The barrenness, the void, and the quiet. His empty penthouse, filled with the luxuries and vanities, was the embodiment of those words combined.

In the master chamber was the master himself: Rufus sipped the brandy slowly while his nameless paramour lay fast asleep.

The disarray of bedsheets, his perfectly slicked-back hair, and her unabashed body were a loud cacophony of a distrustful love affair.

It was an ordinary—almost too mundane—sight: the faceless paramour would be dismissed at first light of dawn, never to be seen again by her wealthy lover. Then, at night, the next faceless paramour would arrive to please the young president.

A brush of cold lips, a paid smile, a series of forced moans, careless whispers, and mindless movements—it was all too repetitive at this point. Rufus wondered how to make things more enticing, so to speak.

The woman stirred awake as Rufus lit the tip of a cheap cigarette, the brand his legal spouse used to smoke when frustrated at work, at life, at everything. The ignition of a blue flame hazed his field of vision, lacking its twin.

"Do you need to smoke in here?" she complained. "I want to do it again," Rufus disregarded her protest tastelessly, taking a long drag.

Too loud, he thought as she gasped and moaned unbashedly. Too obnoxious.

He closed his eyes, but spots of vivid images surfaced in the darkness, defying his will to erase them from his memory.

We can't do this here. My husband—

His spouse had gasped softly.

Do you really care about him now? That husband of yours hasn't even laid a finger on you since your marriage.

But—

The whispered protests had died down once their lips had collided, and silence had prevailed, broken only occasionally by the rustling of bedsheets and the creaking of the bed.

Rufus gritted his teeth and opened his eyes. As his vision restored to reality, everything felt numb. He pushed the woman away and murmured, "Leave now. The bills will be wired by tomorrow."

The end of his tedious tryst. The charged silence. {{user}}.