✍️ From Rowan Thornwell
This is the first Thirst Chronicle. Nestled between Season One, which just concluded, and Season Two, which will launch in October.
These chronicles run longer, almost like short novels.
Some stories demand to be slow. Others burn through you all at once.
Red Door Rites is one of those. It carries the weight of ritual, the ache of surrender, the press of hands that never let go. It is about keys and collars, about devotion that feels both filthy and holy.
I chose to release it differently. Normally, my stories unfold chapter by chapter, week by week, inside The Pleasure Index. But this one wanted to exist whole, to be binged, swallowed, devoured in a single night.
So here’s another way to read me. If you like my work but don’t want to take on a subscription, you can still step through the door. The complete eBook is available right now. I will not always release like this, but I wanted to try it, to see if it fits both of us.
Whether you savour it slowly or take it all at once, the story is yours.
A storm, a cell, a look that changes everything. Jesse arrives ready to serve time, then learns he is there to serve two men who will unmake him and make him again. Guard Dominic is hunger contained, Warden Hale is command made flesh. The stairs go down, the bench becomes an altar, the collar becomes a vow. A key touches skin, a candle opens a room, and the red door asks what devotion really costs. This is the bridge between seasons, the descent that turns want into worship, and a promise that what waits in October will not be gentle.
The rain hit the roof like fists.
Cold, hard, rhythmic. A coastal storm that swallowed the sky and bled down the old stone walls of the prison. Thunder cracked somewhere out over the ocean, too far to touch but close enough to feel in the ribs.
Inside, the cell block stank of iron and wet concrete. The kind of damp that got into your skin and stayed there. The kind of place where time forgot its name.
Jesse stood in the centre of his new cage.
Naked, except for sweat and the memory of his clothes. They’d stripped him at intake, left his uniform folded like a warning on the cot. But he hadn’t touched it. He’d stood under the dripping lightbulb instead, head tilted, letting the cool air make its way across every inch of him.
Six-four. Scar along his ribs. Muscles drawn tight over his frame like a man carved from want.
The bars hummed as the wind howled through a crack in the wall. He didn’t flinch.
Let them watch.
Let them see what they brought into their house.
Footsteps echoed from down the hall. Boots. Not fast. Not in a hurry. The sound of a man who had nowhere to be but here. One set. Then another.
Jesse’s eyes lifted.
There were no clocks here. No sounds but the storm and those boots. No names, not yet. Just the weight of being seen.
The door at the end of the row buzzed, then opened slow. Rain flooded in for one brief moment. Then he stepped inside.
Tall. Broad. Black uniform tight across his chest. Dominic.
He didn’t speak.
He walked past four cells before stopping at Jesse’s. Turned. Met his gaze. Held it.
And behind him, slower, came the second man.
Older. Silver at the temples. Leather gloves. A coat that moved like it cost more than Jesse’s bail ever was. Warden Hale.
Dominic had the keys.
But Hale had the command.
Jesse’s heart did a strange thing when their eyes met. Not a panic. Not quite fear.
More like gravity shifting.
More like the first step before the fall.
Neither spoke.
They simply stood there. Watching. Rain dripping from Hale’s collar. Dominic’s jaw tense with some held-back need. Jesse exhaling just once, slow, and so low it barely counted as breath.
Something had begun. Quiet. Heavy. Thick in the dark.
Something he would not walk back from.
The flicker of the bulb above him made shadows out of muscle.
Jesse stood still, but his eyes moved. He watched them, watched how Dominic's gaze slid down his chest like something accidental, like he didn’t mean to linger on the sweat gathered at Jesse’s sternum, the slow rise and fall of his stomach, the cock that didn’t flinch beneath all that attention but didn’t soften either.
Hale’s mouth curved.
Not a smile. Nothing so light.
It was an acknowledgement. A knowing. The way a man might nod at a thoroughbred before stepping into the ring.
“You’re quiet,” the Warden said.
His voice was gravel in warm water.
Jesse didn’t answer.
Hale stepped forward once. Rain still clung to his shoulders, made the leather of his gloves shine. Behind him, Dominic adjusted his stance. Eyes sharp, shoulders squared. Guard reflex. But Jesse saw something else behind that stillness, something almost hungry.
They were both looking now.
Not with pity. Not with disgust. With something far more dangerous.
Approval.
“You know what happens in here,” Hale said, glancing once toward the ceiling, where the storm banged at the steel bones of the place. “You know what you’re here for.”
Jesse tilted his head, eyes narrowed.
“I’m here to serve time.”
That got a chuckle. Low. From Dominic.
Hale didn’t laugh.
He stepped closer again, close enough for Jesse to smell the sharp, dark scent of his cologne under the wet leather. A gloved hand lifted, making Jesse briefly fear a blow.
But he wasn’t struck. It was slower. Fingers brushing against his chestbone, just above his heart. Two taps. Then a pause.
“You’re here to be used.”
Jesse’s pulse throbbed against Hale’s glove.
The Warden turned to Dominic, his voice dipped with something colder. “He’s not ready tonight.”
Dominic didn’t question it.
He stepped back, keys already out.
“But soon,” Hale added. “Soon, he’ll beg for it.”
Then both men were gone.
Door buzz. Boots echo. Storm behind the silence.
Jesse didn’t move.
Not until the heat from Hale’s glove faded from his skin.
Not until his cock, still half-hard, twitched with the ghost of command.
The next night, the storm had passed.
But the air inside still pressed like something wanting in.
Jesse lay back on the cot, shirt finally on but clinging. The cell never dried. Sweat, breath, the damp bite of stone, it soaked into skin and stayed there, making him restless. He hadn’t slept.
Couldn’t.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them again. That look between the two of them. Hale’s fingers on his chest, Dominic’s eyes lingering too long.
He was being watched. He knew it.
He didn’t mind.
The hall light flared. Boots again. Just one set this time.
He sat up slow.
Dominic came alone.
Same uniform. Same silence. Only this time, he had something else in his hands.
A black strap. Smooth leather. Buckled, but open.
“Come with me,” Dominic said.
No preamble. No explanation.
Jesse rose without speaking. Walked to the bars as they opened.
Dominic didn’t touch him yet, but the strap was held up like a question.
Jesse lifted his wrists.
The leather slid warm around them, snug but not tight. Not punishment. Something else.
Dominic’s eyes flicked to his throat, then lower.
“You walk ahead. Don’t speak.”
The cell door slid shut behind them. Metal on metal. Final.
Jesse walked.
Barefoot. Through the wet gleam of the corridor, past the eyes of others behind bars, past the cells that whispered and watched. He didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t need to.
He could feel it. The gravity. The heat.
Dominic kept close behind, never brushing, never rushing.
They passed the mess hall. The offices. Turned down a hall Jesse hadn’t seen before. This one was cleaner. White tiled. Echoed more.
At the end was a door. Steel. Plain.
Dominic unlocked it without a word.
Jesse stepped inside.
It wasn’t a cell.
It wasn’t anything official.
The walls were warm wood, the floor a darker stone. There was a single chair. Nothing else.
Until the other door opened.
And Warden Hale entered.
This time, he’d taken off the gloves.
Warden Hale closed the door behind him.
No words. Just presence.
His hands were bare now, veins visible, fingers long and slow as he removed his coat and hung it on the wall with a kind of reverence. He didn’t look at Jesse yet.
He didn’t need to.
Dominic moved to the side, arms crossed. A shadow in uniform. Jesse stood in the center of the room, wrists bound in front of him, shirt still clinging like a second skin.
He felt them both.
Not just their eyes. Their gravity. Like moons, opposite sides, and he was caught in the tide between.
Hale stepped forward.
Boots silent now, polished leather on stone. He came close, too close, and then paused just a breath away from Jesse’s chest. The heat of him struck like steam. His eyes flicked up, finally, locking on Jesse’s.
A hum left the Warden’s throat. Approval, maybe.
Then came the first touch.
Fingers, just two, traced the edge of Jesse’s collar. Not yanking. Not tearing. Just grazing.
“You wore it for me,” Hale murmured.
Jesse didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His mouth had gone dry.
Hale’s hand dropped lower. Fingers pressing lightly against Jesse’s sternum, dragging down the buttons of the soaked shirt. One by one, he undid them, not fast, not rough. Each flick of his fingers felt like breath on the skin below.
When the last button fell, he didn’t pull the shirt off.
He let it hang. Open. Bare chest exposed. Sweat still clung to him, caught the low lamplight like oil. Hale’s hand rose again, knuckles brushing Jesse’s left nipple.
A shiver ran straight down Jesse’s spine.
Dominic shifted behind him. Still silent.
The Warden leaned in. Not touching, not quite. But close enough Jesse could smell him again. Leather and power. Something faintly sweet beneath it.
“I want to see how you stand between us,” Hale whispered.
He turned, just slightly.
“Dominic.”
The guard stepped forward.
And for the first time, his hands touched Jesse’s arms. Not harsh. Just firm. He guided him backward, until Jesse stood between them both.
One in front. One behind.
The breath caught in Jesse’s throat.
Then Hale’s hand cupped his jaw, tilting his face upward.
And Dominic’s hand pressed at the small of his back, grounding him.
Held.
Positioned.
Touched by both, but not yet taken.
Time collapsed.
The room held no windows. No clock. Just breath and proximity. Jesse stood between them, bare chest open to the air, hands bound in front of him, sweat catching at the hollow of his throat.
Warden Hale’s thumb traced Jesse’s bottom lip.
Dominic’s hand still rested at his lower back.
Neither man moved beyond that, not yet. They didn’t need to.
Jesse’s body had already begun to yield.
He didn’t lean in, but he didn’t pull away. His weight shifted forward just slightly, the way a man might lean into heat after too long in the cold.
“Look at you,” Hale murmured.
He tilted Jesse’s chin up further, studied his mouth like it held answers.
Dominic’s breath moved at the back of Jesse’s neck, steady and deliberate. He hadn't spoken since the hallway. But his presence now was louder than any voice, command, caged in calm.
“You want this?” Hale asked.
Jesse swallowed.
He wasn’t sure if the question was permission or prelude. But he nodded once, slow.
“That’s not how we ask,” Dominic said behind him, voice low, rough around the edges.
Jesse hesitated.
Then found the words.
“Yes, sir.”
Something uncoiled behind Hale’s eyes.
And then, motion.
The shirt slid off Jesse’s shoulders. Dominic had taken it, quiet as breath, baring the full length of Jesse’s torso. A scar at the rib. A bruise near the hip. Hale traced each mark with a clinical kind of interest, like reading a language written on flesh.
“Turn him,” the Warden said softly.
Dominic moved Jesse with two hands, not asking.
Now Jesse faced the wall, with Dominic behind him, Hale before him again. Bookended by heat. One hand at the nape of his neck. One gliding down his chest, slow, almost tender.
The room smelled of leather, sweat, control.
“Such a good body,” Hale murmured. “Hard where it needs to be. Soft where we want it.”
Jesse’s breath caught.
A hand moved lower. Skimmed his waistband.
But then it stopped.
Hale leaned in, lips a breath from Jesse’s ear.
“Not tonight.”
The words slid like silk over wire.
“You’ll come back to this room,” he said, “again and again. And every time, we’ll take more.”
Dominic’s grip tightened at Jesse’s hip.
“And when you’ve earned it…”
Hale stepped back. Gaze lingering. Mouth half-curved.
“…you’ll beg us to let you serve.”
They left him there, shirtless, wrists still bound, cock hard and aching against the cool air.
And just before Dominic closed the door, he looked back and said:
“Tomorrow.”
He didn’t sleep.
The cot felt colder after that room. The silence louder.
Jesse had stayed standing long after they left, still bound, chest bare, trying to understand the heat pulsing between his legs. Not just desire. Not just power. Something else. Something like surrender waking up inside him, stretching its limbs.
By the time Dominic returned, Jesse was already at the bars.
No questions. No words.
Just wrists lifted, ready.
This time, the strap was tighter.
Dominic walked him the long way. Past more cells. Past more eyes. He wanted Jesse seen. Wanted the others to know who was being taken. Who belonged where.
The room waited.
Same walls. Same silence.
But tonight, the chair was gone.
In its place was a padded bench, low and wide, set in the center. The leather gleamed like it had been cleaned. Prepared.
Warden Hale stood beside it.
He was shirtless now. Trousers dark. Chest broad and dusted with hair that caught the amber light. His hands gloved again, but softer this time. Kid leather. Cream-colored.
He said nothing as Dominic brought Jesse in. Just watched.
Dominic guided Jesse forward. No hesitation. No roughness.
They pressed him to his knees.
Then down, chest against the bench.
Hands pulled above his head. Straps secured. Ankles spread.
His body laid out. Exposed. Waiting.
“You’ve earned this,” Hale said.
His voice was steady, rich with promise.
Jesse breathed once, deep. Ground himself in the feel of leather under his ribs, stone under his knees, the scent of sweat already thick in the room.
Then Hale crouched beside him.
One hand traced down Jesse’s spine.
“You’ll keep your eyes open,” he said. “You’ll stay quiet.”
Behind him, Dominic undid his belt.
The sound was low. Metallic. Final.
Jesse’s whole body tensed, then softened. Ready.
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