Chapter 3: The Bunny's Sacrifice
The symphony of sighs faded to a faint, irregular wheeze. Mizu lay across the cold marble, a landscape of defeated splendor.
The hissing from the dragon's many wounds was a dying breath, a sound Mary felt in her own hollowed-out chest. Kayla stared at the deflated form, then at Mary’s shivering posture amidst the ruin. "The service won't take this," she said, her voice matter-of-fact. "Bring it to the back."
She gestured with her chin toward a sleek, nearly invisible door beside the wet bar. Mary moved on numb legs, gathering up the vast, crinkling sheets of white and purple vinyl. The material was
still warm in places from her touch, shockingly heavy as it folded in on itself. She dragged the bundle, a whispering, cumbersome ghost, across the floor. Kayla opened the hidden door.
The smell hit Mary first: a humid, chemical tang of chlorine and warm rubber. It coiled in the back of her throat. Beyond the threshold, soft, neon-blue light glowed from beneath the surface of a vast, shallow pool. The room was a cavern of concrete and tile, the ceiling low.
Inflatable shapes loomed in the azure gloom.
They were everywhere. A colossal, green sea serpent coiled in the deep end, its cartoonish grin seeming to leer. A pair of smiling dolphins lay stacked against a wall. In the center of the pool, positioned like an altar on a submerged platform, was a ten-foot pink bunny with enormous, floppy feet—Puffy Paws.
Its vinyl was a vibrant, candied pink, its black eyes wide and innocently empty. Mary’s breath caught. The shame from the main room curdled, mixing violently with a fresh, dizzying wave of want.
“My private collection,” Kayla said, her voice echoing softly off the water. She walked to the edge of the pool, her reflection shattering in the ripples. “I use this room to think. Sometimes to play.”
She turned, leaning against the tile wall. “You can put Mizu in the corner. She’s yours now, remember? But a deal’s a deal.” Kayla’s gray eyes locked onto the pink bunny. “You didn’t finish cleaning. There’s still a mess of tension in here. In you.”
Mary let the bundle of Mizu slump onto the dry deck. She couldn’t look away from the bunny. Its presence was a physical pull.
“Take your clothes off,” Kayla instructed, her tone leaving no room for debate. “All of them. It’s a pool room. You’ll get them wet.”
Mary’s fingers trembled as she complied. The air was warm and damp against her bare skin. She felt horribly, utterly exposed, more than she had in the penthouse. The colored lights played over her thighs, her stomach.
“Good.” Kayla nodded toward the pool. “Get on it.”
Mary waded into the water. It was bath-warm, rising to her waist. The bunny’s surface was impossibly smooth, perfectly taut. She climbed onto its broad back, the vinyl squeaking faintly under her weight. The cool, firm pressure against her was an immediate, devastating comfort. It felt like belonging. It felt like a sin.
From the deck, Kayla retrieved a small, sleek switchblade from a niche in the wall. She tested the mechanism. Click-snick. The silver blade caught the blue light.
“You know what to do,” Kayla said, her voice low. She waded into the pool, the water lapping at her hips, and held the knife out, handle first. “The thigh. Just like before. Pop it.”
Mary stared at the offered knife. Her tears returned, hot and silent. She saw Mizu’s deflated form in the corner, a grave reminder. This was the price. This was always the price for wanting something this much.
She took the knife. The metal was warm from Kayla’s hand.
Positioning the tip against the soft, rounded curve of the bunny’s pink thigh, she pressed. The vinyl resisted, then yielded with a sudden, catastrophic pop. The sound was sharper here, amplified by the tiled walls.
A violent hiss erupted, whistling out into the humid air.
The bunny’s leg buckled instantly, collapsing inward under her weight. Mary gasped, lurching forward to straddle the deflating form as it sank toward the water. The firm support vanished, replaced by a frantic, softening struggle.
She was crying in earnest now, sobs wrenching her shoulders as the air screamed from the wound. The pink vinyl wrinkled and folded beneath her, the once-proud shape melting into a pliant, hissing ruin. The bunny’s head listed to the side, one black eye dipping toward the water’s surface.
“Again,” Kayla whispered. She was close, watching, her own breath shallow.
Mary pulled the blade out. The hiss stuttered wetly. She stabbed again, another puncture in the yielding pink flesh. Pop-hisssss. More of the structure failed. She was clinging to a sinking raft, her body pressed intimately against the rapid collapse.
The bunny was halfway submerged, water lapping at its deflating ears. Mary was soaked, naked, and destroying the thing she craved. A dark, shocking heat pooled in her belly, synchronizing with each escaping sigh of air.
Kayla reached out, not for the knife, but to place her palm flat on the bunny’s buckling chest, right next to Mary’s trembling knee. She could feel the vibrations of the escaping air through the vinyl.
“It’s just a toy,” Kayla breathed, but her voice was strained, her gaze fixed on Mary’s face. “See how it gives? See how it takes everything you do?”
Mary stabbed a third time, a final, surrendering puncture. The hiss became a long, dying whisper. The great pink form went utterly limp beneath them, a shadow of itself swallowed by the warm, blue water. Only the wide, staring eyes remained above the surface, like something drowned.
In the sudden quiet, the only sounds were the drip of water and Mary’s ragged weeping. She sat on the ruined vinyl, adrift in the pool, the switchblade’s handle slick in her grip.
Kayla’s hand slid from the bunny’s chest to Mary’s wet thigh. The touch was electric, deliberate. “Now,” she said, her voice barely audible over the hum of the filtration system. “You’re clean.”
Kayla’s hand lingered, a brand of contrast against Mary’s chilled skin. The humid air clung to them, thick with the scent of ruined vinyl and chlorine. "But the room isn't," Kayla said, her gaze sweeping over the other shapes in the blue gloom.
She nodded toward the far wall. "The draft horse. Bring it."
Trembling, Mary slid off the submerged bunny, the water feeling like a tepid soup. She waded toward a massive, synthetic creature the color of weathered oak. It was a sculpted workhorse, its back broad and flat, its vinyl hide textured with fake muscle and harness lines.
It stood solid on the pool floor, a patient, stoic giant. "It's heavier," Kayla said, retrieving a coiled yellow air hose from a wall-mounted reel. "Needs a different approach." She connected the hose to a valve on the horse's flank with a sharp click.
The compressor s