‘Now, slut, I am likely to be running around a lot for the next while. Tell me, how would you masturbate for me in the bathtub if you really wanted to torture yourself for me?’

’Oh crud, Sir, let me see…I could only touch myself for three minutes at a time and then cannot touch myself for five? But during those five I may slap/spank/twist anything I so wish. Or you could include those in touching myself, forcing me to decide which to do for how long in the three minutes and then have to keep my hands away from my body for the next five. As most of my baths average an hour in length, if you’ve not popped back by the end of my bath, I’m allowed to finally come?’

‘That sounds terribly cruel to me, slut. I love it. I think the three minutes of touching and five minutes of keeping your hands away is the best way to torture you. Shall we begin? I expect you to put on quite a show for me.’

I slide down into the warm embrace of the bath. I let the water enfold me in its heat. I haven’t felt warm all day. My challenge? Where to start? Actually, it’s not much of a challenge at all. I grab my left nipple between my thumb and the knuckle of my index finger. I pull it away from me, and just thay slight pull causes my breathing to speed. I pinch down harder and knead the nipple, twisting and pulling. Each time, I add a little more force behind it. I tell myself that I won’t spend all three of my first minutes only on that nipple. I don’t want the right one to feel left out, but somehow, I can’t take my hand away. I close my eyes and just enjoy the strain of my flesh and the pleasure flowing into my body. I open my eyes only to discover my three minutes has passed.

Five minutes. How can five minutes seem so impossibly long? I stare at the time, urging it to speed up. It seems to take forever.

As I reach for myself, I needn’t have feared. My right nipple is already erect, awaiting its turn. I pinch it between my right thumb and the knuckle of my right finger but this time I squeeze as hard as I can. My feet push against the end of the tub as my arousal builds. I let up lightly on the pressure and instead pull on my nipple and twist it away from my body. My feet slide down to the bottom of the tub and I can feel my hips gently begin to rock. I know a wetness must be building, even if it’s camouflaged by the water of the bath. I look at the time, another three minutes has nearly gone. I squeeze down as hard as I can, biting down on my lower lip. With a mutter, I release my hold.

Damn! How fast does three minutes fly by. Why did I say five minutes between? Why did I only give myself three minutes? The questions are pointless as I know why. You wanted me to come up with a way to torture myself. Little did I realise how effective it would be.

I bring my knees in closer and push them against the side of the tub. I let my fingers wander down to my clit. With the first few flicks of my finger, I’m reminded instantly of my masturbation from the night before. My clit is still tender from the abuse rendering it hypersensitive. As my hips push up, my pubic hair is visible just through the bubbles of my bath. I must be gentle but this slow arousal is not to my liking. I want more. My hips start to rock. Regardless of the tenderness, I persist. The waves in the water giving away the speed of my desire. Slow down! Slow down! I repeat to myself. At this rate, you’ll be a wreck by the, by the, the thought is lost as I just keep flicking my clit. Damn clock!

Don‘t look at the clock. Don’t do it. It will only infuriate you. Still, I glance across. One minute. Only one minute has passed. Madness! That’s not possible. I try to do the maths to see if I’ve miscalculate, but with desire fogging my brain, it’s impossible.

I slide my hand down between my legs, bypassing your clit. I sneak my index finger into your cunt hole. The nature of the wetness leaves no doubt that this is not caused by the water in the bath. Usually, I’d not go this route. I know I prefer clitoral stimulation to penetration, but I knew you’d want to know if I was already creaming myself. I slide my index finger into my ass. Not something I‘ve done before and I instantly wonder why not. It feels so damn good. I pull my knees all the way up to my nipples, my fingers reaching deeper. I love the way it feels as my fingers pump in and out of me. Fuck! That’s my three minutes. I pull my hand free.

Desire is driving me. I want to touch myself. No. That’s not it. I need to touch myself. I can so easily push myself over that wall, to feel the sweet release wash over me and take me away. Now? Now!

I slide my hand back to your clit, I can’t resist it, but this time, I bring my knees up and in only a little so that as I flick and play with your clit, the waves created by my movement smack lithely against your cunt hole, teasing it, toying with it. My hand speeds up. I force my legs to stay in that same position. I don’t allow them any extra stimulation only the increase in waves teasing my entrance. I feel my hips wanting to push out, I know what I want. I want to feel the smack of a hand against my cunt. Your cunt. I want that burn, but I force my hand to stay where it is. I know if I take that step, if I give in, holding back is going to be that much harder. I glance at the clock. No!

My head thrashes back and forth. I can feel nothing but thay desire, pulsing through me, pushing on every nerve in my body. My legs rock back and forth. I keep a close eye on the clock. The minute those five minutes are past, I’m off. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!

I must! I want! I throw my right leg over the side of the tub and brace my left leg against the lip of the tub on the left side. I press my shoulders into the front of the tub as I use my leg muscles to lift your cunt up into the air. With my left hand, I spread and hold open my cunt lips. I raise my right up into the air and with only a moment’s hesitation, bring it smacking down onto the exposed flesh. Yes! The word gets ground out between my teeth. I raise my hand again, and let it swing. Two, yes. Again, it goes up. Now, there is no pause, it swings down with force. Three. Fuck yes. The speed picks up. Four, yes, yes, please. Five. More, please more. Six. Harder. Please, sir, harder. As my eyes start to roll back, my eyes catch the time. No no no no no! I halt my hand.

Every inch of me is vibrating. I can’t stay still. So close, I’m so very close. Oh please, please, sir, let me. Let me touch myself early, please, please, please. The next few minutes are lost to me as the pleading fills all of my mind.

I flip over in the bath and try to grind into the bottom of the tub. It’s not enough. I have to have more. More! I roll over. My fingers fly to my clit and start stroking, flicking, pinching. I want you. Inside me. Now. I glance up. Yes! I rise up out of the tub, my fingers still flying and grab the back scrubber off of its hook. I lower myself into the water, a knee at a time so I don’t have to take my hand away. As soon as Ive reclined, I shove the handle of the back scrubber into my cunt and start pumping away with my left hand while stroking your clit with the right. Oh god yes. Fuck me sir! Fuck me! Hard! Slam into me! Harder! Harder! Yes! Yes! So so so. Yes so. Oh so. Oh oh oh Nooooooo! Fuck no! Fuck no! Bastard!

One more minute. One more minute until I can touch myself again. You didn’t say I couldn’t leave the scrubber in. As my hips bob, the scrubber raises and lowers inside of me. Oh god please, please, please. Now. I want to now. Right now. Waiting? No. Now! Thank god. I touch myself.

’May May May May May May May please May please May!

Sir sir sir sir sir sir sir sir sir me please sir me sir please please!’

’DO IT, BITCH!’

I screech as the orgasm rips away from me, long and drawn out, begging, pleading, thanking. On and on, my body keeps coming. scream after scream until my eyes roll into the back of my head.

‘Good girl.’

I lower my ears under the water. I listen to the rapid beating of my heart. I imagine your heartbeat next to mine. Slower. Steady. I take deeper breaths through my nose as I will my heart to slow. It begins to decrease. I continue. I imagine that strong heartbeat, calling to mine, pulling it nearer, encouraging my heartbeat to find it. It slows some more. I continue to slow my breathing. I hear both heartbeats in syncopation. Mine. Yours. Mine. Yours. Until they begin to merge. Yours. Yours. Yours.

Oh fuck. I woke up this morning and read your message. My mouth went dry. I skipped back to your recorded message of the night before and I went wet. I could feel my heartbeat racing and my need growing. Still, I did need to get to work soon. I popped into the shower and washed my hair and put in the conditioner. As I did so, from time to time my hand would dip lower and pinch, pull and twist one nipple and then the other. I close my eyes and just let my body take in only the sensations going through me. I grab my phone and I put your message on loop. I change the shower head to pulsate and a directed stream. I hold my cunt lips open and begin the assault on my pussy that you own. Almost immediately, an orgasm grants me release. More. I want more. I keep my hand steady where it is and I can feel my body tense, naturally going into a crouched position, my legs splayed open. I scream as another orgasm follows on the heels of the first, and then another and another. I can feel my brain going away, no thinking, no talking. Just the sound of your voice, telling me again and again to come. I yell as the orgasms just keep coming. I hear myself start to mutter. ‘Oh please sir, yes sir, let me come sir, fuck me sir, do it, do it, please sir, let me come, let me come for you, fuck your whore, fuck me.’ The orgasms are coming fast and furious, each one growing in intensity. Still my mantra continues. Oh god, I can feel it, my body preparing itself for a massive orgasm, I beg, I plead, I am desperate to come for you and for me. I go up on my toes. My whole body is ready, reaching and reaching, feeling that need approaching and becoming more intense, sitting on the edge, just waiting and then, as it hits I scream. I scream out to you, begging you, thanking you, I can feel the spray shoot out of me, mixing with the water in the tub heading down the drain. I fall to my knees, shower head still in hand. I’m panting, I hear your voice, telling me to breathe, I let my head flop down, I reach across and swap the knobs to the overhead, letting my arm drop to my side, but your voice is still in my head. I can hear it there. Echoing around my brain, the question you ask of me? ‘Have you hurt for me today, slut?’

With a light whimper, I swap back to the handheld shower head, I target the shower head back to my swollen, red, undeniably used cunt. The minute the water hits, another orgasm flies through me, like it was just there, waiting in the wings, knowing I’d not satisfied you, nor me. One after another they rip through my body. I’ve lost count long ago. I feel my body trembling, no, shaking, coming again and again. Each time, I beg more earnestly, more frantically. ’Please sir, oh fuck, yes sir, oh hell, come, come, come, fuck me fuck me please sir let me me oh fuck sir sir sir please, I become incoherent and words fly through my mind, my brain doesn’t even acknowledge them, they’re merely in transit from my lips to your ears. The pain starts to blend with the pleasure, my overaroused cunt is screaming to be left alone, at peace, or is that just me. I no longer know or care, I just let my body handle everything. Again, here it comes, a massive orgasm, building, pushing, forcing my legs as far apart as the tub will allow me. I am poised on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall. No, wanting to fall, to depart and just be with the air. My orgasm hits and I spray once again, my whole body gyrating, grasping each sensation but equally trying to run away from it. Wave after wave, animalistic noises issue from my mouth, I grunt and scream and low and bellow again and again, it’s not stopping. The pain, the pleasure, hand in hand a type of sweet torture that assaults all of my senses. I can no longer see or hear. I feel. Just feel with the constant babble in the backround, a frenzy of some sort, like a buzzing in my ears. As the last of the spray leaves me, I collapse forward into the bathtub. How long I lay there, Ive no idea. I slowly come back to myself, I’m cold, freezing cold. The tap, but no. Hair. The word pops in and then out. I hold the means of my demise over my head and rinse out the conditioner. I push against the tub and manage to flip ungraciously backwards until I’m sitting in the tub, braced my the back. I breathe. I try to focus. Clean. I reach to the left and find the soap there. I manage to make an attempt to clean myself. Then run the ice cold water all over me, rinsing the soap foam off of me. I drop the shower head and push up with all my strength, which isn’t much at this point, and manage to return to a standing position. I turn off the water, wrap a towel around me. Make my way to the bed. I drop there, curl into a ball, quickly think better of it as my engorged cunt protests. I roll my hips so they are as far over as I can get them, I spread my legs wide, letting air get to my lips. I sleep.

‘I’m horny. Kneel by my bed and give my cock a home for a while.’

‘Now that, sir, is definitely in my skill set. I will happily do that, sir.’

’Good slut. I want to feel my cock hit the back of your throat.’

I lower myself to my hands and knees and crawl across to you, my breasts dangling and swinging as I approach. I get to the side of your bed and rise up on my knees. I present my breasts to you, hands behind my back, chest thrust forward, knowing just how much you like to keep them bruised and sensitive. ‘Would you like me to fetch you anything, sir, or would you like to use your hand? Or maybe I should wrap them around your cock, sir?’

You lift one, thoughtfully, then bring your hand down flat on it, over the top, a bloom of red instantly appearing. You begin to slowly rwin blows down; sometimes over the top of my breasts, sometimes under, hard enough to lift them up. Sometimes the blows fall right across my nipples. A moan of pleasure fills the air as I relish each blow. I edge closer, wanting more. Your pace picks up and the marks begin to show. I glance down and smile. Marks of your ownership. The room echoes with the sound of flesh on flesh.

You grab my head and shove your cock into my mouth in one deft move. I love it when you fuck my mouth, the way it fills me. You hold my head there, and I struggle to breathe as you hold your cock deep in the back of my throat. The grip of your fingers in my hair holding the back of my head in place, not letting me pull away. You pull out and strings of your come cover me. You smear it all over my face.

You leave me there, covered in it. I wait in anticipation, hoping that you will use me again, having me rub your cum in each time you use me. Each time, the cum covers somewhere else on my body until I’m coated in you. Smell of you. Am yours.

Later, after fucking my mouth, you command me not to swallow, but instead letting it run back out of my mouth, down my chin. As it does so, you have me run it into my neck and chest. Another coating.

There’s a knock at the door. Your friend sticks his head around. He smiles at the scene in front of him. ‘I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fuck those big, beautiful, bruised breasts. May I?’ You wave him in. I crawl forward, undo his trousers and pull them down. He deftly steps out of them, his rock hard cock peeking out of the top of his pants. I grab those with my teeth and slide them down, leaving his cock bobbing in front of me. I kneel in front of him and wrap my generous breasts around his cock and slide them back and forth between them, gliding, sliding. As his cock pops through my cleavage, I lick the tip and try to draw it into my mouth. As my tempo increases, I can feel his leg muscles begin to tense. All the sudden pain rears on my ass. My master has grabbed his single tail and is encouraging me to greater effort. I try to focus, but my whole body begins to gyrate. I hear a low keening and realise it’s not me, but him. In just a few strokes, his Cock spits out large globs of come all over my breasts. He falls back on the bed. My master commands me to rub his friend’s come into my breasts. I rapidly comply as the single tail continues to lick at my ass. Every stroke stoking my desire, bringing me closer to the edge.

The single tail stops and I feel my hair being grabbed. He turns me around by my hair and shoves me down on the bed. Whether it was watching the scene before him or enjoying the smoothness of his single tail across my ass, he is aroused again. He pulls me by my legs to the edge of the bed and buries himself deep inside of me. Again and again, he pounds into me, and with each drive, I feel the sting of my ass against the duvet. It only makes it sweeter. He is a man possessed as he speeds up, his girth feeling as if it’s splitting me. I start to beg, to plead for him to let me come, but tonight isn’t about me. It’s about him. He pulls out and sprays me with his come, covering my stomach. Without being told, I rub it in. Covered in him, smelling of him, his.

I awaken later. I’ve no idea how much time has passed. I can feel them, one on each side of me. Spooned warmly between them. I can feel a semi-hard cock against my ass. I push back against it, grinding my ass against it. As I do so, I reach around and grab the cock to my other side, I start stroking it, twisting my hand as it glides up and down the length of him. Increasing and decreasing the pressure as I play. ‘You’d think she would have had enough, but clearly not. What a greedy little slut I own.’ He grabs me by the hips and pulls me up onto my knees. He walks around and shoved his cock into my mouth. I take him in, all the way to his base, I knead his balls in my hand. He pulls out and I roll over, taking his balls into my mouth, sucking, savouring. For a few moments, he enjoys my mouth, but then he flips me back over and without hesitation, slams into my ass, driving hard, running his hand over the marks he’s left crisscrossing my ass. ’Feel free to use her mouth, it’s free. However, when you come I want you to do something for me.’ Some unspoken communication flies between them, but I’m none the wiser. I open my mouth and let his mate slide in. I worship his cock as if it were my Master’s licking, sucking, pumping, playing with his balls and that sensitive area just behind. The pace picks up as my Master reams my ass. I do my best to maintain the rhythm they’ve established. I am merely a vessel to be used and filled. ‘Now!’ He shouts. He pulls out and i can feel his come hitting my ass. At the same time, his mate pulls out of my mouth, pushes down my head and his come lands in my hair. ‘Rub it in, slut, both of them.’ I rise up on my knees And massage the come into my hair as if it were my shampoo, then I reach behind me and rub my Master’s come into my already burning cheeks. The salt burning a reminder of the single tail the night before. ‘And whose are you, whore?’

‘Yours, sir. All yours.’

She picks up on the first ring, then pretends she didn't by waiting three beats before speaking. "Hello?"

"Hey." His voice carries the smile she'd tasted forty-seven minutes ago. "I just—I wanted to check something in my calendar. For this week. If that's okay?"

"Oh! Yes, checking calendars is... that's a normal thing people do." She's pacing her kitchen, bare feet catching on the linoleum's slight tackiness. The dishes from breakfast still crowd her sink—evidence of a morning that feels like it happened in another lifetime.

"Right, exactly. Very normal." He clears his throat. "So I have this work thing Wednesday—"

"Wednesday's actually perfect because Tuesday I have my sister's—wait, no, sorry, you weren't suggesting Wednesday, were you? You were just telling me you're busy then."

"No, I mean, yes, I was saying I'm busy but also trying to, um, figure out when I'm not busy. If that makes sense." The sound of papers shuffling comes through the line. "Thursday?"

"Thursday." She tests the word, rolling it around her mouth like the memory of their kiss. "Thursday I have yoga until 7:30, but after that—"

"I could do after that. I could definitely do after that." The eagerness in his voice makes her stomach flip. "There's this place that does really good Thai food, unless you don't like Thai food, in which case there's obviously other food that exists in the world—"

"I love Thai food." She's grinning now, pressing her forehead against the cool surface of her refrigerator. "I was actually going to suggest Thai food, but I didn't want to be too... presumptuous about suggesting specific cuisines this early in our... calendar coordination."

A laugh breaks through his carefully maintained casualness. "God, this is weird, isn't it? An hour ago I didn't even know if you liked me, and now I'm checking my Google Calendar like it holds the secrets to the universe."

"It is weird," she agrees, warmth spreading through her chest. "But maybe good weird? Like, I'm standing here pretending I need to double-check if I'm free Thursday when I've already mentally canceled three different things."

"I haven't checked a single thing on my calendar this entire conversation," he confesses. "I've just been holding a random receipt and making paper-shuffling noises."

The laughter comes easy now, the awkwardness transforming into something precious—a shared secret, a private joke in the making. They're building something here, between the pretense of scheduling and the raw honesty of new attraction.

"So... Thursday at 8?" she ventures.

"Thursday at 8," he confirms, then adds quickly, "Although I could do 7:45 if your yoga ends earlier than expected. Or 8:15 if you need more time. Or really any time that works for you, I'm pretty flexible. Not yoga-flexible, obviously, but time-flexible."

"8 is perfect," she says softly, and they both hear what she really means: *You're perfect, this is perfect, the way my heart is racing right now is perfect.*

"Okay. Good. That's... that's really good." Another pause, filled with unspoken words. "I should probably let you go now, right? That's probably what a normal person would do instead of trying to find more excuses to keep talking?"

She traces a pattern on the fridge door, spelling out Thursday over and over. "Probably. Although I should mention that my calendar has some very suspicious empty spaces this evening..."

"What a coincidence," he says, relief and joy tangling in his voice. "Mine too."

The cityscape blurs into watercolor smears beyond the fortieth-floor windows—all those lives being lived while Kaia sits frozen at her desk, caught in the gravitational pull of James’s office light down the hall. (Like a moth to flame, except moths don’t spend months constructing elaborate justifications for their inevitably fatal attraction.)

Her cursor blinks in accusatory morse code: *you’re-not-work-ing, you’re-not-work-ing*. The Peterson brief sprawls across her screen, legal jargon swimming before her eyes—a perfect metaphor for her current state, all these carefully constructed arguments dissolving into want.

Time feels elastic after hours, stretching and compressing like a universe bending around a massive object. Which is what this thing between them has become: enormous, unavoidable, warping the space-time continuum of their meticulously maintained professionalism into something dangerous and electric.

She catches her reflection in the darkened window—cheeks flushed, pupils dilated—and catalogs the physiological responses like evidence in a case she’s building against her better judgment. *Exhibit A: elevated heart rate. Exhibit B: shallow breathing. Exhibit C: the way her skin feels too tight, like it’s trying to contain something infinite.*

The walk to his office is thirty-seven steps (she’s counted, repeatedly, obsessively). Tonight each one feels like crossing a threshold, like quantum particles collapsing from possibility into certainty.

He looks up when she appears—always up, never startled, like some part of him is perpetually aware of her proximity—and something molten pools in her chest at the sight: reading glasses sliding low, sleeves rolled with precise intention, the controlled chaos of papers spreading across his desk like the physical manifestation of her scattered thoughts.

“Kaia.” Her name in his mouth is a complete legal brief: argument, evidence, and conclusion all wrapped in two syllables.

“I was just...” The lie evaporates unfinished. They’re both too smart for pretense, too aware of the chess game they’ve been playing where every casual touch is a calculated move toward this moment.

He stands—fluid, deliberate—crossing the room in measured steps that somehow contain both restraint and hunger. “Were you?” His voice carries that familiar trace of amusement, the tone that simultaneously infuriates and intoxicates her. “Just what?”

(There should be a word for this—this exact point when years of legal training in constructing airtight arguments crumbles in the face of pure want.)

“Testing a theory,” she manages, pulse thundering in her ears like waves against a crumbling seawall.

“And what theory would that be?” He’s close enough now that she can see the faint stubble along his jaw, smell the lingering notes of coffee mingled with something uniquely him—a scent her lizard brain has cataloged as *dangerous* and *necessary* in equal measure.

Instead of answering, she rises on her toes (a motion she’s rehearsed in her mind so many times it feels like muscle memory) and presses her mouth to his.

The kiss reconstructs her understanding of time: there is before and there is this, and the demarcation between them is sharp enough to draw blood. His hands find her waist as hers tangle in his hair, and some distant part of her brain notes with satisfaction that it’s just as soft as she’d imagined.

They break apart breathing hard, foreheads touching, sharing the same electrically charged air. “We should—” he starts.

“Later,” she interrupts, surprising herself with the authority in her voice. “Some cases require less deliberation than others.”

His laugh is low and warm against her neck. “Counselor,” he murmurs, “I believe you’re leading the witness.”

“Object all you want,” she whispers back, fingers tracing the strong line of his jaw. “The evidence speaks for itself.”

When he kisses her again, it feels like winning a case she didn’t know she was arguing—like justice and mercy wrapped in the same breathless verdict. His hands map the geography of her spine as she presses closer, eliminating any remaining space between precedent and possibility.

“Take me home,” she breathes against his mouth—a motion to proceed that requires no deliberation.

He answers by lacing their fingers together, and they leave their half-finished briefs behind like abandoned closing arguments, stepping into a night that promises to rewrite every law they’ve ever known.

—

Monday arrives with all the subtlety of a summary judgment, harsh fluorescent lights replacing the forgiving darkness that had made everything seem possible seventy-two hours ago. Kaia’s been rehearsing this moment since she fled his apartment at 3 AM Saturday morning (not that she’s counting the hours, except she absolutely is, with the kind of precision usually reserved for billable minutes).

The elevator ride to the fortieth floor feels like watching opposing counsel destroy her star witness. Each ascending number ratchets her anxiety higher: *thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine—God, when did this building get so tall?* She’s arrived precisely twenty-three minutes earlier than usual, a tactical maneuver designed to minimize contact that instead leaves her feeling like a coward citing procedural technicalities.

(She’s analyzed Friday night with the same obsessive attention she typically reserves for depositions, rehashing every moment, every touch, every awkward fumble and miscommunication until the memories feel worn smooth as river stones. The way his hands had shaken. The way she’d gone cold and distant. The terrible, haunting silence afterward.)

The office is blessedly empty—or so she thinks until she rounds the corner and nearly collides with James emerging from the break room, coffee mug in hand. Time stretches like hot glass, then shatters: a study in the relativity of professional mortification.

They do an awkward dance of mutual avoidance, both stepping the same direction twice before freezing in place. His coffee sloshes dangerously close to the rim. She clutches her laptop bag like a shield.

“Kaia.” Her name in his mouth sounds different now—clinical, careful, like evidence being handled with latex gloves.

“James.” (When did his name become so difficult to pronounce? Four weeks of bar exam prep were easier than these two syllables.)

The silence that follows could be submitted as an amicus brief on the topic of human discomfort. She maps his appearance with unwanted precision: tie slightly askew (unusual for him), dark circles under his eyes (did he sleep as poorly as she did?), shoulders tense beneath his perfectly pressed shirt (the same shoulders she’d—*no, absolutely not going there*).

“I was just...” They both start simultaneously, then stop. A perfect demonstration of the legal principle of mutual embarrassment.

He clears his throat. “About Friday—”

“The Peterson brief is on your desk,” she interrupts, words tumbling out with the desperate energy of a client volunteering privileged information. “I finished it over the weekend. All the citations are updated, and I added a section on recent precedents that might—”

“Kaia.” Softer this time, almost pained.

“—be relevant to our argument, particularly regarding the statutory interpretation of—”

“*Kaia.*”

She forces herself to meet his eyes, immediately regrets it. Because there it is—everything they’re not talking about, laid out like evidence in a case neither of them knows how to try.

“We should probably...” He runs a hand through his hair (she knows exactly how that hair feels now, a piece of evidence she desperately needs stricken from the record).

“I have a client meeting,” she lies, already backing away. “We can... later. Maybe. If there’s anything... professional... to discuss.”

She retreats to her office with as much dignity as she can muster (which, if quantified, would barely fill a motion in limine). Through her open door, she watches him stand there for a long moment, coffee growing cold in his hand, before he turns toward his own office.

The day stretches ahead like an endless deposition, every hour a careful dance of strategic avoidance and professional necessity. She throws herself into research with the kind of manic energy usually reserved for pro bono cases, as if enough case law can build a wall between Friday night and Monday morning.

But every time footsteps pass her door, her heart executes a series of complex maneuvers that would violate several workplace safety regulations. Each distant phone ring triggers a fight-or-flight response worthy of academic study. The coffee maker’s gurgle sounds accusatory.

(She’s already drafted and deleted seventeen emails to him, each one an exercise in saying nothing while meaning everything. The eighteenth attempt sits in her drafts folder, cursor blinking: *"Regarding the matter of Friday night..."* Like their catastrophic attempt at intimacy can be reduced to a case number and filed away.)

When 5 PM finally arrives—the longest billable hours in legal history—she begins the delicate task of packing up without being noticed, each file and notebook lifted with trembling care. But as she reaches for her coat, a post-it note slides from between the files on her desk. Her breath catches at the familiar handwriting:

*Re: Friday night

Motion to continue discussion?

My office @ 5:30pm*

She stares at the yellow square for so long the words begin to blur, her pulse keeping time like a court reporter’s stenotype. Outside her office, the elevator chimes its end-of-day rhythm as the firm empties out. Soon it will be just them again, in the same after-hours quiet that started this whole mess.

The post-it crinkles as her fingers close around it. Some cases, she realizes, require a second hearing.

And I sat there and with all the focus one can muster up while under the influence of 7.5 ounces of magic mushrooms

For almost 3 (stop watch timed) hours

Tried making that laundry hamper and dirty clothes move with a still body using only the idle power of an active intentful mind

Just as the focus was about to break, the floor bound vent

a/c auto-turned on sending the barley standing hamper to the ground doing what I could not.

The stagnant air moved around now and my nose caught wind of the smells it was downwind of.

So focused on trying to move (unable to in the end) what the slightest of breezes did with accidental nature, I failed to notice the now dried skin-soaked feces my body had expelled during the most dialed in telekinesis session it'd ever endured.

You find yourself in a library where all the books are missing their last pages. The shelves curve impossibly upward, disappearing into a ceiling that might not exist. (Yes, you're in a story now—but then again, weren't you always?)

Footsteps echo behind you, but they're your own from five minutes ago, still searching. You've been here before, or maybe you'll be here later. Time does that sometimes, especially in stories about last things.

Between the shelves, you discover a reading room where people sit with half-empty coffee cups that never grow cold. Their conversations hang in the air like unfinished sentences, and you recognize the feeling—that moment when words fade before reaching their destination. You've felt it before, haven't you, reader? That sensation of almost-but-not-quite understanding something essential?

A woman sits at a desk made of mirror fragments. She's writing in a book that writes itself back, each word disappearing as soon as it's penned. You know her, though you've never met. (That's the thing about being in a story—everything is both real and not real, like quantum particles or promises made at midnight.)

"I've been waiting," she says, but her voice sounds like rustling pages.

You want to tell her you've been waiting too, but instead, you notice how the light through the windows falls in patterns that spell out words you almost remember. They remind you of something—perhaps that dream where you could read in colors, or that summer when the sunset looked like scattered punctuation marks.

In your pocket, you find a ticket stub from a movie you haven't watched yet. The title keeps changing every time you look at it, but the date remains the same: Today. Always today. (You see what I did there? Time is funny in stories, especially ones about endings that are really beginnings.)

The woman stands, and suddenly the room rearranges itself like a sentence being edited. Bookshelves become doorways, doorways become windows, windows become questions you never thought to ask. She hands you a book—your book, though you didn't know you'd written one.

"The ending's missing," you say.

"They always are," she replies, smiling with one corner of her mouth, the way people do when they know something you're about to figure out.

You open the book. Inside, there's a map of everywhere you've ever almost been, marked with X's that look suspiciously like kisses. Or perhaps they're asterisks, footnoting moments you'll understand later. (You're getting good at this, dear reader, finding meaning in the spaces between words.)

The woman is closer now, close enough that you can see her eyes are filled with library cards, each one cataloging a different way to say goodbye. You realize, with the peculiar clarity that comes with being a character in someone else's story (or is it your own?), that this is it—the last time you'll fall in love.

Not because it's ending, but because after this, all other loves will be echoes of this one. They'll be like books you've already read, stories whose endings you can guess three chapters in. This is the last first time your heart will fumble with the grammar of attraction, the last time love will feel like a foreign language you're desperate to learn.

The woman reaches for your hand, and her fingers are warm like well-worn book spines. Around you, the library hums with the sound of a thousand stories reaching their almost-endings. (Do you feel it too, reader? The way the words are pulling us toward something inevitable?)

"We should probably kiss now," she says, "before the metaphors run out."

And you do, in that space between one paragraph and the next, where all the best things happen. The kiss tastes like the last page of your favorite book—the one you've never been able to find again. It tastes like understanding finally catching up to experience.

When you open your eyes, the library has become a garden where flowers bloom in serif and sans-serif. The woman is still there, but now she's writing your name in cursive on the air, and you realize that maybe you're writing hers too, has been all along, in the margins of every story you've ever lived.

(And here, dear reader, is where I leave you—not because the story's over, but because the best endings are the ones we write ourselves, in the spaces between what's said and what's understood, in that moment when we realize we've been reading our own hearts all along.)

You close the book, but keep your finger between the pages, marking your place. After all, the best stories are the ones we never quite finish reading, the ones that keep writing themselves in our dreams, in our memories, in the way we learn to love after we think we've loved for the last time.

(Turn the page, if you like. Or don't. The story will wait for you either way.)

I stand before him in inspection pose. ‘You know what your directions are sub girl?’ He asks me with a wicked grin as he snaps one of the nipple clips to my left breast. I take in a rapid breath through my nose, I wasn’t expecting the alligator clips this morning. It told me he was going to try to challenge me today. He looks up at me from where he sits at his desk, waiting for my answer.

’Yes, Sir. I do. I am to go into the bathroom, turn on the shower as far as it will go, change the head to pulsate and then come as many times as I can without having to pull the shower head away from your cunt. I am to count each one and thank you for it. When I am unable to take anymore, I am to clean myself, dry myself and present myself to you, Sir.’ He gives me that wicked ass smile, snaps down the other clamp on my right breast, and points to the bathroom. As I turn to go, he lightly pats my ass. ‘Good girl.’

As I lean forward to turn on the water for the shower, the chain connecting my nipple clamps clangs against the shower door, bringing a quiet little moan out of me. I quickly debate in my mind whether I’m grateful for the power shower we had installed or not. I know I’m not very good at pushing my own boundaries, but he really wants me to work on this for him. The minute any sensitivity sets in for me, I always pull away. Afraid to go deeper, harder, more.

I step into the shower, and first let the warm water flow over my body. Helping me to relax to untense my muscles as I’ve no doubt they will be tense again soon enough. I reach up and grab the hand held shower head and flip the lever to turn off the overhead feed. I can’t help it. My heart rate starts racing. I come so hard this way. He knows this and I’m pretty sure that is precisely why he has set me this task. The reality is, I’m already aroused just from being near him all morning, naked, posing, watching him work. There’s something deeply fulfilling to see someone so engulfed with what they are creating. I love to see how he works, how his mind functions, how things come together. With that thought, I spread my legs apart, hold my cunt lips open with my left hand and point the powerful jet right at my clit. I lean forward as my legs start to tense, I go up on my toes, I bang my head against the wall and let loose a quiet moan as almost instantly, my first orgasm flies through my body in what must be record time. I moan aloud. Timidly, ‘one, thank you sir,’ is whispered from my mouth.

Every nerve feels like it’s tingling as I rise up on my toes as each orgasm rocks through me. ‘Ten. Thank you, Sir. Eleven. Thank you, Sir’. My head grinds into the wall as each orgasm comes and go. My muscles bunch up and clench and release again as orgasm after orgasm piles one in top of the other. ’15, sir, thank you. 16, sir, thank you.’ I can only mutter the count through gritted teeth. It’s taking every ounce of control to try to maintain the count. My head is swimming, my body is trembling from top to bottom. I can’t. No more. No more. My mind seems stuck on the thought. I want to pull my hand away, but I want to please him. I want to make him proud. My mind just wants to float away and bathe in the sensations reverberating through my body. As I feel another orgasm becoming more of an imperative than a desire, I scream out. ‘I can’t, sir, I can’t. Please, Sir, can you hear me. No more, please, please. I beg of you…’ As the last word issues from my mouth, my voice goes up an octave and a piercing scream slams out of me, a sound of pain and pleasure as I come again.

His voice carries from the other room, ‘don’t forget to count, slut. I’d hate for you to have to start over.’ I swear under my breath at him and try desperately to recall which number I’m on. My mind is too hazy, I try to focus. I try to come back into my body but it seems just too far out of reach. I grasp at straws in my mind. My head starts to shake back and forth. A number, any number, but even that seems beyond my abilities. ‘That would be 17, dear whore. You’re lucky I’m feeling generous today.’ His voice is nearer and grounds me. I pull the number from his lips to mine.

’17, sir, that’s it, yes, it must be, yes, yes, definitely.’ Another scream emits from me as 18 forces its way out. Now, it seems there is no way to stop them. They come fast and furious, one on top of the other. I pant out, ’22, sir. Thank. Aaaarrggghh!’ I try to catch my breath. I’m almost hiccuping the count now. ‘No sir. No. No more. I can’t. Can’t. No. No more.’

Suddenly, a hand firmly wraps itself around my throat. Holding me there. ‘Take it for me, bitch. Take it for me.’ I vaguely register that I’m shaking my head back and forth and muttering no, no, no under my breath. Without realising it, it’s changed from no into yes. The strength of the hand at my throat brings me back into myself. The shower head continues to beat at me mercilessly. I whimper. I just want to throw it away from me. Smash it against the wall. It’s agony, but also ecstasy. 24 and 25 pass in the same way. I start banging my head against the wall as my body now tries to pull away from itself. My eyes and sealed shut. I can feel the tears pouring down my cheeks. The hand releases its grip around my throat, I beg for its return but to no avail. My body convulses as another orgasm rips me apart.

I feel a hand upon my forehead, pulling it away from the wall. ‘Now slave, we’d hate to damage you now wouldn’t we?’ Some words or sounds come out of my mouth but I’ve no idea what I’ve said. Each breath jitters through me. Another hand reaches around and pinches the alligator clip on my left breast. I wail as I come again. Holy fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Only obscenities echo through my mind. My legs start shaking uncontrollably. ’Can‘t, can’t, can’t. No. no. No.’

As I feel my legs starting to give way, two strong hands grab ahold of my hips. My body stabilises. My hand still clutching the shower head in a death grip, I lose all sense. ‘Lean forward, now, slave.’ I mindlessly follow the direction, as the sound of his voice is the only think that holds me to this world. My mind explodes as he slams his cock deep inside of me. Another orgasm erupts. I can feel him filling me and then pulling away only to slam deep inside again. ‘T-t-t-t-t,’ is the only thing that comes out of my mouth. I screech as another orgasm is torn from me. All sense evades me. I float and float. Feeling everything around me touching my flesh. Every atom caresses me and I feel like I’m weightless, no longer within my body. All the sudden, ‘uh uh uh uh uh uh,’ I’m brought down to earth as my Master continues to ream me. Inside of me, I know he’s nearly there. As he explodes inside of me, I drop the shower head as one last orgasm grinds its way out. My legs give way and I go down into the bathtub. I curl up in a fetal position. The water comes from overhead. My Master helps me to sit up. I feel his touch as he washes me clean and then moves onto my hair. I stay there. Secure with his hands around me. The water disappears. He helps me up and out of the tub. I can barely stand. A warm towel is wrapped around me and I’m led away. I collapse onto the bed. My Master removes the towel, wipes the tears from my cheeks, moves his body to spoon me and brings the blanket up and around both of us. With a light kiss, he whispers in my ear, ‘28, good girl,’ and I fade away with a sedate smile on my face.

CAUTION! Graphic descriptions of gore.

Lie me down on your bedroom floor

With a knife to my throat

Fuck me good, like never before

Cut me open

Like Jane Doe

While you're still inside me

Kiss me hard, make me scream

Pull my insides out

Bloody your hands with my blood and gore

My stomach, my brain, my heart

Take them from my very core

Drool over them like a rabid dog

Eat my spleen and liver raw

Freeze my brain and guts for the cold nights

Cook my heart on an open flame

Garnish it with my blood

Over a salad of my guts

Wrap me in plastic sheets

Take me out into the night

To the tree where you vowed to forever keep me

Bury me there

And pretend you never heard my name

Go home

Have a drink on me

Of my plasma and lymph nodes

Garnish it with my teeth

Raise your glass and say an ode

Anytime you miss me

Darling, don't regret what you've done

Just take another piece of me

Serve me up with some Jack

Cook me nice and tender

So my ribs fall out of the rack

And devour me

So I can be inside you

Forevermore

"Do you believe in God?" She asked.

"I used to." I replied, "Now I believe in him."

They all say I've lost my mind

They say that you're just a guy

They do not believe a word I say

About what you do

Who you are

Or those you've saved

They have not seen what I have seen

They do not know you the way I do

They could never comprehend

You're much more than a man

I've seen you glowing in the darkness

I've heard your voice booming from the podium

I've felt your power when your hands are on me

I've seen you heal more ailments than Florence

Just with a kiss or a touch so tender

I believe in all you do

I'd give it all away for you

My money

My home

My life

My mind

It all belongs to you my Dear

I will worship you until my knees shatter

I will praise you until my voice leaves me

I will gaze upon you until I am blind

For I know you will heal me

You would never abandon me

I have put my faith in you

I have put my heart in your hands

I am yours until my dying breath

And if they ever try to take you away

With their guns, or fire, or blasphemy

I vow to protect you with my dying breath

And if I fail, I will shield you from them

I will trade my life for yours

So you may live just a breath longer

And if we do not survive the hellfire

Will you promise me, my Dear?

That my body may fall down beside yours

And we may sleep side by side in your paradise

Until we return to earth again