I am breathing hard. Gasping for air. Dragging deep lungfuls of oxygen, swelling my chest within my dress, and you notice. Your hips grind. Something in me sparks, flashes. Heats. The strange mix of your softness and hardness is alluring and disorienting. Your hip bones are hard against mine, yet there is softness, too, and when you grind again, I feel the spark once more, when your front rubs against mine.

I am still, tensed, rigid. Frozen. I do not know what to do. What is happening? What am I feeling? What are you doing?

What am I doing, letting this happen?

I shove away, stumble backward. “This . . . that isn’t appropriate, George—Georgia.”

You smirk. Swagger as you follow my retreat. “Ain’t so absurdly simplistic anymore, is it, X?”

“You signed a contract, Georgia.” I am reminding both of us, and you somehow know it.

“Ain’t none of us that simple, babe. You felt it. You felt me.”

“The contract, Georgia.”

You sneer. “Fuck the contract, X. You and your haughty pussy want me, X. You smell me, and you don’t like it. I complicate shit for you, don’t I?” You stand chest to chest with me again. My nipples betray me, go hard. I know you feel it. “You wet, X? All slippery for me? You know how good a dyke can make you feel? I know what you like, ’cause I like it, too. Just the same way. No guy can ever lick your pussy as good as I can. I know just how to make you squirm, make you want it and want it and want it, and not give it to you till it’s too fuckin’ much to take. I know, X. I know. You want a taste? Get a little dirty? Be a little bad?”

How did this happen? Where did this come from? One moment we were discussing you, your appearance, everything was proper and in control and at least somewhat familiar. And then, suddenly, apropos of nothing, this. You, in my space, in my head, under my skin.

There is a gleam in your eye. Something . . . clever, and malicious. You know exactly what you are doing.

You’re fucking with me.

And I do not like it. Not one bit.

“Enough.” I stand my ground, steel my spine, razors in my gaze. “Our hour is done.”

You smile, a slow, knowing curve of your lips. “All right, then. If you say so.”

I have no idea how much time has passed. I do not care. You disrupt my worldview, George. You make it seem narrow, somehow.

My worldview is narrow. My worldview is made up of 3,565 square feet. Three bedrooms, one bathroom, and an expansive open-plan kitchen and living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the heart of Manhattan. That’s my worldview.

That’s my whole world.

And you in it, this sudden seduction . . . it disrupts everything I know.

I, fighting for equilibrium and composure and breath, push past you. Wrench the door open with far too much force. Wait, eyes staring at you but not seeing you.

You swagger to the doorway, boot heels clicking, and stop face-to-face with me yet again. Too close, yet again. “Confident enough for you now, X?”

You’ve taken control of this, somehow, stolen my grip on what I do and who I am and what I want. I look at you, feigning calm. You smirk, knowing the lie. You push closer, until our bodies are flush, lean in, in, and I think you’re going to kiss me. Instead, you lick the tip of my nose. My upper lip. Smirk.

“See ya next week, X. Think about what I said. What I offered. I wasn’t kidding, you know. I’ll get you out of here, show you a good time you won’t ever forget, I can guaran-damn-tee you that, sweetheart.”

“Good-bye, Georgia.”

“Call me George. We ain’t in the boardroom, are we? We’re past formalities, I’d say. I’ve felt your nips get hard, smelled your pussy get wet. Makes us friends, I’d say.”

I step back, shaking, and close the door in your face.

FIVE

Evening. Clients are done for the day. It took every ounce of my abilities to compose myself enough that I could deal with the rest of the day’s clients. Yet after they are all gone and I am alone, I am still shaken by what happened. No one gets in my space. No one affects me. No one touches me.

No one but—

Ding.

“X. Where are you?” Voice a low, angry rumble.

“I’m in here,” I say. “In my library.”

I call it a library. Really, it’s just a bedroom lined floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with stuffed bookshelves. One corner is left open, a Louis XIV armchair, a lamp, and a little table clustered in the triangle of open space. In the center of the room is a glass case with my prized books, signed copies and first editions of books by Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, and Woolf, a copy of A Streetcar Named Desire signed by Tennessee Williams, and even a fourth-century illuminated translation of The Odyssey.

Prized possessions; gifts.

Reminders.

The doorway to my library is filled, darkened. Dark eyes so filled with fury as to be feral. Hands clenching into fists and releasing in a heartbeat rhythm. I set Smilla’s Sense of Snow facedown on my thigh. Pretend to a calm I do not feel; such anger is unusual and dangerous. I do not know what to expect.

Five long steps, powerful legs eating the space in a predatory prowl, a quick hand snatches my book and tosses it across the room, spine cracking loudly against a shelf, pages fluttering, a gentle thump as it hits the carpet. I have no time to react, no time to even breathe. A brutally powerful hand seizes my wrist and jerks me upright. Seizes my throat. Fingers at my windpipe, gentle as a lover’s kiss, yet shaking with restrained fury.

Breath on my lips and nose, clean of alcoholic taint. Sobriety makes this fury all the more terrifying.

“Georgia Tompkins has been recalled to Texas. You will not be seeing her again.”

“All right.” It comes out of me as a whisper, penitent. Careful.

Lips move against mine, voice buzzing in a rumble like an earthquake felt from a hundred miles away. “What the fuck was that, X?”

I swallow hard. “I don’t know.”

“Answer me, goddammit.” Fingers squeeze in warning.

“I did. I don’t know what happened, Caleb. It took me by surprise. I—I didn’t know how to react.”

“It was unacceptable. I had to force Michael Tompkins and his queer slut of a daughter to sign further nondisclosure agreements, so your impropriety won’t be leaked to the rest of my clientele.” I flinch at your cruel and vulgar insult, so casually hurled. I feel offended for Georgia, somehow, though I shouldn’t, and do not dare to let it show. “You work for me, X. Remember that. These are my clients. My business associates. You represent me. And when you act that way, when you allow yourself to be touched . . . it reflects on me.”

“I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“You’re sorry? You let a lesbian touch you? Almost kiss you? You let her speak to you that way? And you”—a tremble in that avalanche-rumble voice—“you looked like—like it affected you. As if you liked it.”

“No, Caleb. I was just—”

“Did you, X? Did you like the way she touched you? Did you like the way she felt? Is it better than the way I feel? The way I touch you?” Hands on my waist, where hers were. Lips, brushing mine. A tongue, touching nose, upper lip. Mirroring. Mocking.

“No . . .”

“No, what?”

“No, Caleb.” This is the correct, expected response. I know this. But I am afraid, and shaken, and unable to breathe, so I forgot.

“No. She doesn’t feel better than me, does she?”

“No, Caleb.”

I am turned, given a violent shove. I stumble and catch up against the glass of the display case. A foot smacks against the inside of my ankle, tapping my feet apart. Another, to the other side. Now my feet are more than shoulder width apart. Hips against my backside. Reflection in the glass: my face, dark skin flushed, frightened, yet my mouth is opened in a moue, eyes heavy-lidded, lips moist, nostrils flaring, and behind my face a larger one, pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Chiseled, sculpted features so beautiful it hurts.