Page 69 of The Associate
“How are you feeling?”
Gael’s voice came without preamble, without turning.
Samuel startled, a full-body flinch he couldn’t suppress. The words seemed to hang in the air between them.
“Okay,” he managed, his own voice thin. “I… I am fine.”
Gael turned. His eyes found Samuel. Then they began to move. They traveled down, a slow, meticulous inventory.
They lingered on the space over Samuel’s ribs, where the bruise had been, as if seeing through the layers of cotton and wool to the fading stain beneath. They noted the set of his shoulders, the line of his arms held stiffly at his sides, the slight tremor in his fingers.
It was a clinical assessment, utterly devoid of warmth, and it made Samuel feel flayed open, every vulnerability catalogued. He hated it. It made his skin crawl. And beneath the revulsion, atreacherous, shameful part of him craved that focused attention, yearned to be seen so completely.
A hot, prickling blush ignited at his collar and climbed, scalding, up his neck and into his cheeks. He couldn’t bear it. He looked away, his gaze fixing on the edge of the massive desk, on a paperweight of smoky glass. He struggled to find air, to find a thought.
“Is there something you need, Mr. Wise?”
Silence met his question.
It was heavier than before, a physical weight pressing down on his shoulders. His body, ever the traitor, began its familiar, humiliating tremor. A fine, uncontrollable shaking started in his hands and vibrated up through his arms. He stared at the floor, at the precise point where the dark wood met the richer tone of the Persian rug.
He heard footsteps. They came closer, stopping just at the periphery of his vision.
A pair of shoes entered his sight. Italian leather, polished to a deep, liquid black. They were positioned squarely on the rug.
A dizzying sense of Déjà vu washed over him. A different floor, a different rug, a different context, but the same essential geography. The urge that rose in him was a physical compulsion, a deep, gravitational pull in the marrow of his bones, in the hinges of his knees.
Drop. Now.
It would be so easy. It would be peace.
He fought it. He squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body tensing into a knot of resistance.
Then,touch.
Fingers, cool and dry, slid beneath his chin. His eyes flew open.
Gael was close. So close Samuel could see the faint, darker striations in his irises, the precise cut of each lash. His expression was calm, almost placid. But his eyes… his eyes were dark, bottomless pools, intense with a depth that held Samuel utterly immobile.
He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t move. His lips parted on a shaky exhale.
Gael’s thumb brushed the crest of his cheekbone, a stroke so light it was almost not there.
His voice, when it came, was a low murmur, a secret for the scant inches between them. “Tonight. My apartment. 8 PM.”
Samuel’s mind went white. Static. A complete, blank nullity. There was no thought, no deliberation, no fear or hope.
His body acted on its own, a separate, obedient entity. He felt his head move. A slow, single, downward tilt. A nod.
The ghost of a smile touched the corner of Gael’s mouth. It was there for less than a second, a faint, fleeting curl that softened the severe line before it was gone, sealed away. The sight of it, that tiny, hard-won acknowledgment, sent a bolt of pure, warm pleasure straight through Samuel’s core, melting the knot of tension in his stomach.
He did good.
“Don’t be late.”
Another caress, this time the pad of Gael’s thumb grazing the very corner of Samuel’s upper lip. It was a tiny, electric shock, aspark that seemed to travel directly to the base of his spine. His toes curled involuntarily inside his shoes.
Then, the touch was gone. The proximity vanished. Gael turned away, as if dismissing a thought, and walked back to his desk. He sat, picked up a document, and began to read. He did not look up again.
