Chapter 3: The Fitting Room
The padded leather was still warm from his body. Oscar lay on his back, staring at the smoke-stained ceiling beams, trying to detach his mind from the insistent, foreign pressure inside him. The tapered wooden plug Darcy had worked into him with such patient, relentless care felt enormous. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. It was a deep, stretching fullness, a constant, humiliating reminder that a part of him was now held open. Occupied.
Darcy stood at a shelf, wiping his hands with a clean cloth. He examined his fingers with a critical eye, then selected a different bottle, this one of dark blue glass. “The first lesson is always the most important,” he said, his back to Oscar. “The body learns to accept an intrusion. The mind, in time, learns to associate that intrusion with relief. With the absence of worse things.”
Oscar said nothing. His hands were fists at his sides. The oil Darcy had used smelled of sandalwood and something colder, like mint. It had felt slick and clinical as those clever fingers had traced his rim, pressed inside, circled and stretched. His own body’s reluctant trembling, the way his muscles had initially clenched before giving way under that insistent pressure—it felt like a betrayal written in his own flesh.
“Sit up,” Darcy said, not turning around.
Oscar moved slowly, the plug shifting inside him as he pushed up on his elbows. A flush crept up his neck.
“Now, on your knees. On the table. Face away from me.”
The command was soft, absolute. Oscar’s breath hitched. He knew this position. It was the ultimate offering. The final surrender. He didn’t move.
“Oscar.” Darcy turned. His gray eyes held no anger, only an immutable expectation. “The plug is a lesson. This is the examination. You don’t want to fail it.”
The memory of the machine—the cold, rhythmic horror Darcy had described—flashed behind Oscar’s eyes. With a grunt of effort, he rolled onto his side, then pushed himself up onto his knees on the padded surface. The leather was soft but unyielding. He turned, presenting his back to Darcy, his head hanging. The position made the plug’s presence even more pronounced, a heavy, undeniable truth nestled deep within him.
He heard the door open.
Footsteps, more than one set, entered the room. Casual, booted steps. The rustle of fine wool and the clink of sword belts. Oscar froze.
“Ah, you’ve started without us, cousin.” The voice was a familiar, booming laugh. Varek.
Oscar’s spine went rigid. He kept his head down, his eyes squeezed shut.
“Merely the preliminaries,” Darcy replied, his voice smooth and untroubled. “He’s just been fitted with the preparatory plug. I was about to assess the results.”
“Well, don’t let us stop you,” another voice chimed in, older, languid. “We heard you had a real trophy. A knight. Wanted to see if he lived up to the gossip.”
Oscar heard the scrape of chairs being pulled across the stone floor. They were sitting down. To watch.
A hot wave of nausea crashed over him. This was different from the brutish inspections in the cells. This was a performance. An audience. “No,” he whispered, the word torn from him.
“What was that?” Varek asked, leaning forward. Oscar could feel his gaze like a physical weight.
“I said no!” Oscar snarled, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. Three men sat in a row against the far wall. Varek, grinning with his scarred face. An older nobleman with a trimmed white beard, looking on with academic interest. A younger officer, lean and hungry-eyed. “You will not… watch this.”
Darcy didn’t force him down. Instead, he placed a cool, steady hand on the side of Oscar’s face. His touch was almost gentle. “Look there, Oscar,” he said softly, and turned Oscar’s head away from the jeering audience, towards a heavy archway on the other side of the room that led into a shadowed, larger space.
It was a chamber of stone and iron. And in its center stood the machine.
It was a framework of blackened metal, articulated and grim. A man was secured within it, bent over a central beam, his wrists and ankles locked in padded cuffs attached to chains. He was naked. Even from this distance, Oscar recognized the broad back, the shock of red hair. It was Kael, a stone mason from the outer village, a man who had fought beside him with a hammer on the last barricade.
A Gerulian technician stood by a large wheel, his expression bored.
“Commence the twelfth cycle,” a flat voice echoed.
The technician turned the wheel. Gears engaged with a metallic, grinding shriek. From a housing above the bent form of Kael, a shape began to descend. It was made of a dark, polished material—wood or dense leather—and it was massive. Easily the size of a man’s thigh, longer than a forearm, tapered to a blunt, rounded tip. It was obscene in its scale, a grotesque parody.
It was aligned.
Kael began to buck against his restraints, a raw, animal scream tearing from his throat. “No! No, not again, please, I can’t—”
The machine did not listen. With a relentless, hydraulic smoothness, the giant phallus pushed forward.
Oscar’s jaw went slack. His protest died in his throat.
The tip pressed, then breached. Kael’s scream escalated into a shattering, high-pitched sound. The machine pushed. And pushed. The immense shaft sank into the man’s body, an impossible invasion. Oscar watched, horrified and mesmerized, as inch after terrifying inch disappeared into Kael, the man’s belly distending slightly with the bulk of it. It kept going. Nearly the entire, monstrous length was engulfed, until the housing almost touched Kael’s ravaged skin.
Kael’s body was a taut bow, vibrating, every muscle standing in sharp relief. His screams had become choked, wet gasps. His eyes were rolled back in his head.
Then, with the same dreadful slowness, it withdrew.
A slick, dark red coated the polished surface. Blood. A lot of it.
The machine retracted fully. Kael sagged in his bonds, sobbing, bloody fluid dripping down his thighs onto the stone below. The technician made a note on a slate.
A moment of silence hung in the fitting room. Then, Kael’s head lolled. He whimpered, a broken, desperate sound. His voice, ragged and thin, piped up. “More. Please. More. I need it. Give it to me. Please.”
The technician nodded and put his hand back on the wheel.
Darcy’s hand was still on Oscar’s cheek. He leaned close, his lips brushing Oscar’s ear. His scent of sandalwood was the only clean thing in the world. “The machine teaches dependence,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the renewed, grinding shriek of gears. “It rewards compliance with a devastating completeness. It breaks the map of the self and redraws it around that… intrusion.” He paused, letting Oscar watch the giant shape begin its descent again. “My way is still better. But you must pass your examination. Now.”
Oscar was shaking. The image was burned into him—the blood, the size, the broken pleading for more. His own plug felt small, trivial, almost kind. Varek and the others were silent, no longer jeering, simply observing the consequences of refusal.
Slowly, without another word of protest, Oscar turned his head back, presenting himself once more to Darcy. He lowered his forehead to the cool leather of the table, his eyes open and unseeing. A single, hot tear tracked through the grime on his face and soaked into the padding.
He heard the soft pop of the blue bottle’s stopper being removed. Felt Darcy’s freshly oiled fingers find the flared base of the plug nestled between his cheeks.
“Good,” Darcy murmured, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin beside it. “Now, let’s see how well the first lesson took.”
“Now, let’s see how well the first lesson took.”
Darcy’s oiled thumb pressed against the plug’s base, not pulling it out, but rotating it slowly. The wood turned inside him, a subtle, grinding reminder of its presence. Oscar tensed, a soft gasp escaping his lips before he could choke it back.
Then, with a firm, smooth pull, Darcy extracted the plug entirely.
The sudden absence was almost as shocking as the intrusion had been. A cool rush of air hit sensitive, stretched muscle. Oscar felt unbearably open, hollowed. He shuddered, his forehead still pressed to the leather.
“Good,” Darcy murmured, a note of approval in his voice. He dripped more of the cool, mint-scented oil onto his fingers. “No resistance. The body remembers what the mind wishes to forget.” He placed a slick, sure hand on the small of Oscar’s back. “Now, the assessment begins.”
One fingertip touched him there, where the plug had been. It circled the loosened ring of muscle, which fluttered under the touch. Then, with no hesitation, Darcy pressed the single finger inside.
It was easy. Too easy. It slid in to the knuckle without obstruction, a smooth entry into warm, slick passage. Oscar flinched, but it was a mental recoil. His body simply accepted it. The humiliation of that compliance burned hotter than any pain.
“See?” Darcy said, his voice calm and instructional, as if for the benefit of the watching men. He began to move his finger in a slow, pistoning rhythm. “The tissue has been primed. It recognizes the pattern. It’s learning to welcome this.”
Oscar clenched his jaw. He focused on the coarse texture of the leather beneath his cheek, the smell of oil and his own sweat. He tried to disappear into the sensation of breathing.
A second finger joined the first, pressing alongside it.
This stretch was sharper, a deliberate broadening. Oscar inhaled sharply through his nose, his knees shifting on the table. Darcy’s fingers worked deeper, crooking slightly, searching. They found a spot inside that made Oscar’s entire body jolt, a lightning bolt of shocking, unwelcome sensation that was neither pure pain nor anything else he could name.
A broken sound, something between a gasp and a moan, leaked from him.
“There it is,” Darcy whispered, his voice intimate amidst the audience’s quiet. He pressed that spot again, a relentless, targeted pressure. Oscar’s hips twitched forward involuntarily, a pathetic little thrust into empty air. His face burned with shame.
That’s when the other footsteps approached.
Oscar heard them, but he was trapped in the dissonance of his own body’s betrayal. A shadow fell across him. A hand, large and calloused, grabbed a fistful of his short-cropped brown hair and yanked his head up from the table.
It was the young, hungry-eyed officer. He smelled of sour wine and steel. “He’s pretty when he’s trying not to feel it,” the officer chuckled, his grip tightening.
Oscar tried to twist away, a snarl forming on his lips. Darcy’s two fingers inside him stilled, a silent warning.
Then, from the archway, Kael screamed.
It was a raw, shredded sound of pure agony, utterly different from his earlier broken pleas. It was the sound of a body being torn apart by the machine’s relentless, massive piston. The scream climbed and then fractured, dissolving into wet, hysterical sobs.
Oscar froze. The image of that blood-slicked shaft flooded back, vivid and terrorizing. His struggle died instantly.
The officer grinned. In his other hand, he held a dildo. It was made of polished, dark leather, wet with some kind of salve. It was smaller than the machine’s tool, but larger than a man, realistically shaped and ominous. He rubbed the broad, spongy head of it against Oscar’s cheek, smearing a cold, slick trail up to his temple.
“Hear that?” the officer whispered, leaning down close. His breath was hot in Oscar’s ear. “That’s the other option. That’s forever.” He dragged the tip of the dildo over Oscar’s clamped lips. “Open.”
Oscar kept his mouth shut, his breath huffing hard through his nose. Darcy’s fingers inside him began to move again, a slow, maddening corkscrew.
Another shattered scream echoed from the stone chamber, followed by a gurgling, desperate wail.
“Please!” Kael’s voice, distant and broken. “More, please, I need it!”
The officer pushed the wet leather against Oscar’s lips, the pressure insistent. “You want to end up in there, knight? Begging for a machine to wreck you?” He tapped the dildo against Oscar’s teeth. “Or do you want to learn how to take a real man? Your choice. But you gotta ask for it.”
Tears of fury and helplessness blurred Oscar’s vision. The sounds from the other room were a torrent in his ears. The steady, invasive work of Darcy’s fingers was a counterpoint, an awful promise of a different path. He felt the officer’s grip tighten in his hair, threatening to snap his neck back.
The words tasted like poison, like vomit. He forced them out. They were barely audible, crushed by shame.
“Please,” Oscar whispered.
“Please, what?” the officer taunted, rubbing the dildo over his mouth.
Oscar squeezed his eyes shut. A tear tracked down through the salve on his cheek. “Please… fuck my face.”
The officer laughed, a bright, cruel sound. “See? They all learn the same song.” He looked past Oscar to Darcy. “You’ve got a talented pupil, cousin.”
Darcy didn’t answer. He withdrew his fingers, leaving Oscar feeling empty and exposed. He poured more oil.
He poured more oil. The officer didn’t wait. He shoved the broad, slick leather head of the dildo past Oscar’s teeth.
It filled his mouth, a brutal, tasteless invasion. Oscar gagged immediately, his throat convulsing against the unnatural pressure. The officer didn’t pause. He pulled it back just past his lips and then thrust it forward again, harder, deeper.
A rhythm began, fast and punishing.
The spongy tip rammed against the back of Oscar’s throat, over and over. His body seized, bucking against the table. Gagging sounds, wet and frantic, choked the air. Tears streamed from his squeezed-shut eyes, mixing with saliva and smeared salve. He couldn’t breathe. Each thrust stole a gasp, leaving him drowning in the violent, repetitive penetration.
He coughed violently around the intruding shape, his shoulders shaking, his entire frame trembling with the effort to not vomit, to not suffocate.
“See? He’s got a fighter’s reflex,” the officer grunted, pleased, pistoning the dildo with grim efficiency. “Gotta smooth that out. Break the gag.”
“Stop.”
Darcy’s voice cut through the wet, choking sounds. It was low, but sharp as a blade.
The officer laughed, not slowing his rhythm. Oscar’s vision spotted with black. “What? He asked for it. He’s learning.”
“I said stop, Jerrik.” Darcy’s hand closed around the officer’s wrist, halting the next thrust. The dildo remained lodged deep, making Oscar shudder and dry-heave. “This isn’t breaking. It’s vandalism. You’ll damage his throat.”
Jerrik wrenched his wrist free, scowling. “Damage? He’s a prisoner. A war wife. This is what happens. Or did you forget how this works, Darcy?” He gestured with the dildo toward the archway, where another mechanical groan echoed. “You want him soft and sighing? He needs to be broken in. It’s going to happen anyway, whether it’s your pretty fingers or my cock or that machine in there.”
“You misunderstand,” Darcy said, his tone chillingly calm. He stepped between Jerrik and the table, placing his body as a shield. “The breaking is mine to do. The method is mine to choose. Not yours.”
Jerrik’s face flushed with anger. “You think your gentle petting matters? Varek said you liked a project. This,” he shook the dildo, “is the project. This is what he’s for.”
“He is for what I decide,” Darcy said, each word precise and frozen. “And I decide this ends. Now.”
Jerrik scoffed, raising the dildo again. “Or what?”
Darcy moved faster than Oscar expected. He didn’t swing a fist. He shoved Jerrik hard in the chest with both hands, sending the officer stumbling back two steps into the shelf of bottles, which clinked dangerously.
“Or you answer to me,” Darcy finished, his gray eyes utterly void of their earlier patience. He turned his back on the sputtering officer, as if he were no longer a concern.
He placed a steadying hand on Oscar’s sweat-damp back, then wrapped the other around the base of the dildo. “Easy,” he murmured, only for Oscar to hear. With a firm, smooth pull, he extracted the leather from Oscar’s ravaged mouth.
Oscar collapsed forward, coughing uncontrollably, strings of saliva and tears dripping onto the table. His throat was on fire. Each breath was a raw, scraping agony.
Darcy tossed the dildo onto the stone floor with a wet slap. He didn’t look at Jerrik or the other silent observers. He looked only at Oscar, his hand moving in slow circles on his back.
“He is mine,” Darcy announced to the room, his voice leaving no room for argument. “His conditioning, his training, his… composition, are my exclusive concern. You will not touch him again without my express permission. Is that understood?”
Silence hung, thick and charged. Then Varek’s booming laugh broke it. “Alright, cousin! You’ve staked your claim. We’ll let the artist work.” Chairs scraped as the men stood, their amusement palpable.
Jerrik shot a last, venomous look at Darcy’s back, but said nothing. The door opened and closed, leaving them alone with the distant, ghostly echoes of the machine.
Oscar’s coughing subsided into ragged, painful breaths. Darcy’s hand remained on his back, a point of unsettling warmth and certainty.
“Mine,” Darcy whispered again, leaning close, his lips nearly touching Oscar’s ear. The word was possessive, final, and for the first time, it sounded like a refuge from something infinitely worse.
The word was possessive, final, and for the first time, it sounded like a refuge from something infinitely worse. Oscar shuddered, the aftershocks of gagging still vibrating through his ribs. Darcy’s hand remained, a warm, steady weight between his shoulder blades. It was the only solid thing in a room that seemed to tilt and swim.
“Breathe,” Darcy instructed softly. “Just breathe through your nose. Your throat will settle.”
Oscar obeyed, drawing in shallow, stinging gulps of air. The phantom sensation of the leather, the remembered screams of Kael, the looming shape of the machine in the other room—they all receded slightly, pushed back by the simple, immediate task of drawing breath. He realized, with a fresh wave of shame, that he was pressing back into Darcy’s touch, seeking its stability.
Darcy seemed to note it. His thumb stroked a slow arc over Oscar’s spine.“Good. You see the difference now, don’t you? Between artistry and butchery.” He picked up the blue bottle again. The soft glug of oil was the only sound. “Jerrik is a talented soldier, but he has the subtlety of a hammer. Some men respond to that. You wouldn’t.”
Oscar said nothing. He was too raw to form a thought, let alone a rebuttal.
“I want you present for this,” Darcy continued, his voice losing its instructional edge, becoming something lower, more personal. “Not lost in panic, or detached. I want you to feel it. Every part of it.” His oil-slick hand returned to the small of Oscar’s back, a proprietary warmth. “This next part is mine. No one else’s. Do you understand?”
A weak, confused nod was all Oscar could manage. He understood the claim. He didn’t understand why it felt like a lifeline.
Darcy’s other hand came to rest on Oscar’s hip, his grip firm but not painful. He leaned his body forward, the fine wool of his trousers brushing against the back of Oscar’s thighs. Oscar could feel the heat of him, the solid presence aligning.
“This will be easier than the plug,” Darcy murmured, his breath warm against Oscar’s ear. His cock, hard and insistent, pressed against him. The oil-slick head nudged at the loosened, waiting entrance. “Your body is ready. It knows what to do.”
Oscar tensed, a final, instinctive lock of muscle. His mind screamed a dozen fragmented protests—knight, prisoner, man—but they were drowned out by the metallic shriek of the machine from memory, by Kael’s shredded voice begging for more.
“Breathe out,” Darcy whispered.
Oscar exhaled, a shuddering release.
Darcy pushed forward.
The head pressed, breached, and slipped inside. It was a smooth, hot, undeniable penetration. There was no tearing, no violent rupture, just a steady, overwhelming filling. Oscar gasped, his fingers scrabbling against the padded leather. It was so much more there than the plug, more alive than the fingers. It was a presence, a claiming.
Darcy stilled, buried to the hilt, letting Oscar feel the full, stretching weight of him. He made a soft, approving sound deep in his chest. “There. You see? Your body is very smart.”