In the bathroom of the bar, ten minutes before his shift was due to start, Salem was getting blown. It was crowded in the stall, and needed to be cleaned – something David certainly didn't mind. He knelt in front of Salem, sucking loudly and quickly, knowing time was precious. David was a man Salem had hooked up with casually several times: tattooed and bearded, and excellent in bed. Decisive, he looked at Salem, who enjoyed the attention. There was someone else in the bathroom, pissing in the next stall over, saying nothing. David moaned, quiet, his hands tightly gripping Salem's ass. It was always risky to fool around in public. It was so much more fun than fooling around at home.

David always swallowed. He said he enjoyed it, too. It was easy to cum quietly. After wiping his mouth, he chuckled and stood, straightening his hat. "I'll text you. Have a good day at work, bitch.”

He was older, by four or so years, and certainly experienced. Casual sex was enjoyable, but it only ever lasted until somebody caught feelings. Sometimes, it was also nice to come home to somebody.

"Bye, slut."

If you asked all of the Zoan children, most would have agreed that Salem was the easiest to get along with. He worked sixty hour weeks as a bar manager at a cocktail pub, offering free foods and drinks to homeless customers, and breaking up fights regularly. The thing about Salem was that he was very hard to anger, but became hostile when others were taken advantage of. Managing a bar meant being a problem solver and working proactively, which was easy if you knew what you were doing. Six months ago, Salem was promoted from senior bartender, taking on much more responsibilities and hours. It wasn't for the timid. It wasn't for the indecisive, either.

Salem lived in a townhouse, alone, which wasn't always preferable. Living alone had its perks, but it also could be extremely boring.

There was a young man coming in for an interview. With his promotion, Salem became responsible for interviewing potential new hires: a task he didn't take lightly. It was always busiest, obviously, on weekend nights and holidays. He'd been working at Sleeping Tulip for seven years, and only recently moved up in the ranks. All new hires started, of course, at the bottom. Inventory was the most boring part of Salem's job, but somebody had to do it. Usually, he did this biweekly using computer software, which made the task a lot faster. Around dinnertime, the place always started to fill up. Salem had been here since early afternoon, and expected to work all night.

He'd hired Katie five months ago. She was efficient, with the same type of blunt honesty as Alma. This was something he'd grown used to. Sneaking into the room, Katie cleared her throat. "Salem?"

He suspected the night would be unruly. Already, the patrons were noisy. "Sup, Katie."

She always seemed surprised by his casual demeanour. Maybe, technically, he was in charge of her, but there was no reason to be uptight about it. "Can I book off the seventeenth? My friends really want to go to a concert."

At work, there was never a moment of sitting still. Outside of work, life was all about pleasure.

"Write it down."

Tonight, Salem had a lot of people to interview. It was easy to tell right away if an interviewee was suitable for the job. It took a certain personality to manage in an environment like this. After finishing with inventory, he stood to clean stations. "Hey, Katie?"

She looked up from the notebook. "Yeah?"

"Fix your collar."

Escaping from a cult was easy, once you figured out you were living in one. The younger a person is, the more vulnerable they are to manipulation and brainwashing. Even Salem, at one point, was afraid to misbehave for fear of punishment. Maybe as a small child, he believed in Hell. That was too long ago to remember, now. It was Delilah who'd told him what a cult was. It must have been difficult for her to figure it out on her own. The truth was, in Salem's opinion, there was no type of Hell at all. No Hell, no Heaven – not in the Christian sense of the word. It was a waste of time and energy to worry too much about an afterlife. A Christian's Hell was a place of eternal torment. A Heathen's Helheim was a place of eternal rest.

The music was too quiet. When evening came, Salem always turned it up.

"Hi, Mark," he said to the man, the first interviewee of the night. "I'm Salem. Come on back." It was stressful most of the time, working a job with so many responsibilities, but he made a lot of money and had fun doing it. "How are you?" He felt for the guy, who tried his best to be calm despite how nervous he looked. Some people were just more nervous than others. Anxiety wouldn't get a person far in a place like this. Interviews were all the same. Repetitive, even boring after a while. It never took long to determine if somebody was a good fit.

Sitting across from him, Mark adjusted his collar. "I'm good, how are you?" He sat up straight, although Salem didn't care much about posture. Here, it was all about personality.

At eighteen years old, Salem changed his name. If you asked his parents, they'd likely say they didn't even know it.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mark was prepared, though soft-spoken, answering each question in what was nearly a mumble. After hours of meeting potential new employees, there was the task of deciding who was most suitable. Tonight, there'd be a beverage shipment and a restocking of the bar. This happened, on average, every couple of weeks. It was important to know which drinks were the most popular, and which were most profitable. The job had certainly made Salem more responsible than he'd been in his life, which maybe he needed, but there was so much more to life than being responsible.

In his back pocket, he carried two Epipens. There was a risk at work of accidentally consuming something dangerous, and it had happened before. Most of the staff knew of Salem's allergies. But Sleeping Tulip was a busy place, and it was never without risk.

"Hey, Sammy," said Salem to an older woman behind the bar, "can you please go give the bathrooms a quick clean before the bar picks up?" All of the restrooms at Sleeping Tulip were gender neutral. People had complained about this, but it wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

When the sun went down, the partiers came out. With partiers came belligerence. Sometimes, Salem caught a man sneaking a drug into a woman's drink, and warned her discreetly each time. Sometimes, a patron became so belligerent, he had no choice but to kick them out. At least once a week, he'd break up a fight that erupted. More than once, he'd gotten punched or shoved. Under one eye, he had a jagged scar from a bar fight that got out of hand.

There was a disturbance at the front of the bar. After finishing up the sixth interview of the day, Salem wandered out to investigate.

There were regulars here, sitting at their regular tables, drinking or snacking on appetizers. Rowdy, two men shouted at a group of women. Men did this a lot. The problem was that Salem couldn't be everywhere at once, and neither could the bartenders. He didn't often bartend anymore. Sometimes, when it got too busy, he was happy to lend a hand.

One of the young women shouted back, shaking her head over the music and the lights. Delilah had once tried to explain what it was like as a woman in a place like a pub or a gym. Men were clueless most of the time, and thought with their dicks the rest of it.

Salem was close enough to get involved. It was late. After working nights for so many months, he rarely went home tired anymore. "Hey! She said no. Keep moving."

The guys were taller than him. This was impressive, because he was six foot three. "What did you say, asshole?" The most obnoxious of the men, his arms above his head in frustration, wasn't intimidating. Nobody really was. "I asked her to dance with me!"

This was how fights always broke out. Salem wasn't much of a fighter. You couldn't solve anything by throwing fists. "Yeah, and she said no. Leave her alone."

He scoffed. "Or what?"

Peacekeeping was exhausting. As a teenager, Salem was angry too. There was a lot to be angry about. Coming to terms with everything he'd missed in life was hard. So was catching up with the rest of the people his age. After a while, you grow tired of being angry. It becomes too tiring to be bitter and scared, but it takes a lot of work to get past it. Like a lot of his siblings, Salem had been to therapy. These days, he didn't much have the time or the interest to go back.

"Look, dude, just quit harassing women. We're all just trying to have a good time without being bothered."

It wasn't uncommon for combatant, drunk people to throw a punch at Salem. He didn't fight back. Removing these types of people from the pub was the most effective way to make everybody else feel safer.

A shift always ended with running through the checklist. There were things that needed to be done regularly to ensure the cleanliness of the place. Salem was responsible for making sure everything was finished properly before he clocked out. In the twelve hours of his absences, there'd be another pub manager on shift, with whom Salem needed to communicate regularly.

"I'm moving away."

Delilah had a suitcase on her bed, placing things into it carefully. She was nineteen, fresh out of high school, a woman of ambition and intelligence. He never doubted she'd make a name for herself.

"Where?"

"Iceland."

It wasn't surprising. All her life, Delilah had talked about moving to Iceland and teaching English, which is exactly what she did. Salem would have gone to visit her more often if he weren't afraid of planes. Driving was fine. Putting your life in the hands of somebody else was oddly disorienting. She sat, reaching for his arm, possibly trying to ascertain that he was still there. "You'll come visit someday, right?"

"I'll try."

Salem hadn't seen his sister in person in five years. They both lived busy lives, but took the time to communicate nearly daily. This meant a lot to both of them.

When he called, Delilah usually answered right away. She worked long hours and went to bed early, but always somehow made time for him. Salem drove an electric vehicle, using Bluetooth to speak on the phone while driving. Delilah, who was just getting ready for her second class of the day, had begun to pick up the accent after a decade of living in Iceland. "Hey, Shadow. How was work?"

Salem didn't love this nickname – but like a dutiful big sister, Delilah stuck to it. "It was work. How are you?”

Delilah didn't drive. Blind from teenagehood, she'd found alternate ways of getting around. Most of the time, this involved her wife, Frigg. "I'm getting essays back today. All that marking is going to take hours." He imagined she was a good teacher. Enjoying your job was really all that mattered.

After work, Salem had plans with his ex-girlfriend, Kioni. After breaking up six months ago, Kioni was the one who suggested casual hook-ups. For the time being, this was good enough. Changing into something comfortable, he filled the bowl of a sleek yellow pipe and lit it.

The townhouse was scattered with random knick-knacks: runes, cards, magic items, articles of clothing. It wasn't a huge space, but it was more than enough for one person. Kioni, who lived here briefly during their relationship, hated the mess. Salem's basement housed three lizards and a theremin, which he'd learned to play by watching tutorial videos. The reptiles, who were used to being handled, sometimes sat around his neck while he played.

Kioni always let herself in. She was a Kenyan dancer, slim and leggy, who went after what she wanted. It wasn't that they didn't like each other. Kioni and Salem were never compatible, and argued a lot. In the end, it was agreed they were much better friends than lovers.