The landlord inspected me like an animal

The elevator shot upward so fast my stomach glued itself to my spine, that hollow feeling in my gut matching the balance in my bank account perfectly. Fortieth floor. The panel flickered with an aggressive red light, counting down the seconds I had left before I had to sell my dignity. Or at least try.

I adjusted the collar of my shirt. It was cheap polyester, it pinched at my shoulders, and sweat was already starting to stick it to my underarms. I had showered twice before leaving, scrubbing myself with a scouring pad until my skin went red, but nerves have their own smell, acidic and metallic, that no supermarket soap can mask.

I looked at my reflection in the polished steel of the doors. There was Bruno. Twenty-five years old, ninety kilos of muscle carved out of rice, chicken, and rage, and a five-figure debt breathing down my neck like a guard dog. I looked big, intimidating to anyone who crossed me in an alley. But there, in that ascending metal box, I felt small. Ridiculous. Like a farm animal heading into the slaughterhouse.

Ding.

The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. There was no landing or corridor: the elevator led directly into the penthouse.

The first thing that hit me was the cold. The air conditioning was set so low that the sweat on my forehead instantly froze, and a shiver raised the hair on my arms beneath my shirt. The second thing was the silence. A thick, expensive silence, the kind only first-class soundproofing can buy.

—You're two minutes late.

The voice came from the left, deep and without a trace of emotion.

I turned my head. The penthouse owner, Mr. Renard, was standing by a floor-to-ceiling window with an obscene panoramic view of the city at his feet. He wasn't looking at me: he was looking at his watch, one that cost more than my entire family's lives.

—Traffic… —I started to excuse myself, but my voice came out hoarse. I cleared my throat, trying to recover that tough-guy façade I used at the gym—. Traffic in the center is a shitshow.

Renard turned slowly. He was exactly as I'd imagined and, at the same time, nothing like it. Tall, maybe a few centimeters taller than me, but without my bulk. His body was lean, hidden beneath a custom-made charcoal-gray suit that draped over him with liquid perfection. His dark hair was slicked back with military precision, and his eyes… fuck, his eyes were two pools of tar. They looked at you and didn't see a person; they saw data, they saw usefulness. They saw price.

—Time is the only resource you don't get back, Bruno —he said, walking toward me. His footsteps made no sound on the black marble—. If you're going to live here, punctuality isn't negotiable. It's dogma.

He stopped half a meter from me. Too close for a first meeting. He invaded my personal space with a naturalness that pinned me to the floor. He smelled like something complex: burned wood, old leather, and a very subtle citrus note, probably bergamot. An intoxicating scent, clean and masculine, that wiped out my own smell of nerves and cheap deodorant.

—The ad said “rent in exchange for assistance” —I blurted out, trying to hold his gaze even though instinct was screaming at me to look away—. It didn't specify what kind of assistance. I'm a personal trainer, I can cook, I can take care of maintenance…

Renard didn't answer right away. He started walking around me, tracing a slow circle, like a buyer inspecting a used car for dents. I felt his gaze travel across my back, my shoulders, down to my legs.

I tensed. My muscles tightened without permission, filling out the shirt and jeans.

—Personal trainer… —he repeated with a tone that almost sounded mocking—. I see. You're a gym rat. You spend hours sculpting a perfect chassis. And the engine?

He stopped in front of me again. His eyes fixed on my chest, right where my pecs were stretching the shirt buttons to the limit.

—I need someone strong —he said, and for the first time his tone dropped an octave, becoming more intimate, more dangerous—. But brute strength is useless to me if there isn't control. Do you have control, Bruno?

—I've got discipline —I replied, clenching my jaw. It pissed me off that he was sizing me up like that, like a cut of meat hanging from a hook. But I needed the money. I needed the roof. I swallowed my pride and tasted the bitter bite of bile—. I'll do whatever it takes to get the job done.

—Whatever it takes?

Renard lifted a hand. His fingers were long, well-kept, pianist's or surgeon's fingers. Without warning, without asking permission, he placed his right palm on my left bicep.

I froze.

The contact was electric. His hand was cold, but it burned through the cheap fabric. It wasn't a casual or friendly touch. It was a hold. His fingers closed around my arm and squeezed with surprising strength for someone of his build. He dug his thumb into the muscle's attachment point, searching for the fiber, testing the density of my flesh.

My first impulse, the one from the macho I thought I was, was to wrench his arm away. Don't touch me. But I didn't move. My feet seemed fused to the marble. My breath stopped in my lungs.

—Good tone —murmured Renard, ignoring my stiffness, or maybe enjoying it. His other hand rose toward my chest.

That was already too much. He was crossing the line. But my brain had disconnected. I felt his flat hand on my pec, felt the muscle twitch under his palm to the frantic rhythm of my heart. His warmth seeped through the shirt and marked me like a branding iron.

—You're tense —he noted, sliding his hand slowly downward, brushing the sternum, moving toward my abs.

—Hey… —my voice came out as a pathetic whisper. It should have sounded threatening; it sounded weak. Broken.

—Shhh. —Renard took one more step, erasing the little distance that was left. His chest almost brushed mine. I had to tilt my head to look at him and even then he still seemed like the giant—. I'm checking the merchandise. You wouldn't buy a car without opening the hood, would you?

A mix of rage and shame flooded me. He was calling me an object to my face. I should have punched him and walked out. But the smell of his cologne filled my nostrils and made me dizzy. And there was something else. Something terrible and dark growing at the base of my stomach.

As his hand kept pressing my abdomen, assessing the hardness of my abs through the fabric, I felt a traitorous tingle running down my spine. It wasn't fear. I knew fear: fear shrinks your balls and dries your mouth. This was something else. This was electricity.

My breathing sped up, heavy, loud in that sepulchral silence. My pupils must have dilated, because I was seeing Renard's face with hyperreal clarity: the pores in his skin, the wet shine of his lips, the unfathomable darkness of the eyes fixed on mine.

—You've got a body built for exertion —he whispered. His hand stopped right over the buckle of my belt. He didn't touch it, but the heat from his palm radiated straight into my crotch—. The question is whether you're willing to sweat for me.

The blood left my brain and rushed downward with the violence of a torrent. It was an immediate, stupid, uncontrollable physiological reaction. I felt my cock, numb and frightened a minute ago, start to fill, heavy and thick, responding to the domination, to the touch, to the humiliation of being inspected.

I tried to think of dead things, of bills, of anything. But the pressure in my jeans became undeniable. A half-hard, embarrassing erection shoved against the fabric, seeking the warmth of that hand hovering millimeters above.

I ran out of air. Then real panic hit me. Not because of him, but because of me. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why does it turn me on when this guy treats me like livestock?

Renard didn't move. He simply lowered his gaze.

His eyes traveled over my chest, my stomach, and stopped with deliberate, cruel slowness on the bulge beginning to show in the fly of my worn jeans. He stared for what felt like an eternity, letting the shame sear my face.

I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. But I couldn't stop looking at his lips.

Slowly, Renard lifted his gaze and drove his black eyes back into mine. A slow, predatory smile, loaded with smug certainty, curved the corner of his mouth. At first he said nothing, letting the silence and my own erection speak for me.

Then, in a soft voice that sounded like the crack of a whip, he delivered the verdict:

—I can see my proposal doesn't displease you as much as you pretend, Bruno.

***

I didn't know what to answer. There was no answer. Anything I said —a denial, an insult, a run for it— was going to sound like a lie, because the evidence was right there, pushing against the fabric, betraying me better than any confession.

Renard removed his hand from my belt. The cold left behind by its absence was almost worse than the contact itself. He walked to a low glass table, poured two fingers of some amber liquid into a heavy glass, and handed it to me without looking at me, like someone giving water to a horse after breaking it in.

—Drink. Your hands are shaking.

I took the glass because I needed to do something with my hands other than cover myself. The liquid burned down my throat and into my chest, and for a second the burn replaced the shame. Only for a second.

—I'm not… —I began—. Look, I'm not into guys…

—I didn't ask you what you are. —Renard leaned against the window, cut out against the city lights—. I don't care what label you use to sleep at night. What interests me is what your body just told me without your permission.

I clenched my jaw. I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to be right. But I'd spent half my life lifting iron to feel like I owned myself, and that man, without even touching me much, had shown me in five minutes that there was a lever inside me I didn't even know existed. And that he knew exactly where it was.

—The arrangement is simple —he continued, setting his glass untouched on the ledge—. You have a room, the big one, the corner one, with its own bathroom. You don't pay a euro. In exchange, you do whatever I need, whenever I need it, without asking questions. We'll start with the physical side: training, errands, whatever you want to call it. And we'll see how far that “whatever it takes” you were so quick to promise goes.

—And if I refuse?

—Then you take that elevator back down, back to your debt and your shared flat, and in a month you call me to ask whether the room is still free. —He smiled again, without warmth—. I can recognize someone who's already decided, Bruno. I can see it in how you haven't left yet.

He was right. I'd spent too many minutes in that penthouse without moving toward the exit. Every second that passed without me running was an answer, and we both knew it.

I set the glass down on the coffee table harder than necessary, as if the impact could give me back some of the rage that had slipped through my fingers. Renard didn't even flinch.

—When do I start? —I asked, and I hated how hoarse my voice sounded. I hated even more that, beneath the anger, there was something that looked dangerously like desire.

—You've already started. —He moved away from the window and came toward me again, slowly, measuring me with those black eyes—. Stay still. Let me finish checking the merchandise.

And I, ninety kilos of muscle and pride, stayed still. I lowered my gaze to the black marble and let him come closer, feeling the cold air conditioning on the back of my neck and a completely different heat rising from much farther down.

That night I slept in the penthouse. And although nobody touched me again until the next morning, I didn't get a wink of sleep: I lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the city forty floors below, trying to understand what kind of man I had just become from the simple brush of a cold hand.