Slave For The Weekend

By Tamara

Holly is 18-year-old girl who has a superpower to be invisible. Not literally though. She is just a very shy girl and no one notices her. She's cursed to be the outcast of the class, always lurking in the shadows, never daring to speak up. Holly has a secret crush on her classmate Aiden, but the problem is - he doesn't even know she exists.

Aiden is the womanizer of the class, a popular boy with many conquests. A heartbreaker who Holly knows she should stay away from, feeling like she's not good enough to catch his eye.

But fate has other plans for them, and when Holly unexpectedly finds herself engaged in a game with none other than Aiden himself, she doesn't even know what she's getting herself into. Being unaware of what lies ahead, she accepts the terms that Aiden offers. The stakes are too high, and the bet is placed - the loser must be the winner's slave for an entire weekend. Holly can't even begin to imagine what it could possibly mean, but she finds herself intertwined in a weekend that will challenge her boundaries and force her to confront her deepest insecurities.

Will Holly win against Aiden, or will she ultimately become his slave? Will Aiden see Holly in a new light during the weekend that they are forced to spend together, regardless of who the winner is. Will Holly manage to step out of her comfort zone, or will she forever remain the invisible girl? 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tamara
• Release date: May 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223039129

Book preview

Prologue

What superpower would you like to have? Have you ever wanted to be invisible? Just think about it – you could observe everyone else without being noticed. Sounds like a dream come true? Think again! I think being invisible would be a real nightmare. Actually, I know for sure because that’s the story of my life. No, I don't mean that I can actually turn invisible like a superhero. I just mean that no one ever seems to notice me. I've always been invisible to others. I am a girl who is hardly noticeable, very quiet, and really shy. I am something like the outcast of the class, the girl who never speaks up. I am the one who always sits alone at lunchtime. I could move through the world unnoticed, just like a ghost. I'm not particularly ugly or anything, just extremely shy and reserved. Very unsociable. The girl who lives in the shadows. But I am used to being in the shadow – it had become something like a comfort zone I can’t escape from.

I often feel invisible, especially to the boy that I have a crush on. It's as if I'm nonexistent to him. Even though we're in the same class, it's like we're on different planets. And I mean just for him. The worst feeling of all is being neglected by the boy I really like and care about. However, logically speaking, it's understandable. After all, he doesn't even know I exist. How can he notice me, let alone care? To him, I am invisible, and perhaps to the rest of the world as well. But that's a whole different story.

No one seems to notice me or like me. I honestly don’t know why that is. Perhaps because I really, really suck at communication. It’s pure torture for me. And when it comes to the boy that I like – well, it gets even more complicated than that. I am not very social person, to put it mildly. That’s even an understatement. Actually, my social skills are so bad that I decided to seek help. I desperately needed some help with that problem of mine. Professional help. And I searched for it on the internet. It may sound a bit silly, but I asked Google about my problems – after all, Google knows everything. Right? And besides, who else would I ask for advice!? I was really desperate, so don’t judge me too hard for that!

So I looked around, I read a few articles about basic social skills and communication. I really needed to improve my social skills, and I thought that reading about it would help me in some way, or at least I hoped so. Then I went further, dug deeper into the problem and I decided to read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. I read it and then I even reread it a few times, I wrote down some really good tips and points, but then I didn’t do anything else about it. It was a total waste of time. Sure, I learned some very helpful stuff but nothing worked for me. It’s easy to read the tips, but it’s really hard to actually follow them. If you’re shy, you can’t change that with one article or even with a whole book. Even if it has many pages – the size doesn’t matter. It’s just helpless. It’s like an incurable disease that I have – it wouldn’t go away and just leave me alone. There’s no treatment for my shyness and my social clumsiness. Tough I wish there was. I am still looking for it. 

But enough about me, now let me tell you about the boy that I like so much - the one that doesn’t know I exist. His name is Aiden and he’s from my class. He is very tall, handsome, and a bit cocky. Aiden is the opposite of me. He is the most popular boy in school, the captain of the football team, the one that every girl wants to be with. He is a notorious womanizer, a heartbreaker who has no time for relationship or any commitment. But I like him so much. I know he's not the type of guy I should be crushing on, but I just can't help it. There's something about him that draws me in. I want him so much, but I simply can’t force myself to go and talk to him. I would look desperate, I knew that. I don’t know what to say, how to act around him. If he talks first – that’s another thing, which rarely had happened, but I can’t even imagine talking freely with him like we are some close buddies. I didn’t even have any idea what could I possible say to him and how to lead a conversation with him. I just knew that most probably I would simply put my feet in my mouth, so I didn’t want to risk looking like a complete idiot in front of him.

The big problem is – I don’t know how to act around him and what to say at all. I always fear that my feelings would show if I just stand in front of him and grin like a total idiot. He would figure it out, I knew that. And he probably would get even cockier, if he finds out how much I like him. My feelings for him would probably flatter him and his big ego, but nothing more than that. Aiden wouldn’t like a shy girl like me, who doesn’t even know how to behave around people. I’ve seen the girls he dates – they are all so beautiful, tall, and very pushy. Just like him. And I am no match for him. I couldn’t compete with the girls he’s been dating. Even if I was the last person on earth, he would probably keep ignoring me. I would be invisible for him no matter what. I simply couldn’t catch his attention, and my lack of social skills weren’t making it any better.

I find myself constantly stealing glances at him and daydreaming about what it would be like to talk to him and get to know him better. Sometimes I just wish I could be invisible for real, just so I could spy on Aiden. I could go to his place and watch him all day long. I don’t know where he lives, but I could follow him without being noticed if I was actually invisible. I wish I could see what he’s doing after school, where he’s going. I could be stalking him all day long, if stalking is the right word in this case since no one would be able to see me. I was so curious to find out more about Aiden, to reveal his true character. I wanted to see how he acts when he’s home, how he treats his parents, who he is seeing after school. And I wish I could watch him during the nights too. That would be very interesting. I could watch him while he sleeps in his bed, but that’s a bit crazy actually. Or watch him while he’s changing... or even better – in the shower. But that’s too kinky, isn’t it? Being invisible would totally rock. But only if you could turn visible again whenever you like. In my case, I didn’t have such an option. Even though I wish he could notice me.

I’ve always wished I could talk to someone and share my feelings with a close friend. But since I don’t have many friends – I have friends from school but I wouldn’t call them best friends - they just talk with me about school and stuff like that, but we aren’t that close. The truth is that I have no one to talk to, so I just keep my feelings in a box locked up tight deep in my soul. It’s for the best. No one would ever know how much I like Aiden. I would never tell anyone. Especially him. Unrequited love is hard, but sharing it with Aiden would be much harder. And maybe even hurtful when he rejects me which, I assume, he would do a bit harshly since he’s a bit rough around the edges. Or he could even laugh in my face. He isn’t that rude, but I knew he would never look at me the way I want to. It could never happen. It was pure fantasy and nothing more than that to dream that Aiden could even like a girl like me.

Let me tell you more about school. The class is composed of a few groups, but I don’t belong to any of them. The boys in my class are outnumbered by the girls, so they tend to be closer than the girls. They’ve formed something like a group and they always stick together, unlike the girls who are separated into smaller groups. I am something like an outsider because I don’t fit in any of their groups. I try to be nice with everyone and be more talkative with my classmates. Even though I am not in one of their groups, I talk with everyone who wants to talk with me, and I could say I have a few friends – not besties, but just girls with whom I talk about school, lessons and homework. Just school stuff, though. Nothing more than that. But I am the kind of girl who, even if I weren’t there, no one would notice my absence. Being invisible is the story of my life, but I am getting used to that.

So now maybe having the superpower of being invisible doesn’t sound like a dream come true, don’t you think so? It doesn’t look like some awesome superpower that anyone would love having. Does it?

Chapter 1

The day at school started dull. I was bored to death in Geography class; I remembered how much I hate Math in my next class when we had an exam, and then came Literature. That was a subject that I found very interesting. I love reading books and I like our teacher very much. It’s my favorite subject at school so I was eager to attend the class.

It was still a break, so I was sitting on my chair, getting ready for class. We had to write an essay for homework, so I was reading mine to make sure it was good enough, and I was also checking it for any mistakes since I had nothing else to do. I was keeping myself busy, waiting for the class to begin.

Hey, Dolly. Do you have homework?

Someone distracted me from reading my essay. It was Aiden – I needn’t to look. I knew his deep low voice very well without even looking at him. I would recognize his voice even in a crowd – it was so distinctive for me that whenever I heard him talk, I would sharpen my hearing so I wouldn’t miss a word he’s saying. I am so crazy about him, but did I mention that he doesn’t even know my name? He always calls me Dolly for some reason, and I hate that. And on very rare occasions he talks to me about school stuff. It had happened just a couple of times. 

My name is Holly, I corrected him, annoyed.

Holly, Dolly, Molly, whatever. He rolled his eyes at me as if my name was so irrelevant and it didn’t matter to him at all. The only important thing at that moment for him was our homework.

Do you have it? asked Aiden again persistently, looking annoyed at me for some reason.

The nerve he had! Maybe I forgot to mention that he’s kind of a jerk. Big time. So I would gladly give my homework to anyone but him. I just don’t know why I like him so much when he is such a jerk. His appearance is probably the main reason – he’s very attractive, but not very nice to people, which sometimes puts me off. I guess the saying all the good girls like bad boys is true.

Yes, but I won’t give it to you, I retorted, looking at my notebook. Do it yourself, you might find it interesting.

Gee! I just wanted to read yours. To learn from the best. He said, stressing the last word in a mocking demeanor.

His snarky comment infuriated me, but I didn’t say anything. The bell rang and saved me from the awkward silence that followed. Aiden was just staring at me, probably because I didn’t give him my homework. Maybe I should mention that he is really bad at Literature. He isn’t a bookworm like me, but he is very good at Math. That is a mystery to me because he isn’t such a great student - he doesn’t aim to ace all the subjects. And I, on the other hand, want to have good grades, but Math is so hard with all these numbers and formulas that