FOURTEEN
I heard her before I saw her – the click of stilettos against pavement, slightly rushed, definitely anxious. It made the breath trap behind my teeth.
She had changed into the black ones. The tall pair. The ones that made my fucking blood sing – and the ones that made her easy to follow.
Even through the tinted visor of my helmet, I could see how the dress clung to her.
Not worn but inhabited. Fabric lacquered to skin, sculpted by something obscene and divine.
The neckline was too high to serve as bait.
But the hem? That was pure invitation as it rode up with each tap of her soles until she had to push it down every once in a while.
The muscles on her legs trembled with every step.
I pictured them quaking for other reasons.
Bent forward. Hands tied. Mouth taped shut. Hair caught in my fist while her breath stuttered against it.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The wig was new. Black, like the last. I didn’t care for it. But it meant she was playing a part.
I had to admit – I liked the notion that my Paula had a dark streak in her.
I stayed back, far enough not to spook her, close enough to pretend I had a line left to cross. She rounded the corner, slid into a cab, and I let her go.
Then I revved my motorbike and followed.
The ride was slow. My pulse wasn’t.
I tried not to grin as my lips were too dry. The therapist had said that was a sign of overstimulation.
The therapist had said a lot of things.
She doesn’t say much any more – tongues don’t work so well when they’ve bitten through themselves.
Paula stepped out of the car like a dream half-remembered, the wig a glowing stain beneath the sleaze of the neon sign.
It buzzed above her: ‘Ossidiana’, its reflection puddling at her feet – sharp pink letters in oily water.
I counted her steps. One. Two – all the way to twenty.
The building was as faceless as every other slab of concrete here, but that small sign burned like a signal fire in the dark – drawing sinners like moths to a flame. If you didn’t know to look for it, you wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
When she vanished inside, I peeled off the helmet. My hair was already damp. The rain had been brief, but the heat hung to every fucking thing. Her scent would’ve clung too – if I had got close enough.
The carpet inside was still that god-awful purple. It offended me. Couldn’t commit to red or blue, just sat there like a bruise. It was missing a good stain of crimson over it.
‘Boss?’ the receptionist said in Italian and looked up. Curvy. Lip-glossed. All sugar. The kind that curdled if you touched it.
And she was holding her phone.
I stopped. My blood nearly boiled over.
She should have known better – no phones allowed during work hours. If someone had caught it, the legal arm of this business – front or not – would’ve flagged a GDPR breach faster than she could lock the fucking screen.
As I extended my hand in silence, she swallowed. She had bent over for me several times, crying by the end but had never told anyone.
Knowing how thin the line was, she placed the phone in my hand without arguing.
I pocketed it.
If she were Daniela, I would have shattered it against the marble tiles. But this one had arrived with the new batch of women. And I needed order more than a spectacle tonight.
Stepping up to the side panel, I keyed in my code. The interface lit up.
The management system listed the names of tonight’s sinners. Numbers. One of them hers. The alias hit like a gunshot.
‘Scarlett.’
The name glared back at me from the screen like a fucking joke.
I stared. Blinked once.
And then I laughed.
A quiet, sharp sound – like glass cracking under pressure.
Paula.
My Paula.
But she wasn’t mine tonight, was she?
That was okay. She had strayed from me, but she would return.
My finger hovered over the table’s row, tracing it like I was touching skin – fevered. My eyes slid across the columns. Price. Time. Room.
Then the name of whom she was meeting.
My jaw snapped tight. It could have been any name there, I would have had the same reaction, in truth. A tendon flared in my cheek as my lips curled into something between a snarl and a grin.
Something boiled under my skin, tangled with something sour and bright – jealousy so bitter it tasted metallic. My fists clenched hard enough to make my knuckles crack.
He couldn’t have had his hands on her just yet. She had just walked in. I still had time.
My tongue pressed against the back of my teeth.
I was going to shatter the fucking touchpad or combust where I stood.
Instead, I breathed. Once – a long, laborious inhale and exhale.
And smiled.
‘Relocate Room Eight to Room Thirteen,’ I said.
Blondie looked up, blinking in that dumb, wide-eyed way I realised I was going to have to beat out of her. But she didn’t question it and pressed the button to call the stewards.
Good puppy.
I turned and walked through the door marked ‘Privato’, the letters like teeth biting into the wood.
Down the corridor, left at the sconce. Velvet and shadows paved my path.
The scent of sweat and polished leather already caogulated in my lungs.
The sounds of whips cracking, cries and moans herded me towards my destination.
People weren’t disgusting – they were rot in skin, carrying their sins like incense with a desperation to burn.
They called it pleasure, penance, freedom…
They writhed and begged for absolution in the dark while their souls crawled towards the pit.
Sheep without shepherds. Filth without fire.
And still… I’d let them come to me. I took their money and watched them sink lower… and lower.
Room Thirteen.
The one with the double-sided mirror.
For guests who liked to watch. For those who didn’t mind it.
But I didn’t have to pay to watch – I owned the feed.
And even though I wasn’t going to be the one to split her open tonight, I would at least watch her cunt weep.
I stepped into the darkened chamber; the observation room. It was dressed in bland violets and blacks. The pane of the one-way glass was wide, perfect. Already aglow.
And they were out there.
Together.
She walked straight into his arms like she fucking belonged there.
No hesitation. No nerves. No shame. She fucking opened up to him right then and there.
Not a single goddamn word between them.
He bound her eyes, wrenched his mask off. And his mouth latched onto her neck. Her legs wrapped around him like it was the most natural fucking thing.
Like she had done it before.
I didn’t realise I was breathing hard until the mirror fogged slightly in front of me. My hands curled into fists again.
He touched her like she was his.
I watched him lift her. His fingers sunk into her thighs, one hand gripped her neck like he had earned the fucking right.
That was mine!
My mouth twitched. Something behind my ribs uncoiled, like wire surrendering to pressure.
They drew closer, words swallowed by the static hiss of the camera. Her lips trembled, she whimpered, begged. He kept shaking his head, the refusal only making her arch harder. Then—
She fucking squeezed her thighs, dragging him in like a penitent clawing at the altar.
The instant his monstrous cock breached, pushing past the tight seal of her body, heat knifed up my spine. My breath snagged. My palms pressed so hard into the wall, I was surprised it didn’t fucking crumble.
That should have been me. That sacred resistance should have been mine to break. Instead, I watched, gut rotting, eyes burning, every pulse in my body hammering out envy and hunger like a prayer spoken to a shattered altar.
He had to try three times before her reluctant pussy finally gave in and swallowed him whole.
They were already fucking.
No warm-up. No role-play. Just heat, breath, and the raw drag of skin against skin.
I could stop it. End the session. Leave a bullet between his eyes and take her over and over until she bled – until every whimper was an apology, every tear an oath.
Mine.
My slut. My crucifix. My dirty, fucking scripture.
But I didn’t.
Because I wanted to see how far she would go with him. What she would let him do.
And then—
I’d take her back.
Piece by broken piece.
I let out a long, shaky exhale, closing my eyes and tapping at the wall to feel something solid against me.
Her moan snapped me back to attention.
It wasn’t soft. Or shy.
It was raw. Like she meant it. Unhinged.
As though he had opened something inside her that no one else had found.
My hands flattened against the glass, leaving sweat prints. I was hard – painfully, sickeningly hard – but I didn’t touch myself.
Not yet.
I wanted to burn the sight into my fucking skull, as if pain could conjure up the right formula for penance.
She bowed for him with thighs slick and lips parted in a plea for more. He had her splayed open like an offering.
I found her first – long before he’d laid his eyes on her. He was just borrowing her.
My chest heaved as he pulled away from her, his hand skimming her cheek as if she were some trembling little creature he had just tamed.
And then he walked away.
She lay there in ruin with her radiant cunt still wanting, aching with the absence he had left behind. I could see everything – the way her entrance still twitched, hungry even now, and the milky trail he had painted down her inner thigh.
God… she was divine in her debasement. Holy in her desolation.
I would have carved out Heaven itself to take his place now.
My eyes darted to the corner, finding him.
‘What are you doing, arsehole?’ I growled aloud.
He was crouched by the duffel bag. And when his hand dipped inside, when the zip opened and he drew out—
I choked on a sound I didn’t recognise.
The silver glinted under the light.
Polished and pristine, just for her.
After placing the mask back on, he yanked at her blindfold and she looked at him, eyes wide and wet with worship as he brought the plug to her face.
And he smiled. I knew he did. I could feel it down to my bones.