A Dark Star Story; Unwitting Victim

***********

The following tale concludes the story arc commencing with;

1. A Dark Star Story; Dirty Blonde

2. A Dark Star Story; Fateful Return

The story can be read in isolation.

In a wider context the tale also sits chronologically between

The Dark Star Volumes 1 and 2; Descent and Aftermath.

**********

Ari felt him cum.

Hearing his familiar groan as from behind her with his hands gripping her hips, she feels him cumming deep in her, the furious Jack hammering of his body against hers subsided almost instantly as he held himself deep inside her.

Ari's mind blurred in the exhaustion that suddenly gripped her frail body, this her latest but most prolonged of countless submissions to him in the dark confines of the claustrophobic brick walled room in which he held her captive.

Clenching pelvic muscles, she milked the last of his deposit uttering a satisfied groan as she began to feel him ease slowly from her.

Sweat coated Ari's body, she craved fresh breath as much as she required liquid to quench her painfully dry throat.

His firm hands fell around her neck, he began inexplicably releasing the collar that held tightly around her, the collar that attached to a metal chain bolted to the bear brick wall which she faced from her position on her hands and knees in the darkness.

"That was the last time."

Ari heard the words he spoke as he dropped the collar to the mattress beneath her.

She heard the words but in that moment they made no sense, she could understand them, but she could not process them.

She felt his hands fall next to the back of her head, slowly unzipping the PVC mask that clad her face.

As he peeled the mask from over her head cooler air met her sweat soaked skin and hair as she momentarily appreciated the relief.

"Wh..what do you mean?" Ari croakily offered.

She risked looking back at him as he stood, turning her head back across her PVC clad shoulder.

Dressed for him in the ubiquitous black skin-tight outfit that had adorned her body for as long as she had been kept here in the cellar of the bar she had long ago willingly walked into.

Her mind had lost track of the hours, days, weeks, or even months that she had been here.

He had brought her down here within hours of her surrendering herself to him, the night she had sought him, having full knowledge of his brutal capability. She had underestimated his threat, but she had not once resisted him. Earning her the PVC suit, which opened through the crotch, not long after she been incarcerated within the gloom. The body suit which coupled with her own little ankle boots matched the PVC mask she had worn on both occasions he had abused her submission to him prior to finding herself locked away.

Each night the sounds of the busy bar would reverberate through the floorboards. Each night and most days he would bring her sustenance and water, fresh or otherwise. She would reciprocate by giving herself to him, letting her use her how he desired.

Days into her acceptance and realisation that he had no intention of letting her go she had requested at pains that he let himself into her little bed sit and bring her the medication she desperately needed. The supply of medication the names of which he would surely have researched even though he did not mention the fact. Medication which kept her safe and well and prevented her passing on the fatal disease that lived within her.

His lack of judgement appreciated silently by Ari, perhaps only now explaining his actions, the risk too great for him.

Ari knew there were others, she was not naive to the fact, she knew she alone did not sate his lust. Long periods of time would pass without him using her, but her solitude was punctuated by the obvious sounds of others willingly or unwillingly in the grip of him or potentially the brother, who he had kept her away from throughout her incarceration.

"That was our last fuck..." he reaffirmed the words she'd heard moments before, "...I'm setting you free... you served your purpose."

"But..." Ari weakly attempted to protest, an anxiety inexplicably gripping her as she turned her head away, hearing him stand from his knelt position behind her.

Where others would find mercy in being freed from such vile circumstances she had come to accept and appreciate, the uncertainty his intensions plunged her in to scared her.

She needed him, she needed this.

"Remove the suit... leave it here... You've been replaced."

**********

Two hours later Ari unzipped her short black leather jacket from over the badly torn musky smelling dress black dress she had been handed back, alongside of what few personal effects she had carried that bleak day.

The same black dress purchased and worn for the funeral that had punctuated and defined her last day of freedom.

Ari's hands clench the sides of the dirty white sink in the bathroom of her bed sit, a tiny living space but one that was infinitely larger than the space in which she had just been held.

Facing herself in the mirror above the sink she barely recognised her drawn face.

Anxiety gripped her; her mind raced on what seemed to be a thousand emotions.

The overriding of which was the sense of rejection, of loneliness, and worthlessness.

His words echo in her mind 'You've been replaced'

Jealousy for her unknown replacement coursed through her body, unexplainable envy.

She had no idea what to do, let alone who she could turn to at this moment.

Who would even begin to appreciate her feelings and emotions? She was alone no friends she could think of, rejected by her family over twelve months ago following the devastating revelation, and the one person she most cared for dead for over three months now by the date in the front screen of her phone.

Ari was scarcely able to believe how long she had been absent from society on charging up the mobile device.

She missed him.

She missed her purpose.

She missed her nameless captor.

Ari felt her emotions rise the bile in her stomach, painfully doubling over as her stomach muscles heaved.

The display on the pregnancy test kit sat on the sink, beside the hot tap, did nothing to ease her.

The double pink line indicating the inevitable consequence of three months of regular unprotected sex.

She knew instantly she would not keep the baby that slowly formed within her.

Retching hard Ari was violently sick into the porcelain sink clenched between her slender hands.

**********

+ THREE MONTHS LATER +

Stepping across the threshold Ari looked all around her.

The place looked a little different, same lay out with far different decor, the sheer amount of neon pink lights alone really did the place no favours being her initial thought.

The name change of the venue seemed unnecessary given the reputation that had undeniably been built under former stewardship, perhaps such changes explained why even on a Friday night the venue was barely at half its capacity a little after eleven o'clock, when it should be at its busiest, the queue to enter the venue should have pitifully indicated what Ari should expect to find behind the glass fronted doors that sit off a short flight of steps from the pavement.

In truth she had only visited the actual venue twice before. Once before she had known him, the hype surrounding the place had been of intrigue to her and her friend, Melody, who had queued for as many hours as they had eventually spent at the venue. The second visit to the increasingly infamous nightclub had been for her twentieth birthday, an evening that had been arranged by her stepsister and ultimately ended with her bound submission in front of hundreds of braying revellers on the stage away to her left. Her mind recalling the shame she felt at the time, shame that had been almost instantly replaced by the delicious dark sense of satisfaction that the public humiliation had evoked within her.

Ari's lips curl to a smile on the memory of as heavy a climax as she had experienced at his hand. A climax gained not to so much by his brutal attention but by the jeering crowd who stood watching her being claimed by Logan Hughes purely for their sordid entertainment. Her face and his anonymously hidden, the first time she would been masked. There had been no remorse at the time beyond her initial shame and uncertain reticence which she could never have raised to him.

By the end of her experience, she had never felt so alive. Even as she was left bound on stage under harsh spotlights as drinks of all manner and description rained down soaking her hair and her body with the cocktail alcohol in tribute of her submission.

As she strode confidently towards the bar Ari glances left and right. Catching the eye of a group of three tall black men. All of who's eyes burn with a desire as she steps purposefully past them, offering a smirk back over her left shoulder to them collectively in reward for their attention.

She felt good, she felt empowered, her confidence exuded as a consequence, her sense of self-satisfaction increasing with each strike of her heels on the floor beneath her feet.

The floor which lay almost directly over the dungeon that Logan Hughes had kept hidden from the public in, holding her captive only for the duration of a weekend. Three nights of him at his worst, at his best, three nights of coping with the cruel demands of his heightened sexual appetite interspersed with the physical and emotional torture she had survived despite ultimately being rushed to the Accident and Emergency ward with heavy ligature marks around her neck, amongst the other unexplainable visible and invisible injuries she silently bore.

Ari shivered on the memory, everything about their relationship had been so wrong, wrong on multiple levels. A relationship born on the most sinister of propositions that had been fuelled by his dark desires and her willing in equal measure. So many times, she should have stepped away not least on the morality of everything he exposed her to, her love for him blossomed among the continue corruption and coercion, she had loved him uncertain if her feelings were reciprocated given how he continued to share a bed with her Stepsister.

Her love explained why inexplicably, even now free from his grip she missed him more than she cared to admit even to herself.

His death had plunged her unwittingly into a new chapter she had endured and survived. The excitement of the taboo, the illicit, the sexual congress that no one else could understand had always thrilled her, her past was littered with examples of impropriety, she was no one's fool. enough to deny that she came here, alone, tonight to the establishment formerly known as the Dark Star seeking an introduction or a means to discover the incongruous once again. She embraced her desire.

Ari does not know what she seeks, or who she seeks, but she seeks someone to lead her back down a path of impropriety.

Running her slender hands down her thighs from her hips she straightened the figure hugging short black strapless dress. Not for the first time slipping the garment back over her nylon clad thighs given the skirt of dresses tendency to ride up a little as she walked.

She felt good about herself, oozing confidence, her face lightly made up with her platinum hair pulled back off her face. She knew how good she looked in the little black dress that clung to her body, over the opaque black stockings and delicious new ankle strap heels. The entire ensemble purchased for this evening alone.

No longer looking around her she focuses her gaze and her route through other patrons of 'Servitu' as she heads towards the vast expanse of the main bar, illuminated in the same nauseating neon pink light.

Ari spots a familiar face and bee lines towards a gap to the far end of the bar.

Sliding up onto the black leather cushion seat of a tall chrome bar stool with a little chrome back support, Ari crosses her nylon legs caught in the corner of her eye the two young males who both turn their heads along the bar to stare at her. Ari pays neither of them any attention let alone acknowledge their existence as she leans forward across the bar from her perch.

Jamie Pierce does not acknowledge or recognise Ari's presence either. Ari watches her for a moment as she diligently and efficiently works the bar, serving drinks and organising the staff around her. Tucked away in a relative blind spot Ari takes no offence that she continues to go unnoticed rather than ignored.

"Oh my god Ari..." Jamie gasps as she looks up on finally approaching the end of the bar "How the fuck... where the fuck have you been?"

"Hey Jamie," Ari smiles warmly at the woman she barely knows but considers a friend for all that she did in those long dark weeks following Logan's death. It has been Jamie who had found her, sought her out, to break the news face to face. It had been Jamie who at the time had shattered her world, once she could bring herself to believe her that he was gone. Brutally murdered in cold blood by an as yet unknown assailant.

"I called and I called... I went around to your flat... it was like you'd disappeared of the face of the earth... you had me worried kiddo." Jamie's hands fall to her the hips of the black skirt she wears coupled with thick black tights and a tight white t-shirt branded crassly with the club's name in neon pink.

"You're not far from the truth..." Ari offered subconsciously her hand slips around her own neck, where she'd been kept collared for months on end, "...You could say I needed some head space... some time away."

"A holiday...of sorts?" Jamie quizzically offered tilting her head to the side as she pours a pint of lager expertly without looking.

"Yeah... yeah I... I was staying with an old friend... her family have a holiday home down in Cornwall" Ari spun Jamie the believable little lie knowing full well she couldn't plausibly explain the truth of her willing incarceration.

"Well, you could of at least said... or sent a postcard," Ari watches as Jamie pours a large double vodka and Diet Coke, impressed but not surprised that the expert barmaid in her remembers her drink of choice for a night out. "I mean I haven't seen or heard from you since..."

"His funeral." Ari finishes Jamie's sentence for her with a downturned smile.

"Yeah... yeah" Jamie morosely agrees.

Ari's mind passing to the last time they had met. Drinks to honour him in that little Irish Bar had gone on into the night. Jamie and Errol, who had worked at the club as Ari seemed to recall, had escorted her to a Taxi rank. Helping her find a ride home. A taxi Ari had exited barely streets away from the rank as she had walked in the pouring rain back to the Irish bar, back to the stranger whose reputation she knew first-hand from prior brutal experience at the mercy of him and his brother. She stepped into his bar knowingly and gave herself to him. He had owned her, before he had rejected her.

"So...uh this place changed." Ari offers in attempt to change the subject.

"Yeah... and not for the better," Jamie's sets the drink before Ari mouthing the words 'on me.'

"How so?" Ari pressed mouthing back the words 'thank you.' Not that either of them would have been heard over then raucous house music that blared from speakers but failed to attract even half a dance floor full time f clientele.

"You can't see..." Jamie offered "...they tore out the sole when they tore down the old sign and retro fitted everything neon fucking pink.... There's the same trappings and facets, same lurking perverts for the same private rooms but it's all about the money ...everyone has their price under the new owner ...and she's right stuck-up cunt"

Ari could not help but chuckle at Jamie's viscous appraisal, "Don't hold back Jamie... whatever you do."

"I won't ...Lo ensured that I kept a position and base wage in the handover but I'm little more than glorified bar staff." Jamie watched around her as she took the down time to speak. "I need to get out I used to love this place... I question why I stay sometimes ...it would kill him to see it like this."

"Does Errol still work here?" Ari casually asks taking a sip from the potent drink, not dwelling on Jamie's further referencing Logan, their one common denominator. Ari recalled fondly the heavy-set Head of Security with a wicked sense of humour who she had met only a handful of times.

"Errol..." Jamie offers, "Nobody knows where Errol is... he disappeared about the same time they discovered the bodies in the basement."

"Basement?" Ari offers shocked by what she hears. Her mind instantly falls to the dark memory of the bowels of the building, subconsciously she feels the noose tighten around her neck, in her mind even she questions dwelling on the word basement over the word bodies.

"Fuck me girl..." Jamie chuckles, "...do you not watch the News"

"Not really" Ari smirks "Like I said I've been ...uh busy... Um away."

"I sense I'm not getting the truth from you on how you were busy or away you were... let alone how busy you were."

Ari offered Jamie only a gentle smirk at her subtle attempt to gain further details. In-between serving customers Jamie offered snapshot details of the bodies, including the unrecognised names of the male and young female discovered buried beneath thick concrete in the basement, offering what scant details she could about the investigation and the upcoming trial. Even in death it seemed Logan Hughes was causing misery and suffering.

As she speaks, she holds Ari's attention, Ari listens intently but she casually observes everything and everyone around her.

He catches her eye instantly, tall, dark haired with a heavy stubble or a well-groomed and trimmed beard. His impeccably light colour tailored suit fits him well, even under the glow of the electric pink lights that bathe the bar in an unnatural light.

Ari feels immediately drawn to him, an attraction she cannot put a finger on but an attraction that's instant, his brooding dark looks account for the physical appeal. The manner in which he holds himself, the composure and confidence he exudes even on this fleeting glance. There is something about him, maybe only a glint to those dark eyes, even at this distance.

She barely now registers whatever Jamie says to her. Lost in a desire, a desire to discover more about this man.

"Who's the suit?" Ari offers to Jamie, throwing a subtle nod in direction of the dark-haired male. "Do you know him?"

Jamie turns her head along the bar in the direction of Ari's smouldering gaze.

"Trouble," she bluntly and immediately offers her response.

"You know me Jamie..." Ari grinned, "...I like trouble."

"Marco Mancini..." Jamie offered further details "...his Sister, Laura... the cunt, owns this place... so naturally he thinks he owns this place."

"He could own me," Ari chuckles her eyes not leaving him.

"Trust me Ari... he's all appearance and very little personality, unless you think being a total fucking asshole is an endearing quality."

Ari's mind flashed across offering to Jamie the qualities of Logan Hughes and how she had been tethered, metaphorically and physically to him but she bit her tongue on the comment knowing Jamie's fondness for the man. It had never been mentioned but Ari was certain that Jamie had not shared his bed, such was his illicit web of debauchery and deceit.

"Introduce me," Ari offered undeterred, her mind back on what is before her.

"Not a chance," Jamie's scowl immediately indicating she was true to her word.

"He seems harmless."

"Like most the males drawn to this cess pit..." Jamie chuckled, but with a serious intimation to her tone "...scratch the surface and all isn't what it seems."

"Why do you think I came here tonight..." Ari raised an eyebrow suggestively "... if not to run the gauntlet of such simple dark desires"