Chapter 3: The Price of the Ask

“The basic syntax of autonomy,” Liv had said, pushing the cafe door open. That was the last thing I remembered before the two espresso shots landed on our table. The strong, dark liquid in the small glass seemed intensely serious, completely unlike the diluted, milky coffees I usually drank while studying. Liv picked hers up first, tossing the shot back as quickly as a cough medicine. She didn’t even flinch.

I tried to mirror her action, but the sudden heat and bitterness caused me to gasp and cough immediately afterward. I nearly knocked the glass over. Liv watched me, a small, knowing smirk now replacing the focused intensity that was there before.

“It’s not supposed to be easy, Emma,” she observed, taking the glass from me before I could spill the remaining few drops. She placed it back on the saucer with a deliberate click. “But it does clear the palate, doesn’t it?”

It certainly cleared something. The caffeine hit immediately, scattering the last remnants of my social anxiety from the mixer, replacing it with a nervous, jittery energy. I was alert now, hyper-aware of the warmth of the cafe and the silent observation of the tired barista behind the counter.

Liv pulled a narrow, elegantly bound notebook from the small satchel she carried. This notebook looked expensive, not like the spiral-bound ones I used for class, which were cheap and functional. It was covered in dark, almost black leather.

“This is your curriculum map,” Liv explained, sliding the notebook across the table toward me. “You’ll use this for analysis and, perhaps eventually, for planning. Right now, it holds only the first assignment.”

I carefully picked up the notebook, the leather feeling cool and smooth under my fingertips. Opening it, I saw only a single page of text. The handwriting was Liv’s, sharp and angled, legible but forceful.

The assignment was deceptively simple:

Assignment 1: The Unearned Favor

Target: Marcus Thorne (Fourth-year Law, visible arrogance, high ambition, known need for control/dominance). Venue: The Law Building’s 24-hour Reading Room. Action: Approach him, and ask for a significant, unearned favor related to his coursework or current connections. The request must be difficult enough to require inconvenience on his part, but low enough in stakes that he must deliberate before refusing. Objective: To feel the power derived from forcing someone else’s compliance or inconvenience, simply because you dared to ask. The outcome of the favor is irrelevant; the performance of the Ask is the lesson.

I stared at the name, Marcus Thorne. I knew him, of course. Everybody knew Marcus. He was notoriously self-important, already had a prestigious internship lined up for the summer after his third year, and he had a reputation for treating junior students like decorative furniture. My parents had specifically told me to network with people like Marcus, but to always approach them with deference and preparation.

“You’ve already selected the target,” I noted, looking up at Liv. I felt a surge of professional curiosity mixed with dread.

“Of course,” Liv replied, leaning back in her chair. “Preparation is mandatory. Marcus needs to be brought down a notch, and you need to see that the rules you absorb about ‘earning’ attention are just a form of social currency meant to keep the timid poor. You don’t ask politely, Emma. You demand, nicely.”

The concept of demanding anything from someone like Marcus was jarring. My entire life had been predicated on avoiding confrontation, minimizing inconvenience, and earning every single crumb of approval.

“What if he just says no?” I asked, feeling a cold wave of anxiety wash over the caffeine rush. The stakes felt enormous, yet the request itself was trivial.

“That’s fine,” Liv shrugged. “The lesson isn’t about winning. The lesson is about forcing the issue. If he says no, you still made him stop his life and consider your request. You inserted yourself into his schedule, his sense of entitlement, and his perfect bubble. That is an assertion of power. His refusal just tells us more about his structure.”

Liv then explained the necessary details of the operation, which she referred to as the ‘Ask.’ The specifics were unsettlingly precise. She told me to approach Marcus at precisely 10:45 PM on Thursday, while he was studying in his usual corner of the Reading Room. Liv knew his class schedule, his study habits, and even which coffee mug he used. It was unnerving, the depth of her observation.

“You have seventy-two hours until the deadline,” Liv finished, pushing the notebook closer to me. “No consultation, no excuses. You will complete the task, and then you will write a full post-mortem analysis in the pages of that book detailing what you felt, what he felt, and how you will execute the next assignment better.”

The weight of the notebook suddenly felt heavy, filled with obligation, but it was an obligation tied to liberation, not academic compliance.

I couldn’t go home immediately. I knew my parents would be expecting a report on the mixer and my meticulously planned schedule. Lying to them proved to be the easiest part of the night. I texted my mother, stating there was a mandatory, late-night study session for an upcoming contract law mock trial. This was a lie so technically plausible that I knew she wouldn’t question it immediately, though the delay in my return would certainly trigger her anxiety.

I spent the next two days oscillating between the meticulous routine of my law classes and the explosive, forbidden excitement of the looming assignment. I studied Marcus Thorne subtly in the hallways, watching him move with the easy entitlement of a man who assumed the world owed him its attention. Every interaction confirmed Liv’s assessment; he was arrogant, utterly self-assured, and perpetually draped in expensive, neutral clothing that screamed ‘future litigation partner.’

On Thursday afternoon, I found myself in the Law Building’s women’s restroom, staring into the mirror for twenty minutes straight. I tried to mentally rehearse the 'Ask,' imagining the confident posture Liv had demonstrated. I should stand tall. I should make direct, unwavering eye contact. I should phrase the request as a shared inconvenience, almost an assumption of his assistance, rather than a pleading request.

The moment had to be executed precisely when Marcus was settled, fully immersed in his work, because the objective was interruption as much as request.

I walked into the reading room at 10:40 PM, the polished marble floors echoing the nervous click of my practical flats. The room was huge, divided by rows of heavy oak desks. Marcus was exactly where Liv said he would be: the far, quiet corner, surrounded by piles of binders and a laptop screen glowing blue. He wore noise-canceling headphones, a clear sign that he should not be disturbed.

This was clearly the optimal moment for an interruption.

I walked toward his desk, my heart accelerating to an almost painful rate. The simple motion of crossing the room felt like marching into full-scale war. As I got closer, I could see the laser-like focus in his eyes fixed on the screen, his fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. He was in his element, controlling his world.

I reached his desk. I stood there for a full ten seconds, waiting for him to notice me. He didn’t. The headphones effectively sealed him off.

The fear of judgment was immediate and overwhelming. If I interrupted him awkwardly, I would look desperate or, worse, incompetent. I could almost hear my mother’s voice in my head, warning me against making a scene.

I swallowed hard and reached out, intending to lightly tap his shoulder, but the gesture came out stiff and uncertain. My fingers barely grazed the expensive fabric of his blazer.

Marcus recoiled violently, tearing off his headphones instantly and slamming his hand onto the desk. The sudden, loud noise caused two other students nearby to look up. His face, when he looked at me, was not merely annoyed; it held genuine, icy fury.

“What in the hell did you think you were doing, touching me?” he snapped, his voice barely a controlled hiss that sliced through the reading room's silence. He didn’t recognize me instantly, which made the dismissal worse. I was truly insignificant.

The rehearsed speech about the 'unearned favor’ evaporated entirely from my mind. All I could feel was the intense, paralyzing heat of his contempt. I had disrupted his control, and he was punishing me for the crime.

I couldn’t make the Ask. I couldn’t even formulate a coherent sentence. My mouth dried up completely.

“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered, the words emerging as a weak, apologetic squeak. I immediately took a step back, instinctively cringing away from his visible anger. My apology was an automatic defense mechanism, a retreat into my most compliant self.

Marcus, seeing my instant humiliation and retreat, softened slightly, shifting his posture from aggression to condescending dismissal.

“If you need to talk, there’s a sign-up sheet with my teaching assistant for appointments,” he said, his tone dripping with patronizing superiority. “Don’t interrupt people’s flow. This is a 24/7 study zone, not a common area social for people needing direction.”

The implication was clear: I, Emma, was disorganized, needy, and beneath his notice. He waited two seconds for me to leave, then jammed his headphones back on, signaling that the entire encounter was over and forgotten.

I stumbled backward, feeling a searing humiliation that reached far deeper than the simple, intellectual embarrassment of failure. My body felt heavy, weighted down by my own fear and social inertia. I had been given a chance to break the cage, but the invisible bars of compliance had stood firm. I walked out of the reading room, the shame burning in my cheeks, feeling infinitely smaller than when I had walked in.

I was a failure. The curriculum was already too hard.

When I finally reached the sidewalk outside the Law Building, the cool night air offered no comfort. I had blown the assignment. I had proved Liv right about my timid nature, but I hadn’t proven her theory about autonomy. I had simply reinforced the cage door.

I immediately drove to Liv’s apartment, ignoring my father’s predictable evening check-in call (I would have to explain the delay later, fabricating a plausible excuse about a flat tire near campus). I couldn’t wait until the next day to report the failure; the crushing weight of disappointment demanded immediate confession and absolution, or perhaps, rejection.

Liv’s apartment was in a restored row-house district near the waterfront, far from the university’s sterile housing or the placidity of my parents’ suburban home. It was stylishly minimalist, emphasizing dark wood and high windows. She was sitting at her small kitchen table, a laptop open, but she was only reading a physical book, a spine-worn paperback. She wore an oversized, dark silk shirt and jeans. Everything about her posture suggested relaxed control.

“You’re early,” Liv stated, glancing at the wall clock without looking up at me. It was only 11:30 PM.

I dropped my backpack unceremoniously, the sound echoing in the quiet space.

“I failed,” I announced, the simple words carrying the entire weight of my mortification. I stood rigidly near the entrance, unable to approach the table.

Liv finally lifted her gaze, giving me a slow, assessing look that felt purely analytical, devoid of pity or empathy. It was like a lab technician observing a faulty specimen.

“Start from the moment you stood beside him, Emma,” she commanded. “Don’t use adjectives. Just the facts of the exchange. Use Marcus’s words exactly.”

I meticulously recounted the brief, painful interaction: the tentative tap, the violent removal of the headphones, his angry question, my immediate, automatic apology, and his sharp, condescending rebuke.

When I finished, I waited for the explosion, the sigh of disappointment, or the cold dismissal. I expected her to confirm my own assessment: that I lacked the raw materials for this kind of transformation.

Liv did none of those things.

Instead, she simply closed her book slowly, marking the page with a thin ribbon. She steepled her fingers, resting her chin on them, observing me with calm scientific detachment.

“The failure was predictable, actually,” Liv said, her voice even and low. “It’s why I chose a target we knew would respond with immediate social aggression. Marcus operates entirely on assumed authority. When you interrupted his ‘flow,’ you challenged the one thing he possesses: the illusion of control over his time.”

I felt a slight intellectual easing of the pressure. She wasn’t judging me; she was analyzing the social dynamics of the failure. Liv was placing the blame on the conditions, not my weakness.

“But the failure was mine,” I insisted, needing her to acknowledge the shame. “I apologized instantly. I couldn’t even ask for the favor. I didn’t push the issue.”

“Exactly. You reverted to your default, which is compliance and retreat. Your body seized with conditioned fear of authority and social rebuke,” Liv analyzed, nodding slightly. “When he reacted with aggression, your conscious mind went offline. The primal programming for appeasement took over. Your parents engineered that response into you over nineteen years, Emma. It doesn’t vanish because you drank one strong coffee.”

She stood up finally, walking over to the window that overlooked the quiet street. She faced the glass, offering only her back to me. The silk of her shirt shimmered slightly in the ambient light.

“The objective was not actually the favor,” Liv reminded me, turning the focus back to the core lesson of power dynamics. “The objective was the imposition of your will onto his timeline. You achieved the interruption, but you failed the Ask. You failed to escalate the inconvenience. You accepted his immediate denial of your presence, which reinforces his authority.”

The clinical analysis was fascinating, almost intoxicating, despite the context of my shame. Liv wasn’t interested in my feelings; she was interested in the mechanics of my failure. This level of focused, analytical attention felt infinitely more validating than the conventional pity I would have received from anyone else. Liv saw my failure not as doom, but as data.

“So, what’s the consequence?” I asked quietly, bracing myself for the curriculum to end entirely. I feared the loss of this connection, the threat of returning to the suffocating routines of my old life.

Liv faced me fully now, her eyes intensely focused.

“The consequence is repetition. You don’t get to quit after the first test simply because the result was poor,” she stated, her voice hardening slightly, injecting the first note of genuine demand into the conversation. “We haven’t even established the muscle memory for confrontation yet. We analyze the flaw, we correct the posture, and we try again.”

She walked toward me and placed a hand lightly on my shoulder, the contact strangely stabilizing.

“You are going to redo this assignment next week,” Liv said. “Same target, different approach. You have one entire week to rewrite the script, to rehearse the Ask until the words don’t feel like a confession, but an assertion. You must feel every molecule of your right to interrupt him, to force his action.”

She made the stakes explicit, tying the continuation of the curriculum entirely to my execution of this single, revised task.

“If you fail the Ask again, Emma, then there is no curriculum,” Liv warned. “You’ll be an observer forever. You will revert entirely to the cage you hate so much, because you will have proven that your need for compliance is stronger than your need for power.”

The prospect of returning, knowing I had given up autonomy out of fear, suddenly felt far worse than the immediate shame of Marcus Thorne’s dismissal. The idea of losing Liv’s unique validation and the intoxicating possibility of this new life was paralyzing. I could not go back; the walls of my previous life now felt too narrow. Liv had shown me the sky, and now she threatened to shut the door.

I nodded quickly, a desperate determination cementing in my core.

“I won’t fail again,” I promised her, the words ringing with an unexpected, fierce commitment. I knew exactly what was required now: not compliance, but the annihilation of the ingrained fear of rejection. I had to replace the wiring.

Liv smiled then, a small, approving upturn of her lips. It was the first sign of emotional validation I had received since arriving, and it immediately sparked a sense of intense, dizzying relief and gratitude. I craved her approval with a sudden, alarming intensity that felt far more meaningful than my parents' cautious, conditional love.

“Good,” Liv said, releasing my shoulder. She picked up the dark, leather notebook from the table and flipped it open to the next blank page. “Now, go write the analysis. Every detail. Every cringe. Every time you wanted to apologize more thoroughly. We use the shame to feed the fire. We use the failure to sharpen the Ask.”

She handed the notebook back to me. I took it, feeling the true weight of the assignment now. It wasn’t about Marcus Thorne or a trivial favor; it was about destroying the nineteen years of conditioning that had turned me into a supplicant, replacing it with the brutal, exhilarating realization of self-possession. The stakes had been raised: my identity was on the line, and Liv was the only judge.

I grabbed my bag, already planning my strategy for the next week, analyzing where the physical approach had betrayed the initial intent. I needed a better opening line. I needed to move with absolute certainty. The pressure was intense, but beneath the fear, I recognized a frightening, exhilarated resolve. I was already addicted to the education.