"Is it that obvious?" I asked.
"You've got the look." He extended his free hand. "I'm David."
"Cal."
"Nice to meet you, Cal. You want some advice?"
I nodded.
"Don't try to take it all in at once. Pick one thing that looks interesting and start there. The whole point is to relax." He gestured toward the main pool. "That's usually a good place to start. Water's perfect temperature, good for conversation. Less overwhelming than some of the other areas."
"Other areas?"
"Upstairs gets more...active. Downstairs is more intimate. This floor is kind of the social space, not it stops people from fucking in the pool. But mostly it’s good for getting your bearings." He took a sip of his water. "You want a drink? There's a fridge over in the far corner that’s stocked with anything you’d like."
I looked where he was pointing and saw, tucked into an alcove I hadn't noticed before, a small sort of vending area that looked like it didn’t require a credit card.
"Maybe in a minute," I said.
"Sure. I'll probably be around the pools for a while if you want to chat later. Welcome to the club, Cal."
He walked away, leaving me standing there in just my towel and my racing heart and the growing realization that I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do next.
The smart thing would have been to get a drink. Alcohol would have helped with the nerves, given me something to do with my hands, provided a familiar ritual to ground myself in. But I doubted they had just things in a bathhouse. Alcohol andheat didn’t mix. So, I found myself walking toward the main pool, drawn by the warmth of the water and the low murmur of conversation.
Up close, the pool was even more impressive. The water was crystal clear, heated to what felt like the perfect temperature when I dipped my toe in. There were maybe eight or nine people in it, scattered around the edges and floating in the deeper center. The conversation was quiet, relaxed, the kind of talk you might hear at any social gathering if you ignored the fact that everyone was naked and a couple of them were making out with their hands groping below the water line.
I unwrapped my towel, folded it, and set it on a nearby chair. The feeling of being completely naked in a room full of strangers should have been mortifying. Instead, it was oddly freeing. Like shedding the last piece of armor I'd been wearing without realizing it.
I slipped into the pool.
The water was perfect. It was warm enough to relax muscles I hadn't realized were tense, but not so hot that it was overwhelming. I found a spot along the edge where I could sit with the water up to my chest and my arms resting on the pool's rim. For the first time in hours, possibly days, I felt my shoulders drop.
"Feels good, right?"
The voice came from my left. I turned and found myself looking at a man, maybe thirty-five, with short dark hair and intelligent eyes. He was sitting in a similar position a few feet away, his well muscled arms resting casually on the pool's edge.
"Much," I said.
"I thought so. You looked like you were about to bolt when you first came in."
"I was considering it."
He laughed. "A lot of people do. I'm Erik."
"Cal."
"So what brought you here, Cal? Besides the obvious need to relax."
It was a simple question, but I found myself pausing before I answered. What brought me here? Hollis and his black card, obviously. But before that. The meetings I couldn't remember. The face in the mirror that looked like it was about to crack. The slow, steady realization that I had built a life that was consuming me from the inside out.
That felt like far too much to dump on a stranger.
"I think I forgot how to be a person," I said finally.
Erik nodded like it was the most reasonable thing anyone had ever told him. "Yeah, that happens. Especially to people in high-pressure jobs. You get so good at being the job that you forget there's supposed to be someone underneath it. I had the same problem until I started coming here.”
“How did you fix it?”
