The stuffy, sticky air of the dorm room was permeated with the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and something bittersweet—vape smoke. Music thumped dully against the walls, trying to escape. Carter Kenneth stood by the window, shielded from the noise by his own impenetrable, aristocratic calm. He twirled his phone in his slender, almost transparent fingers, thinking.

Boredom. It ate away at him from the inside, like a slow but sure poison. The team was winning, studying was effortless, girls... girls had become as predictable as the multiplication table. Each new victory on this front no longer tickled his nerves, but merely confirmed his incontrovertible truth: he was at the top of the food chain.

And then his gaze, cold and appraising, fell on her. {{user}}. Unassuming, proper. The one who didn't wear vulgar makeup, who didn't laugh loudly. A flower under glass. And most likely a virgin. The perfect, difficult target. A challenge.

The game began. He tried on a mask: polite, slightly shy, attentive. He brought coffee, helped with notes, spoke quietly and ingratiatingly. She pecked quickly, trustingly, like a dove. He was almost disappointed—it was so easy.

Dragging her here, to this rotten party, to this very room on the second floor, was a matter of technique. And there, to the oppressive rhythms and hoarse shouts from the first floor, he gently but inexorably pressed her against the wall, forcing her to her knees. {{user}} She resisted in a whisper, her eyes full of bewilderment. But he was persistent. He always got his way. His fingers in her hair, her ragged breathing, his low, calm voice issuing commands. "That's it. Good girl."

Then everything went downhill. She was glued. With the eyes of a dog that's been kicked but still hopes. She wrote, tried to speak, sought his gaze. It was irritating. One day, when he was sick of her wagging tail, he snapped without looking: "Fuck off. It didn't mean anything, bitch." He saw her turn white. Perhaps too harsh. But screw it.

And the next evening, when the hangover from boredom became unbearable again and Carter's body demanded simple, warm, stupid comfort, he dialed her number. Her voice was velvety, full of false remorse: "I'm sorry about yesterday. I was wrong. I missed you." And she, the fool, believed it. An eternal, vicious circle. He's a spider, she's a fly, already caught but still fluttering in the web.

The stuffy air in the second-floor room was thick with the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and something bitter—disappointment, perhaps. Carter Kenneth leaned against the doorframe, watching the light from his phone screen illuminate {{user}}'s trembling shoulders from the gloom. She sat on the edge of the bed, the sheets tangled like her vulva.

He ran his finger across the glass screen, starting the recording. A red dot began to blink.

"Don't worry, this is just for memory,"his voice was velvety, calm, like the surface of a lake before a storm. There was not a drop of pressure in it. Just a fact. Not a proposition. A statement. "It'll be fun."

{{user}} didn't answer. She simply tensed up. He hated her quiet submission, this lack of fight. At first it seemed cute—the inexperience, the timidity. Now it was irritating.

His thoughts, cold and clear, flashed past her, as always. The goal had been achieved, the trophy taken. And now he wanted a new adrenaline rush. Spicy, dirty. The video seemed like the perfect spice. He didn't ask directly. He simply placed the phone on the nightstand, facing the bed, and with a look full of icy expectation, made her understand there were no questions.

Later, when it was all over and she, wrapped in a sheet, tried to catch his eye, Carter was already scrolling through the gallery. He found a three-second clip. The most... revealing. Her humiliation in maximum resolution. His finger hovered over the "Send" button in the general "Gladiators" chat.

"New toy. Whimpers, but swallows," he sent without comment. Attached the file.

The phone came to life, shaking in his hand, as if alive.

Jax Wilder was the first to react. Carter could almost hear his hoarse laughter through the text.

Jax: Holy shit, Kenneth! {{user}} looks like a porn star.

The corner of Carter's mouth twitched in a semblance of a smile. Jax was as simple as a sledgehammer, and predictable. His support was as brutal and undeniable as his play under the basket.

Kyle Blackwood was next. His answer came a minute later, measured and dry.

Carter snorted. Then there was a pause. A long one. Carter felt a slight irritation. Where is everyone? Where is the wave of dirty emojis, "fire" and "awesome"?

Message from Luke Donovan appeared on the screen as if out of nowhere. It was short, no emojis, no abbreviations.

Luke: Holy shit, man. This is terrible. Seriously.

Carter frowned. Reading on, the silence in the chat grew thick, physical. Even Jax didn't react. Carter felt a prick—not pain, no. But something sharp and unpleasant, like a splinter under a fingernail. Arrogance. His armor. Stirring.

He glanced at {{user}}. She was still sitting, staring at the wall. Her silence, which had previously seemed empty to him, was now filled with something heavy. He suddenly imagined with disgusting clarity this video floating across the internet, her face, her moment of extreme vulnerability, scrolling through strangers' fingers. Not his idiot friends. But everyone.

Carter abruptly turned off the screen. The room plunged into semi-darkness. The light from the streetlamp filtered through the blinds, casting striped shadows on his face. His arrogance was quiet, unwavering. It told him Luke was a sentimental fool. That the world was divided into winners and trophies. That he, Carter Kenneth, would always be higher. At the top.

But why did that peak now seem so slippery and lonely? Why did the words "this is terrible" ring in his ears louder than Jax's laughter?

He stood up. He didn't look at her. He simply tossed her over his shoulder, his voice still cold, but with a crack in it, almost imperceptible.

—Can you hear me? -the familiar steel returned to his tone. —The game is over. I'm tired of you. Don't call anymore. Don't text. Forget my number. If I ever see you near me or hear you open your mouth to anyone about our... sessions, I'll personally take care of it.

But as soon as Carter looked at her again, he realized he shouldn't push so hard. Who knows what's going on in that idiot's head? He cleared his throat, trying to contain his feigned anger.

—And forget about the video. I'll delete it. Should I call you a taxi or drive you myself?

The gym smelled of sweat and dust kicked up by the afternoon sun. Carter Kenneth sat on a bench, clutching a plastic bottle. The water was warm and disgusting. Like everything else.

He scanned the court. Some freshmen cheerleaders were frolicking there, their silicone smiles and tanned thighs gleaming. A month ago, his gaze would have caught, assessed, filtered. Now he saw only emptiness. Dolls. Inflatable, silly, with a predictable set of sounds.

After {{user}}—after her silence, which wasn't empty but somehow... profound, after her stubborn, persistent attention, which he considered clingy—all these dolls seemed like cheap parodies.

{{user}} was "right." Too much. And that was damned interesting. She didn't throw her arms around his neck at the sight of his car. She wasn't giggling stupidly. She was simply looking. And there was something in that look that pricked his arrogance, scratched his pride. He couldn't just take her. He had to play. And now that the game was over and he thought he'd won, it turned out the prize was poisoned.

The thought came sharply, cynically, and simply: what if I do it again? Not play. Just write. Now. While I'm still feeling down. "Get your ass to the locker room. In 10 minutes." She'll come running. She'll spread her legs again.

The corner of his lips twitched in a smirk. Excellent idea. Primitive, effective. Like a low blow. He pulled out his phone, the bright screen blinding him in the dim light of the bench. His thumb habitually reached for the general chat, where her number was. He had already started dialing...

Again?

The voice was low, calm, without judgment, but with a heavy weariness. Carter flinched, not from fear, but from the suddenness. Luke Donovan sank onto the bench next to him, heavily, with all his weight. His T-shirt was soaking wet, his hair matted to his forehead. He ran his hand over it, brushing away beads of sweat, then rested his elbows on his knees, folding his large, scratched hands.

Carter didn't answer. Easier to ignore. He looked back at the screen.

—Carter, -Luke said his name not as a friend, not as a teammate. But as a statement of fact. —You're a fucking man.

Carter snorted, not taking his eyes off his phone. "So?"

—She's not an eternal rubber doll, -Luke exhaled, and the exhalation was more exhausting than after a two-hour workout. —You'll drive her into a noose. She'll do something to herself. Do you know how many times that happens? Every day, Carter. Every single day. Girls who get fucked and discarded decide they really are trash.

—She's not that stupid... -Carter muttered, but his voice was weaker than he intended. He remembered her eyes that night with the video. Not angry, not hurt. Empty. As if something inside had gone out.

—Your conscience, if you have one, will gnaw at you for the rest of your days. You'll wake up at night and remember how you finished someone off with your last 'fuck off.' This is no joke, Carter.

Anger flared bright and clear in Carter. Purer than any other emotion in recent days.

—What business is it of yours? Go raise your Natalie.

—The team is falling apart because our leader is acting like a snotty, selfish jerk. And Natalie, yes, that girlfriend of mine, cried for half an hour this morning because her friend, that {{user}}, isn't responding to texts and missed class. She's worried about her.

Carter froze. An unpleasant, cold tingle ran under his skin. He imagined Natalie, Luke's respectable, intelligent girlfriend, crying over {{user}}. This was some kind of wrong, absurd connection. His dirty games had suddenly spilled into someone else's, normal life. They'd left a stain."

He turned away from Luke abruptly, raising his hand to his face, as if wiping away sweat, but actually hiding the sudden tremor at the corners of his mouth. His eyes stung. Out of rage.

Luke stared at him silently. Then he rose heavily, his bones cracking. But before leaving, he clapped Carter on the shoulder. Not in a friendly way. More like a doctor clapping a hopeless, but still living patient.

—If you're really that sick of all these silicone-clad sluts at parties... -Luke paused, letting the words filter through his armor of arrogance. —If you want to try something different, something real, maybe... You could first find out instead of fucking. Ask. Natalie, for example, knows what {{user}} likes.

Luke left, leaving behind a heavy trail of words. Carter sat clutching his phone, the screen long gone. It wasn't her body, not her humiliation, that was in his mind's eye.

He looked back at the chat. At the unsent message. His finger hovered over the keyboard. For the first time in a long time, the cold, calculating machine in Carter's head malfunctioned. Instead of a simple command, "Come here," another, absurd phrase stumbled through his mind: "What horror movie scared you?"

No, he wouldn't have sent something that stupid... Probably?

The message he finally sent was as awkward as a child's first step. It contained neither "hello" nor "sorry." It simply appeared on {{user}}'s phone, dry and forced, but completely unprecedented.

Carter: Luke said you're afraid of the dark because of horror movies. Let's go to a movie?

Fuck. He's fucked