Sophia was sitting in my leather chair, her back ramrod straight. The monitor cast a cool, blue light across her perfect face, making her ice-blue eyes seem even colder. Her long blonde hair, usually soft and flowing, seemed to hang with a kind of tension. She didn’t turn as I entered, her focus entirely on the screen.

My stomach dropped. I knew, with a certainty that felt like a physical blow, what she was looking at. My private folder. The one I’d so pathetically named “For Later.”

“What is this, Eric?” she asked, her voice dangerously calm. She still hadn’t looked at me. My mouth was dry. The words wouldn’t form. I could only stand there in the doorway, a criminal in my own home.

Her hand moved to the mouse, and with a soft click, a video started playing. The woman on the screen, a model who looked uncannily like a more brazen version of my wife, was dressed in a ridiculously slutty angel costume. The white corset was cut so low it was a miracle it held anything in, and the bottom half was little more than a thong with some sheer fabric draped over it. She was on her knees in front of a massive, powerfully built Black man.

“This one seems to be a favorite,” Sophia said, her tone flat. She gestured to the screen, where the angel was taking the man’s huge, dark cock into her mouth. “You’ve watched this video twelve times.”

“Soph, I...” I started, but my voice cracked.

She finally turned, swiveling the chair to face me. The full force of her beauty, even etched with confusion and hurt, was breathtaking. “Tell me why,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation. It was a genuine, terrifying request for an explanation I didn’t know how to give.

I leaned against the doorframe, feeling the strength drain from my legs. “It’s ... a fantasy,” I finally managed to say, the words tasting like ash. “I’ve had it for a long time.”

She just stared, her incredible blue eyes searching my face for something, anything, that made sense. Her silence was an invitation to keep digging my own grave.

“It’s about ... power, I guess,” I mumbled, looking at the floor. “Seeing someone so perfect, so beautiful ... you ... with someone who is ... the opposite of me.” I took a shaky breath. “Someone dominant. Aggressive. A Black man. Someone who would just ... take.”

The words hung in the air between us, ugly and exposed. I felt stripped bare, my most shameful secret laid out under the cold light of my office. I expected shouting, tears, maybe even the end of everything.

Instead, Sophia turned back to the computer. She closed the video, the slutty angel disappearing from the screen. For a long moment, she just stared at the blank desktop before turning back to me, her expression now one of deep, unnerving contemplation.

“This woman in the video,” she began, her voice a soft, deliberate whisper. “This angel. Is that who you need me to be?”

The question hung in the air, a lifeline and a death sentence all at once. I could only manage a single, choked nod.

Sophia stood up, smoothing down her jeans over her long, athletic legs. She walked over to me, stopping just inches away. She looked me straight in the eye, and the hurt was gone, replaced by a resolve that sent a shiver down my spine.

“Okay,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “Our Halloween party is tonight. If that’s the woman you need to see, then for one night ... that’s who I’ll be.” A dangerous glint appeared in her eye. “Is ... Shane coming tonight?”

The question hit me like a punch to the gut. Shane. A business associate I’d always despised. He was everything I wasn’t—arrogant, physically imposing, and successful in a way that always made me feel small. He was also black, a fact that now felt like a branding iron on my psyche.

“He is,” I managed to say.

Sophia just nodded, a slow, deliberate motion, and the look on her face was one I’d never seen before. It was the look of a woman accepting a challenge.

The silver mask felt cool and anonymous against my skin. I leaned against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, a glass of bourbon in my hand that I hadn’t touched for the last ten minutes. From behind the ornate filigree, I watched the party—our party—with the detached air of a stranger. I was a ghost in my own living room, just waiting.

The low thrum of music and the buzz of a dozen conversations filled the house, but I didn’t hear any of it. My entire world was focused on the top of that staircase. I didn’t know if she would actually go through with it. That conversation in my office a few hours ago felt like a fever dream, and a part of me expected her to come down in her usual, classy cocktail dress. Then, a flash of white.

It wasn’t a dress. My breath hitched. The costume was a thousand times more scandalous in person than it had been on the screen. The tiny white corset was a miracle of engineering, pushing her full, perfect breasts up and together, threatening to spill out with every breath. A sheer, ridiculously short piece of fabric hung from a thin white band around her hips, doing absolutely nothing to hide the impossibly small thong underneath, or the perfect, round shape of her ass. Her long, athletic legs seemed to go on for an eternity, accentuated by the feathery wings strapped to her back.

A conversation to my left faltered and died. I saw David, my college buddy, stop mid-sentence, his mouth hanging slightly open. The energy in the room shifted. It didn’t stop, but it dipped, like a wave pulling back before it crashes. Every single man, married or not, was staring at my wife. Sophia paused for a moment on the third step, a small, knowing smile playing on her full lips. She met my eyes from across the room, her gaze piercing through my mask.

And I felt it then—a hot, possessive pride that was so sharp it was almost painful. She was mine. This perfect, sinful angel belonged to me. They all wanted her, but they had no idea she was doing this for me. They had no idea this was only the beginning.

For the better part of an hour, my fantasy was playing out perfectly. I watched from the periphery as Sophia, my angel, became the gravitational center of the party. Men I’d known for years stumbled over their words trying to talk to her. She was radiant, powerful, and every ounce of that power belonged to me. I was feeling a smug satisfaction that was almost as intoxicating as the bourbon in my glass.

And then the front door opened.

It was Shane. He didn’t knock. The music and conversation were loud enough that most people didn’t notice, but I did. I saw him step inside and pause, his presence immediately sucking the air out of the foyer. He was the man from my screen, made flesh. He was dressed as a devil, but it wasn’t a joke costume. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, the jacket open to reveal a bare, chiseled chest. The only costume pieces were two sleek, black horns that curved wickedly from his hairline, but they looked terrifyingly real.