Chapter 2: A Third at the Throne
The air in the narrow back hallway was cool compared to the attic’s feverish closeness. Kyle’s footsteps were silent on the worn runner, Laure a slight, warm weight in his arms. She had stopped trembling, but every few seconds a small shiver would pass through her, a delayed echo of the cane. He could feel the heat radiating from the stripes on her back and shoulders through her thin dress.
“Put me down,” she whispered as they passed the closed door to the sewing room. “You’ll get worse if she sees you carrying me like this.”
“She told me to take you down,” he said, his voice low. “This is taking you down.”
“Kyle—”
“Be quiet.”
He pushed the door to the washroom open with his foot. It was a stark, tiled space with a deep, old-fashioned tub and a single barred window high up on the wall. He set her on her feet, but kept an arm around her as her legs wobbled.She hissed as the motion tugged the skin across her wounds.
“You need to clean the marks,” he said, turning the single cold tap. A gush of rusty water splashed into the tub before running clear and icy.
“I know the drill,” she muttered, leaning against the sink.She watched him, her eyes tracing the line of his shoulders. “The shed?”
He nodded, not looking at her. He wetted a rough, clean cloth under the stream, wrung it out.“Here.”
She took it, her fingers brushing his. The contact lingered for a second too long.“Will you come after? To the dorm?”
“If she lets me.”
He turned to go, the image of the dark, tool-scented shed already settling over him like a shroud.Her voice stopped him at the door.
“Kyle.” He glanced back. She had the cloth pressed to her cheek, her eyes enormous in the room’s gloom.“When Nora looked at you… did you like it?”
He didn’t answer. The door clicked shut behind him.
The attic, hours later, had not lost its memory of them.The scarred table waited. The oil lamps, now lit and throwing long, leaping shadows, made the stains on the floor look fresh.
Kyle sat on the same straight-backed chair, his posture rigid.Laure was perched on his left thigh, her body still holding a slight stiffness. She had changed into a plain gray smock, the coarse fabric sure to chafe her welts. She kept her gaze down, but the set of her jaw was anything but submissive.
The door to the attic stairs creaked open.Nora entered.
She was new, only arrived with the last full moon.Dark curls framed a face that hadn’t yet learned to hide its thoughts. Her eyes, a sharp hazel, took in the scene: Kyle on the chair, Laure on his lap, Grandma Marguerite standing like a statue guardian with her hands folded. Nora’s own smock was clean, her hands clenched at her sides.
“Approach,” Marguerite said, her voice slicing the thick air.Nora did, her steps hesitant on the old floorboards. She stopped a few feet from the chair. Her gaze flickered to Kyle’s face, then away, a faint pink rising on her neck.
“You observed Laure’s correction this morning,” Marguerite stated.“You saw the consequence of improper form. Of greed.”
Nora nodded once, a quick, nervous jerk of her chin.“Observation is the first step.Participation is the lesson. Kneel.”
The word was a command, not an invitation. Nora sank to her knees on the hard floor, her head bowed. From Kyle’s thigh, Laure watched her, a slow burn starting behind her ribs.Marguerite circled them.“Laure believes her claim is singular. That her sin holds a special currency.This is a fallacy.All sin is equal in its need for management. Kyle is an instrument of that management.You will learn to serve the instrument, Nora. To affirm its purpose.”
Laure’s breath hitched.She knew what was coming. Her fingers dug into the fabric of Kyle’s trousers.“Service him,” Marguerite said, her eyes on Nora. “With your mouth.Learn the discipline of focus. Of humble offering.”
Nora’s head came up, that defiant glint flashing in her eyes for a single, dangerous second. Then it was gone, buried under the weight of the attic, the oil lamps, the old woman’s stare. She shuffled forward on her knees.Laure couldn’t bear it. The sight of Nora’s dark head moving towards Kyle, the intimacy of the command, it ripped through the lingering pain in her shoulders and found a sharper, hotter ache in her chest.
As Nora’s hands fumbled with the fastening of Kyle’s trousers, Laure acted. She shifted, swinging her leg over so she was straddling Kyle’s other thigh, facing him fully. She grabbed the neck of her own smock and yanked it down, baring her breasts, the skin still marked from Kyle’s pinching fingers, the deeper bruises from the cane a lurid purple across her collarbones.
“You want sin to manage?” Laure’s voice was rough, desperate. She thrust her chest out towards Kyle.“Here.This is yours.You marked it.Punish it.Not her. Me.”
Kyle’s eyes, which had been fixed on a point on the wall, dropped to her face.A flicker of something—panic, exhaustion—crossed his features.
Nora paused, looking up, confused.
“You see?” Marguerite’s voice held a note of cold satisfaction.“The rivalry.The grasping envy.It corrupts the sacrament further. Kyle.”
His name was a trigger. His hands came up, not to Laure’s breasts, but to her waist.He lifted her bodily off his thigh and placed her on the floor beside Nora. “On your knees. Both of you.”
Laure fell to her knees, the impact jolting her wounds.Nora flinched beside her.
“You fight for the privilege of his attention?” Marguerite asked, standing over them.“Then you will share a lower, common privilege. You will worship the ground he walks on.You will kiss his feet. And you will do it while facing each other, a reminder of your shared lowliness.”
Kyle stood. He looked down at the two women kneeling at his feet, his expression unreadable. Laure’s cheeks were flushed with shame and fury.Nora’s were pale with shock.“Do it,” Marguerite said.
Laure moved first, a stubborn fury propelling her. She bent forward, her red hair sweeping the dusty floor, and pressed her lips to the worn leather of Kyle’s right boot. It tasted of earth and salt. Beside her, Nora, with a tiny, swallowed sob, mimicked the action on his left.“Now each other,” Kyle said, his voice hollow. “A kiss of reconciliation. To show the sin is between you, not just with me.”
Laure turned her head.Nora’s face was inches away, tears streaking through the dust on her cheeks. Their eyes locked—Laure’s burning green, Nora’s wide and hazel. There was no tenderness here, only a charged, horrible intimacy. Laure closed the distance, her lips meeting Nora’s in a hard, dry press.It was over in a second. They recoiled from each other as if scalded.“Your rivalry displeases me,” Marguerite said softly.“It introduces chaos. Kyle, correct their posture.Their focus is divided. Make it singular.”
Kyle’s hands, which had been hanging at his sides, came up. He brought them down, open-palmed, on the upturned curves of Laure’s and Nora’s asses. The slaps were sharp, percussive reports in the quiet attic. Laure jerked forward, a gasp forced from her lips.Nora cried out, a short, sharp sound.
“Together,” Kyle commanded, his voice gaining a grim edge.“Again.”
The next slap was synchronized, a twin strike that rocked them both. Laure bit her lip, her eyes squeezing shut.She could hear Nora’s ragged breathing beside her. The pain was bright, shocking, anchoring her back into this awful, shared moment.
“The form,” Kyle said, landing another pair of stinging blows.“Is vertical.The attention. Is upward.To the authority above you.Not sideways at each other. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Laure ground out.“Yes,” Nora whispered, a sob caught in the word.
“Good.”
He didn’t strike them again. The silence that followed was filled with their panting, the pop of the oil lamp wicks, the distant groan of the house settling.
Marguerite nodded, a slow, measured movement.“Take Nora to her cell.Laure will clean the attic. Every surface.Until it shines. Then she may sleep.”
Kyle reached down, taking Nora by the elbow to help her rise.She stumbled, her legs unsteady. He didn’t look at Laure, still kneeling on the floor.As he guided Nora towards the door, Laure opened her eyes. She watched his broad back retreat, the faint outline of his scars visible through his thin shirt. The burning in her own flesh was already softening into a deep, familiar throb. The taste of leather and another girl’s fear was on her lips.
She looked at the scarred table, the waiting bucket and brush.A slow, solitary smile, bitter and full of dark possession, touched her mouth. He had touched her first.He had marked her first.Nora was just a lesson.
She pushed herself to her feet, the new aches layering over the old, and went to fetch the water. The work would be long, and cold, and painful.But it was hers. And in this house, that was a victory.