Author's Note: This is the first chapter in a twelve-part series. The series overall is largely a mind-control series, but there are strong threads of non-consent/reluctance as well. This is, of course, purely fantasy. All sex should be enthusiastically and joyfully consensual. Readers who might be triggered by lack of consent should skip this one. All characters are over the age of 18. In fact, they're all over 25. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
--
The ring came in the mail.
Alexander was expecting it without much enthusiasm. The family mostly rejoiced when Great Uncle Julius died. He was widely rumored to be a terrible person. Alexander's mother refused to even speak his name. "I had a terrible, horrible, villainous ancestor and all I got was this dumb ring."
Even a couple of grand would have gone a long way to sorting out Alexander's current woes. Restaurant work was busy enough after the pandemic, and the pay had been getting better, but not as fast as other things were getting more expensive.
The same day the ring came, Alexander got a note from his landlord that rent was going up by four hundred bucks if he wanted to renew. He wasn't sure he was going to make rent
this
month, and he wasn't sure what kind of apartment he could downsize to.
A studio with the head of his bed next to the refrigerator seemed to be pretty near the bottom of the totem pole.
Most of the staff at work lived with roommates. Whom they complained about incessantly.
The ring sat in a dish on his desk with some paperclips and rubber bands for a week. It wasn't much to look at either, a dull, gold band with a flat black stone in it. Onyx maybe.
It was the day his laptop died that he put the ring on his finger.
The laptop was an old Dell, and he knew it was dying. He kept all his poems in the cloud, because he knew the beast was on the way out. He was doing the usual thing, watching porn instead of actually writing when the screen froze. A woman with disturbingly fake breasts was in the midst of a bad-acting moan when the sound turned into a buzz and the screen froze.
He couldn't even turn the damn thing off. It wasn't quite old enough to have an actual power switch, just another keyboard-button that didn't respond when he jammed it. He couldn't even turn the volume down. He just unplugged it and let the battery run out, which didn't take long because the fan was running hard. That was the last time the old Dell ever booted. What a way to go.
Maybe it would be a good thing. Going back to writing poetry on paper. Fewer distractions.
Alexander frowned at himself. Who was he kidding. His phone still worked. For now.
But that was the moment. Not like he had any money to spare, but he was tired of being in his shabby little unaffordable studio, and there was a bar down on the arterial with half price pints until seven. He put the ring on, grabbed his phone, and decided to honor the death of his computer with his own private wake at the pub. He considered the ring to be his way of dressing up. From death to death. On impulse, he brought along his notebook. Maybe there was a poem in that.
Another reason to go the pub was Ellie, the bartender. She was a smoking hot lesbian. Could have had any man she wanted, which is probably why she had given up on them completely. She flirted shamelessly with all the customers, her cleavage bringing in the big tips. But she only went home with women.
Alexander was in service, he knew the drill. You don't hit on the bartender. He just liked to look, and Ellie clearly liked being seen.
So he pulled open his notebook, put a few words on the page:
"From Death to Death"
The ring came in the mail...
He had no idea where to go from there. Accumulation of specific detail. The gold had a dull, rich gleam to it in the barlight. The black stone gleamed in a kind of interesting way. Maybe not onyx. Something with more depth than that. Alexander wondered what it might be worth. Maybe it was a better inheritance than he had initially thought.
"Hey A! How're you today?" Ellie brought him an IPA.
"Well, my computer just died, so there's that."
"Bummer. Always a good excuse to trade up tho right?"
"Yeah, maybe so." He didn't want to confess his absolute poverty.
Alexander doodled around in his journal, trying to find the poem. Trying to find the essence of death. A few beers in, he was pretty sure he had the essence of death well understood, but every word he put down on paper was moronic. He could tell as soon as he scrawled something that it was total garbage. He wasn't a poet. He was just another loser with a master's degree working as a line cook. Any glamor was purely in his imagination, but none of it made it to paper.
But a strange thing happened. After happy hour, Alexander usually switched to PBR, but he was feeling a little profligate. How many days a year did he lose a laptop, after all? And since he was just another drunk at the bar, just another failure in the making, why not fully embody the experience.
"Give me another IPA," he said to Ellie. It was busier now, and they had a barback maneuvering behind the bar as well.
Ellie looked at him in an odd way. "Yes, Alexander. I will give you another IPA."
Something in the tone of her voice was odd, and Alexander noticed that she didn't ring it in.
He shook it off, but it only made the next thing a bit more interesting.
A couple had taken the seats to his left. They were a few years older than him, late twenties probably. The woman was attractive, but not on display. Alexander had the sense of full curves obscured by modest fashion. The guy had that reek of success. Jock build, square jaw, dressed in the kind of expensive casual that says "Yeah, I'm wealthy, but it hasn't gone to my head yet, and I want you to know that." Or maybe: "I don't want to make you look bad, bro, so I'm wearing this
normal guy
costume." He caught their names, Tom and Monica.
Alexander laughed to himself and began writing more of Tom's imaginary fashion-phrases down in his notebook.
The city was full of these kinds of people. He didn't like how they made him feel. In college, they had been the ones partying their way to mediocre grades while he immersed himself in the greatest of human achievements: the great art, literature; the transformative discoveries of science, the ideas that changed global understanding of the human experience.
And now they were buying brownstones in Cobble Hill, summering on Fire Island, and sitting next to him in
his
bar. Making him feel like a failure.
Alexander put some words down in his journal about justice. They weren't happy words.
"I should go check in on Emmy," Monica said.
"Relax, babe, that girl Isabel has it covered. She doesn't need you calling every twenty minutes. She came with a four point nine three star rating."
Clearly that point zero seven was still bothering Monica.
Alexander impulsively butted in, speaking to Tom: "
You
should go check in on Emmy."
He meant it as a kind of equal rights joke, still feeling the raw injustice of the world. But even as he said the words he could feel it falling flat. At least he wasn't slurring his words. He was afraid he would just come across as a drunk, rather than a Poet of Justice.
Weirdly, Tom said, "Yeah, I'll do that. Hang on, Monica, I'll be right back." He pulled his cell phone out and ducked out of the bar.
Monica looked at Alexander with neither gratitude nor friendliness.
"Maybe you should mind your own business," she said.
Alexander flushed with embarrassment. Thank god he worked in the kitchen. Dealing with these people in the front of house would never work.
But something was niggling at Alexander. Tom didn't seem like the kind of guy who would listen to domestic suggestions from a stranger.
He pulled in his courage, but even so it came out as something of a whisper.
"Shut your mouth, you bitch."
She pursed her lips, looking at him with extreme distaste. She pulled her purse close and reached for the light jacket she had slung over the back of her barstool.
"Stop," Alexander said.
And she did.
"Just sit normally. I didn't mean to upset you."
Pretty much a lie. Still she relaxed back into a normal sitting position. But she was watching Alexander. Her eyes looked scared now. He realized he didn't want her to be scared. He had been standing up for
her
justice after all!
"Relax completely," he said. "Everything is going to be fine. You know that."
The fear didn't leave her eyes, but she did relax more. She still hadn't said a word.
"Go on, take a sip of your wine," he said.
She did, reaching for her glass of red, trembling just a little as she did so.
