Episode 7: Hetaira
When they were back upstairs at the apartment, Serafine took another shower, complaining about still having shampoo in her hair, and while she stood under the hot water, washing cum off of herself for the second time that day, she thought long and hard about her life choices.
Am I fucked up in the head, or something?
she thought uncertainly.
Why don't I just say no when I don't want to?
Free drugs were hardly worth letting some random college boy do whatever he wanted. Even if he was rich, their relationship was far from exclusive, and the more she thought about the arrangement, the more she realized it really wasn't worth it.
If I'm going to wind up getting fucked in life either way, it should at least be for more than free weed,
she thought bitterly.
When she got out of the shower, pulling on a pair of boxer-style underwear and another extra large t-shirt, it was late, past midnight, and by the gentle static sound coming from outside, the rain had picked up again. Careful to tiptoe around the extra-creaky floorboard in the hallway, Serafine headed for the living room with a shoebox tucked under her arm, where a set of double-doors led to a small balcony.
It was the apartments best feature, and even though the balcony was only a couple feet wide and faced an alley full of trash cans, it was both her and her roommates favorite place to hang out, and fortunately, was also covered by a small overhang shielding it from the rain.
Serafine cracked open the door and slipped outside. The air smelled of petrichor and the ground was wet under her feet, both sensations that greatly eased her mood. Glad to be alone, she pulled a small plastic chair close and took a seat, opening her shoebox to find weed, rolling papers, and a few lighters scattered around inside.
Using the back of her phone as a tray, she spent a few minutes crushing up pebbles of green flower, the occasional
sish-sish
of a car passing or the boom of a fog horn from Lake Michigan the only sounds punctuating the rain.
She rolled a joint, lit it, and inhaled, relishing in the fog that clouded her brain before an intrusive memory of Ivan Masters pierced her thoughts.
Was his offer serious?
she wondered.
It seemed too good to be true, and she sensed that what he was asking her to do could get her in serious trouble at school if she got caught. She didn't fully understand how the museum-bank-university relationship worked, but providing Ivan with information that she herself only had access to because of her ability to login to the university's internal database felt, at a minimum, like some kind of breach of privacy.
He should have been asking someone else to do this, one of the adults. She felt a jerk of concern as she thought back to seeing
Greek Slave
in the attic in person.
She shouldn't have said anything, and regretted every word out of her mouth with another flush of her cheeks.
She'd been acting like such a know-it-all. Trying to impress him, eager to show off how cultured and knowledgeable and adult she was.
Well, it'd worked,
she thought, exhaling sourly. He'd noticed her, all right, but what was she supposed to do now that it'd caused all... this?
She took another drag of her joint, long and deep, until she coughed and it sent a pair of cats running down the alleyway. One of them stopped and stared at her, a pair of neon-blue lenses reflecting back eerily, as if in a glare, before it bounded off to join its mate.
Her thoughts turned back to Ivan as a gentle breeze picked up, carrying the scent of rain-slicked asphalt, tinged with trash.
Does he even know what he's offering? He's, like, a real estate agent or something, right?
It was a lot of money, even at three percent of the paintings value. A life changing amount of money, for her.
He'd admitted several times that he didn't know anything about art. Was that true? She found it hard to believe that he could be completely ignorant, considering his family's deep ties to the art world, but maybe it was like all her friends were saying.
He was an outsider. Someone who'd never spent a day in the art world, who probably couldn't tell apart a
Manet
from
Monet
, and now found himself in charge of one of the most respected collections in the world.
Maybe he really was out of his depth. Cornered. Desperate enough to seek help from anyone. Even her.
It seemed a little too good to be true...but the upside was hard to ignore.
Greek Slave
was worth tens of millions of dollars. Maybe Ivan wasn't cultured enough to know that, but art had been her lifelong passion, and she'd worked with the collection directly for two years. She knew what three percent meant, and if he wanted to get rid of it, what did it matter if she was the one helping him do it, or someone else? It was his, he could do whatever he wanted with it.
And where else would she ever get an opportunity like this?
