My Mouth Before 23

I dropped my bag by the door, immediately hit by that familiar scent of home—vanilla candles, Cleo’s expensive shampoo, and the lingering ghost of last night’s takeout.

Normally it’s comforting. Today it felt like walking into an interrogation room disguised as an apartment.

Cleo was curled on the couch in full hermit mode—hoodie up, half-demolished bag of chips in her lap, hair doing that thing where it looks like she stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

The moment she looked up, I knew I was fucked.

“You’re alive,” she said, eyes narrowing like a detective who’d just cracked a case. “Fantastic. Because you need to explain why Dr. Vaughn showed up at our door asking where the hell you were.”

My brain short-circuited. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah.” She sat up, tossing the chips aside with the kind of dramatic flair that suggested she’d been rehearsing this moment. “Full-on power blazer, killer heels, professional stalker energy. Said she needed to speak with you ‘urgently.’ Which is weird because, correct me if I’m wrong, you’re not even in any of her classes?”

I stood there like a malfunctioning robot, heart doing that thing where it forgets how to beat normally. Of course Vaughn couldn’t just let things rest. Of course she’d escalate to full-scale home invasion.

Cleo tilted her head, studying me like I was a particularly concerning lab specimen. “Soph? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or worse—like you’ve been fucking one.”

The accuracy of that statement was so terrifying I almost laughed.

I sat down across from her, took a breath that felt like swallowing glass, and made a decision that would probably haunt me forever.

“Okay. But you have to promise not to scream.”

“Oh, that’s never a good sign,” she said, already looking like she was bracing for impact. “But go on. Ruin my day.”

“It’s Lewis.”

“Professor Lewis?” Her brows furrowed. “What about him?”

Another breath. Another step off the cliff. “He’s Mystery Daddy.”

Her mouth fell open like a cartoon character. “Shut the actual fuck up.”

“I’m completely serious.”

She launched off the couch like she’d been ejected from a fighter jet, hands flailing wildly. “Are you telling me you’ve been sleeping with our literal professor? Like, masked-man-with-a-red-room, choke-me-harder Professor Lewis?!”

“We haven’t technically done the sleeping part yet,” I muttered, because apparently I was focusing on semantics during my emotional apocalypse.

“Sophie!” Cleo screeched at a volume that probably violated our lease agreement. “I was joking when I said you liked ’emotionally unavailable man with a dash of murder mystery’— I didn’t think you’d actually fuck the literal Devil from Literature 304 who’s over a decade older than you!”

“I didn’t plan any of this,” I said, which was possibly the understatement of the century. “It just… happened.”

“Jesus Christ on a cracker.” She collapsed back onto the couch, hands covering her face like she could block out reality through sheer force of will. “Okay. Start from the beginning. All of it. Every horrifying detail.”

So I told her everything. The club encounter, the masks, the way he’d caught me when I stumbled. The VIP room that changed everything. The panties showing up in my graded papers like some kind of perverted Easter egg.

The red room that looked like a BDSM fever dream. The way he made me feel like I belonged to him before I even knew his real name.

And finally, the part that made my stomach twist into origami—how he’d shown up at my childhood home like some kind of academic stalker.

“Wait.” Cleo blinked slowly, processing. “You’re telling me this man drove to your family’s house? That’s not romantic gesture territory, babe. That’s textbook obsessive behavior with a psychology degree.”

“I know,” I whispered. “But he says there are no feelings involved.”

“Yeah, and I say I’m not addicted to iced coffee, but here we are spending forty dollars a week at Starbucks,” she shot back. “Soph, this isn’t just a kinky fling anymore. This is him inserting himself into your real life. That’s not control—that’s claiming territory.”

I stared at my hands, trying to process the weight of what I’d gotten myself into. “I should’ve told you sooner. I just—”

“No,” she cut in, voice going softer. “I get it. You’re in deep. You’ve always been the type to fall hard, but this… This is like falling into the fucking Mariana Trench.”

I nodded, biting my lip hard enough to taste copper.

Then my phone buzzed. Adrian. The message made my blood turn to ice water:

Private Room Service: Now I know why you and your ex broke up, princess. Do you want to play a game?

“What is it?” Cleo asked, probably reading the horror on my face.

I turned the screen toward her. Her complexion went from tan to paper-white in record time.

“Okay. That’s—no. That’s a threat wrapped in a silk bow with a fucking subscription service,” she said, voice tight. “What the hell does he know about Ethan?”

My voice came out barely above a whisper. “I never told him about the breakup. About what really happened.”

“Do you think he’s been digging into your personal life?” she asked. “Or worse—has someone been feeding him information?”

“I don’t know.” I swallowed hard, tasting panic. “But I don’t like where this is going.”

“Sophie. Listen to me.” Cleo grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to meet her eyes. “You need to draw a line. Right now. This is spiraling into some real psychological thriller bullshit, and I know you—your heart’s always three steps ahead of your brain. But this man is crossing into the parts of your life that aren’t his to touch.”

I nodded slowly, because logically I knew she was right.

But even as I agreed, even as every rational part of my brain was screaming danger, there was this sick thrill curling in my stomach. Like part of me wanted to see how far he’d go.

Which was probably the most terrifying realization of all.

I was completely, utterly, catastrophically fucked.