Tahlia
Idon’t believe in fairy tales; I believe in fire escapes, and I know where every single one is in this building, where the stairwells narrow, where the doors stick, which windows open and which ones are painted shut like promises no one intends to keep.
The bar smells like sweat, perfume, and rot, not real rot, just that stale citrus they spray in the bathrooms to cover vomit and disappointment, and there is always disappointment here, it clings to the leather seats and the chipped gloss on the dancers’ poles like it belongs, like this place feeds on it.
I’m not supposed to be here.
But I’m here every Saturday, sitting in the same back booth where the shadows pool thickest, telling my sister I’m at yoga, telling my therapist I’m working through my triggers, telling myself I’m safe because I don’t strip, I don’t sell, I don’t even flirt, I just sit with my pink drink and watch women softer than me fall apart on purpose.
It should disgust me.
It doesn’t.
Because at least they chose it.
Me, I’ve been owned before, and it didn’t look like a collar, it looked like a bedroom with one lock on the inside, a phone with no SIM, a man who whispered he loved me while holding a blade against my ribs, and I survived him, learned to be sharper than his knife, learned how to smile while I planned his fall.
So I don’t fucking dance, I don’t touch, I don’t play.
I watch.
And that’s when I feel it, that prickle, that heat, like eyes on me from a distance I can’t quite trace, like the room has shifted its weight.
I glance at the bar mirror and see nothing but men too drunk to aim their cocks and women pretending to laugh, no shadows, no one looking, and still I feel it, that slow awareness crawling up my spine like a warning.
I’ve felt it for weeks.
Every time I come here, that same shiver runs through me, like my body knows something I don’t, like someone’s watching from behind the walls, or under the floor, or through the cameras humming quietly above the lights.
Maybe that should make me leave, maybe a normal girl would run.
But I’ve never been normal.
I’m the girl who grew up swallowing blood like communion, who learned to weaponise her smile, who never let a man see her flinch again, not even when he shoved my face into the carpet and said, I told you not to speak, doll.
So I tip my glass to the dark, to whoever’s out there, to whoever thinks they can watch me and make me nervous, and I smile, because I hope he tries, because I hope he comes.
The pink drink burns, too sweet, too fake, like the version of me I let people see, and I check the time again, midnight, past the point of decent and before the hour when things get ugly.
This is when the wrong men come out, the ones who tip too well and touch too long, the ones who think no is a challenge, the ones who never look me in the eyes, because I never let them.
Until tonight.
“New girl,” Stacey says, sliding into the booth like glittered smoke, fishnets ripped at the thigh, make-up smudged with sweat, looking like a nightmare you tip too much to forget. “VIP room. Wanna come?”
I blink at her. “Why the fuck would I want that?”
“Because you’re not here for the drinks, princess.” She grins, teeth like a threat. “And he asked for you.”
My spine locks.
“What?”
She leans in, voice low. “Didn’t give a name. Just said pink lipstick, back booth. Said he’s been waiting weeks.” She hums, teasing. “You got a regular I don’t know about, Tink?”
I don’t answer, because my heart is already beating too hard, because someone’s been watching, because this isn’t random.
I glance at the bouncer, who doesn’t even look up, too busy laughing at some suit near the stage, and I know I could scream and no one would hear me.
“What happens if I say no?” I ask.
Stacey shrugs. “Then I send someone else in and tell him the girl he wanted flaked.”
And something in me snaps, not rage, not fear, but curiosity, sharp and dangerous.
Why now? Why me? Why tonight?
I should run.
Instead, I follow.
The hallway smells like cheap cologne and old cum, the carpet sticks to my boots, and Stacey doesn’t talk as she leads me past doors I never meant to walk through, stopping outside the last one, no number, no sign, just black.
“He’s inside,” she says. “Alone.”
I open my mouth.
She’s already gone.
I hesitate, one second, two, three, and then I push open the door.
It’s cold inside, quiet, low light, no music, no mirrors, just a velvet couch, a glass of untouched whisky on the table, and him.
He’s sitting in the shadowed corner like a ghost you summoned wrong, legs spread, one arm resting over the back of the couch, the other—
The other is a hook.
Not costume, not cheap, surgical, polished steel curved like it was designed to gut someone slow.
He doesn’t move when I walk in, doesn’t blink, doesn’t smile, just looks at me like I’m something he already owns.
“Wrong room,” I say, even though I know it’s not.
“No,” he replies, voice low. “It’s the right room, Tahlia.”
My breath catches, because I never gave him my name, and the way he says it coats the room in silence, like he’s rolled it across his tongue a hundred times in private before daring to speak it aloud.
“Who the fuck are you?” I snap, reaching for the door handle behind me.
“You already know.”
“No. I really don’t.”
But I do, not from memory but from whispers, from rumours, from the warning that pulses through every back room I’ve ever stepped into.
Hook.
Not a man, a consequence.
Not a client, a collector.
A myth dressed in money, scars, and quiet ruin, one hand made of polished steel, the other always holding leverage, and they say he doesn’t touch the girls, doesn’t pay, doesn’t ask, he chooses, and what he chooses, he keeps.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I spit, heart pounding so loud it drowns the silence.
He rises, slow, deliberate, every movement unhurried like a man who doesn’t need to chase because he already knows you’re caught, the room shrinking around him as he steps closer, taller than I expected, broader, not young, not old, just timeless, like a bad decision you’ve made again and again in different lives.
“Sit down,” he says, voice silken in something darker.
“I’m not here for this.”
“You are now.”
“I’ll scream.”
“No one’s listening.”
I back towards the door, fingers fumbling for the lock, and it doesn’t turn, it doesn’t fucking turn.
“I didn’t agree to this,” I hiss, panic crawling up my throat.
“You did the moment you kept coming back,” he murmurs, “same booth, same drink, same lipstick. You think I didn’t notice? You think I didn’t mark the first time your eyes swept the room like you knew someone was watching?”
“I don’t know you—”
“But I know you,” he cuts in, voice sharpening.
“I know you grew up in a house with too many locks on the bedroom doors. I know you still sleep with the light on even when you lie about being afraid of the dark. I know you stopped believing in happy endings the night he pressed his hand against your mouth and whispered that love sounds like silence.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Get out of my fucking head.”
“I’m not in your head.”
He steps so close I can smell ocean and smoke on his skin.
“I’m already in your life.”
I slap him, hard, my hand stinging, and he doesn’t flinch.
He smiles.
And that’s when I realise this was never about a dance or a drink or a fuck, it was a hunt, and he’s already dragged me into the snare.
“I’m leaving,” I whisper.
“No,” he says calmly. “You’re staying.”
And I should scream, claw at the door, do anything but what I do, which is freeze, because I see him now, really see him, and fuck me, he’s beautiful, not cute, not hot, not nice smile, strong jaw beautiful, but the kind you burn for.
Sharp, severe, predator-gorgeous, jet-black hair curling around his ears, scruff shadowing his jaw, cheekbones carved by someone who hated softness, a mouth that only knows how to bite and command, eyes arctic blue and so pale they don’t look real, like something carved from ice and left to watch you die in it.
He’s tall, too tall, built like violence in a suit, black on black, open collar, no tie, smooth brutal elegance and the gleam of metal where a hand should be.
The hook.
It gleams under the light like a warning.
Or a promise.
Everything about him screams danger, and yet my thighs ache, my breath stutters, my rage blurs under the heat, because monsters aren’t supposed to be this beautiful, and beautiful men aren’t supposed to look at me like I’m their favourite thing to ruin.
My back hits the wall.
He doesn’t touch me, not yet, but he steps closer.
“You feel it, don’t you?” he says softly.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“You will.”
His gaze drops to my mouth like he’s already memorised the shape of my moans.
“I’m not one of your toys.”
“No,” he agrees, lifting his hook beneath my chin. “You’re the only one I never plan to break.”
“I’m going to ruin you, Tahlia.”
He leans in and doesn’t kiss me, just breathes against my lips, just waits, like he wants me to beg, like he knows I won’t, and somehow that makes it worse.
“I’m going to scream,” I whisper.
“You’ll scream,” he says. “But not for help.”
His breath ghosts over my lips, the hook tilting my face just enough to make it clear this is a game I’m already playing.
“You don’t get to keep me,” I say, and it sounds like a question.
His eyes flicker. “You’ve already been kept, haven’t you?”
I flinch, just enough, and his expression sharpens.
“You came here looking for monsters, little fairy,” he murmurs, “but you didn’t expect one to find you back.”
“I didn’t come here for you.”
“No,” he says, stepping back, “but you stayed for me.”
The lock clicks.
Then unlocks.
I could run.
But his voice follows me, silk over venom. “Go ahead. Walk out.”
“And if you leave now,” he adds, “you’ll spend every night wondering what it would’ve felt like.”
I feel him everywhere.
“You’ll lie awake with your hand between your thighs and my name in your throat, and it won’t matter who tries to fuck it out of you. It’ll always be me you ache for.”
My knees almost buckle, and I realise he wants me to leave, not because he’s letting me go, but because he knows I’ll come back, because he knows he doesn’t need to chase what he already owns.
I back away, step by step, until the hallway light hits my face, and when I look back, he hasn’t moved.
He just watches.
Smiling.
Like he’s already inside my bloodstream.