On the nights I work at the club, it’s business as usual. Dominic broods and prowls, monitoring the playrooms and the Epicenter. I work my ass off, fast becoming one of the most popular—and lucrative—bartenders. I even earn a special drink called The London: an Earl Grey Martini with lavender-infused simple syrup and a twist of lemon peel. Charlie’s idea, coinciding with her new playmate, who’s one of the city’s top mixologists.

The community at Crossroads is familiar now, full of faces and personalities instead of nameless customers. Everyone knows I’m Dominic’s submissive, but I’m not treated or spoken to any differently. At least not to my face. Nevertheless, I’m mindful of avoiding rumors of special treatment and offset the risk by working as hard—if not harder—than my colleagues.

Nate, Steph, and I still meet for breakfast after shifts. We do occasional movie nights, dinner dates, or shopping excursions for more accessories for my apartment. I talk to Paris several times a week and call my parents every Sunday. I pay my bills and funnel money monthly into my savings account. Once in a while, I let Steph drag me to get manis and pedis. In my private time, I binge-watch The Walking Dead and House of Cards, or read whatever latest science fiction novel my dad has recommended.

And yet, despite what could be labeled as normalcy in my life, the axis of my world has drastically shifted. The rotation was slow and subtle over the course of weeks. I barely noticed it happening, and only occasionally do I glimpse the full scope of my transformation. When I do, it’s mind-blowing.

I’m no longer an automaton going through the motions. Work. Eat. Sleep. Now, I am more. Changed. Myself and not. London 3.0, perhaps, if I didn’t recognize that thinking about myself in the third person was fundamentally bizarre.

If my axis had a wheel, Dominic Cross’s hands are on it. Since our first night together, my unconscious—my subconscious—all of me—has been consumed by him. I exist in a new state of sexual awareness and craving. Even the sight of his broad shoulders moving through the club accelerates my heart. And his touch?

I’m an addict—he is my drug.

We meet in his loft approximately twice a week. On the nights I have to work the next day, he takes it easy on me. Relatively. The other nights, though… we are gods who pray only at each other’s altars. Sacrifice and surrender, brutality and succor. And each time we’re together, I see him forgive himself a little more. Accept himself a little more. Honor himself a little more each time he honors my needs. My pain. He takes it, or maybe I give it.

Whatever it is, whatever is happening between us, it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced with another person. Despite my past, which is firmly in the do not talk about category, with Dominic I’m honest in a way I’ve never been before. I’m free to speak the truth of my body.

I don’t know what will become of me—or rather, who I’ll become. And I’d be lying to myself if I said I’m not still haunted by demons, don’t have trouble sleeping on the nights I’m not with him, or never think about Paul and the past. But when I’m with Dominic, there are no ghosts.

There is only him.

At work, we pretend we don’t seek each other out, watch each other, or trade a thousand punishments and pleasures in one look. We’ve never been to a playroom on my off hours. We don’t hide in a closet to make out. Far from it—he hasn’t kissed me since that night I woke up from a nightmare in his bed.

But there are other ways he shows me he thinks of me when we’re not together. A brush of his fingers on mine as we pass in the hallway. A book of erotic poetry left where only I would find it. And notes in my locker almost every day. I look forward to them, feel fluttery and hot with anticipation every time I get to work.

The answer is bad. The pleasure I’ve felt at his hands far surpasses any I’ve experienced—or even dreamed of—but as the days and weeks bleed by, there’s a rising emptiness inside me only his body can remedy.

Before Dominic, I never would have thought it possible to get sick of a man eating me out, fingering me, or using any number of toys to get me off. But I am. At this point, I’m not sure who he’s punishing, himself or me.

But the alternative is to walk away, and I can’t. Don’t want to. Might not ever.

In addition to the notes, Dominic also likes leaving little presents in my locker, usually with brief instructions. Ben Wa balls. A butt plug. A tiny vibrator with a wireless remote—which I learned about the hard way while chatting with a customer.

If I were a whole woman, I’d be halfway in love with him. As it is, my pain and pleasure take the place of my heart. My body is his playground, his canvas, his instrument. His inhuman restraint is my greatest agony.

I want him to break—or maybe I want him to break me. He seems to know, and before every scene he reminds me of my safe word.

I haven’t used it. Don’t want to. Might not ever.