Chapter 1

989 Words
Seven years ago. Alexander. The first thing I registered wasn’t the pain. It was the taste of blood and the way her eyes stayed locked on mine after her knuckles cracked across my cheekbone. She didn’t look sorry. She looked f*****g satisfied. I still had a fistful of her dark hair when she hit me. We’d been tangled up in the back hallway of some no-name bar, her back against the wall, my mouth at her ear, the usual filthy s**t spilling out of me because she’d been grinding on my thigh for twenty minutes and moaning like she wanted it. “Suck my c**k like a good little girl.” That was the line. Simple. Direct. The kind of thing that usually got results. Instead she reared back and clocked me so hard my vision went white for a second. Then she shoved me off, fixed her dress, and walked away without a single word. I stood there holding my face, d**k still half-hard, pride completely shredded. By the time I made it to the table, the bruise was already blooming purple under my eye. Garrett took one look and cursed. Hunter actually laughed out loud. Maggie, the only woman in our little Thursday-night crew, winced like she’d felt the hit herself. “Jesus, Alexander,” she said, swirling her white wine. “What the hell did you say to her?” I pressed the cold beer glass against the swelling and told them. Word for word. The hallway. The hair. The line. The punch. They lost it. Garrett nearly choked on his drink. Hunter slapped the table hard enough to rattle the glasses. Even Maggie let out a short, horrified laugh. “I don’t think she liked that,” she said. “No shit.” The throb in my face was nothing compared to the sting of getting shut down by a girl I’d been working on for weeks. Pretty little brunette with a mouth that promised all kinds of trouble. I’d thought we were on the same page. Apparently not. We were four coworkers who hated the entertainment company we worked for almost as much as we loved the industry itself. Nights, parties, drunk rich people throwing money around. The job used to feel exciting. Now it just felt like a slow death with better lighting. So every Thursday we met at the same dive, drank, complained about how much smarter we’d run the place if we ever grew the balls to leave, and more often than not—talked about s*x like a bunch of overworked degenerates swapping war stories. Hunter had Isabel waiting at home. The rest of us were single by choice and by design. Working nights meant we got laid regularly enough that the conversation rarely dried up. Garrett leaned forward, eyes still glittering with amusement. “It’s bullshit there’s no way to match people by the f****d-up s**t they actually want in bed.” The table went quiet for half a second, then exploded. Classic Garrett. Always testing how far he could push before someone called him on it. “I’m serious,” he said, louder. “Wouldn’t it be nice to know upfront that the person across from you likes the same twisted s**t you do? No more guessing. No more getting punched in the face for asking.” Hunter shook his head. “You’re out of your mind.” But the idea stuck. I set my empty glass down and stared at the condensation ring it left on the wood. Why the hell didn’t dating apps filter by kink? Better yet—what if you could just… hire someone who already knew exactly what you needed and didn’t flinch when you said it out loud? A safe place. No judgment. No surprises that ended in a black eye. We worked in entertainment. We knew how to put on a show, how to read a room, how to make people feel like the center of the universe for a night. The skills were already there. All we needed was the nerve. “I’m not crazy,” Garrett insisted. “Who here doesn’t have something they’ve always wanted to do but never had the guts to ask for? Come on. Out with it.” Maggie smirked and flipped it right back on him. “You first.” He went. Then Hunter. Then Maggie, quieter but still honest. The usual mix of power, control, filthy words, things that lived in the dark corners of people’s heads. Nothing shocking, really. Just human. I barely listened. My mind was already turning the idea over, testing the edges. If four people at this table carried secret wants they were half-afraid to name, how many more were sitting at the other tables? How many in this city? Everywhere? Hunter nudged my shoulder. “Your turn, Alexander.” Garrett cut in before I could open my mouth. “We already know. He likes to talk dirty and get punched for it.” They laughed again. I smiled around the rim of my fresh beer and let them think whatever they wanted. Degradation wasn’t the point. Never had been. But I kept that part to myself. The conversation drifted. More drinks. More complaints about the company. Same as every other Thursday. The next morning the call came in before any of us had finished our coffee. The company was done. Bankruptcy. Lights out. No severance worth mentioning. Just a clean, sudden end. We didn’t file for unemployment. We sat down that same afternoon with notebooks and a half-empty bottle of whiskey and sketched out the bones of something new. I would run it. Garrett would handle the clients. Hunter would work with the developers. Maggie would keep the rest of us from burning the whole thing down. It wasn’t complicated. Not really. Dirty Dozens’ Club was born before the bruise under my eye had even started to fade.
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