Chapter 2: Shower and Inspection
The touch was clinical, her fingers cool and dry. She held him for only a second before releasing with a dismissive flick, as if discarding a piece of lint. The laughter that followed wasn’t loud, but it was razor-sharp, filling the silent, sterile space.
“I was being generous before,” Irina said, circling him again, her heels ticking a slow rhythm on the concrete. “This is not a cock. This is a… a nervous appendix. Useless.” She stopped in front of him, her gaze holding his. “Look at you. Shivering. Is it the cold floor, or is it me?”
“You,” he whispered, the word escaping before he could filter it.
Her eyebrow arched. “Good. Honesty is tolerable.” She walked over to the sleek sofa and sat, leaning back and stretching her long legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankles. From this angle, looking up from his knees, she seemed impossibly high, a queen on a dark throne.
“Crawl to me.”
The command, so simply delivered, sparked a fresh wave of heat in his cheeks. He moved forward, the hard floor grinding against his kneecaps, his palms flat on the cool, smooth surface. He stopped a foot from her shoes.
“Closer. Here.” She tapped the toe of one heel against the floor directly between her feet.
He inched forward until he was nestled in the V of her legs, the scent of her perfume and clean stockings enveloping him. The city’s lights haloed her head from behind.
“You paid for an hour,” she said conversationally, looking down her nose at him. “In that hour, you are my toy. A little Finnish toy. Do you know what I do with toys that don’t perform?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I put them back in the box. I don’t get angry. I just lose interest. You don’t want me to lose interest, do you?”
“No, Mistress Irina.”
“No,” she echoed, mimicking his timid tone. She uncrossed her legs, planting her feet on either side of his hips, effectively caging him. “Tell me why you are here. In your own, simple words.”
He took a shaky breath. “To… to serve you. To feel small.”
“To feel humiliated,” she corrected, her voice sweetly acidic. “You want a beautiful young woman to tell you that you are nothing. That your body is a joke. That you are weak. You want to borrow my confidence because you have none of your own. It is pathetic.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “But it is also my job. So, we will continue.”
She reached out and took his chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing his head up further. “You will not look away from me unless I tell you to. You will maintain this position. If your back slumps, I will correct it. If you make a sound I do not ask for, I will silence you. Do you understand the rules of the game, little man?”
“Yes, Mistress Irina.”
“Good boy.” The praise was a venomous dart. She released his chin and straightened up, surveying him. “Now, we have a problem. Your body is not cooperating with your fantasy. This is common. Performance anxiety. But I am not a therapist. I am a solution.” She stood up suddenly, forcing him to jerk his head back to follow her movement.
She walked to a discreet cupboard set into the wood-paneled wall. When she returned, she held a small, black leather case. She placed it on the coffee table and clicked it open. Inside, on gray velvet, lay a single, slender violet wand, its electrode tips looking sterile and strange. A modern medical implement.
“This,” she said, picking up the wand but not turning it on, “is a teacher. It provides… motivation. A clear, immediate conversation between my will and your nerves.” She knelt in front of him, a shocking descent from her height, bringing them almost eye-to-eye. Her expression was one of playful conspiracy. “You have a safe word. You whispered it to me online. ‘Forest.’ Say it for me now.”
“Forest,” he mumbled.
“If you say that, everything stops. The game ends. You put your nice, folded clothes back on, and you leave. And you will have wasted your money and my time.” Her green eyes locked onto his. “Do you think you will use your safe word, Mikael?”
He searched her face for cruelty, for a real threat, but saw only a cool, professional challenge. This was the boundary. This was the line he had asked her to walk. “No,” he said, with more conviction than he felt.
“No,” she agreed. She stood again, towering once more. She thumbed a switch on the wand. A quiet, sustained crackle filled the air, and a faint purple arc of light jumped between the electrodes. It smelled like ozone, like a coming storm.
“Now,” she said, her voice bright and casual, as if discussing the weather. “Let’s see if we can wake that sleepy appendix of yours up. Stay very, very still.” The humming arc descended, not touching him yet, tracing a slow, terrifying inch above his skin.