That was the evening everything went wildly off track in my life. I took no relish in working over the weekend, but I’d become inured to such intrusions.

Full of purpose, I’d returned to my flat with an Indian takeaway, which was eaten, as usual, straight out of the foil tins. The leftovers lurked on the edge of the desk in my bedroom; a thick red slick pooled in the bottom of the container, catching the light of my anglepoise lamp and goading me. That takeaway was the highlight of my evening, already spent and coagulating—tomorrow’s sorry rubbish. For a man in his late twenties, this was a tragic way to see out a Friday night. Ambitious as I was back then, I wondered whether my career was starting to drain the life from me.

The wind rattled my window, and the rude chill of a draught kissed the side of my neck. Telling myself that this was no night to be out and about, I pushed my thoughts onto the urgent pitch document I had to complete for Monday.

Back then, we didn’t have the internet, and laptops were neither practical nor commonplace. The file I’d toiled over in the office for the better part of the last few days lay on a floppy disc in my hand. Booting up my home PC, I pushed the disc into the drive.

The whirring of the disc drive seemed to last forever; then, a warning message flashed onto my monitor: The disk media is not recognised. It may not be formatted.

‘Fuck! Wanker! Fucking floppy!’ I didn’t make a habit of talking to myself, but I swore to myself hard, fast and often.

In resignation, I lay on my bed and turned on my little TV, bathing in its flickering glow without really focusing on what was on; my mind was on the pitch. I tried telling myself I’d go to the office the following day. What if the original file was corrupt? Maybe it was the file that corrupted the disc? Fuck!

The sooner I knew the size of my task, the better; the thought of waiting until tomorrow brought nervous energy biting at my stomach. Besides, it was a Friday evening. I had a car I barely used. Driving back to the office would be easy. And there’d be no hassle with the parking restrictions that would kick in again sometime on Saturday morning. But my bed was comfy; turning the duvet over my clothed body, I hoped to lure myself away from the impulse to return to the office. My mind knew I had to go, but my flesh was playing dead.

It was heading towards midnight when my car slid through the streets. There was that weird nighttime glow of moonlight mixed with the orange tones of the sodium street lamps. Unnatural colours washed every surface, and the world looked like a photographic negative.

As I locked up my car in the street next to the office, I noticed the gusts of earlier that evening were gone. It was cold; I regretted being in my shirt sleeves even for the short trips to and from the car. The air hung like a stalker; an eerie stillness suggested a storm attack was close. Everything looked alien, and I felt like an imposter. The sooner I could return to my warm bed, the better.

Entering the building, I flicked on the lights, dropping my keys in shock. The piercing brightness bit at my pupils. Fumbling for the keys, eyes half shut, I flicked the lights off. The dancing burns on my eyeballs faded like the waning hallucinations of a bad trip. My pupils adjusted and I could see well enough in the orange glow that poured through the windows. Making my way up to my office floor with the lights off, I took the stairs to avoid the brightness of the lift. Punching the key code, I stepped inside.

Everything was recognisable yet unfamiliar. In the half-light, I didn’t see less; I saw differently. Features unseen in the glare revealed themselves in the shadows. Textures blown away by daytime brightness become profound in the revelation of nighttime gloom.

Reaching my desk, I froze to the spot. Not trusting my eyes, I gave a couple of hard blinks. But the picture didn’t change. Curled up in my office chair, still as a corpse, was Dawn, semi-naked.

Dawn was a junior account exec, but until that day, I’d fallen into the trap of believing she was inconsequential.

Her long, dark eyelashes went unnoticed. She hid her eyes away beneath thick, ugly tinted glasses. Her voluptuous backside had escaped me. Dawn habitually wore cheap, boxy, dark suits with skirts and jackets that would disguise the curves of a skateboard park, let alone a slip of a woman in her early twenties.

Until that night, her beautiful almond-shaped face had never caught my eye. So, the way it transformed when she smiled, going from long and slim to broad at the jink of her lips, passed me by too.

Her appalling handwriting was the only thing about her that had taken a brief moment of my attention. I’ll confess that it struck me as quite juvenile. It was another reason to pay scant attention to Dawn; my instinct was that she’d be of little use to me professionally.

Each morning, Dawn would say hello to me in a lingering fashion. That was mildly irritating; she seemed needy. My response was unfailingly polite, of course, but that was all. I’d lift my eyes for the barest moment to save being rude, carefully avoiding catching her gaze directly for fear of perpetuating the exchange.

But daytime Dawn—dumpy, frumpy Dawn—was very different from the Dawn of that night, fast asleep in my chair.

She’d removed her boxy suit, blouse, and thick glasses. Counterintuitively, it seemed, she’d tied her hair back: she usually wore it loose and cheaply cut, masking what I now saw was the gentle sweep of a refined jawline. Her mouth lay slightly open, her teeth just on show, perfectly symmetrical and somewhat cat-like, seductively catching her lower lip on each side.

Where she lacked taste and discernment in her outer clothing, her underwear was exquisite. She wore light stockings held up by a suspender belt that looked, in that strange cast, to be of a pastel shade, with panties and a bra to match. Everything met my eye with a pleasing, simple sophistication; it was expensive lingerie, well beyond the means of a girl on Dawn’s salary. Not that she looked like a girl anymore. Suddenly, unmistakably, Dawn was a woman.

It didn’t appear that she worked out much. Consequently, her body had a delightfully soft, natural look, like the flesh of a fruit ripened perfectly to its eating point. There wasn’t much fat on her, but a slight sensuous belly sat between her knickers and rib cage, begging for kisses. My eyes couldn’t help but fall on the curls of dark pubic hair teasing out of the top of Dawn’s panties and the soft curve of her long thigh running down to a beautiful knee that was so perfectly structured it looked sculpted from marble.

Transfixed, I had the stiffest erection and no way past Dawn to my work PC without waking her.

It didn’t feel right to touch her, even on the shoulder. Racked with guilt for looking, the gentleman in me resolved to restore her modesty, albeit after a less than gallant pause. Dawn moved a little when I picked up her jacket and lowered it over her torso, but she remained perfectly asleep.

My desk lamp clinked loudly in the stillness of the office as it blinked into life at the press of a switch. It cut a hard pool of bright yellow into the dim orange glow pouring in through the windows.

The bright light woke Dawn sharply. She shot upright, staring straight at me.

‘Mr, err, Chris, um.’

Her boxy jacket fell to the floor; I retrieved it, handing it to her. Dawn took the jacket but didn’t attempt to cover herself with it.

‘I’m sorry to wake you; it’s just there’s a file I need from my PC.’ Dawn blinked, but otherwise, her stare was disconcertingly unwavering. Not wishing to make Dawn uncomfortable, my eyes had nowhere to rest other than directly on hers.

‘Are you okay?’

Dawn blinked again. That’s when her dark eyes struck me for the first time. Her head sat above the beam of the desk lamp, and the whites of her eyes seemed to glow pink in the strange light. She glanced down at her cleavage, and my eyes followed reflexively, only for hers to bounce back up. A smile broke across her face as she caught my gaze again before shifting hers onto the erection straining in my trousers.

‘Let me help you with that, Chris.’

‘Well, I err-’ Much as I willed my throat to remain still, it betrayed me, swallowing hard and making me feel like a nervous teenager.

‘The file, Chris.’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘Let me help you get your file.’ She seemed to be feeding on my excruciation.

As Dawn smiled, her slim almond face broadened, and I first saw that miraculous transformation. Her wide lips drew me in. Dawn appeared innocently unconcerned about her lack of modesty.

Part of me wanted to atone for my previous lechery by imploring Dawn to get dressed. But since she seemed untroubled by her lack of clothing, I let the point hang. I’d made an effort to restore it twice, after all. Surely Dawn would cover herself up if that’s what she wanted?

‘How are you feeling? I’ve some Alka-Seltzer somewhere if you’re in need?’

Dawn smiled at me again; the negative light highlighted her full lips and soft cheeks.

‘Oh, thank you, Chris, but I’ve not been drinking. I feel fine. Just thirsty, actually.’

‘Ah! Okay. It’s easier if I just, err, sit there and get the file myself. My PC’s a bit of a mess, to be honest.’

‘Of course, Chris, sorry, I’m in your way.’ That smile again. My eyes locked nervously onto her face, still too uncomfortable to look elsewhere.

Dawn got up from my chair and slipped into some stilettos she’d kicked off beneath my desk. My feet froze to the spot. She started to squeeze out behind me, and the softness of her bosom brushed against my back. I slid along the desk to give her room, but that only heightened the sensation of our bodies rubbing together.

Sitting down, I booted my PC, taking a new floppy from my drawer to format. My chair eased back a little as Dawn placed her arm on the top, and in the periphery of my vision, I could see her standing close. Her scent was like a forest floor. Breathing a little deeper than necessary, I drew more of it in. My erection stiffened and pulsated just from that aroma.

‘Would you like some water, Chris?’ I swallowed hard.

‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

The route to the water cooler was straight ahead of my desk. Dawn made no attempt to dress. Indeed, she had discarded the jacket I’d handed to her. As she walked to get the water, I was in agony, trying to resist looking at her barely clad body. I held off, but only for a fraction of a second. My eyes shot to her butt, beautifully framed between her stockings and suspender belt. From the back, her panties were little more than a couple of strings neatly fringing a full and rounded bottom that bounced delightfully as her heels hit the floor. There was a pair of tiny, dark freckles on her right cheek. They looked haughty, almost wicked, somehow, as they teased my imagination and heightened the sense of guilt at my surreptitious surveillance. How could a girl so awkward in her clothes become so supremely confident in her underwear? At that moment, the awkwardness was all on me.

Dawn reappeared with two plastic cups of water, moving towards me as though on a catwalk. My eyes could not find a way to look at her—even in the eye—without betraying my discomfort, so I kept them moving between my monitor and the glass of the partitioned offices nearby, hoping to steal a glance at her backside in the reflections. But I could see nothing. I was shivering slightly as she placed the water on my desk.

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s a pleasure, Chris.’

Then Dawn squeezed in behind me again, looking over my shoulder at my PC as I sensed her body heat and drank down more of her intoxicating, earthy scent.

It took me moments to locate my file. I formatted a new floppy and copied the document across to it. My nerves made me eject it quickly, rising as I grabbed it from the slot.

‘No, Chris. That was too quick; the light on your drive was still blinking. That’s how you corrupt a disc.’

She leant forward, sending me sliding back down into my chair. Her breasts hung quivering before my eyes as she bent over, taking the disc from my hand. My cock was convulsing. I was desperate for her.

Dawn walked to her desk. It was ahead and slightly to the right, side-on towards me.

‘I’ll check this quickly. We don’t want you being corrupted, Chris.’

I swallowed hard, transfixed by her breasts swinging forward as she ducked to start her PC and then again to put the disc in her slot. It felt okay to look a little; I had a legitimate interest in my disc. But I could feel my veins pulsing with blood at the entirely illegitimate interest of my dick. I tried to push my eyes down to her ankles, but her long legs kept dragging them back up to the teasing pubes, the soft belly, and those luscious breasts shaking with each click of her mouse.

‘You’re a very lucky boy, Chris. This one’s fine.’

Dawn walked back to my desk.

‘We’d better cross-check this on your PC, Chris.’

She stepped beside me and leaned across. It would all have been perfectly innocent if it weren’t for her state of undress. Pulling back to give her room, I improved my view of her smooth, pale back. I attempted to cast my eyes to the side to assuage my discomfort, but they fell on the tiny hint of buttock cleft rising above the waistline at the back of her panties. To avoid betraying my lust, I tried to silence my deep breathing.

‘Chris?’ I jumped, like the guilty man I was. Dawn had dropped her head and was looking directly at my lecherous gaze under her armpit.

‘Sorry! I was, err, miles away.’

Dawn twisted around slowly, sitting on the edge of my desk and fixing my eyes with her gaze. It was an inquisition. This time, my eyes resolutely refused to meet hers. I stared at my PC, hoping to look purposeful somehow.

‘Am I making you uncomfortable, Chris? I’m sorry, I suppose I don’t have too much on.’

‘No, not at all, that’s fine. I’m just...’ She was pretending to be ignorant of her seduction, just as I was pretending to be oblivious to my arousal. But I couldn’t find the next word. She broke the impasse.

‘Chris, if I asked you a question, would you give me a candid answer?’

I was squirming now. My heart was racing.

‘Of course, I’ll be candid with you, Dawn.’ I could barely breathe from the tension that gripped me.

‘Is my body as you’d expected it might be?’ There was a dense pause. ‘Chris?’

I was burning with embarrassment.

‘Um, err, I’ve not been paying much attention; I mean, before tonight or tonight itself, um. To be honest. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, you’re lovely. It’s just, well, it would be rude for me to look, of course.’

Dawn interrupted my babbling.

‘Okay. Now, how about giving me a candid answer, Chris? The truth. And not some version of the truth you might invent to escape your discomfort.’

I exhaled. My head fell into my hands.

‘Christ, Dawn. What do you expect? I walk in here and find you half-naked in my chair. Yes, I got an instant raging hard-on. Yes, I was shocked by how different you are in the flesh. Umm, well, that’s not what I… you know what I mean. Yes, it’s taking all my powers of discipline not to look at you. Yes, I haven’t wholly succeeded. I’m sorry! I try! But I’m just a bloke!’

‘Are you worried about your girlfriend? Wife? What they might think?’

‘That’s outrageously forward!’

‘Yes, Chris. It is.’

Her directness left me stunned. She was not about to break the pause now. Or to take her eyes off me. I was quite a few years older than Dawn; how did someone so young and typically so diffident suddenly possess such confidence? How had she taken me, usually so assured, and rendered me so helpless to her advances?

‘I don’t have a wife. Or a girlfriend. At least not a steady one.’

‘Chris?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can look at me, Chris; I don’t mind.’

I did look at Dawn. But, yet again, there was nowhere I could make myself look other than straight into her eyes.

‘Would you like to fuck me, Chris?’

My mouth was open, but nothing was emerging. It felt like every conceivable response to Dawn’s question ran through my head. I was desperate to fuck Dawn, but it seemed so strange, so weak almost, simply to say yes. But I’d already answered with my eyes. Dawn lent towards me and slid off the desk. Bending at the waist, she pulled me towards her body, grazing her soft lips past my ear and into the side of my neck. Slowly, we stood upright, and our lips teased around to one another’s ears. Her breasts gently moved up and down on my chest as she breathed. I ran my hands down her smooth back and rested them on the lightly padded tops of her hips. Her mouth brushed across my cheek and fell onto mine.

There was a minty, almost metallic tang in Dawn’s deep kisses. Softly, she parted my lips with hers; our mouths played and teased together. Her tongue joined in slowly, carefully, drawing mine into a gentle joust. There was a subtle hint of perfume on her skin. Or was it the scent of someone else?

Gently, I pushed Dawn away. I was desperate for her flesh but couldn’t move this fast. It felt so right, but everything about it was wrong. Besides, there were too many questions.

‘I’m sorry. I’m confused, Dawn. The way you dress, normally, it’s quite different, err, from how you are, um.’ Once more, I’d started a point I was unsure how to finish. To my relief, Dawn took over.

‘You mean, why do I dress like a frump?’ Yet again, my eyes answered before I had the wit to stop them.

‘That’s a long story, Chris, for another time. Let’s just say it’s a costume with a purpose. Over time, there are things I’ve learned, and right now, it serves me to be plain and unthreatening. Though it won’t serve me forever.’

Fascinated as I was, I decided not to pry. At least not at that moment. Dawn took hold of my shirt collar and pulled me towards her.

‘Anyway, Chris, you’ve blown my cover. But my secret can’t be shared, not with anyone. It’s only for you.’

Dawn leaned in and kissed me on the neck. I froze as her teeth pinched my flesh, fearing she was about to mark me with a love bite somewhere blatant. But Dawn was teasing at my discomfort. She walked through shadows to her desk and took a mackintosh from her chair, securing it around her with the belt. Her short mack usually ended awkwardly, with her boxy jacket poking out below. But now it simply accentuated her fine legs, which my gaze followed down to her heels. Dawn’s dark eyes collected mine for a brief moment.

‘Let’s do this properly, Chris.’ Then she turned and walked through the main office door and into the corridor.

For a moment, I stood paralysed with intimidation at her dark power. But my cock was surging. I snapped out of my head and followed, thirsting for more of her.

The corridor was long and dark, illuminated only by occasional pools of dim orange light spilling through the glass doors punctuating its length. Dawn flashed into relief in those pools, almost disappearing in the gloom between them. The sharp stabs of her stilettos ricocheted off the wooden floor and hard walls. She strode confidently, and I broke into a jog to catch her. It was pathetic running after her, but I took that as a penance for not following her confidently as she left.

Dawn was opening the heavy doors to the fire stairs when I caught up.

‘Here, let me help.’ I was desperate to ask where she was taking us. But that seemed weak. So I stayed silent and tried to look assured.

‘Thank you, Chris.’

The fire escape stairwell was glazed, with views across the rooftops of the night city. Dawn stepped towards the large metal concertina doors of the service lift.

‘That’s still broken, I’m told. Crazy. Never seems to work for more than a few days.’

Dawn smiled. With quiet certainty, she pulled the doors back. Flinching, I half expecting to see the exposed lift shaft. We stepped together into the oversized lift car. As I pulled the doors shut, we plunged into pitch blackness.

‘Wow!’ I spoke softly, ‘those doors are stiff! How did you-?’

Before I could finish, Dawn pulled me into her and found my lips again. She opened her mack and guided my hand onto her breast. It was soft and cool, warming quickly to my touch.

With a violent shake and an intense shriek, the lift sprang into life and started a slow descent. A faulty light bulb was struggling into life, illuminating us in bright, strobing bursts. Startled, I’d pulled back from Dawn. In the flickering light, I could see her hand over the lift controls. She brought it back to my cheek, and the lift stopped dead. I wanted that strobing light to return for the hard visuals that punctuated the sensual darkness. I fumbled for the controls, pressing the buttons, but there was no response. Dawn reached for the controls again, and the lift shook back to life with a metallic scream as it fell.

It was my first time in the basement of that building. I’d never needed to venture there before, but it seemed like familiar territory for Dawn. A long, narrow corridor ran perpendicular to the lift doors. Dawn flicked on a light without looking at the switch. About twenty feet away, a florescent tube blinked into life, revealing at least six more dead lights in the corridor. But we turned neither left nor right. Immediately opposite the lift was a door. Dawn reached up with one hand and felt along the top of the frame, finding a key; her other hand was around my wrist. I couldn’t decide whether the wrist thing was weird or cute. She unlocked the door. We stepped into the pitch-blackness beyond.

Dawn pushed me backwards, and my hands went behind me instinctively to break my fall, but inches away was something hard and metallic. It was a water tank, and the air had a warm dankness to match. There was nothing to see but the dancing photons burned into my retinas. Dawn’s lips found mine again; she unbuttoned my shirt from the bottom up, making light brushes against my throbbing cock as she pulled my shirt tail from my waistband. She held my lips with hers as she unbuttoned my shirt to the neck, pulling it down my back and tying it tightly around my cuffed wrists. Her hand grasped my neck as she pulled me upright and guided me deeper into the space, the warm tank brushing my left side. After a few steps, the acoustics seemed to shift. I could no longer feel the tank. Suddenly Dawn was spinning me around and pushing me back. My stomach flipped into my mouth in panic as I fell, desperately trying to free my hands to break the landing. But the landing was soft and cool.

‘Fuck! Dawn!’

I was lying, confused, on a leather sofa. I’d never been so blind, so disoriented.

‘Trust me, Chris.’

‘What the fuck is this place?’

‘I’m not sure, Chris. It’s how I found it. And it’s perfect.’

Dawn’s lips were right next to my ear, and her body forced mine into the back of the sofa. My hands were tied fast behind my back, and she unbuckled my belt and slid my trousers down to my ankles. Dawn was over me now, her lips straight onto mine. Her mack brushed my skin before it fell to the floor, followed by the soft sound of fabric sliding across her flesh. Her scent had shifted a little in the warm humidity, giving it an unexpected edge of freshness in contrast to the surrounding air. She moved a leg over the naked stretch of my thigh just below my boxer shorts. Her soft pubic hair brushed against me as she held her panties in one hand and drew them slowly up my torso and onto my nose. She teased me with the crotch, and I drew in the tang of sex, shuddering with the thrill of her so close, so commanding. Dawn thrust those panties into my mouth as a gag. I was powerless, electrified.

She straddled me with a knee on either side of my hips. There was the unmistakable sound of her removing her bra, before she dangled it across my chest. Rising to her knees, Dawn pushed her fingers into my boxer shorts and slid them down my thighs. Then she eased down onto me, sending my pulsating cock wild by brushing it with the pubes of her pussy as she gyrated slowly around my groin.

Dawn ran her lips across my neck, biting it softly as she drifted a hand up and down my stomach, easing closer to my cock with each pass. I shook with the anticipation of her fingers reaching the head of my cock, but just as I thought it was happening, she teased to the side and made soft circles under my balls with her fingers. Gradually, Dawn widened the circles, goading the ridge of my cock with touches that drew ever closer to the tip. As she reached the head, she started the circles again, tiny brushing movements that ran wider until my cock was firmly in her grip. She eased the tip inside her. Her soft dampness embraced my cock as her fingers stroked my balls. In my mind, I tried to picture her breasts rocking as she rotated her hips gently and ground into me. My groin and balls were soaking with her juices. Her hand rubbed them from my pubes onto her clit.

I thrust back at Dawn as much as I was able. She moved more than enough for both of us, dancing against me in a rhythm that slowly built in intensity. There was a beat to it that drove a haunting tune in my mind. My eyes shot into the back of my head as my ecstasy built. She was close to orgasm and knew that would tip me over. I didn’t want to come inside her. As I screamed at Dawn through my gag, she just placed a hand over my mouth, moaning and gyrating harder. Rushes of energy ran from my groin down my legs and up to my head. Dawn’s moans became howls.

The depths of her pussy convulsed into orgasm. I bit down on her panties, desperately trying to hold off my climax, but I was too close to the edge now. As my balls tightened, she moved her hand from my mouth, sliding it to the back of my head.

Then she struck.

The searing pain as she bit down made me cough her panties clear from my mouth. I tried to scream, but an intense ecstasy stole away the pain. My cock was shooting hard into Dawn as she fed on my neck. She was draining me from both ends, and two distinct orgasms gripped me. The orgasm in my neck was as terrifying as it was thrilling. As she drew the life from me, I lived the ecstasy of a thousand deaths. There was no fight in me. My life seemed like a small price to pay for that sensation, even though the dread of my demise hung like a dark undertone. As my life force flowed out of me, my consciousness rose from my head.

Then, Dawn stopped.

The pain as she withdrew her teeth brought me crashing back into my body. I was shivering, weak, and spent. The warmth of Dawn’s body pulled away, and the chill in my core rendered me motionless. My soul was locked deep in my head, wandering in the voids of my body as though it were a decrepit cathedral.

‘I don’t know why, Chris, but you’re one of those I have to keep.’

I could hear the rattle of a box of matches as Dawn reached into her mack. The biting of the match head against the emery brought light to my eyelids. I desperately wanted to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t move. There was a flickering light now. I started to convulse. Dawn’s hand caressed my cheek. My eyes shot open.

In the flickers of candlelight, Dawn’s dark eyes locked onto mine. Softly, she lowered her breasts onto me, holding me to bring me warmth.

‘I’m still hungry, Chris, and now I need to bring you back. You’ll learn to hide in plain sight, like me. You’ll spot the gaps between the masses. We’ll live below and between.’

Dawn rose to her knees, straddling me. Her physical perfection was appalling, intoxicating. One by one, she swung her knees towards my head and gently lowered her pussy onto my lips. My mouth parted a little.

‘Drink, Chris. Your mouth is dry.’

Swallowing made my mouth feel like rock. Dawn’s juices flowed in, coating my throat a little. I couldn’t bring myself to swallow again.

It took all the energy I had just to look at Dawn weakly as she climbed off me and tied her mack around her naked body. She covered me with my clothes, but I felt no warmth. My mouth was open, and motionless. I was barely breathing.

Dawn leant in to kiss me. I had no energy to respond.

‘I’ll see what the night has to feed us, Chris. I’ll be back for you before first light.’