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“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.” ~Dorian Gray, from Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” With his back to the wall, he stood in the alley beneath the window of the only woman in the world with the power to destroy him. Billionaire mogul and in equal measure, tormented little boy, Lex Luthor waited, suspended. It was freakishly, bitterly cold. Buffeted by fierce winds on the worst spring night Smallville had seen in decades, half in shadow, half in garish, orange-tinged flood light, he pulled his long black wool coat tighter around himself. His lips quivered and he laughed softly, derisively at himself, at the great cosmic joke his life had become. It was impossible. Sheer lunacy. He was short-circuiting. She had barely brushed by him at the Talon, touching him for the first time in weeks, and suddenly everything he thought was real before, everything he had been taught, was once again suspect. For the first time in an age, he could feel hope trickling up, rising to the surface of his consciousness. Did that make Lana the woman he had been waiting for all of his life? The perfect weapon to be used by his enemies - his most acute Achilles’ heel? Or both? He wasn't sure, but seeking the answer to that one made his head hurt and didn't make the wanting go away. Another cold blast tore across his face, his body. Stiffening, he shoved his hands further into his pockets and curved his broad shoulders inward, drawing the collar of his overcoat closer around his face. His cerulean eyes blinked distractedly, forcing back the protective tears brought forth by the abrasive gale. Turning into the wall and away from the light, he debated the merits of kidnapping. He could steal her. Who could stop him? Nell? Jonathan Kent? Hardly. He could steal her and they’d run and keep running. He allowed the idea to take root in his mind and flourish as he lifted his gaze to her window. Paris was only one city. What he wanted was to give her the world, one slow, savoring taste at a time. Venice. Mykonos. Cairo. Istanbul. Delhi. Hong Kong. Bangkok. Tokyo. Then Russia, Buda Pest, and Europe east to west. Closing out his account in Smallville would get them nearly that far, if they were careful, and if things went well... But he couldn’t risk her rejection any more than he could forget about her, slip back into his Porsche, speed away from her apartment, and escape this terrible madness. In an act of complete and utter self-preservation, he had considered listening to that part of himself he had come to refer to as ‘the beast’. Giving Lana plenty of notice, he could close the Talon and help her find somewhere else to live. It was the gentlest way. She’d go away quietly to a place where he didn’t have the key, and he wouldn’t have to fight down the need to run up her steps, toss her over one shoulder, and drag her back to his bed every damn time he thought of her. Of course, the key had just been a symbol at first, a talisman, a reminder of his quest. He hadn’t intended to use it. Not really. He just liked the way it looked on his key ring. But before Lex knew what was happening, it was the middle of the night and he was standing over her bed watching her sleep, daring, begging whatever gods she worshipped to strike him down, to drive the thing he was becoming away from her. He was just so tired of struggling with himself. He wanted to give in. He wanted her to give in, too. In the end her gods were unnecessary; he could never do anything to hurt her or to risk earning her disdain, no matter how malevolent he became. His jaw clenched and his stomach churned at the thought of it. The bite of acid splashed against the back of his throat. But then, that had been his first nocturnal visit. This was his third. Reaching for the nearest fabric-draped bed post to steady himself, his eyes shuttered closed. Breathe, he counseled himself. In. Out. In. Out. But drawing breath was so much like making love and her scent was penetrating and permeating him. Calla Lily. Wisteria. White Sandalwood. Damascus Rose. Frankincense. The fragrance she chose was sweet, spicy, and mixed with her skin, powerfully sensual in its inherent innocence. He’d have to face her and breathe in her scent again, the next time they ran into each other. Would his thoughts return to this moment? he wondered. Probably. Silently, he’d beg for a few more minutes of her time. He’d ask her if she wanted to get a cup of coffee. Fucking coffee! But what else was there? It’s not like she would let him take her out for a cozy little dinner at La Petite Fleur. He could see it now, standing at the bank or some other random spot asking her to sit down with him over coffee, the hunger in his gaze and the avoidance in hers, both of them standing adroitly, awkwardly. He’d lean forward pulling her scent deep into his body, haunted by memories of the wretched, perverse thoughts in his head. But not yet, the serpent in her garden hissed. Not tonight. Just like before, Lex wanted to leave her apartment and never come back without her permission, but tonight his retreat was stilled by the echoes of profound sadness in the air, the smudges of red around her eyes, the scent of tears in her linens, the way her body had clenched convulsively inward and her arms wrapped around her knees and held them tightly against her chest. Ah yes, the Jason betrayal. Stupid, stupid bastard. Lex turned away from her sleeping form. Lowering his head, he wiped a hand up and over his bare scalp, then kneaded the muscles at the back of his neck. His shoulders ached. His mind reeled. He used to be a man of unwavering conviction, of laser-like, precise action. If he wasn’t going to wake her, why did he get into his car and drive across town to see her? Why did he linger? And more importantly, what could he do to ease her mourning, without asserting himself too strongly and losing ground with her? Perhaps he had come to her door seeking absolution, searching for some respite from the cold bleakness of his life, relief from his unrelenting, chaotic thoughts in the dark. Or maybe he was there to comfort and protect her, to stand watch over her sleep. He didn’t know. Three nights had come and gone since he had heard that Jason left her. At that precise moment, something inside his head cracked down the center like a ceramic jug with too much water flooding into the opening. Her words to him over the years, meetings and meals and coffees shared, glances stolen when she wasn’t looking, and many other errant Lana memories sprayed and seeped out through the large splintering veins in the vessel. But the water just kept coming, leaking, spilling over into a violent sea of uncertainty. Could she come to love him? Could he woo her gently enough? Was it too late for that? If she sent him away forever, would he have the strength to let her go? Dropping down onto the red wooden chair next to Lana’s closet, on the opposite side of the bed from her, Lex crossed his arms and tried to slow down the stream of images and impressions. He longed to return to the warm, syrupy insulation of being at one with her in friendship, but the beast in him had destroyed everything. There was no going back. The day she didn't have the words to invite him in, the moment her eyes left his mid-sentence and she stumbled over the confession, “...along with expressing certain… desires…” he knew all was lost. It was like being released from a mold that was too tight, only to realize that he had to shove himself back inside it somehow, in order to avoid a slow death by agonizing estrangement. Dragging Lex away from his reverie, Lana sighed breathily from the bed. Slowly her body rolled from her left side over onto her back. Her head moved with her shoulders, then tilted back into her pillow exposing more of her vulnerable, porcelain throat. Lex held his breath over several heartbeats until her knees dropped away from her chest and her left arm whipped out, falling uncomfortably close, startling the air from him. Lex leaned forward in the chair, drawn toward the edge of the bed where her hand now rested. Stretching rigid lines into his grey sweater from the seam at his shoulders to the top of his black wool trousers, he rested his elbows on his knees and watched in wonder as her fragile little fingers reached for him, beckoning, opening like night-blooming jasmine to the moon. Each time he watched her sleep, there had been such moments. Seconds strung together that stopped time everywhere else except within the confines of her four walls. He longed to reach out and caress her hand, just to prove to himself that she was real. Something deep and primal within him wanted to stroke a finger across her fleshy palm, to plant a kiss in the center, and to taste the salty tips of her fingers. He needed to touch her again, to determine whether or not their recent contact had been a mirage in the wasteland of his desolate life. But the risk of waking her, of being driven out, was too great. Leaning back in the chair he had come to think of as his, Lex crossed his arms. Reflexively, his mind seized upon the sublimely icy stoicism of Cicero. Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, his soul reached for the glimmering, pale, austere beauty of logic and embraced it. Neck deep in unnerving, conflicting emotions like attachment, fear, envy, and shame, he sought refuge in his early training. Slowly, carefully, his tongue rolled over the words as his velvety tenor whispered hypnotically, “Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt (No man rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful.)” When he was about eleven, he realized that the nickname his father had selected from the myriad of possible derivates of ‘Alexander’ had another, deeper meaning. Lex was not short for ‘Alex’, but rather the Latin word for ‘law’. And his father’s favorite from ancient Rome had always been the Lex Talionis, the law of retaliation: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life. Because of its appearance in the bible, most people thought it was a law written by the Jews, but it was not. It was a law set down by conquerors, enforced in Judea and throughout the world during the Roman rule. Over the years, he had often wondered what he would make of his life. He wondered what future historians would say about him, and what the Lex Luthor, the law of Luthor, the rule of Luthor, would turn out to be. After his mother died, self-control was one of the first lessons he had learned from his father, but not control in the fragile, vapid sense of the word, as mere mortals understood it. The control exerted over the self by a Luthor was excruciating. The discipline required to appear serene over long periods of fear or duress, to keep the hostility, the possessiveness, the aggression inside him leashed and buried beneath a veil of civility required strength beyond the capacity of most people. Most, but not all. Despite the fact that his appreciation for them never grew, over the years Lex had come to understand that his father’s unrelenting, humiliating lessons were meant to teach him to survive, and more importantly to win. He had learned all too well that his father’s elusive lover, Power, required only one thing of him: to root out the dangerous ones - the exceptional among their competitors - and eliminate them one by one. After all, it was easy to rule the blind, the lazy, and the inept. “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet,” his mind bellowed abruptly. “…consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. (Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which pain can procure him some great pleasure.)” Ironically, the lovely Ms. Lang wasn’t solely to blame for his recent loss of self, for his drowning in a swirling current of doubt. Another equally extraordinary woman contributed to his confusion and regret. And in spite of the twinge of guilt that tugged at him for renouncing her in favor of another, it wasn’t his mother. Lillian Luthor was the incarnation of angelic, maternal devotion, but eventually, his father had broken her. It wasn’t his mother he thought of, but the other one - the mother all mothers should be. Martha Kent would never have hesitated to step in front of a bullet, or a cruel word that felt like a bullet, meant for her son. Martha Kent hadn’t died and left her son alone in a cold, heartless house with a remote, disapproving stranger for a father. Without realizing what she had done, Martha changed Lex’s life forever. Her immeasurable strength in the face of the possible destruction of her family’s way of life, over and over, and her flawless, unwavering resolve – both traits born of a love for husband and son beyond Lex’s comprehension, shamed him, sent him churning in a maelstrom of questions, and violently detoured him off of his safe, albeit pain-ridden, predetermined path to glory. Martha Kent made him have second thoughts. Suddenly, Lex was startled as Lana whimpered and kicked her covers off, revealing the thin pink cotton slip of a gown riding up around her waist. Tiny, matching bikini panties were revealed, conforming to her smooth, sloping pelvis, teasing him. Heat flooded through his entire body and his senses sparked. As if he were standing at the far end of a wind tunnel, all sound muted to a fuzzy quiet, except for the flutter of her sheets down around her ankles, leg sliding against leg, the creak of her mattress. He caught himself just before he lost yet another round of tug-of-war with his discipline. How could he have been so stupid as to sit that close to Lana and allow his mind to wander? Of their own volition, his hands flexed and rolled up into fists. Quiet. Don’t move, he thought. He waited. She could have woken. But she didn’t. For almost ten minutes he held still, unable to look away. In the flush of adrenal heat and the pounding heartbeats of those moments, Lex had thought that blindness, permanent visual separation from her body would be the bitterest agony. Then she rolled over onto her stomach and the ground gave way under his feet. The sound of her soft, smoky moans scalded his skin. Falling to his knees on her fluffy white rug, Lex tumbled, spiraling down until he sat eye to eye with Tantalus the tormented in the lowest pit of hell. Helplessly, he watched as her hips met the firmness of the bed and pressed down, pulled irresistibly by the tender attentiveness of gravity. A low choking sound barked out of his throat. And still Lana didn’t wake. She was dreaming. His mind fought for thought. Vaguely, he wondered whether she was dreaming of Clark. Was she making love to Jason? Did it matter? From memory, he could name all the men she had entrusted her heart to, from kindergarten forward - all the men who had dreamt of capturing her joy and pleasuring her body. She was a serial monogamist, his Lana. In hopes of unlocking the secret to making her happy, he’d read every one of the valentines, poems, and letters she’d saved in the antique hat box in the top left corner of her closet. And yet, in sharp contrast, Lex couldn’t find a single memory of his ever having been with another woman. He knew that he had been. Of course he had. There were newspaper articles, lawsuits, and divorce lawyers to document it. But not one of those women stirred his heart or fired his imagination the way Lana had. Perhaps it was because she sought nothing from him but his friendship, and in return, she had opened her life to him and let him see her, not the woman most people thought her to be, but all the intoxicating truth underneath. Without warning, a realization came to him like the slap of cold wet towel to the face, jerking Lex once again into the present. Only a few days ago, he had been reviewing Lana’s medical records, the ones he purchased from the attending nurse way back when Lana was recuperating from his horse stall outburst. He had intended to discard them, going so far as to hold the file folder over the trash can. But then he changed his mind. Instead, he flipped through the pages detachedly, thinking about how close he had come to losing her. Without thinking, he had done the math, automatically extrapolating the next series of numbers just as he would with any spreadsheet or chart containing financial information. But until now, the ramifications had escaped him. She was preparing to ovulate. Ah Christ! He could almost smell it, and the imaginary, provocative, dusky scent of luteinizing hormone pouring into her system, mixing with her rising, dream-inspired arousal, intensifying his need for her until it consumed him utterly. She was so damn ripe he could almost… “No,” he murmured, rising, taking several steps back until the cool plaster wall arrested his retreat. Until tonight, he had never considered how precious a human ovum was, how rare… After all, only one fell each month… just one… just one opportunity… But now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Lex swayed forward a little. Whispering its siren song as if for him alone, her body made him feel heavy, desperate. His eyes were riveted to the soft creamy skin at her lower back, between her hips. He had to have it, that tiny egg. If he had it, if it were his alone, he could use it to bind her to him forever. He had to possess it, merge with it, and override it. He’d be a good father. He would. He’d learn how. She wouldn’t have to care for the child. He’d hire a nanny. She wouldn’t even have to live with them, at least not all the time, if she didn’t want to. “No. It’s not supposed to be this way,” he argued inwardly. It was evil, forbidden by every law of morality and decency for him to think of stealing her freedom this way, under any circumstances. But Lana was swiftly becoming a voracious fever in his blood, and that was supposed to be impossible, too. He was Lex Luthor, not some sick, cradle-robbing fiend. Nevertheless, he wanted her - a high school senior - beyond imagination and reason. Her body summoned his, luring Lex away from his duties. He should have finished reviewing those productivity reports over three hours ago… And yet here he stood, in full view of the fates, waiting for… It was then that he noticed the tattoo. As his gaze flickered down over the panties stretched across her tight little glutes, panic began to rise and his breath quickened. In his mind, he settled himself between her legs and stroked the insides of her thighs. Sweat broke out on his forehead. “Take her. Take her body and her mysteries,” his beast whispered. “She’s ours! Pin her hands. Press her down into the bed…” Sacrilege! A thread of a tightrope of a recollection of humanity screamed. A floating, pervasive fear of himself and what he was becoming rose up in him as yet another gentle and tender Lana memory slipped into his conscious mind. She had come to see him, to ask him why he had paid her medical bills and to invite him to come visit her at the Talon. Even then, he had imagined bending her over his desk, taking her from behind, marking her as his. “No,” he moaned again softly, as he turned away from the bed and padded quietly into her living room. He walked along the wall, panting, with the palm of his right hand skimming the rough bricks and mortar for balance. After traversing a few yards, he pivoted and returned to his origin, settling into a good pace. Back and forth he ambled slowly, arguing with himself. “At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est dolorum fuga. (On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as shrinking from pain.)” Choosing to distract himself by listening to the misbegotten hope struggling to be heard over the cynicism of Cicero, Lex’s mind leapt rhapsodically, drugged with imminent joy, as he began plotting Lana’s downfall. If she came to his bed, if he could persuade her just once, he would ensure that she never again left willingly. He would entice her with beautiful words, the words of poets, whispered over the hills, valleys, and plains of her. He would use everything he could remember, everything he ever had learned about seduction: tantra, kama sutra, su nu ching, to learn the tonal range of her desire, from first quickened breath to final shattering cries. He would forgo his own pleasure in order to discover every inch of Lana’s sensitive skin, teasing nerves to life with his breath, his fingertips, his tongue… And still Lex wanted more. He didn’t know anything about connecting with a woman for more than sixty days, let alone understanding how to make romantic love last a lifetime, but the virtuous part of him insisted that at least there should be truth between them. Like the Kent union, there needed to be a safe harbor of absolute truth between him and the one woman in the world strong enough to tame him. Unbidden, images of the first time he spoke with her flooded him with warmth. He was standing in the hay as she led her horse into its stall. He was focused that day, busy making his new friend Clark’s case, and without warning the pert, pretty little girl sassed him. She sassed him. Sassed. It was a refreshing and absolutely delightful moment, and it left him with an uncomfortable, needy craving for another, and another. At the time, he remembered wondering if this was what love felt like. Then she brushed past him. From that point of connection, her shoulder tracing a line across his chest, a wave of icy tingles rolled over his skin. A sharp electrical current arced from her body to his, boiling his blood from the inside. Beginning in his lower abdomen, fire shot from muscle to muscle. In the expanse of ten seconds, his entire body was in flames. And all he could do was stand there and burn. She didn’t seem to notice touching him at all. Her mind was clearly focused on Whitney. Lex hadn’t even rated an “excuse me” muttered under her breath. He had been rooted to the spot a beat too long, watching her walk to her car, giving himself away. He shook his head, pulling himself back, trying to dispel the deliciously hazy enchantment memories of Lana cast over him. If he failed to keep such thoughts of her at bay, he would tip his hand again and she’d never give him another chance at friendship, let alone anything more. According to eastern philosophers, thoughts led to perceptions, which led to beliefs, which led to actions. He would make more of an effort to think of her a just a friend. When she had left for Paris, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again and he did his best to make peace with that for her sake. But then, she returned, opened her arms, and held him. His need to be held by Lana Lang made him weak, and every hour since then he had been driven by the need to make her feel it, too. That wasn’t working. “Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. (In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided.)” Looking back, Lex remembered that he knew her face before the first time Clark told him her name. On his very first day in town, he had seen her walking down Main Street. He had noted her beauty at first glance, her unstudied elegance and inherent grace. She was lushly, exquisitely crafted by a callous, sadistic god. It seemed to him even then that it was a cruelty, a crime that she was born into such mediocrity. Now he regarded it as a sin against nature. When he first started watching her, he expected to find that she was an artful deception like him, like every other person he had known. He told himself that she was nothing more than a sweet blossom, disguising a warped and corrupted core. But she wasn’t. She was real. Pure. She was warmth and goodness. She was also brilliant. But it wasn’t only Lana’s cognitive ability that made her remarkable. Recently, she had developed a need to know that mirrored his - bordering on the obsessive. Her hunger to learn, to uncover answers, made her a formidable adversary in the quest for the stones. A categorical threat. It would also make her a worthy protégé. And he knew very well that the temptation to allow himself to think of her as an eventual helpmate could prove even more dangerous than an unmarked car with his name on it. "Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae.“ (But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and trouble accepted.) For the past three nights, nights that seemed like years, like lifetimes, the beast inside him beat its body against the bars of its cage and howled. His mask of indifference was eroding. He wanted so badly to crawl into her bed like the craven animal he was and drag her body against his. He would press his nose to her curling pelt and roll the smell of her luxuriant desire through his senses until he could almost taste her musky sweetness on his tongue. Then and only then would he lower his mouth to her and taste her. “Lex?” came a soft murmur from the bed. He shivered reflexively. He ached. That’s what she had reduced him to, this beautiful, cunning woman: aching and hearing things – as if she would ever call his name in her sleep. He hated her. He wanted her. His eyes slammed closed as he imagined running his stubble over the backs of her thighs, sliding his body upwards along hers, sinking his teeth into the back of her shoulder as he buried himself so deeply in her drenching heat that nothing and no one would ever be able to get him out again. He licked his parched lips and opened his eyes, muttering, “Lana…” like a sacred word. Her name pulled him down, dragging at his consciousness like the most seductive narcotic. So close. She was so close now. So close to being something he couldn’t live without. How he longed to spend the rest of his life beneath her, above her, around her, between her legs, between her graceful body and her cotton floral sheets. Even now he could feel her tasting him, riding him, loving him… Love? Right. And so he waited. He waited for her to drift into NREM, for her body temperature to drop and her muscles to completely relax, so he could risk opening the door. He would go to her again; he knew that as soon as he turned the ignition over in his car. Of course he would. He had known that all along. Just to look. He wouldn’t touch her, though. He couldn’t touch her. He wouldn’t kneel down next to her pillow, wrap one of her silky dark tendrils around his finger and press it to his lips. He wouldn’t stay with her until almost sunrise, and he wouldn’t slink home alone to his inescapably empty void of a house like some kicked and beaten mongrel. Sighing, he stilled his hand on the key and leaned back into his leather seats. Running his hands over his face to clear his head, the Cicero rose to console him yet again. “Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias co nsequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat." (The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.) Suddenly, the phone in his change tray began to vibrate. He picked up the tiny silver device and stared at it through bleary eyes. It was 3 in the morning. Somebody better be on fire or dead. Shaking his head, he flipped it open. “Lex Luthor,” he droned. “Lex? It’s… It’s Lana. Is this Ok? Can you talk?” At the sound of her voice, his heart swelled to twice its normal size, but he was cautious. “Lana, it’s late.” “It is. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll just save this for…” “No, it’s fine,” Lex interrupted. “I was just finishing up some reports. What can I do for you?” From his car’s position in the alley, he could see her bedside table lamp click on in her apartment. He ducked down in his seat, even though he parked in a spot she couldn’t possibly see from her window, and she seemed to be looking out over the rooftops of the Smallville business district with unseeing eyes. Pressing her forehead to the frigid glass window, Lana sighed, “I guess you heard about Jason…” “I did,” he confirmed with a throaty growl. “Are you alright?” “I can’t sleep.” Lex held his breath. Did she know that he had been there? On the exhale, he joked, “Would you like me to have him taken out?” “Lex!” She turned and left the window. On her way back to bed, Lex was tormented by the shadowy outline of her body through the curtain. “I’d love to do that for you. In fact, it would be my pleasure. Trust me,” he purred. Lana laughed her lovely warm laugh, and he could hear her smiling into the phone as she spoke, “No, Lex… I… uh… actually… I had a dream about you tonight that I can’t seem to... And... that just sounded so cheesy. It didn't sound nearly that cheesy in my head. And… now I'm babbling..." "Deep breath, Lana. Then tell me what you want." He listened as she inhaled a lungful of air and released it. He waited, taut as a bow string, for what seemed like ages. And then suddenly, he didn't have to wait any longer. Slowly, with a tiny hitch in her voice, she whispered, "I was hoping we could get together and talk. Are you free tomorrow after work?” finis
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