Chapter 6: The Second Lesson Begins
The following six days passed in a blur of deep purple and throbbing remorse. The brutal, gritty swelling Ali had noted began to soften, melting into a widespread, boggy tenderness that turned the simplest movement into a cautious negotiation. Jim slept in fits, haunted by the sensation of sneaker tread grinding into his soul. The daily notes on his “color progression” were taken by a bored-looking student nurse who clicked her tongue and typed observations into a tablet without making eye contact.
On the morning of the seventh day, a folded note slipped under his door. It was thick, cream-colored paper. It bore only three words in precise, looping script: My office. Now.
The walk was different this time. The fear was a cold, settled thing in his stomach, not a sharp panic. His body moved with a stiff, careful gait, every step a reminder of the internal landscape of damage. He wore loose gray sweatpants and a hoodie, a uniform of convalescence.
Reyna’s office door was ajar. He pushed it open.
The room had been rearranged. The brutal X-frame was gone. The velvet chairs were pushed against the wall. In the center of the room, facing away from the door, was a new structure: a freestanding partition of dark oak, reaching from floor to ceiling. It looked like a room divider, solid and imposing. At its center, about waist-high, was a perfectly circular hole, the edges sanded smooth.
Reyna stood beside it, dressed in a sleek charcoal blazer and skirt, her hair a severe platinum knot. She looked like a gallery owner presenting a new installation. “Close the door,” she said, without turning around.
He did. The click of the latch was final.
“Come here. Stand facing the partition.”
Jim obeyed, his sweatpants whispering as he shuffled forward. He stopped before the dark wood. The hole was just… there. An empty O. He didn’t understand.
“The past lessons were about external application,” Reyna said, coming to stand beside him. She ran a fingertip around the smooth rim. “Force delivered to the subject. Today, we study engineered vulnerability. The subject presents the target. Isolates it. Offers it up.” Her blue eyes cut to him. “Remove your sweatpants and underwear. Just from the waist down.”
A jagged chill, unrelated to the room’s temperature, went through him. He’d been exposed before, but always in the chaos of violence. This was a cold, procedural stripping. His hands, gone clumsy, fumbled with the drawstring. He pushed the soft fabric down over his hips, letting it pool around his ankles. The air in the room felt unnaturally cool on his skin.
“Now,” she said, her voice clinical. “I want you to reach through this hole. Just your testicles. Pull them through until they’re completely on the other side. Use your hands to guide them.”
The instruction was so absurd, so specifically degrading, that for a moment he just stared. The lingering ache between his legs seemed to pulse in protest.
“The lesson is waiting, Jim,” she said, a hint of steel returning.
Swallowing hard, he bent slightly, wincing at the pull in his tender abdomen. He reached down, cupping the heavy, bruised sac in his palm. The skin was still a mosaic of yellows and greens, tender to his own touch. He guided them toward the hole. It was a tight, humiliating fit. He had to push gently, feeling the cool wood ring close around the narrow stalk of his scrotum, sealing his body on one side, his most vulnerable parts on the other. He let his hands fall back to his sides. He was stuck there, bent at an awkward angle, his exposed flesh protruding into the unknown space on the other side of the wall.
“Excellent,” Reyna purred. She walked around to the other side of the partition. He could hear her heels, then see the blur of her form through the grain of the wood. “A perfect presentation. Isolated. Immobilized. No defensive clenching possible.”
He heard the main office door open. Then voices. Female voices. Several of them. A murmur of curiosity, the shuffle of feet.
“Ladies, welcome,” Reyna’s voice rang out, bright and professional, from the other side of the wall. “Gather round. Today’s practicum is a foundational technique in focused percussion.”
Jim’s heart hammered against his ribs. He couldn’t see them. He could only hear them: the rustle of clothing, a few soft giggles, someone whispering.
“The target is presented here,” Reyna continued, her tone that of a master sommelier presenting a rare vintage. “Note the coloration. The residual edema from blunt-force trauma. This is what we call a ‘primed’ target. The tissue is sensitized, which will give you immediate, audible feedback on your form.”
A hand, cold and impersonal, grasped his sac from the other side. He jolted, his forehead pressing against the wood.
“See? Responsive,” Reyna said. She adjusted his flesh within the hole, her fingers probing the old wounds. “Now, the fist. You don’t punch through the target. You punch to it. The kinetic energy should be absorbed entirely locally. Think of it as popping a water balloon taped to a wall. The wall shouldn’t shake.”
“So, like, just a really tight, fast punch?” a young woman’s voice asked. It sounded curious, casual.
“Exactly, Chloe. Tight and fast. Wrist straight. Knuckles aligned. Use your body weight, but channel it into the snap. Who wants to go first?”
A brief, shuffling silence. Then, “I’ll try.”
“Good. Stance first. Feet shoulder-width apart. Closer to the wall. You don’t need a wind-up.”
Jim heard the scuff of a shoe on the floor, closer now. He held his breath, every muscle in his body clenched except the one that was helplessly trapped.
“Okay. Ready?” the girl—Chloe—asked.
“Whenever you are,” Reyna said.
The first punch landed with a wet, slapping thud.
It wasn’t the world-ending devastation of Ali’s mallet. It was sharper, brighter. A concentrated star of pain that burst in the old bruise. A gasped groan was punched out of him. His knees buckled, but the wooden ring held him fast, keeping the target in place.
“Good contact!” Reyna announced. “Did you hear that? A solid, meaty sound. That’s proper transfer. Notice the immediate vascular reaction.” Her fingers touched him again, where the punch had landed. “See how it’s already darkening? Perfect. Next.”
Another girl stepped up. “Can I try a different angle? Like, uppercut style?”
“Let’s see. The suprapubic approach is advanced, but we can assess. The goal is to lift the target against the pubic bone. Try.”
This punch came from below. It shoved his trapped organs up hard, mashing them against the unforgiving wood rim from the inside. He cried out, a sharp, helpless sound.
“Interesting! The feedback is more of a deep thump. Less auditory, more tactile for the puncher. Good data. Who’s next?”
They took turns. A dozen sorority sisters, each with their own style. A short, jab-like punch from a girl who apologized under her breath. A harder, more confident swing from someone who grunted with the effort. A tentative tap, then a harder follow-up from a quick learner. Each impact was a unique shock, layering fresh agony onto the fading map of old injuries. The pain became a discordant symphony, each movement on the other side of the wall translating into a new note of suffering. He moaned, he choked, he wept silently, his tears soaking into the oak veneer in front of his face.
The girls’ conversations swirled around his agony.
“It’s way softer than I thought it would be.”
“Ew, feel how it’s all lumpy underneath.”
“My turn, you’re taking forever.”
“Does it, like, hurt him a lot? He’s making noises.”
“Of course it does, dummy. That’s the point. Hey, can I go twice?”
Reyna coached, corrected, praised. “More hip, Jessica!” “Don’t curl your thumb inside your fist, you’ll break it.” “Excellent follow-through, Samantha!”
The partition became his entire world. The grain of the wood, the smell of its polish, the vague shapes moving beyond it. His own harsh, ragged breath fogging the surface. His exposed flesh, now a freshly battered, pulsing heart of pain dangling in a room full of cheerful, learning strangers.
“Last one,” Reyna said, her voice cutting through the low buzz of chatter. “Megan, you’ve been quiet. Let’s see what you’ve learned.”
There was a pause. A different kind of quiet.
“I’ve been watching,” a new voice said. It was lower, calmer. “I think I understand the mechanics.”
“Show me.”
The footsteps were measured. A final, settling breath was drawn.
Megan’s punch didn’t slap or thud.
It cracked.
A short, vicious, perfect explosion of force that landed with the sound of a walnut splitting inside a wet towel. The pain was instantaneous and catastrophic, a clean, white line of sheer structural failure drawn through the center of all the previous agony. Jim’s vision tunneled to a single point. A high, wordless scream tore from his throat, raw and desperate, as he felt something deep inside finally, truly give way.
On the other side, there was a beat of stunned silence.
Then Reyna’s voice, filled with something akin to religious awe. “Beautiful. Did you all hear that? That was the sound of a capsule rupturing. Flawless technique, Megan. Absolutely flawless.”
Megan’s voice, still calm, almost smiling. “Thanks. I just focused on the snap, like you said.”
The crisp sound hung in the perfumed air, a final, definitive period to the lesson. Jim’s scream dissolved into wet, hiccupping sobs, his body sagging against the partition. The pain had shape now, a hot, liquid core unfurling deep in his groin, separate and more terrible than the symphony of bruises.
“Ladies, observe,” Reyna said, her voice cutting through Jim’s muffled cries.
Her hand returned, a cold, examining pressure on the devastated flesh still protruding through the hole. She manipulated it with detached expertise. A fresh, sickening wave of nausea rolled through him, bile stinging his throat.
“Note the immediate and profound change in morphology,” she lectured. “The loss of defined structure. The dispersion of edema is already palpably different. This is incredibly painful, but there's no permanent damage. Yet.”
Jim tried to vomit, but his stomach was empty. He dry-heaved, shaking the partition. The movement sent new electric shocks through his pelvis.
“Is he gonna pass out?”
“Probably. That’s fine. The autonomic nervous system is engaging. Megan, truly, exceptional work. You may all go. Dismissed.”
There was a shuffle of feet, a few murmured goodbyes, the door opening and closing. Then silence, except for Jim’s ragged breathing and the low hum of the chandelier.
Reyna walked back around to his side. He was slumped forward, forearms braced on the wood, sweat-drenched hair hanging in his face. He couldn’t stand up straight. The act of retracting himself through the hole was an impossible concept.
“A landmark lesson,” she said, surveying him. She pulled a small, silver penlight from her blazer pocket. “We have baseline data from Ali’s blunt-force application. And now we have a precise, percussive injury for comparison. The Agony Arithmetic is coming along beautifully.”
She didn’t touch him. She just watched.
“You need to withdraw the specimen, Jim,” she said, her tone mild. “Class is over.”
A low whimper escaped him. He reached a trembling hand down. The mere brush of his own fingers against the ravaged skin made his vision spark white. He tried to guide the swollen, misshapen mass back through the wooden ring. It caught. It was too large now, distended and angry. He pulled gently, a sob wrenching from his chest.
“It’s stuck,” he choked out, the words thick with tears and shame.
Reyna sighed, a sound of mild inconvenience. She stepped closer. He flinched, expecting a blow. Instead, she took his wrist in her cool, firm grasp and moved his hand aside. Her other hand took hold of him on the other side of the partition.
“Don’t tense,” she said, clinically. “It will only increase the friction.”
She pushed from one side while simultaneously pulling from the other. It was a swift, merciless adjustment. The world went silent and blinding for a second. When it rushed back, he was free, stumbling backward, his sweatpants still around his ankles. He crumpled to the polished floor, curling instinctively around the epicenter of ruin.
He lay there, shivering on the cool wood. Reyna walked to her desk, scribbled a note on a pad.