Chapter 4: The Voicemail
The glass walls of his office reflected a man who did not feel like himself. Los Angeles light, flat and relentless, poured through the skyscraper windows, bleaching the black frames on his shelves, glaring off the unsmudged surface of his desk. It was too clean here. The air smelled of lemon polish and the ghost of his morning espresso, gone cold in its porcelain cup. Every ordered line, every silent, expensive object, felt like a accusation.
His phone buzzed, a sharp vibration against the white marble coaster.
He didn’t want to look. He’d been staring at a quarterly report for twenty minutes, seeing only the pink glow of a neon lamp, the flutter of a sheer black hem.
He looked.
Unknown Number. But he knew. Florida area code. His throat went dry.
He tapped the voicemail icon and put it on speaker, his body rigid in the ergonomic chair. For a second, there was just empty air, the faint digital hiss of distance. Then her voice, a low, intimate scratch in the sterile silence.
“Hey. It’s me.” A soft laugh, exhaled directly into the receiver. “I was just lying here. Thinking about your mouth. How you… listened. You’re a really good listener, Adam.”
Adam closed his eyes. His knuckles were white where they gripped the armrest.
“I was thinking,” she continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, as if she were in the room, curled on his desk. “Next time… I want you to use your fingers first. Slow. I want to watch your face while you do it. I want to see what it looks like when you forget you’re married.”
A jolt, electric and sick, shot through his gut. He could see it. The focused frown between his brows, the parted lips, his own damnation reflected in her watching eyes.
“And then I want your tongue again. Right where you left off. But slower. Until I can’t breathe. Okay?” She paused. He could hear the rustle of sheets, the shift of her body. “Call me back. Or don’t. I’ll know you heard it.”
The message ended. The office was suddenly, oppressively quiet. The hum of the central air conditioning felt deafening.
He deleted the voicemail. The action was swift, violent. A single stab of his thumb. As if that could erase the synaptic pathway it had just burned into his brain. But deletion was a fantasy. The words were in him now, a corrosive script playing on a loop. Watch your face. Forget you’re married.
He stood up, too quickly, his chair rolling back and thumping softly against the glass wall. He walked to the small, discreet bar cabinet nestled between two shelves of industry award statuettes. He bypassed the crystal tumblers, unscrewed the cap from the bottle of bourbon, and drank directly from it. The burn was a punishment he welcomed. It didn’t cleanse; it branded.
The liquor warmed a hollow path down his chest. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, looking down at the miniature city below, the cars like silent, gleaming beetles. He was forty stories up, in a fortress of his own making, and he’d never felt more exposed.
His own phone, the one with the contacts for his wife, his partners, his respectable life, chimed with a calendar alert: Dinner with Claire & Michael, 7:30 PM, Spago. His wife had added a note: Don’t be late. Michael wants to talk about the Palm Springs place.
A different universe. One of property taxes and bone china and politely curated conversations. The thought of sitting through it, of slicing into medium-rare steak while tasting the memory of Melanie on his tongue, made his stomach clench.
He pulled his work phone back out. His thumb hovered over the screen. He didn’t call. He typed a text, the letters stark and damning in the message bubble.
> That’s quite a creative brief.
He sent it before he could think. Three dots appeared almost instantly. A smile spread across his face, bitter and unbidden. She’d been waiting.
> lol. u like it?
> I’m a professional. I assess all client input.
> assess this
A photo appeared. A selfie, taken from above. She was in her bed, the oversized fluffy blanket pulled down to her waist. The sheer baby doll top was back, but unfastened, falling open. The view was a deliberate tease, the small, perfect curve of her breast just visible, the pale skin glowing in the neon light. Her lips were parted, her eyes heavy-lidded and direct into the camera. Not a smile, but a look of pure, knowing provocation.
The phone trembled in his hand. He could smell the vanilla lotion. He could hear the buzz of that damn light.
> You’re playing a dangerous game, Melanie.
> only dangerous if u lose 😘
He threw the phone onto the couch. It landed with a soft thud on the grey linen. He finished the bourbon in his mouth, swallowing hard.
He knew what he should do. He should call his lawyer. Draft a termination of contract email, citing professional boundaries. He should block the number. He should go home, kiss his wife, and try to remember who he was supposed to be.
He walked to his desk, sat down, and woke his computer. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He opened his email. He started to type.
Melanie, regarding our working relationship, I believe it is imperative we establish some clear…
He deleted the sentence. It was ash.
He clicked on a browser tab, already open. Her TikTok profile. A new video had been posted an hour ago. He clicked play, sound off. She was dancing in what looked like a club, strobe lights fracturing the image. She was wearing different clothes, surrounded by friends. She looked young, impossibly young. She laughed at something off-screen, throwing her head back, a completely different person from the one in his voicemail. The disconnect was dizzying.
Which one was real? The party girl or the whisper in the dark? Or were they both just facets of the same hungry engine?
He minimized the browser. The blank email stared back at him. He typed two words.
Flight itinerary.
He began to search for redeyes to Tallahassee. The blue glow of the screen washed over his face, the face she wanted to watch. In the reflection on the dark monitor, his expression was utterly foreign to him—a grimace of hungry defeat.
Down on the street, a siren wailed, faint and distant. Up here, in the silent, ordered dark, the only sound was the tap of his keys and the deafening roar of his own surrender.