Chapter 7: The New Rule
The emptiness was not peaceful. It was a sharp, hungry thing. Lena woke to its gnawing, a hollow tremor in her bones that the previous night’s violation had carved out but could not fill. The bed felt vast and cold. Her body was a catalog of aches—the deep, bruised tenderness between her legs, the faint soreness in her throat, the imprint of Tomasz’s fingers on her hip, now faded to yellowing ghosts. The word echoed. Pustka.
She moved through her morning routine with the precision of an automaton. Brush teeth. Shower—the water stinging the tender flesh. Coffee, black. She dressed in the uniform V had not dictated but that felt appropriate: a grey, high-necked sweater, a black pencil skirt, tights. Armor, but permeable. She felt every seam against her skin.
The walk to the office was a exercise in sustained dread. The photos. They had been on the board for a full day. The second day of their exhibition. What was left to see? The shock would have settled into curiosity, into gossip. She would be the girl with the nude photos. The art student. The weird one from Design. The labels would be applied, a story crafted without her input. She was a character in her colleagues’ narratives now.
She pushed open the glass door to her floor. The air changed. A few heads turned from monitors, glances flicking toward her then away. A whispered sentence, cut short. The atmosphere was charged, but not with the electric shock of yesterday. This was a lower hum, a settled buzz of accepted scandal.
She turned the corner into her cubicle row.
And stopped.
The corkboard was bare.
Not just the photos removed. Everything. The postcard from Gdańsk, the inspirational quote, the business card. The board was a blank, pockmarked tan rectangle. The pushpins were neatly gathered in her tray.
A cold wave washed over her. Had someone taken them down? HR? Kasia, out of pity? Her eyes swept the desk. Nothing. Her computer monitor was on, the green logo waiting. She sat down slowly, her stomach tight. This felt worse. Their absence was a louder statement than their presence. It was an erasure. A denial of her offering.
Her work phone lit up with an internal call. Extension 411. Human Resources.
“Lena Nowak.” Her own voice sounded thin.
“Lena, it’s Aneta from HR. Could you pop down to my office, please? Now, if you’re free.” The tone was pleasant, professional, and utterly merciless.
“Of course.”
Aneta’s office was a box of beige and soft plants. She was a woman in her fifties with a kind smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Lena, close the door, please. Take a seat.”
Lena sat, her hands folded in her lap.
“We’ve received some… comments,” Aneta began, steepling her fingers. “Regarding some personal materials displayed in your workspace. Photographs. Of a… private nature.”
“They were for a figure drawing class,” Lena recited. “Reference material.”
“I understand,” Aneta said, the words slick with disbelief. “However, this is a shared professional environment. Such imagery, however artistically intended, can create an atmosphere of discomfort. It can be… misconstrued.”
“Misconstrued.”
“Indeed. Sexual harassment policies exist to protect all employees from an unwelcome or hostile work environment. Displaying sexually explicit images, even of oneself, can be perceived as contributing to such an environment for others.”
The language was sanitized, legalistic. It turned her shame into a policy violation. A matter for filing.
“I’ve taken them down,” Lena said.
“I saw that. Thank you. That was prudent.” Aneta paused, her gaze softening into something more invasive. “Lena, is everything alright? At home? This is… rather out of character for you.”
The concern was a sharper probe than the reprimand. It sought a crack. It looked for the person behind the act.
“Everything’s fine,” Lena said, her face a smooth mask. “It was an error in judgment. It won’t happen again.”
Aneta studied her for a long moment, then nodded, the kindness draining from her smile, leaving plain bureaucratic finality. “See that it doesn’t. A note will be placed in your file. This is a verbal warning. Any further incidents will be formal. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You can go back to work.”
Back at her cubicle, the blank board screamed. Her obedience had been interrupted, sanitized by corporate protocol. It felt like a failure. A flaw in the design. She had been told to leave the photos for 48 hours. She had failed. She pulled out her personal phone, her thumb hovering over the ‘E’ folder. Should she message V? Explain?
Before she could decide, a new email notification chimed on her work computer. The sender was a random string of numbers. The subject line was blank. The body contained a single line, in plain text:
The removal was anticipated. Compliance was recorded until interference. The word remains: Pustka. Tonight, you will fill it. A new rule: you may only find your climax while being taken from behind, like an animal. You will practice this tonight. Alone. You will use the artifact from Marek. You will say the word as you finish.
Her skin prickled. Anticipated. He knew HR would intervene. Her obedience was not measured by the external outcome, but by her internal state up to that point. And now, a new rule. A specific, degrading choreography for her own solitude. Like an animal. The artifact from Marek—the pump. No. The plug? The balls.
The message continued, a second line appearing as she stared:
The small steel ball. Insert it. You will kneel. You will use your fingers, or any object you choose, but only from behind. You will whisper “Pustka” into the empty room when you come. This is your training.
The day became a tunnel, focused on the night to come. Every interaction was muffled. Piotr avoided her entirely. Kasia offered a sympathetic, victorious smile—see, we fixed it for you. Robert from IT passed by and gave her a slow, knowing nod, as if they shared a secret. He had seen the photos. He had likely been the one to report them. His nod said I know what you are. It was, perversely, the most honest communication she’d received all day.
At five o’clock, she left. The autumn evening was crisp, the sky a deep violet. She did not go home. She walked, her feet carrying her with a determined rhythm across the city, past familiar shops and glowing windows, until she stood before the grimy facade of Marek’s pawn shop.
The bell jangled. The smell of dust and old metal filled her lungs like a tonic.
Marek was behind the counter, polishing a tarnished samovar. He didn’t look up. “Back so soon? Need a bigger size?”
“The steel ball,” she said, her voice clear in the dusty silence. “I need it.”
He finally glanced at her, his eyes crinkling with amusement. He set down the cloth, reached under the counter, and produced the small black box. He opened it. The three steel balls sat in their velvet groove, gleaming dully. The small one was no larger than a large marble.
“You’re graduating,” he grunted. “Fifty zloty.”
She paid. He slid the box across the glass. “A word of free advice,” he said, as she took it. “Lube. Use a lot. It’s not a friendly shape.”
She pocketed the box, the weight of it negligible yet immense. “Why do you do this?” The question left her before she could stop it.
Marek shrugged, picking up his cloth again. “Someone stocks the wardrobe for the play. I’m a props master. He’s the director. You’re the actress. We all have our roles. Seems you’re settling into yours just fine.”
At home, the apartment welcomed her with its silent warmth. She turned on only the desk lamp, casting a pool of light onto the bed, leaving the rest in shadow. She placed the black box on the nightstand, next to the pump and the plug. A collection.
She ordered food she didn’t eat. She showered, scrubbing the office from her skin. She stood, naked and steaming, before the fogged mirror. She wiped a clear streak with her hand. Her reflection looked back, eyes dark, hair plastered to her skull. She looked like a stranger capable of anything.
Like an animal.
She walked into the bedroom. The instructions were explicit. She opened the box. She took out the small ball. It was cool, perfectly smooth, heavier than it looked. She found a tube of lubricant. She lay on her back on the bed, legs bent, and applied it, her fingers cold and clinical. This was preparation, not pleasure.
Inserting the ball was a strange, intense pressure. It was not about stretch, but about occupation. A solid, unyielding presence. She pushed it past the resistance, and it slid home with a faint, internal pop. She lay still, feeling it. A cold, dense knot inside her. A keeper of her emptiness.
Now, the rule.
She rolled onto her hands and knees. The position was instantly, profoundly submissive. Her back was a long, vulnerable slope. Her ass was raised. Her head hung down. She could see the rumpled duvet, a single thread loose. This was the posture. From behind.
Her hands were trembling. She reached back, her fingers finding her own slickness. She touched her clit. A jolt, but it felt wrong, disconnected. This wasn’t the way. The rule specified being taken. She was the one being acted upon, even by her own hand. She needed an object. A stand-in.
Her eyes scanned the room. A hairbrush? Too absurd. The plug? Too reminiscent of a different command.
Her gaze landed on the thick, opaque glass of the perfume bottle on her vanity. Its shape was blunt, rounded. Clean.
She crawled off the bed, the ball a strange, shifting weight inside her. She fetched the bottle, wiping it clean. She kneeled again at the bedside, her upper body resting on the mattress, face turned to the side. She coated the rounded end of the bottle with lubricant.
This was it. A pantomime of violation. A solo performance for a ghostly audience.
She guided the cool, smooth glass to her entrance. She pushed.
It was wider than the ball, a filling stretch. She pushed it deeper, her arm awkward behind her. The sensation was bizarre, disconnected. She was both the aggressor and the recipient. She fucked herself with the bottle, establishing a slow, mechanical rhythm. The slap of glass against her flesh was a lonely, pathetic sound.
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t see. She could only feel. The solid intrusion from behind. The cold, hard ball nestled deeper within, a core of immovable metal. This was the shape of Pustka—a hollow vessel filled with unfeeling objects.
She thought of Tomasz. The efficient, devastating depth of his thrusts. She thought of the photos on the board, Robert’s knowing nod. She thought of Marek calling her an actress. The humiliation of it all coiled in her gut, a sick heat that began to migrate, to pool low in her belly despite the clinical nature of the act.
Her rhythm lost its hesitation. She fucked herself harder with the bottle, driving it deeper with each backward push of her hand. The bedframe creaked softly. Her breath came in ragged gasps, muffled by the duvet. The emptiness was being filled not with pleasure, but with the brutal truth of her own compulsion. This was who she was now. A woman on her knees, alone, using a perfume bottle to mimic the act of being used, all to satisfy a silent command from a void.
The heat built, a tense, trembling wire. It was not a clean build. It was a tangled knot of shame, obedience, and a raw, physical need that had been weaponized. The ball inside her seemed to grow warmer, a hard little center of her corruption.
She was close. The rule echoed. You will say the word as you finish.
Her movements became frantic, jerky. The bottle slid in and out, wet and obscene. She pictured the blank corkboard. She pictured Aneta’s pitying eyes. She pictured V’s unseen gaze, monitoring her compliance through the very intensity of her degradation.
The orgasm broke over her like a wave of dirty water. It was a harsh, clenching shudder, a seizure of submission that ripped a raw, guttural sound from her throat. As the pulses wracked her, as the bottle slipped from her loosened grip, she forced the word into the fabric of the duvet, a gasped, breathless whisper.
“Pustka…”
It was a confession. A designation.
She collapsed onto her side, pulling her knees up. The ball was still there, a permanent, metallic seed. The room was silent. The performance was over. No applause, no critique. Just the aftermath.
Her phone, on the nightstand, buzzed once. A message.
The training is satisfactory. The emptiness accepts the shape. Tomorrow, you will wear the ball to work. You will not remove it. You will go to the central train station at 7 PM. Board the 7:15 local service to Otwock. Stand in the space between carriages. A man in a blue worker’s jacket will approach you. You will show him what you are carrying. You will let him use you there. You will not speak. The safeword remains. You will not use it.
She read it. The train. A public moving space. Between carriages. A worker’s jacket. Use you there.
The emptiness inside her, now physically molded by steel, did not revolt. It simply received the information. It was a vessel, waiting for the next filling. The horror was now a kind of grammar, a syntax she understood. Kneel. Bend. Present. Take.
She curled tighter around the cold weight in her core. Outside, a siren wailed, a distant animal sound. She matched her breathing to the memory of the train’s rhythm, already clicking in her mind, carrying her forward into the next empty space waiting to be defined.