Bait

by Jade West

  I have his cock on screen and my fingers on my clit when I try my new purchase.

  Beautiful dread hits hard as I strain to get the head in. I’m panting like a whore when my pussy finally gives in enough to take it. The stretch hurts so bad that I have to grit my teeth.

  I imagine it’s him. Imagine that I have no choice.

  I’m sobbing at the ache. Flinching at the way every inch hurts like hell.

  But I keep on going. I make my pussy take it, just like he will. I whimper a mantra of no, no, no, and I like it. I hope he likes it too.

  I hope it makes him fuck me harder.

  Oh fuck, how I want him to fuck me hard.

  I push onto The Monster and cry out as it fills me.

  I fuck myself until I’m raw just thinking about him. I fuck myself until I’m thrashing in my own sweat and my pussy is a burning squelching mess.

  And so it goes on.

  Every waking moment my thoughts are for him.

  And in those scarce moments where I’m not either working or playing with myself, I’m planning my date with my nightmare.

  I left most of my evening wear in a charity shop back in Hampshire. It makes my choices easier at least.

  I’m going to be wearing my one remaining little black dress and it’s a good one.

  It’s tight. Flattering. Short enough that my bare legs will feel noticeably exposed.

  Wearing it makes me feel good. Even a little bit slutty.

  My highest heels will make running difficult. The bait will be easy to snare when the time comes. I doubt I’ll outrun him even ten paces.

  And it’s crazy.

  This whole thing is too crazy for words. Too crazy to ever survive being spoken aloud, so it’s a good thing I have nobody left to share it with.

  I’m going to be attacked by a stranger on a dark night in a strange town. Once I leave that club I’ll have no way out. No safe word. No friend waiting on standby to come to my aid.

  Just me and him – the monster and his steel-sculpted dick and the promise to fuck me up bad.

  I might be walking into the biggest mistake of my life, but I’ll be doing it with a smile on my crazy face.

  I’m rational enough to contemplate the possibility that Phoenix Burning is some kind of serial killer psychopath, and I’m painfully aware that my night with him could be my last.

  I know the risks. I feel them in every fibre of my body.

  They make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life.

  The thrill must be contagious. In that one working week alone I’m invited out on three different socials. I’m included in more photocopier gossip sessions than I’ve been party to in the entire four months previous. I’m buzzing on an insane high.

  And then finally, after the longest week in all eternity, I’m standing in front of my full-length mirror in my little black dress.

  My hair is washed and straightened. My eyes have a cat flick that’s right on point. My lips are ruby red.

  My bra is black lace and barely covers my nipples. My thong is a scrap of lace that will grant no modesty.

  My perfume is Dior and my handbag holds nothing but my phone, keys, and purse. No hidden weapons. No emergency panic alarm should things get out of control.

  In honesty, if tonight night turns out to be my last, and Phoenix Burning turns out to be the one who ends me, I’ll just be bummed that he delivered so much colour to my life before he took it away.

  My legs barely carry me to my car when the time comes. My knees tremble all the way through my drive into Malvern. My heart is in my throat when I see the sign for Malvern Link train station.

  I pick a space by the ticket booth. I steady my breath before I dare to risk getting out and standing.

  It’s still light outside, plenty bright enough to lend the illusion that I’m just a girl on a night out. But the illusion lends me no confidence. My eyes dart all around me with every step, my body braced to run every time someone appears in view.

  But I keep it together.

  I keep on walking, and underneath the fear I’m wanting this just as much as I always have.

  The road leads through an industrial estate, just as he said it would. The buildings are tall and looming, even in the evening light.

  No doubt they’ll be terrifying in the darkness.

  Even though my mouth is bone dry and my legs feel boneless, my bare thighs are noticeably clammy as I wait in line for entry to the club. My clit tingles every time I shift position in the queue.

  I’m a jittery mess as I take a seat at the edge of the bar, scanning the gathering crowds for any sign of him.

  I sip my Coke and I wonder if I’d recognise him. If somehow his dark intentions would shine their light right back at mine. I look for what I know – dark features and inked skin, but it’s busy. Too dark and crowded to stand a hope a hell of identifying some random guy in the room.

  I wonder if he’s watching me. I wonder if he’s been following me all along.

  He told me to dance, so I do. My body feels clumsy and my heels make me feel like I’m twirling on toothpicks. Every breath feels tight, but I don’t care.

  I hope he can see me.

  I hope he’s hard.

  The week leading up to this took a thousand years. The hours in the club pass by in a breath.

  I freshen up in the bathroom and flinch as I check the time on my phone.

  Shit.

  Midnight has been and gone already. Two hours left before closing and I know it’s time to go.

  It’s obvious why he chose this place. It’s remote – so far from the main High Street that the surroundings will be deserted. Dangerous.

  Just a few short steps from the safety of the club and I’ll be easy prey.

  I clench my thighs tight to help with the nerves, and it’s there. The need is right there. It’s never been more there than it is right now.

  I thought my nightmares were as real as waking life, but I was wrong.

  This is waking life. Waking life feels hyper real. Waking life is petrifying.

  My terror is in my throat, even though I haven’t even left yet. My palms are clammy and my eyes look wild in the mirror as they stare back at me.

  But I want it.

  Even though I feel like a crazy person, I still want it. Him.

  I try to calm myself in a cubicle, but it’s pointless. I’ve reached critical mass, fight or flight, so when I move again I do so with purpose – straight through the throng of dancing bodies and out the other side. I grab my jacket from the cloakroom attendant and smile politely at the security staff on the door.

  I resist the urge to confess my stupidity and beg them to call me a cab, but it’s close. I daren’t even look back at them as I leave the lights of the club behind me.

  So I walk.

  Quickly.

  Toward the darkness with my heart in my throat and my life in the hands of a stranger, until there are no lights left at all.

  Phoenix

  She’s terrified.

  So terrified that I doubted she’d ever leave that club on foot, but she did.

  She’s been looking for me for hours. I enjoyed every frantic turn of her head. Every little jolt her body made when someone came too close.

  Luckily, I know the shadows well enough that she’ll never see me, not before I want her to.

  She didn’t see me in the truck in the car park. Didn’t see me hanging back far enough to remain out of eyeline as I followed her across the industrial estate.

  She walked right past me on her way to the bathroom, brushed my arm on her route-march out of there.

  As I follow at a distance, I wonder if she’ll fight. If she’ll spit and curse and scream. If she’ll claw at my face like Mariana did.

  But she’s nothing like Mariana.

  Abigail wears her vulnerability so perfectly. So easily.

  Her steps are quick and frantic. I can feel her fear right through me.

  The security of the cl
ub is long behind her when her pace begins to slow. The lighting around here is sparse at best, and her heels are perilous. She knows it.

  I hang back, enjoying the view as she spins a 360 under a street lamp.

  My cock is throbbing. The barbells grind against denim with every step I take. The beast is behind my eyes, straining to run wild. It takes every scrap of self-restraint to let her go just a little bit further.

  And then I quicken.

  I let her hear my footsteps on the tarmac in the shadows behind her, and then I stop.

  She freezes. Listens. Pauses on the edge of flight.

  Her terror captivates me.

  My black swan is beautifully petrified.

  There’s still a part of me that wants to watch her safely back to her car and leave her be, but I’m in too deep.

  I need this just as much as she does. Maybe even more.

  Fuck, how I fucking need this.

  I savour that final perfect moment of stillness as I pull a coin from my inside pocket. My eyes are right on her as I flick it in her direction.

  I wait for the ping as it lands.

  She jumps. Starts. Freezes for one frantic heartbeat.

  And then she runs.

  Fuck, she fucking runs.

  And so do I.

  I know where she’s headed, even though she doesn’t. The adrenaline of the chase turns me into the monster she craves, and I know she hears me. I know she feels me.

  I head to her left and she runs to the right. Runs further into the darkness.

  The bait is snared.

  Mine.

  She’s herded like a lone little lamb and she has no fucking idea.

  The ground turns rough under her heels. I watch her stumble and catch herself. There is elegance in her misstep.

  She corrects herself quickly to keep on running, but she’s too late.

  Much too late.

  I go in for the kill.

  The force of me knocks the breath from her as I slam into her back.

  My hand clamps over her mouth and steals her scream.

  I’m rough as I grip her tight to my chest. My arm is crushing as it snakes around her waist. I’m brutal as I lift her feet from the ground.

  She sucks in air through her nose as she struggles for breath.

  And I’m waiting. Ready for the fight. Waiting for the nails on my scalp and the assault as she flails.

  But it doesn’t come.

  Eleven

  I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

  Jack London

  Abigail

  In my fantasies the monster always catches me from behind. He’s strong. Strong enough to pick me up as my legs flail.

  And this monster is.

  This monster is huge, his arm so tight around my waist that I struggle to breathe. He’s the solid wall of muscle against my back. He’s the firm hand over my open mouth.

  He’s heat, and breath, and terror.

  He’s my most beautiful nightmare.

  And he’s real.

  Tonight, he’s real.

  His arms are thick and tense, hoisting me from my feet as though I weigh nothing at all.

  My fingers dig into his forearms and find them unyielding. My legs grapple for grip but find nothing.

  I have no breath to scream, nor strength to fight him. I thought the struggle would come naturally, but it doesn’t.

  I’m paralysed.

  I wonder if he can feel my drumming heart as he carries me further into the darkness. I wonder if he feels how my wired nerves spiral away with me.

  I’m rigid in his grip, but I don’t struggle – my eyes wide in the pitch black, straining to find bearings where I have none. His boots crunch on gravel underfoot. We’re in the shadow of brickwork, one of those looming buildings hides us from the deserted street.

  Alone.

  There is numbing liberation in the way I know no one is coming for me. I feel myself falling into myself, all of my pieces contracting to protect my broken soul.

  But I don’t want protecting.

  I don’t need to be protected from this.

  It’s everything I ever wanted and more than I ever feared, all at once.

  The monster speaks.

  “Don’t make a fucking sound. I’ll hurt you if you do.”

  His voice is low. Deep and dark and threatening.

  And I’m every bit as fucked up as I ever feared. Underneath the terror and the dread and my racing heart, I realise my clit is fluttering.

  My pussy clenches, and it aches. It fucking aches for him.

  My nipples are stiff against the lace of my bra. My hands are clammy and desperate as they grip at his skin.

  “Understand?” he whispers.

  I nod and the hand across my mouth moves with me.

  I whimper into his palm as he slams my body into a doorway. Shutters rattle loud enough to make me squeak.

  He drops me to my feet and pins me against the door with a heavy arm against my back, forces me against it so hard it hurts my tits, my face squashing against cold metal.

  “Quiet,” he tells me and I nod again, barely able to breathe he’s holding me so tight.

  I flatten my palms against the door and push back hard in the quest for even an inch of space, but he doesn’t budge.

  He hitches and grinds, and I feel him.

  Oh fuck, I feel him.

  Bigger than the monster toy I used at home. Bigger than I ever feared. Hoped.

  I whimper under my breath as he finds my wrists and raises them over my head. They’re so small in his hands. Breakable.

  I’m so small. Breakable.

  He pins both of my arms in position with just one of his, and the other snakes around my front and tugs my slutty bra down with my dress. My tits flatten against cold metal. My nipples are tight and tender, sparking against the chill.

  He kicks my legs spread with his boots, and I sink lower, teetering precariously from his solid grip on my wrists.

  Cool air hits my clammy thighs. I roll my tits against the metal door and I like it. I’m more petrified than I’ve ever been in my whole entire life, but I hear myself moan.

  Thick fingers slide between skin and shutters. Thick fingers grab at my tit and squeeze until I whimper.

  And I can’t help myself. I tip my head back against the ridge of his collarbone and let myself ride the craziness.

  “You fucking asked for this,” he whispers, and I smile a crazy smile in the darkness.

  Yes.

  I asked for this.

  I fucking begged for this.

  Dreamed of this my whole life.

  He pinches my nipple so hard it takes my breath, then tugs me back from the shutters enough to trail his fingers over my goose-pimpled skin.

  I arch my back and hope he gives me more. My body begs for more.

  And then I lie.

  It comes so easily.

  “No… please don’t…”

  He grips and twists, mashing my tit flat against my ribs.

  “No…” I breathe again. “Please stop…”

  His breaths quicken with mine. He presses tighter against my ass.

  He likes it.

  He wants it like this.

  Part of me comes undone – a stray part that feels alien to the rest of me.

  It’s that part that whimpers as he tugs my dress up around my waist. It’s that part that’s begging him to let me go as he slides a rough hand between my legs.

  I’m offering my pussy to his fingers even as the protests are tumbling from my mouth.

  “No… don’t…”

  I’m delirious and fucked up. Euphoric and horrified all at the same time.

  My pussy aches so good at his touch, my clit a desperate little bitch.

  His thumb hooks inside my thong and presses right on target.

  “Please no…” I hiss. “Please stop… stop…”

  He yanks the scrap of fabr
ic so hard it tears from my hips. When his fingers force their way inside me there’s three of them at once with no warning.

  He’s rough. Fast.

  Brutal.

  “Your cunt is so fucking tight,” he grunts.

  I cry out as he forces his fingers in deeper. My eyes water as he makes me take it.

  “I haven’t even fucking started yet,” he tells me, and I know it.

  His thumb rolls against my clit. I hear the wetness and I feel so vulnerable I want to die in his arms.

  Maybe I will.

  He lets go of my wrists and flattens me tighter against the shutters. His fingers slide around my throat and squeeze hard enough to make me rasp.

  His mouth is on my neck. His breath is all I can hear.

  I don’t know what to do with the freedom he’s just granted my wrists. My arms hang lifeless at my sides until I feel daring enough to touch him. To feel him.

  I’ll never know the stranger in the darkness, but my fingers will.

  So slowly I reach up behind me, my fingers trail up the back of his neck. Solid.

  He’s fucking massive.

  My fingertips graze soft hair, shaved sides, then tangle in longer lengths on top. I’d give anything to see him.

  I’m grunting as his fingers piston deep, begging him to stop with every breath. I shuffle my legs just a little bit wider, praying he keeps rubbing my clit the way he is right now. Just like that.

  But he doesn’t.

  I groan as he pulls his fingers away.

  He takes hold of my hair and yanks me from the shutters along with him. My heels scrabble against the gravel as I stumble after him.

  He pulls me further from the road. We turn a corner at the rear of the building, and I see a row of huge trucks as a security light blinks on in the distance.

  I could scream. Part of me wants to.

  But I don’t.

  He shunts me in front of him as we dip between two trucks. I twist to face him, but I’ve missed my chance to see. It’s dark again. My adrenaline is spiking all over.

  And then he pushes me to the ground. I cry out as my knees hit the concrete. I feel them graze as he shoves me forward on all fours. The ground is rough against my palms, but rougher against my face when he forces me flat.