9. Angel
The grey London drizzle has been my constant companion for three months.
It’s a fine, persistent mist that soaks into your bones and makes you forget what the sun feels like on your skin.
I’ve been here three months, and in that time, I’ve learned how to navigate the Tube, where to get the best late-night kebab, and how to smile when my dad calls to ask how “the big city” is treating me.
I’m not going home for Thanksgiving. The excuse was easy: deadlines, the cost of flights for a four-day weekend, the need to study. The truth is harder: I can’t face the clubhouse.
I’m going back for Christmas, though. I have to. If I don’t, Dad will personally fly across the Atlantic and drag me home by my hair. But for now, I have London.
I don’t love it here. The city is a sprawling, chaotic beast that never sleeps, and the journalism program is…
fine. I spend my days learning about shorthand and media law.
The truth is, I’d still rather be kneading dough in a farmhouse kitchen with a toddler clinging to my leg.
But that dream was a fairytale I told myself, a story where the prince didn’t get sick at the sight of me.
That dream is dead, buried somewhere in a back room at Onyx.
“Angel, if you stare at that wall any longer, it’s going to file a restraining order,” a voice calls from the hallway.
Ollie—Oliver when he’s being a serious med student, Ollie when he’s pouring us shots of cheap vodka—saunters into the living room.
He’s in his final year of medical school, which means he’s perpetually exhausted but always impeccably dressed.
He was a godsend. His previous roommate had bolted for a last-minute internship in Barcelona the same week I arrived in London.
I saw his “Roommate Wanted” post in a Facebook group and moved in the same day.
He knows everything. Not because I’m a big sharer, but because after three cocktails on our second week of living together, I’d sobbed out the entire saga of Ghost.
Ollie hadn’t pitied me. He’d just poured me another drink and said, “Honey, the only way to get over a ghost is to find someone with a pulse.”
“I’m ready,” I say, grabbing my coat.
“You look gorgeous.,” Ollie chirps, adjusting his slim-fit blazer.
I look in the mirror. I’ve changed. I lost my virginity three weeks after moving here to a guy named Ben from my Sociology elective.
It wasn’t spectacular. It was clumsy, a bit awkward, and entirely devoid of the soul-shattering fireworks I’d spent a decade imagining.
But it was done. The heavy weight of being “pure” for a man who didn’t want me was gone.
I’d handed it over to a stranger just to prove I could.
Since then, Ollie has been my guide into a world I previously only glimpsed through Ghost’s shadows. He introduced me to The Velvet Society.
If Onyx was a gritty, underground secret, The Velvet Society is a cathedral.
It’s a high-end, members-only BDSM club in Mayfair, and it makes Onyx look like playground play-dates.
Here, I don’t need a fake ID. I’m eighteen; I’m a legal adult.
I can walk in, order a gin and tonic, and watch someone get tied to a St. Andrew’s Cross without anyone batting an eye.
Ollie brought me here to reclaim the narrative, as he calls it. He figured if I saw the lifestyle on my own terms, without a biker looming over me, I’d finally stop feeling like a victim of a pinky-promise.
It worked, in a way. I’ve had hook-ups. I’ve explored things I didn’t know existed. I’m open to a lot—the sensory play, the power dynamics—but I have hard nos. Since I don’t have a Dom, I change partners every time we go. I don’t want an exclusive connection; I want the distraction.
“The system?” Ollie asks as we head down the stairs of our flat.
“The system,” I confirm.
It’s our sacred pact. We go together, we leave together.
If one of us meets someone they want to bring home, we have to meet face-to-face first.
I have to approve Ollie’s guy; he has to approve my partner.
If we don’t get the green light, we meet at the bar at 3:00 AM and head home together.
And, of course, our phone locations are shared 24/7.
In a city this big, and a lifestyle this intense, Ollie is the only thing keeping me tethered to the shore.
“You looking for anything specific tonight?” Ollie asks as we hail a cab.
“Just someone who doesn’t talk much,” I say, looking out at the rain-slicked streets. “The usual.”
Ollie laughs, his eyes bright with the thrill of the hunt.
He’s a self-proclaimed man-whore, a title he wears with pride.
He changes men like he changes his scrubs, always looking for the next adrenaline hit.
I think he’s running from something, too, but we don’t talk about that. We talk about the present.
As the cab pulls up to a nondescript, heavy iron door in a quiet Mayfair mews, my heart gives a familiar, dull thud. It’s not the frantic, hopeful beating it used to do. It’s a steady, cold rhythm.
The bouncer recognizes us, nodding as he checks our memberships. The Velvet Society doesn’t allow cameras. It doesn’t allow tourists. It’s a place of absolute discretion and high-octane desire.
“Ready, Angel?” Ollie asks, offering me his arm.
I look at the door. Behind it is the smell of expensive wax, the sound of velvet curtains sliding on brass rails, and the chance to be someone—anyone—other than the girl Ghost didn’t want.
“Ready,” I say.