Infinite Rebate System: Beautiful Women And Endless Returns
Chapter 39: After The MasterclassSarah sent the first message on Monday evening.
Not about the masterclass directly. Just a voice note. Forty seconds. Xavier listened to it at his desk with his coffee.
She was talking fast. The particular energy of someone who had just experienced something that had rearranged something inside them and was still processing the rearrangement out loud. The vocal coach had broken down her entire technique in the first session. Not cruelly. Just completely. Identified three habits she’d built over years that were limiting her range without her knowing it.
She sounds different already, Xavier noted. Just from one session.
He didn’t respond immediately.
He waited until Tuesday morning.
Xavier: what did she change first.
@sarah.torres.official: breathing. Apparently I’ve been breathing wrong for three years.
Xavier: and...
@sarah.torres.official: and it’s embarrassing how much difference it made in two hours
Xavier: not embarrassing. Just accurate.
@sarah.torres.official: you sound like her.
Xavier: she sounds right then.
A pause.
@sarah.torres.official: Xavier
Xavier: Sarah.
@sarah.torres.official: thank you. For this. Again.
Xavier: stop thanking me and go to the second session.
@sarah.torres.official: yes sir 🙄
Xavier set the phone down.
Yes sir, he thought. Interesting choice of words.
He checked the gauge.
Sarah Torres — 63%
Still 63, he noted. Messages move nothing. I need to wait for her to come back from the full three days and see what it does to her.
Patience.
She came back from the masterclass on Wednesday evening.
Xavier knew because his Instagram showed her story. A simple photo of her own front door with the caption: back. different.
Two words. No explanation.
He looked at it for a moment.
Back. Different, he thought. That’s not performance. That’s someone who went somewhere and came back changed and is still sitting with what that means.
He didn’t react to the story.
Didn’t send a message.
He waited.
She called at 9PM.
"I need to tell you something," she said when he answered.
"Tell me," he said.
"The coach." A pause. "She asked us on the last day why we perform. Like what the actual reason is underneath the obvious answer." Her voice was quieter than usual. More internal. "And I’ve been asked that before. Interviewers, teachers, whatever. And I always have an answer ready. The craft. The connection. The storytelling."
"But," Xavier said.
"But she kept pushing past the ready answer," Sarah said. "Until I got to the one underneath it." A longer pause. "I perform because I need people to see me. Not the work. Me." She said it like it cost her something to say it out loud. "That’s the real one. And I’ve never said it to anyone."
Xavier was quiet for a moment.
She just told me something she’s never told anyone, he thought. Not her friends. Not her circle. Me. He looked at the ceiling. That’s not favorability mechanics. That’s something else.
"I know," he said.
"You know," she repeated slowly.
"I knew at the first concert," he said. "The way you scanned the crowd. You weren’t checking if they were enjoying it. You were checking if they were seeing you."
Silence.
"That’s..." she stopped. "That’s uncomfortably accurate."
"You asked why I’m different from everyone else," he said. "That’s part of it. I watch instead of performing back at you."
Another silence. Longer.
"Xavier," she said.
"Sarah."
"I don’t know what to do with you," she said. Honestly. No performance in it at all.
"You don’t have to do anything with me," he said. "Just keep performing. Keep getting better. The masterclass was three days. Apply it for three months and see what happens."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You paid $2,500 for me to have that conversation with myself," she said.
"I paid $2,500 for you to have better technique," he said. "The conversation was free."
She let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and something more complicated.
"Can I see you this week," she said.
Xavier looked at the question for a moment.
She asked directly, he thought. No performance. No angling. Just a direct ask.
"Thursday," he said.
"Thursday," she said. "Okay."
"Goodnight Sarah," he said.
"Goodnight Xavier," she said.
He checked the gauge after the call ended.
Sarah Torres — 63% → 74%
Eleven percent, he thought. From one phone call where she told me something she’s never told anyone.
He looked at the number.
74%.
Six points from binding threshold.
He set the phone down and looked at the ceiling.
Thursday, he thought.
Six points.
Close.
He spent Thursday morning cycling through his daily cap before the meeting.
Donations, campus transactions, the usual rhythm. The balance climbed steadily.
He checked it at noon.
$289,450.
Getting toward three hundred thousand, he noted. From $520 in under two months.
He thought about the sub mission requirements he’d been turning over for weeks. The system had hinted at them without fully revealing them. What he knew so far. Net worth milestone, multiple bound targets, something else he hadn’t uncovered yet.
Two bound targets, he thought. Amira at 96%. Sarah approaching 80%. He looked at the balance. And the balance climbing every day.
The pieces are there, he thought. Just need to assemble them correctly.
He got dressed and left for Thursday.
They met at Ardmore Street.
Same café. Same outside tables. The place that had become accidentally theirs without either of them deciding it.
Sarah was already there when he arrived. Not on her phone this time. Just sitting, looking at the street, in her own thoughts.
She looked up when he sat down.
Different from last time, he thought. The masterclass had done something to how she carried herself. Less performed even in stillness. More settled.
"You look different," he said.
"Back. Different," she said. Referencing the story caption without explaining it.
"Yes," he said.
They ordered. The conversation moved the way their conversations always did. Not small talk, not big declarations, just two people saying things that were actually true to each other.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter
