Chapter 9: The Social Media Lesson
The morning had been a haze of polished surfaces and burning knees. Marcus’s body ached in ways he’d never considered, a deep, muscular protest from hours spent on all fours. The taste of floor cleaner and his own shame was a permanent fixture on his tongue.
Now, he knelt on the plush, dove-gray carpet of her office, a different kind of hardness setting in his joints. The room was a silent monument to her influence. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, the Pacific Ocean stretched, vast and indifferent, a blue so deep it seemed to swallow the sky. He felt microscopic.
Kim lounged in the oversized black leather chair, its contours embracing her like a throne. She was scrolling through her phone, the gentle tap-tap of her manicured nail the only sound. She hadn’t spoken to him in ten minutes. The waiting was its own torment.
“Come here,” she said finally, not looking up. “Closer. To the side.”
He shifted on his knees, the carpet fibers scratching his skin through his jeans, until he was beside her, level with the arm of the chair. She held her phone out. It was his own Twitter profile. The pinned tweet was the apology video he’d recorded the first night—his eyes hollow, his voice a monotone recitation of her script.
“Look at the engagement,” she said pleasantly, as if discussing a successful product launch. “It’s incredible. People are so… invested.” She scrolled through the replies. Wow, he finally got humbled. This is so pathetic lol. What did she have on him? A few of his old followers were trying to defend him, their voices tiny and desperate in the flood.
A hot needle of his old self pricked at his heart. “They don’t understand,” he muttered, the words escaping before he could cage them.
Kim’s head swiveled slowly toward him. Her eyes were calm, curious. “Understand what, Marcus?”
He swallowed. “The context. The… coercion.”
She laughed, a soft, airy sound. “Coercion? Sweetie, you signed a contract. You walked in here. You’re staying.” She placed the phone on the desk and leaned back, studying him. “But you’re right. The narrative is missing something. It needs… a personal touch from you.”
She picked up his phone from the desk—the one he hadn’t touched since arriving. She unlocked it with his passcode, which she’d demanded the first night, and opened Twitter. “We’re going to draft a new tweet. Together.”
His throat tightened. “What kind of tweet?”
“Something from the heart,” she said, her tone light. “We want to show genuine growth, don’t we?” She began to dictate, her voice smooth and certain. “Type this. ‘Coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made. To truly serve someone of Kim’s caliber is a privilege that’s teaching me more about life, and myself, than years of criticism ever did.’”
His fingers trembled as he took the phone. The screen blurred. Each word felt like a shard of glass he was being forced to swallow. He typed, his thumbs clumsy.
“Now,” she continued, watching him. “Hashtag: Grateful. Hashtag: Learning. And tag… let’s see.” She rattled off a dozen names, fellow influencers, media personalities, a few journalists who had covered their feud. Each ‘@’ was a nail in his public coffin.
“Last line,” she murmured. She shifted in her chair, and then he felt it. The warm, smooth weight of her bare foot settled on his thigh, just above his knee. He froze. The pressure wasn’t brutal, but it was absolute, a casual claim staking his entire body. “Add: ‘I am her devoted servant, and I’ve never been more clear-headed.’ Then post it.”
The contact was electric and horrifying. The intimacy of her skin against his denim, the utter normality of the gesture for her, the way it anchored him in pure physical subjugation. His breath hitched. The defiance rose in a final, silent scream. He could throw the phone. He could stand up.
Her foot pressed down, just a little. Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind.
His thumb hovered over the ‘Tweet’ button. The vast ocean outside the glass seemed to hold its breath. He pressed it.
The sound of the tweet whooshing into the world was silent, but he heard it in his soul. A door slamming shut.
“Good,” Kim said, her foot remaining where it was. “Now refresh. Read them to me. Every reply. Start from the top.”
The notifications exploded instantly. A torrent of digital sound. He opened the first.
“@CelebGossip says… ‘Is this a hostage situation? Blink twice, dude.’”
“Louder,” Kim instructed, sipping from a glass of water.
He cleared his throat. “‘Is this a hostage situation? Blink twice, dude.’”
“Next.”
He read another, his voice growing thinner. “ ‘The level of cringe is astronomical.’ ”
“Next.”
“ ‘LMAO he fully broke.’ ”
“Next.”
“ ‘This is actually really sad.’ ”
“Keep going.”
The replies were a cascade of mockery, confusion, and schadenfreude. Some were cruel memes. Others expressed genuine concern, which somehow felt worse. Each one was a public flaying. His face grew hot, then numb. His vision swam. He felt a treacherous stinging in his eyes.
“Don’t stop,” Kim said softly, her foot tracing a slow, small circle on his leg.
A tear broke free, tracking a hot path down his cheek. He tried to swallow the sob, but it twisted into a choked gasp. He kept reading, the words now mangled by humiliation.
“ ‘H-holy shit, she really owns him.’ ”
“ ‘Pathetic.’ ”
“ ‘What’s your salary for this, bro?’ ”
The tears came freely now, silent and relentless, dripping onto the screen of the phone he held. They were tears of utter dismantling. The man who wrote those searing blog posts, who built a following on caustic wit, was being erased in real-time, witnessed by millions, overseen by her.
Kim watched his breakdown with a detached, almost scientific interest. Finally, she lifted her foot away. The absence of her weight felt like a new kind of exposure.
“See?” she said, her voice gentle, almost comforting. “It’s out there now. The truth. And it’s so much simpler, isn’t it? All that fight… it was just noise.” She picked up her own phone, a slight, satisfied smile on her lips. “You can go. The kitchen floor needs scrubbing. Use the bristle brush on your knees. It gets into the grout better.”
Marcus couldn’t move. He knelt there, the phone slick in his trembling hand, the salt of his tears on his lips. The ocean view was just a smear of blue. The only clear thing in the room was the reflection in the dark glass of her monitor: a distorted image of a woman at her ease, and a man on his knees, broken open, with nowhere left for the pieces to hide.