Anna had never been the type to poke through someone’s things. She respected privacy, understood boundaries. Or so she’d always believed. But her new roommate, Celeste, was such a closed book, she practically begged to have her secrets pried open. And then there was the matter of that persistent, nagging feeling – call it intuition, call it paranoia, but Anna couldn’t shake the sense that Celeste was hiding something far more than the scattered evidence of late-night snacks or the smudged mascara stains left on her pillowcase. So, when Celeste left her laptop open and unlocked, the screen glowing temptingly in the darkness of their shared bedroom, Anna’s resolve crumbled.
She slid into the vacant desk chair, the plastic creaking beneath her weight. For a moment, Anna simply stared at the desktop. Her own reflection, faint and ghostly, stared back from the glossy screen. The whir of the computer fan was suspiciously loud in the silence, like a nervous animal trapped in a cage. Anna’s heart hammered in her chest as she clicked through the folders: School, boring; Photos, surprisingly sparse; Receipts, all dated in the last week. Then, buried inside a folder marked “Utilities,” a subfolder titled “Vespers.” A double-click, and her body went cold.
Dozens of video files. Each one labeled with a date and time, nothing else. Anna opened the most recent. At first, nothing – just a wide shot of the apartment living room. She squinted, watching the time stamp progress. Then, the familiar figure of herself ambled into frame, sleep-rumpled in flannel pajamas, pouring coffee. She let out a strained laugh. Maybe Celeste was just paranoid, too. Maybe she even had a good reason.
But as Anna scrolled, the files grew stranger. Old footage, from before Anna had moved in. Other girls, none of whom she recognized, sitting on the same couch, reading or eating or crying. She watched in mounting horror as, in one video, a girl in a green sweater was approached from behind by Celeste herself, who, with swift precision, pressed a white cloth over the girl’s mouth. The girl’s arms flailed wildly before going limp. The clip ended abruptly.
Anna barely registered the footsteps in the hallway before the door opened behind her. The shock knocked the air out of her lungs. She snapped the laptop shut and spun around, her face burning with guilt and terror.
Celeste stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her expression unreadable. “Enjoying your little snoop?”
Anna’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I—I was just, um—”
“Just what? Making sure I’m not a serial killer?” There was ice in Celeste’s voice, but a faint smile played at the corners of her lips.
Anna’s mind raced, her hands trembling as she gripped the edge of the desk. She thought about running – just bolting past Celeste down the hall. But Celeste was blocking the way, and Anna remembered the strength in her roommate’s arms from the time she’d helped Anna move her dresser. Instead, Anna tried to stand, but her knees buckled and she landed hard on the floor, a desperate little whine escaping her lips.
Celeste was on her in an instant. Anna tried to scramble away, but Celeste grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her back, pinning her to the carpet with a knee between her shoulder blades. Anna yelped, but Celeste clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling the sound.
“Shh,” Celeste murmured into Anna’s ear, her breath warm and steady. “Wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors.”
Anna’s heart pounded. She tried to bite Celeste’s hand, but Celeste only tightened her grip, fingers digging into Anna’s cheeks until her jaw ached.
“Look at you,” Celeste whispered, almost tenderly. “So nosy. So desperate to know what other people are hiding. I’ll show you, Anna. I’ll show you everything you want to see.”
She dragged Anna bodily onto the bed, flinging her face-down onto the tangled comforter. Anna kicked, trying to dislodge her, but Celeste anticipated the move and pressed her knees down onto Anna’s calves, immobilizing her completely. Anna’s jeans did nothing to soften the pain as Celeste jerked her arms behind her and, with alarming swiftness, produced a coil of rough, scratchy rope from beneath the bed.
“Wha—what are you doing?” Anna whimpered, voice muffled by the bedsheets.
Celeste ignored the question, looping the cord around Anna’s wrists and cinching it tight. The friction burned. Anna thrashed, but each twist only made the knot more secure. Celeste repeated the process with Anna’s ankles, binding them together so tightly that Anna could feel her own pulse throbbing through the skin. Then, as an afterthought, Celeste hogtied Anna’s wrists to her ankles, arching her back painfully and leaving her completely helpless, splayed out on the bed like an offering.
“Please,” Anna rasped. “I’m sorry. I won’t—I won’t tell anyone.”
Celeste only smiled, her eyes glittering with something dangerous. “Of course you won’t. But it’s not about telling. It’s about knowing. And you wanted to know, didn’t you?”
Anna’s terror intensified as Celeste rummaged through her nightstand and withdrew a monstrous, candy-red ball gag. Anna tried to turn her head away, but Celeste cradled her chin and forced the rubber sphere past her lips, buckling the strap tight at the base of her skull. The taste was bitter and rubbery, and Anna gagged reflexively, drool already collecting at the corners of her mouth.
“There,” Celeste said, petting Anna’s hair as if she were a nervous animal. “So much better. Now you can focus.”
With Anna secured, Celeste took her time. She sat on the bed beside Anna’s wriggling form, brushing her fingers lightly down Anna’s spine, across her ribs, over the curve of her hips. Anna’s skin prickled with shame and something darker, more confusing. She was terrified, but the intimacy of Celeste’s touch – so deliberate, so familiar – made her dizzy.
Celeste unbuttoned Anna’s shirt in slow, exaggerated motions, exposing her back, her sides, her trembling stomach. Anna tried to protest, but the gag smothered her words, reducing them to pathetic, animalistic grunts. Celeste undid Anna’s bra with practiced skill, pulling the straps down around her elbows and leaving her breasts pressed into the comforter, the nipples hardening from chill and humiliation. Celeste admired the view for a moment, running her palm over the exposed skin, then leaned forward to whisper in Anna’s ear.
“You’re beautiful like this,” she breathed. “Shameless. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Anna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to imagine herself elsewhere. But the sensation of rough rope and smooth fingers, the pressure of the gag, the heat of another body so close – these things kept her anchored, trapped in the present.
Somewhere in the distance, Anna heard the faint ping of a new email arriving on Celeste’s laptop. She wondered, in a detached sort of way, if there were a camera recording this, too. If she’d end up a timestamped file in the Vespers folder, another anonymous girl succumbing to whatever ritual Celeste had orchestrated.
Celeste pressed her lips to Anna’s ear, her voice a wicked caress. “You think I’m a monster, don’t you? It’s okay. I am. But you—”
Her free hand slid lower, tracing the waistband of Anna’s jeans. Anna tensed, expecting the worst. But Celeste only slipped her phone from her pocket and, with a few quick taps, snapped a photo of Anna’s trussed, humiliated form.
“Perfect,” Celeste said, uploading the picture to her phone with a self-satisfied smirk.
Anna’s every instinct screamed at her to fight, but the ropes held her fast. Celeste flipped Anna onto her side, so they were face to face. She cupped Anna’s cheek, wiped a tear from her eye, and then kissed her softly on the forehead.
“Consider this a lesson,” Celeste purred. “Next time, just ask me what you want to know.”
Anna trembled, her world reduced to the tightness of rope and the taste of rubber, the certainty that her secrets were no longer her own. She could only pray that, when the next girl moved in, they’d be a little less curious than she’d been.
Celeste pressed a finger to Anna’s lips, smiling sweetly. “Now, let’s see how much you can learn when you can’t ask questions.”
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