From the avid way he’d led her on through it, it was painfully obvious what was going on. This was the torture. This was the real punishment. He was going to break us up.

“No!” I protested. It wasn’t fair. “It’s my choice! I don’t wa…”

Viktor let the heavy pliers drop where they were. “Where they were,” incidentally, describes a point in the air about six or seven inches above my clit. My outraged words became a cry of pain.

“So, what you are saying,” Viktor said, his sonorous voice carrying over my scream with the same slow, carefully measured enunciation he had used in the build-up on me, “is that you would give her up, throw away any chance to be with her, rather than allow her to take any further pain in your place?”

“Yes,” Steff sobbed. I couldn’t look around to see, but her voice seemed to be coming from a level lower than the table.

“You would pass on the opportunity to see her tortured and to torture her?” Viktor asked.

“Yes, yes!”

“You would give up the chance to walk with her, to hold her, to kiss her ever again?” Viktor asked.

At these words, I panicked. Didn’t Steff see that if Viktor let her do this, then it would all have been for nothing?

I could take it, whatever was coming, for her sake… but if she threw that away then what I’d already suffered would be wasted.

“It’s not her choice!” I insisted, straining against my bonds in spite of the pain it caused.

I didn’t see the blow coming. I didn’t know what he hit me with, but I don’t think he held back at all. It felt like my head shattered, and dazzling explosions went off inside my eyes.

Eventually the ringing in my ears cleared enough that I could hear Viktor, though it sounded a bit like he was underwater.

“…understand what you are saying?” he was saying. The ceiling of the room was starting to come back into focus, though I was seeing two of the light fixture.

“Yes,” Steff cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean… just… just… let her go. Punish me, and let her go.”

The blurry form of Viktor lurched into view. I heard a loud click and then the metal loop on my left wrist popped off.

“No!” I protested. Viktor grabbed my arm and jerked it down over the side of the table with human-bone-crunching force.

I was still screaming when he had undone all the bonds. He grabbed me by my hair, carried me to the door, and opened it.

“Wait,” he said, extending his arm and dropping me not quite on my feet just outside the door. “Steff will be with you shortly, after she and I have had words.”

Steff would be with me?

“What do you mean?” I blurted out, but Viktor let out a very unmodulated growl of frustration, grabbed the hair on the back of my head and slammed my face into the door frame before hurling me across the hall.

I hit the door opposite his and bounced. There was an indignant cry of “What the fuck, man?” from inside, but the door remained closed.

Maybe I was a slow learner, but it seemed like Viktor really didn’t like it when I talked to him.

But, what had he meant when he said Steff would be with me?

A few moments later, my clothes landed on me.

Before I had a chance to even pick myself up of the floor, to say nothing of them, Gwynedd came charging up and started kicking me in the head.

“Hey, knock it off!” I said, before I realized that she couldn’t hear me. I used my hands to try to block her next kick, though I could barely move my left arm.

It hardly mattered. She stopped kicking, grabbed me by my wrists, and hauled me to my feet. She started turning me around, with absolutely no concern for where she put her hands or what she grabbed to do so.

I lurched away from her, still dizzy and disoriented but more than strong enough to break her grip without trying.

“Fucking stop!” I said, pointlessly. I turned to face her. Viktor had spoken to her before, so she probably could read lips. “Stop it,” I said.

She didn’t listen, but grabbed me by the hurt arm and lifted it, jerking me around while she looked up and down my body.

Again, I pulled myself away from her. What was her problem?

“What’s your problem?” I asked. I felt like I was shouting but sounds were still kind of indistinct and I was trying to be distinct for her.

She held up her arm, running a finger over the letters cut into it.

“No,” I said, trying to make my mouth form the words as clear as possible. I don’t know how well I did, with my head full of fuzz. “He didn’t mark me.”

She raised her forefinger and gave it a twirl. I stared at it without comprehending for a few seconds, then sighed, and turned slowly around in a full circle, letting her see my body. I was feeling very wobbly. My head hurt and my eyes weren’t quite coming together right. It was like there was two of everything.

Part of me was glad for the distraction, no matter how absurd it was, of being made to dance like this for Gwynedd’s inspection… but mostly I wanted a chance to clear my head, to think, to puzzle out what the hell had just happened.

What had Viktor meant?

Well, I’d do what she told me now, just to get it over with faster.

She motioned for me to turn in the other direction when I came back around.

“Why?” I asked, even as I complied, which meant I was talking to myself, effectively. “It’s the same this way as the other way.” When I was facing her again, I said, “There, see? No cuts. No name. Nothing.”

She relaxed a little, though she was still looking at me like I was some half-drowned insect climbing up the side of a toilet bowl. Well, at least we were communicating. That was good.

“I’m Mackenzie,” I said, resisting the urge to point at chest as I said this. She knew Pax. She would understand the concept of “I am” without a visual aid.

She shook her head, holding up a thumb and two fingers and making a little sort of biting motion or something with it.

“Uh, yes,” I said. “I am. Mackenzie. That’s me. Or maybe you’ve heard of me as Mack?”

She shook her head and signed something.

“I don’t understand that,” I said.

She pointed between my legs.

“What?” I asked.

She jabbed her finger insistently, taking a step forward. I took a step back.

“Oh, right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You think I’m a cunt.”

She made a little motion in front of her mouth.

“What, I need to brush my teeth?” I guessed.

She made the snippy-biting sign again, which I figured meant no. She tapped her chin a couple times and pointed at my pussy again.

“You want to eat my pussy?”

That one made her mad. I thought she was going to hit me, but she grabbed my face, pinching my cheeks with her finger and thumb to open my mouth while her other hand grabbed between my legs. She didn’t seem to have any concept of personal space. I lurched back as soon as she made contact down there, but I’d got her point.

“You want me to say it,” I said.

She raised a fist and “nodded” with it.

I sighed.

“I’m a cunt,” I said.

She signed yes.

“Happy now?” I said, then bent down to gather my clothes. She stepped on the pile and pulled it away. “Hey!” I said, straightening up. “Give me those!”

She ignored my protestation and stooped to pick the paddle out of the pile.

“Hey, don’t touch that!” I said. “That’s mine!”

I reached for it, but she stepped back and gestured for me to turn around.

“No,” I said.

She smacked me across the face with the studded side.

“Quit it!” I said. She was lashing out with it fairly wildly, hitting my chin, neck, and chest as I tried to fend off the blows one-handed. My left arm was hanging uselessly at my side, a mess of pain in the shoulder, wrist, and most of all the upper arm where Viktor had cracked it against the edge of the table. “That’s not how you use it!”

My feet got tangled up as I was backing away, and I landed on my ass. Gwynedd planted her foot on my chest and pushed my back down to the floor. She let the paddle drop beside me and stared down at me, grinning disconcertingly.

It seemed like there was a lesson in this, about going along with an unreasonable person to get things over with quickly.

The knowledge that I could have kicked her ass even with an arm that thought it was broken as long I didn’t mind hurting her was at the forefront of my thoughts, but I don’t think she would have cared. Her face was blank, except her eyes, and the only thing in them was scorn.

With a hall light almost directly overhead, she was blurrier than before, but it looked like she was repeating the mouth gesture.

“You want me to say it again?” I asked. “I’m a cunt.”

She nodded.

“I’m a cunt,” I repeated. “Okay? Can I have my clothes now?”

No, she indicated, I could not. She did take her foot off me and offer me a hand up. As soon as I was on my feet, though, she gave me a backhand slap across the cheek.

“Ow, fuck, what the hell is wrong with you?” I asked.

She was smiling now, her expression mirthful. She put on a questioning look, and made some kind of motion in front of her face. Even leaving aside the fact that I didn’t know the hand cant, it was hard for me to follow her moves after the pounding I’d taken.

“What?” I asked. She hit me again, then jabbed her finger towards me. “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I said, and this time she balled her fist up and punched me in the throat. I reeled back, choking once.

She looked angry again now, like she thought I was being slow on purpose. She jammed a fingernail between my breasts.

“Who am I?” I guessed. “I’m a cunt, okay? That‘s who I am. A cunt.”

She stepped back, looking pleased… but then she smacked me again, on my sore shoulder.

“Ow!” I said. “What the hell is going to make you happy?”

She hit me again.

“I’m a cunt,” I said. “You just want me to say that?”

She signaled yes.

“I’m a cunt,” I said. She hit me lightly on the other shoulder. “I’m a cunt,” I repeated.

She raised her hand like she was going to slap my face again, but after holding it in place for several seconds, she lowered it and smiled.

“You know, if I get tired of you smacking me around, you could be in serious trouble,” I told her.

She punched me in my left arm, then slugged me in the stomach and brought her knee up to my face as I doubled over.

Okay, apparently there was only one thing I was allowed to say to her, in her mind. That was fine with me. I wasn’t looking for conversation. When the fresh stars in my eyes cleared, I told her I was a cunt and then I sat down against the wall with my knees drawn up and my arms folded on top of them. It hurt to move the left one into that position, but it was okay once I had it settled.

Gwynedd seemed positively delighted by my adoption of this posture, but I didn’t care. Fuck her and her whole comic shop full of issues, whatever they were. I put my head down and closed my eyes, shutting out the painful brightness.

“Steff will be with you shortly.”

Was he turning her out of the room? Maybe that was the final punishment for her disobedience. He’d already taken her key.

Or maybe it was for a last goodbye.

But maybe… just maybe…

But, then, maybe I’d misheard completely. I had just been hit pretty hard on the head.

Everything was dark and cool, but the coolness didn’t bother me. Then the door opened, jerking me back to awareness of the fact that I’d lost awareness of my surroundings.

I looked up, across the hall, and saw Steff. She looked very drawn and haggard, but the expression on her face was one of amazed relief. She looked like somebody who thought she’d lost everything and then found out she hadn’t.

As soon as I thought that, fireworks went off inside me. It was true. I could see it on her face. I didn’t understand it, but there it was.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. Tears poured forth from her eyes as she spoke, but she wasn’t sobbing. In fact, she broke into a smile. “Yes, it’s over. He… he was torturing me, not you.”

“Huh?” I asked. Once again, it seemed like I wasn’t quite hearing things right.

“You were just… well, you were the instrument. When I said I’d rather give you up than watch you suffer like that… that was what he was waiting for,” she said. “He said he wanted to find my breaking point, so he could show me that I had one… and then, I told him I was sorry.” She shook her head. “And I was. I am. I am so sorry, Mack.”

“We both are… but, you’ve hurt me yourself, before,” I said.

“Not like that,” she said. “I’ve thought about it, and I’ve dr… uh, dreamed about some pretty extreme things, but, to actually see you, laid out like that, cringing in terror…” She shuddered. “It wasn’t like I thought it would be.”

“Then, it was all a bluff?” I asked. “The knives? The waiver? Everything?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t think so,” Steff said. “I mean, he was gambling on how I’d react, but if I hadn’t… he’d probably have kept going and finished punishing you on principle. I mean, I didn’t ask, but I assume he would have.”

“So… does this mean… we can still…” It seemed like the answer would have to be yes, or Steff wouldn’t be smiling, but I was still afraid to ask.

“Viktor gave me three things to tell you,” she said. “Before I answer that.”

“Okay,” I said, bracing myself. I figured probably, if he was laying out conditions, then the answer at the end of it all would be mostly positive.

Probably.

Mostly.

“One, he wants you to replace the tongs you broke.”

“What?” I asked. He hadn’t even used the tongs.

“They kind of got all bent when they hit your skull,” Steff said. “Um, he also said you’re vulnerable to the symptoms of a concussion but you don’t have to worry about actual damage, according to his research.”

“Is that the second thing?” I asked.

“No, that was just something he mentioned,” Steff said. “The second thing is that he wants to have a meeting with you, me, and Amaranth, to clarify some things for the future. Um, this wasn’t one of the three things, either, but… you should probably practice keeping your mouth shut, you know?”

“That’ll be a productive meeting,” I said. “Why does he have to do that every time I talk? I mean, he doesn’t love every last bit of his culture.”

“No, but, it’s his culture,” Steff said. “It’s how he was raised. For somebody so far beneath him to speak without being told to… it bugs him.”

“I noticed,” I said. “I guess it’s lucky for Gwynedd that she’s mute.”

“Oh, no, she’s actually allowed to respond to him,” Steff said.

“That just figures,” I said. I sighed. “What’s the third thing?”

She smiled.

“He said to take me some place nice.”

“What?”

“On our date,” she said, and the smile became a face-splitting ear-to-ear grin. “Friday. Take me some place nice.”

“Then… we’re still can dating?” I said, the sentence coming out of my mouth in a delirious jumble.

“Oh, yes, Mack, yes,” Steff said. She threw her arms around me and squeezed tight.

“Ow!” I said. “My shoulder… my arm really hurts.”

“Shit, sorry,” Steff said. She let go, then asked, “Where does it hurt most?”

“Here,” I said, pointing with my right hand at the spot just above my elbow where it had banged against the edge of the table.

She reached out and stroked her fingertips lightly across the skin there, then more firmly. I winced at the fresh wave of pain at the first touch, then moaned at the second.

“Sorry,” she said, smiling ruefully. “I… um… I still like pain.”

“I do, too,” I said, blushing.

“I still want to, you know, play,” she said. “Just not quite like that.”

“Not like that,” I agreed, shaking my head. “So… now what?”

“Now, we get your clothes back on and I help you back to your room,” Steff said.

“Right, they’re right…” I stopped and looked around.

They should have been kind of strewn about the middle of the hall, but they weren’t. Then I noticed for the first time that Gwynedd was gone.

I had a moment where I thought my clothing had departed with her, then I twisted around and saw they were all neatly folded right next to where I’d been sitting.

I did not understand her.

We both lost.

When we got to Viktor’s room, Steff did her little knocking ritual on it. There was no immediate answer from inside, and the door remained locked.

Steff leaned against the wall between Viktor’s door and the next one over.

Of course, it was her room, too, but my mind was assigning ownership of it to the half-ogre.

She wasn’t crying any more, and she wasn’t trying to get me to let her take my place any more. She seemed to be completely drained, utterly defeated. She looked like she had when she’d first started treatment, when the potion they’d had her on had basically blocked all her emotions.

I stood staring at the knob, wondering if it would start to turn slowly, or if it would fly open, or if the lock would simply click.

If I hadn’t known what the inside of the room looked like, my imagination probably would have conjured the right images anyway: black drapery, skulls, flickering candles. As it was, it was finding all sorts of embellishments.

I was slowly convincing myself that the horror would begin the instant the door was opened, that I would be faced with something more than a disappointed half-ogre with full license to punish me as he saw fit. Maybe he had enlisted the help of another student, or students.

I didn’t really know all the students on the boys’ side, or on the other floors of the girls’ side. I didn’t know what the racial make-up was. Logic told me that something like a gorgon was unlikely. Instinct told me it was inevitable.

Then, what if he’d looked up some of the students I already knew. Did he know Belinda? Maybe he’d spoken to her, half-ogre to half-ogre, and given her a chance to position herself above me once and for all.

Then, if Iona and Feejee were so interested in speaking to other “man-eaters”, maybe they had let Viktor in on the secret as well. I’d had some pleasure at their hands, but I couldn’t deny that they knew how to inflict pain and terror on the human side of me.

What had Feejee said? Iona wanted to know if my body would still be invulnerable after I died?

But… Viktor wasn’t going to…

“Maybe he isn’t in?” I said to Steff, full of desperate hope that faded even as I spoke. If he wasn’t there at the moment, that just meant we’d have to wait. “I mean, he’s not expecting us until after class.”

“Maybe,” Steff said. She sounded like she lacked the energy to care one way or the other. “He took my key, anyway.” Maybe my impression of it as his room hadn’t been completely off, I thought. “I don’t want this to happen,” she said, sniffling. “But it’s going to. I can’t stop it.”

She looked like she was about to cry again, and the fear receded a bit. I wasn’t the only one suffering. I had to be there for her.

“Steff, it’s going to be okay,” I said. It seemed like about the fifth time I’d said this to her. “Really. I’m scared, but… I don’t blame you.”

“Not yet,” she said.

She looked away.

I didn’t know what else to say.

The door picked that moment when my eyes were off it to open, provoking a startled yelp from me.

It was Gwynedd. She seemed utterly unconcerned with her appearance, which was shocking in ways beyond her being naked except for a leather collar.

Viktor’s name was still visible in puffy pink letters on her arm, and she had fresher scars on her bare breasts, spiraling out from her areolas, as well as on her other arm and her legs. She was a good sized girl, so there was plenty of room for the “artwork” to spread out. In a perverse way, it almost seemed to compliment the soft roundness of her body.

They were just red lines, not anything gory or bloody, but they looked ugly to me. That was what a wound looked like when it healed without magic? It seemed… unnatural. I suddenly wondered about my knee. I hadn’t taken a good look at since it had scabbed over. Was it scarring like that? If it was, was it too late for healing?

It seemed weird to be worried about a little scar on my knee at that time, but I was in a mood to worry about anything.

What if not being healed was going to be part of the punishment? I remembered Kai going around with her hands in bandages at the start of the school year. I’d thought at the time that this was barbaric beyond belief, and I’d wondered how in the world she could let Sooni have that kind of power over her.

I was learning how, it seemed.

Gwynedd and Steff were making flurries of hand signs back and forth, then Gwynedd abruptly stepped back and slammed the door.

“We’re early,” Steff explained.

“Why do you have to sign back to her?” I asked. “Is she deaf?”

“Uh, yeah?” Steff said. She sounded a little surprised, underneath the emotional fatigue. “Didn’t you know?”

“I knew she was mute,” I said. “But… isn’t she a bardic student?”

“Yeah.”

“How?” I asked.

Before Steff could muster an answer, the door opened again, with Gwynedd still standing in the opening. She signed something to Steff, which involved pointing at me. Steff responded, and Gwynedd repeated part of it, and then repeated it again. It looked like she was being insistent.

“She says that you’re a shitty cunt,” Steff said to me.

“What the hell?” I asked, directing it at either or both of them.

Steff shrugged. Gwynedd nodded and gave me a bit of non-verbal communication that even I could understand, then closed the door.

“What the hell is her problem?” I asked.

“She feels threatened,” Steff said. “He took her out of the box and put you in it. He kicked her out of the room for you.”

“That doesn’t mean he likes me, or anything,” I said. “And she doesn’t seem to mind you.”

“I don’t have a vag,” Steff said. “I’m not a threat.”

“Did you… make all those cuts on her?” I asked.

Steff nodded.

“I did more, too,” she said. “But… we healed that stuff.”

“How am I more of a threat than you?” I asked.

“She lets me do those things because I’m not a threat,” Steff said. “I’m not competing for the same position as she is.”

“Neither am I,” I said. “I’m doing this because I said I would, but… that’s it.” I hugged myself, putting my hands on my elbows. The hallway seemed cold. “After this is done… well, I guess I’m going to have to watch myself.”

“She’s really not bad,” Steff said. “She’s… not really socialized. Viktor says she’s a pretty good musician, though..”

“How?” I asked again.

“Well, she can read music,” Steff said. “And she likes the way the instruments feel when she plays them. We can probably go in a few minutes. She’s just asking Viktor if she can beat on you first.”

“How do you know that?” I asked. Even ignoring the sound-absorbing cloth the room was draped with, I couldn’t believe that Steff’s elven senses were keen enough to make out hand signs by their sound.

“She said so, the first time she answered the door,” Steff said.

“Is… is she going to be part of the punishment?” I asked.

This idea was adding to my apprehension. It skewed the situation from “I broke Viktor’s rules and will get what’s coming to me, however horrible that will be.” to “A crazy woman who’s into scars and has an irrational hatred of me is perhaps going to be handed sharp, enchanted objects and told to go to town.”

Steff didn’t answer.

How could she? She didn’t know any better than I did.

“Don’t forget,” Steff said, still avoiding looking at me. “Don’t talk, don’t look him in the eye.”

I nodded. I probably would’ve forgotten, at least about the second part. Perversely, caring for Steff had done something to dull my sense of impending doom, but now that she’d gone so numb, there was nothing left to distract me. Even my irritation at Gwynedd just fed into my worry.

Would she be part of it? If Viktor’s goal was to make it just as awful as he could… but then, maybe what he had in mind was worse. Even the bitchiest human probably couldn’t compare to what an intelligent, experienced half-ogre could do.

I got one answer when the door opened again and she came flying out, her bare feet skipping on the floor as if she’d been shoved. I just barely managed to avoid being bowled over, then reached out to help steady her. She bit my hand, punched me in the chest, and then stomped on my foot.

Considering I was wearing shoes and she wasn’t, the first two kind of made the last one superfluous.

I had a moment of thinking, “At least it isn’t going to be her.” before I started thinking “That means it’s something worse.”

Steff pulled me towards the door. I wasn’t exactly digging in my feet, but I’d just been socked in my left breast. I was a little distracted.

The room was mostly as I remembered it, though the desk had been pushed into the corner by the foot of the bed and the keyboard had been disassembled. A metal table with built in restraints had been set up in the middle of the room. It looked like it was modular.

That was another question answered. He did have specialized equipment tucked away.

There was a bucket on the floor next to it, covered with a lid, with a pair of tongs next to it, and what looked like a pair of pliers. There were a series of three jagged blades with oversized handles, as well. I almost reached out to see if they were magical, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I didn’t really want to know.

“Get the door,” Viktor said to Steff. I hadn’t even noticed him, as he was standing in the blind corner as we came in. I remained perfectly still. I wasn’t having any trouble remembering my place. I was paralyzed with fear, my eyes locked on those three knives.

Steff shut and locked the door. The sound of the bolt sliding into place fell away instantly with the noise-damping enchantments, but it somehow managed to echo in my mind.

Locked in a torture chamber with a half-ogre.

Of course, I wasn’t actually locked in. The doors worked the other way. Everybody else was locked out. Try telling me that, though.

“You look worried, my sweet darling,” Viktor said. I heard him moving, coming closer… to Steff, not me. They were in my peripheral vision, but my brain processed them as distractions, not real people.

It was still focused on the blades.

“Do not be,” Viktor said, in measured, cultured tones. “You lasted from Sunday until Friday, almost a week. That sort of progress is more than I expected from you. For that, a small reward. You will be allowed to witness… even perhaps participate in… the chastisement of your friend, from whom I expected a little more.”

Steff made a noise that I think was her trying to say something. I don’t know if she was trying to voice her appreciation or her disapproval.

Maybe she didn’t, either. Maybe that’s why it came out like that.

Then Viktor was behind me—between me and the door!—and I could feel his hot breath on my head, could sense his looming presence.

“Before I place you into the restraints,” he said, and even with him so terribly close to me it was a moment before I realized he was actually addressing me, “I will go over a few things. There is a waiver that I will require you to sign. I have written it myself, but it is based on a selection of perfectly legal dueling agreements with which I am familiar.”

He paused and then walked around in front of me, not looking at me, but pacing back and forth as he spoke. My head was low. I couldn’t see his face, even in profile. He was just an immense, terrible presence in the room.

I resisted the urge to follow him with my eyes. There was something more terrible than the knives in the room now.

“The difference is that this one is rather more… unilateral, I think is the word,” he continued. He was speaking slowly, drawing each word out like he was coaxing sounds from some rare instrument. “It indemnifies me in the event of your permanent injury… disfigurement… or death. Originally, it specified ‘accidental’, but upon reflection that seemed unwise. In the event of anything unfortunate, it would then fall to me to prove my intentions… and honestly, I cannot be bothered. So, the waiver is total and without conditions. You will sign it and we will begin, or you will not and you will leave.”

He didn’t have to elaborate. He didn’t have to say “leave and not come back.” He didn’t have to say “leave and allow Steff to take your punishment, and then never so much as speak to her again.” That had already been established and he wasn’t going to waste words.

He walked to the metal table and slammed a hand holding a pen and piece of paper down on it.

“Go,” he said, stepping to the side without turning to look at me. “Sign.”

Trembling, I stepped forward. The piece of paper was my new object of dread, the new focal point for my fear. Once I signed it, I was effectively stuck. Even if I said I’d changed my mind, Viktor could strike me down with impunity. He hadn’t said as much, but it seemed to me like this was the point of no return.

If I signed the paper, then my last exit was closed.

I couldn’t seem to lift my arms to pick the paper up, so I looked down at it instead. It was short, if not sweet, and utterly to the point.

By signing this form, I, MACKENZIE BLAISE, do hereby waive all relevant protections and remedies of law in the event of my injury, disfigurement, or death at the hands of Viktor Constantinescu (illegible), citizen of Kilrest, the Ogre Territories.

The illegible portion was some kind of scratchy print that I assumed was an ogre clan name or similar. It did sound a bit like the examples of dueling forms we’d been shown during health class, with the exception that it was not reciprocal.

I also couldn’t help noticing that there was no expiration date on it, or any indication that the waiver only covered a single event.

“If you have any questions you would like to ask before you sign,” Viktor said, “then you may go.”

With a trembling hand, I picked up the pen, and touching the bare minimum surface of the form necessary to hold it in place, I signed and dated the form, then straightened out. Viktor’s massive hand swiped across to grab it, and then he stowed it away somewhere.

“Very good,” he said. “Your clothes must be removed.”

My hands started to move, but I stopped.

“Very good,” he repeated. “You will now remove your clothes.”

I peeled off my shirt with difficulty… why had I worn something so form-fitting? My shoes, belt, and jeans were next, then my socks, my bra, and last… with only a slight hesitation… my panties.

I stood there, naked and motionless. Fear had done what heat could not and covered me in sweat, which left me cold. Viktor came over and picked up the paddle which had hung on my belt. He chuckled and put it aside.

“We will not, I think, be needing that,” he said.

With surprising speed and agility, he grabbed me by my leg and neck and swung me up over the table. I landed hard on the freezing metal surface. Before I had a chance to recover from the shock and settle my limbs into place, he began wrenching them into the restraints.

My ankles, wrists, and even my neck were all shackled in steel bonds. The edges of the cold metal bit into my skin, without actually penetrating.

“The restraints are not magical,” Viktor said. “So when you struggle… and you will struggle… there will be no risk of injury from that. It is possible that given sufficient time and determination, you could wrench free of them, though I would react very poorly to any such deliberate attempt. I have no intention of inflicting anything more permanent than a lesson upon you, but it is indeed possible that the waiver will come into play. Some of the things I mean to do have never been attempted. It is not often that one of your unusual nature submits to torture.”

He reached down beneath the table and lifted up the bucket. As soon as he set it down on the table, I felt the chill coming off it. I had a horrible premonition about what was to come.

“We will begin with something light,” he said. “Something with very little chance of misadventure, though I doubt you will find it very relaxing. Come closer, Steff. Do not hide away. I know you have looked forward to this.”

I couldn’t see her, but I heard shuffling footsteps.

He lifted the cover off the pail and reached a gloved hand in. I wasn’t surprised to see him hold up a very large piece of ice… and yet, it was a little underwhelming. He was going to torture me with ice cubes?

Then he touched it to the bond on my wrist, and the cold started to creep through it. I tried to jerk my arm away, which only caused more pain. He held the ice against the bond until the metal felt like it was frozen through, then he put the chunk away and put the cover over it again.

That was it? One application? It had been terrible, my wrist hurt and I’d wrenched my shoulder trying to jerk away, but… it was over. If the other parts were as brief as that… it was just a demonstration, after all. Something to show his displeasure, prove he was serious, and give me a warning not to mess up again.

“The ice will be the first stage,” he said. My heart sank as I realized it was just a demonstration. The real torture was coming up. “I thought I would give you a little tour before we begin properly, so you know what you have to look forward to. Of course, I do not know whether it will be more excruciating for you to have the ice applied to your bonds, or to your bare skin, though I look forward to finding out.”

He ducked down again and retrieved the tongs and the pliers.

“These will be next,” he said. “With the average person, only so much force can be applied, the flesh can only be twisted so hard, before things begin to snap. With you? There can be no such limit. The ice will prove useful at this stage, as well. I hope the fact that the instruments are made of metal has not been lost on you. Steff, come closer!” he said, turning away. “I wish you to witness this.”

He laid the tongs down alongside me and held the pliers in his hand, opening and closing them as he moved the head of the tool back and forth over my chest, circling between my nipples as if wracked with indecision.

All thought of averting my eyes had long since flown from my head. I was looking up at his face, which seemed to be oblivious to me as a person. He was utterly impassive, entirely fixed on the task in front of him.

Suddenly, he straightened up, and lowered the pliers.

“I cannot do this,” he declared.

Again, a spark of hope flared up in my heart. It was over. We were done.

“It is too much,” he said, and that spark was fanned into a flickering flame.

“I cannot decide,” he said, and the flame died, leaving me colder and darker inside than I had been before.

“Steff, you must choose… left, right,” he said, waving the pliers over me, and then lowering them so that they touched between my breasts and dragging them down my body, until they were just touching where the folds of my labia hooded my clit. “Or lower? Hmm? What should it be, sweet Steff?”

“Don’t!” Steff croaked.

“The nipples, then?” Viktor said.

“No!”

“The clitoris? You aren’t making sense, lover,” Viktor said, waving the pliers above my pubic region. “Unless you mean you cannot choose, either, in which case we shall have to do all three.”

“No!” Steff said again, sobbing. “Me… take me.”

“That is her choice, and she has said no. She would rather not risk losing you, I think. Isn’t that sweet?” Viktor said. “So, sunwise, do you think?”

“I… I won’t,” Steff said.

“You will not what?” Viktor asked.

“I won’t be with her!” Steff said. “I won’t! Do you hear me, Mack?” she said. “Tell him to take me! Tell him to take me, because I don’t want to be with you anyway!”

Apparently, he didn’t let a little thing like a lack of clothing stop him from roaming the halls when something lit a fire underneath him. While I worried about Steff, I found the fact that he’d ran out naked a little encouraging, as it suggested he didn’t intend to be gone for long. I wondered what I would do if he didn’t come back, but only a few minutes passed before I heard the key in the lock.

I forgot not to look as he came into the room, dragging Steff by the arm. I watched him give a jerk and let go, slamming her into one of the padded walls. From the look of it, the black drapes muffled impact a bit as well as sound, but it was still pretty brutal looking.

Viktor’s eyes locked with mine. They were almost paralyzing in their fiery intensity. He lunged at me and I cringed, then yelped as he squeezed the sides of my head between his palms and wrenched my head back up and faced me forwards again.

I could feel my heart trying to escape from my chest and was whimpering even after he let me go. Half-human or not, angry Viktor was scary.

“I told you what I’d do,” he said to Steff, reaching past me to pick up the skull from the desk. “I told you what I’d do if you went back there.”

“I didn’t!” Steff wailed. “I was just looking for Ronnie.”

“The whole third floor is off limits,” Viktor said.

“You said… you said,” Steff hiccupped. “You said if I went back to Fin. I didn’t… I didn’t.”

“Gah!” Viktor said. He slammed the skull back down on the desk, prompting an anxious gasp from Steff. Then, with surprising speed, he grabbed the chair and tipped it sideways, dumping me off.

“Hey!” I protested, forgetting myself… or maybe forgetting my lack of self. I started to get up, but Viktor planted a foot on my stomach and put his weight on it. Ow.

“Sit,” he said to Steff, still standing on me.

I couldn’t breathe. I could have rolled over, thrown him off… but I didn’t want to make the situation worse than it was. I went as limp and still as I could. He lifted his weight off that foot, but kept it in place.

“I was not precise enough in my instructions,” Viktor said when Steff had sat down. “If you break any of the rulings I have given you today, I will take your skull away.”

“I was just looking for Ronnie,” Steff repeated. She’d lost all the subtle modulation of her voice… she was almost screeching now. “I was…”

“Silence,” Viktor said. “It still remains for you to be punished.”

He stepped off of me. I would have relaxed, except I had no desire whatsoever to see or hear Steff’s punishment. Viktor stooped down and grabbed me by the seat and the back of my neck, lifting me upright and setting me on my feet. I hoped he was going to direct me by the door, but instead he dragged me to the closet.

He slid open the door. Inside the closet was a big, black box standing up on its end, sort of like a wooden locker. The shelf had been removed to make room for it. He opened the box to reveal a somewhat plump human girl in satin panties and stockings.

Her eyes went from wild with excitement when the door opened to wild with confusion when she saw Viktor’s face and me.

“Out!” Viktor bellowed at her.

She stared at me in confusion and maybe a little anger.

“Out,” Viktor repeated, yanking her out of the box with his free hand and then shoving me in it.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I said as the door slammed shut. I tried to push it open, but it didn’t budge. It wasn’t even a matter of being latched or locked. It didn’t move at all. There was a handle, but it didn’t turn from the inside.

So, I was stuck inside Viktor’s magic bondage box.

Okay.

It occurred to me that he might actually have been showing me consideration, of a kind he felt was appropriate for my “level.” Instead of giving Steff what was no doubt a severe punishment in front of me, he’d put me away first where I couldn’t see or hear anything.

How long had the other girl been stuck inside? She’d seemed surprised, but she hadn’t been complaining. Maybe Viktor had ordered her inside when we arrived… Steff had knocked and then waited before coming in. There hadn’t been that long a delay, though… not enough time for argument or explanation. That meant she’d been there completely willingly. She’d been expecting to be ordered or placed inside the box, if she hadn’t simply been there already.

I felt a little bit better having worked that out. Not a lot, but a little bit. It was hard to imagine even a submissive putting up with this kind of treatment: being put away in a box in the closet, like a toy you never play with any more. It was hard to imagine anything more demeaning.

Though, it was a little bit arousing.

I wasn’t in the box of my own free will, of course, but I was willing to stay there for the time being. The opening had some kind of holding charm on it, but the wood was probably just wood. That meant I could batter my way out of it eventually if I had to. If it wasn’t fireproof, I had that as an option of last resort.

The box seemed to be sealed up pretty tight, but there was enough light at least for me to see myself and the sides. They were painted black, so there wasn’t a lot to see. I had room to turn around, barely.

After I’d been in there for maybe fifteen minutes, dimly glowing blue lines started to form on the door. I thought my vision was just swimming, but the lines formed a word and then disappeared

“Panic?” I read, and the door clicked open, hitting the inside of the closet door. Whoops. I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut, feeling a little guilty.

It had been a reminder to the bondee, apparently, of the device’s safe word or emergency escape clause or whatever. I hadn’t actually been in a panic or an emergency.

The word appeared another time before the door was opened again. I wondered in an idle sort of way if it did it at regular intervals, or just once for every time the door was opened and closed? I could see the pros and cons either way.

If you were seriously into the treatment enough to enjoy being locked away for an hour, it might wreck the experience to have your prison keep reminding you that it’s all just make-believe. On the other hand, if for some reason you didn’t know the code word and you missed it, you’d be out of luck… unless there were other safety features. Like a maximum duration of incarceration, or spells to detect physical comfort and safety.

Maybe the reminder could be disabled, for couples who used it regularly? Of course, that would be easy to abuse. The best way to do it would be to have a counter word that only worked from inside with the door closed. If you wanted to go all-out, it would have to be confirmed by the safe word.

Before, I never would have conceived of an enchanted box for storing sex partners in. Now, I was wondering what the state of the art was for such things, and whether I could improve on it.

Well, enchantment was my major.

It hadn’t occurred to me until just then that I could have poked around a bit to find how the spells were weaved, but that felt like it would be… cheating. I’d been put in the box under the assumption that I would be a passive object. Poking around to see how the box worked didn’t mesh with that. Also, it would have been like the flashing reminder: another way of saying “this isn’t real.”

I knew it wasn’t, but… I felt kind of safe locked in the box. Nobody could see me. Nobody could attack me. Nobody could judge me.

Nobody could touch me.

I’d never been a claustrophobe. The basement I’d spent so much time in had been a good deal bigger than a box, but it hadn’t exactly been expansive, and it had been dark and underground. It had also been my private place, even though it would always be tinged with feelings of shame.

When my grandmother had made noises about getting rid of my Mecknights, I’d hidden them down there, in the old well that had been covered over. Not only had that kept them safe, it gave me something to do during the long empty hours.

Not that they were particularly boring, even without the toys. I’d always been able to entertain myself, when left alone and with no other options. It had been down in the basement that I’d come up with my ideas for stories. I’d never really thought about it, but as I’d grown older and been sent downstairs less and less, I’d written less and less, too.

When the door finally opened from the outside, it took me by surprise. I’d almost forgotten there was a door, much less a whole room outside it. Viktor grabbed me and yanked me out. He let go of me just outside the closet. I stayed where I was, not just meek but… content. I felt almost as though I’d had a really good nap.

Was that a property of the box, or of me?

“Put on your underwear,” Viktor said to Steff. “Take her back. I will see you again after dinner… and stay away from the third floor.”

I can only assume Steff signaled her assent in some way. She came over and took me by the arm. She was pale and trembling, her eyes bleary and her cheeks wet. I led her to the door as much as the other way around.

The girl in the panties was waiting right outside the door, standing stock still with her arms at her side, as if she were still in a box. I noticed now that she had the word “Viktor” cut in big angry lines on her arm. When we came out, she slipped back into the room without a word.

“Are you okay?” I asked Steff when she’d locked the door behind the girl.

She nodded, then shook her head.

“He took my skull,” she said in the sort of small, meek voice I more commonly associated with myself than with Steff.. “He’s keeping it for now.”

I thought about telling her there were other skulls, but frankly, the whole “keeping parts of people’s bodies” thing creeped me out. Maybe it was hypocritical, given the fact that I’d eaten parts of somebody’s body not too long ago. Then again, that creeped me out, too.

“Is it special?” I asked. I’d almost asked, “What’s so special about it?” Yeah, I’m sensitive like that.

She nodded.

“He gave it to me,” she said.

I thought that I could almost understand what was going on. Though it might have seemed like he was being petty for taking a toy away in anger and she was being petty for crying over it, the, um… item in question had been a token of love between them. For Viktor to take it away was a very serious thing.

“I’m pretty sure he loves you,” I said.

“I know,” Steff said. She started to turn away, then turned back to me and collapsed against me. There was no embrace. Her arms were limp at her side. If I hadn’t hugged her quickly, she probably would have fallen. “I love him so much, Mack,” she said, bursting into tears.

“I know,” I said. Lamest answer ever.

“I-I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him,” she said.

“Why would you?” I asked. “He loves you.”

“I can’t… I can’t handle it,” she said. “What he wants. I need… I can’t do it.”

Ordinarily, this probably would have been a good clue that there was something very wrong with the relationship. If she was talking about staying away from mind-altering potions, though, I think Viktor had the right idea. On the other hand, if she really lacked the strength to follow through on his order, that right idea wouldn’t take them very far.

I could do my best to support her… and if we did move into the dating phase, maybe Viktor’s “hostage” idea would help tip the scales. In the end, though, I was way out of my depths. I was not prepared to handle Steff’s problems, whatever they were.

I was simply not qualified.

Then I realized that there were people who were.

“Steff,” I said, in the gentlest tone I could manage. It was pretty gentle. As much as I felt for Steff, I was still pretty relaxed from my little time-out. “Have you ever considered mental healing sessions?”

She pulled back from me. I saw a twinge in her face, as if the idea disturbed her. I expected her to protest, or laugh off the suggestion, or even slap me. I remembered how vigorously Puddy had put down the idea of any kind of counseling for me after the first time Barley had attacked me. I failed to repress a shudder at that. Of course she would have. That made me all the more determined to defend the idea with Steff.

Then, her face softened.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I really do.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed, rocking on her feet a little. She hiccupped.

“Okay then,” she said.