THE DEVIL IS A GENTLEMAN - H.S

*[EDITING]*

When Harry was twenty two, if a dangerously overconfident, time-hopping doppelgänger had pulled up in a freaky, rubber balaclava ('listen, mate' - hand on the shoulder and everything, like the reenactment of a cliché, time-honored rite of passage), and told him that in the very near future, his Friday nights would be indefinitely spent wearing a Greek moniker in the form of a fetishized allusion, that he'd be garbed by a latex mask to protect the sacred, fragile veil of secrecy-

Well. He'd probably get a head start for padded walls and a straight jacket. Consider he was doing himself a favor with that one.

But if he were told the same thing at twenty three, he'd probably choose to overlook the minor detail of reality imploding and sit back in his armchair, swirling his whiskey with excitement. Twenty three was an eventful year. He'd started casually enjoying whiskey after a long workday (honestly, a palate milestone in and of itself) and became enlightened on the fine art of tactically-applied suffering (and with it, gained a whole new appreciation for high-quality restraints). Because sometimes, a well-placed bruise and bliss just happened to go hand-in-hand.

-

OR the one in which there's a sex club, Greek stage names, an exploration of boundaries, an open house, a pair of dress shoes, and two evident sides to the same coin.