It wasn't a particularly good coffee, or even a decent coffee -- far from it, it was mostly burnt, overly sweet, and with a shot of cold milk that made the whole thing taste lukewarm and grainy. But there was something in the aroma that eternally etched that particular coffee in Henry's memory, mainly, how it mixed with Zizi's lemongrass shampoo as she so tentatively lay in the bed in nothing but a wrinkled shirt belonging to Henry, and her pink, striped panties.

Her big eyes concentrated on Henry's face with determination, waiting for any kind of reaction as he sipped the beverage. It was honestly awful, but Henry powered through it with determination.

"It's fantastic. Thanks! Just what I need to wake up," said Henry, taking big gulps to down it as fast as possible.

Zizi squealed in delight, rolling around on the bed. "I squirted some honey in it too. 'Cuz you're so sweet!"

I noticed, thought Henry, rubbing his tongue on the roof of his mouth. "Good idea. Might do it myself," he lied.

"I'll call you honey," said Zizi, standing up from the bed with a jump.

"Because I'm sweet?"

"Nope," she replied, slipping in a skirt that lay discarded on the floor, "'cuz I wanna eat, you, up," she said, punctuating the last part with a flying kiss.

"That makes you a bear."

"Or a honey badger."

"Bear sounds cuter," retorted Henry, closing in on Zizi, who was in the middle of putting her bra on. With a finger, he raised up her bra, revealing her small breasts, raw from sucking and biting.

Zizi slapped his hand down playfully, covering up with both arms. "Don't get me started now. Baba's gonna pick me up from Brenda's house in half an hour and I still have to take a shower."

With the same finger as before, Henry raised her chin to meet his' in a quick kiss-one that she responded in earnest.

"Why don't we shower together? We still have some time," said Henry with a smile.

"I said no, honey."

"I thought bear wanted to eat honey up?" he said with a smirk.

"Shut up and call me a cab, m'kay? I gotta take a piss," said Zizi while flipping him off with a smile.

"Yes, bear," said Henry, punching in a number on his wall phone."Yeah, hi. I need a cab for 4 Emerson Place...five minutes? Great. Thank you. The name is Zizi...No, Zizi. Zi-Zi. With a Zed--you know, Henry. Henry is just fine. Thank you."

Hanging up, Henry went to the bathroom door, knocking hard three times.

"Bear, the cab is gonna be here in five minutes. Hurry up."

Silence. Complete silence.

Henry knocked three more times with the base of his fists. "Zizi! You there?"

This time, the silence was broken by Zizi gagging and hurling

With all his strength, Henry tackled the flimsy wooden door, cracking it straight down the middle while it swung open. Zizi was kneeling in front of the toilet, vomiting her insides out.

Henry slid next to her, putting his arm around her. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

She pulled her hair back, wiping some sweat from her forehead. "What's wrong? You broke a perfectly good door. I didn't even lock the door. Maniac."

"I mean, with you. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay."

Using Henry's body as a clutch, she managed to spring up, albeit with a slight hunch that Henry knew wasn't there before.

"You sure you're okay? You ook like crap."

"Thanks, honey. That's exactly what a girl wants to hear after sex."

"You know what I mean. Want me to come with you?"

She looked at him for a second, before waiving him off. "Nah. I can handle myself. Get me my purse and some cab money."

Henry jogged to the table, grabbed a twenty from his wallet, and returned to Zizi, who was slipping her shoes in.

"The purse, honey. The purse."

"I don't know where your purse is!"

"Fuck," complained Zizi, retrieving a small envelope purse from within the mess of sheets on the bed.

At that same moment, the horn of a car broke through the window. The taxi had arrived.

"The taxi is here. I'll buzz you out."

"Okay, okay. Jesus," said Zizi, running to give Henry a goodbye peck. "Can I see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course. Just call first."

"Sure. See ya. Love you!"

For a second, Henry's world froze. Did she just...Yes. She said it. It was too soon. They had been going at each other for a couple months now. It was mostly just sex. No dates or anything. Henry panicked.

"Thanks," was the only thing he managed to say, "see ya!"

And with that, he closed the door in a fuzz. And the room was swallowed in smoke and darkness.

"But you didn't see me the day after, did you, hon? Nor the day after that. Look at you, even the memory of that day is sending shivers down your spine. All your hairs are standing up. Was it because you thought I was mad at you for not responding to my love? Or something else? Well, you already know the answer to that."

Geber Lab's lobby popped up again, without any of the Christmas arrangements. It was desolated, aside from the receptionist, a blob of darkness behind a desk.

A very hurried Henry ran towards the desk, looking at his wristwatch with panic in his eyes. He ran past the receptionist, not realizing she picked up the phone as soon as he stepped into the building. Henry was running late and he had a particularly long report to deliver that day. But he never got to his work-desk, as he was stopped by Murray in the hallway.

"Hey, hey what's the rush, Henry?" said Murray, blocking his way left and right.

"Move it, Mur. I got things to do."

"Me too," he said, putting a hand squarely on Henry's chest. "And it's about you."

"Whaddaya want?"

Murray's laugh boomed through the cramped hallway. "A wiskey on the rocks and no kidney stones. Old man Geber is calling you. And he looks mad. I was told to fetch you."

Henry's blood went cold. Did he find out about me and Zizi? he thought while sweat poured out of his entire body.

"I don't know what you did, but he is quiet. Very quiet. And that ain't good. Leave your stuff at your desk and follow me."

As he left his bag on his desk, Henry contemplated running away. He could easily pack his stuff in a bag, slip town, never look back, take a first Greyhound to Florida, or any bus out of Boston really. But he knew he wouldn't get out of the building unscratched. Murray was blocking the exit, and if any fuzz were to happen, security would track him down. He wasn't particularly fit either. The only thing he had left was to pray that Jabin showed him mercy and not call the police.

As he walked through the door reading "Jabin Z. Geber - CEO" he was greeted by the cold stare of Clara Wolfe, Jabin's secretary.

"Good job, Mur. I'll let the boss know Henry is here. Please take a seat and wait."

Clara stood up from her seat, bu not before giving Henry a scornful staredown. As she opened the twin wooden doors to the office, he managed to gaze at its interior, or rather, at the people inside. Jabin was behind his desk, reading something with his usual intensity, and to his surprise, Zizi was also there, twirling her thumbs nervously. Just before the door closed, she made eye contact with Henry. He couldn't identify what her gaze tried to say. It was nervous, and anxious, and scared, but also happy. Whatever it was, it wasn't good for Henry, for his heart started to pound like crazy.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock. You must have been dying to know what was up. Your suffering face is delightful. Just look at Murray, and how much he is enjoying this moment."

Just as Zizi said, he was having the time of his life, witnessing Henry's downfall.

"He wouldn't be smirking if he knew what was going to happen. Or if he knew that the man in front of him was routinely plowing the girl of his dreams. Sad."

After a few minutes, the doors opened, but only a notch, as Clara peeked her head out. "He will see you in."

Both men stood up, but Clara quickly interjected.

"Only Henry. He will see you next, Mur."

With heavy disappointment in his heart, Murray sat down again, leaving Henry to enter alone.

To his surprise, Clara closed the door behind him, leaving herself out. Only Jabin, Zizi, and Henry were left.

The office was overbearing. A wall-to-wall carpet of red-blood wool covered the entire floor, meeting fine wooden panels on the walls. The only dissonant part of the room was the back wall. Instead of the wooden panels, it was decorated by a mural of a tree that spanned the whole room. From left to right, the tree seemed to pass through the four seasons. From Spring to Summer, from Autumn to Winter. It was beautiful as much as it was massive.

Sadly, Henry didn't have much time to enjoy it, as Jabin commanded his attention by tapping his ruby ring on the mahogany desk.

"Mr. White. Sit down."

No please or anything. His stare was more than enough to break through any complaints that he had. It tapped into something primal on him. Obey or be eaten.

Henry sat on a leather couch. Comfortable, if it weren't for Zizi's stare trying to drill a hole on his face.

"Even I must admit that this two-pronged ambush was a little too much."

"Mr. White. Can I call you Henry? Henry," he said without waiting for Henry's permission. "I called you here at the behest of my daughter. She approached me a few days ago with some news and after...several days mulling what to do, we seem to have come to an agreement. Zinet?"

At the prompt, she stood up from her seat, joining Henry on the couch. His heart was pounding, and so did hers, as she was shaking from head to toes while grabbing his hand. It was sweaty and clammy.

Their eyes met. Hers were full of tears. His were full of fear.

"Honey, I'm pregnant."

And the whole world went black. Not with shadows or darkness. Henry had passed out.

"Oh! Sorry, I couldn't resist. Oh, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at myself. See, back then, I thought you had passed out from excitement. You were going to be a father, after all. Oh, how foolish I was. This darkness holds words unspoken. Let's give them an outlet, shall we?"

With a snap of the fingers, sounds came crashing through the darkness.

"Oh God! Let me run!"

"Why me?! Why now?!"

"Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck."

"Abortion. She must abort."

"I have to run. Run away."

"Let me die."

"Let me run."

"Let me hide."

"Anywhere but here!"

"Anywhere but now!"

Another snap from her fingers and the darkness became quiet.

"Well. That was that. While I was excited about the prospect of having a baby with a person I loved, you were screaming at God for a miscarriage. Real smooth."

A few blinks of light broke through the darkness, making blurry figures appear out of nowhere.

"Seems like you are waking up. I always wondered what happened at this moment. Seems like a good time as any to find out."

As Henry came back up, he noticed that Zizi was gone. The only one in the room besides him was Jabin, who was nursing a glass of amber liquid.

"Good. You are awake, fuckface."

Henry blinked twice, deeply, as if to rub the tiredness out of his system.

"I'm sorry, what did you just call me?"

"I said," repeated Jabin, taking two long steps towards Henry, "Fuckface. Face of fuck."

Henry tried to say something, anything, but his mind was blank. His forehead ran with a sharp pain that made him groan whenever he tried to think of something.

"Oh, I am sorry; did you hurt your head? Well, I do not care. You just ruined my daughter's life."

"Where is she?" was the only thing that managed to cross Henry's mind at the moment.

"I sent her away to the lab to look for Isitodripian Alcohol. There is no such thing as Isitodripian Alcohol. I needed her away so I could talk to you. Drink up," he said, placing the glass he was nursing right in front of Henry.

"Wha-" Henry began to say until he was stopped by Jabin's raised palm.

"You drink. You do not talk."

Jabin stood up, walking to the humidor right behind his desk. "See, her whole life was planned ahead of her. She was supposed to get into Harvard, get a business major, and follow in my footsteps."

He took out two cigars from the humidor, taking a deep whiff from them. "But your seed brought an end to my plans. No more Harvard for her. No more future for her. And all because you decided to lust after a sheltered girl and decided to... defile her!"

Even though he was clearly yelling, his body language remained calm and collected. He walked back to the couch opposing Henry's, sitting down slowly. On the table between them, he placed one of the cigars.

"I am now giving you four choices. The first one, and it is the most generous one, is that you marry my daughter."

Henry took a sip of the booze. It burned his palate all the way through his throat. Marriage? With Zizi?! But I'm so young! I can't get married!

Henry sipped his booze once again. This was too much. He would be basically surrendering control of his life. All because of a few nights of passion.

"Of course, my son-in-law would receive a raise and a sudden promotion to Vice President. Our current VP of Sales and Marketing will be retiring next year, and you will be working under him, learning the ropes until you are ready to take his spot. But," he said, standing up again, this time taking something big out of his desk, "you will effectively be at my mercy. At my command. At my beck and call. My bitch, as you young people like to say. If I tell you to jump, you jump. If I tell you to bark, you bark. I own you, as your master and lord."

He sat back on the couch, placing an object on the table, right next to the cigar. On closer look, it was a cellphone.

"That is, of course, your first option. Your second option is to refuse, and I will call the police, and will tell the police you abused her. I know people in the police department, and I can very well say anything about you and they will believe it. You will go to jail, as I will make sure that your process is both fast and with the biggest sentence there is. I will pay handsomely for the biggest, burliest inmate to break every bone in your body until your body stops working and you have to defecate through a bag. Drink up."

Henry obliged, trying his best to keep his grip on reality.

"Third option," he said, taking out a revolver from the inner pocket of his suit. It was a small gun, with not much range. "You try to run away, and I shoot you in the back while you escape. Pretty straightforward."

It all felt surreal. Was it the booze talking? It was so foreign, having a gun pointed at him. "You said I had four choices," said Henry, finally speaking up.

"I told you to drink, not to speak. Patience is a virtue."

Jabin placed the gun next to the cellphone, with the barrel pointing at himself.

"The fourth option is for you to kill yourself. Easy as that."

Henry saw all the options. Each one worse than the next.

Marriage was a no-go. Not now. Not with her. Not surrendering his freedom.

Jail was worse. It was a more physical representation of marriage.

Running wasn't even an option. It was a warning.

And killing himself... no, it won't come to that. There was a fifth option.

"There is still another way," said Henry, chugging the rest of his drink in one go.

"Oh. Please, enlighten me."

"What about an abort-"

Henry never managed to finish that sentence. In a flash, Jabin whipped a backhand slap right across his face. The ridges of his ring were etched on Henry's face, making a cut right across his right cheek.

"Are you suggesting killing your own offspring?! A creature with both your blood and mine?! That is blasphemous! An affront to God itself!"

Nothing registered on Henry. His whole world was white with pain and noise. It was the first time someone had ever hit him. The nerve.

Out of rage, he took the gun. Rage. Fear. Power. Weakness. Sadness. Hundreds of emotions swirled inside of him. All of them saying the same thing:

Pull the trigger.

And he did.