WIP Wednesday - The Watcher

Happy Wednesday, everyone! It's time for another WIP post - yay! 

Most of December, I've been working on the Watcher. 

The Watcher is a bit of a departure for me; it's a lot darker than my usual stuff. I had fun writing it. It's always good to stretch yourself. It's going to be part of an anthology called the Darker Side of Love. Watch for it (pun. ha ha.) on Feb 1. (And of course, there'll be a ton of pimping here for the anthology before then.) 

Still working through the cover and the blurb. Here's a tag line though. 

The Watcher: It's not the darkness in him that I fear. It's the darkness in me. 

And here's the entire prologue - pre-edited. 

***

Prologue: 

Do you know that scene in Inception, the one where the top spins so that Cobb can tell whether he’s in a dream or not?

I have my own version of this.

In the real world, I’m an aspiring young fashion designer who lives in New York and revels in every pulse-beat of the city that never sleeps. I never knew my father, and my mother has early onset Alzheimer’s. She’s only fifty-three, goddammit. I can never say those words out aloud without being physically angry at how fucking unfair life is.

She lives in a nursing home in my hometown, Akron, Ohio, and I visit her religiously every other weekend, even though I have precious little money for the airfare, and even though she doesn’t recognize her own daughter.

When Alzheimer’s strikes in a person as young as my mother, you know what they tell the children? Get tested. Alzheimer’s has a genetic component. This could be me. My mom’s memory started fragmenting when she was in her thirties. I have two years to go. So, I bury myself in work and indulge in transient pleasure, and don’t allow myself things like love. Because when your mother doesn’t remember her only child’s name, you are given an object lesson in how fleeting love is. How ephemeral. Filled with the potential to slash open your heart, and expose your soul to the icy wind.  

To dwell on it would be to break under the weight of the pressure. Instead, I seek refuge in the other world I live in. A shadowy world, one with the dank brick walls of a dungeon; the rusty chains, and the dim lighting; the drip of a leaking tap in the corner. A world in which strange men use me for their pleasure, indifferent to my own desires, yet I permit the violations, each and every time. This world frightens me and arouses me, and I can’t tell which emotion is the predominant one.

These are my two worlds; my two divergent paths.

***

I am clad in a black leather bra and black lace panties, and I’m fairly confident neither garment is going to stay on for very long.

Out of the shadows, three men emerge and move towards me. Cruel lust gleams in their cold gazes. These men are perfect strangers, yet for the next two hours, they have the right to use me as they will.

My only safety comes from my own safe words, and the ever-intent green, green eyes of the Watcher. He looks at me now, as I fight the urge to panic and flee. Soon, I tell myself, the pain will turn to pleasure.

That’s not perfectly true, not anymore. The pain doesn’t turn into pleasure. It turns into numbness. My body responds to the stimulus, but my mind stays blank.

“Do you submit?” The Watcher speaks the ritual words, the ones that will indicate my willingness to continue with the session.

The top starts spinning.

I kneel on the floor, and lower my head, holding out my hands in a gesture of surrender. “I submit.”

The top keeps spinning. 

***

And the other authors are here...