In the Minotaur's Eyes

In the Minotaur's Eyes

z119z

© by the author 2014

"The Asterion Society has authorized me to offer you employment for one year at the rate of $10,000 per standard forty-hour work week. My client will . . ."

Steven didn't hear the rest of the sentence. His mind stalled at 10K a week. He couldn't believe it. Last year, working as much as he could, including overtime on a couple of rush projects, he had earned $65,000. Now he was being offered guaranteed full-time employment for a year at over a half million dollars. He did some quick mental calculations. His needs were simple, he never spent much, and he could bank the surplus. Even after taxes, that amount would solve his financial problems and keep him going for several years. He could even afford the new equipment he so desperately needed.

"Mr. Malden?"

It took Steven a second to focus on the lawyer's face. "Oh, sorry. Did you say $10,000 a week for a year?"

"Yes, that is the amount my client is offering. In return, you will agree to work exclusively for the Asterion Society. And you must sign both a nondisclosure agreement and a work-made-for-hire agreement that stipulates that my client owns the copyright in all work you produce for them during your term of employment."

Steven nodded. He was still too stunned to take in completely what the lawyer was saying. For 10K a week, he'd sign anything.

"My client has instructed me to ask you several questions. I will record both my questions and your answers so that we have confirmation of your agreement. Do you understand?"

Steven nodded yes. In one part of his mind he realized that he should be asking questions about what he was getting into, but "10K a week" drove all other thoughts away. He watched dumbly as the lawyer pulled a small digital recorder about the size of a cigarette pack out of his desk and turned it on. "Interview with Mr. Steven Malden. September 7, 2012." The lawyer—Steven could not remember his name. Hillman? Hitchcock? Hitchens, that was it. Something Hitchens—pulled back the sleeve of his suit coat and glanced at his wristwatch. "10:38 a.m. Present in my office at McNair and Associates are Mr. Malden and myself."

Steven's cell had rung three days earlier while he was out jogging. He kept on running as he liberated the phone from his waist pack and held it against his face. The phone slid up and down against his cheek as he shifted to the right to circle around a young woman wheeling a baby stroller and then to the left to avoid crashing into a row of boxes stacked in front of a greengrocer's. An elderly Asian man wearing a denim work apron and wielding a broom stood in the doorway to the store. He watched apprehensively as Steven twisted his body through the narrow corridor between the displays of apples and other fruit along the front wall of his store and the crowd of pedestrians. Steven flashed him what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he rushed past. He was having a good run, and he didn't want to slow down.

It was hard to hear the person on the other end of the phone. A line of impatient drivers began honking when the first car in the queue at the stoplight a block ahead was slow off the mark as the light changed to green. Steven stuck a finger into his left ear to shut out the noise. Someone was calling him about a job. Somebody's assistant. A woman. Her boss, she explained, represented the something something society, who needed a film editor. Someone had seen his work and thought he would be a good candidate for the job. Could he come for an interview with her boss? Great! Would he be available at 10:30 on Friday morning, September 7? Great! She would send a text confirming the appointment and giving him the address.

McNair and Associates was located in the Pembrooke Building. The street view on Google Maps showed a row of upscale shops on the ground floor. When Steven tilted the viewing angle, he found a featureless glass wall rising upwards to a narrow patch of blue sky. The assistant's text directed him to an office on the twenty-sixth floor. She helpfully noted that the nearest subway stop was two blocks away but advised him to take the Sixth Avenue Line to the 47th-50th Street station and then exit through the underground mall that led to Rockefeller Center. She thought that would be quicker for him than transferring. It was only a four-block walk, ten minutes at most even if all the lights were against him. It occurred to Steven later than she had researched his home address and then checked a subway map to find the quickest route for him from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan. He wasn't sure whether to be impressed with her efficiency or concerned about her knowledge of his life.

Steven had never heard of the law firm of McNair and Associates, but the address alone guaranteed that its clients had to have money. He dressed carefully for the interview. He decided against the formality of a suit. Neither of his suits, he suspected, could compete with even the cheapest suit the lowliest summer intern at a firm like McNair and Associates would wear. It would be better to look like someone in the arts—but not slovenly. Definitely not slovenly. Someone with good taste and an eye for color and balance—his clothes should make a statement about his work as a film editor. He opted for a pair of sharply creased brown cotton trousers, a shirt so dark green in color that it appeared almost to be black, a tweed tie in an understated, light green plaid, a linen sports coat in a light tan shade, and brown loafers. He thought he looked good. The clothes fit his body well. They accentuated his broad shoulders and his narrow hips but not so much that it looked like he was bragging about them. He brushed his shoes to a high polish and stuck a copy of his résumé and a list of his clients and projects that he had worked on into a slim brown briefcase.

He took a final look in the mirror, shrugging his shoulders to check the drape of the jacket. He unbuttoned the jacket and stuck his right hand into his right pants pocket so that that side of the jacket was forced backwards. Too casual. He buttoned the jacket again. That was better. Much better. He smiled, stretching his lips away from his teeth, just to make sure that no stray bits of food were stuck between them. All clear. Fly zipped? Check. He patted his pockets. Keys. Wallet, Cell phone. Breath spray. All present and accounted for. He was ready. He looked neat and careful. Dependable. Respectable. Trustworthy. The sort of person who would impress McNair and Associates as eminently employable, capable of satisfying their most finicky client. The lawyer didn't have to know that he usually worked in jeans and a T-shirt, or even just a pair of briefs when he was working at home on a hot day.

He reached the Pembrooke Building at 9:50. He wanted to give himself plenty of time. Better to be far too early than to risk a breakdown on the subway or the delays of midtown traffic. He ordered an espresso in a coffee shop across the street, not so much because he wanted it as to give himself an excuse for being there and to occupy his time. A shelf at chest height ran along the length of the windows facing the street, and he sat on one of the stools before the window and watched the passers-by. This was definitely a higher-class neighborhood than those he usually worked in. Most people wore clothes he could not afford. Granted they might not wear them as well as he would, but it was unlikely that he would ever get a chance to demonstrate that.

He waited until 10:15 and then took the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor. One of the attractive young people sitting behind the reception desk that stretched for twenty feet along one wall typed his name and the name of the person with whom he had the appointment onto her keyboard. She gazed at the screen for a second and then leaned toward Steven as if imparting a confidence meant to be shared only by the two of them. "Mr. Hitchens's personal assistant will be with you shortly, Mr. Malden. Would you like something to drink while you wait? Coffee, tea, water?" Steven smiled and shook his head no as he murmured his thanks. He had the impression that anything louder than a whisper would be regarded as profaning the cathedral that was McNair and Associates.

About twenty small paintings, each about a foot square, hung at different heights on the walls of the reception area. The highest one was almost at the ceiling; the lowest at knee level. He walked around the room, examining them. They were nonrepresentational. Geometric shapes—squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals—were painted in various shades of red on a dark background. As you moved clockwise around the reception area, the colors of the geometric shapes progressively faded from a dark scarlet to a very light pink and the background from black to gray. The shapes became more amorphous, their edges dissolved into the background. Each painting was bisected by line in a contrasting color dividing the canvas into two parts. Some of the lines were horizontal, some vertical, some at an angle, some curved, some jagged. Overall Steven found the collection disturbing. Nothing was quite right. Each geometric shape was slightly off-kilter in relation to the borders of the painting, which left the paintings looking like they were hanging aslant on the wall. Steven had to fight a desire to reach out and straighten them. He couldn't imagine why McNair and Associates wanted to display them. The artworks were a PR statement—that much was clear. But you would think a law firm would want to trumpet its solidity and dependability. Instead these paintings conveyed an ambiguous message—something was slightly off about McNair and Associates, they seemed to be saying. He leaned forward to decipher the signature in the lower right-hand corner of one painting. The scribble defeated his efforts.

"Mr. Malden? I'm Jean Derby, Mr. Hitchens's PA." The woman gestured at the painting Steven had been squinting at. "Do you like the work of Jakob Fremde? Mrs. McNair collects his works, and we have several more throughout the office. If you would like, I can show you some of them later."

Steven murmured something about the paintings being interesting. He didn't want to explain his real reaction to them. He nodded sagely and hoped that he wasn't revealing his total ignorance of Fremde. He suspected it wouldn't do to sneer openly at Mrs. McNair's taste.

Ms Derby led him down a long corridor to an office at the end. It was clearly a reception area / secretary's office situated to defend the inner ramparts from intrusion. She rapped twice on a door in the back wall of the room. There was a noise within, and she opened the door just far enough to announce, "Mr. Malden, Sir." She moved to one side and invited Steven to enter the room with an outstretched hand. The man sitting behind the desk stood up and stepped forward to shake Steven's hand without speaking. He motioned Steven into a chair in front of his desk. Jean Derby asked if either of them wanted something to drink—coffee, tea, water? The lawyer lifted an eyebrow to query Steven, and when Steven shook his head no, Hitchens nodded at her in dismissal.

Mr. Hitchens was in his late sixties or early seventies, Steven guessed. He was expensively dressed in a charcoal gray suit and a stiffly starched white shirt, and wearing a red tie with a pattern of tiny pale blue diamonds. His haircut looked recent; his shave was close. But somehow he didn't add up. He wasn't quite what Steven expected a lawyer at a firm like McNair and Associates would be. He didn't look comfortable in his clothes. It was as if someone else had dressed him in a lawyer outfit. The lawyer's skin was too pale, as if he never went outside during the day, and his cologne was cloying but not strong enough to overcome a faint odor of something even more pungent than the cologne. Steven searched his memory for the smell. It was familiar. Mothballs! That was it. Mothballs. It was as if Hitchens had been rolled out of storage and dressed for the occasion. The lawyer hadn't even taken the time to wash. His handshake had left a film of grease on Steven's hand. He hoped his face wasn't registering his distaste as he wiped his hand surreptitiously on the arm of his chair.

A black leather document folder lay atop Hitchens's desk. He flipped it open to reveal several sheets of paper. Steven could see his picture paper-clipped to the topmost sheet. It looked like his driver's license photo. Hitchens glanced at Steven and then examined the photo before speaking for the first time, "The Asterion Society has authorized me to offer you employment for one year at the rate of $10,000 per standard forty-hour work week." He had a raspy voice.

As an opening to a conversation, it got Steven's attention. He had never heard of the—what was it—the Astersomething Society? But he could get the name later. Now all that mattered was the salary. Who paid film editors $10K a week?

Hitchens looked up from the recorder. His eyes lingered on Steven's clothes. For a second a look of disdain crossed his face, before it was replaced by a bland smile. "There. I think we're ready. As I said, the Asterion Society wishes to hire your services for the period of one year at the rate of $10,000 per week. The period of employment is to begin on Monday, December 31, 2012, and end on Friday, December 27, 2013—that is, for a period of exactly 52 weeks. During that time, you will work exclusively for the Asterion Society. Are you free during that time span and do you agree to work only for Asterion during 2013?"

"Yes, but . . ."

The lawyer held up a hand. "Please save your questions until later, Mr. Malden. At the moment we are simply establishing your concurrence to the basic terms of the agreement. Now, once again, for the record, are you available to begin on Monday, December 31, 2012, and to work exclusively for Asterion for a period of 52 weeks, ending on Friday, December 27, 2013?"

Steven shrugged. "Yes, I guess."

Hitchens frowned at him sternly. "Please do not guess, Mr. Malden." The lawyer picked up a slim gold pen and carefully made a tiny mark on the sheet of paper in front of him.

"Yes, I am available during that time span, and I agree to work exclusively for Asterion during the period." Steven found himself repeating the lawyer's prissy choice of words and hoping that the lawyer was not tabulating his faults with that gold pen.

"During this period of time, you will work a forty-hour week. Asterion wants you to work eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. At the beginning of the employment period, you may specify what hours of the day you wish to work, but thereafter you agree to work those hours and only those hours and not deviate from the schedule. This is very important. Other activities will be scheduled around you, and the Asterion Society must be able to rely on you to work during the time periods you specify and only during those periods. There is to be no overtime. If you agree to work until five o'clock, then my client wants your assurance that you will leave at five. There will be no days off, no holidays, no vacations during the year. If you take a sick day, you must make the time up by working on the weekend. Do you agree?"

"Does that mean that I will work on all holidays, even Christmas and the Fourth of July?"

"Yes, Mr. Malden. Asterion regards the proposed payments to you as more than adequate recompense for one years' worth of missed holidays."

"Okay. I can handle that."

"Good, do you further agree that you will not discuss the terms of your employment with Asterion or the content of your work with anyone?"

"Yes."

"I should explain that the details of all these points will be spelled out in the employment contract and in the nondisclosure and work-made-for-hire agreements that you will sign."

"I understand. I have signed such agreements before. They're pretty standard in my line of work. I haven't had to agree to work such set hours before. I usually just keep working at a job until I'm done with it, but it won't be a problem."

The lawyer laboriously took Steven through the remaining stipulations, stopping occasionally to explain a point to make sure that Steven understood the full implications of the restrictions the Asterion Society demanded. Steven agreed to all of them. He would work in an office provided by the Asterion Society, using equipment supplied by Asterion. A driver would pick him up in front of his apartment building in time to get him to work at the time agreed; a driver would be waiting to take him back home or wherever he wanted to go at the end of the day. He would not make copies of the video recordings supplied by Asterion or of the final tapes that he made. He agreed to be searched before he began work and after he finished to ensure that he was carrying no recording or data storage devices or leaving with any Asterion property or with any written notes. He would surrender his cell phone before beginning work; it would be returned to him at the end of the day. Meals and snacks would be provided; there would be a coffee machine, an electric kettle if he preferred tea, and a refrigerator stocked with cold drinks and water. Tobacco, alcohol, and drugs were prohibited.

"That is all I have, Mr. Malden. Now, I believe you have some questions." The lawyer closed the file in front of him and set it to one side.

"Just one. Will any of the work be illegal?"

"No." The lawyer waited for a second and then said, "Is that all?" When Steven nodded yes, Hitchens picked up the recorder and spoke into it, "Interview terminated, 11:23 a,m." He paused for a second and then turned the device off and put it on top of the file. "Now if you will sign the contracts and agreements. Please sign and date each page." Hitchens set a stack of papers before Steven and handed him a pen.

When Steven finished, he arranged the pages in a neat pile and gave them to the lawyer. Hitchens opened the central drawer on his desk and extracted an envelope. "This contains an inventory of the equipment and editing programs the Asterion Society will provide. Please review it in the next week or so. If you need other equipment or editing programs, let Ms Derby know. Her business card is included with these papers. Asterion will procure any additional materials you need. A week or so before the term of your employment commences, Ms Derby will contact you to make final arrangements for your transportation. I remind you that you are now bound by the nondisclosure agreement and may not discuss any aspect of your dealings with the Asterion Society, including this meeting. I am authorized to tell you that one reason you have been offered employment is that a background check revealed that you are capable of being discreet. Absolute discretion is the minimum requirement."

Hitchens stood up. There must have been some signal Steven had not seen, because at the same instant the door behind him opened as the lawyer extended his hand for a final handshake. "Ms Derby will show you out."

Steven began work on Monday, December 31, promptly at 7:00 a.m. When he explained to Joan Derby that he was a morning person and preferred to work from 7:00 until 3:00, he half-expected her to protest. Instead she said, "I will arrange for a driver to pick you up at 6:30. Please be ready."

His doorbell buzzed promptly at 6:30 on the last day of 2012, and a voice over the intercom announced, "Your transportation is waiting." When Steven exited his apartment building, a man wearing a chauffeur's black suit and cap opened the nearside rear door of a limo parked in front of the building. Steven assumed that the car was waiting for him. There didn't appear to be anything else that qualified as "transportation." He was surprised at the limo. It was the first one he had ever seen on his street. It wasn't that type of neighborhood. He didn't know what he had been expecting, or even why Asterion was supplying transportation. Their destination couldn't be too far away if it was no more than a half-hour's drive at that time of the morning. He decided that if it wasn't too far, he would tell Asterion that he preferred to walk or bike. The exercise and the fresh air would help him get started.

Inside the car he found a cup of coffee in a holder in the armrest separating the seats. A cautious sip revealed that Asterion knew his coffee preferences. That morning's edition of the Times lay on the seat next to him. Again, someone seemed to have researched his habits. By the time he had settled into his seat, the car was moving. The driver's compartment was sectioned off from the rear seats by a nearly opaque wall of dark glass. It blocked his view forward. The driver's head and shoulders were simply a darker area on the glass. The street ahead was invisible. The side windows were only a little more revealing. The car turned left at the next corner and then right at the second street down. They were headed north and east into a part of Brooklyn that he almost never visited. He soon lost track of where they were. The street signs at every corner went by in a flash. By the time he focused on them, they were already out of sight. There wasn't even much traffic. He wouldn't have guessed that it was possible for the streets to be so quiet at that hour of the morning.

Twenty minutes later the car stopped, and the driver shut off the engine. Steven heard the driver open his door and then close it. He pulled on the handle next to him, but the door was locked. He was looking for the release button when the driver opened the door for him. "Sir." It struck him that that was the first word the driver had said. He stepped out of the car.

"Where are we?" The limo was parked beside a building four stories high painted a nondescript tan. The front of the building stretched the length of the block. Opposite was a similar building. There were no signs on the buildings. Except for the entrance lobby of the building in front of him, no lights shone through the rows of windows that ran across the façades of the buildings. They looked deserted—unused for many years.

In reply to Steven's question, the driver touched the bill of his hat. "Your transportation will be ready at 3:00 o'clock, Sir." He closed the door and walked around to the driver's side, leaving Steven alone on the sidewalk. He had no clue what he should do next.

"Sir?"

Steven turned toward the speaker. The man was middle-aged. He wore a shabby blue padded jacket over khaki trousers. The cuffs of the trousers settled onto his shoes in several folds, as if the trousers were too long or he had recently lost a lot of weight and his trousers had settled further down on his body. "I have been ordered not to reveal my name to you. If necessary, you can call me John Smith. We are to speak only the minimum necessary. I am to show you to your office." Smith led Steven across the sidewalk and then unlocked the door to the building. The lobby was as nondescript as the building. The walls were painted a dun color. The linoleum floor was a mix of black and brown tiles, apparently chosen in the misplaced hope that they would not show dirt. A wooden staircase on the right-hand side led upwards. There was no elevator.

Smith ignored the stairs and led Steven down a hallway to the left. He stopped at the first door and unlocked it. He pulled a slip of paper out of his coat pocket and read in a quick monotone: "This is the anteroom, Sir. There is a cabinet for your clothes." Smith looked around the room and then pointed to the right when he found the cabinet. "After I leave, you are to undress. Please remove all your clothes including socks and underwear and leave them and all your possessions including your phone in the cabinet. When you close the door to the cabinet, it will automatically lock. Then step into the body scanner. Wait until you are told to proceed and then enter the next room. There you will find work clothes as well as a coffee machine, an electric kettle, a microwave, and a refrigerator containing water and juices, as well as your lunch. Cups and silverware are in the cabinets over the sink. Please leave dirty dishes on the counter next to the sink. The bathroom is through the door on the left.

"Your office is through the door on the right. You will find instructions about the work in a manila envelope on the desk. If you have any questions or requests, please write them down on the pad of paper provided and leave it in the middle of the desk. The answers to your questions will be waiting for you the following morning. Your requests will be honored as soon as possible.

"At the end of the day, please remove your work clothes and leave them in the kitchen. Step into the body scanner again. Wait until you are told to leave, and then enter the outer room. The cabinet with your possessions will automatically unlock as you exit the scanner. When you have put on your own clothes, press the button beside the door. Mr. Smith will unlock the door and escort you to the car.

"If there is an emergency, you can use the phone on the desk to call Mr. Smith. The phone connects only to Mr. Smith." When he finished reading, Smith folded the sheet of paper and put it back in his pocket. Smith nodded at Steven and then stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind him. Steven heard the snick of a lock engaging. The upper part of the door had a small opaque, milky white window. The shadow of Smith's head flitted across it and was gone.

Steven undressed and hung his clothes in the locker. There was a shelf in the locker, and he placed his wallet, keys, and phone on it. He heard a bolt slide into place when he closed the door. He had dressed up a bit that morning, but he now knew that didn't matter. He could wear whatever he liked. He wouldn't be wearing those clothes during the day. He could see the black jumpsuit provided him as his work clothes on the far side of the scanner. He wondered if Smith was watching him. The thought was unnerving. The sudden vision of Smith sitting in front of a monitor observing his body made him hurry into the scanner. He reminded himself that he was being paid 10K a week. For that amount he would put up with the Asterion Society's paranoia and submit to its security measures, but still he didn't want to expose himself to Smith's gaze any longer than necessary.

When Steven stepped into the scanner, a circular bar of blue light came on above his head. It slowly moved down his body and then back up again. A light on a panel in front of him glowed red for a few seconds and then turned green. A mechanical voice said, "Thank you. You may continue into the next room." If a recording of a real voice, the sound had been distorted and rendered inhuman. Most likely, Steven decided, it was produced by a machine reader.

The jumpsuit had been folded and placed on a chair. No underwear or socks had been provided, just a pair of paper booties. Steven picked the suit up and shook it out to its full length. It was softer than he expected. He stepped into the legs and then pushed his arms through the sleeves. The front closed with a strip of Velcro. The suit was warmer than it looked, and it fit him well. Either someone had made a good guess of his size, or the Asterion Society had somehow found out his measurements. He rubbed the fabric between his fingers. It didn't feel like cloth. More like paper. Maybe it was disposable.

Steven quickly checked out the room and opened the refrigerator. It held all the things that Smith's recital had promised. He opened the door to the bathroom. It was small, just large enough to hold the toilet and the sink. There was no mirror. He could see his image vaguely reproduced in the metal dispenser for paper towels. The image was distorted by the shape of the dispenser—a black, roughly human shape topped by a head with a too-long nose. There was a small wastebasket beneath the sink.

The office was much larger than he expected. Like the other rooms it had no windows, but the lighting was strong. Almost too strong. It might wash the colors out of the video files. He would have to ask that it be dimmed so that he could work in lighting closer to that of most rooms and, if need be, adjust the color on the tapes. The work room held all the equipment he had requested. He ran his hands over the machines. They were top-of-the-line, much better than those he was often given to work with. A manila envelope sat square in the middle of a small desk.

The instructions were simple. Each Monday he would find six new files in the computer. All six were digital recordings of the same scene made by fixed cameras, each shooting the scene from a different angle. He was to combine the six separate recordings to make a new file. The finished file was to be ready by the end of the workday on Friday. The only requirement was that the new file was to last exactly as long as the original six recordings. The new file should be a continuous recording from the beginning to the end of the scene, with no second omitted. Beyond that he had complete freedom. He would be told the length of the scene each Monday. The first week's assignment was 52 minutes 7 seconds long. Steven switched on the computer and called up the files. All six files began running simultaneously on a bank of six monitors.

The man was naked. He was trim and decent looking, but not a model, certainly not porn movie material. Except for the fact that he was naked, he could have just walked off the street and into the room. He appeared to be in his late twenties, early thirties. His dark hair was cropped short all around. His body was lightly haired, mostly in the center of the chest and on his legs as well as in the usual places. He might be a jogger or a tennis player. He had the appearance of someone who exercised but wasn't interested in body building. The face was masculine, with a strong jaw. The eyes were deep set and almost black. He was clean-shaven but with a five-o'clock shadow. He impressed Steven as an office worker on the way home at the end of the day who for some unknown reason had taken off his clothes and wandered into the room.

For the first minute the room had been empty. The six cameras revealed four walls, without windows or doors. None of the cameras was visible on the monitors. Four of the cameras were, Steven guessed, located in the corners of the room, just below the ceiling. Each displayed all of the room except for the areas behind the camera and immediately below it. One camera was located in the ceiling of the room, directly over a platform in the center of the room. The platform was rectangular, raised above the floor. It was impossible to guess its dimensions or its height because of the lack of references in the room. The surface appeared to be padded. The sixth camera must have been mounted in the wall in front of one of the long sides of the platform, but much lower than the other cameras—about eye level if the walls of the room were of standard height. The room was brightly lit, but no lights were visible. It was as if the ceiling and the walls, perhaps even the floor were made of some translucent substance that allowed light to enter from all sides. There were no shadows. Everything in the room was a dull, matte white—walls, ceiling, floor, platform.

Only the first tapes devoted so much time to displaying the empty room. Several weeks later it occurred to Steven that his employer had devoted the first minutes to showing him the setup.

Two of the four corner cameras showed a panel sliding open in the facing wall. The man stepped through it, and the panel slid shut behind him. In the two or three seconds the panel was open, only a black, featureless expanse came into view behind the man. The man took three steps into the room and then stopped. His body was visible on all but the overhead camera. He slowly turned around. Five of the screens revealed his body from various angles. He smiled nervously and looked around. He seemed unfamiliar with the room. He was apparently trying to make sense of it.

He walked over to the platform and touched it. His fingers dented the surface, confirming Steven's guess that the top was padded. The platform reached almost to the man's hips. He walked all the way around it. As he did so, the cameras tracked his movements, and Steven realized that the cameras were guided by motion detectors. The man also appeared on the screens showing the images captured by the overhead camera and the camera directly facing the platform.

The man suddenly turned to face a sound. A panel slid open, and a second man walked through it. Steven was sure that it was a different panel. He made a note to check that out later, when he rewatched the tapes. He could build in a bit of suspense by focusing on the blank wall for a few seconds before the panel opened, perhaps splitting the screen to show both the first man and the wall. Or if he could find the right shot, he could show the man against the area that was about to open, followed by a close-up to get a reaction shot.

The newcomer was taller than the first man—by several inches. The lack of features in the room made it hard to tell, but Steven estimated that he was about six feet tall, which would make the first man about five feet eight. Like the first man, this man was also naked. He was slender and wiry, not at all large, but the edges of his muscles stood out cleanly. Prominent veins snaked up and down his body. He had the type of build that testifies to large numbers of reps with lighter weights. He was interested in definition, not in bulk.

He was also startlingly colorless. His entire body had been shaved—even his eyebrows and eyelashes. Unlike most men who shaved their heads, his scalp showed no trace of a darker area where the hair had been. His beard had either been shaved so closely that it was invisible or had been removed. Wasn't there some disease or genetic condition that left people hairless? Steven couldn't remember. He vaguely recalled some murderer with that condition on one of those crime shows like CSI who had been caught when DNA analysis had identified the condition. Whatever it was, this man had it or something like it. The man's lips and eyes were unusually pale—the lips were thin and barely showed as a line in his face. His eyes were a watery blue. The pupils were the darkest parts of his body. The only other areas of color on his body were his nipples, which were small and pink, and his cock and balls. They, too, were a darker pink against his body. Something was funny about the texture of his skin. It looked rubbery, as if his body exuded some sort of protective coating. His might almost have been a humanoid space alien.

Steven wondered if the second man's skin tone would be a problem against the stark white background. There was a risk that the man would fade into the background. But maybe he could exploit that—blur the man into the background to suggest his unity with the room. The only body parts that would really show up would be his genitals—a stark comment on his function in the video. Steven made a note to investigate the possibilities.

The man could be Asian, Steven decided. Or maybe one of those Eastern Europeans or Russians whose facial features were slightly Asian. He wasn't beautiful. Nor, like the first man, was he model or porn actor material. But he was—he had something. You wouldn't associate him with sex at first glance, but your eyes kept coming back to him, enjoying his looks, thinking about that body, and how it would feel next to you, what it would be like to touch that skin. Steven's groin contracted, and there was that familiar stab of pleasure upward into his gut and chest from the area behind his balls. Part of it was that the man looked so strange, so foreign. His differences made him exotic.

As Steven discovered in the first month, every week a new first man emerged from behind the sliding panel. Every week he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. And every week the second man entered two or three minutes later, after the cameras had had time to record the first man's body and his reaction to the room. The second man was the same each week. Steven quickly came to think of him as his employer, the man behind the Asterion Society.

Steven had Googled "Asterion Society" even before he began working for it. There were no hits. He even tried searching the list of publicly registered organizations in New York State, but found nothing. The only thing he learned was that Asterion was another name for the Minotaur of Greek mythology. So he christened the second man the Minotaur. The name was fitting. The visitors seemed to be sacrifices—a new one each week—to feed the Minotaur.

The second week in February, the visitor was a white man in his late twenties. His one distinguishing feature was his shaved and waxed head. It caught the light and reflected it back at the cameras. It flashed whenever the man bent his head toward the camera. Steven made a note to avoid showing such shots if he could. If he couldn't, he would have to process those sections of the video to tone down the gleam. It would be a nuisance—he would have to massage each shot in which the man's scalp appeared. It was another thing that made him certain that he was dealing with amateurs. On a professional shoot, makeup would have been used to eliminate the shine. Luckily the Minotaur's skin didn't reflect the light or it would have been impossible to doctor the tapes to eliminate glare and reflections. He would leave a note for his employer explaining the problem and recommending against hiring other men with shiny heads in the future.

Other than his bald head, the visitor behaved much like the previous visitors Steven had worked with. The Minotaur's entrance startled him. When he turned to face the Minotaur, he looked a bit apprehensive. He didn't back away when the Minotaur approached him, but his movements were tentative and uncertain. It was not so much the presence of another man that disturbed him as the fact that the man was the Minotaur. Whomever he had been expecting, it wasn't the Minotaur.

The man didn't resist when the Minotaur began touching him, but he held himself tensely. Steven found it fascinating to watch. Initially all the visitors behaved like this. It was as if they had been told another man would be present and that there would be sex, but they hadn't been warned about his appearance. Clearly, most of them found the Minotaur unsettling. Perhaps it was the Minotaur's lack of hair and his almost complete absence of color. Some visitors smiled uncertainly in greeting and were clearly taken aback when the Minotaur did not respond to them. He simply walked over to the visitor and touched him.

But their initial disquiet quickly disappeared. Steven could never figure out how the Minotaur did it. He just began touching the men, slowly, confidently, and the men's hesitance dissolved. After a few seconds, the visitor would reach out and began returning the Minotaur's caresses. But not for long. Never for long. Steven couldn't see how the Minotaur did it. He never spoke. There was no apparent command. But somehow the visitor absorbed the lesson that he was not to move unless the Minotaur moved him. He was to be docile. The visitor ceased to initiate any action. He became a puppet that the Minotaur manipulated. It was like watching a dog being trained.

The Minotaur was a devil. That was the only explanation Steven could think of that accounted for the control he exercised over the other men. The other men were so passive. Other than groans and sighs, the visitors in the recordings never spoke. The never asked for directions or made comments. Yet the Minotaur was clearly in charge, and the visitor seemed to learn very quickly exactly how he was to behave. There couldn't be a script, because in the first few minutes of their encounter with the Minotaur, the men tried to be active participants, but that soon stopped. Perhaps they were hypnotized or under some form or mental manipulation. Whatever the reason for their behavior, the Minotaur always ended up controlling them.

Steven didn't know when he decided to make the Minotaur the focus of each video. Later, when he tried to reconstruct the evolution of his editing, he thought it might have been as early as March. It hadn't really been a conscious decision. It just seemed the natural, the right, thing to do. Certainly by the summer the edited videos featured the Minotaur and treated the visitors as interchangeable objects. "Cannon fodder." He rationalized it as a means of providing continuity.. Surely, the weekly appearance of the Minotaur meant that he was intended to be the star of the series.

But in truth, the Minotaur was simply much more intriguing than the visitors. It wasn't just that he exercised such complete control over the visitors. It was the invisibility of the means he used to control them. He simply touched them and stroked them and gradually aroused each visitor until he opened up and presented himself to the Minotaur. Each visitor became like one of those Austrian stallions controlled by subtle signals from his rider. That was the aspect of each encounter that Steven tried to capture.

After the Minotaur entered, he positioned himself behind the visitor and began stroking him, starting with the arms or the shoulders. His touch was light, the movements of his hands languid. Slow, almost delicate, more a suggestion of touch than actual contact.

The fifth week the visitor was a blond man in his mid-twenties. Steven moved the focus of the image to the Minotaur's fingers gliding over the visitor's body. It was almost as if the Minotaur was stroking the fine fleece of blond hair covering the visitor's forearms, relying on the faint current of air stirred by his passing hands. The visitor shivered. He gasped for breath. The skin of his forearm stippled with gooseflesh.

On the other screens the Minotaur bent forward slightly and kissed the young man's shoulder near the intersection with the neck. The visitor tilted his head sideways exposing his neck. The Minotaur planted a row of slow, thoughtful kisses along the ridge of muscle leading to the shoulder, as he continued to stroke the man's arms. The visitor's eyes closed, and his mouth opened slightly. He held his breath and then let it out in a long sigh of pleasure.

Steven tilted his own head at the same angle, opening a gap between his neck and the collar of the work clothes. He let the Minotaur's kisses calm him, make him docile, make him want to let the Minotaur use him as he wished.

On the screens, the Minotaur began stroking the visitor's nipples, drawing indolent circles with his fingertips until the flesh contracted and pushed the nipples out. Again, Steven focused the images in and caught the scratch of the Minotaur's fingernails against the nipple. The visitor leaned back into the Minotaur's embrace and turned his mouth toward the Minotaur's. They kissed. Gently at first, then more insistently, the visitor's mouth opening for the Minotaur's tongue.

Steven plucked at his nipples through the fabric of the work clothes and ran his tongue over his lips. He opened his mouth to receive the Minotaur's kisses.

The Minotaur's hands wandered down the visitor's chest and across his stomach, tracing the curves of the abdominal muscles. Slowly, always slowly. Patiently. Teasing the visitor, making him want more and more.

The Minotaur guided the visitor's body onto the platform. The visitor that week was a young Hispanic man. He knelt on his hand and knees. The Minotaur stroked the back of his thighs. The visitor's eyes closed, and he moaned as the Minotaur began touching his buttocks.

The visitor—a middle-aged man that week—lay on his back, his legs spread apart and raised. Steven zoomed in the overhead camera on the Minotaur's cock as it penetrated the visitor. He shifted to a shot of the visitor's face as the cock slowly slid into him. But then as he always did, Steven split the screen and added a shot of the Minotaur's face. The Minotaur always stared straight into the camera as he fucked the visitor. His eyes seemed to grow larger and larger. His face was, as always, devoid of any feeling. In contrast the visitor's face registered everything he was experiencing. The visitor groaned. Each thrust drove a grunt from his mouth. The visitor's eyes closed in ecstasy.

Some of the visitors betrayed the pain they felt at first, their faces contorting in a silent howl. Some simply mouthed "Oh, fuck fuck fuck" over and over. There was never any indication on the Minotaur's face or body when he came. It was the visitor who had the orgasm. The visitor's body contracted and then shuddered and spasmed with the force of the Minotaur's ejaculations. The only indication that the Minotaur was finished was that his body stopped moving for a few seconds. Then he withdrew and left. The cameras showed only the visitor lying or kneeling on the platform, not moving, drained of energy. Then the recording stopped.

The first week, Steven had immediately registered that the videos recorded a sex scene. That fact amused rather than startled him. It wasn't the first pornographic video he had edited. He didn't expect it to be the last—as long as there were gay men, there would be a demand for gay porn. And pornography paid well, although 10K a week was generous even by the standards of the porn industry.

After he had viewed the first set of tapes several times, he concluded that the "hook" of this particular video was that the first man did not know that he was being taped. He decided to play up that angle—the unsuspecting participant. He almost called the first man the victim, but as the tape progressed, he realized that the man was enjoying himself too much to be labeled a victim. The man may not have known he was being photographed, but he certainly liked the sex.

The second man knew the cameras were there. That much was clear, especially in the final scene when he stared directly at the camera as he pounded the other man. Steven found the stare odd. He wasn't sure what to make of it. Was the man letting those who would eventually view the video know that he was in on the joke? Was he inviting them to vicariously enjoy the first man's ignorance? And the man was so unemotional. For all the reaction the man showed, he could have been exercising—perhaps that was all it was to him. A series of vigorous pelvic thrusts to work out his glutes and lower abs. Steven guessed that the man's lack of reaction was important, since the camera were recording it. The director must have told him to do it. That was the only explanation Steven could come up with. It was obvious to him that he should include the stare in the final editing. That's when he decided to split the screen to show both man's faces.

That weekend he reviewed the final editing in his mind over and over again. He hoped that the mysterious Asterion Society would find his first week's work satisfactory. He had been pleased with the results. His editing, he felt, had enhanced the interaction between the two men and captured the weird dynamic between them.

He kept coming back to his treatment of the final scene. It worried him. Perhaps he had overemphasized the image of the second man's staring at the camera as he fucked the other man. But it was such an odd element. It was impossible to ignore it and difficult to let it go. He replayed it over and over in his mind. He paused his mental camera on that shot and let the man stare at him. It was strange. He felt both aroused and contented. It was like he no longer had to struggle. He could relax and let go. And yet he wanted the second man. He wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to make love to him. He could barely remember what the first man looked like, but the body of the second man was so solid, so real in his mind.

When he woke up on Sunday morning, he vaguely recalled dreaming about the eyes. There was something about them that stuck in the mind. It was an off thing to put in a pornvid. Was it some sort of meta-referential comment? The second man's eyes staring into the camera's "eye"? The second man's eyes as a substitute for the viewer's eyes? An observation on the role of viewing and displaying in pornography? Steven couldn't decide, but he did wonder at a director who thought it necessary to include such a comment in a porn video. It wasn't what viewers wanted. Maybe he should have edited it out.

On Friday, he had left a note asking for feedback. It would make the editing easier, he explained, if he knew the director's intent. He could focus the video on what the director wanted. Without such instructions, he could only make guesses from the contents of the files. He hoped to find detailed comments on the first tape when he returned to work on Monday. If he didn't get them, he would have to ask for them. But he was sure that he would get a reply. At the end of his first day of work, he had left a note explaining that the lighting in the room was too bright and needed to be decreased. On Tuesday he found a dimmer switch installed so that he could adjust the lights to his liking. Whoever was behind the Asterion Society was responsive. Presumably they wanted the videos to reflect their wishes.

On Monday he found the note that he had left on Friday. Beneath his request for feedback someone had written: "Message received." That was it. Apparently he was on his own. The Asterion Society was leaving him, he decided, to his own devices—for now at least. Unless he heard more from the society, the only thing he could do was to edit the files in the way that made sense to him. If the Asterion Society thought it acceptable to let him produce the narrative he liked, so be it. Without further directions from them, all he could do was take the raw materials they supplied and impose an order on them that appealed to him. The Asterion Society was hiring his eyes, his taste, his sensibilities. So be it. It would be his story not theirs. He had to trust that they would tell him if he was departing from their vision.

Until the reappearance of man he would dub the Minotaur in the same room the next week, Steven assumed that the first tape had been a one-off. He expected different actors, a different scenario, a different setting. The second session followed the same general "plot" as the first session and ended as had the previous week's tapes with the second man staring directly into the camera as he fucked the first man. The reappearance of the Minotaur in the same room week after week forced him to re-evaluate the purpose of the videos. They were commemorations, he decided, a visual record of the Minotaur's performances. The cameras were eyewitnesses, and the videos were evidence. They were memories, and he was the author of those memories through his editing of the raw videos. He took the recordings and made them tell a story, a story that increasingly spoke to the Minotaur's control of his visitors. It might not be the story the Asterion Society wanted, but it was the one they were getting. It was the one that appealed to him.

Steven increasingly saw the Minotaur as the audience for the film, the only audience. In Steven's mind, the Minotaur wanted to see himself handling his partners. There was no director, just the Minotaur. The Minotaur was the active, dominant man; the visitor was an object on which the Minotaur wrote his will, an effect not a cause. And Steven was ensuring that the Minotaur got what he wanted.

The weekly appearances of the Minotaur made him all the more curious about the Asterion Society. He redoubled his efforts to find out more about the society and, if possible, about the Minotaur. The Minotaur was too memorable not to have been noticed. There had to be some sort of public record.

"Looks like it's going to be a nice day today." Steven smiled at the driver as he got into the back seat of the limo. The same man drove two or three mornings every week. Perhaps this morning he would open up a bit. If he got the driver into the habit of conversing with him, he might, he reasoned, be able to get him to discuss the arrangements with the Asterion Society. He might know something that would allow Steven to find out what or who the Asterion Society was. Perhaps the man drove the Minotaur as well.

The driver's eyes drifted over to his face and then glided away again. He checked that Steven was in the back seat and then shut the door, closing Steven off from the outside world. Steven sighed. It was as if he hadn't spoken. Some mornings he felt as if he were being put into a transport van like those used for prisoners. Granted the limo was more luxurious than a van, but he still felt trapped inside it.

None of the drivers ever spoke. They just held the door open for Steven. So far there had been eight different drivers, and all of them treated him like cargo. Perhaps like Mr. Smith they were under orders not to speak to Steven. Maybe they were the Mr. Joneses.

Mrs. Cunningham, the tenant on the ground floor, had noticed the limo and questioned him about it. She had met him at the mailboxes one afternoon as he was coming home, and said, "Fancy car." She tilted her head toward the street. "If you got that kind of money to spend, you should move to a better neighborhood."

Steven could only smile and shrug. He tried to appear nonchalant. "The people I'm working for now are providing transportation. I'm not paying for it. The subway's more my speed."

That hadn't been enough to satisfy Mrs. Cunningham's curiosity. Once the subject had been broached, she wanted to know everything. Steven wished that he knew the answers to her questions, even if he couldn't have admitted that because of the non-disclosure agreement. It had been almost embarrassing to fob her off with, "It's a research group that wants video documentation of its work. I just edit films for them."

Of course, then she wanted to know more. What sorts of films? What kind of research? Where? What was the group's name? Steven had to claim that he didn't understand the content of the videos. Some sort of scientific research. "All I do is edit the nonessential stuff out of the tapes. I don't have to understand what's going on." Then he excused himself and ran up the stairs without waiting for a response.

Steven didn't even know the address of the building that housed the work room. The limo drivers varied the route each morning. He was sure that the building was somewhere north and to the east in what had once been a light manufacturing area. But he wasn't certain.

Nor was Mr. Smith any help. He unlocked the door each morning and accompanied Steven to the door of the work space, and he let Steven out when he was through at 3:00 o'clock each day. He was a bit more talkative than the drivers, but he confined his conversation to remarks on the weather. Steven had the impression that one of Mr. Smith's duties was to keep him from snooping around the rest of the building—not that he would find anything. Other than himself and Mr. Smith, he was sure that the building was empty. He was tempted to sneak out of the room, leaving the door propped open, but he suspected that his exit would trigger an alarm and Mr. Smith would come running. He wasn't even sure that the outer door would open before 3:00.

For all he knew, the Asterion Society consisted solely of the Minotaur, and its only purpose was to document his weekly seductions of the visitors.

***** "Oh, I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna cum."

The man pulled out of Steven's mouth and rolled over onto his back. He grabbed his cock and began pumping it vigorously. The bed shook in rhythm with his strokes. He pushed his head back into the pillow and scrunched his eyes shut. His mouth was open, with his lips protruding in an O-shape. Hoots and pants came from his throat. He moved further away from Steven, as if he were jealously guarding his body and didn't want Steven to touch him.

Steven watched the man for a few seconds and then rolled over onto his back too. He studied the ceiling. It needed to be painted, maybe even replastered. Large cracks ran from the light fixture in the center of the ceiling toward the walls on all sides. Steven stroked his stomach and then reached for his cock. It wasn't hard anymore. He raised his head and looked down at his groin. Nope. Nothing doing down there. Whatever interest he might have had was gone.

So much for that, he thought. He helps the man get excited, and then the guy decides to jerk off, jerk being the operative word. He didn't even need to be there. It was like having phone sex but being in the same room. He felt like getting up and leaving, but he supposed he should wait until the guy came.

Steven didn't have long to wait. To judge from the man's cries as he climaxed, he was satisfied. He took several deep breaths and then giggled. He glanced at Steven and then bounded out of bed and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Steven stood up and found his clothes. He dressed quickly, sliding his feet into his tennis shoes but not bothering to tie them. He was out the door and out of the building before the man had time to finish in the bathroom. He suspected the man would be just as happy to find him gone.

It was his second disappointing encounter in two weeks. The previous week, he had called up a friend. They had gone out, had dinner, stopped in a bar for a couple of beers, and then gone back to the friend's apartment. They had begun making out, but the friend had had too much to drink and was tired. He fell asleep while they were cuddling on the couch. After half an hour, Steven had helped him to bed and tucked him in. Then he left.

Why did reality have to be so damned frustrating, so damned awful? Why couldn't it be more like the Minotaur tapes? At least he could manipulate them to his liking. That was the great thing about his job. He was free to create the perfect lover. It was a gift from the Asterion Society. They supplied the raw material, and he used it to create documentaries showing how sex, how love, should be. Of course, it helped that the Minotaur was a perfect lover.

In that week's video, the Minotaur had devoted nearly half an hour minutes to foreplay. By the time he guided the visitor's head to his groin, the visitor was not just under the Minotaur's control—he was totally and ecstatically acquiescent. He gazed at the Minotaur's cock with adoration, and he sucked it as if it were an act of devotion. When the Minotaur entered him, he was suffused with happiness. He shimmered when the Minotaur came. It was almost a religious rite.

Why couldn't the men he went to bed with be more like the Minotaur? The Minotaur's appearances in his dreams were more satisfactory than the sex he had with "real" men. No one wanted to make love anymore. They just wanted a quickie. They didn't want to interact. The other person was more like a convenience, a set of holes that could be used for a short period of time. No one was interested in seducing the other's mind and body through caresses and kisses. Steven couldn't recall the last time someone had aroused him the way the Minotaur aroused his partners, the last time anyone had had the patience to allow Steven to arouse him the way the Minotaur aroused his partners. No one wanted to give of himself, to give up, to surrender to another person the way the Minotaur's partners did. What was the Minotaur's secret? Even if he knew it, would other people allow him to use it? Steven had begun to think not.

It was like his relationship with Ben. One day they had looked at each other after having sex. It was like a door closing. "You aren't what I really want. You really aren't at all what I want." That thought had popped into his mind. He had the feeling that Ben had just had the same thought. And that had been that. It didn't take them long to agree to be "just friends." That hadn't worked out either. Occasionally they ran into each other, and they would spend half a minute asking each other, "Hey, how's it going? What have you been up to?" But they were always in a hurry and couldn't wait for answers.

"Gotta run. I'm meeting someone. But, hey, give me a call. Maybe we can grab a coffee."

"Yeah, that would be great. See ya."

Luckily he had met the Minotaur only a few weeks later. They were a good match. At least in his porn-abetted imagination, he could find the person he wanted. And he had such good conversations with the Minotaur. Granted, they were a bit one-sided and Steven had to speak for the Minotaur, but the man was so understanding and empathetic. He knew Steven better than Steven knew himself.

The shiny stain on the front of the work suit was the size of a quarter. It wouldn't have been noticeable against the black fabric if Steven hadn't been leaking pre-cum all day. He didn't know why that week's tape aroused him so much, but at the end of the day the crotch of the suit was spotted with stiff circles where the pre-cum had dried. Some of them were still glistening with wet. It wasn't the first time that the tapes had given him a hard-on, He wondered if the person who cleaned the office each day after he left inspected the discarded work suits. He hoped not. Each day, after he took the suit off, he folded it up into as small a shape as he could, making sure that the crotch area was in the middle. If he were the cleaner, he would simply push the suit into a trash bag and not stop to check it. He didn't think the suits were washed. Even if they were, surely the person would just shove it into the machine and not look at it closely enough to notice stains. He hoped so. If the cleaner took the time to inspect the suit he had worn that day, there would be no mistaking what had made the stains.

The six tapes in that week's set recorded the same general scene as the others he had seen so far. But the Minotaur had seemed to exercise so much more control over the visitor. This visitor was so very submission and obedient. The Minotaur had eased open the visitor's mouth with his hands and then leaned forward until his own mouth was poised above the visitor's mouth. A stream of saliva had oozed out of the Minotaur's mouth and slowly dripped into the visitor's gaping mouth. The visitor looked as if he were drinking the nectar of the gods. The Minotaur stroked the man's throat as if pushing his saliva down into the man. Steven felt disgusted and aroused at the same time. It was as if the Minotaur was feeding the man a stream of cum. His saliva looked almost like cum. Steven wasn't sure that it was saliva. But he wanted the Minotaur's fingers to stroke his throat like that. He wanted to tilt his head with his mouth wide open facing up toward the Minotaur. He wanted the Minotaur to feed him, to make him obedient and submissive. He wanted to stare into the Minotaur's eyes and feel all resistance drain away.

"God, you are so beautiful." The words tumbled unbidden out of his mouth. It took a few seconds for him to realize that he had spoken out loud. On the monitors, the Minotaur paused and stared directly into the camera mounted in front of the platform. It was as if he had heard Steven speak. He kept his eyes on the camera as he began licking the other man's throat, tracing a wet trail between the man's ear and his shoulder with broad strokes of his tongue. Steven grabbed his cock and began stroking himself. He couldn't stop. The Minotaur continued to lick the man's throat, controlling the movements of Steven's hand. The stroke of the Minotaur's tongue began at the base of the man's throat, the entire tongue dragging slowly upward to Steven's ear. Steven matched the Minotaur stroke for stroke as the Minotaur licked his throat, as the Minotaur licked his cock.

"God, you are so beautiful. I want you. Please let me join you in the room. I want to be filmed as we make love." Steven looked down at the sheet of paper. He used the tablet frequently to make notes but seldom to leave messages. Every week, he jotted down the camera number and the time stamp of the segments he wanted to use in the final version. The pages were filled with arrows leading from one segment to the next, or with circles drawn around a group of segments. The first day, as he was about to leave, he realized that he wanted to preserve his notes for the next day's work. He wrote "Please don't throw away. Notes for my work" on the top sheet of paper and left the pages in a neat stack next to the keyboard. He underlined "don't throw away" several times. Whoever cleaned up the room after he left respected his wishes. Any written notes left next to the keyboard were always there the next day. Any scraps of paper he put in the wastebasket were removed. The only exception was Friday. Everything he used during the week was removed over the weekend. There was always a new pad of paper in the center of the desk on Monday.

Steven stared at what he had written. Should he leave it? He didn't know if anyone would read it. Would the person who cleaned the room even notice it? Did he want the person who cleaned the room to notice it and deliver it? He carefully tore the sheet of paper off the tablet. He didn't want to leave even a small scrap of torn paper to reveal the existence of a missing sheet. He held the note in his hand for a minute.

"Stop being an idiot." Speaking the words gave them more substance. "It wouldn't work." He knew too much to be a partner. The Minotaur's partners didn't know what was in store for them, they didn't know about the cameras. Their behavior showed that. That was the whole point of the recording. The partners behaved naturally, without artifice, without awareness.

The Asterion Society would probably fire him if they found out that he jerked off to the films—practically every day now. At first he had just had the occasional erection, a bit of pre-cum. Then he had started stroking himself. And one day he had cum. That broke the barriers for him. Now he grew excited as he was taking his clothes off in the outer room to prepare to enter the scanner. He didn't care if Smith was watching and saw his hard-on. He looked forward to each new recording on Monday. His cock throbbed as the Minotaur entered the room.

He had to restrain himself from editing the videos so that only the Minotaur appeared in them. The others weren't really worthy of the Minotaur. They were only the surfaces on which he operated . . . automatons, robots. They existed only so that the Minotaur could perform. They were props, less important than the cameras that recorded the Minotaur or the platform that served as his stage. The Minotaur was the only actor in the recordings. The others were there only to be acted upon.

Steven always edited the final segment in the same way he had the first week. He split the screen to show the faces of the Minotaur and of his partner. Every week the Minotaur stared into the camera, his face blank and devoid of emotion. His eyes never blinked. His head barely moved. He just stared into the camera until his eyes filled it. The half of the screen that showed the partner's face recorded the motions of the Minotaur. The Minotaur always positioned his partner so that he lay on his back on the platform, his legs resting on the Minotaur's shoulders. The partner's face filled the overhead camera. Each thrust of the Minotaur's hips drove his cock into the partner. On screen the man's head jerked upward with each thrust.

It was as if the man had the orgasm for both of them. As the Minotaur fucked him, delight began to transfuse his face. At the end, he was in ecstasy.

Steven read the words on the sheet of paper again. "God, you are so beautiful. I want you. Please let me join you in the room. I want to be filmed as we make love." He crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and squeezed it between the palms of his hands. He couldn't chance leaving it for someone else to find—even as it was, it had too much reality. He held it under the tap until it was soggy and then mashed it into a pulp. He flushed it down the toilet. The Asterion Society could prevent him from leaving with any physical evidence of the films. They couldn't remove the memories of what he had seen from his mind. He would have to be satisfied with that.

He still didn't know what the Minotaur's purpose was or what he got out of the videos. The visitors were the ones who appeared to enjoy the encounters, not the Minotaur. Hell, even he got more pleasure editing the videos than the Minotaur apparently did by participating in them. And what happened to the visitors? Did they eventually recover from their chance meeting with the Minotaur? Did they sit up groggily and wander out of the room, get dressed, and then go home? Or did the encounter drain them of all free will and leave them mindless zombies who had to be helped out of the room and into a life of drooling idiocy in a mental institution? The tapes gave no clue. All Steven could surmise was that the encounter had to be life-changing for the visitors. It would be for him if he were so lucky. Nothing would be the same in their lives. They would feel forever bereft if they never saw the Minotaur again. All they could do was feed on the memories of their meeting.

Because memories were what the films were all about. The Minotaur was an artist of the body; his canvases were other men's bodies, other men's senses, other men's minds. The partner was at first surprised by the depth and the intensity of the Minotaur's art and then overwhelmed by it. The Minotaur's work was necessarily ephemeral, and the films were a permanent record. Steven tried to capture the Minotaur's artistry through his editing, to make the films an invitation to others' imaginations to recreate within their mind the feelings of the partner.

It was warm for December 20. There was no chance of a white Christmas that year. That Friday before the holidays was a warm night, and everyone wanted to be out. The bar was crowded and dark. Blinking strings of Christmas lights were the only illumination. It took Steven five minutes to negotiate the distance between the door and the bar and another ten minutes of waiting to catch a bartender's eye and order a beer. He was surrounded on all sides by male flesh. He felt confined within a wall of bodies. That suited his mood. He had to find someone. He wanted sex. He needed sex. He knew that it wouldn't be as good as sex with the Minotaur, but he had to have it. The video he had finished editing that day had been the strongest one yet. He had cum spontaneously the first time he had seen the partner's face register the Minotaur's climax.

Next week would be his last Minotaur video. He wasn't looking forward to that. It wasn't just the money, although that was nice. It meant that he would never see the Minotaur again. He had his memories, but even now he couldn't remember all the details of the earlier tapes. They were already fading from his mind, the visitors merging into the generic "partner." Only the Minotaur stood out clearly in his mind. He felt like he knew every detail of the Minotaur's body.

He looked around with distaste. He didn't know why he had come. He wouldn't find anyone like the Minotaur here. Like this guy who was trying to talk to him. Steven couldn't hear him above the noise, and the flashing multicolored lights didn't flatter his appearance. The idiot probably just wanted sex. Steven shook his head no and turned away.

The last Monday. Steven took off his clothes and stowed them in the cabinet. He no longer worried that Mr. Smith might see him naked. He stepped into the scanner and waited for it to cycle through its examination of his body. He wondered if he could smuggle a flash drive into the work room. Where would he hide it? His mouth? His anus? He did want some record of his work. He should have tried before. Now it was probably too late.

The voice gave him permission to proceed. He tugged on the jump suit. He had grown to like working in them. Maybe he should leave a message on the tablet asking where he could buy them. Or if there were extras, he would offer to take them off Asterion's hands. He would pay for them. He wanted something—some souvenir that would prove that he had worked for Asterion.

He sat down before the bank of monitors. A slip of paper announced that this week's video ran for 96 minutes and 22 seconds. That was the longest run time yet. It was like receiving a gift for his final week. A bonus of several more minutes with the Minotaur. He reached over and removed the tablet from the desk and grabbed a couple of pens to make notes with.

The six screens showed the empty room for three seconds and then the panel slid open to admit the final week's partner.

Steven walked into the room and looked around. Curiosity mingled with a slight apprehension. As every visitor did, he walked over to the platform and touched it. It was the only thing in the room. So, it was only natural to examine it. The cameras recorded his body from all angles as he turned, his eyes vainly searching for clues that would explain the room.

It was as if he had never seen the room before. Over the past year he had spent close to two thousand hours watching what went on in the room, and now he was acting as if it was totally unknown. He had no idea when the video had been made. It could have been the previous weekend. It could have been long before the Asterion Society hired him to edit the videos.

That was Steven's first thought. It was easier to think about that than the fact that he had no memory of being in the room. He had no memory of time unaccounted for. No memory of waking up and realizing that he did not know where he had been. Yet there he was, on all six screens, apparently unaware of the cameras or of what awaited him.

In one part of his mind he felt violated. He was about to get his wish and be ravished by the Minotaur, but he had no memory of the actual encounter. The experience had been stolen from him. Another part of him wanted to watch the videos and see himself being the recipient of the Minotaur's attentions. His cock stirred and grew hard. He stared fixedly at the screens, holding his breath in anticipation of what was to come.

It was odd to watch oneself. Steven had seen video recordings of himself before but never completely nude and never from so many angles at once. The screen version of himself heard the panel sliding back to admit the Minotaur. He turned at the sound. His face betrayed curiosity at the entrance of the other man. The Steven on screen had never seen the Minotaur before.

The Minotaur began making love to his body. His hands caressed Steven. His lips kissed him. He licked. He touched. He seduced Steven's mind and body and made Steven his willing puppet. He positioned Steven's body on the platform. The screen Steven was as passive and accepting of the Minotaur as all the other visitors had been.

The watching Steven was oblivious to anything but the movements of the two men on the monitors. He made no notes. The scene ended as had all fifty-one previous tapes. The screen Steven cried out as the Minotaur entered him for the first time, an inarticulate groan of pain mixed with pleasure. His face grew beatific when the Minotaur climaxed. The cameras lingered on his face and body for a few seconds and then the images disappeared from the screens.

Steven sat before the blank screens for nearly an hour. At first his mind refused to function. It was as if he had experienced the Minotaur's orgasm again. He had no conscious memories of the experience, but his body seemed to recall the memory of the Minotaur's touch, the oblivion he had felt at the moment of the Minotaur's climax. The Minotaur's cock had swollen even larger inside him as he approached his climax. It thrust even deeper into him. Everything else had faded from his mind. He knew that his eyes were open, but he saw nothing. He heard nothing. His existence was reduced to the Minotaur's orgasm. And then there was nothing.

Stray thoughts surfaced and then sunk back into his mind. He gradually became aware again of his surroundings. He got no work done that day. He couldn't bring himself to watch the tapes again. He felt too drained. Watching the tapes again would finish him off. When he left at three, he was still in a daze. He felt honored and privileged yet cheated and abandoned.

That night he decided to make the final week's tape perfect. It had to capture what it meant to be chosen as the Minotaur's partner. It would be his offering, his gift, his declaration of love, to the Minotaur.

The next morning he was impatient in the limo. Why was it taking so long today? How could every light be red? He rushed past Mr. Smith and waited impatiently for him to unlock the door to the work room. He tore off his clothes, not bothering to hang them up.

A gift of love. He worked feverishly over the next four days, resentful of any time spent on anything but the tape.

In the final scene Steven juxtaposed the Minotaur's face over his own. As his own eyes closed in pleasure when the Minotaur climaxed, the Minotaur's eyes stared out at the viewer from Steven's face. It was as if they had joined together and were both looking out at the viewer and being looked at.

When he reviewed the tape for the final time, he paused the video on that shot. Steven couldn't remember being with the Minotaur, but he could feel them joined together in an eternal moment and seeing with the same eyes.

Before leaving, he wrote "please call" along with his phone number on the pad and left it in the center of the desk.

"Ms Derby? This is Steven Malden. We met the year before last. I'm the person Mr. Hitchens hired to work for the Asterion Society?"

"What?" The woman on the other end of the line sounded as if she had just woken up.

Steven wasn't sure if Hitchens's PA would remember him. They had met only that once. He hurried on.

"I'm trying to reach Mr. Hitchens to ask if I can give him as a reference. Now that I'm looking for other work, I need to account for last year. I know I'm not permitted to discuss what I was doing, but I thought if I gave Mr. Hitchens as a reference, he could explain that I was working for one of his clients and confirm that I did a satisfactory job . . ."

Steven trailed off. He wasn't sure how to continue. In truth, the need for a reference was just a pretext for contacting Hitchens. What he really wanted was to be put in contact with the Minotaur again.

The final day had ended like the others. He had left at three. The limo had taken him back to his apartment. The driver had opened the door for him the last time and then driven off without a word to indicate that the job had ended. The man had to know that he would not be driving Steven again, but he said nothing.

Steven stood on the sidewalk and watched the car turn the corner and disappear. He didn't even know the driver's name. For all he knew, the driver didn't know his. He shivered. The weather had turned cold. Snow was predicted for the first week of the new year.

He spent the last four days of the year alone. He couldn't bear to be with anyone else. Over the past four or five months he had neglected his friends so much that he wasn't sure he could call them friends any more. He couldn't remember how he had filled the hours when he wasn't at work. He couldn't have spent all that time thinking about the tapes and the Minotaur. But it seemed the Minotaur had grown to monopolize his thoughts, even his dreams.

The following Monday, he found himself getting ready to leave his apartment at 6:30. He watched the street, hoping that the limo would appear to take him back to the Minotaur. He knew that the job was over, but maybe he had mistaken the dates. Maybe he had another week. The street remained empty. It was day before New Year's Eve, and it appeared that everyone had decided to take the day off to avoid working one day between Sunday and the holiday. He stayed at the window until the street grew light. He wondered if somewhere a driver was picking up another film editor and taking him to the building to edit begin editing another year's worth of tapes of the Minotaur.

"I'm sorry, but I think you have the wrong number."

"Isn't this Ms Derby's number? It's the one I was given last year. I want to speak to Mr. Hitchens."

"No, you have the wrong number."

"Is this . . . ?" Steven recited the number on Joan Derby's business card.

"That's my phone number. I've had this number for four or five years now. I never heard of Joan Derby."

"Is this McNair and Associates?"

"Sorry, pal, but she stiffed you with the wrong number." The woman laughed knowingly and hung up.

Steven called up the directory app on his phone. There was no listing for McNair and Associates. A Google search returned no hits.

"There's no firm of that name in this building." The guard at the reception desk in the lobby of the Pembrooke Building barely glanced at Steven as she signed for a package.

"But it was here about eighteen months ago. They must have moved. Do you have a forwarding address?"

The guard sighed loudly and with a look of annoyance picked up a phone and punched in a series of numbers. She turned away from Steven and spoke quietly into the phone. She listened for a minute or so and then faced Steven as she finished the call. "Ahuh, ahunh. I see. Thanks, Carl."

She switched the phone off and said, "That was the building manager. He's never heard of McNair and Associates, and he's been working here for ten-fifteen years."

When Steven began to protest, she held up a hand. "I'm sorry, Sir. I really can't help you." She looked past Steven and spoke pointedly to a woman standing behind him, "Yes, Ma'am?"

Steven stared at the screen. He was trying to edit a series of ads for a range of hair products. It was a stupid, meaningless task—an expensive ad campaign for an overpriced product featuring models whose hair had been fussed over for hours so that it flowed and swirled in enticing waves when the models tossed their heads. No one in real-life had hair like that. He hated the work.

The Saturday before last had brought spring weather. He had wheeled his bicycle out of his storage locker in the basement, reattached the front wheel to the frame, and then oiled the gears and checked the chains and the brakes. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he began cycling to the north and to the east. He rode up and down the streets looking for the building in which he had worked on the Minotaur tapes. Nothing looked familiar. When he got home, he pulled out a map and traced the streets he had checked with a yellow highlighter. On Sunday, he explored another section of Brooklyn. When he went into a bodega to buy a bottle of water and an energy bar, he found the clerk and three other men discussing the outlook for the Mets and the Yankees that year. He described the building to them. None of them recognized it from his description. "Maybe in Queens" was their consensus.

The past weekend he had continued the search. He knew that he had worked for the Asterion Society—the money in his bank account and the tax forms he had received in January proved that. But the address on the tax forms led to a private mailbox service. The "suite number" was in reality a number on a small metal and glass door. The clerk in the store refused to give any information on the identity of the renters of the mailbox until Steven slipped him $40. The clerk made a show of consulting his computer and then said, "That box belongs to someone else now. They've been renting it since February. I don't have any information on our previous clients." Apparently the Asterion Society had erased all paper traces of its existence. So he had to find the building—the Asterion Society could cancel a post office box. Steven couldn't imagine how they had done it, but the society had made McNair and Associates disappear. But surely they couldn't make a building disappear.

Steven pulled out the pocket map of Brooklyn and marked off another street. He rode one block further east and then started down the next street. And there it was. He stopped in front of the building and peered through the door. The dun paint on the walls was the same. The wooden staircase leading to the upper floors was the same. The black and brown linoleum squares that weren't supposed to show dirt were the same. He could see the hallway to the left that led to his office. But the counter along the right-hand wall was new. So was the directory of tenants in the building on the wall behind the counter. At least they hadn't been there before. But they looked like they had been in place for years. The counter was dented and scuffed. It hadn't been repainted or revarnished for some time. The plastic letters spelled out the names of a dozen businesses—a rental agency, an insurance firm, a computer service, a shipping broker. The letters had originally been white, but they had yellowed with time. Some of them were chipped and hung at an angle.

Steven took a photo of the directory with his phone. When he got back to his apartment, he searched for the names on it. There wasn't much information on any of them—they weren't the sort of business given to websites. Only the computer troubleshooting service had an elaborate web page. According to the blurb, it had been "serving Brooklyn businesses" at the same "convenient address" for twenty-one years.

Steven slowed the swirl of hair, letting it gently cascade forward over the model's face. That would have to do. He saved the edited version and then sent it to the ad agency that had hired him. If they approved of the video, he would add the graphics and the voiceover. He supposed he should eat some lunch, but he wasn't hungry. He just didn't have much appetite lately. He didn't have much interest in anything lately.

He lay down on his sofa and stretched out. He was so tired. He didn't know why. He hadn't done anything except edit that stupid ad all morning. Maybe he would feel better if he had a nap. He might even dream of the Minotaur again. That was the only thing that made his life bearable—seeing the Minotaur in his dreams and remembering the Minotaur's touch on his skin. That light, gentling touch that made him shiver. But the dreams were a curse. He couldn't forget the Minotaur but he couldn't remember him either. All he had were dreams and fragmented recollections of images from the videos. He welcomed the dreams but he hated waking up from them. It was like losing the Minotaur all over again.

Thanks to ACL for commenting on an earlier version of this. Comments are appreciated; you can send them to z119z2000@yahoo.com.