Chapter 2: Puppet Strings and Karaoke Nights
The message burned in his mind for a week. Tommy moved through his days like a ghost in his own life, coding with autopilot precision, organizing his comics not for joy but for the comfort of rigid order. He checked his memories obsessively. So far, only the eighth birthday present was gone, a tiny, sinister proof of concept. The void it left was a sinkhole in his past, small but infinitely deep.
He jumped at every notification, but his phone stayed quiet. The silence was worse.
On Friday, a new message arrived, not a text this time, but an engraved invitation slipped under his apartment door. Thick, cream-colored cardstock. It listed an address downtown, a karaoke bar called The Gilded Thrush, and a time: 10 PM. Below, in the same swirling script as the contract, it read:
Wear something forgettable. Your second lesson is observation.
The Gilded Thrush was a vault of engineered despair. Neon pink and blue lights bled across a low ceiling stained yellow with decades of smoke. The air was a solid mixture of spilled beer, cheap perfume, and the clinging sweat of desperate celebration. A small stage hosted a woman butchering a Whitney Houston song with slurred devotion. The crowd was a collage of after-work escapees and Friday night casualties.
Tommy stood just inside the door, wearing a plain black tee and jeans, feeling both invisible and glaringly obvious. He scanned the room, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs.
He saw her.
Tara sat in a rounded corner booth, a queen holding court. She wore emerald green silk that seemed to drink the neon light and spit it back out as something darker. Her hair was a silver helix tonight, twisted high. She was talking to a younger woman beside her—a beautiful light skinned black woman in a too-tight sequined dress, her laugh too sharp, her eyes already glazed from the tequila sunrise in her hand. Aliyah, her nametag from some corporate event still clumsily pinned to her dress, read.
Tara’s gaze found Tommy across the room. She didn’t smile. She gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod toward the bar.
He went, ordering a beer he didn’t want, leaning against the sticky wood. He watched.
Tara spoke into Aliyah’s ear. Aliyah threw her head back and laughed, then nodded vigorously. Tara gestured to the stage. Just minutes later, Aliyah was up there, wobbling on heels, belting out a Pat Benetar ballad. She was terrible. She was magnificent in her tragic commitment.
Tara slid from the booth and appeared next to Tommy at the bar. She didn’t look at him.
“As you can probably tell… She’s freshly heartbroken,” Tara said, her voice a low hum that cut through the music. “Three years, ended by text. She thinks she’s here to reclaim her power. She’s really just empty space waiting to be filled.”
“What am I observing here?” Tommy asked, his throat tight.
“The energy. The need. It’s a physical thing. You can feel it. You can taste it.” Tara finally turned her head, her amber eyes catching the glow of a Coors sign. “Lesson two is: Procurement. You wanted to understand mechanics. The first mechanic is selection. You don’t choose with your eyes. You choose with this.” She tapped a finger just below his sternum. “That hollow, hungry feeling she has? You can relate with it. You can resonate with it. You can pull on it.”
“That’s not… I don’t want to pull on anything.”
“You already signed up for the advanced classes, honey. You think sex is just bodies? You think it’s just dick and pussy? It is more than that. It is also psychology. It’s energy exchange. You wanted knowledge. This is the syllabus. This is it, Thomas. Use it.” She nodded toward the stage. “She’s perfect. Vulnerable, willing, and so fucking needy it’s like a beacon. You’re going to go talk to her.”
“I can’t just—” He got interrupted.
“You can. Because I’ve primed her. She thinks you’re a friend of mine, a nice guy, a safe port in the storm. And you will be. For a little while.” Tara’s voice dropped, slithering into his ear over the music. “Go on. Make her beg for it like you used to in your little fantasies. See what it feels like to be in control.”
Aliyah stumbled off the stage, flushed and breathing hard, collapsing back into the booth. Tara gave Tommy a gentle, mocking push.
“Go.”
He moved, his legs carrying him through the crowd. He slid into the booth opposite Aliyah. Up close, she was even more beautiful, and more shattered. Her mascara was smudged.
“Hi,” He said. “Tara said I should buy you a drink. You looked like you were having fun up there.”
Aliyah giggled, a wet, tequila-soaked sound. “I was awful. God. You’re a friend of Tara’s? She’s a trip.” Her eyes scanned him. “You’re cute. You look… solid.”
The conversation was a puppet show. Tommy felt Tara’s gaze like a laser on the back of his neck. He asked questions. Aliyah overshared—about her job, her ex, the apartment they’d shared, the future she’d planned. Each confession was a thread, and Tommy, following an instinct he didn’t understand, pulled on them. He leaned in. He nodded. He mirrored her. He said…
“He’s an idiot,” with a conviction that made her eyes well up.
“You get it,” she slurred, placing her hand over his. Her skin was fever-hot. “You really get it.”
An hour later, they were in a cab. Her idea. Tommy’s apartment. Her whispered request, breath hot and sweet with lime and alcohol:
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
His apartment felt invaded. Aliyah kicked off her heels and wandered, picking up a vintage Spider-Man figure.
“You’re a nerd. That’s sweet.” She looked back at him, her gaze now sharp with a desperate intent. The vulnerability had curdled into something else—an aggressive need for validation.
She closed the distance, her hands on his chest. “Make me forget about him,” she breathed. It wasn’t a request. It was a demand.
This was the procurement. The resonance. Her need was a tangible force, a sour, pleading aura. And he felt the hollow space within himself—the one carved out by Tara’s first lesson and the missing memory—echo back. It created a circuit.
He kissed her. It was nothing like with Tara. It was sloppy, desperate, all tongue and teeth. She ground herself against him, a moan vibrating from her throat into his mouth.
“Fuck me,” she panted against his lips, her fingers clawing at his belt. “Just fuck me right now. Don’t be gentle.”
He pushed her back toward his bed, a cold clarity settling over him. This was the experiment. The application. He wasn't Tommy the virgin anymore. He was the operator of a machine made of need.
He ripped her flimsy dress down, exposing her breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra. He sucked on a nipple, hard, and she cried out, arching into him.
“Yes, like that, hurts, don’t stop…”
He yanked his jeans and boxers down, his cock already hard, fueled by a dark cocktail of power and revulsion. He parted her toned thighs. She was soaking wet, her arousal a slick, hot gloss in the dim light from his desk lamp. He didn’t wait. He didn’t tease. He lined up and drove into her in one brutal, deep thrust.
“Oh, GOD!” she screamed, her back bowing off the bed. Her eyes flew wide, then fluttered shut. “Again! Do it again!”
He set a punishing rhythm, slamming into her. The bedframe rattled against the wall. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of skin, her choked sobs that mingled with pleas, the guttural groans he didn’t recognize as his own. He felt her nails rake down his back, reopening Tara’s faint marks. The pain was a bright, clean accent to the savage physicality.
“Fuck me! Fuck me! Shit!” she sobbed, her legs locking around him. “Oh my God!”
He ignored her wails of want, losing himself in the raw sensation. This was different. With Tara, he’d been a student. Here, he was a weapon being used by her, and by Aliyah’s own brokenness. He fucked her with a detached, clinical ferocity, chasing not pleasure but the obliteration of the man he was a week ago.
He felt her orgasm first—a violent, clenching spasm around him, her whole body seizing. She let out a wail that was pure agony and release. The convulsion of her body, the raw, unfiltered proof of his effect, tipped him over the edge. He came with a snarled gasp, pumping into her, his vision whiting out at the edges.
He collapsed on top of her, both of them slick with sweat, breathing in ragged, broken sync. The room stank of sex and desperation.
After a minute, he pulled out. She made a small, lost sound. He went to the bathroom, cleaned up, and when he returned, she was already half-dressed, her eyes avoiding his.
“I should go,” she mumbled, her bravado gone, replaced by a shamed hangover.
“Yeah.”
She left without another word. The click of the door was definitive. Tommy stood in the center of his room, the adrenaline leaching away, leaving a corrosive shame. He had done it. He had taken a woman to his bed, fucked her with expertise he shouldn’t possess, and made her scream. He had been in total control.
He felt filthy. And exhilarated. And empty as well.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Tara.
Observation complete. Procurement successful. The energy transfer is noted. Your payment this time is not a memory. It’s a piece of your reluctance. You’ll find it easier next time. Sleep well. You’re learning.
He read the message, then threw his phone across the room. It hit a stack of comics and clattered to the floor, screen blinking, then going dark. He looked at his hands. They were steady.
He walked to the shower again. This time, he didn't scrub as hard. The scent of Aliyah, of perfume and sex, didn't seem to cling as much. He toweled off and caught his reflection. The man staring back had harder eyes. The hollow space inside him felt larger, a quiet chamber where his reluctance used to be.
He knew, with a sick certainty, that she was right. It would be easier next time. The appetite, once awakened, was a growing thing. And it was never, ever satisfied with just a taste.