Chapter 6 Kneeling by Request
Iplanted my boots on the kennel tiles and kept my spine straight.
Madame Corvi stood three paces off with my collar dangling from two fingers like she had picked it up off the floor.
No latch on the cage behind me. Day thirty.
Sixty days left on a clock that stopped meaning anything on day six, and my throat still tightened at the bare hook on the trophy wall through the open arch.
"You sent for me," I said.
"I sent for the pet who used to crawl when the bell rang." Her voice stayed level. "Stand there if you want. I will not put that on a man who will not ask for it."
Heat crawled up my neck. My dick stirred anyway, traitor, hungry for the weight I had taken off an hour ago in her study. I could walk to the estate gate. I could call a car. The ledger said paid in full. Anonymous. Week one.
"Force me," I said. "You did it before. Do it now."
Mercer came through the side door with a grooming kit in one hand and stopped when she saw my face. Middle-aged, blunt hands, eyes that did not blink at naked men on leads. She set the kit on the bench and folded her arms.
"Not today," Madame Corvi said. "Mercer is here to witness that I am not collecting a debt anymore. There is no lien on your body, Ethan."
Mercer nodded once. "He reads clean on the books, Madame."
The words landed. Clean. Free. My knees wanted to buckle so I would not have to choose what came next. I locked my legs harder.
"You trained me," I said. "You locked the schedule in my bones. You think I can just stand here and pretend I do not need the bell, the cage, your hand on the back of my neck?"
"I think you can walk out." She stepped closer. Leather and soap on her skin, that cold perfume that lived in the grooming room. "I have been waiting to see what you would do with a door that was always open. This is the answer so far. Defiance dressed as demand."
Mercer's gaze stayed on my cock, half-hard in the open air of the wing. Shame lit my face and my shaft twitched fuller.
"Look at him," Madame Corvi said without turning. "Still leaks for the room before anyone touches him."
"I am not leaking for you," I lied.
"You are leaking for the routine." She tapped the collar. "Say which."
My mouth went dry. The cages along the wall held their heat; animal musk and bleach and the ghost of every man who had been washed and plugged and sent back to his pad. I breathed it in and hated how tight my balls pulled with want.
Mercer clicked her tongue. "If he is free, I can prep the next intake in bay four. Collar inventory needs updating unless he is staying on protocol."
"He will tell us," Madame Corvi said.
Bay four. Next intake. Livestock on a conveyor while I stood here playing the hero who refused to kneel. My chest heaved. Thirty-three years old and I had built houses with my name on the truck. Now my name was a tag and my house was a cage and the worst part was I missed the tag weight.
"I hate that you knew," I said. "Weeks of me thinking I had no choice."
"I know." She held the collar out. "And you kept coming back to the bell. You kept spreading your legs for the wand. You kept thanking me for orgasms you pretended were tax. That was always you."
The intrusive thought came sharp: walk out, prove her wrong, be the contractor again. My feet stayed planted. The tiles were warm under my soles. Heated floor. They took care of pets here.
"Kneel," she said.
I shook my head.
Mercer exhaled through her nose. "Madame, the afternoon block is grooming and plug check. If he is not on the floor, I will log idle time against the wing."
"Log it against me," I snapped.
Madame Corvi's mouth curved, thin. "Ethan wants a fight. Give him one he cannot win with pride."
She set the collar on the bench and walked to the trophy arch. Her fingers traced an empty hook, then a collar hung with a silver tag I could not read from here. A man who had finished ninety days and walked. Freed hardware. Monument.
"Sixty days," she said. "You could hang yours there and leave with Mercer as witness that you chose release. Or you could stay. But I will not put this on you because a ledger used to scare you. You say what you want out loud. Mercer hears it. I hear it. Then we proceed."
The wing went quiet except for the hum of the heaters. My heartbeat thudded in my ears. Craving sat in my gut like a stone I could not pass.
"You want me to beg," I said.
"I want you to tell the truth without hiding behind force I am no longer selling."
Mercer shifted. "Say it plain, boy. I have brushes to soak."
Boy. The word slid under my skin. I was older than her. Did not matter here.
My voice cracked when I tried again. "I want the schedule."
"More," Madame Corvi said.
"The collar. The cage pad. The grooming. The plug checks." Each item cost me air. "I want you to use me when you decide. I want the bell. I want to stay your pet."
Mercer's eyebrows lifted. She looked at Madame Corvi. "That is a voluntary retention statement."
"Write it in the wing log after," Madame Corvi said. "Date and time."
My knees hit the tile before my brain caught up, the impact jarring my thighs. Relief slammed through me so hard my eyes stung. I had said it. No ledger. No excuse. Just my mouth owning the filth I had been living.
"Good," she said. "Hands behind your neck."
I laced my fingers at my nape. She picked up the collar and buckled it around my throat. The weight dropped into place, familiar, obscene on a free man. Click. My whole body sighed.
"You belong in this room now," she said.
Mercer uncapped a marker and scratched notes on her clipboard. "Voluntary. Day thirty. Witness Mercer."
The shame of being recorded made my cock jump. Madame Corvi hooked two fingers under the collar and tugged me toward the grooming alcove. Mercer followed with the kit. Mirrors on three sides. Drain in the floor. Bench with stirrups I had learned not to flinch at.
"Strip," Madame Corvi said.
I peeled off the thin shift they gave pets. Naked in the mirrors, collar black against my skin, dick stiff and beading at the tip. Mercer set out towels, lube, a black plug thick as her wrist at the base.
"Spread on the bench," Madame Corvi said. "Feet in the rests."
I climbed up and lay back. Cold leather under my shoulder blades. She strapped my wrists to the sides and my ankles into the stirrups, spread wide. Exposure cold and hot at once. Mercer washed my balls and shaft with warm cloth, matter-of-fact, like I was another piece of equipment due service.
"He is slick already," Mercer said.
"He has been slick since he stood in the center and refused to kneel," Madame Corvi replied.
She lubed the plug and pressed it to my asshole without preamble. I grunted. The stretch burned. She worked it in slow until the base settled flush and my hole clenched around the plug's neck.
"Breathe," she said.
I panted. The fullness sat heavy inside me, a constant pressure that made my dick drool on my belly.
Mercer held a wand, the kind that had ruined me on other days. "Use now or after?"
"Now," Madame Corvi said. "He asked for maintenance."
She turned the wand on low and rested the round head against my balls, then dragged it up the underside of my shaft. I bucked against the straps. Pleasure climbed fast, too fast, shame riding it because Mercer watched my hole stuffed and my cock twitch.
"Stay still," Madame Corvi said. "You do not get to perform for me today. You take what you requested."
She twisted the plug. Nerves fired. I moaned, raw, echoing off the mirrors.
"Tell Mercer what you are," Madame Corvi said.
"A pet," I gasped. "Her pet. A kept hole on the schedule."
Mercer made a sound that might have been approval. "Plug seated. No bleeding. Next is deep clean and stretch."
Madame Corvi swapped the plug for her fingers, two, then three, opening me with clinical patience. The slick sounds filled the room. My asshole burned and yielded. She scissored inside me until I was loose and shaking.
"You will take my cock in your ass today," she said. "Long and slow. No rush. You asked for the routine, so you get the full block."
She stepped into the harness I had not seen her buckle on under her skirt. Black silicone, curved, girth that made my stomach flip. She lined up and pushed.
I screamed into my teeth. The stretch split me open. She fed it in without stopping until her hips met my spread cheeks. Full. Stuffed. Owned in front of a witness with a clipboard.
"Take it," she said. "Every inch you chose."
She pulled back and drove in again. Slow strokes that dragged over my prostate. The wand buzzed on my shaft now, held by Mercer while Madame Corvi fucked my ass. Two hands on me that were not mine. My body belonged to the room I had asked to keep.
"Look in the mirror," Madame Corvi said.
I turned my face. A collared man, ankles wide, silicone cock buried in his ass, another woman's hand forcing pleasure up his dick. The contractor was gone. This was what I had authored with my own mouth.
"Say thank you," she said.
"Thank you for using my ass," I choked out. "Thank you for keeping me."
Mercer counted nothing. She only watched the drip from my tip hit my ribs. Madame Corvi set a pace that never hurried, never let me crest. Hours compressed into one long drag of friction in my guts, wand circling my frenulum, sweat pooling in the hollow of my throat under the collar.
My thighs trembled. Words broke apart in my skull. More. Too full. Cannot.
"You come when I say," Madame Corvi told me. "Not before."
She rammed deep and held there, grinding. The wand cranked higher. My vision narrowed to her face, Mercer's blank professionalism, my own open mouth in the glass.
"Now," she said.
I came so hard my ass clamped down on her strap. Cum shot across my chest in thick stripes, splashing my chin, dripping into my collar line. I sobbed through it, body jerking in the straps while she kept fucking me through the spasms, milking the orgasm until it hurt.
"Good pet," she murmured, almost soft. Almost kind.
The cruelty of tenderness after ruin made another pulse leak from my spent dick. She eased out. Gape and ache. Cool air on my stretched hole. Mercer swapped the plug back in, sealing the mess inside me.
Madame Corvi unbuckled my wrists. I could not lift my arms. She wiped cum from my skin with a warm towel, slow strokes, like I was worth cleaning.
"Sixty days on the wall clock," she said. "You may still leave at ninety. Mercer will note today as voluntary retention. Every day after, you renew by showing up. No more pretending the cage was locked."
I swallowed. Leather and salt taste on my tongue. "I will show up."
Mercer capped her marker. "Bay four after tea. Wing needs the next collar sized."
Madame Corvi led me by the collar back through the arch. Past heated cages. Past the trophy wall with its row of retired names and one empty hook waiting like a question I had already answered with my knees.
She stopped at my pad. Door open. Blanket folded. Bowl of water.
"Rest," she said. "Evening bell is grooming again. You will take a larger plug and sleep with it in."
My ass throbbed around the silicone already inside me. My spent cock ached. I crawled onto the pad without being told, because my body knew the room before my pride did.
She clicked the gate latch that had never been a lock.
"Sleep, Ethan," she said, and walked away down the corridor, heels measured on tile.
Mercer's voice carried from bay four, calling for an attendant. Another man would arrive soon, fresh debt or fresh surrender, and the wing would smell like soap and fear again. I pressed my cheek to the warm pad and listened to my breath slow.
I had asked for the collar. The debt was gone. The door was open.
I stayed on the floor, plugged, leaking the last of my cum into my belly hair, and waited for the bell I had begged to keep.