Soon, temples sheathed in perspiration, you use the outfit's thick
paper napkins to wipe it off. Loosen your tie. Pretend to be immersed
in calculations. You express strident dissatisfaction and I feign
recoil, as though intimidated by your loudness. Withdrawing to my
second line of defence, I surrender to your simulated wrath.
The signs are here, the gestures, the infinitesimal movements that you
cannot control. I lurk. I know that definite look, that imperceptible
twitch, the inevitability of your surrender.
I am a con man and you are my victim. The swindle is unfolding here and
now, in this very atrium, amid all the extravagance. I am selling your
soul and collecting the change. I am sharpened, like a raw nerve firing
impulses to you, receiving yours, an electrical-chemical dialog,
consisting of your smelly sweat, my scented exudation. I permeate your
cracks. I broker an alliance with your fears, your pains, defence
compensatory mechanisms.
I know you.
I've got to meld us into one. As dusk gives way to night, you trust me
as you do yourself, for now I am nothing less than you. Having adopted
your particular gesticulation, I nod approvingly with every mention of
your family. You do not like me.
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