Chapter 1: A Drink with the Devil
The whiskey in Jared’s glass was cheap, and the taste of failure was cheaper still. It coated his tongue, a bitter companion to the echo of his editor’s voice in his head. ‘It’s a good experience, kid. Maybe you’ll learn something.’ Right. Learning how to be a professional laughingstock. The convention hall’s main floor thrummed through the wall behind him, a circus of the gullible and the greedy, and he was stuck reviewing it for Metro Pulse Online. He pushed the glass away, the ice cubes clinking like a sad little bell.
The booth was a pool of crimson shadow, the neon from the bar sign bleeding through the frosted glass divider in pulses of blue and pink. He fished his phone from his pocket, thumb hovering over the ride-share app. Fuck this. He could write the piece from the press packet and a couple of sarcastic notes. No one would know the difference.
“You look like a man who needs a stronger drink. And a better distraction.”
The voice was smooth, smoked honey. He looked up.
Platinum blonde hair, cut sharp at the jaw. Eyes the colour of fractured sea glass, catching the neon and reflecting it back, clever and cold. She was already sliding into the booth across from him, moving with an athlete’s grace. She didn’t ask if the seat was taken. She simply took the space, and the air in it, and made it hers.
“I’m fine,” Jared said, his voice coming out flatter than he intended.
“You’re nursing a four-dollar well whiskey and plotting your escape. That’s not fine.” She lifted a hand, two fingers raised, and a waiter appeared as if summoned. “Two shots of your best añejo. Leave the bottle.”
Jared’s pride prickled. “I don’t need you to buy me a drink.”
“It’s not for you. It’s for me.” She smiled, and it didn’t reach those unsettling eyes. “You can have one, though. Consider it a professional courtesy.”
“And what profession is that?”
The shots arrived. She pushed one across the table. “Vivienne Sinclair. Most people here know me as Madame Mystique. I’m on the main stage in an hour. Mentalism. Hypnosis.”
A cold, familiar contempt uncoiled in Jared’s gut. He barked a short, humourless laugh. “Hypnosis. Right. Let me guess, you make people cluck like chickens for a room full of rubes. Total theatrical bullshit.”
She didn’t flinch. Her smile widened, showing very white, very even teeth. A predator’s smile. She picked up her shot, held his gaze, and downed it without blinking. “Prove it.”
“What?”
“You’re a journalist. Aren’t you curious? Or are you just a critic?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, the position pulling the neckline of her black dress lower. He refused to look. “Skepticism is just fear dressed up in intellect, Jared. I read your badge. You’re afraid of being fooled. Of losing that precious control.”
“I’m not afraid of parlor tricks.” He tossed his own shot back, the tequila burning a confident path down his throat.
“Good.” Her hand moved then, so fast he didn’t process it until he felt the pressure. Her palm landed flat on the front of his trousers, fingers curling, squeezing the hardening shape of his cock through the fabric. He jerked, a bolt of pure electric shock firing up his spine.
“What the fuck—”
Her eyes locked onto his. “Shhh. Prove it. Prove it’s all bullshit.” Her grip tightened, a deliberate, knowledgeable pulse. His body betrayed him instantly, swelling under her touch, heat flooding his groin. His mind screamed, but the scream was getting dimmer, drowned out by the roaring in his ears. Her gaze was a physical weight. The noisy world—the clinking glasses, the distant convention hall din—muffled, faded, until all that existed was the green of her eyes, expanding, pulling him in.
“You can’t look away, can you?” Her voice was different now. It seemed to come from inside his own skull, soft yet drilling. “Your body is so eager. So honest. Your mind is just a noisy passenger. Let’s quiet it down.”
He tried to shake his head. His muscles refused. A deep, unnatural relaxation was spreading from his core, turning his limbs to lead. Panic flickered, distant, like a lighthouse through fog.
“In a moment, you will stand up. You will follow me. You will come up on stage when I call for a volunteer. You won’t remember this conversation. You’ll just feel a compelling need to participate. To obey.” Her thumb rubbed a slow, obscene circle over the head of his cock, now straining painfully against his zipper. Pleasure and humiliation mixed into a terrifying cocktail. “You are going to be my favourite toy tonight. And you are going to love every second of it.”
Her hand retreated. He felt cold. Empty.
“Stand up, Jared.”
His body moved. It pushed him upright from the booth, smooth and automatic, as if he were watching a film of himself. His thoughts were sluggish, syrup-thick. This isn’t happening. This is a trick. A trick. But his legs were walking, following the sway of her black dress as she led him out of the bar area and into the service corridor behind the stages.
The corridor was dark, concrete, lined with snaking cables. The thump of bass from a distant speaker vibrated in the floor. She stopped, turned, and backed him against a cold plaster wall. Her scent, jasmine and something metallic, filled his nose.
“A preview,” she whispered, her mouth an inch from his. She didn’t kiss him. Her hands went to his belt. The click of the buckle was deafening. The zzzip of his fly was a surrender. She yanked his trousers and boxer briefs down to his thighs. His cock sprang free, fully erect, aching.
“See? Your body knows the truth.” Her fingers were cool as they wrapped around his shaft, pumping once, twice, a dry, ruthless friction that made his hips jerk. “You’re already mine. Your mind is just catching up.”
He moaned. The sound was torn from him.
“Quiet.” Her command was a steel wire around his throat. His mouth clamped shut. She sank to her knees in front of him, the sight so obscenely beautiful it hurt. She didn’t take him in her mouth. Instead, she tilted her head, looking up the line of his body to his helpless face. “You will watch. You will not come until I tell you to. You are holding everything back for me. Do you understand?”
He nodded, a pathetic, jerky movement.
Then her mouth was on him. Hot, wet, impossibly skilled. Her tongue swirled around the head before she took him deep, all the way, her throat opening around him. His head slammed back against the wall with a dull thud. Every nerve was on fire. She set a brutal, rhythmic pace, one hand working the base of his cock, the other cupping and squeezing his balls. The sensations were overwhelming, degrading, perfect. He felt the pressure building, a tidal wave of pleasure gathering in his gut, climbing his spine.
He was going to come. He couldn’t stop it.
Her mouth pulled off with a wet pop. She stood, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. The denial was a physical agony. He whimpered.
“Not yet,” she said, her voice husky. She hiked her dress up around her waist. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The smooth, bare v of her was inches from him. She took his hand, guided it between her legs. She was soaked, sleek, hot. “Feel what you do? This is control. Real control.”
She positioned him at her entrance, then sank down onto him in one swift, devastating motion. She was so tight, clamping around him like a fist. She braced her hands against his shoulders, her eyes drilling into his, and began to move. Up, down. A hard, driving rhythm. Each thrust stole his breath. The wall was rough against his back. Her muscles clenched and released around his cock, milking him, demanding. Her breath hitched, her controlled composure cracking for a second into raw, feral hunger.
“You’re a good toy,” she panted, her nails digging into his shoulders. “So good for me. Now… now you can come. Come for me, Jared. Give it to me.”
It was less a permission than a trigger. The orgasm ripped through him, violent and utterly mindless. He cried out, a ragged, broken sound, as he pulsed inside her, his hips bucking uncontrollably. She rode him through it, her own movements becoming frantic, until she stiffened with a sharp gasp, her inner muscles spasming around him in a relentless, fluttering wave.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their harsh breathing in the dark corridor.
She slid off him, smoothing her dress down. She reached out and tucked him, still wet from her, back into his pants, zipped him up with clinical efficiency. She straightened his collar. The touch was now that of a director adjusting a prop.
“Follow me to the green room. Sit quietly. When you hear your name, you’ll walk onto the stage. You’ll be eager. You’ll be happy. You won’t remember this.” She kissed his forehead, a chilling benediction. “And deep, deep down… you’ll want to do it all again.”
She turned and walked away, heels clicking with finality on the concrete.
His legs moved. They carried him after her, his body humming, his mind a blissful, empty white void. The last coherent fragment of Jared Miller dissolved into that silence, leaving only a perfect, aching obedience.