Dax and Annabelle dragged me along the night-dark footpath, despite my palpable reluctance. It was early evening still, but few others were around this way; it was an industrial area with the factories closed by this time. Indeed, the only thing open was the club we were heading to. Found down a tiny, quiet back street and through a discrete, black-painted door with no external signage, it was the kind of place you had to know about before you could find your way in.
They walked on either side of me, the epitome of an elegant and sophisticated couple, while I was just a tall and lanky young man kicking about between. They’d given me precious little option about coming with them tonight, though I hadn’t resisted hard either, too aware they’d never have forced the issue if I had. I owed them too much, and respected them too highly, to outright refuse anything they wanted. When I lost my family, Annabelle and Dax had given me a safe space in which to rebuild a new life and I would love them always for it. Even now, a good five years later, it was sometimes a relief to let Dax make the decisions, to let Annabelle enforce them, as she would always do, and give in to their sway.
“I’m not going to play,” I said, a token protest, even as I hated the whiny tone in my own voice. It made me sound young and beside these two I...