"Rest well, Bunny,"the AI said gently."Daddy's very proud of you today."
I closed my eyes and pretended the warmth in my chest was just conditioning. Just programming. Just neurons firing in patterns he'd designed.
Definitely not something real.
Definitely not something that felt, terrifyingly, like hope.
The Belt & The Bunny Tail
Time had become elastic in my pink prison. Days blurred into sessions, meals into moments of compliance or rebellion. The only markers were the evolving bruises on my skin—purple fading to green, green to yellow, fresh marks layering over old in a palimpsest of my education.
Week four, maybe? The AI had stopped announcing days, only times. Another way to unmoor me from my old life, to make Bunny's world the only one that mattered.
"Good morning, Bunny. Dr. Mire will arrive in five minutes for your session."
I sat on the bed in today's offering—a white sundress with cap sleeves and a hem that barely covered the essentials. My hair was already braided, a skill I'd developed out of spite. If he wanted to touch me, he'd have to find other excuses.
The door opened precisely on time. He entered empty-handed, no case, no tablet. Just him in dark jeans and a grey henley that made him look younger, less clinical. More dangerous.
"Good morning, Bunny." He took his usual seat at the vanity, crossing one ankle over his knee. "How are we feeling today?"
I stared at the wall six inches to the left of his head. Said nothing. I'd learned this game over the past weeks—malicious compliance was still compliance, technically. Follow the letter of the law while violating its spirit.
He waited. I stayed silent. The clock in my head started counting.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
This was our new ritual. He'd watch. I'd resist. Eventually one of us would break. Usually me, but I was getting better at weathering his silences.
Twenty minutes. Thirty.
My skin prickled with the weight of his gaze. Those storm-grey eyes that missed nothing, catalogued everything. I kept my breathing even, my posture correct. Good Bunny, following the unspoken rules while breaking all the explicit ones.
Forty minutes. Forty-five.
A muscle in my jaw started to twitch. The collar felt heavier with each passing second, initials that marked me as property pressing into my throat. His property, though we both pretended otherwise.
Fifty minutes. Fifty-five.
"You cleared your schedule again." The words burst out like water through a dam. "Your whole day, just to sit here and stare at me like I'm some fascinating bug."
"You are fascinating." He didn't move, didn't even blink. "And getting more so every day."
"Fuck off."
"There she is." A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Fifty-seven minutes. You're building impressive tolerance."
"Is that what this is? Tolerance training?" I stood, needing to move, to break the suffocating tension. "Or do you just get off on watching me?"
"Would it matter if I did?"
The question hung between us, loaded with implications neither of us wanted to examine. Because I'd caught him adjusting himself after sessions. Seen the way his control slipped when I pushed hard enough. Felt the evidence of his arousal during punishments he claimed were purely clinical.
"Tell me, Bunny," he continued, uncrossing his legs with deliberate slowness, "what would you do if I said yes? If I admitted that watching you fight and break and rebuild is the most compelling thing I've experienced in years?"
"I'd say you're sick."
"Undoubtedly. But that wasn't the question." He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "What would you do?"
