Mark Rogers
More actions
| Mark Rogers | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Mark Rogers |
| Affiliation | Eastern Tsuga College; Order of Kratos |
| Status | Active |
| Occupation | Student, ETC senior |
| First appearance | Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling |
| Canon status | Confirmed |
About
Mark Rogers is an ETC senior and member of the Order of Kratos. He has been carrying on a secret hookup arrangement with Kelly Spaihts since the summer before the events of Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling, conducting their encounters in bar bathrooms while publicly dating Stacy Cantrell, Kelly's Astraea Society sister. By the end of Kelly's arc, the arrangement is over, but how much Mark has pieced together about Kelly's semester with Professor William Taylor is one of the novel's unresolved threads.
Description
No physical description has been established in canon.
Background
Mark is a senior at Eastern Tsuga College and a member of the Order of Kratos. His pledge, or "little," is Mitchell Greene. He has been dating Stacy Cantrell, an Astraea Society member, while maintaining his secret arrangement with Kelly.
The origin of the arrangement with Kelly lies in prior history. Kelly had wanted to ask Mark out before Stacy did, and confided as much to Stacy. Stacy asked him out two weeks later, telling Kelly afterward: "I waited two weeks — you're all talk, you can't blame me." Kelly has never fully resolved how she feels about that.
Personality and traits
Mark is physically confident and socially comfortable in the Astraea and Kratos circles. He is perceptive enough to notice details — the butt plug, the "Yes, Professor" slip — and the question of how much he has assembled from those observations is deliberately left open.
Role in Kelly's Unveiling
Books One and Two
Mark and Kelly have been meeting in bar bathrooms since the previous summer, originally under a rule of oral sex only. By Book One, those rules have been eroding. They were banned from The Roosting Goshawk for their conduct there. Kelly's Astraea sisters do not know about the arrangement.
Book Two
Mark attends the Astraea Strip Relay party. He slaps Kelly's ass and tries to pull her toward the basement. Kelly refuses him. It is the first time across both books that she genuinely does not feel the magnetic pull that has characterized every prior encounter. Whether this represents a permanent shift or a consequence of her full emotional investment in the Taylor arrangement is left open.
Book Three
Kelly has sex with Mark on the stone altar in the Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove, crawling through ash, paddled with a pine branch switch. She ends the arrangement with him per her agreement with Taylor by the close of the semester. During their last encounter, Mark noticed the butt plug and a "Yes, Professor" slip. Cassandra Blake confronts Kelly about Mark separately, pushing Kelly to the brink of revealing Taylor.
Key relationships
Kelly Spaihts
Mark and Kelly Spaihts have a long-running secret arrangement built on mutual attraction and mutual bad faith. Kelly wants something from Mark that she cannot name and will not pursue properly. Mark is with Stacy and is not leaving her. The arrangement ends at Taylor's instruction, but not before accumulating details that Mark has not yet acted on.
Stacy Cantrell
Mark is publicly dating Stacy Cantrell, Kelly's Astraea sister, throughout the novel. Stacy is studying abroad during Book One and is largely absent. She is unaware of the arrangement with Kelly.
Affiliations
Canon notes
- How much Mark has pieced together from the butt plug and "Yes, Professor" slip has not been established
- Whether Mark appears in subsequent books has not been confirmed
- His background before ETC has not been established