Page 23 of Prelude To You

Fascinated beyond words, I watched Steven as he stoked the flames in the fireplace. He proceeded to throw my dirty clothes and every used condom into the fire. When he found the fifteenth condom, he glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. I couldn’t figure out whether he was impressed or disappointed.

Steven then did an extremely complex search of the room. There was no doubt in my mind that this guy put the A in Anal Retentive.

“What the hell are you looking for?” I asked.

“Recording devices etc. Nothing you need to concern yourself about. That’s why I’m here.”

“Is my father going to find out about this?”

“Your father already knows and approves.”

Much later, I learned that my father had gone through the same exact ritual, decades before. Apparently it was part of the family tradition, meant to forge the male heirs into sensitive lovers in bed—and complete bastards in the boardroom.

“Where’s your phone?” Steven asked.

“In my pants,” I muttered. “You just threw it in the fire.”

He dropped down to one knee, grabbed the fireplace poker and jabbed at the burning clothes, making sure to feel the weight of a phone inside a pocket. Satisfied, he stood up again. “You’ll be getting a new phone,” he said. “More secure than that one.”

And with one last sweeping glance over the room, Steven marched me out of the chalet and into a small and very un-luxurious car. When he shifted into the driver’s seat beside me, I made a big show of rolling my eyes, still pissed about the abrupt intrusion.

“Secure your seatbelt, please,” Steven said. I hesitated a fraction of a second too long for his liking. “Or should I secure it for you?”

“What if I refuse to go with you?”

“That would be unwise,” Steven assured me. “And would result in a very unpleasant experience.”

“Are you for real?” I dared to ask. “I mean, are you threatening me?”

“If you want to interpret it that way, sure.”

His voice had an unmistakable fuck-around-and-find-out tenor. I scrambled to fasten my seatbelt. “Fine,” I said, even if nothing was fine. “At the very least could you explain what all of this means?”

“It means when I return you to America in a week and four days, you will formally step into the shoes you were born to wear.”

As if I didn’t know what was waiting for me back home. As if I hadn’t been prepared and molded for that role since my very first breath. “But why am I not going home now?” I wanted to know. “What’s happening before then?”

“Now that you’re more familiar with how to please a woman, it’s time you learned how to be a man.”

“Again, I’m in the dark here,” I said. “As far as I know, I am a man.”

“No, you’re a boy. But if you pay close attention and do what you’re told over the next week, you will come to know the difference. And you will adjust accordingly.”

“Do you have a name or are we simply going with grunts and insults to address each other?”

“My name is Steven. And I will be your shadow from now on.”

“Oh great,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm. “I just feel we’re going to have so much fun.”

“Fun is not the objective here. The objective is to prepare you for your future role. And also to prevent any fuckups, scandals, or chances of tarnishing your family’s legacy. One day a great deal of responsibility will rest on your shoulders. You’ll need the strength and respectability your father already has.”

I was barely eighteen, and the last coils of my spirit were about to be expunged. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. I watched Steven behind the wheel of our ridiculous car. “You couldn’t find a bigger piece of shit than this for us to drive?”

“No, I couldn’t,” he said evenly. “Or we’d be driving it.”

At least he found it in his stone-cold heart to explain.

“Since you can’t take public transport,” he said, “this will have to do. It takes two hours and twenty-three minutes to get from Interlaken to Geneva. That’s a lot of time and opportunity for someone who might see you as a target. So you’ll remain incognito until you set foot in America again.

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