8. The Rules of Service
EIGHT
The Rules of Service
The clothes he's provided are simple. Expensive, but simple.
A silk blouse in cream. Tailored slacks in charcoal gray. Underwear, thank God, plain black and perfectly fitted. No bra. The absence registers immediately, silk sliding against my nipples with every movement, and this is deliberate. Everything with him is deliberate.
There's no mirror in my room, which feels like another power play. I have to trust that I look presentable without being able to verify it. Have to walk out of this gilded cage not knowing what he'll see when he looks at me.
Twenty-eight minutes after he left me in the bathroom, I step into the penthouse's main living area.
Sebastian is sitting in a leather chair by the windows, tablet in hand, coffee on the side table. He's dressed now too. Dark slacks, a white shirt open at the collar, barefoot. The casual intimacy of his bare feet against the hardwood floors does something strange to my chest.
He looks up when I enter. Those ice-blue eyes travel over me. The blouse, the slacks, the way the silk moves when I breathe.
"Good." He sets down the tablet. "Come here."
I cross the room. Stop in front of his chair. The power differential is immediate and visceral. Him sitting, me standing, waiting for instruction like a servant awaiting orders.
"My first meeting is in an hour." He checks his watch. "A video call. You'll attend me."
"Attend you how?"
"Kneel beside my chair." He says it so casually. Like he's telling me to pour coffee. "Stay quiet unless addressed. Be available if I need anything."
Kneel.
The word lands like a stone in my stomach.
"For how long?"
"The meeting is scheduled for two hours."
Two hours. On my knees. Beside his chair like a dog.
"Is there—" I stop. Start again. "Is there something else I could do instead?"
His eyebrow rises. Just slightly. "Something else?"
"Kneeling." I force the words out, even though every instinct is screaming at me to shut up, to comply, to not make waves on my first day. "It's... degrading."
"That's rather the point."
"I know." My hands are shaking. I clasp them in front of me to hide the tremor. "I know I can't say no. It's in the contract. I'll do it if you demand it. But?—"
"But?"
"Could we at least discuss it?"
The silence stretches. He's watching me with an expression I can't read. Not angry, not amused, something more complex. Assessing, maybe. Calculating.
"Discuss it," he repeats. "Alright. Make your case."
I wasn't expecting him to agree. I take a breath, try to organize my thoughts.
"It makes me feel less than human." The words come out rougher than I intended. "Like a thing. A piece of furniture. I know I belong to you now. I signed the contract. But there's a difference between being owned and being... erased."
"Erased."
"When I'm kneeling beside your chair, I'm not a person anymore. I'm just—" I struggle for the words. "A decoration. Something to look at. Something that exists to serve without having any... any existence of my own."
He's quiet for a long moment. His fingers tap against the arm of the chair. Once, twice, three times.
"The kneeling serves a purpose." His voice is thoughtful now, not commanding. "It's subservient. It feeds my need for you to serve me. When you're at my feet, I can feel your presence without you demanding my attention. You're available. Accessible. Mine."
"I understand that." I do. In some sick way, I understand exactly why he wants me on my knees. "But it makes me feel like a slave. Not—not yours. Just... a slave. A thing. Dehumanized."
Something shifts in his expression. The calculation gives way to something else. Consideration, maybe. Like he's actually hearing what I'm saying instead of just waiting for me to finish so he can dismiss my concerns.
"There's a difference," I continue, pressing the small advantage, "between submission and erasure. I can submit to you. I will submit to you. That's what I agreed to. But kneeling for hours while you work, doing nothing, being nothing... that doesn't feel like submission. It feels like punishment."
"It's not meant as punishment."
"I know. But that's how it feels."
Another silence. He picks up his coffee, takes a slow sip, sets it down again. The morning light catches his profile, all sharp angles and impossible beauty.
"What would you propose instead?"
I blink. "What?"
"You've made your case. Eloquently, I might add." There's the ghost of something in his voice. Approval? "So what's your counterproposal?"
I hadn't thought this far ahead. I didn't expect to get this far.
"I'll kneel for service." The words come slowly, feeling my way through the negotiation. "When you want—when you want my mouth. Or for—" Heat floods my face. "For funny stuff."
His lips twitch. Actually twitch. "Funny stuff."
"You know what I mean."
"I do." He's definitely amused now. "We're using your vocabulary for kink now, are we? An inside joke. Day one and we already have inside jokes."
I want to hate him for that. For making light of this, for turning my embarrassment into something shared between us. But some small, traitorous part of me is relieved. He's not angry. He's not punishing me for pushing back.
"During your meetings," I press on, "is there something else I could do? Something useful? I can't just sit around doing nothing."
"The Protocol requires proximity." His voice shifts back to educational mode. "Especially during this first week while it builds in your system. We need to be in close contact for it to take effect properly. Distance interferes with the bonding process."
"Bonding process?"
"The Protocol attunes your body to mine. To my voice, my presence, my commands. That attunement requires proximity. Physical nearness. If we spent the first week in separate rooms, the Protocol wouldn't achieve its full effect."
I process this. "So I have to be near you."
"Within arm's reach, ideally. Especially for the first few days."
"But I don't have to be kneeling."
"No." He says it slowly, like he's arriving at the conclusion as he speaks. "I suppose you don't have to be kneeling."
"Then let me do something." The words tumble out, urgent, desperate.
"Anything. I can't just sit there being useless.
It makes me feel like—like a thing. An object.
I've never not worked. My whole life, I've always been doing something, taking care of someone, handling something.
Just sitting there, doing nothing, being decorative. "
"You've never relaxed."
"What?"
"In your entire adult life." He's looking at me differently now. "You've never just... been. Without a task. Without a responsibility. Without someone depending on you."
I open my mouth to argue, then close it again.
He's right.
Since my parents died, I've been in constant motion. Working. Surviving. Taking care of Bennett. There's never been a moment when I wasn't doing something, when I wasn't needed somewhere, when I could just exist without purpose.
"Maybe," Sebastian says quietly, "for the first time in your life, you could try it."
"Try what?"
"Not working. Not producing. Not being useful." He sets down his coffee cup. "Just being."
"I don't know how to do that."
"I know." Something almost soft enters his expression. "That's part of why you're here."
I stare at him. "Part of why—what does that mean?"
"It means you've spent eight years destroying yourself for a brother who doesn't deserve it. You've forgotten that you're allowed to exist for your own sake. To take up space without earning it." He stands, closes the distance between us. "I'm going to teach you."
"By making me kneel at your feet?"
"By making you stop." His hand comes up, cups my jaw. "Stop working. Stop striving. Stop proving your worth through what you do for others. You're mine now. Your only job is to be available to me. Everything else, the constant motion, the endless sacrifice, that ends today."
I don't know what to say. I don't know how to process the idea that my captivity might also be a kind of freedom. That being owned might mean being released from the exhausting burden of earning my existence.
It's insane. It's twisted. It's?—
"We'll compromise." He releases my jaw, steps back. "During meetings, you'll sit beside me. Not kneel. Sit. On a cushion at my feet, close enough to touch. You can read if you like. I'll provide books. Or simply rest. But you stay close, you stay quiet, and you stay available."
A cushion. Books. It's still subservient, still at his feet, but it's not the same as kneeling on bare floor for hours. It's not the same as being nothing.
"And the kneeling?"
"Reserved for service." His eyes darken. "When I want your mouth. When we engage in 'funny stuff,' as you so charmingly put it. When I specifically require your submission in that form." He pauses. "Does that satisfy your concerns?"
It's not freedom. It's not equality. But it's something. A negotiation, a compromise, proof that I'm not entirely powerless here.
"Yes." I swallow. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." He moves toward his office, beckoning me to follow. "The day is young. There's still plenty of time for you to hate me."
His office is different from the penthouse's main spaces. Warmer, somehow. More lived-in.
Bookshelves line one wall, filled with titles I can't read from where I'm standing. A massive desk dominates the center, all dark wood and clean lines. Behind it, more windows, more city views, but these have curtains that can be drawn, cutting off the outside world when privacy is required.
There's a cushion on the floor beside his chair. Thick velvet, deep burgundy. He placed it there while I watched, arranging it with care, then gestured for me to sit.
I sink onto it. The velvet is soft against my legs, the position not quite comfortable but not painful either. I'm at his feet, but I'm not kneeling. My back can rest against the side of his desk. My legs can stretch out if I need to.
It's still subservient. It's still a statement of power. But it's bearable.