Chapter 12: Digital Domination
Your own apartment felt like a museum of a former life. The quiet was different here—not the loaded silence of a hotel suite, but the mundane hush of a space waiting to be lived in. Your cat, Mercutio, wove between your legs, indignant and purring by turns. You fed him, unpacked your suitcase, and tried to settle into the rhythm of emails and grocery lists. It was like trying to wear clothes that no longer fit.
The plane bathroom, the Milan suite—they were ghosts in every room. You’d catch your reflection and see the faint, yellowing bruise on your hip where he’d held you. You’d feel a phantom ache between your legs and your breath would hitch. The “arrangement” felt like a theoretical concept, a peace treaty signed in the heat of aftermath.
Then, on Thursday evening, your phone buzzed with a Snapchat notification.
The image loaded slowly. Matteo, shirtless on a wooden bench in what was unmistakably a stark, utilitarian locker room. The harsh fluorescent light carved the definition of his abdomen, glinted off the sweat still sheening his skin. His hair was damp, messy from fingers pushed through it. His gaze was aimed directly at the camera, tired but intense. One hand was tucked into the waistband of his black briefs, palming the unmistakable, thick outline of his cock. The caption was three words: ‘Missing this inside you.’
A second followed immediately, a close-up of his watch. ‘4 days left.’
Your heart slammed against your ribs. The mundane reality of your living room evaporated. You could almost smell the antiseptic soap and male sweat of the locker room. You typed a reply, deleted it, typed another. Words felt insufficient. The tension demanded an escalation.
In your bathroom, you flipped the camera. The mirror was still streaked from your shower. You tugged your sweatpants and underwear down to your thighs, leaned back against the cold sink, and let the phone capture the shadowed junction of your legs. You bit your lip, your expression deliberately blurred in the foreground, and let your fingers part your folds, glistening already from just the image he’d sent. You sent it without a caption.
Your phone rang with a video call less than ten seconds later.
You accepted, your pulse a frantic drum in your ears. His face filled the screen, closer now. The locker room was empty behind him, rows of stark metal lockers.
“Cazzo,” he breathed, the word a rough exhale. His eyes were dark, fixed not on your face but lower, where the camera was angled. “You look so fucking wet. Are you wet for me, or for the picture?”
“For you,” you said, your voice unsteady. “Always for you.”
“Show me.” It wasn’t a request. It was a gravelly command. You heard the rustle of fabric, saw his hand move out of frame. “I’m so hard it aches. Show me what that perfect little cunt is doing, thinking about my cock.”
You angled the phone down. With your other hand, you traced your slit, collecting the slickness, then circled your clit. A soft moan escaped you.
“Wider,” he growled. “Let me see inside.”
You obeyed, spreading yourself for the camera, the intimate pink flesh exposed and glistening under your bathroom light.
A low groan came from the phone. You saw his free hand, the one holding his phone, tighten on the edge of a locker. “Fuck. Now put your fingers in. Show me how deep you can take them, thinking about how deep I’m going to be in four days.”
You pushed two fingers inside yourself, a slow, deliberate invasion. The stretch was familiar, a hollow echo of him. You whimpered.
“That’s it,” he whispered, his accent thickening. “Imagine it’s my cock. Imagine I’m there, fucking you against that sink. That I just walked off the pitch, still dirty, and I’m shoving my shorts down and taking you right there.” His own breathing was becoming ragged. You could hear the slick, rhythmic sound of his fist moving over his cock. “You’d let me, wouldn’t you? You’d let me fuck you raw, no questions, just because I needed it.”
“Yes,” you gasped, curling your fingers, finding a spot that made your thighs tremble.
“Say it. Say ‘Fuck me raw, Matteo.’”
“Fuck me raw, Matteo,” you parroted, the obscenity hot on your tongue.
“Dio, I wish you were here. I’d bend you over this bench. I wouldn’t be gentle. I’d fuck the loneliness right out of you. I’d make you scream so loud the whole team would hear.” His pace with his fist increased; you could see the tight strain in his forearm, the tendons in his neck. “Are you going to come for me? Watching me stroke my dick in a dirty locker room like some desperate teenager?”
“I’m close,” you panted, your own fingers working faster, spurred by his filthy narration, by the raw, visual proof of his need.
“Then come. Come all over your hand and let me see it. I want to watch you fall apart alone in your bathroom, knowing I did this from two hundred miles away.” His voice broke. “I want to see it and I want to fucking taste it.”
That was all it took. The orgasm ripped through you, sharp and convulsing. You cried out, your back arching off the sink, your muscles clamping around your own fingers as you rode the wave, the phone shaking in your grip.
Through the haze, you heard his choked, guttural curse. “Sì, così… prendilo, prendilo tutto…” His face contorted, a mask of primal release, and you saw his body tense, his hips jerking forward into his fist. He kept his eyes locked on the screen, on you, as he came, streaks of white splashing against the concrete floor between his cleats. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of your shared recovery, the hum of your separate spaces—the bathroom fluorescent, the locker room lights.
He ran a hand over his face, smearing sweat. The post-coital clarity shifted his expression from animal hunger to something more complex. He looked… young. Exposed.
“The London hotel,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s near Hyde Park. Very public. There will be paparazzi at the entrance.”
You were still coming down, your body buzzing. “Okay.”
“I’ll have to go in alone. You’ll use the service entrance. A man named Leo will bring you up to the suite.” He spoke like he was giving a tactical briefing, but his eyes were soft, searching your face on the small screen. “It won’t be like Milan. It can’t be.”
“I know.” You pulled your sweatpants up, the fabric sensitive against your overspent flesh. “The arrangement.”
He nodded, but the word seemed to taste bitter. “Sì. The arrangement.” He looked away, toward the empty locker room, then back. “This… the phone. It helps. But it’s not enough.”
“It’s four days,” you said softly.
“It’s a lifetime,” he replied, and the raw need in it was different than the sexual hunger. It was simpler, and more frightening. “I have to go. Team dinner.” He didn’t move to end the call. “Stay off social media tomorrow. There’s a story coming out. Some nonsense from an old… friend. It’s lies. But it will be everywhere.”
A cold trickle, unrelated to the recent heat, traced your spine. “What kind of story?”
He shook his head, a quick, frustrated movement. “The usual. Trying to cash in. It doesn’t matter. Just… don’t read it. Don’t let it in your head.” He leaned closer to the camera, his pixelated face filling your screen. “The only thing that’s real is what happens in hotel rooms. And on bathroom floors. And over phone calls. Remember that.”
“I’ll try.”
“Do more than try.” The command was back, but it was edged with plea. “I’ll text you the details for London. Goodnight, mia complicazione.”
The call ended. The screen went dark, reflecting your own flushed, worried face. You slid down to sit on the cold tile floor, Mercutio pushing his head against your arm. The ghost of him was gone, replaced by the very real, very complicated man. The silence in your apartment was no longer mundane. It was filled with the echo of his promises, the specter of a coming storm, and the relentless, ticking countdown of four days.