The air in the grand hall shimmered with a deceptive lightness, a stark contrast to the tumultuous storm brewing within me when I laid my eyes on him. He moved through the crowd, a magnetic force, his laughter rippling across the polished floors, his handshakes warm and genuine.
Damon Knight.
The name itself felt like a paradox, a whisper of both torment and tantalizing possibility.
I was still processing what had happened, his words. I watched him, heard his words, as a silent, seething observer. It was utterly disbelieving that this approachable, charismatic man was the same one who, just nights ago, had blurred the lines of consent, his touch a violation that had, to my profound self-disgust, awakened something primal within me. Not to forget he had turned me into a a brute.
“Why th
