She couldn’t believe it.

She hadn’t even worked an hour and they fired her.

She couldn’t BELIEVE IT.

All of that because she tripped and spilled coffee at a customer. Some long-standing customer it seems, some tanned greek guy, of whom the bosses were very fond.

She walked the city waking up to the traffic. Slouched, with her eyes turned down. Of course she was bitter.

The city was to be that gleaming jewel to change her life, to allow her to escape the village’s rut and spread her wings!

She told that to her whole family when she left, disappointing everybody!

And the jewel, even if hypnotizing with a billion of frantic, rainbow reflections was so full of blemishes. Such as this rich, beautiful flowerbed under the skyscraper - destroyed by some high punk just getting up, holding his head.

She wondered if her life isn’t such a blemish on the face of something much, much bigger than her. She had no idea how to earn her rent, even for that tiny room in the attic. Music lessons barely allowed her to afford food.

She cringed. She won’t go to that length again. She had heard about girls finding sugar daddies, selling their bodies. Yet, she felt like that last time she sold her very soul, she felt violated from head to toe.

They called him a Tempter. She… had heard about rich deviants, the pop culture was so full of them. He, on the other hand… He was different. Way more subtle.

The deal was simple: if she manages to sit in a comfortable armchair for a whole hour, she will get more than enough money to survive half a year. She was not to touch anything on the table. And that’s all. No nudity. No perverts going around naked. No one touching her, talking to her, no strange sounds, just her, the armchair, and the table.

And the Tempter, the silent judge just outside of the light cast by a chandelier.

He didn’t invite exclusively women, although she had heard only women talking about him. Every one of them was deeply troubled - no one had managed to succeed. No one wanted to share why. But the deal was clear, nothing openly perversive.

Sick fucker.

She came to him, to an old, pre-war building in the suburbs - in the evening. She was greeted by an actual butler, so… natural in that scenery.

He was sitting in a dark room, where singular beams of light revealed an old, empty armchair and a decorative table, even emptier. His face was - of course - buried in the shadows beyond the islands of light. It was almost mystical.

Only subtle reflections of his eyes and an inviting hand politely pointing at the armchair gave away his frail posture.

She should have turned around and went away, right then.

Instead, she sat down, burying herself deep in a soft armchair. She believed he nodded to the butler.

They went over the details again. Yes, she is to sit there for an hour, not touching the table or anything to be placed on it after they start. He won’t move. No other people in the room. No cameras.

His voice was deep and soft, but flawed, like some stained velvet. He was a tempter.

My god, it seemed so EASY right then.

He finished and waited politely. She didn’t exactly see, but could feel his stare on her. She began to feel naked. She checked. She wasn’t. Haha.

She agreed.

His hand in a white glove appeared in the light and tinkled a tiny, silver bell. After several moments the butler arrived with a brown, leather violin case. He handed it to her.

The Tempter knows all people he invites very well. He has heard about her passion for music. He shared it. He sounded so honest, then.

They would start just as the sun set.

After that, one hour.

They had a couple of minutes left, so she was welcome to look inside.

And it was then.

Feeling… strange and trying not to think what was coming next she opened the case. Inside -

the most beautiful instrument she had ever seen. Wonderful, subtly crafted violin, which,

whose -

wood texture created perfect patterns, visages of angels, of ocean waves, of clouds and of snowflakes. It, they glowed with a golden light.

Surprising herself, she touched them.

They were pulsing with inspiration.

She knew it was her pulse, not violin’s.

It was her nervousness, and it was the heartbeat in her ears beating a tempo. Goose bumps, not ribbons of light wrapping her arms, it was…

Time to start. The sun had set.

She was breathing fast and hard, her whole body was shaking up and down, she was pulsing with… existence…

Please, put the violin on the table. We shall begin.

Then, she understood.

With all willpower she could muster, with rigid, unnatural moves she put the local center of the universe on the tiny table.

She sat down.

It had begun.

It wasn’t even half an hour, when she realized: she had lost.

Sweating, breathing heavily, with hands scratched bloodily with her own fingernails, with half of the muscles in her body spasming painfully, she stood there with the violin in her hands, and the first angelic notes filled the room. It was the purest of blisses, that shivering of her spine, softening knees, that lightheaded perfection, completeness.

She had lost.

Please, put the violin away.

The butler would lead her to the exit.

Of course she can come back. These doors are always open for her.

In the hot, summer night she fell to her knees on the sidewalk. And wept.

Never before she had been so humiliated and abused.

She had lost.