“Fuuuuck…” Joe whispered to himself in the darkness.

He looked over at his cell phone with great contempt. He’d lost all feeling in his arm from his subconscious attempts to reach over to the nightstand and shut if off while he slept. He wasn’t successful, obviously.

He cursed himself bitterly for not fully silencing it before falling asleep. Moreover, he wished he’d thrown it out the goddamn window. It felt like it was the worst mistake he’d ever made in his life. It felt like that could be the thing to actually doom them.

In anger he clutched the phone, first noticing that it was well past midnight, and then he wondered who possibly was calling him so late.

But deep down, he knew.

There were two missed calls—both from Danielle. And both within the last five minutes. He wanted to wonder why she was calling him so suddenly, in the middle of the night. It was totally unlike her. She generally made men call her—it was not the other way around. But, deep down, Joe knew. He knew what was going on. It was only a matter of whether or not he could accept it. The bizarre, perplexing truth—that Danielle was in some kind of a duel with Jennifer. She wanted to keep her away from him.

And then—as he stared at his phone, it buzzed with an incoming text. From Danielle, of course. It was two words:

you up?

He sat there in stunned silence for a few seconds before snapping out of it. Sighing tiredly, he ensured everything on the phone was fully silenced—all the sounds and the vibration—and he placed it back on the nightstand. Then he closed his eyes to sleep.

He didn’t hold much hope of finding Jennifer again, though. Not after that.

* * *

Joe opened his eyes. He was greeted by the smiling vixen who didn’t need to disrobe, because she already wore no clothes. He realized his defeat was about to be greatly accentuated, and that he’d be fully complicit in it. There was no defense.

He laid back on the bed, but also he was fully upright, aching like never before, and his room was bathed in thick, velvety purple light. Her hourglass figure, contoured and sensuous, was like a beautiful canvas with the intricate and dark tattoos brilliantly placed upon it. She had almond eyes that gazed into his knowingly. She smiled and her lips parted to reveal a flash of metal as she climbed on top of him. She hovered over him, her body arched, catlike, while Joe heard a bass drum pounding steadily in the background. He apparently had no say in the matter as she rode once more.