Page 1 of The Pleasure of Panic

PROLOGUE - JORDAN

The many ways in which people find sexual pleasure will never stop fascinating me, but those who enter my world typically fit into a few neat little packages.

You’ve got your standard whips-and-handcuffs people. Some like it soft, some like it hard, some stay right in the middle. But the one thing they all get off on is pain. The threat of pain, I should clarify.

Because then you’ve got your standard fighters. Lovers who like all the extremes in every direction. Anger and bliss. Honesty and lies. Loyalty and cheating. It doesn’t matter what the two extremes are, it is always black and white. They get off on pain too, but it’s mental anguish that lights their fire.

There’s a third category. The ones who crave drama outside the relationship. They’re adrenaline junkies, addicted to the portrait they paint—of themselves, of others, of the world—and how they can make people react. They like the rush that comes from unfortunate circumstance.

Then you’ve got your mind-fuckers. It’s pretty much an all-of-the-above kinda worldview. Physical pain that becomes pleasure, that becomes mental pain, that becomes pleasure, that becomes panic, that becomes pleasure.

I might be a mind-fucker.

But I don’t play the games, I just run them. So it doesn’t matter.

There are as many types of games as there are people who play them.

There are simple games, there are elaborate games, there are boring games—but who am I to judge?—and then there are games within games.

I’m sitting at the table overlooking the now-defunct lobby thinking about this next game, while Darrel Jameson, my full-time investigator since he quit the FBI and came to town to help find a lost girl for my friends, looks over the file in front of him. It’s pretty interesting if you know how to read between the lines. I do, and so does he. That’s why I use him.

“Huh,” he says.

“Right?”

“I don’t know what to think about this one.”

“So don’t think. Just get me what I need.”

“We’re gonna make waves.”

“I’ll ride them.”

“We’re gonna piss people off.”

“When don’t we?”

Darrel and I chuckle and do a fake cheers with the cut-crystal glasses we’re drinking from. There was still whiskey behind the fucking bar. Good whiskey.

“OK.” He sighs, then tips the rest of the amber liquid in his glass down his throat. He enjoys the burn for a few seconds before adding, “If you say so. I’m just the hired help.”

“Yeah, right.” I laugh. “I need it by Wednesday. This shit needs to happen on V-day, got me?”

“Got ya, boss.” And then he gets up, tips an imaginary hat, walks across the room, and disappears down the stairs with the file clutched in his hand.

I drink the rest of my Scotch, thinking about how this one might go down as I trace my target’s name in the construction dust that’s settled on the table.

I’m sitting in the old Turning Point Club. I broke in. Couldn’t fuckin’ take it anymore. I had to see what the hell was going on in here.

Which is a big, fat nothing. Just a lot of plastic over the tables and chairs downstairs, a lot of dust up here, and a lot of darkness, since the security shutters are all closed and the revolving door has been boarded up.

A whole lot of… emptiness.

Back when I used to play games, I came here. I fucked a lot of willing, deviant men and women here. But it was sold over a year ago now and it’s been sitting idle ever since. It’s driving me crazy. I’m on the brink of distraction wondering what will become of it.

I gotta get this under control.

So many things are happening in my life right now.