Chapter 1: The First DM
The fluorescent light in Marcus Hale’s apartment buzzed like a trapped insect. It hummed in harmony with the distant, bass-heavy thump seeping through the wall from his neighbor’s unit, a constant vibration in the bones of the building. The air was still and carried the stale, greasy scent of last night’s lo mein, undercut by something sharper—cheap sandalwood cologne, sprayed too liberally.
Marcus sat in the sunken pit of his couch, the worn fabric sighing beneath him. The coffee table was a landscape of discarded cans, a cracked mirror lying face-up, and the glowing, pristine screen of his laptop.
His own face, reflected faintly in the dark monitor, was unremarkable save for the eyes. Green, piercing, almost too vivid in the flat light. They were currently fixed on his phone, scrolling with a slow, appreciative precision.
Brielle Costas. Her Instagram was a curated gallery of sunlight and confidence. A laughing shot at a rooftop bar, a candid on a beach, a pose in a gym mirror. The common denominator was a specific, celebrated curvature. Marcus’s thumb paused. He zoomed in, just a fraction, on a particular photograph. He studied the lines, the way the fabric stretched and pulled. A connoisseur appreciating form.
In person, at his design firm or in the grocery aisle, Marcus was quiet. His words were few, his posture subtly closed. But here, in the electronic glow, he was someone else entirely. A version of himself distilled to pure, patient intent.
He switched to direct messages. Her profile was public. He had followed her a week ago. She had not followed back. This was expected, part of the geometry.
His fingers tapped rapidly, the click of the keys the only sharp sound in the humid room.
justmarc: Saw your story from the pier. The light on the water was nice. But it was competing for attention. Lost badly.
He hit send. He didn’t smile. He set the phone down on the cluttered table, beside the cracked mirror. He leaned back into the couch, the springs complaining, and waited. He picked up a half-empty can of sugar-free energy drink, took a sip, and made a face at the flat, chemical aftertaste. The bass next door dropped into a heavier rhythm.
Three minutes and forty-seven seconds later, his phone screen lit up the dim space. A soft chime.
He didn’t lunge for it. He finished his sip, placed the can down with deliberate care, and then picked up the device.
briellecostas: lol who is this?
justmarc: Marcus. The guy whose attention you just wrecked for the next hour. That blue dress you wore Tuesday did the same thing.
He could picture her reading it. The slight, flattered frown. The curious check of his profile. His own Instagram was private, 187 followers. His profile picture was a clear, well-lit shot of his face—those green eyes looking directly at the camera, a slight, confident quirk at the corner of his mouth. It was the best version of him. The only version that mattered for this.
briellecostas: Smooth. I’ll give you that. Your profile is locked though. Secret agent?
justmarc: Just selective. I prefer conversations that aren’t performative for a crowd. Yours is public. Brave. Or just aware of the gift you’re giving the world.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, his gaze drifting to the cracked mirror. The fragment reflected a sliver of his face, dissected by a jagged line. He adjusted his posture, squaring his shoulders.
briellecostas: Gift? That’s a new one. Usually it’s ‘cake’ or some tired emoji.
justmarc: Those are for amateurs. I deal in specifics. The architect in me appreciates the engineering. The artist sees a masterpiece. It’s a conflict.
He was weaving it now, threading confidence with what felt like vulnerability. The “architect” line was good. It suggested intellect, observation. It wasn’t a blunt, crude demand. It was admiration framed as professional appreciation.
The pause was longer this time. Five minutes. He could feel the decision hanging in the digital space between them. He stood up, pacing the short length of the room—three steps from the couch to the kitchenette, turn, three steps back. The fluorescent light flickered once.
briellecostas: You’re a designer. Your bio says that.
justmarc: I am. Shapes, lines, negative space. What draws the eye. I have a trained eye for compelling forms. Yours is the most compelling I’ve seen in a long time.
Direct. But couched in pseudo-artistic legitimacy. He was pacing his sentences, making them varied. Short punch. Longer, flowing explanation. A rhythm.
briellecostas: This is a pretty intense DM from a stranger.
justmarc: Everything starts as a stranger. The best things, anyway. The predictable ones are boring. You don’t strike me as boring, Brielle. The boring ones don’t post that red dress picture from Vegas.
He’d done his homework. He’d scrolled back seven months to find that one. It was a gamble to mention something so far back—it could seem obsessive. But paired with his designer rationale, it could feel like dedicated study.
His phone chimed twice in quick succession.
briellecostas: Okay you have my attention.
briellecostas: Also mildly creeped out but… intrigued.
Perfect. Intrigue was the foothold. Creeped out was a surface reaction; intrigue was the hook setting underneath. He sat back down, the old couch accepting him with a familiar groan.
justmarc: I’ll take intrigued. Creeped out I can fix. A conversation. A real one. You in the city?
briellecostas: About an hour north. Why?
Marcus allowed himself a small, dry exhalation. Not a smile, but a release of tension. The geometry was aligning. An hour was nothing. It was a commitment, but not a daunting one. It showed willingness if pursued correctly.
justmarc: Because an hour is a perfect distance. Makes it a choice, not an accident. I’d like to buy you a drink. And before you say ‘this is moving fast,’ it’s just a drink. You have the power. You drive here, you’re in control. You leave whenever you want. My only agenda is to see if the woman in the pictures is as interesting as the curves I can’t stop designing posters in my head around.
He placed the phone down, screen-up, on the couch cushion. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at the cracked mirror on the table. In the fragmented reflection, his green eyes looked back, intense and waiting. The neighbor’s bass line finally stopped, leaving a sudden, ringing silence filled only by the electric buzz from the ceiling.
The silence stretched. One minute. Two.
The chime was loud in the quiet room.
He didn’t look immediately. He let it hang there, a vibration in the stale air. He finally picked up the phone, his expression unchanging.
briellecostas: You’re very confident in these DMs.
justmarc: Only about things I know. Design. And recognizing a work of art.
briellecostas: Send me a picture. A now picture.
A test. Standard procedure. He lifted the phone, angled it slightly down to capture the sharp line of his jaw, to let the fluorescent light find those green eyes. He made sure the messy apartment was not in frame. Just the face, the confident, slightly amused expression he practiced. He sent it.
Ten seconds later.
briellecostas: Okay. Wow.
briellecostas: Saturday. Send me the address of a place near you. Public place. I’ll meet you there at 8.
Marcus Hale, in his silent, stale apartment, finally let the corner of his mouth lift. Not a full smile. A tilt of acknowledgment. A quiet victory in the humming dark.
justmarc: I’ll send the details. Drive safe, Brielle.
He closed the app. The glow from the screen faded, leaving the room in the sickly yellow of the overhead light. He looked at the cracked mirror again, at his fractured reflection. From the other side of the wall, the bass started up again, a low, persistent throb. He had three days to prepare. The apartment would need to be cleaned. The cologne, reconsidered. Everything needed to be just right.
He opened a new browser tab and began searching for cocktail bars in the neighborhood with soft lighting and booths. The narrative was progressing. The first act was always the most delicate.
The first act was always the most delicate.
The bar he chose, The Grafton, had low lighting and deep leather booths. He arrived twenty minutes early, nursing a soda water with lime, his back to the wall so he could watch the entrance. The hum of after-work chatter and clinking glasses was a white noise buffer. He’d cleaned the apartment, aired it out, used a subtler cologne. The prep work was complete.
When she walked in, the air changed. She was taller than he’d imagined, the curves more potent in three dimensions, wrapped in a simple black dress that did exactly what he knew it would. Her eyes scanned the room, lingering on faces. He didn’t wave. He watched her look, her expression flickering with uncertainty. He let her search for five full seconds before he stood up, just enough to catch her eye.
A small wave of relief crossed her face. She weaved through the tables towards him.
“Marcus?” Her voice was higher than he’d pictured, but smooth.
“Brielle.” He offered a hand, not for a shake, but a brief, warm hold. “You found it.”
“Google Maps exists,” she said, a nervous laugh escaping as she slid into the booth opposite him. She set her purse down, a deliberate motion. “So. This is weird, right?”
“Only if we make it weird,” he said, signaling the waiter. “What are you drinking?”
The first drink was a negotiation. She ordered a cosmopolitan. He got a whiskey, neat. He asked about her drive, her job in marketing, letting her talk herself into comfort. He listened with an intense focus, his green eyes never leaving hers, nodding at the right moments. He mirrored her posture, leaned in when she did. The digital confidence translated in person as a calm, unhurried certainty.
“And you just… design logos all day?” she asked, sipping her second cosmo.
“I solve visual problems,” he corrected gently. “It’s about creating a specific reaction. Like that dress. That’s not an accident. You know what reaction you’re creating.”
She blushed, a faint dusting of pink across her dusky gold skin. “Maybe.”
“No maybe.” He took a slow sip of whiskey. “It’s confidence. I respect it.”
By the third drink, she was laughing more freely, touching her hair, leaning across the table. The initial creeped-out feeling was buried under alcohol and the sheer force of his attention. He suggested a change of scenery. A place with music.
“My apartment’s just around the corner,” he said, his tone casual, off-hand. “The music’s better, and the drinks are cheaper. One nightcap. Then you can hate me and drive home.”
She hesitated, but the hesitation was thin, porous. “One drink,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
“Scout’s honor.”
The walk was short, past flickering streetlights and the distant wail of a siren. He stayed close, his hand occasionally brushing the small of her back to guide her. She didn’t pull away.
The apartment welcomed them with its familiar scent, now layered with cleaning products and that hint of sandalwood. The fluorescent light was off; he’d swapped it for a single floor lamp in the corner, casting the room in a warm, shadowy amber.
“Cozy,” she said, the word stretching with a tipsy inflection.
He put on music, something with a deep, thumping electronic pulse. Not the neighbor’s bass, but something cleaner, more insistent. He mixed her a vodka soda, light on the vodka, and brought it to her where she stood nervously by the sunken couch.
They danced. Or rather, she swayed, and he moved around her, a slow orbit. His hands found her hips, guiding the rhythm. It was how it always was. A silent, physical negotiation. The talking was done. The online persona, the artist, the designer—all of it receded, leaving only the quiet, focused intent of his body against hers. She melted into it, her back arching, her head falling back against his shoulder. The sound was her breathing, the music, the creak of the floor.
His lips were at her ear, his voice a low rasp that vibrated through her. “Fuck, I need ass.”
The words weren’t a question. They were a stark, raw statement. A circuit completed.
And it was as if a spell had overtaken her. The last vestige of caution dissolved, not in fear, but in a surge of pure, wanton hunger. The directness, the sheer audacity, unlocked something. She wanted this. She turned in his arms, her eyes dark, and kissed him with a hard, messy urgency.
He led her to the bedroom, a sparse room dominated by a large bed. In the half-light, she fumbled with his belt, then with his zipper. Her hands stilled as she freed him. A sharp, involuntary inhale.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, the words half awe, half fear.
His dick was huge. Thick and heavy and improbably large, a brutal, anatomic fact that made her previous experiences seem like child’s play. The sight of it, in the dim light from the other room, sent a jolt through her that was equal parts terror and a deep, primal craving. Any thought of leaving was gone, obliterated by a consuming curiosity. She wanted to see if she could take it.
The air in the room was humid, thick with the smell of cologne and her perfume and the faint, metallic tang of anticipation. Her fingers, which had been so urgent moments before, now hovered, unsure. The visual reality was daunting, a physiological fact that cut through the vodka haze.
She let out a shaky breath, half-laugh. “Jesus, Marcus.”
He said nothing. He just watched her, those green eyes like chips of glass in the dim light, waiting for her calculus to complete. The fear was there, obvious in the wide set of her eyes, but it was twined with that other thing—the thrill of the exceptional, the addictive pull of the taboo. To walk away now would be to admit the pictures, the DMs, the nightcap, were all a game she couldn’t play. He knew that. He counted on it.
Her curiosity won. It always did.
She pushed him back onto the bed and climbed over him, her black dress riding up her thighs. The negotiation became physical, a clumsy, heated struggle of fabric and skin. The dress came off over her head. His clothes were shoved to the floor. The music from the other room pulsed, a mechanical heartbeat.
For a while, it was all gasps and wet sounds and the creak of the old bedframe. Her initial hesitation was burned away by sensation, by the sheer novel fullness of him. Her thoughts scattered, replaced by a bright, sharp focus on the feeling of being stretched, filled, overtaken. She rode him with a determined, grinding intensity, her head thrown back, nails digging into his chest.
He let her set the pace, his hands gripping her hips, guiding the depth. His face was a mask of intense concentration, studying her reactions as if compiling data. The quiet man was gone entirely, replaced by something single-minded and voracious.
When she collapsed forward, breathless, he smoothly rolled her onto her back. The angle changed, deepened. A choked cry caught in her throat. Her mind, floating on a cloud of endorphins and alcohol, fumbled for a basic precaution. The words came out slurred, absent-minded, as her fingertips traced the sweating line of his spine.
“Fuck, you… you need a condom.”
His rhythm didn’t break. He drove into her, a slow, deliberate push that stole the air from her lungs. His voice was deeper now, a graveled rumble close to her ear, stripped of all its earlier conversational charm.
“I don’t use condoms,” he said, the statement flat and final. “Not with good ass.”
The words landed with a cold, clarifying slap. The party scene, the designer talk, the respectful distance—it all evaporated, leaving this crude, transactional truth hanging in the sweaty air. For a second, sanity flickered. This was wrong. This was dangerous.
This was dangerous.
The thought was a tiny, bright alarm in the fog of her mind. It was smothered almost instantly by the next deep, stretching thrust. Her body clenched around him, a wave of pleasure so intense it felt like panic. The alcohol blurred the edges, made the risk feel theoretical, made his absolute statement sound like dark confidence instead of a violation.
"You... what?" she managed to gasp, her hands flattening against his chest as if to push him away, but her fingers curled, nails biting into his skin instead.
He didn’t repeat himself. He didn’t argue. He just shifted his weight, pinning her more completely, and drove into her again, a slow, grinding penetration that made her see stars at the edges of her vision. His expression was serene, focused. He lowered his mouth to her ear, his breath hot and damp.
"I need ass," he said softly, the crude words a stark contrast to the whispered tone. "And I cum inside."
It was a decree. The final strip of any pretense. This wasn’t a mutual hookup anymore; it was a consumption. A wave of heat that had nothing to do with arousal flooded her face. Humiliation, laced with a terrifying thrill. He’d seen the want in her, the hunger for something extreme, and he was calling her bluff.
And she folded.
With a shaky, surrendering sound, she pushed at him until he rolled onto his back. She straddled him again, but this movement was different. Deliberate. Her eyes locked on his as she reached behind her back for the clasp of her bra. She shrugged it off, let it fall to the floor. Then, hooking her thumbs into the sides of her black lace panties, she slid them down her thighs, off her ankles, and tossed them aside.
She turned, presenting herself to him on her hands and knees. The light from the other room carved the curves out of the darkness, illuminating the gigantic, plump ass he’d spent weeks digitally admiring. It was a perfect, heart-shaped silhouette against the rumpled sheets.
She glanced back over her shoulder, her hair stuck to her sweaty temple. "Well?"
He didn’t answer with words. He placed a hot, possessive hand on each globe, squeezing, kneading, his thumbs digging into the crease. A low groan rattled from his chest. He positioned himself, the blunt, massive head of him nudging against her soaked entrance.
She flinched, the sheer size of him a daunting reality. "Fuck," she moaned, dropping her forehead to the mattress. "It's so big."
"It'll fit," he said, his voice taut with strain. He applied steady, inexorable pressure, breaching her slowly, an inch at a time, stretching her to a burning, breathtaking limit. "I'll make that pussy cum. Just take it."
She did. She took it all, until he was fully sheathed, until she felt impossibly full, a sharp gasp trapped in her throat. The pain was there, a bright, clarifying thread woven through the pleasure. It felt real. It felt like consequence.
He began to move, short, deep pumps that shook the bedframe. Her mind blanked, white noise and sensation. The only anchor was the slap of skin, the ragged sound of their breathing. He set a ruthless, piston-like rhythm, one hand fisted in her hair, the other digging into the fleshy curve of her hip.
A coherent thought surfaced, a last shred of self-preservation. "You have to pull out," she panted into the sheets, the words muffled. "I'm not on anything."
He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. The rhythm didn’t break. If anything, it became harder, faster. "Told you. I don't pull out."
"Marcus—"
"Arch your back," he commanded, his voice guttural. "Now. Give it to me."
And she did. She arched an insane arch, presenting herself completely, pushing back against him with a desperate, matching hunger. The submission was its own dark high. The fear melted, transformed into a raw, animalistic drive to meet him, to prove she could handle this, that she was the exception.
Time dissolved. The music looped, or maybe he changed it. The neon sign from the bodega across the street cast a rotating red glow through the slats of the blinds, painting stripes across their sweating bodies. He flipped her onto her back, then onto her stomach, then back onto her knees. He took her from every angle, a single-minded exploration of a form he’d studied from afar. He was relentless, his stamina unnatural, a machine built for this single purpose.
She lost count of the times she came, the orgasms blurring into one continuous, shuddering release. She cried out, she begged him to stop, she begged him for more. The words were meaningless sounds. He owned every one of them.
It felt like ten hours. It might have been two. In the fluorescent-lit eternity of that room, there was only the cycle of thrust and gasp and the wet, rhythmic sound of use.