Chapter 2: The Public Humiliation Game
The Velvet Room sat on 5th and Main like a warning wrapped in velvet and neon. Blacked-out windows, a single crimson door, and a bouncer the size of a refrigerator who looked at me like I was a stain on his sidewalk. I'd changed into my best dark jeans and a fitted black shirt, telling myself it was armor, not an offering.
My phone buzzed as I approached.
You're early. Good. The bouncer knows you. Tell him your name.
I looked at the message from Selena, then at the bouncer, who was already stepping aside with a jerk of his chin.
"Ethan Cole," I said.
He opened the door.
The interior was all shadow and gold. Low-hanging lights cast amber pools across velvet booths and a polished mahogany bar that stretched the length of the room. The air smelled of expensive whiskey and something floral—her perfume—and I spotted her before my eyes adjusted, a dark silhouette in a corner booth, watching me with the patience of a spider.
"Pet," she called, raising a glass of amber liquid. "You came."
I walked toward her, weaving through scattered tables where couples whispered and laughed. The crowd here was older, wealthier, more dangerous than the college auditorium. Suits and cocktail dresses, watches that cost more than my car, and not a single one of them looked at me twice. That was the worst part. They'd seen this before. They were used to watching men get destroyed.
"Your text didn't leave me much choice," I said, sliding into the booth across from her.
Selena smiled, slow and satisfied. "No, it didn't."
She was wearing a red dress this time. A slash of color against the darkness of the bar, plunging in the front, split to the thigh. Her hair was down, a black waterfall that caught the light every time she moved. She looked like every bad decision I'd ever wanted to make wrapped in silk.
"Drink?" she asked.
"I'm not sure I should."
"Probably not." She signaled the bartender anyway, and a moment later a glass of something dark appeared in front of me. "But that's never stopped you before, has it?"
I stared at the drink. "How much do you know about me?"
"More than you'd like." She leaned forward, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers. "Less than I want. Tell me, Ethan—why did you come tonight?"
"Because you threatened me."
"And yet, here you are. Not calling the police. Not blocking my number." Her eyes glittered. "You could have done any of that. Instead, you put on your nicest shirt and drove across town to see me."
I picked up the glass and drank. It burned, honey and smoke and something I couldn't name. "Maybe I wanted to see what else you could do."
Her smile widened. "That's the most honest thing you've said to me."
I put the glass down, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. It wasn't just the whiskey. The room seemed to pulse, as if the low, thrumming music was beating in time with my heart.
"Tonight," she said, "you're going to prove your devotion to me. In front of everyone."
My stomach clenched. "What does that mean?"
"It means"—she reached across the table, her fingers brushing my wrist—"that I'm going to take everything you think you are, and I'm going to turn it into a performance. You're going to give yourself to me, Ethan. Completely. Shamelessly. And you're going to enjoy every second of it."
"Enjoy it?"
"You will."
She snapped her fingers.
The sound cut through the murmur of the bar like a gunshot. And I felt it—the shift. Reality tilting, the room spinning, my body no longer mine. I was standing before I knew I'd moved, my hips already swaying, a breathy sigh escaping my lips.
"Bimbotronic," she whispered.
The trigger slammed into me like a wave.
My hips rolled. My shoulders popped. I ran my hands through my hair, arching my back, and strutted out from behind the table like I was walking the runway at Fashion Week. The crowd in the bar began to notice, heads turning, voices dropping to excited murmurs.
"That's right," Selena called, rising from the booth. "Everyone, look. Look at my pretty pet."
A spotlight found me. I sashayed through the room, my body moving in ways I'd never imagined, my hips swinging with a flirtatious sway that was totally, absolutely, not me. I felt his eyes—their eyes—crawling over my skin, and it made me feel powerful, gorgeous, desperate to be watched.
I reached the small stage in the corner, bathed in a pool of purple light, and I climbed the steps with exaggerated grace.
"The show is starting," Selena announced, and a microphone appeared in her hand from somewhere. "My pet is going to show you all how much he loves me."
I turned to face the crowd, and my hands found the hem of my shirt. Without a single hesitation, I pulled it over my head and threw it into the crowd. They caught it. They cheered. My body moved, hips gyrating, hands sliding down my chest, my stomach, feeling the heat of my own skin broadcast through the room like a wave.
Selena climbed onto the stage, and her heels clicked against the wood like a metronome, like a command. "Show them, pet."
My fingers found my belt. I unbuckled it slowly, with a showgirl's flourish, and let my jeans drop to the floor. I stood in my black boxer briefs, my cock straining against the fabric, and the crowd's roar was electric, symphonic, all I could hear.
"Turn around," she commanded.
I turned, presenting my ass to the room. My cheeks were bare beneath the stretchy fabric, and I wiggled them, shameless, filthy, wanting every eye on me.
Selena's hand connected with my ass, a sharp, stinging slap that made me gasp. The crowd laughed. She spanked me again, harder, and I felt my cheeks heat up, the sting blooming into something sweet.
"Count," she ordered.
"One," I breathed.
Another slap. "Two..."
She spanked me until I lost count, until my ass was on fire, a bright, burning red that I could feel radiating off my skin. Then her fingers hooked into the waistband of my boxers, and she pulled them down.
Cool air on my burning skin. The press of her cool fingers against my hole made me whimper, my hips pushing back of their own accord.
"Careful," she said, "or I'll put you away before you get to have any fun."
I held still, trembling, desperate. She took something from her pocket—a slim, black object that glinted in the purple light—and I watched it appear in front of my face, a small bullet-shaped plug, its base beaded with glistening lube.
"Open wide," she said.
I was helpless. My body obeyed without thought. The tip of the plug pressed against my entrance, and I felt the pressure, the intrusion, the slow, inexorable slide of cool rubber into my ass. I gasped, my eyes rolling back, and she pushed it in all at once, seating it deep inside me.
"Good," she said, removing her hand. "Now dance for me."
The music changed. From somewhere, a heavy beat dropped, a bassline that seemed to vibrate in my bones. My body responded before I understood what was happening—my hips began to move, to roll, grinding and twerking in front of a roomful of strangers, my hard cock slapping against my stomach as I moved.
I felt wadded and dazzling, utterly powerless and utterly free, a puppet ready to be played with.
Selena stepped behind me, and her hand snaked around my waist, finding my cock. She wrapped her fingers around my shaft, stroking me with a slow, possessive grip that made my hips thrust forward involuntarily.
"Look at them," she whispered in my ear, her breath warm and dirty. "Look at them watching you. They know you're mine. They can see it in the way you move, can see it in the way your cock twitches for me."
I was panting, drool at the corner of my mouth, my hips fucking into her fist as she stroked me.
"Tell them what you are," she said.
"Please," I begged, "I can't—"
"Tell them."
"I'm your pet," I cried out, my voice carrying across the room, lost in the sea of leering faces. "I'm your pretty little pet, I belong to you, I'm yours, I'm yours, please, please—"
She moved faster, her grip tight, twisting on the upstroke, and I shattered. My body convulsed, my cock pulsing as thick ropes of cum spilled onto the stage in front of everyone, a wet, staining streak on the wood. I was wailing, probably incoherent, drowning in the mix of shame and ecstasy that had become my entire world.
The crowd applauded.
Selena held me up, her arm around my waist, as I sagged against her, boneless and gasping. She leaned in, pressing a kiss to my cheek, and whispered, "Good boy."
She snapped her fingers.
And I was back.
The world hit me in a flood—the roar of the crowd, the brightness of the lights, the sting of my red, red ass, the press of the plug deep inside me. I was naked on a stage, covered in my own cum, my face flushed and burning.
"What—" I tried, but my voice was a croak.
"Hush," she said. "You did amazing." She pulled my jeans from the floor and held them out to me. "Put these on and follow me."
My hands shook. I pulled on the jeans, wincing as the seam grazed my raw skin, the plug shifting inside me with every movement. She led me down from the stage, her hand on my lower back, steering me through the crowd.
They clapped. They grinned. A woman in a sequined top raised her glass to me.
"Bravo," she said.
I wanted to die.
Selena led me to a booth in the far corner, half-hidden by a velvet curtain. She slid in, patting the leather beside her, and I collapsed next to her while my knees buckled.
"Drink," she said, sliding a glass toward me.
I drank.
The whiskey was a balm, thick and warm. I let it sit on my tongue, feeling it burn, before swallowing.
"Run," I said, my voice hoarse. "I should run."
"No you shouldn't." She traced a finger along my jawline, tilting my face toward her. "You like this. You like being my pet. You like being watched. You like it more than you've ever liked anything in your life."
"I don't."
But the words were empty. The noise of the world seemed to have quieted, to have become only the sound of her voice. I felt like I was underwater, floating, anchored to her by something I couldn't see.
"Don't worry," she whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "You're exactly where you're supposed to be."
The booth swallowed them whole, velvet walls muting the bar's ambient thrum to a distant heartbeat. Selena's hand rested on his thigh, her thumb tracing slow circles through the denim, and Ethan could feel every ridge of her fingerprint through the fabric. His body was still buzzing, the aftershocks of his public undoing rippling through his nerves like aftershocks of a quake he hadn't felt hit.
"You're shaking," she observed, not unkindly.
"I'm not." His voice cracked on the second word.
She laughed, low and warm, and her fingers crept higher, finding the waistband of his jeans. He flinched when her knuckles brushed the base of the plug still seated inside him. The sensation was dull now, less intrusive, more like a persistent reminder that he was still open, still full, still hers.
"Liar," she said.
Ethan drained the rest of his whiskey, welcoming the burn. "What happens now? You've had your fun. You've humiliated me in front of an entire bar. What's left to prove?"
Selena tilted her head, studying him with those poison-green eyes. Her fingers traced the outline of his cock through the denim, featherlight, testing. He was hard again. Already. He hated himself for it.
"Prove?" She repeated the word like it tasted strange. "I'm not trying to prove anything, pet. I already know what I can do to you. The question is whether you're brave enough to find out what you can become."
"I'm not becoming anything."
"You already have." She leaned in close, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. "You became mine the moment you sat down on that stage. You just haven't accepted it yet."
His breath caught. The plug shifted inside him, and he felt a traitorous pulse of pleasure ripple through his gut. She noticed—she noticed everything—and smiled against his skin.
"Tell me what you're feeling right now," she whispered. "And don't give me some rational, well-defended bullshit. Tell me the truth."
Ethan closed his eyes. The truth was a tangled knot of shame and arousal and terror and, underneath it all, a thread of desperate, aching want that he couldn't name. He'd spent his whole life being the smart one, the skeptical one, the one who couldn't be fooled.
And now he was sitting in a velvet booth with a plug in his ass and cum stains on his jeans, aching for the woman who'd put them there.
"I don't know what I'm feeling," he admitted, the words scraping out of him like broken glass. "I don't know who I am around you. That scares me."
"Good."
She pulled back, and there was something almost tender in her expression. Almost. "Fear is honest. Fear means you're still paying attention. The men who don't fear me are the ones who bore me."
"Is that what I am? Entertainment?"
"For now." She reached for her glass, taking a delicate sip of something amber. "But you could be so much more if you let yourself stop fighting."
Ethan shifted in his seat, the plug pressing against his prostate, making his cock twitch. "And what would that look like?"
Selena set down her glass. Her hand returned to his thigh, sliding higher, palming his hardness through the denim. He gasped, hips bucking involuntarily.
"It would look like you, on your knees, begging me to use you however I see fit." Her grip tightened. "It would look like you, mine completely, wearing nothing but what I choose, existing only to bring me pleasure and obey my every command."
"That's insane."
"It's bliss." She squeezed, and he moaned, hating himself for the sound. "You've never known what it's like to let go completely. To hand over every decision, every thought, every breath. But I can show you, Ethan. I can show you what it feels like to be truly free."
He stared at her. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and he could see the hunger there, the genuine desire to own him body and soul. She wasn't playing a game anymore. This was real.
"I don't know if I can," he said.
She smiled, slow and dangerous. "Oh, I think you can. But first, you have to prove it."
"What do you want me to do?"
She glanced toward the bar, where the crowd had mostly dispersed, leaving only a few scattered patrons nursing drinks in the dim light. "Slide under the table."
"What?"
"Under the table, pet. On your knees. You're going to worship me, and you're going to do it without anyone seeing a thing."
His heart hammered. "Here? Now?"
"Now."
Every rational instinct screamed at him to refuse, to stand up, to walk out of this bar and never look back. But his body was already moving, sliding off the leather seat, sinking to the floor beneath the table's dark wood surface.
The world narrowed to shadows and the scent of her perfume. He could see her legs, crossed at the ankle, the red dress pooled around her thighs like spilled wine.
"Good boy," she murmured, and the praise hit him like a drug, warm and dizzying.
He heard the rustle of fabric, the whisper of her dress being hiked up. Her thighs parted, and he could see the dark triangle of her underwear, black lace, already damp.
"Take them off," she commanded. "With your teeth."
He leaned in, his lips brushing the delicate fabric. The taste of her, faint and musky, flooded his senses. He grasped the lace between his teeth and pulled, dragging the panties down her legs, over her knees, past her calves.
She lifted her hips to help him remove them entirely.
"Good. Now put your mouth on me. Slow."
He pressed forward, his tongue finding her wet folds, tasting her properly for the first time. She was warm and slick, and she sighed above him, her hand coming down to tangle in his hair, not pulling, just resting there, grounding.
He licked her, long and slow, from her entrance to her clit, and she shuddered.
"Just like that," she breathed. "Keep going."
He did. He devoured her, his tongue circling her clit, his fingers gripping her hips beneath the table, pulling her closer. She tasted like salt and honey and something he'd never be able to name. Her thighs tightened around his head, and she began to move against his mouth, riding his face in slow, rolling waves.
The world outside the table ceased to exist. There was only her, the taste of her, the sound of her soft moans muffled by the bar's ambient noise. He felt her hand tighten in his hair, felt her hips buck faster.
"I'm close," she gasped. "Don't stop. Don't you fucking stop."
He didn't. He doubled his efforts, his tongue flicking her clit until she was trembling, her whole body taut. Then she came, a shuddering, silent release that rippled through her like a current, her juices flooding his mouth, his chin, dripping down his throat.
He swallowed. He drank her. He begged with his mouth for more.
She finally pushed him back, breathless, pulling her dress down over her thighs. He stayed on his knees, panting, her taste still on his lips, her scent clinging to his face.
"Come out," she said.
He crawled out from beneath the table, emerging into the dim bar light like a creature surfacing from deep water. His face was slick, his mouth swollen, his cock straining painfully against his jeans.
Selena looked at him, a satisfied smile curving her lips. "You're learning."
He couldn't speak. He just stared at her, his chest heaving.
She reached out, wiping a smear of her own slickness from his chin with her thumb. Then she brought the thumb to his lips, and he parted his mouth without thinking, sucking it clean.
"Good boy," she repeated, softer this time, almost affectionate.
"It's not enough," he heard himself say, the words torn from him before he could stop them.
"What isn't?"
"This." He gestured vaguely at himself, at his aching cock, at the plug still buried in his ass. "I need—fuck, I don't know what I need. But this isn't it."
Selena's eyes glittered. "You need to come. Properly. You need me to take you apart until there's nothing left but the feeling."
"Yes," he breathed. "Please."
She rose from the booth, extending her hand. He took it, and she led him through the bar, past the few remaining patrons who glanced at them with knowing smiles, toward a door at the back marked PRIVATE.
The room behind it was small and dim, lit by a single red bulb. A leather chaise lounge dominated the space, and there was a mirror on the ceiling.
Ethan's breath caught.
Selena pushed him onto the chaise, climbing on top of him, straddling his hips. She ground against him, the friction of her wet cunt against his denim-covered cock making him hiss.
"I'm going to take what I want now," she said, unbuttoning his jeans with deft fingers. "And you're going to let me."
He nodded, unable to form words.
She freed his cock, stroking him slowly, watching his face contort with pleasure. Then she positioned herself above him, rubbing his tip against her slick swollen folds.
"Say please," she commanded.
"Please."
"Say my name."
"Please, Selena. Please."
She sank down onto him in one slow, torturous motion. He felt her heat envelop him, her walls gripping him tight, and he cried out, his hips bucking instinctively.
"Look at me," she said, and he did. Her eyes were burning, fierce and tender all at once.
She began to ride him, slow and deep, and he was lost. Everything fell away—the bar, the crowd, the shame. There was only her, only that, only the wet, perfect slide of her around him.
"You are mine," she breathed into his ear. "Say it."
"I'm yours."
"Say it like you mean it."
"I'm yours, Selena. God, I'm yours."
She smiled, and then she rode him faster, harder, driving him toward the edge. He watched himself in the mirror above, watched her riding him, watched his own face twisted in ecstasy, and he knew he'd never be the same.
"Oh, fuck," he gasped. "I'm going to come."
"Not yet," she said, and she slowed.
He whimpered. Begged. She kept him there, hovering on the brink, for what felt like forever.
Then she leaned down and whispered, "Bimbotronic."
Something cracked inside him. His hips surged, finding his rhythm completely, and he let go. He came with a shout, pouring himself into her, as she clenched around him and came with a long, shuddering sigh.
They collapsed together, tangled, breathing hard.
Selena lay her head on his chest, her hand tracing idle patterns on his skin. "The limo will be here in twenty minutes."
"What?"
"You're going home with me tonight." She kissed his chest, tasting her own sweat on his skin. "We're not done yet, pet. We've only just begun."