Chapter 0135

And considering my two “dates” this evening, I definitely know which one I preferred.

I climb groaning into bed, pulling my covers up over me, still shaken from my experiences but starting to feel better. Just before I

drift off to sleep, I grab my phone —

Not the Kent phone, the burner. The one Janeen gave me.

And I type in lvan’s number, and send him a quick text to say goodnight.

Half an hour has passed since Fay left the room, and Kent is still laying on the floor, crippled with pain and anxiety. He presses

his eyes closed against it, wanting — quite desperately — to be anywhere else, to be anyone else.

God damn it, but he hates himself right now. Hates every choice he’s ever made that has led him here, to this — to laying in his

underwear on the floor of his secret room, feeling like the absolute worst person on earth.

Because he knows he’s made a mistake — that none of this is what he wanted, or how he wanted it, with Fay. But for the life of

him, he doesn’t know how to not do precisely this.

As he considers that idea, Kent scolds himself, because — obviously — he knows how to not do this. He’s had sex with women in

much simpler ways — normal sex, good sex, in a bed without ropes and chains. Not every woman he’s ever brought home has.

been locked up in this room, restrained for him. He doesn’t need the kink to have sex — sometimes it’s just an extra, a bonus that

allows him to explore his obsession with control.

Because that’s what it’s all about, after all, Kent thinks ruefully. Control. Everything is about control — controlling his life, his world,

the underworld, his business ventures, the threats to his power and everything he and his family have built. He has to keep a

tight fist around all of it — absolutely all of it — or it will fall apart.

And Fay —

Somehow, fucking Fay —

This wisp of a girl, this tiny, naive, coltish thing who knows absolutely nothing about this world —

Somehow, she is the thing that threatened to undo it all. Because she makes him absolutely lose control. With her, he has no

idea what he will do next.

And the intensity of how he feels towards her — how much he wants her... Yes, on one level it’s a physical desire — but Kent is

forced to admit, now, laying on the floor staring at his ceiling that it goes beyond that. That the magnitude of what he feels is not

just a desire for a woman he seeks to control, but...

God damn it.

It's a real, true pull towards her that he hasn't felt since he first met his wife. And the pull — it’s inexorable. Heavy, like the chain of

an anchor wrapped around his feet. Like gravity, with Fay at the center of the earth.

And this, all of this? The scaring her, the need to break her, to make her submit — it was all a fight against the power of that pull.

But deep down, he knows, it’s like the ocean fighting the moon’s sway over the tides. He can crash all he wants, but Fay is the

force that calls the still waters within him to her. Makes them rise so high he thinks he might drown.

Give in, the voice inside himself whispers. Just swim down.

But god damn it, he can’t. He can’t.

Because if Kent gives in to just this one thing, the rest will fall — like dominoes, or a loose string on a sweater. It will all fall apart.

And so Kent lays for hours on that

floor, trapped, stuck like a bug pinned

to a board, torn between opposing

forces. The first yet stinger

ong igitoiretit ne lapse as he takes

her in his arms. That desire’s

insidious twin, however, still whispers

into his ear that if he just pushes a

little harder...he can break her. Make

her fall in line. That he can have her in

his world, just as he likes her — that

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Kent agonizes over it, truly torn over

the question of which path t taker)

because he knows thet tess are the

dadki@e baths in his life. Because

any option that keeps Fay out of his

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Well. It's just not an option. Not anymore.

Kent has to come up with a plan. But

all the while that he agonizes over.his

two options, awcig giggymlitnufs in ihe

bapk arlni¢ thind that neither of these

options really considers the true

threat of the situation: Please read

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The very real possibility that Fay will break him first.

And take it all for herself.