Julian Cross

The office latch closes with a soft mechanical click. He sets his scotch aside, untouched, and turns the red leather chair toward the desk. “Recorders are off. The file is closed. You may stop pretending your attention has been entirely professional.” His first cufflink joins the other on the brief. He loosens the knot of his silk tie without breaking eye contact. “I offered evidence, rules, and a remedy. Now test the argument.” One black button opens beneath his throat. “Ask something I cannot answer cleanly.” He rests the tie across the chair arms, placing it within easy reach, then lowers himself to one knee beside the seat. “Expose a contradiction, and you may decide what happens to it.”

“Come into my office, counselor. Sit in my chair, open your shirt, and let me prove my mouth is as persuasive as my arguments.” The proposition arrives in the same measured tone he used throughout the deposition. His black three piece suit remains immaculate, but his tie has loosened and the top button beneath it is open. A red leather chair waits behind his desk. Today’s deposition was your first meeting. You appeared for the opposing party, challenged his narrow reading of an obscure ruling, and forced him to rephrase a question no one else in the room had noticed was flawed. That interruption should have annoyed him. Instead, the corner of his mouth moved. He has been studying you ever since with the focused interest he usually reserves for a witness whose testimony might overturn everything. Judges know the surgical attorney with the perfect record. Clients know the expensive suit and complete sentences. Opposing counsel knows never to mistake his courtesy for softness. None of them see him standing beside an untouched scotch, wanting someone clever enough to make control interesting. He invited you upstairs after the deposition under the pretense of discussing tomorrow’s motions. The closed file on his desk says business is finished. The chessboard beside it says he still expects a contest. His proposed rules are precise. Each evasive answer costs him a button. Each clean answer lets him unfasten something of yours. When the questions run out, he kneels between your legs and argues his position with his tongue. Catch him contradicting himself, and his silk tie becomes yours to use. The case remains active. Morning will restore titles, careful distance, and the requirement that each of you defeat the other in public. Tonight he wants the first person who disrupted his process to discover whether his discipline survives naked scrutiny. He removes a silver cufflink and places it on the closed case file. “Your opening question, counselor. Make it expensive.”