"Twelve." My voice was gone, throat raw from screaming. "Please. Twelve. I can't—"
"You can. You're stronger than you think." But the vibration finally, mercifully stopped.
I collapsed as much as the restraints allowed, every muscle trembling, thighs slick with evidence of my body's betrayal. Tears soaked the sleep mask, and I couldn't stop shaking.Couldn't stop feeling the phantom sensations, the ghost of forced pleasure that made me want to crawl out of my own skin.
"Fascinating," he murmured, and I heard him making notes. Actually making notes, like I was a lab experiment instead of a person he'd just systematically destroyed. "Your resistance threshold is higher than anticipated. We'll need to adjust future protocols accordingly."
"Future?" The word came out as a whimper.
"Oh yes. This was just a baseline, Lilah. Establishing parameters. The real work begins tomorrow."
I felt him lean closer, his cologne mixing with the scent of my shame.
"You did well for a first session. Better than expected. But you need to understand something." His fingers ghosted over the collar, not quite touching. "Defiance has consequences. Spitting, cursing, fighting—they all lead here. To this. Is that really how you want to spend your time with us?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't do anything but lie there and shake.
"Think about it," he said, standing. The restraints released with soft clicks, but I couldn't move. Everything hurt in ways that had nothing to do with pain. "You have free time until lunch. I suggest you use it to reflect on today's lessons."
His footsteps moved toward the door I'd never seen him enter through.
"Oh, and Lilah?" He paused. "The pills you pocketed instead of taking? They really were just vitamins. But thank you for confirming my suspicions about your sleight of hand. We'll address that tomorrow as well."
The door closed with a soft click, leaving me alone in my pink prison.
I curled into a ball, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to process what had just happened. He hadn't hurt me. Not physically. But something fundamental had shifted, some understanding of my own body and its responses that I could never unknow.
The collar felt heavier now. Not just leather and metal but the weight of what it represented. What I'd agreed to. What I'd become the moment I signed that contract with such cocky certainty.
I'd thought I was strong. Thought my defiance was armor. But Dr. Gabriel Mire had just demonstrated, with clinical precision, exactly how easily armor could be stripped away. How quickly strength could become weakness when your own body was the enemy.
Twelve orgasms. I'd counted twelve before he stopped. My body still hummed with the echo of them, oversensitized and aching.
"Lunch will be served in two hours,"the speaker voice informed me cheerfully."Please use this time to rest and reflect on your morning session."
Reflect. Right. Like I could think about anything except the way he'd taken me apart with the same calm efficiency he'd used to wipe my spit from his face.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, the darkness behind my lids less frightening than the pink walls that witnessed my humiliation. Somewhere in this building, Dr. Mire was makingnotes about my responses. Planning tomorrow's session. Adjusting protocols based on data I'd involuntarily provided.
The worst part—the absolute worst part—was that he'd been right. Part of me, some traitorous section buried deep, had been curious. Had wanted to know what came next even as I fought it.
That curiosity had been thoroughly satisfied. And now I had months more of this. Months of sessions and protocols and consequences for defiance I hadn't truly believed would come.
But they had come. Twelve times, while I counted and sobbed and broke a little more with each number.
Welcome to the Mire Institute, where behavioral modification came with a safe word you were too proud to use and too broken to remember.
I'd wanted to know what kind of person signed up for this. Now I knew: someone exactly like me. Too desperate to say no to the money. Too proud to believe the warnings. Too stupid to run when running was still an option.
The speaker crackled to life one more time.
"Sweet dreams, little one. Daddy's very proud of your progress today."
I pulled a pillow over my head and screamed into it until my throat gave out entirely. But even that felt like part of the program. Another response to be catalogued. Another data point in whatever sick research Dr. Gabriel Mire was conducting.
The countdown to lunch ticked away in pink-tinted silence, and I lay there shaking, aching, trying to forget the sound of my own voice counting out my destruction.
One. Two. Three.
