Chapter 5: The Guest's Arrival
The drizzle blurred the world outside the windows into a watery grayscale dream. I stood by the door, the raw concrete floor freezing my bare feet. My fingers traced the crisp hem of the linen apron. It was my only covering. The tie dug into the small of my back, the front panel a thin, unforgiving shield that ended just below my mound. Every breath moved it. A draft from the doorframe brushed my naked ass. My nipples were tight, painful pebbles against the rough weave.
The bell rang. A sharp, invasive sound that sliced through the hum of the apartment.
My heart wasn’t hammering. It was a still, dead weight in my chest. I turned the handle.
Dr. Alistair Finch stood in the hallway, a contrast of warm wool and cold-eyed precision. His charcoal coat was beaded with rain, his silver hair perfectly tousled. He carried a slim leather folio. His gaze, sharp and assessing behind steel-rimmed glasses, didn’t meet my eyes. It traveled down, slowly, taking in the apron strings cutting into my waist, the stark line of my collarbone, the shadowed valley between my breasts barely concealed by the fabric. It was a scientist’s gaze, cataloguing a specimen.
“Sara, I presume?” His voice was a cultured baritone, warm on the surface, but with an undertone of detached curiosity.
“Yes,” I managed, my own voice thin. I stepped back, holding the door open. The movement made the apron shift, and I knew from the cool air that the side of one breast was exposed. I didn’t adjust it.
He stepped inside, shedding his coat. He didn’t hand it to me. He simply laid it over the back of the sleek sofa, his eyes scanning the room, the cameras he couldn’t see but undoubtedly sensed. “Remarkable space. A perfect container.”
The speaker above us emitted a soft, static click. The Master’s voice, when it came, was a clear, quiet directive in the still air. “Serve him tea. On your knees.”
A flush of heat, immediate and mortifying, swept from my chest to my hairline. Alistair’s lips quirked in a faint, approving smile. He settled into the low armchair, crossing his legs, the folio on his lap.
I walked to the kitchen, my bare feet silent. The porcelain tea set was already arranged on a low lacquer tray. My hands shook as I lifted the kettle. The hot water splashed slightly. I carried the tray back into the living room, its weight a grounding reality. I stopped before his chair, then lowered myself. The concrete was a brutal shock of cold against my kneecaps. I set the tray down, the rattle of china loud in the silence.
I poured, focusing on the stream of amber liquid filling the cup. The heat steamed my face. My breasts hung loosely, the apron gaping. I could feel his eyes on the nape of my neck, on the line of my spine.
“Your Master has told me much about you,” Alistair said, accepting the cup. His fingers did not brush mine. “I’m here to evaluate your progress. Your… capacity for surrender.”
I kept my head down, my hands folded on my thighs. The position was achingly subservient. “I understand, sir.”
He sipped his tea, a slow, contemplative sound. “Tell me, Sara. Do you enjoy your studies? Astrophysics, was it?”
The mundanity of the question was a trap. “Yes, sir.”
“A discipline of immense control. Predictable forces. Order from chaos.” He set the cup down on the saucer with a precise click. “And here you are. A different kind of cosmic body, aren’t you? Subject to a different, more immediate gravity.”
He leaned forward. I flinched, but held my position. His hand, cool and dry, reached out. Not for me, at first. He picked up the trailing end of my apron string, rubbing the linen between his thumb and forefinger. “Such a simple thing. The symbol of domesticity. Utterly perverted.” His gaze lifted to my face, finally. “Do you feel perverted, Sara?”
My throat closed. The Master had not commanded me to speak. I remained silent, but my eyes must have given me away.
He understood. “A nod will suffice.”
I nodded, once. The heat in my face was a furnace.
“Good,” he murmured. “Awareness is the first substrate of true submission. Now, let us see the material.”
His hand moved. Not to the string, but beneath the apron’s front panel. His fingers brushed the skin of my lower belly, and a violent tremor racked me. He paused, observing the reaction as clinically as a doctor checking a pulse. Then his hand slid down, through the coarse hair, and his fingertips found the parted lips of my cunt.
I gasped. The sound was torn from me.
“Wet,” he announced, not to me, but to the room, to the unseen Master. His finger slid inside, just to the first knuckle. “Very wet. Slick with anticipatory stress. Fascinating.” He withdrew his finger, glistening, and held it up for a moment before wiping it deliberately on the inside of my thigh. “The physiological response is pronounced, and authentic. No artifice.”
The shame was a liquid, melting my bones. I wanted to collapse into a puddle on the floor. My cunt, betrayed, clenched around emptiness.
“Stand up,” Alistair said, leaning back.
I rose, my knees popping, unsteady.
“Remove the apron.”
My fingers fumbled at the knot behind my back. It gave way. The linen slipped from my shoulders, a whisper of fabric, and pooled at my feet. I stood utterly naked in the gray light, exposed not just to this man, but to the relentless, recording eyes in the walls. My skin pebbled.
“Turn around. Slowly.”
I rotated, a display model. I felt his gaze like a physical pressure on my ass, still faintly marked from the previous day’s plug, on the backs of my thighs, on the vulnerable bow of my shoulders.
“The correction marks are visible. Satisfactory.” His voice was closer. He had stood. I could feel his presence just behind me, the warmth of him, the scent of wool and sandalwood. “Your Master wishes me to conduct a deeper evaluation. A stress test of your obedience under direct, physical intrusion. You will not speak unless given a direct question. You will accept. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The words were ash.
“Bend over. Place your hands flat on the seat of the armchair.”
The world tilted. I leaned forward, my torso folding, my arms stretching out to brace against the soft leather. The position thrust my ass into the air, opened me completely. I heard the rustle of his clothing, the sound of a zipper. My breath came in short, ragged hitches.
His hands gripped my hips, his touch firm, proprietary. There was no kiss, no caress. The blunt, hot head of his cock nudged against me, seeking entry not in my cunt, but lower. At my asshole, still tender, still loose from yesterday.
“No,” I whined, the instinctive protest escaping before I could cage it.
His grip tightened, biting into my flesh. “The Master indicated you needed reinforcement here. A reminder of the channel’s purpose.”
And he pushed. A brutal, unyielding invasion. The stretch was agonizing, a white-hot brand of violation. I cried out, my knuckles white on the leather. He was thicker than the plug, alive, fucking into my tight, resisting passage with a single, relentless thrust until he was fully seated, his hips pressed against my aching cheeks.
“Fuck,” he grunted, a crack in his clinical demeanor. “Tighter than I anticipated. Good.”
He began to move. Short, deep, punishing strokes that burned and stretched. It was a raw, animal fuck, devoid of pleasure for me, only a searing, degrading fullness. Each slam jarred my body, shook a sob from my throat. The slap of his skin against mine was a vulgar, rhythmic counterpoint to the rain on the windows.
“You take it well,” he panted, his voice rough now. “A dirty little secret passage. All for him, isn’t it? This is all for his eyes.” His hand wound into my hair, yanking my head back. “Look up. At the camera in the bookshelf. Look at it while I fill your ass.”
Tears blurred my vision, but I forced my eyes open, found the small, dark lens nestled between treatises on quantum mechanics. I stared into its unblinking eye as the man behind me fucked me with methodical force. The pain began to mutate, twisted by the sheer extremity of the violation, by the spectacle of it. A low, broken moan dripped from my lips.
“She’s responsive,” Alistair called out, a report to the void. “The anal/vaginal reflex is triggering lubrication.” Indeed, a fresh trickle of wetness dripped from my neglected cunt onto the leather below. The humiliation was total.
His pace increased, becoming ragged, desperate. The scientific observer was gone, replaced by a man chasing his own end. He fucked into me with a grunting finality, his body stiffening, and I felt the hot, sudden jet of his release flooding my insides, a claiming so intimate it felt more violating than the act itself. He held himself there, pulsing, for a long moment before pulling out with a wet, obscene sound.
I shuddered, empty and defiled, my asshole throbbing and leaking.
He tucked himself away, zipped his trousers. I heard him scribble something in his folio. The clinical detachment had returned, slicked now with the sweat of his exertion.
“Turn around. Kneel again.”
I complied, movements mechanical. I knelt in the puddle of my own aproned shame, his spend beginning to seep from me. He looked down at me, adjusting his glasses.
“The evaluation is positive. A high tolerance for degradation, a psychologically interesting disconnect between physical pain and perceived purpose. You are a well-made instrument.” He gathered his coat and folio. “Your Master will have my full report.”
He walked to the door without a backward glance. As he opened it, the cool hallway air washed over my heated skin. Then he was gone.
The lock clicked.
Silence, save for the rain and the hum of the cameras.
I didn’t move from my knees. The proof of the evaluation dripped down my inner thigh. The speaker remained silent. No praise. No condemnation. Just the silent, watching aftermath.
Slowly, I reached for the discarded apron. I didn’t put it on. I just held the crumpled linen to my face. It smelled of tea, and of me.
The voice, when it finally came, was a soft, resonant vibration in my bones. “Clean yourself. The bathroom. Then rest. Dr. Finch is the first of many guests. You have shown you can be a gracious host.”
I rocked back on my heels, the words settling into me, colder than the floor.
Many guests. The evaluation wasn’t over. It had just become the permanent state of things.
I pushed myself up, my body a tapestry of fresh and fading aches. I walked toward the bathroom, leaving wet footprints on the concrete, each step a quiet echo in my glass-and-steel cage. The path felt longer than yesterday’s crawl. The destination, just as unknown.
The bathroom’s sterile white light was a surgical shock. I moved on autopilot, the taste of tea and humiliation still a film on my tongue. My reflection in the vast mirror was a stranger: hollow-eyed, hair snagged, the ghost of Alistair Finch’s grip blooming on my hips.
I reached for the shower control.
“Stop.”
The Master’s voice emanated from the ceiling speaker, a soft command that froze my hand in mid-air. It wasn’t the shower’s speaker, but the one hidden above the mirror, meant for direct observation.
“You will not shower. The evidence of your service remains. Turn on the bath.”
I obeyed, my body humming with a dread that was becoming familiar, almost comfortable. I plugged the drain and twisted the tap, sending a roaring cascade of steaming water into the deep, free-standing tub. The room began to fog.
“Now. Kneel beside it.”
I sank to the cold tile floor, my knees protesting, my ass a throbbing, raw reminder. I watched the water rise, clouding with bubbles from the poured-in gel. The heat and the scent of jasmine filled the space, a cruel parody of solace.
“Place your right hand in the water. Palm flat on the bottom.”
A confusion, then a dawning horror. I glanced up at the mirror, at my own terrified eyes. I slowly lowered my hand into the filling tub. The heat was immediate, scalding. I jerked back instinctively.
“Do not remove it. Hold it there. Let the water cover your wrist.”
A whimper escaped my clenched teeth. I forced my hand back down, pressing my palm against the slick porcelain bottom. The burning pain was acute, a sharp, focused agony that traveled up my arm. Tears mingled with the steam on my face. I watched my skin flush an angry, vibrant pink.
“Good. You feel that. That is the price of a moment’s hesitation with a guest. A minor lapse in presentation. Now, understand the next price.”
The water continued to rise, nearing the brim.
“Stand. Step into the tub. Sit down.”
“Master, please, it’s too hot,” I heard myself beg, the words a child’s plea.
“It is the correct temperature. For purification. Enter, or I will have Dr. Finch return tomorrow for a week of evaluations.”
The image of that, of a week of Alistair Finch’s clinical fingers and brutal cock, was worse than the scalding water. I stood on trembling legs. I swung one leg over the high lip of the tub, then the other. The immersion was instant and total.
A scream tore from my throat as the water enveloped my lower body. The heat was an all-consuming violence, a fire that seared my tortured asshole, my sensitive cunt, the raw skin of my thighs and knees. It felt like being skinned alive. I sank down, the water rising to my neck, my scalded hand now submerged entirely. My body shook uncontrollably, a leaf in a boiling pot.
“Now. Put your head under. For ten seconds. Count.”
I sucked in a ragged, steam-scorched breath and submerged. The world became a roaring, silent blur of white. The heat pressed on my eyelids, my eardrums. I counted in my head, each number a frantic prayer. One. Two. The pain was a universe. Three. Four.
I burst from the water, gasping, hair plastered to my face, sobbing openly.
“Rub yourself. Use your scalded hand. Clean the guest’s filth from inside you. Be thorough. I want to see you work his seed out of your ass and watch it cloud the water.”
The degradation was absolute, an arithmetic of horror. I brought my burning, trembling right hand between my legs. I pressed my fingers against my swollen, leaking opening. I pushed two inside my own ass, the penetration sending a fresh bolt of pain through the scalding tissue. I hooked my fingers, scouring the tender channel, feeling the sticky residue of him mix with the bathwater.
“Out. Let me see it.”
I pulled my fingers out, holding them up before the mirror, before the unseen lens. They were slick, glistening.
“Now your cunt. You dripped for him like a common whore. Clean that arousal out. You have no right to it.”
I obeyed, moving my scalded hand forward, rubbing my swollen clit roughly, then pushing fingers deep into my cunt, fucking myself with my own hand under the hot, fragrant water. It was not pleasurable. It was a violation I performed on myself, a grotesque mimicry of the act. My body, confused, sent up sparks of sensation that warred with the overriding pain and shame.
“Faster.”
I increased the pace, my breath coming in hitches, my hips moving involuntarily against my own hand. The water sloshed over the sides of the tub. My skin was a uniform, blazing red.
“Now stop. Stand up. Let the water drain. Stand in the empty tub and present yourself to the mirror. Show me the clean, empty holes. Show me your obedience.”
The command was a respite and a fresh hell. I stood, water streaming off me in sheets. My legs felt boneless. I found the drain lever with my foot and pushed it. A deep, groaning swallow echoed as the water began to swirl away.
I stood, exposed in the emptying tub, the air hitting my wet skin and raising goosebumps. I turned, as commanded, facing the fogged mirror. I used my unburned left hand to wipe a clear streak across the glass.
My face appeared, streaked with tears and steam. Then I bent forward, placing my hands on the cool rim of the tub, assuming the now-instinctive position. I looked over my shoulder, into the mirror, at my own reflected, offered body. My ass was red, well-used, slightly gaping. My cunt lips were puffy and glistening with bathwater and my own forced attention.
I held the pose, trembling, as the last of the water gurgled down the drain, leaving me standing in a slick, empty porcelain shell. The silence stretched, broken only by the drip from the tap and my ragged breathing.
The speaker remained mute. The red light on the camera above the mirror glowed steadily.
He was just watching. Letting me see myself like this. Letting the image, the absolute vulnerability, sear itself into my mind deeper than the hot water had seared my skin. This was the lesson: the objecthood, the sheer, silent display.
Minutes passed. My muscles screamed.
Finally, his voice came, quieter now, almost intimate in its intensity. “You may step out. Dry yourself with the rough towel from the rail. Do not moisturize. Do not soothe the burn. You will feel this lesson for days. Every time you sit for your studies, you will remember. The bath is now yours to use for its intended purpose. You may clean the tub after. Then, sleep. Tomorrow, we begin refining your presentation for the next guest.”
I stepped out, my feet leaving wet prints on the tile. The rough, linen towel scraped against my scalded skin like sandpaper, a new layer of pain. I did not look in the mirror again.
The destination was no longer unknown. It was this: an endless series of emptyings, a perpetual readiness to be filled and used and scalded clean again. I walked back into the dark bedroom, the city’s lights a distant, mocking constellation. I did not dress. I slid between the cold sheets, my body a map of fresh pain, and stared at the ceiling where I knew a lens was watching my wakefulness, waiting for my eyes to close.
Sleep, when it came, was a black lake. I sank into it gratefully, dragging the silence down with me.
THE MASTER COMMANDS.
THE MASTER COMMANDS.
The words echoed in the hollowed-out space where my mind used to reside. I woke not to an alarm, but to a deep, resonant chime from the apartment’s hidden speakers. My body was a canvas of pain. The scalded skin on my hand and thighs was a tight, pink sheen. My ass ached with a deep, bruising memory. Sunlight, sharp and mocking, cut across the bed.
“You will not attend your seminar today,” the Master’s voice stated, not as a punishment, but as a simple revision of reality. “Your curriculum is being recalibrated. Sit at your desk. Open the top drawer.”
I shuffled to the cold steel desk, my reflection in the darkened monitor a pale ghost. I pulled the drawer. Inside, nestled beside pens and paperclips, lay a small, sleek black remote and a note. For continuous assessment, it read in a crisp, printed font.
“The remote controls a new device. Insert it. You will wear it whenever you are home. Its sensors will provide me with your physiological data—heart rate, skin conductivity, core temperature. Your arousal, your stress, your anticipation. It will become your truth. Now.”
Beneath the remote was a smooth, oviform object of medical-grade silicone, slightly larger than a plum. A subtle, raised seam circled its center. It had no protruding parts, no obvious mechanism, only a small, discreet port at one end.
I understood. I knelt on the floor by the desk, the concrete unforgiving on my tender knees. I used saliva to lubricate the thing, the act now routine, devoid of even shame’s heat. I worked it into my cunt. It slid in with a dense, filling pressure, locking into place with a soft, internal click against my cervix. It felt alien, a cold, measuring stone in my core.
“Good. The remote.”
I picked it up. It had a single dial.
“Turn it to the first mark.”
I did. A immediate, powerful vibration erupted inside me, so deep and penetrating it stole my breath. It wasn’t focused on my clit, but seemed to resonate in the very walls of my womb. A low, throttling hum that spoke to a primal frequency. My thighs clenched.
“This is your baseline setting. You will become accustomed to functioning with it. Make breakfast.”
The next hour was a study in fractured concentration. The relentless, internal buzz was a second heartbeat. Slicing a banana, my hand trembled, sending a piece to the floor. Boiling water for tea, I stared at the rolling bubbles, my cunt pulsing with electric insistence. I was profoundly aware of the device inside me, a lie-detector for my body, translating every spark of unwanted sensation into data for him.
“The shower. Now. Cool water only.”
I stood under the cold spray, teeth chattering, nipples drawn into tight pebbles. The vibration made the shivering more intense, a chaotic feedback loop of sensation. As I soaped myself, my fingers, against all reason, brushed my clit. A jolt, sharp and bright, lanced through the deeper thrum.
A sharp, punitive burst of static erupted from the shower speaker. “The device is not for your pleasure. It is a meter. You attempted to skew the readings. That is data falsification.”
The water shut off abruptly.
“To the living room. Display position. Now.”
Dripping and shaking, I crawled to the center of the room. The familiar posture, the arch of the back, the presentation. The vibrating egg inside me shifted, a nagging, permanent presence.
“You will hold this position for one hour. The remote will now cycle through random patterns. You will not come. You will recite the prime numbers backwards from 997.”
And so it began. The vibration pattern changed every thirty seconds—short, sharp jabs, then a long, sinuous roll, then a frantic stutter. My mind, grasping for the numerical lifeline, began to fray. “997, 991, 983, 977…” I chanted, my voice thin. The device hit a frenzied peak, a buzzing so intense my vision spotted. My cunt clenched, begging for release it would not get. “…967, 953, 947…” I lost the sequence. My hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk.
A new sensation, cruel and ingenious, joined the vibration. From the core of the egg, a thin, flexible probe extended, no thicker than a catheter. It pressed against the mouth of my cervix, a terrifying, invasive pressure, then, with a soft mechanical whirr, it began to pulse in and out, a tiny, penetrating fuck at the most forbidden gate. It didn’t hurt. It was a profound, psychological violation that dwarfed the physical.
I screamed. The numbers evaporated.
“You broke sequence. You moved. The training requires negative reinforcement.”
The probe retracted. The vibration ceased. For a full, blissful minute, there was only the hollow, violated emptiness. Then, a new function activated. A punishing, high-amplitude electric shock, minute but agonizing, zapped directly into the sensitized walls of my cunt.
I shrieked, my body convulsing on the floor, back arching wildly away from the pain. The shock came again. And again. Five times. My muscles locked, tears and slick pooling under my cheek on the concrete.
It stopped.
“Resume position. Resume numbers from 937.”
A sob hitched in my chest. I pushed myself back up, my arms wobbling violently. I found the thread of numbers. My voice was a broken thing. “937… 929… 919…”
The hour was an eternity of fractured focus and controlled, electric torment. By the end, my mind was blank. I could not have told you my own name. I was a vessel of buzzing data, a collection of raw nerves and obedient holes.
When he finally released me, I collapsed.
“You will dress. Casual attire. You have a lunch delivery to receive at the door. You will smile. You will be pleasant. The device remains active. Your physiological responses will be monitored. If your heart rate spikes with shame, if your skin conductance indicates anxiety, you will be corrected upon return. Go.”
I pulled on jeans and a sweater, the fabric an agony on my scalded skin, the denim a tight prison over the humming egg. The intercom buzzed. I opened the door to a young delivery man holding a paper bag.
“Sara Kapoor? Thai green curry,” he said, smiling broadly.
“Thank you so much,” I said, my smile a rigid performance. I took the bag. My cunt buzzed, a secret scream under the polite fabric. He had no idea. The Master, listening to my heart thump against my ribs, did.
“Have a good one!” he said, turning away.
“You too,” I chirped, the banality surreal. I closed the door, leaning against it, sweat cooling on my brow.
“Satisfactory,” the voice noted. “Your baseline stress lowered marginally during the interaction. You can perform. Now, eat. You will need energy. Your afternoon training involves stamina.”
I ate the curry. It tasted of nothing. The device hummed on.
After lunch, the command came. “To the bedroom. The closet. Inside you will find a new garment.”
Hanging in the walk-in closet, amid my ordinary clothes, was a harness. It was made of supple black leather, with straps that would cinch around my waist and thighs. Dangling from it, at crotch level, was a substantial, realistic silicone dildo. Beside it hung a similar, thicker one for the rear.
“You will wear this. You will fuck yourself on the stationary bicycle in the corner. You will ride it, with the dildos penetrating you, until you have logged five kilometers. Your speed must remain above fifteen kilometers per hour. If you slow, the device inside you will administer a shock. Begin.”
The harness was a intricate puzzle of buckles. I stepped into it, pulled the straps tight. The front dildo pressed insistently against my lips. The rear one was cold and huge. I guided them into place as I lowered myself onto the bicycle seat, which was now removed. The filling was immense, a brutal stretch that made me gasp. The front dildo pushed up into my buzzing, over-sensitized cunt. The rear one filled the aching channel Finch had used.
“Start.”
I began to pedal. The motion immediately forced the dildos to move inside me, a brutal, mechanical fucking. Upstroke, downstroke. Each rotation dragged the silicone through my tender flesh. The egg vibrated relentlessly. My legs burned. The digital display on the bike showed my speed: 16 km/h.
I pedaled. The room filled with the sound of the whirring bike wheel, my ragged breath, and the wet, squelching noise of the dildos moving in and out of me. Sweat soaked my sweater. I was a machine fucking itself on a machine, a closed loop of degrading function.
My speed dipped to 14.9 km/h.
The shock hit, a white-hot cramp deep in my womb. I cried out, legs pumping frantically, lifting the speed back to 17.
The kilometers crawled by. My mind detached. There was only the burn in my thighs, the piston-like invasion, the constant vibrational drone, and the threat of the shock. I came, twice, shuddering, screaming explosions that were less pleasure than neurological seizures, my body convulsing around the violating objects as my legs kept moving, kept pedaling.
The display finally read 5.0 km.
I slumped over the handlebars, dripping, the dildos still buried in me.
“Disrobe. Shower. Cold. Then present yourself at the living room window. The evening crowd is leaving their offices. They will see a silhouette. A suggestion. That is all.”
Later, clean and shivering, I stood before the floor-to-ceiling glass. The city’s twilight glow was at my back. I was a shadow puppet, a cut-out of a woman.
“Place your hands on the glass. Spread your legs.”
I obeyed. My breath fogged the cool surface.
“Now, manipulate your clit for me. Use two fingers. Show me how you would do it if you were alone. But you are not alone. I see the data. Your heart rate is elevating. Your skin is flushing. Do it.”
Trembling, I brought my hand down. I circled my swollen, over-stimulated clit. Even that gentle touch was almost too much. A low moan escaped me. My forehead rested against the glass.
“Faster. Pretend you are trying to come quickly, before someone catches you. You are being watched, Sara. You are always being watched.”
My fingers moved urgently, slipping in my own wetness. Below, taxis honked. People scurried like ants, oblivious to the woman having a supervised, simulated masturbation thirty feet above them.
“Stop.” His voice was sharp. I froze, panting. “You were close. But you do not have permission. You will never have permission again unless I grant it. The training is to separate the physiological response from the reward. To make your orgasm a currency I alone mint. Now, stand there. Hold the position. Let the need subside. Let the data show your slow, obedient decline.”
I stood, hands on the glass, exposed, aching, unfulfilled. The need was a physical pain, a shrinking, hollow throb. I watched it recede in the data-stream of my own body, a wave pulling back from a shore it would never reach.
Night settled fully. The city’s lights became dominant.
“You may sleep. The device remains inside you. It will monitor your sleep cycles. Your dreams belong to me as well.”
I lay in bed, the soft, ever-present hum my new lullaby. The scalds stung. My muscles ached from the bike. My holes felt used and wide. I was a collection of input channels. As I drifted into a black, exhausted void, a final, clear thought surfaced, cool and smooth like a stone from a riverbed: This was only the first day.
TRAINING BEGINS.