Morning Monday, May 5th, 2025
High in the sky, Garin was in a crisis meeting with his team. But his mind was on Amina. Not on their long grey conference table awash in papers, poured out and poured through. Two secretaries, Erin and Norma rushed in and out, bringing more files to add to the mess. Mel’s voice rose, sharper than usual. “This is a disastrous… shit… dammit! How could we have missed the signs, Garin? Terry? Garin? Sutton Group was too big to fall off the radar. How do we tell our clients that their key deliverables are in jeopardy? I’m going to get impaled up my ass!”
Terry, sitting on the far side, threw his hands up in frustration, his voice screeching with the weight of panic. “I mean, you can ask how the hell we let this happen. Nobody else strapped to Sutton knew they were playing kamikaze over there.” He jabbed his finger in the direction of the tower where Sutton Group had its Jersey offices, his face red with irritation. “But listen, listen, the real problem isn’t just that we’ve got a sinking ship on our hands. The problem is timing. If we don’t get something in front of our clients within the next hour, we’ll lose half of them outright. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve seen the initial fallout from the accounting side; our exposure is already spreading across the industry. Everyone’s talking. If we don’t show our hand before the day’s out, they’ll start running for the hills, and we won’t be able to reel them back in. That’s why this has to be now, Garin, Wayne. Not tomorrow. Not in the next twenty-four hours, this hour. We can’t afford to let that window close. We need action, not plans.”
Wayne, who’d been frantically typing away on his laptop, looked up from the screen, his face pale. “Their entire portfolio is in a state of disarray. If we don’t pull something together fast, we’re going to flush a third of our contracts down the pipes.” He glanced nervously at Garin, as if waiting for some miracle to emerge from his calm exterior.
Garin leaned back in his chair, his eyes drifting toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, the golden sunlight illuminating not-so-distant Newark. He was aware of the alarm, the voices in a discordant symphony of frustration. He just wasn’t part of it like they were, or like he’d been in the past. Something about the vast, endless expanse of sky and the rolling green and blue hills beyond made the chaos feel smaller. His thoughts drifted again to Amina, ensorcelled by her.
Amina. Her name in his mind’s voice brought an involuntary smile to his lips, a smile invisible to anyone there. He’d only recently allowed himself to entertain the idea of a future with her. Not that he knew her yet, they’d hardly met. But why not imagine it? Wasn’t that the point this time? Look at this big, wide Earth out the window. If Garin could leap out it and fly, he would. A soft exhale escaped him as he imagined who Amina really was, and who he could be with her.
The long conference table was starting to resemble Tokyo after a quake. Mel’s voice cut through the room. “Sutton Group’s bankruptcy leaves us with half our lineup in the air. How the hell do we pick up the pieces without losing everything else in the process? Wayne?”
It occurred to Garin, unwelcome but plain and true, in an internal monologue. "She's sexier. Amina is more sexually attractive to me than my wife. Erin and Norma are premium office eye candy, too, and Amina smokes them! Lyrou is hot in the precise ways I crave and revere, but Amina is truer to my ideal woman, physically at least. She really is. Well, nobody quite has Lyrou's unmatched ass, or rarest lips, or godly French-accented voice. But in sum, Amina is just a pinch hotter, in superficial composition, than Lyrou. It's something about her ballerina-like musculoskeletal structure, the delicate proportions of her apsara face and body paired with feminine fullness in all the right places, her huge houri eyes, her professional poise, and the sense that she isn't insane? Yes. Amina doesn't give off crazy like radiation, not at all. Did Lyrou? Have I become acclimated to years of Lyrou's mind storms that I just didn't notice it? Is Amina refreshing because she isn't mad like my wife, like loony Lyrou? Maybe. Wow. Am I calling her loony Lyrou? Maybe, yes, I am."
Terry, leaning back in his chair, ran a hand through his hair, beads of sweat on his forehead; he was exasperated. “Wayne, Sutton has liabilities before their doors really shut. Yes?”
Wayne, his eyes wide and scanning the room nervously, chimed in. “Yes, yes, yes, but realistically, they’re far too overextended to meet those, and a court won’t get you anywhere. I don’t even know where to start. This is going to cost. We need a solution. Not that it’s any consolation, but I talked to Hunter Nilsson and Vern Doherty this morning; we’re all in the same burning ship with Optimal, with Muzi-Han, and RHK. Yeah, fucking RHK.” Wayne shook his head in disbelief at his own words.
Garin continued entertaining his internal monologue. "And Amina's highly successful in a respected career. Not that I wanted it in Lyrou, I was once happy for her to become a full-time mom. But having seen Lyrou develop a complex over giving up that path, a woman who can't resent me because I'm the reason she never met her most accomplished self is so much more appealing."
Mel snapped. “No consolation whatsoever, that makes it worse in fact.” He lowered his head over the table, looked out the window, and took yet another file from Erin as she came in. “Thank you, Erin.” And tossed it across the table to Garin. The slap of it landing at his chest brought Garin back to reality.
“Garin.” Mel’s voice cracked through his daydream like a bullet whizzing by his ear. “Are you with us? We need something. You look like you’re thinking. Please tell us what you’re thinking.”
The others turned to Garin, their faces a mixture of frustration and expectation. They knew what this moment was. Garin was their guy, rarely seen and rarely heard, but he was the one who could make the unworkable work. When you smashed the emergency glass and pulled him from his case, he was the axe you chopped your problems down with and got out alive by. Would he be that guy now? But was today’s clusterfuck too far fucked for him?
Garin blinked a few times, refocusing his eyes on the crew, looking to Mel, then Terry, then Wayne. Even Norma stopped in the doorway and looked to him, wanting to hear what he’d say. He was silent. They were still waiting. Their eyes on him, he could almost hear the ticking clock in the back of his mind. It was a game, really, a game he’d learned how to play a long time ago. Find the problem, find the solution; agreements.
He straightened in his chair, pushing the thought of Amina aside for the moment, almost sorry to her that he couldn’t think about her all day. His neurons had been activated. Boss time. He turned his shoulder to the table, his expression calm, almost disinterested. He stood, the smoothness of his movements cool as he strode to the whiteboard. “Alright, listen… ” Garin said, voice steady. “We’re not going to salvage everything. We’re going to reframe the issue to the few key people who matter.”
Mel crossed his arms, skeptical. “Reframe? We’ve got an entire division teetering on the edge of collapse. What is there to reframe?”
Garin ignored the jab, moving to the whiteboard. He tapped a marker against the board, his mind clicking into gear. “We bring in two of our existing clients who are in a position to absorb Sutton Group’s obligations. We’re going to integrate those projects into their existing portfolios through a series of cross-assignment agreements and preemptive project consolidation.”
Terry snorted. “What, like just throw the work on top of other clients? That’s not even remotely feasible. Or legal. Is it?”
Mel looked to Terry, then to Garin. Wayne piped up, “They’re mobilizing their lawyers as we speak. A heads up.”
“No, Terry, preemptive consolidation,” Garin corrected. “There’s a way to structure this that lets us absorb the risk without violating contract terms.” He pivoted back to the marker board quickly, jotting down a few points. “We can utilize the Uniform Commercial Code provisions for assignment of rights and obligations, specifically section 9-408. Sutton Group has breached the material terms, but we can execute an as-if assignment, a form of secondary delegation that isn’t subject to the same restrictions as a traditional assignment under NJ commercial code.”
Terry scoffed, “Garin, with all due respect, I’m going to need to challenge your interpretation of Section 9-408, because what you’re proposing essentially falls within the grey zone of deferred attribution and constructive delegation. You’re ham-fistedly suggesting a non-conforming transfer of rights under the UCC’s material breach exception, but that triggers significant disparate treatment of creditor obligations and could expose us to an actionable deceptive trade practices suit under the NJ Consumer Fraud Act, not to mention the optics of constructive notice to stakeholders who may assert prejudicial reliance. We’re talking about potentially undermining the pari passu principle, Garin, and I’m not sure you’ve fully accounted for the ripple effect this could have on our good faith negotiations with other clients, let alone the potential for extraterritorial claims if Sutton’s creditors start challenging the restructured obligations across state lines. California will crucify us; their governor out there built his reelection campaign war chest promising donors he’d squash exactly the kind of move you’re entertaining. The question is, can we afford this kind of risk exposure, or are we just kicking the shit can down the shit road for a few quarters?”
Garin leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he absorbed Terry’s challenge. He exhaled slowly, almost with a sense of quiet amusement, before responding with a voice that carried the unmistakable confidence of someone who had already considered every angle. “Terry, I appreciate your concern, but allow me to walk you through this. First, on the issue of deferred attribution and constructive delegation, we’re not dealing with a simple transfer of rights under the UCC as you suggest. What we’re executing here is a strategic hybridization of a quasi-assignment and a subrogated restructuring. The fact is, the parol evidence rule allows us to circumvent certain traditional exclusivity clauses within these agreements, so long as we’re executing within the bounds of prior performance and the covenants of good faith. By invoking section 9-408, we’re not triggering a violation of non-assignment provisions, we’re mitigating them through as-if delegation under a commercial exception which the UCC clearly allows in cases of commercial impracticability.”
Terry jutted out his chin and bit his knuckle, digesting what Garin had said… “Right. But then the creditor oblig...”
Garin interrupted, “Disparate treatment of creditor obligations; that’s precisely why we’re taking advantage of the equitable subordination doctrine. We’ll place Sutton’s debts into the second tier of responsibility in relation to our own clients’ exposure. This won’t just mitigate risk; it will shift liability away from our primary contracts, neutralizing potential claims of constructive fraud. As for the NJ Consumer Fraud Act, the consumer harm threshold has been consistently interpreted in favor of allowing anticipatory breach mitigation strategies, so long as they’re disclosed in advance and non-deceptive, which is why we’re structuring our cross-assignment agreements in a transparent manner.”
Mel nodded thoughtfully. “Didn’t… I remember Hughes Industries… didn’t they…?”
Garin laughed. “I’ll get to that. But Terry, regarding your concerns about pari passu and prejudicial reliance, I’ll remind you that the principle of pari passu applies in its strictest sense to unsecured creditors. We’re not just handing off the obligations; we’re strategically consolidating and reassigning obligations within a controlled liability ring-fencing structure, which distinguishes us from the mere transfer of debt. In doing so, we’re ensuring that our other clients are stepping into the shoes of Sutton’s obligations without displacing the pari passu hierarchy or violating priority creditor status.”
Wayne piped up again, “The right outfit would be happy to agree to it.”
Garin snap-pointed his fingers in appreciation of Wayne. “On the issue of extraterritorial claims, I’ll remind you that forum non conveniens will likely prevent any jurisdictional overreach beyond New Jersey, especially when we introduce a jurisdictional waiver clause in our agreements. As for California’s potential reaction, trust me, their anti-avoidance measures and the political pressures on their attorney general’s office; we’re mitigating that with a choice of law provision that keeps us under New Jersey jurisdiction, while simultaneously utilizing non-material modifications to the original contracts that sidestep California’s aggressive ‘pro-business’ watchdog tactics.”
Even still, Garin took a second to think about Amina, her face. “And yes, I understand the optics. But frankly, Terry, if we don’t take action right now, we risk corporate insolvency in our own right. The synergy effects of having two of our top clients absorb Sutton’s obligations will give them an immediate competitive advantage, and if we delay this for even a few hours, the market position risk will balloon, especially with Sutton Group’s impending debtor-in-possession filing leaking out to the public. This won’t just be a liquidity crunch; it’ll be a reputation crisis. So yes, we’re not just kicking the can down the road. We’re laying the groundwork for a paradigmatic swivel that will preserve our clients’ interests, protect our corporate identity, and ultimately ensure we continue to leverage the first-mover advantage in our volatile market.”
Mel stepped in before Terry could. “You’re thinking Quorum Analytics and maybe Boggs, Garin?”
Garin nodded, assuaging Mel. “And if not Quorum, because they won’t go out under grey skies without an umbrella, then Visionary Universal is a very, very good bet.”
Terry got in a last word, but helpful, “Garin, Erika Whiten will hate this and talk Boggs out of it.”
Garin’s answer to that was straightforward: “I’ll talk Whiten into it before anybody else at Boggs has heard from us.”
The room quieted, all eyes on him. Garin didn’t pause. He was in full flow now. “The key is the implied consent doctrine. As long as our clients sign off on a mutual waiver of liability, we can leverage their ‘secondary beneficiary status’ to step in without triggering full default clauses. It’s the same model Hughes Industries used when they absorbed the tail end of Fisker Dynamics’s bankruptcy back in ’13, as you were saying, Mel. They made a clean, strategic grab of the assets and restructured the whole portfolio through three layers of co-assignment without breaking any legal boundaries. Not. A. One. That is how we’re going to bound and dash through the rings of fire here. We can take on the majority of the work and push the rest through a third-party management firm. We’re not passing around work, Mel. We’re restructuring the ownership of the deliverables. It’s all about risk transfer via an inter-creditor agreement with built-in contingencies. The third party’s just a conduit. As for the NDA’s? We’ll file for a protective order under New Jersey’s trade secrets statute; we’re not even touching any of their intellectual property. We’re just absorbing the deadlines and deliverables.” He paused. “Look, this isn’t about ‘fixing’ everything. This is about making it move. If we move, we survive.”
Wayne leaned forward, looking uncertain but intrigued. “So what’s the catch, Garin? What aren’t you telling us?”
Garin smiled. “The catch is that we’ll have to absorb some hit in terms of market perception. Clients will be uneasy; they will feel it. We won’t avoid the fallout completely. But we smooth it out. We keep the pipeline moving and stabilize the brand. We keep them coming back. If we do this right, this will look like a tremor rather than the mantle splitting collapse everyone’s expecting.”
Terry was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright, Garin. You’ve done your homework. I’ll admit, I should have seen that one coming.”
Mel paused, clenched his fists high, and with a big smile, said, “Well, alright! Fuck! Let’s move. Wayne, you’re on Quorum; Terry, you’re with Garin on fucking Boggs. Now! That’s how we do!”
Terry and Wayne sprang from their seats, files and laptops in hand, and made their way out the conference room door to their offices. Mel gave the table an enthusiastic pound of his fist, startling Norma as she slid in past the two exiting guys. Pointing at him with relief and commendation, Mel said, “You’re it, Garin. You’re it.”
Garin gave a slight smile, then turned back to the window, his gaze once more catching the skyline of Newark. Amina danced there in his thoughts.
⚜
Evening Monday, May 5th, 2025
The crisis of the year averted and the day from hell closing, Garin, Terry, Wayne, and Mel took the elevator down, the last guys to leave. It stopped at the floor below. Several Chinese from the Tiāntáng office filed in, and Jia was among them. In the first-floor lobby, everyone bid goodnight to one another, but Garin and Jia walked side-by-side along downtown Jersey City sidewalks.
Garin observed, “You look happier than usual. You must feed on chaotic days like these.”
"I told Liu Wei." Jia skipped formalities.
Garin cocked an eyebrow. "How did he take it?"
Jia exhaled, and with a desperate little laugh, she said, "He calmly asked a few questions; if I was leaving him, if I would need to mention it again, and if he could do something to make me happy that he wasn't already."
Garin suppressed his own laugh, not at Jia or her husband but at how different from how he had reacted it was. "How'd you answer?"
Jia held up her pinky, ring finger, and middle in sequence. "No, no, and no."
Garin allowed himself one laugh. "Huh? Really? Then let bygones be bygones?"
Jia bit her lip and nodded. "Yes, Garin. And let secrets stay secrets. You’re smiling?”
Garin shrugged. “Yes. I guess I am. I’m relieved not to have immanentized the eschaton.”
Jia winced and cocked her head. “My English is good, but not that good.”
Garin explained, “I didn’t end your world, as I feared I might have ended it.”
Jia took his hand. “Ended my world? No, you widened my world.”
Garin gave her hand a gentle squeeze as they walked. "Touché, Liu Wei."
Jia cocked her head, looking up at him. "Sorry? I don't know that English word, either."
Garin explained, "It's French. It means I can't but bow to that wisdom."
Jia thought about it, she broke their hand-holding, turned, and gave Garin a most subtle head bow. "Touché, my lover." She turned to enter her parking garage.
Garin called out without thinking, "Jia?"
She stopped and turned to face him, her hair flicking over her shoulder. "Mm-hmm?"
"I need to get out and stretch my legs after a day like we just had. I feel like a man-eating lion touring his territory after terrorizing Tsavo." He let out a yawning, undulating apex call that echoed in the city-canyon.
Jia didn't blink at his animal grunts. "Do you want to stay out? You’re not going home?"
Garin said it almost like a command, "Fuck going home. What's at home? Stay out with me."
"I'll need to let my babysitter know. Fortunately, she's flexible. Where do you want to go?' she tapped into her phone.
Garin took a second to look around, and his eye was captured by an ugly graffiti-covered bus stop. "Let's tag the town."
"Oh? Tag?" she winced and shrugged.
"That's a joke. Let's get a room," he cut to it.
Jia grinned. "To stretch our legs? I see," and she laughed, her voice carrying in the night.
Taking her car, not 5 minutes away, the two found a room for the night. He followed her into the shower, and while they made out under the hot, misty stream, she wouldn't fuck quite yet. She soon had a towel wrapped around her head, and they had both finished brushing their teeth. He'd teased her by pretending he'd spit on her hand as she rinsed her brush off, and she poke-slapped him away with humor. He swallowed his own toothpaste foam. "Egkh! Look what you made me do!"
She grinned and furrowed her brow at him. "You swallow the fruit you grow."
All the while, her eye drifted up and down him, and he sported an impatient erection that thwacked against her naked body as they crowded around the sink basin. They looked at one another in the wide bathroom mirror, the light accentuated Garin's lean jogger physique, and he was so much taller than lithe, delicately formed Jia. She reached into her purse and held her phone at an angle that would obscure her face in the photo she meant to take, and she began snapping several of them side-by-side, fully nude. Garin pressed against her, and she hooked her finger under his dick, looking at the length of it across her narrow waist. She reviewed the photos she'd taken of them as Garin lifted her up under her knees and bottom, and carried her to the neatly made bed. He set her down as she spread herself wide, messing the soft comforter. "You want to vandalize something? To show everyone you own it?" Jia presented, as if she'd made it appear by magic, a black marker.
Garin chuckled. "Where'd that come from? Good God."
She poked it at him with each syllable. "This is called zhǔrén de biāojì, or owner's mark. Vandalize me."
Garin took the marker from her and popped the cap off. "I can write anything?"
"You can try. But I won't make it easy." Jia tensed her limbs and abs, bracing for him.
Garin reached the sharpie forward, he thought he'd try to spell his name on the sole of her foot like she was a toy. "This might tickle."
She kicked so fast he barely saw her foot send the marker flying from his hand. It zipped into the flat screen and landed on the dresser by the complimentary instant coffee. They looked at one another, shared a smile, and he retrieved the marker. Now Garin posed to try again, but he would grab her ankles first. She braced herself, nostrils flaring, and when he dove, she tucked both feet under her butt to keep them from him. "Nobody wrote under my foot before! Anywhere but there!"
Garin sprang forward and, in a flurry of flying limbs, grappling, and sheer overpowering on his part, he pinned her to the mattress, her face down and hanging off the side of the bed, and he had her sole under his sharpie. Letter by letter, he wrote it out, as she laughed and screamed; GARIN.
On releasing her, she looked at the bottom-side of her foot and made a pouting face at him. "At least it's where nobody can see it tomorrow."
With that, Garin seized her once more, this time taking the underside of her wrist, and he wrote: flirty cubicle cunt. "Now shake hands with important reps and clients and let them get a sight of that," he teased her.
Jia inspected the black lettering, her mouth fell open in lust, and now it was she who lunged forward onto him. "That will ruin my image!"
Garin lay back as Jia straddled him, she grinded her clit over his abs and reached behind and under herself in search of his cock. When she found it, she raised and planted it right into her sopping pussy. "Garin! Garin! Cover me with insulting words. It can't wash off! I want everyone to know my shameful things!"
As Jia rode him cowgirl, he sat up almost straight, chin down, forehead-to-forehead with her, and found where and what he'd write:
"horny lonely wife" around her collar like a necklace
"cucked my husband" on her left tit
"can't help myself" on her right tit
"attention whore" on her palm
"vow breaker" on her clavicle
"husband doesn't mind" from her wrist to the crook of her elbow
"open cheater" on her arm
"faux-haute by day, pro-slut by night" on her other arm
"side dick was here" down between her navel and pubic hair
on her sternum a drawing of the Earth with two arrows pointing to opposite sides: "we are here - my husband is there"
a doodle of a devil on her shoulder whispering, "Fuck who thou wilt"
Then on the back of her neck and under her hair, he left a simple cartoony sketch of a bearded Uncle Sam in a top hat with a patriotic priapism word-bubbled "Laid in USA"
Jia eyes laser-scanned everything Garin had written and drawn on her body. She hardly blinked, and as she rocked on his cock her breathing quickened. "Hn-hn-hnnn hn-hm-hm, am I such a pathetic bitch then? I only want some man's attention? Oh? Oh! Eyn, eyn, eyn!" and she curled in a knot of anger, shame, protest, and pleasure. Her core tightened once, twice, and then... spray! Lifting from Garin in a deep crouch, she dripped on him like a wrung sponge. Garin beheld her, and she looked like some figure from an abstract art demonstration, one of those mad nude barricade women who have all their causes written on their bodies. She looked like a desk that had belonged to a creative but defiant student all year. She looked like the graffiti-covered bus stop that had inspired them that night.
Jia took the sharpie from Garin in one hand and his dick in the other. Unthinking, he pulled from her, but she grabbed at his cock and slapped his ass cheek to stop his resisting. "It's my turn."
She took his cock, still slick with her own lubricant and Skene spray, and began sucking. Angling him into her cheek to stuff as much of him into her face as she could, she made a dash line where her lips met his shaft. Pulling away, she eyed his cock a bit cross-eyed, looking down her nose at the line she had made. "I tried, but that's how much I can suck. See if your wife can mark her line lower on your pole." And she initialed her mark with a Mandarin character, 佳. "My name."
Jia sucked his dick, her tousled hair brushing his inner thighs, and she locked eyes with him, looking up from under her swinging bangs. Garin hardened against her tongue, and they held eye contact. "I can see you on the elevator in the morning, going into work with a full week ahead, worried someone might see what I've written on you."
Jia stopped sucking and worked him with her hands. "I can dress accordingly. My real fear is that I've reserved a day at the women's communal hot spring & spa in Fort Lee this Friday. I'm unsure if this will wash off completely by then, but I can't cancel because I'm taking an important client. I'll have a lot of stares from the other naked women there, if there's even a trace of what you've written on me."
Garin's rod swelled, and he resisted the urge to ejaculate. "What will they say if they can read this one?" and he groped her left tit. "cucked my husband" massaging it like a letter to those women he'd never meet but wished they could know the real Jia.
Jia shook her head. "They will say nothing to my face and pretend not to see it. But when I'm out of earshot, I know the ones who've done the same behind their husbands will condemn me strongest to the others," and she flicked his reddened glans with her tongue before popping it into her mouth.
Garin could barely hold it in, and without any warning, Jia stood, turned, and sat on his cock. Bent over on him, hands on her knees, she bounced her ass on his lap. He couldn't take five and a half bounces before he took hold of each ass cheek in either hand, thrust his hips up and forward, lifting her feet from the floor, and let it all go inside her. "Rrmmmmmmmmmmm, ssshhhhh-yes-yes-yes."
With her light weight, she remained fixed to him, her legs together and curled into her breasts, chin on her knee, arms around her shins, as Garin shot his loads into her, balancing her on him by her hips. "Uhhh-ooooohhhh!" she was loud enough for any guests in rooms next door to hear.
⚜
