Well hello there, Void I Scream Into Sometimes. Just wanted to give a small update that as of yesterday evening, the first draft of my next project is complete. Now comes the fun part: fleshing out plot points and editing what’s already there. Basic structure is there; it just needs brought to life!
This whole story is out of my comfort zone for what I’ve written most recently, but it’s right up high school fanfiction me’s alley. Dark romance is the only romance worth reading or writing in my ever so humble opinion. And also in my ever so humble opinion, this will be the best thing I’ve written to date. It’s also the most ambitious. I made the executive decision to split up this story into three separate books. There’s just too much going on to have it all in one novel.
Where to go from here? I’ll write up a second draft of this first section with a tentative deadline of March 31st, where I’ll hand it off to someone to beta. Another polish, and I’ll employ an editor to polish it better. I want to shoot to get this one published traditionally, but the backup plan as always is to self pub through the company we all love to hate.
While I’ve been drafting this, I’ve been reading a lot more romance than I ever have in my life. I tried out some dark romances, but they weren’t the flavor I wanted to read. I guess they were more erotica between Person A and Person B, but that’s all they really gave me. I couldn’t find chemistry in any of them that lasted more than a couple pages. So I moved on to fantasy romance, since it’s more likely to touch on the dark themes that keep it interesting for me. ACOTAR was a good one. I’ve reviewed those books before, but the series ended, or at very least I reached the end of what’s published for now, so I delved into From Blood And Ash, fell in love, and then jumped into Shadow in the Ember, and now I’m a fan for life. Sera and Nyktos are just…ah, chef’s kiss.
What I’m trying to get at without getting too long winded is that I am striving to have that same captivating dynamic for Vincent and Vivian as Jennifer Armentrout created for her characters.
Reading this genre started as research and now I’m emotionally invested. It’s a fun time. 🙂
In the meantime, as I rewrite this baby, do you have any recommendations for dark romances that I should read? I crave dark themes, character introspection, and morally grey to villainous leads. Sexual tension and rocky moments where you aren’t sure if they will ever forgive each other are a must. Gothic vampire aesthetic is a bonus.
We fucked. I won’t waste my time lying to you, partially because I’ve never been one to paint myself in a favorable light, partially because I’m not great at lying. In all things, I find honest is the best policy, because if you get caught, the lie just makes the punishment that much worse. My shoulders and neck supported more of my weight than I would’ve liked to admit, and my guts felt like they were slopping around inside me and squeezing the air out of my lungs. Overdramatic? Certainly, but that didn’t change the fact that having my legs slung over his shoulders while he rammed into me made my face turn several shades of purple while I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears.
We fucked, and it wasn’t beautiful. It was dirty and messy and rough. If my life were a movie, they wouldn’t include this scene. It would be a fade-to-black, and the audience would let their imaginations run wild, and every single one of them would have been wrong. If my life were a porno, this scene would only show up on the seedy websites that you had to trash your computer after you got off because there was no getting rid of the trojan that bust down the door to the hard drive. You would watch this while touching yourself and a part of yourself would wonder if the disclaimer at the beginning was true or if you were indeed watching someone be raped on camera. Was this video illegal? Would the cops come busting down your door? Just how old was this girl? It said barely legal, but she looks younger than that.
In another place, another time, I would have been younger than that, but it wouldn’t have been marketed as barely legal because that’s not what brings in the big bucks. But that’s neither here nor there. At the end of the day, there was no camera, I was of age, and nothing was being done to me that I didn’t already want. It was sick, but maybe I was a little bit sick, too.
He let me down to change positions, and even though I liked the guy, I’m confident it had very little to do with me having a hard time breathing and very much to do with my legs making his shoulders a little uncomfortable from the strain. With swift but clumsy hands, he spread my legs apart, then changed his grip so that my left leg stayed high in the air and my right was planted firmly into the stained hotel mattress. Another strain, but he didn’t push me hard enough for my muscles to tear. He was a bit of a sadist, but he was no monster. Each thrust was more violent than the last, too deep for my liking, but my cries of pain just egged him on. The tears rolling down my face could have been real or could have been part of the act. It was hard to tell sometimes.
“Oh, Daddy, please no more,” I moaned. Even though he was old enough to be my father, he wasn’t, and honestly, that kind of roleplay weirded me out. Not just the pet name, but the begging. Struggling I could do. Screaming, hell, I was among the best in a few underground BDSM scenes. I could take any pain that was dished out to me and still make it to work on time the next day. Begging though… Begging just seemed too, well, intimate. Too real for my tastes.
But, ironically, beggers can’t be choosers and all that nonsense, so whatever Jonathan wanted Jonathan got.
“Baby Girl you’re doing so good for Daddy.”
I tried not to listen to him. His voice was nice, but the words that came out of his mouth whenever we did this killed the mood for me. He lifted my left leg further up, apparently stuck in a delusion where Baby Girl was a fucking gymnast and not just his former employee taking on a fantasy for his benefit.
“Fuck, Vivian, keep talking. God fucking damnit keep it up.”
Well, money was money, right?
“No please no more.”
“Like you mean it or I’ll shove it in your ass I swear to fuck.”
Motivation at its finest. I let what I wanted fall by the wayside, letting my emotions go with them. I did what I was known for back then—putting on a real horrorshow. I ugly cried and struggled to get away, all while pushing myself against him, letting him so far in me it hurt. I called him whatever he wanted me to call him, I begged him to stop, I let him imagine I didn’t want this even though I could feel myself getting closer to that sweet release that I was almost ashamed of.
And then he pulled out of me and shoved his dick down my throat just before he came. Fucking… That wasn’t part of the deal, and if I could do anything but gag around his length, I would bite down just to make a point.
Fucking Jonathan.
“Holy fuck that was good,” he gasped, making one final thrust against my face for good measure before pulling out of my mouth that I wished could turn into a Venus flytrap at just that moment to take the whole thing off. Instead, I wiped the slobber from my chin and glared at him.
“I told you. No ass. No mouth.”
He had the audacity to smirk at me while he rolled off the bed to retrieve his clothes from the grimy floor. No apologies to be found, but if I’m being honest, I think I would be more concerned if he did. Jonathan was a long list of adjectives that I would gladly put into a giant spreadsheet if I had enough time, but asshole didn’t necessarily equate bad. Like I said, I liked the guy well enough. If I didn’t, I would have stopped coming a long time ago. We didn’t have an obligation anymore to do these sorts of things. That tie had severed.
“Same time next week?”
I rolled my eyes and groaned as dramatically as I possibly could, pouting up at him as I reached blindly for my own clothing.
“Come on, Viv. You liked it.”
I did. But I also didn’t. It was complicated.
“Hey I gotta go. Text me when you’re free.”
He kissed my forehead and was out the door before I had a chance to put my bra back on. He had to go. Sure he did. Always in such a rush conveniently after he got off. It wasn’t that I was jealous.
My phone pinged right on cue, the funds for the room transferred to my Venmo.
It wasn’t that I was jealous. It was just that he never took it upon himself to do the walk of shame to the front desk. Somewhere in history women took it upon themselves to demand equal rights and going dutch and paying for things themselves on behalf of all women without the courtesy of asking the rest of women everywhere if that was what they wanted. Lord knows I didn’t sign up for it. Not to mention—
“Oh fuck.”
How could I forget?
I threw my clothes on and rushed out the door, not caring if it closed behind me or not. If a druggie took the opportunity to sneak in and shoot up before the poor excuse for cleaners made it to that sweltering sex hole, so be it. Not my problem.
The guy behind the counter (serious chi-mo vibes from the mustache) took his sweet ass time accepting the payment as if we hadn’t been down this road at least twelve dozen times before (yes you can take it from my phone sir you just have to hit the god damn button on your register and no I will not accept anything you are trying to offer me just cash me out and let me go), but thank heavens the transaction only took five minutes instead of the average eleven, but it was still too long for me to make any sort of much needed headway.
The black sedan was in my name, but it was far from mine. I don’t know if it felt that way because I hardly ever drove it or if it was because I didn’t pay for it with my own money. Maybe a little bit of both. Maybe that’s why I felt like there was a rock in my stomach despite everything. I jumped in and sped off, checking the time to see if I had enough of it to warrant stopping by somewhere to pick up something, anything, but I was already late and couldn’t afford to make it worse.
I sped down the backroads that would have taken anyone else longer to reach their destination, but my foot was lead against the pedal. It was just half past six and traffic on the main roads would still be a nightmare as people filtered out of their day jobs. A part of me envied them as I reached the city limits. What I wouldn’t give for their sense of normalcy. Of course, that’s how things always worked, wasn’t it? You get what you asked for, what you wanted at the time, and then you realize it’s not what you wanted at all.
For a split second I fantasized losing control of the vehicle and rolling six times off the side of the road, only to be found a couple days later by a passing tourist who got lost on their way to one of those back door access only clubs that were super exclusive. I’d either be dead or be on my way there, but if I were on my way there, I’d only end up in the hospital and receive the best of the best care until I was well enough to go home. Or maybe, just maybe, something would go wrong while I was there, and the final thing I would hear would be the drone of the heart monitor just before I lost consciousness and took my last breath.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Your guess is as good as mine.
The driveway seemed longer and more ominous than I remembered, but I think that was less to do with the actual driveway and more to do with nerves. I cut the lights early out of habit, even though it’s pointless. There’s no hiding this.
I checked my hair in the mirror before I got out. It looked a mess. So did my makeup. No time. All I could do was hope I didn’t walk in smelling like sex.
Not that he would know what that smelled like.
I take a deep breath before stepping out. In with the good, out with the bad. It’s colder outside here than in town. The sky always hangs low in the air, overcast without the promise of sun rays to break through the gloom and doom.
If I didn’t know better, I would be as bold to say it was something to do with him.
There was no quietly opening the arched front door. The solid metal trimmed wood was too heavy, the hinges too squeaky. This home was less mansion and more medieval castle, but less fairy tale and more gothic Dracula. The aesthetic was a little on the nose, but I just reminded myself that at one point in my life, this was exactly what I wanted.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I announced to the darkness within as I muscled the door closed. “Traffic was an absolute nightmare.”
Silence answers me like an old friend. Maybe he’s sleeping? Maybe he forgot, too?
“Rush hour is something awful. Everyone all in a hurry to go nowhere,” I reason with the quiet.
Shut up, Vivian, you already know you can’t lie for shit. Not to him.
The sconces on the walls sparked to life one by one, and at one point in my life, I would have been amazed at the magic show that was just for me. Don’t get me wrong, the effort was still novel, but a part of me only felt annoyance (and maybe a little bit of dread) as his footsteps echoed down the hall. The first thing the light caught was his suit, slim and trim and fashionable if you were into the gothic vampire look. He was all dark and eccentric; he was not a modern century man, but a Transylvanian prince frozen in time. Today he chose a full matte black mask that swallowed the light. I could barely see his eyes through the shadows.
He doesn’t say a word, not a single sound, as he stares down at me. I brace myself out of habit, not for anything he’s ever said or done but for everything that’s ever happened before he ever knew I existed.
I try to meet his gaze, but ultimately fail. Just another thing to add to the list.
I hear him take a breath as if he’s about to speak, but after a few seconds he flicks his wrist and the door opens behind me (never mind that I struggle with the damn thing every time I leave this house or mansion or castle or whatever it’s supposed to be called). I sidestep out of his path, and he moves past me, closing the door behind him with such force (naturally without touching it) and the candles extinguish.
I’m left alone in the dark. I almost wish he were the type to lash out. Getting angry is more than what I’ve been getting. Getting angry at least would let me know that he cares, even a little.
I catch myself rolling my shoulders, back and forth, up and down, as if I can shrug all these feeling festering inside me away once and for all. You’d think I’d know better. Fuck, you’d think I’d be used to it by now, or that if it bothered me so god damn bad that I would up and quit. One way or another, you would think I’d learn by now.
The only thing I’ve learned thus far in life is that I’m a fucking idiot.
I would send a passive aggressive text if he had a cell phone, but he doesn’t. He’s stuck in the 18th century. I’d have better luck reaching him by bird. A part of me wishes I had the know-how—I definitely have the pettiness!
Manda Kay Writes 