Chapter 2: Morning Wood and a Golden Shower
He woke with a brutal, aching hardness that felt like it had been forged in his sleep. The thin sheet was tented over his hips, a damp spot already spreading from the tip of his cock where pre-cum leaked in a steady, shameful seep. Golden afternoon light cut through the gaps in the thin curtains, painting dust motes that danced like static in the air. For a single, disorienting second, Scott forgot. Then he moved, and the unfamiliar pressure around his throat registered. The collar. The cool, unyielding steel.
Memory crashed in, a tsunami of images: the blue screen light, the panties in his mouth, the strap-on, the scrolling chat. The hollow, accepting peace of the night was gone, burned away by the urgent, physical need throbbing between his legs. His mind was a jumble of panic—his phone, his job, his family—but his body was a single, screaming demand. He was alone. The door to Mia’s room was shut. The house was silent save for the distant hum of traffic.
His hand slipped under the sheet. His own touch was electric, a jolt that made his hips buck. He was too sensitive, too close already. He fisted himself, a ragged groan escaping his lips. He needed this, just this, a moment of selfish relief in the ruins. He stroked, fast and dirty, his breath hitching. The pre-cum made the glide easy, obscene. He pictured nothing, just the building pressure, the need to spill, to quiet the ache.
The door opened without a sound.
He didn’t hear it. His eyes were squeezed shut, his world reduced to the friction on his cock. A shadow fell across the bed.
“Tsk.”
His eyes flew open. Mia leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. She wore loose grey sweatpants and a tight black tank top, no bra. Her hair was up in a messy bun. She looked fresh, rested, and utterly in command. Her gaze dropped to the frantic motion under the sheet.
“Pathetic,” she said, her voice still morning-hoarse. “You wake up in a new world, your life is ashes, and the first thing you do is try to jerk off. Like a teenager.”
He froze, his hand still wrapped around his shaft. Shame flooded him, hot and immediate. But beneath it, beneath the terror of her displeasure, his cock gave a defiant, throbbing pulse in his grip.
She pushed off the doorframe and walked to the dresser. She picked up the half-empty glass of whiskey. He hadn’t noticed it last night. The liquid was amber, but a darker smear, like dried blood or old wine, streaked the inside of the glass. She took a casual sip, her eyes never leaving his.
“Let me see it,” she said.
Slowly, he drew his hand out from under the sheet and pulled the fabric down. His cock sprang free, upright and glistening at the tip. The air felt cool on the wetness.
“Disgusting,” she murmured, but there was a spark in her green eyes. She set the glass down and went to her room, returning a moment later with a long, emerald-green silk scarf. “Hands. Above your head. Wrists together.”
He obeyed, lifting his trembling arms. She wrapped the scarf around his wrists with swift, efficient knots, then tied the ends to the simple iron headboard. It wasn’t overly tight, but it was secure. He was stretched out, exposed, completely vulnerable. The position pulled at his shoulders, hollowed his chest.
“You want to come so badly?” she asked, standing beside the bed. “You think you deserve that release?”
“I… I need to,” he whispered.
“You need what I say you need.” Her hand drifted down, her fingers tracing the line of his hip bone, making him shiver. Then her touch was gone. “If you’re that desperate, you can fuck the floor.”
He blinked, not understanding.
“Get off the bed. On your knees. Hump the floor. Let’s see how much you really want it.”
The command was so absurd, so profoundly degrading, that for a moment he simply stared. The scarf kept his hands above him. He had to shuffle to the edge of the mattress and roll, awkwardly, to his knees on the hardwood. His cock, still hard, bobbed uselessly. The boards were cold and unyielding against his kneecaps.
“Well?” she said, sipping her whiskey again. “Get to work. Or I’ll leave you tied here all day while I go out for brunch. I bet your mother would love a catch-up call.”
He lowered his hips. The position was awkward, unnatural. He rocked forward, the soft head of his cock rubbing against the smooth, polished oak. It was a faint, frustrating sensation. He increased his pace, a clumsy, humping motion. His knees began to ache. The floor was unforgiving. A soft, whining sound escaped him as he worked, his body a pathetic piston trying to find friction where there was none.
“Faster,” Mia commanded, pulling a chair from the corner and sitting down to watch. “Put your back into it. You wanted to cum, so fucking earn it.”
He grunted, driving his hips harder. The slap of his thighs against his own body, the soft, wet smack of his cock-head against the wood, filled the quiet room. It was ludicrous. It was humiliating. A sharp splinter of pain shot through his kneecap. He looked down. The skin was red, angry. He was chafing himself raw. Pre-cum smeared a thin, shiny trail on the dark floor.
“Please,” he gasped, his rhythm faltering. “Mia, it hurts. My knees.”
“Good,” she said flatly. “They should hurt. Everything should hurt. You don’t get pleasure without my permission. You only get what I allow. Continue.”
Tears of frustration and pain welled in his eyes. He rocked again, a sob catching in his throat. The arousal was tangled now with a deep, bodily misery. He was an animal. A dog. He couldn’t even do this right.
After what felt like an hour but was likely only minutes, she spoke again. “Stop.”
He collapsed forward, catching his weight on his bound forearms, his forehead touching the cool floor. His knees were on fire. His cock was a frustrated, purple ache.
“I have to pee,” she announced casually. She stood and walked to the bathroom attached to her room. He heard the toilet lid lift. Then her voice called out. “Come here. On your back. In front of the toilet.”
Dread, heavy and cold, pooled in his gut. He knew what she intended. He’d read about it in the darkest corners of the forums he used to visit. A fantasy that had made his stomach clench with thrilling disgust. Now it was a command.
He shuffled on his ruined knees to the bathroom doorway. She stood over the bowl, her sweatpants and panties around her ankles. The view of her from below, the dark thatch of hair, the sheer mundane intimacy of it, was somehow more violating than anything the night before.
“Lie down,” she said, pointing to the bath mat in front of the toilet.
He laid back, the cheap rug scratchy against his shoulder blades. The position put his face directly beneath her. He stared up at the ceiling, at the faint water stain in the shape of a continent.
“Look at me,” she said.
He turned his head. Her sex was right there, a dark, petaled opening directly above his mouth. The scent of her, morning musk and clean skin, filled his nostrils.
“Open your mouth.”
He did, his jaw trembling.
She let go.
It wasn’t a gentle stream. It was a hard, hot, sudden rush. The first splash hit his chin, his neck, pooling in the hollow of his throat. The taste was bitter, salty, profoundly alien. He gagged, turning his head to the side, sputtering.
“Look at me!” she barked.
He forced his head back. The golden arc struck his face directly. It filled his open mouth, warm and shocking. He choked, swallowing reflexively, the acrid fluid burning down his throat. It poured over his lips, his nose, his closed eyelids. It soaked his hair, ran into his ears. The sound was a loud, steady hissing. The smell was overpowering, the scent of her innards, of waste, of absolute dominion.
He was drowning in it. He was drinking it. Tears from the sting mixed with the flow on his cheeks.
When she finished, she gave a little shake and then stepped back, pulling her clothes up. She looked down at him. He was a wreck, bound, on the floor, face and chest glistening with her urine, hair plastered to his forehead, weeping silently.
“You taste like fear and piss,” she observed. She nudged his ribs with her bare foot. “Get up. Clean the floor. Use your tongue.”
His body moved on a puppet’s strings. He rolled onto his raw knees. A puddle had spread on the bath mat and the tiles. He lowered his face. The smell was intense, eye-watering. He extended his tongue, lapping at the wet spot on the mat. The rough fabric scraped his tongue. The taste was concentrated, horrific. He vomited a little, a thin bile that merged with the puddle, and he kept going, lapping at the mixed fluids until the mat was only damp.
“Now the tiles.”
He moved to the cool ceramic. Lap. Swallow. Gag. Lap. He was a creature, less than a dog. A thing for cleaning up filth. His cock, impossibly, was still half-hard, a traitorous twitch against his own stomach.
When he was done, he knelt back, panting, his mouth and throat burning.
“You can use the shower now,” she said, as if granting a great privilege. “Wash your face. Don’t touch your cock.”
The shower was a brief, mechanical interlude. The water couldn’t scour the taste away. He could still smell it on his skin, a phantom scent embedded in his sinuses. He dried off with a thin towel, his body one massive ache of submission.
When he came out, trailing the towel, she was in the main room, her phone in her hand. She glanced at it, then at him. “Your boss has called three more times. HR sent a formal letter to your email. Your brother posted another clip. This one’s got half a million views.” She said it like she was commenting on the weather. “Your life is trending, Scott.”
He stood there, dripping, the towel held limply. The information should have devastated him. It simply settled into the hollow space inside his chest, another weight on the pile.
“I have to pee,” he mumbled, the urge sudden and sharp.
She looked at him, a slow smile spreading. “No, you don’t.”
“I really do.”
“You’ll hold it until I say you can go. That’s your next lesson. Control of your basic functions. It’s all mine.” She pointed to the corner of the room. “Sit. In the corner. Hands on your head.”
He shuffled to the corner, lowered himself to the floor, and laced his fingers on top of his head. The position strained his shoulders, exposed his armpits. He felt utterly foolish. The need to urinate was a pressing, urgent fist in his lower abdomen.
She ignored him, scrolling through her phone, occasionally tapping out a message. He watched the dust motes in the sunbeam. He listened to the gurgle of his own gut. The pressure built. He shifted, squeezing his thighs together.
“Stop fidgeting,” she said without looking up.
He forced himself still. Sweat beaded on his brow. It became a torture, a singular focus that dwarfed the ache in his knees, the memory of the piss on his tongue. He had to go. He desperately had to go.
“Mistress… please,” he whimpered.
“What did you say?”
“Mistress. Please. I need to use the bathroom. I’m begging you.”
She looked over, considering. “You can hump my leg. If you do a good job, I’ll think about it.”
Hope, feral and desperate, flared in him. He scrambled across the floor on his knees. She remained seated, one leg stretched out. He positioned himself, his aching cock jutting out. He pressed himself against her calf, the sweatpants fabric rough against his sensitive flesh. He began to move, a slow, grinding roll of his hips.
“Faster. And don’t you dare come. If you even feel close, you stop.”
He nodded, frantic. The friction was better than the floor, a hot, delicious pressure. He rutted against her leg like a beast, his breath coming in sharp pants. The dual agony of building pleasure and bursting bladder was a dizzying, maddening cocktail. He could feel the orgasm coiling, a tight spring low in his gut, but he also felt the hot, urgent need to release in a different, humiliating way. They were tied together, both forms of relief forbidden.
He was close. Too close. A tingling rush shot up his spine. He froze, stopping all movement, his body taut as a bowstring. A pained groan ripped from him.
“Good boy,” she purred, watching the struggle on his face. “Feel it? Feel how you have nothing? How your body is just a toy for me to wind up and deny?” She gently moved her leg away. “Back to the corner.”
“But you said—”
“I said I’d think about it. I’ve thought. Not yet.”
A sob broke from him. He crawled back to the corner, the pressure now a screaming, insistent pain. He pressed his thighs together so tightly his muscles trembled. He rocked slightly, a tiny, helpless motion. A warm drop of pre-cum, or maybe it was a drop of urine he couldn’t hold back, leaked onto his thigh.
Time lost meaning. It was measured in pulses of agony in his bladder and the throbbing of his denied cock. The sunbeam moved across the floor.
Finally, after an eternity, she put her phone down. “Alright. You can go.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He stumbled to his feet, a sharp, stabbing pain in his groin making him hunch over. He hobbled to the bathroom, his hands fumbling at his own body.
“No,” her voice stopped him at the door. “Not in there. Here.”
She was pointing to the whiskey glass on the dresser. The one with the dark stain.
“You’ll fill this. To the brim. And you’ll drink what’s left in it first.”
He stared. The final dismantling of his dignity. He was to drink the dregs of her whiskey, mixed with whatever old, dark residue was there, and then piss into the same glass for her. He walked to the dresser, his legs weak. He picked up the glass. The smell of stale whiskey and something metallic—was it lipstick? Blood?—hit him. He closed his eyes and tipped it back. The warm swallow was foul, complex with decay and alcohol.
He put the empty glass on the floor. Then, facing the wall, he let go.
The relief was so profound it was almost a spiritual experience. A long, hard stream clattered loudly into the glass, echoing in the quiet room. He filled it to the very top, stopping just before it overflowed. The liquid was a pale, transparent yellow. He turned, holding the warm glass carefully.
She took it from him, held it up to the light. “See? Control. I own this, too.” She set it on the dresser next to her phone. “A trophy.”
He stood before her, empty, drained in every sense.
“You did okay today,” she said, her voice losing its edge, becoming almost conversational. “You’re learning. The crying is tedious, but the obedience is starting to take root.” She reached out and cupped his face, her thumb wiping away a track of dried salt. “You’re my beautiful, broken thing.”
The words, somehow, were worse than the insults. They held a terrible, possessive affection that sank into his marrow.
“Tonight,” she said, “you’ll sleep in here again. Tomorrow, we start your new life in earnest. You’ll pack your apartment. You’ll call your landlord. You’ll be my live-in project.” Her hand slid down to his collar, her fingers tracing the metal. “This stays on. Always. You see it, you feel it, you remember.”
He nodded, beyond speech.
“Now,” she said, her gaze dipping to his cock, which, despite everything, still showed a stubborn, semi-hard persistence. “I believe you were in the middle of servicing me earlier, before you got distracted by your own pathetic needs.”
She walked to the bed and lay back against the pillows, spreading her legs. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her sweatpants and panties, pushing them down and off in one fluid motion. She was bare, exposed, her sex glistening faintly in the afternoon light.
“Come here. Finish what you started with your tongue. Make me come. And maybe, if I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you hump my thigh again afterwards. But no coming. Not for you. Not today.”
He crossed the room, the hardwood cold on his feet. He knelt between her thighs, the scent of her, clean now but musky with arousal, enveloping him. This was his purpose. This was his anchor in the shipwreck. He lowered his head and began to worship her with his mouth, a desperate, focused devotion, trying to lose the memory of piss and panic in the salt-sweet taste of her power.
The world outside the window continued, oblivious. Phones buzzed with notifications bearing his name. A career ended. A family gossiped in horrified texts. A digital ghost of his humiliation propagated across servers. But in the quiet, sunlit room, Scott existed only as a tongue and a yearning, owned completely, his reality narrowed to the woman grinding against his face, her moans the only sound that mattered, his future a simple, endless chain of obeyed commands.
But in the quiet, sunlit room, Scott existed only as a tongue and a yearning, owned completely, his reality narrowed to the woman grinding against his face, her moans the only sound that mattered, his future a simple, endless chain of obeyed commands.
His jaw ached, a blunt throb that spread up into his temples, but he didn’t stop. He laved at her clit with a flat, broad tongue, then speared deep inside her, drinking the sharp, clean tang of her arousal. Her hands were fists in his hair, not guiding, just holding, anchoring him to his one and only purpose. The world beyond the collar, beyond the taste of her, was a distant and irrelevant noise.
“Right there,” she gasped, her hips lifting off the bed. “Just like that, you filthy cunt-licker.”
The insult, hissed in a breathless tone of praise, electrified him. He redoubled his efforts, his nose buried in her, his entire face wet with her. He felt the minute tremors start in her inner thighs, the clenching of her muscles around his probing tongue. Her breaths hitched, caught, then shattered into a low, guttural cry that was more a growl than a moan. Her body arched, stiffened, and then convulsed against his mouth in a series of raw, pulsing waves. He kept his tongue pressed firm inside her, feeling each contraction, swallowing every drop she gave him until she finally shoved his head away, oversensitive and spent.
He knelt back, panting, his lips slick and shining. His own need was a frantic, screaming entity. His cock, which had never fully softened, stood rigid and painfully alert against his stomach, the head dark and leaking a continuous, clear string of pre-cum onto the floorboards. It twitched, a physical plea.
Mia lay there for a moment, catching her breath, a faint sheen of sweat on her brow. Then she looked at him, at his devastated expression, at the sheer animal need written in every trembling line of his body. A slow, cruel smile spread across her face.
“Look at you,” she sighed, almost sympathetically. “You’re a fucking wreck. All that work, and you’re just a throbbing, leaking mess, aren’t you?”
He couldn’t even nod. He just stared, his hazel eyes wide with desperate hope. She’d come. Maybe now. Maybe she’d let him.
She swung her legs off the bed and stood up, stretching lazily. The sunlight caught the fine hairs on her toned stomach. She walked over to her closet, disappearing inside for a moment. He heard the click of a latch, the rustle of something being lifted. When she emerged, she was holding the black strap-on harness, the silicone cock dangling, inert and ominous. She carried it to the bed and dropped it beside him.
“You remember this, don’t you?” she said, her voice casual. “Your new best friend. The one that showed you what you really are.”
A violent shudder ran through him. The memory of that brutal, initial penetration was a fresh brand on his mind, inextricably linked with the scrolling horror of the live stream. Fear and desire fused into a single, choking knot in his throat.
“Clean it,” she said.
He stared at the dildo. It was clean. She must have washed it after last night.
“With your mouth. Get it wet for me. Show it some affection.”
He leaned forward, his movements jerky. He opened his mouth and took the silicone head between his lips. The taste was sterile, faintly of soap and rubber. He swirled his tongue around it, coating it with saliva, sucking it deeper until his gag reflex fluttered. He bobbed his head, simulating a fuck with his mouth, his eyes squeezed shut. It was a hollow, pathetic pantomime of fellatio, performed on an inanimate object. Pre-cum dripped freely from his own untouched dick onto the floor between his knees, a steady plip-plip-plip.
“Good enough,” she said, pulling the harness from his mouth with a soft, wet pop. She stepped into it, tightening the straps with that familiar, efficient tug. The dildo now jutted from the black webbing, glistening from his saliva. She looked like a warrior arming herself.
“On the bed. On your hands and knees. Ass in the air. I want to see that hungry little hole you’ve got.”
He scrambled onto the mattress, assuming the position. The sheets still smelled of their sweat from the night before. He pressed his forehead into the fabric, presenting himself. The exposure was total, humiliating, and it made his cock pulse harder. He heard the squirt of lube from a bottle. She wasn’t taking chances this time; she was going to use it, but not for his comfort. For her enjoyment, for a smoother, deeper, more controlled violation.
The cold gel landed directly on his pucker. He jumped at the shock. Her fingers, slippery and relentless, worked it into him, one then two, scissoring him open with a clinical roughness that had him gasping.
“So eager,” she murmured, twisting her fingers. “It’s just sucking me right in. You were built for this, Scott. A pathetic fuckhole pretending to be a man.”
Then her fingers were gone. He felt the broad, blunt pressure of the silicone tip replacing them. He braced himself, his whole body tensing.
“Relax,” she commanded, and smacked his ass cheek hard with her open palm. The sharp sting forced a yelp from him and his muscles momentarily unlocked. She pushed forward, a single, relentless in inward drive.
It was easier than last night, slick with lube, but no less intense. The stretch was immense, a burning fullness that stole his breath. She didn’t stop until she was fully hilted, her pelvis pressed against his upturned ass. He felt crammed, impaled, stuffed to the brim. A broken groan was pressed into the mattress.
“Now,” she said, her hands gripping his hips, her nails biting. “You’re going to ride it. You’re going to fuck yourself on my cock. And you are not, under any circumstances, to touch your own dick. Let it swing. Let it ache. I want to see it weep.”
She pulled back almost all the way out, leaving just the tip inside. The command was clear. He had to do the work. He had to actively fuck himself on the toy she wore.
Trembling, he pushed back. The silicone slid back into him, a slow, awful glide that he controlled. He did it again. And again. Soon, he was establishing a shaky rhythm, bouncing back on his knees, taking the full length of the fake cock each time with a wet, slapping sound of flesh against the harness. His own dick, ignored, swung wildly beneath him like a pendulum, slapping against his lower belly with each downward thrust. It was a bizarre, disjointed sensation: the deep, penetrating fullness in his ass, and the frantic, empty ache of his untouched cock.
“Faster,” Mia ordered, her voice steady. She stood still, a pillar for him to use. “You want to come, don’t you? I can feel how tight you’re getting. Your little prostate is begging for it.”
He was. The pressure was building in a different way now, a familiar coil of pleasure twisting deep inside him, spurred by the relentless stimulation of his prostate. Each time he sank down, the dildo brushed that electric spot, sending jolts through his groin. His movements became more frantic, less controlled. He was panting, drooling onto the sheets, his mind emptying of everything except the need for that internal trigger to tip him over the edge.
He whines and bucks his hips, needing to cum, the sensation a storm he can no longer navigate. The coil is a white-hot wire, tightening with every slamming descent onto her strap-on.
“Please, oh god, please, Mia, Mistress, I’m gonna… I can’t… please let me come,” he begged, the words a sobbing mantra. His cock was a purple, veined thing, dribbling incessantly, so close to eruption it was a physical pain.
She watched him dispassionately, her arms now crossed over her chest. “You can hump my leg afterwards if you’re good. But not yet. Keep going.”
It was torture of the most exquisite kind. The promise of any relief, even the meager friction of her leg, pushed him on. He fucked himself with a brutal, punishing pace, chasing the orgasm she kept just out of reach. He was a throbbing, edged mess, whining like a bitch, begging to cum, his voice cracking on every plea. Sweat poured off him, dripping from his nose and chin. The room filled with the sounds of his degradation: the wet slap of penetration, his ragged sobs, the frantic creak of the bedsprings.
“You look so stupid,” she observed calmly. “A grown man, sobbing, fucking himself on a piece of rubber. Your dick looks like it’s going to explode. It’s kind of beautiful.”
He was beyond hearing. His world was a narrowing tunnel, the end of which was a blinding release. He could feel it gathering, a tidal wave of sensation starting deep in his balls, preparing to surge up through his shaft. His rhythm became erratic, stuttering. “Now! It’s happening! Please!”
“Okay,” she said, her voice devoid of all mercy. “Come.”
The permission was the final trigger. His body convulsed, the orgasm roaring up from the base of his spine. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
And she pulled out.
She yanked the entire length of the silicone cock from his body in one smooth, vicious motion at the precise moment his climax detonated.
The effect was catastrophic. Without the internal pressure, without the fulcrum of being filled, the orgasm had nowhere to go. It shattered. A weak, pathetic spurt of cum shot from his dick, followed not by pulsing ropes but by a helpless, dribbling seep. It was a ruined orgasm, all the agonizing build-up and none of the release. The pleasure twisted into a sharp, unsatisfying pang that felt more like a cramp. His body shuddered violently, betrayed by its own mechanics.
She pulls out and ruins his orgasm. He cries pathetically, a high, wounded sound that was pure anguish. He collapsed forward onto the bed, his body wracked with dry heaves as the aborted climax left him twitching and empty. Tears, real and scalding, poured down his face, mixing with the sweat and saliva on the sheets. He cried pathetically, his sobs those of a child who had been promised a gift only to have it smashed before his eyes. His dick gave a few final, sad pulses, oozing the last of his seed onto the mattress in a meaningless damp patch.
Mia unclipped the harness and let it drop to the floor. She looked down at his crumpled, weeping form. She didn’t touch him. She walked to the dresser, picked up her phone, and glanced at the screen.
“Your mother is calling again,” she said, her tone conversational, as if commenting on the weather. “She sounds upset in her voicemail. Something about the video she saw. She wants to know if you need psychiatric help.”
The words sliced through his post-orgasmic haze, a different kind of violation. He curled into a tighter ball, his cries muffled by the mattress.
“And your friend Mark—you know, the one from your basketball league—he sent a text. It just says, ‘Dude, WTF?’ with a link to the clip. The one where you’re screaming ‘I’m your slut.’ It’s got a lot of comments.”
Each piece of information was a stone placed on his chest. The outside world was crashing in, and he was lying here, covered in the physical evidence of his degradation, his ass aching, his orgasm stolen, his spirit in tatters.
“Get up,” she said, not unkindly. “Go clean yourself. Then you can hump my leg. I promised, didn’t I?”
The promise felt like ashes. He didn’t want it anymore. He wanted to dissolve. But the command was there, and his body, trained over the last twenty-four hours, responded before his mind could refuse. He pushed himself up, a shell of a man, and shuffled to the bathroom. He avoided his reflection in the mirror. The cold water on his face did nothing.
When he returned, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg extended. She patted her calf. “Come on. Finish the job.”
Numbly, he knelt. He positioned his oversensitive, spent cock against her sweatpants-clad leg. He began to move, a hollow, mechanical rocking. There was no pleasure, only a dull ache and the faint ghost of sensation. It was an empty gesture, the echo of a desire that had already been broken. He did it because he was told to. He did it because it was his function.
After a minute of his lifeless motions, she nudged him away with her foot. “Enough. You’re terrible at it when you’re not desperate.” She stood up. “We have errands. You need clothes from your apartment. You’re going to pack a bag. Just one. You won’t need much.”
He looked up at her, his eyes red and swollen. “People will see me,” he whispered, the thought a new horror. The collar was hidden under his towel, but his face… his face was everywhere online.
“Yes,” she said, pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “They will. And you will look them in the eye, if they look at you at all. You will hold your head up and know what you are. It’s the only way forward now, Scott. Through the shame. Into it.” She tossed a pair of his own briefs and jeans at him, clothes from the bag he’d brought over days ago, in another life. “Get dressed.”
The fabric felt alien against his skin. The denim was rough on his raw knees. The collar’s metal lay against his collarbone, a constant, cool reminder beneath his shirt. She led him out of the bedroom, through the living room, and to the front door. The ordinary sunlight in the hallway seemed too bright, too revealing.
As she opened the door, the sounds of the city washed in—cars, distant laughter, life. She turned to him, her green eyes sharp. “You walk beside me. You don’t speak unless spoken to. You are my companion. My project. If anyone talks to you, you smile politely and say you’re fine. Understood?”
He nodded, a cold dread solidifying in his gut.
“Good.” She stepped out. “Remember, I have the key to the collar. I have the video files. I have your life in my hands. Walking out this door is an act of faith. In me.”
He followed her, the door closing behind him with a final, soft click, locking him out of the only sanctuary he had left. He was in the world now, a documented freak, walking beside his architect. Every passing glance from a stranger felt like a brand. He kept his eyes on the sidewalk, on the back of her sleek black hair, and tried to believe that this was freedom, that this was the only way the shattered pieces of himself could ever make sense again. The narrative of his old life was dead. She was writing a new one, sentence by cruel sentence, and he was both the pen and the page.