My name is Ian McCormitch.
Profession? I am a federal judge in the state of New York. No kids? It is just that I never had time for them. I was focused on my career and nothing else. I lost sight of my parents since I was 5 years old. Since then, I have relied on my work to fill the emotional void. And I don't trust anyone. I expect everything and nothing at the same time.
"Ian, you do not have a heart," my ex-girlfriend from high school once told me.
She found me too serious and would say every time we made love with a torrid frenzy that I would end up a priest. Thankfully, that did not happen.
On my 21st birthday, she dumped me. As if that wasn't enough, she did it with my best friend. In response, I got drunk on rum, brandy, and cognac to forget. First, my parents, then the one I loved. I thought life was too hard to live. Compared to a heavy burden that crushes the one who carries it. But I survived. A warrior can change armor but not his heart.
My adoptive family, since I have one, has always been good to me. But it was not enough, I think. Each thing has its right place, like the right man at the right place. Chase away the natural, it will come back at a gallop.
I had a vision that transformed me. In the vision, I was alone, contemplating all space, the universe, far from everything and everyone. I was suspended without being able to fall, like an electron orbiting an atom. I saw deep fears, total despair, the smallness of human life, and I doubted this world. Learning to doubt makes us philosophers, that's what I learned in high school.
28 years old. I had become a lawyer. Not out of passion but out of conviction that it was my fight. The one that would give meaning to my life. In life, there are the strong and the weak, the powerful and the rich. I belong to the middle category. Those who fight for their dreams, deciding to go all the way with their ideas. A fighter. I realized that life is a fight. The strong survive, the poor pay the price, and I move forward.
44 years old. It has been 18 years that I have been practicing my profession. I have rubbed shoulders with bandits, gangsters, murderers in trials, and those whom society put in the dock. About my love life, nothing to say. It is a blank book that I do not open. Never. I console myself with many and gallant mistresses.
51 years old. Due to circumstances, I became a magistrate.
"Mr. Ian McCormitch, it is with great pleasure that we announce your eligibility as an independent federal judge to preside over this historic trial."
These words still resonate in my memories. I wasn't part of any political party. Not really. Yet, the Democrats and Republican senators led by Republican leader Ronan Dobbs designated me as an independent judge unanimously.
The impeachment proceedings had been launched against President Mickalan Finch. So, someone outside the world of politics was needed. Someone who would lead the trial in an impartial and final manner. Someone who had always been neutral. In some way.
Putting aside all their political differences, the senators agreed on the appointment of an independent judge. And that is how fate chose me.
At that moment, I did not really know if I was happy or not, but I must say that my prestige and career were reinforced. All my loved ones called to express their joy and congratulations.
"I came to congratulate you," she said.
"Since you're always dealing with court cases, I thought it would be better if you presided over my case tonight."
She? Hannah Eira , my office secretary.
Intelligent, sexy, and intoxicating. In any case, she did a great job. Nothing to complain about. I had hired her for my firm when I was still a lawyer.
"Is the case that delicate?" I asked.
A white camisole adorned the top of her body, and underneath, a light transparent plunging neckline supported perfectly shaped breasts. Specifically, she was not wearing a bra. It was just one sign among many others. The calm before the storm.
I had spotted her through the fluorinated windows of my house in her Ford. A car I had bought for her birthday. She got out with her handbag hung in one hand and the other holding a pizza.
There was always something that drew me to her. She had a particular sensitivity and always treated me like someone ordinary, despite my social position being superior to hers. But with respect. Not always when she domineers me when it comes to sex affairs. Damn it!
From the beginning of my rise to my current position, she was there. My beginnings as a lawyer were dark. I crossed paths with wolves, lions, and snakes. But I did not give up. Not easily. Hannah's simplicity and complicity strengthened our bond. Especially me, because I was interested in her without knowing it.
"You have no idea how much..." she replied after putting the pizza on my beautiful coffee table with floral patterns
- .....I am so happy for you. Guess what, tonight you'll be my lawyer and I will give you a special treat.
Like a docile and wise student who knows what she wants and doesn't spare her mount, I quickly covered the space between us to stand beside Ian.
With a quick glance, I looked him up and down. Sitting cross-legged on his table with Chinese ink drawings and under the glow of a table lamp, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his eyes, Ian was writing a long letter, wrapped in his robe adorned with red lycoris.
Around him and behind him, a fortress of books of all kinds stood upright to the ceiling and surrounded him like a bunker.
1m82, with nacreous hair, beautiful brown almond-shaped eyes that accentuated a lively and sustained gaze that tears through your entrails like an ultra-modern X-ray scanner, Ian had the profile of a capable, imposing man, both gentle and authoritative, but he did not seem to realize it himself. Was it due to his chaotic childhood?
I would not know since he hardly ever spoke about certain episodes of his life. It was as if he ignored himself and moved forward without purpose, like a zombie. In many ways, he could seem sarcastic, cold, arrogant, pretentious, and insensitive.
I thought so myself when I first started working with him until that famous night. It was his birthday. At his residence, a fellow lawyer and a group of friends had gathered, specially come for the occasion. Among them, former clients, one of whom had particularly caught my attention.
Lorna Frijnir. Her luscious and sensual lips intoxicated male desire with green iris eyes that disarmed you with a single glance like a bullet. It was like revolvers that struck your soul. Her Swedish accent made her all the more irresistible, especially being the niece and heiress of the King of Denmark, Sylvus de Krisenstadt. Not to mention the 24-carat diamond necklace that ornamented her neck on a frail body carried by golden stilettos.
- Dear Ian, you always seem like a homebody, and you only have God for your business. Good grief! Enjoy life, she exclaimed.
- Well, it is the only thing that calms me down right now and the only thing I trust, he retorted, wrapped in a cardigan fit for a rich kid, holding a glass of wine signed by the French brand Veuve Clicquot.
She did not give up.
- I am eternally grateful to you for defending me in the trial against the Danish crown. I had little hope, but thanks to you, I have gone from commoner to heiress of a kingdom." She laughed mockingly but in a friendly manner, revealing perfect teeth.
-It is like a fairy tale.
- I would like to point out to Her Highness that Ian is a special phenomenon. Christelia Arroyo, a lawyer at the Bogotá bar, remarked, wrapped in an alpaca fur coat, with an electronic cigarette at the corner of her mouth, her lips blackened by lipstick as flamboyant as darkness, making her look like a black widow.
- Besides, I always wonder about the means that allowed you to solve this case, in which I note that the papers attesting to Her Highness's succession rights were nowhere to be found.
- Oh! Just my imagination, a few phone calls, and professional secrecy, Ian said with a beatific and self-satisfied smile that seemed to ward off any further questions. As if to say, "Do not insist, be content with what you know."
Suddenly, my phone rang, pulling me out of my reverie and back to reality. I was already beside Ian when I plunged my hand into my bag to pull out the phone and answer it.
- It has been a while, Hannah, a rough and domineering voice said. Meet me where you know.
Then he hung up. That voice. It was him.
The moment I heard the voice, my blood froze in my veins, and a nervous pressure took hold of me. I thought he was part of a past I had gotten rid of. Yet his shadow looms over me.
- Hannah, are you okay? Despite the fire that was taking over all my senses, Ian's euphoric voice reached me. It was then that the interrupted thread of my memories came back.
-Ian, if I did not know you so well, I would have taken you for a priest or something like that, Christelia added.
- Habit does not make the monk, and you know that as well as I do. Besides, we are no longer in that era of witch hunts where lies were a virtue.
- I find him fine just the way he is,Lorna said.
That is what makes him different from all the men I have met. She paused before adding that with a winky glance at him:
-And above all, he fucks well.
The fact that they can talk freely in front of me as if I did not exist already demonstrated that they knew each other well enough.
A bit too good.
Ian surely had to do some threesome sex with them considering the familiarity with which they were talking to each other. And that is what I could not figure out.
He seemed like a random person but once a woman experiences it, she can not do without it. At that time, a click ran into me. I instinctively knew that I needed it. At any cost.
The call of now had still letting me puzzled.
Definitely, my past is clinging to me.
Everyone is wearing a mask but mine is not ready to remove itself. Not yet. I forgot.
Hannah Eira. I am 29 years old.