I Handle Everything

Harry the Handler

People ask me what I handle. The answer is simple: everything. No questions asked, provided the cash tip is large enough. That is the arrangement at Mistress Lynne’s mansion. People bring me problems they cannot solve themselves, and I make those problems disappear. Sometimes that means money. Sometimes it means information. Sometimes it means having a conversation in a quiet room with a man who has forgotten the terms of an agreement he willingly entered into. The important thing is that, when they come to me, they already understand one thing: the problem is no longer theirs.

Take the submissive who stopped paying his agreed contributions. He had been at the mansion for six weeks, long enough to become comfortable, and too comfortable, as it turned out. He had begun convincing himself that Mistress Lynne’s terms were flexible, that an arrangement could be renegotiated simply because he had decided it should be. Men sometimes develop that kind of confidence when they have been inside the mansion long enough. They begin mistaking familiarity for authority. Mistress Lynne called me at eleven that night, and I went to his room. I sat across from him and looked at him. That was all. I did not raise my voice or touch him. I simply explained the situation in terms that left no room for misunderstanding. I have a particular history, and there is a particular quality of attention that comes with it. A man sitting across from me at eleven o’clock at night tends to understand very quickly that there are some conversations where the words themselves are almost beside the point. He transferred the full amount before midnight. The handling fee was transferred before I reached the door. He is still in the mansion. He transfers early now. Every time. Occasionally I see him in the corridor, and he looks at the floor. That is the correct response.

The photographs were a different matter. A man came to me with a problem that had been building for two years. His life outside the mansion—the wife, the position, the reputation he had constructed so carefully—was threatened by documentation he could not make disappear. He had tried lawyers. He had tried money. He had tried the quiet conversations powerful men have when they believe subtlety will accomplish what honesty cannot. None of it had worked. He came to me at midnight and sat down in the chair across from mine. He explained everything, and I listened without expression. I have heard worse. I have handled worse. The expression I wear while listening is not the expression of a man surprised by what people do when nobody is watching. When he finished, I named my price. He stared at me and told me it was more than he expected. I told him I was not charging him for an attempt. I was charging him for a resolution. He understood and transferred the fee that night.

I was gone for three days. Two cities. Several rooms I will never describe. Conversations with people whose names will never appear in any record connected to mine. Money was involved, of course, but money was only one currency among several. Information has value. Favors have value. Reputation has value. Knowing who will answer your call when everyone else stops answering has value. I came back with a resolution. The photographs no longer existed, and the people who had possessed them understood perfectly well what would happen if they reconsidered. When I told him, he cried. A grown man, a man with a significant position and a carefully constructed public life, a man who had come to this mansion because he could not stay away from what Mistress Lynne did to men like him. He sat in that chair and cried from relief. I let him. That is part of what I handle too. He tips generously now. He always will.

Then there is the auction. Once a year, Mistress Lynne makes one of Her men available in a very particular way. The bidders are vetted personally. I assess their ability to pay, their discretion, and their understanding of exactly what they are bidding on. It is not a night. It is not entertainment. The terms are established beforehand, and once the bidding begins, those terms do not change. I run the room. I always run the room. The last auction lasted four hours. At the two-hour mark, I took the leading bidder aside, and we spoke privately about the final increment and about what, precisely, his money was purchasing. I explained the condition in which the man would be presented to him and made certain there was no confusion about what had been agreed upon. Then I named a number. He accepted it before I finished speaking. The final transfer became the largest single-session figure the mansion had ever recorded. Mistress Lynne was pleased. I was professionally satisfied. Later, the man who had been auctioned came to me. He was exhausted, overwhelmed, and in a state I will not describe. He looked at me and said, “Thank you.” He meant it. That was what all the preparation had been for.

But there is one thing Mistress Lynne has asked me to handle that I have never told anyone. She came to me at two in the morning and told me what She needed. I will not tell you what it was. I will tell you that it required me to travel to a city I will not name, enter a room with people I will not describe, and draw upon every part of my particular history, my particular capabilities, and my particular willingness to go places most men would never consider entering. I was gone for four days. When I returned, She was waiting in the corridor. She looked at me for a long moment before saying, “I knew you could.” I have worked for powerful people my entire life. I have never been looked at the way She looked at me in that corridor.

I handle Her mansion. I handle Her men. I handle the things that happen in the darkness of this building and the things that need handling in the darkness far beyond its walls. The corridor is mine. Everything else is negotiable. Cash. Prepaid. Named once. Final. The payment is the first submission. I let them feel the weight of it. Then I handle it.