Chapter 5: Disciplinary Measures
The campaign bus groaned through another endless stretch of midnight highway. Outside, Ohio was a black smear punctuated by the occasional lonely gas station glow. Inside, the narrow hallway felt like a pressurized tube. The hum of the engine was a constant, vibrating drone in the teeth.
Rio stood in the doorway of the private berth, her knuckles white on the frame. Agatha was inside, her back to the door, violently stuffing a stack of polling data into a leather folio. The small space was a tomb of tension. The scent was wrong here—stale coffee grounds, synthetic lemon cleaner, and beneath it, the ghost of their sweat from the hotel, clinging to the upholstery like a shameful secret.
“We need to talk,” Rio said. Her voice sounded hollow in the narrow corridor.
“No,” Agatha said, not turning. “We don’t. The talking part is what got us here. The talking part is over.”
“You don’t get to unilaterally declare something over after what happened.” Rio stepped inside, letting the door hiss shut behind her. The lock clicked. “After you… after what you did.”
That made Agatha turn. Her face was all sharp angles in the grim fluorescent light. Her gray eyes were flat, devoid of the fire that had burned Rio to ash just days before. “What I did? You showed up. You always show up. You’re a gravitational fucking anomaly, Rio. You pull everything into your orbit and then complain about the collision.”
“You texted me. You were on the bed. Your legs were—”
“A mistake.” Agatha cut her off, her voice a whip-crack. “A moment of spectacular, catastrophic weakness. One we are not repeating.” She turned back to the folio, her movements brittle. “Your mother has a ten-point lead in Michigan. We can’t afford any more distractions.”
“Is that all I am?” Rio moved closer. The berth was so small. She could smell Agatha’s perfume, the same Chanel No. 5, but it was layered over something else now—something tired and strained. “A distraction?”
Agatha finally looked at her again, a slow, devastating pivot. “What do you want me to say? That you’re the love of my life? That this is some grand romance?” A cold, mirthless smile touched her lips. “You’re a spoiled princess who’s bored. I’m a stressed-out operative who cracked. It was transactional. It’s done.”
The words were designed to wound. They did. They sliced deep, because part of Rio feared they were true. The other part, the louder, more stubborn part, saw the lie in the tightness of Agatha’s jaw, the faint tremor in her hand before she clenched it into a fist.
“Liar,” Rio breathed.
She reached out, not to caress, but to grasp—her hand closing around Agatha’s forearm. The contact was electric. Agatha flinched as if burned, but she didn’t pull away. Her eyes dropped to Rio’s hand, then back to her face. The flat emptiness in them was suddenly gone, replaced by a blazing, dangerous fury.
“Get your hand off me.”
“No.”
In one violent motion, Agatha spun them. Rio’s back slammed into the polished wood paneling of the bunk wall. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Before she could recover, Agatha had her wrists pinned above her head, one hand holding both with shocking, practiced strength. With her other hand, Agatha tugged the silk tie from the collar of the jacket hanging on a hook. It was sleek, navy blue.
“Agatha—”
“Shut up.” The words were a low growl against Rio’s ear. Agatha looped the tie around Rio’s wrists with a brutal efficiency, pulling it tight, knotting it with a sharp jerk. The silk bit into Rio’s skin. It wasn’t meant to be comfortable. It was a restraint. A claim.
Agatha leaned back, just enough to look at her. The fury had distilled into something colder, more focused. She brought her free hand up and traced a single finger down the line of Rio’s throat, over the hammering pulse. “You’ve been a disobedient little distraction from day one. Following me. Taunting me. Thinking your smiles and your winks gave you the upper hand.”
She leaned in, her mouth a breath from Rio’s. “They didn’t.”
Then her head dipped. Her teeth found the sensitive cord of Rio’s neck. She didn’t bite gently. She sank in, a sharp, punishing pressure that made Rio cry out—a short, sharp sound swallowed by the rumble of the bus. The pain was immediate, bright, followed by a warm, throbbing heat. Agatha soothed the spot with her tongue, then bit down again, higher, just below her jaw. A mark. A brand.
Her hands dropped to Rio’s skirt, a slim-fitting pencil skirt. Agatha’s fingers found the zipper at the back and yanked it down. The sound was obscenely loud. She shoved the fabric down over Rio’s hips, letting it pool around her ankles. Her thumbs hooked into the lace of Rio’s thong and dragged it down, too.
Rio was exposed from the waist down, trapped against the wall by her bound wrists and Agatha’s relentless presence. The air in the berth was cool on her bare skin. Humiliation and a dark, addictive thrill twisted together in her gut.
Agatha’s palm came down on her asscheek.
The slap cracked through the small space. The pain was a sudden, shocking bloom of heat. Rio gasped, her body jerking against the tie.
“Stay still.” Another slap, harder, on the other side. The sting radiated outwards, a burning echo. Agatha didn’t pause. She delivered a volley of sharp, calculated spanks, alternating cheeks, the rhythm steady and unforgiving. Each impact jolted through Rio, a mixture of sharp pain and a deeper, gathering warmth between her legs. Her skin began to glow, a furious, hot red under the fluorescent light.
Agatha’s breathing had changed. It was harsh in Rio’s ear. She finally stopped, her hand resting possessively on the heated flesh. She leaned close, her lips brushing Rio’s earlobe. “You’re wet,” she whispered, her voice ragged with a desire she could no longer mask. “I can smell it. You’re dripping for me while I punish you. You’re fucking shameless.”
Rio was. Her cunt was throbbing, aching, soaked. The pain had sharpened every nerve, focused her entire world on Agatha’s hands, Agatha’s voice, the bite of the silk on her wrists.
Agatha’s fingers slid between her legs from behind. A rough, cursory exploration. A low, gratified hum vibrated against Rio’s back. “Drenched,” Agatha confirmed, her tone dripping with contemptuous victory.
She pushed two fingers inside Rio without warning, a deep, brutal thrust that made Rio’s knees buckle. Agatha held her up, pressed against her, her body a cage. She fucked Rio with her fingers, a hard, relentless pace, her thumb pressing cruel circles on Rio’s clit.
“You want to come, don’t you?” Agatha hissed. “You’re grinding back on my hand like a cheap slut. But you don’t get to. Not until I say you can.”
She withdrew her fingers, leaving Rio empty and clenching around nothing. Rio whimpered, a sound of pure need.
“On the bed. Now.”
Agatha untied the silk, the sudden release making Rio’s arms fall leaden to her sides. She didn’t need to be pushed. She stumbled the single step to the narrow bunk and fell forward onto it, the rough texture of the upholstery scratching her heated skin. Agatha was on her in an instant, a weight on her back, a knee forcing her legs apart.
Rio heard the tear of a foil packet. The crinkle was alien, clinical. Then she felt it—the blunt, rubber-tipped head of a strap-on, pressing against her entrance. Agatha hadn’t bothered with tenderness. She fitted herself over Rio, one hand fisted in her black hair, pulling her head back.
“You wanted this,” Agatha snarled, her breath hot on Rio’s neck. “You chased this. So take it.”
She pushed inside.
The stretch was immense, shocking. Rio cried out, her face buried in the thin pillow. Agatha didn’t stop. She seated herself fully, burying the toy to the hilt inside Rio, a conquering, complete invasion. She held there for a moment, both of them trembling, connected in the most vulgar, profound way.
Then she moved.
Her thrusts were punishing, a steady, driving rhythm that shook the entire bunk. The plastic base of the harness ground against Rio’s ass with each movement. There was no softness, no romance. It was raw, mechanical fucking. Agatha’s hand tightened in Rio’s hair. Her other arm braced on the bunk beside Rio’s head.
“You feel that?” Agatha grunted, her voice strained with effort. “That’s what you are. A hole for me to use when I decide. Nothing more.”
Rio couldn’t speak. Pleasure, sharp and coiled tight, was building from the very brutality of it. Each deep, drilling thrust nudged a spot inside her that sparked white behind her eyelids. The heat from her spanked skin flared with every impact. She was hurtling toward an edge, a peak constructed entirely from shame and surrender.
“I’m gonna…” Rio choked out.
Agatha’s hand left her hair and snaked between her body and the mattress, finding Rio’s clit. Her fingers were slippery with Rio’s own wetness. She rubbed hard, in time with her thrusts. “No,” Agatha commanded, her voice guttural. “You wait. You wait for me.”
Rio sobbed, teetering on the brink, held there by Agatha’s will alone. The tension became agony, a screaming need in every cell.
Agatha’s rhythm began to falter. Her thrusts grew erratic, harder, deeper. A raw, broken sound tore from her throat. She was close. Rio could feel it in the tension of the body above her, in the ragged gasps against her shoulder.
“Now,” Agatha barked, the word a final, granting permission.
It was all Rio needed. The orgasm exploded through her, violent and total, tearing a ragged scream from her lungs. Her inner muscles clamped down viscously around the hard silicone inside her, waves of convulsive pleasure wiping her mind blank.
Agatha drove into her through the climax, her own release silent but for the shudder that racked her entire frame, a full-body tremor that lasted for long seconds before she collapsed, heavy and spent, onto Rio’s back.
The only sounds were their heaving breaths and the relentless hum of the bus wheels on asphalt. Sweat cooled on Rio’s skin. The weight of Agatha was a comfort, an anchor.
Slowly, carefully, Agatha withdrew. The loss was physical. Rio heard the rustle as Agatha removed the harness, the soft click of it being set aside.
Then, a blanket was dragged over Rio’s body. Agatha didn’t lie back down. Rio rolled over, wincing at the tenderness between her legs, the sting on her ass.
Agatha was sitting on the edge of the bunk, her head in her hands. She was dressed again, her shirt straightened, her composure a shattered thing she was desperately trying to reassemble.
“Agatha,” Rio whispered, her voice raw.
Agatha stood up. She wouldn’t look at her. “That was the last time,” she said, her voice terrifyingly even. “Do you understand? The campaign arrives in D.C. tomorrow. This bus, this… insanity… it stays on the road.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Agatha finally looked at her. Her eyes were hollow. The campaign manager was fully back in place, a fortress sealed shut. “I have never meant anything more in my life.”
She picked up her leather folio, the one with the Michigan polling data. A symbol of the real world, waiting to crush them.
“Get some sleep,” Agatha said, her tone now devoid of anything resembling the woman who had just taken Rio apart. “We have a breakfast rally at seven. You’re expected to smile.”
She opened the berth door and stepped out into the hallway, closing it softly behind her.
Rio lay alone in the dim, vibrating bunk. The scent of sex and sweat and Agatha’s perfume was overwhelming. Her body ached in the sweetest, most terrible ways. She touched the sharp, throbbing bite marks on her neck.
The last time, Agatha had said.
But as the bus hurtled through the darkness toward the capital, Rio knew with a sinking, exhilarating certainty that it was just another lie they’d agreed to believe. The game hadn’t ended. The rules had simply gotten more dangerous.