Page 32 of The Associate
Samuel’s eyes flicked to the image against his will. A young woman with soft-looking brown hair and a gentle, closed-mouth smile, standing before a rose trellis. She looked kind. She looked like everything he was supposed to want.
A fresh wave of nausea rolled through him, sour and insistent.
“Linda says Penny has been asking about you,” his mother pressed, her voice syrupy with implication. “Now that you’re established at such a fine firm… it’s the perfect time. She’s not like those other girls, you know. She has values. She understands commitment.”
Every word was a brick in a wall meant to entomb him. Samuel’s throat clenched. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears, a frantic drumbeat ofno, no, no. The thought of sitting across from Penny, making polite conversation, pretending a flicker of interest, it wasn’t just a lie; it was a sacrilege. It would be using her, this devout, kind stranger, as a shield for his own condemned nature. The sheer dishonesty of it choked him.
“Mom, I…” he started, the words a dry scrape. “The merger review… it’s all-consuming. Mr. Wise has deadlines that…” He grasped for the professional excuse, the one thing that had ever commanded his father’s respect.
“Nonsense,” his mother cut in, her smile unwavering but her eyes hardening. “Every young man needs balance. You can’t live at the office. A nice girl like Penny would be good for you. She’d… ground you.” The pause before‘ground you’was microscopic, but Samuel heard the unspoken word clearly:fix you.
His father finally spoke, his tone dry as dust. “Your mother is right. A serious young professional should be considering a serious future. This is how it begins. You’re not getting any younger, Samuel.”
The trap was fully sprung, its jaws polished by feigned concern. To refuse now would not be seen as a simple lack of interest. It would be a rejection of their values, of the future they had ordained, of the very “grounding” he was presumed to need. It would drag the terrifying, unspoken question aboutwhyinto the harsh light of the dining room.
Panic, cold and slick, tightened its grip around his lungs. He saw the crossroads again: the path of the lie, paved with forced smiles and silent self-betrayal, or the path of truth, which led to a cliff’s edge he had been thrown from once before.
He remembered the sound of the van door closing at Restoration Hills. He felt the phantom ache in his knees from the shame chair.
His mother leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that was somehow worse. “Just call her.Take her for coffee. What’s the harm in a single coffee, Samuel? It would mean so much to me. To Linda.”
What’s the harm?
The harm was in the first step onto a path that demanded he annihilate himself. The harm was in the look in Penny’s kind eyes when she inevitably realized the man across from her was an empty, fraudulent shell. The harm was in agreeing, yet again, that who he was must be hidden, poisoned, and denied.
But the fear was older and louder than his shame. It was a primal terror that whispered of expulsion, of his father’s final, icy dismissal, of being utterly alone.
He saw the expectant glimmer in his mother’s eyes, the impatient set of his father’s jaw. The silence stretched, thin and lethal.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. When he opened them, the last spark of resistance had guttered out. His voice, when it finally came, was flat and dead. “Of course. You’re right. She seems… lovely. You can give her my number.”
The words were ashes in his mouth.
His mother’s face lit up with triumphant relief. “Oh, wonderful! I knew you’d see reason.” She reached over and patted his hand, her touch making his skin crawl. “I’ll call Linda tonight. She’ll be thrilled!”
His father gave a short, approving nod and returned to his meal, the matter settled to his satisfaction.
Sam looked down at his plate. The roast was dry, the air was still, and every word that followed passed in the numb, ringing silence of the conquered. Inside, a wall of shame, higher and more insurmountable than ever before, sealed him in.
∞∞∞
Gael
The air in Private Room 3 was cool and silent save for the low, resonant hum of the building’s climate control. It smelled of clean leather, antiseptic wipes, and the faint, coppery anticipation of sweat.
Gael stood at the steel utility table, his back to the center of the room, methodically laying out his tools.
A bundle of unbleached hemp rope, already broken in and soft.
A selection of floggers; deerskin, elk, a narrower one with falls of braided suede.
A bottle of lubricant and a box of condoms.
A single, rolled silk blindfold.
Behind him, standing perfectly still in the prescribed spot on the parquet floor, was Leo. He was everything Gael typically preferred in a casual play partner: slight of build, fine-boned with dark, silky hair that fell over his forehead, eyes the color of dark roast coffee, wide and eager. He had a dancer’s grace and a bottom’s desperate, grateful heart. He was beautiful, pliant, and understood the rules.
“Position,” Gael said, his voice flat, not turning.
