I loved it.

I absolutely loved it.

The campus was large, modern, with grey glass buildings and beautiful park with trees for the university students to sit under. One month into my mathematical engineering education, I thrived. Not having been to school before and thus never having experienced how shy you should be answering the teacher's questions, I was very active during the lectures, raising my hand to answer, sometimes even asking relevant questions back. I scored 98% of my first test, being the top student of my class. At first, people avoided me, believing I was boisterous, I think, but after that first month, people started to talk to me, tentatively, and soon I had a little group of friends I sat with during lectures and beneath a tree in the park to have lunch.

I still worked every weekend as well as two nights on weekdays, but I didn't need more than three evenings a week and a couple of hours on weekends to study, seeing I understood most things we were taught after only one lecture. I found it easier to distance myself from the people that fucked me because my mind was buzzing with equations and codes.

And there was Casper.

He went to the same university, although he studied physics, but we met up during lunch breaks when we could and also after our classes to go for coffee or home to him. I kept it a secret from the owner, telling him I was late because my classes finished late. In the beginning, me and Casper just talked when we were at his place, or we would watch something on his couch with our arms around each other, or we cooked together. I had no idea that this was normality, and found I loved it. I loved having a normal life.

"Why don't you try to bed me?" I asked him one day.

He stared at me and blinked. Then, he sat down at his little round kitchen table in his small but tidy student apartment.

"Honestly because I'm frightened. I'm frightened you believe I use you to gain your services for free."

"My services are free to you", I said. "You're my boyfriend.

"But that's the point!" he said, a little frustrated. "It's not a service! When you're with me, I want you to make love to me, or not at all. I could go on like this forever, if having sex with you is viewed by you as a service."

"Forever..."

It was my first time tasting the word with anyone. We had been dating for a few months now, and I knew enough about love to know that we were still probably in the honeymoon phase. But if this man could go through the honeymoon phase without having sex with me...

"What if I say I want you to have sex with me?" I asked, testing the ground.

"Izuna, I can't do that..."

"You've done it before."

"I fucked you then because I had paid", he said from where he sat at the kitchen table, a serious expression on his sweet face. "But you're my boyfriend now."

I stepped closer to him, straddled him. He didn't lean in, but he didn't move away, either.

"What if I tell you I don't want you to fuck me?" I murmured, staring him down. "What if I say I want you to make love to me?"

He kept my gaze steadily, his breathing pace increased, his hands steady at his sides. Then, he threw himself over me and started kissing me.

"Mmm..." I moaned as he shoved the tip of his tongue into my mouth, grabbing a handful of my hair. His hands travelled all over my body as tried to press us closer. He parted our lips, breathed hotly into my mouth.

"Izuna..." he murmured.

He made love to me then, in his kitchen, me on my back on the floor, him on top of me, maintaining steady eye contact throughout. He was drenched in sweat, grunting on top of me as I moaned and squealed, not faking it but letting my mouth do what was real for it in that moment, just like with Mr Oliver. I grabbed his wrists, digging my nails in.

"You're coming, aren't you?" he smirked and the second after, I threw me head back in a mouth-watering orgasm.

And as I was halfway through spilling over myself, he came, too, pouring himself inside of me while moaning loudly in relief.

He put his hand to the side of my face, kissed me on the lips once, then didn't seem like he could get enough so he did it again, and again, and again.

"I love you, Izuna", he murmured, connecting our foreheads.

I panted, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose to the bridge of mine.

"I don't know what love is", I whispered.

Oh, it was bliss.

I had never felt so happy, that my life was so fulfilled. We talked a lot, about work and how he dealt with the jealousy, how we would keep ourselves safe using condoms until we both got tested because even if all of my clients had to wear one (except Mr Oliver, but he had been my teacher...), we wanted to be sure. I excelled in university. I was happy with my boyfriend. Work was manageable.

I think I had known that it wasn't meant to last, that happiness wasn't something that was for me but for other people. And I was absolutely right.

I had just come into my own bedroom after having left my work room after the second and final customer of that Wednesday evening when I noticed something was very, very wrong. All of my drawers were pulled out. All of my clothes lay slung all over the place. Even my mattress was thrown halfway over the room. Someone had been looking...

I stood in the doorway, horrified. Why would anyone...

Then, it went up to me.

It went up to me why anyone would.

I ran to my drawer and looked through the clothes that were still in it, although all in disorder. I felt my heartbeat racing, my breathing loud and fast as I searched in panic. Shit, this is bad... This is really, really bad.

"Looking for this?"

My head jerked to the door, and there stood the owner, holding what I'd been looking for in his hand; my phone. He took a few steps closer. I backed away. I hated myself for it, but for the first time in my life I was afraid of him. I knew he'd always held back when it came to me, not wanting to destroy my pretty fucking face, but I suspected he had no intention to spare me now.

"What was the first rule?" he said darkly, his white moustache flickering in anger. He had wine stains on his brown velvet suit; he'd been drinking. When I didn't answer, he lifted his hand and slapped my face. It was so sudden, it took me a while before I felt the pain. "I said, what was the first rule?"

"No boyfriends", I said.

"Then why..." He grabbed the collar of the oversized white T-shirt I'd put on after work, slammed me into the wall. "The fuck do you have a boyfriend?"

"I don't", I said, but I knew it was fruitless.

The owner held up my phone.

"Do you really think you would get away with it? One of my girls saw you. In a fucking cafe." He sputtered the word as some people would sputter the word "bordello". "University, my ass. Not only have you been wasting my money by working far less; you've lied to me by going to that boy for free instead of being where you were supposed to be!"

"But I have been to university!" I said desperately. "You can check my admission certificate! See my test results! E-mail my lecturers, even!" I hated myself for fighting for my life.

And then I heard the click of a gun.

Fuck.

I looked down. I recognised it as the same gun he'd pointed at Mr Oliver. Don't panic. Don't panic. Think about Mr Oliver. He didn't panic, did he?

He put the trigger to my temple.

Casper!!