堕落 (Daraku) - The Fall

Seven pounds.

Who knew twelve years in a company only weighs seven pounds in a box filled with memories of getting spitroasted day and night by CFOs when they are the ones who fucked up.

“It was a pleasure working with you Hinode-san. This is what’s best for everyone. You know that, right?”

That’s what Yamamoto-san said this morning. All you can do is nod. He shook your hand. Couldn’t even meet your eyes. Asshole. 

HR slid the NDA across the table. Fourteen pages of legal garbage establishing that you had nothing to do with any of this which really makes you wonder why you’re the one carrying the box. You signed it. Of course you did. What else can you do? 

It was going well. Corner office. On track for partner. Six months from the vote.

Now you’re carrying a box past security. “Tanaka-san.”

You’ve known him for nine years. He’s giving you nothing. Not even a glance.

“See you around, yeah?”

Nine Christmases of bringing him coffee because he pulled holiday shifts so the younger guys could stay home. You know his daughter’s birthday (never missed giving her a gift.) You know his wife cooks the best okonomiyaki in Chiyoda (god you’re going to miss the bentos she prepares for everyone every summer). Tanaka-san is a good man.

But now? He’s staring blankly into his desk like it holds the secrets to the universe. Sigh.

You don’t blame him. You wouldn’t look at you either.

The revolving door spits you out into Tokyo’s buzzing October air. Risk of rain and umbrellas and exhaust and the distinct smell of a man who used to fucking matter.

Your car is three blocks away. You start walking.

Phone buzzes, you ignore it. It’s been buzzing all day actually. Past clients, colleagues, and the occasional journalist fishing for a comment on the “developing situation at Ishikawa & Partners.” Noted. Fuck that specifically. No comment. 

Here’s what’s funny. In all of this fuckery happening within the company, becoming this week’s hot topic on social media, and the ongoing federal interrogation. All that and news flash: you were not even remotely close to being involved.

You didn’t know the partners were signing off on fraudulent audits. The machinery of corruption humming along beneath your feet: shell companies, kickbacks, under-the-table transactions that got approved for the better part of a decade. 

The worst part of all of this is you just worked there. You worked your fucking ass off every single day. You were great at your job; and now you’re walking through downtown with a box containing an Ikea desk lamp, three framed certifications, and a coffee mug your sister gave you that says “World’s Most Meh Brother.”

She thought she was being funny. Right now why the hell does it feel like she knew this was gonna happen.

Your footsteps echo as you walk through the cold parking lot. The Lexus sits where you left it this morning, back when you were still a senior manager at a prestigious firm and not whatever you are now.

Unemployable. 

(Kinda being too dramatic, no? Are you being dramatic? Name one firm that will touch you now.)

…

Yeah. It’s over. Might as well pivot to becoming a geologist since you’ve hit rock bottom.

You were not fired, technically (thank god for technicalities). You resigned, which is its own kind of joke if you think about it. You resigned because the alternative was getting laid the fuck off in the first wave of “restructuring,” and at least this way you can pretend you had some say in your own downward spiral.

Everyone knows. Everyone. Fucking. Knows.

The financial world is small, news travels fast, and by tomorrow your name will be permanently welded to the biggest accounting scandal since Polaris (and that company’s done fucked up stuff: military corruption, ties to the yakuza, basically all the red flags you can think of.) Not because you did anything wrong; because you were there. 

You put the box in the trunk. Close it. Stand there with your hand on the cold metal. Let out a deep sigh.

Phone buzzes again.

This time you look. Mom.

How did it go today Aki?

We’re praying for you.

Hope you’re doing fine.

Have you eaten yet?

Four messages in the span of thirty seconds. She must be worried, classic mom. You should call her. You should explain what happened. You should…

Phone screen darkens. 

You’ll call her tomorrow; explain that the severance is generous, that you have savings, that everything will be fine.

But not tonight. Not when the wounds are fresh.

Tonight you’re going to find a bar and drink until the numbers stop adding up in your head.

✦⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡

You found a newly opened hotel in Shinjuku. The hotel bar is the kind of place that caters to shady accounts and dark secrets, you fit right in. Dark mahogany wood, warm ambient lighting, and thankfully a bartender who understands that sometimes a man needs to be served and just left alone with his bourbon.

It’s the third glass when she sits down. You feel the air thin out; must be the bourbon.

Weird.

You didn’t see anyone approaching. Didn’t hear the stool move. She’s just there, like she’s been waiting for you to notice.

Except you don’t notice her at first. 

You’re too busy staring at amber liquid, running calculations that don’t matter anymore: How much runway? Severance lasts eight months if you’re careful. Savings? Maybe another year. Parents? They definitely need the monthly support; that’s non-negotiable. Your sister’s final year of graduate school? You promised you’d cover it, and you don’t break promises.

The numbers work; barely. As long as you find something to do in six months.

But who the fuck is going to hire you?

“You look like a man who’s doing math he doesn’t want to do.” Soft voice, slightly amused.

You look up.

She’s watching you with her dark eyes that catch the bar’s low light wrong. Pretty isn’t the word, neither is beautiful. There’s something more specific than that. Features that shouldn’t work together but create a face you can’t stop looking at. For now you settle with otherworldly.

Full lips, the kind that suggests smiles she hasn’t given you permission to receive yet. Hair dark enough to disappear into the shadows behind her. A simple black dress that definitely cost more than this month’s rent.

“Just… Running some projections,” you say. Your voice is rough, haven’t talked to a soul in hours.

“Mhmm.” She signals the bartender without looking at him. “Projections for what?”

“How long until I’m sleeping under a bridge, roughly.” (You wish you were joking.)

She laughs. Small, controlled, her face changes for a second; something flickers behind her eyes. Interest, maybe. 

“You don’t look like the bridge-sleeping type.”

“I didn’t think I was the unemployed type either, but here we are.”

The bartender sets down red wine. She picks it up, swirls it, and doesn’t drink. Pretty sure he didn’t ask what she wanted. Just set it down like he already knew.

Weird.

You’re three bourbons deep, maybe you just missed her order. Maybe she’s a regular. Maybe… 

“Ishikawa & Partners,” she says confidently. Your body tenses. “It’s on your face,” she shifts on her seat inching towards you. “That’s the kind of devastation that comes from watching something you built get burned down by people who never appreciated it. Never appreciated you.”

You take a drink, the bourbon doesn’t burn anymore. Fuck, probably a bad sign. You should probably stop drinking.

“I didn’t build anything. I just worked there.”

“For twelve years. You don’t stay somewhere for twelve years unless you’re building something.”

You didn’t tell her anything about the twelve years. You’re sure you didn’t; but the bourbon is thick in your head and she’s already moving on, and maybe you did mention it. Maybe.

She tilts her head. “What were you?”

“Senior manager, on track to become a partner.” The words taste like ash. “Six months from the vote. Then… Well, then this morning happened.”

“Ah.” She finally sips her wine. “So you didn’t just lose a job, you lost a future.”

Something in your chest tightens. First time anyone worded it correctly.

“Yeah,” you say. “Something like that.”

She’s quiet. The bar continues to hum around you. Low conversations, clinking glasses, someone’s muted laughter from a booth in the corner. Sounds from a world that kept moving while yours stopped.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Akihiro. Hinode.”

“Akihiro.” She rolls it around her mouth like she’s tasting it. “I’m Tsuki.”

“Just Tsuki?”

“For now.” That almost-smile again. “Are you always this suspicious of women who talk to you in bars, Akihiro?”

“I’m not usually the type women talk to in bars.”

“No,” She looks at you; eyes you up and down. Past the rumpled suit and the stubble that’s been growing and the distinct slump of a man who’s visually given up. “I don’t suppose you are. But tonight’s not usual, is it?”

It isn’t. Nothing about tonight is usual. Nothing about this woman is usual.

She shifts on her stool and you notice things. The way her dress catches the light (it doesn’t.) The curve of her neck where it meets her shoulder. Her lips… Which you keep looking at like a goddamn teenager who’s never seen a woman before.

Get it together Akihiro. You’re a grown man, you’ve flirted before. You know how this works, right? (It’s futile, you’re still looking at her lips.)

“You should eat something,” she says.

“Not hungry.”

“You’re also not sober. Eat something anyway.”

There’s no reason to listen to her. She’s a stranger; an otherworldly stranger who appeared out of nowhere to comment on your tragedy, which is either a fantasy or a warning sign, and you’re too drunk to tell which.

You signal the bartender and order some fries anyway.

Tsuki lets out a genuine smile that contrasts the calculated smiles she’s been giving you all night. It changes her whole face. Makes her look younger and more dangerous at the same time.

“Good,” she says. “I like a man who can take directions.”

“I don’t usually… I usually…”

“I know.”

Something in her voice makes you pause. I know. As if she actually is certain. As if she’s been watching you longer than the ten minutes since she appeared.

The fries arrive. You eat them without tasting much, but she’s right. The food helps, you’re famished. The room steadies. Your thoughts start to sharpen from blur to something approaching clarity.

“So what happens now?” Tsuki asks. “The projections. The math that’s happening in your head. What’s your plan?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a plan Akihiro. Even if it’s just ‘survive until tomorrow.’”

You consider this. The alcohol wants you to lie and to perform competence; to pretend you’ve got this handled. But something about her makes lying feel pointless, like she’d see through it anyway.

“I’ll call in favors,” you say. “I have contacts. People who know what I’m capable of, separate from—” you gesture vaguely, trying to encompass the scandal, the firm, and the entire smoking crater of your career “—all that. I’ll reach out to all of them. See who’s still willing to give me a chance.”

“And if no one answers?”

“Then I figure something else out. I always do.”

She nods slowly, swirling her wine. Her lips still haven’t touched her glass.

“The people who did this to you Akihiro,” she says. “The partners, the ones who were actually behind all of this. Where are they tonight? What are they doing?”

The question catches you off guard; you hadn’t thought about it. You’re too busy counting your own losses.

“I don’t know. Home… Probably. Consulting with their own set of lawyers, planning their defense.”

“So they’re comfortable, then.”

“I guess.”

“Sneaking out with their mistresses. Eating dinner with their families. Sleeping in their own comfy bed. Not sitting in a hotel bar at…” she glances at her watch “...eleven-thirty on a Tuesday, doing math about potential airbnb bridges.”

You don’t say anything. You can’t. But the bourbon is wearing off and the emotion replacing it is uglier.

She then considers her glass. Looks at it for a beat, then back at you.

“Does that bother you?” she asks. “That they are comfortable and you’re here?”

“I don’t…” You stop. Start again. “What they did wasn’t personal. They didn’t do this to me. They just did it, and I unfortunately got caught in the blast radius.” 

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Her eyes are fixed on yours. Dark, direct, steady, and somehow warmer than they should be; given what she’s asking.

“Yes,” you say finally. “It bothers me.”

“Good.” She finishes her wine in one swallow then sets the glass down. “It should.”

She stands, and you realize she’s leaving. The panic that shoots through you is irrational. She’s a stranger, you just met her. What the fuck is wrong with you?

“Wait,” you say. “Where are you…”

“I have a room upstairs.” She says it casually. “I was going to invite you, but you seem like the type who needs to be asked directly. So I’m asking.”

The words hang there. Huh? What is even happening right now? Your brain, which has spent twelve years analyzing risk and calculating probability, offers no useful input whatsoever.

“I’m not…” you start, but you don’t know how to finish. The kind of man who goes to hotel rooms with pretty strangers. You can’t make small talk right now. You’re not even sure what’s left in you to feel except this gray void that’s been eating you all day.

“You’re not what?” Tsuki asks patiently. Clearly amused at the broken man in front of her.

“I’m just a mess right now.”

“I noticed.” She holds out her hand. Slender fingers, nails painted red so dark it’s almost black. “Come anyway.”

You look at her hand. At her face. At her lips, curved into a shape that should look like a smile but isn’t quite there yet.

Every logical part of you is screaming that this is a bad idea. You are drunk, you are vulnerable, you don’t know this woman, and the last thing you need is to add “poor decisions with pretty strangers” to your ever growing list of recent failures.

Then you think: The logical parts of your brain are the parts that got you here. Twelve years of doing everything by the book; look where it landed you. Fuck it.

You take her hand.

✦⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡

The elevator ride is silent. 

Her hand stays in yours. Small, warm, surprisingly smooth all throughout. You notice her features in the harsh overhead light that you missed in the bar’s dimness: The exact shape of her collarbones beneath the thin silky fabric of her dress. Her breathing pattern, slow, even, and completely controlled.

Actually, it’s almost too controlled. Her pulse should be racing; heck, yours is. When your thumb brushes her wrist, there’s nothing. It beats steady and slow. Not one bit nervous.

Then you go back to her lips. You can’t stop looking at her lips. Some shade between rose and wine that you couldn’t name but won’t forget. You’re wondering if you’re ever going to get a taste of—

“You’re staring,” she says.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The elevator dings. Doors open. “Just know that I see you doing it.”

The hallway is long, ominous, and quiet. Thick carpet swallows your footsteps. You pass a decorative alcove, traditional masks mounted on the wall. One catches your eye: a woman’s face, features twisted between anguish and rage, small horns emerging from the forehead. Beautiful and terrible.

Tsuki ignores it, doesn’t even react. But her hand tightens in yours, just slightly, as you pass.

She produces a keycard from somewhere. You didn’t see her carrying a purse. She opens a door near the end.

The room is a suite. Large and expensive; totally out of your budget right now. It’s the kind of room someone books when money isn’t a concern. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the city, Tokyo lights glittering in the darkness.

You’re barely through the door when she turns and her lips clash into yours. 

Her mouth is hot and demanding, her hands fisting in your jacket, pulling you closer with a strength that surprises you. She tastes like red wine, exactly how you imagined, and there’s an aftertaste underneath it; something dark and sweet and sinful. 

Fuck it.

You return the favor and kiss her back with the same intensity. Your hands find her waist, the curve of her hips through the thin fabric. She makes a sound against your mouth that’s between a moan and a laugh.

“Good boy,” she breathes. “There you are.”

She pushes you backward until your legs hit the bed. You sit with your whole weight, and she stands over you, looking down. The lighting behind her turns her into a bewitching silhouette, edges glowing, face in shadow.

“Take them off.”

You do.

Jacket first. Tie follows, then shirt when she gestures impatiently. Cool air brushes upon your bare chest, but her gaze is hot enough to compensate.

“Lie back.”

You do that too.

There is something about the way she gives orders makes refusal feel moot, it feels inevitable.

She climbs onto the bed. Straddles you without touching, her knees bracketing your hips, her weight hovering just above yours. The hem of her dress rides up, revealing thighs that are toned and milky and smooth and close enough to touch if you just…

You reach for her.

“No.” She catches your wrists. Her grip is stronger than it should be. Not painful, but immovable. “Hands on the headboard.”

“What?”

“Put your hands on the headboard, and keep them there.”

You reach back and your fingers find cold metal bars. You grip them, and she smiles. That smile again, the one that puts you in a trance meant to obey her every word.

“Good boy.”

Then she lowers herself slowly. Just enough that you can feel the heat of her through the fabric of your slacks but not enough to give you any real friction.

You let out a sound between a groan and a whimper. Your hips try to lift, to chase the contact, but she rises with you, maintaining the exact distance she’s chosen.

“None of that.” Her voice is light, conversational, as if she isn’t torturing you. “Stay still. You take what I give you.”

“But Tsuki I…”

“Shhhh~”

She leans forward. 

Her lips slowly brush your neck, then your jaw, then the corner of your mouth. Barely there; teasing. When you turn your head to try and capture her in a real kiss, she pulls back just far enough to deny you.

“Tsuki…”

You hear her breathe in.

“You smell like bourbon,” she murmurs against your throat. “And desperation but underneath all that, something interesting.”

Her hips roll. Once. A slow grind that drags a groan out of you despite yourself. She’s pressed against you now, heat and pressure and the thin barrier of clothing between you.

“That’s better.” Her breath is warm against your ear. “I wondered if you were still in there. If there was anything left under all that devastation.”

“I’m—”

“You’re very pretty when you’re falling apart.” She bites your earlobe. “Did you know that?”

Her hands work at your belt. She’s efficient, unhurried, and not wasting any time. She draws down the zipper, and the relief of pressure makes you gasp. Then her fingers wrap around you through your boxers, and your brain shortcircuits.

“There we go.” She strokes slowly, firmly, the fabric adding friction that borders on too much. “There’s my broken man.”

Usually you’d be offended by that. You should feel used, manipulated, reduced to something less than yourself—a plaything. But her hand is moving and her lips are tracing patterns on your throat and all you can feel is the desperate need for more.

“Please,” you hear yourself say.

“Please what?”

“More. I need…”

“I know what you need.” She pulls back. Your cock twitches at the loss of contact. “But you haven’t earned it yet.”

Before you can respond, she shifts down your body. Her fingers hook into the waistband of your boxers and pull them down; just enough to free you. The air is cool and you’re achingly throbbing hard.

“Not bad,” she says. Like your dignity isn’t spilling across the hotel sheets. “A little distracted, maybe. A little too in your head.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” She traces one finger along your length. Base to the underside then to your tip, feather-light. “You’re thinking about tomorrow, about the phone calls you need to make, the bridges you need to rebuild, the hundred small humiliations waiting for you when you walk out of this room; about everything except what’s right in front of you.”

She’s right. Even now, even with her hand on your aching cock, some part of your brain is still doing the math, calculating the odds, preparing for the worst.

“Let me help you with that,” she says.

She lowers her head. Takes her time. You watch her descend. Her dark hair falling forward, her breath warm against your stomach, your hip bone, the crease of your thigh. Deliberately avoiding your cock, which twitches and strains toward her.

“Look at you,” she murmurs against your skin. “So eager. So hungry.”

Her tongue traces a line from your hip to your inner thigh. You shudder.

“When’s the last time someone touched you like this? Really took their time with you and not just going through the motions.”

You can’t answer, can’t even remember. Your last relationship ended two years ago, the reason: Mutual exhaustion, on brand, both of you too busy building careers to build anything else. Since then, nothing. 

You hadn’t realized how starved you are for touch until now.

“That long?” She sounds amused. Her lips brush the base of your cock, and you make a sound that you don’t even want to name. “Poor thing.”

Her lips close around you. Just the tip, just enough to make you jerk against the headboard. Her mouth is hot, impossibly hot, and wet, and impossibly soft, her tongue swirling over your cockhead in patterns that should be illegal in several prefectures.

You’ve had blowjobs before, but whatever she’s doing with her tongue; your entire education has not prepared you for this.

For one perfect second, there’s nothing in your head except the sensation of her.

Then she pulls off then sits back. She wipes the corner of her mouth with one elegant finger.

“No,” you say. It comes out pathetic and broken. “Please don’t stop…”

“You taste like need.” She tilts her head. “Like someone who’s been empty for a very long time and didn’t even notice until just now.”

“Tsuki—”

“Shhhh.” She rises onto her knees. Her hands go to the thin straps of her dress, and she slides them down her shoulders excruciatingly slow. Revealing inch after inch of her perfect porcelain skin.

The dress falls to her waist. You want to touch her more than you’ve wanted anything in recent memory. Your hands twitch against the headboard.

“Stay,” she says. Like you’re a dog. Like you’d do anything she asked as long as she kept looking at you like that.

(You would. You’d bark too if she asked for it. That’s the terrifying part.)

She reaches back. The dress slithers down her hips, and she’s naked above you. Toned limbs and soft curves and that face, watching you with dark eyes reflecting nothing and seeing everything.

Her tits are fuller than you expected. Ample, perfectly shaped, nipples erect making your mouth water. You want to taste them. You want to taste every inch of her.

“You look like you yearn for my touch,” she says. 

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

She laughs, low and pleased. “You’re getting greedy. I like that.”

She takes your hand releasing it from the headboard, and brings it to her chests. Your fingers curve around the soft weight of her tits. She shivers. Just slightly; a crack in her composure.

“Like this,” she says. “Gently, like you’re learning every part of me.”

You are; making an inventory of every stimulus: The texture of her skin. The give of her mounds in your palm. The way her nipples harden against your touch. She guides your thumb across it, and her breath catches. You hear a small sound forced out of her.

“Good,” she croons. “That’s good.”

She lets you explore her with both hands now: The dip of her waist. The flare of her hips. The surprising softness of her inner thighs. You take your time, learning every curve, every part of her where your touch makes her breath trickle in intervals.

You lean up to press your lips to her collarbone, slowly tasting her; expensive rose margarita, floral notes with hints of salt. You can’t get enough of it so you continue tasting her. She doesn’t stop you this time. Her fingers thread through your hair, holding you there, letting you trace your mouth down to her decadent breasts.

You take her nipple in your mouth.

The sound she makes; low, involuntary, almost a moan. It sends electricity through you. She tastes clean, faintly sweet, definitely addicting. You roll the other nipple between your fingers, and her hips jerk against you.

“Careful,” she breathes. But she doesn’t pull away. Her hand tightens in your hair.

You worship her. There’s absolutely no other word for it. You learn the weight of her plush tits, the exact shade of those nipples, the way she gasps when you graze them with your teeth. You memorize the curve of her ribs, the softness of her stomach, the trail of heat your mouth leaves down her body.

When you reach the crease of her thigh, she stops you.

“Not yet.” Her voice rougher now. Less controlled. “Lie back Akihiro.”

You do.

She shifts down your body, and you feel her everywhere. The brush of her hair against your chest, her tits dragging across your stomach, her breath warm against your hip.

She takes you in her hand.

“Let me give this a taste,” she says as her eyes linger at your aching cock. “I want to know what you feel and taste like on my tongue.”

Before you can respond, she lowers her head. “Mhmm~”

Her mouth closes around you slowly. Going beyond the tip this time. She takes you deeper, inch by inch, her tongue tracing the underside of your shaft as she descends. Wet heat and gentle suction and the sight of her. Those lips stretched around you, her dark eyes looking up through her lashes, watching your face break apart as she swallows the whole of you down.

“God.” The word forced out of you.

She pulls back just as slowly. Her tongue swirls over your head, dipping into the slit and you can feel yourself leaking endlessly onto her tongue. She hums and the vibration nearly sends you over the edge.

“Now, you taste like want,” she murmurs against your throbbing cock. “Like someone who’s forgotten what it feels like to be touched.”

She takes you again, much deeper. You feel the back of her throat, feel her swallow around you, and your hands fist in the sheets because you’re not allowed to touch her head. You know that without being told.

She sets a rhythm designed to devour you. Slow, deliberate strokes that build pressure without release. Every time you get close to the climax, every time you feel yourself teetering on the edge, she pulls back. Lets the sensation fade. Then starts again.

“Tsuki, please—”

“Please what?”

“I need—”

“I know what you need.” She releases you with a wet pop. Your cock bobs against your stomach, wet and covered with her saliva, aching. “But you haven’t earned it yet.”

She crawls up your body. Positions herself so she’s straddling you, her heat hovering just above your desperate erection. You can feel her. How wet she is, the slick of her cunt, evidence of her own arousal painting the head of your cock as she slowly shifts.

“Do you want it inside?” she asks.

“Yes.” The word comes out broken. “Please. God. Yes.”

She reaches down. Takes your length in her hand. Guides you until you’re pressed against her entrance. Wet, incredibly hot, the promise of her right there.

She doesn’t let you in.

Instead, she rocks. A slow, torturous grind that slides your cock through her folds, coating you in her arousal, the head catching against her clit on every pass. She shudders when it does. Small tremors that tell you she’s not as unaffected as she pretends.

“Feel that?” she whispers. “Feel how wet you make me?”

You can.

The slick glide of her against you. The heat that radiates from her. The way her lips part around your shaft without quite taking you in. Just barely. Everything you want, just out of reach.

“Let me,” you beg. Your hands find her hips, trying to pull her down. “Tsuki, please, let me—”

“No.”

She grinds harder. Your cock continues to slide through her silky folds, grazing against her clit, and she gasps. Unguarded. Her eyes flutter closed for just a second.

“Not tonight,” she manages. “Tonight you learn to want.”

“I already want—”

“Not like this.” She increases her pace. The friction is maddening. It’s driving you insane how slick and hot and so close you are to what you need. “Tonight you learn what it feels like to burn for something you can’t have.”

You’re going to come. You can feel your climax building. That inevitable pressure. Just from this. Just from the slide of her against you, the heat of her, the promise of a depth you’re not yet allowed to reach.

“Tsuki—I’m going to—”

She slows. Doesn’t lift away. Hovers. Her hand finds your jaw, turns your face toward hers.

“Tell me one thing first.”

Your brain is static. “What?”

“About yourself. Not what you did at Ishikawa. Not the career. Something true.”

You can’t think. You’ll say anything to get her to keep moving. The words come out before you decide to say them.

“I’ve been waiting for something like this. An excuse to start over. I just didn’t want it to cost me my career.”

Her almost-smile. Genuine, this time. Cracked through with something you can’t read.

“Good boy.”

She stops. Lifts herself away.

The loss of contact is physically painful. Your cock throbs against the cold air, slick and desperate. You make a sound that might be a sob, or at least close to one.

This is it. This is how you die. Not from career destruction or public humiliation, but from a gorgeous stranger edging you in a hotel room. The obituary page is going to be amazing.

“Shhhh.” She strokes your chest. Almost tender. “Breathe.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes you can. Breathe with me.”

You breathe. Ragged, broken, but you do it anyway. The urgency recedes. Barely. Just enough to keep you from spilling onto your own stomach.

“Good boy.” She rewards you by shifting back down, taking you in her mouth again. One slow stroke, base to tip, her tongue tracing the vein on the underside of your cock. Then she releases you.

“Want a taste?”

The words don’t register at first. Your brain is static. Especially after that last assault.

“What?”

“I want your mouth on me.” She moves up your body, positions herself over your face. “I want to feel your tongue inside me while you’re aching for what you can’t have.”

You look up at her. Her thighs frame your vision (you save this mental image into the deepest folds of your brain in high quality).

She’s glistening in the low city light, every wet inch of her catching the windowpane glow. Swollen and pink. Her scent hits you. Musky and sweet and intoxicating.

“Open your mouth,” she says.

You do. She lowers herself onto you.

The first taste of her is overwhelming. She’s hot against your tongue, slick and swollen, and when you trace the length of her slit, she shudders above you.

“That’s it,” she breathes. “Just like that.”

You eat her like she’s the first meal you’ve had in years. You learn the topography of her. Her soft luxurious folds, the hard pearl of her clit, the entrance that clenches when you press your tongue inside. She tastes like desire made physical. She feels like a sin you’re willing to commit.

Her hips rock against your face. Chasing your tongue, grinding down when you find the right spot. The sounds she makes are arriving faster now. 

“Your mouth,” she gasps. “God, your mouth.”

You focus on her clit. Gentle pressure, then more, reading her responses. When you suck, she cries out. You then flick your tongue in quick patterns, her thighs start to tremble.

You’re painfully hard beneath her: neglected, desperate, and somehow that makes this better. Your own need gets amplified with every sensation, every taste, every sound she lets out.

She’s close. Her movement doesn’t hide it well, the way her legs tighten around your head, her moans rising an octave higher, leaving her breathless.

Then she pulls away.

“No.” She’s panting now. Flushed. Her composure cracked but not broken. “No. That’s enough.”

“Let me finish—”

“No.” She climbs off you. Stands beside the bed. Trembling slightly, her voice is still steady. “That’s what tonight is about.”

You lie there, aching. Covered in the taste and scent of her. Your cock leaking with need.

“What is tonight about then?” Your voice sounds wrecked. You don’t care.

She looks at you. Something flickers in her eyes, almost like regret.

“Tonight is about you learning what you want,” she says. “And remembering that you’re still capable of wanting it.”

She reaches for her dress.

“What are you…” 

“That’s enough for tonight.” She pulls it on, covering all that perfect skin. “You did well Akihiro.”

“I didn’t-we didn’t-”

“No.” She looks at you over her shoulder. “We didn’t. That’s the point.”

You’re still hard, still aching, and still covered in her.

“Why?” you ask.

She walks back to the bed. Sits on the edge. Reaches out and traces a finger along your jaw. Gentle and almost affectionate.

“Because you came here to feel nothing,” she says. “And I wanted to show you that you can’t. That underneath all that careful numbness, there’s still something alive.”

“That’s…”

“Cruel? Maybe.” She leans in. Presses a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth. Pulls back before you can deepen it. “But I think you needed cruelty tonight Akihiro. I think you needed someone to remind you that you’re not dead yet.”

You don’t have an answer. You just lie there while your eyes are glued to her; continue to taste her in your mouth.

She stands. And like a magic trick she produces a business card from somewhere and sets it on the nightstand.

“There’s a shower through here. Hot water. Good pressure. Help yourself. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

“Tsuki…”

“You’ll see me again.” She pauses at the door. That almost-smile playing on her lips. “The people who did this to you, Akihiro. They’re sleeping comfortably tonight. Doesn’t that bother you? Fight.”

Then she’s gone.

✦⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡

You stand in the shower for what feels like eternity. You let the water flow. The shower water is scalding, but you stay under it anyway. It reddens your skin. You let it sear away whatever the hell just happened. Because the moment you took her hand, you knew you were cooked.

You came here to feel nothing. She’d said that like she knew. Like she’d seen right through you from the moment she appeared.

She’s right.

You’d wanted oblivion. Bourbon and bad decisions and the emptiness that comes from surrendering control. Instead, she’d given you something worse: she’d made you feel. She made you reach for desire, and frustration, and something raw, and desperate that you’d been burying since Tanaka-san wouldn’t meet your eyes.

She’d forced you open, looked at what was inside, and walked away.

Your body still aches; arousal denied, muscles tensed for a release that never came. You can still taste her. That salty-sweet musk you’d swallowed like a man dying of thirst. You can still feel the spectral weight of her on your face, her thighs nestled against your cheeks.

You wrap your hand around yourself. The water beats down on your back. You stroke once, twice…

And stop.

It feels wrong, unfinished business that shouldn’t be finished alone. She’d denied you for a reason. You don’t understand the reason yet, but completing the act yourself feels like cheating. Like letting her down.

What the fuck is wrong with you?!

You turn off the water. Wrap a towel around your waist. Walk back into the room that still smells faintly of her. Wine and a looming presence of something darker.

The people who did this to you. They’re sleeping comfortably tonight.

The business card is still on the nightstand. Just a phone number. No name.

You pick it up. Turn it over. Nothing on the back.

Your phone is still off; you could turn it on. Finally face the music: all the unread messages, the missed calls, the reality waiting to tear you apart.

Instead, you lie down on the bed that still holds the ghost of her body. Close your eyes. Try to remember the exact taste of her lips. Replay all the stored images in your head.

You don’t sleep. But when the sun finally rises, pale and gray through the windows, you’re still thinking about her question.

Doesn’t that bother you?

Yes.

It fucking does.

✦⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡

Three days later

There’s a networking event at a hotel downtown. It’s a different hotel but the same species of desperation. Fifty people in business casual, circulating with drinks and business cards, pretending they’re not all acutely aware of who’s up and who’s down.

You’re down, you’re obviously at the gutter, and everyone by now knows it.

You can see it in how conversations pause when you approach, the slight stiffening of shoulders, the bright smiles that don’t reach anyone’s eyes. People you’ve known for years. All of them have discovered fascinating things to look at on the opposite side of the room.

Plague carrier. That’s what you are now. They brought back social distancing and you are patient zero.

Three days since Tsuki left you aching in that room. Three days of phone calls that go to voicemail, emails that don’t get responses, and the slow realization that your network; twelve years of carefully cultivated ‘relationships’, has been quarantined along with your career.

You’re on your second club soda. Trying to stay sharp, proving something to yourself. 

Then she appears.

She doesn’t approach. She just shows up, like she stepped out of the gap between one second and the next. One second the space beside you is empty. The next, she’s there.

“You look better than last time,” she says.

She looks different. Hair down loose curls. Off-shoulder black gown. She looks like she belongs, which means she definitely does not.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Mmhm. Lucky guess.” She plucks a canapé from a passing tray, looks at it, sets it back. “You’ve been busy. I saw you talking to that woman in white. And that startup founder, the one who still thinks ‘runway’ is something you build at an airport and ‘profit’ is a myth investors tell children at bedtime.”

You didn’t see her watching. You’re sure of that. You were scanning the room the whole time.

“Are you following me?”

“I’m helping you, Akihiro.” She nods toward a cluster of suits near the bar. “Blue tie. Kwon, Minjun. South Korean conglomerate money. He needs someone to handle a family restructuring, discreetly. The big firms won’t touch it. Lots of excuses: too complex and too messy and too many secrets.”

“And you know this how?”

“I’m Tsuki~ Also, people love talking and I am good at listening. People with a lot of secrets tend to be more chatty.” She’s already moving. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

The conversation with Kwon takes around fifteen minutes. She does most of the work; positioning you as exactly what he needs, someone outside the system, someone who understands discretion. By the end, he’s asking for your card and suggesting lunch next week.

When you turn to thank her, she’s gone. You look for her.

You find her in a service corridor off the main hall. She’s leaning against a wall, arms crossed, watching you approach like she knew exactly how long it would take.

“He’s very much interested in you,” she says. “You’ll have the account by Friday.”

“You set that up. The whole thing.”

“I initiated the conversation. You performed, and you performed extremely well.” She tilts her head. “You’re welcome.”

“Why do you do these things for me? What do you want from me?”

“Right now? She glances down the corridor: not a single soul, empty, no cameras in sight. She bites her lower lip. “I want your mouth.”

“That’s a lot to ask for just an introduction.”

“Is it?” She steps closer. “Fifteen minutes with the Kwon Minjun. A man who doesn’t take meetings with anyone below C-suite. I got you that with a smile and my pretty face.” Her fingers find your tie, straightens it. “My price seems pretty…reasonable.”

“And if I want to negotiate?”

“You’re not in the position to negotiate, Aki-kun. I have the upperhand here.” She says it like she’s explaining basic arithmetics. “You need clients and I just handed you one. The question isn’t whether you’ll pay. It’s whether you’ll do it well enough that I keep helping you.”

“And if I do it well?”

“Then maybe I’ll tell you something more about myself.” Her almost-smile. “After.”

“Before.”

“After, Akihiro-kun. Or never.”

You consider the corridor. The networking event you’re supposed to be attending. Her eyes that just lures you in the abyss of bad decisions.

While she watches you decide, she slowly lifts her arm; points toward the floor between her heels.

“On your knees, Akihiro-kun.” Her smile sharpens. “Let’s see how thorough you can be.”

The tile is cold and dirty and hard. You don’t care. She's gathering the tulle in one fist and hiking the gown up slowly, watching your face, enjoying the way your eyes track every inch of exposed thigh.

“You’ve been thinking about this,” she says. “How I taste. These past three days, lying in your bed, remembering how wet I was on your tongue.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear. Black lace, barely there. She slides them down her thighs, steps out of them, tucks them into your jacket pocket. “Something to remember me by.”

Tulle bunched at her hips. She's bare underneath. Pink and glistening and close enough that you can smell her arousal. Your mouth waters.

“Look at you,” she murmurs. “So eager. So thirsty.” She traces a finger along your jaw. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to taste you.”

“Be more specific. Let it all out Aki-kun.”

“I want to lick your pussy until you cum on my face.”

The words come out before your brain can veto them. God, what’s wrong with you?!

Tsuki shivers just slightly. A crack in that perfect composure she’s trying so hard to maintain.

Okay. Dirty talk does work. Good to know.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

You lean in. Press your eager lips to her inner thigh. She inhales sharply.

“Tease,” she breathes.

“I learned from the best.”

You take your time. Kissing up one thigh, then the other. Letting your breath ghost over where she wants you, never quite touching. She makes a frustrated sound, and her fingers find your hair.

“Akihiro…”

“You made me wait three days.” You’re so close now. You can see how wet she is, pink, glistening, slick and swollen, practically dripping. “You can wait three minutes.”

“I don’t…” She gasps as your tongue finally touches her. Just once. A slow, flat stroke from her entrance to her clit. “Fuck.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t like waiting.”

“You do now.”

You lick her again: Slower. Savoring. She tastes just like you remembered. Her hips buck toward your mouth, but you pull back enough to deny her the pressure she wants.

“You’re getting brave,” she manages.

“I’m getting even.”

You seal your lips around her clit and suck. She cries out. Loud. Extremely loud for a service corridor. It echoes over the length of it. Then her hand slaps over her mouth.

“Quiet,” you murmur against her. “Someone might hear.”

“You bastard.”

You slide two fingers inside her. She’s soaked, clenching around you immediately, her whole body jerking at the intrusion.

“God, you’re so wet.” You curl your fingers, searching. “You’ve been thinking about this too. Haven’t you?”

She doesn’t answer. Her thighs are shaking.

“Haven’t you?”

“Yes.” It comes out broken. “Yes, I-there, right there, don’t stop-”

You don’t stop. You finger fuck her and lick her clit in tight circles, the same rhythm, relentless. She’s grinding against your face now, chasing it, all the composure slowly but surely crumbling.

“You’re going to cum,” you tell her. “Right here in this hallway. Anyone could walk in. Anyone could see you like this. Gown around your hips, fucking yourself on my tongue.”

“Akihiro…”

“Now. Cum for me.”

She breaks.

Her whole body seizes, cunt clamping down on your fingers, thighs squeezing your head, the sound she makes is muffled by her hand but you can still hear it; raw, desperate, nothing like the controlled woman who manifested into that bar four days ago.

You work her through it. Slower now, gentler, drawing out every aftershock. She shudders repeatedly and you don’t pull away until she pushes at your shoulders.

“Enough.” She’s panting. Flushed. Her legs are visibly unsteady. “Enough.”

You sit back on your heels. Wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. Your fingers are still drenched with her.

“Was that thorough enough?” you ask.

She stares at you. For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. Just breathes. Then that smile returns, slower this time.

“You’re learning.”

She pushes off the wall. Smooths the gown back into place. Her legs are still trembling slightly, and the knowledge that you did that, that you made her shake, sends a hot pulse of satisfaction through you.

You’re achingly hard. She can see the visual outline of you straining against your slacks.

“What about…”

“No.” She’s composing herself. Running her fingers through her hair. “Not yet.”

“Tsuki.”

“You made me cum.” She steps closer. Looks down at the bulge in your pants. Presses her palm against it, just once, firm and fleeting. You make a strangled sound. “That’s more than most people get. Be grateful.”

“I want—”

“I know what you want.” She leans in. Her lips brush your ear. “You want to bend me over and fuck me until I scream. You want to fill me up and watch it drip out of me. You want to make me as desperate as you’ve been for the past four days.”

“Yes.”

“Mhmm.” She pulls back. Straightens your jacket. Her underwear is still in your pocket, damp against your chest. “Not yet.”

“When?”

“When I decide.” That smile again; dangerous and promising. “Now go back to the party. Smile at Kwon. Think about how good I tasted while you shake hands and make small talk.”

She’s walking away before you can respond.

You stand. Adjust your jacket. Fix yourself until you’re presentable before walking back to the party. Take a couple of seconds to breathe.

Her underwear is still in your pocket. You should do something about that. Put it somewhere. Throw it away. Anything other than keeping it like some kind of pervert trophy.

You don’t do anything about it, just transfer it inside the pocket lining of your jacket.

You enter the venue. Kwon catches your eye across the room. Raises his glass. You nod back and approach him.

Your phone buzzes.

Hinode-san. I’ve reached out a couple of times now. I understand you’ve signed an NDA. I’m not asking about Ishikawa this time. I’m inquiring about something else. Call when you’re ready.

You stare at the message. Something else. You don’t know what that means. The journalist’s byline was on the Polaris coverage last year (she totally fucked them up). The Bloomberg interview with the Blockberry whistleblower. Her pieces have a way of turning into criminal indictments.

You don’t answer.

Your phone buzzes again. Different number. Unknown with a weird handle.

The Kwon family charity gala is Saturday

The daughter manages their venture fund

She’ll be looking for someone like you

Wear your navy suit

It fits you better than that gloomy excuse you have on

You look around the room. She’s nowhere.

Another buzz.

You looked like you’re starting to believe in yourself

I like that

Sleep well tonight Akihiro-kun

You’ll need the energy

You stare at the screen. The navy suit. She’s never seen your closet. She’s never been to your apartment.

You should be frightened. You should be calling the police, or a psychiatrist, or anyone who can explain how a woman you met a few days ago knows what suits you own.

Instead, you’re thinking about the sound she made when she came. The way her control cracked. The three seconds where she was just a woman shaking against your mouth.

You place your phone in your pocket.

You don’t sleep well that night. But when you close your eyes, you’re not thinking about the Kwon family, or your ruined career.

You’re thinking about her. You think about what she said.

The people who did this to you. They’re comfortable. Fight.

✦⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡