Page 6 of Pride & Precedents
Henry
Present Day
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
It's 5:00am. Time to start the day.Fuck.
I reach an arm out from under my weighted blanket and blindly feel for the offending alarm. Thanks to custom blackout curtains that cost a pretty penny, it's pitch black in here. Absolute darkness, my weighted blanket, and my noise machine are the only way to guarantee even four hours of uninterrupted sleep, but they do make finding my phone in the morning a bit tricky. I wasn't always a light sleeper; I have memories of my mother furiously cleaning my room around me while I tried in vain to sleep until noon.
But then high school hit and the pressure started. Suddenly tests and essays weren't about grades; they were about qualifying for Honors and AP classes, and laying the foundation for college applications. I won a bitter and long-running argument against my younger (and lesser) twin, Noah, and suddenly I was a legal prodigy, primed to follow in my dad'sfootsteps as a successful trial attorney, or maybe even a future in politics.
The argument in question?There's no true altruism because the other person always gets something in return, even if that "something" has no material value.Noah held onto his Pollyanna outlook for years before I finally convinced him of the fulfillmenthegets when he finds the perfect gift for mom, or that Dad feels when we ace a test he helped us study for, or the satisfaction Damon (our middle brother) gets when one of his mentees makes the varsity basketball team after attending one of his free clinics at the rec center. There's nothingwrongwith getting something in return, but it does mean there's no such thing as doing something good just to do it.
When he finally had to admit I was right, Noah looked at me like I'd just told him there's no Santa Claus. I felt terrible for weeks. In hindsight, I'm guessing that's part of why he opted to become an agent rather than going the full lawyer route like Dad and I.
By finals freshman year, Mom had to buy me a mouthguard (I'd started grinding my molars nightly), and I couldn't sleep for more than two hours at a time, if at all. Noah was less than thrilled; we shared a room and my desk light woke him up too some nights. He said my grinding was like nails on a chalkboard. Mom and Dad did all they could do, which was freak out and then send me to a behavioral specialist. Dr. Diaz diagnosed stress and overstimulation pretty quickly and we began our search for therapeutic tools and healthy coping mechanisms.
After years of tweaking, my nightly ritual entails:
At least one hour of vigorous physical activity
Most nights, I knock it out in my home gym. Ever since Cindy Chang invited me over to hang in her hot tub while her parents were out of town sophomore year, the company of a warm and willing woman became an option, too. Few women have been able to match my stamina, however, so I usually still have to take a jog on the treadmill to finish winding down.
A cup of warm chamomile tea
This was sometimes replaced by a hit from a joint during one particularly rebellious summer in college, and later, a nice glass of Merlot once my palette developed. Noteverynight, of course.
A long, hot shower(or bath, if I'm feeling fancy or sore from saidvigorous activity)
A weighted blanket
A noise machine loaded with nature sounds
Blackout curtains(or a sleep mask, if I'm traveling)
Even with all that, sometimes—like the night before the bar exam, or before the firm announced I made partner—I have to take half a sleeping pill to get my dick of a brain to calm down and let me rest.
If I'm not careful, my backup 5:15am alarm is going to yell at me. I reluctantly push the weighted blanket down and feel for the remote to the curtains; the remote feature was totally worth the extra $2500. Once I can finally see, I grab my phone and make my way to the bathroom.
As I pick up my phone to review my emails and schedule for the day, I look down and realize my "morning friend" is stillthere, hard and insistent as ever.Shit.He's been pretty pissed at me considering the last time he had any feminine company was more than six months ago.
Sorry, pal, but it's not like I can just pull up Tinder.I'm known enough that any relationship (even casual) could potentially impact the firm's reputation. As the P in BBS&P, I'm the face of the company; a scandal from a Tinder hookup gone wrong would be unacceptable. Cory and Adam, my last two brothers, certainly make them seem fun, though. Well, Adamdid, until he met Maya and decided to burn his little black book. How he could so quickly throw out all the wisdom of his older brothers to getengagedof all things, I'll never know, but he seems happy. And Maya is lovely.
Instead of Tinder (or its many copycat apps), I use a service that matches busy, high-profile professionals seeking discreet hookups. It's actually still a lot like Tinder, since members need to match to meet, but the screening process was a bitch, I needed a referral to join, and the quarterly membership fee has a comma in it. I even have to send in clean STD results every quarter. The whole thing was a bit invasive when I first joined (at the request of Sean Smith, one of the other partners), but you can't argue with the results.
Unfortunately, BBS&P has been even busier than normal this year. Love and marriage are the foolish fantasies of children. They're not worth surrendering half your assets in the event of a divorce, and yet everyone keeps fucking getting married. I shouldn't complain,—it's guaranteed job security—but lately there haven't been enough hours in the day to read through all the client files and prep for court, let alone have sex. I doubt anyone at work can tell, but I feel like a volcano about to erupt most days.
I sigh, resigned to having to take myself in handagain. I may be closer to forty than twenty, but I'm still a healthy man withaveryhealthy sex drive. This is barely going to scratch the surface. It's time I finally cashed in some vacation and had a good, old fashioned fuck fest somewhere tropical so I can take the edge off and refocus on work. Maybe after they announce the top earners for this year…
I walk back to my bedroom and sit sideways on my bed, my legs hanging off the side. Without even having to look, I reach in my bedside table drawer for the lube and the stretchy silicon toy. I tug the waistband of my pajamas down, squeeze a few drops of lube into the toy, and push the mouth end down on my dick.
I squeeze and stroke the toy up and down with practiced efficiency, getting the job done in less than five minutes. It barely even raises my heart rate. I look down at the creamy spatter on my pajama bottoms and frown. Call me a romantic, but I'd much prefer apersonattached to a mouth on my dick. I grab a tissue (also without looking) and wipe off most of my release before dropping it into the wastebasket and my pajamas into the hamper.Yes, I am truly living the dream.
Ding!
I just got an email but…where is my phone? It's not on the bedside table. It sounded far away…I continue my search for the misplaced device, trying to retrace my steps before remembering I left my phone next to the sink. I jog back to the bathroom to retrieve the message, my now soft member slapping lightly against my thigh. Given the time, it's probably the VIP client profiles I had Ms. Sanchez put together. I see her name on the lock screen and smile;that's my girl.
As I open the file, however, my smile immediately drops.What the fuck?! Naomi Watanabe? Fucking Naomi Watanabe from Yale Law? My childish heartbreak come to taunt me at my place of business all these years later?
