“Human needs are so inconvenient, aren’t they? So messy. So…undignified.” He slides one hand beneath my head, lifting it gently, ever so tenderly. Like he’s my savior, not the reason I’m strapped to this table, like he’s not the monster who put the pins in my flesh.
The bottle touches my lips. Water spills into my mouth, warm and perfect. I swallow greedily, too fast, and some runs down my chin. He doesn’t pull away. He waits patiently, letting me drink until I’ve had enough.
“It makes me rethink your prose. You write about dark protectors and dangerous men, but you always make the scenes too clean. Too controlled. You sanitize the reality of possession.”When he lowers my head back down, his gloved fingers linger at my temple and cheeks and wipe away the wetness from the mess. “Real ownership means managing every need. Every function. Every vulnerability.”
“The pressure in my bladder is too much to bear now. You must know it, giving me all that water. How are you going to manage that? Because I’ll pee all over your disgusting hands before you think of getting them anywhere near me.”
He straightens and recaps the bottle. “Oh, Reagan. My beautiful queen, always grasping for control, always building a twist.” He moves to the side of the table. Something clicks. Another switch? A hydraulic hiss penetrates my ears. Then the table begins to tilt.
“What are you—no, no, no—”
The world rotates. My stomach lurches. My back lifts from horizontal, rising, rising until I’m nearly vertical. The straps bite deeper as gravity shifts. The pins scream in my flesh, bearing weight they aren’t meant to bear. I can’t breathe through the pain.
When the table stops, I’m standing—or the table’s impression of it. Still strapped. Still pinned. But upright now, facing forward into the dim room.
Another click. The table beneath my feet shifts. The wood splits, separates, forcing my legs wider. Wider. The straps hold my ankles in place as a gap opens between my thighs.
“Stop—please—”
The mechanical whir halts. Cold air hits the inside of me. I’m spread open, displayed in the most vulnerable position imaginable. Shudders take over me violently.
And then he moves. Closer. Closer. Until he sits—kneels—right there, directly beneath the gap in the table.
Nauseating horror floods through me. “What the fuck are you—”
His hands come up to the mask, and my heart skips a beat. Is he going to take it off? Is he finally going to show me his real face?
I watch, transfixed in revulsion, as he does something to the sides. The butterfly mask splits horizontally across the middle. The bottom half pulls down, just a tiny bit, to reveal only his mouth. The top half stays in place, preserving the mystery of his identity.
“Go ahead,” he says. Without the full mask, his voice carries differently—still distorted by something, apparently, in the top half, but clearer. Intimate. “Pee.”
He tilts his head and opens his mouth wide.
I’m Jack’s cold sweat.Now that I didn’t see coming. I thought perhaps I could intimidate him and eventually trick him into untying me for bathroom breaks so that I could grab something to stab him with and end this misery… “I mean… No kinkshaming or anything, but you’re fucking insane.”
“Am I? You need to go. So go. I’m right here to catch it.” His tone is patient, like he’s explaining something simple to a child. “This is just biology, Reagan. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I can hold it. I’m not—I won’t—” But even as I protest, the water he gave me is already working through my system, and my bladder doesn’t care about dignity or leverage or power dynamics.
“You will. Eventually. Your body will override your pride. It always does. The only question is whether you do it now, with your control, or later when you can’t hold it anymore and it happens anyway.”
A hysterical laugh bursts out of me instead of tears. “I hate you.”
“I know.” He looks up at me through that masked gaze. “But weren’t you the one who wrote hate is just intimacy wearing a different face?”
FUCK YOU. My bladder spasms. I clench every muscle I have, fighting it, but I’m cold and in so much pain, and my body is not listening to me anymore.
I tell myself that it’s okay. That motherfucker deserves I pee on his face anyway. But I just… “I can’t,” I whisper.
“You can, darling. There’s nothing you could do—nothing your body could produce—that would change how I look at you. Do you understand that?” His exposed mouth curves with something like a smile. “I want every part of you, Reagan. Every secret, every shame, every function you’ve been taught to hide. The world tells you to be clean, be pretty, be palatable. I’m telling you that you don’t have to perform for me. Not here. Not ever.”
“This is—”
“Honest.” He interrupts before I say,sick. “I have killed for you. I’ve eliminated every threat, every obstacle, every person who tried to hurt you or use you or take what’s mine. And you think I’d balk at this? At something as simple and human as waste? C’mon, my little butterfly. It’ll be like squirting. Hot and sexy.”
Jesus Christ. The unbearable pressure builds. My body is screaming, muscles cramping. I can feel it coming.
“Can’t you see, my queen? I’d be anything you need me to be.” His voice drops with heated intensity. “A protector. A killer. A lover. A human toilet if that’s what it takes to prove that there are no boundaries to what I’d do for you. No line I wouldn’t cross. No degradation I wouldn’t accept if it means taking care of you.”