Chapter 39: Worship
Reese’s mouth was a wet, slack cave of desperation. He suckled Roman’s cock with a frantic, graceless rhythm, his lips bruised and swollen, his tongue a clumsy piston. Every shallow bob of his head sent fresh tremors through his own wrecked body. The vibrator inside his cunt was a live wire, the plugs a grotesque fullness, the enema a seething, ginger-fired ocean threatening to breach the dam.
Roman watched, one hand resting lightly on the back of Reese’s head, not forcing, just present. His breath was even. His other hand held the remote.
“Eleven,” Roman stated.
The buzz was a brutal shock. It wasn’t a build to climax; it was a detonation switch. Reese’s jaw went rigid around Roman’s cock as the orgasm tore through him, a raw, splintering convulsion that had his cunt clenching violently around the invading objects. A guttural, muffled scream vibrated against Roman’s flesh. Hot tears streaked down Reese’s face, mixing with spit and pre-come. He couldn’t pull away. He could only ride it out, his body betraying him with a pleasure that was indistinguishable from agony.
When the vibration stopped, Reese went limp, his forehead resting against Roman’s thigh, his breath coming in wet, ragged hitches. He was a puppet with cut strings.
“Continue,” Roman said, his voice devoid of inflection.
Reese tried. His lips were numb. He nuzzled the length, lapping weakly at the base, then took the head back into his mouth. The taste of skin and salt was the only real thing left.
“Twelve.”
The buzz was shorter this time, a sharp, punitive jolt. The climax it triggered was less a wave and more a seismic crack—a deep, internal rupture that made Reese see a flash of white light behind his eyelids. He gagged, his throat working convulsively around Roman’s cock. He was beyond control, an animal reacting to stimulus.
Roman let him cough and sob for a moment, the remote held idle. “You’re forgetting your purpose,” he chided softly. “That mouth isn’t for crying. It’s for my cock. Do it properly.”
Reese, broken and hollow, dragged his tongue along the thick vein underneath. He took him deep, trying to remember how to suck, how to please. His mind was smoke. His world was the weight on his tongue, the ache in his gut, the electric ghost of sensation in his cunt.
“Thirteen.”
This one was longer. The vibrator snarled inside him, and Reese’s back arched violently, his body bowing away from Roman even as his mouth remained impaled. It was a contradiction of agony, a wrenching apart. The orgasm was a series of sharp, dry heaves against Roman’s shaft, his cunt fluttering in a rapid, desperate rhythm that felt like it was shredding him from the inside. A thin, pathetic wail escaped his nose.
Roman waited. He watched the tears, the snot, the utter devastation. He clicked the remote off.
Reese slumped, spent. He was a shell. The plugs felt like permanent parts of him now. The enema was a distant, burning planet in his lower abdomen. He simply rested his cheek on Roman’s thigh, his lips parted around the softening flesh, exhausted beyond comprehension.
“Fourteen.”
It wasn’t a full activation. It was a cruel, teasing pulse—three seconds of that deep, hellish buzz, then silence. It was just enough to yank a fractured gasp from Reese, to make his hips jerk in a spastic, incomplete shudder. A precursor to nothing. A promise of more pain.
“Please,” Reese slurred, the word mashed against Roman’s skin. “No more… can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Roman’s hand fisted in his hair, not yanking, just taking a firm grip. “Can’t take my cock? You’re taking it just fine. You’re a greedy little hole, aren’t you? Coming yourself sick while you try to suck me off. It’s pathetic. It’s perfect.”
He pulsed the vibrator again. Another aborted, wrenching spasm from Reese. A fresh sob.
“I’ll make it stop,” Roman murmured, his tone shifting to something almost coaxing. “I’ll let you make it stop. You want that?”
Reese nodded desperately, a miserable, tiny movement.
“Then earn it. Take me all the way. Make me come in that filthy mouth of yours. And you will swallow every drop. If you fail, we go to twenty.”
The threat was absolute. Twenty would unmake him completely. There would be nothing left to salvage.
A new, final desperation clawed its way up through the wreckage. Reese focused everything—every shred of will, every memory of skill, every atomic need for this to end—onto the cock in his mouth. He hollowed his cheeks, sucking hard, drawing the length deep into his throat. He used his tongue, pressing and swirling around the head. He reached a trembling hand up to cradle Roman’s balls, rolling them gently in his palm.
He worked with a broken, focused intensity. It was no longer about pleasure. It was a survival task. A negotiation for mercy.
Roman’s breath hitched. A low groan rumbled in his chest. “That’s it. Work for it, you desperate bitch.”
Reese redoubled his efforts, bobbing faster, taking him deeper, ignoring the ache in his jaw, the fire in his gut. He was a machine. A tool.
Roman’s hips began to move, a slight, instinctive thrust into the wet heat. His grip on Reese’s hair tightened. “Don’t you dare stop.”
The vibrator came alive again, but not the short pulses. This was a continuous, punishing roar. The fourteenth full orgasm smashed into Reese like a truck. His eyes rolled back. His body convulsed, a wild, thrashing thing, but Roman’s fist in his hair held him in place, impaling him on his cock through the storm. Reese’s cunt was a frantic, clenching fist around the vibrator, milking nothing, spasming in brutal, empty rhythms.
He couldn’t scream. He could only choke and suck as he was electrocuted from the inside out.
“Fuck,” Roman hissed, his composure cracking. His thrusts became harder, sharper, using Reese’s mouth. “Take it. Take all of it, you ruined slut.”
The fifteenth climax began before the fourteenth had even ended, a overlapping tsunami of neural static that dissolved Reese’s boundaries. He was a vessel for vibration, for cock, for pain. He was nothing but a series of involuntary clenches and a wet, sucking noise.
Roman’s control shattered. With a final, deep groan that was pure possession, he thrust hard, holding Reese’s head down as he emptied himself. Reese felt the hot, salty pulse flood the back of his throat. The command was implicit, the threat of twenty looming. He swallowed convulsively, gulping down the bitter spend, his throat working around the still-throbbing cock as his own ruined cunt continued its helpless, rhythmic clenching around the buzzing toy.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing, the low hum of the vibrator, and the wet, weak sounds Reese made as he dutifully cleaned Roman’s softening flesh with his tongue, swallowing every last drop.
Roman finally pulled himself free with a soft, wet pop. He looked down at Reese, who remained on his knees, swaying, eyes unfocused, a silvery thread of come and saliva connecting his lower lip to Roman’s cock before it snapped.
He clicked the remote off.
The sudden silence was louder than the buzz. Reese shuddered violently, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with orgasm and everything to do with systemic collapse.
Roman tucked himself away, fastening his trousers with deliberate calm. He then reached down, hooking his hands under Reese’s armpits, and hauled him to his feet. Reese’s legs were useless. Roman held him upright, an arm locked around his chest.
“The lesson is learned,” Roman said into his ear, his voice quiet and definitive. “You are not independent. You are not defiant. You are mine. Your pleasure, your pain, your shame, your obedience—they are mine to administer. You are a instrument. And I have just tuned you.”
He half-carried, half-dragged Reese across the blood-red tiles toward a heavy, riveted door. Reese’s feet scuffed uselessly beneath him. With his free hand, Roman opened the door. Beyond was not another torture chamber, but a sumptuous, dark-paneled lounge. A throne-like chair of black oak and crimson velvet sat on a low dais. This was Roman’s viewing room, his place of repose after the work was done.
Roman lowered Reese onto the thick fur rug at the foot of the throne. Reese curled onto his side, fetal, trembling.
“You may release it,” Roman said, settling into the throne, crossing his legs.
It took Reese’s obliterated mind a second to understand. The enema. The burning, weighted pressure. He was still plugged, sealed tight.
With fumbling, shaking fingers, he reached behind himself. He found the base of the thick silicone plug and, with a sob of relief and fresh shame, pulled it slowly from his aching hole.
The release was immediate and uncontrollable. The Bordeaux, now infused with the fiery bite of ginger, flooded out of him in a hot, violent rush, soaking into the expensive fur rug. The smell of wine and spice and body waste filled the space. He emptied himself completely, his belly cramping, his face burning with humiliation as he pissed the last of it out in front of his master’s throne.
He lay there, spent and filthy in the aftermath.
Roman watched, a faint, satisfied smile playing on his lips. He made no move to clean him. This, too, was part of the tapestry.
“You will sleep here tonight,” Roman decreed. “On the floor where you belong. In the morning, we begin again. The next lesson concerns gratitude.”
He reached down and ran a hand through Reese’s damp, choppy hair, a gesture that was almost tender. “You did well at the end. There is hope for you yet.”
The words were a shackle far stronger than any steel.
The words were a shackle far stronger than any steel.
The week that followed was a blur of sensation, a cyclical hell of brutal instruction and shocking, forced release. The lessons on gratitude were taught with electrical probes and wax, with canes and cruel, twisting plugs that stretched Reese’s limits until they snapped. Roman taught him to thank him for the bite of the clamp, to praise him for the searing line of a whip, to whisper worship for the deep, grinding fullness of a fist. Each pain-fueled orgasm was a brick in a wall, closing off the person Reese had been. His sarcasm died. His defiance drowned in a sea of his own fluids. He became a reactive thing, flinching at raised hands, shuddering at specific tones, his eyes perpetually seeking Roman’s for permission, for direction, for a fraction of warmth in the cold calculus of his training.
The morning they left, Reese couldn’t dress himself. His hands, scarred from gripping restraint bars too tightly, shook too badly to button the simple black shirt Roman provided. Roman did it for him, his fingers swift and impersonal, before securing the final piece: the jeweled collar. It was heavier than Reese remembered, a cold, hard band of black leather studded with onyx and rubies that sat just above the lingering bruises from the week’s throttlings. It clicked shut with a sound of finality. Roman attached a fine, almost delicate-looking lead to the front ring.
“Walk,” Roman said, turning toward the suite’s main exit.
Reese tried. His legs, unsteady from days in restraints and hours kneeling, buckled immediately. He caught himself on a carved post of the bed, his breath hitching in shame. Roman watched, waiting. On the second attempt, Reese managed a stumbling step, then another, his gait a wide, painful shuffle. He made it to Roman’s side, his entire body trembling with the effort. Roman didn’t offer an arm. He simply turned and walked, and Reese followed, lurching like a broken marionette, the lead hanging slack between them as he fought to simply remain upright on the polished floor.
The transition from the dungeon’s oppressive silence to the spa’s hushed, perfumed halls was jarring. Reese kept his eyes down, focusing on the pattern of the marble tiles, feeling the weight of unseen glances from attendants. He smelled bergamot and eucalyptus, clean linen and wealth. It was a world away from the scents of sweat, sex, and ozone that now lived in his marrow. He clung to the doorframe of the exit, the bright, gray Gotham daylight lancing his eyes like needles.
A long, black sedan idled at the curb. Roman opened the door and slid in. Reese stood on the sidewalk, swaying, the city’s damp chill biting through his thin clothes. He looked at the dark interior, then back at the spa’s ornate doors. A hollow, panicked freedom buzzed in his chest for half a second.
“Now,” Roman’s voice came from within the car, flat and absolute.
The panic solidified into obedience. Reese bent his body, collapsing more than sitting into the plush leather seat beside Roman. The door thunked shut, sealing them in quiet, tinted twilight. The partition was up. The driver pulled smoothly into traffic.
The movement of the car, the vibration of the engine, the very fact of being outside that room—it unlocked a frantic, nervous energy in Reese’s gut. He stared at Roman’s profile, the sharp jaw, the focused gaze looking ahead. The collar felt like it was burning his skin. His cunt, even empty now, throbbed with a raw, phantom memory of use. He needed something to anchor him, a task, a purpose to prove the training held. To prove he was still his.
Without a word, Reese fumbled with Roman’s belt buckle, his fingers clumsy.
Roman didn’t look at him. “Eager.”
“Please,” Reese whispered, the word automatic, drilled into him. He got the buckle open, the button, the zipper. He pulled out Roman’s cock, already half-hard, and bent over the center console, his body protesting the angle.
He took him into his mouth with a desperate, hungry suction, no finesse, just need. He bobbed his head, sloppy and fast, spit slicking his chin. He needed the taste, the weight, the tangible proof of his ownership. He needed to do this right. His throat worked, gagging slightly, but he pushed deeper, swallowing around the head.
“Slow down,” Roman muttered, a hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. “You’re not a fucking jackhammer.”
But Reese couldn’t slow. A frantic anxiety drove him. He sucked harder, tongue pressing along the frenulum, hollowing his cheeks. He moaned around the flesh, the vibration earning a sharp intake of breath from above. He reached for Roman’s balls, cupping them, rolling them gently just as he’d been taught. The car hit a pothole, jolting them, and Reese took him deeper on the bounce, choking briefly before adjusting.
“Christ,” Roman grunted, his fingers tightening in Reese’s hair. His hips began to lift, meeting the frantic rhythm. “Alright. Get your fix, you needy bitch. Take it.”
Reese redoubled his efforts, the world narrowing to the musk of skin, the salty pre-come on his tongue, the commanding grip in his hair. He was a machine built for this single function. The city blurred past the tinted windows, unseen.
Roman’s breath grew ragged. “Gonna come. You swallow it. Every fucking drop.”
Reese nodded, a frantic movement, his mouth stuffed. He felt the pulse begin, the familiar thickening, and then the hot, bitter flood hit the back of his throat. He swallowed convulsively, gulping, not letting a drop escape, milking the shaft with his lips until Roman shuddered and pushed him gently away.
Reese collapsed back onto his seat, breathless, come and saliva glistening on his lips. He looked at Roman, searching for approval in the dim light.
Roman tucked himself away, fastening his trousers. He looked at Reese, his gaze appraising. Then he reached over, his fingers hooking in the waistband of Reese’s pants. He yanked them down roughly to mid-thigh. The cold air of the car hissed against Reese’s exposed, reddened cunt lips.
“You don’t get to just take,” Roman said, his voice casual. “You give, and then you receive.”
Two fingers pressed inside Reese without ceremony. He was still swollen, terribly raw from the week’s endless violations. The intrusion was a bright lance of pain. He cried out, his back arching off the leather seat.
“Hurts,” he gasped.
“I know it does,” Roman said, his voice devoid of sympathy. He began pumping his fingers, a ruthless, fast pace that offered no time to adjust. The rough pads of his fingers scraped against oversensitive, torn flesh. It was a brutal mimicry of fucking, devoid of pleasure, only a sharp, claiming aggression.
Reese shook, tears springing to his eyes, his hands clawing at the seat. It was too much. It was fire.
“Come for me,” Roman commanded, curling his fingers just so, pressing relentlessly against a spot that was more wound than trigger.
Reese’s body, trained beyond resistance, betrayed him. A violent, shuddering orgasm was ripped from his raw cunt, a sharp, clenching spasm that felt like being turned inside out. It was pure pain circuiting through the ghost of pleasure, a devastating punishment his nerves mistook for reward. He screamed, a short, torn sound, as his hips bucked against the unyielding hand.
Roman held his fingers inside through the clenches, letting Reese ride the painful wave, before slowly pulling them out. He held them up, glistening in the ambient light, and then wiped them clean on Reese’s thigh.
“Good,” he said, as the car slowed, pulling into the underground garage of Roman’s tower.
Reese lay there, pants around his thighs, staring at the roof liner, shaking. The brutal, fast violation in the back of the moving car felt more definitive than any session in the dungeon. It was casual. It was an errand. It was life now.
Roman straightened his jacket and opened the door. “Get dressed. We’re home.”
He stepped out, not looking back. Reese fumbled with his clothes, his fingers numb, the raw ache between his legs a constant, throbbing testament. He shuffled out of the car, his legs barely cooperating, and followed the sound of Roman’s echoing footsteps toward the private elevator, the jeweled collar cold and heavy around his neck.
He shuffled out of the car, his legs barely cooperating, and followed the sound of Roman’s echoing footsteps toward the private elevator, the jeweled collar cold and heavy around his neck.
The elevator was a silent, polished box. Reese leaned against the back wall, his breath fogging the brushed steel briefly. Roman stood perfectly straight, watching the numbers climb. “Try not to look like you’re about to vomit on my shoes,” he said, not turning around. “We’re going to be seen.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Reese muttered, the old sarcasm a weak ghost in his raw throat. “Your shoes are too ugly to ruin.”
A faint, amused twitch touched Roman’s lips. The doors opened directly into the penthouse’s main living space, all sharp angles and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Gotham’s cancerous glow. Reese’s gaze drifted toward the hallway that led back to the bedroom, to the locked door of the private suite. His stomach clenched.
“Not yet,” Roman said, reading the look. He walked to a monolithic closet and threw it open. “You’re not staying. We’re going out. Change into this.”
He tossed a bundle of fabric at Reese. It was a suit, stark and perfectly tailored, the color of charcoal smoke. The shirt beneath was black silk. Reese fumbled with the buttons of his current shirt, his fingers still unsteady. After a minute of clumsy struggle, Roman sighed, stepped forward, and batted his hands away. He undressed and re-dressed him with swift, impersonal efficiency, his knuckles brushing Reese’s stomach, his hip bones, the still-tender skin of his inner thighs. Each touch was a brand. Finally, Roman fixed the collar of the new shirt, ensuring the black leather and jewels sat prominently above it.
“Presentable,” Roman announced, stepping back to survey his work. The suit hung well on Reese’s lean frame, disguising the tremors. It also felt like a cage. “You will walk in on my arm. You will not wander. You will not speak unless I allow it. But you will… perform. A little. Amuse me.”
“What’s my motivation?” Reese asked, the words flat.
“Your motivation is the alternative,” Roman replied, his voice pleasant. He held out his arm. Reese stared at it, then slipped his hand into the crook of Roman’s elbow. His grip was too tight, clinging for balance as much as obedience.
They took a different elevator down. The sounds hit first: a deep, thrumming bassline that vibrated in Reese’s molars, the shriek of a distorted guitar, the undulating roar of a crowd. The doors opened not into a garage, but into a pulsing, shadow-lined corridor that fed directly into the heart of The Sionis Suite. Strobe lights cut through a haze of artificial fog and cigarette smoke. The air was thick with the smell of spilled gin, human sweat, and a cloying, trendy perfume.
Roman moved through the chaos like a shark through chum. A path cleared for him. Reese clung to his arm, the noise a physical pressure against his bruised senses. Bodies pressed close, all sharp fashions and sharper eyes, their glances sliding over Roman with fear and then snagging on Reese with open, hungry curiosity. The collar glittered under the laser lights, a blatant declaration.
A massive bouncer unlocked a velvet rope, and they ascended a wrought-iron staircase to a mezzanine balcony that overlooked the seething dance floor. Up here, the music was a muffled throb. The space was a series of secluded booths shrouded in deeper shadow, a private arena of power. Roman’s booth was the largest, a semicircle of plush black leather facing the view, a bottle of vodka already chilling in a stand.
Roman sat, and Reese sank down beside him, his body screaming in relief at the support. He didn’t let go of Roman’s arm, instead sliding his hand down to rest on his forearm, fingers pressing into the fine wool of his jacket. The contact was a grounding wire. Without it, he felt he might float away and dissipate like the fog below.
A lean man with a scar through his eyebrow approached, flanked by two others. “Mr. Sionis. The shipment from the dock.”
“Sit,” Roman said. He didn’t introduce Reese.
The meeting began, a low, tense exchange about containers, police payouts, and a missing enforcer. Reese tuned out the specifics. He focused on the feel of Roman’s arm beneath his hand, the solid reality of it. He watched the club lights paint patterns on Roman’s sharp profile. A strange, fragile bubble of normalcy formed in the booth, absurd and precarious.
He leaned his head against Roman’s shoulder, his voice a dry murmur near his ear. “This guy’s tie is louder than the band. Did he rob a circus tent?”
Roman didn’t look away from Scar-Eyebrow, but Reese felt the minute shift of muscle, a suppressed reaction. “Quiet.”
“I’m just saying, if his taste in silks matches his taste in security, no wonder guys are going missing.” Reese traced a small, idle circle on Roman’s sleeve with his thumb. “You should charge him a consulting fee for the fashion advice alone.”
Scar-Eyebrow glanced at Reese, his expression uncertain, trying to parse the dynamic.
“Ignore him,” Roman said, his tone dismissive, but he placed his free hand over Reese’s, pinning it to his arm in a clear, possessive gesture. “He’s decorative and has a chemical imbalance. Continue.”
Another man arrived, this one sweating and talking too fast about a contested territory line near the Bowery. His eyes darted constantly to Reese, to the collar, to the way Reese was now tracing the rim of Roman’s water glass with a lazy finger.
“You’re boring us,” Reese announced suddenly, his voice carrying just enough. He picked up Roman’s vodka, took a small sip, and made a face. “And your product is cut with bathroom cleaner. Tell your chemists to try harder or stick to baking soda.”
The man went pale, looking to Roman for correction, for punishment.
Roman simply took the glass from Reese’s hand and sipped from the same spot. “He’s not wrong,” he said, his icy gaze settling on the man. “The last batch was inferior. Consider that your only warning.”
The man stammered apologies and fled.
Roman finally looked down at Reese. The candle at the center of the table gilded the edges of his skull-like mask, but his eyes were alive with something warmer than cruelty. It was gratification. “You’re a menace.”
“You like it,” Reese said, the bravado a thin veneer over his exhaustion. He rested his temple against Roman’s shoulder again, his eyelids drooping. The adrenaline of the performance was leaching away, leaving the deep, hollowed-out ache from the week. His body felt heavy, his mind slow.
“I do,” Roman admitted quietly, for Reese’s ear alone. His hand tightened over Reese’s. “You shine for me. Even like this.” He nodded toward the club below, a kingdom of shadows and noise. “They all see what’s mine.”
Another supplicant approached, but Roman held up a single finger, halting him ten feet away. He shifted, putting his arm around Reese’s shoulders, pulling him closer into the shelter of his body. Reese went willingly, his body molding to Roman’s side, a hand fisting lightly in his shirtfront now, holding on.
“Sleep if you need to,” Roman murmured, his lips against Reese’s hair. “The meetings can wait.”
The permission was its own kind of command. Reese’s breath hitched, the last vestige of tension unraveling. Surrounded by the evidence of Roman’s power, displayed like a trophy yet sheltered in the eye of the storm, he let his eyes close. The music was a distant pulse. The glittering collar was a weight he no longer had to fight. Here, in the deceptive sanctuary of Roman’s public claim, the real work of his surrender was complete.