I sit in the passenger seat while Madrigal drives.

“We’re meeting at the Gold Dragon Hotel downtown,” she says. “I guess it’s good that you’re coming either way. I think there’s going to be several of them meeting me, and if it were just me there it might make my operation look small or something.”

I nod. “So what are you discussing? They didn’t come all the way here just to talk to you face-to-face, did they?”

“No,” she says. “They are here to find new customers, I just suggested we talk some things out in person while they are here.”

“Which things?” He asks.

“Honestly,” she says, “I’m about to axe them. They delivered good products the first few times, but I’ve been getting complaints recently. When I confront them about it, they tend to blame it on one-off problems. Like maybe the factory owner switched out the materials to save money, but they assure me they already fired him and that he was disciplined harshly. They promise it won’t happen again... until it does. Even when they reimburse me, it makes me look incompetent.”

“It’s likely intentional,” he says. “They are doing as much cost-cutting as you will tolerate.”

“Which is why I want to axe them.”

“You really need to meet them face-to-face just to break up with them? You’re so old-fashioned, Madrigal.”

“No,” she says. “That’s not it. Unfortunately, I signed a 10-shipment contract with them, and I still have two more shipments with them. I’ll fire them after, via text message or email, whatever. I want to make sure the next two shipments won’t have issues.”

I laugh. “I’ve got this. I’m well-studied in the art of Chinese business culture.”

The organization has barely gotten its feet into China. It’s one of the last major regions we haven’t penetrated. The master has been training me since I was a child to help us break in and gain influence there. Especially now that the one-child policy has been relaxed, the master thinks it’s the perfect time to expand our influence into the world’s fastest growing economy.

My eyes wander to Madrigal’s legs, and I put a hand on her thigh as she drives. I squeeze. “You know you look damn good this morning?”

She slaps my hand, playfully. “You promised no sex stuff in the car.”

I give her one last good squeeze and remove my hand. “Have it your way.”

We get out at the hotel, and the valet takes the car. Madrigal gives the front desk her name, and they bring us to a private dining room.

We step inside, and I see a big table that takes up nearly the entire room. It’s covered with Chinese delicacies and dishes, and five Chinese men in suits are standing off to the side, talking to each other.

They look up at us as we enter, and Madrigal waves and smiles. I nod my head toward them and straighten my tie.

They approach us with big grins, and we shake hands.

“It’s so nice to finally see you in person, Mr. Feng,” Madrigal says, shaking Feng’s hand.

“You too, Ms. Morningside,” he says. “My colleagues have limited English, so I’ll be speaking on their behalf. Please, have a seat.”

Madrigal starts walking further into the room, toward the seats deeper in. I grab her arm discreetly and tug. She’s going to take Feng’s seat? Did she seriously not learn the basics of a Chinese business lunch? I lean in and whisper, “Where are you going?”

“I’m moving in so they have more room—”

“No,” I hiss. “Let Feng have the host’s seat.”

“The host’s seat?”

“The seat facing the door. He’s the host, he sits there. Standard stuff.”

I sit down to make a point, and Madrigal sits down beside me. “Are you sure?”

I nod.

As if to prove my point, Mr. Feng walks around the table and plops himself down in the seat facing the door.

“They are going to small talk your ear off,” I whisper to her. “They won’t get right down to business. Just let it go. They’ll bring up business when they’re ready.”

“Okay,” she says. “And that gives you more time to eavesdrop as well.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ll have to try these dishes,” Mr. Feng says, gesturing out across the table. “We’ve brought delicious delicacies with us. We had to put a lot of this on dry ice to keep it fresh all the way from China.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Madrigal says, looking across the table. I see her eyes lock on and widen at the bowl of fried scorpions.

“Just eat everything,” I whisper to her. “If it’s fried, it all tastes the same.”

“It’s a bug,” she hisses to me. “I’m not going to eat freaking bugs.”

“You’ll make them lose face then,” I say. “Our goal here is to not make them lose face. It’s critical.”

“Isn’t our goal to get them to deliver good products?” she asks.

“Yes,” I whisper. “But we have to do that delicately. So eat the damn scorpions. Just think of how much money it will save you.”

I pick up my chopsticks after Feng does, and everyone starts picking stuff off the big plates and onto their own plate. After everyone has gotten their fill of the first plate in front of them, Feng rotates the upper turntable where the platters rest.

I watch Madrigal take food from each plate, though she looks uneasily at certain dishes. When the scorpions come to me, I take two.

I elbow Madrigal, but she just shakes her head slightly at me. I nudge her again, and she gives me a pissed off expression, but finally takes a scorpion.

We start to eat, and Madrigal comments on how delicious everything is.

“Your assistant is quiet,” Mr. Feng says. “Is he here more for looks? He’s quite handsome.”

Everyone laughs, and I hear two of the men start joking in Chinese that I’m her boy toy. That I’m just like a woman who lives off of a powerful man’s money. The third one adds in across the table that it’s like the roles are reversed, I’m the woman and Madrigal is the man. Madrigal, he says, is beautiful and he wishes he could fuck her, but he worries that she’d want to be on top.

I feel some anger flare up, but I suppress it, and I smile politely as they speak, as if I didn’t understand a word.

“My colleagues are happy that you are enjoying our food,” Mr. Feng says, and they all nod happily as if they hadn’t just been shit-talking us.

I pick the scorpion up between my chopsticks and eat it. It’s crunchy and really does just taste like any other fried dish. I smile as I chew.

“The big dumb man is eating the scorpion!” One of them says in Mandarin.

They all gawk at me with wide eyes.

“Mm,” I say, “You should try this, Madrigal. Delicious.”

“He really likes it!” one says, in total disbelief.

“Fine,” she hisses.

She picks it up and eats it. I can see her face scrunch up as it goes into her mouth. She chews, and I see relief wash across her. It’s really not that bad.

She swallows it down. “Delicious.”

That shuts them all up. They all shovel food into their mouths rather than saying anything. They put that on the table specifically to make her uncomfortable, but the effort failed.

After two full hours, they are all still eating. Fruit has been brought out, and everyone is loudly slurping at their watermelon.

Madrigal leans in toward me. “Are they ever going to stop eating?”

“Patience,” I whisper.

Finally, many watermelon slices later, Mr. Feng looks up and says, “Should we discuss our contract? There are only two shipments left. Would you like to extend that? I think we could give you a very competitive rate if you commit to ten more shipments.”

Madrigal looks up and clears her throat.

“Be diplomatic,” I whisper to her.

“I think I’d like to first see how these next two shipments go. There have been prob—”

I nudge her discretely and speak quietly without moving my lips. “Bullshit them.”

“What I mean to say, is that I’d be happy to extend the contract. I realize the issues we’ve had with the last few shipments have not been your fault at all, and I know you’re doing your very best to make sure nothing like that happens again.”

“Of course,” Mr. Feng says. “Those who were responsible have been disciplined harshly.”

One of the men to his side says in Mandarin, “Yes, disciplined! I spent all the money we skimmed off on this woman who disciplined me hard.”

The others stifle laughter.

“So,” Mr. Feng says. “Should my secretary send the new contract over to you this evening?”

“I’ll have to run it through my legal team first,” Madrigal says. “But yes, of course, have it sent.”

I sigh with relief. I was worried she was going to call them out and make them lose serious face.

“Mr. Feng is a master fisherman,” one of the men says in Mandarin. “He just caught a big dumb fish right by the cheek, and he’s reeling her in.”

“Quiet,” Mr. Feng says in Mandarin, “These next two shipments will have to be good. We can skimp on the next ten, but the next two need to be solid. At least until she’s signed the contract and locked in.”

They look at each other with glum expressions, frowning. But they nod in deference to Mr. Feng.

We keep eating more fruit. Watermelons, mangoes, and finally we have some kind of fruit and rice-based, gelatinous dessert.

As everyone starts to stand up, Madrigal looks nervously at me. She leans in toward me and whispers into my ear, “Dominick... what the hell. I just bent over backward for them and—”

“Trust me,” I say into her ear. “We won, just smile and act happy and get out of here without saying anything mean.”

We all shake hands again, and Mr. Feng says he’ll send the new contract right over. Madrigal agrees, but I can tell she’s freaking out.

As soon as we are outside the hotel, she nearly blows up on me.

“What the hell, Dominick? You just had me agree to ten more shipments? That was the last thing I wanted! This is a mess!”

“Here’s what you do,” I say. “You don’t sign that contract. Just keep saying you’re working on it. Every single time they ask you, you make up an excuse.”

“They aren’t going to buy that—”

“No,” I say, “They won’t, but it’s all about face. If they call you out on a blatant lie, they make you lose face, which is taboo. So they’ll keep going along with whatever lame-ass excuses you make up.”

“How does that help me? What am I trying to achieve?”

“The other men admitted out loud that they were the ones fucking over your shipments, but Mr. Feng told them they needed to make the next two shipments up to standards—at least until you sign the new contract.”

“Oh,” she says, “So I just drag my feet on the contract to get them to not fuck up the next shipments, and—”

“Yes,” I say. “And then you never end up signing the contract. They can’t do a thing about it, and you get quality product for your two remaining shipments. Then you just cut ties with them afterward. Unless you want to—”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “They are not worth it, and I’m not eating anymore damn bugs to appease them.”

* * *

I spend the rest of the work day with Madrigal. After the meeting with the Chinese, the rest of the day is more or less a cakewalk. She likes to fry the big fish first; that doesn’t surprise me.

It’s hard to pinpoint where her block originated from. She was all nerves when I first met her, but she’s made incredible progress already. I’ll have to dig a bit deeper if I can.

“We’re done,” she says, breathing a sigh of relief as we get into the car after the last client.

“What do you usually do to unwind?” I ask.

“You’re going to keep shadowing me?” She asks. “Even after work?”

“All day,” I say. “Not just for your work.”

“Um,” she says, gripping the wheel, “Well—”

“Madrigal,” I say. “Don’t misrepresent yourself. Don’t make up something just to seem a certain way to me. Tell me what you really do to relax.”

“You’re going to make fun of me,” she says.

“I won’t.”

She sighs. “Alright, let’s go back to my place then.”

When we get back into her place, she throws her purse and keys down, stretches out her arms, and says, “I’m going to go upstairs and change.”

I nod. I don’t have anything to change into, so I just take my jacket off and remove my tie. I undo a few buttons to let some air in, and I stretch and walk around the kitchen a bit.

I already scoped out her house this morning. I noticed the few photos of her family she’d put out. Everything was quite neat, but mostly in a way that makes it look like she just doesn’t use most of her house. The dining room looked incredibly tidy, but there was a thin layer of dust over everything.

She doesn’t have friends over often, if at all. Her family probably doesn’t visit except for holidays. And now I know that she relaxes after work at home rather than going out.

I hear her footsteps on the stairs, and she comes down wearing a big t-shirt and jeans. “These are my relax after work clothes.”

She still looks good, even when she’s not trying.

“And what are we going to do?” I ask. “Binge-watch HGTV?”

She chortles at me. “That stuff is dangerous. You can’t watch just one episode. You can grab a drink from the fridge if you want, we’re going on the back porch.”

She passes the fridge, so I open it up and look for something. There’s apple cider, milk, some cans of ginger ale, water... nothing with alcohol. Does she not even drink at all? Or does she have wine somewhere?

I grab the jug of apple cider. “You want cider?”

“Sure,” she says.

I pour us each a glass, cap the jug, and put it back in the fridge.

I see her holding a big, cardboard box, and she waves for me to follow.

I step out onto the back porch. The air is nice and cool, but not too cold. I roll up my sleeves to feel the cool air on my forearms.

Madrigal throws the box down on a big table. Her house is on a hill, so the back porch is elevated up and well off the ground. There’s a stairway on the edge of the porch leading down to the grass, and the whole porch is enclosed in a wooden latticework that acts as a privacy wall. The wall is covered in vines, which mostly plug the holes in the lattice that anyone could otherwise see through. Her porch has a lot of wicker chairs with waterproof cushions, but the main focal point is the huge table in the center.

I look at the box, and I see that it’s a jigsaw puzzle.

I try not to laugh. “So you do this most nights?”

She nods. “You caught me between puzzles.” She taps the table, and I realize it’s covered in a huge mat. “I mostly do 4,000-piece puzzles here, so it sometimes takes me months to finish them. I can move the whole thing inside with this mat. At first the puzzles were just an excuse for me to get outside and not watch TV, but I started getting really into them.”

“I see,” I say, pulling up a chair and sitting down. I look at the box. “This one is a Degas painting, so you’re into art too?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all. When I say ‘really into’ what I mean is that I do them backward. She opens the box and dumps out the thousands of tiny little cardboard pieces. They form a gigantic pile in the middle of the table, spilling out along the edges.

“So,” she says, “Start flipping any pieces that are face-up until they are all face-down. We should see nothing but white.”

I realize she’s serious as she starts to turn all the colorful pieces face-down. “Lay them flat and get the piles broken up as much as you can. If you happen to find any corner or edge pieces, set them aside over here.”

I sip at my drink as I work, but Madrigal’s brows furrow as she focuses fully on sorting the pieces.

If her block was a puzzle, then this hobby of hers is a key piece of it. This kind of jigsaw puzzle would drive most people mad with how tedious it is, but she does it to unwind.

“You close to your family?” I ask.

“I don’t usually talk when I do this,” she says.

I laugh. “You usually do it alone, but I’m here now. We can shoot the shit, can’t we?”

“Alright,” she says. “Sorry. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk, I just was trying to avoid your question.”

“Fair enough,” I say. “So answer it then.”

She glares at me. “Not so close. My sister and I had a falling out. My parents took her side.”

“What kind of falling out?” I ask.

“Girl stuff,” she says.

“So it happened when you two were younger then?” I ask.

“In college,” she says. “I’m the older sister—”

“No surprise,” I add in.

“I started college one year before Destiny—my sister—and then she ended up getting into the same school as me. We were close, so I offered to let her live with me. I had just moved off-campus, but I had a part-time job. Destiny said she’d get a job as soon as she could, but she never did. We’d lived together growing up, but never like this. Our parents had always kind of kept her in check I guess, and now she was on her own for the first time. She went totally crazy, not to mention she left the apartment a total mess—while never paying rent.”

“Sounds tough,” I say.

“I was dating this guy,” she says.

“Ah,” I say, finding a corner piece of the puzzle and setting it off to the side along one of the edge pieces Madrigal already found. “Here we go. Getting to the heart of it.”

“He wasn’t anything special. I mean, he was okay? We’d been dating for like three or four months, and the initial luster had started to fade. I think maybe we’d have broken up in a few more months, but that’s not what happened.”

I think I know where the story is going, but I just quietly sort the puzzle pieces and let her continue unprompted.

“We came home one night from a party, and Dillon—that’s his name—came back to crash at my place since he lived in the dorm and he didn’t want to go back there so late. As we came in, Destiny was walking around the kitchen in her bra and panties, so I glared at her when Dillon gave her this big, dumb, surprised look.

“She went back into her room, but she did it slowly, and she made a show of it. Dillon, meanwhile, made a show of not looking, but he kept sneaking peeks as Destiny walked away. He was clearly looking at her ass.”

“I gave him a pissed-off look, took him by the hand, and pulled him into my room. I took my clothes off right there, and when I started to pull at his belt, he told me he was too drunk and tired. I got annoyed, told him I was going to take a shower, and shut the bathroom door in his face.”

She looks down at the puzzle pieces, clearly flustered and angry. She sips at her cider, and I can tell from her facial expressions that everything is playing out again in her head.

“So,” she says. “I turned the shower on, but I just kept feeling more and more annoyed at Destiny. We had been so close, and I felt she was just totally ruining our relationship. I wondered if it was a mistake living together, and I decided I was going to go talk to her right that instant. She’d been getting on my nerves for months, but that—to me—felt like the last straw.”

She gulps at her cider as if it actually were alcoholic.

She wipes her lips and continues, “I think I’d had the water running for a minute or two. I always took really long showers, and Dillon knew that. I was so annoyed that I went out without even remembering to turn the shower off. I stomped through the bedroom, barely noticing that Dillon wasn’t in bed, or anywhere in my room.

“I walked across the living room toward Destiny’s room, again still not realizing that I hadn’t seen Dillon. I’d honestly forgotten about him at this point. I barged into Destiny’s room without even knocking, and I saw Dillon in there. He was leaning back, and Destiny’s lips were around his cock.”

She grinds her teeth together.

I nod. “That’s hard to forgive.”

“It wasn’t even about Dillon,” she says. “Like I said, we were probably on the way out anyway. But it was so disrespectful of her to do that, and she didn’t even apologize. Dillon tried to, and Destiny just laughed. She said ‘Oh, come on, you always complain about him,’ as if that justified what she did.”

“So that was like, ten years ago?” I ask.

“Come on, Dominick,” she snaps. “You can understand how that wouldn’t exactly be easy to get over. Even with a lot of time passing.”

“I understand, I wasn’t trying to judge you, just figuring out the details. I assume she never really apologized for it, or for anything else she did that upset you.”

“No, I kicked her out the next morning. We got very distant. I still see her at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we are polite to each other, but that’s it.”

“You said your parents took her side?” I ask.

“It’s subtle, but they treat her like she’s the favorite. They judge me harshly for putting my career before... before my love life. For kicking Destiny out over ‘some little argument.’ For being the way I am, but they overlook Destiny’s faults. She’s never had a serious relationship. I can’t say I’m surprised at that, after seeing how she behaves. My parents probably think they’ll never get grandchildren at this rate.”

She looks surprised for a moment. “Jesus,” she says. “Dominick, you have to promise me you’ll never let my sister be your client. Ever.”

I laugh. “Don’t worry,” I say. “Destiny doesn’t sound like she’d have a block. And—”

Madrigal slides out of her chair, stands up, and storms back into the house without saying a word.

“Shit,” I say to myself. “Did I really just fuck up like that?”

I basically just compared her directly to her sister, saying her sister wouldn’t be infertile like she is. There’s no way to massage that into a good thing to say, and Madrigal is rightfully going to be pissed off at me for saying it.

I bring our cups in as if I was merely cleaning up. Madrigal is already halfway to the staircase, she turns and waves a hand at the cups dismissively. “You know, I’m actually going to get an early start on sleep tonight. You can just leave those there.”

“Madrigal—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Seriously, Dominick,” she says. “My day is over, so you’re done shadowing me.”

“I didn’t mean what I said. Not in the way you thought I did at least. The thing is, I don’t think of you as unable to have kids, I know I’m going to fix this—”

“Great,” she says, walking away from me, pretending not to be mad but busy instead, “We’ll figure it out I’m sure. Just let’s call it a day, I’m exhausted.”

She goes upstairs without a backward glance and I know well enough at this point to let her go. I wash the cups in the sink and put them out to dry, and I see myself out.

* * *

The next time I initiate a meeting is two days later. I figured it was best to give Madrigal some time to decompress after making her so angry.

One problem is becoming increasingly clear, however: I can’t get her off my mind. It’s not supposed to be like this with a client. It’s fine to be absorbed in the work—in trying to think of ways to clear the block. But you’re not supposed to be interested in the client herself.

A slave does not fall in love.

The fact that I’m feeling torn up about hurting her is wrong. It’s not what someone in my position is supposed to feel for a client. If anything, I should be using how she got so upset as a tool. Merely more insight into what has her blocked and how to work on clearing it from here.

We meet at the same coffee shop that I first made her cum in. That’s intentional. I’m trying to force myself back on track with her. I want her to remember the Dominick that made her cum in public, not the one who was solving jigsaw puzzles with her and fucking up by comparing her to her sister who she is feuding bitterly with.

She’s wearing bright pink lipstick, and her hair is tied up in a bun that sits almost on top of her head. Her lips look fuller than ever, and her thick body is nearly bursting out of the dress she’s wearing.

I sit down across from her, and she smiles at me, but I can tell she’s still a bit angry beneath her smile.

Even if I’m trying to separate myself from my emotions, I have to work this out. She can’t be mad at me, and I can’t just apologize. Not in my position of dominance over her. The best I can do is throw her a bone.

“What is my order for today?” she asks, arms crossed. “I’m ready to get this thing solved.”

“Today,” I say. “you get to make a request. I can’t promise I’ll grant it, but you may ask.”

I see her gulp, barely able to swallow, and she looks up at me afraid.

She must think it’s some kind of trap. It’s not supposed to be. For a client who has made such quick and unexpected progress, it’s often best to let her decide what happens next. Even if she decides something that ends up not really helping, it can at least help me identify where I should take her next.

It’s a bit of a risk, as if she makes an unreasonable request that I have to refuse, she’ll likely end up even more annoyed with me.

“I…” she stammers. “Um, I’m afraid to break any rules…”

I can already see her forgiving me. There’s something she really wants from me. I pray it’s something I can actually give.

“Ask,” I say. “Asking won’t break any rules. Like I said, it’s a request, not a demand.”

“Okay,” she says. “So what if we went on a date? Like, a real one? It’s just, I know you’re not going to be the father—not really—but I want to at least know what you’re like. Outside of all the other stuff, at least.” She blushes when she says that. “I know it’s just going to be pretend, but—”

“Your request can be granted,” I say. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

Idiot. I should have at least thought about it. There’s all kinds of problems with her request, serious ones. I’ll have to be extremely diligent during the whole “date” and make sure she doesn’t breach contract. Hell, I’ll have to make sure I don’t breach contract.

I slide my chair back, stand up, and walk out of the coffee shop without looking back.