Chapter 7: B Story
The sterile hum of the climate control in Andrea’s office was the only sound for a full minute after John finished speaking. He stood before her desk, hands clenched at his sides, the words he’d rehearsed all night—confused, used, unprofessional—still hanging in the air between them like a bad smell.
Andrea Hess Campa leaned back in her ergonomic chair, the bright purple of her eyes luminous in the cold LED light. A faint, condescending smile played on her lips. She steepled her fingers, the picture of calm authority amidst the organized chaos of reports and anomalous artifact logs that littered her workspace. The shower stall in the corner was dry now, a testament to her earlier routine.
“John,” she said finally, her voice a soft, melodic blade. “You’re misunderstanding the dynamic.”
“The dynamic?” he echoed, anger cutting through his anxiety. “You shoved me against a shower wall and fucked me like I was a piece of equipment. Then you left. For a week.”
“And your work suffered,” she noted, tapping a file on her desk. “Spectroanalysis of SCP-458’s emissions… sloppy. Conclusionary leaps. Sentiment over science. This is the impact, John. Not your bruised little ego.”
He flinched. The report. He’d known it was subpar. The numbers had blurred, the logic circuits in his brain shorted out by the memory of her body, the brutal possessiveness of her hands. “You can’t separate the two. You created the condition.”
“I engaged in a mutually gratifying physical exchange,” she stated, her tone flat, clinical.