Simon answered, “That’s fair.”I tightened the belt coiled around my hand and pressed it mercilessly against Simon’s windpipe.The pain was brief but searing. When my body finally stilled, I found myself sprawled beneath the bed. Bit by bit I realized my flank throbbed with a sharp, burning ache. From head to toe I felt as though electric currents were dancing through me. Gritting my teeth, I struggled into a sitting position. I drooled, and my hands had no strength to form a fist.Simon straddled the edge of the bed and watched me. In his hand was a black, bulky device—an electric stun gun.I snorted with incredulous laughter. So that’s why he’d cooperated just now. I never imagined he’d hidden such a thing. What shocked me most was that he’d let me choke him for over ten seconds—no doubt waiting until I was utterly consumed by my own fury before he produced the stun gun. The aftershock lingered: though my spasms ceased, my body still pulsed with jolts.Simon’s dark eyes asked, “Are you all right?”Those twisted bastards. If you’re going to ask whether I’m okay, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. And “fair”? Unbelievable. I couldn’t even muster a reply; I slumped back against the bed.Simon set aside the stun gun and approached. He slipped his arms under my armpits and thigh, hoisted me up, and laid me gently on the bed. He even unwound the belt from my wrist. I wanted to speak but couldn’t; the shock still buzzed in my skull, and I feared biting my tongue.Simon covered my chest with the blanket. Then, with the back of his hand, he wiped the cold sweat from my temple.“You’ve had a rough day, Raymond. Get some sleep.”I thought I’d recovered my health—but clearly not yet. After being shocked in the dead of night, a wave of drowsiness heavier than any fatigue overcame me. Was it pure exhaustion? I gazed at Simon through drooping eyelids. He examined my face as if appraising it, yet without concern. If Simon wasn’t worried, it couldn’t be pure exhaustion. The next moment, I surrendered to sleep.When I woke in the morning, I felt nauseated. My stomach churned. Only when I slid a foot off the bed did last night’s memories return.I’d been stunned with that electric gun—truly an unforeseen twist. To be honest, I almost looked forward to what might come next: they had pummeled me, tried to kill me, betrayed me, and now stunned me with a device I’d never seen before. And how admirably Jérôme and Simon conducted their game.Even as they bit and taunted me like mad dogs and alley scoundrels, they never lost their composure. Last night, Simon had been exemplary: calm while I tried to strangle him. He did not fly into a rage; he did not retaliate. The cycle of my revenge and their ensuing violence was not a tit-for-tat; it was a chain of baiting. Now I understood clearly.Their violence in response to my revenge was mere bait. If I bit, they would await my counterstrike with glee. I must not take their bait again. Like them, I had to lay my own trap—but one they could not recognize, one they had never seen before…But what trap? Could I really outwit them?I sat half-dazed at the bedside until I gathered enough will to stand. Simon was gone. Before I’d taken two steps, waves of nausea came. I knelt beside the bed, clasped its rail, and emptied my stomach. Nothing but bitter bile emerged; I’d eaten only a small salad and tea last night. Yet my empty stomach still heaved. Through retching tears streamed.Someone must have heard and burst into the room. I looked up to see George.“Looks like last night didn’t go so well,” he said coldly, without a hint of sympathy.After another dry heave, I slumped back against the bed, wiped the saliva from my lips, and managed to retort, “That’s some uplifting advice. Instead of useless talk, lend me an arm—I want to rinse my mouth.”“You ought to have eaten, as I said,” George replied as he strode in.I snorted. “Right. If I’d eaten a steak, you’d have seen a much better sight on this floor, wouldn’t you?”Without a word, George grasped my arm and hauled me to my feet. I leaned on him and shuffled into the bathroom. Only after rinsing and brushing my teeth did I remember to check my flank. Lifting my pajama top, I found a red welt where the stun gun had struck. One more medal for this twisted war. I stumbled back into the hallway.Ding.The clock chimed two o’clock. I realized I hadn’t slept but passed out. I crossed the living room in a daze and stood by the window. Soon enough, I saw what I’d been waiting for: Jérôme riding his horse across the quad.I perched on the windowsill and watched him mount. It was impossible to guess what Jérôme and Simon were plotting—they hadn’t acted since the weekend. Even Simon’s intervention last night had been only a resistant gesture. Why did they linger? What were they waiting for?That evening I hadn’t even noticed Simon return. Exhausted, I’d eaten dinner early with Hugh and George and collapsed within an hour. After nearly being killed, suffering a serious malaise, and surviving a stun, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) I’d had the strangest dream.In it, I rode a carousel horse—until I realized it was a living horse, its abdomen impaled by a metal rod, its legs paddling wildly, while I bounced atop it as if riding a real steed.I awoke with a start at four A.M., drenched in sweat, so heavy I could barely move a finger. Glancing over, Simon lay, as always, motionless in his bed. I drifted back to sleep, and only when I next awoke, it was past eleven A.M.I felt lighter than yesterday. Miraculously, the dorm was empty—even George was nowhere to be seen. After changing into street clothes and grabbing a quick bite, I found the dorm still deserted. Assuming they’d gone for a walk, I too stepped outside, hoping a stroll might clear my mind. With neither Jérôme nor Simon in sight, I felt a rare sense of peace.The weather was perfect. I had no intention of attending class—being late was easy to excuse given my illness. Tomorrow began the weekend. Though Jérôme and Simon’s trap awaited anyone remaining on campus, I refused to play along. It might amuse them if I kept falling in, but I preferred to avoid their games. That night I planned to take myself into town and stay at a hotel.I wandered the quad, sat on a bench to watch students play tennis, then at last returned to the dorm—only to find it still empty. But inside my room was something new: a brown paper envelope on the bed. Unsealed, unnamed. My frown deepened as I picked it up. It couldn’t be mail—the dorm requires a key to enter, and only someone I knew would lay something on my bed.I inverted the envelope over my palm. A stiff stack of paper tumbled out. Yet when I looked I realized it was not paper but photographs. Photos of me. I gasped.In the first image I lay naked on my own bed in this dorm room. Between my splayed legs knelt a man whose face was hidden—only the back of his head visible. A flash had captured him thrusting his penis halfway into my anus. In the photo I slept peacefully.I stared at the next shot: I was astride another man’s thigh, legs wide, while he again penetrated me, his face concealed behind my head but my sleeping face in full view. The next photo showed only my face, smeared with semen and the remains staining my parted lips.Flip after flip, the bundle depicted the same horrors: me being impaled by unknown penises, my body coated in semen, me holding a stranger’s cock in my slack mouth—all while I lay in a deep sleep.It was not until the final photo that my face went ashen. There I lay on my side as two men—still nameless—simultaneously shoved their cocks into me. Two. Men.Another person had taken these photos.I felt the blood drain from my cheeks. My legs shook, but I forced myself to remain standing. I reached to sit on the bed—then recoiled. The once-familiar, pristine sheets now seemed crawling with insects. Instead, I stood transfixed, scrutinizing each of the nineteen photos over and over. Only after dozens of viewings could I set the hideous images down on my desk.My head throbbed as though struck, yet I fought to regain my composure. I peered at my trembling hands. Fear? Anger? I chose anger.Ignoring my quivering limbs, I laid the photos out one by one in order. Lined up, they formed a grotesque panorama reminiscent of a sleazy porn flick. I crossed my arms and studied them again. I wanted to tear them to shreds and swallow the ashes—but I quelled the urge.The game had begun without my knowledge. To avoid trailing behind, I had to stay calm and accept the situation. I had already known shame—this was nothing new. I drew a slow breath, then another. My lips quivered; I bit down hard. My hands clenched into fists until the nails bit into my palms, and my body shook with the effort to endure.I would accept humiliation, but never surrender. Even alone, I could not weaken. In this game, stepping back first meant defeat. I braced myself until the trembling subsided.Then I began to think. First: who sent these photos? Jérôme and Simon, certainly. Why? To prove their deed. They promised to rape me—and they did. What reaction did they expect? I pictured myself, unable to stay composed, smashing down the corridor to wreck Jérôme’s door. But I remained calm.Jérôme and Simon must have foreseen that possibility. They now awaited my revenge. What would come next? Two possibilities: I act, or they act. So what would I do?I would not act. I would not bite. I would wait—observe how Jérôme and Simon reacted to my silence. Of course I would not sit idle; instead, I studied the photos with my newly steeled gaze.After a long, meticulous review, I catalogued a few key facts. Then I sorted the photos by my criteria and bound them into a small stack. I needed to hide them—but where? Any hiding place in this room would be found, for they knew it inside and out. I needed to conceal them somewhere unseen. I split the stack in two, stuffed half into the top of my left sock, the other half in my right, pulled down my pant legs to conceal the bulges, and left the dormitory.The weather remained clear, and Jérôme and Simon were nowhere to be seen. I left the dorm with nowhere particular to go. It seemed their gaze reached every corner of the campus. I didn’t want to re-enter the woods. When their whereabouts were unknown, it made sense to avoid deserted areas. Unsure, I walked the quad until I entered the school building. Some classrooms were still in session—but when I reached the library, a plan struck me.With exams approaching, the library teemed with students. I wandered between shelves, pulling out every kind of book. One from each shelf, sometimes returning one, sometimes lingering before choosing none. Soon I held over twenty volumes. I waddled to the librarian’s desk and set them down. The librarian raised an eyebrow.“You’ve never checked out before?”I replied, “Raymond.”“Mr. Raymond, you may borrow up to fifteen books.”“Ah. I’ll put some back then.”I fetched a book on Southern wildflowers—380 pages—and when I slid it back onto the shelf, I slipped my hidden photos into the gap behind it. For another thirty minutes I lingered, shelving and unshelving books, until I at last left the library carrying fifteen entirely different volumes.If anyone had watched, they’d never guess where I hid the photos. They’d have to search hundreds of shelves to find them. A time-consuming task. I returned to the dorm with the borrowed books.At last, people were there. Hugh and George sat facing each other over a game of chess. Hugh, in a sleeveless shirt, displayed his swimmer’s muscles as he studied the board. He was bright and studious but had never beaten George. Yet he claimed the matches sharpened his focus.Beside Hugh lay thick textbooks and papers—he too was cramming for exams. I dropped onto the sofa beside them, spilling my stack of books. George turned to me.“Studying?”He sounded strangely amused. I protested, “Why does that look so odd coming from me?”George nudged a chess piece with his index finger. “Nothing suits you less than studying.”Before I could retort, Hugh suddenly crumpled, clutching his head, and collapsed onto the floor. Curious, I glanced at the chessboard—its rules were beyond me. Blinking, I asked, “Is it over?”

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