Chapter 31: The encore
The emptiness he left behind was a physical ache, a hollowed-out fire. I lay on the stone, my body a live wire strung between the fading echoes of pleasure and the brutal, throbbing denial. My skin sang where he’d been; deeper, a pulse beat a frantic, unanswered rhythm.
I heard him move behind me, the shift of fabric, the rustle of his kilt.
Before I could gather myself, before my trembling limbs could push me up, a new heat splashed across my cheek, my temple, streaking through my hair. It was shocking in its intimacy. Warm. Salty. The scent of it, musky and primal, cut through the sandalwood air. My eyes, clenched shut, flew open.
Jabari stood to the side, adjusting his garment, his expression one of detached completion. The debt was settled in his currency.
The frantic need coiled in my belly convulsed. No. No no no. Please. The thought was a silent scream, childish in its desperation. I was so close. The edge was still there, a cliff I’d been pulled back from, and every nerve begged for release. My breath came in short, ragged pants that echoed too loud in the sudden quiet.
My hand, moving of its own volition, snaked down between my own legs. My fingers found the slick, swollen flesh, achingly sensitive. One touch. Just one touch to bridge that impossible gap.
A sandaled foot came down, not hard, but with definitive pressure, on my wrist.
“Ah, ah,” Neferti tutted, her voice dripping with amused disdain. She had materialized from the shadows. “The horny little bitch thinks she gets to finish. This isn’t your pleasure dome, Angela. This is settlement. You don’t get a prize.”
Tears of pure frustration burned behind my eyes. I blinked them back, tasting salt and something else on my lips. Humiliation was a cold wave finally crashing over the receding heat. I was splayed, used, marked, and unfinished on the floor of my enemy’s chamber. The reality of it began to crystallize, sharp and cutting.
“I…” My voice was a rasp, broken. I cleared my throat, the act of will feeling Herculean. I turned my head, my cheek sticky against the stone, to look up at Jabari. He was watching me now with a cool, evaluating interest. “The next debt collection,” I stammered, forcing the words out, each one a stone I had to lift. “I… I will be there. To oversee. As agreed.”
It was a claim to authority, brittle and pathetic, but I had to make it. I had to plant some flag of my former self in this ruined landscape.
Neferti laughed, a bright, cruel sound. “She’s already bargaining for next time. The addiction starts quickly, doesn’t it?” She removed her foot from my wrist, but instead of stepping back, she knelt beside me. Her eyes roamed my body, the sweat-sheened skin, the marks from the rod, the visible tremble in my thighs. “But you’ve forgotten your manners, Empress. Our host has been… generous. And I have been your diligent instructor. Gratitude is customary.”
Her hand snaked out before I could react. It cracked against the side of my breast, a sharp, stinging slap that made me jerk and gasp.
The pain was bright, clean, a punctuation mark on the confused symphony of my senses.
“Ouch!” The exclamation was ripped from me, undignified and sharp.
Neferti’s eyebrows rose, waiting. Jabari folded his arms, a silent judge.
The cold gem of my will, buried under layers of sensation and shame, flared. It saw the path. The only path forward through this. To survive the moment, you must inhabit it completely. You must wear the degradation like a garment until you can tear it off in private.
I drew another breath, deeper this time. I let my body go still against the cold stone. I met Neferti’s gaze, then Jabari’s.
“Thank you,” I said, the words clear and low. I did not look away. “Thank you, Jabari.” I turned my head slightly toward the woman beside me. “Thank you, Neferti.”
The acknowledgment hung in the thick air. It was more shocking, somehow, than any moan I’d uttered. It was surrender and strategy woven into one.
Neferti’s smirk softened into something more thoughtful, more wary. She had expected defiance, or more broken pleading. Not this cold, clear-eyed acceptance. Jabari gave a slow, single nod. The transaction was now, truly, complete.
With a strength I did not feel, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, then to my knees. My body felt unfamiliar, a vessel that had been sailed into rough, unknown waters. I did not try to cover myself. The conceit of modesty had been burned away. I gathered my legs under me and stood, the movement slow, regal even in its unsteadiness. The wetness on my face began to cool.
I walked, naked and marked, past the braziers whose light now felt like an audience, past the tapestry of forgotten gods who had witnessed everything. I did not look back. My bare feet were silent on the stone.
Only when the scarlet silk of the passageway curtain fell behind me, shielding me from their view, did I allow my shoulders to slump. I leaned against the cool wall, my forehead pressed to the painted plaster. My hand crept down once more, trembling.
But I clenched it into a fist before it could reach its destination.
Not here. The release, if it ever came, would not be born of this moment. It would be mine alone. I pushed off from the wall and began the long walk back to my own chambers, to my own throne, each step a rehearsal for wearing my crown again. The taste on my lips was a reminder. The ache in my body was a map. And the thanks on my tongue was a promise, to myself, of a reckoning yet to come.