without a sound

“You cold? You’re shaking a little,” Kendall observes, handing you a bottle of sparkling water. 

You shake your head ‘no’ and take the bottle with a smirk. Kendall goes back to sit on the brutalist-looking loveseat, meanwhile, you stand pacing around his stunning B&B. He watches you with amusement.

“Just a little low on iron, is all,”

“Uh-huh. And here I was thinking I had you that excited,” Kendall jokes, grinning.

“Please,” you protest, “You don’t even know…like…this is probably the lamest thing I could say but being around you, like, you make my chest…feel like a fucking snowglobe,”

“See, there you go with the ‘cold’ thing again. You want a blanket? Thinking about snow in this kind of scorching fuckin’ Gobi Desert heat?” he gestures outside to the balcony, the sun just beginning to make its descent, “You’re something else, you know that?”

It had been a bit warmer today.

“Sure,” you nod skeptically, taking a gulp of your water.

Kendall jumps to his feet, not taking your dismissiveness well. He trails behind you.

“No, no, no. I don’t think you understand…I saw you. From the moment we fuckin’ locked eyes, I saw you. And I knew—I knew—I had to get to know you better. Or else I was gonna…just beat myself up the rest of the night for not saying anything,”

He’s now standing a foot away from you, occasionally breaking your sustained eye contact while fidgeting with the zipper of his jacket. His on-and-off avoidance reads to you as genuine. Normally, he’s able to nail people to a T; dress them up and down without missing a beat. But here he was, this overly-confident, ego-inflated middle-aged billionaire—left mumbling and fumbling like a schoolboy with a crush. 

Why did it make you want him even more?

“Yeah, and…? The verdict? Am I everything you’d hoped and more?” you say, cheekily.

He chuckles, beaming down once more, before his firm hand finds its rightful place at the corner of your jaw. He draws you into a deep and pronounced kiss. Kendall’s lips are smooth and so is his other hand, sleightfully affixing itself to the small of your back. His lone thumb massages the dip in your spine. It’s subtle enough of a move to have you leaning back into the touch, wanting more. A hand traces up behind your back, providing you with some much-needed support. Ever since his tongue took to massaging yours, you had become leery of the stability in your knees.

“Yes, baby,” he murmurs.

He takes your face into both hands, kissing you with a wanton tenderness. Your hands go to his sides, sliding down to the waistband of his jeans. You take him, hastily pulling your sweater off, as a cue to go for his belt. You begin shimmying it out of its loop, before his hand flies to your wrist.

“No. Ah-ah. Bed,” Kendall groans, “I need you on my bed.”

 You nod. You’re not prepared when his same hands that were taking to undressing you hoist you upwards off the ground so you’re partially hanging over his shoulder. Kendall wasn’t the most built, but he had a decent amount of strength. You laugh outrageously, squealing once he starts speed-walking in the direction of the master bedroom. Before you know it, you’re lightly tossed onto a cloudlike mattress, the softest you’d ever felt in your life. You’re still giggling, even when Kendall crawls up the bed to join you, sheepish grin plastered all over his face. He halts at your tummy, taking the hem of your undershirt along in his trajectory upwards. Your tits bounce as he exposes them. 

“Off, off—take it—” he chants in a hushed tone, helping you to hastily pull it over your head, “There.”

The hardness growing in his pants can be felt as he eyes those soft plush tits of yours. You had thought you saw him take a not-so-sneaky glance at them during dinner. Those wandering hazel eyes. So indecent.

He palms your tits together, making your cleavage more pronounced before burying his face in between them, kissing and sucking both your breasts and the sensitive flesh in between them. Once he frees them from the cups of your restrictive bra, he takes another moment to admire them. Your nipple pebbles under the light graze of his middle finger. Kendall takes that same finger into his mouth for a second, wetting it. He returns to the same nipple, which stiffens even more in response to the chill from his spit that he massages around it. You swear you see the faintest smile form from his lips, as if he was rather pleased with your ‘response’. 

“Kendall…?” you mewl. 

“Yeah, baby?” he asks.

“...I need it,”

“Need what, honey?”

“I need you,” you whimper, pathetically, “Please?”

“You’re a lot more subby than I thought you’d be,” he whispers into one of your eyes, “It’s so fuckin’ sexy—can’t get enough of you,”

He kisses your cheek before rolling off of you to free himself from his pants. You make quick work of your own slacks and then your panties. Besides your bra, which you’ve ridden yourself of completely at this point—you are bare. Kendall remains partially clothed, his slacks pulled down to his knees. There was something about the incongruence that drove you mad, made you yearn for his dick even more. You assume your position, lying back onto the mattress as you were before.

“Whaddya think you’re—oh, no, no, no. Sorry, should’ve been clearer. You’re riding me tonight. You’re fucking riding me until those gorgeous fucking legs give out, ‘kay?”

Breathlessly, without so much as a second thought, you climb up on Kendall’s lap, leaning back while bracing yourself on the muscle of his thighs. He lines himself up with your entrance while each of your knees rests evenly by his hips. Kendall cups his hand below your chin, you look to him for direction. 

“Spit,”

He waits expectedly, still holding his hand beneath your mouth. You decide to do things a little differently. You move his hand out of the way, leaning forwards to spit directly onto his cock. It leaves your mouth in the long string, landing on the tip of his dick and sliding languidly from his slick head down the rest of his shaft.

“Filthy fucking girl,” he says under his breath as you sit on it. 

Kendall’s hands stretch up behind your back to grip your shoulders, all the more leverage to ram himself into you repeatedly. Relentlessly. It’s so much so quickly, you nearly tap his shoulder for him to go easy, but it’s too good. There’s a fervor in his darkened eyes and beads of sweat forming just above them. He’s eager and determined to make you gasp in shock—he wants you to be slack-jawed at how good he’s making you feel. Like you didn’t even think it was possible to feel this good. 

That he’s good. 

Fuck, he just really wants to be told that he’s ‘good’. 

And yet, you’re too busy getting your brains fucked out by him, so much in fact that you are hardly capable of speech.

Pity.

He wanted to see every piece of you, every inch of flesh he intended to mark. He remains under you, even now. As if to promote the idea that you were the one holding the reins. Kendall frees one hand to ghost downwards where your bodies happen to meet. His fingers drag in strokes over the fold of your pussy, broadly at first and then more acute once he finds the right motion. The kind that makes your hips buck and your breasts sway. You whine, the bluntness of his cock matched with the deftness of his fingertips being a fatal combination. 

“There you are, baby,” he purrs, “There’s my girl.”  

Out of sheer desperation, you cling onto his hunter green cotton tee he still dons, tugging at it so much, the hem is halfway up his stomach. This makes him laugh, placing his hands over your own as you begin to grind and take the lead.

“Fuck me, honey. C’mon. Fuck me how you want. Fuck me how you need,” he chants, “Use that fuckin’ dick. Use that fuckin’ dick. C’mon,”

Your back arches like a springboard, recoiling with every bounce off his thighs. 

“Uh-huh. God, you take it like a champ, yeah? Like a fuckin’ pro. You were made to take this fucking dick, weren’t you? Huh?”

You babble out a messy plethora of “uh-huhs” and “yeses.” You move in ways you didn’t think you could, that no man had ever been able to coax out of you. Was it him? Was it his station in life? Was it the immense wealth and luxury he surrounded himself with? 

Why was it so good?

The question tortured you, just like those fingertips rubbing at your clit that was keeping you dangerously close to the edge.

“K-Ken, I-I can’t, you’re—” you plead, “You’re going so fast—I’m not g’na, you’re gonna make me—”

“‘S okay, baby. I know. I know, c’mere. I know it’s too good. I know this dick is too good but you gotta take it for me, ‘kay? You gotta take it—every fuckin’ inch—every motherfuckin’ inch, yeah?”

“Yes, yes, fuck!”

“Fuck, this pussy. This tight fucking pussy. Feels so good, best I’ve ever felt,” You scoff at his assertion and between pants say, “You say that to every woman that winds up naked in your bed?”

“No,” he insists, “Just the ones I want to take my load deep inside their cunt. Like you’re gonna? Right? You want it in you?”

You nod rapidly, desperately, feverishly. 

“You sure?”

Rather than verbally answering him, you lock down his hips with your quads clenched hard around his lap, attempting to pry his very soul from his core. You make small, frenzied grinding motions, eager and needing to be filled. You then reach your peak, fluttering around Ken’s soaked cock. His orgasm that he thought was somewhere in the distance instead sneaks up on him, pounding into you once twice as he paints you white from within. You swear you can feel it throb against your walls, but you are positive you can feel the warm trickle that drips down your inner thighs when he draws himself from you. Letting your back fall heavy behind you, the lush mattress cushions your descent. You pant, face warm with flush and glistening with sweat. You’re not expecting Kendall, still bare from the lower half, to slide up next to your position and plant a kiss on your cheek and then run a smooth hand up and down your back until you drift off to sleep but you’re not one to fight it either. 

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He is everywhere, and he is nowhere, all at once. His hands grasping at your own, pressing them down into the mattress, and his eyes - God, his eyes - peering into your own like you have all of the answers. You don't, but you do know some things; that he prefers cologne that smells like vetiver, that he's been smoking again, and that the slow roll of his hips against your own may just have the power to kill you entirely. It's like this, with him; your entire worldview narrowed down to a pinprick in the span of a moment. Him. Everything is him. His smell, the taste of tobacco on his lips, the roughness of his palms against your own. His stubble scrapes against your skin, makes you sigh and arch into him.

Your mouth tries to wrap itself around the syllables of his name, but all the breath has been punched from your lungs, and so all you can muster is a breathy, choked sort of sound. He's got his lips pressed together, a pinch in his brow - focus, always so much focus from him, even in this. There's a thin sheen of sweat on his face, and the minutes have bled together until they feel like eternity. It just might be.

One of his hands leaves your own, and you feel almost empty from the absence of it until you feel it brushing against your inner thighs, finding the space where you're joined together. The calloused pads of two fingers press firm against your clit, and you moan. He'd usually grin - shit-eating and overly proud - and tease you for a bit, but tonight is different, somehow. A charged sort of energy. He doesn't grin at all; instead, his tongue dips out to wet his lips, and there's something about the sight of it that makes that knot in your belly tighten. His fingers move - slow, slow, slow. Deliberation. The undoing.

"I love you." He rasps out, low and rough. It sticks to your ribs, fills you up. Satiety. You want to say it back, but your mouth isn't working right - everything is bright and fluorescent, the edges of your vision a halo of white. It feels like that one time he convinced you to do coke with him. Everything floral and pretty and sharp.

You don't need to say it back, you suppose, because he's talking again, soothing you. "I know, baby. I know. Just take it."

You don't really think you have much choice in the matter, not that you're complaining.

Release finds you slowly; a buzzing sort of heat spreading out through your limbs, your fingers, your toes. Your body shakes beneath him, and he clings to you - buries his face in the crook of your neck and rocks his hips slower, deeper. Hushes you with words you can't quite make out. Your mouth is dry, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. You squeeze your eyes shut as it just keeps going; it feels like you're never going to come down. Maybe you never will. Maybe that's okay.

You don't know when he tips over that edge, you just know that he's shaking against you, one hand clutching at your own so tightly you're sure your knuckles are white, the other gently grasping at your hip. You tremble together. Vibrate at some frequency unknown to anyone but the two of you.

Love, and all these things. Cracked edges and the light spilling out. God, but he is beautiful when he shines.

He slips out of you, and you feel it - this weird sort of hollowness. The aching want for something to last forever. You whine softly to make your protest known, and he does, finally, chuckle at that - a smile with teeth. Happy Ken. For once. For good, you hope.

It took a long time to get him to this point, after everything. Moving on from a dream unrealized. It was a year and a half of carefully building him back up, fitting the pieces back together and smoothing out the edges. He's softer, now. Safer. Home.

"I love you, too." You whisper into the sudden stillness of the room. To his now-sleeping form beside you. "More than, I think, you'll ever know."

The Syntax of Power: Hierarchical Linguistics

The Roy family and their orbiting satellites wield language as a means of asserting dominance and establishing hierarchy. The syntax of power in Succession often involves deliberate interruptions, clipped sentences, and evasive answers. Logan Roy, the patriarch, exemplifies this linguistic style. His dialogue is sparse but razor-sharp, often delivered with grunts or monosyllables that convey disdain. Logan’s linguistic minimalism underscores his supremacy; he does not need verbosity to assert his dominance. By contrast, characters like Roman and Greg employ verbosity to fill the void left by their insecurity. Roman’s barrage of jokes and Greg’s bumbling circumlocutions highlight their linguistic flailing as they struggle to navigate the power dynamics of Waystar Royco.

This hierarchical use of language is particularly evident in Logan’s command of interruptions. His ability to cut others off mid-sentence—a maneuver often accompanied by a withering glare or an expletive-laden dismissal—is a stark reminder of his unassailable authority. In Succession, the act of finishing one’s sentence is a privilege, not a right, and Logan’s frequent denial of this privilege is a testament to his control.

Verbal Sparring: Dialogue as Combat

In the world of Succession, dialogue functions as a form of combat. Characters engage in verbal sparring, using wit, insults, and rhetorical maneuvers to undermine their opponents. This linguistic combat is epitomised in Kendall and Roman’s exchanges, where barbed insults are layered with psychological warfare. For instance, Roman’s frequent jabs at Kendall’s perceived failures as a son and a businessman are not just personal attacks but strategic attempts to destabilise him emotionally and politically.

The show’s writers employ a technique that can be described as “weaponized banality,” where seemingly innocuous phrases are loaded with subtext. A prime example is Logan’s recurring use of the unsaid phrase “are you a serious person?” On the surface, it’s a straightforward thought, but within the context of Waystar Royco’s high-stakes world, it’s a devastating critique of one’s competence and worthiness. This technique underscores the idea that in Succession, language is never neutral; every word is a potential weapon.

The Performance of Inarticulateness: Greg and the Art of Strategic Clumsiness

One of the most intriguing aspects of Succession is its exploration of inarticulateness as a strategic tool. Cousin Greg, initially dismissed as a bumbling outsider, he later weaponises his awkwardness to manoeuvre through the treacherous waters of the Roy family. Greg’s convoluted speech patterns and malapropisms serve a dual purpose: they mask his growing cunning and disarm his opponents. His linguistic clumsiness is often mistaken for incompetence, allowing him to fly under the radar while subtly advancing his position.

For instance, Greg’s infamous court session during Season 2 is a masterstroke of strategic inarticulateness. While his statements appears to undermine his credibility, it also obscures his complicity in Waystar Royco’s scandals, making him a less threatening target. Greg’s linguistic strategy reflects the show’s broader theme of the performative nature of power; in the Roy family’s world, even inarticulateness can be a calculated performance.

Metaphorical Mastery: The Lexicon of Late Capitalism

Succession is replete with metaphors and idioms that reflect its characters’ entrenchment in the world of late capitalism. Phrases like “blood sacrifice,” “eating shit,” and “piggy goes to market” are not just colorful expressions but linguistic encapsulations of the show’s cutthroat ethos. These metaphors reveal the characters’ worldview, where human relationships are reduced to transactions and survival often requires cannibalistic ruthlessness.

Moreover, the show’s dialogue frequently employs corporate jargon as a means of obfuscation. Characters like Gerri and Tom use business-speak to sanitize unethical decisions, framing actions like mass layoffs or corporate malfeasance as “necessary restructuring” or “compliance adjustments.”

This linguistic veneer highlights the moral vacuity at the heart of Waystar Royco and serves as a critique of the broader corporate culture it represents.

Silence as a Linguistic Strategy

In Succession, what is left unsaid is often as significant as what is spoken. The show’s use of silence—pregnant pauses, meaningful glances, and unspoken agreements—adds a layer of complexity to its linguistic landscape. Silence in Succession is not merely an absence of speech but a strategic tool wielded to intimidate, manipulate, or convey disdain.

Logan Roy is a master of this silent dominance. His pauses are laden with menace, forcing his interlocutors to fill the void with nervous chatter or concessions. Similarly, Kendall’s silences—particularly in moments of self-doubt or moral reckoning—serve as windows into his inner turmoil, contrasting with his often performative verbosity.

Conclusion: A Linguistic Symphony of Power and Pathos

Succession is a masterclass in the weaponization of language, where every word, pause, and silence is imbued with strategic intent. The show’s dialogue operates as a linguistic chessboard, with characters deploying words as pawns, knights, and queens in their quest for dominance. By examining the syntax of power, the dynamics of verbal sparring, the performance of inarticulateness, the use of metaphor, and the strategic deployment of silence, this essay has sought to uncover the intricate ways in which Succession uses language to construct its narrative of power and pathos.