Chapter 11: Dreamscape Submission
Sleep wasn’t a void anymore. It was a workshop.
The hypnosis had ended, or blurred into it. Kai’s voice became the rhythm of his own breath. The pastel guest room melted like sugar in warm water, its colors bleeding into a new landscape. He was floating, but also standing. He was in front of a mirror that was both the gilded one from the stockroom and the silk-draped one in Bertha’s apartment. His reflection refused to hold still.
It wavered, softening at the edges. The sharp line of his jaw dissolved into a gentle curve. His shoulders rounded, slender and sloping. His Adam's apple smoothed away. The face staring back was his, but not—softer, paler, with wide, docile eyes framed by the makeup Kai had applied, which now looked like it had grown from his own skin.
A child’s perspective. He was small, looking up at the reflection of this delicate, androgynous silhouette. The room around him was a giant’s boudoir. Silk scarves in violent pinks and blues hung from towering bedposts, fluttering in a non-existent breeze. A forest of high heels, impossibly tall and spindly, sprouted from the floor.
“There she is.”
Imogen’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Her muscular arms, powerful and smooth, slid under his back and knees. She lifted him as if he were made of balsa wood, a bridal carry. He was limp, his head lolling against her chest. He could smell her perfume, metallic and clean, mixed with the lavender dust from the stockroom.
“Good girls wear silk,” she whispered into his hair. Her breath was warm. She carried him toward a dressing table cluttered with lace and delicate chains.
He watched, from his child-height, as the reflection showed Imogen laying his limp form on a plush stool. Her hands were efficient. She unbuttoned his jeans—his? they were soft, grey cotton—and slid them down. The air was cool. Her fingers brushed the hard, cold lines of the chastity cage. A jolt, electric and sharp, shot through him. It wasn’t pain. It was a bright, shocking pulse of recognition.
In the mirror, his reflection’s mouth opened in a silent ‘O.’
Imogen produced a slip of ivory silk. It whispered against his skin as she drew it up his legs, over the cage, settling it around his waist. The fabric was cool, then warming instantly. Every brush of her knuckles against his hip, his stomach, sent another one of those sharp, clean pulses through his system. Arousal, but funneled, focused, tied inextricably to the click of a lock, to the cool touch of silk, to the sound of her voice.
“See?” she murmured, arranging the straps. “It fits. It’s meant to.”
The reflection shimmered. Now he was standing again, wearing the silk slip, but the room had changed. It was The Gilded Cup after hours. The chairs were upturned on tables. Only one light glowed over the main register. Bertha was there, leaning against the counter, sipping from a demitasse.
“Bring it here, Lexi.”
His feet moved. The silk whispered against his thighs. He walked toward her, the high heels from the dream forest now on his feet, clicking on the hardwood floor. He felt precarious, elevated. The cage was a constant, grounding pressure.
Bertha put her cup down. She reached out and took his chin, tilting his face up to the light. “You’re almost there. But you’re still thinking.” Her thumb stroked his cheek. “I can see the little hamster wheel turning behind your eyes. We have to quiet that down.”
Her other hand snapped out, fast. Not a smack. A sharp, precise pinch on his side, just above the silk hem.
He gasped. The pain was a white star, instantly morphing into that same shocking, permissible thrill. His knees wobbled.
“Shhh,” Bertha soothed, her hand cupping his cheek now. “That’s the feeling of thought leaving the body. Out with the bad air.” She leaned in, her voice a conspirator’s whisper. “She’s never going to want that anxious little boy back, you know. She pities him. She’s embarrassed for him.”
The scene rippled. He was in the stockroom again, but it was endless, a canyon of yellowed tissue paper and cracked porcelain. Lauren stood at the far end, under a single spotlight. She was wearing her favorite university hoodie. Her face was sad.
“Alex?” she called, her voice echoing. “What are you doing?”
He tried to answer. His voice came out a breathy, feminine whisper. “I’m… I’m being good.”
Lauren’s face crumpled in confusion and pity. “Why are you talking like that?”
Bertha’s laughter boomed from the shelves, rich and cruel, bouncing off the teacups. It mixed with the hum of the fluorescents, turning into the electric static that now clung to everything. The lavender scent from the sachets in the dream forest suddenly overwhelmed him, cloying and sweet.
Imogen was behind him again, her hands on his shoulders, steering him away from Lauren’s receding figure. “Don’t look back. There’s nothing back there for you. Just mess. And noise.”
He was being dressed again. A lace-trimmed corset this time, its bones firm against his ribs. Imogen pulled the laces, tight, tighter. His breath shortened. The world narrowed to the pressure around his torso and the low, insistent pulse between his legs, contained and amplified by the cage. Each tug of the lace was a command. Each gasp for air was obedience.
“Good girl,” Imogen breathed into his ear, her front pressed against his back. “You take shape so beautifully.”
The mirror showed it all. A figure being cinched into elegance, its breath shallow, its eyes wide and glazed. Alex was a faint smudge at the edge of the glass, a smeared fingerprint being wiped clean.
He was in the bridal carry again, drifting through a pastel cloud. Scenes flickered around them like a broken film reel. Bertha feeding him a spoonful of something sweet. Kai painting his nails a deep, shimmering violet. Lauren turning away, her shoulders slumped. The snap of a latex glove. The hiss of the espresso machine. The pop of a hand on grey shorts. Every image was tied to a sensation: a throb, a warmth, a shiver, a jolt.
The arousal was a coil, winding tighter with every scene, every touch, every whispered affirmation. It had no outlet, no release. It built and built, a sustained, resonant note in the humming dreamscape. It wasn’t pleasure as he had known it. It was a condition. A state of being. Proof that the system was working.
He was back in front of the final mirror. The reflection was clear now. Lexi. In a silk slip, a lace corset, hair dusted with gold from the dream. The eyes were empty of conflict. They were just… accepting.
A hand, Bertha’s, appeared in the mirror, resting on the reflection’s shoulder. Her mouth, near its ear.
“When you wake up,” the dream-Bertha said, her voice the only solid thing in the dissolving world, “you will only remember the quiet. You will only feel the shape we gave you. The rest is just… tissue paper.”
The mirror exploded into a thousand shards of light.
He opened his eyes.
The frilly guest room ceiling resolved overhead. The lavender scent from the diffuser was faint now. His body felt heavy, molded into the mattress. There was a deep, pervasive ache in his muscles, a pleasant exhaustion, as if he had slept for days. Between his legs, the cage was a familiar, constant presence, a quiet hum aligned with the memory of the dream.
He sat up slowly. The silk of the pajamas Bertha had given him whispered against his skin. He looked at his hands on the duvet. The violet nail polish was chipped. He felt a mild, distant regret about that. They should be perfect.
He could hear Bertha and Kai talking in low voices in the living room, the clink of coffee mugs.
A fragment, sharp as a glass shard, tried to surface. Lauren’s face, pitying, sad. “Why are you talking like that?”
A wave of warm static fizzed through his mind, dissolving the memory into a harmless, gray fuzz. It was just noise. Bad air.
He swung his feet out of bed. The floor was cool. He stood, his body obeying without complaint. In the full-length mirror, now uncovered, he saw a slender figure in rumpled silk pajamas, hair mussed, eyes clear and calm. He looked rested. He looked quiet.
He touched his reflection’s cheek. The skin was smooth under his fingertips.
From the other room, Bertha’s voice, casual and loud enough to be heard: “You up, Sleeping Beauty? Coffee’s on. We’ve got a big day. Time to learn how to walk in the world.”
He moved toward the kitchen, the silk of the pajamas whispering against his skin with every step. The cage was a familiar, grounding weight. In the bright light of the main room, Bertha and Kai were at the island. Bertha scrolled on her phone, a smirk playing on her lips, while Kai methodically sorted small, polished stones into piles.
“Look who’s finally conscious,” Bertha said, not looking up. “Coffee’s there. Black, right? Or do we take cream now?”
He poured a mug, his hands steady. The coffee was bitter and hot. It tasted like nothing and everything.
Kai watched him, their eyes soft and assessing. “You slept deeply. The pathways are settling. How do you feel?”
“Quiet,” he heard himself say. The word felt true in his mouth.
“Good.” Bertha put her phone down with a decisive tap. “Because we’ve got a full morning. Your shift doesn’t start until three. Imogen needs you sharp, not half-asleep in yesterday’s makeup.”
Kai nodded, pushing a stone across the marble. “The exterior needs to match the interior calm. It reinforces the neural work.”
“Exactly.” Bertha stood up, coming around the island to stand in front of him. She took his chin in her hand, tilting his face side to side. “The foundation is good. But the frame is all wrong. This…” she ruffled his medium-length, mousy brown hair with her other hand, “…is auditory static. It says nothing. It just makes noise.”
He stood still, letting her manipulate his head. The coffee warmth in his stomach merged with the conditioned calm from the night.
“We booked you an appointment,” Kai said softly. “With a stylist we trust. He understands… aesthetic coherence.”
“His name’s Marco,” Bertha said, releasing his chin. “And he’s expensive. So you’re going to sit still and be his perfect little canvas. Understood?”
“Yes,” he said. The answer was automatic, clean.
The salon was called “Chroma.” It was all concrete floors, exposed pipes, and enormous mirrors framed in black steel. The air smelled of ammonia and expensive coconut oil. Loud, pulsing music with no discernible melody vibrated in his chest.
Marco was a thin man with a severe black ponytail and sleeves of intricate tattoos. He didn’t smile. He looked at Bertha, then at Kai, then at him.
“This is the project?” Marco asked Bertha, his voice flat.
“This is Lexi,” Bertha said, her hand firm on his shoulder. “She needs a total rethink. Something high-maintenance. Feminine. Think… gilded cage. But make it fashion.”
Marco’s eyes scanned him up and down. “I see the direction. Sit.”
He was guided to a chair. The cape fastened around his neck was heavy and vinyl. Marco ran his fingers through the limp, brown hair, his expression one of detached criticism.
“The texture is dead. The color is a crime against light.” He let the strands fall. “We start from zero.”
What followed was a long, passive dream. His head was tilted back into a sink, his eyes staring at the recessed lights as warm water and sharp-smelling potions were massaged into his scalp. Marco’s hands were firm, impersonal. Rinse. Repeat.
Back in the chair, Marco sectioned his hair with quick, metallic clips. The stylist worked in silence for a long time, only the snip-snip of shears breaking the beat of the music. Clumps of his hair fell onto the cape, onto the floor. They looked like discarded rubbish.
“Close your eyes,” Marco commanded.
A cold, chemical smell filled the air. A brush dragged through his hair, section by section. He felt a slight burning on his scalp. Foil packets were folded around strands of hair with crisp, practiced efficiency. His head grew heavy with them.
Time blurred under the heat of the processing dryer. He stared at his reflection under the tin-foil helmet. His face looked smaller, sharper, exposed.
Finally, the foils were removed. His hair was rinsed again. He was led back to the chair, a towel wrapping his head. Marco unraveled it. In the mirror, his hair was a shocking, uneven blonde at the ends, melting up into his natural brown.
“Balayage,” Marco stated, combing through the wet strands. “Soft transition. Expensive looking. Now, the cut.”
The shears flashed again. Layers were carved. His hair was shaped, tapering at the ends, framing his face in a way that was undeniably soft. A long, side-swept fringe was cut, falling just above his eye. Marco blow-dried it with a round brush, curling the ends under. The final look was sleek, consciously pretty, and required a flat iron to maintain.
Bertha appeared at his shoulder, her reflection smiling in the mirror. “Now we’re talking. You see the difference, Lexi?”
He stared. The person in the mirror was a stranger with his eyes. The hair was a helmet of sophisticated, feminine intent. It spoke of time spent, of product used, of a specific kind of care. It was the exact opposite of his old, wash-and-go mop.
“Good,” Bertha said, reading his silence. “Now for the punctuation.”
Marco had already moved. He produced a small, clinical-looking gun from a drawer. He wiped the lobes of his ears with something cold and stinging.
“Don’t flinch,” Bertha said, her hands coming down on his shoulders, holding him in the chair.
The first click-punch was a shocking, singular pain. It was bright and localized in his left earlobe. He gasped. The second, in his right ear, was worse because he anticipated it. His eyes watered.
“Done,” Marco said, wiping the sites again. He then presented a small velvet tray. On it rested a pair of hoop earrings. They were large, maybe two inches in diameter, and looked like solid gold.
“They need to be seen,” Bertha said, taking them from the tray. “They are part of the look.”
She leaned in, her body pressing against the side of the chair. Her fingers, smelling of her perfume and the salon’s chemicals, deftly fixed the hoops onto the freshly pierced studs. The metal was cool, then warmed quickly against his skin. They were heavy. With every slight turn of his head, he felt their sway, a metallic brush against his neck.
“Look,” she commanded.
He looked. The face was already altered by the hair—softer, more deliberate. Now, the large, gleaming hoops completed the transformation. They drew the eye. They made a statement of deliberate, high-maintenance adornment. They were anchors, pulling his identity down into a new, uncharted territory.
He saw a girl in the mirror. Polished, curated, and utterly passive.
A deep, resonant chime echoed in the empty space where his resistance used to be. It was the sound of a final lock sliding home.
“Perfect,” Bertha breathed, her hands still on his shoulders. “Now you’re ready to walk in the world.”
Bertha’s reflection smiled, a curator admiring a finished piece. “Now you’re ready to walk in the world.” She turned her head, calling over the pulsing music. “Mira, honey. Your turn.”
Marco’s assistant appeared. She was young, with shaved sides and dramatic winged eyeliner that flicked out like a cat’s whiskers. She carried a large, professional kit. “Chair,” she said, her voice flat.
He was swiveled away from the main mirror, facing a smaller, well-lit one. Mira worked without speaking, her movements brisk and confident. Cold primer was smoothed over his face. The foundation was thick, a different consistency than Kai’s, and she applied it with a dense, egg-shaped sponge, pressing and stippling.
Contour creams in shades of brown and gray were painted onto his jawline, the hollows of his cheeks, the sides of his nose. She blended with a brush, carving shadows where none existed, reshaping his face into something sharper yet softer, a paradox in pigment. The blush was a dusty rose, applied high on the apples of what was left of his cheeks.
His eyelids were painted with a complex gradient of matte browns, his lashes coated in layers of black mascara until they felt heavy. Mira lined his lips precisely, then filled them in with a liquid matte in a muted, pinkish nude. She set everything with a cloud of powder that smelled like clean laundry and made him want to sneeze.
Finally, she held up the mirror.
The face that stared back was a stranger’s masterpiece. His features were both muted and exaggerated, softened into a mask of ethereal, vacant prettiness. The new earrings glinted, final exclamation points on the sentence Mira had written on his skin.
“No crying,” Bertha warned softly from behind him, her hands resting on his shoulders. “You’ll ruin her work.”
He didn’t feel like crying. He felt like he was watching a livestream of someone else’s life from a great, quiet distance.
“Back room,” Bertha said, guiding him up by the elbows. Marco nodded once, already turning to his next client.
The back room was a sterile cube with a single folding chair and garment bags hanging from a pipe. Bertha unzipped the first one. “Arms up.”
The shapewear was a single, formidable garment of sheer, power-net material. It squeezed the breath from his lungs as she tugged it up his legs, over his hips, compressing his stomach and lower back into a smooth, unnatural cylinder. The world subtly reoriented itself around this new, constant pressure.
Next were the tights, opaque and black. She rolled them carefully over his toes, up his calves, the fabric whispering as it settled. Then came the shorts. They were a soft, dove-grey cotton with a delicate side zipper. She helped him step into them, guiding his feet through the leg holes, then zipped them up the side. The fit was snug, hugging the shapewear and tights beneath.
The pink blouse was last. It was silk, not polyester, and flowed like water as she slipped it over his head. It settled around his shoulders with a weightless sigh. She buttoned it from the bottom up, her fingers quick and efficient.
“Turn,” she said.
He turned in the small space. The silk brushed against his nipples, a sensation both alien and oddly familiar. The shorts compressed his plump, shaped rear. The tights whispered together with every minor shift of his legs.
Bertha produced the ballet flats from her bag. They were soft, black leather. He stepped into them, feeling the floor through the thin soles.
She stood back, looking him up and down. Her expression was one of deep satisfaction. “Look in that,” she said, nodding to a full-length mirror leaning against the wall, spotted at the edges.
He walked toward it, the flats making soft sounds on the concrete. The figure in the mirror was a complete fiction. The hair, the makeup, the earrings, the silhouette smoothed by shapewear and defined by careful tailoring—it was a lie that felt more solid than anything he’d ever been. Lexi stared back, silent and polished.
“Perfect,” Bertha breathed. She picked up his old clothes, folded them neatly, and placed them in her bag. “These are archived. You won’t need them.”
The walk to The Gilded Cup was only four blocks, but it felt like a parade. The heavy hoops swayed with each step. The silk blouse fluttered in the mild breeze, drawing glances. He was acutely aware of the compression of the shapewear, the gentle squeeze of the cage beneath it all, the way the shorts hugged the curve of his bottom. Each sensation was a tag in his mind, marking him.
Bertha walked beside him, a steady, imposing presence. “Head up,” she said quietly. “Eyes forward. You belong here.”
Imogen was polishing the enormous espresso machine when they entered. The bell chimed. She looked up, her eyes scanning, and then her face broke into a wide, genuine smile. “Well, hello,” she purred, putting down her cloth. “Look at this vision.”
She came around the counter, her movements liquid and appreciative. She circled him slowly, a predator admiring a fresh kill. “The hair. Marco outdid himself.” She stopped in front of him, her finger tracing the line of his jaw, careful not to disturb the makeup. “And this contouring. Mira’s a genius. It completely changes the bone structure.”
Her gaze traveled down, then back up. “The silhouette,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “So much more… defined.” Her hand came to rest on his hip, then slid around to his backside. She gave his plump, confined rear a firm, appreciative squeeze through the soft cotton of the shorts. “And so much more to hold onto.”
The touch was proprietary, lasting a beat too long. He stood perfectly still, his breath held.
“How does it feel?” Imogen asked, her hand still resting there.
“Quiet,” he answered, the word automatic.
Imogen’s smile deepened. She leaned in, her lips close to his ear. “Good girl,” she whispered, the phrase a warm secret between them. Her other hand drifted around his front, her fingers brushing low over his stomach, then lower, feeling the rigid outline of the cage beneath the layers of shapewear and shorts. She pressed, just enough for him to feel the unyielding structure. “And all tucked away. Neat. Pretty.”
She released him, stepping back. “Alright, pretty thing. Apron on. We’ve got a slow afternoon, which means deep cleaning. You’re on floor detail.”
The next hour was spent on his hands and knees, scrubbing the intricate mosaic tiles around the front counter. The position strained the shapewear and pulled the shorts tight. Every time he sat back on his heels, he was aware of the soft fullness there.
Imogen passed by often, her ballet flats appearing in his peripheral vision. Each time, her hand would find him. Sometimes it was a pat, sometimes a lingering stroke. Once, when he was reaching for a stubborn spot of grout, she crouched beside him.
“You missed a spot,” she murmured, her hand sliding over the back of his thigh. Her fingers traced the seam of the shorts where they met the tights. Then, under the guise of adjusting his apron strings, her hand slipped between his legs from behind, cupping him, feeling the distinct, caged shape through the fabric. She squeezed, once, deliberately. “Such a good girl,” she breathed into his neck before standing and walking away.
The arousal was instant, a trapped, buzzing heat that had nowhere to go. It mixed with the shame of being handled so casually, and the two feelings fused into a single, confusing thrum that resonated with the hum of the café’s lights. He kept scrubbing, the motion of his arm mechanical.
“Stop,” Imogen called from the register. “Customer.”
He stood, his knees protesting. A woman waited at the counter, studying the pastry case.
“Go help her,” Imogen said, leaning against the back counter, watching him with a lazy, amused gaze.
He walked over, the flats silent on the clean tiles. “Can I help you?” His voice was quiet, polite.
The woman ordered a cappuccino and a lemon tart. He keyed it in, took her payment, his movements fluid from practice. As he handed her the change, Imogen appeared beside him, ostensibly to grab a cloth.
Her hand slid down his back, over the curve of his bottom, and gave it a slow, firm rub. “You’re doing so well today,” she said loudly, for the customer’s benefit. Her fingers dug in, possessive and knowing.
The customer blinked, then offered a tight, confused smile.
Imogen’s hand lingered a final moment before she turned away, humming. The warmth of her touch seemed to brand itself through the layers of silk, cotton, and power-net. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a secret, silent rhythm of ownership that no one in the softly lit café could see, but that he felt in every cell of his newly-shaped body.