Once Upon A: A Dark Romance

Book 1: Stained Duet

by Charlotte E Hart

Synopsis

It began as research. Just research. The technical approach. One that delivers the content necessary for a hidden culture to seem plausible, even if it's not. Readers expect perfection from me. They need to be taken on a journey. That's my job as a writer. Trouble is, I know nothing about my new subject matter - kink.
Blaine Jacobs is his name. He's my research. A man who seems as logical and focused as me. A man who agrees to help. A man who, regardless of his stature in the community, seems to offer a sense of realism to this strange section of society.
And even if he does occasionally interrupt my data with dark brooding eyes and a questionably filthy mouth, what does it matter? It's just research, isn't it? It's not real. None of this is. Nothing will come of it or change my mind.

So why am I confused?
I'm becoming lost.
Falling apart.

And Blaine Jacobs, no matter how calm he might have seemed at first, now appears to linger on the edges of sanity, pushing my boundaries with every whispered word.

Release date: July 11, 2017

Print pages: 314

Sample

Chapter 1

Alana

^{It's undeniably alluring how the human skeleton stretches under pressure," he says, rounding the prone body in front of him and tapping the flesh gently. "Muscles lengthen when warmed. Ligaments twist slightly, lending another inch of growth to the gratifying position asked for." He turns his head back to me for a second, scanning my dress and sneering, probably at the fact it’s not see through. "The rapid intakes of breath and then sighs coming from a woman's lips increase blood flow, resulting in yet more give to her tendons." He leaves the naked woman's side, slowly travelling the wooden boards in my direction, making me back away from his extended hand. "But it's the howl that finalises the posture to one of perfection." Really?}

^{My feet move away again, inching me further from his still hovering hand as my eyes flick around nervously. "Her groaned scream of agony."}

^{I feel the wall hit my shoulders, leaving me nowhere left to run to, no room to manoeuvre at all. He smiles, obviously amused with my attempt at escape. "Haven't you ever wondered how we achieve that?}

^{To be honest, no, I’ve never thought of how they get these girls into extreme positions, or why the hell they put up with it in the first place, and this interview is just becoming more and more nonsensical by the second.}

^{“Are you still breathing?” Barely. It would help if this one wasn’t so damned attractive. He was last time, too, in the normal world where average people exist. In here, he’s like a quirk I can’t refuse. And why do they all smell so bloody good in these places?}

^{One week I’ve been at this. I was supposed to be simply collecting data for research purposes. Just a quick sit down with a few of them. The first one, a Dominant called Wraith—yes, apparently that was his real name—was obliging and gave me a thorough breakdown of how the whole thing works, but then, at the end, he offered to give me the name of someone who might be able to help me a little more with the sadistic tendencies of the scene.}

^{The one thing I didn’t expect to be delving into, when I eventually picked up enough courage to call the man in front of me, was the seedy underground side of what I’m trying to research. It has been reasonably useful, though, and he is hellishly attractive. Hardly a chore in reality.}

^{“Would you like to try? We have another twenty minutes left before I have to leave.”}

^{I tip my chin up at him, signalling my absolute horror at the very idea of such a notion. Highly educated women do not, in any way, allow themselves to be strung up and potentially gutted like a pig. As the woman in front of me is currently doing. Although, she’s not being gutted. Nor are any of the others I’ve seen as far as I know. In fact, her moaning is quite arousing in some way. Not that Mr. Beautiful here will ever know that’s the effect I’m feeling.}

^{“No, thank you.” I wish that didn’t come out as shakily as it did, but it did, unfortunately. It’s only because of the moaning woman. Well, that and the fact that I’m pretty certain he’s wearing Chanel under that suit just to enhance his muscles further. All the good looking ones wear suits. Good ones. It’s utterly debilitating to professionalism.}

^{“Is it all too dirty for you? The floor, I mean.” Well, yes. Not that it would make any difference if he swept me off to a more ‘high end’ version of the same subject matter. I mean, I’m only writing a book. It’s all the rage, you see. BDSM. Kinky stuff. Before this, the most kinky thing I’d ever indulged in was a vibrator I got as a joke one year for a friend. I didn’t actually have the balls to give it to her, so I ended up keeping it myself and giving it a go. It was… different, and still quite useful when I get myself wound up through writing. Not that it happens too often lately.}

^{“You’re wet.” What? Where’s the water?}

^{I look down at my feet then back up to him. He winks, licking his lips at the same moment. Oh. OH. The flush of colour that rises through my whole body has me barging past him and towards the door before I know it. Bastard. How would he know if I was or not? Or am. I am.}

^{This is another unfortunate thing that keeps happening around these men. I think they have some sort of link to vaginas. I’m just not quite sure what it is yet. It needs more research, something I’m not currently prepared to entertain given this atrocious venue. Certainly not with this overly attractive one anyway.}

^{“I can help you with that.” I swing my head sharply, aiming for yet more abhorrence at his crude remarks as he walks behind me, chuckling.}

^{“Do you think this is amusing? I’m a professional, not one of your…” I don’t know what to call them. I wave my hand at the woman behind us, who is still moaning. “…things.”}

^{Professional. Very, actually. I nod at him, clamping my false smile in place and indicating my departure from this building. I’ve been writing novels under two pen names for around six years. Three actually, if you count the disaster that was Sci-Fi PNR. I don’t discuss that, though. Anyway, Valerie Du Font writes romance. She’s where I started in college. She does quite well—well enough for me to not be in this repellent place anyway. And Peter Halloway writes crime thrillers. He also does reasonably well, given that I’m a woman writing as a man, a trick another author turned me on to some time ago. Seems male readers prefer to read male authors. Who knew, right?}

^{Anyway, BDSM is the new thing. Unfortunately, it’s a thing that neither Valerie, Peter, nor Alana know anything about. And if there’s one thing I do, it’s research. When this book hits the shelves, which is a long way off given that I’ve only just started researching, it will be as if I was the one living the scene.}

^{“Is there anything else I can help you with, aside from the obvious, that is?” he says, his voice still full of glee at my disastrous predicament. Arse. Perhaps I should pop a tampon in the next time I see one of them, soak up the creative juices, so to speak.}

^{“No, no, really. I think that will be enough for today,” I reply breezily, waggling my hand in the air and lengthening my stride through ‘The Pit’. Quite enough. My nod to myself confirms this thought as I continue through said Pit, trying not to stand on any appendage that presents itself en-route.}

^{He rounds in front of me as I eventually reach the exit through the labyrinth of maze-like hallways, smiling again. He rarely smiles. In fact, it’s only when he’s got the upper hand that he seems to manage one at all. I’ve met him twice now—once for a coffee in a small restaurant in Manhattan, and then today when I met him at this address, which was unwise now I think about it, but thankfully, he does seem gentlemanly in some respects, as much as he can be in this situation.}

^{“Actually, one final question if you don’t mind?” I ask, sidestepping his outstretched arm as he guides us through the double doors out onto the pavement. He raises a brow as confirmation that it’s okay to ask. This is another thing he does rather than speak sometimes.}

^{“Have you ever been in love?”}

^{For the first time since I met him, he falters, a frown descending to show through the normally unaffected expression of disinterest. It’s a look that has me taking a step away from him. Not in fear, more like surprise really. I’ve never seen such a scowl on his face. “I’m sorry if that was inappropriate. You don’t have to answer.”}

^{Although, it would be nice if he did. All these books talk of men who’ve never been in love, never known a woman good enough, never been tamed. It all seems a bit unrealistic to me. I’d like to know that real dominants, the ones out here on the streets, are human, too. That they love and are as fallible as the rest of us.}

^{“That was inappropriate. I’m not inclined to answer it,” he eventually replies, backing himself away from me and taking hold of the door behind him again.}

^{“Oh, alright.” Clearly that’s hit a nerve, one I’ll need to understand in more depth.}

^{“Do you need a taxi hailing?” he asks, all pleasantries and joviality lost from his tone.}

^{“Oh, no, no, I’ll walk. It’s fine. It’s the middle of the day. No problem at all.”}

^{He doesn’t smile at me again. He just scans my dress again, allowing his slightly mocking sneer to develop as naturally as it did before, and then slips through the door back into the building.}

^{Right. That went well, then. Wonderful.}

^{I turn into the bright afternoon sun, clutching my precious notes and laptop, and start the walk back to my one bed apartment. It might not be overly large, but it’s mine. Bought and paid for. Being an author has done me proud. It’s not what I thought I’d do when I was at college. I’d hoped more for vet or similar, and I managed to get at least three of the five years completed, but college loans needed to be paid, and it’s just the way life has turned out for me.}

^{I made a fair profit off the sale of my first book, which led to me being snapped up by a publisher here in New York. I moved here, thinking I was some high-flying professional. That turned into ratshit, to be honest. While landing me with a four book deal, which seemed extremely exciting to a twenty-one-year-old, they basically ripped me to shreds financially. They took all the money, barely leaving me with enough to support myself over here, and laughed all the way to their bank while I ate noodles and rice for sustenance.}

^{Manhattan is extortionate to live in. Food was not a necessity at the time. However, that was what led to Peter being born. He worked independently to Valerie, giving me the ability to make money through him as long as I kept up my obligations to the publisher with Valerie. And the contacts I made, although I had to be quite secretive about it—penname and all that—helped me achieve more profits than Valerie ever allowed. Thankfully, by the time my new deal came around with Valerie, I was more savvy about the publishing world.}

^{So, she now writes for my publisher, making me a good deal in romance while they do all the marketing around the world, and that gives me the freedom to write Peter, and whatever I’m going to call my new penname, independently. I really need to think of a new name.}

^{I snap out my phone and call the only real friend I have around here. Don’t get me wrong, I have hundreds of friends, most of whom are in the publishing industry, but only one that I call an actual friend. She’s also an author, an independent one at that, and she writes entirely in the male domain. Thrillers, fantasy, romance, all as men. She says it makes her more money and she can slip in and out of private chats unknown as the person she is. I think it’s because she likes being a man, and if she’d actually admit she was a lesbian, it would help no end.}

^{“Wanna have lunch, Bree?” I ask before she actually speaks because she hardly ever bothers doing that unless it’s an absolute necessity. There’s a grunt on her end, more than likely because she’s writing three books, Facebooking and Tweeting at the same time. You should see her office. Three screens, all with open Works In Progress, and then she’ll have another on audio playing in the background. She’ll be editing that one as she goes.}

^{“Where?” is her eventual human response, not that she inhabits the human world all that much.}

^{“Bluties?”}

^{“See ya in fifteen.”}

^{The phone goes dead. Pleasant.}

^{I’m not even sure why I like her, but she’s always been straight with me, which is something a lot of these other publishing people don’t do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help and be part of a team, always have been, but I’m not stupid either. Some of these people wouldn’t have given a shit about me if I hadn’t have made my way up the tree, so to speak. They would have trodden on or over me merrily to get to where I am now. So if they think I’ll give one inch of help to their conniving little arseholes, well, they’re wrong. I’ve learnt my lessons along the way, thank you very much. I’ve become stronger and more able to see the clearly, perhaps changed myself to see straight through the bullshit or at least accommodate its occasional virtues. It’s a shame, but needs must. Trusting, happy, whimsical Alana is long gone. Perhaps swallowed up along the way so that this new version could survive the cutthroat business I’m in. Who knows? Control is all I know now. Control and methodical planning.}

^{I turn along Madison, heading for Bluties, and feel the last rays of the autumn sun belting down on me with a smile. Summer’s lovely in New York, not like the winter that’s coming, which is, frankly, hell. The UK did not prepare me for winter in New York. It’s freezing. The most we used to get over there is a few days of panic stricken roads, empty stores and then as suddenly as the white dusting arrived, it would all disappear. Maybe there would be a bit of sludgy stuff for a few days, but nothing more than that.}

^{I think I remember a couple of weeks of it when I was about twelve, but really nothing more. It’s horrendous here. Five foot drifts. Women falling over in heels with their arses sticking up in the air, which always makes me titter, and then there’s the wind. Jesus Christ, all these straight roads are like wind tunnels. I literally took off last year, arms flailing around like a banshee, my coat acting like wings lifting me to the sky. Fuck. It was terrifying.}

^{I now go nowhere in the winter without sturdy boots and a handy umbrella to anchor myself to something should the need arise. In fact, since I’ve been living here I hardly wear anything but boots and jeans, which is odd because I never used to. I loved dresses, summer ones with heels, but I suppose I’ve just drifted into casual because of how much time I spend at home rather than going out. I’m only dressed in this dress now because of my interview.}

^{Being an author means I can wear what I like when I like, and suits aren’t it. I like to get dressed up, and I can certainly afford it, but on most occasions I spend my time sitting behind a laptop. Why would I get dressed up for that? Most of us are a mess, wearing nothing but old comfy gear and more than likely not even attempting make-up of any description unless we have to.}

^{“Yo. Lana! The fuck is that?”}

^{That’ll be Bree, welcoming me into her arms with her less than excitable exuberance.}

^{“Hey, Bree,” I call back, lifting my head to find her standing outside Bluties, laptop in hand and her phone held high in the sky.}

^{“The fuck you wearing?”}

^{“I had that interview with the Dom.”}

^{“Yeah, right. You get all sexed up then?”}

^{I don’t know why she thinks I would have. She’s not seen me with one single man since we’ve been friends. This has something to do with the fact that I don’t do men. Clearly, I do do men. I do men quite a lot actually, but I do them on my terms, which usually involves a hotel, no exchanging of numbers, and a quick thanks very much. None of which I tell her about.}

^{“He’s research. And quite a gentleman, Bree. I’ve got to get this right. I’m not writing a bad one.”}

^{“How would you know what’s bad or not?” she replies immediately, ever the logical and direct friend that she is.}

^{And she’s got a point, one which makes me nod my head in acceptance of that very fact. It’s one of the reasons I’m doing this research after all. “Not sure why you’re not letting him show you properly. How do you expect to get accurate data unless you try it out for size?”}

^{The second part of her argument makes me frown at such a thought, regardless of his good looks. It might be a sensible thought process some ways, but it’s not for me.}

^{I laugh, trying to lighten the moment as she stares at me, one hand on her dark tattooed arm that she’s scratching, the other still flicking through her phone. “Seriously, Lana. How do you expect to be able to edit your way through the actuality of sensation when you’ve never experienced it? Sure, we can all write romance, but from what I’m gathering, being whipped ain’t the same, you know?”}

^{Unfortunately, no matter my near nausea at the thought, she’s probably right. She normally is. It’s the same thing I’ve been playing with for some time on and off. To try, or not? I was hoping that simply conversing with a submissive would give me the range of sensations needed for written verse. However, on talking with two of them so far, all I’ve got is breathy moans and something that is apparently indescribable. It’s lacking to say the least.}

^{“Let’s just get lunch, shall we?” is my quick manoeuvre out of said conversation that I absolutely do not want to have.}

^{“Or you could just go back and ask him to do his thing on you.”}

^“No.”

^{“Well, your shout, I suppose. Just remember that when the reviews start rolling in,” she says, tucking her head back down so she can respond to something on her phone.}

^{Bitch. Correct, but a bitch nonetheless.}

 

^~

 

^{Lunch goes according to plan, as does everything in my life. Pinpoint precision is key to strategic timelines. Do you know the amount of hours that go into preparing books? I think my readers assume stories magically pop into my head and then appear suddenly on paper. They don’t. The first few did in some manner. I thought of a story, wrote some words quite effortlessly, ones full of vigour and youthful exuberance, and before I knew it I’d written a book. But the ones after that? Well, they take planning and preparation.}

^{Most books are well written before the reader even hears about them. I currently have six works open and four completed books that aren’t even published yet. I’ve actually just released one that I finished writing fifteen months ago. That’s how it works. Forward planning.}

^{There are calendars and spreadsheets, release dates planned years in advance. Word-counts to keep up with. Three rounds of editors to go through, sometimes four, even five on occasion for my crime thrillers. Publication dates to meet. Covers and teasers to release at the optimal times for marketing purposes. Paperbacks to produce with different graphics for different countries, although I never did really understand why.}

^{And don’t get me started on events.}

^{I did twelve last year. One a month. Nine here in the states, one in Oz, and two back home in the UK, which gave me a chance to see Mum and Dad. I only do events as Valerie, obviously, but I’ve been toying with the idea of hiring a model to play Peter. I make a lot of money out of them, and believe it or not, it’s nice to actually meet my readers, talk to them and get direct feedback rather than the constancy of social media. It makes me feel human in some way, I suppose. Alive. Not the robot I seem to have become to meet criteria and provide the reader with the ultimate story.}

^{It’s like I’ve changed into something I never was before. Maybe it’s because of the workload, or maybe it’s because of circumstance, or maybe it’s just natural evolution. I don’t know, but something feels out of sync lately. It just all feels a bit messy and distant, like this current version of me is not comfortable with itself.}

^{“So, when are you seeing him next?” Bree asks, still attached to her phone and not really listening to my answer.}

^{“Thought I’d try a gang bang next Tuesday.”}

^{“Right, well that should work,” she replies, totally engrossed in whatever she’s looking at as I grab her shoulder to stop her from walking directly into traffic. “What?”}

^{“The road, Bree,” I reply, hovering my pointed finger at the onslaught of mid-day traffic.}

^{“Oh right, thanks.”}

^{“Do you ever just look forward and take the world in? At all? See what’s around you rather than focus entirely on what your next set of words are?”}

^{“What the fuck, Lana?” she says, looking at me like I’m the biggest moron on the planet. “You know we’ve got no time for that. I’m six chapters behind on my current. Four more open that should be ready for Christmas. One novella going live now, and another two going live next week under pens. What the fuck time do I have to look up into the sky? My life is right here in this phone.”}

^{I let go of her arm and snicker at her distressed looking face, totally understanding where’s she’s at and remembering the fact that that’s exactly where I am, too. Rightly or wrongly. It’s probably the reason why I spend so much time stuffing amphetamines in my mouth, hoping that by not snorting it and rolling up bills like others do, I’m not actually addicted to the damn stuff. I mean, she’s the same. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just our way of coping. It helps contain the noise, or at least channel it more effectively so we don’t have to admit the issues behind whatever’s going on in our heads.}

^{“Yeah, I know, but when’s enough enough? I mean you weren’t even listening to me, not that you ever do. What about everything out there, life, you know?” Her face shoots up to mine, probably astounded at my audacity to question our life.}

^{“I was so listening to you,” she replies, still secretly tapping at her phone even though she thinks I can’t see it. “I multitask.” You bet your arse she does. We all do. At speed. I sigh and shake my head, knowing I’ve lost the discussion before it’s begun. “What did you say exactly?”}

^{“Gang bang.”}

^{“Really, when?”}

^{“Next Tuesday.” She scowls, lifts her phone again and swipes about a bit.}

^{“Can’t, got a deadline for book two in the Assessor Series.”}

^{“You think I want to gang bang with you?”}

^{“The fuck’s wrong with me?” she spits, ruffling her blonde mass of dreds about and shaking her booty like a hooker. I smile in reply and start us walking again. Nothing’s wrong with her, nothing that being male wouldn’t fix, anyway.}

^{“Nothing. You’re perfectly wonderful. Just not a man.”}

^{“You’re gang banging with only men? Fucking go you. How many?”}

^{The snort that comes out of my nose as we meander over to 57th can only be described as snot worthy. How many? As if I’ve ever done anything other than straight one on one. I’m the straightest straight person she’s ever met. I can’t even comprehend bent. Even the sight of those people in that club earlier was making me feel on edge, let alone one actually touching me, or, heaven forbid, asking me to indulge in their strange alternate reality.}

^{“I’ve done two before. You need pointers?” she says, still attached to her phone and discussing this as if it’s perfectly normal. No. I absolutely do not need pointers of any kind. Although...}

^{“Have you?”}

^{“Yeah. Long time ago. Off my head. Can’t remember most of it, really.”}

^{“Well, that’s about as useful as bugger all then.”}

^{We walk silently for a while, doing our best to avoid the rush of people trying to get back to work after lunch, all desperate not to be late for that next meeting. It makes me smile as I keep weaving in and out of them, hand on Bree’s shoulder guiding her because she’s still not looking at anything but her phone.}

^{One of the very fine things about being a writer is the ability to not have to conform to society’s rules or work hours. We do what we do whenever we want to—restaurant, coffee shop, late nights, early mornings. I have a particular penchant for waking up at 1am with an idea and just opening up the laptop. It’s not like I have to get to an office for 9am, so why not?}

^{I’m not convinced it was helpful when I first started writing, trying to do college at the same time, but now it works for me well enough. I just catch up on sleep at another time. Not that I get all that much of that. There never seems to be any time. It’s like I never have any me time, no space for my mind to rest anymore. There are so many stories. So many characters. And it’s become constant. It’s a hive of other people’s feelings, other people’s emotions inside me. Murder and mayhem. Sex, love and romance. Beaches and holidays, wishes and dreams.}

^{I can’t even remember my own dreams anymore. Maybe I never had any, or maybe they’ve been realized and I missed them while I was writing everyone else’s happily ever afters. I don’t know, but they’re not here anymore giving me a purpose to all this. It’s just a constant drive of forward momentum, barely giving me a chance to smell my own roses.}

^{“Lana?”
            “What?”}

^{“I was asking about your Sexy Pants Dom.”}

^{“What about him?”}

^“Name?”

^{“I’m not allowed to tell you that. You know the ethics behind research,” I reply incredulously, finally breaking through the throng of other people out into the small square where we afternoon sprint write sometimes. “And he is most definitely not mine.”}

^{In fact, I doubt men like Blaine Jacobs belong to anyone. He’s the type who gives little compassion to anything but action. I can tell that by the way he peruses women as if they’re pieces of meat to be tasted. I wouldn’t say he’s cold because he has quite a warm aura about him, welcoming even, but he’s dispassionate, callous maybe. As if nothing is to be looked at with any other intent than study and interrogation.}

^{Everything he’s shown me so far has been logical, as if it’s methodically sentenced into its new position. There’s no passion about his preferred entertainment. He touches skin as if it’s not worth anything more than the chance to find its density or its durability. Maybe he’s a scientist or a clinician of some kind in real life. He certainly doesn’t come across as a man who’s ever thought the idea of connection intriguing. Although, that love question threw him right off center.}

^{Bree’s already set out on the table by the time I’ve wandered towards it, notepad, tablet and laptop in the exact same spot she always has them. She sits to the right, accoutrements laid out to the left like an array of necessities to do her job correctly. And funnily enough, as I start unpacking my things, too, I end up putting them out just as precisely opposite her, never questioning my positioning either.}

^{It makes me giggle beneath my breath, imaging Blaine and his craft. It’s the same really, isn’t it? We have little warmth for our craft now either. We write; that’s it. There’s no sense of confusion or mess anymore. We don’t live our characters in the same way we used to, scrawling them onto paper and enjoying their passion as if it’s our own. I can’t remember the last time I cried when something happened to one of them, not like when I killed—figuratively speaking—my first one off. I might be immersed in my characters’ stories, might even be feeling them to a degree, but I just don’t bleed when I cut them like I used to.}

^{It’s something I’ve been questioning lately. It makes no sense to just see it all as a workload without any connection to their feelings. I’m lacking in empathy, not something the old me used to be.}

^{“What’s another word for ‘delineate’?” Bree asks, her hazel eyes peeping up at me above her screen.}

^{“Present, outline, depict. Depends on context. Draw, sketch? Characterize, detail—”}

^{“And there she is, the fucking synonym queen of New York,” she very kindly cuts in, breaking me from the thesaurus that opens up in my head every time anyone asks questions like that.}

^{It’s like a freight train rips through my head, granting me each and every connection to any word that has anything to do with the particular phrase mentioned. Sometimes I wish I could shut the bloody thing off. I hardly missed a beat out of writing my own story as I answered her either. I just kept writing, not even looking at what my fingers were describing.}

^{You’d think it would be useful for a writer. Actually it is, I suppose, but it’s the damn noise that drives me mad sometimes. It’s never quiet in there. Never. There are no breaks from being a storyteller, not for me anyway. People talk of writer’s block; well, I’ve never experienced it. Never. If I didn’t work so hard on putting barriers around the stories, I’d be quite insane. I think it’s why I don’t feel the hunger in the substance anymore, maybe because I can’t afford the emotional turmoil. At some point I put those barriers in place purposefully, making the characters stay in their boxes where they’re contained and malleable for when I need them next.}

^“Pitch?”

^{“Slope, slant, incline. Modulation, frequency, tonality.” Tone.}

^{Mr. Jacobs certainly has a lovely tone. Its texture is like satin, with a sense of down covering the final endnote. I’d write it as lulling you maybe, or tempting. It has a calming quality, as if he’s the master of his little universe and there isn’t a thing anyone wants to do to leave it. In fact, it makes me question the sanity of the women under his hands in that place, or any other pair of hands, I suppose. Do they know what they’re doing when they start off, or are they mesmerized into doing something simply because of the attractive men and their strange needs?}

^{“I still don’t understand why would anyone want to be whipped? Don’t you find that odd?”}

^{Bree’s head pops up again, this time, actually for the first time today, her face appearing totally focused on my question.}

^{“Yeah, I know. I’ve been thinking the same. I read that book by K D Ling the other month—The Enchantress—you know the one?” I nod, chastising myself for not getting round to studying the latest bestseller yet. “Her character explains it as a ‘necessary requirement for expulsion’.”}

^{I think I’m frowning, although my sense of intrigue at the statement makes me twitch in my seat a little. I’m not sure why my backside’s so interested in the thought.}

^{“Now, you know me,” she says. “It’s not my thing, but when you read the context of the story, she seems to have it spot on. Makes me wonder if there really is something to it, ya know?”}

^{“Do we know if she’s in the scene? K D, I mean?”}

^{“Well, Zachary Creed seems friendly with her, and we know he is, or at least he was when I saw him at the Book Bonanza Memphis Signing last year.”}

^{Zachary Creed is this last year’s newbie on the block, bringing with him an instant bestseller, which launched him to stratospheric heights in the indie world. I know him, vaguely. I even thought about interviewing him for this next book, but we try not to pick each other’s brains about context until we’re closely linked friendship wise, like Bree and I. His book is damn good, though. Gives me an idea he does know what he’s talking about, or he’s done what I’m currently doing and researched hard.}

^{Although, in this world, one never really knows. It’s not like any of us have ever seen each other in action. Most of us only know what the others portray, and the social media world is full of people pretending to be into BDSM. Apparent Doms creep out of the woodwork daily. Dick pics, dirty messenger conversations, and of course, the ever loving arseholes who like to skulk around in group conversations, dropping their pearls of wisdom. It’s become a sad state of affairs on most days for me, making me feel incredibly uncomfortable with the whole scene in general and its ability to cajole.}

^{It’s difficult enough having a penname of my own as a man. That in itself makes me feel like a fraud. It’s something that tugs heartstrings I’d almost forgotten about, on occasion, making me question the whole set up, but at least I don’t pretend to be a Dom and manipulate women.}

^{However, regardless of my feelings associated, I am, have become, nothing more than a business lately, and readers flock to this new sense of adventure. It proves the fact that marketing wise it’s a relevant strategy. And who am I to blame anyone who wants a little excitement in their lives? I don’t have that right at all. That is, at the end of the day, what us writers should be writing for, to create passion and engagement, to give someone a new world to play in and enjoy. Something I appear to have lost lately.}

^{But what does infuriate me is the fact that this could all be so wrong. It annoys me that these pretend people could be getting the context and situation incorrect, inadvertently misleading readers into believing the scene is something that it’s not. That’s why I’m researching properly. I want to know the reality of what it gives these people. Why they do what they do. Why they need it, or apparently find comfort in it. I mean, why would anyone?}