Chapter 1
Damon Venom:
Charity galas all have the same smell of expensive cover-ups. Perfume is fighting a losing battle with sweat. Roses past their prime, arranged in glass that isn’t meant to be touched. The air itself tastes of metal and the echo of too much laughter. I’ve chased the night with three magnums of Bollinger, Heat pools under my suit, but the man across from me is worse. He's a Wall Street rodent, hauled from the Hudson, dried, and zipped into Tom Ford. Someone’s idea of a resurrection.
He talks about sustainable plastics. His mouth moves, but his words never reach me. Static, white noise. I watch the shape of his lips as he drinks, precise and careful, as if waiting for me to respond. But I have nothing to give. Not tonight.
Kate is gone. She’s the only one in LA capable of making these rooms bearable, but she’s already on her way to the airport, still furious about Romania being a downgrade from Milan—a joke I recycled, not even my own. “Have a good shoot. Hope your client actress isn't too much of a diva. I love you” felt too small for someone like Damon Venom. Maybe I wanted the argument. Maybe I just wanted her to stay.
Another glass, then another. The cold isn’t quality; it’s just numb. My hand is steady, but only because I keep it full. The tablecloth beneath my fingers is crisp, seamless at a glance, but I see every flaw tonight. I see through everyone.
A photographer tries for a candid. I catch him in the act, raise both glasses, and give him a look so obscene it belongs backstage at a hair-metal tour. He fake-flinches, but his camera clicks. “Tag me, babe,” I tell him, letting the words drag out. He’s already backing away, eager to sell the shot.
Across the ballroom, my publicist is watching. Her smile is a warning. Her jaw is a blade. I ignore her. She’s counting the seconds.
She’s at my side before the thought is finished. “Damon.” Her presence leans in, an interruption disguised as concern. “Let’s get a quick reset before you repeat last month's debacle.”
I hold her gaze, glass halfway to my lips. “I’m not broken,” I say. “I’m just running on the newest software. Bluetooth, litter box, all the features.” I drink, and this time it stains my shirt.
Her sigh is the sound of someone erasing years from their own life. “Please. This is the ASPCA gala, not one of your concerts. Pretend for a moment you like any of these people.”
I lean closer. “You know why cats bury their waste? Not about being tidy. It’s about not leaving a trail. Stealth.” I tap my lips. “That’s where I am, right now.”
Her patience is a thread about to snap. “Just do your interviews, Damon. Be charming. Mention the album. And for once, don’t compare ‘cocaine’ to Baby Bottle Pops.”
I snort, but she’s already gone.
The step and repeat is a slow-motion disaster. Every second with my own face is a second stolen from my life. I pose, I mock myself, I smolder, I cross my eyes. Someone hands me a rescue kitten, and it claws deep before shitting on my Versace. The cameras love it. A Variety reporter asks about my tour, and I tell her it’s like this kitten: impulsive, sensitive, sometimes messy. She laughs like the joke is new.
She asks my favorite animal. “Cats,” I say, and show her the scratch. “Fun fact: most cats have retractable claws, but cheetahs don’t. Makes them bad at trees, good at chasing. Only difference between a cheetah and me is the spots.”
She blinks. “You have spots?”
I gesture to my ruined sleeve. “Tonight, I guess I do.”
The lights pop and blur. Maybe this is what blackout feels like, the slow leak before the collapse.
Somehow I land at a high table with a reality star whose smile could power the city. He’s talking about a charity project—a collagen supplement, for underprivileged dogs. I nod along, already drifting away.
The gala is a terrarium. Everyone is observing themselves, no one actually living. Women in bandage dresses, men with faces smoothed into sameness. Waiters move with trays, but no one’s really eating. I grab a canapé, chase it with champagne, and almost lose it when I see Kate’s sister in the corner.
Not Kate. Just her shadow, in a headset and heels. She sees me, sighs, and moves on. For a moment, I feel something, but I swallow it.
The MC takes the stage. “Thanks to tonight’s platinum sponsors, including Damon Venom and the Hart Foundation.” The clapping is automatic. I raise my empty glass and realize I need a refill.
In the next room, the silent auction. I wander, looking at the prizes. There's a yacht trip, a month of spa treatments, diamond collars for cats. I scribble a bid on the last one, “Meow Mix CEO.” A woman in a dress laughs, small and bright. I don’t know if she’s laughing at me or with me.
A mirror catches me. Tie crooked, hair wild, eyes like something dug out of an attic. I snarl at my reflection, just to see if I can make myself jump.
I can’t.
Back in the ballroom, the program limps onward with speeches, testimonials, and a video that stitches together sad-eyed kittens and Coldplay’s “Fix You.” At least it's not that Sarah McLachlan song. I clap off-beat, on purpose. I want to see who notices. No one does.
The urge to tear something beautiful apart rises in me, thick and insistent. I scan the crowd, searching for the right target.
There he is. The host, a washed-up sitcom dad who has managed to distill his rerun money into a sanctimonious animal charity. I cut across the room and insert myself into his live interview with a local news crew.
“Damon!” he says, beaming at me like we’re old friends and not hostile survivors of last year’s cocaine-soaked fundraiser. “Tell us why animal rescue is so important to you.”
I lean toward the camera. “Did you know that in ancient Egypt, killing a cat could be a death sentence? True story. Meanwhile, here, I’m pretty sure you can murder as many cats as you want as long as you write a big enough check.”
The silence that follows is absolute. Even the camera operator recoils.
I show my teeth in a smile. “Not that I recommend killing cats. I just recommend writing bigger checks.” I take the host’s glass and drain it, live on television.
The newswoman’s eyes latch onto mine like I might explode, but she recovers. “What’s your message to the fans tonight?”
“Spay and neuter your pets,” I say with a wink. “And always tip your bartenders.”
That’s when my publicist materializes, her face blotched red. She grabs me by the sleeve, voice low and furious. “If you want to set fire to your career, at least wait until I’m off the clock.”
“I’m doing this for the animals,” I mutter, and burp in her face for emphasis. She shoves me toward the bar.
The champagne is gone. They say never to mix, but I always do. I order a vodka tonic. The bartender pours with hands that shake, his eyes flicking to the bouncer. He’s weighing whether to kick me out now or wait until dessert.
I down the drink. Across the room, a cluster of influencers is live-streaming from a velvet couch. I stagger over, wedge myself into their frame, flip off the camera, and launch into my best cat facts monologue.
“Cats sleep for seventy percent of their lives. I respect that. If I had my way, I’d be napping instead of listening to these”—I gesture at the influencers, one of them gaping at me in horror—“these units of human flesh tell each other they look amazing. Also, cats have over twenty muscles in their ears. That’s nineteen more than anyone needs to ignore this party.”
The girl with the phone just stares. I reach over, steal a strawberry from her drink, swallow it whole. “You’re welcome for the content,” I say. “DM me if you want more.”
Her friend whispers, “Is that Damon Venom?” I shout “In the flesh!” loud enough for the crowd to turn. For a moment—the attention, the chaos—I feel something close to peace. The part of me that craves disaster is humming.
Time blurs. Maybe an hour passes, maybe ten. I tell the same three stories to four different people, each time stretching the truth a little farther. I ask a Senator from Montana if he’s ever had to choke a bobcat with his bare hands. He says no, but his wife’s lapdog bit his finger once. I call him a coward. He laughs, but the pain in his eyes is real.
I stand and make a toast to Kate, who is not dead but might as well be, given her absence. I say she’s with a client filming in Romania. Someone asks if that’s near Hungary. I say everything is near Hungary if you’re hungry enough. No one gets it, but they laugh anyway.
Eventually, the crowd thins. The air is heavy with the spent fuel of ambition, the sharp tang of spilled Prosecco. My vision tunnels as I drift toward the bathroom.
There’s a certain punishment, a special kind of purgatory, reserved for men too drunk to operate zippers. I’m drowning in it now, every step away from the ballroom peeling away what’s left of my dignity. By the time I reach the corridor, I feel stripped raw, leaking alcohol, regret, and something sharp and metallic on my tongue that might be blood but is probably just shame. The restroom sign glimmers ahead, a blinking beacon as my eyes blur and swim behind my skull.
Inside, the light is ruthless. Flat, white, the kind that exposes everything. The urinals stand in a line, white ceramic monuments, each one gaping open—a shark’s mouth, slick and toothy, waiting for whatever fool stumbles too close. The drain at the bottom is an open threat, a dark throat flexing, hungry. I hesitate, staring. I think it stares back. In fact, I know so, because I swear I hear the squeak of a balloon and a quirky voice call me Georgie from the pipe below.
“No,” I mutter. “Not today.” The only reply is the constant hum of the fluorescent lights above.
The stalls are all locked, shoes visible beneath the doors, each pair in a different stage of surrender. I need to piss so badly it hurts. The world tilts and swims. If I risk the urinal, I’ll end up on my knees, pants tangled, face pressed into that gaping maw. Somehow, that feels less funny than it should.
The sink is a safer bet. Horizontal, stable, and garish enough to deserve the punishment. Whoever picked out this marble slab thought it made a statement, now it does. I stumble to it, unzip, and let gravity carry the burden. The relief is absolute, a flood, and I tip my head back, eyes shut, moaning out loud.
I’m lost in it long enough that I don’t hear the door. The first sign I’m not alone is the sound of expensive shoes on tile with a hard, deliberate crunch.
“You have got to be kidding me,” a voice says. It’s the voice that’s fired people for sport, the same one that once told me to “embrace sobriety as a branding opportunity.” The record label executive. His face is all calculation and cold ambition, nothing wasted, nothing soft. Either way, I can't remember his name.
I don’t stop. “Hey, you ever notice the urinals in here look like the inside of a shark’s mouth?” I jerk my chin at the nearest one, nearly overbalancing. “I don’t trust it.” The kittens would thank me. Doubt they trust sharks either.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, visibly disgusted, as if he could walk back every choice that led him here. “Can you not? Just use the facilities like a normal person—”
“Normal’s overrated.” I give the faucet a companionable slap. “You want to try? The water pressure’s top notch.”
He doesn’t answer. He crosses to the urinal, unzips with the brisk efficiency of a man determined not to spend one second longer than necessary in my company.
I keep him in the edge of my vision, partly because I’m still going and partly because making people uncomfortable is a hobby. Plus, I'm curious if his name is the one that's Georgie. At this point, I'm hoping yes. “Hey,” I shout over, “did you know cats can’t taste sweetness? That’s why they’re always so bitter.” I finish, shake off, and turn to face him, hands braced on my hips. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
He flushes, not looking at me. “I run a label, Damon. I know every animal fact there is. I work with you.”
“Ouch.” I press a hand to my chest in mock agony. “That’s why you’re the executive and I’m just the talent.”
He moves to the sink and stops short. There’s a frothing puddle at the drain, the aftermath of my decision. He stares at it with something close to holy loathing.
“Oh, hang on,” I say. I muscle in, rinse the sink with a handful of water, then gesture grandly. “All yours. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
He washes his hands in silence. The air thickens with it, the tension almost electric.
I lean against the counter, watching him in the mirror. “You know, I used to be terrified of letting people down. Now I just think it’s hilarious.” I flash my teeth at him, whiter than I expect under this glare.
He dries his hands, flicks the paper towel at my feet. “We’re announcing the tour dates tomorrow. Try to show up sober.”
I salute him with two fingers, smiling. “No promises.”
He leaves, the door swinging behind him, and for a moment it’s just me and the echo of my own breathing. I wash my hands, harder than necessary, then splash my face with cold water and stare at my reflection. I search for the monster everyone keeps warning me about.
All I see is myself. That’s the real horror.
I dry off, button up, and swagger out like I belong here. Maybe I do. Maybe nothing matters but the next round.
I’m ready.
The light outside the bathroom is too bright, the kind that strips you bare, unforgiving. My mouth now tastes like unpolished old coins. I know because I licked one in fifth grade on a dare. The hallway is empty except for a woman in a sequined jumpsuit, her eyes raking over me before she lets out a derisive snort. I give her two finger-guns and a wink, something so unhinged it should come with a warning label. She turns away, repulsed. I don’t blame her. Right now, I wouldn’t choose me either. Kate didn't.
But I know who would. There are two million people out there, glued to their phones, waiting for me to self-destruct. It’s what they want. They crave for a spectacle, a trainwreck, a dopamine drip. I’m already reaching for my phone, thumb trembling. The battery’s nearly gone, a sliver of red, just enough juice to drag my reputation a little deeper into the fire.
Instagram. I open the app, flick upwards, and press “Live.” The red dot sits in the corner, an accusation or a dare.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, the words syrupy, my tongue slow and thick, “Damon Venom, reporting live from the World’s Most Boring Party.” My voice bounces off marble and emptiness, echoing down the hallway and into cyberspace. The viewer count rockets upward. Thousands, instantly. The absurdity of it almost makes me laugh.
I wander, broadcasting every step, shoes nearly slipping on the polished floor. “Let’s do a little tour, shall we?” The camera pans over the ballroom to feature the leftovers of glamour. “These are the best and brightest. This guy,” I zoom in on a man peeling shrimp tails from a plate, “once told me to lose five pounds for a photo shoot. Now look at him. Nature is healing.”
The comments hit hard and fast. "You look like shit, dude." "Are you high again?" "More cat facts pls."
I laugh, and it’s rough, shredded around the edges. “Cat fact? Fine. If you cut a cat’s whiskers, it gets so confused it walks into walls. That’s me right now. Thanks, alcohol. Thanks, trauma.”
There’s a velvet banquette against the far wall, half-hidden. I collapse onto it, legs open, suit wrinkling at the knees and crotch. I turn the camera back on my face. My eyeliner is a mess, hair wild and directionless. I look half-feral. Perfect.
“Shout-out to Kate Hart,” I say. “The hottest woman on the continent, and she’s not even here. She’s in Romania, watching a high-end client shoot something probably too artistic for words. Hope there’s WiFi, babe, because you’re missing this.” I drag my hand down my chest, turning it up, letting the fabric stretch over skin, muscle and bone. “You could be here, licking champagne off me. Instead you’re eating goulash with your lame-as-fuck co-star.”
The comments spiral. "Dude, she dumped your ass.” “Drink more.” “Show feet.”
I snort, flip the screen the finger. “No feet. Even I have limits. At least not without a fifty.”
I finish my drink and start talking, about the sameness of every party after a few hours, about how everyone is just afraid of loneliness, more than they are of dying. My voice is washed out in the glare of alcohol. I toss off something about my new single, give a shout to my drummer, make a probably actionable accusation about the label boss’s “private hobbies.” Then, I throw out another cat fact, as the closer. “Tigers would rather starve than eat food they didn’t hunt themselves. That’s dignity. That’s class. That’s me, baby.”
My head throbs. I can barely see straight, the world flickering like a buffering screen. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.
I stand, sway, nearly go down before I catch myself with a theatrical bow. The camera is still on. I look straight into the lens. For a second, the urge is there to break, to say something that matters. “I miss you.” “I’m sorry.” But it passes. I settle for a wink.
The last thing I remember is blowing a kiss to the streaming crowd. The glare blurs. The floor rushes up.
Then there’s nothing.
Just black. Static.
