Evanna McIntyre

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Everything had happened so fast: a head in the refrigerator, Titus’s fingers in your cunt, and you somehow speaking the unspeakable to your father, all in the name of ending the game. It had never occurred to you that the game might get topped off to full--freshened up with a devilish splash from a black bottle--after the ring was on your finger. And that was perhaps a mistake, that underestimation, because now you had to face your family in the cold light of day. Without the champagne flowing. Without the string quartet drowning out any improper questions. Without the benefit of chaos.

Titus was out on the veranda taking a phone call. Barring a more brash spray of silver in his curls, he looked almost identical to the man you had met all those years ago in Luxembourg. The comparison fascinated you for a moment, as you considered how the same could not be said for you. The girl that wiggled her hips at the beast was not the one who now bore his name. That girl would be stunned, horrified, at what you had become.

Oh well, you thought, as the absolute boulder on your ring finger caught the summer sun pouring in through the gauzy curtains and flamed with cold fire. Someone gazing too directly at the wrong angle might suffer permanent vision loss. You liked that, too. Titus turned around, catching your gaze, and from the slow, predatory smile that spread across his face, you were reminded that, most importantly of all, it was what Titus liked. With a ring that big and extravagant, there was no mistaking who owned you.

Your smile curdled slightly, but you reached for your glass and took a sip of cold water, no longer alone in the huge, empty dining room. It was the restaurant attached to the lodge, but Titus had made sure it was reserved for this moment.

“Just us and your parents,” he said, watching for your reaction. You had been in bed together, naked except for the ring, which he insisted you wear all night, even if it caught constantly on the lace trim lining the pillows. The why behind the arranged meal spread across you like a withering rash. You schooled your expression just in time, revealing nothing.

“That will be lovely,” you replied, reaching up to cup his cheek.

Titus rubbed his nose against yours, delighting in the chance to be grotesquely domestic while you both circled around his real desire. Which was, as ever, to win, to establish the hierarchy in new and twisted ways—Titus on top, you beneath him. Your job, as you determined it, was to fight just hard enough to make the triumph meaningful.

“I’m sure they’ll have questions,” Titus continued, his voice full of gravel from how much he had used it the night before. “Your father in particular.”

A staff member escorted your parents across the vast dining room, taking the most circuitous route, presumably at Titus’s request, giving them the maximum amount of time to take in the tableau—their darling, only child seated at a table by the windows, dressed in chic perfection, her improbable husband standing just to the side of her chair, bending down to lovingly brush a kiss across her temple. Your parents approached with the enthusiasm of criminals being led to the gallows. A normal man would have given your mother a warm, reassuring son-in-law embrace, and your father a confident handshake, but Titus was an imp from hell with the long shadow of a biblical king, and so no such graces were offered.

“Mr. Danforth,” your father said, cold. He glanced at you, eyes narrowed, fists clenched. “Ducky.”

Titus’s hand tightened on the rung of the chair closest to your ear. Subsequently, you straightened and chose your words carefully. “Good morning,” you said, looking for all the world like a regular bride basking in the post-nuptial glow.

“Ducky?” Titus asked softly, just to you, lifting a brow.

“He’s always called me that,” you said with a little shrug.

Nobody had invited your parents to sit. They hovered awkwardly on the other side of the table. It felt like they were strangers, like you were seeing them for the first time.

“Do you like that he calls you that?” Titus asked. He had yet to really acknowledge that your mother and father had arrived at the pre-planned time at the pre-planned destination. They could have been houseplants; they could have been flies.

“Not particularly.”

Your father was not a kind man. Love was assumed and performed between you, but he had never been shy about lamenting that you were a daughter and not a son. It was your fault, somehow, that they had never conceived again, and your fault for being a girl. He didn’t need to say those parts, you just felt it, in his total indifference to your inner life, in the way he scoffed at your ideas and complained when you needed, well, anything. Your obedience, effort, and success weren’t enough. Not until this moment. Not until a deadly predator stood at your side.

Now your father looked more than ready to listen and engage. Not with relish or anything approaching pleasure, but with the straight-backed desperation of a man who knew he was staring down the barrel of an invisible gun.

Titus sat down beside you, unfolded his napkin and settled his hand on your thigh under the table. “Tell him that.” He stared calmly at the side of your face. “Tell him not to call you that anymore.”

Your father had called you “Ducky” since before you could remember.

“Don’t call me Ducky,” you said. The word “daddy” almost slipped out, but you wrangled it back in time. Titus had made it abundantly, clit-pinchingly clear that he and he alone owned that title.

Your father bristled, chewing his cheeks.

God, it was kind of invigorating. As a conscious adult, you had never backtalked your father or let him hear you complain within earshot. Now there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, and it felt good. Titus squeezed your thigh. A waiter appeared and began filling their water glasses.

“Won’t you join us?” you asked, the consummate wife, the consummate hostess.

Your mother broke first, taking the seat closest to you. Your father looked as if he couldn’t wait to leave, vanish, and die, probably in that order. He adjusted his tie as he sat beside your mother, a glance exchanged between them that did not escape Titus’s notice. You felt the tension ripple across his body as he shifted almost imperceptibly closer to you. Married life already looked good on him; the smooth dunes of his chest were just visible beneath the cotton fabric of his nine-hundred-and-fifty-dollar hazelnut-colored Bruno Cucinelli t-shirt, the even tan across his forearms and face bringing out the copious freckles that, like everything else about Titus, lay in wait.

Titus accepted a bottle of champagne from a waiter, pulling a switchblade out of his pocket and swiveling to point the neck toward the wall, using the knife to deftly, decisively saber off the cork in a single stroke. The end exploded like a gunshot. Staff scurried forward to catch the spray of Armand de Brignac Brut that ejaculated in a spectacular arc. Titus handed off the bottle and wiped his hands, then settled in his chair as the first course arrived.

In agony, you watched the chilled shrimp cocktail land in front of you. Nobody moved or said anything. You looked helplessly toward Titus. Please.

“This is my way of saying thank you,” Titus explained, and it was almost convincing, but you detected the flow of ice beneath each word. “And for being flexible.” His hand landed on your thigh again, high up enough to make the waiters look deliberately elsewhere.

“We should be thanking you,” your mother said. Her hand fluttered nervously over her throat, her eyes watery with fear.

That pleased Titus immensely. His smile touched his eyes, briefly, as he bit the head off of a shrimp and gestured for someone to bring you orange juice for your champagne. A staff member leaned down to whisper that they were out of orange juice, but perhaps the lady could tolerate grapefruit?

“Fucking savages,” Titus muttered. Your mother had started saying something else, more flattery, more platitudes, and Titus spoke over her as if nobody else were in the room. He shifted his hand from your thigh to your wrist, lifting your hand to his lips and kissing the space just above your sparkling ring. A sizzle of desire flashed across your skin. You could feel your cheeks burning as his eyes held yours, his fingernail scraping along your palm. “Darling, can you endure the grapefruit? They’re terribly sorry.”

They. The kitchen. The staff. Never him.

“I’ll survive,” you said, with the slight sighing edge you knew he loved.

“So practical.” Titus chuckled, returning your hand but not before offering another heated glance above your fingers. He swiveled back toward your mother and, suddenly gracious, asked her to repeat what she was saying. The next course arrived, the half-eaten shrimp whisked away. Every tiny movement echoed in the cavernous dining room. A breeze stirred the curtains, reminding you there was a whole world out there, away from this horrid exercise. Your gaze followed the wind, and you lifted your face to feel the soothing gust that bathed the table in a cool, grass-sweetened breath.

You couldn’t hear your mother. Titus was the only one who really ate. He finished his small portion of layered crispy potatoes with caviar, then dabbed at his lips and followed your line of sight, out toward the fields, and further, to the distant cottage where your fiancé had drawn his final breath. Titus leaned toward you, perhaps captured by your dreamy expression, and kissed the warm apple of your cheek. It was the gentlest, most husbandly gesture he’d managed in the last twenty-four hours.

“She’s not even listening,” you heard your father mutter.

The second course disappeared. Out came the third. As the lobster eggs benedict landed in front of each of you, Titus wrenched his attention away from you. He didn’t glare at your father, he didn’t need to, he simply looked, simmering there with one fist clenched on the table. This is what those poor fuckers in Pompeii must have felt like as the smoke erupted.

“Don’t do that.” Titus laughed, dark, fidgeting and rubbing his thumb and forefinger together where everyone could see it. He tilted his head this way and that. His other hand was on your leg again, climbing, darting smoothly under the silky fabric of your short dress. You kept yourself steady, breathing in even gusts, sipping your (admittedly) shitty grapefruit mimosa before taking a prim bite of your food.

“Don’t speak to my wife like that,” he added, when your father didn’t answer for himself.

“Mr. Danforth—” Your mother pleaded with your father in a stricken undertone. But with seemingly little regard for his own safety, your father brushed her off. “The way this has all been done, it is outrageous, insupportable—”

“Don’t fucking raise your voice at my table.” Titus was visibly enjoying himself. This was another one of his ambushes, a trap, he had wanted your bumbling father to hang himself this way, say just enough to justify Titus’s temper. “Don’t raise your voice in front of her. Did you see it?” Incrementally, Titus leaned forward, unblinking, eyes trained on your father, who had gone a troubling shade of purple. “She flinched when you yelled just now. We all saw it.” He canted his chin in your direction, addressing you without ever taking his eyes off of his chosen enemy. “Do I make you flinch, baby?”

You cleared your throat before the laugh could ruin his fun. Did he make you flinch? In the hour before this scheduled brunch, Titus had put you face up on the bed in your newlywed suite and placed your hands above your head, warning you, in a tone that made your blood freeze, not to move until he was finished. I’m going to fill you up, baby. Your tummy is going to be so full. You’re going to be so full of daddy’s cum, can you handle that? He had squeezed your tit like he was trying to tear it off your chest. Stars exploded in front of your eyes. You promised you could handle it. He popped a Viagra, chased it with a line of coke off your collarbone. You lost track of how many times he came, his cock stilling and shrinking then growing again but never leaving your cunt. He kissed you like the only air on the planet came from your lungs. He slumped on top of you between rounds, moaning into your neck. When your own body responded, when you had the energy, he watched you shiver and whine with electric eyes. Make me a daddy, make me a daddy, make me a daddy.

“Never,” you said, batting your lashes. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

“That’s right, princess.” Titus grinned, every tooth a fang. “A real daddy never makes his baby flinch.”

Your mother studied her potatoes resolutely.

“I don’t have to put up with this...this unholy alliance,” your father finally bit out, grunting in pain as if Titus had punched him directly in the dick.

Unholy alliance. He had no idea.

“I’m afraid you do,” Titus countered. “I don’t just own your daughter, no, I own all of you now. But don’t worry, you won’t see much of us. If you’re needed for a holiday or a photo or a baby shower, my chief of staff will be in touch.”

Your own smile arrived. That suited you just fine. You were suddenly less daunted by the task ahead of you, the rest of the courses; you were, in fact, hungry. Ravenous. Titus’s hand arrives at its destination, the pads of his right fingers ghosting across the damp fabric of your panties. You canted your hips forward, meeting his touch. You knew that when you finally stood, the stain on the chair would be embarrassing if you had any shame left to feel. His own cum leaked against his skin as he hooked one finger around the fabric and grazed his knuckle up your slit. Your throat tightened around a gurgle. He had fucked you so many times already and it wasn't even noon, yet you would happily sweep the plates from the table and let him have you again. Again and again. All the while, he kept his gaze steadily on your father, lips quirked playfully to one side.

You ate, discovering the lobster was cooked perfectly, so perfectly that you moaned quietly with delight.

“That’s right, baby, eat up,” Titus purred. Across the table, your father made a strangled noise. There was no telling if your mother even still existed. “You should tell them the good news.”

He suspected Ursula did this because she despised the Hamptons and just being there, just the words Guild Hall and Georgica turned the bitch switch in her head to eleven. This was her way of punishing him for conducting business in a place where, quelle horreur, she might stumble upon a Real Housewife and be forced to have a tautly pleasant interaction or risk being portrayed as the raging cunt she really was on national television.

Anyway. Titus spun the cortado nested in his right hand, letting Ursula’s voice wash over him, ignoring the newspaper to watch the sandpiper duck and weave, playing his endless little game with the waves. Futile. Titus wondered if he could shoot it from the deck, but one of his fussy neighbors would surely report it and dealing with the authorities was somehow more annoying than listening to Ursula rattle off the news.

The Dow took a tumble, hedge funds were dumping software and piling into semis, his friend Martin’s crypto thing had gone belly up, and Martin had gotten busted with a legally significant amount of cocaine in Majorca, which meant he probably wouldn’t be joining them for dinner at Per Se on Saturday, when they would be back (thank Satan, she emphasized) in Manhattan. Titus continued to stare out the window, unmoved, his expression that of a man enduring a slightly clumsy pedicure. His sister’s voice raised, speeding up, more urgent; she was building toward something. She crossed her arms over her navy-blue sundress; the color was washing her out. She was a Light Spring and always looked best in pastels.

Titus sipped his cortado, spun the cup in his hand once more, heaved a sigh and raked his eyes sightlessly down the newspaper. He wished Ursula would take the hint and hurry up; he had scheduled a tennis match for early afternoon, and he didn’t intend to reschedule. The game continued. As usual, Ursula was going to lose.

And then, improbably, she said your name.

“Go back.”

It was the first thing he had said to her all morning. Ursula’s eyes widened, quickly, just a flash, before she paced closer to the breakfast table. Her fingertip ghosted along the blonde wood, skipping toward her brother’s coffee cup.

“Someone was shot outside the White House—”

“No.” Titus shifted forward in his seat, grimacing. “The other thing, about the…” He could hardly bring himself to say the words. Were you out of your fucking mind? Bristling, he bit out: “About the engagement.”

Ursula cleared her throat primly, putting on her most grating baby voice as she bent down to crumple his paper with one hand and study his face, memorize it. The urge to smack the pout from her mouth rose in him with a shudder.

“I’m certain you heard me, brother,” she whispered, batting her lashes with feigned innocence. She hadn’t been innocent for a single day in her life, not even fresh and slick from the womb. “She’s marrying Gander Schmitt.” With deliberate, slow relish, Ursula turned the pages of the paper for him, only stopping when she reached the Wedding section. There it was. Your face. Your perfect fucking face hovering beside what could only be described as an uncooked sausage with eyes and a bowl cut.

He was horrible. An offense to the eyes. And you were…

You.

The rage was immediate. Hot. All-encompassing. It surprised even Titus. His hand trembled, once, as he finished his cortado and put down the cup. “I’m going upstairs now,” he proclaimed in a deadly whisper.

Ursula smiled. He didn’t even care about her smug laugh or the fact she had, in her own mind, scored a point on him. The image of you and Gander Schmitt side by side in the Wedding section of the New York Times was burned into his retinas, ticking up his blood pressure by the second. He needed to be alone. Hit something. Shoot something. Maybe that goofy fucking bird...

He was going to explode.

Titus stood calmly, the chair shrieking across the hardwood as he tugged down his shirt and strode to the staircase. Out of sight, he took the stairs three at a time.

He burst into his room, through it, coming out the other side and onto the balcony. His shirt was strangling him. He tore open the collar, bracing himself against the banister, crushing it under his fingers until he heard the old, vintage wood groan.

You had broken the rules.

Never mind that the rules had never been established, you had broken them. You were his. That didn’t need to be said. You had been edging each other for the better part of a decade, going for months without speaking before one of you started up the game again with a mean or flirty text. You were the only somewhat amusing part of society functions, ribbon cuttings, wedding receptions, derbies. Your tits in a silk dress were life changing. He had watched you grow from pretty enough to be a yacht girl to stunningly polished, achingly unobtainable It Girl. Unobtainable for everyone else, of course. To him, you were pre-obtained. And frankly, torturing you with a quietly simmering look was often the only reason to attend society bullshit. He was going to get around to claiming you as his own one day, but Father kept threatening to burden him with an arranged marriage. It always dissolved at the last second, but the cycle kept Titus off balance.

He ripped the phone out of his pocket, breathing like a maniac. The last time you had exchanged “pleasantries” was at Christmas, almost six months ago. You had sent a photo of a single, steamed baby carrot on your appetizer plate with the caption “Made me think of you 😊”

Titus hadn’t dignified the jab with a response.

He typed furiously, swearing every time he had to back up and make a correction.

For hours, you didn’t respond. You had seen the threat, read it, but left it hanging there. Titus went to his tennis match. He didn’t remember a moment of the game. His friend asked if he had taken something before hitting the courts, molly, maybe? There was no shame in it. Titus went back to the house, stormed through the sitting room--where Ursula had passed out on the couch, a martini glass spilling gin onto the carpet—fetched the Macallan 81-year-old single malt from the liquor cabinet, and drank from the bottle, stalking back and forth on the balcony like a caged panther.

He gave in to his basest impulses, a thing he did often and gleefully but never with this much cock-twisting guilt and Googled your fiancé. His stomach churned at the mere idea of the word. There were more pictures from the engagement. Truly revolting stuff and never to be forgotten, not even if he drank the whole bottle. Gander Schmitt had given you a fat fucking rock, but it was a pebble compared to the multimillion-dollar emerald-cut Wilfredo Rosado Titus had already designed for you in his head, just then, in the thirty seconds it took him to decide Gander Schmitt was going to die.

He spit over the balcony. As the name Gander fucking Schmitt implied, the idiot was old money. Not Danforth old, but respectable at a glance. He had made a fortune recently investing in some AI clownery. Titus hated that shit on principle, it was always talking at him like he was a fucking idiot, like he needed assuaging.

Maybe he did need assuaging, he thought, drinking more, but not assuaging from a robot, from the one woman he was now not supposed to have.

Supposed to was for other people.

Titus took out his phone. It was never a good idea to drink and text, but Titus was full of bad ideas.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

contracts can be broken, he had texted, then: remember that.

The car was beautiful, exactly as you had pictured it. Exactly like your fantasies.

Less than twenty-four hours after your request, the BMW was parked outside of your Brooklyn townhouse. Gander had already left for Paris, thank God, so you wouldn’t have to explain its sudden appearance. Not yet, anyway.

Perhaps not ever.

Oh darling, you texted him. I didn’t know you cared.

Him. Not your fiancé, not the flesh-colored Grimace your parents had insisted you marry, but Titus Danforth, the psychopath of your most lurid dreams. The first time you saw him was at a gallery show. The Bel-Air. Luxembourg. You were trying your best to sound clever about art. You had gone to the bathroom and Googled some of the pieces, memorizing details about the various artists, their mediums, their ideas.

Everyone there was dangerously rich and important, and you yearned to impress. You had grown up around wealth, but this was different. These people had old, old families, entered rooms you could only dream of; if their hands landed on a scale, they could rebalance the future of humanity.

Your mother had sent you husband shopping, picking out the form-fitting Tom Ford dress, the velvet choker necklace, the sky-high stilettos. And when you saw him standing by the window, one hand holding his phone to his ear, the other around a champagne glass stem, you felt the predator within come to life. I’ll have that one, you thought. Your eyes had scanned up and down his body, making an assessment.

You couldn’t have known that little glance would kick off a lifelong entanglement. An obsession.

Titus had made sure a champagne landed in your hand. His eyes kept wandering back to you. The way his gaze scraped up your legs was like a drug. You were young and stupid enough to think it would be simple. You would snare him, marry him, pop out a few kids and drift, find your way to affairs, dance the dance of the bored and indolent, but it would be enough to set up your family and your legacy. There were worse ways to wind up, worse ways to occupy one’s time.

But he had waited you out.

He never did more than brush a kiss against your cheek. That was years ago. If you closed your eyes, you could still feel the steel scratch of his stubble.

For some reason, he never lost your number. You just kept circling each other, waiting to see who would break first, confess, tip their hand.

It was a hot day. The car, detailed, gorgeous, glistened in the light. You sauntered down the stairs to run your hand along the door. Your concierge watched from the open door of the entryway. The keys were waiting for you. No note. He didn’t need to send one; his intentions were crystal clear.

I’ll cut his fucking head off.

You shivered as you sank down into the buttery leather seat. You wondered if Titus meant it, if you had finally pushed the sick old fuck too far. Men like Titus didn’t need to lie. Men like Titus raised a hand and the whole world held its breath to see what came next. You didn’t doubt he was capable of tremendous violence. It was always there in his eyes, an errant promise, the ease of the untouchable, and it made you soaking fucking wet.

You grinned under the dappled light breaking through the leaves, pushed up your skirt, and fingered yourself through your panties. Slowly, the concierge in your lobby turned away. You slid your panties aside, letting the wetness pool on the flawless leather. Giggling to yourself, you made yourself decent, hopped out of the convertible, and took a picture of the mess you had made on the driver’s seat.

The picture flew away to Titus with a satisfying little sound.

You grabbed the keys to your new car and skipped back up into the townhouse, hunting down an iced coffee while you waited for him to respond. Instead, Gander texted. Ugh. You hated him. No, there weren’t words for what you felt. He had bought you like a horse, making sure you understood you would be just one in a crowded stable. That your saddle would have the diamond, the portion of his fortune, was meant to be flattering.

Titus was wrong about Gander being a crier. Girls whispered. You knew exactly what Gander was. A practiced, unabashed, entitled sadist. He had women lined up from New York to Tokyo, all of them carrying scars. The physical ones were bad; the mental ones were worse. But your father’s business had collapsed. He was in debt up to his eyeballs. With Gander’s money, none of you would be homeless, but you also wouldn't have a home. You would have a prison--golden, glittering, but a prison all the same.

Titus was no peach, but you identified in him the same raw, needy possessive streak you saw in yourself. You wanted to disappear into someone else, vanish into their darkness, let them see you for all the horrible things you were, and you didn’t, under any circumstances, want to share.

Gander was going to be delayed on his return trip. Boo hoo. A picture of his cock came through. You recoiled from the screen, gagging. Say something pretty for me, get it hard.

You Googled a nude of someone else, some call girl who vaguely resembled you. Gander was in his sixties, flirting with dementia, he would never know the difference. You cropped out her head and sent it back with a kissy face emoji. You felt sick to your stomach. But Titus had never stopped playing his little games, never proposed or even tried to court you in earnest. It was this or destitution, and you had no idea how to be poor.

Your fiancé sent another picture, you squinted hard enough to make it blurry for yourself and heart reacted to buy time, then picked up your bag, dumped your coffee into a travel mug and went down the block for a croissant. Titus replied when you were seated at a petite table by the window, the city passing you by, and life, too. At least you would be spared Gander’s physical presence for a few more precious days.

good girl. what am I saved as now? Titus asked.

Your breath hitched in your throat at those words. Good girl. You could imagine him saying it, fingers curled around your wrist as he kissed the back of your hand, eyes searing into yours. Fuck it. The game had to escalate.

Daddy, you texted back.

Typing dots appeared and disappeared for five straight minutes while you enjoyed his suffering and ate your croissant. You were sucking the last of the almond paste off of your fingers when he finally responded.

show me. proof.

You screenshotted the message window and sent it.

What am I saved as? you asked, blushing.

i’ll never tell.

Then: i’m shopping for a saw.

Under the table, your pussy clenched. What was wrong with you? Everything, everything.

Promises, promises, you told him.

are you or are you not the owner of a brand new BMW Z3? you’re not going to marry him, sweetheart. i’ll keep proving it until you understand.

And then what? Even if you could get out of marrying Gander, nothing about your circumstances would change. But you were having too much fun. Titus never texted this consistently. Something was different. Maybe this time, he would accept the truth you had allowed in long ago—that you freaks were made for each other, two sides of the same cursed coin.

My engagement party is next week, you texted. Make it memorable, darling.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

Titus’s man on the inside let him know when the toasts were about to begin. He had considered going himself, timing his entrance to fluster you at the perfect moment, but some restraint was in order. Teasing out the game was what made it so delicious. And anyway, he needed plausible deniability for what was to come later. It was better if he kept his distance. For now. But his mole had performed adequately, and even verified that yes, the bride-to-be had her phone on her person at the party.

Titus picked up his binoculars and searched along the windows. Your big event was at the Aman—expensive but not particularly exclusive, in Titus’s opinion—and it had been a snap to book a room across the way, at the Whitby. You looked radiant and fuckable and tasteful in your Oscar de la Renta gown, too radiant and fuckable and tasteful for a walking thumb like Gander Schmitt. He looked like an oaf, but that went without saying. His bowtie was crooked the entire evening, which was driving Titus up the fucking wall.

Show some respect to my wife.

Toast time. Titus let the binoculars hang around his neck and picked up his phone.

He’s going now, the mole texted. That was his cue.

Titus sent the pictures, one after the other, then grabbed the binoculars again, found you there among the glittering guests, and waited for your reaction. He had indulged in the assumption that you would be eager for any excuse not to listen to Gander drone on and on about how much he loved you, how seamlessly you fit into his life, how you were going to make an enviable wife and dutiful mother. None of those things would happen, of course, Titus wouldn’t let them. Gander was already a dead man; he just didn’t know it. He was glad he couldn’t hear the speech, because being forced to hear that dullard lie through his teeth about you might send Titus into a venomous, blackout rage that would end in satisfaction, but satisfaction with too much mess.

There was more on the line now than just pride, more than just the game; he had done some preparatory homework on Gander. You were about to yoke yourself to a man with Titus’s appetites but not his discretion or his solvency. Gander’s big AI gamble was just that, and the Danforth’s personal financial analyst had returned Titus’s “investment inquiries” with grave warnings. This was a table with two legs--any pressure and the whole thing would collapse.

That buffoon was going to ruin your life.

That’s my job.

Titus smiled to himself, the grin spreading as you did exactly as he hoped and glanced at your phone while Gander continued his red-faced bloviating. Your eyes widened, your pulse pushed visibly against the delicate skin of your neck. You looked up, perhaps wondering, perhaps hoping, that Titus would show up in person to bask in your shock.

He was not necessarily a patient man, but for you? For you, he could try.

He was, after all, a man who enjoyed the chase.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

You stared, dumbfounded, at the pictures that had come through in rapid succession. Everyone was staring. Blood turned to molten sludge in your veins. Your heart felt like it might blast out of your chest and knock the wine glass out of Gander’s hand.

The first: A screenshot of your text chain from his perspective. There at the top, you were saved as wife. You couldn’t feel your fingers. The whole room was bending toward you. The lights were too bright. The air was too stuffy, too hot. You swayed on your heels, lips parting as you stupidly, recklessly looked down at the next image.

It was a picture taken from above, by Titus himself, angled down his chest. His shirt was pulled up, revealing the iron ripple of his lower stomach and the tantalizing trail of hair that led from his navel to his groin. No telling where his pants had gone. His cock strained against his black boxer briefs, gripped in one hand, flexed upward to make sure you could see just how thick, fat, and long it was. Just barely, just at the very top of the waistband, you could make out the leaking, swollen head spearing above the fabric. He was so hard his own fucking underwear couldn’t contain him.

You were going to pass out.

Someone put a hand on your shoulder.

Snapping back into your body, into the present, you lowered your phone, hiding it against your thigh. Your mouth was suddenly flooded with saliva, your tongue dull and heavy as Gander pinned you with a strained, confused look and waved the microphone in front of your face.

You locked your phone and handed it to your mother, exchanging it for a chilled glass of pink champagne. This was impossible. This was like dying slowly in public. If you didn’t concentrate, you were going to puke on yourself. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, smiled, put on a show, and gave your speech, unfocusing your eyes so that when you looked at your future husband, it was Titus standing there, steady, handsome, knowing.

When it was over and you had survived it, you hurried onto the veranda to get some air. A man you didn’t recognize sidled up beside you. A party crasher? He bowed stiffly and handed you a wrapped packet.

“From Mr. Danforth, ma’am. He sends felicitations on your grand match.”

Felicitations. What a fucking dickhead.

The man skedaddled away as if afraid you might strike him or throw your drink in his face at the mention of Titus’s name. You went to the stone railing and set down your champagne, fished out your phone, your breath catching in your throat again when you opened the text chain with him. Without a hint of remorse, you saved both images, then texted: I’m changing you back to titties dickforth.

open the package.

You sighed and did so, peeling open the paper to find a now recognizable pair of men’s Saint Laurent boxer briefs, black, the fly crusted with what was unmistakably a large semen stain. You paled and checked to make sure nobody was close by. He was going to be the death of you; maybe you were starting not to care.

You’re a menace, you texted.

yes, but i’m your menace.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

You knew it had gotten out of hand, sincerely out of hand, when your mother called to let you know the fucking wedding had been moved. To the Danforth Lodge.

“All expenses paid for,” she gushed to you, utterly witless. This is a disaster. “A wedding gift from the Danforth family.”

No, from Titus and Titus alone.

Which meant he would be there. For the first time, you wondered if you were outmatched, if Titus was simply too insane to beat at this little game.

“Mom, I wanted it at the Plaza,” you said, not quite whining but trending in that direction. “I’ve always wanted my wedding at the Plaza. Since I was a little girl. We can refuse. The world doesn’t revolve around the Danforths.”

Your mother sighed. “Yes, it does, sweetie.”

You picked out a dress you knew Titus would love, not just because he would be there to see you in it, but because, selfishly, delusionally, you were still hoping he would make good on his grim promise.

And your texting was getting imprudent, to say the least. He seemed to always know when Gander was in town and when he wasn’t. Somehow, Titus had your schedule and found ways to make your life borderline unbearable. If you were getting brunch at ROBERT, he made sure a carafe of your favorite mimosas was waiting before you even reached the table. He sent a picture of himself, swollen and sweat-slicked from the gym, silver curls devilishly careless, his sweatpants low on his hips, his hard cock straining visibly against the fabric. You got him back with an equally scandalous photo taken in the lady’s restroom.

go in the stall and touch yourself

You did, because you wanted to, because everything he did made you feverishly giddy.

take your panties off before you go back to the table. put them in your bag. be a good girl for daddy and you’ll get a reward

The check didn’t even arrive at the table. Gander stared in mute fury at the waiter as you were all informed that it had been paid. Your fiancé was starting to notice Titus Danforth’s little gestures popping up everywhere. When it was time to do the prenup, explaining the BMW was hell. You had to disclose all of your major assets. It felt like sitting in the principal’s office. How to explain the diamond-encrusted collar with the platinum o-ring? The astronomical number of Agent Provocateur lingerie sets. The Hermès Himalaya Birkin. The Manolos and the Jimmy Choos and the Pradas. Your closet was filling up with evidence, and all of it could be traced back to one man if anyone bothered to look.

And Gander was beginning to look.

You were eating dinner with him--a tedious chore on a normal day and excruciating when, like tonight, he was in a foul mood—at the Modern, a week before the wedding. The Abstractions prix fixe menu was $275 a head, so you weren’t just going to push the chilled lobster around your plate and pretend to be full. Gander huffed with irritation whenever you took an actual bite of food. He wanted a skinny bride, that had been made abundantly clear from the all caps emails he sent to your mother on the subject.

OUR WEDDING WILL APPEAR IN THE TIMES. I WILL NOT BE EMBARRASSED.

No, you ugly piece of shit, you’ll be dead.

You crossed your feet at the ankles, ignoring Gander’s eyes burning into your face as you picked at the next dish; it was called eggs on eggs on eggs. You could just imagine Titus rolling his eyes at it.

“These people need to be stopped,” he would say, brooding over his whiskey. “By force, if necessary.”

Gander probably thought your dreamy smile over the eggs was for him. Moron. You were wearing a pair of shoes Titus had sent over the previous day. They fit like a glove. Everything he sent suited your body perfectly. He had studied your taste like he could get a degree in it. Extravagant but playful. Sexy but never crass.

take a photo in these. nothing else.

You obliged, getting very acrobatic with the angle in the mirror to make sure he didn’t glimpse any nipple or puss.

so demure, he said, when the photo arrived.

I’m saving the sweet stuff for our wedding night.

oh sweetheart. there will be nothing sweet about our wedding night.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

Titus was a man of deranged urges, but where traditions prevailed, so must self-discipline.

He was never going to let Gander make it to the wedding night. He was never going to let that bloated windbag lay a finger on you. Far, far too risky. In fact, he had been very clear with you—if your fiancé ever tried to express his dark cravings before the ring was on your finger, you were to drop everything and text Titus. If it meant physically restraining, maiming, or outright killing Gander, then so be it. There was no mess on Earth Titus couldn’t clean up if he really needed to, but he wanted you pristine. He knew you weren’t a virgin, that wasn’t important, what was important to him was the timeline. The game was running, and when the game ended, you would be his. In the intervening time, no man was to even breathe on you.

And it was a simple thing indeed to have his financial analyst draw up a document laying out all the ways in which Schmitt and his business were careening toward ruin. By now, Gander hated his fucking guts, but the information was persuasive enough to trick him into meeting with Titus. Alone. In the remote guesthouse with the quaint, cottage exterior that tidily concealed its gruesome purpose.

Titus was ready for him. The ambush was easy, because Gander inhabited a world that Titus did not, a world in which no man as rich as Gander was ever really in danger. He didn’t know what it was to hunt. What it was to kill. Titus knew both, and it was his great pleasure indeed to teach Gander the ways of this new and terrifying existence.

He did not want it to go too long. His desire to have you had turned into something manic, a physical pain he carried everywhere. The pictures you sent him were fueling his addiction, but they weren’t coming fast enough for his liking. He needed more.

It was just the right amount of paralytic in the syringe. He needed Gander immobilized but alert. He tied the bug-eyed fuck to a chair, nice and tight, dragging him outside into the twilight gloom where nobody would see them. The staff were on alert. Mr. Danforth was conducting a private hunt that evening, and they were to act accordingly. All guests at the Lodge for the wedding were to be kept indoors. Distractions had been arranged.

Titus grunted from the effort of bringing Gander’s dead weight out into the dirt. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and runny as Titus explained exactly what was going to happen next.

“You have something of mine,” Titus told him, shucking his light jacket, rolling his shoulders. “I could’ve asked nicely for it, but that’s not nearly as fun. I like a bit of a challenge. So, I’m going to take it. I’m going to take your fiancé. She belongs to me now, do you understand?”

Gander couldn’t speak even if he wanted to, and Titus didn’t actually care if the man comprehended what he was saying.

“I know all about your little dens in Berlin and Phuket. I know what you do there and how those women end up. She’s not going to be one of those women. Over my dead fucking body will she be one of those women. But actually, over yours.” He retreated to the shed, opened it, brought out the aged, rusty saw he had chosen for the occasion. “If you were just a normal pervert I’d kill you before the next part. I want you to know I’ve had my people forge your signature on a few key documents. Your money? Your assets? Hers. We’ll strip that dipshit company of yours for parts, after I make a proper wife out of her. I know what you’re thinking—why wait so long? What’s the matter with you, Titus? Everything. Everything is the matter with me. Normally, that’s my cross to bear, but tonight it’s yours.”

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

You didn’t know what exactly was waiting for you in the guest house, but you suspected it was nothing good.

It was a warm summer night, sticky, fireflies dancing in the tall grass while you swished toward the cottage. Parts of the estate were allowed to grow wild. Flowers bobbed against you, brushing your fingers as you reached the charming, cobblestone path that curved toward the front door. It was white brick with black wood trim, a squat country chimney sitting empty and smokeless in the heat. Crickets and frogs roared from the tree line and a pond you had spotted from your window when it was light hour before. Your skin was on fire. The tone of Titus’s text had been so uncharacteristic it chilled your blood. He wasn’t being demanding or domineering, he wasn’t commanding you to send him a picture of your feet or your lips or your bra-clad tits.

come to the guesthouse, sweetheart. i have something to show you.

The door was open. You let yourself in, slipped off your heels, and padded barefoot through the cottage, looking for him. Titus was waiting for you in the kitchen. It was late, but he looked wired. His eyes harbored a strange, dazzling light. He had put on a clean, crisp suit, storm gray, a pair of engraved cufflinks and a paisley pocket square making him look sharp indeed. Leaning against the heavy wood table, he tipped his head to the side, watching you.

It had been ages since you had been in the same room together. The effect was immediate, charged, like licking a socket, the thrill of his presence, his proximity, shooting through you in bursts. He sucked all the air out of the room, always had.

“I was hoping you would wear that,” he said, lovingly, with a low, simmering warmth that went straight to your cunt.

It was a silky, lacy peignoir, just decent enough to pass as a flirty cocktail dress. But that wasn’t why Titus had given it to you weeks ago. You knew what he liked about it—without a bra, your nipples peaked teasingly through the delicate fabric, the weight of the silk catching on your every curve. The color, blush pink, felt obscenely innocent given your shared desires.

“Titus,” you said gradually. You could tell by the smothering silence that you were utterly alone in the house with him. “Why am I here?”

He beckoned you forward with a single, curling finger. And you went, because for almost a decade you had been waiting for more than precocious banter. Everything on your body had once belonged to him—the dress, the gold chain necklace, the bracelet, even the luxurious body wash you had used that morning. Until that moment, you hadn’t considered that he was terraforming your life, making you into exactly what he wanted one purchase, one text, one command at a time.

And more shocking, you found you didn’t mind.

When you were an inch away, Titus leaned down to breathe in your neck. He groaned softly, one hand reaching for your chin, tilting your head up until you had no choice but to look him in the eyes. His eyes. They were magnetic. His grip was firm, his thumb nestled in the groove below your lip.

“You know why you’re here.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.” Titus smiled, it was a slow affair, cold and confident. “Think, sweetheart, use that beautiful, devious brain of yours and think hard.”

You swallowed a strangled breath. God, you wanted to touch him and be touched.

“What would make you the happiest girl on Earth?” he whispered, searching your face.

You blinked, hard. “You. Being with you, getting fucked by you, being yours.”

Titus’s eyes drifted shut, an almost sweet expression gripping him before letting go and the frigid mask descended again. Still, you felt his hand tremble on your chin. “Daddy’s so proud of you, you’re so good. I hope you can forgive me, baby, you’re so good and tonight I’ve been so, so bad.”

You gasped as he let go of you. He sank one hand into his pocket, the other he used to flick open the refrigerator door. You had been so focused on him, on his heat, his power, his body, his dangerous, mesmerizing eyes, that you hadn’t even noticed the rest of the kitchen. But now you saw it. You saw everything.

“Titus…”

Gander Schmitt’s head was on a silver tray, saran-wrapped like a leftover Easter ham, his eyes glazed and staring, his mouth open in fixed, grimacing horror.

Titus left the door open, returning to where you stood, moving behind you and wrapping his arms around your middle. His head landed on your right shoulders as he cuddled you to his body, squeezing in a way that told you fighting, running, was pointless. “Are you the happiest girl on Earth tonight?”

You stared at Gander. It was impossible to tear your eyes away. It was so bizarre, so disgusting, it didn’t feel quite real yet. Reality was shivering through you, adrenaline coating your veins in unleaded. Your mouth opened and closed several times as you tried to formulate the words. “Was he alive?” you finally asked in a choked whisper. “When you did it?”

“Until I hit the carotid, yes.”

Nonchalant. Factual.

“I don’t…I’m not…” A part of you had always known this was coming, that the game of cat and mouse never ended well for the mouse. It did shame you that you didn’t give a shit about Gander being dead, only what it meant. “Fuck you, Titus. My life is over.”

He let go when you pried yourself out of his grasp. Surprising. But you weren’t about to give him points, not for anything. You marched over to the fridge and gripped the door, shaking it. “Are you fucking insane?”

“Yes?”

“Not for the obvious reasons!” You screamed, stamping your bare foot, rattling the timbers supporting the roof. You panted at him, hunched, crazed, snarling. “I mean it, you fucking asshole, what am I supposed to do now? Don’t you understand? I’m not like you, Titus. I can’t just do whatever the hell I want when I want. I wasn’t going to marry him for love, for a thrill, my family is in trouble. In trouble. I’m the only child. I’m their last hope.”

He withstood the lecture with the strangest little smile on his face.

Once you had screamed some more and worn yourself out, he calmly rounded the table, took the refrigerator door from you and closed it. “Are you finished?” he asked.

“No. No.”

“I know all of that, baby.” Titus collected you into his arms, and you squirmed until he started in on his next phrase. “I’ve taken care of everything. You’ll be my wife.”

You’ll be my wife. The words made the world spin. You settled against him, then twisted to look up into his face. “But I was never good enough before, my family--”

“You were always good enough,” Titus murmured into your temple, dragging his nose down to yours, his lips touching yours, greedy, as if he wanted to steal the breath right out of your lungs. “I just wasn’t sick of our game. You make the chase so good, but now I’m ready to win.”

He escorted you away from the kitchen and the odd, lingering smell there, taking you to the adjoining living room. Maneuvering you against the back of the couch, he trapped you there, his body wedged against yours, his hips scrunching the silk fabric against your groin. He had rehearsed this, you thought, planned it all, every word, every protestation, every minute of his triumph.

“Here.” Titus calmly slid his phone out of his pocket and handed it to you. “I’m going to touch you now, and you’re going to dial your father. You’re going to explain to him that Titus Danforth is your daddy now. You’re going to tell him that you belong to me, that you’re going to be my wife and the very willing mother of my children. His little girl won the big prize.” His eyes sparkled with pleasure, with menace. “Won’t he just be so proud?”

The phone almost slipped out of your hand from so much flop sweat greasing your palm. Your father’s contact was already queued up, ready. Titus waited until your thumb hovered over the CALL button to ruck up your dress and pull down your underwear until it was around your knees. It fell the rest of the way without any encouragement. His chest was hard and hot and expansive as you braced yourself against it and his fingers, God his fingers, slid carefully over your slit.

“Fuck,” Titus moaned into your ear. “I knew you would be wet. I knew you’d love my engagement gift.”

You didn’t trust your own voice as the phone rang. Titus crooned gently into your ear, just nothing, just sounds, chuckling when you gasped as his fore and middle finger tucked up under your clit, massaging, too insistent, too prodding to be genuinely pleasurable.

“If you tell him what I told you to,” Titus murmured. “I’ll let you cum.” You assured him with a hasty nod. Your eagerness made his cock twitch against your thigh. “That’s right, sweetheart. Little games for children are over. The adults are playing now.”

There was a severed head in the refrigerator. You were about to announce an engagement to a different man the night before your wedding. God only knew where the rest of Gander had gone. You couldn’t tell if the fight had left you or if this was something else, but you didn’t want it to be resignation. That was what marrying Gander would have been. Defeat. A noble defeat maybe but a defeat all the same. You leaned back to stare up into Titus’s face. That he smelled clean, laundered, spritzed with woodsy aftershave, made it all feel okay. That if his world and his violence were yours to share, at least there would be propriety when the lights were on and strangers were looking. You could hold your head high at his side, clasp a hand that was steeped to the wrist in blood.

Your lips parted and he took that as the invitation it was. The kiss sealed the deal, and for an instant, the rhythmic circling of his fingers against your clit softened into something sweeter. He balanced you on the knife’s edge of pain and pleasure.

“Put it on speaker phone,” he said, waiting and watching for your reaction. He might think the game was over, but you knew there were still myriad ways to lose. And to go where and to do what? Throw yourself at another monster whose dimensions were yet to be known? Titus you understood. Titus, in his way, could be controlled.

He wanted to feel big and powerful and all-consuming, inevitable as myth, a man unbound by the tawdry rules of a society that men like him shaped. And like all unimaginably powerful men, he also craved the lie that there was something he couldn’t have, something he couldn’t take.

“Where’s my ring?”

Titus bit your lower lip, pulling until you gasped and bucked against him.

“On the other side of this phone call,” he said.

Your father’s voice drew you out of the fuzzy half-reality the cottage had become. Titus nodded as you began to speak, wedging the pads of his fingers under your clit again, allowing his fingertips to graze your entrance, suggest what might be had if you did as he instructed.

“Hi Dad,” you said, your voice rising to a shrill register you didn’t recognize. “How’s…how’s your night going?”

Titus pinched back a laugh, tightening his lips. Your father mumbled something about winning a few hundred dollars at the blackjack tables. He wasn’t even far away, sequestered with the rest of the wedding guests inside the lodge and casino.

“That’s great,” you said, a bit tartly, cutting him off. Oh my God shut up. “There’s been a change of plans. I’m afraid…” Your eyes widened, flying to Titus for help. “Gander, he…um…he…”

Accident, Titus mouthed, holding your gaze. Heart attack.

“He had a heart attack I think, the doctors are still—” Titus sucked the side of your neck, rubbing, rubbing, promising relief but never delivering, making your eyelids grow heavier as you tried to chase his touch. “He’s not going to make it.”

Your father exploded on the other end, panicked, furious.

“It’s a-all right,” you hurried to promise. Beads of sweat gathered along your brows. Titus noticed, licked them casually away. You couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of your mouth, but they arrived, halting and vague and stupid. “You c-couldn’t know this but I’ve grown really close to Titus over the last year. I know it sounds c-crazy but he wants to help.”

Titus pinched your clit, impatient; your head flew back as you tried not to shriek.

“Tell him,” he growled into your throat.

“He’s my d-daddy now. I belong to him. He’s marrying me and I’m his,” Titus’s fingers slowed to a far more enjoyable pace, cheating higher, outlining your swollen lips, teasing your entrance, dipping in to test if you were still soaked, still shivering and whorishly wet. Every word drew out more kindness. He pushed one finger inside, to the knuckle, holding you up as your knees buckled. “I’m going…going to give him so many babies. I won the big prize, okay? Everything is going to b-be okay now.”

Titus ripped the phone out of your hands, hung up the call and threw his mobile clear across the house. You heard a window shatter as he fucked you with his fingers in earnest, two, pressing a ravenous, open-mouthed kiss to your neck as you worked your hips frantically against his hand.

“That’s right, sweetheart, mine. Mine. No more teasing. Now you have a very greedy daddy to please. Nod if you understand. Nod if you like it.” His voice was sharp gravel in your ear, his hand possessive and seeking as he thrust his fingers in and out, letting you hear the squelch, how desperately your pussy tried to keep him from leaving too soon. When you nodded, when you moaned throatily for him and said, “No, I love it,” his response was to grab you by the throat and tip you over the edge of the couch.

You bounced down onto the cushions, scrambling to find him as he prowled to the edge of the sofa, then around, stripping as he went. Jacket. Shirt. Undershirt. Belt. He sank down with a grunt beside you, lashing out with one arm to hook you around the waist and pull you, roughly, onto his lap. Your thighs went where they yearned to, on either side of his. He helped you push the dress over your head and toss it aside.

You reached for his fly, but he just as readily slapped your hands away. Titus smirked, reaching into his pocket, fishing out the biggest diamond engagement ring you had ever seen. He put it in his mouth, showing it to you between his teeth. His eyebrows went up, once, goading, and you carefully slipped your left ring finger through the sparkling circle, into his mouth. His tongue rolled against your finger, teasing.

While you were momentarily stunned by the sheer, indulgent size of the stone, Titus unzipped his trousers, grimacing and wincing as he pulled out his cock. Everything in your life was about to be a lot bigger. His dick was painfully hard, pulsing with his heartbeat, a vein along the edge jagged as cut glass.

“I’ve waited a long time for this,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss your chin. His skin glistened. The faint, golden light in the cottage caught the sweat in his curls and made them shine. “Don’t disappoint me.”

“Should’ve taken it for a test drive first,” you teased, risking a little hazard. His deep, mean eyes flashed with interest. “I’ve already got the ring.”

Titus pulled your hips flush with his, lifted you, gave you the courtesy of a warning nudge against your cunt before he lowered you onto him with sickeningly good aim. Your body relented almost immediately, even his impressive size welcomed when the host was so profoundly willing. “I want my sweet stuff,” he sneered, throwing your own words back at you. “And I want it now.”

“Am I your sweet stuff?” You carded your hands through his hair, arching, leaning back to present your tits to his mouth. He watched them jiggle, transfixed, jaw jutting out as he sheathed his cock, letting you feel just how much you would be expected to take, and take, and take.

“You know you are, baby.”

“Daddy’s sweet stuff.”

He buried his face in your chest, holding you to him with a tenderness you didn’t expect from him. Interesting. “Give me everything,” he hissed, latching on to one nipple and then the other, a sound almost like a sob wrenching out of his throat. “All your sweet stuff for daddy.” His fist tightened in your hair, exerting steady pressure until you accepted he wasn't going to let go and stared up at the ceiling, utterly exposed, utterly filled. Your world was expanding. Your world was him. He was already so close, you could feel his cock swelling, shoved to the limits just from a brief, hot soak. “Say please, sir, and no, sir, and may I have some more, sir? Fuck me like a good girl if you understand.”

You did and you did.