Chapter 4: Lick Until it Shine
The single page of handwritten summary lay on the vanity beside her perfume bottles, the ink still faintly smelling of his exhaustion. Amalia picked it up without a word, her eyes scanning the neat, cramped script as she sipped her black coffee. The silence in the bedroom was a vacuum.
Loic waited, kneeling by the foot of the bed, his own hands trembling slightly from a night spent on the hard floor and the meticulous task. He watched her face for any sign—a softening around the eyes, a subtle nod. There was nothing.
She finished reading, took another slow sip, and then placed the cup down with a precision that made his stomach tighten.
“The third point,” she said, her voice flat. “You paraphrased the Belgian position on agricultural tariffs. I used specific language for a reason. The word ‘protectionist’ is value-laden. ‘Non-negotiable safeguard’ is diplomatic. The nuance is the point.” She let the paper flutter from her fingers onto the floor. “It’s not incorrect. It’s imprecise.”
She stood, tying her robe tightly around her waist. “Follow me.”
He did, his heart sinking. They moved through the apartment, the morning light harsh through the east-facing windows, exposing every fingerprint on the glass, every mote of dust suspended in the air. She led him into the kitchen, the kingdom of cold surfaces and hidden order.
She stopped in the center of the room, her arms crossed. Her gaze swept the countertops, the floor, the stovetop. It landed on the coffee machine. On the single, ivory-colored ceramic mug sitting on the counter beside it. His mug. A dark ring of yesterday’s coffee stained its bottom. He’d been so focused on the summary, on not failing her again, that he’d forgotten it last night.
“Look,” she commanded.
He looked. The ring looked like a target.
“A flaw,” she said softly. Then her hand was in his hair, fisting tightly at the roots. It happened faster than a thought. A sharp, blinding yank that brought tears to his eyes and a choked cry to his lips. She dragged him forward, his knees buckling, his palms slapping against the polished marble floor to catch himself. She hauled him toward the counter.
“You left a stain in my retreat,” she hissed, her voice low and venomous. “After last night. After my very specific words.” With a brutal shove, she pressed the side of his face against the cold, unforgiving stone of the countertop. His cheekbone ground against it. He could smell the faint, clean scent of industrial cleaner and underneath, the ghost of garlic and olive oil.
“You are a factory of imperfections, Loic.” She released his hair, and he heard the slick sound of the premium olive oil bottle being uncapped. The dense, grassy scent filled his nostrils. He felt the cold glass lip of the bottle press against his mouth. “Open.”
He did. The oil poured over his lips, thick and slippery, dripping down his chin. It was humiliating, absurd. He gagged slightly at the taste.
“Good,” she said, placing the bottle down. “Now. You will clean my kitchen. Not with a sponge. Not with a cloth. You will use the only tool I trust you to be: compliant.”
She stepped back, her arms folded again. “On your hands and knees. You will start at the far corner and work your way back to me. You will lick, and you will wipe with your face, every square centimeter of this floor until I can see my reflection in it. And you will not stop whimpering. I want to hear every ounce of your pathetic effort. You are my human mop. A useful, self-propelled stain remover.”
The command was so surreal, so degrading, his mind went blank for a moment. Then the cold reality of the marble seeped into his knees. He looked at the vast expanse of white tile, crisscrossed with gray vein-like patterns. It was spotless to any normal eye. To hers, it was a canvas of potential failings.
He lowered himself, the olive oil on his lips making them feel foreign and slick. He leaned forward, extended his tongue, and touched it to the tile. It was cold, slightly gritty. He dragged his face along, smearing the oil, leaving a wet, shiny trail.
“Wider strokes, slave,” she chided from above. “You’re not tasting it, you’re cleaning it. Put your back into it. Or your neck, I suppose.”
He obeyed, increasing the pressure, moving in a slow, deliberate crawl. The position was agonizing, a harsh strain on his neck and shoulders. A low sound escaped him—a mix of pain and concentration.
“There’s the whimper,” she said, pleased. She began to pace slowly alongside his progress, a supervisor on a factory floor. “You see, this is what you’re for. You can’t be trusted with policy summaries. Your art is mediocre. Your foresight is a joke. But this? This simple, physical act of erasure? This, you can do. You can erase the mess you make.”
He moved another foot, his tongue now dry and aching, his jaw sore. The salt of his own tears mixed with the oil on the floor.
“The man with the yellow tie,” she mused, watching him smear his way across the kitchen. “He talked about ‘foundational integrity.’ He kept using that phrase. I kept thinking about my kitchen floor. About how one spill, one un-mopped spot, undermines the entire foundation. It becomes the only thing you see.”
Loic paused, panting, his forehead on the cool tile.
“Did I tell you to stop?” Her voice was sharp.
He pushed forward again.
“You are my foundational integrity, Loic. You are the spot I cannot afford to leave dirty. Because if I let you slide, where does it end? A sticky countertop? A forgotten appointment? A summary full of imprecise language?” She leaned against the island, looking down at him. “It ends with me looking weak. It ends with stains.”
He had reached the middle of the floor. His body shook with the effort. Every muscle burned. The humiliation was a live wire in his chest, but beneath it, a perverse thread of something else pulsed. He was doing this. For her. He was becoming exactly what she needed in this moment: a tool for perfect cleanliness.
“You’re tiring,” she observed, not with sympathy, but with clinical interest. “Your form is getting sloppy. The whimpers are less theatrical, more genuine. Good. I prefer genuine.”
He reached the area near her feet. The tile here, in the high-traffic zone between the sink and the island, felt different under his tongue—slightly more worn, less uniformly cold. He worked over it with a desperate, grinding fervor.
Finally, he reached the toe of her slipper. He stopped, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his entire face wet and slick with oil and saliva and sweat. He didn’t look up.
He felt her foot move. The soft sole of her slipper pressed against his oil-smeared forehead, holding him there.
“Look,” she said.
He lifted his eyes. The floor shone, a lake of polished stone reflecting the harsh LED lights above, distorted by the streaks and patterns his face had left behind. It was not clean. It was a chaotic map of his subjugation.
“It’s a mess,” she sighed. “But it’s your mess. And you made it following my order.” She removed her foot. “Get up. Clean your face. Then get the proper mop and the pine-floor cleaner from the utility closet. Do it again. Properly this time. I have a video conference in twenty minutes. I expect to see my face in this floor when I walk back in.”
She turned and walked out, the sound of her retreating steps the only grace he was given.
He pushed himself up, his joints screaming. He caught a glimpse of himself in the side of the stainless-steel refrigerator: a blurred, oily, tear-streaked phantom. He was her human mop. Her foundation. He stumbled to the sink, turned on the water, and began to scrub his raw, burning face with dish soap, the mundane scent of lemon cutting through the fog of olive oil and despair. The job was only half done.