Mr Messop didn't exist. At least, if he did, we couldn't find him.

The name was either fake, or the social security number, drivers license, title deed, birth certificate and library card – if he was real he preferred novels about zombies and strangely, captive polar bear breeding programs – were. There was no way to tell and not one of us found a damn thing worthy of note on the guy.

He was a front, but for what I had no idea.

I watched that apartment for one hundred and twenty seven days. That's three thousand and forty-eight hours, and the times that I didn't watch personally one of my siblings did. She never came back. Not once.

Now, I'm not crazy. And I didn't actually sit in the street and train my eyes on the front door of the building for the entire time, but if I added up the hours I wasted sitting there the numbers would be pretty astounding.

And by the time I decided to do something else, tried to change tack and take a more proactive approach, I had wasted a significant amount of my time.

Hundreds of girls came and went, and to our astonishment just as many guys did too.

They parked in the parking garage, collected the key, motioned for their 'dates' to join them, went upstairs and engaged in some serious kinky fuckery.

And at weekends, Friday nights especially, the arena had multiple players. Not threesomes or groups, though those happened with surprising regularity too, but the apartment itself was used over and over, with the ten minute intervals, all through the weekend.

One pair would come out, they'd leave, and ten minutes later another would arrive. On and on it went.

I listened to some of it and watched others. Yes, that's right; I was reduced to watching others engage in their games because I was, by then, officially incapable of participating myself.

I perched on the railing of the balcony of 6C for hours on end and watched the comings – of which there were a lot – and goings at leisure. I listened at the door and watched from my car. I hid under that stairwell like a nasty little voyeur and I jacked off more times than I could count.

Not in the building of course, at home, in the privacy of my own rooms. And always with her face in my mind as I did it.

I had no interest in going out and hooking up with someone. It wasn't that I didn't want anyone else, or that I had to specifically have that girl, but I had lost all enthusiasm for the bland girls in the clubs.

I knew that there were others like that girl out there. After all I'd seen them come and go with their partners for weeks, but I had no idea what to look for. Sure, I could spot the 'bad girls' now, but how would I know whether she was a dominant or a submissive? Was there a signal? A code? And what if I picked up the wrong kind? What then? Could I dominate someone without hurting them? And then there was the sixty-four million dollar question. Could I be submissive to anyone other than that girl?

So I jacked off in private and watched that fucking apartment like a crack addict waiting for his dealer.

And in all that time I learned nothing of any significance. I still had no idea who Jackson Messop was, or how to find him. None of those who checked in and out with their cell phones ever said anything of use and following the players to their real homes after their use of the arena was useless because they all returned to perfectly normal lives and homes.

Some were married and had families but most were singles. I followed a few even after they returned to their normal lives. But that turned up nothing other than just how boring human lives could be. They went to work, they ate, and they slept.

During the work week these people were normal. Come the weekend they changed. They dressed differently. They visited clubs that they didn't frequent on work days. They hung out with a different set of friends on the weekend to those they saw socially Monday to Friday.

But none of these friends seemed to cross over. Two distinct groups. For every one of the girls, and the guys. It was as though they led two lives. Respectable middle class lives through the week, debauched parodies of themselves come the weekend. These people didn't associate with others like themselves. These were lone players.

They went to the clubs and pubs alone. They hooked up alone. Apart from the ones who collected other players once a deal had been struck and the whole group went to the apartment. But, significantly I thought, whoever was going to be the dominant that night would go out alone and collect willing players to be their subs. The groups didn't seem to work any other way. One dominant, multiple subs. Never in any other combination.

The only connection these people had in common was the apartment. I couldn't even say they had Messop in common because I couldn't be sure that was who they were calling when they came, or when they were leaving.

They could've been calling anyone. Messop owned the apartment, that was the only solid piece of information I had. That didn't mean he knew what it was being used for and it didn't mean he was taking calls from anyone once they were inside it. It was just a name on a title deed.

Once again I enlisted Jasper's help. He was the one among the family with the tech savvy and he was willing to help me.

I was nervous to tell him what I needed help finding, and he knew it. But, true to his sensitive nature, he simply opened an internet page and got to work.

There wasn't a lot of information around about dominants and submissives, especially information that wasn't in the form of personal opinion.

I'd spent hours on my phone in my car reading that shit already so I was well versed on the players thoughts and feelings about what they indulged in. Some of it I agreed with, some not at all. But it was fascinating none the less.

What I was searching for, with my brothers help, was legitimate clubs. Specialist groups that put the players in contact with one another. A matching service, if one existed. I wanted to know if there was someone who held a database of its participants and how they all seemed to know about apartment 6C.

Of course there wasn't a website that announced 'there is this place you can use to help you find someone willing to let you flog the hell out of them' so the searching took us on so many twists and turns that by the time we did actually find something promising both our heads were swimming.

It seemed there was a matching service out there. It was referred to vaguely and there was no contact information about it at all that we could find. But it did exist. There were lots of vague references to it from people on forums who were discussing their personal experiences. They used terms like 'the match I was given that night' or 'this match obviously lied on his application because'. Someone was matching doms to subs and vice versa. I just needed to know who.

The one glimmer of hope in that was that this club that these people referred to was so exclusive, so illusive, that to gain entry into it you had to be referred by an existing member.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You don't know an existing member, Edward. And that is true. But, I know how to find one and I know how to pick one up, or be picked up by one, and I know how to behave once I get back to apartment 6C.

I was no longer a newbie!

I waited, very impatiently, for the next night to roll around and then I beat feet to that nightclub that the bulk of the forum users were advocating. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It was normal.

I know I keep referring to this as normal, or not normal, but at the time that's how I felt about it. To me it was abnormal. I didn't yet know what I was, or what I liked and disliked, but just knew that up until that point in my life what I'd done with women was normal, and that what I'd done with that girl had been wrong. Wrong in that I shouldn't want to be bound. Wrong in that I shouldn't have enjoyed the deprivation of my senses and then been so happy when she indulged them all after the sexual act. Not wrong as in I never wanted to do it again.

So, the nightclub was normal. Guys holding up the bar, groups in booths, half naked women dancing. Normal. I took my time and checked out those around me but found nothing about any of them that would suggest that they were looking for a player. And nobody looked like they were wanting to be picked up either. There were very few people on their own, but that wasn't out of the ordinary.

I sided up to the bar and ordered a drink and then stood there and watched the room for a while.

The music was just as loud and as horrible as it was in every other nightclub. The place smelled of sweat, hormones, illicit drugs and blood. The drink was watered down but I didn't care because I'd never actually let any of it pass over my lips. Pairs of women danced. Men approached women in the groups and they danced, then the women went back to their groups. Nobody seemed to be hooking up with anyone else that wasn't already paired off. It was a normal nightclub.

Fuck.

I'd gone there because that tenuous forum link told me that it was the place to go if you were looking for a player. But it didn't look any different to any other place I'd ventured into before.

The only difference, that I could see on the surface, was a bouncer on the inside of the club as well as the standards at the front door.

Maybe they often got a bit of a rowdy crowd in? Maybe they were expecting a celebrity? Could be a hundred perfectly logical reasons why this seemingly innocuous nightclub needed a guy the size of The Rock standing guard of the usual black painted door INSIDE the club.

I cautiously watched that door for twenty minutes. Only one guy went through it and he'd shown the bouncer his ID before the door was opened for him. The guy didn't look like staff, he looked like me. Jeans, t-shirt, jacket. Just a guy. But he'd been the only one in and nobody had come out in the time I'd been watching.

So, like all good barroom movies I did what I'd seen actors do a hundred times. I asked the bartender.

Mr Aspiring Actor smiling knowingly and told me that there was a private party behind that door. Members only. A birthday, he thought.

He went back to tending his bar and I turned around and stared at the door for a bit longer. Pondering the crock of shit I'd just been fed.

Oh, it was totally believable that there was a private party going on. No problem with that. And I could swallow that it might be a birthday too. But he'd used the words from the forum. Members only. Nightclubs didn't have a members list. Private clubs did.

Behind that door was my link to the girl.

I motioned the bartender for another drink and while he poured it I asked to whom I applied to gain membership. He nodded once towards the door and told me that Hank, the bouncer, probably knew.

I thanked him and left my drink where it stood on the bar and made my way over to introduce myself to Hank. He didn't look like a Hank. He looked like a Butch, or a Tony, maybe a Dave, but not a Hank.

"Members only," he grunted in true bouncer fashion as I approached.

"I'd like to become a member," I told him matter of factly.

"Yeah, I bet you would, pretty boy," he sneered. I was about to introduce him to my knuckles when he took a business card from his back pocket and handed it to me. "Private club. Fees are pretty steep. Call that number and make an appointment during business hours. Good luck, buddy."

And with that he folded his arms across his chest and resumed guarding that door.

I wanted in. Now. I didn't want to make an appointment; I wanted to go inside now. This was the closest I'd been to answers in months and I was desperate to find out what the fuck was going on with that girl.

Unless I wanted to slaughter every human in the place – and then deal with the family after I'd done it – I was going to have to wait. I hated waiting. I'd had over a century of waiting behind me. I wanted this now.

Maybe there was another way?

I slunk away from Hank and went straight out the front doors. I got into my car and drove it home and put it in the garage, and then I ran back to the club on foot. I mentioned I was fast, right?

This time I went into the alley at the back of the building instead of approaching from the front. No bouncer on the back door, but there was a security camera. That didn't pose too much of a problem for me and I disabled it easily by climbing the brickwork just out of its range and ripping the piece of shit off the wall. I disconnected its wiring and stuffed the apparatus back into the drill holes in the bricks. Anyone monitoring it would know it had been tampered with the instant its feed was broken, but if anyone came to see what was wrong with it in the dark they probably wouldn't notice I'd all but destroyed it.

Once back on the ground I listened for a few minutes. I hid in the shadows and waited to hear, and see, if anyone was going to come out and check what was wrong. Nobody did.

I busted the lock on the backdoor but shut it behind me as I entered the dingy hallway. The bass from the music in the main club reverberated through this area but it was a dull thump and not anything that was going to stop me from picking out the sounds I was actually listening for.

There were four unmarked doors. Two on each side of the hallway.

Door number one, I could tell from the sounds inside it, was an office. No interest to me so I moved on. Door number two was the staff break room. A few off colour jokes and the smell of microwaved meals, but again, no interest for me. Door number three was bolted shut from the outside and smelled like liquor, probably a storeroom. No illicit sex club hiding behind door number three. That left number four.

The smell of sex hit me before I was four feet from the door. Yes, this was the door I wanted. It was closest to the door that led back into the main club, so I knew that I couldn't snap this lock without alerting Hank, and everyone inside the room too, and I would need to snap it because it was locked from the inside.

How the hell did that work?

Did every member have a key?

Hank didn't usher that guy in earlier, so he couldn't have unlocked it for him. Was there a secret knock? Fuck.

Another dead end and if I wanted entry I was going to out my secret. So back down the hall, back through the busted back door, back out into the night for me.

But you can bet your ass – or your balls if you're a guy reading this – that I had my cell in my hand at one minute to nine the next morning.

"SS Introductions, you have Angel, how may I help you?" a bright, cheery female voice answered.

"Ah, hello, I was given this number to call," I tell her nervously.

"Can I have your name please, sir?" she asked and I gave it freely. "And your return number please," she chimed. I gave that too. "Thank you sir, someone will return your call shortly." And with that she disconnected the line.

Well. That was brief, weird and totally unhelpful. I kept expecting her to ask if I wanted fries with that her tone was so businesslike.

I wasn't going to sit on my ass and do nothing while I waited for the return call so I hit Jasper up for yet another research session on his laptop. This time we tried to back trace the number on the business card. And surprise, surprise, who do you think the number was registered to?

Ten points for Gryffindor if you guess right.

Yup, Mr Jackson Messop. Fucker.

How many pies did this guy have his fingers in? I asked Jaz to see who owned the title deed for the club. Jackson Fucking Messop. Who owned the liquor license there? Jackson Fucking Messop. Whose account paid the staff? Jackson Fucking Messop.

Okay, I don't want to mislead you. His middle name wasn't actually Fucking, I made that part up. It was really Albert. But, I thought Fucking was much more apt.

This guy was everywhere, and nowhere, all at the same time!

I answered the return call on the first ring and got an automated response service instead of a human voice.

"This is a message for Edward Cullen. An appointment has been made for this coming Tuesday at 11.15am. To confirm you wish to keep this appointment please press 1 now." You better fucking believe I pressed one. I pressed it so fucking hard I heard the glass on my cell crack. "Thank you for your confirmation. A list of the items you'll need to bring to your interview, the address and supplementary information will be given at the end of this recording. Press 5 to replay the information at any time. Press # to return to the main menu to cancel your appointment."

I waited on the line for the voice recording to finish and then snatched up my pen and a scrap of paper so I could jot down the information I was about to be given.

"You will need to bring your current drivers license, social security card or passport to your interview to prove your identity. A current medical certificate, police background check, a certified copy of your most recent bank statement and at least two references will also be required. One of your references should be from your current employer, the other from someone who has known you for at least five years but to whom you are not directly related. Your family doctor, lawyer or bank manager will usually provide these for a nominal fee." I scribbled all this down like a madman, getting more and more angry as the recording continued. I wasn't applying for the office of the President of the United States for Christ's sake; I just wanted to find a girl that I'd already fucked!

I couldn't afford to let my anger out because the information just kept coming.

"Attend your appointment unaccompanied. Your application cannot, and will not, proceed should you attend in the company of another person. A non-refundable fee of five hundred American dollars is payable at your first interview. This may not be paid in any form other than cash. We do not accept postal orders, personal or bank cheques and do not have credit card facilities. A receipt will be given. The fee structure for our services, should you be accepted as a client, will be made available to you should your interview be successful."

After that little nugget of information was dropped the recording gave me the address of the building, the floor number and the section I was to present myself to on Tuesday. I was told to not be tardy – yes, she used the word tardy – and then I was offered the option to go back to the main menu and cancel my appointment if I didn't agree to the terms and conditions of this information. I hung up.

You'd think, me being a vampire and all, that providing some of those documents was going to pose a bit of a problem. I mean, it wasn't like I could go to a doctor and get a check up. No heartbeat, no breathing rate, um sir, I hate to break this to you but I think you might be dead.

The drivers license was easy. I had dozens of them. We all did. Remember when I was telling you all about myself and my family and I made it sound like we were really just a regular family and we stuck to the right side of the law? Yeah, about that. I may have, just slightly, warped the truth the tiniest little bit there.

But, here you are. You've stuck with me this long. So I figure I can bend that truth back a little bit now that you've gotten to know me better and we won't be any worse off for it, will we? I'll assume you haven't just closed your browser and you're still reading. Great. Thanks.

So, I had a dozen drivers licenses. We all did. We liked speed and we liked fast cars. We got a LOT of speeding tickets and we went through a LOT of demerit points. But we couldn't drink and drive. That redeems us, right?

I had a social security card too. Okay, it was a fake, but I had one. I had a passport too. I liked to travel, so I had one in all different forms. I think I even still had the first one Jasper had ever made for me. I'd kept it because it was so full of stamps from the places I went that first year after he'd made it for me that it sort of had sentimental value. But I could take a current one with me on Tuesday without a problem.

That was the identity documents sorted. Oh, and the medical certificate wasn't going to be a problem either. Carlisle was a doctor, remember? Not that I'd get him to sign one for me, same surname and all, but he'd forge me a good one without blinking. We did it all the time.

The police background check wouldn't be an issue either. Jasper was so good at forging documents by now that he didn't even blink when asked to make something these days. He had a desk drawer full of blanks from all sorts of institutions by that point. So when I asked for one for the state of Maine he just dug one out that he already had, typed my name into the right boxes and then signed it. It had a seal on it and everything.

I'd print my own bank statement out and I'd get Jasper to sign that too. He did a better version of my bank managers signature than the actual bank manager did anyway. Much nicer too. Better penmanship.

The references I'd do myself. The only thing I needed to do was choose where I was employed. Could be a doctor, that would probably bode well for the interview. Professional man, lots to lose, a guy who's used to being confidential. Or I could be a pilot, a dentist, an architect or even a chef. That'd be pretty funny. Me, a chef. But I went with doctor in the end because I actually did have a medical degree, in my own name, that was legitimate. So if I went that route I wouldn't have to forge anything else, or get Jasper to hack into any computers to change any details about my history. Yes. I'd be Doctor Edward Anthony Masen Cullen. I actually was, easy peasy.

I won't boast so just know that the cash wasn't an issue. I had it to hand.

When Tuesday came around I was going to wow Mr Jackson Messop so thoroughly he was going to be begging me to become a member of his exclusive club.


A/N: To those cretins who are private messaging me and asking if I'm attempting to rip of Fifty Shades with the name of this story know this, Fifty-Six refers to the number of minutes Edward spent in that girls company. And it is in reference to the exact length of time it took for his whole world to change.

For those of you who continue to private message me and threaten me with hell/decapitation vampire style/the loss of one hand, one leg and or one eye for writing a story where Edward behaves badly towards women, get over yourselves. Thank you.

Thank you for reading.

Please review.