Chapter 2: Stalling time

Eoin stopped, his brow knitting.

In games like this, a safe word is usually agreed in advance so the one in charge can’t push past the other’s limits. When someone says it, everything stops, and that keeps people safe.

But that was how it worked for most people.

Who was Cian Fitzgerald? He was the golden boy of Dublin’s elite, a young man who had been used to getting his own way since he was in short trousers. When he played games, he was always the one who got bored first and called time, and nobody else had a say.

Eoin wondered whether this was just one more whim of the young heir. He fixed his eyes on Cian’s face, searching for a clue. But Cian lounged on the sofa with his long legs curled under him, his expression easy, a smile even tugging at the corner of his mouth, the picture of a carefree rich boy with nothing hidden behind it.

Cian let himself be studied. "So, Mr. Brennan, any word take your fancy?"

Eoin looked away and said flatly, "It’s up to you."

"Up to me? Then I’ll have to give it proper thought." Cian propped his chin on his hand and glanced out at the sun going down, great banks of fiery gold cloud spread across the southwest sky.

The original novel was mostly censored, but it still had some scenery in it. When Eoin entered the room, for instance, the author mentioned the floor to ceiling windows and wrote of "the setting sun pouring molten gold, the evening clouds melting together like sea glass." When the two of them slept, it said "the stars glimmered, the night grew deep," which meant they’d be at it from dusk till dark.

It was just past six, with an hour or so until nightfall. He needed to play for time.

Cian pretended to deliberate, taking his sweet time.

"First, it can’t be too ordinary, like ’no’ or ’stop.’ Those are far too common. If you said them, I wouldn’t know whether you truly couldn’t take any more or whether it was just part of the fun. Second, it can’t be too complicated either, or by then you mightn’t have the strength to say it. So we want something in the middle."

Eoin said nothing.

He fidgeted with his fingertips.

Cian was happy to waffle on to kill the time. He kept several metres between them and never crossed the line, as stiffly correct as a gentleman at a formal dinner, but his words grew more ridiculous by the minute. A safe word was meant to be a private matter, yet Cian handled it like a student writing a dissertation, picking at this and that, ruling out options one by one, as though he were choosing a name for a christening rather than settling terms with his plaything.

Cian analysed, summarised, and concluded. "In short, we need something brief and unusual."

He looked up at Eoin. "Mr. Brennan, have you any suggestions?"

Eoin stayed silent.

Who would have suggestions about a thing like this?

Cian wasn’t surprised. In the novel Eoin was exactly like this: handsome and aloof, with a spine of steel, never cooperating beyond what the contract demanded.

And the original Cian had hated that cold temperament, bred in the poor part of town, and wanted to grind that unbending bone down into an ornament to play with. Hence the endless torment.

Since Eoin wouldn’t speak, Cian would speak for him. The young heir glanced around, and his eye settled on a vase in the hotel’s glass cabinet. It was Belleek porcelain, creamy and translucent, slender and old fashioned in shape, with a ring of green shamrocks round its body, elegant and dignified, not unlike Eoin himself standing there.

So Cian asked, "What about ’Belleek’? It’s easy to say and nobody uses it."

Eoin gave no answer. His gaze had been on the window, and now it came back to Cian’s face, as if he were wondering what fresh nonsense the heir had dreamed up.

Cian leaned forward. "Say something."

Eoin said, "Fine."

Quiet settled over them again.

By now Eoin’s shirt was half off, most of the buttons undone, his pale skin covered in goosebumps. He didn’t bother to pull it back up, only stood motionless like an object.

Cian looked at the floor to ceiling window.

The sky was full of broad bands of burning cloud. There were still twenty minutes until sunset, and he had to keep stalling.

Small talk was no use. He and Eoin had nothing in common, and they couldn’t stretch a conversation over twenty minutes. Guessing at the time, Cian casually took out his phone and made a call.

The sudden ringing echoed through the room and Eoin flinched and turned his head. Cian got up and went over to the cabinet, speaking in a low voice. The bedroom was big and they were far apart, so it was hard to hear him clearly, only scraps like "Yes, yes, yes" and "Send it up to my room."

Eoin, who had been standing stock still, suddenly looked up. Clutching his shirt tight, he stared at Cian in disbelief.

Cian went on talking. "Yes, yes, 2301, the penthouse suite."

He glanced up and caught sight of Eoin’s pale face. "What’s wrong?"

Eoin gripped his shirt so hard that the tendons stood out on his wrist. He fought to keep himself steady. "No, no."

Cian asked, "No? What do you mean, no?"

Eoin shut his eyes, his body taut and shivering, his fingertips quivering. He looked utterly wretched. "Just you. Nobody else."

At the very same moment, Cian was asking, "No onions or no parsley?"

They turned and stared at each other.

Cian looked baffled. "Huh?"

He was on the phone, and the voice at the other end was loud, so he’d missed what Eoin said. He pressed on. "Is there anything you can’t eat?"

Cian truly hadn’t considered that more people might be involved. It was only that there were still twenty minutes to fill, and sitting there in awkward silence seemed worse, so he’d rung down to order food, choosing a few dishes to his own taste. It wasn’t that he’d meant to ignore Eoin’s preferences. He simply assumed Eoin wouldn’t answer even if asked, so he’d ordered for him. He hadn’t expected Eoin to refuse outright.

He hadn’t heard properly, but he guessed Eoin had said something like "I don’t eat."

Typical of a future big shot, the hero of the book, he thought. Down on his luck and still fussy about his food.

In the novel, Eoin’s family was poor, and he usually ate in the canteen, spending two or three euro a meal. Dishes like champ and boiled cabbage were all greens and no meat. Cian had assumed he wasn’t fussy and would eat whatever was put in front of him.

Then he reconsidered. Still, being fussy is fine. The original Cian is rich and powerful, so a bit of pickiness about food is hardly a problem.

Cian held out the phone. "Then you order."

Eoin hesitated, but the tension in his muscles slowly eased. He took the phone without a word, and a sweet woman’s voice came through. "Good evening, sir, what can I get you? Our hotel’s Irish desserts are famous, and our head chef has won many international awards. May I suggest the Baileys chocolate mousse or the sticky toffee pudding with whiskey cream?"

Eoin found it absurd.

He had been wrestling with the shame of stripping off his clothes, and on the other end of the line someone was talking about Baileys mousse and sticky toffee pudding.

The voice kept recommending dishes, every one of them expensive. Eoin didn’t answer straight away. He only looked at Cian with a strange expression and asked out of nowhere, "You’re letting me eat?"

Cian said, "Of course. Why wouldn’t I?"

It was a purely instinctive answer, and the moment it left his mouth he knew he’d slipped.

The young Mr. Fitzgerald was fussy and a bit of a clean freak. Before a night with someone, he never let them eat dinner.

But the words were out and couldn’t be taken back, so he just waved a hand, telling Eoin to go ahead and order.

The staff member on the line carried on with her recital, and Eoin ordered two dishes at random, then fell silent.

About ten minutes later the staff knocked and wheeled in a trolley, setting the dishes out on the table. Cian gestured for Eoin to sit, then started scrolling through the original Cian’s phone.

The original was a spoiled rich kid who ran with a circle of other spoiled rich kids. At the top of his WhatsApp was a pinned group chat called the F1 Group, which now showed over 99 unread messages. Cian opened it and saw that someone had tagged him.

Rory Doyle: "@Young Fitzgerald, did you get your hands on that scholar you had your eye on?"

Rory Doyle: "How is he? He looks gorgeous, and that cold manner. I’ve never had a top university student. Cian really knows how to pick them."

Rory Doyle: "When you’re done with him, pass him my way?"

Cian said nothing.

His friends were every bit as spoiled, and their chat was full of crude remarks. Just as he was about to close the phone, another message popped up.

Conor Walsh: "Oh, a new target? Looks like Cian won’t be online for games tonight?"

Cian finally typed: "I’ll be on."

The group was full of rich lads, and Conor was one of the more normal ones, with a taste for gaming. He could never find teammates, so he usually dragged Cian in, and with nothing else to do that night, Cian agreed at once.

After he’d finished eating, he put on his headphones and stretched out on the sofa without so much as a glance at Eoin, completely absorbed in the game. He played until ten, then yawned and stood up, swaying a little.

Eoin watched him walk into the bathroom.

The sound of water echoed through the frosted glass. Cian finished a quick shower and came out in a bathrobe. "Go and have a shower."

It was one of the few uncensored lines from the original text.

He looked Eoin up and down. "You know what to do."

Eoin hesitated, then got up and went into the bathroom, his face blank. As soon as the door closed and hid his collapse from view, he leaned his back against the cold wall and silently shut his eyes.

In this suite of two hundred square metres, only the bathroom could hide his breakdown, and only for a little while.

Even so, he couldn’t and wouldn’t linger too long. After steadying himself in silence, he reached out and turned on the shower. Hot water poured over him, soaking his skin. As it splashed down, he noticed that the hand on the showerhead was shaking.

After all, the man outside was no saint.

Young Cian Fitzgerald was infamous for his excesses. Everyone in Dublin’s upper crust knew it, but Eoin had never belonged to that circle and had never imagined he’d become tangled up with Cian. All his achievements, his pride, and his dignity felt like nothing before Cian, ready to be trampled underfoot and ground into the mud.

Just on the other side of the wall, Cian was flipping through Eoin’s medical report.

According to the novel, on the day the agreement was drawn up, Cian had demanded that Eoin have a full medical check up. Eoin had refused to cooperate and carried on with his usual routine of work and lectures. So Cian had sent a Bentley to block the entrance to the lab and made it clear he wouldn’t back down, drawing a crowd of onlookers. Unable to bear the spectacle, Eoin had reluctantly gone to the hospital.

Cian was startled as he turned the pages.

Eoin’s health had long been poor, with insomnia and anaemia. Cian even suspected that a common cold might be the last straw that broke him.

"System," Cian called, staring at the blood test results, "are you sure the protagonist’s health can survive all that censored content? Won’t this turn into a murder scene?"

The system was unconcerned. "Don’t worry, Host. Protagonists are very resilient."

Death was certainly off the table, but as for suffering, if the hero of a tragedy never suffered, could it still be called a tragedy?

Cian said nothing.

He glanced sideways. "Jesus, what kind of messed up outfit is this?"

Was he some kind of creep?

Just then the sound of running water in the bathroom stopped.

Cian slipped the documents into the bedside drawer, shut it, and acted as if nothing had happened.

Eoin dressed, fastened his shirt up to his collarbone, and carefully smoothed out every crease in front of the mirror, as though the faded fabric gave him some sliver of security. Then he lowered his eyes and opened the door.

There was no avoiding it now.

He took a deep breath, composed his face into calm, and walked to the bedside to look at Cian on the bed.

Then he stopped.

The usually arrogant young Mr. Fitzgerald had buried his face in the blanket, one cheek pressed into the pillow, showing only a fluffy head of hair. Stripped of his usual arrogance, he looked surprisingly gentle.

He was asleep.

Eoin gazed at Cian’s sleeping face for a while, then went to the bedside and switched off the overhead light.

He settled back against the cushion of the nearby sofa and closed his eyes.

On the other side of the room, the supposedly sound asleep young Mr. Fitzgerald was haggling with the system.

System: "Let me see here. All uncensored lines performed, protagonist feels humiliated and uneasy, key task nodes complete, base score 80. Additional unnecessary lines added, deduct 40. Overall score: 40 points."

"Hang on," Cian cut in. "What extra, unnecessary lines did I add?"

System: "The original text contained no safe word. This behaviour violates the character setting."

"Does it?" Cian mused. "As I recall, the original fellow was a ’pro’ rich kid into some niche games?"

System: "Correct."

"Shouldn’t games like that have a safe word?"

System: "Yes?"

"If he was a pro, he’d know the ropes, so he’d have had a safe word, wouldn’t he?"

The system fell silent.

It thought carefully and finally gave way. "Fine, I’ll dock twenty points. But you really shouldn’t have asked Eoin about his food dislikes."

That was undeniably true, and Cian nodded in agreement.

The two reached a consensus, the system switched off, and after the back and forth Cian felt drowsy. He rested his head on his arm, thinking about the plot to come, when suddenly he heard stifled coughing from the sofa.

He looked over by the light of the moon.

Eoin’s forehead was pressed against the sofa cushion and his back was bowed like a drawn bow, one hand braced on the backrest and the other clutching his throat, as though he were straining to hold the sound down.

The sofa was a single seat, and Eoin, being tall, had to curl up his legs, folded in on himself like a shrimp. The hotel’s central air conditioning was set very low and he wore only a thin shirt, already soaked with sweat. He trembled uncontrollably, trying to keep the sound in his throat, letting out only the little that couldn’t be held back.

Smothering every cough must have been agony.

Cian wondered whether to keep pretending to be asleep, but the coughing grew worse and worse, Eoin’s whole back shaking.

Cian said nothing.

He thought of the system’s scoring criteria, then reached out and snapped on the bedside lamp.

Eoin’s back went rigid.

Cian rolled over and sat up, scowling coldly. "It’s the middle of the night. Can’t a man get any sleep?"

Eoin lowered his eyes. "Sorry. I’ll keep it under control."

"Keep it under control, my arse!" Cian glared at Eoin and irritably grabbed his pillow. "What are you doing on the sofa? Who told you to sleep there? Get up here, now."

Eoin paused but in the end said nothing. He pushed himself halfway up and began unbuttoning his shirt, eyes downcast.

Cian lifted his eyelids. "No need to undress, just get up here."

Eoin froze, fingers clutching his cuffs, his expression unreadable. "I haven’t many decent clothes."

He couldn’t follow the logic, but he watched Eoin smile bitterly and say, "Never mind. Let’s just forget it."

Eoin climbed onto the bed from the other side and knelt there in nothing but his shirt, as if waiting for something.

Suddenly it dawned on Cian. Does he think I’m going to rip his clothes off?

The system chimed in quietly. "For the original host, that was standard procedure."

Cian said nothing.

He turned his back to Eoin, feigning drowsiness, and said impatiently, "I told you to come up. Stop coughing in the middle of the night. It’s so loud I can’t sleep."

Eoin hesitated over moving closer, then lay down flat on the far side. The bed was nearly two metres wide, and Cian was lying on one edge with no intention of sharing the space. Then Cian tossed a corner of the blanket over him, covering him completely.

The young heir’s voice came dreamy and slurred. "It’s late. Go to sleep."

Eoin paused.

He tugged at a corner of the blanket. It was wide enough that even with the two of them lying on opposite sides and a clear boundary between them, it didn’t feel crowded. The part draped loosely over him still held Cian’s body heat, which was surprisingly warm.

He tensed, waiting for Cian’s next instruction, but Cian turned over, and the sound of deep breathing followed.

Cian seemed to have fallen asleep again.