The Light Between the Trees

Author's note: Traumatised by being held hostage in the cafe siege, Chloe has chosen a new direction in her life. She gives up her steady boyfriend and stable job to seek out new thrills in risky encounters. Hooking up with Travis from work has brought out a new side to her, as she feels herself slipping under his control.

The story contains themes of female submission, edge play and autassassinophilia. Discretion is advised: please check the story tags to see whether this a series you'll enjoy.]

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GROOMED

The week has gone to shit. The upgrade to the Everything Engine has been a nightmare and I've had the boss breathing down my neck, telling me he's losing a hundred thousand a day. I point out that our revenues are the same, and it's just a hundred grand off the projection of what the upgrade should have brought in, so it's not real. Well, I don't quite say it like that. I'm not an idiot. I know that some guys need to strut and let off steam, because it makes them feel good. I don't care, so long as they calm the fuck down afterwards and leave me to get on with the job of fixing the shit in the first place.

Travis is another issue. He pulled me up outside the disabled toilets yesterday for a quick fuck. He actually called it that. I pointed out that we had a crisis meeting on the upgrade in thirty minutes and that he'd better get himself prepped for that instead. I almost couldn't believe it when he suggested that I was wound up tight and needed some stress relief. I almost couldn't believe it when he opened the door to the toilet and told me to get inside, and I did.

He fucked me hard from behind, then mopped up. Before he left, he suggested that maybe I sit on a towel or something in the meeting, just in case I get a little damp spot on the back of my skirt when he starts to leak out of me. I guess that was the point that something kicked into gear in my head, a realisation that this wasn't risky sex, this was just me getting used by a dickhead. I almost enjoyed looking him straight in the eye and telling him to fuck off back to his girlfriend. I don't need that in my life, not when my head is already full of everything else.

That's the other fly in the ointment: I'm also struggling with the apps. I'd been scrolling through my matches, after having neglected it all for a fortnight when Travis came along, and found I'd been matched with Toby. I kind of froze up for a moment. Worse, my ex had matched me back and there was a message waiting. I had exited the app and dropped the phone on the bed like it was radioactive.

That was a week ago and I'm still freaked out about it. I'm sitting at my desk at work, it's eight o'clock at night, I haven't had a new date in weeks, I haven't had sex in days, the fucking Everything Engine is still behaving weirdly, the boss is still on the warpath about his foregone revenue, and to make matters worse, Travis is standing in the middle of the floor with a willowy blonde girl from the marketing department who I found out is his actual girlfriend.

I divert my eyes from them as they drop into one of the conversation pods and try and focus on the screen in front of me. The Engine is doing its own thing and I can't understand why. It's an order of magnitude more complex after the upgrade, but it appears to be serving less relevant content into customers' feeds. I need to get my head around why. I need to get everyone off my back. I need to find someone to fuck, but Toby's there in my apps. I'm tired, frustrated, and so very horny.

I start again, running through the test scenarios. When they're underway, I take out my phone and open chat. Covalent has sent me a message. My heart spikes just a little and I open it, hunkering down at my desk.

I'm almost certain that Covalent is a him. He hasn't given any details away, but there's something that tells me I'm dealing with a man who is interested in women. I found him in the forums, after signing up to a members-only discussion site, following a woman's story that the Everything Engine had bubbled up into my feeds. I had read her updates, tracking the changes to her life as she continued a journey deeper into her fantasies. Then she'd taken an abrupt left turn into scat play and I'd left her to it. I mean, I take shit all day at work. I even hand out shit to others. I just don't get off on reading about it in a bedroom context. Each to their own, but I don't deal with other people's shit unless I really need to.

C: How's your day Raven?

I stare at the message. I like the way he's asking me about me. He's not asking me for a full frontal, or sending me a picture of his dick, which I had to crack out the block filters for when I first joined the site. Honestly, there should be a default list of blocks that you can just apply to your account when you sign up, a sort of default wanker list, to cut down the manual task of weeding out the pricks when you first sign up.

R: Shit. As usual

I can see that he's online. The tests are running. I have time for me. I'm all good.

C: Oh no. Job or people?

R: Both

C: What would make you happy?

I don't answer immediately. He has asked that question before, showing a rare insight. It's a theme with him. There's something about the anonymity of it, of not needing to face him on a daily basis, that lets me just say what I think.

R: People are such a fucking waste of time. I wanna just walk out the door and go

I don't get a response, and as the minutes drag on, I go back to monitoring my tests. Across the floor, I can see Travis in the conversation booth still. He's got his hand on the blonde girl's knee, talking earnestly to her. I wrinkle my nose in disgust, remembering myself in the same position, like it's one of his standard moves. Prick.

The notification pops up and I tap on my phone screen.

C: Why don't you just go?

I pause, context switching from thoughts of Travis, feeling and being sickened by a low, ever-present background arousal at the memory of his cock pounding into me as he bent me over. That part had been fantastic. His cock was great. It's the bit of skin around the cock that I found irritating. You know: the man.

R: I can't. I have stuff to do

C: I know. You keep telling me. But if you're not happy then what's the point of any of it?

I look up, and my boss is inbound. I swing out of my chair to head him off, but it doesn't work. He fires questions at me, rattling them off like a machine gun, then asks me when I think I'm going to have the results. I tell him I don't know. He launches into a long spiel about the strategy, all stuff I've heard a hundred times. At last, he leaves and I flop down back into my chair. On the screen, the tests have failed again. In the corner of my eye, I see Travis leading the blonde by the hand towards the exit. She's smiling at him, besotted. Or maybe she's relishing the imminent prospect of letting him pummel her with his substantial cock. She's so much more beautiful than me. She's slim and elegant. She gives him a little kiss on the cheek as they wait for the elevator to arrive.

I pick up my phone.

R: I just wanna disappear

I blink, realising my eyes are damp. I'm so tired, so frustrated, so horny, so....

R: I'm so done

He's still online. I can almost feel him staring at my message. I find myself typing, and for the first time ever, there's no filter as I start my confession.

R: Something happened. It was awful, and it changed everything. I still wake up at night. I can't get it out of my head

C: What happened?

I hesitate. This is the thing that you're never supposed to do. Everyone stays behind their curtains, you never draw it back and show who you really are. It takes me thirty seconds to find a link to the picture and I post it to him, the one of me with the paramedic, sprawled on the ground.

R: I think about Kaylee sometimes. I saw it happen. That bullet could have been me

My fingers stop, but I need to carry on, unburden myself.

R: She had a daughter, I found out. Two years old. I got nothing and no-one. One bullet and there's a little girl without a mother but I'm still breathing

R: It's so fucked. Why me? If there's a God, why did I get chosen to live?

I know I'm crying now. I'm pouring it all out into a little screen. This is the first time I've said it to another living person, even though it's been going around in my head since the moment I got put in the ambulance.

R: I just want to vanish. I want it to end

I put the phone down, staring at the screen with my head in my hands. Little spatters of moisture begin to dot the desk as I blink away the tears. I'm unravelling, alone at my desk on the nearly empty floor. Something has broken inside me and I can't stop the flood. The screen flashes.

C: There are ways to disappear completely

My finger hovers over the screen as I stare at his words. I'm enticed, feeling a pressure that builds inside me. It's that last word: completely. To not leave any trace behind, to be erased. The moment Kaylee's blouse turned red: the look on her face. She'd seemed disappointed.

R: Okay

C: Would you like to meet?

---

I find myself scrolling through my feed, waiting for sleep to claim me. It's way past midnight and I have to be in the office at eight for another all-hands meeting. My boss is on the warpath about the AI upgrade, he wants answers but it's a massively technical field and he has a fucking degree in warm feelings or some other useless shit. He'd asked, no strike that, he'd ordered me to get him a book on neural networks and self-seeking optimisation algorithms so he can get to grips with the thing that sits at the core of his business, the thing that is not amenable to his inspiring founder story or his heartfelt investor pitch. I gave him the links to buy the relevant texts and he came back within half an hour asking for the best book on AI wrangling for the generalist.

I sent him a link to buy Alice in Wonderland because, as the quote goes, it's the best book on anything for the generalist. At least I saw the funny side.

So here I am, scrolling after getting chewed out again, my career dissipation light blinking in overdrive. Ironically, the cause of my unbearable stress is also the thing that I've turned to in order to relieve it: the Everything Engine is serving up a steady diet of posts and links that are drawing me further into a strange world I'd never really known about before.

I'm getting familiar with the mechanics of my reaction to Travis, the twisted enjoyment and excitement my body was feeling to being humiliated and used by him. It's a sort of arcane horror, not being able to stand up against the things that I'd spent my whole life standing up against, as if my defences were deactivated and I was helpless to stop him subjugating me. It had felt wrong and disgusting and so very, very sweet. I'm not a weak person, I want to be in charge, but an arrogant, entitled fucker like Travis getting the better of me, and doing it so easily, had tapped into a little black hole in my core that I had never noticed before.

Then it had all gone away, and just like that I can see him for the prick he is. The thrill just evaporated, as if I had been raging in the middle of a wild night on the town and then next moment I was stone cold sober.

I followed where the Engine led me, into posts on dominance and submission, reading stories of women who gave up their jobs to become a slave to their partner's needs. It sounded awful, to roll back to the nineteen fifties and be the doting housewife, subservient to the man in all things. There were women who went further, and I found myself reading voraciously: stories of wives wearing nothing but collars around their necks, forced to kneel on the floor by their husbands' sides. I read a first-person account of a newly married couple who had decided, quite rationally, that she should be fed from a dog bowl in the corner of the kitchen. Each link to a story, each post, they were followed by another link in the same vein, painting a picture of what it meant to be a submissive, how to live as a slave.

I flick the screen off around one o'clock and stretch out on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. Since leaving Toby, I have a tiny bedsit with an ancient kitchenette on one side and a bed on the other, two of my four boxes of stuff still taped closed in the corner. I couldn't understand why a woman would allow herself to be debased like that, to be used as a sex appliance, as a housemaid. But there was something in the last story, an insight into her mindset: the idea of being able to switch off and let go, to be relieved of all burdens for even just a while, to disappear.

It brings me back to Covalent's message. It would be insane to arrange to meet a man I'd never seen, but I guess the dating apps were the same risk, and yes, it would be risky. What if he turned out to be a maniac? What if he abducted me? I open the message again, staring at the screen. Even past midnight, he's online. Maybe he's having trouble sleeping, just like I am.

R: What do you mean about disappearing?

Covalent responds immediately.

C: I mean, help you to vanish

R: You sound like a serial killer

I know I'm goading him with that, but I need to get a reaction from him, something genuine. I need to find a connection. He takes a long time to reply, but the reason is obvious when he does. He has a lot to say.

C: I'm not, but I could be. It's a fantasy of mine, to make someone disappear. I mean, completely and untraceably vanish from the earth. They would come with me of their own free will and I would help them cease to exist. Everything they had, everyone they knew, they would leave it all behind and disappear. They would be gone

I close the screen and drop the phone onto the bed next to me. I can't answer him back, because I can't stop thinking about that last line. To be gone. To walk out of my life and be gone. Eventually, I pick up the phone again.

R: If I came to you, what would you do with me?

C: Anything

R: Anything?

C: Everything. Your life would belong to me, I would decide if and when you ever appeared again

I feel a strange urge, like the first time Travis had bound my hands, the exquisite horror of being utterly powerless, the twisted attraction of it.

R: If?

There is a long pause.

C: You might never appear again. You might ask me to make you disappear completely

I want to message back asking for clarification, but there's a tingle all the way down inside me that tells me I already know implicitly what he's suggesting. I close my eyes and, unbidden, a memory surfaces: the muzzle of the pistol in my mouth, then the white flash and the pressure, and then the most intense orgasm I'd ever had. The hook-ups, the going home with strangers, the awful risks, they all made sense. Covalent's offer made sense. Slowly, I type a reply.

R: When and where to meet. I want to talk in person

C: Saturday afternoon. There is a park, I'll send you directions

I stared at his words, then I reply.

R: Okay

My hand ventures between my thighs; I'm as slick as I have ever remembered being. My fingers begin to dance on the tight little nub of my clit and I close my eyes, savouring the bliss.

---

I've never been to the park before. It's not near my usual haunts, and it takes me two bus rides to get there. I come by bus because he told me too. I'm dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, in flat shoes, all because he told me to. I have my long dark hair tied back in a ponytail because that's what he wanted.

There is a wide circle of grass in the middle, surrounded by trees. On the far side, there is an outdoor chess set, with some old men playing, lifting and dragging the pieces as they counter each other. Near the entrance I used, there is a café, situated on the edge of the grass. I take a seat and wait for the waitress to come over. Looking around, I don't see him, but then again, I have no idea what he looks like, I've never even heard his voice. I must be out of my mind doing this.

The waitress comes up to me, a pretty girl with long auburn hair. She smiles sweetly as she takes my order: a coffee, plain and simple. I'm only here to meet a stranger, I'm not here for the full dining experience. Nervously, I scan the other patrons, trying to discern which one is him.

There's an older couple sitting to one side, and by the edge of the grass I see a man holding a baby. There are two women with him, one petite and dark-haired, the other tall and blonde. They appear to be arguing good-naturedly among themselves. Aside from them, the café is empty.

I look out across the park, seeing the old men on the other side, still embroiled in their chess game, a woman jogging, two men walking side by side with their hands stuffed deep in their pockets, a child on a tricycle with her father jogging along behind.

Maybe he's seen me and has exited the park, or maybe he never intended to turn up in the first place. Perhaps that would be for the best. I know how dumb this is, but it's a public place. If he turns out to be a crackpot, I have people around me, I can get out of the situation. At least with the dating apps, I'd have a picture to go on, and usually a phone call. My body is buzzing with nerves. Where the hell is he?

The waitress brings my coffee and I pay. I'm going to drink it and then flee. This was a stupid idea, really stupid. I should hit the apps, block Toby and find myself someone to fuck. That would cure the jangling nerves, the pent-up desire. I could do that, I could....

He appears in the distance, striding purposefully across the grass towards me. He's taking his time, making a bee-line straight for me, too far away to make out any details, but I know it's him. There's something about the walk, the way he holds himself. My guts clench, and I feel a pang of adrenaline spike through me. I realise that I have nowhere to go: if I get up, he can follow me. I'm trapped at this table, forced to stay in the open, unable to move as he closes the distance towards me at a steady, sure pace. I know that I'm in over my head, that I'm probably fucked. Despite myself, I feel a thrill.

He walks up to my table and comes to a halt. He's older than me, perhaps by a decade, late thirties or early forties, but it's difficult to tell. His hair is short and neat, but blonde in a way that almost suggests he's bleached it. His eyes are the same: the lightest grey against pale skin, as if the contrast has been turned down, rendering him in monochrome. His forehead is lined, as are his cheeks, giving him the appearance of sternness so that when he breaks into a smile suddenly it's like the sun coming out.

"Raven, hi."

"You recognised me."

"You're hard to miss," he replies, then shrugs, "Remember, you're famous, now I know who you are."

Ah shit, yeah, that's right. From that one picture, he's able to work out everything about me: my posts on the socials, maybe even a background check. I really fucked that up, putting him at a massive advantage.

"So, you know my name. I don't know yours."

He shakes his head, saying, "No, you don't. May I sit?"

I stare at him. He doesn't move, but then he surprises me.

"Look, I know how awkward this is," he tells me, "I can go if you're not comfortable. We can chat more online."

The offer seems genuine, but instead of asking him to leave I gesture for him to take a seat because I want to see where this goes. The waitress comes over and he orders English Breakfast Tea, with milk on the side. I watch him as he speaks, taking in the little, precise mannerisms, the way he uses his hands as he speaks to emphasise that the milk is to go on the side. He's nothing like how I imagined him.

"You seem a little nervous, Raven."

"I guess."

"It's understandable, and I suppose it's why we're meeting face-to-face. To talk."