Playlist
The Heinrich Maneuver – Interpol
Tick Tock – Clean Bandit feat. 24KGoldn
Trouble’s Coming – Royal Blood
Go Fuck Yourself – Two Feet
Softcore – The Neighbourhood
Cat People (Putting out Fire) – David Bowie
Go with the Flow – Queens of the Stone Age
Jellylegs – Children Collide
Slow Hands – Interpol
Typhoon – Royal Blood
Prologue
Dree
The first strike ignites my blood. Fire travels through my skin, burrows into my flesh and explodes in my head.
That rush.
I’m addicted.
He trails his fingers down my burning cheek, waiting for me to catch my breath; the same fingers that tease a sound from his guitar, transporting people to another place. Not this place, though. This place is all mine. He made it for me.
“Babygirl,” rumbles a voice over my head, and I lift my gaze to his mismatched eyes. One hard and silver. One burning violet. “You deserved that.”
I nod, whimpering, waiting for the next slap. There are rules, you see. He hurts me, and I say thank you. I more than say it. I get down on my knees and grovel with my tears. With my sobs. With the red marks on my flesh.
Scores of his affection. Tattoos of his adoration. I wish I could keep them forever as reminders that, for a while at least, he’s able to put me back together.
He trails his fingers lower and circles the tip of one budded nipple. My head tips back and my arms burn as the rope bites into my skin. I teeter on tiptoe. Tiny weight changes to keep my balance. He delves down over my belly, and one thick, confident finger slides against my slit. Pleasure chases through me as he delves deeper and circles my clit slowly.
Arched against the rope, I pant my need for him.
He grips a fistful of my hair, and when I open my mouth wider, he slides his finger against my tongue. I suck, looking into his eyes.
He pulls his finger out and runs it down my cheek, leaving wetness in its wake, and his lips curve into a smile. I’m lost in the anticipation of what comes next.
“Beg for mercy.”
“Please,” I breathe. “Please don’t stop.”
I love to hurt even more than I love to come.
“Please, who?”
“Please, Daddy.”
His lips curve into a smile. “Good girl.”
He pulls back his arm, his hand flattened. I lift my chin and close my eyes, anticipating the slap: forgoing thinking, seeing, breathing as I wait, poised for that rush.
“But first, say you’re mine.”
I open my eyes in confusion. He’s dropped his hand and the one gripping my hair has loosened to a caress. Those silver and violet eyes are filled not with ruthlessness, but yearning.
“Dree, say you’re mine.”
My throat constricts. I can’t. I can’t.
“Rush,” I whisper, shaking my head. I shake it over and over, chanting in my head. No, no, no, no—
The loose end of the rope is hanging down. He tugs it, and I go tumbling to the floor. Naked at his feet. Filled with terror.
No release.
Only fear.
He scoops me up in his arms. “Look at me. I need to hear you say it, little girl. That you’re mine. Only mine. Forever mine.”
I’m trembling all over. He can’t do this to me. Not when I’m at my weakest and my nerves are raw and laid bare because of him.
It’s way past my limits.
I need to pull back before I fall into something so dark and frightening I don’t know if I’ll be able to claw my way out again. I scrabble in my brain for the way to make him stop, but I can’t remember how.
My chest lifts and falls in panic as my fingers dig into the carpet at his feet.
What’s my safeword?
What the hell is my safeword?
1
Dree
Eleven months earlier
Two hundred and eighty characters is a devastating weight to bear.
I can feel each and every one as slabs of lead on my body, slowing crushing the life out of me. I’ll never work in this city again. Maybe not even in this country.
Maybe ever.
I watch the tweets and retweets multiply in real time on my phone. The replies that call me a bitch and slut and that share my photo over and over again. The nicer tweets claim I’m too young to know what I was doing and I couldn’t handle the pressure of working with a high-profile band like Palatine. That being surrounded by drugs and glamor went to my twenty-year-old head.
Maybe they’re right. I didn’t know what I was doing.
I probably never did.
I sink back against the pillows on my bed, tears spilling down my cheeks. I’ve got one leg warmer on, one leg warmer off. My ballet pink practice pumps lie discarded on the floor. Just yesterday, Striker Jones, lead singer of Palatine, threw them in my face and screamed at me to get the fuck out of his sight.
A tweet from the biggest online music magazine, Stomper, appears in my feed. I feel it squarely in my guts. Choreographer Dree North has been fired from a Palatine music video after accusations of violence toward front man, Striker Jones, thievery and repeated drug use, says the band’s manager.