Matthew Bennet sat at the far corner of a bar, nursing a neat whiskey which had been in front of him for the better part of an hour. His eyes traced the rim of the glass, but his mind was elsewhere, calculating. Always calculating. The bar was a refuge, of sorts, and Matthew liked it that way. It was a place where he could blend in, where no one knew or cared what he was.
The bar was dimly lit, with a darkness that seemed to permeate every corner, to touch every patron, even as the day was bright. Its old wooden chairs and tables creaked and groaned under the pressure of too many tall tales told by drunken ruffians. The air was thick with the smell of spilled beer, fried foods, and something faintly metallic—perhaps from the brass pipes, snaking along the ceiling, corroding. The jukebox in the corner played a slow, melancholic tune, the kind that wrapped around your thoughts with a vengeance and just wouldn’t let go. You couldn’t help but find yourself lost in a pit of nothingness in this bar. Matthew loved it.
Matthew’s appearance was unremarkable at first glance, which is how he preferred it. He was in his late thirties, with short, brown hair that he kept meticulously neat, and a clean-shaven face that could blend into a crowd without a second thought. His outfit was tailored but not flashy, a white collared dress shirt, a perfectly knotted tie, and buttoned black vest. It was the kind of sartorial selection that whispered success without bragging. Matthew had learned early on that invisibility was an asset, a tool to be sharpened, for use with precision.
He was a man of contradictions. To the outside world, he was a successful corporate lawyer, a partner at the prestigious firm Clyde & Hardman, a Yale graduate. A real, self-made man. His colleagues respected him, admired his sharp mind, and his ability to clinch victory from cases that were seemingly unwinnable. They saw Matthew as a man of integrity, purpose, and as someone who always played by the rules—even he had to bend them to his advantage. But that was just one layer of Matthew Bennet.
Inside, where no one else could see, Matthew was someone else entirely. Since childhood, he had known he was different. Much of Matthew’s time growing up with his mother was spent watching others with a sort of detached curiosity, noting and analyzing their mannerisms, their reactions, their emotions, like a scientist performing an experiment. Empathy was a foreign concept to him, something he had read about over the years. It was something he could emulate, of course, but it wasn’t genuine. It was always an act, something he had perfected.
It wasn’t that Matthew was emotionless. He felt anger, satisfaction, and even a twisted sense of joy and accomplishment when he finished twisting and manipulating a situation to develop an outcome he favored. But emotions that came naturally to others—love, compassion, guilt—were absent in him. He knew how to fake them, how to use them to get what he desired, but they were never real. He was a master of disguise. He was a sort of sentimental sociopath.
As he sat at the bar, his phone buzzed on the counter. He glanced at the screen and saw a text from his wife, Claire.
Dinner tonight, 7pm, at Delmonico’s?
Claire was everything Matthew was not—warm, empathetic, genuinely kind. She was the perfect compliment to his carefully constructed persona, the doting wife who had believed in the goodness of the man she had married. Matthew had chosen her precisely for this—she was everything he could never be. She was his shield, his cover—his proof he was just like everyone else.
Sounds good. See you then, he typed back. The words came easily, effortlessly. He had learned long ago how to say the right things—how to be the husband she needed him to be. This, too, was just another role, another mask.
He slipped his phone into his vest pocket and sipped his whiskey. It burned slightly as it went down, a pleasant sensation that reminded him he was alive, that he was still in control. Control was everything to Matthew. Control kept him grounded. It kept the carefully created world around him from crumbling down.
The bartender, a middle-aged man with graying hair and a weary face approached Matthew, at the end of the bar. “Need a refill on your whiskey?”
“No, thanks,” Matthew responded, his blue eyes glazed over, cold and calculating.
The bartender nodded in acknowledgement and moved on to the next patron, leaving Matthew alone with his thoughts once again. That’s how he liked it—alone. It left him in control, with no one to see under the surface.
Outside, the city was alive with noise and movement. But here, in this dark corner of the bar, Matthew Bennet was the only thing that mattered. He finished his drink, set the glass down gently, stood up, and stiffly fixed his vest. It was time to go—time to put on the mask again, and be the man everyone thinks—expects—to see.
As he walked out of the bar, Matthew couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would ever see through the facade. Maybe Claire? Probably not, he thought. People saw what they wanted him to see, and he was very, very good at giving them that.
And so, with the city’s hustle and bustle reflecting in his cold, unreadable eyes, Matthew Bennet slipped back into his life, his carefully constructed world of lies, and hailed a cab. Soon he’d see his wife, who waited lovingly, none the wiser.
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