When Leunan suddenly leaned closer to Alissa and put his hand on her shoulder, she struggled to hold back a wolfish smile. Did it mean that her trick worked? For she could tell, albeit he tried to hide it, how his eyes followed her steady hand across her body, and how there was a hunger behind his otherwise well-mannered behavior. Being no stranger to the lusts of men, Alissa also often enjoyed seducing the unprepared by luring them in with all forms of empty promises before promptly dumping them. She was of course discreet about it, she did not want terrible rumors to float around about her social behavior towards strangers, but it was difficult to deny that one of Alissa’s favorite past times was to crush the dreams of men. It was not so much a matter of fact that she scorned men either, as much as it was the rush of power that motivated her to break every man foolish enough to be misled by her beauty. If that is truly how easily duped they are, did they in the end not deserve what happened to them? Indeed, Alissa cared to protect the rights of women, but she struggled to give men any kind of regard outside of being there to take care of women. There were of course kind-hearted men, but she thought them to be too far and few between to ever regard their existence as being particularly meaningful. Men were after all a result of patriarchy, and patriarchy must be destroyed.<br/><br/>Of course, had Alissa actually opened a proper piece of feminist work and tried to understand the deeper nuances of gendered power relations, she would have understood that she was most likely clearly as sexist as the men she decried to disown so much, and in such a regard Dr. Leunan Varoe’s astute observations were correct; Alissa was in the end just another rich young woman who had been fortunate enough to be so thoroughly spoiled during her childhood that her self-absorbed attitude knew no bounds. Whether Alissa’s clearly biased attitude towards men was a result of her own upbringing was an interesting nugget to consider, but regardless if it played a role or not, it was certainly true that Alissa was angry at her father for having cheated on her mother. So deep did the trauma run that when Alissa at the meager age of 6 had woken up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and made her way to her parent’s bedroom for comfort, instead of having found her parents sleeping next to each other, she had instead been met with strange moans echoing through the walls. Simultaneously curious and scared, it would not have taken long for Alissa to have found her father bedding another woman who did certainly look nothing like her mother, and though he did not know because she had only peered between the small gap between the bedroom door and the doorframe, Alissa had never forgotten.<br/><br/>Ever since then, to have found her father sleeping with another woman was a common recurrence within the Vauqelin household, and it surprised Alissa little when men only expressed their desire towards women as a piece of sexual meat rather than as genuine persons with real feelings and needs. In fact, Alissa assumed it. She knew that is what men were like, for that is precisely the kind of behavior she had seen expressed by her father. When they were out dining together as a family, she had noticed how her father’s eyes had darted up and down other women’s bodies, and she had heard her mother cry by herself at night after her father had brought another strange woman to their house. It was perhaps then not so strange that Alissa so thoroughly enjoyed the power it gave her over men when they expressed their desire for her body. With Dr. Varoe however, there was something curious how the depth of his eyes seemed to glimmer. She could tell he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he was not any kind of wolf she’s ever met before. Responding her own gaze resting upon his face, he buried his dark eyes into hers while he told her in a deep and sympathetic voice how her current situation must be difficult for her. His voice was deep and soothing, and he spoke calmly in a tone that was almost hypnotizing. Whether it was a mere trick or just the way he naturally spoke Alissa could not tell, but the more he affirmed her story, the more she felt strangely drawn to this man.<br/><br/>“You have no idea, Doctor,” she sighed at him after he affirmed her yet again and as she did, Leunan suddenly stood up and pulled her alongside himself, forcing her to stand up as well. His grip was not painful but it forceful enough for Valissa to know who was the stronger between the two, and Alissa knew that there was no way that she could physically outmaneuver Leunan. Standing tall above her, Alissa was despite her pair of extra heels a woman of otherwise small stature, his tone suddenly changed as he told her how her story was a lie. If that was not enough, he also informed her about how her late aunt had for reasons unknown to Alissa, confided in Leunan about Alissa’s genealogy.<br/><br/>“What about it?” she said in a defiant tone as Leunan was leading her back to the office door against her will. She did not like this sudden change of development, but being lithe and so impractically dressed, struggle was impossible. Furthermore, even if Leunan had called her out on her lies, would she make him into an enemy now, there was likely no way for her to come back and if she could not, the chance for her to write her fantastic article was left in the dust.<i>This was utter nonsense,</i>Alissa thought to herself. She had thought that she had Leunan in her grasp. Was she really outsmarted, but how? She had ensured that the medical files she had sent him had been fabricated, and what was the thing about her aunt? Was that true? Suddenly Alissa’s head was spinning, for she could not admit to the fact that between her and Leunan, Leunan was the clear superior. Alissa had always been quite intelligent and scored well on every test at school, so that fact that there were people, especially men, that were able to read through her like a book, came as a shock to her. Her entire basis of how men were like was after all entirely based on her father who was a simplistic womanizer and secret alcoholic.<br/><br/>After having placed a lock of her hair behind her ear and stretched out the wrinkles on her clothing, Leunan pinned her chin between his fingers and moved up her head to face him before he was ready to show her the door and tell her goodbye. She was not scared of him yet, she knew he would not hurt her, but the way he was staring at her, the way he brought her face to meet his while towering above her, with the way he clearly established himself as her superior, she found it difficult to deny him what he wanted from her. She felt the power emanating from him and it was radiating through her as he held her like this in his hand. She was angry, immensely angry, but yet she felt strangely powerless to break away from his grip.<br/><br/>With his dark eyes so deeply lodged into hers now, Dr. Varoe offered his final ultimatum; would she choose to listen to him and tell him the truth, or was this the last time they’d ever were to see each other again? Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Alissa was so angry that her entire body was on the verge of shaking uncontrollably from the sense of humiliation she felt over being manhandled like a little girl by Leunan Varoe, but knowing better than to try to defy him now, she swallowed her pride, something no other man had managed to make her do in the past, and took a deep breath to calm herself down.<br/><br/>“So what do you want to know?” she asked him, still clearly mad, but also in the firm belief that he would still be willing to cooperate and give her what she wanted. In the end Leunan Varoe was just a man like everyone else, and that he had won now was something Alissa would not allow to happen again. Or so she foolishly thought as she unknowingly decided to give up some of her control to Dr. Leunan Varoe.