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Moving to the man’s head, the woman’s hand slid into his hair, and she pulled him closer, grinding her hips against his face. He made a sound that was half whimper, half moan, muffled by her thighs, and the bell around his throat chimed again. She held him there for a long moment, using his mouth, and when she finally released him, he gasped for air and immediately pressed his face back between her legs.

“Good boy,” the woman said. Her voice was gentle, but something cruel lay beneath it. “You’re learning. But you’re not done yet”

Reaching down, she pulled her skirt higher, exposing herself completely. I could see everything now. The way his tongue was working against her clit, the wetness coating his chin and mouth, the way her cunt was swollen and flushed. She was close. I could tell by the way her thighs were trembling, the way her breathing had changed, but she didn’t let him stop. Keeping her hand in his hair, she held him exactly where she wanted him.

“He comes here every night,” a woman beside me said. She was young, her mask decorated with black feathers, her dress cut low enough that I could see the bruises on her chest and the bite marks on her shoulders. “He pays ten thousand dollars to kneel for her. To beg. To be told he’s worthless. She makes him come without touching his cock, and then she sends him away, and he comes back the next night and does it again.”

“Why the fuck would anyone do that?” I asked, unable to look away from the stage.

“Because he needs it.” Her eyes were bright behind the mask. “Because his wife doesn’t know what he is. Because he spent forty years pretending he didn’t want to be on his knees with a woman’s cunt in his mouth and a collar around his throat. The House gave him permission to stop trying to convince himself he was anyone else. Now he can’t stop coming back.”

She suddenly pulled the man’s head back, forcing him to look up at her. His face was wet, his lips swollen, his eyes desperate. “Tell them what you are,” she said.

“I’m nothing,” he said. His voice was hoarse, broken. “I’m yours. I’m your fucking dog.”

“That’s right.” She smiled and released him, and he immediately buried his face between her legs again, his tongue working faster now, more frantic. The bell chimed with every movement, marking his desperation. His cock was leaking steadily, a puddle forming on the platform beneath him, but he didn’t touch himself. He wasn’t allowed.

The woman came with a sigh, her body tensing as her hand tightened in his hair. She held him there while she rode out the orgasm, using his mouth, and when she finally released him, she pushed him back with her foot. Falling onto his side, he gasped, his cock still hard and untouched.

“You didn’t earn it tonight,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Almost a sob, the sound that escaped him was raw. His hips jerked forward, seeking friction that wasn't there, and the guests around the platform leaned closer. Some of them were touching themselves. A man in a gold mask had his hand inside his pants, stroking while he watched the Penitent writhe on the floor.

“Please,” the man begged. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

“I know you will.” Standing, the woman stepped over him, her wet dress clinging to her body. “That’s why you’ll come back tomorrow. That’s why you’ll keep paying. Because you need this more than you need your pride, your marriage, or your fucking dignity.”

Walking off the platform, she disappeared through a side door, leaving the man on the floor with his hands still bound and his cock still hard. Some laughed, some stayed silent, and the guests began to disperse. He didn’t move. He just lay there, the bell around his throat chiming with every breath.

Turning to me, the woman with the feathered mask said, “So. Do you need it too? Is that why you’re here?”

I understood why he kept coming back. That was the problem. I understood the relief of being told you were exactly what you feared you were, the permission to stop fighting it. I understood wanting someone to take the choice away so you didn’t have to keep pretending you had one. And that understanding made my skin crawl because it meant the House was already working on me, already finding the cracks.

But I didn’t answer her question.

Just left the room and kept walking.

The corridor beyond the water chamber didn’t run straight. It curved inward, narrowing until the crimson damask wallpaper brushed my shoulders. The velvet beneath my fingertips felt damp, warm in pulses. Somewhere above, muffled applause rolled across the rafters, followed by the wet, rhythmic slap of someone being disciplined on another stage.

I kept moving. The mask pinched the bridge of my nose, but taking it off wasn’t an option.

Three doors stood along the left wall. By the time I’d taken twenty strides, two had vanished into smooth plaster, replaced by a row of tarnished sconces whose gas flames flickered in time with my pulse. The House wasn’t just old architecture. It was alive, shifting its bones to keep us moving toward whatever depravity it wanted us to see next.

Behind me, footsteps clicked against the dark parquet.

Not the heavy boots of a handler or the hurried rustle of a guest. These were slow, sliding strides, the hem of heavy fabric dragging over wood.

I paused and turned my head slightly.

The corridor curved ahead, narrowing into a service passage lit by a single flickering bulb. The walls here were bare plaster, cracked and water-stained, and the air smelled of mildew and something sharper—formaldehyde, maybe, or embalming fluid.

A figure stood at the end of the passage, impossibly thin and motionless.

The Seamstress.

She wore a high-collared dress of faded gray silk, so old the fabric had begun to disintegrate at the seams. Her mask was made of tarnished silver, smooth and featureless except for two narrow slits for eyes. In one hand, she held a silver mannequin no larger than a doll, its limbs jointed and articulated. In the other, she held a spool of black thread.

“Your hem is torn,” she said, her voice soft and precise.