Page 3 of Mister St. James

If she knows about the club, then she knows about me. At least, she knows about the other me, the one who trades suits for silence and compels strangers to come for him, even if only for a night. At the Velvet Stag Lounge, there are no names, no faces, just flesh and risk and the sweet geometry of trust. I am not supposed to think about it at work. I am not supposed to think about it at all.

I fail on both counts.

I click over to my inbox, try to triage the flood of email. After the fifth typo in a single reply, I close the window and stare at the reflection in my monitor. The glasses, the suit, the expression of calculated disinterest, if I didn’t know better, I’d think I looked normal. But I know the truth. My pulse hasn’t slowed since the conference room.

I go back to the contract, try to focus. The words refuse to cooperate, each clause and subclause now a window into the infinite branching paths of what might be true. If she is who I think she is, if I am not alone in my perversion, then every interaction up to this point is retroactively charged, dangerous.

For the rest of the day, I watch for signs. A sideways glance, a slip of the tongue, a reference to something no assistant should know. None come. But the tension remains, coiling tighter and tighter as the hours drain away.

When Cat finally packs up her things and leaves for the night, I exhale for the first time in hours and my hands are shaking, just slightly.

I am not wrong about the token. I am not wrong about her.

I remain at my desk, staring at the perfect ring of cracked plastic around my pen from the meeting earlier, trying to decide if I’m angry or relieved. Maybe both. I have never believed in fate. But tonight, when I close my eyes, I know exactly what will haunt me.

Not numbers, not the future of my company.

Just the image of a black coin, and the impossible implication that somewhere beneath the skin of my world, Cat is a deviant, too.

My condo is a study in self-erasure. Everything neutral. Chrome, glass, engineered hardwood, the faintest trace of lemon oil on the surfaces. Not a stray book out of place, not a single knick-knack to mark the passage of time. If I vanished tonight, the only evidence of my life would be a stack of quarterly reports and the impression on the leather couch where I sit now, drink sweating in my hand, city lights flickering beyond the twenty-third-floor window.

I let the silence hold me. Usually, I can use it to scrub out the static of the day, unspool the endless threads of negotiation and expectation and just...be. Tonight, the silence is not enough. It clings to the inside of my skull, amplifies every pulse, every stray image, every replay of Cat’s voice and the flick of her eyes at mine.

I sip whiskey. The burn is nothing, but the ritual is necessary. I recite my private litany: I am her boss. I am her boss. I am her boss. Each repetition is supposed to sand the edge off the thought before it goes sharp and draws blood. Instead, every cycle makes it worse. The phrase degrades; becomes the very thing I am not.

I think of Cat leaning in during meetings, her elbows bracketed on the table, lips pressed together as she weighs whether to speak. I think of the smell that follows her, orange blossom and burnt sugar, and the way her laugh, when she’s off the clock, sounds like it belongs to someone else entirely. The memory is too vivid. It’s a problem, and I am nothing if not a man who solves problems.

I am her boss.

My eyes land on the coffee table, where a glossy booklet sits, half-hidden under a legal pad. It’s the latest catalog from an artisan rope-maker in Berlin, a limited run, the kind that usually sells out before the ink dries. I pick it up, thumb through the pages. Every photograph is an exercise in deliberate restraint: lines of twisted jute crossing bare skin, the geometry of knots transforming models into works of negative space. I can’t not see her. In every one of them, I see Cat.

I close my eyes, picture the lines wrapping her wrists, her thighs, her chest. I wonder if she’d laugh in that moment, or if she’d go silent, letting herself be held by something other than her own willpower. My breathing picks up. I loosen my tie, then, without thinking, unbutton the top of my shirt. Even that feels like a confession.

I am her boss.

I set the glass down and lean forward, elbows on knees, face in my hands. I press my fingertips to my eyelids until I see colors. I tell myself: she is a direct report. I tell myself: I am responsible for her career, her reputation, her wellbeing. I tell myself: I have no right.

But the rules were never written for people like us.

I run my hand through my hair, not caring if I ruin the part. I let it flop into my eyes, heavy and unkempt. For a second, I look nothing like the man on the company’s web page. The thought is both unfamiliar and, there’s no other word, liberating.

Picking up my glass, I flip through the catalog again, slower this time. I picture Cat not as my assistant but as an adversary, a partner, a reflection. The thought is almost too much.

The last sip of whiskey burns down my throat like a fucking promise, leaving behind a heat that settles low in my belly. I leave the glass on the table, the clink of it barely registering as I let my head fall back against the couch. The leather squeaks against my shirt, but I don’t give a damn. My cock is already hard, straining against the zipper of my pants like it’s got a fucking mind of its own. I close my eyes, and there she is, her handwriting, quick and looping, scribbled in the margins of some briefing packet. Those fucking loops, like they’re mocking me, teasing me. I picture her lips, slick with that dark red lipstick she always wears, wrapping around a straw, around my cock. That faint outline it would leave behind, fuck, it’s enough to make me throb. I imagine her tongue darting out, catching the last drop of me, and I groan, my hand already sliding down my abs to cup myself through my pants.

I open my eyes, and the city’s still burning outside, but right now, I’m the one on fire. I stare at the ceiling, at those fucking recessed lights, and imagine her looking up at me over the edge of her monitor. That fucking glare, like she’s daring me to blink first. I never do. Not in the office, not anywhere. But my jaw’s clenched so tight it fucking aches, and my cock’s throbbing like it’s got a heartbeat of its own. It’s not just the possibility of roped up debauchery, it’s just her. It’s always just her.

The phone’s still in my hand, and her name’s at the top of the screen. A meeting reminder. I tap it, open a blank message, and watch my thumb hover over the keyboard. For a full minute, I don’t type anything. But my other hand? Fuck, it’s busy. I’m undoing my belt, yanking my zipper down, and pulling my cock out before I can even think about stopping myself. It’s flushed and fucking angry, precum already beading at the tip. I wrap my hand around it, hiss at the contact, and start stroking slow, just to tease myself.

I stare at the screen, her name taunting me, and I can’t fucking help it. I add another meeting to the calendar. Topic: “Q4 Planning.” Duration: one hour. Attendees: just us. My thumb hovers over “send,” but I don’t press it. Not yet. Instead, I tighten my grip on my cock, stroke faster, and imagine her in my office, biting each button off that red fucking blouse with my teeth, that fucking tight fucking skirt she always wears riding up her thighs as she crosses her legs. I’d make her beg for it, make her fucking plead until she’s dripping, until she’s so fucking wet I can smell her from across the desk.

I think about what it’d be like to untie her, slowly, in the dark. My thumb brushes over the tip of my cock, spreading the precum down the shaft, and I groan again, louder this time. I’m stroking hard now, my hips jerking up into my fist, and I’m picturing her tied up, spread fucking wide on top of my desk, her pussy glistening and begging for me. I’d make her scream, make her come so hard she forgets her own fucking name.

Tomorrow, I tell myself, will be different. But I already know I’m lying. My balls are tightening, my cock pulsing in my hand, and I’m so fucking close I can taste it. I lean back, panting, and let myself go, fucking coming so hard it splatters across my abs, hot and sticky and fucking perfect. I stare at the ceiling, my chest heaving, and I know damn well I’m not done. Not yet.

I click the button on my phone that launches my secure calendar and create a new entry: Friday, 10:00 PM, “Downtime.” The address is implied. The club never needed to be named.

I sit there for a while, watching the lights move across the skyline, the city alive and spinning, indifferent to the rules I have built for myself. When I move to get myself cleaned up I catch my own reflection in the glass window, hair askew, shirt open, collarbone flushed, and I barely recognize the man staring back.