{

Chapter 7: The roleplay

The silence after the director left was a living thing. It pulsed between us, thick with the scent of cheap lemon and our own spent sweat. Giada didn’t move from her lean against the sink. Her amber eyes held mine, and in them I saw no hesitation, only a slow-burning focus that made my skin prickle.

“Well,” she finally said, her voice dropping into a register that was all Naples, warm and rough at the edges. “Allora?”

The shift to Italian was deliberate. It carved a private space in the grimy little room. So?

“Allora,” I echoed, my own Milanese accent cooler, more clipped. “He’s offering us a toy box.”

“He’s offering us a key,” she corrected softly. She pushed off the sink and took a single step closer. The space between us crackled. “Do you want to see what it unlocks?”

I thought of the man with the espresso machine, of all the men before him who wanted something polite, manageable, and terminally shallow. I thought of my own curated performance of confidence, the armor I wore every day. This—this was the opposite. This was standing before a woman nine years my junior, my skin still marked from her mouth, and saying yes to the unknown.

“Yes,” I said.

A faint, triumphant smile touched her lips. “Good.” She turned and opened the bathroom door. The hallway was empty, the studio now quiet, just the distant hum of a refrigerator somewhere. She walked with a new authority, her bare feet silent on the linoleum. I followed, my silk robe whispering around my legs.

She led me past the main set, now dark and ghostly with shrouded equipment, to a different door I hadn’t noticed. It was unmarked. She pushed it open.

The backroom was a confession. It wasn’t a sleek boutique; it was a storage closet turned den of iniquity, crowded and real. Shelves bowed under the weight of boxes labeled in fading marker: ROPES, GAGS, CLIPS. A rack held garments of latex and leather, smelling strongly of rubber and polish. On a low table, a jumble of silicone toys in various flesh tones lay beside a pile of well-thumbed magazines, their pages glossy with more than ink. The air was a complex layer cake of scents: aged leather, the sharpness of sweat not quite cleaned from straps, the faint, ever-present metallic whisper of the studio’s hidden cameras, their tiny red lights dark now like sleeping eyes.

Giada moved into the center of the room as if she owned it. She surveyed the shelves, her head tilted. I lingered near the door, my arms crossed over my chest, watching her. The nervous art student was entirely gone. In her place was a connoisseur.

“He wasn’t lying,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. She ran a finger along a row of collars hanging from a pegboard. Leather, neoprene, one with delicate silver studs.

My heart was a frantic bird against my ribs. This was really happening. Not on a set with a director calling cut. Here, in the quiet.

She selected one. It was simple. Wide, black leather, worn soft at the edges, with a solid O-ring at the front and a heavy buckle. It looked serious. It looked used. She held it in both hands, weighing it, then turned to me.

“Vieni qui,” she said. Come here.

I obeyed. The few steps across the scuffed floor felt monumental. I stopped before her, close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises.

She didn’t move to put it on me. Not yet. She held it between us, a question.

“You understand what this means?” she asked, still in Italian. Her voice was low, almost casual, but her gaze was unwavering. “Right now, in this room. It’s not for a film. It’s for me. And for you.”

“I understand.”

“Say it.” Her tone didn’t change, but the command was clear.

I took a slow breath. “It’s for you. And for me.”

A slight nod. Then her expression shifted, a playful, dangerous light entering her eyes. “You looked so sure of yourself when you walked in today. All that confidence. That beautiful, sharp smile.” She took a half-step closer. The leather of the collar brushed against the lapel of my robe. “You were pretending, vero? Little fake.”

The Italian diminutive-slang landed like a slap and a caress. Puttanella. It wasn’t a word you used politely. It was street, it was rough, it was devastatingly intimate. My face flushed hot. It was an accusation, an endearment, a reduction and an acknowledgment all at once. It saw through every pretense.

I couldn’t speak. My throat tightened.

“My little fake,” she repeated, her voice a whisper now. “My eager student. Do you still want the lesson?”

I managed a nod, my eyes stinging with a sudden, bewildering rush of emotion. Shame, excitement, relief—all of it churned inside me.

“Then hold still.”

My chin lifted instinctively. I felt the cool, supple leather encircle my throat. She was efficient, her fingers nimble as she threaded the strap through the buckle. The sound of it tightening was loud in the quiet room: a crisp, final creak. The weight was immediate and profound. Not heavy, but present. A constant, unignorable pressure. A symbol that was now a physical fact.

She fastened it, letting the end of the strap fall. Her fingertips brushed the skin under the edge, checking the fit. It was snug, not choking. A claiming.

I felt naked in a way the film had never achieved. The robe, the makeup, my age, my experience—it all fell away. Under the leather, I was simply hers.

Giada admired her work, her head tilted. Then she reached for the leash hanging next to where the collar had been. It was a matching black leather lead with a heavy clip. With a soft click, she fastened it to the O-ring.

The connection was visceral. A literal tether. She let the leash hang loose between us, a black arc against the floor.

“Perfetto,” she breathed, a real smile breaking through her concentration. She looked exhilarated.

I touched the collar with my fingers, feeling the unfamiliar ridge against my throat. The reality of it was staggering. “It’s… just for tonight,” I said, the words sounding fragile, a feeble attempt to anchor myself to some semblance of my old world.

Giada’s smile didn’t fade. She gathered the leash loosely in her hand, not pulling, just holding. Her doe-like eyes met mine, and in them I saw a depth of will that made my knees feel weak.

“Cara,” she said softly, giving the leash the gentlest, most infinitesimal tug. Just enough to make the collar press into my skin. “We’ll see.”