20
I stand at the control room desk, hands braced against the surface, monitors glowing in the half-dark. My reflection splits across twelve screens—each one showing a different angle of the throne room below.
The hard-on I'd been nursing all day disappeared twenty minutes ago.
Now there's just this hollowness. This wrongness that sits in my gut like the emptiness of space.
On the center monitor, Giovanni cradles Emmaleen against his chest. She's curled into him, trembling, her skin marked with angry welts from the crop. He murmurs something I can't hear through the audio feed—words meant only for her.
Aftercare.
The fucking irony.
I lean closer, studying them. Emmaleen's face is pressed into Giovanni's shoulder, her breathing still erratic. Her wrists show faint bruising from the leather cuffs. Giovanni’s fingers work at the nipple clamps, releasing them too quickly, making Emmaleen writhe and whimper. He throws them down on the floor, forgotten.
There was no gradual escalation from pain to pleasure that would've taught her body the difference between agony andecstasy. That would've shown her how punishment transforms into reward under controlled hands.
Just the crop.
Just violence without architecture.
Giovanni's fingers trace lazy patterns on her spine—gentle now, tender even. The monster playing at humanity again. And Emmaleen not only accepts it, she seeks it. Her body instinctively curls toward the source of her pain as if it were shelter.
Because Giovanni made himself both.
Predatorandprotector.
Woundandbalm.
I mentally list his infractions, each one a violation of not just the contract we signed, but the trust he was cultivating with Emmaleen.
One. Safe words are absolute. No psychological manipulation surrounding their use.
Giovanni gave her "wisteria," then immediately contaminated it. Told her there would be no punishment—then planted seeds of disappointment, failure, unreadiness in her mind if she decided to use it.
That's not safety. That's a trap disguised as mercy.
Two. Punishment must serve a pedagogical purpose. Pain without lesson is abuse.
What did she learn tonight except that Giovanni can hurt her? That hewillhurt her, regardless of her choices, her consent, or her carefully selected tools for consequences?
The riding crop was supposed to be integrated into a sequence. What that sequence looks like was up to Giovanni. Maybe wax first—controlled heat, measured application. Then clamps. Pressure that builds and teaches endurance.Thenthe crop, as punctuation. As emphasis on a lesson already delivered.
That’s how I would’ve done it. There would’ve beenreasonbehind the application.
There was no reason in what I just watched.
That was more than two dozen strikes of internal rage disguised as discipline.
Three. The dominant maintains emotional control at all times during scenes.
Giovanni's voice on the audio feed was ragged. Unsteady. Each strike carried weight beyond correction. It carried buried remnants of his childhood trauma, his father's indifference, his fury at being traded like livestock.
He wasn'ttrainingher.
He was exorcising demons onto her skin.
Making Emmaleen count the strikes in this context was cruel. Especially after planting seeds of disappointment in her mind about using her word.