Chapter 17: Suspended Decisions
Sam’s scalp screamed, each braid a taut cable suspending her weight from the ceiling hook, the electrostimulation pads on her swollen clit humming with a vicious, cyclical current. “Choose,” Eleanor said, her voice flat, holding up the tattoo machine in one hand and a twelve-gauge needle in the other. “The ink or the steel.” The voltage spiked, arching Sam’s back, a guttural cry ripped from her as her own hair follicles tore. “I can’t,” she sobbed, her vision swimming. Eleanor placed a straight razor on the stool beneath Sam’s dangling feet. “Cut your hair and choose, or hang there until you tear free.” Sam’s fingers, trembling violently, fumbled for the razor, sawing through the thick blonde braids until she fell in a heap, the severed hair still hooked above. “The needle,” Sam gasped, clutching her raw scalp. “Pierce me.” Eleanor’s cool detachment fractured, a flicker of raw hunger in her eyes as she pushed Sam onto her back, spreading her legs. “You want a permanent hole?” she murmured, aligning the thick needle. Sam nodded, her body pliant. Eleanor drove the steel through the outer labia in one brutal push, the pop of tissue followed by Sam’s shattered moan. She threaded the jewelry, and leaned down, licking the blood away. “ turn,” Eleanor breathed, her own need now a palpable fever. She guided Sam’s bloody fingers between her legs, pressing them inside her own slick heat. “Now you fuck me,” she commanded, riding Sam’s hand with a frantic, grinding rhythm, her cries sharp and unfiltered. “Deeper, you vacant little thing, make me feel it.” Sam obeyed, mechanically curving her fingers, the metal ring cold against Eleanor’s thigh as the photographer shuddered and came with a choked, desperate gasp, collapsing onto the concrete beside her.
Eleanor lay beside her, breathing ragged, the studio’s silence returning like a held breath. “You chose the steel,” she finally said, her voice a husk of itself, fingers tracing the new ring in Sam’s labia. “That wasn’t the choice.” She stood on unsteady legs, walking to her kit, and returned with a smaller, sharper needle and a tiny silver barbell. “This is.” Sam stared, understanding dawning through the haze. “Your clit,” Eleanor stated, kneeling, spreading Sam open wider with thumbs that smelled of blood and sex. “The hood’s already pierced. Now I take the bud itself. Say you want it.” The raw, stripped-nerved feeling from the electro-pads ghosted over her. “Do it,” Sam whispered, her voice foreign. Eleanor’s grip was merciless, pulling the swollen nub taut. The needle was a precise, white-hot singularity of pain, a pop and tear that erased every other thought. Sam screamed, her hips bucking against Eleanor’s iron hold. “Hold still, you fucking mess,” Eleanor growled, threading the jewelry with swift, practiced twists. The pain crystallized into a sharp, persistent throb that echoed in her empty cunt. Eleanor leaned close, her breath hot. “Now you’ll always feel me there, a tiny piece of metal in your most sensitive nerve.” She kissed Sam’s torn lips. “Every step, every thought, every time you cross your legs, you’ll remember this room.” Sam’s body shook, not with sobs, but with a terrifying, electric awareness. The piercings were a circuit, and she was forever switched on.
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The new metal in her clit was a live wire, each throb a reminder of the needle’s pop. Eleanor watched her from the shadows, lighting a cigarette, the ember flaring in the dimness. “The burns on your thighs are weeping, Sam.” She exhaled a plume of smoke that stung Sam’s nostrils. “You need to keep them clean.” Sam just stared at the honey-colored walls, her mind a blank, static sheet. Eleanor stood and pulled her up by the wrist, guiding her to the deep basement sink, the porcelain cold against Sam’s stomach. “Bend over,” Eleanor said, her tone implying this was practicality, not punishment. Sam obeyed, her branded thighs straining, the fresh piercings pulling as Eleanor spread her from behind. The tap ran, and the water was icy, shocking against her torn flesh, making her gasp and scramble against the sink’s edge. “Hold still, you’ll get infected,” Eleanor chided, her fingers parting her roughly to rinse the outer labial ring. The water dripped down, mingling with the slicknessw that had begun to pool again between Sam’s legs despite the pain. Eleanor’s wet finger, calloused and deliberate, circled the new barbell, a cruel, slow rotation. A broken sound, part sob, part moan, escaped Sam’s throat, her hips pushing back involuntarily against the empty air. “You’re still so fucking wet for it,” Eleanor muttered, her own breath hitching. She unzipped her jeans, freed herself, and without preamble, not even spit, she drove her cunt down onto Sam’s upturned face, grinding hard. “Eat me clean, you desperate slut,” Eleanor demanded, her hands gripping Sam’s shorn scalp, pressing her deeper into the coarse, salty thatch of hair. Sam’s tongue moved, automatic and servicing, the taste of sweat and sex filling her mouth as she struggled to breathe. Eleanor fucked her face in sharp, punishing jerks, each one jostling the fresh metal, sending sparks of agony and electric pleasure straight up Sam’s spine. “Please,” Sam gagged, the word muffled by flesh, her body alight with conflicting signals of violation and need. Eleanor pulled away, leaving Sam gasping, strands of saliva connecting them. “Please what?” she panted, flipping Sam around to face her, her eyes blazing. Sam’s gaze was shattered, wholly owned, every inhibition burned and pierced away. “More,” Sam begged, her voice raw and final. “I need more.”
“I need more.” The words hung in the chemical air of the salon, a stark contrast to the basement’s raw scent. Sam stood passively as Eleanor tightened the laces of her corset, the black leather skirt stiff against her newly branded thighs. Her shorn hair, though severed from the braids, still fell in a ragged blonde curtain past her shoulders, a reminder of the ceiling hook and the razor’s bite.
“Time for a style change,” Eleanor stated, not asked, her own identical corset creaking as she buttoned Sam’s white blouse. Sam nodded, the movement automatic, her mind still echoing with the pop of the needle through her clit. They arrived at the new salon, a sterile white box where every beautician was a drastic sculpture of modified flesh and vivid dye.
Eleanor approached the receptionist, her voice cool. “We have an appointment with Cindy.” Cindy emerged from behind a curtain, topless, her enormous manufactured breasts swaying, each pierced nipple adorned with a tiny silver bell that chimed with her movement. Her hair was a severe pageboy, stark white edged with inky black, framing micro-bangs above kohl-rimmed eyes.
“Follow me,” Cindy said, her voice a flat monotone. She led them past silent stations to her own, a chrome-and-leather cell. “Undress.” Sam and Eleanor obeyed, shedding their leather skirts and blouses until they stood in just their corsets and shoes. Cindy pushed Eleanor firmly into the black stylist’s chair. She secured Eleanor’s wrists and ankles to the chair with thick velvet restraints, the buckles clicking decisively.
Then Cindy turned to Sam. “Hold her head steady,” she instructed, picking up her shears. Sam moved behind the chair, her fingers tangling in Eleanor’s red pageboy, gripping her scalp. Cindy worked with swift, violent precision, the shears grating near Eleanor’s ear. Chunks of red hair fell, revealing a brutal, asymmetrical undercut shaved to the skin on one side.
The remaining hair on the other side was sliced into a jagged, angular bob, longer at the front, creating a harsh, diagonal line across Eleanor’s jaw. Cindy then produced a brush and dye, painting the remaining red hair a glossy, patent-leather black. “There,” Cindy said, releasing the chair’s restraints with a snap. Eleanor stared at her reflection, her hand rising to touch the shocking asymmetry, a faint smile touching her lips.
Sam watched, her own ragged hair feeling heavy and wrong. “Now you,” Eleanor said, her newly dark hair making her eyes seem paler, colder. She pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
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Sam sat in the facing barber chair, the cold leather a shock against her thighs where the brands still wept. Eleanor secured by wrists to the armrests, then clicked thick ankle cuffs closed, the restraints holding her spread-eagled. Cindy approached with her shears, the blades catching the sterile light, and without a word began cutting, the snick-snick-snick of steel against hair loud in the quiet room. Four inches of ragged blonde fell away, leaving Sam’s hair hanging just at her bra strap, the ends now clean and heavy. “Good,” Eleanor murmured, her newly blackened hair a harsh frame for her assessing gaze. Cindy reclined the chair back, Sam’s head lowering into the sink’s basin, and the shift in position stretched her pierced, dildo filled holes, making her gasp. “Relax,” Cindy droned, her fingers massaging shampoo into Sam’s scalp as the warm water cascaded down. The forced arch of her body pulled at the fresh metal in her clit, each throb syncing with the tug of Cindy’s hands. Once rinsed, Cindy applied the straightening chemicals, the acrid smell of ammonia flooding Sam’s nostrils as the white paste was painted onto her strands. With Sam processing, Cindy turned to Eleanor, who was still under the dye, and produced a spool of thick black thread. She threaded the needle-like end through Eleanor’s nipple ring, then crossed the space to do the same to Sam’s. Cindy pulled the thread taut, the string connecting their chests, a visible tether of about two feet. “Hold still,” Cindy instructed, giving the line a periodic, gentle tug. Each pull drew their breasts closer together, the thread biting into the tender flesh around the rings. Sam watched Eleanor’s face, seeing the wince of pain morph into a sharp, focused pleasure, her breath catching. The thread tightened again, a sharper pull this time, and Sam felt her own nipple ring strain against the metal, a bright sting that shot down to her clit. “Fuck,” Eleanor breathed, a soft, dark sound that was almost a laugh. The chemicals burned on Sam’s scalp while the string connected their pain, a silent circuit humming between them.
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The burning cream was rinsed away, leaving Sam’s hair straight, sleek, and dead. Cindy unclipped the foils from Eleanor’s head, revealing hair black as a void. “Up,” Cindy ordered, her voice devoid of inflection. She uncuffed them but kept the connecting thread taut, leading them to a vinyl chaise. “Lie down. Facing each other.”
They obeyed, the thin string pulling their pierced nipples into painful, intimate alignment. Cindy produced a scalpel from her apron. “The choice,” she said, pressing the cool, flat side of the blade against Sam’s freshly shaved undercut. “I finish the job. I shave you completely, here.” The blade traced a path to Sam’s other temple. “Or,” Cindy continued, turning the blade to press the sharp edge against the black thread connecting their breasts, “you watch me slice this. The thread will snap back through her ring. It will tear. It will bleed.”
Sam’s breath stopped. She looked at Eleanor’s eyes, seeing only a flat, waiting challenge. “Choose, Sam,” Eleanor whispered, a faint smile on her lips. “Your hair or my flesh.” The chemicals on Sam’s scalp stung like a thousand needles. The new piercings throbbed. She thought of the brands, of the razor, of the hook in the ceiling. “Cut it,” Sam said, her voice a dry crack. “Cut the thread.”
Cindy didn’t hesitate. The scalpel sawed through the black line. The severed thread snapped back with a vicious, elastic recoil. It whipped through the metal ring in Eleanor’s nipple with a wet, popping sound. Eleanor arched off the chaise, a raw, guttural cry tearing from her throat as blood welled instantly around the ring, a dark bead that swelled and spilled down the curve of her breast.xxxxxxxxxxxsam chooses again
Eleanor’s cry sharpened into a tight, pained laugh as she looked down at the bloody ruin of her nipple. “You chose my pain,” she gasped, her eyes locked on Sam’s. “Good girl.” She smeared the blood across her breast with her palm, a crude, scarlet stripe. “Now choose how you clean it.” She grabbed Sam’s wrist, guiding her bloody hand down between her own legs, pressing Sam’s fingers into her soaked cunt. “Lick it from your fingers, or lick it from me.” Sam’s hand was slick with Eleanor’s blood and her own wetness. She brought her trembling fingers to her mouth, the copper and salt taste exploding on her tongue, and swallowed. “Wrong,” Eleanor whispered, pulling her down. “You taste everything.” She forced Sam’s head between her thighs, pressing her face into the bloody, split flesh. “Clean it properly, you fucking coward.” Sam’s tongue found the torn ring, the metal slick and hot, and she lapped at the wound, each stroke making Eleanor shudder and fist her hair. “Suck it,” Eleanor commanded, her hips pushing forward. Sam took the injured nipple into her mouth, sucking the blood and serum, her own cunt aching with a hollow need. “Again,” Eleanor moaned, her body arching. Sam obeyed, the metallic taste now part of her, a covenant written in iron and salt.
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Sam obeyed, the metallic taste now part of her, a covenant written in iron and salt. Cindy watched, her expression unmoved, and clapped her hands once, the sound sharp. “Enough. The treatments aren’t finished.” She pushed Sam back into the stylist’s chair and secured her again. “Your tools,” Cindy said to Sam, who nodded numbly toward her discarded bag. From it, Cindy produced the sleek, handheld laser Sam used for post-graduate lab work, its calibrated light now purposed for skin. Cindy used it to clean up Eleanor undercut.. Make it permanent ” Eleanor’s fingers, still smeared with her own blood, took the laser. A pinpoint light hissed against Sam’s scalp, the smell of burning hair follicles rising like ozone, each zap a tiny, irrevocable erasure. Eleanor winced, her hands gripping the armrests, the pain a brightccounterpoint to the throbbing in her clit. “Hold still,” Cindy murmured, tracing the razor’s path with the laser, ensuring no hair would ever grow there again. Cindy used a foil shaver for its use as the final part of a shave. It would make Eleanor thingk the shave removed the hair. After a while Eleanor would realize that there was no new growth. Cindy, meanwhile, mixed a fresh bowl of jet-black dye. She pushed Eleanor onto a stool, parted her thighs, and applied the pigment meticulously to the small, trimmed triangle of pubic hair, painting each strand until it shone like a spill of ink. “It’s long enough to pull,” Cindy observed clinically, testing the coarse, dyed hair between her fingers. She then turned back to Sam, applying a final, strengthening chemical treatment to her now-straightened hair, saturating it until the blonde was utterly consumed, leaving a black so deep it seemed to swallow the light. The process was silent, save for the hum of the laser and their breathing. Finally, Cindy rinsed them both, the black dye from Eleanor’s pubis swirling down the drain like dark water, Sam’s hair falling in a heavy, sleek sheet that clung to her skull without a hint of wave. They were revealed in the mirror: two stark sculptures, marked by matching black hair, by blood, and by gleaming metal. Eleanor stood, her hand tangling in Sam’s new, obsidian hair, and pulled hard, forcing Sam to her knees. “You’re perfect,” Eleanor breathed, guiding Sam’s mouth toward the dyed black triangle, the coarse hair scraping Sam’s lips. “Now show me how permanent you are.”
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Sam’s mouth found Eleanor’s dyed, coarse pubic hair, the black strands scratching her lips as she licked through to the swollen flesh beneath, tasting salt and the faint, sharp tang of the fresh dye. Eleanor’s grip in her hair tightened, arching her back, a low groan rumbling in her chest as Sam’s tongue found the still-raw piercing in her nipple. “That’s it,” Eleanor breathed, her other hand guiding Sam’s fingers back to her own split clit, “show me you’re mine in every fucking way.” They moved together in the sterile salon light, a raw, graceless tangle of need against the vinyl chair, until Cindy cleared her throat. “The room is needed,” she stated, her voice devoid of judgment, already wiping down her shears. They dressed in silence, their new black hair falling in identical, severe lines, their movements synchronized as they paid and left.
The restaurant was all dim light and white linen, a surreal bubble of normalcy. They sat across from each other, the candlelight glinting off Sam’s new labial ring when she shifted. “People are staring,” Sam murmured, cutting into her steak, the scent of seared meat oddly reminiscent of the branding iron. Eleanor smiled, sipping her wine, her eyes dark and knowing. “They’re staring because we look like a matched set now,” she said, her foot sliding up Sam’s calf beneath the table, finding the ridge of a branded thigh. “Two halves of the same dangerous equation.”
Back in the honey-walled basement, the scent of linseed oil and their own spent sex welcomed them. Eleanor sprawled on the worn velvet divan, her fingers tracing the list they’d drafted on her tablet. “The permanent makeup is a given,” she said, her tone analytical, clinical. “Eyebrows microbladed to a sharper arch, eyeliner tattooed.” She scrolled. “Your labia piercings are a good start, but the scaffold on your clit needs a companion—a horizontal hood piercing.” She looked up, her gaze predatory. “Then we move to scarification over the brands. The ink wasn’t enough. I want the initials raised, permanent ridges I can feel in the dark.” Sam stood before her, listening, her body humming with a terrifying anticipation. “And your tits,” Eleanor continued, her voice dropping. “They’re perfect, but I want them heavier. I want to feel their weight change in my hands.” She reached out, pulling Sam down by the corset laces. “Do you understand the map, Sam? Every step is a choice you make for me.” Sam met her eyes, the ghost of the electro-pads still dancing on her nerves. “I understand,” she said, and her voice did not shake. “Start wherever you want.”
Eleanor’s smile was a razor cut in the dim light. “The burns need tending first,” she said, her voice low and deliberate as her fingers traced the blistered initials on Sam’s inner thighs. She reached for the cautery iron, its tip glowing a dormant orange, and plugged it in; the coil began to heat, emitting a low, malevolent hum. “The skin is raised, but it’s still just scar tissue.” She pressed the searing point against the edge of the ‘E’, not to re-burn, but to warm the existing ruin. Sam jolted, a sharp cry escaping her as the heat penetrated deep into the healed wound, a sickening echo of the original agony. “I want to feel the ridges every time I touch you,” Eleanor whispered, dragging the hot metal along the keloid flesh, making it slick and inflamed. Sam’s hands fisted in the velvet of the divan, her knuckles white, her breath coming in ragged hitches that synced with each slow, deliberate pass. “It’s waking up the nerve endings,” Eleanor murmured, almost to herself, then shifted to kneel between Sam’s legs. “Now, the companion piercing.” She produced a needle, longer and thicker than the last, its polished steel catching the light. “This goes horizontal, through the clitoral hood, right above the barbell.” She pinched the fragile skin, pulling it taut. “Breathe out,” Eleanor commanded, and then pushed the needle through in one fluid, brutal motion. Sam screamed, a raw, tearing sound that echoed off the honey-colored walls, her body convulsing as metal met metal inside her. Eleanor threaded the new ring, clicked it closed, and leaned down to blow cool air on the violated flesh. “Beautiful,” she breathed, her own arousal slick and evident as she slid two fingers inside Sam, crooking them to press against the twin rings from within. Sam sobbed, a shuddering wave of pain-pitched pleasure cresting through her, her hips bucking involuntarily against Eleanor’s hand. “You’re so fucking tight around them,” Eleanor groaned, pumping her fingers slowly, feeling the cold steel shift inside Sam’s heat with every thrust. “You feel every millimeter, don’t you?” Sam could only nod, her world reduced to the stretch of fingers and the cruel, perfect pressure of the metal. Eleanor removed her wet fingers and smeared the fluid over Sam’s branded thighs, the salt stinging the heated scars. “Tomorrow,” Eleanor said, her voice husky with promise, “we begin the scarification.” She kissed Sam’s forehead, a chilling benediction. “The map is just getting started.”