The April evening painted Prenzlauer Berg in shades of amber and rose. I stood outside Martin's building, watching the light catch on old facades and turn weathered brick into something almost beautiful. Six months since I'd left this neighborhood. Six months since I'd written that letter and disappeared into this other world. The window on the third floor was open. Martin's ridiculous blue curtains billowed out like flag...

I pushed myself upright; the robe shifting against skin that still registered every texture with uncomfortable clarity. "How long have I been here?" My voice came out rough, dry. "Three days," Seline replied, uncrossing her legs with practised precision. "Give or take. Difficult to tell down here, ja?" Three days. The number hung in the air between us, too clean and clinical for the fog that clouded my memory. Flashes sur...

The black Mercedes moved through empty streets with the quiet hum of expensive engineering, its tinted windows reflecting neon signs and streetlights that painted brief, colorful streaks across the glass. I pressed my back against the leather seat, trying to disappear into its warmth while my skin burned with exposure. Naked. Still completely naked in the back of a stranger's car, with only the darkness and her studied in...

The gym is quiet. Late enough that most people have gone, early enough that the cleaners haven’t started their rounds. I like it this way: space to move without bumping elbows, space to breathe without someone watching. Outside, the last stretch of sun hangs stubbornly over the city, a thin orange blade cutting through gray. The cold still lingers from the past few days, but in here, on the treadmill, warmth builds. My sh...

Three weeks since that night in the basement, and I could still feel the buzz of that room beneath my skin. Three weeks of ordinary shifts at The Foundry, wiping tables, dodging wandering hands, and watching the familiar rhythms of Klaus's operation unfold above ground. The Crows still held their corner booth. The regulars still nursed their beers. The music still pounded industrial heartbeats through concrete and steel....

Klaus’s text had arrived three days ago, blunt and unyielding: Black. Short. Tight. Clean. No bra. Leather or latex preferred. Heels. Makeup done. I’d spent the afternoon hunting through Neukölln’s back-street thrift stores: narrow, cluttered caves wedged between döner shops and auto garages. Fluorescents buzzed overhead, racks sagged under the weight of strangers’ wardrobes. Everything smelled faintly of dust, smoke, and...

The black mask was a self-imposed shackle. Its silken ties brushed her nape, a whisper against skin. A reminder of what she refused to relinquish: anonymity, distance, the line between permission and protection. Above her, the oppressive golden light of the crystal chandeliers reigned absolute. Their facets gilded the estate’s cracked facade in borrowed splendor. It had once been the pinnacle of decadence. Now, it wore it...

The Foundry squatted between a shuttered auto repair shop and a warehouse whose windows were crosshatched with plywood, the dark brick blackened with the kind of soot Berlin never bothered to wash away. No neon, no name above the door. Just a rusted plaque etched with a warped gear, more graffiti tag than sign. The entrance sat recessed in shadow, guarded by a bouncer with a neck thick as rebar, scanning the street like h...

The November cold bit through my jacket as I leaned against the concrete wall, watching the warehouse across the street. Four weeks in Neukölln had taught me that winter crept in fast here, slipping between the industrial buildings like smoke. The streetlights cast uneven pools of yellow on the cracked asphalt, and the air carried the smell of diesel and Turkish coffee from the all-night café two blocks over. I pulled my...

My keys clatter in the dish by the door. I drop my purse on the bench—muscle memory. A decade of repetition dressed as devotion. Ten years of meeting the same hazel eyes across the dinner table; of the same cock filling my holes in the dark. Bored doesn’t even scratch the surface. I find him on the couch inside, the TV glow turning him into something unreal. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t greet me. Maybe he’s bored too. Maybe...

Two days. Gone. I stared at the girl in the mirror, my mind clawing for any fragment of memory from the void between then and now. What had I done? Where had I been? The harder I searched, the more complete the emptiness became. Think, Alan... Think. Nothing. Just this yawning gap where forty-eight hours should have been. No dreams, no flashes, no half-remembered conversations or glimpses of sunlight through windows. Just...

The hammering inside my head dragged me back to consciousness like a rusty anchor scraping against concrete. I cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it. The pale morning light filtering through Martin's thin blue curtains felt like needles jabbing straight into my brain. Christ. What did I drink last night? I tried to roll over on the couch, but something felt... off. My limbs moved with this strange, weightless...

I stepped onto the campus, backpack slung over one shoulder, and felt the pulse of it: the distant hum of air conditioners, the scrape of sneakers across concrete. My chest tightened. Today was the start of college. ASU, my first class. Freshman orientation had been a blur of names and pamphlets, but now it was the real thing. The classroom doors opened, and I stepped in, scanning for a familiar face, or maybe just the on...