Chapter 1: The Deal at Midnight
The bell above the door jingled, a cheap, tinny sound that felt utterly insufficient for the space it announced. Tommy Jones stepped into a smell that hit him like a wall: old paper, candle wax, dried herbs, and beneath it all, a sweet, musky perfume that made him think of velvet and secrets.
The shop was a cluttered cave. Books slumped against books on sagging shelves, their spines cracked and titles faded. Glass vials holding liquids of dubious color—murky greens, violent purples, a frankly alarming crimson—caught the weak light from a single lamp with a fringed shade. The lamp sat on a desk buried under haphazard stacks of what looked like romance novels, their covers featuring shirtless men and women in various states of historical undress. A framed sign perched precariously on one pile, its cursive script declaring: "Love is a skill—let me teach you."
Tommy adjusted his glasses, his Silver Surfer t-shirt suddenly feeling underdressed and juvenile. He’d found the address on a forum thread buried deep in the internet, a post from two years ago that simply said: If you’re serious about fixing what’s missing, she’s in the alley behind St. Vincent’s Thrift. Ask for Tara.
“You’re blocking the light, sweetheart.”
The voice came from the corner, low and honeyed, wrapped in a faint laugh. A woman unfolded herself from a velvet armchair the color of a bruise. She was very voluptuous, curves hugged by a deep purple wrap dress. Her hair was a fantastic cascade of honey-blonde twists, threaded with strands of silver that glittered when she moved. She looked him up and down, her gaze so thorough he felt scanned.
“Tommy, right?” she said, not waiting for confirmation. She already knew. “Come sit. Don’t touch anything. Some of these things… let’s just say they’re moody.”
He navigated the narrow path to the chair opposite her desk, his knees bumping a small table covered in what looked like animal bones. He sat.
“I’m Tara Reynolds.” She sank back into her own chair, steepling her fingers. Her nails were painted a dark, iridescent blue. “People call me a consultant. A love consultant. I prefer ‘fairy godmother of fuck.’ It’s more direct. So. You messaged. You have a… deficit.”
Tommy’s mouth was dry. He’d rehearsed this in the mirror. “I’m twenty-seven.”
“I can count, baby.”
“I’ve never… you know.”
“Had sex,” Tara finished, nodding slowly. “I gathered that. The great unknown. The final frontier. And you’re a smart boy, I can tell. You like to understand systems. To have data. But this is one system you can’t debug from the sidelines.”
“Exactly,” he said, a rush of relief making him lean forward. “It’s not about being in love. I’m not here for a…spell to find my soulmate or girlfriend. I just need to know what it feels like. The mechanics, the… the data. No strings. No drama. Just the experience.”
Tara watched him, her eyes unblinking. They were the color of dark amber, and he had the unnerving sense she was reading the fine print on his soul.
“Just the experience,” she repeated softly. “A clinical trial. You want to lose your virginity like it’s a checkbox. A skill to acquire.”
“Isn’t it?” he challenged, his confidence, always brittle, surfacing. “You said it yourself on your sign. A skill.”
A slow smile spread across her face. It was a dangerous, beautiful thing.
“Oh, it is. Yes. However, the curriculum is hands-on. Very, very hands-on.” She let that hang in the perfumed air. Then she sighed, a sound of theatrical resignation. “Usually, I work on connections. Healing hearts, untangling messes. This… this is a service call. A tutorial if you will.”
She opened a drawer in her desk, the wood groaning. From it, she pulled a sheet of parchment that looked old enough to crumble, and a long, black quill. The nib gleamed wetly with something dark and thick that wasn’t quite ink. It smelled metallic, coppery.
“What’s that?” Tommy asked, his voice tighter than he intended.
“Terms and conditions,” Tara said, her tone breezy. She smoothed the parchment. The script upon it was swirling, archaic, and he couldn’t quite focus on the words. They seemed to shift. “My time, my expertise, my… instructional method. They aren’t free. We agree on the price, the parameters. You get your experience. No strings, no future expectations. A single transaction. Clean.”
“What’s the price of all this?” He asked.
“We’ll get to that. First, the request. Say it plainly.”
He swallowed. The air grew heavier, warmer. The lamp flickered. He could hear his own heart.
“I want to have sex. I want to know what it feels like. I want to not be thinking about it anymore, to just… know. With someone who knows what they’re doing. No strings.”
“Just the physical mechanics,” she murmured, dipping the quill into a small stone well he hadn’t noticed. “The biology. The friction. The release.”
“Yes.”
“And you understand I am the proposed instructor.” Tara said.
He looked at her—the full, plump, painted lips, the knowing eyes, the impossible swell of her chest rising and falling with her breath. This wasn’t some girl from a comic con. This was a woman. A force. A terrifying, exhilarating idea.
“Yes.”
“Then we have an agreement.” She pushed the parchment toward him. The dark fluid at the tip of the quill glistened. “Sign at the bottom. The price is written there. Read it if you can.”
He took the quill. It was warm. He glanced down at the bottom of the page. The words swam, then settled for a fleeting second into clear, modern English: One memory of your choosing, to be surrendered upon completion.
A memory? Which one? The panic was cold, but beneath it thrummed a desperate, hot need. The need to be done with this awkwardness, this lack. To be a man who knew. He pushed the cold fear aside. What was one memory? He had thousands. More than that. He could spare one.
He signed his name—Thomas Aloysius Jones—in his best handwriting. The fluid soaked into the parchment, not just lying on the surface, but sinking in, becoming part of the page. A faint, gold flash traveled from his signature through the lines of text.
Tara took the parchment, blew on it gently, and a smile of pure satisfaction touched her lips.
“Excellent.” She stood up. “Class is in session.”
She walked around the desk, her movements fluid. She stopped in front of him, so close he could feel the heat from her body. With a finger under his chin, she tilted his head up.
“Lesson one: breathing. You’re holding yours.” Her scent enveloped him—that perfume, and something else, something deeply, fundamentally female.
She let her hand trail down his chest, over the graphic on his shirt, to his belt buckle. Her fingers were deft, unpracticed but assured. The clink of the metal release was loud in the quiet room. He was paralyzed, watching her, his brain a storm of static and shock.
“Lesson two,” she said, her voice dropping to a murmur as she unbuttoned his jeans. “Do not think. Feel.”
She slid her hand inside, past the waistband of his boxers. Her fingers curled around him, already stiff, achingly hard. He gasped, a sharp, involuntary intake of breath.
Her touch was firm, knowing. A slow, deliberate stroke.
“See? The body knows what it wants. The brain just gets in the way.” She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. “Stand up.”
He fumbled to his feet, his jeans and boxers sliding down his hips. He was exposed, jutting out, vulnerable. She didn’t give him time for shame. She sank to her knees on the worn Persian rug, her dress pooling around her. She looked up at him, those knowing eyes holding his.
“This is a gift. Receive it.” Tara said in an instructing tone.
Then her mouth was on him. Hot, wet, engulfing. He cried out, his hands flying to the desk for support. It wasn’t gentle or tentative. It was deep, hungry, a sinuous expertise that pulled a groan from the very core of him. Her tongue worked him, her lips created a tight, slick seal. He looked down, saw the blonde and silver of her hair against his dark skin, the sight so obscenely perfect it burned into his mind.
She pulled back, a strand of saliva connecting her lips to his tip.
“You taste like anticipation,” she said, then took him deep again, one hand cupping and gently squeezing his balls.
It was too much. The sensations were a data flood, a system overload. The soft scratch of her hair on his thighs, the incredible suction of her mouth, the skilled dance of her tongue on the most sensitive part of him. His hips began to stutter, pushing forward of their own accord.
“I’m… I’m gonna…” he stammered, a warning he felt obligated to give.
She hummed in response, the vibration traveling straight up his spine, and doubled her efforts. That was it. The coil snapped. Pleasure, white-hot and utterly beyond his comprehension, erupted from him. He shouted, his body bowing as he spilled into her mouth in violent pulses. She took it all, swallowing, her throat working, until he was spent, shuddering, and soft.
She released him with a soft pop, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She stood up, towering over him as he stood there, pants around his ankles, breath ragged, mind utterly blank.
“Lesson three,” Tara said, her voice calm, almost clinical again. “It’s always better when you’re not in your own head.” She reached down and pulled his jeans and boxers up, her touch now impersonal, efficient. “Now, the main event requires a different venue. The couch is more comfortable.”'
She gestured to the velvet couch against the wall.
Tommy, moving like an automaton, shuffled over and sat. The worn velvet was cool through his clothes. Tara stood before him, and with a few graceful movements, the wrap dress loosened and fell open, then slid to the floor. She was naked underneath. Her body was magnificent—full breasts, a soft belly, generous hips, all dusky skin and curves. She wasn’t a girl; she was a landscape.
“The contract is for full service, Tommy,” she said, crawling onto the couch, straddling his lap. Her weight, her warmth, the smell of her skin and sex right there, overwhelmed his freshly-wiped senses. “This part, you participate.” She guided himself, still softening, into her. She was so wet, so ready, she took him in easily, a hot, snug sheath. He was inside a woman. The thought was distant, eclipsed by the staggering, silken feel of it. She began to move, a slow, deep roll of her hips. “Put your hands on me. Anywhere.”
His hands, clumsy, found her hips. Her skin was like warmed silk. She moved faster, setting a rhythm, her head falling back. He was hardening again inside her, the sensation unbelievable. This was sex. This was fucking. The crude, beautiful mechanics of it. He thrust upwards, meeting her, finding a clumsy sync. Her breath hitched.
“Yeah. Like that.”
He was lost in it, in the slap of skin, her gasped curses, the way her inner muscles clenched around him. He flipped her over onto her back, the old couch groaning, driven by a new, raw instinct. He drove into her, the angle deeper. Her legs wrapped around his back, her heels digging into his ass.
“Fuck, right there, don’t stop,” she chanted.
It was a frenzy. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her chest. The room faded—the books, the potions, the stupid sign. There was only this: the pounding heat, her nails scoring his back through his t-shirt, her cries getting louder, sharper. He felt a new tension coiling in his gut, tighter, hotter than before. With a ragged groan, he came again, this time deep inside her, his body shuddering with the force of it. She clenched around him, milking him, her own cry muffled against his shoulder.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their panting. Then, she nudged him off. He collapsed beside her, staring at the shadowy ceiling.
Tara sat up, straightening her dress. She looked unruffled, apart from her hair.
“Congratulations. You are now statistically average.” She stood, walked to her desk, and lit a clove cigarette. The spicy smoke curled through the air.
Tommy sat up, his body feeling used, glorious, and profoundly confused. “So that’s it?”
“The tutorial is complete,” she said, glancing at the contract on her desk. It seemed to glow faintly. “The fee will be collected. You’ll know when.”
“A memory. Which one?”
“You don’t get to choose. The transaction does.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Now, you should go. The taste of regret is starting to mix with the pheromones, and it’s a stale cocktail.”
Dazed, Tommy stood, fastened his jeans. The walk to the door felt longer. As he reached for the handle, her voice stopped him.
“Oh. And Tommy?”
He looked back.
She blew out a smoke ring.
“You were so focused on the what that you never asked about the why. Why a woman like me offers a service like this.” She tapped the contract with a blue nail. “It’s never just about the sex. It’s about the vulnerability. That’s the real commodity. You paid it willingly. Now it’s mine.”
The bell jingled as he stepped out into the cold alley air, the weight of what just happened—and what he’d just lost—beginning to settle on him like a physical chill.
The chill bit through his Silver Surfer tee, a shocking contrast to the sweat still cooling on his skin. He took three steps into the alley before his legs wobbled, and he braced a hand against the rough brick of the thrift store wall. His body thrummed, a live wire of spent sensation. He could still smell her on him—clove smoke, that musky perfume, and beneath it, the unmistakable, salty tang of sex.
“Holy shit,” he whispered to the overflowing dumpster. The words vanished into the cold air.
His mind, usually a tightly organized server of facts and references, was a corrupted file. Scattered images flashed: the dark wetness of her mouth, the unbearable heat of her around him, the look in her eyes when she said vulnerability. He fumbled for his phone, not to call anyone, but just to feel something normal, something of his own world. The screen glowed, illuminating his hand. He stared at it. For a second, he couldn’t remember his unlock pattern. His thumb hovered.
A blank. A tiny, static void.
He shook his head and the pattern returned—a simple ‘Z’. He unlocked it, the familiar apps lining up. He opened his notes, fingers poised to type… what? Procedure for losing virginity to a mystical sex worker: successful. Data acquired. He snorted, a ragged sound that was almost a laugh. The data was overwhelming, non-quantifiable. It was feeling, not fact.
He pushed off the wall and started walking toward the streetlights, the need for a drink suddenly overwhelming. Not water. Something that burned.
The bar two blocks over was a dive, all sticky floors and the dull glow of neon beer signs. It was quiet, a Tuesday night murmur. He slid onto a stool, the vinyl cracking under his weight.
“What’ll it be?” The bartender, an older guy with a tattooed sleeve, didn’t look up from wiping a glass.
“Whiskey. Double. Whatever’s cheap.”
The drink appeared. He knocked half of it back in one go, the fire in his throat a welcome, punishing clarity. He replayed it. The contract. The quill. The price. One memory of your choosing, to be surrendered upon completion.
But she’d said he didn’t get to choose. The transaction did.
Which memory? He rifled through his mental catalog, testing them. The first time he saw The Empire Strikes Back with his dad. Still there. Winning the state science fair in tenth grade. Present. The sickening smell of the hospital room when his grandmother died. Unfortunately, still there.
He finished the whiskey, signaling for another. As the bartender poured, Tommy’s eyes landed on his own reflection in the smudged mirror behind the bottles. He looked the same. Glasses. Slightly too-large t-shirt. But his eyes… they looked older. Or emptier. He couldn’t tell.
A woman sat down two stools over, her perfume cutting through the smell of stale beer. It was a generic, floral scent. Nothing like Tara’s. He glanced. She was pretty, in a sharp, professional way. Blonde hair in a neat bob. She ordered a glass of wine.
A week ago, he would have frozen, maybe tried to formulate a question about her drink, something clever that would fizzle into awkward silence. Now, he felt a distant, almost clinical curiosity. The tutorial was complete. Could he apply the lessons?
He swiveled slightly. “Rough day?”
She looked at him, a polite, guarded smile. “The usual. You?”
“Just had a… a really informative meeting.” He took a sip. The alcohol was warming him, blurring the sharp edges of his panic.
“Oh? What field?”
“Continuing education,” he said, and this time his smile felt real, edged with something darkly ironic. He saw her gaze flicker over his graphic tee, a slight judgment there. It didn’t sting. He’d been judged by something far more profound tonight. “Very hands-on curriculum.”
Her polite smile tightened. She turned back to her wine.
Lesson one: breathing. He took a deep, slow breath. Lesson two: do not think. But he was all thought, a storm of it. The failure to connect here, in this normal bar, felt trivial. Meaningless. He’d connected in the most primal way possible hours before. It hadn’t required conversation. It had required a signature in what might have been blood.
He paid his tab and left, the cold air hitting him again. His apartment was a fifteen-minute walk. With every step, the euphoric haze evaporated, replaced by a gnawing anxiety. What had he lost? It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue, but for a piece of your own life.
He reached his building, a bland brick rectangle, and fumbled with his keys. His sanctuary. Walls lined with meticulously organized comic book boxes, action figures in sealed cases, his high-end gaming PC humming in the corner. It all looked the same, but it felt like a museum exhibit of a person he was no longer sure he was.
He headed straight for the shower, stripping off his clothes. He balled up the t-shirt, hesitated, then stuffed it into the bottom of the hamper. He couldn’t look at it. Under the scalding water, he scrubbed until his skin was pink, trying to erase the smell of her. It didn’t work. It was in his nose, a phantom sense memory.
Wrapped in a towel, he stood before his bedroom mirror. There were faint, red scratches on his shoulders, visible proof. He turned, looking over his shoulder at his back. More marks. She marked him. The contract wasn’t just parchment.
He fell into bed, exhaustion pulling at him like a tide. Sleep didn’t come. Instead, he laid there, watching the headlights from the street paint moving rectangles across his ceiling. His mind drifted, searching for comfort, for a happy place to land.
He thought of his eighth birthday party. His mom had made a cake shaped like the Millennium Falcon. He could see the blue icing, feel the cheap paper crown on his head. He could see his friends, Billy and Marcus, their grinning faces. He could hear the general noise, the wrapping paper tearing.
But what had he gotten?
The memory played like a video with a corrupted segment. The cake, the crown, the faces… then a jump. He was holding a new video game. He knew he’d gotten other presents. He knew it. But what were they? He strained, pushing at the edges of the memory. A particular gift, the one he’d been most excited about, the one he’d begged for… it was gone. Not forgotten. Gone. Ripped clean out of the narrative. In its place was a smooth, blank hole, a nullity that made his stomach clench.
He sat bolt upright in the dark, heart hammering against his ribs.
That was it. The transaction had collected.
He’d lost the memory of his best eighth birthday present. A stupid, trivial, cherished thing. A tiny, specific joy, plucked from his past with surgical precision.
The horror wasn't in the value of the memory. It was in the efficiency. The absolute control. Tara hadn't taken something recent or blurry. She’d taken something crystallized, a perfect fragment of childhood happiness, just to prove she could.
He fumbled for the glass of water on his nightstand, his hand shaking. The water was tepid, tasteless. He stared into the dark, the reality solidifying, heavy and cold in his gut.
This wasn’t over. A tutorial implied further lessons. A transaction implied further payment.
And he had signed his name.
He knew, with a certainty that froze his blood, that she wasn't done with him. The fairy godmother of fuck had gotten a taste. Not of his body. Of his vulnerability. And she would want another.
The phone on his nightstand buzzed, a single, violent shudder against the wood. The screen lit up the room.
A number he didn’t recognize. The message was brief.
The first payment is received. The appetite, however, is never satisfied after just a taste. Sleep well, Tommy. We’ll discuss your next installment soon.
He read it three times. Then, moving slowly, as if in a dream, he placed the phone face down on the nightstand. He lay back down, pulling the covers up to his chin. He stared at the ceiling, the streetlight rectangles no longer abstract shapes, but bars of a cage he’d willingly walked into.
The chill from the alley was inside him now. It wasn't going away.