Chapter 5: The Pump and the Promise
The packages sat on her white duvet like artifacts from another planet. Three of them, arranged in a neat row by size. The pink clit pump in its clear plastic blister pack, looking like a bizarre medical device. The Ben Wa balls, a pair of smooth, stainless-steirless spheres connected by a thin silicone string, nestled in a velvet pouch. The tube of cream, ‘Sensitive Touch,’ in unassuming blue and white packaging.
Her phone lay beside them, the screen lit with V’s last message.
The items have been delivered. Open them. Arrange them. Look at them for five minutes before you proceed. Do not touch yourself otherwise.
She had done that. The five minutes had been an eternity of dry-mouthed staring, her heart a frantic thing against her ribs. The objects seemed to pulse with a quiet, obscene potential. They were so specific. The pump, with its little rubber bulb and plastic cup, was almost comical in its blatancy. The balls were coldly elegant. The cream was the most mundane, and therefore the most sinister.
Now, a new message glowed on the screen.
Insert the balls. Use the lubricant provided with them. Then use the pump for exactly five minutes. Set a timer. Document the result with a clear photograph.
A part of her mind, a small, clean room that still felt like Lena, screamed that this was the line. The photograph from the kitchen table had been one thing. This was something else. This was clinical. This was a close-up of a part of her body she barely looked at herself, transformed by a tool.
Her body, however, was already moving. It had its own logic, a logic forged in supermarket aisles and coded in breath rituals and anchored by a smooth stone currently weighing down the pocket of her discarded jeans. The hollow feeling from the night before was gone, replaced by a low-grade static, the “hum” he had promised. It was a receptive buzz just beneath her skin.
She picked up the velvet pouch. The balls slid into her palm, cool and heavier than they looked. The string dangled. The provided lubricant was a single foil packet. She tore it open, the sound absurdly loud in the silent room. The gel was clear and slick.
Her hands didn’t shake. That was the most frightening thing. They were steady, efficient. She lay back against the pillows, her knees bent. The mechanics were simple. The cool, gel-slicked sphere met her entrance and slipped inside with a shocking, easy pressure. Then the second. They slid deep, a profound, filling weight that made her gasp. It wasn’t like the plug. That had been a focused intrusion. This was a dispersion, a saturation. She felt them settle, a dense core of cool metal inside her warmth. The short string trailed out, a tiny, ridiculous flag of occupancy.
She lay there for a moment, adjusting to the feeling. Every slight clench of her muscles made them shift, a subtle, internal stirring. It was constant, undeniable.
Next, the pump.
It came out of its packaging with a squeak of plastic. She examined it. The cup was smaller than she’d imagined. She pressed the bulb a few times, feeling the suction. Her face burned. This was the part that felt most like a violation, most like an experiment on a slab.
But the protocol was clear. She positioned the cup. She began to squeeze the bulb.
The sensation was immediate and utterly alien. A tight, pulling pressure, focused on that one hyper-sensitive point. It wasn’t pleasure, not exactly. It was a sharp, insistent attention. A claiming. She watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the skin was drawn up into the clear plastic cup, becoming a swollen, dark pink nub. She kept pumping, each squeeze of the bulb increasing the suction. The pressure built into a bright, almost-painful ache.
She fumbled for her phone, set the timer for five minutes, and placed it face-down on the bed.
Time dilated. The rhythmic, soft squeak-squeak of the bulb was the only sound. Her world narrowed to the pull and throb between her legs, and the deep, cool weight of the balls inside her. The two sensations conversed, a strange dialogue of fullness and focused tension. She stared at the ceiling, at a tiny crack in the plaster she’d never noticed before. Her breathing shallowed. A fine sweat broke out on her upper lip. The initial shock melted into a throbbing, persistent presence. It was overwhelming. It was all there was.
The timer buzzed.
She jumped, the sound shattering the intense cocoon of sensation. She released the valve on the pump with a soft hiss. The suction broke, and the sudden release was its own shock—a flood of sensitivity, a tingling, aching vulnerability.
She removed the cup.
She had to see. She propped herself up on her elbows, looked down.
The sight sent a jolt through her, part revulsion, part fascination. The skin was engorged, swollen to nearly twice its normal size, a glossy, dark pink. It felt hot and throbbed with her heartbeat. It looked like a part of someone else. A specimen.
Her phone buzzed. Not the timer. A message.
Document.
Her hands were cold now. She picked up the phone, switched to the camera. She angled it, trying to get a clear shot. The clinical overhead light was brutal, highlighting every detail. She took several. She selected the clearest one, where the swelling was most evident, the skin glistening. She didn’t look at it for long. She attached it and hit send.
The whoosh of the sent message sounded final.
She didn’t have to wait. The reply was instantaneous.
Apply the cream now. A thin layer. You will wear the balls to work tomorrow. The pump will be used again tonight before sleep. This is your new baseline.
Baseline. The word echoed. It wasn’t a peak, or an event. It was a foundation. A normal state to be returned to and maintained. The balls inside her, which she had assumed were for the exercise, were to become a permanent fixture. The pump, a nightly ritual. The cream, a soothing agent for the alteration he had commanded.
She unscrewed the cap of the ‘Sensitive Touch’ cream. It smelled faintly of aloe and something medicinal. She squeezed a small amount onto her finger. The touch of her own finger to the swollen flesh was electric, almost too much. She applied the cream gently. It was cool, a slight relief to the heat. The act felt like aftercare for a wound, or for a modification.
She cleaned the pump with soap and water at her bathroom sink, handling it with a detached, practical care. She dried it and placed it on her nightstand. It looked as ordinary as a hairbrush now. The balls remained inside. Their weight was becoming familiar, a part of her new anatomy.
She pulled on a pair of soft cotton pajama shorts and a tank top. The fabric brushed against her, every sensation amplified. She moved through her apartment, making tea, turning off lights. Each step sent a soft, internal shift. She was aware of herself in a way she had never been. It was a hyper-vigilance of the flesh.
She lay in bed, the stone from her pocket now placed on the nightstand next to the pump. The altered bra—a simple beige one where she had carefully pulled a single thread loose on the left cup, creating a tiny, invisible flaw—lay draped over a chair. The systems were in place. The stone for constant tactile reminder. The ritual for mental focus. The flaw for secret imperfection. And now, this: the internal weight, the nightly conditioning, the altered body part.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. A new word.
Przynależeć. To belong.
She placed her hand on her lower abdomen, over the weight of the balls. Inhale four. Hold. Exhale six. Przynależeć.
The word wove itself into the hum. To belong. The question hung in the dark: to what? To whom?
The morning was a series of careful adjustments. Showering was a complex operation, soaping around the string, feeling the balls inside her as the water cascaded down. Dressing for work—a knee-length charcoal grey skirt, a loose cream silk blouse, the altered bra beneath—required thought. The skirt’s waistband pressed the string subtly against her skin. A constant, whisper-like reminder.
She packed her tote bag: laptop, wallet, a small makeup pouch. And the pump, wrapped in a clean washcloth, nestled at the bottom. The directive was clear. It would be used again tonight. Its presence in her bag, next to her work things, was a quiet obscenity.
The walk to the tram was different. The balls moved with her gait, a gentle, internal rocking. It wasn’t painful. It was present. It made her walk with a slight, conscious care, a minute tightening of her core with each step. She wondered if it was visible, if her posture had changed. She caught her reflection in a shop window: a professional woman in a skirt and blouse, hair neat, expression composed. The perfect camouflage.
On the crowded tram, pressed between a student with headphones and an older man smelling of onions, the feeling intensified. Every jolt of the carriage, every sway around a corner, sent a deep, internal stir. She held onto a pole, her knuckles white. The stone was in her blouse pocket, a smooth, cool pressure against her ribs. The word for the day, Przynależeć, echoed with the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks.
Her office was an open-plan space of muted greys and blues, the soft clatter of keyboards and the murmur of phone calls a familiar symphony. Her desk was in a relatively quiet corner. She logged into her computer, the familiar branding project for a new eco-friendly laundry detergent filling her screen. The normality of it was almost jarring.
At 10:03, her phone vibrated in her pocket. The hourly ritual.
She stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked calmly to the bathrooms. They were empty. She entered a stall, locked the door. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. She closed her eyes, placed her hand low on her abdomen, and breathed. Inhale four. Hold. Exhale six. Przynależeć.
In the sterile quiet, the internal sensations roared. The weight of the balls. The residual, faint tenderness from the pump. The memory of the cream’s coolness. The word wrapped around it all. To belong. Here, in a toilet stall, performing a secret rite, she felt a terrifying sense of alignment. This was where she belonged. In this hidden, humming space inside a shell of normalcy.
She returned to her desk. Her colleague, Piotr, leaned over the partition. “Hey, Lena. The client wants more green in the logo. Less teal, more… foresty. You got a minute?”
She looked up, her face a polite mask. “Sure, Piotr. Foresty. I’ll see what I can do.”
Her voice sounded normal. Her hands moved the mouse, adjusted the color palette on her screen. She discussed Pantone codes. All the while, the secret weight inside her anchored her to a different reality.
Lunch was a salad eaten at her desk. At 1:03 PM, another ritual. This time, she used the disabled bathroom on the third floor, which was usually empty. The environment: office_bathroom_3. The word: Przynależeć. The hum deepened.
The afternoon dragged. The sensation of the balls became a background constant, like the sound of the air conditioning. She was adapting. It was becoming her baseline, just as he’d said.
At 4:55 PM, as she was shutting down her computer, her personal phone buzzed. Not the ritual alert. A message from V.
The café. Choose one now. Send the location. You will go directly from work.
She opened a map on her screen, her heart thumping a little faster. She scanned the streets near her office. She needed someplace with large windows, as he’d instructed. Someplace… visible. She found it: a modern, minimalist place called “Kawa na Ławę” (Coffee on the Bench). Its entire front was floor-to-ceiling glass, looking out onto a busy pedestrian street. It was all hard surfaces and echo, no cozy corners to hide in.
She sent the location.
The reply was immediate. Acceptable. Thirty minutes. Ritual once seated. Observe the street. Be observed.
She packed her bag, the pump a hidden weight among her things. She said quiet goodbyes to her colleagues, the model of polite, slightly reserved Lena.
The café was five minutes away. The late afternoon sun was slanted and golden, casting long shadows. She felt the balls with every step on the cobblestones. The stone was a companion in her pocket. The flaw in her bra was a tiny prick against her skin with each breath.
She pushed open the glass door. The inside was all light wood, white tile, and the sharp hiss of an espresso machine. The smell of roasted beans was rich and acidic. She ordered a black tea at the counter, her voice steady. She took her cup to a small table right by the window. It was a two-person table, but she took the chair facing the interior, her back to the glass. This was instinctive, a desire for a modicum of privacy.
Her phone buzzed in her hand as she sat down.
Turn your chair. Face the street.
A flush crept up her neck. She looked around. No one was paying attention. A couple murmured over laptops. A barista wiped down the steam wand. Slowly, she stood, picked up her cup and bag, and switched her chair to the other side of the table. Now she faced the enormous window. The pedestrian traffic flowed past: students with backpacks, women with shopping bags, businessmen talking on phones. She was on display, a woman having tea in a window. A specimen in a diorama.
She took a sip of tea. It was too hot, scalding her tongue. The heat was a sharp counterpoint to the cool stone in her pocket. She set the cup down.
It was time. 5:32 PM. The ritual.
She couldn’t close her eyes here. She kept her gaze fixed on a point across the street—a bookstore window display. She let her hands rest in her lap, one over the other. She took a slow, deep breath, inflating her diaphragm. Inhale four. Hold. Exhale six. Przynależeć.
As she exhaled, a man walking a dog glanced in the window. His eyes swept over the café interior, passed over her. Did they pause? Did he see a woman sitting unnaturally still, her focus inward? She felt a spike of exposure, sharp and clean. The hum in her core vibrated in response. She did another cycle. And another.
She was a secret in plain sight. The balls inside her, the stone, the word, the flaw—they were the reality. The tea, the café, the people outside, were the fiction. She belonged to the secret. The thought, on the tail of the word Przynależeć, felt like a truth.
Halfway through her tea, her phone buzzed again. A message from Irena.
Just checking in. You’ve been quiet. Coffee this week? For real this time?
Lena stared at the words. Her sister’s concern was a tug from a distant shore. She pictured Irena’s face, earnest, worried. The old Lena would have typed back an apology, would have set a date, would have felt a warm rush of familial connection.
The woman sitting in the window felt nothing but a faint irritation, like a buzzing fly. The connection was static. Irena was speaking a language that was becoming foreign.
Her fingers typed the reply, cool and precise. Swamped with this detergent project. Deadline is Friday. Maybe next week?
She hit send. The message was a dismissal, a gentle closing of a door. She felt a small, cold satisfaction in it. She was protecting her work. Her real work.
She finished her tea, watching the world go by. She felt calm. Centered. The anxiety that usually plagued her in public spaces was gone, burned away by the constant, low-grade fire of the hum. She was performing normality from a place of profound abnormality, and it gave her a strange power.
Her thirty minutes were up. She gathered her things, disposed of her cup, and stepped back out onto the street. The evening air was cool. She walked towards her tram stop, the balls a familiar, grounding presence.
When she got home, the apartment welcomed her with silent shadows. She went through her routines: hanging up her blouse, putting her shoes away. She took the pump from her bag and placed it back on the nightstand. She removed the stone from her pocket, held its smooth coolness in her palm for a moment, then set it beside the pump. The two objects sat side-by-side, tools of her conditioning.
She made a simple dinner, ate it standing at the kitchen counter. The balls shifted as she moved. She was constantly aware of them, a secret she carried into every mundane act.
As night fell, the final directive awaited. The pump. Five minutes. Before sleep.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth. The woman in the mirror had dark, calm eyes. She looked tired, but there was a new sharpness to her features, a defined edge that hadn’t been there before.
She didn’t undress. She simply lay on her back on the bed, still in her tank top and pajama shorts. She picked up the pump. The routine was established now. No more five-minute stares. This was maintenance.
She applied it. Squeezed the bulb. The familiar, pulling pressure returned, a sharp focus that cut through the diffuse awareness of the balls. She set the timer on her phone, placed it face-down on her stomach.
This time, she watched the ceiling and let her mind drift. It didn’t go to work, or to Irena, or to her mother. It went to the supermarket. The cucumber on the black belt. The cashier’s eyes. The feeling of the air on her skin. The memory was no longer one of pure shame. It was layered now with a strange nostalgia, a foundational myth. That was where it began. The fear had been the raw material. Now she was being refined.
The timer buzzed. She released the valve. The throbbing ache returned, a heated, alive feeling. She didn’t need to photograph it tonight. The ritual was the thing.
She cleaned the pump. Applied the cream, the cool balm on the tender flesh. She got under the duvet, the weight of the balls a constant companion even in repose.
Her phone, on the nightstand, buzzed one final time. Not a word. A message.
Your compliance is noted. The baseline is establishing. Tomorrow’s word will arrive at midnight. Sleep. Your body is learning.
She turned off the light. In the darkness, the sensations were king. The deep, internal weight. The tender, throbbing focus. The memory of the suction. The cool ghost of the cream. They were a lullaby, a song of ownership.
She placed her hand on her lower abdomen. She didn’t need the ritual now. The hum was self-sustaining. A low, perpetual engine.
She belonged to it. Przynależeć.
As she drifted towards sleep, her last conscious thought was not a fear, or a question, but a simple, spatial awareness. The Lena who had walked into the supermarket in a thin dress was gone. The woman in this bed, filled with metal and humming with conditioned response, was what remained. And in the hollow where her old self had been, there was only a waiting silence, ready to be filled with the next command, the next word, the next step deeper into the exquisite, terrifying architecture of her new being.
And in the hollow where her old self had been, there was only a waiting silence, ready to be filled with the next command, the next word, the next step deeper into the exquisite, terrifying architecture of her new being.
MORNING RITUAL BEGINS.
The buzz was not her alarm. It was the phone, vibrating against the nightstand like a trapped insect. 4:55 AM. The screen glowed in the predawn blackness of her bedroom. A single word from V.
Uległość.
Obedience. She swallowed, her throat dry. The word felt different than Przynależeć. It was harder, more angular. It was not a state of being, but an action. A demand.
The balls were still inside her, a familiar, metallic weight. The tenderness from the pump was a dull, warm echo. She moved to get up and the string tugged faintly. Her first conscious act of the day was to acknowledge this internal occupancy. She sat on the edge of the bed, the floorboards cool under her feet. Uległość. She breathed it in. Four. Hold. Six.
The ritual had already bled beyond its allocated minutes. It was the air she breathed now.
In the bathroom, she showered. The water hit her skin and she soaped herself mechanically, her hand pausing between her legs, not to cleanse but to confirm. The string was there. The slight swell was there. The evidence of compliance. She turned off the water and stood dripping before the full-length mirror, the one with the slightly crooked frame. She didn’t straighten it. She looked at her reflection through the steam.
Slender, dark hair plastered to her neck and shoulders. Her brown eyes were watchful, but the quiet modesty was being sanded away, replaced by a kind of hollow assessment. She looked at her own body as if it were equipment. She saw the faint purple smudges under her eyes, the new sharpness of her collarbones. She cupped one small breast, her thumb finding the deliberately pulled thread on the left cup of the bra she would soon put on. A manufactured flaw. A secret imperfection only she and V knew.
“You look tired,” her reflection might have said once.
Now, it just looked used. Efficient. She dried herself, the towel rough on the sensitive flesh.
Dressing was a script. The flawed bra. Simple black cotton panties, the fabric a mild irritation over the tender skin. A knee-length navy pencil skirt. A grey v-neck sweater. She brushed her hair, pulled it back into a severe ponytail. The professional mask. She applied a little makeup—concealer for the shadows, a swipe of mascara. The face that looked back was acceptable. Neutral. It gave nothing away.
In the kitchen, she made coffee. The mundane sounds of the grinder, the kettle, were a counterpoint to the constant, low-grade awareness in her core. She took the stone from the nightstand—smooth, cold, weighty—and slipped it into the front pocket of her skirt. It pulled the fabric down, a slight, persistent drag. A totem.
As the coffee brewed, her phone buzzed on the counter. 6:03 AM. The first ritual of the day proper.
She stood by the kitchen window, looking out at the sleeping courtyard of her apartment block. A lone cat slunk along a fence. She placed her left hand flat on the cool countertop. Her right hand went to her lower abdomen, pressing lightly over the place where the balls sat. She closed her eyes.
Inhale. One, two, three, four.
Hold.
Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six.
Uległość.
The word carved a channel through her sleep-fogged mind. Obedience. It wasn’t a question. It was an imperative woven into her respiration. The hum intensified, a vibration that started in her pelvis and traveled up her spine. When she opened her eyes, the world seemed sharper, the edges defined. The cat was gone. The coffee pot hissed. Everything was just a series of tasks awaiting her compliant action.
She drank her coffee black, standing up. She packed her bag: laptop, wallet, a slim paperback she never read, the wrapped pump. She checked the time. 6:58 AM. She would be early for work.
The tram was less crowded at this hour. She got a seat by the window. The city passed in a grey-blue blur of concrete and neon signs switching off. The motion of the carriage provided a relentless, gentle churning inside her. She kept her hand in her pocket, fingers curled around the stone. Uległość. It was her mantra, beating in time with the wheels.
A man across the aisle, bundled in a contractor’s jacket, sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He glanced at her. Lena didn’t look away. She held his gaze for a three-count, her expression blank, before turning back to the window. A tiny act of defiance, or perhaps a test. Did he see anything? The stone in her pocket? The weight in her cunt? The emptiness behind her eyes? He just coughed and looked at his phone.
Her office building was a glass slab reflecting the morning gloom. The security guard, Jan, gave her a nod. “Early again, Pani Nowak.”
“Deadlines,” she said, the word tasting like dust. Her voice was flat.
Her heels clicked on the polished floor of the lobby, a sterile, echoing sound. The elevator was empty. She watched the numbers climb. With each ascent, she felt a corresponding internal lift, a subtle pressure. She tightened her muscles around the balls, felt them shift, a private acknowledgement. The doors opened on her floor.
The office was silent, just the hum of the servers and the faint smell of last night’s cleaning products. Her desk was a clean slate. She booted her computer, the glow lighting her composed face. She opened the detergent project file. The forest green logo mocked her. It was so trivial. So clean.
At 8:03 AM, the phone buzzed. Bathroom ritual. She walked to the disabled bathroom on the third floor, her steps measured. Inside, the fan whirred. The environment was always the same: cold tile, harsh light, the smell of artificial lemon. She didn’t bother with the stall. She stood before the mirror.
Hand on abdomen. Breathe. Inhale four. Hold. Exhale six.
Uległość.
Today, the word sparked a specific memory: the supermarket. The cucumber. The feeling of the plastic bag in her hand, the absurd, terrifying weight of it. The cashier’s bored eyes. That had been obedience. Raw, trembling, and pure. This, now, was different. This was obedience refined, distilled into a systemic pulse. It was colder. More profound.
As she exhaled the sixth count, her phone buzzed again in her hand. A new message from V, arriving during the ritual. That was new.
The coffee machine. Main kitchen. 8:15. You will order a latte. When the colleague asks how your weekend was, you will answer: “Wetter than expected.” Use English. Do not explain. Proceed.
Her heart, which had been a slow, steady drum, gave a hard, sudden kick. The main kitchen was a hub. It was always busy at 8:15. People getting their first coffee, making small talk. Piotr would be there. Maybe Kasia from accounting. All of them, Polish, speaking Polish. And she was to deliver a line in English. A crude, obvious line.
Uległość.
The word was no longer a meditation. It was a drill bit. It was 8:12.
She left the bathroom, her legs feeling detached. She walked back to her floor, down the corridor towards the kitchen. The sounds began to reach her: the gurgle of the machine, the clink of spoons, laughter. Piotr’s loud voice. “...so I told him the gradient was fucking teal, not forest! He’s colour-blind, I swear...”
Lena paused at the threshold. Four people. Piotr. Kasia. Robert from IT. Agnieszka, an intern. They were clustered around the counter. The air smelled of burnt coffee and microwaved pastry.
She entered. The conversation didn’t stop.
“...needs to be by Friday, or the whole timeline...” Kasia was saying.
Lena went to the machine. She inserted her cup. She selected ‘Latte’. The machine whirred and steamed. She waited, her back to them. She could feel their presence, the heat of their casual morning energy. It felt like a wall.
“Oh, hey, Lena,” Piotr said. “You’re in early. Cracking the whip on that green stuff?”
The machine finished with a hiss. She picked up the cup. It was almost too hot to hold. She turned around. They were all looking at her, friendly, expectant. Normal.
“Yeah,” she said. Her tongue felt thick. Uległość.
Kasia smiled. “So, how was your weekend? Do anything fun?”
This was the moment. The opening. A mundane question she’d answered a hundred times with a hundred variations of ‘quiet’. Wetter than expected. The English words sat in her mind, grotesque and huge. To say them here, in this bright kitchen, to these polite faces, was a violence. It was a different kind of exposure than the supermarket. This was social. This would etch a mark into their perception of her forever. Shy, conservative Lena. Saying that.
Uległość.
She took a small sip of the scalding latte. Looked directly at Kasia. Her voice, when it came, was clear, monotone, alien in its own right.
“Wetter than expected.”
A beat of silence. Just the hum of the fridge.
Piotr blinked. Robert’s eyebrows shot up. Agnieszka the intern looked down at her shoes, a faint pink rising on her cheeks. Kasia’s smile froze, then reconfigured into a confused, polite grin.
“Oh,” Kasia said, her voice unsure. “Well. The weather was unpredictable, wasn’t it?”
They all latched onto it. The weather. A safe, desperate misinterpretation. They thought she’d made a clumsy, oddly-phrased comment about the rain. The relief in the room was palpable, and condescending. Poor Lena, her English isn’t so great, she meant the rain.
But they’d heard it. The crudeness had hung in the air for that one second. They’d seen her flat eyes as she’d said it. The seed was planted. A seed of wrongness.
“Yeah,” Lena said, not clarifying. “Unpredictable.”
She walked out, the hot cup burning her palm. The stone in her pocket thumped against her thigh with each step. Her face was a mask of calm, but inside, a cascade was happening. The humiliation was there, yes, a bright, sharp shame. But beneath it, roaring up through the foundation of her being, was a dark, elated thrill. She had done it. She had said the unsayable. She had obeyed in the face of social ruin. The hum became a roar, a static that filled her skull. It was better than the supermarket. It was more sophisticated. It was a corruption of language itself.
Back at her desk, her hand trembled slightly as she set the coffee down. Her phone, face-down, buzzed.
Satisfactory. The misinterpretation is acceptable. It plants a doubt. Now, work. You will receive the next instruction at 12:03.
She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Satisfactory. The word was a drug. She opened the design file, her fingers steady on the mouse. She could work. The world had shifted on its axis, but she could work.
The morning passed in a blur of pixels and colour corrections. At 10:03, another bathroom ritual. Uległość. The word now carried the memory of the kitchen, the shocked faces. It was layered. Rich.
At 11:55, Irena called. Lena watched the screen vibrate, her sister’s smiling photo flashing. She felt nothing. A distant echo of obligation. She sent it to voicemail. A minute later, a text popped up.
I’m just worried about you. You’re ghosting me. Call me. Please.
Lena typed back, her fingers cold. Big project. Head down. Talk soon.
The lie was effortless. It was a kindness, she supposed, this distancing. She was protecting Irena from the thing she was becoming. Or perhaps she was protecting the thing she was becoming from Irena’s light.
12:03 PM. The phone buzzed. Not a ritual alert. The promised instruction.
Leave the office for lunch. Go to the pawn shop on Jana Pawła. Ask for Marek. Tell him you are there for the evaluation. Hand him your phone. Do as he says.
A jolt of pure fear, cold and electric, shot through the hum. This was different. This involved another person, a named person. A pawn shop. An evaluation. Her phone? She thought of everything on it. Her photos. Her messages with V. But V had sent the instruction to the phone. He knew.
Uległość.
It was the only thread she had to hold onto. She stood, gathered her bag and coat. Piotr looked over. “Lunch?”
“Errand,” she said, not stopping.
The pawn shop was in a grimy street five blocks away, tucked between a failing dry cleaner and a shop selling cheap electronics. The window was a chaotic clutter of saxophones, power tools, gold chains, and war memorabilia. A hand-written sign in the door read ‘Marek’ with a phone number.
A bell tinkled when she entered. The air inside was thick with the smell of dust, old metal, and cigarette smoke embedded in the walls. A glass counter displayed rings and watches. Behind it, a man in his late fifties looked up from a newspaper. He had a grizzled face, deep-set eyes, and thick, hairy forearms. Marek.
He looked her up and down, not with lechery, but with the appraisal of a man who assesses value for a living. “Yes?”
Her mouth was dry. “I am here for the evaluation.” The words felt scripted, ridiculous.
He nodded, once. Didn’t smile. “Give me the phone.”
She took it out, unlocked it, and handed it over. Her hand felt naked without it. He took it, his movements efficient. He didn’t scroll through her photos or messages. He opened the camera. He came out from behind the counter—he was shorter than he looked—and gestured for her to follow him to a clear space by a rack of old coats.
“Stand there. Back against the wall.”
She did. The wallpaper was a faded burgundy pattern, torn in one corner. He lifted her phone and took a picture of her. The flash went off, blinding her for a second. He looked at the screen, grunted.
“Jacket off.”
She slid her coat off, held it. The grey sweater, the pencil skirt. He took another picture. Full length.
“Sweater. Off.”
Her breath hitched. The shop was empty, but the street was right outside the grimy window. Anyone could look in. Uległość. She pulled the sweater over her head, standing in her bra and skirt. The air was cold on her arms. The flawed bra. He took a picture. The flash illuminated her pale skin.
“Skirt. Unzip. Pull it down to your hips. Not off. Just to the hips.”
She could barely feel her fingers. They found the zipper at the back. She pulled it down. The sound was obscenely loud. She pushed the skirt down over her hips, letting it bunch there. Her black panties were exposed, the line of her stomach, the sharp jut of her hip bones. The stone in the pocket clunked to the floor. She left it. He took a picture. He zoomed in, took another of her midsection, the waistband of her underwear.
“Turn around.”
She turned, facing the wall, the torn wallpaper inches from her nose. She smelled mildew. He took a picture of her back, the clasp of her bra, the skirt sagging at the small of her back.
“Okay. Dress.”
She pulled the skirt up, zipped it, yanked the sweater over her head. Her hands were shaking violently now. She picked up the stone, shoved it back in her pocket, put her coat on. She was freezing.
He was back behind the counter, tapping on her phone. He handed it back to her. “All done.”
She took it. A new gallery folder had been created. Simply titled ‘E’. It contained the photos he had just taken. They were clinical, stark. They showed her progression from clothed to partially exposed. Her face in the first one was blank with fear. In the last one, turned away, it was just the back of her head, a posture of submission.
“Thank you,” she whispered, the automatic politeness surfacing from a dead world.
He shrugged, went back to his newspaper.
She stumbled out into the daylight. The normal street sounds were an assault.