Chapter Seven: Contain the Situation

Prologue: His New Addiction
Chapter 1: Money Well Spent
Chapter 2: Close Enough
Chapter 3: The Next Right Thing
Chapter 4: A Way Out
Chapter 5: Happy, Joyous, Free
Chapter 6: First Things First

As his wife smoothed his collar and straightened his tie, Denise said, “I’m glad you listened to me and shaved off the mustache.”

“Thanks. It's almost time. You’d better get out of here.”

He sat in the chair facing a laptop balanced on a stack of books atop a TV tray. He could see the small square preview video. Though the setup was crude, Denise was right—it gave him a distinguished backdrop: his expansive bookshelf and the sliver of wall next to it where his diplomas hung. Credentials. 

A production assistant’s face filled the screen.

“Hello, Dr. Morrison. I’m just going to test the connection, and then I’ll go over the process, time limits, and guidelines for the panel.”

Since the 24-hour news cycle had become a permanent fixture of American culture, he had participated in a dozen of these experts-weigh-in-on-current-events panels: the pros and cons of Viagra when it first came out, the rise of STDs in retirement communities, the decline of teen pregnancy.

In the early years, however, he would go to a local sister station and sit with a crew, lights, makeup, and a production assistant actually in the room with him. Professional and polished how work should be done.

But now everything was done over the internet and alone. He sat in his own home, with only his wife to help. In the room where his youngest daughter had slept until she moved out. 

Normally he didn’t mind participating in a filler news segment to plug gaps in the broadcast schedule. However, the president of the university had made it clear they intended for this segment to help “contain the situation.” So he spent a week composing rebuttals in the shower and jotting phrases from her interviews on legal pads, circling the same words over and over.

By “the situation,” he of course meant the institution’s recent dropout and newly notorious alumna, Jasmine Kopernick.

That pebble in Dr. Morrison’s shoe that continued to poke the tender sole of his foot no matter how many times he tried to shake her off.

The production assistant smiled and held up five fingers.

“The countdown begins now… five… four… three…”

One and two were fingers only—silent.

Four faces filled the screen.

A female news anchor behind a studio desk, long blonde hair in loose curls, with the plump lips and hollow cheeks that all TV personalities seemed to have developed in the last few years.

A man with a crew cut and polo shirt, seated in front of an American flag with the male symbol printed on it.

Jasmine Kopernick, sitting casually, with an artfully arranged bowl of oranges and a nude female statue—perhaps a foot tall—on a table to her right.

And himself.

Bloated. Red-faced. Too fat. Too old. Sitting in front of a wall of books, awards, and framed paper.

The news anchor gave them a bright, television-friendly smile and slipped into her on-air voice.

“We are joined now by Dr. Timothy Morrison of the Men’s Sexual Performance Laboratory housed within the Sexual Wellness Institute at Southern Wisconsin University, Jasmine Kopernick, cofounder and contributor to the DommyMommy blog, book, and subsequent movement, and Barry Smith, men’s rights advocate and host of the Man Today podcast. Welcome.”

A pause.

“The DommyMommy blog and the recent New York Times bestselling book of the same name have caused quite a stir. Jasmine, what do you have to say about this?”

Jasmine cocked her head slightly and smiled warmly.

“Well, the name DommyMommy is cheesy, of course. But the lifestyle is much more than that, and—”

“—But you understand why people find it concerning,” the anchor interjected.

Jasmine’s face seemed unfazed as she replied, “We’re just people sharing honest portrayals of our life and lifestyle. If people are interested in applying aspects of it to their own lives, that is a choice they make.”

The newscaster’s expression tightened, “Dr. Morrison, you have expressed strong opinions on Ms. Kopernick’s work. Your response?”

“I’m an expert. I have decades of academic, professional, and research—”

“—Dr. Morrison, hold that thought,” the anchor said. “I want to bring Barry Smith in.”

“I have reports of men swindled out of their life savings and then subjected to iron-clad NDAs. Men who have lost everything. Men injured or physically harmed. Sexual, physical, and financial abuse at the hands of women operating under the guidance of—”

“Ms. Kopernick?" the anchor interrupted again, "Your response?”

“No one is forcing anyone. Some don’t pay anything. For those that do have a monetary exchange, the men name their prices. But really—is this much different than OnlyFans accounts? Buying an engagement ring or a house for a wife? Subscribing to the premium content of a podcast? Can your followers name their price for your premium content, or do you?”

The newscaster leaned into a more serious tone.

“But Ms. Kopernick, there are concerns about your qualifications. When a world-renowned expert like Dr. Morrison cautions against your lifestyle, why would anyone listen to you?”

Briefly looking down, he saw his hands clenched into hard fists and forced them open. White crescents—ghosts of fingernails digging into skin—remained like little smiles on his palms.

He was enraged by how calm she seemed.
Confident. Reasonable. Approachable. Charming.

All the things he and the other man were not.

To the average viewer, they would appear to be complaining men angry at a woman simply living her life and talking about it, while she seemed like a lovely woman only asking to be left in peace. 

Jasmine smirked—or maybe it only seemed that way—and stared directly at Dr. Morrison through the tiny video box.

Morrison had the sudden, irrational thought that he was watching something escape.

“Who has read Dr. Morrison’s research? Peer reviewers, other researchers, students he assigns it to. It’s hidden behind paywalls and written in convoluted language. The average person—the person this research is about—can’t access it.”

If he had more time, he could have responded well. Convincingly. 

As if he didn’t partially agree that academia shouldn’t be a foreign quagmire to the layman. As if he didn’t feel guilty for his role in what she had become.

So all he blurted out was, “Our participants have informed consent. There are avenues to access it.”

Unsure whether it was a blessing or a curse, the men’s rights activist—framed by his American flag with the male symbol blazing across it—chose that moment to speak up.

“We need to quit worrying about professionals and experts and return the focus to the real men who are losing their lives and morale over feminist propaganda. Militant, anti-men women like Ms. Kopernick. Erectile dysfunction, mental health collapse, parental rights disparity—men are losing everywhere! This is where men should be holding the line—not following snake oil sold by women with breast implants like her.” He pointed at the screen accusingly.

Though crude, perhaps Mr. Men’s Rights was not completely useless in this segment.

Except, of course, the newscaster then shone a spotlight on the elephant in every room Dr. Morrison had entered since that blog and subsequent book.

“Speaking of credentials, Dr. Morrison—up until a year ago, you were considered Ms. Kopernick’s advisor. Is that not true?”

“That title has largely been a technicality on paper. There is a long record of my discouraging, refusing, and disapproving of Ms. Kopernick’s actions. Additionally, she withdrew over a year ago, will not be graduating, and I have not spoken to her since before the blog began.”

At this point, he should print that on the back of his business cards to save himself from having to repeat it so often.

“Okay, last question. Dr. Morrison and Barry, you both seem to agree that this is dangerous and harmful to men. But how do you explain the hashtag DommyMommy trending on TikTok, the spike in interest after prominent YouTuber Derek Gregory—Mr. D-Man himself—disclosed his own DommyMommy relationship, and the DommyMommy subreddit alone having twenty thousand followers? If this is so damaging, why do men and women seem to be flocking to it? Barry, you first.”

“This is a social contagion. A fad. It’s the Tide Pod challenge and anti-vaxxers combined. It will die down—but not before it does real damage to real men.”

Jasmine responded calmly.

“First, Mr. Smith’s podcast seems concerned about the male loneliness epidemic, yet condemns men who have cured themselves of loneliness. Perhaps it’s not right for the men who subscribe to his podcast—but you can’t deny the numbers. This started with just two people. Now we’re looking at tens of thousands of people at least interested in the information, if not incorporating these principles into their lives.”

Was that a personal and professional dig at their last conversation—when he had pushed her about the low sample size? A sample of two?

Probably. Yes. 

She smiled sardonically and continued.

“There are over two hundred true personal accounts on the website you can read. Anyone can read them. For free. But we are not saying all mental health issues—or even your mental health issues—can be resolved. We are just saying it has cured ours.”

Morrison had read several of the accounts Jasmine mentioned.

A few sounded disturbingly sincere.

"We’re almost out of time,” the anchor said quickly. “Final thoughts—fifteen seconds each.”

Dr. Morrison didn’t even hear what Jasmine and the podcaster said. He barely remembered what he himself had said. 

The oranges, the statue, the soft smile—none of it accidental. Of course she paused before saying two people. Of course she looked into the camera then. It couldn’t be coincidence that the anchor used Jasmine’s language—lifestyle, not scheme or operation.

As the video window closed, he knew one thing with certainty.

This was not mission accomplished.

The situation had not been contained.

And worse—

he had likely given it accelerant and momentum. 

Who even was Barry Smith?

He typed “Barry Smith podcaster” into the search bar, and a recent article from The Atlantic appeared as the first result.

“Barry Smith says in podcast he doesn’t read books because his brain is too advanced for them.”

This—and Jasmine—were who the American public would lump him with.

Equal-sized boxes on a television screen.

Equal authority.

He roughly rubbed his furrowed brow.

How he missed the days when Jasmine was only an apparition from his student past—appearing in his inbox as long, meandering emails that used too many words to say she still wanted to finish her PhD, but that her indefinite break would continue indefinitely.

Regretfully, for years he had hoped she would wake up renewed—ready either to finish the program or simply withdraw and fade away.

So for years he placated her when he should have extinguished any spark of hope.

Now he was being made to answer for his passivity.

A brief rap sounded at the door.

“Tim,” his wife called through the wood, “change your clothes. I laid them out on the bed. They’ll be here soon.”

Time to take off Dr. Morrison and just be Tim: husband to Denise, father to Jamie and Jessica, golf enthusiast, and most assuredly not late for a dinner party with friends.

He would put on the dress shirt and slacks laid out on the bed. He would sit at the formal dining room table, its two leaves expanded to fit fifteen, and eat the lovely Julia Child–inspired meal his wife had prepared for the occasion. They would use the expensive plates that normally resided in the china cabinet, watching the family eat sandwiches off paper towels any other evening.

He would laugh, enjoy time with his friends, and just be Tim for the rest of the night.

Just Tim had no situation to contain. No dean or president to answer to on Monday.

Within the circle of their friends—stabbing, cutting, chewing, swallowing bites of beef Wellington—Madeline, a longtime friend and generally clueless woman, paused to ask:

“Did anyone catch Tim’s segment on CNN tonight?”

Just Tim hadn’t lasted long.

For decades his career had been a delightful source of dinner-table conversation fodder. Guests were delighted, titillated, enraptured, or horrified by salacious tales: men whose honeymoons ended in the ER due to drug-induced erections lasting longer than seventy-two hours, or stories of men who developed Pavlovian arousal at the smell of gasoline due to childhood abuse.

Madeline couldn’t know that this time it wasn’t a little anecdote like in the past.

The excited murmuring of the other guests showed they had seen the segment—and were pressing for more information.

As a young man, he had loved Frankenstein and empathized with the misunderstood monster. But for the past few months, he had come to see himself as Dr. Frankenstein.

Precariously balancing the impossible task of warning the villagers of imminent danger—a monster on the loose—while also trying to make them understand how he hadn’t seen it coming as he created it.

He tried to explain it without sounding hysterical.

Too calm, and they would laugh it off.
Too alarmed, and they would stop listening.

“Yes, at this point most people have heard of DommyMommy—the blog, the book. It’s become something of a phenomenon.”

He had the absurd urge to use air quotes around "New York Times Best seller" and ask whether anyone at the table had read her "book."

“But I met her when she was eighteen, nineteen. She wanted to research sexual confidence through successful experiences and it seemed aligned with my work with pharmaceutical treatments.”

He tried to choose his words carefully. They needed to understand how he couldn’t have seen the clearly until recently.

“She isn’t the first—nor will she be the last—student who wants to study human sexuality because they have some adolescent wet dream to pursue. Most eventually let the fantasy go and get serious.”

A pause.

“She never did.”

Looking around the table, he saw nodding, friendly, understanding faces. It emboldened him to pivot—to arrive at the stark warning he actually wanted to deliver.

“Her clinicals were a turning point. It should have been simple—hand out rubbers, pamphlets, easy enough. But she started interviewing prostitutes and call girls. I told her to stop. Then she said she wanted to become a stripper, and I told her no. But she has this way about her. She talks about unethical and manipulative things in ways that seem logical. Becoming a stripper, to her, was like a field trip to the zoo for a biology class.”

He paused. 

“You can imagine my shock when I found out she took it further and became a hooker.”

It wasn’t new information about Jasmine Kopernick, yet the faces around the table had gone grave. They had stopped eating to focus on him.

He needed to pull back—to regain sympathy.

“She could only take a break or withdraw. Hell, I encouraged it. Get her head right. That was years ago.”

David, abandoning his usual jovial style, voiced the thought hovering around the table.

“I don’t understand. How long was the break? I thought she withdrew last year.”

“God damn it.”

He slammed a damp fist on the table, making a wine glass wobble back and forth to his wife’s wide-eyed horror.

“Maybe I was too soft. Maybe I held out hope she would come to her senses. Maybe I liked her! She wasn’t the smartest student ever—but smart enough to get into grad school. Charming. Nice girl. What can I say?”

Approving nods moved around the table as his wife said gently, “Tim has always been softhearted with his students.”

Their sympathy made something in him panic.

“Don’t think this is safe. She has taken up a crusade. I’m no prude—I’ve been in this field for decades, from the early days, when we still had to borrow professors from sociology and anthropology just to cover the classes. Have your kink, your orgies, cuckolding, whatever. But this—this isn’t some harmless cute blog.”

He heard himself talking and recognized the tone at once: the shrill register of a man losing the room.

He told himself to lower his voice. Instead he leaned in.

“Mark my words. The next Charles Manson! Or Jim Jones! Jasmine Kopernick!”

Even as he said Manson, some part of him knew it was too much. He said it anyway. Another heavy fist shook the table, finally tipping a glass of red wine over. 

“Jesus Christ, Tim! Listen to yourself.”

His wife jumped from her chair and began sopping up the spreading red stain with a napkin.

“Oh Denise, let me help,” Madeline chimed in, the two women bustling toward the kitchen for cleaning supplies.

Silence fell over the table.

Frightened and confused faces.

His friends. Too far yet again.

“Tim, really? It’s not a big deal. Popular this week and gone the next. It’s just another sex thing.”

“Yeah. It’ll be like the planking challenge or swallowing goldfish. Wake up one day and it’ll be DommyMommy who?”

The group sat through several minutes of uncomfortable silence before David ended the tension.

“So… who’s excited for the Packers game this weekend?” 

“Oh, I can’t wait. We’re going to slaughter them.”

Maybe Timothy Morrison, PhD was just an old man.

Maybe it really would all pass.

But as his friends talked football and his wife cleaned up the mess he had made, he sat there smiling along—

alone inside his own mind.

Jasmine.

Her followers were everywhere now—forums, videos, comment threads, even his inbox. In emails he tried not to read too closely, men thanked her. Some of them even claimed it had helped them. He tried not to think about those messages.

How could he—one man—protect the world from something he had helped create through nothing more than passivity?

He wondered—too late—whether indulging her all those years had been a mistake.

And now the system he believed in could not stop it.

To do things the right way required peer review. Publishing fees. Editorial boards. Months—maybe years—before evidence could reach the public. If ever. 

Meanwhile she had probably already written ten pages about the news segment.

Photos. Clips. Links blasted across TikTok, Instagram, and whatever platform came next.

It had likely already been read by more people than his last research article, and tonight had only made it bigger. Millions had watched her sit there—calm, confident—legitimized by him and another fool on national television.

For months—no years—he had told himself that she would fade away.

Instead she had grown.

Louder. Larger. Untouchable.

Now that he was finally shouting warnings, the world seemed to believe exactly what he once had—that she would disappear on her own.

He didn’t believe in God. But he prayed anyway.

That maybe—just maybe—this time what he had made would vanish overnight.

Even as he knew she wouldn’t.

That night, after everyone was gone and Denise was in bed, he would return to his office. His laptop still glowed on the desk.

A notification blinked.

New post: DommyMommy CNN Appearance.

Thousands of comments already.

Chapter Six: First Things First

Prologue: His New Addiction
Chapter 1: Money Well Spent
Chapter 2: Close Enough
Chapter 3: The Next Right Thing
Chapter 4: A Way Out
Chapter 5: Happy, Joyous, Free

It had been months since John’s lead, and Jasmine’s life looked starkly different.

Monica—her reunited mentor—was delighted with Jasmine’s quick progress. It had taken weeks without income for Bernard to consider the consequences of Monica refusing other clients. John needed only minutes. He offered to support Jasmine the next day.

But Monica had been right: study him. Learn everything. No detail was too small. Focus on one client.

So Jasmine spent a month reading prison memoirs, AA literature, watching recordings of meetings, studying Boy Scout manuals, and combing through hundreds of academic articles using a former classmate’s JSTOR login. She annotated. Diagrammed. Visited her family and dreamt of what could be.

Before she walked into his lead, she already knew what his reaction would be. His mental state.

She could embody him—step into his skin and wear it like a pencil skirt.

Even his lead, his story, felt like a rerun of a show always on television.

No surprises.

Except one.

She hadn’t anticipated Andrew.

Drunk. Sloppy. The failed prospect who followed her there. Nor that John was carrying illegally that night.

She had expected to improvise around some small offense—forgetting to open a door, failing to introduce her. Instead the heavens opened and placed a 9mm Glock beside Aphrodite’s feet.

A first sacrifice.

In that moment she knew there would be many more.

Anything she asked.

And she adored him for the surrender.

Monica had also been right about the business model. The hourly-rate approach limited income and forced Jasmine to meet wildly different expectations within narrow windows of time.

A retainer changed everything.

A fixed monthly payment based on her minimum expenses allowed her to focus exclusively on John. Time problems gone. Money problems gone.

And—an addition that genuinely impressed Monica—Jasmine had begun offering “customized upgrades.”

Upgrades that required additional money.

“I’ve been having the most marvelous dreams,” she told John. “Absolutely fantasizing about making this real—with you. But of course I need time. Supplies. Planning. How much you contribute will determine what I can create. I can only do so much with limited resources.”

Venmo payments followed.

John always sent more than she would have asked.

His faith in her imagination pushed Jasmine deeper into forums, novels, recorded lectures—anything that might spark new ideas.

At times she felt guilty. Then the savings grew.

Her expenses began disappearing.

Dinner with John: halfway through her steak he noticed a chipped nail. The next week her manicures—including the tip—were prepaid indefinitely, provided he chose the color.

Now her lease was ending. Another expense about to vanish while her income kept rising.

She would move into his house. The house she had decorated. More access. More control. More data.

Her research was thriving.

She had once laughed at John’s claim that money seemed to follow him.

But within months she saw it.

Money really did drip from his skin and shower the people around him.

So Jasmine made sure she was always around him.

As the phone rang, she adjusted the emerald pendant John had given her.

“Hello, Jasmine,” Dr. Morrison said, his voice rough and tired.

A rush of nostalgia followed the sound of her graduate advisor’s voice. She could picture him clearly: bulldog jowls, white hair and mustache, a red, swollen face leaning toward the phone.

Jasmine eagerly began describing John’s progress.

In only a few months he had transformed. Confident now. Expanding his business after years of depression, confinement, and timidity.

“Look,” Dr. Morrison interrupted, “I know you believe in this. But it’s the same thing as before. It isn’t real. This ‘sexual healing’ theory of yours—you’re romanticizing sex work. Ignoring the real problems and jumping to conclusions.”

Her shoulders tightened.

She had heard it all before.

For years.

“Furthermore,” Morrison continued, “you didn’t discover domination. First dom escort ever? Hardly. Couples across the country whip each other and call it a day. I’m not even sure what you’re describing is different from prostitution with a bit of kink.”

Jasmine winced at the exaggeration but pressed forward.

“This helped him,” she said. “It helped him survive the death of his mother. It’s undone ten years of institutional damage. We would’ve progressed even faster if I’d dropped the dumb-bimbo escort script earlier. If I’d known what to ask. What to build on.”

“Jasmine,” Morrison said, sighing, “you’re a smart girl. Maybe this man is special. Maybe you are. Maybe you even stumbled onto something interesting. But it’s still a sample size of one. In the Civil War a bullet once passed through a soldier’s testicle and lodged in a woman’s womb across the room. She became pregnant. It happened once. The NIH didn’t adopt it as a fertility treatment. You cannot build a theory on a sample size of one.”

“It’s a sample size of two. It’s not just my experience,” Jasmine said quietly, thinking of Monica and Bernard.

“Oh. Two.” He paused, “My mistake.”

Then more sharply: “Still not enough. Wake up.”

He exhaled, calming himself.

“My advice? Take the internship with my lab. Align your dissertation with existing research. Finish the degree. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“That’s not for me.”

The thought revolted her.

A PhD built on stale research about recreational erectile-dysfunction drugs. Thousands of interviews with young men bragging about erections lasting days.

Sure, she could pivot. Ask how many used escorts. Strip clubs. Sex workers.

But who would that help? No one. It was jock party time disguised as scholarship.

Morrison sighed.

“Then there’s nothing more to discuss, is there? You must withdraw.”

“I will,” Jasmine said. “Happily. But you didn’t let me do anything. I’ve been trying to prove I’m right. It’s just clear now that academia isn’t how.”

She ended the call.

Was she blurring professional boundaries? Yes.

But fuck scientific impartiality.

How could a man whose dissertation had been typed on a typewriter understand what she was doing now?

This was new. It was real.

The bitterness surprised her—it wasn’t her fault. It was the system itself.

Dr. Morrison had spent forty-five years inside ivory towers that knew nothing about the past few years of her life.

A man who had never left a session with a black eye and no payment told her she romanticized sex work?

He had never sucked a dick. Never wondered what his body was worth. He knew nothing.

Her thoughts returned to John.

Maybe his mother had scouted the mine. The Boy Scouts extracted the ore. Prison cut him into a rough stone. AA hardened it.

But Jasmine—Jasmine alone—was polishing the jewel.

She would set him in gold. John would shine in her crown.

This was different.

The Wright brothers built a plane once. Now thousands fly every day.

A quiet voice—John’s voice—echoed in her head.

I’m helping you too. There’s give and take here. Where do you think your courage came from?

She shook her head.

“Not now, John,” she said to the empty room. “I need to get going.”

Later that day, settling into the big leather armchair in John’s library, Jasmine recounted the conversation with Dr. Morrison. John knelt at her feet, carefully washing them.

“Good for you! Who even reads dissertations?” he asked, sliding the edge of a towel carefully between each toe.

“A committee. Then it’s filed in the school’s library archive. Other academics.”

“Hmm.” John held her left foot thoughtfully, kissing each toe quietly between his sentences.

“No one who could actually benefit from it,” he replied. “You know, when AA started there wasn’t really treatment for alcoholics like me. Just locked up in a sanitarium, drunk on the street, or dead.”

Moving to her right foot, he continued.

“AA was once just two men in fucking Akron, Ohio. Then they added more, man by man, sharing their stories, relating. Actually helping people who needed help.”

Jasmine couldn’t help thinking back to childhood Sunday school descriptions of Jesus collecting disciples—fishermen gathered one by one.

Pokémon, gotta catch ’em all.

She smiled down at the weathered, strong hands carefully massaging lotion into her soles.

“You’re right. It never would have reached the people who need it. I wanted a PhD—to be legitimate, to publish in serious research journals. That’s gone now.”

“Professionals! A professional can’t talk to an alcoholic,” John scoffed. “Not like a drunk talking to a drunk. That’s why AA works. Books… diplomas… they can’t make you know what a drunk tremor feels like. Hallucinations during detox. Wanting to stop but not being able to. You can’t learn it. You have to live it to share it.”

Yes. Dr. Morrison couldn’t understand her. Couldn’t understand John. People like them.

He didn’t understand that this was something special—something that needed to be shared with the world.

Sunlight streamed through the window, beams swaying across the lush wool carpet Jasmine had selected for the room in what felt like another lifetime. That day at the furniture store had been when she first realized her tired scripts—her old patterns—no longer worked. The old wheels and gears in her head had begun to move and churn again.

Perhaps this PhD business was just like John. There was another way to prove her theory was correct. Another way to help people.

How everything had changed after that lunch with Monica. A tête-à-tête.

The winter wind had blown fiercely that December day, Christmas decorations already up around town. Between polite bites of salad and covering her mouth with her hand, Monica had explained how she solved the eternal call girl problem: the endless grind, the danger, living not even paycheck to paycheck but dollar to dollar.

Through a mixture of studying marketing and the business tactics of luxury couture brands, Monica had fashioned a model that worked for her. She laid out the details to Jasmine that cold afternoon.

What was it John always said about AA?

You could only lay the tools before a newcomer.

Her pleasant daydreaming was interrupted abruptly by John.

“You spend most of your time here. Heck, between the furniture and the renovations you planned, this place is more yours than mine.” He motioned toward the lavish, fully stocked library. “Maybe when your lease is up, you move in.”

Jasmine smiled.

Ahead of her plans yet again.

“I will. I love this place. It’s home to me.” She paused, carefully formulating her words. “My Aphrodite statue would look much more at home among all these nice things instead of surrounded by my crap.”

She stressed the word nice, secretly meaning expensive. Though she didn’t expect him to come right out and say how much he had paid for it, she had spent months vying for hints, parameters—any general idea of the cost.

“Oh, she—the goddess—will be returning home,” he replied vaguely, kissing the subtle curve of her ankle with a longing smile.

Maybe he meant the statue. Maybe he meant her. She wanted to know for sure.

“Aphrodite is such a beautiful piece. Shouldn’t I insure her? I’d need to know for how much of course.”

John laughed softly.

“You know,” he said carefully, “sometimes I wonder if I’m just throwing money at you.”

Jasmine raised an eyebrow.

“Do you feel that way?”

He shook his head quickly.

“No. No. I just… I don’t want this to be the only reason you’re here.”

Jasmine said nothing more.

So he would keep the mystery of Aphrodite’s price a secret for longer.

It would continue to bother her.

She knew the cost of a gallon of gas, how much remained of her student loan balance, the monthly amount John gave her—but not how much that nude marble woman had cost him. The number had been scribbled on a piece of paper the salesman scratched down and showed only to John. Maybe it was on some invoice hidden in a drawer, or long gone in the trash.

Not even a hint.

Frowning at the tub of soapy water and towels on the floor, she snapped her fingers and pointed.

“Clean up this fucking mess.”

From experience she knew it would take at least thirty minutes for John to clean everything to her standards.

She had time to think. And so Jasmine thought about the past decade.

Undergrad. Graduate school. Dr. Morrison discouraging her every step of the way.

She remembered herself as a young, excited co-ed sitting in his office, rushing through her ideas while he redirected them back toward his own research—or ignored them entirely.

The first real argument came when she proposed focusing on sex workers.

She could still see his reddening face.

“This clinical round was supposed to be easy, Jazz. Hand out condoms. Pamphlets on STDs. Intake paperwork for free Pap smears. Now I’m getting complaints that you’re taking notes without informed consent?”

He still complained that the National Science Foundation required proposals to be submitted online as PDFs. A dinosaur then and now. He couldn’t see the vision.

She was working on the front lines of human sexuality. That was where the field belonged—not in sterile lab coats.

Looking back, it seemed obvious.

He had never been an advisor.

He had been a horse breaker.

For years he had tried to break her spirit—emotional hobbles, hackamores, snubbing ropes.

And then came the meeting.

The worst day of her academic life.

Since preschool she had been the star student. Teacher’s pet. Best in class.

For it to fall apart in one scheduled meeting.

The conference room was bright. Dr. Morrison sat beside the department chair, the dean, the Director of Student Ethics, and several other men in varying stages of aging and baldness.

The scholar she had once admired read from a sheet of paper as if presenting charges.

“On May 20th, I received a phone call from the Community Clinic. Ms. Kopernick’s advisor found notebooks belonging to Ms. Kopernick containing private patient information detailing sexual and illegal acts, personal identifiers, and violations of HIPAA laws. I discussed this with Ms. Kopernick in my office the following day, at which point she stated she wished to redirect her research.”

Pens scratched across paper.

She had talked to people. Written down what they told her.

It was research.

“On July 2nd, Ms. Kopernick informed me she intended to begin working at a local gentlemen’s club as an exotic dancer for research purposes. I strongly discouraged this and directed her to continue her literature review.”

At the time Jasmine hadn’t even understood why the meeting had been called.

She only wanted to embody the research.

Jane Goodall lived with chimpanzees. Napoleon Chagnon lived with the Yanomami.

This was the same thing.

Real research. Raw research.

Yes, she had deviated from the original outline.

But she had seen something important at the clinic.

The women.

Sex workers.

People.

“On August 15th, I received an anonymous email stating that Ms. Kopernick had begun associating with a woman named Monica, who has prior arrests for prostitution, and that Ms. Kopernick herself had begun selling sexual services.”

Each statement sounded worse than the last.

Jasmine tried to explain.

This mattered. This was real research.

The men listened politely and wrote notes.

But they were not listening to her.

They were listening to procedure. To protocol. To how research was supposed to be done: Their way.

In the end they recommended she take a break.

Or withdraw.

She chose the break.

It lasted five years.

And now, today, it had finally become withdrawal.

For now, a tattered white flag of surrender because her belief in the method had only grown stronger.

She just needed another way around academia.

“All cleaned up, Jasmine,” John cheerfully announced as he reentered the library.

With two snaps of her fingers and a motion toward the floor, he got on all fours before the leather armchair, and she rested her feet on his back.

“John, I think you’re right about academia not being suitable for my research. Even you’ve recognized how important it was to embody the research, participate on the front lines—strip, escort. Vital.”

“It certainly benefited me.” His words vibrated through her feet.

“John, tell me more about AA. How it works.”

“Well, it’s not professionals, no institution—just people. All alcoholics. Does it work for everyone? No. But that’s true of all treatments. Professionals can’t argue with the results, though. A couple hundred sober people write a book on how they got sober, and then it’s thousands of people—hundreds of thousands—getting sober. Professionals had to pay attention. Now treatment centers have the Twelve Steps on the walls and charge insurance companies for the same ideas you can get for a dollar in almost every town. Sure, they sprinkle in some medicine and doctors’ and nurses’ guidance, but they aren’t offering anything new. You’re released with guidance to attend meetings. The courts even mandate AA meetings sometimes. That’s how I came into the program. But the start was just a couple of guys sharing their stories.”

“John, do you feel you benefit from this?”

“God, yes. This is the best my life has ever been.”

She poked him in the ribs with her toe and slipped into the mean tone he liked.

“Quit fucking moving, John. You’re disrupting my thoughts.”

“Sorry, Jazz.”

“And there are other men like you too? Men who could benefit from someone like me?”

John hesitated before answering.

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But AA always says you don’t go out chasing people. You wait until someone asks for help.”

Jasmine tilted her head.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… if someone’s drowning, sure, you pull them out. But we’re warned not to play savior. That’s ego stuff. They have to want it.”

Suddenly she visualized John entering incel message boards and men’s-rights groups. All her interviewees, colleagues, connections.

If she was as right about her theory as she believed, this wasn’t research.

This was a revolution.

“John, I love you. I love how your mind works. Now get up and get me a notebook. I have plans. Ideas that need to be written down.”

She did love him.

A love deeper than Dr. Morrison could ever understand in his shriveled old heart.

Academia had it backwards.

First the data. Then the hypothesis. Then proof, control groups, peer review by people who had never lived the problem.

Eventually it all landed in textbooks read only by students and professors.

What escort or lonely man was reading that?

She thought back to what Cliff, the salesman at the furniture store, had said about the Aphrodite statue: old methods and tools.

This would be person to person. No training—just heart, want, mentors, sponsors.

This is my experience, strength, and hope, and you can do it too.

This was possible.

Maybe she would never be a doctor on paper, but she would help more people than Dr. Morrison ever had from his corner office, looking down at freshmen playing Frisbee in the quad.

She didn’t need to go through gatekeepers.

Universities hoarded knowledge behind paywalls and jargon. She would go another way.

She needed to enter through the emergency exit, just like Monica had at the art gallery.

Burn down the ivory towers that had told her no. Dr. Morrison still locked up there with his data sets.

She would carve this vision using old tools. Heart to heart. Person to person.

Let me tell you my story. Do you see yourself in the old me? Do you want what I have now? Can I show you the way?

She didn’t need science. She needed something ancient—something older. Folklore that lived in the bones of every human since we were apes. The ability to relate, to share, to guide, to fail and succeed together.

There would be no diploma in a shiny frame at the end of this rainbow.

Yes, a pot of glittering gold for her—and women like her.

But something more important.

More important than being right. More important than proving Dr. Morrison wrong.

Lonely, sad men scattered throughout society. Bitter, angry men. Men who loved and hated women and fought themselves every day.

Suddenly on their knees.

Kissing toes.

Visions of men smiling, happy to hand over their crypto accounts and NFTs to women in stilettos and glossy red nails.

Maybe this was the start of a different kind of society.

Once, they locked alcoholics in sanitariums until they died. Now they sat in rooms down the street drinking coffee, dropping dollars in a basket, and becoming useful members of society.

Maybe this was bigger than helping a few lonely men and women.

Maybe it was bigger than she had ever imagined.

Maybe this was the first crack in the old order.

“This isn’t research,” Jasmine said quietly. “This is something bigger.”

John shifted beneath her feet.

“Careful,” he said. “In AA they warn us about thinking too big too fast. Ego is what gets drunks drunk again.”

“Of course, of course.” She waved off the warning. “John, I need you to do something for me.”

Looking up with devoted eyes, he said, “Of course. For you, anything.”

He didn’t need to say it.

She already knew.

Chapter 5: Happy, Joyous, Free

Prologue: His New Addiction
Chapter 1: Money Well Spent
Chapter 2: Close Enough
Chapter 3: The Next Right Thing
Chapter 4: A Way Out

After a month of silence, John’s phone dinged.

A text from Jasmine: See you tonight.

He had convinced himself she wouldn’t come back. That she had only been a nice girl taking pity on an awkward, creepy, sad man.

The hospital conference room looked the same as every Saturday. AA slogans in gothic black-and-red type were taped crookedly to the walls.

First things first.

Easy does it.

Live and let live.

Let go and let God.

He had been to meetings from Florida to California. The same slogans hung on the walls everywhere.

A restaurant-industry relic of a coffee maker gurgled out bitter coffee—warm, not hot. People orbiting the table added powdered creamer and sugar. They had run out of the pink packets of off-brand Sweet’N Low last week.

Marvin sat next to him.

“You nervous, brother?”

“No. I’ve done this enough.”

This was a lie.

He had given a handful of leads, each one a little easier than the last. His story—what it was like, what happened, what it was like now—had become rote. An extended elevator pitch.

But tonight he was nervous. He just wanted to know if Jasmine would really  be there.

People settled into their chairs. He looked around the room, face to face, but didn’t see her.

It’s for the best. I didn’t really think she would come.

Marvin gave a brief introduction, and the audience laughed at his description of John at his first meeting—how John had stuttered and mumbled so badly Marvin thought he wasn’t speaking English.

As John settled at the podium, he saw her.

She was different. Hair, face, clothes—everything about her commanded his attention. All black. Not tight or form-fitting, but tailored.

John cleared his throat and began his lead.

“Hello. My name’s John, and I’m an alcoholic. But I wasn’t always like that. I was a quiet kid, a mama’s boy, a Boy Scout…”

This part of his story flowed freely and easily. He sprinkled in the same jokes as the last time. It wasn’t until the end that he really had to think.

So he watched Jasmine take in his story—smiling at the jokes, softening at the serious parts, mirroring the rest of the room. Except her eyes kept darting to the right.

Instinctively he followed her gaze to a disheveled blond man a few chairs down.

A newcomer. Young. Maybe a week sober.

He kept sneaking looks at her. She glanced back.

John became aware that he had stopped talking and that several seconds of silence had passed.

Dammit, man. Get a grip. Don’t get distracted now.

He cleared his throat.

“I’ve vacationed at some of the finest places—Pendleton Penitentiary, Madison County Jail, Worthington Correctional Facility.”

John waited for the chuckle from the crowd.

“Ah, I see some of you have too. Pendleton had the best food—but my tenure in the canteen had nothing to do with it.”

Another laugh—but the eyeball tennis between Jasmine and the young man kept pulling him off track.

He white-knuckled the edge of the podium. He continued to the night of his last drink. “Why that night? I suppose it was divine intervention. Nothing different than any other night. I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

He moved through the familiar beats—his first meeting, working the steps with Marvin, the slow grind of trying to live by the principles.

“The hardest thing for me has been surrendering my life and will over to a Power greater than myself. It would be so much easier if God spoke in a loud, clear, booming voice. But alas, it’s usually coincidences, windows of opportunity, and the people around me. Like my sponsor.”

Glancing at the clock—five more minutes—he locked eyes with Jasmine.

“You know the literature says God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. I never had trouble believing God wanted that for me—for all of us. But it’s only recently that I’ve started to believe it might actually be possible. Ten years in, and I’m finally excited for tomorrow and the day after. I hope everyone here has a chance to get what I have, if they want it.”

As usual at the end of these things, a group formed around John to share their predictable reactions.

So relatable.

So inspiring.

Can you sponsor me?

Can I get your number?

John responded politely. Thanked them. Of course—here’s my number. Call me anytime.

He scribbled his number on receipts and scraps of paper, but his eyes remained on Jasmine, who stayed seated.

The blond man ran a thick, dirty hand through his hair and approached her. They talked back and forth. John couldn’t hear a word, but her face told him everything he needed to know.

This wasn’t good.

“Excuse me, man.” John pushed past another well-wisher and strode over.

He stopped beside the newcomer, who reeked of alcohol and four-day-old sweat laced with hormones and anxiety. A nostalgic smell from John’s worst days.

“You did so well!” Jasmine said, hugging him. Her hands trembled slightly on his shoulders, squeezing twice. “Have you been working out more?”

“Same amount. Just upped the protein.”

The other man shifted warily and backed away, slurring, “We’ll finish this later.” He wandered to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.

“I didn’t think you’d really come,” John confessed.

“Of course I came.” She winked. “I just had some important things to do. Saw family. An old mentor. Worked on some things. Took a break from… distractions.”

Distractions? What distractions? Is she talking about me? She took a break from me.

As much as John appreciated the update, his eyes kept drifting to the looming figure now dumping too much sugar into a Styrofoam cup.

“Look, uh… Jazz. What’s up with that?” He tried to subtly motion toward the coffee area.

“Maybe,” she said, surveying the room, “maybe you could walk me to my car.”

“Yeah. Let me get my coat and say goodnight to Marvin.”

Outside, the night was dark and bitterly cold. Though it hadn’t snowed in two weeks, large mounds of snow—blackened by exhaust—sat scattered through the expansive parking lot.

Their footsteps sounded loud in the quiet, crunching bits of ice compacted into the asphalt.

“Jazz, you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“No. It’s okay.” She frowned, digging for her keys in a black handbag with a gold chain strap. “He was a prospective client. I only saw him the one time. But…” She trailed off. “He didn’t know how to play nice.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“I only saw him the once.”

That didn’t answer the question. What were Jasmine’s other clients like? All this time he had imagined them suave. Rich. Cool. Sex gods. Not like him.

What the fuck has she been enduring between weekly slumber parties with me?

“This is me, John.”

It was not her usual silver SUV. No, a small red sports car chirped cheerfully awake as she pressed the key fob in her hand. =

“Is this a different car?”

“Yes…” She seemed solemn, serious. “I’ve changed a lot of things. I’m going to be doing things very differently from now on.”

Oh no. She was quitting. Done with the lifestyle. Of course she was. Between men like that—and creeps like me—how could she not be?

He breathed in her orange perfume deeply as he hugged her—probably for the last time. He remembered when he bought it, the counter girl proudly saying it was made in France. Four hundred and fifty dollars, and he could hold that memory forever.

Then he heard Jasmine say, “Oh no.”

Behind him came the stumbling sound of heavy feet.

Turning and now face to face, yet again, with the drunk. The asshole. Some guy who had probably been one of many to hurt Jasmine. Probably right before she held John in his bed and had been so sweet to him.

The man approached with his hands raised in a mock peaceful gesture.

“Just wanna talk.”

Tripping over his own feet and falling into John, he knocked everyone against Jasmine’s car.

John grabbed the man and hauled him upright. Old instincts took hold. He hadn’t felt this in decades.

Using his body to shield Jasmine’s view, he pulled up his shirt just enough to reveal the 9mm Glock strapped to his belt.

His voice was steady. Scary.

“You don’t want to do this, man.”

With slow recognition, the man looked down, then back up at John’s face.

Then John heard a click behind his right ear.

A surprising but unmistakable sound he knew well.

The hammer of a revolver cocking.

The man scrambled away, shouting unintelligible words as he ran.

John turned.

Behind him, Jasmine stood in a balanced, firm stance, both hands wrapped around a gun of her own.

She slowly released the hammer and slipped it back into her purse.

All that followed was eerie silence, punctuated only by their heavy breathing. Plumes of breath hung in the frozen air between them. Two bodies, tense and alert.

“Occupational hazard,” Jasmine whispered, glancing down at John’s waist where the holster was still visible. “What’s your excuse?”

“Protection.” John shifted his thick flannel to conceal the belt.

“From what? What scares you, John?”

A hard breath, again, fogged the space between them.

“Fuck, Jasmine. I can’t have this. You know that?” He gestured toward his waist. “I’m a felon. Felons can’t have weapons. This is another felony,” His voice tightened. “This isn’t funny. You can’t joke about it. You can’t tell anyone….I was just protecting you.”

“Okay. Okay.” She patted his shoulder condescendingly. “Pinkie swear.”

She held out a pinkie.

He wrapped his around it.

“Ah, ah!” she chided. “You have to bite the thumb.”

She bit the thumb of her hand linked with his. He did the same.

“God… that was scary, Jazz. You use that thing?” He nodded toward the purse.

“Do you?” She nodded toward his belt.

One cop. One security guard in that parking lot, and he could have been arrested tonight. And she—she wasn’t the sweet, innocent girl he thought. She was packing. That stance was of a woman ready to kill a man. 

“You should go home, Jasmine. Be safe. He might come back.”

“What if he follows my car?” she whispered.

“Look… if you want, I’ll follow you. Make sure you get to the door safe. But that’s it. I need to go home myself. This is over.”

“It’s not far. I promise.”

She slipped into the car, and John climbed into his truck.

Wrong road, John. Turn around, man.

He had passed this complex thousands of times. The kind of place filled with single moms and college kids. Three levels of balconies stacked against the brick walls. A winding cement staircase leading to floors of tightly packed apartments.

An endless series of identical doors, distinguished only by a small square plaque.

Jasmine’s read 3H, on the top floor.

She paused as she slid the key into the doorknob.

“Do you want to come in?”

Maybe it was because he had always envisioned her in a glitzy, sleek, modern high-rise. Not this.

Or maybe it was because, just as his mother had always said, he was always going to choose the wrong option.

Or maybe, deep down inside, he was still just a criminal who hadn’t been caught in a while.

For some reason, he said yes and crossed the threshold into a decision he knew he could never return from.

A hot-pink sagging futon.

A small TV on a pressed-board table with peeling laminate.

A white bookshelf, stickers half torn away.

A bowl of oranges on a kitchen table propped up with cardboard.

This is the furniture of a woman who convinced you to buy twenty-five thousand dollars of furniture. What are you doing, man?

The woman in question slung her coat over a chair and slid her black pumps off her feet. She unbuttoned the single button on her blazer and smoothed the black skirt beneath it.

And the most noticeable—and bitter—absence: no marble.

No nude marble woman, tweaking a nipple between forefinger and thumb, the other three fingers splayed. No white roses blooming at her chiseled feet. No Aphrodite statue.

“I need to go,” John croaked in a sudden panic. “This… this is wrong. I’m sorry. This isn’t even real.”

Jasmine seemed cold and distant, turning an orange slowly in her hand.

“It’s as real as you want to make it, John. You’re the only person limiting it.”

“Look, I made sure you got home safe. I should go.”

“You think I’m safe because of you?”

She dropped the orange. In one swift motion she crowded him against the wall, a sharp red nail pressing into his chest.

“No. I’m a pissed off woman. I had my own gun—and a legal one, unlike you.”

Then she smacked his nose lightly, like he was a wayward puppy.

“For weeks, John, I’ve been contemplating what to do with you. Don’t you want to hear my plan?”

“I don’t know what this is, but, uh, I can’t do this. This is wrong. It isn’t right.” He pleaded while edging closer to the door.

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

He swallowed the tight lump in his throat.

“I don’t think I can. I can’t. No… I can’t.”

“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you wanted to.” She pressed wet lips to his ear. “Do you want to?”

“I think want and should are two different things.” John pushed her away.

“Damnit, John. I’m sick of your thinking. Your brain constantly wondering what’s right and wrong. You aren’t qualified to ponder. Your brain is too dumb.” She released him from the wall and opened the door. “Just do as I say. And if you want me to stop… just say stop. Then you’re free to go.”

Move, man. Feet, move. Why can’t I move? I need to leave. This is different. Wrong.

“Is this some sort of… session?” he asked. “I’m not paying you. Not for sex.”

“No. I’m done with hourly rates. But this is a sample.” She stepped closer. “Of what could be. This is what you get when I’ve had four weeks with no other clients. Four weeks thinking about only you.”

She tilted her head slightly, “Do you want to see what that’s like, John?”

Betraying every shred of conscience, every Boy Scout oath he had ever taken, he nodded.

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

With a fistful of his shirt, she grabbed him and pushed him toward her bedroom, forcing him down into a chair.

He could see nothing but her as she moved to the bed in front of him and lay down. Her slender pale hands slid up her skirt hem. John gasped.

She wasn’t wearing panties.

“John, for too long I’ve tried to figure out what turns you on. Lying in bed chaste like virgins with you. Wondering. What turns you on…”

She began to touch herself.

“Do you like to watch? Is that it?”

John’s body lead-heavy, glued to the chair. He tried to swallow for a small amount of relief but found none.

“No, John, I think it’s that you know you’re bad. You were bad today. A felon with a gun? Like you want to go back to prison and be punished again.”

She studied his face and continued, “I bet you jerked off every day in prison.”

Desperate to move—just to shift a little, to know his body could move—he failed. He could only watch. Fearfully aware of how aroused he was from what she was saying.

“You try so hard to be good. And most of the time you succeed. A little fucking Boy Scout. But there’s this little devil inside you aching to be punished, so you do bad things just to get caught.”

She paused, leaning her head back against the pillow. A free hand began unbuttoning her blouse.

“Is that it? Why do you do bad things, John?”

“Right and wrong,” he said weakly. “I don’t know the difference.”

“Tsk, tsk. Not true.”

She motioned toward a table to John’s right.

“Put the gun on the table.”

Unhooking the holster, he laid the weapon down at the white feet of the ancient Greek goddess of love.

Not pawned. Not discarded.

Here. In her bedroom. In perfect view of her bed. Displayed on the table next to him.

“John,” she asked, her eyes piercing, “did your mother ever spank you?”

“No.”

As the word slipped out, John became painfully aware that the internal voice—that doubtful, loyal friend—had been silent in the bedroom.

Mausoleum silence filled the room.

A silence he hadn’t felt in years.

In fact, he no longer felt inside his own body. Instead, he seemed to watch as an impartial audience member while this young woman seduced and manipulated an unsuspecting, weak, older man. Him.

It reminded him of the edge of a blackout—when he used to lose control of his body and mind to alcoholic stupor.

“So she let the prison system handle you then?” Jasmine asked.

She tilted her head.

“How many years in prison would you get for your stunt tonight? “

John answered quickly and honestly, “At least ten years. In Wisconsin.”

Tapping her chin in feigned thoughtfulness, Jasmine replied,

“That is where we are. So ten swats seems fair.”

“Excuse me?” The words fell clumsily from his open, shocked mouth.

“I don’t have all night. Stand up. Pants down.”

She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, patting her exposed knees.

Pulled by invisible strings—maneuvered by a puppet master above—he watched himself make quick work of his buckle, button, and zipper.

Then he leaned over her lap. Vulnerable. Eyes squeezed shut, muscles stiffening in anticipation.

Each strike reverberated through the small, dark room, stinging sharper than the last. After each she rubbed the spot gently before the next one landed.

After the last one, he finally released the breath he had been holding.

The sounds suggested she spat into her hand and rubbed it across his burning cheeks before telling him to lie beside her. And suddenly—almost as if nothing had changed—it felt like those hundreds of nights being held against her comforting chest. But everything had changed now.

His ass burned with embarrassed pain, and an undeniable erection pressed against her bare leg.

No thoughts. No feelings. Just physical sensation.

He sought only friction—movement, pressure, rhythm—humping her leg the way he had once humped pillows as a boy while she continued to talk.

“I’ve known you for over two years. I’ve heard you talk about your mom, your work, AA. I know you, John. You’re a man who needs to be needed. Your mom, your coworkers, your sponsees.”

She ran her hands soothingly through his hair.

“Yes… Maybe you need direction. Someone to tell you what to do next.”

Her voice softened.

“But you aren’t a fuck-up. You built that playground down the street when you were a teenager.” She motioned toward the window. “You don’t need to wonder what’s right and wrong. Let me tell you.”

With a sigh, she touched his face.

“Free up that brain to be useful. To be of service. To someone. To me. I can’t waste time on other clients,” She tilted his chin slightly, “Do you want that too?”

He felt the climax and the wet warmth on his thigh.

Perhaps only thirty minutes had passed. Perhaps an hour.

Time stretched and contracted as he contemplated what she had suggested.

Body and mind drunker and higher than he had ever felt.

Like that first sip of alcohol—one that only made him want the second sip, then the second drink, then more. Endless until blackout. He needed more.

“Are you serious about no other clients?” he finally asked.

“I am, John. I only want to see you.”

“But how will you survive?”

She smiled.

“I believe we’ll be able to work it out.”

Then she glanced toward the door.

“But my roommate will be home soon. We have all the time in the world to figure it out.”

John dressed and reached for the weapon lying like an offering at Aphrodite’s feet.

“John…”

Jasmine’s voice stopped him.

“You know that will stay right here with me.” She whispered softly. “You’ve been bad enough today.”

He nodded.

“I’ll be good until next time I see you, Jasmine.”

He left and sat in the solemn silence of his truck.

The quietest his mind had felt in years.

Something had been set into motion.

The future felt foggier than ever. He wasn’t returning to the life he had yesterday.

But maybe he could get through Sunday.

Go to work Monday.

Find some way to answer the inevitable “Do anything fun this weekend?” from Darlene.

That was a problem for a future John.

Maybe a happy, joyous, free future John.