Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The smell was a film on his tongue, in his sinuses, a greasy residue that no amount of swallowing could clear. Scott lay limp in the straps, his body humming with a shame so profound it felt like a physical weight. The red bulbs pulsed, their light now feeling accusatory.
Bea approached with the spray bottle and towel. She didn’t look at his face. The cool mist hit his chest, the wipe of the cloth mechanical and efficient. She was cleaning a surface, not a person.
“The session is concluded,” she stated, her voice devoid of the earlier purr. It was just a voice now. She began unbuckling the straps, starting with his chest. The leather sighed as it released him.
He couldn’t speak. His limbs felt like foreign objects, heavy and useless. When the last strap on his wrist came free, his arm dropped to the table with a dull thud. He didn’t move it.
“Get up. Get dressed.” Bea was already moving toward the door, a silhouette against the brighter light of the antechamber. “Your time is up.”
Somehow, he pushed himself up. The world tilted. He swung his legs over the side of the table, his bare feet cold on the concrete. He shuffled to the bench where his clothes sat, neatly folded. The crisp cotton of his shirt felt like a costume from another life. As he buttoned it, his fumbling fingers felt thick and stupid.
He could still smell it. The tennis shoe. It was in his hair, on his skin, a phantom stench that he knew, with a sinking certainty, would linger for days.
Bea was waiting by the exit corridor, holding a small digital tablet. “A standard post-session survey will be sent to your encrypted email. Response is optional.” She looked past him, toward the main chamber, where the soft chime had just sounded again. “Madam is already preparing for the next booking. You need to exit.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice, and walked past her. The corridor seemed longer on the way out.
As he passed the open door to the main antechamber, he saw her. The next client. She was maybe thirty-eight, dressed in a sharp, expensive-looking black dress and heels, her blonde hair pulled into a severe ponytail. She was standing casually, one hand on her hip, talking quietly with Madame Evangeline. She looked like a corporate lawyer, or a high-level executive. Completely normal. Utterly in control.
Then he saw the large, sleek gym bag at her feet, the kind a serious athlete would use. It was unzipped just enough for him to see the worn, well-used toe of a running shoe tucked inside. A woman like that, he thought with a fresh, cold wave of understanding. She probably logged five miles every morning before dawn. Relentless. A size 9, at least. His eyes dragged up from the bag to her face, and for a single, heart-stopping second, her gaze—sharp, assessing, and utterly devoid of warmth—flicked over to him. She didn't see a person. She saw the previous user of a facility.
Scott looked away, a hot flush creeping up his neck. He hurried down the rest of the corridor, pushed open the heavy metal door, and stumbled out into the cool, damp night air.
He stood on the sidewalk, gulping in the city smells of exhaust and distant food, trying to wash the memory of leather and sweat and vinegar from his lungs. The door clicked shut behind him, sealing that world away. He was just a man in a button-down shirt on a dirty street. But as he began the long walk to where he’d parked his car, each step felt different. The neat, balanced columns of his life were now smudged with a dark, pungent, and ineradicable stain.