Sometime in the Early 1980s

Bunny Corcoran was only half-listening, which, in his opinion, was good enough.

Julian was going on about the Greeks again—some impassioned thing about Dionysian rites, blood sacrifice, the whole lot—but Bunny’s mind had wandered elsewhere, namely, to the throbbing pain on his cheek. He shifted in his seat, fingers tapping idly against his half-full cup of tea, now lukewarm and unappealing.

Normally, he liked this room. Julian’s office-classroom hybrid had a kind of absurd grandeur to it, a space that was more curated than lived in, like something out of one of those pretentious foreign films Henry was always talking about. The light slanted in just so, throwing the old rugs and polished wood into sharp relief, making the colors richer, more decadent. The faint scent of pipe smoke and bergamot clung to the air, mixed with whatever expensive, citrusy aftershave Julian wore. Fresh flowers sat in delicate vases, the kind that looked fragile enough to shatter under a particularly strong gust of wind.