But I remain silent.
With each minute passing, her body becomes visibly more tense. It could be because of the pain being inflicted on her body. Or maybe her brain is finally catching up to the situation she’s in. She’s helpless, a delicious feeling to see in a subject.
But if she thought this was all, she’s in for a surprise.
Closing the distance, I move behind her, my body a hair’s breadth away from hers. Even with the heels she has on and her arms being pulled to the point of extending her height, I still need to lean down to whisper in her ear.
“How long do you think you will last?”
She turns around and looks me straight in the eyes, with all the enthusiasm of someone having a mundane conversation about the price of toilet paper. Still nothing, still no fucking reaction.
“Not long enough, my little ember,” I inform her. “That’s the right answer.”
In the next second, a sound fills the room. Just a static, fluctuating hum playing through the speaker above the mirrors, like a cracked vinyl record on a broken gramophone.
Her eyes flick upward, looking for the source of the sudden sound.
While she does that, I bend down and gently remove both of her shoes, placing one foot at a time on the grated drain. The new height difference makes it even more difficult to stand, and she’s barely touching the ground now. The grate below her feet buzzes faintly, electrical shock waves running through it slowly, then rising incrementally. Enough to make muscles tense, seize, and twitch. When the first wave hits her toes, her arms jerk against the metal strips.
But there was still no scream, just the low static noise and the metronome that hadn’t stopped for a second.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
“You’re doing so well,” I can’t help but admit, “but we’re only getting started.”
In reality, she’d do even better by showing a little bit of pain, but I’m a patient person.
I walk to the table and select three empty syringes. I just want her to see the needles and wonder what’s next, before I then push them into her body like sadistic acupuncture tools.
She flinches when the first needle penetrates her upper arm. My grip tightens, a subtle possessiveness in the pressure, feeling the softness of her flesh give in beneath my fingers. I savor the slight tremble that follows, is proof that her body, at least, is betraying her composure.
The second needle follows on the opposite arm, while the third one replaces the nail in her back, letting the blood flow from her skin and down the dress. The puncture wounds are not supposed to be fatal, they’re just to inflict enough pain that she cannot overlook it.
“This was the worst possible time to wear this,” I mutter, more to myself. “This dress won’t survive the night.”
Her black dress is slowly getting wet from all the fluids: sweat and blood and, by the way she tries to rub her thighs together, something else I refuse to believe could happen under these circumstances. Blood on her hands, the same ones she’d caressed her body with. Sweat on her forehead, like she had just finished the most intense masturbation session of her life. The dress covering her body is ripped in a way only I am allowed to see. Her body is broken and beautiful, and her eyes are following me. Her legs—I should have them wrapped around me right now, should have my hand on her throat while my…Fuck, Azrael. Get a grip.
And still…
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I reach for the light switch on the wall and dim the overhead light until only the mirrors remain illuminated, each one catching her from a slightly different angle. Her image is multiplied, fragmented in a kaleidoscope of restraint, each angle catching a different side of her body.
To complete the scene, I take the remote Vincent left for me on the table and turn on the projector. The smudged wall in front of her lights up with a familiar frame: her own face, in front of a mirror in the warehouse, naked and full of shame.
The view—Victoria now, in front of the Victoria from two days ago—is beautiful in the most disturbing way, and for a minute my cock forgets she’s just a subject that I’m supposed to break with my experiment.
“You thought you won with your little ploy,” I say calmly, keeping my eyes on hers, while leaning in a bit so she cannot see what she’s doing to my body. “You didn’t complete yourassignment properly. Let’s make sure you’re not failing the class.”
The footage begins to play—her humiliation video. The one she probably never watched. Every strained breath, every stumble, every failure to regain control is laid bare in 1080p clarity.