11. Adam
eleven
Adam
The blackout curtains cut the desert morning into neat rectangles of blue-black and dirty yellow.
Our bedroom above the bunker ran two degrees cooler than the rest of the house, thanks to a mismatched pair of oscillating fans and Emma’s pathological aversion to anything that might “feel like a hospital.” There was always a chemical ghost in the air.
The sheets were already tangled, patterned with the usual scatter of dark hair and bite-shaped creases.
I’d been up since six. Emma, never a morning person, was half-curled at my side, one hip bared and one knee pressed into the damp cotton.
My phone rested on my stomach, screen angled so the notifications shone upward.
She watched it, not me, as if waiting for it to tell her what kind of day we’d be having.
If I hadn’t spoken yet, it meant the subject was not under active management.
When I finally set the phone aside and reached for her thigh, she flinched less than she used to.
This was the best part: the absence of performance.
With the right incentives and the right pressure, you could strip anyone down to that pure animal clarity.
For all her adaptive skills, Emma knew the difference.
“Left hand,” I said, and she slid it between her legs.
She didn’t ask questions. I preferred it that way—communication by direct action.
I let my palm rest on the warm, bare curve above her knee, thumb stroking in lazy ellipses as she found her rhythm.
There was nothing romantic about it. She worked with focused, businesslike strokes, breathing steady and shallow, eyelids fluttering in a half-feigned sleep state.
I liked the illusion of spontaneity even when we both knew it was engineered down to the interval.
The house was silent. Samantha was gone for the weekend—Girl Scout trip, five days of den mothers and box lunches—and for once we had no audience.
I listened for the distant hum of the recirculation fan, the telltale groan of the main floor fridge.
Nothing. I pressed my fingers a little harder into Emma’s thigh, not enough to hurt, just enough to say: I’m watching.
Her eyes flicked open. There was a moist shine on her lower lip.
“Slower,” I said.
She adjusted, the muscles of her arm and belly tightening.
Her fingernails—short, practical—left pink dashes in her skin as her hand worked lower.
The lamp behind the headboard threw a trapezoid of light across her hip, highlighting the slight tremor in her wrist. That was another thing: the body never lied.
You could train yourself not to flinch, not to cry, not to come, but the fine-motor stuff would always rat you out.
I kept my tone flat and unhurried. “Two fingers.”
She complied. The sound was softer now, the friction more audible.
I leaned back, propped up by three pillows, and let the sight of her working for my approval settle into me.
Not because I needed it—sex was less a compulsion than a metric—but because it reminded me how easily the world bent toward order when you removed all ambiguities.
If I wanted her to edge for an hour, she would.
If I wanted her to finish, she would. And she would be grateful for the lack of uncertainty.
“Good. Keep that pace.” I picked up my phone and thumbed through my notifications.
Emma’s breathing grew more shallow as she edged up the first crest. I gave her a visual countdown with my free hand: two, then one, then a slow, firm “hold.” She shuddered, then stopped, fingers still buried. Her forehead beaded with sweat.
I didn’t let her rest. “Back up,” I said. “You know the drill.”
She exhaled, not quite a sigh. A quick recalibration, a few tight circles, and she was back to the starting line.
I watched her for a minute, then opened the group chat.
One of the local deputies was complaining about the traffic on Stockton Hill.
I replied with a thumbs-up, then set the phone face-down on the bed.
“Emma,” I said, “I like Jasmine.”
She hesitated just a fraction, then nodded.
“She’s still not compliant.”
Emma’s gaze snapped from the ceiling to me. Her expression said: I’m interested, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be.
“But she’s still playing at boundaries.” I shifted my weight to face her more directly. “Remind you of anyone?”
She shrugged, a practiced gesture of detachment. But her free hand dug into the sheet, knuckles white.
“It’s not sustainable,” I said. “No one maintains resistance at this stage unless they think it matters. The trick is making her understand that it doesn’t.”
Emma closed her eyes and worked her fingers in a slow, methodical circle. I could tell she was half-listening, half focusing on the task at hand. I let her get close, then stopped her with a squeeze to her thigh.
“Don’t finish yet,” I said. “I want you to hear this.”
She huffed once, a mix of exasperation and arousal.
“I think Jasmine could be interesting,” I went on. “She’s holding out longer than any of the others, but it’s not a discipline thing. It’s pride. You know what happens to pride in closed systems?”
Emma bit her lip, lips glistening with sweat and spit. She didn’t answer.
“It self-destructs,” I said. “Every time. It becomes a liability, then shame, then obedience. Or it doesn’t, and she dies.”
“Which is it going to be?” Emma asked.
“That’s what I want to find out.” I grinned, teeth bared.
She laughed—actually laughed. “You love challenges.”
“You were easier.” I reached for her, fingers stroking the slickness between her thighs. She gasped. “Jasmine is a different breed. She’s not fighting to win, she’s fighting not to lose.”
Emma’s hand stilled under mine, and I replaced her fingers with the vibrator from the nightstand. It was a cheap silver model with a cracked cap, but it worked well enough. I clicked it on, low setting, and pressed it against her clit.
“Don’t move,” I said.
She didn’t.
I kept it there, steady and relentless. I watched the muscles in her abdomen tense and ripple, watched her toes curl into the sheets.
Her hands clawed at the mattress, wrists flexing in opposite directions like she was bracing for a fall.
The noises she made were small and almost apologetic, the kind of whimpers you’d expect from someone trying not to be heard.
I spoke over the vibrator's hum. “If Jasmine lasts a few more days, I’ll let you meet her. Consider it a professional courtesy.”
Emma moaned, louder now, the wordless kind. Her hips bucked but I held the vibrator in place with a firm, unmoving hand.
“Look at me,” I said.
She opened her eyes, glazed and wet.
“This is how it ends for everyone,” I told her. “You think you’re in control, but in the end, it’s always the same. You give it up, or it’s taken.”
She came, hard, her body seizing under my grip. She made a strangled sound—a cross between a sob and a laugh—and I clicked the vibrator off as soon as her pulse crested. I let her ride out the aftershocks in silence. There was no ceremony to it. Just biology and the slow collapse back to baseline.
I set the vibrator next to my phone on the nightstand, then scrolled through my texts as Emma stared at the ceiling, chest heaving. I could feel the heat coming off her skin. I let her recover for a full minute before I spoke.
“We’ll go down to the lower level after breakfast,” I said. “You can watch the next session if you want.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
I finished reading the messages, then set my phone aside. Emma was still on her back, eyes vacant, hands limp at her sides. For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was the wind buffeting the blackout curtains and the low whir of the fan.
I considered what it would take to break Jasmine Jackson.
Not in the mechanical sense—I knew that math—but in the intimate way.
The timing had to be perfect. The incentives had to line up with the threat.
Too much force and it became performative; too little and you risked letting her imagine she still had options.
The trick was to show her what true options looked like, then take them away one by one.
Emma turned her head toward me, hair plastered to her forehead. “You ever think it gets boring?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse, the aftermath still shaking her vocal cords.
“Not if you do it right,” I said.
She nodded, more to herself than to me, and went back to staring at the ceiling. I pulled her closer, felt the way her skin cooled under the air, then shut my eyes and let myself drift for a minute or two.
After a while, Emma spoke again. “You want her as a project, or as a prize?”
It was a fair question. I opened my eyes and looked at the sweat-streaked face beside me.
“Both,” I said. “But mostly, I want to know how she breaks.”
Emma smiled. It was a small, mean smile, the kind she’d never use in public.
“You always say it’s not about power,” she said.
“It isn’t,” I replied. “It’s about possibility. Every time.”
She rolled onto her side and curled into my arm, the top of her head pressing against my jaw. For a moment, we lay there like any ordinary couple, cooling down from a perfectly ordinary fuck.
The blackout curtains kept out the worst of the day, and the world upstairs remained silent. I wondered how Jasmine was passing the time in her cell—if she was still counting hours, or if she’d already lost track. Either way, the next move belonged to her. All I had to do was wait.
I watched the light on the wall shift and fragment as the fan swept the air, and I pictured Jasmine’s face: unbroken, unafraid, but for the first time—maybe ever—uncertain.
That was my favorite part, too.