Chapter 9: Floor Show
The silence in the martini bar felt adhesive, clinging to them even as the synth-pop chirped on. Wanda’s chatter was a monologue meant to fill a crater she sensed but couldn’t see. Agatha watched Rio’s back disappear into the crowd, a strange hollow opening up beneath her sternum. She swirled the ice in her empty glass.
“Well, she certainly left in a hurry,” Wanda sighed, deflating. “I was going to suggest the dance club. They’re doing ‘Throwback Thursday’ or ‘Tropical Tuesday’ or some other alliterative atrocity. Might be fun.”
“Fun,” Agatha echoed, the word tasting like ash. The hollowness was morphing into a sharp, possessive ache. Rio, walking away with that vulnerability still naked in her eyes, was unacceptable. She needed to reclaim her. To define the terms again, before the looming end did it for them.
“Let’s go,” Agatha said, standing abruptly.
The dance club was a sensory bludgeoning. Strobing lights carved the undulating crowd into frantic, disjointed snapshots. The bass wasn’t heard so much as felt in the teeth and the diaphragm. Wanda brightened immediately, swaying into the rhythm with unselfconscious joy. Agatha scanned the room, a hunter in the artificial jungle.
She found Rio at the far end of the long, gleaming bar, sipping a glass of water, her profile illuminated by the pulsing neon of a cocktail sign. She was watching the dance floor, but her eyes were distant, unseeing. Agatha moved through the crowd, Wanda trailing behind her.
“There you are!” Wanda yelled over the music, sliding onto a stool next to Rio. “Headache better?”
Rio flinched, as if startled from a deep thought. “What? Oh. Yeah. Fine.”
Agatha took the stool on Rio’s other side, their knees not touching. The space between them hummed with a different frequency than the music. She ordered a gin and tonic, something clear and sharp.
Wanda was soon engrossed in a conversation with a man in a floral shirt about the merits of 90s Eurodance. Agatha sipped her drink, waiting. Rio shifted, reaching for her water glass. As she pulled it toward her, her elbow jerked—a clumsy, unnatural movement. The glass tipped, and a cascade of cold water and ice cubes sloshed directly into Agatha’s lap, soaking the dark linen of her trousers.
“Oh, fuck! Shit, Agatha, I’m so sorry!” Rio gasped, her eyes wide with a panic that seemed to go far beyond spilled water. She grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser, dabbing clumsily at Agatha’s thigh.
Agatha went very still. The cold shock against her skin was a clarion call. She looked down at Rio’s frantic hands, then up at her face. The vulnerability was gone, masked by a performative, bratty carelessness. A challenge. A plea.
Under the cover of the bar, obscured by its solid front, Agatha’s hand shot out. She didn’t dab. She pinched the sensitive skin of Rio’s inner thigh, right above the knee, twisting hard.
Rio’s breath hitched audibly, a sharp, pained intake. Her dabbing hands froze.
“Clumsy,” Agatha said, her voice flat and low, cutting through the thumping bass.
“It was an accident,” Rio whispered, her eyes locked on Agatha’s. A faint, defiant spark had returned to them.
“Was it?” Agatha released the pinch, letting her fingers trail slowly, possessively, up Rio’s thigh before withdrawing her hand. The soaked fabric of her own trousers clung unpleasantly to her skin. “Wanda, be a darling and fetch some proper napkins from the bartender? And maybe a club soda for the stain.”
“On it!” Wanda chirped, swiveling away to flag down the busy tender.
The moment Wanda’s attention was diverted, Agatha moved. She stood, her hand clamping around Rio’s wrist with an iron grip. “Come with me.”
She didn’t ask. She pulled Rio off the stool and into the chaotic swirl of bodies, not toward the exit, but deeper into the club’s belly, toward the raised DJ booth where the sound was loudest, the shadows deepest. In a corner shrouded by a hanging curtain of PVC strips and a giant, defunct speaker, she pushed Rio against the wall. The music here was a physical pressure, a throbbing wall that promised privacy.
Agatha crowded into her space, one hand planted on the wall by Rio’s head. “That,” she snarled, her mouth close to Rio’s ear, “was not an accident. You’re begging for it.”
Rio’s chest heaved. She swallowed, her defiance melting into something hotter, more yielding. “Maybe I am.”
“You want my attention? You have it. For the next twelve hours.” Agatha’s voice was a blade wrapped in velvet. “From this moment until tomorrow morning, you exist for one purpose. My pleasure. You will not come. You will not ask to come. You will be silent unless I tell you to speak. You will obey. Do you understand?”
A full-body shudder wracked Rio. Her eyes were glazed, her lips parted. She nodded, a quick, desperate jerk of her chin.
“Use your words.”
“Yes,” Rio breathed. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good.” Agatha’s gaze dropped down Rio’s body. “On your knees.”
Rio sank down without hesitation, the PVC strips whispering against her back. The floor was sticky. She didn’t seem to care. She looked up, the strobing lights flashing across her face—submission and raw hunger etched into every feature.
Agatha unbuttoned her soaked trousers, pushed them and her underwear down just enough. She wasn’t gentle. She fisted a hand in Rio’s hair, guiding her forward. “You know what to do. No hands. Just that clever mouth.”
Rio leaned in, her breath hot against Agatha’s skin. She started slow, a flat, wet lick from opening to clit, making Agatha jerk. Then her mouth closed over her, and she dove in with a desperate concentration that was its own kind of worship. Her tongue was relentless, spearing inside, then circling her clit with firm, practiced pressure.
Agatha threw her head back against the wall, the bass vibrating through her skull. She kept her grip in Rio’s hair, controlling the pace, the pressure. This was different from the messy passion of the bathroom. This was ceremonial. A claiming. Rio was utterly focused, a instrument being played, her every lick and suck aimed solely at pulling the tension from Agatha’s body, at winding her tighter.
“Just like that,” Agatha grunted, her hips pushing forward. “You’re a good fucking toy. Nothing else.”
Rio moaned around her, the vibration shooting a bolt of pure lightning up Agatha’s spine. The obscene, wet sounds were swallowed by the music, a secret liturgy in the dark. Agatha could feel the coiling tension in her own gut, a knot being pulled taut by that devoted, forbidden mouth. She was close, teetering on the edge, the noise and the shadows and the utter surrender beneath her combining into a single, white-hot point.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she warned, her voice fraying.
Rio’s answer was to slide a hand up Agatha’s thigh—a breach of rules. But instead of pushing it away, Agatha ground down harder, the submission and the slight rebellion fusing into something even more potent. It was the final trigger.
Agatha came with a choked, silent scream, her body buckling, her grip on Rio’s hair turning vise-like, holding her in place as she pulsed against her tongue. Waves of pleasure, sharp and clean, wrecked through her. Rio stayed there, drinking her down, until the last tremor subsided.
Slowly, Agatha straightened. She looked down at Rio, kneeling in the grime, lips swollen and glistening, eyes dark and waiting. She pulled her clothes back into place, the damp fabric clinging. She didn’t thank her. That wasn’t part of the deal.
She reached down, cupping Rio’s chin, smearing a thumb across her wet lips. “Stand up.”
Rio rose, unsteady on her knees.
“For the next twelve hours,” Agatha repeated, low and final. “Mine.”
From across the club, Wanda stood by the bar, a pile of napkins and a bottle of club soda in hand, scanning the writhing crowd with a confused frown. She was completely, blessedly, unaware of the covenant that had just been sealed in the shadows. The clock, for Agatha, had just started ticking down.
Agatha held Rio’s chin for a beat longer, a final imprint of her authority, before releasing her. The synthetic chill of the club’s air conditioning met the sweat on her skin. Rio’s lips were still parted, her breathing ragged from the intensity of the encounter and the compromised air.
“We should find Wanda,” Agatha said, her voice already assuming a terrible normalcy. “She has napkins.”
Rio nodded, blinking as if surfacing from deep water. She smoothed her own clothes, a ghost of her usual composure reassembling itself layer by layer. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse but laced with a new, knowing texture. “The napkins are a lost cause. But I know a place where stains won’t matter.”
They found Wanda by the bar, looking concerned. “There you are! I got sidetracked by a very passionate argument about Ace of Base. I think he’s in love with me. Or the band. It’s unclear.” She thrust the napkins and club soda at Agatha. “Here, for the… damp.”
“It’s fine,” Agatha said, taking the items and setting them aside, useless. “The air will dry it.”
Wanda’s eyes darted between them, sensing the altered atmosphere. “So. Dancing? More terrible drinks? What’s the move, captains?”
Rio leaned against the bar, the red and blue lights sliding over the sharp planes of her face. She looked at Agatha, not Wanda. A sly, almost imperceptible smile touched her mouth. “I’m actually feeling that headache returning. I think I’ll turn in.”
Disappointment sagged Wanda’s shoulders. “Oh. Right. Of course.”
“But Agatha,” Rio continued, her tone conversational, dipping just low enough for the two of them to catch over the thrumming bass. “You mentioned wanting to see that private observation lounge on Deck 11. The one that’s always locked. My keycard might work.” She paused, letting the implication hang in the perfume-and-sweat-charged air. “It’s very quiet. Very secluded. No one would disturb you. You could read, or… whatever you like. For as long as you like. Twelve hours. More, even.”
The challenge, the offering, was exquisite. Rio was not just submitting; she was curating the submission, using her resources, her knowledge of the ship’s secrets, to build her own cage. Agatha felt a fresh, liquid heat pool beneath the damp fabric of her trousers.
“An observation lounge?” Wanda perked up. “Sounds fancy. Is there a minimum spend? Is there a sad pianist?”
“No pianist,” Rio said, her eyes still locked with Agatha’s. “Just stars. And silence.”
Agatha nodded once. “Show me.”
The journey was a study in silent tension. They extracted themselves from Wanda, who was easily mollified with a promise of brunch and a new, intriguing man in a floral shirt to dissect. The elevator was a mirrored cube moving through the ship’s spine. They didn’t touch. They didn’t speak. Their reflections did the talking—Agatha’s controlled stillness, Rio’s anticipatory flush, the space between them vibrating.
Deck 11 was a corridor of suites, hushed and carpeted. At the very end was an unmarked door. Rio produced a black keycard from her pocket, not the standard blue passenger issue. A soft green light blinked, and the lock clicked with a sound of profound finality.
The room beyond was not a lounge. It was a chamber.
It was all windows, a panoramic arc of black glass currently showing the infinite, star-speckled void of the Mediterranean night. The only light came from a single, low-standing LED strip that outlined a sprawling, modern chaise longer than a bed. The floors were polished concrete, the walls bare. It was cold, severe, and breathtaking.
“My escape pod,” Rio said softly, closing the door. The oceanic silence of the ship at night enveloped them, a deep mechanical hum felt in the bones. “The CEO suite. I bought out the access for the week.”
Agatha walked to the window, her damp shoes silent on the hard floor. The universe sprawled before her, indifferent and magnificent. “No one can get in?”
“No one.”
“And no one would hear?”
“Not a sound.”
Agatha turned from the cosmos. In the dim glacial light, Rio was a silhouette waiting for a command. The twelve-hour covenant stretched before them, a blank canvas of time. “Take off your clothes,” Agatha said, her voice echoing softly in the vast space. “Everything. Then kneel in the center of the room.”
Rio obeyed. The rustle of fabric, the soft click of a buckle, the whisper of jeans sliding down legs. She folded each item with a deliberate care that felt like ritual. Soon, she was just a pale shape in the gloom, kneeling on the concrete, her head bowed, the lines of her back and ass etched by the faint light from the window.
Agatha approached slowly, circling her. The voyeur, now utterly seen. “You wanted my attention,” she murmured. “You have it. All of it.”
She stopped behind Rio. With one foot, she nudged Rio’s knees apart. A soft, acknowledging sigh escaped Rio’s lips. Agatha ran a single finger down the groove of Rio’s spine, from the knob of her neck to the dip just above her tailbone. Rio shivered.
“This is what you are for now,” Agatha stated. “A thing for my use. A tool for my pleasure. You don’t speak. You don’t ask. You feel.” She brought her hand down in a sharp, sudden smack against Rio’s right buttock. The crack of skin on skin was obscenely loud in the quiet room. A red handprint bloomed in the pale gloom.
Rio gasped, her body jerking forward, but she held her position.
Agatha spanked her again, on the other side, watching the flesh redden and give. She set a rhythm, not frantic, but deliberate and hard. Each impact was a period in a sentence she was writing on Rio’s skin. She watched the red flush spread, watched Rio’s breathing become ragged, heard the soft, choked sounds she tried to swallow. Agatha’s own hand stung, a bright, delicious pain that traveled up her wrist.
She stopped when the pale skin was a uniform, heated pink. She trailed her fingers over the warmth, feeling the heat radiate. Then she slid two fingers through the slickness she found between Rio’s legs. Rio cried out, a sharp, broken sound.
“Quiet,” Agatha whispered, circling her clit slowly. “You have no need for sounds unless I tell you to make them.”
She withdrew her fingers, shiny and wet, and brought them to Rio’s mouth. “Clean them.”
Rio turned her head, her mouth opening obediently. Her tongue, hot and soft, licked Agatha’s fingers clean with a desperate thoroughness that sent a jolt straight to Agatha’s core. The submission was absolute, degrading, and infinitely hot.
Agatha unbuttoned her own still-damp trousers, pushed them down her hips. She stepped closer, until she could feel the heat from Rio’s punished skin. She guided herself, not inside, but against her, sliding through the wetness, coating herself. Rio shuddered violently, a low whine trapped in her throat.
“You want this inside you?” Agatha breathed, the head of her cock nudging at Rio’s entrance.
A frantic, eager nod.
“Use your words.”
“Yes. Please. Please, Agatha.”
The raw need in the plea shattered the last of Agatha’s restraint. She gripped Rio’s hips, her fingers digging into the tender, marked flesh, and pushed in with one long, brutal stroke. Rio was impossibly tight, searing hot, and soaked. She cried out, the sound echoing off the windows to the stars.
Agatha set a relentless pace, each thrust a claim, each withdrawal a theft. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, of ragged breathing, of the low, creaking protest of the chaise nearby that Agatha used for leverage. She fucked her with a focused, driving intensity, her eyes on the connected space between their bodies, on the way Rio was forced to take every inch.
“You’re mine,” Agatha grunted, her own climax coiling, a tight spring in her gut. “For these hours, you’re just a hole for me to use. My perfect, filthy hole.”
Rio’s only response was a sob, her body rocking forward with each deep drive. Agatha could feel the internal fluttering, the involuntary clenching that meant Rio was teetering on the edge.
She stopped abruptly, pulling out completely.
Rio whimpered, a sound of pure, anguished loss, her body straining back, seeking the fullness again.
“Did I say you could come?” Agatha’s voice was a blade.
“N-no.”
“Then you don’t.” Agatha stepped back. “On your back. On the floor. Now.”
Rio moved clumsily, fluidly, her body gleaming with a light sweat in the ambient glow. She lay back on the cool concrete, her chest heaving, her knees falling open in a lewd, inviting display. The marks on her ass were darker now against the hard floor.
Agatha stood over her, a dark outline against the starfield. She lowered herself, not onto her, but straddling her face. “Your mouth. Until I say stop.”
Rio’s hands came up to grip Agatha’s thighs, but Agatha slapped them away. “I didn’t say you could touch.”
The hands fell back to the concrete with a soft thud. Then Rio lifted her head, her tongue finding Agatha’s center with an eager, starving desperation. This was different from the club. This was slower, deeper, a languid exploration. Agatha braced her hands on the window glass, cool against her palms, and looked out at the endless night as Rio licked and sucked her with a devotion that felt like annihilation.
She let the pleasure build slowly, a rising tide. She let Rio feel every tremor, every hitch of breath. She gave herself over to the sensation of being utterly served, completely consumed. The orgasm, when it finally broke, was a silent, expanding supernova behind her eyes. Her body went rigid, her thighs clamping around Rio’s head as she pulsed against her mouth, wave after wave of pure, unadulterated release.
She collapsed to the side, rolling onto the floor beside Rio, both of them breathless on the cold concrete under the indifferent stars. The only sound was their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal.
After a long moment, Agatha turned her head. Rio was looking at her, her eyes liquid and dark, her mouth still glistening. A single, traitorous tear had tracked from the corner of her eye into her hairline.
Agatha reached out, wiping it away with her thumb. The gesture was startling in its tenderness after the brutality. “The twelve hours,” she said, her voice rough, “have only just begun.”