What is sinister about this story is that it isn't. Mr. Fulger provides Lyndsey a comfortable life and satisfying intimacy and asks for nothing. And yet the lack of any detail about him, his life, creates the tension that something is sinister. The reader can participate in Lyndsey's paradigm that she has no choice and she is being coerced, or one can side with Mr. Fulger and say that she chooses her situation and has it all good. So this seems like a story that depends heavily on the perspective of the reader.
There is no evident reason why Lyndsey can't stop seeing Mr. Fulger. There is the implication that he has power, that he is ruthless, but there is no evidence. Lyndsey seems to be struggling with herself, with her inability to exert her own will. In their first meeting he comments, "We often rely on others to make our most important decisions. There's no reason to be ashamed of this." (p.272) And like Nisha in Admiral, the reader is left wondering if the protagonist finds the situation (of luxury; of money) untenable why doesn't she exert her will and exit?
I found this story to provide more to think about than Admiral. While Nisha clearly had a solid reason for taking the job with the Strikers, Lyndsey has no reason to continue to engage with Mr. Fulger. Sneed doesn't provide any dimension to Mr. Fulger on purpose. Which makes him a backdrop to Lyndsey's (somewhat adolescent) frustrations and inactions. So that makes this story really about Lyndsey, and self imprisonment. If Sneed explained Mr. Fulger we would spend less time creating reasonable and then unreasonable stories about who he really is and if he is evil or not.
We know the Strikers are cold, manipulative and exacting. They are used to getting what they want and they do. Boyle does not let us guess about them. This heightens the frustration with Nisha's inaction, because everyone knows she is being bought. We aren't sure if the same is true of Lyndsey. And that makes this story chilling.
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