Chapter 2: Legal Counsel
The damp cotton had lived in his pocket for three days.
It was a secret, a warm, shameful stone he carried with him. He’d transferred it from yesterday’s jeans to today’s, a silent, compulsive ritual. The contract, however, lived on his drafting table, weighted down by a stainless steel scale ruler. It was a stark, white rectangle against the sprawling blue chaos of a downtown high-rise facade he was supposed to be detailing.
He couldn’t focus. The rain streaked the window of his home office, turning the city’s neon glow into bleeding watercolours. His own reflection ghosted back at him—tired eyes, messy hair, a man hunched in a pool of lamplight surrounded by the skeletons of buildings that made sense.
The intercom buzzed, sharp and electronic. He jumped.
“It’s me. Let me up before I dissolve,” Emma’s voice crackled, laced with mock despair.
He buzzed her in, quickly shuffling some tracing paper over the contract. Not to hide it, exactly. Just to buffer its presence.
He heard her brisk steps on the stairs, then she shouldered her way in, a blast of damp air and vibrant energy. She shook her long blonde hair like a dog, scattering droplets across the floor. “Biblical out there. I swear the cab driver was considering an ark.” She shrugged out of her wet trench coat, revealing a sharp, lawyerly blouse over her athletic frame. Her eyes, sharp and blue, scanned the room, missing nothing. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks. Coffee’s fresh.”
“I’ll take it intravenously.” She poured a mug, leaning against the kitchenette counter. “So. You texted me a legal query that read like a panic attack. ‘Hypothetical contract’ Care to elaborate, or should I just start billing you?”
Alan ran a hand through his hair. He gestured to the drafting table. “It’s not hypothetical.”
Emma’s playful smirk faded. She set her mug down with a quiet click and crossed the room. She moved the tracing paper aside. For a long minute, the only sounds were the rain and the hum of the computer. She picked up the first page, her eyes scanning with professional speed. Then slower. Her brows knitted.
“Alan.”
“I know.”
“Who is Liberty?”
“A neighbour. She’s twenty-two. An art student.”
Emma let out a low whistle.She flipped a page. Then another. Her expression shifted from curiosity to deep, focused concern. “This is… incredibly well-drafted. For what it is.The definitions are precise. ‘Use.’ ‘Gratification.’ ‘Agency.’ It’s cold.” She looked up at him. “Did you have a lawyer draw this up?”
“She did. She brought it to me. Like a… a menu.”
Emma picked up the entire document, holding it like a piece of evidence. She read clause 4b aloud, her voice flat in the quiet room. “‘Party A shall never be required to consider Party B’s pleasure during use.’” She shook her head. “Christ.”
“She says that’s what she wants.To be an object. To not have to think.”
“And you believe her?”
Alan’s hand went instinctively to his pocket, feeling the soft cotton wad. “She left her… she gave me… proof. Of her sincerity.”
Emma’s gaze followed the movement. She didn’t ask for details. A seasoned solicitor, she knew some evidence was best left unexamined. She paced a short track on the worn rug. “The limits are… almost non-existent. No permanent damage. That’s a relief, I suppose. Clean anal play is explicitly included, which is oddly specific. Scatological stuff is out.Public use? Not addressed, so arguably permissible. Financial exchange?None. Duration? Indefinite, terminable by either party with written notice. It’s a relationship, Alan. A profoundly fucked-up one, but a relationship. With clauses.”
Emma stopped pacing. She tapped a specific line. “There’s no safeword in here. That’s something we should query” She dropped the pages back on the table.“Legally? It’s a minefield. It’s also probably unenforceable. A court would likely throw it out as contrary to public policy. But that’s not what you’re asking me, is it?”
Alan slumped into his desk chair. “What am I asking you?”
“You’re asking if you can do this without being a monster.” Her voice softened. She pulled up the stool from his drafting board and sat close to him. “My professional opinion? This is a catastrophic liability waiting to happen. My friend opinion? This girl is in some deep psychological water, and she’s asking you to dive in after her. You’re a decent guy, Alan. A predictable guy. You design buildings that stand up. This…” She gestured at the document. “This is an earthquake.”
“I know.”
“Do you want this?” The question was direct, gentle.
He stared at the blurred city lights. He thought of Liberty’s steady gaze, the tremble in her lip, the terrifying earnestness. He thought of the warm weight in his pocket, and the vast, empty quiet of his own life. “I don’t know. But I can’t stop thinking about it. About her. It’s like she’s opened a door in a room I didn’t know I was in.”
Emma was silent for a long time. She finished her coffee. “Okay,” she said finally.
“Okay?”
“Okay, if you’re going to be this stupid, let’s at least be smart about it.” She stood, all business again. “You need a counter-signature copy. You need to initial every clause, including the limits, so there’s a clear record of mutual understanding. You need a separate, contemporaneous video recording—just on your phone—where she verbally affirms her understanding of the terms, specifically the absence of a safeword. She needs to say it out loud. It won’t make it legally safe, but it might make it morally clearer. For you.”
Alan blinked. “You’re not telling me to run away?”
“I am,” Emma said, pulling her coat back on. “But you’re a grown man. And she’s a grown woman, however messed up her proposal is. She’s offering explicit, sober, documented consent. The most troubling kind, because it’s real.” She hesitated at the door. “Just remember, Alan. Contracts are for the aftermath. They’re for when things go wrong. What she’s asking for… it’s all about the moment. And you’ll be alone in those moments. With just her, and whatever this… hunger is.”
Alan looked at the contract. Then he took the soft, crumpled cotton from his pocket and laid it on the table beside the stark white pages. The two objects sat there together: the theory and the messy, damp, human proof.
The two objects sat there together: the theory and the messy, damp, human proof. Emma’s eyes tracked from the stark pages to the small, crumpled bundle of cotton. Her professional mask slipped for just a second, revealing a flash of pure, unvarnished shock.
“Is that…?” she began, her voice carefully neutral.
Alan couldn’t meet her gaze. He gave a tight, single nod.
“Alan,” Emma said, her tone shifting into something more pointed. “Tell me you haven’t already started this. That you didn’t call me down here for legal advice after the fact.”
“No,” he said, the word bursting out too quickly. He forced himself to look at her. “God, no.She left them. That first morning. As she walked out. It was… proof.Of her seriousness. Of her… state.”
Emma exhaled slowly, a controlled release of breath. She leaned closer, not touching the cotton, but examining it as if it were a curious piece of evidence. “Well,” she said finally, her voice dry. “It’s certainly a deposition.”
A shaky laugh escaped Alan, tension bleeding out of him. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been coiled.
“Right,” Emma said, straightening up and clapping her hands once, the sound decisive in the quiet room. “Okay. Hypothetical or not, we operate on the facts presented. The contract is a framework, but it’s full of holes big enough to drive a bus through. We need clarifications. Your clarifications. For your own conscience, if nothing else.”
She grabbed a fresh sheet of tracing paper and a pencil from his desk. “Start talking. What questions do you have? What makes your skin crawl?”
Alan stared at the list of clauses. The words ‘unfettered access’ seemed to pulse on the page. “Public use,” he said, the idea feeling both grotesque and electrically charged. “The document doesn’t mention it. Is it included in ‘any location’? I need to know.”
Emma scribbled ‘Public – parameters?’ on the paper.“Good. What else?”
“A safeword.You mentioned it. The contract says no requirement for one. But I want one.A real one. Something she can say that stops everything, no questions.” His voice was firm on this point, an anchor in the surreal conversation.
Emma wrote ‘Safeword ’ She underlined it twice. “Others?Participants? Is she expecting this to be exclusive? Could she bring someone else in? Could you?”
The thought was so foreign it felt like a physical jolt. “I don’t… I haven’t considered that,” Alan admitted, rubbing his temples. “But it should be on the list.‘Exclusivity. Other participants.’ Add it.”
They worked in tandem for twenty minutes, the rain a constant patter against the window. The list grew: Duration of individual encounters? Aftercare? Communication protocol outside of ‘use’? Was the IUD her only contraception? Each question, once voiced, made the abstract contract feel more terrifyingly concrete.
“This is a pre-nup for a sex cult,” Emma muttered, capping the pencil. She looked at the list, then at Alan’s pale face. “You’re actually considering this, aren’t you?”
Alan picked up his phone from the desk. Its screen reflected the blurry, inverted image of his own haunted expression. “I have to talk to her. I can’t sign a document like this with these questions screaming in my head.”
He opened his messages, finding Liberty’s last text from days ago: a simple ‘Thank you for the coffee ☕️’. His thumbs hovered over the screen.
“Neutral territory,” Emma advised softly, reading his hesitation. “Public. Somewhere with a quiet corner but no… associations.”
Alan typed, the clicks of the keyboard loud in the quiet. We need to talk.About your proposal. The White Hart, tomorrow night, 8pm. The back booth.
He showed the screen to Emma. She gave a curt, approving nod.He hit send. The whoosh sound seemed final. He placed the phone face down on top of the contract, covering clause 4b. The bundled cotton still sat beside it, a silent, damning witness to everything unsaid.
“There,” he said, his voice hollow. “Now I just have to wait.”