Chapter 3: The third fantasy: Surgical Submission
The cold of the examination table seeped into her bones. It was a different cold than the woods. Sterile.Metallic. The paper sheet beneath her crinkled with every shallow breath. Her thighs were strapped apart by leather cuffs attached to the table’s stirrups. The overhead lights were blinding white. They burned away any shadow, any hiding place.
She was clean. Scrubbed raw. The mud and pine needles were gone. The needle marks on her clit and nipples were fresh, tiny dots of scabbed-over fire. They throbbed in time with her heartbeat. A reminder with every pulse. Just like she’d asked for.
The door hissed open.Rhys entered. He wore dark scrubs. His hands were bare. In one hand, he carried the familiar ledger. In the other, a small steel tray. He set the tray on a rolling stand beside the table. It held a spool of clear monofilament line, a curved suture needle, a scalpel, antiseptic swabs, and a pair of sharp, precise scissors.
He didn’t look at her at first. He adjusted the stand. The wheels squeaked. The sound was obscene.
“Comfortable?” he asked, his voice flat.
She said nothing. She couldn’t. Her throat was sealed shut.
He opened the ledger. He found the page. He pulled a stool over and sat beside her, his hip near her strapped-down hand. He was close enough for her to smell the clean, sharp scent of his soap. It didn’t belong here.
He began to read. His voice was calm.Clinical. It carved her open more surely than the scalpel.
“‘Fantasy Eight. Proposal for Closure.’”
He glanced up. “You numbered them. Good.”
He continued.
“‘I want to be strapped to the gynecologist table.’” He paused, his eyes scanning the room. “Check.”
“‘The lights should be cruel. I want to feel examined. Dissected. I want to be utterly open. And then I want to be sealed shut.’”
A low moan escaped her. She tried to clamp her legs together. The straps held her fast. The leather bit into her thighs.
Rhys read on, ignoring the sound.
“‘You should wear surgical gloves. The blue kind. I want to hear the snap of the latex. I want you to treat me like a medical problem. A thing that needs correction.’”
He set the book down on his lap. He pulled a pair of gloves from a box on the tray. He snapped them on. One.Two. The sound was a gunshot in the quiet room.
He picked up the ledger.
“‘Use fishing line. The strong, clear kind. It should feel foreign.Industrial. It should burn as it pulls through. Stitch my labia shut.Not neatly. I want it to be crude. I want to feel every loop. I want to see the line glistening when I look down.’”
Her breathing hitched. She turned her head away, staring at the blank white wall.
“Look here,” Rhys said, his voice quiet but absolute.
She turned her head back. She looked at him.
He held her gaze as he read her own words back to her.
“‘Keep me sealed for a week. Let me feel the pressure build.Let me ache. Let the skin swell around the thread. Let me need to piss so bad it feels like I’ll split open. Don’t let me. Make me use a catheter. I want to be helpless. I want to be a ruined thing.’”
Tears welled in her eyes. They blurred the harsh lights into starbursts.
He read the last part slowly. Deliberately.“‘Then. When the week is up. When I’m swollen and tender and half-mad from the constant need. Cut me open. Don’t take the stitches out. Cut through them. Use the scalpel. I want to feel the blunt pop of each thread breaking. Then rape the swollen mess. It should hurt. It should be a violation. It should feel like you’re tearing me in two. That’s the point.’”
He closed the ledger. The finality of the sound was terrible.
He placed the book on the tray. He picked up the spool of monofilament. It was clear, like a strand of frozen spiderweb. He unspooled a length. He tested its strength between his gloved hands.
“Strong stuff,” he commented, as if discussing the weather. He picked up the curved needle. He held the tip against the pad of his thumb. “Sharp, too.”
He swabbed her inner thigh with cold antiseptic. The smell filled her nose. It was the smell of impending violation.
“This is what you wanted,” he said, not looking at her. He threaded the needle with the clear line. The task was mundane. Practiced. “You wrote it.You dreamed it. You begged for it with every line.”
He leaned in. The needle hovered.
“This is me giving you what you need.”
The first bite was a white-hot brand.A puncture. A sharp, incredible pain followed by a brutal, dragging burn as the line pulled through. She screamed. The sound bounced off the tiles.
“Quiet,” he said, his voice steady. He made another stitch. The needle went in, came out. The burn was worse this time. It was a seam of fire being sewn into her most sensitive flesh.
She sobbed. Her body jerked against the restraints. The straps held.
He worked in silence. The only sounds were her ragged cries, his calm breathing, and the soft, wet pull of the filament through skin.
He was not neat. The stitches were uneven. They puckered the skin. She could see the glistening line, just as she’d written. It was crude.It was horrifying. It was real.
When he was done, he tied off the line. He snipped the ends with the scissors. He sat back.
“Done.”
She was shaking uncontrollably. The area throbbed with a deep, alien pain. She felt sewn.Sealed. A package.
He peeled off his gloves. They made a soft, sticky sound. He dropped them in a biohazard bin. He picked up the scalpel. He laid it carefully on the tray, next to the ledger.
“A week,” he said. He tapped the blade with a fingernail.Tink. “We’ll see how badly you want this. We’ll see if your fantasy holds up to the reality of being full of piss and misery for seven days.”
He stood up. He looked down at his work. His expression was unreadable.
“The hunt was about fear,” he said. “This is about endurance. Your body against your own mind. Let’s find out which one breaks first.”
He walked to the door. He didn’t look back.
“Try not to move too much, stupid cunt,” he said over his shoulder. “You might rip your new stitches.”
The door hissed shut.
She was alone. Strapped open under the cruel lights. Sealed shut by her own terrible, beautiful words.
The ache began to deepen. The week stretched before her, an endless corridor of throbbing need. The scalpel gleamed on the tray beside her.
Waiting.