I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs. On the bottom floor were a small group of guys sorting through a delivery from a tuxedo rental company. One of them waved at me and yelled, “Mr. Shane, you need something?”

I approached him and shook his hand, though he did not tell me his name. I explained cordially, “If I said that I needed a payphone, you would say that there is one…”

“Probably on campus bro, maybe at a gas station.”

Not pleased with his lack of specificity, or perhaps mine, I asked in a subtly spiteful tone, “Could I borrow your phone real quick?

Not detecting the spite, as he was likely incapable of such perception, the douche removed the white iphone from his pocket and offered it.

“I appreciate it,” I said, grabbing it with a sly smile. I dialed my dealer’s number, which is one of five or six that I have memorized.

A soft though exceedingly tired female voice answered, “Old Mike’s Pizza,” which was the beginning of my drug dealer’s dial-a-labyrinth, whereupon drug seekers are forced to first ask for the manager, then give the customer ID of “5-3-1-8-0-0-8″, then the dealer, Anthony, answers, “Old Mike’s Pizza, this the manager Anthony, if you know my last name, say it now,” to which the drug seeker must say, “Stoner.”

In my few conversations with Anthony, I’ve been given the following explanation for the hotline: Old Mike’s is, or was, the name of an “epic” weed den in Corpus Christi, Texas; 5318008 is what you enter into a calculator to receive upside down BOOBIES; and Anthony Stoner is the name of Chong in some, if not all, of the Cheech and Chong films.

Once you complete the maze, Anthony takes your order. It’s all based on a fast-food type number and size system. Weed is #1. Blow is #2. Meth is #3. The other numbers change based on what Anthony, which might actually be his real first name, has in stock. The sizes are uniform, “large” equals an eighth, “small” equals a gram. Though I’m told, by him, that he has other delivery men, Anthony is the only person with whom I’ve ever dealt.

“Well,” I pondered over the line, “I probably need twenty large number twos.”

I paused as a light gasp and/or laugh came across the line.

“Could I have your customer ID, sir?”

A standard question before initiating delivery. Anthony has assigned nicknames to, well, at least me, and hopefully the rest of his clientage.

“Growing Pains,” I answered. A nicknamed earned after I was booted from a tasting party at a strip club that Anthony had organized for new and potential customers.

“It’s not anger,” Anthony had declared graciously, “that’s just growing pains.”

Anthony hmmmed on the line.

“I’d also like you to bring out one of each of your specials, I have twenty people here who have never tried you guys. They’re stuck on that lower quality stuff.”

“Ah, like Dominos?”

“Uh,” I mulled, “yeah, like Dominos.”

The line went quiet for a few awkward seconds while Anthony likely thought about the risks of traveling with such a large quantity of illicit materials.

“I fucking hate Dominos,” Anthony finally continued, “You at your normal place?”

“No… Meet me at Byron and Drexel.” A nearby corner that would give me the opportunity to prep Anthony before I made the required introductions.

“Holy shit, you in the parks?”

“Yes,” I said sharply to discourage his tone.

“Gimme an hour or so.”

Anthony hung up. The frat dick who owned the phone I had borrowed to set up a drug deal that, if anyone involved in the transaction were black, would come with a twenty year prison sentence, had overheard sporadic parts of the conversation. “Why you ordering pizza bro? We’ve got a chef on site, he just made pizza.”

I nodded sincerely, tossed the phone back and, without even considering addressing the fuckwad’s statement, walked casually up the stairs and back into the room.

The guys were now sitting in the two chairs, jovially and frantically locked into a deep discussion. Though they may have been aware of my entrance, the two did not stop their conversation to acknowledge such. Rather than impose, I listened in to Colin’s story.

“So they go through this fucking magic rock after those kooper trooper fuckers took Daisy – then they wake up in this Demolition Man world where there are humans and dinosaurs living together and shit. It’s the Mushroom Kingdom but it’s all fucked up because of Koopa. He’s fucked everything up and now he wants to get to the real world where everything is nice and clean.”

Eyes wide in amazement and intrigue, Trevor asked with great concern, “Which one does Daisy like, Mario or Luigi?”

“The fuck? Daisy’s Luigi’s bitch. But after they beat King Koopa and ride Yoshi into the real world, Daisy has to go back to Mushroom Kingdom with Toad and fix all the shit Koopa wrecked. So Luigi is all sad after they win the game even though Mario’s ready to hook him up with mad shrooms and shit from the Kingdom.”

Trevor laughed, turned his head, looking directly at my deeply confused face, then held out both of his empty arms and inquired, “But where’s the Princess?”

“No where to be found bro,” Colin quickly answered, saving me from dealing with the question, “It’s a mystery the whole time until the end when Mario and Luigi get rich because of their new tv show and Mario meets this bomb ass chick he calls ‘the Princess’.”

“Oh,” Trevor replied with a gracious smile, “That does sound pretty great”

“It really is,” Colin said profoundly.

“But Luigi and Peach really never bone?” Trevor again asked.

“Well at the end, she comes back after cleaning the house and shit and they get married. You’d think they fuck after that.”

Somewhat astonished, in a high voice, Trevor asked, “They get married?”

“Yeah and then at the very, very end, Donkey Kong shows up to set the scene for the sequel, but I don’t think they ever got the chance to make it because of politics or something?”

“Politics?” I interrupted, interested merely in an intellectually masochistic exercise.

“Woah. Hey Shane.” Colin turned and addressed me, “Have you seen the Mario Brothers Movie?”

“A long time ago,” I answered, immediately possessing a greater understanding of their conversation.

With a big smile, Colin offered, “We’re going to put it on while we get dressed for the party, you want to watch it with us?” His tone was only slightly homoerotic.

“I don’t think I have a choice, if that’s really what happened in the movie,” I paused and shifted gears, “but I just called my guy, he will probably be here in an hour.”

“What time is it?” Trevor asked Colin, returning to their deeply engrained frat hierarchy.

Colin retrieved his phone. “Two-thirty-nine,” he answered dutifully.

Before we could discuss anything further, a person knocked on the door.

“What?!” Trevor yelled.

“There’s a Kappa on the house phone,” the voice screamed back, “She wants to know when he’s coming over.”

Assuming that the ‘he’ was me, I whispered to Trevor, “We should probably go now.”

“Maaannn,” Colin pouted, “I wanted to watch the movie with you guys.”

“I wanted to watch it too,” Trevor said quietly and disappointed. “You think,” he continued, directing his voice at me, “you think you could go over there by yourself Shane? You’ve already seen the movie right?”

Though I liked neither Trevor nor Colin, and wasn’t interested in joining their budding bromance, the request burned. It reminded me that, for the day, I wasn’t their equal, I was their bitch.

And it might be deeper than all that. I’ve never fully come to terms with the fact that, as an attorney, on my best day, I’m merely expensive hired help, and on my worst day, I’m a lecherous parasite. I think it’s something that all attorneys have to consciously ignore as some type of cognitive dissonance. And I’m not arguing that being hired help is intrinsically bad, almost everyone is, or even that being a parasites is always bad. Some parasites help the host, clean up the shit and whatnot.

But parasites never get to be the host. And I guess that’s the problem. They never get to be the boss, the best they can hope for is to make partner, or be the boss of the other parasites. And they never create useful things, they only create tactics and devices to further their existence.

So I work at the pleasure of the client and that’s a supreme irritation. Especially when the client consists of a twenty-two year-old fuckwad who would be cleaning toilets if his father had not stolen a bundle of patents from his former employer. But I digress.

“That’s not a problem,” I answered like a bitch.

Trevor and Colin stood up and we all left the room. In the hallway, Trevor told me to get instructions from one of the jackwads downstairs, which I did. The Kappas lived a block-and-a-half away, towards SMU. The helpful fraternity idiot carefully wrote the address on a paper towel, because apparently a home filled with college students contains nothing more suitable.

I decided to walk the short trip, carrying my bag close to me the entire trip. I found the house ten minutes later. It was plain in all manners, wearing only enough to alert those who paid attention that the home belonged to the Kappas. As I knocked on the door, I wished greatly that I had been accompanied by one of the fraternity members as, given that I look unfortunately young, there was a high chance that I would come across as someone not deserving of my high stature.

Moments after banging the knocker into the door, the nearest drapes flashed open then shut. Shortly thereafter, voices moved back-and-forth across the house, indecipherably muzzled by the door. Footsteps finally approached my location and the door’s knob turned. With a loud creak, the door opened, revealing a heavy-set, middle-aged woman.

I introduced myself as best I could, sticking my hand through the entryway, “Shane Thompson, Attorn-”

“No soliciting,” the bulbous woman barked, stepping back and slamming the door, nearly catching my arm.

I again knocked, confused and casually frustrated. New random, muzzled voices followed. Once more, footsteps approached the door. Numerous footsteps. Then unsettling laughter. A light crash. The knob turned.

As the door cracked, I saw two or three girls, in various stages of disarray, on the floor, trying hastily to get up. With my gaze focused on the pile of sororitites, another girl slipped through the small opening, closing the door behind her. I stepped back and looked up.

As she came into focus, I whispered instinctively, “woah.” I covered my mouth to prevent such further murmurs.

She was short and tiny. Dark, wavy hair – with bangs – framed her pale face. Her green eyes, devastatingly piercing, caused my knees to lose much of their stability. An unmistakable cleverness lurked behind her one-sided smirk. She wore little – a blue bra under a white tshirt with blue soffes. Trouble at first sight.

“Excuse me?” she asked quickly, without altering her smirk.

I removed my hand from my face and smiled. “Sorry about that. I don’t know if you were over at the Easy house earlier-”

She shrugged and smirked deeper.

“Well, my name is Shane Thompson. I am an attorney at Braumel Bickson.” I took a calculated breath and she tilted her head quizzically. “I represent the fraternity. Tonight at least.”

“No,” she laughed, “I remember you – flashy, garish BMW right?”

I smiled and nodded, pleasantly perturbed by her derogatory reference as I wanted, or needed, nothing more than to hate this girl, so as to prevent any further issues with the case file, from which I gleefully anticipated my escape.

She opened the door and motioned me to follow. The heavy-set woman was just inside the door, staring through my face, suspecting me to be some sort of agent provocateur, or worse, a troublemaker. The entryway was small, giving preview to a complicated and convoluted floor plan. The pile of girls was gone – in fact, I could see nobody else from my position.

I reached my hand out again to the fat woman and began to introduce myself but was stopped by my escort. “He’s with me,” the girl said in an angry tone, “everything is fine.”

The girl tugged on my suit coat and I followed her through a small dining room into a kitchen, where again I encountered nobody else.

“That’s Anita. She’s kind of the den mother around here. Mops the floors, enforces the rules, makes wonderful cake.”

I nodded and stood uneasily in the middle of the kitchen, seeking a place to lean, sit, or otherwise relax my stance. Though a cutting-board counter split the kitchen, I made the poor choice to stand unassisted. The girl opened the fridge, mostly blocking her from my view.

“You need something to drink, lawyer? Beer, soda?” she asked, leaning over, sticking her ass, which wasn’t so much an ass at it was the top of her legs, into view.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

The girl emerged with two Budweiser cans and tossed one towards me. I caught it with acceptable poise.

“My name is Shane,” I repeated.

She lightly furrowed her brow and said, “I know, lawyer.”

I opened the beer and took a swig. After she did the same, I said, “I’m here to talk to you all about the party tonight.”

Her smirk returned. “I know, lawyer.”

Feeling chastised, I took another drink and walked around the counter toward a draped window, setting my bag on an end-table along the way. After pushing half of the curtains to the side, while looking into the backyard filled with reclining lawn chairs, and not much else, I asked vaguely, “What do you call the head of the Kappas?”

“President?” she responded in a voice provoked by my disinterest.

“Is that you?” I inquired, “Are you the President of the Kappas?”

“No,” the girl answered as though it was obvious.

I turned from the window. The girl was now leaning over the counter, her smallish breasts pushed up by her crossed arms.

“That’s probably who I need to speak with in order to organize this meeting,” I insisted.

“Nope,” she winked, “I won the responsibility to handle this. There’s been a hair dye emergency upstairs. So this important matter has fallen to me, by way of me being the first person to open the front door. Butterscotch was used instead of Honey Blonde. It was a tragedy, wouldn’t you know.”

“And a travesty…” I observed, slightly reticent, trying to be politely humorous.

She giggled and looked down, then said with a continued smile, “Indeed.”

As she lifted her head up, our eyes caught each other and refused to release. There was little awkwardness in the gaze. After a second, or a minute, she turned away and declared in her light tone, “Fine, you win.”

I walked up to the counter, on the opposite side of the girl. She leaned back only slightly.

“Why haven’t you told me your name?” I asked.

“Because you haven’t asked,” she fumed pleasantly.

I scratched my temple and mentally reviewed our conversation. “But I introduced myself. I mean. I tried to. You know my name. It was supposed to be an exchange.”

Looking off to the side, she poked, “Right, what was your name again? Obnoxious attorney? Pretentious attorney? Or just lawyer?”

“Shane,” I begged.

Steering away, she prodded differently, “What are you going to talk about in this meeting? Last year?”

“What’s your name?” I asked, righting the ship.

With a shrug and a smirk, she said, “Margaret, maybe Megan.”

“Same thing,” I snapped, hoping we were on the same page and she was testing me.

“Yes, Shane.” Her pronunciation and enunciation was sharp, making sure there was no doubt that she knew my name, delivering it as a reward.

After allowing her words, or my name, to linger, I answered her previous question, “I’m going to ask everyone, politely, to not get raped.”

“With such tact?”

I winked and said, “Well, I am a lawyer.”

“So you keep saying.” She took a long drink from her beer.

We sat there, studying each other, or rather, I was studying her. I couldn’t tell what she was doing, couldn’t ascertain her motives or even whether she was a willing participant in the game I thought we were playing. I poured the remaining drops of Bud into my mouth and momentarily dismissed my thoughts as yet again being overly-analytical. Then, because my greatest talent is a complete lack of self-control, I broke the pleasant silence with, “Ok, I have to ask this, even though I don’t want to… well, uh, I’m routinely, exceptionally presumptuous, overzealous, and rude, but – and I mean this with some respect – are you really this clever?”

After a hum and a haw, she answered slyly, “As opposed to?”

“Well, I may be off base, I don’t know. I just spent an hour or more over at the Easy house. It’s possible that I’ve accidentally acclimated to a world of lesser intelligence, but right now, it seems to me as though you are either quite clever or charmingly dense.”

“They aren’t the same?” she winked.

Placing both hands on the counter, looking into her with sincerity, “Stop,” I said , “for one second, stop. It’s not that I don’t find this somewhat intoxicating, it’s just, you see, this type of conversation kind of gets to me, it turns my wheels, you know what I’m saying?”

“It sounds like you are saying that you fancy this?”

“It’s just, I’m pretty experienced in this arena. If you are as clever as you let on, which is to say that your actions towards me in the short time we’ve been together have been deliberate, we’re on a path right now that leads somewhere complicated-”

She feigned wild laughter. “Woah. Pretty arrogant for a chubby attorney.”

“So just charmingly dense then?” I turned away, insulted and rebuffed, as I’ve grown mildly sensitive to that issue.

“Well gee Shane,” she said unwavering, “are you as smart as you let on?”

“Probably,” I answered sternly as I turned back to face her.

“Well I know what I’m doing,” she whispered, as though it was a secret, “if that helps… answer your question.”

“It does.”

She shook her head and asked, “You’re not very subtle, are you?”

“With blind arrogance comes occasional embarrassment,” I answered with a grin, “I’ve occasionally mistaken cordiality for something greater, which is to say that I’ve barked up the wrong tree – and I hated it.”

“So you have to ask all the girls you talk to if they are flirting with you?”

Looking off, remembering past encounters, I said, “Only the girls I want to be flirting with me.”

So we spoke for the next twenty minutes, each on opposite sides of the counter, always carefully speaking one level above the other, dropping only infuriating hints about our true subjects, flirting but never revealing much of anything. It was wonderful. I did learn, though it was not easy, that Maggie, as she is actually called, had won the right to entertain me by being the first sorority member to step out of the front door, a silly task assigned to all the girls by her President. She was cautious in allowing that detail to slip, even asserting that she undertook the task with such fervor out of mere boredom and not, of course, because she had an interest in me.

“Have you ever read Schopenhauer on boredom?” I asked like a complete asshole, knowing she hadn’t, because I had been mildly insulted when she failed to acknowledge that she raced down to meet me due to sensual, though possibly still shallow, intrigue.

She smiled and answered abruptly, “Wait, wait, I know what you are about to say, hold on.” She raised her hand and began to chew on the tip of her index finger, thinking deeply. “Boredom,” she said in a deep, professor-like voice, now pointing at me, “Boredom is the proof that existence,” she paused, “is valueless.”

“Fuck,” I said slowly, humbled. “Where could you have possibly learned that?”

“School,” she touted frivolously and grinned, her bangs splashing around, landing so they nearly covered her spectacular eyes.

“Do you like being a Kappa?” I asked, my wounds having healed, again thoroughly entranced by her.

“Yes,” she answered, “do you like being a lawyer.”

“Most of the time,” I responded with what is likely the truth, despite previous assertions to the contrary, then I sighed and said, to provoke reaction, “I’m going to say this, and you’re going to take it as a compliment, and it is a compliment – this is all, well you are, a bit… surreal.”

“How long do you think we could keep this up?” she asked, dismissing my words.

I shrugged, “That’s up to you.”

“Meaning?”

“A minute,” I paused for dramatic effect, “forever.”

A very light giggle emanated and she proffered, “You’re a special type of strange. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.”

“You will,” I shook my head, “You are young.”

“humpf,” Maggie asserted, leaning over the counter aggressively, “I’m almost nineteen!”

Not shocked, though saddened, I narrated, “And a sad, familiar, skeevy feeling washes over me in an avalanche of shame.”

“What? How old are you?” Maggie asked full of skepticism and vague disappointment.

Instant tabulation. “You were in first grade when I lost my virginity,” I answered.

Her body stiffened. “Gross,” she said.

“Yep,” I nodded.

A bit shaken by the age revelations, Maggie immediately pushed away, physically and metaphorically, “Are you ready for me to call everyone down?”

“No,” I implored, “This should continue.”

Maggie then insisted, “I’m going to call everyone down,” and I, for the first time since we began speaking, in mild panic, walked around the counter. Though my original motivation was to find another beer, or at least that was the excuse that convinced me to undertake the path, as I passed her, with her eyes, those eyes, watching my every step, I stopped.

“I’ll regret this if I don’t ask. Would you mind it terribly if I did something inappropriate?” I asked, shooting wildly into the dark.

Her back arched and she smirked, “How inappropriate?”

Seizing the moment, which is a beneficial symptom of a lack of self-control, and possibly the only reason I’ve ever bedded anyone, save those I’ve paid, I stepped forward, slid my right arm through the gap between her back and the counter, and pulled her against me. Our faces an inch away from the other, we stared, maybe glared, at each other, each insisting the other make a decision, a glorious mistake. Finally, Maggie parted her lips slightly and kissed me, wet and quick. A string of saliva formed between our lips as she pulled away, which was promptly smashed from whence it came as I returned the kiss. Our lips still locked, I removed my arm from her back and placed both hands one each side of her face. As our mouths departed, I held her close, again staring into her, savoring her excitement.

Then the swinging door on the far side of the room, as it would, swung open. A girl with distinctly honey-blonde hair stepped through. She was fit, likely because she desperately wanted to be fit, and attractive, in the same way any and every tan, thin blonde is attractive. Maggie and I did the traditional awkward shove-off and spun to face her. If the new girl had been less self-absorbed, she would have picked up on the situation but, because this girl was clearly a rancid bitch, our closeness went undetected.

The new girl stormed, “Are we about ready for this shit Maggie? We have a lot of stuff to deal with before we are ready to go over there.”

“I like your hair,” I interjected, using an unseen finger to playfully poke Maggie’s thigh.

“Oh my god,” bemoaned the banshee, “Are you the lawyer I keep hearing about?”

“I bet so. My name is Shane Thompson, I’m an attorney at Braumel Bickson. I’m working with Trev-”

“Whatever, I know, you’re here to tell us not to be like that bitch from last year, Patty? Peggy? I don’t fucking know. How about nobody goes into a dark room with a creep without your panties on? I’ve already given that lecture. I don’t see why you are here. You’re not needed.”

“I’m not, I know,” I assured, “but I go where they tell me to go.”

“I’m Ashley, President of the Kappas,” she said, walking past, or through, me to get to the refrigerator. Pushed aside, I remained silent. After retrieving three bottles of Ozarka, or something equally terrible, she placed two on the counter and opened one for herself. “Are you fucking kidding me with that Maggie? Budweiser? Do you have many calories are in that? Oh my god.”

“Of course it is,” I finally said.

Both Maggie and Ashley snapped their gaze to me.

“What?” Ashley asked with a snarl.

“Your name,” I said, reaching for one of the bottles of water, “Of course it’s Ashley.”

“Oh my god,” Ashley repeated, “I don’t have time for this, I’m telling everyone to come downstairs right now for this bullshit meeting.”

Ashley grabbed her bottle of water and walked with deliberation to and out the swinging door.

I poked Maggie again the moment the bitch left sight and Maggie slapped my hand away in a serious fashion. She waited for the door to stop moving and turned to me to whisper in a highly concerned tone, “Shane, that was fun, this was fun, you’re fun. And I’m flattered and you seem nice, but I’m sorry, that was too much and… it has to be it.”

I laughed, not dissuaded, and stepped towards her slowly.

Maggie stepped to the side and away from me further, “I’m sorry. I led you on. I can’t.”

“Boyfriend?” I muttered, not turning to face her.

She nodded, “It’s pretty serious.”

“How serious?” I asked, yearning for a return to the previous banter.

Maggie shrouded a chuckle and said, with great pleasure, “As a daydream.”

I turned to Maggie and put my hand on her waist, pulling ever so slightly for her to come forward.

“Sorry,” she said, again pulling away.

We spent the next few minutes in silence, sipping from the bottles of water Ashley had somewhat randomly provided.

After a bit, the swinging door, which was not the door through which I had entered the kitchen, again swung open and Ashley’s head popped through.

“Let’s go, hurry up, get in here,” she ordered.

I allowed Maggie to walk ahead of me and I followed through the door, which opened into a second, grander dining room, which was anchored by a twenty-foot long wooden dining table. There were about two dozen girls standing at the other side of the room. Maggie joined them. Ashley stopped me when I tried to follow.

“Shawn,” Ashley said being intentionally rude, “these are the Freshmen. Freshmen, say ‘Hi’ to Shawn.”

In a faux-alluring tone, the group said, “Hiii, Shawn.”

I blushed a bit and wiggled uncomfortably, because I’m apparently a huge fucking nerd, then I began, “It’s Shane actually, I guess I’m the chaperone tonight. I’m an attorney at Braumel Bickson and I just gave a very long-winded, very boring speech to the Easy guys. I doubt that was effective. So this time, having learned my lesson, I’ll get straight to the point, because the following is really all that’s relevant. So, no matter what you do tonight…”

I exhaled and made eye contact with a few of the girls, including Maggie. Then, doing just as I had promised earlier, as some sort of delusional show of good faith, I said, clearly and firmly,

“Don’t get raped tonight.”

Maggie smiled and others gasped. Anxiety immediately flooded my veins. I turned and exited the room through the swinging door, not knowing my destination, but having reached a boiling point, and needing to change the scene. I grabbed my bag as I walked through the kitchen, walked through the smaller dining room and entryway, and out the front door, slamming it behind me with resolve.

“Shit. Shit!” I stood up and began pacing in a small circle. “Has everyone seen it?”

“I’ve probably gathered all of the copies by now. One of the copy boys recognized your face and found me. And now I’m sitting at the fax machines grabbing them as they come through, but people are talking about it, other people have seen it.”

“Ok,” I said, thinking aloud, “do this, draft an email from my account to the entire firm, every fucking person, stating that, on information and belief, a recently departed associate, Derek, photoshopped my head onto an inappropriate and graphic image. And that he’s been circulating the image because he’s bitter about being terminated or some bullshit.”

“Hold on, I’m getting a notepad.”

“Jesus christ Jana! Hurry up, this is fucking serious.”

It really was.

“Hold on. Ok go. What should the email say?”

I began, “On information and belief,”

“Why that?” Jana asked, apparently not recognizing the situation as serious.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Because you can lie as an attorney if you preface it with ‘on information and belief.’”

“Oh ok, cool, keep going.”

“The email should say: ‘On information and belief, Derek, who was recently terminated by the firm, has placed my head on an explicit image using photo editing software and is attempting to spread the image throughout the firm. Derek will be promptly reported to the bar for his malfeasance but, for the time being, please be gracious in deleting or destroying any copy of the image. Thank you, Shane Thompson.’”

“Ok, I got it, and you really want me to send that to the entire firm? Every person at every office?”

“Yeah, you’re right, just do Dallas, but keep on it. Call me if this gets out of hand, I’m going to be busy tonight, I’ve got twenty-year-olds to babysit.”

“You probably should see if you can get that bitch to stop faxing this, this is eating up my day,” Jana grumbled.

“What the fuck else do you have to do?” I asked as I hung up.

I sat back down and reflected. I wasn’t going to call Rosaline, she didn’t deserve it, I couldn’t reward such behavior. I checked my email, ignoring each of Jana’s because I knew what they contained. Nothing else was interesting. I closed my eyes and drifted away. The various chemicals prevented sleep from coming – though I was desperate for its arrival – but fortunately I was able to relax and gain a brief calm.

Five or fifteen minutes later, Trevor burst into the room carrying a plate of pizza and a PBR. “You cool with PBR dude? We have some nicer shit for the party but nobody has tapped the kegs yet.”

I nodded with passive-aggressive hate and motioned for Trevor to set the food and drink on the desk.

“So hey,” he continued, “the Kappas are going to their house in a few minutes to get ready, you think, uh, after they leave, I could round up the guys and you could talk to them?”

“Yes,” I nodded, “that’s fine.”

“Ok, another question… you are charging me no matter what right? Like you are on the clock right now?”

“That’s right.”

“And I can ask you to do whatever? Like I could ask you to go to the dean and meet with him? Or draft a rules of engagement for tonight? Or anything?”

Not sure I appreciated or liked the line of questioning, despite its obvious accuracy, I replied, “I’ll advise you as best I can and, if you need me to do those things, I suppose I could do them.”

“Oh I don’t need that stuff, I was just wondering, well,” he paused and smiled, “do you think you could go over to the Kappas’ house and prep them for tonight, you know, get them primered for the party.”

“Primered?” I asked, knowing full well that he meant ‘primed.’

“If you could cover our asses and still get them excited for the party, that would be great. I don’t know…maybe-”

He rambled on for what felt like ten minutes, obviously unsure what he really wanted me to say to the girls, or more likely unsure whether he could tell me what he really wanted me to say. The basic premise was for me to make sure the girls were cool with having sex, and that they were ready to have the sex, as long as that’s what they wanted – or some shit like that. I nodded along, ate my food, and gave him various assurances like, “I can handle that” or “not a problem.” He finally finished his diatribe and left to get the guys situated so that I could better speak to them.

While I finished the pissish PBR alone in the tiny room, I felt the feeling entertainers must feel just before a big show, while they are sitting in their dressing rooms getting ready to go on stage. A pleasant nervousness. Also likely similar to most entertainers, I removed a small bit of cocaine from my bag and, when I was sure that nobody was standing anywhere close to the door, I did rather large line. A few minutes later, the pizza and PBR gone, Trevor knocked and cracked the door.

“You ready Shane?”

I nodded and left the room. I walked down the staircase with a certain, indescribable zeal. I was ready to give the performance, though I wasn’t sure what performance I was to give as I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to say. Even further, because I was flying high, I felt a sense of achievement about what I was about to do, almost as though my actions were noble. Somehow it seemed like I could change the world with my upcoming speech, like I had an opportunity to connect with a bunch of douchebags and leave them for the better.

When I turned from the stairs into what could aptly be described as the living room, I encountered probably seven-dozen college assholes staring back. The scene caused a single, though entirely perceptible, butterfly to awaken in my now pleasantly full stomach.

“Everyone,” Trevor began, “this is Shane Thompson, he’s our attorney for the evening. He’s going to make sure that we do not have repeat of last year’s disaster. I want you to really pay attention to him. Everything he says is the law of the frat for tonight. Got it?”

The fuck-filled crowd nodded and screamed, “Got it!”

Trevor offered me the stage and said, “Shane?”

I stepped forward and with my hands up, feigning surrender, I began, “First, I want you all to understand that I earnestly hope each and every one of you has dirty, raunchy, filthy sex tonight.”

The crowd cheered.

“But, and this is a huge but, like Jennifer Lopez sized,” I smiled and paused for laughter, none came, I squirmed uncomfortably for a moment. “Is Jennifer Lopez not good for that joke anymore? Does Beyonce have a big ass? I don’t really know what’s popular any more.”

Sporadic laughter.

“But I’m trying to connect with you all so that you really take me seriously. You think I give speeches like this very often? I’m keeping it relatable so that you pay attention.”

Slightly increased laughter.

“I’m here to tell you that what happened at this party last year was avoidable. Whether or not you all want to admit it, there were probably a hundred instances where you or one of your brothers could have stopped what happened. And what happened, and I only say it so that it’s in the front your minds, is that a defenseless girl was repeatedly raped in this very house.”

I glanced to Trevor, his eyes wide wide with confusion, and smiled.

“And yes, that was an extreme case. But that extreme case has tainted the name of this great fraternity and now, fairness be damned, you all are going to be held to a very strict standard because of it. One screw up, one drunken boob grab, a single coinpurse boilplate, and you put the entire fraternity in jeopardy. So tonight, and tonight only, none of the bartenders are going to serve any girl who is visibly intoxicated.”

The crowd shifted uncomfortably. A slight boo emanated.

“I’m serious,” I scorned. “And christ, this is really a blessing. Even under normal circumstances, having sex with a super drunk girl is a recipe for fucking disaster. As a guy, when I wake up naked and can’t remember if I had sex with the girl next to me, but I highly suspect that I did given the crust on my dick, it’s a lot of fun. But with girls, women, when that same thing happens, even if they would have consented given the chance, they feel very violated. It’s just how it is. Once a girl gets to a certain level of drunkenness, even if it was your wife, you just can’t have sex with her. But I went to college, I’ve been here before, you don’t need to ply these ladies with alcohol to get them in bed, they’ll have sex with you regardless.”

A few idiots clapped as I took a breath.

“Besides, filling them alcohol is only going to reduce their available skill-set during intercourse.”

For the record, this is actually how I talk, the verbage, the tedious word selection, all accurate. And I’ve always spoken like that, like a gigantic douchebag, desperate for others to feel even slightly defensive, though there’s never a good reason for them to feel such a way. It’s routinely pathetic.

“You want your girl to give you a blow job?,” I paused and pointed to one of the guys in the front row, “this guy knows what I’m talking about.” Laughter. “Well drunk girls give terrible head. And woah, you want her on top? You know, riding on you while you admire the goods?”

I stopped myself and, overwhelmed by the absurdity of my speech, I laughed a bit. Though I had long imagined I would spend my days convincing idiots to believe ridiculous lies, I always thought these speeches would be given to a jury. Never, not when I was contemplating becoming a lawyer, not when I was fucking around in law school, not even when I was sliding my platinum tie tack through my vintage Bronzini, never, not once, did I imagine that I would, one day, be standing before a group of grinning semi-adults attempting to persuade them that glorious drunken sex isn’t what they actually wanted – at $400 an hour no less.

“Well you can’t get that ride if she’s trashed. Drunk girls have terrible sexual rhythm, you’ll end up doing all the work. It won’t be nearly as enjoyable. But you know who is great at sex? Tipsy women. Girls with just enough alcohol to forget their inhibitions and feel confident enough to do exactly what they want under the sheets. Tipsy girls are wonderful. Get them tipsy, you won’t have to fuck them, they’ll fuck you. And you’ll have the night of your life.”

Trevor and the rest of the guys nodded in solemn unison.

“Ok, so some alcohol, not too much. Take it easy, be smart about it. Now, because they were involved in last years brutal rape, I need to address drugs. What can I expect to see tonight?”

The faces of audience went blank, nobody spoke or raised their hand.

“Listen, I’m not interested in narcing on anyone. Though there are exceptions and, frankly, I’m not entirely sure who my client is in this situation, there exists a certain privilege, or confidence, between us. That said, quite obviously, there are certain drugs that will not be allowed in the house tonight. For example, no rolling tonight. Now I have been told most of you haven’t had sex with your girl, and I understand why you might want to roll tonight to make the first night memorable, I get it, I don’t blame you, but no – you can’t. Tomorrow sure, I don’t care. Not tonight.”

A notably chubby guy in a large polo at the front of the group raised his hand and said before I could point to him, “When you say roll? What exactly do you, uh, mean?”

“Ecstasy,” I said, as though it was a stupid question, because it was a stupid question.

The chubby kid continued, “I have some pot though, I thought I might smoke it tonight.”

“Ok good, fine,” I replied, “anyone else?”

Hands shot up like a whack-a-mole. I began pointing to the various idiots.

“I have weed too,” said the next kid. “Weed for me too,” blurted another.

After three or four more, I held my hand out like a stop sign and laughed, “I don’t need to hear about anymore weed. Weed is fine. It won’t help you get laid but, whatever, you can smoke as much as you want tonight. Anyone else have something other than weed that they plan on doing tonight?”

An absurdly attractive, six-foot-two fuckwad raised his hand, “I have some peyote, I don’t know if I’ll use it tonight. But I had thought-”

Skeptical, I interrupted him and ordered, “Go get it.”

The attractive fucker looked around nervously, as though he was expecting someone to say something that would prevent him from having to go find the alleged peyote. I looked at Trevor concerned.

“Go on, go get it,” Trevor commanded.

The fuckwad left the room.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

A short guy, who was obviously consciously and carefully attempting to appear as both a douchebag and a slacker, raised his hand. Everyone in the room chuckled under their breath. I smiled, acknowledging that the dealer had been identified. “I have everything,” he blurted, falling victim to his the crowds’ anticipation. The room erupted in a howl.

Interested in speaking with him in private, I promised, “Good. I’ll talk to you in a bit, who else?”

The only bookish guy in the room raised his hand. One of the other guys immediately exclaimed, “You don’t have shrooms Donald. Those are fucking portabellas in a ziploc.” I looked a Trevor, who nodded.

Before the nerd could say anything, I offered, “If you want me to look at them to tell you whether or not you have what you think you have, you can show them to me. Otherwise, how about you just don’t do them tonight.”

Acknowledging the opportunity to avoid embarrassment, the nerd nodded thankfully.

In the background, you could hear the athletic fuckwad bounding down the stairs. He emerged into the room a moment later proudly carrying a bag of green plants. Before he could offer them to me, I said, “That’s weed.”

The fuckwad stopped and looked at his bag. “This is peyote man, I’ve done some.”

“Ok,” I said with an asshole smile.

“I really did,” he insisted.

“Fine, and you can do as much of that as you’d like at the party.”

A few in the crowed laughed, the fuckwad left the room in a huff and headed up the stairs in a huff.

“Alright,” I began my conclusion, “Don’t get your date drunk tonight. Smoke a little pot, have some fun. If you want your penis to perform, I don’t recommend getting drunk yourself. Tonight is about optimum performance, not idiocy. Have a good time, keep your nose clean, have some good sex, be the gentlemen Trevor insists you are, and – well – try not to rape anyone.”

Trevor, rather expertly picking up that I was finished, walked over and said, “Thanks Shane, if anyone has any questions tonight about what you should or shouldn’t do tonight, or how to act like a gentleman, talk to Shane, I’m pretty sure he knows everything.”

The group dispersed. Trevor put his arm around me around my neck and guided me to the other side of the house. “Good work in there, I think my father would be very pleased. I liked the stuff about not getting too drunk. I think that’s good. Tipsy sex is really the best.”

I nodded through the awkwardness.

Trevor then pulled me closer then whispered, “I’ve got some coke though, I was going to have a room tonight where the older guys could have some. Is that going to be a problem?”

I pulled myself away and said, “You get it from that guy?” I pointed back into the room, where the slacker was still standing.

Trevor nodded.

In a convincing tone, so as to accurately convey my interest in the topic, I said, “Call him over, let’s have a meeting.”

Trevor immediately yelled, “Colin, get the fuck over here.”

Colin, wearing destroyed jeans and a red hoodie emblazoned with the frat’s letters, sprinted towards us.

“Yes sir,” said Colin in an almost militaristic manner.

“Come with us,” Trevor chided, immediately walking towards the staircase.

We quickly climbed the steps and closed the door to the small office that I had previously occupied. As there were only two chairs, Colin stood.

Trevor, rediscovering the bottle of vodka, took a quick drink and cautioned, “This conversation is private and not to be discussed with any of the other brothers or, and I’m being deathly serious Shane, my father.”

“Trevor,” I laughed, “I’m operating on the assumption that no part of anything that I do for your fraternity will ever be conveyed to any other person. I certainly never plan on discussing this with anyone. I’m not entirely sure of the ethical boundaries in this representation.”

Colin, feeling left out and as though he needed to say something, affirmed, “My lips are totally sealed.”

Trevor pointed to me and asked, “Ok, what’s up Shane? This is your meeting.”

I reached for my bag and sat it on the desk. “I want to again be clear that I think your new members should only be smoking pot and drinking alcohol tonight. There is no sense in letting anyone experiment on a night when any issue is going to be so magnified. And I want to say that, for the record, weed and booze are probably the only thing that any of us should use.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Colin interjected as a joke.

“But given the realities of life,” I continued, “I want to be sure, if you are going to be using, that your product is clean and that your prices are fair.”

Colin, feeling immediately affronted, said, “What? My shit’s great man.”

“Show me,” I said looking him square in the eye, unconvinced.

Colin nodded, opened the door and ran out of the room. While he was gone, Trevor asked, “You do drugs?”

I smiled internally but kept my face blank. “I went to college,” I deadpanned, “I know people. I’m not green. Plus I like to know about things. You can’t be the smartest guy in the room if you don’t experience everything life has to offer.”

Recognizing my answer as evasive, Trevor inquired further, “So yes?”

I shrugged in a guilty manner, Trevor smiled.

Colin reentered the room carrying a small dufflebag. “What would you like to see?” he offered, almost boasting.

I shook my head, letting him know my irritation, and asked, “What do you have?”

“Weed, coke, E, shrooms, meth-”

“You need to get rid of the fucking meth,” I immediately warned.

“I’ve had it forever, nobody buys here at smoo.”

“No shit. How much do you have?”

“10 grams,” he replied sheepishly.

“I’ll give you a hundred for it.”

“No way, thats-” Colin stopped and looked at Trevor, almost pleading for permission to turn me down.

Preemptively, I said, “Trevor, this will get it out of your house. I’m underpaying by probably four hundred, but it doesn’t sound like he has much of a market.”

Trevor, nodding, said to Colin, “You should do it.”

And he did, Colin pulled three baggies from his bag and exchanged them for the hundred that had been floating in my pocket since Jana handed it to me earlier. Having relatively little experience with the drug, I couldn’t speak much to its quality.

“Let me see your coke,” I requested after dropping the meth into my bag.

Colin pulled out a baggy filled with a sadly gray powder and offered it.

“I’m not even going to touch that.” I said, recoiling. “Tell me you guys haven’t put that up your nose. Where did it come from? What’s it cut with?”

“I, um, well, you see, I don’t know,” Colin muttered.

I sighed and reached into my bag. I found a nearly empty baggy of cocaine and removed it, tossing it onto the desk. “Try that.”

“Ha!” Trevor yelled.

And with that, as though I had tossed a steak into a pack of hungry dogs, both Colin and Trevor reached for the baggy and, operating in near unison, dumped its contents onto the desk. Recognizing his place, Colin deferred to Trevor and allowed him to make the first line. Moments later, they had both taken their turn. Colin’s nose bled a drop, likely because his nostrils were destroyed by years of terrible coke.

“Holy shit,” Trevor said. “Holy fucking shit.”

“I know,” I said calmly. I then licked my finger, used it to collect the residue from the desk, and licked what had gathered. “I know.”

The room went quiet while the other two fell into their high. Eventually, I continued, “So Colin, here’s the deal, you’ve got some pretty amateur shit going on here. I’m going to connect you with my source. And I think it’s good that one person continues to bring in the product for everyone. It limits exposure and liability. I don’t want to see what else you have, you need to flush it all, it’s trash.”

Colin, almost obnoxiously high, announced, “This is great, I mean, this is just great.”

Trevor hadn’t moved. I’m not certain he even heard what I or Colin had said.

“You have your phone?” I asked Colin.

In rapid fire, the now bouncy Colin replied, “Why? You need it? You want me to go get it? I can go get it. Let me go get it. I’ll be right back.” He left before I could respond.

The slam of the door woke Trevor from his haze. “You could have just said yes dude,” he said with a lazy smile, “You don’t need to hide things from us, we got your back, you know?”

Now aware that the frattards were so very ill prepared for, well, real drugs, I asked condescendingly, “Said yes to what?”

Trevor moved his chair closer to the desk and attempted to prop his head up with his elbow. After three failed efforts, he gave up and stood, preferring instead to grip the file cabinet to compensate for his new-found lack of balance.

After holding onto the cabinet for more than a minute, awkward silence filling the room, Trevor finally replied, “That you do drugs bro, that you love drugs, you could have told me, don’t worry about anything, everything is fine.”

A knock on the door came shortly thereafter, to which I replied, “Come in Colin.”

Instead of entering, Colin whispered, “I’ve got my phone guys, somebody let me in. Please hurry.”

I reached from my chair and opened the door. Colin was on his knees, as though he was about to attempt to slide his phone under the door.

“Get up,” I sighed, growing quickly concerned that my efforts to clean up the house were going to destroy it.

Colin stood up and handed me the phone, which I promptly returned. I explained that I was going to teach him how to reach my dealer and that after this first time, he should never use his own phone again. I sat him down in Trevor’s seat and began to go through the process.

After Colin asked a third question about how to dial the number on his own phone, I stood, admitted temporary defeat and told him to sit in my chair and take a few minutes, that we would go over it later. By then, Trevor was drumming incessantly on the top of the file cabinet, still using it to support his body.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, please don’t leave,” I begged.

“Wait!” Colin exclaimed. “I want you to know – Shane – I really need you to understand – that I, well, umm…” He stood, grabbed my arm, and looked me in the eye. “I think this is the start of something great.”

I arrived at the given address a few minutes later. The frat house, a well-groomed and rather grand Victorian, was on a corner lot just off the most prestigious street in University Park. I parked directly in-front of the house. There were a number popped-collar douchebags walking about the scene, carrying ice-chests, plastic cups, and other party-related items. A few eyes glanced towards my car but nobody made any perceivable gesture.

I reached into the backseat floorboard, where the information folder had fallen, and grabbed it. Jana had pulled together a good bit of data on the fraternity, Epsilon Alpha Sigma, (EAΣ), my client, Trevor Paxson, and that night’s party. Though I was already aware that this particular fraternity was the wealthiest, and therefore best, fraternity at SMU – which I don’t suppose is cause for much celebration – I was unaware just how much better they were than their nearest rival. EAΣ ‘s endowment was three times the size of the next-best fraternity, their house had been appraised at more than six-million dollars, and, despite the shitty education, alumni of the SMU chapter of EAΣ have ingrained themselves into the top-tiers of the Southern elite – Senators, Judges, CEOs, etc. And my client was the president and star member of the fraternity as he had the wealthiest father.

While overly and purposely vague, the sparse information Jana had pulled from Facebook about the party was particularly troubling. In fact, there was little doubt that the party was to contain and/or embody everything I hated as an undergrad. Without delving too deeply, the evening’s function was titled, and I wish to god I was embellishing or exaggerating, “Flappers and Pinstripes: A Farewell to Autumn with YOUR Kappa.”

Foregoing my traditional internal dialogue about the manner in which I would approach the client – as I was still amped from my daft maneuvering with the police officer – or the cocaine – I threw the car door open and aggressively rose from my seat. I then unlocked the trunk with my remote, pushed the open button, grabbed my bag from the footlocker, and walked up the path to the house. As I reached the porch, one of the frat fucks walking around stopped and asked, “Can I help you, bro?”

In legitimate irritation, I snarled, “I have a two-o-clock appointment with Trevor Paxson.”

From inside the house, which had each of its windows open, either to allow the cool breeze in or the presumably putrid smell out, a male bellowed, “You’re a bit early, don’t you think?”

It was about 1:20.

“Mr. Paxson?” I yelled towards the house, immediately upset at myself for giving him an honorific.

Just then, the front door swung open and out stepped a generic, athletic white male in jeans, a red polo, and a brown smoking jacket. He carried himself with the swagger of a man who had received unfaltering and unending praise from various generations of persons obsessed with his father’s wealth. He stuck his hand forward and said, in a lightly Southern tone, “I’m Trevor.”

“Shane Thompson,” I replied meeting his hand firmly.

“I’m really sorry you had to come down here for this,” he grinned, “my father’s being a bit, well he’s being overprotective as hell. Who ever heard of having an attorney oversee a party? I’m sure you had better things to do.”

I ignored my urge to correct him, as the frat house was north of my office, not ‘down.’

He stepped back into the house, leaving the door open, I followed.

The house, which featured beautiful woodwork and vintage wallpaper throughout, was flooded with young, irritatingly attractive people, who were each busy covering the place with tacky black-and-white paper decorations. Each person was dressed as you would expect someone to be dressed at a wealthy, Southern fraternity – like a douchebag or the female equivalent.

“Come up to my office,” Trevor continued, walking effortlessly through the crowd, “I’ll get you up to speed.”

I nodded and followed him up the staircase that split the home. About halfway up the staircase, I stopped, noticing the amazingly, ridiculously, outrageously intricate, wood-carved, spiral balusters.

As I ran my finger around the spiral in awe, Trevor, standing at the top of the staircase, yelled down, “You like them? Those came out of a house in Barcelona. I don’t remember the story. Donor didn’t want his wife to get them in the divorce or something. I think a famous architect designed them or used them – Montclaire or something.”

“Montaner,” I said, quietly to myself.

“What?” Trevor yelled in an annoying, almost-shrill voice.

I snapped out of my lustful haze and walked to the top of the stairs. “I’m sure you mean Montaner.”

“You know what?” he asked, “you’re probably right.”

We walked a few feet to a small, windowless room and entered. The room was sparse, containing merely a file cabinet, a bare desk along one wall, and two, small rolling desk chairs.

“Have a seat, throw your bag wherever,” Trevor offered, “you want something to drink? Vodka?”

“Ok,” I replied, having long ago learned that you never turn down an earnestly offered beverage.

Trevor looked around the empty room with a quick glance. “You mind if we share the bottle? I don’t have anything to pour it in.”

I reached for the bottle, opened it and took a quick swig. No burn.

Trevor cocked his head to the left and smiled. “My dad speaks kindly of you, highly of you, said some real nice things. You helped him win one of his cases right?”

I sat the bottle on the desk and spoke slowly to in a futile effort prevent myself from launching into a rambling war-story. “I verified some summary evidence for your father during his last lawsuit, not a big deal.”

Trevor grinned. “I don’t know have a clue what that is.”

“It’s long and boring,” I said, “don’t worry about it.”

Amused, Trevor looked upon his watch. “You’re forty minutes early, we have plenty of time, tell me,” he begged.

“Well,” I started, “first I want to be clear that your pleasant disposition will quickly vanish the moment I continue.”

Trevor didn’t follow my thought – a torpid gaze stared into my empty face.

I continued nevertheless. “We had to prepare summaries of thousands of pages of financial information for your father’s lawsuit. In order to get the summaries into evidence – to use in the trial – someone had to verify that they accurately summarized the information. Normally, the financial expert would testify about the reports and get the evidence in, but our finance guy – we think the other side paid him quite a bit of money to change his story.”

“Nuh-uh.” Trevor reached for the bottle.

“There’s no way to prove it but he refused to take the stand the day we planned on calling him to testify, saying that we wouldn’t like what he had to say – something ridiculous like that. We trashed his name after the trial but without his participation, the case was in serious jeopardy. A number of associates had participated in the creation of the summaries but none of us were particularly interested in getting on the stand.”

“Why not?”

“It was obvious that opposing counsel, the attorney for the other side, was going to fight hard to keep the evidence out. He was going to rip into any associate who took the stand. You see, just because we all knew that the summary evidence was accurate, that wasn’t going to prevent the other side from asking intimate questions about the evidence – we were going to get probed about all sorts of borderline irrelevant stuff. The other side’s entire goal was to make the person that took the stand look bad, like an idiot.” I inhaled and forced myself to stop.

Trevor took a swig and coughed, “But you didn’t look bad?”

“No,” I shook my head.

He gazed upon me with some sort of expectation, like he expected the story to continue.

Perplexed by the awkward silence, I forced another conclusion, “No, I was able to get the evidence in and we eventually won the case.”

He nodded thoughtfully and took another, quick drink.

“So Shane, what do you know about us? About why you are here?” Trevor asked, placing the bottle back on the desk.

With a shrug, I said, “I was told that you all had some hazing issues in the past and that you needed an attorney here tonight to keep everything kosher, something like that. Is that about right?”

A strange skepticism flashed across Trevor’s face and he asked in mild astonishment, “Are you Jewish?”

“No?” I answered.

“Sorry, that kosher thing threw me off, I was just making sure that you knew that the vodka wasn’t kosher. I didn’t want to get you in trouble. I bought the kind without the kosher label ’cause it was cheaper.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious. I was worried that my perceptions had been drastically altered by the drugs. I laughed, he didn’t.

“No,” I paused unsure of myself, “I’m not Jewish.”

“Whew,” he exhaled as he slapped my knee, “that’s a relief.”

I stiffened my back and forced a smile.

Swimming in tense uneasiness, Trevor shifted topics, “Shane, let me get down to business – you, uh, you aren’t here for any hazing stuff, we don’t have that anymore, nobody does. This situation is a little more, well, it’s sticky. Our fraternity, Epsilon Alpha Sigma – we call ourselves EASYS,” he laughed, I widened my forced smile, he continued, “we have a tradition where we pair up our freshmen recruits with the freshmen girls at the prettiest sorority, whichever it is at the time. We’ve found it’s a good way to, uh, stabilize our men and keep them acting as gentlemen as they transition into college life.”

I pursed my lips, concerned, “When you say pair them up?”

Prepared for the question, Trevor launched into what sounded like pure spiel, “You see, Greek life at smooo is a little different than most schools. Freshmen here rush before they even attend class. I think it’s a better this way. And we try to have our new group of guys established before the end of October. Then we spend the first week of October going to nightly mixers with the sisters of our chosen sorority, this year it’s the Kappas. After the week, each of the members in our new class get to write down the names of the five girls they like the best. The girls do the same thing. With the lists, we pair up the couples.”

“To date one another?” I asked, probably slightly more horrified than I should have been.

“Well yeah,” he sighed, “that’s what we hope. It got us in some trouble last year though.”

“I can imagine.”

“Uh, yeah. We never force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do,” he assured, foreshadowing what was to come. “We are very clear that the new guys are free to not date the girl they are paired up with if the do not want to. It’s just, well, they can’t date anyone else. At least until the end of the first semester.”

I reached for the vodka and filled my mouth. As I forced the liquid down my throat, my body tensed and I twitched briefly. As I recovered, I realized that Trevor had stopped talking.

Quickly, to fill the void, I blurted, “Does the college know you do this dating thing?”

“Yeah, it’s common knowledge. We’ve had a lot of success doing it this way. I’m still dating the girl I was paired with when I first came here.”

As the conversation felt a bit evasive, I tried to push everything forward. “Where did it go wrong? What happened?”

Trevor covered mouth with his hand and looked away. “I guess it was rape,” he said, his eyes shooting back to mine.

I slowly and audibly inhaled.

“You see,” he elaborated, “our rules don’t allow any intimacy between the couples until the final fall party, tonight’s party. This gives them a couple of weeks to get to know each other.”

“Wait,” I interjected, momentarily ignoring the bombshell he had previously dropped, the absurdity having exceeded some internal threshold. I rubbed my eyes. “What happens if the person is already dating someone? Like if a guy already has a girlfriend.”

His train of thought interrupted, it took Trevor a second to say, “You mean before they rush?”

I nodded.

“They have to choose between the fraternity or their relationship. It’s part of process.”

Growing grumpy and hungry, I frivolously snarked, “Or they can just lie to you for a few months.”

Trevor’s face went serious. He didn’t appreciate the comment, but he eventually smirked and nodded.

“So you make these eighteen-year-old guys dump their old girlfriends, select a new sorority girl to date, and then you tell them they can’t have,” I searched for the context appropriate word, “sex.”

“I wouldn’t say it like that,” he laughed, “but yes.”

“And something bad came out of the situation?” Sarcasm dripped from my words.

Trevor sighed. “Look, a legacy got paired with the wrong girl. At last year’s party-”

“The ‘you now have permission to have sex party‘?”

“Yeah, last year a legacy was paired with the wrong girl. Total asshole with a white panty virgin. At the party he gave her something, I don’t know, muscle relaxers or something. We just thought she had too much to drink. He took advantage of the situation.”

Though my expression didn’t change, I was immediately uncomfortable with the way Trevor described the incident. Hoping to avoid the details, because they’d do nothing but infuriate and inflame, I said, “And I’m guessing there was quite a bit of fallout.”

“Shane it was terrible. We took quite a hit.”

“Financially?”

“Our reputations!” he screamed with a smile, reaching for the vodka bottle, “We were ridiculed, they said our fraternity encouraged a culture of sexual pressure. Like we drugged her ourselves. It was unfair. We kicked the asshole out. And I feel terrible for her, I really do, she was a total peach.”

Still pretty affronted by his ignorance, I was curt, “And you want me to make sure nobody gets drugged or raped tonight?”

“Well, I don’t think you need to be here. That was a one-time blip in the radar, you get me? I don’t have any concerns about this year’s group. But…” He smirked,”since we have you, I thought maybe you could talk to the guys about what they should and shouldn’t do, legally speaking, while they go through school. Maybe cover the issues we might encounter along the way?”

I furrowed my brow and said in a clear, firm voice, “I do complex corporate litigation and I don’t remember encountering any legal issues when I went to school, I really don’t. Maybe how to get out of an underage drinking ticket?”

Trevor shook his head, “No need to talk about that, we hire off-duty cops as security for all our parties. We pay thirty an hour. Our guys don’t have to worry about minor-in-possession type tickets.”

We sat in silence for a minute. I can’t explain why I was instantly concerned about it but I felt an overwhelming need to justify my presence.

“How about,” I began, “I give a quick talk about how your freshmen can mitigate the perceived coercive elements in this little dating program you run. Maybe how to prevent any of the girls from feeling bad the next morning, something like that?”

Trevor nodded, yawned and stretched. “Yeah, I dig it. I don’t think we have to worry but a little information never hurt anyone.” I felt like he was pandering but I was satisfied enough.

Just then, at the natural conclusion of our conversation, my phone, which was in my nearby bag, rang.

I asked if I could have the room for the call and, as he left, Trevor asked, “You hungry? Our chef’s cooking up some pizza, we’ve got a brick oven down there, it’s sick, you want me to grab you a slice?”

I nodded and said, “Thank you.”

I rummaged for and found my phone. A call from the office.

“This is Shane,” I answered.

“Have you checked your email?” Jana asked frantically.

“No, I’m with a client, what’s up?”

“Well Shane, if you would keep your phone on you, act like a fucking professional, you would see the dozen emails and texts I’ve sent you in the last twenty minutes. Check your email and call me back.”

“Wait, what’s going on?”

Jana ughed, “Have you spoken to Rosaline?”

“No.” That answer struck me as strange. I had anticipated quite a few more manic calls before Rosaline gave up on me. I’d almost forgotten about her in the day’s rush.

“Well, someone, I’m guessing her,” Jana laughed in frustration, “someone is faxing a photo of you to the office. Over and over.”

My heart sank a bit, “I’m guessing it’s not a flattering portrait?”

“You’re wearing panties Shane. You look terrible.”

I knew the photo immediately. Something Rosaline had snapped during one of my more brutal binges, something to show me how absurd I behave when at my most self-destructive.

Appropriately decimated and thoroughly concerned, I asked, “Can you see my testicles?”

“Yes,” she responded solemnly, “they’re pretty clear Shane.”

I made my way through the floor to the elevator and rode it to the parking garage. My car was waiting a few steps from the elevator in my recently-purchased, highly-envied parking spot, a three hundred-dollar a month luxury that seemed entirely frivolous last month, though somehow now, it made sense.

I stopped at my trunk and threw my bag into the old footlocker contained therein, making sure that each of the footlocker’s two locks armed before I allowed the trunk to fall shut. As I reached to open the driver’s door, I hesitated, closed my eyes and straightened my back, stretching it. Though I recognize in retrospect I probably didn’t (or couldn’t) actually perceive, discern and welcome each of the toxins being released by my stagnant body, I certainly thought I was at the time. It was serene; I felt balanced. I suppose though, you’ve reached true addiction when your body feels better on the drug than off it.

And a cocaine addiction is particularly brutal. When I arrived home, five or ten minutes later, I was already beginning to degrade into an uncomfortable, somewhat drunken, lethargy. I found my way back to my loft and literally stumbled towards the bathroom – the balance swinging to the other side, my fade now precipitous, I began to twitch uncontrollably. Desperate, I swallowed as much of the quickly found Fiji as I could and coughed it up all over the counter.

I purposely fell to the cool floor, lying lengthwise in my bathroom, and ran my hand half-way through my hair, grabbing a handful. I pulled as hard as I could, trying to snap out of whatever the fuck I had just fallen into. It mostly worked.

I found and emptied my bottle of Adderall onto the counter. I scooped five or six pills into my pocket. I used the counter for necessary support and inhaled deeply. For no reason at all, I licked up two of the pills remaining on the counter, which were already wet from the Fiji I had coughed up earlier, and swallowed.

I looked into the mirror. I had fucked up my hair, which infuriated me. I grabbed the nearby blow dryer from its holster and threw it towards the ground. The retractable cord caught it and swung it under the counter. I grabbed the cord in anger and, though I wanted desperately to swing the piece of shit into the mirror, I exhaled and let the dryer be.

I used my hands to correct my hair and left the bathroom. Before I exited the loft I stopped at my wine fridge and found my 2007 Stonestreet Cab. Something nice to build a buzz before I downgraded to whatever swill the frat boys would be downing, I figured. Though there was a period where I attempted to avoid drinking shit alcohol, I’m the type of binge drinking alcoholic who refuses to stop drinking once I begin, so no matter how much of the nice shit I bring, I always end up drinking whatever I can get my hands upon.

As I closed the wine fridge, a voice from behind startled me extremely. Rather than drop the wine, I clenched it tighter and turned around ready to murder whatever the fuck was behind me. Of course, had I any sense at the moment, I would have realized that my maid comes by the loft everyday in the early afternoon. In fact, I had walked past her cleaning products a moments earlier when I stumbled through the loft. I painfully smiled and told her that I had just made a mess in the masterbath but not to clean it up. “Pills,” I said, as though that would be universally understood as “leave it the fuck alone.”

Returning to my car in much worse shape than I’d left, though merely a moment or two separated the occasions, I zombied-out in the front-seat of the car for a while before starting it, attempting to let the Adderall take hold. After the car was running, I realized that the address of the frat house was in the folder in my bag, which was in the trunk, in the foot locker. I called Jana, hoping to prevent getting out of the car. She didn’t answer.

Eventually I roused myself and made it to the trunk. I used the secret side latches to undo the locks and opened the foot locker. I reached into my bag without pulling it out of the locker and the first thing I felt was the rubber band sealing the baggy. Like a good addict, I pulled the baggy out and closed the trunk. Though the BMW has a somewhat shapely form, I had little issue running a line along it. I looked over both shoulders, consciously ignoring the four or five cameras along the wall pointing in various directions, and, using the same bill from before, crushed the line.

I wiped the trunk clean, threw the blow back into the foot locker and found the folder with the case information. I again made sure that both locks latched when I closed the locker. Within minutes, I was driving out of Downtown towards University Park, home to SMU and my frat house destination. According to the gps, the frat house was not on, but a few blocks away from SMU’s frat row, a row with which I was, sadly, somewhat familiar.

The gps arbitrarily sent me down a complicated, winding series of neighborhood streets. Perhaps instinctively, I began paying more attention to the homes, appropriately judging each, than the road. While passing a reasonably attractive, though out of place post-colonial, I missed a stop sign. Paranoid, I slammed on my brakes in the middle of the intersection, waited the consummate second, and continued along.

Various parts of the approaching car began flashing in blue and red. Gripped in fear, I continued my path forward, eyes locked wide. My tension eased slightly when the car came close enough for me to see that it belonged to the University Park Police Department and not the much more terrifying Dallas Police Department. White men in foreign luxury cars do not get hassled by University Park Police.

Or at least, they shouldn’t.

The cop pulled a three-point u-turn behind me and sped until he was directly behind my car. Though fully convinced that he was attempting to pull me over, I rolled down my window and motioned with my arm for him to go around. He didn’t. I pulled to the side of the quiet, neighborhood road.

The cop was a stereotypical state college doofus with short hair and a fat neck. He approached slowly, his body swaying noticeably with each step. Though convinced I was about to be arrested, because I high as shit and my front seat passenger was a bottle of wine, I was able to bring forth my trial lawyer game face and smirk.

“Everything OK, sir?” the cop asked in an irritatingly accusatory tone.

“Absolutely,” I nodded.

“Looked like you missed that stop sign back there.”

“Almost did,” I answered after a forced chuckle.

I looked up hoping to see a smile, I found a scowl. “Could I see your license and insurance?” he asked.

“Is there a problem?” I retorted as I leaned forward to remove my wallet from my back pocket.

“I don’t think so, just standard procedure.”

Looking down at my wallet, the small grouping of business cards caught my eye. For some reason, probably related to the cocaine euphoria again pulsating through my body, I decided that informing the cop that I was a prestigious lawyer would be beneficial to my situation. I removed and placed one of my business cards into the cop’s outstretched hand.

Confused, he stated, “Sir, I need your license.”

“You didn’t even read it,” I declared in indignant stupidity.

The cop looked down at the card and then said, “Mr. Thompson, I need to see your driver’s license and proof of insurance.”

“Oh.”

I removed my license from my wallet and handed it to the officer, who exchanged it for my business card. Still calm, I leaned towards and opened my glove box, found my insurance card and handed it to the officer.

He examined both and handed them back. “Thank you, Mr. Thompson.”

I tensed in success and put the items back in their proper place. As I turned to give the officer a reassuring nod, my eyes twitched shut. It took a very long two seconds to open them.

“Are you alright?” the officer asked in an alarmed voice.

“Oh, yes, fine officer, thank you.”

The cop’s eyes then fixated on the bottle of wine and he sighed. “You have anything to drink today?”

I turned towards the wine and laughed. “No,” I shook my head, “that’s full, I’m attending a dinner party later and, you know, I like to be a good guest.”

The cop was visibly concerned – unsure of what step to take next, unfortunately I was too high to capitalize on the situation. I just stared down the street blankly.

“I . . . I guess I’d like you to step out of the car Mr. Thompson.”

“What?” I asked though I heard him fine.

“Let’s do a quick sobriety test. It’s standard operating procedure.” He rested his hand on his gun.

“You think that’s a good idea?” I asked.

“Just, step out Mr. Thompson and talk to me for a moment.”

I sighed, twitched and forced out, “Officer, when I pass this test, it’s going to be really bad for you. I’m not a powerful person but I know and work for some extremely powerful people. I’ll … I’ll write a letter about how you embarrassed me in the middle of the street in University Park. And I’ll threaten a very expensive lawsuit. I’ll insist you not be fired, rather ask for you to be demoted, you know, out of mercy. You’ll have to-”

“Please get out the car sir.”

The officer pulled on the handle and opened my door. I climbed out and walked to the back of the car – the cop waited at the driver’s door. A car passed.

“How do you open the trunk Mr. Thompson?” he yelled.

“You press on the button with a picture of a trunk,” I groaned in response.

Though the process is relatively simple, having to press a single, well-labeled button, the cop took a few minutes to find the button and open the trunk. My knees were weak and I was growing numb.

The officer walked to the back of the car as the trunk glided open under the control its comfort assist guide.

“You pressed the button twice?” I asked.

The officer shrugged, “I guess so.”

“Yeah that’s a custom setting, push it once it unlocks, push it twice it opens.”

The officer nodded indifferently and looked into the trunk. He reached for the footlocker and tried to move it, but it was bolted down.

“Can you open this for me?” He pointed at the box.

“This is actually a cool story,” I began a tale I had told more than a few hundred times before, something I had been mulling over and prepping since the cop mentioned the trunk. “Have you ever heard of US v. Chadwick? It’s a Supreme Court case.”

I stopped for a moment, he didn’t respond. “Of course you haven’t, it’s from the seventies… Anyways, in this case, a couple of idiots were lugging around a big footlocker that was full of weed or something. The cops had been tracking these guys for days and watched them put the footlocker in the trunk of their car. The cops then quickly pulled the guys over as soon as they started driving away with the weed, opened the trunk, pried open the double-locked footlocker, and boom, arrested the guys.”

I was talking a mile a minute, shifting my weight, dancing around, but the cop seemed interest, so I continued, “The guys end up getting convicted. They appeal their case all the way to the Supreme Court, and you know what the Supreme Court said?”

The officer shook his head.

“That the search of footlocker was bullshit. No warrant. No automobile exception. Game over, those guys went free.”

The officer grinned and asked slowly, “Is this a double-locked footlocker?”

“Now this is where the story gets really good. Back in law school, when I was a first year, we were going over Chadwick, a group of friends and I tracked down one of the idiot pot-dealer’s step-dad or uncle or something and asked him what happened to the footlocker. Now, he could have lied to us – taken us for a ride – but, well, he said he had the footlocker in his garage. I guess he picked it up from evidence after the appeal went through or something. He told a very convincing story.”

The officer nodded.

“So my friends were able to buy it off him. Cost quite a bit of money but we got it. Now, it’s probably a stretch to say these guys were my friends, you know? Nobody really has friends in law school. But we had a common interest and whatnot… But, long story short, I didn’t end up with the footlocker after I graduated law school. I didn’t think too much of it. But after a few years, a classmate called desperate for cash and asked if I wanted to buy it off him. Obviously I wasn’t going to miss my chance to buy it.”

“And this is it?” he asked astonished.

“Yeah. Crazy right? This is a footlocker that the Supreme Court of the United States has said you cannot search without a warrant. It’s kind of a moot point right now because I don’t have the keys to it on me or anything, I lost them a few weeks ago. You are going to have to take my car apart to get it out. And also, maybe more importantly, I don’t think Chadwick is good law anymore in light of Ross and Acevedo, so you could probably search it without a warrant. But I guess I’m saying that it’s going to be a huge pain in the ass.”

The officer shook his head in slight frustration. “Look at me,” he ordered.

I complied. He pulled out and turned on his flash light. He flashed it in my eyes a few times, I winced in pain and twitched my eyes shut.

“You know Mr. Thompson, I think you might need to get checked out by a doctor, you could have some kind of sensitivity to light or something.”

“You might be right,” I said, perceiving a smell of freedom.

“Well,” he shrugged in an ‘aw shucks’ manner, “I don’t think you’re drinking and driving today. You seem pretty lucid. I’m going to let you off with a warning for the stop sign, keep an eye out around here, they’ll pop up out of nowhere.”

I laughed exuberantly, giving the officer momentary concern about his decision to let me go.

“And can I have that card back?” he asked.

“Absolutely.” I pulled out my wallet and handed him a fresh card.

“I might call you to pick your brain about an issue I’m having with my ex-wife, you think that would be alright?”

“Of course. I actually do quite a bit of pro-bono for local police and firefighters, it’s basically standard procedure for me.” I smirked. “And I’m not one to charge someone who does so much for their community.” I was only mildly concerned how much the officer’s microphone and camera picked up of my nearly overt bribe.

“That’s good to hear,” he replied with a courteous handshake, “I’ll be sure to give you a call. You have a nice day Mr. Thompson.”

We both walked in opposite directions to our respective cars, I pressed the shut button on my trunk as I passed it. We each sat for a bit, seemingly waiting for the other to leave. He made the first move and turned away from my car.

Forgetting the fear I had felt only moments before, I was overcome with an absurd, godlike arrogance. I tuned my satellite radio to Hip Hop Hits, cranked the volume, grabbed one of the Adderalls from my pocket, and swallowed it in literal glee. If the officer had run my license, he would have seen my DUI and I would probably have gone to jail. If the officer had run a proper intoxication field test, I probably would have gone to jail. If the officer had poked around the footlocker, he would have found the coke and I would have gone to jail. If the officer had searched me at all, he would have found the loose Adderall and I probably would have gone to jail.

Instead, unbelievably free, I sped towards the frat house with Talib Kweli on the radio spitting loudly about the difficult life of the black man, me grinning consciously indifferent to the irony.

Jana rolled her eyes and asked, in an unamused tone, “What?”

“You don’t know?”

She sighed, defeated, “Know what?”

“Derek’s wife used to date me,” I lightly proclaimed.

“You didn’t date her?”

I delivered a canned laugh and said, “I did much more than that.”

“And she left you for him?”

“No,” I replied sharply. “There was … at least a six years between the relationships.”

Jana was confused. “When did you date this girl?” she asked.

“High school,” I said with a grin that acknowledged the situation’s frivolity.

“Oh, uh,” Jana moved uneasily, “I’m not sending flowers to your high school girlfriend the same day her husband lost his job.”

“Flower.”

“I’m not sending her anything,” Jana protested.

Borderline incensed, I accused, “Don’t pretend that you have some moral objection to this – you’re being lazy.”

“I just want to do it right now Shane. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you. Give it a week or two.”

“I can’t. You don’t strike while the iron is warm but cooling. You pound that shit while it’s red-hot,” my voice was overly inflamed. I calmed myself and, as reassuringly as possible, said, “My intentions aren’t overtly evil or anything.”

Jana, in a tone dripping with disapproval, snapped back, “You aren’t making a pass at her while her life spirals out of control?”

“Yes,” I replied with a nod.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, that’s what I am doing.”

“That’s pretty damn evil,” Jana quipped.

“I don’t think so.”

“From whose perspective?”

“Anyone’s.”

Jana, annoyed with the direction I had steered the discussion, sighed, “You’re being purposely obtuse Shane.”

“My point isn’t difficult to decipher,” I responded in an overbearing tone, almost attacking Jana, “If I love this woman, if I think that if I don’t find a way to get back to her, I’ll never experience life again, and if I think I’m the person she wants and needs – if I honestly believe those things, is trying to get her away from Derek evil, or hell… is it noble?”

“Blah, blah, blah, I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit. I’m not doing it. Ok? If you have those feelings, and I highly doubt that you do, they won’t go away in a week. And this just isn’t the right way to go about it.”

“What is the right way to go about stealing someone’s wife?”

“I don’t know?” Jana’s voice was elevated, “Call her? Ask to see her.”

“Irene wouldn’t go for that. She hasn’t gone for that.”

“But she’ll go for this?”

I inhaled deeply and, while exhaling, said as deflated as I’ve ever been, “I hope so.” Sadness rushed through me, I was instantly overwrought, a familiar, though strongly repressed, anxiety tore through me. I twitched and, exasperated, struggled to breathe.

Jana watched in horror – not because my actions were inappropriate given the situation – but because the emotions seemed … authentic.

Irene was the one who got away. And I don’t use that in its traditional idiomatic context. Irene had to escape.

In high school, Irene and I fell for one another. When that happened, for the first time in my life, I experienced the full gambit of real emotions. And that allowed me to empathize with others, which probably seems pretty trivial to a normal person, but when you’ve never experienced it before, empathy is pretty fucking incredible.

So there I was experiencing desire, self-doubt, love, happiness, joy for the first time in my life, and I could share and understand these feelings with others. I mean, my life was absolutely perfect. I felt thoroughly human.

Then, a few months into the relationship, Irene and I had a fight. Not a mere lover’s spat. A knock-down-drag-out, go die in a fucking fire, type event. I had kissed another girl at a party. It was somewhat innocent – the incident had occurred during a party game where kissing your opponent was a potential outcome. But in high school, this was a serious offense. So we fought and, while screaming and throwing things at each other, I realized that I had, through all of the new emotions I had recently experienced, I had never enjoyed any of them as much the one I felt when my treasured relationship was being torn from my grasp. It was raw and consuming. I didn’t know up from down, left from right – and I loved every moment of it.

We eventually made up, but the relief felt in actually saving the relationship wasn’t close to the same level as that emotion I felt while fighting for it. All I wanted in the world was to get that raw, terrifying, desperate feeling back.

So, like any good addict, I got the feeling back. Then I got it again. And again. And again.

I caused issue after issue in the relationship. And because Irene truly loved me, and I her, and I was always careful not to do anything terrible enough to destroy the relationship, we always found a way to work it out. It was a twisted carousel of emotional pain, and it was perfect.

Unfortunately, her family didn’t like what was happening to their daughter. They unfairly intervened and, because I was thousands of miles away at a different university, Irene got off the carousel.

But since then, she’s been my emotional well, the person for whom I spend a few weeks every year desperately pining. We’ve shared a romantic rendezvous or three in the years since the breakup. I very nearly had her again during the summer between undergrad and law school. But recently, my attempts to regain her affection have been largely ignored. After all, she’s now married to Derek, a genuine, good guy who’s been drifting in and out of my (and apparently Irene’s) social circle since junior high.

But this time I smelled blood. Irene took great pride in Derek’s career. Derek had been, at one point, a prized attorney in the firm – undoubtedly considered more likely than me to make partner. Unfortunately for Derek, despite his general charisma, he bombed his first live court appearance. Just like that, he was done. With his confidence shattered, he became a constantly insecure shell of his former self. For months before he was canned, everyone assumed he would preemptively resign and try to con another firm to take him on. Now that he had terminated on his resume, he was headed into a special kind of hell – shitlaw.

As there was always high likelihood that my attempts to contact Irene would fail, I had never clued anyone else in on the plot, so as to protect my bulletproof image. Why I had decided to include Jana on the matter is something I still don’t fully comprehend. My read on Jana was all over the place.

“Fine,” Jana finally said with a shrug, recognizing that she had underestimated the importance of what I had asked. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

I forced a smile and Jana left the room.

“Shut the door,” I barked once she was out of sight.

I spent the next two hours aimlessly wandering through the firm’s intranet, noting any case that might become even remotely interesting. After growing bored, but still needing to make sure I was billing my time to a client file, I browsed to the “evidence” folder attached to a civil embezzlement case we had recently taken. In the case, an executive had used his employer’s money to fund a number of outrageous, hedonistic retreats. There were probably two thousand candid photographs of the events dumped in the evidence folder, all depicting a variety of illicit acts. I had already billed seven or eight hours to the case.

Jana eventually returned, just as my stomach began to beckon for lunch. As she entered without a knock, I had to snap close the photo open on my computer. Jana carried a red folder.

“This is all the information you need for tonight.” Jana slid the folder towards me on the desk, and continued, “Address, map, contact numbers. I also printed all of the pages from the fraternity’s website and facebook.”

“Good.”

“And that other thing is progressing well. I got a few hundred in petty cash from Danni, she liked the idea of sending something.”

I laughed, “Great … let me have it.”

Jana hesitated and looked longingly at the pocket on the side of her skirt. “All of it?” she asked.

A bit confused, I offered, “It’s supposed to pay for Irene’s stuff right?”

“Right, I know … I know. But I had to go and ask for it and everything.” Jana was pouting, her bottom lip growing by the second.

“You’re terrible!”

“Can I just keep a hundred?”

“You know you could have kept it all right?” I asked playfully, finding the situation somewhat charming.

“That occurs to me now,” Jana said with a pout-filled frown.

“Just give it all to me.”

She reluctantly pulled out a small fold of money from her pocket and sat it on the far edge of my desk, forcing me to lean forward from my chair to reach it.

“And this is all of it?” I asked while skeptically counting the three one-hundred-dollar bills.

“Yes,” she huffed.

I pulled a hundred off the top and tossed the other two bills back towards the end of the desk. “Keep it.”

A large grin filled Jana’s face as she put the money in her pocket. The money secure, she asked suggestively, “Do you need anything before I go to lunch?”

“A nap,” I answered honestly.

“You do look awful,” Jana teased.

“What time am I supposed to be there?”

Jana smiled nervously and said, “Soon. It’s in the packet.”

“How soon?”

“I think he’s expecting you around two.”

“Who is?”

“Trevor Paxson, the client. All the information’s in there.” She pointed at the folder.

I looked at my watch, it was a bit past twelve. I left my Adderall in the bathroom and I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned that nap.

“I guess I need to get going.”

Jana didn’t respond and watched silently as I found my glasses, keys, phone, took the folder from the desk and grabbed my coat and bag out of the armoire. As I stepped into the hall, Jana said, “Wait.”

I turned around and Jana walked within a few inches. “Can I kiss you goodbye?” she whispered.

I moved slightly, an almost indecipherable nod, and she leaned forward and gave both of my lips a quick peck. “Have fun with the kids,” she said, mocking my assignment.

I smirked, turned, and left my office. The floor was now quiet and nearly deserted; a few staff members were at their desks eating lunch. As the elevator arrived, I remembered something important. I apologized to the woman in the elevator whose trip I had interrupted and ran back towards my office, slamming the door as I entered. Jana was still there, sitting in my desk chair.

“What’d you forget?” she asked.

“I need you step out for a second,” I beckoned.

“Why?” she asked, insulted by the thought.

“It’s kind of personal,” I twitched and my gaze darted to the bottom of my desk.

“Bottom-right drawer personal?”

Jana scowled and kicked the bottom drawer on the right side of my desk. The drawer to which only I had the key; the drawer that contained a couple of bottles of Basil Hayden’s, a custom, handblown shot glass, a can of Barbasol, and a leather toiletry bag.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied poorly.

“You take a shot before you write anything. You think it steadies your nerves. There’s bourbon in there.”

I laughed, somewhat relieved, “You caught me, get up, get out.”

Jana stood, walked passed me, and stood in the doorway. “You’re not going to offer me a drink?”

“No,” I answered. “Please shut the door.”

Jana stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” I said unamused. I leaned forward with my key positioned to unlock the drawer.

“I don’t know what you meant, but I do know that you wouldn’t be caught dead using Barbasol.”

I froze, the key stopping short of its hole. I couldn’t fathom how she’d ever seen that can. No one had. I looked up, she caught my eyes and winked.

“So you want a shot then?” I offered politely, backpedaling as quickly as possible.

“Yes …” Jana let her answer hang and walked forward along my desk. “And I want you to show me how to open that can.”

Now, as you are acutely aware, Jana and my relationship was one of mutually assured destruction. If the firm discovered what we had been doing together, there wouldn’t be an investigation, neither of us would get preferential treatment, we would both be instantly terminated and shown the door. To keep our jobs, neither of us could ever complain to the firm about anything the other did, for fear that the relationship would come out.

But I wasn’t comfortable with anyone, including Jana, knowing that I had, at that very moment, seven grams of cocaine, two eight balls, stuffed inside a fake can of Barbasol, locked in the bottom-right drawer of my desk. And nagging me further, rooted in my fear that I had stumbled into a full-blown coke addiction, was the concern that Jana would find out that it wasn’t a shot that I used to help with my assignments, but a line of somewhat clean cocaine instead.

I twitched and dove into a hastily thought out cover story.”The shaving cream can? That’s a can that I borrowed from Wilmer Drauden two years ago. I had been here for a few days working on a big trademark case, the CDI case, when I ran out of shaving cream. We had a hearing that day so I borrowed it from Drauden. It was practically empty when I borrowed it and he let me keep it. I don’t think there’s anything left in it, but I keep it as a memento. That was the first jury trial where I got to sit at counsel table.”

Jana released an ambiguous, “Oh Jesus.”

I nodded, presuming victory.

“I thought it was just a place you hid some money,” she continued, “You must have pot in there or something scandalous.” She stepped forward and reached for the key.

I pulled the key back, sighed and said, “Lock the door.” Suddenly, surrender seemed like the best choice.

With the office door locked, I used the key to open the drawer. I pulled out a bottle of bourbon and the Barbasol can. My inappropriately dressed secretary watched in expectant awe. I took a large swig of the bourbon and passed it forward. I then grabbed the Barbasol can and used my thumb to unscrew the hidden bottom on the can.

Two tightly wrapped baggies fell onto my lap. Jana squinted and asked, “What is it?”

I explained the substance and repeatedly, without an ounce of persuasion, claimed that I was not a regular user and, additionally, that the cocaine belonged to an unnamed friend. Jana didn’t seem to care what I said and, strangely enough, didn’t seem interested in testing the product. She just sort of gazed into the wall, as though she was trying to figure something out. After a short period, I put the baggies back in the Barbasol can and put the can in my brief bag.

The movement snapped Jana back to Earth and, in overt disappointment, she asked, “You’re not going to do any?”

“No,” I shook my head, “I came back for a shot of bourbon.”

“Then why are you taking it with you?” Jana asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable with you knowing about this. Seems prudent to move it.”

“You’re being dramatic Shane. And insulting! I could have opened that can whenever I wanted,” Jana declared.

Reminded of her going into my locked drawer, I insisted, “And I want whatever you used to open the drawer.”

Jana looked confused for a second and then laughed, “I just used a paper clip Shane. It’s an old desk. Did you really think your stuff was locked up?”

I doubted what she was saying, but there wasn’t much of any reason to contend the point. I put the bourbon back in the drawer and, perhaps uselessly, locked it. I stood up and walked to the door. As I turned the knob to exit my office, Jana, whose issues with me walking away from her while irritated or frustrated should be clear by now, stopped me.

“Wait Shane, you don’t want to do just a little?”

Of course I did. “I really have to go,” I resisted.

“Come on,” Jana said as she hopped onto my desk. “You don’t want to … snort it … off-” Jana looked down and searched her body for an appropriate site, “off my thigh?” She pulled her skirt up along her right leg, until the whole leg and her panties were exposed. There was a small wet spot in lower center of her panties, presumably from our earlier encounter.

“I’m really pretty uncomfortable right now. I-” My face contracted hard into a twitch; I felt a vague pain at the back of my head. “I don’t understand what you’re doing today Jana, I don’t get your motivations, I’m just … lost.”

Jana smirked, “I don’t really know what I’m doing right now either Shane. You’ve been weird today … well, weird for you. You came in drunk after you broke up with your girlfriend, and now you’re talking about some girl you apparently love or some shit. And you weren’t very happy about your huge bonus. And your spazzing out all over the place, twitching. So I’m kind of throwing everything at you to see what sticks. I just want you to snap out of it. I don’t like having to worry about you-”

“Your ass,” I interrupted.

“What?”

I took a breath and, very deliberately, said, “I want to snort cocaine off of your ass.”

“And that will help you be normal?”

I shrugged; Jana nodded, lied down, turned over, and pulled her skirt above her ass, which was left mostly naked by her thong. I sat my bag on one of the two client chairs in my office, pulled out the can, undid the false bottom and caught the baggies as they fell. I sat both on the desk beside Jana and opened one, and pulled a pinch out.

“Don’t move,” I begged as I sat the pile of coke on her ass. Her ass, or any ass for that matter, is a terrible place from which to do coke. It was extremely difficult to make a proper line and, inevitably, some fell into her crack, which caused me great irritation. Once I had something to work with, I pulled the hundred from my pocket and rolled it tight.

“Wait,” Jana said, “I think I want to-”

With my finger pushing my left nostril shut, my right hand pushing hard to hold Jana against the desk, I moved the bill above the coke and snorted as hard as I could. It stung profusely. I rubbed my nose until the pain subsided.

Jana, awkwardly looking back from her spot on the desk, said, “I was trying say, I think I want to try some.”

“Off my ass?” I joked.

“No but, will you do it for me? Whatever needs to be done?”

I grabbed the open bag next to her and poured a small amount onto the desk. Recognizing that she could move again, Jana rolled off the desk onto her feet and, notable to someone going through the early stages of a mild postsynaptic high, her skirt fell perfectly into place. I removed a business card from the holder in my bag and used it make the line. It was small but, given the situation, I felt it appropriate.

I tried to hand her the hundred dollar bill I used but she refused and said proudly, “I have my own.”

I smiled and she moved so that she was standing about the line. “I just snort it up?”

“Cover the unused nostril.”

She put her finger over her left nostril and looked to me for approval, I nodded. She then leaned forward and placed the bill at one end of the line.

She inhaled and, just before she made it to the end of the line, Jana dropped the bill and stood straight up. With her face looking toward the ceiling, she screamed, “Ow!”

I finished what she left on the desk and brushed it clean.

“I think I should have lost my mind a long time,” I said as I grabbed my bag, “I like you more like this.”

We shared a brief, uneasy smile – then I unlocked the door and exited my office, to which I wouldn’t return for nearly a week.

Now, before I attempt to describe Jana’s reaction, it’s important to briefly emphasize and explore my emotional numbness. Though I was happy with my bonus, in the sense that I found it appropriate, the money was not going to alter the course of my life in any measurable way – so I wasn’t going through any physical manifestation of joy. Success is like any other drug I suppose. When you start, when you are a child, not shitting your pants is grounds for celebration. But as you stack success on success, from toilet use to numerous multi-million dollar contingency victories, until your life is merely one success after another, like mine, you come to the point that even incredible successes are commonplace.

But Jana, personally, hasn’t had very many of these successful moments. Her life seems to be one disappointment after another – disowned by her somewhat wealthy family, dropped out of college, etc. So, understandably, she likes to share in my successes. And when I say share, I mean that she sleeps with me after every good event in my life. Every case I’ve won, or client I’ve landed, or article I’ve published, Jana feels compelled to fuck me. It’s as though she’s concerned that I’m not appropriately appreciating the event and makes sure I remember the moment as a pleasurable one.

This time, I suppose, she was sharing in my success in a significant way, though I don’t know if the amount of bonus changed her reaction. At least, that’s what I’ve told myself.

Jana stood in silence for a moment, trying to figure out if I was joking, then cocked her head and smirked. “What?” she asked in suppressed excitement.

I shrugged.

“What!” she screamed.

As I nodded and smiled, she ran and leapt into me, latching onto my torso, sloppily kissing my cheek. My face twitched and I shook her off, concerned by my office’s open door. She landed uneasily on her feet. For a moment, and only a moment, her large, brown eyes caught mine. Shivers shot down my spine.

Jana went to close the door but I stopped her. Closing and locking the door immediately after Jana’s outburst would have raised a hundred eyebrows. There was no sense attracting the attention – even if everyone in the office likely knew that there was a certain unprofessional nature to Jana and my relationship.

“Washroom?” Jana asked, already reaching under my belt.

“No.” I made a pained, thoughtful expression and considered the options, and then continued, “Call Hotel St. Germain and reserve suite five for immediate occupancy.”

Jana looked hurt by the suggestion and whispered, “What? Shane no. We can get a room across the street if you want me to fuck in a hotel.”

“Never mind,” I pouted, “I need to work.” I began to turn from her, she grabbed my arm, stopping me.

She leaned in and miffed, “Spontaneity be damned! You’re incorrigible Shane.”

“Yes,” I answered.

“It’s not enough that I throw myself at you,” she continued yelling through the whisper, “I also have to cater to your every whim? Why make this an extravaganza? Why can’t we just go to the washroom and have a romp? Why try to fit this into one of your fantasies? We’ve gone over this before Shane. I don’t want to be one of your girls.”

I smirked smugly and said, “I wouldn’t concern myself with that.”

Jana shook her head and professed, “Earlier when I said that we don’t really like each other, this is what I meant. You know our relationship isn’t romantic. You know that I don’t want it to be.”

“And you’re sure?” I asked, vaguely proposing something I had little interest in doing.

She paused and stared into me for a terrifying moment. “Of course I am,” she replied as she took a step back, doubling the distance between us. “There is nothing I want less than for you to sweep me into a hotel room and charm or hypnotize me or do whatever you do to these girls. Shane, your romantic relationships have a short lifespan. I don’t want my relationship with you to be short. I don’t want to be one of the girls. I love my job. And even though I already know everything about you, why your relationships crash and burn, I’m positive you could convince me otherwise, until-”

A paralegal passed by the open door and Jana paused.

The pause giving her time to become aware of the contents of the conversation, Jana slowed, “We shouldn’t talk about this, I don’t know why we are talking about this. I’m still willing to-”

“One second,” I implored. “Why do you think my relationships have a such short lifespan?”

“Probably because you’re a dick,” she snapped.

“That’s not what you meant.”

“No but,” Jana inhaled, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“What’s changed in the last five seconds.”

“Self-awareness,” she retorted.

I smiled. “Tell me what you think and … we can go to the washroom.”

Jana responded, swooning in blatant sarcasm, “Oh in that case.”

“Stop. I just think you’re misreading me – you’re not giving me a fair shake. I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about.” I stopped to allow for a response, none came, I continued, “Besides, I wasn’t trying to sweep you off your feet, I just planned on finding someone new tonight and taking her to a nice hotel room, I figured I could kill two birds with one room.”

Jana grinned slyly, catching my forced wit. “Don’t call me a bird, it’s demeaning.”

“Pretty clever though? It hit me more than a minute ago but I couldn’t figure out where to fit in the conversation. Was it too forced?”

Jana ignored my question. “You want to know why your relationships don’t last?”

“I know why they don’t last. I want to know why you think they do not last.”

“Fine, whatever. OK.” Jana inhaled and began, “Arrogance is a disease from which all men suffer. You’re obviously not an exception. In fact, I’d say you think yourself greater than any male I’ve ever encountered. But for most guys, how they see themselves and how they actually are – it’s very different. This is something women grow accustomed to accepting for what it is, the male delusion. Then they meet you. Someone who might actually be as great as he says. Their guard is knocked down and you sweep them off their feet. You know this, so you target women who are out of your league, in attractiveness mainly.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh and your insufferable self … your self-enlightenment. Your ability to recognize your flaws and exploit them. It’s dastardly – and it helps you land the girls. Did I say women before? If they’re women when they meet you, they’re not when they leave.” Jana paused to collect her scattered thoughts. “But yes, so you might just be as great as you say. That’s special sure. And when you combine that with your ability to immerse yourself into an immediate infatuation, no girl really stands a chance.”

“Right,” I twitched.

“Then they realize, being with someone as talented and arrogant as Shane Thompson, it means that you’re not going to respect them – I mean, I don’t think you really respect anyone. How could you?” She paused to make sure I understood she was being sarcastic, and continued, “And worse, it’s impossible for a girl to have any self-worth they find theirselves falling for a guy who does not and will not need them. Ever. So you don’t respect them, you don’t need them, and you’re a huge asshole.”

“There’s that.”

“So I guess what I’m saying, and I guess this is why I don’t want to risk giving you even the slightly opportunity to court me, is that despite you being the one guy in the world who is everything he thinks he is, you’re not worth it.”

“Well done,” I said in solemn shock. “And you know what’s strange?”

Jana shook her head.

“I’ve actually picked up women before with that line.”

“What line?”

“I say, ‘I’m everything I say I am, but I’m not worth the trouble.’”

Jana smiled. “I believe that … You realize that all of conversations are about you, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, somewhat aloof. “I learn more about you that way.”

Jana frowned, confused.

“If I asked you about yourself, you’d tell me what you want me to hear. But if we talk about me, you don’t feel the need to hide anything. The way you approach our conversations about me, tells me about you.”

“I can’t believe you were able to finish that with a straight face.”

“I’m a good liar,” I acknowledged, though my previous statement was earnest.

“So, are we done with this?” Jana begged.

“Yeah … let’s go down to thirty-seven,” I offered what I had been thinking for the past minute, “I think the credit union’s gone, floor is empty.”

Jana stepped forward and squeezed me tightly. In retrospect, it seems that immediately before the vast majority of our coital run-ins, I had subjected Jana to a forced verbal sparring about my issues. I guess I reasoned that if I continued to discuss my romantic life with Jana, she would eventually become a part of that romantic life, which I didn’t want, though I felt I deserved.

We left my together, through the chaos that still gripped the firm, and took the elevator down to floor 37. I had been on the floor before, found it while stumbling down my building’s stairwell, drunk. Though I couldn’t remember exactly how to get there, I knew of an executive suite that had a private bathroom at one end of the floor.

Once we found the office and adjoining restroom, Jana made quick work of her clothing, stripping completely naked in a few seconds. Though I suppose there are a lot of mistakes I made with Jana, I often regret that I never complimented her on her appearance. While she’d never learned to properly cover it, her body really was something to be admired. Womanly yet supple, fit yet soft.

We embraced and kissed for a moment as she unbuckled my belt and pushed my pants to my feet. She then reached into my boxers, checked to make sure I was growing appropriately, and kneeled to pull the boxers down to my pants.

As I began to spin her around, so that she could bend over the sink, facing the mirror, she pushed my arm away.

“Nah-ah-ah,” she teased, “You know what I want.”

Now, given that our dalliance was limited to the office, we had never engaged in much of any foreplay. And while I probably should have mentioned it earlier, as it was my least favorite part of fucking Jana, this seemed like the most appropriate place for revelation. Jana’s a biter. In fact, our foreplay was limited to a single act, which Jana required as a sort of toll before I was allowed to stick her with my dick. She wanted to bite, and bit she did, my left ass cheek. She drew blood every fucking time, leaving permanent teeth marks – fucking scars – behind. And being in an office building, I always had to endure the bite in virtual silence, which I think is part of the reason Jana enjoyed it so extensively.

In uneasy anticipation, my face twitched. Jana turned me around and positioned her mouth above my ass. I tensed and she bit into my ass. Though the whole process was over in an instant, tears ran down both my cheeks. I groaned. Jana laughed and leapt from the floor, then bent over the sink.

“Ok I’m ready,” she said gleefully.

I looked down at my dick; it was far less ready than before. Indifferent, I turned around and entered Jana half-flaccid, using the first few strokes to regain shape. Though my mind was into the encounter, my body didn’t want to cooperate. We didn’t adjust during the event, which lasted a minute or two too long. By the end, I had given up any semblance of form and was just plowing aimlessly towards the finish line. I blamed sleep deprivation at the time, but it was probably a combination of everything that had happened that morning. I came inside of her. She kissed me immediately afterwards and acted as though she enjoyed it, though it may have been mere pretense.

I used the nearby tissues to blot the blood that had escaped the punctures on my ass. The pain was immense. Jana spoke while she dressed, something about going to lunch with a new secretary. I didn’t – couldn’t pay attention.

“Have you heard anything about this SMU party I’m going to tonight?” I asked during a pause in Jana’s one-sided conversation.

“No,” Jana replied, not even slightly irked at my lack of attention to her previous words. “Why are you going to a college party?”

“Client’s kid. Frat party hazing or something. Can you get the address and time for me?”

“From who?” Jana asked, fully clothed and holding open the bathroom door.

“Dina, Diana, whatever the fuck her name is.”

“Danni? Friedman’s secretary? Your old secretary? The woman you’ve worked with for like two years?”

“Yeah, I bet she has it.”

We had made our way back to the elevator bank.

“Could you also monitor the assignments for the oil reparations case? Jackson vee Energy Holding.”

“What am I looking for?” Jana asked, closing her eyes to take mental notes.

“If they file a motion to dismiss, I want the response brief.”

“When are they going to file a motion to dismiss?”

“If I were them? Yesterday.”

The elevator dinged and we stepped on.

As the doors closed, I continued, “And I need you to push through an expense request.”

“For what?”

“I want to send flowers to Derek’s house.”

Jana looked at me strangely and said, “I don’t understand.”

“Right well, I want to send a single flower, an orchid, to his house every day for the next,” I paused, “two weeks.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Just see if you can convince the expense lady-”

“You mean Danni?” Jana asked in fraudulent irritation.

“Yeah, see if you can convince her that it would be, you know, a classy thing to do in light of his termination.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

The elevator opened and we stepped out onto the firm’s floor. The storm had calmed, though there were still various unidentifiable staff members quickly walking up and down the halls, hidden behind huge stacks of papers.

“It’s just something I want to do,” I said, ignoring the receptionist who waved to us.

“And if Danni refuses?” Jana asked, also ignoring the repugnant receptionist.

“Just put it on my card.”

Jana didn’t respond.

We stepped into my office and I continued, “And I want to put a super ball in each delivery.”

“Like a bouncy ball?”

“Yeah but a good one, something nice.”

Jana, convinced that I was playing some unfunny practical joke clarified, “For the next fourteen days, you want an orchid and a … nice bouncy ball delivered to Derek’s house?”

“Exactly. And, grab a pen,” I pointed to a stack of notepads and pens on a side-table. Jana reluctantly obliged and I continued, “I want each to have a note that says, well you’ll have to look it up to get it right, it’s an Edna St. Vincent Millay quote. It’s like ‘Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the day, and falling into at night.’ It ends with ‘I miss you like hell.’ Make sure it ends with that.”

Jana scribbled furiously and, after a second, asked, “And this is for Derek?”

“No,” I said with smile.

“But you want it to go to his house?”

“Right.”

“Should I sign it from you? The firm?”

“No,” I shook my head, “She’ll know who it’s from.”

A slight, irritated surprise flashed across her face and she said, “How?”

Jana already knew the answer – this wasn’t the first time this same scenario had played out. “I told her.”

“I liked her,” she replied instantly and then sighed. “You’re such a coward.”

Momentarily thoughtful, because I wanted the moment to be as such, I nodded and said, “Yeah.”

“And I don’t like being your excuse. You tell these girls you are fucking someone else, which is true, but your motives are so disingenuous that-“

”Disingenuous.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No.”

She ughed and continued, “You don’t tell them because you think they should know, you don’t tell them that we don’t even like each other, you tell them – ‘I’m fucking someone else’ – so that they have to leave you. It’s about manipulation and control. You force them to choose between being a girlfriend who forgives infidelity or an ex. You could just break up with them. Just tell them the real truth, that you don’t like them anymore. That you don’t want to be with them anymore. Then they don’t have to feel betrayed. But no. You’re a fucking dick. You crush them and then force them to make an unfairly difficult choice because you’re a coward.” Jana paused and coughed. She had made herself hoarse.

“We don’t even like each other?” I asked, ignoring her other points, not because they weren’t valid, but because I was acutely aware of them.

“You need to get ready for the meeting.”

“I’m ready. What did you mean?.”

“It’s just … I just … we …” she sighed. “I’ll tell you after the meeting.”

“Ok,” I said with a twitch. As she left the room, I said vaguely, “Advil.” Jana nodded.

The next fifteen minutes went by unnoticed. I scrolled through my email a few times, not able and not interested in focusing on anything in particular. I took the Advil Jana brought. Finally, at five-til-nine, Jana pulled me from my chair, gave me a few choice words of encouragement and pushed me back into the firm’s main floor, which was still engulfed in chaos.

I walked casually to the conference room at the other end of the floor, where three partners were waiting to meet with me regarding my job performance. The panel, who were all seated on one side of the conference table, consisted of: 1) Alfred Braumel, a wiry man in his late sixties, one of the two founders of my law firm, Braumel Bickson; 2) John Goodrow, a tall, imposing, lumpy man in his mid-forties, the current managing partner of the firm; and 3) Jackson Friedman, a short, chubby man in his early sixties, my supervising partner. There was a cold, uneasy air in the room.

I was short in my pleasantries. Though I respect the three men for their legal accomplishments, I was confident that they were about to disappoint me with a paltry yearly bonus. And my feelings weren’t based on paranoia or perceived envy. I had billed only 1400 hours in my previous twelve months at the firm – about 50% less than my peers. I had ruined the mood at a number of firm gatherings by embarrassing myself and others during periods of overconsumption. I had been anonymously reported to the bar for alcohol abuse after I accidentally threw my laptop down the concrete stairwell in the building during a drunken fit.

But they couldn’t fire me, I was well liked by a number of our larger clients and I had recently single-handedly won the firm a massive contingency fee. So to assert dominance and prevent me from feeling untouchable, they were about to rape my bonus.

Or so I thought.

Goodrow started before I could sit down, “Shane, when we recruited you from Guile, you had billed over 3000 hours the year prior. You billed less than half of that last year. And you know, we just changed our bonus policies, so that only those associates who billed 2100 hours or more could qualify.”

I smiled.

Goodrow continued, “We are concerned that you have checked out on the firm, that you don’t want to work here anymore. Would you say that’s accurate?”

I chuckeld. “No. I would not.”

Goodrow scowled. “Then what’s the problem?”

Before I could respond, Friedman interjected, “Shane I just want to be clear that I … that we, the partners, have no complaints with your work, and that you are one of the best recruits I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Your work product is consistently the best of the firm, partners included. But … your hours … need to come up.”

My face twitched, the partners noticed. “I, uh, I bill what needs to be billed to each case. I’m faster than damn near everyone else.” I was flailing a bit. “And the vast majority of the assignments I take are on contingency cases. But,” I paused to catch my place, “I guess if you want me to lie or cheat or churn, I will. I mean, I could have billed 4000 hours last year-“

The partners’ backs straightened in unison. Bill padding and churning is common practice in our firm, in all firms, but – understandably – nobody ever talks about it.

“I don’t know where this is coming from Shane. You need to be careful, we very nearly voted to terminate you based on your hours alone.” Goodrow was posturing.

“Don’t lie to me. You probably want me gone, sure, everyone knows that, but the firm isn’t going to fire me. I was on the fucking cover of Texas Lawyer two months ago for Christ’s sake. Let’s not pretend that I couldn’t find a job at any other firm in town.”

Goodrow stood and spoke on the brink of screaming, “There are literally a thousand people who could replace you in an instant. Do you know what the market is like out there? It’s shit.”

“Wait,” I licked my lips and smiled, “You mean to tell me that an attorney who won a seventy-three million dollar contingency fee for his firm, and saved a certain managing partner’s ass in the process, can’t find work right now?”

Goodrow boiled, “Do you know how many hours I worked on that fucking case, just to have some ASSOCIATE take the god damn credit-“

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on,” Friedman said, holding up both hands.

Then Braumel broke his silence, “Sit down John, you’ve made everyone in the office aware of your concerns with Shane…” Braumel paused and Goodwin obeyed. “Now,” Braumel continued, “my first year at this firm, I billed less than a thousand hours. I’ve don’t think I’ve ever billed more than 1400 hours in a year. I guess that’s one of the perks of being the boss, you know? These guys want you to bill more because they think you’ll make them more money that way. I don’t think that’s true. Last year, you earned the firm more than any associate could dream. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone behind John’s back, maybe that was necessary, I don’t know, I don’t care. Your bonus is being wired into your bank account as we speak. I wanted to give you a check, I thought it might mean more, be more significant for you, but I’m told a check of that size would take weeks to clear.”

I nodded blankly.

“And you don’t have to sign a contract or anything but I want you to understand that we are giving you this bonus because we don’t want to see you working for one of our competitors. Do you understand? Call it a gentlemen’s agreement or whatever you want, I anticipate you working at the firm for the rest of your career.”

“Right,” I said, still greatly confused.

Goodwin said as he shifted in his seat and said weakly, “And, going forward, you’re banned from talking to my clients or working on my cases. You get your work from Friedman, you do your work. You don’t socialize with my associates or staff. You don’t talk to my recruiting classes. You don’t drink in the office. And you’re getting a god damn new secretary. She made one of my clients very uncomfortable last week. She’s a fucking liability.”

Dazed, I looked at Friedman, who said, “Just keep your nose clean Shane. Jana’s one of my employees, I’ll talk to her.”

I nodded and, sensing that the meeting was already over and that I was supposed to leave, I stood up and walked towards the door. As my hand turned the knob to exit the room, it hit me that I hadn’t been told my bonus. I turned back and, still in a daze, said, “Uh, well, what … what was my bonus?”

Braumel laughed, “Year’s salary, give or take a few thousand.”

I nodded appreciatively and left.

As I walked to my office, Friedman caught up and stopped me. “You’re pretty young aren’t you?” he asked.

“What?” I asked, caught off guard.

“You’re young right?”

“I’m twenty nine.”

“Yeah, well. You know Trevor Paxson?”

“I know Drew Paxson, our client.”

“Right, yes, Trevor’s his son. Drew asked if we could send someone from the firm, an attorney, to watch his son at this, uh, party at his fraternity tonight. I don’t know the details really, some concerns over hazing or something. Should be an easy way to get some extra hours.” Friedman shifted on his feet, anxiously.

“What school?”

“Ess-emm-you.”

I winced and began to shake my head.

Friedman’s eyes grew cross and he said, “Shane, I already said that I was sending you. Drew likes you, trusts you. You’ll have fun.”

“Ok,” I replied in a dejected tone. “That’s fine. I had some work to do on that fiduciary duty case, I had a revelation. We can win it.”

“The TexPro case?” he said with a confused look.

“Yeah, I’m reworking the pleadings, getting things better situated.”

“Oh, wow, Shane. We settled that case two days ago. I sent you an email.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause before I said, “Oh yeah, right.”

“But it sounds like your schedule’s pretty clear now.” Friedman smiled.

“Yeah-“ before I could say another word, my boss turned and ran back towards the conference room.

Jana was waiting for me in my office. “Was it good?” she asked as I walked in.

“Ye-”

“What’s my cut?” she interrupted.

You see, when Jana started, I told her that, since my firm doesn’t award staff bonuses, that as long as she did an adequate job, I would give her 5% of my post-tax bonus. Last year, I gave her an envelope with a little more than a thousand dollars in it. She was ecstatic.

“I don’t know how the taxes are going to work?”

“Well how much did you get?” she prodded.

“Two-hundred.”

“Thousand?”

I nodded.

I was sitting at my small nook table in boxers and an undershirt eating breakfast. There were two plates on the table, two over-medium eggs and two slices of wheat toast on each. I was staring out the wall of windows that line my loft, watching nothing in particular.

Rosaline was in the bedroom, yelling, screaming. I had slept with someone else and told her about it – though, that wasn’t the cause of her anger. She was upset because, when she told me that she was going to leave me over my indiscretion, I didn’t ask her to stay. I didn’t beg for her forgiveness. I didn’t offer to change. I merely said:

“Bye.”

The revelation that I didn’t care about her caused her a certain … discomfort.

Rosaline came flying out of the bedroom into the large, open area of my loft, still screaming.

“You aren’t going to say anything!?” she yelled.

I moved my eyes from the window to my plate and used a piece of toast to sop up some yoke that had collected. I took a bite and looked back through the windows.

Rosaline groaned and stomped back into the bedroom.

Less than a minute later, she returned carrying the large Coach hobo I had given her on her last birthday. The bag was overflowing with clothing. She stopped a few inches from my chair.

“Look at me!” she screamed.

I didn’t. She moved closer.

“Shane!”

I winced and my face twitched into a smile. I turned and looked at her.

“Yeah?” I asked with irritating aloofness.

“Why don’t you stop me? Why are you making me do this?” she half-shrieked, her voice cracking with pain.

My face twitched again. I forced a larger smile.

“Do you have everything?” I asked calmly.

“What?” she stammered.

“Are you all packed up?”

She nodded cautiously.

“Alright,” I sighed.

I stood up quickly, causing the chair to slide a few feet across the hardwood. Rosaline gasped and stepped back instinctively. I put my arm around her and began to force her towards the front door. Other than initial, frightened hesitation, she did not physically resist the escort.

She did however begin to cry and ask, “What are you doing? Shane? Shane? What are you doing?”

I opened the door, which is only fifteen feet from the nook table, and shoved Rosaline through the opening. She turned, her face drenched in tears and snot, and asked, “Why?”

“Because if you are going to blame me for this, if you’re going to say that I made you leave, that I forced you out!” I paused, caught my breath and said sternly, “I want it to be true.”

I grabbed the door. In a panic, Rosaline screamed, “Wait!”

The door slammed and I walked back to my breakfast. My phone, which was on a side-table near the nook, rang. I didn’t have to look to know that it was Rosaline, but my paranoid fear of missing an important call from the office forced me to get up and check. It was her; I didn’t answer.

Instead, I finished my eggs, leaving the mess for the maid, and went to my small bar, where I forced a mouthful of bourbon down my throat. There was no burn. I hadn’t felt the burn in over a year. I missed it.

But as I stood there, in my underwear, holding the bottle of bourbon, my mind drifted to an amended pleading I had been working on the previous night. The underlying case was simple, an officer at a technology firm had diverted a large contract from his employer to a company wholly owned by his wife, thereby breaching his fiduciary duty to the company. Then, not eight months after the diversion, the husband and wife broke up and quickly divorced. Though there was little doubt we were going to get a judgment against the husband, with the assets split, it became important to find a cause of action that would stick to the wife. Our original petition had claimed that the wife was involved in a conspiracy with her husband, which seems like something that would be easy to prove, given that she was the primary beneficiary of her husband’s breach.

But it wasn’t. Proving conspiracy in Texas is a pain in the ass and, as would be expected, there was very little hard evidence to support our claim. Fortunately, as I always do, I had found a way to wiggle around the problem. There are a line of cases that, in fiduciary duty claims, lowered the joint liability standard to anyone who was a “knowing participant” with the breach.

So, between swigs of bourbon, I was working over the pleadings in my head, consolidating the argument down to its core and, more importantly, determining the best way to present it to the court. In law, it’s not necessarily about having the best arguments, it’s about fashioning the best arguments in a way that the court or jury will take notice. There are very few lawyers who can both find the best arguments and deliver them in a truly successful manner.  I’m one of them.

After an indefinite amount of time and bourbon, I wandered through my loft to my master bathroom. While the shower warmed up, which in my old building, can take a full minute or two, I pulled three pill bottles out of my medicine cabinet. Adderall, Advil, and Aliskiren. I take two of each every morning.

As per usual, I took the six pills at once, washing them down with water from the bottle of Fiji I keep on my bathroom counter. I coughed one pill up. My face twitched. I forced the pill back down with my tongue.

While I showered, my phone rang from its location in the other room. Though I was mid-shampoo, I grabbed a towel from the rack and ran through my loft to answer it. It was my direct office number.

“This is Shane,” I answered.

“Hey Shane,” my secretary Jana said in her standard apathetic tone, ”can you move your meeting to nine?”

“I guess so … I thought Derek had his meeting at nine?”

“Nope.”

“Why?” I asked, remembering clearly that Derek had told me his meeting with the managing partners was right before mine.

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” Jana replied, evasive.

“Did he get fired?” I asked, probing.

“Yeah.”

“Before his bonus?”

“Yeah.”

I laughed, said, “I’ll be there in thirty,” and hung up.

I dropped my towel onto the puddle that had formed beneath me and sprinted back to the shower, only slightly concerned about exposing myself to the rest of the city through my undraped windows.

So I showered, shaved and whatnot. I got dressed in a cheap blue suit I bought in Spain that, although made of thin fabric, fits my flabby body exceptionally well, and drove to the office in my new, leased 535i. I stopped at the non-Starbucks coffee shop in the lobby as I always do – despite my firm famously having a full-time coffee professional on staff. Some sort of retarded rebellion I guess.

When I stepped off the elevator onto the firm’s floor, it was chaos. Apparently the firm had just dropped three mid-level associates, Derek being one of them, and there were a number of imminently due filings that had disappeared from the server. Though I assumed the two were related, nobody else seemed to make the same assumption. At least, I didn’t hear anyone make that assumption in the two minutes it took me to walk to my office.

After I hung my bag and coat up in my office armoire, Jana, who looks and dresses like an Austin trollop, walked in and began to babble about the terminations. I humored her for a minute or two and then said, “I don’t really care about this, I need to work on some things.”

Jana, being used to such interruptions, made a perturbed smile and sighed, “Fine.” She walked out of my office but returned almost instantly to say, “You know your meeting’s in twenty minutes, right. Are you ready for it?”

My face twitched. Jana noticed and stepped towards my desk. I smirked.

“Let me get you some water,” she urged, concerned.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

She thought about it for a moment and scornfully accused, “Are you drunk?”

I smiled. “Probably.”

I wasn’t, at least, not to an extent that it would impact my meeting. I lied because I was self-conscious about the twitch and her accusation felt like an excuse worth using.

But the false admission greatly distressed Jana. She paced for a second and nodded to herself before saying, ”Let me go get you some things.”

“No stop,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m not drunk. Rosaline and I broke up earlier today, I haven’t been able to process it yet … I’m a little frazzled.”

A better lie than the first. I mean, I didn’t really like Rosaline. I certainly wasn’t frazzled over the breakup. But it was something that Jana would accept.

And she did.

“Oh jeez,” she murmured. “Just this morning?”

“Yep.”

“Wow … What happened?”

I twitched again, smiled and said with a shrug, “She found out about us.”