supposed to do for the next twenty-six hours? I didn’t even have a book.

It was forty minutes later when the bus lurched forward. My stomach churned. I’d never been away from my family before—not for more than a couple of nights. Now, I was going to be on the other side of the country, beyond their reach, and they were going to have no idea where I was. It would be months before I reached out to them. They might come to the conclusion that I’d been kidnapped or killed. I hated to break their hearts, but I just couldn’t stand the idea of seeing their disappointment when Kate unleashes her revenge.

I didn’t say anymore to the blonde during the first leg of that trip; we both kept to ourselves. We drove for four hours, and then we stopped in the downtown core of a metropolis I’d never been to, but always wanted to visit. I was tempted to go stroll the streets and take in the sights before the bus took off again—but I had things to do.

I got a few things out from my suitcase and then I hiked over to the nearby mall, finding one of the chain stores where Kate bought her clothes. Now, I was trying to return a dress, still with the tag on it. “Do you have a receipt?” asked the sales woman.

“No. You never gave me a receipt,” I said.

“Well, how do I know you didn’t just grab this off of the rack before coming to the counter?”

“Are you serious?” I said. “I bought this from you! It wasn’t even five days ago. And you watched me come in just now; did you see me grab it on my way to the counter?”

She was flustered, confused. Maybe I was being mean, but I needed the money.

“Do you have the card you used to buy it?”

“I used cash,” I said.

She squirmed, sensing that I was scamming her.

“Can you just get a manager?” I said, groaning.

Then she tensed up. It took forty minutes for the workers to decide to pay me for the dress. They had to look up their inventory, and then they counted the stock in the store, to see if a dress was missing. Then they decided that I must have been telling the truth—though they came to that conclusion reluctantly, almost pulling the cash away from me when I reached for it. “Next time, be sure to get a receipt with your purchase. If we forget to hand one to you, just remind us,” said the manager.

“Sure thing,” I said.

I used that money to buy myself dinner. In the food court, I saw the blonde, sitting down and staring out the window at the downtown lights. Now, the sun was setting. I thought about going over to talk to her, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say. She was a cute girl, but I didn’t exactly want to end up in a conversation, having to come up with lies to explain why I was running away. I didn’t want to create my new life based off of lies.

So I kept my distance. I ate my dinner, strolled around the area for fifteen minutes, and then I got back onto the bus.

The girl fell asleep during the next leg of the trip, and she stayed asleep during the next two hour break. I tried to sleep, since we were in a small, pointless town. There was nothing to do but stretch my legs. Sleeping wasn’t an option; my brain was too frazzled with anxiety. I couldn’t even bring myself to close my eyes.

I was still fighting a strong regret that ebbed and flowed, teasing me, nagging me, begging me to go back home. By now, Kate’s movie shoot was ruined. By now, she knew that I was gone, and maybe she even knew that I’d run away. My parents were probably starting to freak out. I doubt they’d gone as far as calling the police yet, but that was probably going to happen soon.

I stared out the bus window until we were moving again. Now, it was black outside. I decided it was time to get a bit of sleep if I wanted to function at all once I was at my destination—but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep. I was just stuck, staring out the window as the hours dragged by.

It was 8:00 AM when the blonde woke up, stretching her arms into the air and letting out a cute little yawn before turning to look around her. She froze for a moment, shock in her eyes, as if she thought she was going to be waking up in her cozy bed, and not on a bus destined for the other side of the country.

She turned and looked at me. I smiled and looked away, not wanting her to think that I looked creepy.

She was a cute girl. She had the features that I usually looked for when I was choosing the girls that I would be too chicken to ask out on a date. She had that cute little nose, that soft blonde hair, that petite build. “Any idea where we are?” she asked with a groggy voice.

“To be honest, I have no idea,” I said.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” she smiled. “So why are you running away?”

I looked away from her. I thought about pretending like I didn’t hear the question, even though it was obvious that I heard the question just fine. I bit down on my tongue and shrugged my shoulders. “I made some mistakes and I’d rather not be around to deal with the consequences.”

“Care to elaborate?” she said, wiping the sleep from her eyes with her wrist.

“I’d rather not,” I said after a moment. “It’s embarrassing.” I thought about lying, but I really didn’t want to lie. The past week had been nothing but lies, and I was sick of it.

I got up to use the bathroom. When I pulled down my pants, I froze at the sight of the panties I was wearing. I couldn’t believe that I was still wearing them. I thought about taking them off and ditching them in the trash, but I had nothing else to wear; not even a clean pair of underwear.

I couldn’t wait to get to the next town. We were finally there three hours later. There was a mall nearby, so I took my cash and went to buy myself an outfit—socks and underwear included. It was nice buying proper boxers, but I do have to admit that the women’s lingerie store caught my attention. I saw their line of ultra-soft panties and I knew that they would be so much more comfortable than scrunchy boxers. I froze for a moment, trying to expel those thoughts from my head. And then I noticed the sign above the lingerie store; it was the same chain that Kate bought much of her lingerie from, and I had lingerie I could return.

So I rushed back to the bus, dug out two outfits, still with tags, and then I went back to that mall. I spent the next hour dealing with managers, trying to explain that I paid with cash. But the managers weren’t budging; they were sure that I stole the lingerie off of the rack.

“Do you even have a girlfriend?” one of the managers asked after I told them that I bought it for a girlfriend.

“Of course! Not that it’s any of your business!” I snapped. “Just count your inventory; you’ll see that I didn’t steal shit!”

“Prove that you even have a girlfriend,” the manager said. She smirked and crossed her arms, as if she had me caught in a lie. And I had to admit that it was a good move, because I didn’t have any way to prove it, or even suggest it.

“I don’t have to prove anything. Is this really how you treat your customers?”

“It’s how we treat thieves who try to steal from our stores.”

“I can’t believe you’re calling me a thief! I tried to buy a gift for my girlfriend, and now I’m being called a thief!”

“You don’t have a girlfriend!” the manager barked back, and I realized then and there that she wasn’t going to budge.

“Hey babe,” said a female voice behind me. Then an arm wrapped around me. “What’s taking so long?”

I looked over and saw the blonde from the bus, staring into my eyes. She had a slight grin on her face. “They won’t take it back because you lost the receipt,” she groaned suddenly. “I told you they wouldn’t take it back.”

The manager paused, stuttered, and then cleared her throat.

“She’s accusing me of stealing it,” I said, trying my best to play along, though my skin was tingling all over as the blonde held me tight. She smelled nice, like fresh flowers.

“What!?” she gasped. “Are you serious?” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, babe. Let’s just go. We’ll tell my dad and he’ll come down and deal with this.” Then she eyed the manager. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” said the manager, pausing again. The blonde had taken her completely off-guard.

“So I can tell my dad. He’s the principal investor of this mall, by the way—in case you’re wondering. So what’s your name?”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “We can refund the outfit! There’s no sense in making a big commotion about it!”

She went to the register and got the cash, handing it to me. I stared at it with wonder in my eyes. I knew that I was stealing—not exactly from her or the store, but from Kate. The store chain was getting its product back, so it wasn’t losing anything... But I didn’t feel bad about Kate. She was out a few hundred dollars (maybe a few thousand once I was finished returning everything I stole), but it was money that she made by exploiting young people like me.

“Thanks for that,” I said to the blonde.

“Don’t mention it,” she giggled as we left the mall.

I tried to hand her a one-hundred-dollar bill, for helping me. “Keep it,” she said. “It’s yours… Though I have to ask: did you steal it?”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that!”

She stared into my eyes. “So, uh, why did you have it?”

I felt my face turning dark red suddenly. I cleared my throat and looked away from her. “Like I said, I bought it for someone and then I decided to return it.” But I knew the lie sounded fake as hell—and I hated lying. I didn’t want to start this journey off with lies, so I bit my tongue and shook my head. “No. That was a lie. Sorry. I did steal it. I stole it from a nasty woman. She was cruel to me, so I feel like she owes me.”

“Wow,” she said. “Sounds like an interesting story. Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really,” I said. “It was a bad time and I don’t really want to relive it—hence the running away.”

“Oh, fair enough,” she said. “Well, I feel like I can relate. I went through something similar. I like your technique, by the way. I saw you doing it back at the last town too. Maybe you can help me with this.” She grabbed a handful of her fur coat. Then she dug out the little price tag. “Over two-grand if we can pull it off.”

I eyed the price tag and froze for a moment. It was tempting to try, but it was probably too valuable—not just something that the store would be willing to turn their cheek to. But it was a lot of money. “Did you steal it?” I asked.

“Kind of,” she said. “I mean—I think it was supposed to be a gift, but I don’t really know. Let’s not get into that. I just want the money so I can rent a place when we get across the country.”

“Same,” I said, looking into her eyes. I caught her with a small smile, and she probably noticed my small smile. I wiped it away quickly and cleared my throat once more. “Well, worst-case scenario, we make a run for it.”

We went into the store together, at the other end of the mall. We were running of time, needing to get back to the bus before it took off. We made sure the staff watched us walking in, and then we instantly asked for a manager, trying to skip a step to save some time.

“You bought this with… cash?” she asked. She analyzed the tag and noticed that it was from a different location—something neither of us noticed. “This isn’t even from our store.”

We both tensed up. “We bought it in Richmond,” we both said quickly, in unison. I kept an eye on the clock that was on the wall behind the manager. We were running out of time. Then, the blonde started crying. “I have to come clean,” she wept. “My mother bought it—for herself—last week… but she passed away this weekend and… and I need money for the funeral! Oh God, I’m so sorry for lying. She just didn’t leave us any money for the funeral. I don’t know what to do!”

“Okay, okay,” the manager said, holding his hands up, turning red with guilt. “The, uh, coat appears to be in new condition. I think we can arrange a return for cash—just because the tags are still on it, clearly untampered. But, uh, in the future…” He didn’t bother finishing that sentence, instead watching as the blonde cried. I put my hands on her to console her. Then I looked at the manager and shook my head.

We left that store with a big wad of cash. Rae tried to give me two crisp hundreds, but I refused. “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “You did all of the work.”

“Well I don’t think I would have had the balls to do it without you there,” she smiled.

“Just keep the money, Rae,” I said. “It will go a long way once we reach the coast.”

“What did you just call me?” she said, stopping suddenly, staring at me with big, horrified eyes.

“Isn’t that your name?” I said.

She kept staring at me, face now pale, as if I wasn’t supposed to know her name.

“I heard you say it at the bus station,” I said. “When they asked what name to put on the ticket…”

“Oh,” she said.

“Why are you all freaked out about it?”

“I’m not. I just—I knew I didn’t tell you. That’s, uh, not the name I use, by the way. That’s… an old name.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re running away from your things, I’m running away from mine,” she said. “And one of those things is that name.”

“Alright. Whatever,” I said. “So what is your name?”

She stood for a moment before saying. “Leah.”

“Okay,” I said, though I had a feeling that wasn’t her name at all—not even a name that she ever used. And if she was giving me a fake name, then she probably didn’t want much to do with me.

So I didn’t bother to say much as we walked back to the bus. We got on two minutes before it departed: another four-hour leg of the trip, with nothing to do.

The boredom was getting to us both. The anxiety was making me feel ill. By now, my parents were certainly worried; I’m sure they’d contacted authorities. There were probably people out looking for me: aunts, uncles, family friends…

And there was the terrible possibility that Kate had released those photos for defying her and her trans porn star. I was starting to worry that my face was going to start popping up on people’s phones and TV screens. Maybe it was time to shave my hair, invest in a hat, buy a fake moustache and some nonprescription glasses…

“What’s the matter with you?” asked the blonde who told me to call her Leah.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re squirming a lot,” I said.

“I’m just tired of sitting on this bus.”

“We’re not even halfway yet.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Are you bored?”

“Of course I’m bored.”

“Why don’t you talk to me then?” she asked. I felt myself blushing slightly. Did she just want to talk to me because she was bored? Or was she interested in me?

The bus came to a stop at a small-town gas station. Three new passengers got on and then the bus continued. It wasn’t even a five-minute stop—not even enough time to go into the gas station and buy a bag of beef jerky.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked Leah.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Do you parents know you left?”

“I don’t know what they know,” I said.

“Do you know anyone on the East Coast?”

I shook my head. “Do you?”

She shook her head. “Do you know what you’re going to do there?”

I shook my head again.

“We’re not so different, you and I,” she laughed. “Want to be roomies?”

I paused. I really didn’t want to have any connections to the west coast. If they tracked her down, then they would end up finding me. I had no idea if she was even eighteen; there was possibly an Amber Alert out for her. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone accusing me of kidnapping her. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t really know you.”

“Well, rent out there is, like, minimum a thousand dollars—unless you want to live with all of the crackheads. We could find a place and split it—five-hundred each.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Why are you so hesitant?” she asked.

“I don’t even know you,” I said.

“You know me as much as you would know anyone you meet through some roommate wanted ad. Have you ever lived on your own before?”

I was a bit embarrassed to admit that I’d never lived away from home, even though I was eighteen. “Never,” I said.

“Me neither,” she said.

“So what are you running from?” I asked.

She blushed. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well,” I said. “If I’m going to live with you, I want to make sure you’re not, like, some bank robber or murderer or something… though I have a feeling you wouldn’t tell me if you were.”

“I’m not,” she said, and then she looked out the window. “I was a porn star though.”

The comment made me pause. I let out a laugh, thinking that she was joking, and then I froze, seeing her sheepish look and realizing that she was telling me the truth. “Wait… What?” I said.

“It was against my will,” she said.

“Like, child porn?”

“No. I was eighteen. I’m nineteen now. And I guess I shouldn’t say porn star… I was in a few porn movies. I was never a star. I never even made any money doing it.”

“So why did you do it?” I said.

“I made the wrong deal with the wrong person,” she said.

And then my skin tingled all over. Her story was far too familiar, though I was too embarrassed to tell her as much. I bit down on my tongue. “And so what—you just decided to run away?”

“The other option was to keep doing it. I can’t do that anymore. It’s awful. It’s soul destroying. Not only do you not want to be there, but the other person doesn’t want to be there, and so you just feel guilty on top of feeling gross and humiliated… It’s horrible.”

I stared into her eyes. And in that moment, I recognized her.