The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(13)
The Tower
by Jennifer Bene
A Rapunzel Story
Rebecca 'Rapunzel' Sinclair has spent her entire life in The Tower. A forty-two story monument to her father's tech company where she lives and works, trying to be worthy of Daniel Sinclair's incredible legacy. But while her father has kept her sheltered and safe, he has also made enemies, and when one of them rips Rapunzel from The Tower and takes her prisoner she is dropped into a nightmare of pain and pleasure. As her masked captor works to break her down, will she be able to face the darkness in her past, and the dangerous desires she's discovering inside herself?
The Tower Warning:
When kings make bad decisions, sometimes it's the princesses who bear the burden. Tortured, tormented, and used for dark purposes, you're in for a ride. Tread lightly, the nightmare doesn't end when Rapunzel leaves The Tower this time.
Enjoy,
Jennifer Bene
Excerpt from The Tower
Rebecca stretched as she walked across the empty apartment, the buzzing voices of the television keeping her company as she settled onto the couch. The shining white tile reflected the images moving across the screen, some sappy sweet romance movie had started while she’d been washing dishes.
No thanks.
Click. Cooking show. Click. Reality show. Click. Commercial. Click. Dad?
The volume was too low to understand the chipper looking woman on the screen, but she turned it up fast. “… to attend. Software magnate Daniel Sinclair is showing his softer side this week as he opens the Sinclair Shelter for Women. While Mr. Sinclair is well known for his contributions to technology, he’s not often caught in the public eye, but he appeared today with his daughter Rebecca as they cut the ribbon to open this…” The voice on the screen faded in her ears as she watched the flashes of images. Her father cutting the ribbon, smiling and waving at the cameras, all blond hair and dimples – the perfect CEO. Then they were both waving, his arm around her waist – a picture perfect father and daughter.
Her voice came over the surround sound speakers and she cringed, hating herself for agreeing to that damn interview. “Right. My father just wanted to, you know, do something to honor my mother’s legacy. I’m really just, uh, glad to be here for it. It’s nice.”
Nice? You’re such a fucking idiot.
The news mercifully switched back to her father, his vibrant voice filling the room for a minute as he walked the camera crew through a tour. The one and only Daniel Sinclair, practically perfect in every way.
Perfectly poised, perfectly dressed, and perfectly happy to spend all his time at the office.
She should have just gone skiing without him, invited a few friends and enjoyed herself – but no matter how childish it seemed, she missed him. Missed the days when it was just the two of them going for a run near the waterfront, or ordering Chinese and watching bad movies.
And how many years had it been since that happened?
‘Too many’, she answered inside her head.
As Rebecca sulked, taking a large drink of her wine, the reporter appeared in the frame again. “The facility is set to open in the next few weeks, and according to Mr. Sinclair’s representatives they are already in active communication with support organizations throughout the city. We can only hope others follow in his footsteps. Back to you, Tom!”
When the news anchors took back over, she slid the volume back down a little and sighed. Tapping her phone, the display revealed 10:17 in bright numbers, and she contemplated texting him. To ask when, or if, he was coming home tonight, but that was ridiculous.
She was twenty-four, not some kid.
She shouldn’t even be living at home, hell, she shouldn’t be working for her father.
But it makes him happy.
Lying back on the couch, she tilted the wine glass back and forth, watching the pale chardonnay blur the skyline outside the floor to ceiling windows. The night sky was a black hole above the city, not a star in sight with all the light pollution. If she were smart, she’d move somewhere far away, somewhere she could wake up and walk outside without going down forty-two floors in an elevator. Out of the city. Somewhere she could be someone new. Being the daughter, and thus the charmed employee, of the head of Monarch Systems had some benefits – including the beautiful, spacious, two-floor penthouse that took up the top floors of The Tower – but it also meant that she spent her whole life here.
She worked in The Tower, she slept in The Tower, and unless her friends begged her to go out, she never left. And, lately, even that was a rare occurrence.
“You’re pathetic,” she growled and lifted the wineglass. Empty. With a sigh, she pushed herself off the couch and wandered back into the kitchen to refill. The stack of papers she’d printed out lurked underneath her laptop on the crisp dining table, tempting her to just bury herself in work.
To be just like Daddy.
It was what she’d always wanted. It was one of the few things that made him smile with pride. It was why she’d killed herself to get the business degree and the art history degree. Something she needed and something she loved, but only one of them was ever going to matter. After all, how was she going to shake off the dumb blonde perception of the board if she couldn’t speak their language? If she didn’t start showing them, she knew how the company was actually fucking doing?