Assistants

The first time Julian saw the girl with blonde eyebrows, he was outside the headquarters of a hot startup in SoHo, waiting to go into an interview for a job he knew he wasn’t going to get.

She was wearing a red pea coat, white knee-high socks, and a pair of black flats. She stood in front of a bookstore, looking in the window, bending forward to read the titles in the displays. He was entranced, looking at her reflection. She was pouting a bit, biting her lower lip, her eyes huge.

She looked like a Rubens painting or a Renaissance cherub, all porcelain skin and ruddy cheeks. She had a certain thickness, like a field hockey player, that made Julian groan. Her cheeks, her thighs, her hips, her ass.

Her coat and scarf made her look like a character in a well-made holiday film. Her blonde hair spilled all around her bright cheeks and she was by far the happiest looking person on the street. And again, the blonde eyebrows, lighter than any he had seen in person, gave her an ethereal air.

It was a body type he had fetishized and there was a pang of guilt or even shame in knowing how he objectified her. Still, that did not lessen her effect on his mind or his body.

There was a certain intensity with which she was looking into the bookstore window, squinting and then shielding her eyes from the morning sun and leaning forward against the window. A yearning curiosity and literary bend that captured him as much as her curves. Julian took a step towards her and then his phone vibrated.

It was Mari, a friend of a friend. Someone had dropped out of a bartending gig unexpectedly and somehow Julian’s name came up. She asked if he could mix martinis that night at a gallery opening.

“I guess so,” he replied. Though out of all cocktails he despised Martinis. They seemed pointless. Gin, perhaps, but a vodka martini? Why not just sniff ether?

When he looked up, the girl with the blonde eyebrows was gone. He sighed deeply, feeling a pang in his chest at her absence. That’s the way the city was.

Julian was twenty-five, just out of college, and living in a tiny studio apartment in Harlem. He’d only met Mari a handful of times and he was pretty sure she didn’t like him.

“Well, if you can get to SoHo as soon as possible, they’re willing to pay you for the day. You’d need to shop for supplies, set up the bar, and mix drinks until ten. Then you can come to the afterparty if you want, I suppose. Do you have a black suit?”

He did have a black suit. It was actually a pretty nice one, having been purchased for him for a wedding the summer before, where he had been in the bridal party. Hugo Boss, slim and well-fitted. He was only blocks from where she wanted to meet him, but his suit was home, so it was a long ride on the train up, then a long ride down.

He’d worn something “business casual” to the interview he had ditched and was a little surprised at how much his confidence and posture changed in a well-fitting suit. He’d paired it with a simple white dress shirt and a somewhat skinny black tie. Looking in the mirror before heading out, he brushed his longish brown hair out of his eyes and considered himself. He thought he looked good. Fashionable and well suited to bartend at a SoHo art gallery.

On the train back, he thought about his strange somewhat bifurcated childhood, living most of the year in a somewhat squalid home in a run-down suburb in New Jersey with his mother, then spending summers and various weekends with his wealthy Great Aunt in Manhattan, the very person who had bought him the suit he was wearing.

That childhood had equipped him well to get by on very little and also fit in with both the rich and older crowds.

He met up with Mari on the steps of a beautiful building that looked like it might have been a factory once. It was on a cobblestone street in a very artsy part of SoHo. Mari was thirty-something with a severe black bob and an almost constant scowl who Julian was both afraid of and very attracted to. She seemed quite aware of both reactions and seemed to enjoy each of them in turn and all at once.

Mari usually wore only black clothing, the style and cut dramatic to the point of comical. That afternoon, though, she wore knee-high black socks over nude stockings with black Mary Janes. She also wore a vintage and rather bohemian-looking fire-engine red jacket with a bushy yellow fur fringe that looked like a lion’s mane. Her makeup was done up as well, with exaggerated fake lashes like black stars bursting around her eyes, and black lipstick, giving her a vibe of a Weimar cabaret girl.

Julian experienced that distinct feeling of seeing someone who is usually very beautiful, dressed up in a way that made them almost surreally alluring.

“Get at least six bottles of gin and six bottles of vodka and however much vermouth you think you’ll need. Olives and lemon and whatever. They don’t really care what you spend as long as you give them receipts,” she ordered him and then she held out an envelope that felt heavy with cash. There was a momentary curl of her lip. Some smile at his reaction to her outfit, her commands.

“They’re paying $100 an hour and will need you all day, so you should be well taken care of,” she explained, looking him up and down. She reached up and touched his label, feeling the fabric between her fingers. Her nails were painted black like her lips. “This suit will do…” There was something hanging in the air he didn’t quite understand. She cleared her throat and her scowl returned. “And Julien, get the good stuff. It’s going to be a room full of people who can tell. We’ll also have Champagne, for the opening and for the afterparty. I think they’re getting five cases, so we should be good.”

Walking east, hands in his pockets as the temperature was just a little under what a thin suit would protect him from, he remembered that John F. Kennedy never wore a jacket. Then again, JFK had chauffeurs most of his life. Julian considered how it was a strange thing to go shopping with someone else’s money. It left him with a giddiness. He liked shopping. He liked buying fancy things. He let himself imagine, “What would I buy if money was no object?”

His destination was Astor Wines and Liquors, which had a huge selection and decent prices. On the way, he looked online at gin, vodka, and especially vermouth recommendations.

He stopped first at a gourmet market and got a few containers of pretty green Liguria olives. He talked the vendor into selling him a large jar of brine.

It was just outside the store that he saw the girl with blonde eyebrows for the second time. She was with a family, holding the hands of two young children next to a handsome couple that were obviously the children’s parents. The family was dark-haired and had a complexion and style that made Julian think they were from either Spain or Persia. The mother of the children was pregnant.

The blonde girl was perhaps a year or two younger than Julian. A nanny? An au pair? A personal assistant? Her pea coat was open, exposing a white dress that clung to her curves. The sight of her body along with her seemingly perpetually pouting pink lips drew him in once more.

Base desires flares like sun spots inside of him and soft romantic winds rush through him at the same time. It was confusing and decadent. He closed his eyes for a moment and let it wash over him.

When he opened his eyes, she was gone, the family was gone. An apparition, haunting him a second time. What a rare treat, he thought to himself and got back to work.

At a restaurant supply store, he purchased delicate sterling silver toothpicks. He got handsome black cocktail napkins. He even found a lovely thick white apron. At a florist, he found faux olive leaves for his little bar and a few small green chrysanthemums and orange cockscombs. The liquor was last and heaviest, but he dragged his boxes to a cab and was at the gallery with hours to spare.

Pulling up to the SoHo building, he found Mari out front arguing with some furniture movers. As Julian got closer, he realized they were arguing in Russian. He hadn’t known she was Russian, but something about the way she spoke in the language seemed more natural, more fitting.

Seeing him get out of the cab with several boxes, she yelled for one of the movers to help him. A large burly man who looked rather sheepish took the two boxes of liquor and hurried them inside. Julian followed.

The art studio, or apartment, he really wasn’t sure which, was one huge room with a tall ceiling and massive windows covering one wall, that looked out on the city. There were a few large cement pillars throughout the big room and the walls were freshly painted white, covered in gigantic photo prints.

The photos were black and white, moody closeups of women’s legs, mostly. Shadowy and glossy, the models sitting on the floor with their legs splayed out or folded under them or bent at the knees. Ripped fishnets or stockings with runs or even bare legs with bruises. It was incredibly intimate work and had a visceral and erotic edge to it that made Julian pause as he entered.

Mari would have none of his dawdlings though. “Julian, hello? The bar will be over there,” she pointed to one corner of the room where a black wooden table was set up. “There is a door behind it that leads to a small kitchen. There is a freezer full of ice in there. We have about five hours, so start setting up and then get some lunch or whatever.”

Julian had bartended before and worked a few summers for a catering company. He knew how to set things up for ease of serving and ease of cleanup. He practiced making a gin and a vodka martini. He still didn’t get the appeal, but he thought it was as good a version of the cocktail as he could make.

Mari came back and eyed him. Her red-orange jacket was open, exposing a shimmery slip of what looked like tea-stained silk.

“Test martinis, if you want one,” he said as she passed. She frowned but considered it. She walked over.

“Vodka or gin?” He asked and she rolled her eyes and took the vodka. She sipped and then sipped again. She begrudgingly nodded. “That’s good. Not so dirty unless they ask… but this crowd I’m sure they’ll all ask for it dirty and think they’re being cheeky.”

She finished the martini with one last large gulp. Her eyes lingered on him as she put it down. “Flowers for the bar? Oh, I guess you were the perfect choice. The hosts will love this shit,” she laughed and then turned and left the room.

With that, Julian went out to find lunch.

He still had more than three hours and was all setup. He looked around for a hamburger, finding a small chic diner that he could only eat at because his lunch was being paid for.

He reveled in it. A rich rare burger topped in a sharp funky slice of cheese. A thick spicy sauce. A sourdough bun. Served by a girl with a nosering.

Walking around the neighborhood, killing time, he had a nostalgic feeling. He remembered the days of his youth, went he sat and waited for a birthday party to start. Sitting in his Great Aunt’s house, looking at a table full of food he wasn’t allowed to touch.

Walked down the narrow streets of SoHo, he walked past beautiful perfumeries, French bakeries, salons, boutiques, and even a picturesque little statue garden. Down another block, he saw a small crowd of people in front of a robin’s egg blue storefront with a huge window. It was a toy store of some kind, though very luxurious and European.

And there, among the crowd, was the girl with the blonde eyebrows was there again. Her pale cheeks red from the late autumn wind. She was with the family, still holding the children’s hands as they all looked at the elaborate display in the window. Julian felt the same rush of desire for her. He saw one of her socks had fallen down slightly, bunching at her ankle, and the twee sort of little girl charm that absolutely crushed him.

The family spoke and the children were passed off to their pregnant mother. Mother and children went into the store and for a moment, it was only the father and the blonde girl. Julian watched them from across the street. The older man spoke to her, getting very close to her as he did, and he seemed to scold her in some serious but very stayed manner.

Her face dropped and she held her hands behind her. Julian’s active and somewhat perverse imagination ran through hours of babysitter porn and literary explorations of age gaps and power dynamics. He hoped, though sordid and wrong, that was what it was and not some real infraction or discipline.

Then the man turned and joined his family in the store. The blonde girl stayed put. Somehow, Julian’s legs started moving forward, as if his body couldn’t stand losing her again. He found himself standing next to her, looking into the shop, full of wooden soldiers and well-dressed dolls.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said with a smile, pushing hair from out of his eyes and behind his ear. He felt that smile cross his lips, that crooked smile he used to get out of trouble as a boy. She looked at him, slightly confused, but not seeming to be creped out.

“I saw you earlier, a few blocks away. You were looking into the window of a bookstore. It’s funny how small Manhattan can be,” he said, hoping it didn’t sound too weird. She looked him over, narrowing her eyes and scanning him up and down, then meeting his eyes. She was tall, or at least seemed tall for her build. She looked about the same height as him, five-ten. She seemed to process what he said and she bit her bottom lip again.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t think I saw you there. Are you having a shopping day too?”

Her voice was soft, girlish, and she had something of a polished New England accent. He expected her to be European, perhaps Swedish or Dutch.

“Yes, well, shopping for others,” he said with a chuckle, looking down, suddenly overcome with the power of her gaze.

She looked into the window, to the couple inside looking at ridiculously ornate chess sets, then to the two children, sitting quietly on the bench, playing a video game of some kind. She considered Julian again and smiled at him. “I guess that’s how it works here. Young people shopping for older richer people. I’m Minette,” she said and tucked a bit of blonde hair behind her ear and held out her hand. He shook it. “Julian.”

When she looked back, she saw the couple motioning for her. She smiled again at Julian and then went to gather the boys and join their parents inside.

“Lovely to meet you, Minette,” he said as she passed, marveling at her name, how it felt in his mouth, the strangeness of it, French and archaic and perfect. She bit her lip once more and her eyes locked with his for a moment before she turned and went inside.

Julian walked the street for another hour. Hands in his pockets, feeling overcome with vague romantic tides and simple little perversities. How the cupid bow of her pink lips might look as she came. Holding her hand as they walked in Central Park. What her pussy tasted like.

His mind kept coming back to her uneven socks, one pulled up her calf, one down at her ankle. He imagined getting on his knees to fix them. He imagined looking up her skirt. He imagined spanking her.

He found himself turned around, his head still up her skirt, Minette, yet when he looked up he was back at the studio.

Upstairs, a few black leather couches were in place along with small round tables. Small spotlights mounted on the ceiling were carefully aimed at each of the large photos. It all looked so professional and clean.

He manned his station, checking the small kitchen for ice, which there was plenty of, and stocking his apron with bar towels. He felt the nervous energy of working a party, waiting for a crowd. He went back to his bottles, test measuring drinks, moving everything so that they were accessible with the least movement.

When people started to arrive, time dilated. It was far busier than he imagined and the well-dressed patrons were very thirsty for martinis. They were moneyed and most were a bit older. They had their orders down, probably for decades. They did often go dirty. The dirtier the better. As dirty as you can make it.

An hour went by in a flash. Mari stopped by and asked for “Just vodka, none of that other silliness.” She seemed happy, thriving on the energy of the room in a way Julian hadn’t seen before. She put a twenty in his tip jar and winked at him.

As she walked away, he saw a very handsome couple. Dark olive skin. She was pregnant. The couple. Employers of Minette. They walked to the bar. “Dry gin martini with a twist and for my wife…” the man smiled. “A little cup of olives, if you wouldn’t mind.”

His accent was thick, but Julian didn’t have an ear for them and couldn’t tell where he was from. He tried to mix the man’s drink perfectly and handed him a glass of olives. “Good man,” he said and winked at Julian. The image of the man chiding Minette flashed and Julian’s body reacted. His cock hardening.

Then it was back to shaking drinks and the mechanical monotony of the bar. Hours passed in what seemed like moments. The crowd swelled and then started to trickle out. He ran out of vodka just as the last few people left.

Mari came around after that and nodded at me. “Good job. We have a cleanup crew coming later. Like I said, if you want, you can come to the after part. It’s upstairs. Just go through that door.” She pointed at a black door in the far back of the studio.

“To warn you, though, it gets a little racy,” she chuckled. “But you’re a big boy. I’m sure you can handle it.” She winked again. Julian wasn’t sure what her winks meant. He wanted to find out, though.

He went into the little kitchen and washed up. He smelled like gin and lemon, but not unpleasantly. He took a few deep breaths and stepped out of the kitchen, making his way to the door.

Julian could feel the bass as he walked up the industrial-looking stairway. There was a bouncer at the door to the party who looked Julian up and down and nodded, opening the door for him. Inside was the smell of perfume and champagne. It was dimly lit, with throbbing electronic music, and some of the same people from downstairs, but mixed with a younger crowd.

Men in black suits and women wearing lingerie. Men in nothing but speedos and women in corsets. People of indeterminant gender wearing hardly anything. Compared to downstairs, it was intense, claustrophobic, and primal. Julian was very into it.

A woman dressed like a bellhop walked by with a tray of Champagne and he took a glass, walking further into the din.

The place had a much lower ceiling and was cordoned off into a little labyrinth of rooms. Some had different lighting, even different music. People danced, made out, laughed, did drugs. Julian was momentarily shocked and then laughed at himself.

He was exactly where he wanted to be. He sipped champagne. He saw a flash of skin and turned to see a woman pulling off her shirt and raising her arms in the air and dancing. Her breasts were small and pert and Julian felt a flash of pleasure seeing her. The simple joy of random nudity. Illicent and innocuous all at once.

He turned, and there they were again. The couple. The Minette’s keepers. His jacket was off and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up. He was smiling and laughing. She was serious-faced, dressed in a remarkably complex piece of lingerie. Black straps crossed over her large breasts. Her round pregnant belly was exposed, seeming somehow lewd.

Julian stood there in shock, as they mingled with the crown and then, the music died out, at least in his ears. She appeared. She turned a corner in slow motion. Minette in a white bra, white panties, and white garter belt. White collar around her neck, with a leash. Julian’s eyes followed the white leash down, a long arc, to the hand of the pregnant woman.

Minette’s face was placid. She looked around the crowd just as she looked around the bookstore or streets of SoHo. Her lips were pursed, her head held high. There was a poise to her and Julian wondered if that was her natural stance or if she had been told to stand up straight. Was she being a good girl for them?

His eyes dipped down and all the fantasies he had about her body were destroyed by the reality of her beauty. The curves, the hip-to-waist ratio, the swell of her breasts, the thickness of her thighs, the roundness of her ass, the adorable pooch of her belly.

He felt a kind of vertigo, questioning if what he saw was real. He felt frozen in place as he watched them walk further into the wilds of the party.

He didn’t know if he should talk to her, talk to them. The collar, the dynamic, it all seemed so complicated and foreign. He’s certainly played with power. Tied girls up and been tied up. Spanked the girlfriend that had finally asked him after they’d talked about it for weeks. Moving up to more, the belt, the paddle they bought in the store downtown. The formality of the collar though, was something so big it seemed impenetrable.

Julian stumbled through the party more. He found a room where two men were wrestling on the floor. The energy was so different than the other rooms. A muscular man with a mustache bumped into Julian and he jumped a bit.

The slightly older man chuckled. “Skiddish aren’t you,” he said and moved into Julian’s personal space. “You like to wrestle too?” He asked and Julian didn’t know what to say. He knew what to do when flirting with women, but men left him mute.

Julian looked at the men on the floor and then back at the man in front of him. He felt suddenly shy. “Maybe in a bit,” he said with a little laugh and moved on to the next room. He went on and on. Scene to scene. Seeing elaborate flogging, pole dancing and lap dances, cuddle piles and spinning the bottle.

Turning the corner, he spotted a circle of people excitedly watching something. It reminded him of high school, the circles formed around two kids who were going to have a fight.

It was a couple, fucking on the floor. The crowd was mostly silent, leaning into each other to whisper as they watched the spectacle. He carefully moved through them, like making his way to the stage in a crowded concert.

It was her. Her blonde hair almost covered her face, which was bright red from a blush that went from her cheeks down to between her large pale breasts. Her body rocked back and forth, her thick thighs clapping against the muscular legs of the man behind her.

It was him, obviously. Her keeper. Her employeer, Julian assumed.

Her bra and panties were off, but her collar was still around her neck. Once more Julian followed the leash to find the other half of the couple still holding it, sitting in a chair near them, watching them fuck. Her eyes drugged. It was she who bit her lip. Her jaw clenched as her unblinking eyes watched.

Julian’s vision tunneled as his eyes focused on various parts of what he was watching. The man’s strong fingers clutching the softness of her hips. The way he pounded into her and each time her ass and breasts shook obscenely. The way Minette had her eyes closed tightly and she seemed to be whispering something to herself.

God, Julian was desperate to hear what she was saying. He wanted to feel her body as the man took her from behind so animalistically. He wanted to be the one fucking her, sinking deep into her wet warmth. He wanted to feel what she was feeling, be her, feel someone pounding into his body. He wanted everything he was looking at.

The wants bubbled up inside of him, and blossomed into something too intense and confusing. The pink of her nipples, a little flash of the golden hair between her legs. The slapping of their bodies. He found his legs once more moving, this time back. He stumbled away, feeling high, feeling brokenhearted, and hard all at once.

He stumbled right into Mari, who was another surprise. She wore the same outfit as before, only the jacket was open exposing her thin body, her small breasts, and a line of tattoos of dark birds in flight like a splash across her collar and shoulder.

She looked as stoned as he felt, only hers seemed authentically chemical, as opposed to traumatic. She looked up at him, taking a moment to remember who he was. She rolled her eyes and then grabbed his tie and pulled him through the crowd by it.

Julian was still a bit in shock. His brain couldn’t make things make sense. Mari, who seemed to hate him was bringing him somewhere. He wondered if she was pissed he was at the after party and she was kicking him out.

They passed more little tableaux of sex, kink, intimacy of all kinds. Mari tugged his tie if he slowed enough to watch, though.

They made their way to a couch, not far from the action, but far enough that he mercifully couldn’t hear it. Mari let go of his tie and with a sigh sat down on a couch.

“I’m on molly. I need someone to eat my pussy. Can you be cool and do it?” Her face had the look of someone who didn’t like you having to ask to borrow twenty dollars.

He didn’t really say yes, he just got on his knees in front of the couch. She sat back and smiled, closing her eyes and opening her legs.

The cliche of a landing strip, but then the shock of Mari’s pussy. The pussy of an acquaintance. Her hands rough in his hair, pulling him towards her. The heady salty bliss of it. It had been a while since he’d done it. It had been a while since he’d done anything. They fell into it like gravity. The gravity of her body, her desire. He found the points of her need, the cadence of what she wanted from him. His finger slipped into her and making her hiss with surprise. His tongue right where she pointed him.

Then the work of it. The focus. Keep going, keep the pace, don’t slow, don’t speed up. Just keep going.

“Don’t… move… right…” It went fast. Faster than he expected. He knew it was the drugs, the party, the everything, but still he liked to be a good boy. He liked to be the how. The thing that got her off. Still, the speed at which it was all happening was impressive.

After she came she pushed him away and closed her legs, gasping and giggling. The sound was so unlike anything he’d heard come out of her mouth. Then some little whisper in Russian to herself.

She moved forward and kissed him, which was, in some ways, even more unexpected. The kiss hard hard and felt like just a reaction. Then, her hand came up and touched his face and the kiss deepened, slowed, became a real kiss.

She pulled back gently and smiled at him. “You smell like me,” she chuckled. Her hand was on his tie again, holding him in place. She signed deeply. “I have to go work. You should find someone to fuck,” she said, getting up and straightening herself out and then rather shakily walking away.

Julian sat on the couch, still warm from her body. His mind tried to refocus. Minette. Mari. He found his Champagne glass and took a sip. He found a bar rag in his pocket and wiped his mouth. He looked up and saw the blonde standing in the crowd, looking at him. She was alone. Her collar was off and her white lingerie was back on. She walked over and sat next to him.

“I was watching you. Did you watch me?” She asked, biting her bottom lip. He considered that her voice was too soft and sweet to be in that room.

“I saw you. It’s a strange thing to see someone out in the world and fall completely in lust with them. To think about them all day and then run into them again and again. To daydream about them and then…”

She smiled and looked down.

The bellhop came around with Champagne. Julian looked up. “Do you want a drink?” She shook her head.

“This is the second one of these… parties I’ve been to with the Corderos. The first time I took a pill someone gave me. I didn’t really know what it was and I felt very strange. So I decided to do this party sober.”

Julian nodded. “That seems smart. I’ve just been nursing this glass of champagne all night. This is my first… whatever this is.”

They both chuckled at that and then looked down at their knees. Somehow he’d watched her get fucked on all fours and she’d seen him eat pussy and yet they were sitting next to each other like two nervous prom dates unsure if they should dance.

“I’ve never seen someone with such blonde eyebrows before,” he finally said. She reached up and touched them self-consciously.

“They’re not, really. I mean, my hair is naturally blonde, but not this light. I had a modeling job and they lightened my hair and then my eyebrows. Mr. Cordero… I mean,” she blushed, unsure what to call him. “Well, he liked it and he asked me to keep them like this.”

Julian smiled and she looked up, through her lashes, and smiled back before biting her bottom lip again. He tried to find the words. “Do you… I mean, do you like working for him? Them?”

Her smile was complicated. He watched the little journey of a grin, then a smile, then something rather wicked in her eyes.

“I like my job. I like their kids. Mrs. Cordero is very kind and brilliant and god… go beautiful. The other things that have grown from my work have been interesting. I guess… I’ve always fallen for older men. It runs in my family. My mother married my father when she was eighteen and he was almost fifty. I don’t know. It’s a little confusing at times, but they are both very generous and open with me. I know it won’t last forever, but for now, it works and I love it. I love New York. I love their house. I love them.”

Julian nodded, taking in all she was saying and seeing how it seemed to come from her heart.

“That’s amazing.”

Her face lit up and she looked him in the eyes again. She seemed to be gauging if he was being honest or just polite. She smiled and he hoped that meant she knew he was speaking the truth.

“And, I mean, I belong to them… in a very specific way, but I have my own life too.”

Julian nodded. “You belong to them?” He asked, trying to keep judgment out of his voice, but was genuinely curious what she meant.

She nodded emphatically. “I do. I’m theirs. I’m their toy. Their doll. We had a little ceremony and everything. They take care of me and I’m theirs to do whatever they want with. It’s… it’s more than I ever imagined. It’s amazing,” she explained with a smile.

“But, you’re still your own person too? Like, I could ask you on a date?” He found he was biting his own lip.

She smiled more brightly and nodded. “You can ask me on a date.”

They both let out a breath and chuckled again. Her hand found his. “I’d really like to take you on a date, Minette.”

She nodded and her cheeks went red again. “I’d really like to go on a date with you, Julian.”

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment, then back down at their knees.