Chapter 4: Frames of Remembered Ecstasy
The walk from the grove to the coast was a cooling of the blood. The phantom warmth from Beatriz’s flames still lingered under Diana’s skin, a low ember compared to the forge-blast of need that had gripped her in the temple. She moved through the moon-dappled forest, her bare feet silent on the moss. The sounds of the tavern faded, replaced by the rhythmic sigh of the sea. She felt scraped raw, every sensation amplified—the caress of the night air on her nipples, the subtle ache between her thighs, the confusing cocktail of shame and yearning that was her new constant companion.
The Invisible Jet sat in a clearing of soft sand, its sleek, curved hull a void against the starry sky, only visible as a distortion, a ripple in reality. A ramp was extended, spilling a rectangle of soft, white light onto the beach.
Inside, the air was cool, filtered, and smelled of ozone and alien metals. The hum of the ship’s core was a sub-audible vibration in the bones. Dejah Thoris stood before a holographic star chart, her back to the entrance. The crimson skin of her perfect, nude form seemed to absorb the blue light of the displays, creating a mesmerizing contrast. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, and the simple, elegant jewels at her throat and wrists—bands of polished black ore—were the only concessions to covering.
“You’re later than I projected,” Dejah said without turning, her voice carrying its usual composed, analytical melody. “I trust the indigenous intoxicants were not too debilitating.”
Diana leaned against a bulkhead, the cool metal a shock against her shoulder blades. “I was not drinking. I was… observing.”
Dejah finally turned. Her eyes, large and dark, missed nothing. They took in Diana’s posture, the new mark on her neck, the unsettled storm in her blue eyes. “You observed someone else being thoroughly enjoyed, by the look of it. And it agitated you. Interesting.”
“It didn’t agitate me. It… clarified things.” Diana pushed off the wall, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them, frustrated by the habitual gesture of modesty that now meant nothing. “Beatriz wears her exposure like a weapon. A celebration. I feel mine as a… a vulnerability. A wound that never scabs.”
Dejah approached, her movements fluid and economical. “On Barsoom, nudity is a simple fact of physiology and climate. A practical reality. The concept of shame attached to it is as foreign to us as your need for oxygen is to me.” She stopped before Diana, her gaze direct. “But your conflict is not about skin, Diana. It is about control. You lost it. Now you crave its opposite, or its illusion.”
The accuracy of it hit Diana like a physical blow. She looked away, toward the rear compartment of the jet. “You said you had something to show me. Something from… before.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Dejah’s lips. “A souvenir. I thought it might have… therapeutic value.”
She led the way to the ship’s small cargo hold. The room was neat, stacked with supplies gleaned from Themyscira and remnants of their escape. In the center, covered by a grey stasis cloth, were two angular shapes.
Dejah gripped the cloth and pulled it away with a flourish.
Diana’s breath caught.
There they stood. The twin X-frames.
They were exactly as she remembered: sleek, menacing, and terrifyingly familiar. Polished metallic alloy formed a stark ‘X’, with heavy, articulated clamps for wrists and ankles, now open and dormant. The faint, almost invisible staining on the padding at the restraints spoke of long, intimate use. A low, red indicator light glowed at the base of each, showing they were powered down, hibernating.
Memories flooded her—not just the pain and the humiliation, but the strange, awful simplicity of it. The total surrender. The relief of having no choices, no responsibilities, no need to be a princess or a warrior. Just a body, suspended, exposed, and used. During the darkest hours, she and Dejah, strung up side-by-side, had whispered in the gloom. Joked, even. A brittle, desperate humor to keep madness at bay.
“If we get out of this, I’m taking this damn frame with me. It’s the most honest relationship I’ve had in years,” Dejah had once muttered, her voice hoarse from screaming.
“I would not know where to put it,” Diana had whispered back, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her raw throat. “It does not match my decor.”
Now, here they were. In the sterile light of the jet, they looked like sculptures. Instruments of torture, or of extreme devotion.
“You kept them,” Diana said, her voice barely audible.
“I recovered them,” Dejah corrected. “Aresia’s compound was in disarray after her defeat. It seemed… wasteful to leave such precisely engineered technology. And I remembered our joke.”
“It was not a joke.” Diana took a step closer. Her hand rose, trembling slightly, and her fingertips hovered just above the cool metal of the nearest frame. A shiver ran through her, a cocktail of dread and deep, pulling longing.
“No,” Dejah agreed softly. “It was not. I have analyzed my physiological responses during our captivity. Once the immediate torture subsided, there was a measurable, adaptive drop in stress hormones during prolonged immobilization. The brain, when stripped of all agency, can sometimes… check out. Find a peculiar peace.”
Diana’s fingers finally made contact. The metal was cool, smooth. “Peace. Is that what you call it?”
“I call it a survival mechanism. One that has left a… neural pathway. A craving for that particular state of nullification.” Dejah came to stand beside her, looking at the frames with a scientist’s eye, not a victim’s. “You feel it, too. I see it in your micro-expressions. The way you sometimes hold your own wrists when you think no one is looking.”
The embarrassment was hot and sudden. Diana snatched her hand back. “I do not—”
“You do.” Dejah’s tone held no judgment. “The question is not whether the craving exists. It is what you choose to do with it. You can fear it, let it fester as shame. Or you can engage with it, on your own terms, and perhaps rewrite its meaning.”
Diana stared at the open clamps. Her heart was a drum against her ribs. “My own terms?”
“Precisely.” Dejah moved to a control panel on the wall. “These are now under my command. No one else’s. They are a tool, Diana. A dangerous one, yes. But a tool nonetheless. You are not a prisoner here. You are a passenger on my ship. And I am offering you a… session. Voluntarily. With a safe word. ‘Barsoom.’ Say it, and everything stops instantly.”
The offer hung in the cool air, immense and terrifying. This wasn’t the chaotic, magical submission of the temple, or the wild, public hedonism of the tavern. This was controlled, clinical, and premeditated. A deliberate walk back into the darkness, but with a lantern in her hand.
The low, throbbing heat from Beatriz’s display still pulsed within her. The memory of her mother’s commanding touch was a brand on her soul. This was a third path.
“Why?” Diana asked, turning to look at Dejah. “Why would you do this?”
Dejah met her gaze. “Because you are my friend. And you are in pain. And on my world, we do not shy away from uncomfortable truths. We dissect them.” She paused. “Also, I am curious to observe the psychological effects in a controlled environment.”
A genuine, shaky laugh escaped Diana. “Always the scientist.”
“Always.” Dejah’s finger hovered over a button. “The choice is yours, Princess. Walk back to the palace and wrestle your demons in silence. Or step into the frame, and face them directly.”
Diana looked from Dejah’s calm, expectant face to the waiting, silent X. The memory of surrender washed over her, but this time, it was followed by the memory of a joke shared in the dark. A moment of connection in a place designed to isolate.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. The ember within her flared, fanned by fear and a desperate, undeniable need.
The ember within her flared, fanned by fear and a desperate, undeniable need. It short-circuited her higher reasoning, the part that would agonize over protocol and pride. Her muscles twitched, a surge of power with no conscious directive.
BEFORE DIANA CAN EVEN THINK, HER BODY MOVES ON ITS OWN. USING HER SUPER STRENGTH, SHE CARRIES BOTH X-FRAMES TO HER PRIVATE ROOM. DEJAH FOLLOWS AFTER.
The frames were heavy, but Diana lifted them as if they were kindling. She strode down the jet’s narrow corridor, the metallic clang of their bases scraping the floor a jarring counter-rhythm to the ship’s hum. Her private chamber door hissed open at her approach and slid shut behind Dejah, sealing them in a quiet, intimate space.
Diana stood the frames upright against the far wall. They dominated the room, their stark geometry a brutal silhouette against the soft, programmable panels that usually mimicked a Themysciran sky. She stared at them, her chest rising and falling with un-spent energy.
“Well,” Dejah said, leaning against the door frame. “That was decisive.”
“I do not know what that was,” Diana whispered, still facing the frames. The low light gleamed on their cold, indifferent surfaces. “It felt like… jumping off a cliff.”
“It was agency.” Dejah moved into the room, her crimson fingers tracing the edge of a sensor panel on the wall. “A chaotic one, perhaps. But yours.” She activated a soft, ambient glow that didn’t reach the room’s corners. “Do you want to proceed? The offer stands. The safe word stands.”
Diana turned. The memory of Hippolyta’s oil-slick hands was a phantom pressure on her skin. The public, laughing release Beatriz found seemed galaxies away. This was a narrow, specific door. She walked toward the nearest frame, her steps silent on the deck.
“Yes.” The word was air, barely voiced. “But… how does it work? My terms.”
Dejah approached, her expression one of focused calibration. “We set a duration. One hour. The restraints will hold you, immobilize you completely. I will monitor your vitals from here.” She tapped a command into the wall panel, and a holographic display sprang to life, showing two blank, ready body outlines. “No pain. No interrogation. Just… containment. Your mind will provide the drama.”
“One hour,” Diana repeated, as if testing the weight of sixty minutes in utter helplessness. It felt both an eternity and no time at all. She looked at the waiting clamps. “What will you do?”
“Observe. Take notes. Ensure your cardiovascular rhythm remains within safe parameters.” Dejah’s lips quirked. “And perhaps read a technical manual on ion thrusters. I am multi-faceted.”
A shaky laugh escaped Diana. It broke some of the tension coiling in her shoulders. “You are ridiculous.”
“I am thorough.” Dejah’s dark eyes held hers. “Are you ready, Princess?”
Diana inhaled, the air cool in her lungs. She thought of the cliff, and the jump. She stepped forward, placing her back against the cold, vertical beam of the X. The metal was a shock, a stark contrast to the remembered warmth of the sun, of Beatriz’s flames, of the temple’s oils.
The metal was a shock, a stark contrast to the remembered warmth of the sun, of Beatriz’s flames, of the temple’s oils. It was uncompromising reality. Diana positioned herself against the frame, aligning her spine with the cold central column. She spread her arms along the upper beams, palms facing outward in a gesture of surreal openness.
“Initiate sequence,” Dejah said, her voice cool and clear from across the room.
A soft hydraulic hum filled the space. Diana’s heart hammered against her ribs, a wild drum screaming for her to run. She didn’t. The first pair of clamps, padded with cool, compliant gel, descended from the upper arms of the X. They closed over her wrists with a definitive click-hiss. The sound was a key turning in a lock deep inside her. Her muscles tensed instinctively, a surge of Amazonian strength testing the restraint. It held, immovable. The fight drained out of her, leaving a hollow, trembling anticipation.
“Vitals elevated but within parameters,” Dejah noted, her eyes on the holographic display. “Proceeding.”
The leg clamps ascended from the lower beams. Diana guided her feet into position, each movement feeling deliberate and slow, as if wading through deep water. The clamps sealed around her ankles with the same final click-hiss. Now she was anchored at four points. Her breath came quicker, pluming faintly in the jet’s climate-controlled air. The exposure was total, her body a taut, naked star against the unforgiving geometry.
“Final restraint,” Dejah announced. Her tone was flat, informational, which somehow made it more intense.
The torso clamp activated. A broad band of the same padded alloy emerged from the junction of the X. It slid smoothly across her midsection, just beneath her breasts. It made contact, and with a firm, inexorable pressure, it tightened. Diana gasped as it locked her flush against the vertical beam, eliminating any last shred of mobility. The CLUNK of the final lock engaging was deeper, resonant.
She was in. A tight X-shape. Held.
For a moment, there was only the hum of the ship and the roar of her own pulse in her ears. The sensation was absolute. She could not twitch a finger, could not shift a hip. The cool pressure of the restraints was a constant, precise map of her captivity. This was it. The exact physical truth of her nightmare, recreated by her own choice.
“Gods,” she breathed, the word shuddering out of her.
“Comfort?” Dejah asked, stepping closer now. Her crimson eyes scanned Diana’s body, clinical, assessing for chafing or immediate distress.
“It’s… not about comfort.” Diana’s voice sounded strange to her—higher, thinner. The vulnerability was a live wire. Every inch of her skin felt hyper-aware, waiting for a touch that didn’t come. “It’s so… exact.”
“That is the purpose. To eliminate variables.” Dejah circled the frame, a scientist observing a fascinating specimen. “Report your subjective state. For the record.”
Diana tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat. “My subjective state is that I am utterly and completely… fixed. I feel the air on every part of me. I can hear my own heartbeat.” She swallowed. “There is a… a panic. It’s small, down deep. But it’s there.”
“Acknowledge the panic. Do not feed it. Observe it as data.” Dejah stopped in front of her. “This is the craving, Diana. The neural pathway. Your body remembers this state and, paradoxically, interprets the absolute lack of control as a form of safety. No decisions. No failures.”
“Safety,” Diana echoed, the word tasting foreign. Her panic was a small, trapped bird fluttering beneath her sternum. But around it, something else was spreading. A profound stillness. The relentless pressure to be Diana Prince, Wonder Woman, princess, symbol—it all hit the unyielding metal and stopped. It couldn’t reach her here. “I see.”
Dejah watched the biometrics on the holo-display stabilize. The initial spike of cortisol was dropping, replaced by a slower, deeper rhythm. “Fascinating. Your physiology is acclimating.”
“It’s just… quiet.” Diana’s head rested back against the beam. She closed her eyes, not to hide, but to feel more. The cool air on her eyelids. The distant, mechanical heartbeat of her own ship. The faint scent of ozone and, underneath it, her own clean sweat. “I hated this. I hated it so much.”
“And now?”
“I still might.” Diana opened her eyes, finding Dejah’s dark, observant gaze. “But it’s a clean hate. It’s not mixed with terror of what comes next. You said one hour. That’s all this is.”
“Precisely.” Dejah nodded. She glanced at the second X-frame, then back at the data stream. A long, silent moment passed. The hum of the jet seemed to grow louder. “My curiosity is not merely academic.”
Diana’s breath hitched. “What do you mean?”
“I have a neural pathway, too.” Dejah’s voice was low, matter-of-fact. She turned from the display and walked toward the empty frame. Her crimson fingers brushed its surface, a mirror of Diana’s own gesture from minutes before. “I have analyzed the data from my own imprisonment. The adaptive response was even more pronounced in me. My people are telepathic. The total sensory deprivation of physical immobilization… it creates a unique echo in the mind. A silence I have not been able to replicate through meditation.”
“Dejah…” Diana’s voice was a whisper.
“For the experiment to be complete, the conditions must be symmetrical.” Dejah looked over her shoulder, and for the first time, Diana saw not just the scientist, but the fellow survivor. A shared, grim understanding passed between them. “Also, you should not have to be alone in this particular quiet.”
DEJAH FOLLOWS SUIT; SHE POSITIONS AND BINDS HERSELF IN THE SECOND X-FRAME. THE CLAMPS LOCKING HER ARMS, LEGS, AND TORSO INTO A SIMILAR TIGHT X-SHAPE.
She moved with efficient grace, aligning her red-skinned form against the cold alloy. “Initiate sequence for frame two,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the chamber. The hydraulic hum returned. The wrist clamps descended first. Dejah did not flinch as they sealed with their definitive click-hiss. She simply watched them close, her face a mask of focused acceptance.
The leg clamps rose. She placed her feet, and they locked. Finally, the broad torso band slid across her lean abdomen, just below the subtle curve of her breasts, and tightened until it fit snugly. The final CLUNK echoed Diana’s own.
Then, there was only the hum.
They hung side-by-side, a pair of exquisite, vulnerable stars—one gold and blue, one crimson and shadow. The dynamic in the room shifted irrevocably. The observer was gone. Now it was just the two of them, occupying the same stark reality.
Diana turned her head, the only movement she could make. She saw the elegant line of Dejah’s profile, the way her black hair fell against the metal. “Your vitals?”
“I have disengaged the external monitor for my frame,” Dejah said, staring straight ahead. Her voice was calm, but a new tension lived in it. “I will rely on your report. And my own senses.”
“Why?”
“Because data is a distraction from the experience.” Dejah finally turned her head, their eyes meeting in the shared space between the frames. “You were right. It is… exact.”
A shaky laugh escaped Diana. “Told you.”
They lapsed into silence. But this silence was different. It was shared, charged. Diana could hear Dejah’s breathing, a slow, deliberate rhythm she began to match. The initial, isolating shock of bondage softened at the edges, warmed by the presence of another soul in the same impossible state. She wasn’t a specimen. They were partners in a deeply strange dive.
“The silence in my head is… louder,” Dejah confessed after several minutes. Her analytical tone had frayed, revealing something more raw beneath. “On Barsoom, there is always the low hum of the thought-waves of others. Even in solitude. Here, there is only the hum of your ship. And you.”
“What do you hear from me?” Diana asked, her voice small.
“Not thoughts. Your people’s minds are frustratingly closed. But I hear… the echo of your stillness.” Dejah shifted minutely, a testing of the immovable restraints. “It is not peaceful. But it is focused. A single point of pressure, like a star before it collapses.”
“That’s how it feels.” Diana let out a long breath. The panic-bird had settled, asleep. In its place was a weary, heavy acceptance. Her muscles, which had been taut with the instinct to fight, finally relaxed. The frame held her entire weight. She had never realized how much energy she spent simply holding herself up, holding herself together. “I’m not fighting it.”
“Good.” Dejah’s voice was softer now. “Neither am I.”
Time lost its shape. It was measured only by the slow circulation of air over skin, the occasional creak of the ship’s hull, the synchronized rhythm of their breathing. Diana’s mind, freed from its usual churn, began to drift. It didn’t go to dark places. It went to the feel of the sun that afternoon. To the sound of Beatriz’s laugh in the tavern. To the impossible, oil-slick sensation of her mother’s hands, which now felt less like a violation and more like a brutal, misguided form of love.
The craving was being satisfied, not by humiliation, but by a relentless, neutral fact. She was here. She could not move. And she was okay.
“Diana.” Dejah’s voice cut through the quiet, not loud, but urgent.
“Yes?”
“I understand the joke now. The one we made.” Dejah turned her head again. In the low light, her dark eyes were vast, reflecting the faint glow of the control panels. “This is the most honest relationship I have had. No titles. No duties. No lies of clothing or posture. Just this.”
Diana felt a warmth that had nothing to do with plasma or magic. It was a connection, forged in shared vulnerability. “What does that make us?”
“Survivors,” Dejah said simply. “Floating in the same quiet.”
A soft, dual chime resonated through the room. The hour was up.
The clamps on both frames disengaged with a synchronized series of hisses. The torso bands retracted first, then the ankles, finally the wrists. The release was as shocking as the capture. Diana’s knees buckled, her muscles unused to bearing weight. She stumbled forward a step, catching herself on the edge of her own frame. Dejah descended more gracefully, landing in a slight crouch before straightening.
They stood, naked and unbound, in the center of the room. The air felt different on Diana’s skin—lighter, but somehow less. The immense, quiet pressure was gone. She felt untethered.
She looked at her wrists. The faint, temporary impressions of the padding were there. She didn’t cover them. She looked at Dejah, who was examining her own arms with a scientist’s eye, tracing the lines.
“The data?” Diana asked, her voice rough.
Dejah met her gaze. A slow, real smile touched her lips, one Diana had rarely seen. “Inconclusive. And profoundly significant.” She stepped closer, reaching out. Her crimson fingers didn’t grasp or pull. They simply rested, warm and solid, on Diana’s shoulder. A point of contact. An anchor. “How do you feel?”
Diana leaned into the touch. The ghost of the frame was still on her skin, but it was just a memory now, not a command. “I feel… here.” She placed her own hand over Dejah’s. “And so do you.”