In The Dark

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The early afternoon sun beamed through the living room window, warming Jo’s usually cold house.

She sat perched on one end of her old, worn corduroy couch, her legs tucked beneath her as she yawned.

Considering her best friend Ada was only sorting out a cuppa for them, she was making a tremendous racket in the kitchen, a racket Jo could just about tolerate these days.

Working from home for the last six months meant she preferred her own solitude.

The moment someone stepped in and threatened that, Jo wanted to close the curtains and pretend she wasn’t home.

“Could you make any more noise?” Jo called out as she shook her head. “The dead can’t hear you. You may need to pick it up a bit!”

Ada came strolling through with two cups. “Oh, pipe down. We don’t all spend our lives holed up in the box room upstairs.”

Jo snorted. “It’s a bigger box room than yours.”

Silence settled over them for a few seconds, just the quiet clink of Ada setting down the cups reminding Jo that she wasn’t alone.

She didn’t mind being alone, she’d always been satisfied with her own company, but she would admit that she’d been spending too much time alone lately.

If she was noticing it herself, then something had to change.

It wasn’t normal to be so isolated at thirty-five.

Not when Jo had the friends that she did.

Ada was usually getting ready to hit the town with ‘the girls’ by now, while Jo was winding down after an early finish on a Friday afternoon.

“Work keeping you busy?” Ada asked as she reached for her cup and cradled it in her hands. “I haven’t heard from you since last weekend, so something is keeping you busy.”

“Yeah. Work is…work, I guess. It’s always busy.

” Jo had been working for an insurance company for the last six months.

Prior to that, she’d worked with her ex-boyfriend.

She’d loved her job in the city, working for an international banking company, but seeing Callum and her around the place made her miserable, so she’d quit.

Just like that. “I have a photography gig next week, though. That’ll be a nice change. ”

“Oh! That’s amazing.” Ada regarded her with a genuine smile, but she’d always supported Jo in anything she did. Photography was her one true love, but it didn’t always pay the bills. “It’s been a while since you had paid photography work.”

“I know, but we’re coming out of winter, and people are generally more outdoorsy for the next six months or so. The lull over the colder months is common, really.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t think of anything worse than getting married when it’s pissing down with rain and hail.”

Jo lifted her cup and tipped it towards Ada with a smile. “The day you get married…” She cocked her head towards the sash window behind her and grinned. “I’ll show my arse out that window.”

Ada had always been a commitment-phobe. No matter who she met, she found a reason for it to not go any further.

Jo kind of loved that about her, but surely they’d both have to settle down at some point.

Everyone else in their friendship group was getting married or giving birth, while Jo and Ada went about life without a care in the world.

At least, that was how Jo had approached things recently.

If it made her happy, she would do it. If it didn’t, she wasn’t leaving the house.

“I think after everything you went through, it’s put me off for life.” Ada sank back onto the couch and sighed. “Besides, I don’t seem to be able to find a woman who wants a second date lately, never mind a wedding.”

“Tough out there?”

“All I’m saying is…don’t get your hopes up when it comes to dating again. The entire pool of people is just grim.”

God, that was a depressing thought. The idea of dating and the idea of meeting someone who couldn’t satisfy Jo. “Well, I’m good as I am. I haven’t once thought about dating since Callum broke up with me.”

Ada visibly shuddered. “Heard anything from him?”

“Callum? No. He’s in Southeast Asia with Thea. They’re backpacking, I believe.”

“You’ve been stalking his social media?” Ada’s eyes widened. “Babe, you need to let him get on with his life. He was sleeping with Thea and then coming home to you. Fuck him. Just…not literally, ever again.”

“I haven’t even got him on any of my social media.

Amelia told me the last time I went over for coffee.

” A thrill ran through her at the mention of Amelia.

Ada had no idea the thoughts she’d had when it came to Callum’s mum over the years, but Jo wouldn’t dare go there.

That was a disaster waiting to happen. Even so, Jo hadn’t expected to remain friends with Amelia, but she was a firm believer in being fair when it came to a breakup.

Amelia was lovely. She’d always welcomed Jo into her home without a second thought, and honestly, she was better company than Callum had ever been.

She saw no reason at all to cut contact with her.

“She’s still not happy with him and how everything went down. ”

“She’s probably feeling humiliated that he could do what he did to you.” Ada lifted a shoulder. “I don’t imagine many mothers want to know they’ve raised a son like that.”

While Jo appreciated what Ada was saying, she didn’t really care anymore.

She’d done her grieving for the life she’d had with Callum, and now Jo was ready to see what came next.

She couldn’t change what had happened, so why bother thinking about it?

“Enough about Callum. What are your plans for the weekend?”

“Well, tonight I’m going to be having the best sex of my life…and then it’s going to take me all weekend to recover.”

Jo peered at her best friend over the rim of her cup, her eyes narrowed. “Like…you’ve scheduled sex or…?”

“Yep. Nine tonight.” Ada said that as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “I’ve been looking forward to it all week.”

“Well, then. You…have fun and all that.”

Ada gasped as she lowered her cup to the coffee table. “You should come with me!”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t really want to have a three-way with my best friend, if it’s all the same.

You’re gorgeous, and you’d make the perfect girlfriend, but I think I’ll just stay here and let you do you…

or whoever it is that’s doing whatever they’re going to be doing to you.

” Jo waved a hand between them. “You catch my drift.”

“Not with me.” Ada rolled her eyes. “Come to Satin with me…then get your groove on with someone else.”

“You want me to come to a sex club with you?” Jo didn’t quite know how to take that. Did she need a sex club to restart her life? Or did she just need to stop falling for the wrong people?

“Sure. Why not? And it’s not called a sex club. It’s a private, intimate gathering for women who…want something a little different.”

“It’s women only?” Jo lifted a brow, her interest piqued suddenly.

“You think I’d go somewhere where men are swinging their dicks around? No thanks.”

Jo shifted on the couch, wanting to know more about what entering this club entailed. “Tell me more. What do I have to do to get in there?”

“Um, sign up for a membership and have a reference. That’s where I come in.”

“Y-you’d do that for me. Give me a reference?

” Jo didn’t know why she was suddenly so interested in Satin, but she was just going with it.

For so many months, she’d sat alone and questioned her worth, even when she knew Callum didn’t deserve her.

For so many months, she had dreaded the mere thought of joining a dating site or heading out to a bar to meet someone.

If Jo could have some hot, consensual fun, then why not grab it with both hands?

“Of course I would. We’ve been best friends since that morning in nursery when you pissed all over my foot.”

“I was four, for the love of God!”

“I know, but even then, I just knew you were my kind of person.”

Jo smiled. “I guess we evened out when you threw up all over mine during uni on that night out. We can call it quits now, right?”

Ada shifted forward and took Jo’s hand. “Come with me, please? Do something for yourself and have a night out that you’ll never forget.”

Jo swallowed, but it wasn’t anxiety she was feeling.

No, it was excitement. The thrill of the unknown.

Her life had been so…routine lately that this could surely only be a good thing for her.

And if she came away from it having not enjoyed herself, at least she could say she’d experienced it.

“Okay. What time should I be ready for?”

“I usually head to a bar nearby for a glass of wine beforehand. It helps to loosen you up, especially if it’s your first time there. So should we say…seven? I’ll pick you up in a cab.”

“I’ll be ready and at the door.”

Jo had never seen an entrance like it in her life.

Sleek and black, definitely polished by the minute, and of course…

no sign to indicate what lay behind it. She hesitated for a moment as she quickly ran her fingers through her hair, praying this wasn’t a huge mistake she was making.

It didn’t feel as though it could be a mistake, and Jo generally went with her gut when it came to something new.

All she’d felt up until this moment was exhilaration.

For what she was about to face, for how she would feel after it, for a new experience she was more than entitled to.

“Ready?” Ada asked, flashing a filthy grin.

Jo steadied herself, mustering up a confidence she wasn’t sure she possessed. God, she was way out of her comfort zone tonight. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”