Stories of Tie Up Games

thespy wrote: 3 months ago Wow! Pretty fun and interesting story, can't stop imagining myself in one of the characters' shoes (cuz we share a name, whoops).

Glad you enjoyed it, @thespy — when a story makes someone picture themselves inside it, that’s when it truly starts to breathe. Hold on to that feeling; things are about to shift again, and not quite as anyone expects.

—M

blackbound wrote: 3 months ago The plot thickens again! Is this with Martin's approval? A dangerous game...

You’re absolutely right, @blackbound — it is a dangerous game. What makes it worse is how easily danger starts to feel like trust. Martin’s shadow still lingers, but maybe not for the reason we’d think.

—M

latin-self-bound wrote: 2 months ago The longed encounter between you and Dylan was beyond expectations!! The tale, the rhythm, the detailed descriptions... I felt almost inside that bag.

Dylan is really enjoying his captivity!! I wonder who is the stranger welcoming Dylan, and I really want to read the rest of his experience.

I’m really glad that moment pulled you in, @latin-self-bound . It was meant to blur the line between fear and surrender, and it sounds like you felt it just as Dylan did. The stranger will soon reveal more than just his voice — and what follows might change the meaning of everything that came before.

—M

“It wasn’t Martin’s voice,” he said softly, as though testing the words on his tongue.

Then again, quieter. “It wasn’t Martin’s voice.”

The repetition made the room feel smaller.

I tried to ask who it was, but he didn’t seem to hear me. His focus had shifted inward, his hands clasping the sheets like they might anchor him to the present.

And when he spoke again, his tone had changed — lower, detached, like someone slipping under the surface of a dream they’d tried to forget.

The blindfold stayed on.

It was the first thing I noticed when the bag was unzipped and a rush of cool air brushed over my skin. I had no idea how long the journey had lasted — or even if it had been a journey at all. Time had dissolved somewhere between the hum of the engine and the suffocating darkness of the bag.

Hands — not Martin’s, I was sure — closed around my arms. Their grip was firm, efficient, practiced. They guided me from the bag and onto the cold floor. My bare skin met stone; the chill shot through me, goosebumps rising down my spine. The realization that I was naked struck harder now, the cold wrapping around my body until even my cock’s stubborn arousal felt like betrayal.

The cuffs bit into my wrists and ankles. The rope linking them held everything tight, no room to stretch, no way to ease the pull. The gag pried my jaw open, drool slick on my face, my jaw muscles screaming from the strain. I’d lost track of how long I’d been bound — half-numb, half-raw, every inch throbbing with tension. Somehow, the discomfort fanned the heat inside me. I couldn’t fight it; part of me didn’t even want to.

Then everything went still.

No words. No touch. Just my breath too loud in my head and the hammer of my heartbeat against the blindfold.

Without warning, the rope at my ankles loosened. Hands lifted me upright. My legs trembled, unaccustomed to bearing weight. The blindfold and gag stayed, but their hands steadied me until I found balance, suspended between obedience and collapse.

They led me forward. The texture beneath my feet changed — rough stone becoming smooth, almost polished. They positioned me, then withdrew. The silence thickened until it felt like the room itself was waiting.

A voice broke it.

Calm. Controlled. Curious.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

It wasn’t barked like a demand — softer than that, but sharper too. It wasn’t about geography. It was about me. About the choice I’d made when I signed that damn paper, stripped, knelt, and let them cuff me.

I tried to answer, but the gag turned my voice into a muffled breath.

The voice came closer. “Think before you try again,” it said evenly. “Because the reason you believe you’re here… and the reason I brought you here… may not be the same.”

Leather creaked behind me. Footsteps circled, slow and measured. I felt his gaze trace my body through the blindfold, each pass pressing that single question deeper.

Do you know why you’re here?
I swallowed. I thought I did — that it was about trust, surrender, the fine line Martin and I had been walking for weeks.
But blindfolded, gagged, dissected by an unseen observer, I wasn’t sure anymore.

Gloved fingers brushed my wrist — a pulse check, maybe — then corrected my posture: shoulders back, ankles parted. Not for comfort, but for display.

“You’re wondering where you are,” the voice continued, now near my ear. “And who I am. Curiosity is the beginning of surrender.”

I swallowed hard.

“Do you know what fascinates me most about your kind?” he asked. “It’s not obedience. It’s hesitation — the way you hover at the edge of resistance before you fall.”

His words sank deep. Beneath the chill of his tone, there was a strange reverence, as if the dissection itself was worship.

Footsteps again. Then something cool brushed my chest — metal, or a chain. Goosebumps spread.

“Very good,” the voice murmured. “He’s as you described.”

As you described.

Footsteps I recognized followed. For a second, relief surged. Martin? Finally?

I turned my head instinctively, though the blindfold kept everything black. My breath rasped through my nose; drool slid down my chin.

I tried to say his name — Martin — but all that came was a pitiful “Mmmrrttnnn…” The silence stretched, until more footsteps cut through it.

They circled, deliberate. A new voice followed — calm, low, clinical.

“So. You are the one he brought. The one who signed.”

Signed. The word hit like metal.

“You are here by choice,” he continued, not cruel, simply curious. “Your body is no longer yours. Your will is a thing to be tested. And the measure of your obedience will define how far we go.”

I whimpered into the gag — unsure if it was protest or anticipation — but he simply circled again.

“I am called Master R,” he said at last. “Martin… is my apprentice.”

The name struck like a blow.

Master R.

Even in darkness, I saw flashes of Hale’s dungeon — the stories whispered in corners, the man who’d driven Ryan to the edge and then watched him break. A name born in rumor now had heat and breath.

Apprentice.
Not equal.
Not in charge.

Martin hadn’t brought me to a partner; he’d delivered me to the source. My stomach tightened, knees pressing harder into the floor as the truth settled in. If Martin wasn’t commanding me… who was I really surrendering to?

A gloved hand touched the back of my neck — not rough, but deliberate.

“He speaks highly of you,” Master R murmured. “But he warned me — you fight. You question. You cling to the illusion of control.”

The hand slipped away. Softer footsteps followed — familiar ones. My heart leapt even before I heard him breathe.

“Martin…” I tried again, useless against the gag. “Mmmrrttnn…”

A second touch — his — traced down my face, gentle and grounding. “I’m here,” he whispered.

The words barely reached me, but they were enough.

“From this moment,” Master R said, tone sharpening, “he belongs to me. To us. His body, his silence, his limits — all will be explored.”

Explored. The word landed like weight.

Martin’s fingers brushed the gag strap, a quiet reminder of how little I could say now. And for the first time since this began, I stopped trying. There was nothing left to say.

I kept still, because I didn’t know what else to do.

The silence in that room was alive—breathing, waiting.

Then the voice came again, smooth as a blade sliding from its sheath.

“You’re in a place built for purpose. Every chain, every mark on the floor, exists to teach control.”

I couldn’t see him. I could only hear the weight of his words, feel the air move as he circled.

Metal rang somewhere close by; the echo told me the room was large, the walls hard.

“Most believe discipline begins with sight,” he said. “But sight is a lie. You’ll learn to feel first.”

A gloved hand rested on the back of my neck—steady, unhurried. The touch anchored me more than it threatened. I wanted to turn, to see, but the blindfold pressed that need flat against my skin.

“Your Master stands with us,” he said, the word Master cutting through me. “He’s here to be measured. To prove that he can shape another into obedience without breaking him.”

Something shifted in the air behind me; I knew it was Martin. My chest tightened. Measured?

He hadn’t told me this part.

The hand left my neck. Leather creaked close to my ear. Then the voice again—quieter, almost intimate.

“Now look at what he must learn to control.”

The blindfold slid away.

Light hit like a strike. I blinked hard until the blur turned to shapes—the stone arches overhead, the glint of chains, the immaculate order of it all. The place looked less like a dungeon and more like a studio built to worship precision. Everything shone: steel hooks, padded benches, the black coil of rope resting on a table. The air smelled of oil, leather, restraint.

Martin stood a few steps away, shirtless, bare-armed, eyes fixed on me.

Behind him, the man who’d spoken—tall, immaculate—watched with the calm of someone used to obedience.

“Begin,” he said to Martin. “Show me how you guide what is yours.”

My pulse kicked. The meaning hit me all at once: I wasn’t the test. I was the material of the test.

My breath caught—shallow, hungry. Bound and exposed, I felt my cock throb, hips arching involuntarily as I waited. My heartbeat hammered in my ears, skin prickling with sweat and anticipation

Martin stepped closer.

The man in black—Master R—gave a small nod and withdrew into the shadows, leaving the space between us suddenly enormous.

The gag had dried my throat to sandpaper. When Martin’s fingers reached behind my head and unbuckled the strap, I barely breathed. The rubber sphere slipped from my mouth with a wet sound, the air that followed tasting of leather and relief.

I coughed once, my voice rough and small. “I don’t… I don’t understand. What is this place?”

He didn’t answer. He only looked at me in that patient, unreadable way that always made me nervous. Then he reached for something on the table beside him—a small, dark object, metallic glint catching the light.

“What’s that?” I asked, my voice breaking on the second word.

Martin turned it over in his hands as if inspecting it. “A reminder,” he said. “Something to help you learn.”

I watched, heart pounding, as Martin held the object between his fingers. It was a small, black collar with a thin leather loop through it. The buckle glinted in the harsh light, polished to a high sheen that matched the rest of this room they'd brought me to.

"What is it?” I whispered, dread pooling in my stomach.

Martin didn’t answer. He just knelt, eyes fixed on that spot high up my thigh—so close I could feel my pulse throbbing in my groin. The collar was cold against my skin, the leather snug as he buckled it tight just below where my leg met my hip. I flinched, breath catching, the green light blinking to life so gently it seemed almost harmless.

I couldn’t stop my questions from tumbling out—“What is that? What does it do—?” but Martin just picked up a remote, thumb hovering over the buttons.

“Martin, just tell me—” I managed, panic threading through my voice.

He pressed the button.

The shock hit fast and hot, a jolt of electricity biting deep into the tender flesh of my thigh. My whole body jerked, a strangled sound tearing out of me. The pain was sharp, almost too much—my muscles clenching hard, nerves on fire, vision blurring for a second. My cock twitched, confusion and arousal tangling with the sting as the current faded, leaving my skin tingling, my body shuddering, my mind reeling. Shame and need twisted together.

“F-fuck… Ma—Martin… it… it h-hurts…”

I felt the weight of Master R’s gaze from somewhere behind me, silent approval.

Martin crouched in front of me, eyes level with mine. His tone softened, almost kind. “From this moment on,” he said, “you don’t speak in the first person. No more I. No more me. You speak as this boy. Every thought, every sentence. Understood?”

I hesitated. “Martin, I don’t—”

Before I could catch my breath, Martin’s thumb slammed the button again.

The second shock was brutal—a white-hot surge that tore through my thigh and rocketed up my spine. I crashed to the ground, legs giving out, vision swimming as pain and heat exploded behind my eyes. For a second I couldn’t move, just gasped, cheek pressed to the cold floor, muscles twitching uncontrollably, cock still hard and aching, leaking against my skin.

Rough hands grabbed me—Martin, steady and unyielding, hauling me upright with no room for protest. My knees buckled, but he kept me standing, face inches from his, my body trembling in his grip. Helpless, humiliated, I locked eyes with him, the shame of my need burning hotter than the shock.

“Try again,” he said quietly.

My mouth went dry. “Th—this boy… doesn’t understand.”

“Good.”

He nodded once, the faintest trace of a smile touching his lips, and then his hand moved toward my cock—hard and aching, straining against the air. His fingers curled around me, firm but unhurried, and he gave me a slow, mocking stroke.

“So much pain, and still this hard,” he murmured, voice dark with approval.”You were born for this, boy.”

The words stung and thrilled at once, shame burning in my cheeks as my body betrayed me, desperate for more even through the ache.

Without warning, Martin pressed the button again.

The shock ripped through my thigh, hot and savage, forcing my body to arch in its bonds. My scream echoed off stone, raw and uncontrolled, shattering what little defiance I had left. I collapsed, shuddering, the pain still shrilling through my nerves—my breath broken, desperate.

Martin’s hand gripped my jaw, forcing my gaze up to meet his. “Say it,” he ordered, voice low and implacable. “This boy doesn’t fight.”

My whole body shook, breath coming in frantic, ragged gasps. Tears stung my eyes as Martin’s grip tightened on my jaw, forcing my head up.

“I—” The word broke apart, useless. I tried again, voice rattling and wet from pain. “Th-this boy… doesn’t fight.”

The words barely left my lips before Martin shoved a massive panel gag between my teeth, stuffing it deep, cutting off anything else I might have said. My jaw stretched wide, drool already spilling past the rubber, the world narrowing to the harsh taste of leather and the absolute, silencing weight of submission.

Martin rose again, turning slightly toward the shadows where Master R stood. “He’ll learn quickly,” he said.

From the dark, the man’s voice replied: “We’ll see.”

He stopped speaking all at once.

The change was abrupt; for a second, I thought he’d lost his voice. His eyes were fixed somewhere far away, pupils wide, body caught between now and then. The air-conditioner hummed quietly, but it barely reached us.

I sat there, speechless. Until that moment, I’d believed his messages — his fragmented recollections — were just stories told from a safe distance. But seeing him now, the tremor in his hands, the way his breath caught before each word, I understood he hadn’t been writing fiction. He’d been surviving memory.

No wonder he couldn’t keep sending updates.

He rubbed the inside of his wrist as if trying to erase something that wasn’t there. The gesture said more than his words ever could.

“Now you see,” he murmured at last, his voice thin but steady. “It wasn’t that this boy didn’t want to write. It’s that… he didn’t know how to come back.”

I didn’t answer. Nothing I said would fit.

The story wasn’t over — that much was clear. But already it was tightening around both of us, a coil of truth, guilt, and something dangerously close to devotion.

I realised then that the real reason Dylan had asked to meet wasn’t just to tell me what had happened.

He needed someone to witness it.

And I had agreed.

Dylan sat silent for a long time, staring at the generic, swirling-lines art above the hotel bed. His thumb traced his left wrist without thinking.

“After the shock collar…” he began, voice low and distant. “This boy… this boy really thought that was it. That the test was over. That this boy had proved he could follow the rules — even the insane ones.”

He flinched, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Shit. Fuck.”

Then he looked at me, eyes bright with anger that wasn’t for me.

“See what I mean? It just slips out. It’s easier to say this boy than I. He programmed it in.”

Dylan drew a long breath, visibly fighting to reset. “Let me start over. I thought Martin had succeeded. I thought I had passed.”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “That wasn’t the test. That was the warm-up. The real test came right after. Master R wasn’t impressed.”

Master R wasn’t watching me anymore; he was watching him. He ordered Martin to bind me — a karada. I could feel his panic. His hands shook, the rope burned. He was sloppy. Master R called him out, humiliated him right there.

He shocked me with the collar again while Martin worked, just because I hesitated. And Martin… finished the tie. Pulled it so tight I thought my ribs would crack. It held. He’d done it.

Master R inspected it. Said Martin’s work was adequate. Then he said his observation would begin.

I raised a hand, stopping him mid-sentence.

“Hold on, Dylan.”

He blinked, like surfacing from deep water.

“You keep saying karada,” I said quietly. “You’ve mentioned it before, but you’re only skimming the surface. What was it really? What did it feel like?”

Dylan frowned, his gaze hardening — the kind of look that’s not anger at you, but at the fact that you’re asking.

“You’re not seeing it,” he repeated flatly. Then his mouth twisted into something halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “You want me to describe it? You want a play-by-play — every pull, every knot?”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, though part of me knew it was.

He turned toward the window, the reflection swallowing him. “You want that for your readers? So they can see what I saw? Feel what I felt?”

The silence that followed felt like judgment.

Then, almost to himself, he muttered, “It wasn’t just rope. It was… structure. It was design. It was built to take you apart.”

He stared at his own reflection, then back at me.

“You want to see the ropes? You want to feel what I felt?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Fine.”

He took a breath — and when he spoke again, his tone had gone cold, mechanical.

“Here’s how you build a karada.”

My world was a grey, humming buzz. The shock had left me limp and trembling. The only other sensations were the panel gag and the rope.

The gag was... it was a 'panel gag', he'd called it. A flat, polished piece of leather outside, but inside... inside was this massive, hard, silicone... thing. It was so deep it forced my tongue flat, pinning it to the floor of my mouth. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't move my jaw. I was already drooling, a thick, humiliating stream, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then Martin’s hands were on me.

He hauled me upright. His grip was mechanical.

You have to picture the rope first. It was red. A bright, synthetic, almost offensive red. And he had so much of it.

He started with my core. He created a "box" around my torso. He looped the red rope twice around my chest, just under my arms, pulling it tight. Then twice around my waist. His hands were slick with sweat, and I could feel them slipping on the rope as he pulled the knots. Then, he ran four vertical lines connecting them—two in front, two in back—like the bars of a cage. Instantly, I couldn't bend. I couldn't twist.

Then, the chest.

He threw the rope over my right shoulder, passed it under my left arm, pulled it across my back, and did the same on the other side. He created a perfect, tight 'X' right on my sternum. And he cinched it.

The air punched out of my lungs, and I reflexively tried to gasp, but I couldn't. The gag blocked everything. It was just this choked, wet sound in the back of my throat.

The 'X' forced my shoulders back, hard. My chest was pushed out. I felt... presented. Exposed. And that's when the first, sick, hot twist started low in my stomach. The humiliation of being displayed.

He moved to my legs. He was panting now, a low, grunting sound with every knot. He grabbed my right thigh, lifted it, and yanked it back. The rope burned as it circled the top of my leg, high up, right against my groin. He did it so fast. Loop. Pull. Lock. My leg was instantly numb, trapped in place.

Then the other one. Loop. Burn. Lock.

I was kneeling, but my legs were bound open, held by the ropes. I was locked in this perfect, degrading posture.

But this is the part... this is the karada.

He took the end of the rope from my legs. He ran it between my thighs, from back to front. I felt it slide against my skin, and my whole body tensed.

He brought it up... up... and threaded it through the center of that 'X' on my chest.

And then... he pulled.

Down.

It was... everything at once.

The rope between my legs pulled my torso forward. The 'X' on my chest crushed my lungs. My balls were trapped. My back was arched. The 'box' dug into my ribs. The loops on my thighs went from numb to agony.

I was trussed. Like an animal for slaughter.

I couldn't slump. I couldn't fight. I couldn't even tremble properly. Every muscle was stretched and locked. My jaw ached from the gag, and I could feel the drool, hot and thick, spilling out from the sides of the leather panel and running down my chin, dripping onto the ropes on my chest. I was disgusting.

And the final, awful, humiliating truth? I was hard.

Trapped in this harness, gagged and drooling, my muscles aching, in pain... and I was painfully, undeniably aroused. I was disgusted with myself, but I was also... wired. Every nerve ending was on fire.

Martin paused behind me, his fingers brushing cold metal where the cuffs dug into my wrists. I heard the tiny click as he unlocked them. My arms dropped uselessly, blood prickling back to my hands.

Then he didn’t waste a second. Rough hands caught my wrists, forced them back, and rope replaced steel. The rope was different—thicker, less biting than the cuffs, but pulled so tight I thought my bones might grind together. Martin didn’t stop with a simple knot; he wound the rope again and again, cinching it until my hands were fused together, the scratch of the fibers burning into my skin. He tied it off somewhere at my waist, so every twitch pulled at my arms and locked my whole body tighter.

It was worse than the cuffs. There was no numbness, no cold metal—just the fire of rope digging into flesh, impossible to ignore. Even now, long after, I still find myself rubbing those wrists out of habit, searching for marks that aren't there, my skin remembering what my eyes couldn’t see.

Martin finished the final knot somewhere behind my neck, a last, vicious pull that yanked my head back slightly. I couldn't even look down. I could only stare forward.

He stepped back, panting, his forehead dripping. He'd done it.

Master R stepped forward.

He walked up to me, and I couldn't flinch. He just... inspected. His eyes traced the red lines of the 'X', down my stomach, to where the rope disappeared between my legs. He noted the dark, wet stain on my chin and chest where I'd drooled.

He saw it, of course.

He saw my erection, straining against the ropes. He didn't smirk. He didn't react at all. His eyes just... cataloged it.

Then he reached out one finger and pressed it, hard, against that central knot on my sternum where all the lines met.

I choked on a sound. The cold, precise pressure sent a jolt straight from that knot to my groin. It was a calculated, impersonal touch.

He ran that same single finger under a loop on my thigh, testing the tension. He seemed satisfied.

He finally stood up and turned to Martin.

"Adequate," he said. The word was like a slap. "Your tension is uneven. You compensated for your initial hesitation by being too aggressive at all. It's functional, but it is not art."

Martin looked like he was going to be sick.

"But," Master R continued, "he is bound. You followed the command under pressure. And," he added, with the slightest glance down at me, "the "subject is... receptive. That has value."

He gestured for Martin to step away, to stand near the wall. Then he turned his full attention back to me. Alone. Trussed, aroused, and trapped in the middle of the room.

"Now," Master R said, his voice quiet, almost pleasant. "The apprentice's work is done. My observation begins."

Dylan stopped speaking. For a moment the hum of the air-conditioner was the only sound. His gaze was somewhere else, unfocused.

I’d thought his messages had been stylised, embellished for effect. But seeing his hands tremble, hearing how his voice thinned to nothing — I knew this wasn’t fiction. It was memory, still raw.

He rubbed his wrist again, a small, unconscious motion, like checking whether the mark was really gone.

When he spoke, his voice was steady, but the steadiness felt earned — like he was holding the edges of something that could still break if he loosened his grip.

“It never really stops,” he said. “You think it’s over, but it just finds new ways to exist.”

He gave a faint, tired smile — not bitter, just knowing.

The kind of smile that tells you a story isn’t over, even if the words run out.

I realised then that he hadn’t come to unburden himself.

He’d come to see whether someone else could carry a piece of it.

And in listening, I already had.

Wow!! Such a story!! I loved the continuation. I'm looking forward to read the rest of the predicaments Dylan had to endure.

latin-self-bound wrote: 2 months ago Wow!! Such a story!! I loved the continuation. I'm looking forward to read the rest of the predicaments Dylan had to endure.

Thank you @latin-self-bound — really.
Every time you say you felt something, I know I’m doing justice to Dylan’s voice… and to everything he’s still carrying.

I’ll admit this much: writing the next section didn’t leave me untouched.
Let’s just say the “predicaments” you’re waiting for…
Well, I’ve now seen them far closer than I expected.
And I’m not sure who ended up more tangled — Dylan in his ropes, or me in the telling.

It’s coming soon.
And it’s… intense.

M.

Dylan stopped speaking mid-sentence.

The flashback dissolved out of his eyes like someone dimming a light inside him.

For a long moment, he just sat there, chest rising and falling too fast, fingers pressed hard into his thighs. His breathing had shifted — not panicked, not exactly — but tight, coiled, trembling with something he was trying hard to contain.

Dylan didn’t just look up; he surfaced. He gasped—a ragged, choked sound—and the skin on his face was slick with sweat, his eyes still wide, fixed on a wall that wasn’t there.

His body was vibrating. He was breathing in shallow, rapid bursts, and a deep flush had spread across his neck and cheeks. His hands, which had been clutching his knees, were now trembling violently. It wasn’t fear I saw in his eyes now; it was raw, unbearable heat.

“I—I can’t,” he whispered, the sound thin and strained. He looked down, his gaze fixed on the bulge beneath his pants. “I can’t continue. The… the memory—it’s too much.”

He rubbed his inner wrist again, a frenetic, useless motion. His jaw worked; every muscle in his body coiled with tension.

“I need you to stop it,” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “Now. I can’t live like that while I’m talking to you. It’s supposed to be different now, and I can’t control it.”

He stood up abruptly, the move jarring, and stumbled toward a large, unremarkable wardrobe across the room. He didn’t look at me, but his command was clear.

“Help me,” he whispered. “You know what to do.”

He threw open the closet door.

Instead of folded robes or extra pillows, a silent, gleaming parade of control was revealed. Hanging neatly on hooks were heavy leather cuffs, soft silk restraints, and thick nylon rope. On a shelf lay a selection of gags—panel gags, ball gags, and soft neoprene strips—alongside various kinds of medical tape.

Everything you might need is already there.

The receptionist’s words echoed, no longer a hint, but a statement of fact. This room was a prepared stage.

I felt a sudden, sharp coldness in my own chest, a distance born of self-preservation. This was the line. Cross it, and I was no longer the writer.

“No,” I said, my voice low and firm. “No, Dylan, I won’t.”

He turned, confusion and pain clouding his face. “What? Why not? I’m asking you to.”

I stood, crossing the small space between us, compelled to make him look at me. My own breath felt too quick, my shirt suddenly sticking to my back.

“Because it’s going too far, Dylan,” I murmured, meeting his gaze. “I’m of flesh and blood myself, and I can feel the story tightening around me.”

I gestured to the restraints hanging in the closet. “If I tie you up, I stop being the witness. I become the Master. And when I see you like that—helpless, aching, begging for release—I know exactly what I’ll be compelled to do. I’ll push you to the edge and I’ll finally release that load for you, right here. That’s where this story leads, and I won’t start a scene I can’t finish.”

He studied me, his breath ragged. He didn’t argue. He didn’t beg. He simply let my words hang, acknowledging the truth of my own temptation.

Instead, with a sudden, decisive motion, he reached for the waistband of his pants. He unzipped them, shoved them down past his hips, and let them drop to the floor, followed by his boxer briefs.

He stood before me, completely naked, his body a map of trembling desire.

And there it was.

Sealed tight around the base of his shaft, enclosing his cock, was a chastity device. It wasn't the heavy, cold steel I'd always pictured from old stories; this was smooth, lightweight, and almost translucent, made of a dark, high-density polymer—a modern invention. The ring was snug, and the cage itself was small, barely covering the swollen, straining head of his member. In the amber light, the material looked almost like glass, sleek and utterly unyielding.

It was the most brutally explicit symbol of his story yet.

His face was flushed crimson, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, but his gaze was steady, cutting through my fear and my refusal.

“You can’t,” he said, the sound barely audible. He stepped closer, inviting me to look, to witness the final truth. “I can’t. You see what this boy has to wear.”

I stared at the device, my breath catching. The reality of it—the sleek, non-negotiable curve of the polymer—hit me harder than any metal ever could.

“God, Dylan,” I managed, the words rough. “I didn’t know. This is… this is real. Can’t we… break it? It must be painful.” I reached out, my fingers hovering inches from the device before I forced my hand back down.

A harsh, humourless laugh escaped him. “It’s too fit. Martin said it was molded to me. It can’t be cut or broken without hurting. Even when my cock is flaccid, there’s no room for a slip.”

He rubbed the base of the ring with a desperate, feverish motion. “It’s not even just a lock. An app operates it. I don’t know how it works. Martin operates it. He gets alerts if the boy is too rough, or if the boy’s pulse is too high.”

The truth landed on me like a sentence. The chastity device wasn't a prop; it was the mechanism of his control, a line straight back to the unseen Master R and the discipline room. It was the reason he couldn't stop the memories, and the reason he couldn't be released from them.

I looked at the flush on his skin, the rigid polymer, and the pain in his eyes.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked, the writer now completely gone, replaced by the accomplice.

“I need you to tie me. Tight. Not because I want release. But because I need… restraint. I need to not move. I need to not try.”

I exhaled slowly.

“Dylan… if we do this, it’s going to get intense. For both of us.”

“I know.”

“You’re asking me to restrain you while I’m hard as hell.”

He looked at me with a fragile, burning sincerity.

“That’s exactly why this boy asked you.”

A long silence stretched between us.

The kind where a single breath could decide everything.

I broke first.

“Stay still.”

I went to the closet.

The phrase from the receptionist echoed once more:

“Everything you need is already there.”

He had not been joking.

I took what I needed.

When I turned back, Dylan was already sitting in the chair — as if instinct pulled him into position.

Legs slightly apart, hands atop his thighs, eyes lowered. Not performing. Not pretending. Just surrendering in the only way he knew.

“You sure?” I asked quietly.

His voice trembled with need.

“Yes, Marco. Tie this boy.”

I swallowed.

And began.

I guided his wrists behind the chair back, crossing them neatly.

He shivered when the first rope touched his skin.

Not from fear.

From recognition.

His body knew rope.

I wrapped slowly, deliberately — enough tension to restrain, not enough to hurt. Dylan’s breath steadied with each turn, each firm pull.

“You okay?” I murmured.

He nodded once.

I tied his wrists into a compact knot cluster, then anchored it down to the central chair rail so he couldn’t lift them.

His shoulders relaxed.

Then I moved to his chest — rope across his torso, pinning him to the backrest, the pattern forming almost instinctively. He exhaled softly as the cords held him in place.

I knelt to secure the rope around his ankles, and for the first time, I was eye-level with the device.

Up close, the cruelty of it was undeniable.

The dark, translucent polymer was fogged with the heat radiating from his body. Inside the cage, I could see his cock was angry—swollen and compressed against the unforgiving walls. It wasn't "hard" in the way a free erection would be; it was a trapped, dense mass of flesh, turning a deep, congested red where it pressed against the ventilation slits.

He was leaking. A clear, steady bead of pre-ejaculate had pooled at the small opening at the tip of the cage, threatening to drip down his inner thigh.

I hesitated, my hands hovering near the knot. The sight was visceral.

“It looks painful,” I murmured, the observation slipping out before I could stop it. “Like it’s trying to burst through the plastic.”

Dylan let out a ragged, whimpering breath, his hips twitching involuntarily against the restraint.

“It is,” he gasped, his head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut. “It throbs. Every heartbeat… I feel it hitting the walls. It wants to grow, Marco, it wants to stand up, but it can’t.”

I looked at the wetness at the tip. “You’re so close to the edge,” I said quietly. “If I touched you now… if I just rubbed the cage… you’d come, wouldn’t you?”

He shuddered so hard the ropes creaked.

“Yes,” he whispered, the word soaked in shame. “God, yes. But it wouldn’t be… it wouldn’t be a relief. It would just… spill out. A ruined mess.”

He opened his eyes then, looking down at me with a terrifying mix of fear and desperate hope.

“Please,” he choked out. “Don’t touch it. If you touch it, this boy will break. Just… finish the ropes. Make me helpless first.”

The temptation was a physical weight in the room—the knowledge that I could ruin him right now with just the friction of my palm against that plastic. But I remembered my role. I was the witness, not the executioner. Not yet.

I tied off the last knot, ankles lashed tight, chair unmoving. The finality made him gasp.

“Helpless,” I repeated, standing up and looking down at his bound, shivering form. “Consider it done.”

I stepped back. Dylan sagged into the ropes, eyes closed, his body finally still—breathing slow, deep, as if the world had stopped spinning.

When he looked at me again, something had eased, as though I’d pulled him back from a precipice.

“This boy…”

He swallowed.

“…needed this.”

I didn’t touch him.

But God, I wanted to.

I don't think I could resist the urge to ruin his orgasm and get him into trouble.

Let's see if Marco can.

@Htdgagfreak85 if you want me to remove these i will










I love the story

Htdgagfreak85 wrote: 4 months ago The Prank

A follow-up to The Shortcut

I didn’t expect to hear from Dylan again after publishing The Shortcut. But a few days later, a message landed in my inbox — long, hesitant, almost like he’d written it three times before sending.
He’d read the story, and what unsettled him most wasn’t what I’d written, but what one of you had asked in the comments. That one question: “Now you have to tell us the prank they pulled to get Mr. Hale sacked…”
Dylan said I couldn’t have answered it — not properly — because I had never known the full truth. He told me he had carried it for years, hidden even from himself, and now, for reasons I don’t fully understand, he wanted me to know. He left it in my hands whether to share it.
I’ll be honest — I hesitated. Stories like this maybe should stay untold. They stir up more than they settle. But truth has a way of pressing against silence, finding cracks, and eventually spilling out.
And what Dylan sent me doesn’t read like a prank anymore. It reads like a turning point. A night that began with one intention and ended in something none of them could have imagined. And it left marks on Dylan that he’s still carrying.
That’s why I struggled with the decision to publish it here. Now that I know the truth, I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong anymore. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between. Maybe punishment and revelation got tangled together that night.
In the end, I decided to share it, not because I think it will settle anything, but because keeping it to myself felt like holding someone else’s secret too tightly. Read it, judge for yourselves if Dylan and Matt deserved what Hale did to them.
But I’ll tell you this: when I finished his message, I had the strange sense that Dylan had discovered something in himself that night — and in a twisted way, maybe even has to thank Hale for it.
So here it is. Dylan’s words. His version of the night that changed everything.

We were in Year 13 — eighteen and full of that special arrogance, certain we were untouchable, certain we could do anything once before the world caught up. That’s the important part. We thought we were clever. We thought we were in control.
I’ll tell you straight: Hale wasn’t some crusty old fossil of a teacher. He was early forties, sharp jaw, hair always neat, shirt buttoned to the last one. He carried himself like he was twice his age, though — rigid, precise, cold as stone. He’d stand at the front of class and wait. No raised voice, no slammed desk. Just silence until you couldn’t breathe. Then he’d cut you down with words sharp enough to draw blood.
He marked assignments like he was writing your obituary. “Careless,” he’d scrawl across the top, or worse, read your mistakes out loud so everyone could snicker while you squirmed in your seat. He called out the football captain for sloppiness. He mocked the star sprinter for thinking rules bent around training schedules.
None of us forgot the time he stopped training to shame Jace for missing punctuation in an assignment. Or how he singled me out for a throwaway grammar slip that the whole class still joked about. That’s the kind of detail that sits under your skin and starts to burn.
It wasn’t just discipline. It was humiliation. And by the time Year 13 rolled around, we were all eighteen and ready to push back. Hale was the perfect target.
It wasn’t one grand moment that sparked the prank. Instead, it simmered, growing day by day, fuelled by resentment, anger, and humiliation.
But the day finally arrived when I decided I’d had enough.
It started in the canteen. Matt had his phone out, showing off a tiny cam feed, bragging about how clean it looked. He’d learned more in a year of messing with livestream apps than half the media kids in school. Ryan was sketching fizzing reactions on a napkin, daydreaming in chemistry shorthand. Chemistry kid, smart in a dangerous way.
“You know who deserves to be the joke for once?” I said, leaning across the table. “Hale.”
“Matt — we could put that camera of yours to good use,” I said, leaning forward so my words landed. “We could make a prank on Hale.”
He blinked at me, a grin already threatening. “What d’you have in mind?”
I let the silence hang long enough for both of them to lean in. Then I said it: “Not a clip to laugh about later. Live. He thinks he’s private — we make him public.”
I let the silence do half the work, watched them both lean in. “We hit him where he’s private,” I said, lowering my voice. “Loo. Toilet. He goes in alone, thinks no one’s watching. We stream him live. Instant audience. No edits. No excuses.”
Ryan made a face, then laughed. “You mean set the bowl on him? Flood his loo?” He tapped the napkin — fizz sketches and arrows — already thinking in reaction curves. “I could put a sachet where the water hits, something that fizzes up and spits. Messy, theatrical. Harmless if I do it right.”
Matt shook his head, sceptical and excited at once. “Streaming a teacher going to the bog — that’s bold. You sure you want the risk? And how do you get a cam in without Hale spotting it?”
“You hide it in the vent,” I said. “You’re the only one who can make that feed look clean.” I pointed to Ryan. “You make the splash. Ryan, you’re the only idiot I trust to put his hand in that bowl.” Ryan grinned at that, rolling his eyes.
They traded looks — the kind kids give when trouble tastes good. Matt’s smile spread, slow. “Okay. Micro-lens in the vent. Private channel, invites only. We sit by the window to pick up the signal. Four metres tops.”
“First flush,” Ryan said, rubbing his hands together. “One blast and he’s drenched. It’ll look spectacular.”
“And if he notices?” Matt asked.
I shrugged, feeling the weight of the plan settle. “Then we run. But he won’t. He’s careful in public. He thinks he’s private where he shouldn’t be. That’s our edge.”
They nodded, and the plan snapped into place — a stupid, dangerous thing that felt, for the first time, like ours.
Ryan stuffed the napkin in his pocket. “I’ll prep the sachet. One flush, it’ll spit like a shaken bottle. He won’t know what hit him.”
We laughed at the idea. “Can you imagine his face?” Matt smirked. “Mr. Ice-Cold Hale, soaked and scrambling?” Ryan added, “It’ll be a Year 13 classic. People will be quoting it for years.”
That was it. The three of us. A prank. A plan.

We planted it the same night. No waiting. If the cam sat too long, someone might find it; if the sachet got damp, it might ruin the trick. Live was the only way — raw, risky, undeniable.
Matt worked the kitchen latch with quiet fingers, and I slid in behind him, heart pounding. The house smelt like polish and paper, everything in its place. Too neat. Too stiff.
In the loo, Ryan crouched by the toilet. He rolled his sleeve up, grimaced, and shoved his hand into the bowl, tucking the packet just under the rim where the water would blast it on the first flush.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “First go and it’ll blow like Vesuvius.”
Matt wrinkled his nose. “Fuck, Ryan, when’s the last time this loo was cleaned?”
Ryan smirked. “Cleaner than some I’ve seen in halls.” He pushed the lid down and wiped his hand on a rag.
Then Matt unscrewed the vent cover and slid the cam into place. Tiny lens, black as an eye, staring at the bowl. He grinned as he snapped the grille shut.
We froze. For a second, I thought I heard something — faint, low, carried through the walls.
Ryan cocked his head. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Matt whispered back.
“Sounded like… I dunno. An animal. Like… moaning.”
I shook my head fast. “Old pipes. Focus.”
But something in me clenched. The house was too neat, too quiet — and now it felt like it was listening back.
We left as fast as we came, slipping into the dark. The prank was armed.

Friday night felt heavy. The town slept, and we crouched beneath Hale’s loo window, less than five metres from the wall, close enough for the micro-cam’s signal. Matt balanced the phone in his palm, the red dot blinking like a nervous pulse.
The feed flickered to life: the vent’s grainy view, frosted glass, dim light. A handful of classmates were already in, comments scrolling — laughing emojis, “what’s he gonna do?”, guesses that he’d slip or make a mess. None of them had any idea what was really about to happen.
“He sits,” Ryan whispered. “He flushes. Splash. Easy.”
I forced a grin, but my mouth was dry. I’d pushed them into this. I’d demanded it be live. I was the one who had to own it.
Inside, floorboards creaked. Hale’s footsteps.
The loo door opened. He stepped in, calm as ever. We leaned closer, holding our breath. This was it — sit, flush, splash, humiliation.
But he didn’t sit.
He moved to the sink, fingers brushing the tiles like he was searching for something.
Ryan frowned. “What the hell is he doing? Why isn’t he—”
Then Hale’s hand found the ring in the grout. He tugged.
The wall sighed open. Red light spilled out, washing the ordinary loo in a glow that didn’t belong.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
And the prank — my prank — slipped away, replaced by something else entirely.
The vent-cam caught Hale stepping through the crack, red light spilling into the loo. For a moment, all we saw were fragments: coils hanging on hooks, the padded corner of something heavy, the gleam of polished steel.
“What the hell is this?” Ryan whispered, his breath clouding in the night air.
Matt squinted at the screen. “He’s recording himself. Look — he’s got a camera in there.” His thumbs flicked over the phone, muttering. “If it’s connected… maybe I can…”
Matt turned on a laptop he had brought in his backpack, just in case, and started typing frantically. Lines of code streamed across the screen, then… The feed froze, stuttered, and shifted. The crooked vent angle disappeared. Now the picture was steady and sharp — Hale’s own camera.
Ryan’s voice cracked. “Matt… is this going live?”
Matt didn’t even look up. “Yeah. It’s live.”
The chat box on the side exploded with disbelief: “WTF”, “OMG HALE??”, emojis pouring in. But we weren’t watching the chat. None of us could look away from the screen.

The dungeon spread out before us.
At the centre, a man was strapped wide to a St. Andrew’s cross, leather cuffs biting into wrists and ankles, body stretched tight. He looked Hale’s age. A black blindfold sealed his eyes, and a thick red ball gag filled his mouth, buckled so tight that drool poured down his chin and chest in gleaming ropes. He was wearing nothing but his briefs, which clung to him, damp with sweat, every breath making the fabric strain, the shape beneath them leaving nothing hidden.
On a heavy table nearby, another man strained in a vicious hogtie. Younger — late twenties, maybe, dressed no differently than the man on the cross — down to nothing but his underwear. Blond curls damp with sweat tumbled over his blindfold. A knotted gag jammed between his teeth, forcing every sound into guttural “mmmppphhh! mmmfffhhh!” that vibrated in his throat. Ropes dragged his wrists and ankles together so tightly his back arched in trembling strain.
Ryan’s voice shook. “Bloody hell. He’s keeping people down there… Should we call the police?”
“No,” I snapped, sharper than I meant. My throat was dry, my body alight. “Don’t you get it? The bulge in his underwear — he’s turned on. This is consensual. This is… this is BDSM!”
Matt turned, frowning. “A what?”
“Bondage. Discipline. It’s a sex thing,” I muttered, eyes locked on the men. “They want it. Look at him — he’s not fighting. He’s… into it.”
Ryan glanced at me, eyebrows up. “Sounds like you know a lot about that. How come?”
I ignored him. Couldn’t look away.
Hale entered the frame like a conductor. Calm. Controlled. He ran his hand slowly down the chest of the man on the cross, tracing a nipple, sliding lower. The gagged man moaned deep, wet, “nnnghhh…”, spit flying as he struggled to form sounds.
“Good boy,” Hale said, voice sharp as a blade.
The reply came muffled but immediate: “Yefff, Srrr…” Drool spilled down his chest as he forced the words out, hips jerking.
Hale picked up a slim knife from the wall. He pressed it to the waistband of the briefs, slicing down in one neat stroke. The fabric dropped in tatters.
The man’s cock sprang free, hard, flushed, throbbing.
Matt hissed, “Jesus Christ.”
Ryan recoiled. “He’s… he’s hard.”
I shifted in the hedge, jeans unbearably tight. My pulse hammered. I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
Hale turned to the hogtied blond. He grabbed a fistful of his curls, jerking his head back. The knotted gag muffled a strangled “mmmmppphhhhhh!” as his body arched and twisted, ropes biting deeper.
The knife flashed again, slicing away his underwear. He was left bare, muscles taut, straining in the ropes. His muffled roars vibrated through the gag, each one rawer than the last.
Hale’s palm slid along his thigh, slow, possessive. The hogtied man convulsed, back bowing tighter, ropes creaking under the strain.
Ryan whispered, “This is insane…” But his eyes stayed locked to the screen.
My stomach dropped. That tattoo on the hogtied man’s shoulder — dark, simple. Recognition hit like a blow. Martin. One of the janitors.
I froze. Said nothing. Kept it to myself. Just stared, heat flooding me, my body betraying me every second.
The man on the cross bucked violently, cock jerking, gag squealing wet fragments: “urrgghhh yessss, srrr…” Spit dribbled down his chest as Hale pinched his nipple hard, wringing more sounds from him.
The blond thrashed harder, gag bursting with muffled fury: “mmmmmppphhhhhh!” Hale slapped his arse, sharp and sudden. The younger man jolted, body arching tighter, ropes squeaking under the strain.
Ryan whispered, reverent now, “This is mad…”
“And everyone’s seeing it,” Matt muttered. “Live.”
And me — I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t stop staring at Martin, hogtied, blindfolded, gagged, writhing in the ropes.
The three of us crouched in the hedge, mesmerised, watching what we were never meant to see.
And inside me, something cracked open I couldn’t push back down
The feed spread faster than we could breathe. Matt’s trick had hijacked Hale’s system — his own camera now feeding out far beyond our tiny channel. Invites leaked into group chats; screenshots became clips; clips snowballed through the night. What had begun as our prank was now a wildfire.
Ryan’s face was pale in the glow. “Shit. Shit. Shit—this wasn’t the plan.”
“Be quiet,” Matt hissed, thumbs darting across the screen. “I can’t shut it off. Once it’s his feed, it’s his system. Whatever he’s broadcasting, it’s out there.”
Ryan grabbed at my arm. “We should call someone. The police—”
“No,” I cut him off, too fast, too sharp. My eyes hadn’t left the screen. “That’s not… that’s not what this is. Remember? It’s consensual. They wanted it. Can’t you tell?”
Ryan stared at me like I was speaking a language he didn’t understand.

By morning the clips were everywhere. Screenshots whispered across corridors; laughter too loud in the canteen; whispers cut short when staff walked by.
The school board convened an emergency session. Parents demanded answers.
Hale didn’t fight. He didn’t point fingers. He didn’t accuse. He stood there calm, unflinching. “My private life is mine alone,” he said, voice clipped and steady. “If my choices carry consequences, I will accept them.”
He never named the men we’d seen bound in the dungeon. He took all the weight himself. By the end of the week, his desk was empty. He was gone.
But I couldn’t shake it.
Not Ryan’s pale face in the hedge. Not Matt’s wired thrill at hacking the stream. Not the sounds — the gagged moans, the wet slurs, the rope creaking under strain.
And not the tattoo on the hogtied man’s shoulder.
Martin.
At night, the memory rewound itself until I was raw. Blond curls damp with sweat. Wrists and ankles dragged together. Gag muffling those furious, helpless sounds. Shame burned hotter because my body answered it.

I saw him again at the gym.
Late afternoon, the changing room quiet. The air thick with steam, taps dripping. He was at his locker, towel over one shoulder, skin flushed from the shower.
I stood too long before the words came out. “Martin… that video. Was it you?”
He turned. His eyes narrowed, guarded. “What video are you talking about?”
“The one… Hale’s dungeon,” I said, throat tight. “The cross. The table. That night.”
A beat passed. Then he nodded once. “Yeah. That was me.” His voice didn’t waver. “And yes — I was a willing captive. Of course I was.”
The words punched through me. I swallowed hard. “Why? Why would you let him—”
“Because I wanted to.” His tone was flat, firm. “That’s the only answer that matters.” He stuffed the towel into his bag like he was closing a file. Then he turned back to me, eyes sharp. “But the way you’re asking… the way your eyes are burning right now… are you sure you’re not looking for something else?”
Heat flushed my face. I shook my head too fast. “No. I’m not into that kind of thing.”
The denial cracked. Too quick. Too loud. Even I heard the lie in it.
He let the silence stretch, then turned back to his locker.
I blurted before I could stop myself. “The other man. The one on the cross. Who was he?”
Martin froze. His hand gripped the metal edge. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost a growl. “You don’t want to know who he was. Don’t ask questions like that, Dylan. Some truths aren’t meant for daylight.”
The clang of the locker slamming shut echoed. He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “If Hale ever finds out who set that night in motion — who pushed it live — he won’t forget. Nor forgive. Not easily.”
A shiver ran through me, cold against the sweat on my back.
Martin’s gaze cut into me. “You do know who did it, don’t you?”
My tongue stuck. The truth lodged in my throat, heavy as lead.
He didn’t wait. He slung his bag over his shoulder and brushed past, leaving the room thick with steam and silence.
I stayed behind, palm pressed to the cold locker door, head buzzing with ropes and muffled cries, with the pounding rhythm of a truth I couldn’t unsee — or escape.

That’s all I can tell you for now. Writing it down doesn’t make it go away — it just shifts the weight a little. What started as a prank became something I still can’t name, something that cut deeper than any of us expected. You can decide for yourself if we got what we deserved. I’ve stopped trying.
As for Martin… let’s just say he’s still in my life, in ways I never saw coming. Maybe one day I’ll tell you more — if he ever finds the guts to say it himself. Or if I do.

— Dylan

My final note

That’s where Dylan left it. I read his words twice before I could breathe properly. Stories like this make you wonder: was it justice, or cruelty, or simply curiosity tipping into something none of them could control?
I won’t add more, because I think it’s best left to you — the reader — to weigh it. Whether Dylan and Matt got what they deserved, or whether they set loose something far darker than they imagined.
But I keep circling back to one thought: Dylan may never forgive himself for what they did, but part of him can’t stop replaying what he saw. And perhaps, though he’ll never say it straight, that discovery — and the shadow of Martin — is what haunts him most.

Will I ever know?

well now i am very intrigued i think i will have to modify my bondage chair like stated in the story

i would love to be the captive's in all situations of this story so far

It's just my opinion, but I really dislike all of this AI stuff. This story don't deserve that. Those illustrations kinda ruin all I can imagine while reading the story.

blackbound wrote: 1 month ago I don't think I could resist the urge to ruin his orgasm and get him into trouble.

Let's see if Marco can.

Thank you @blackbound — and that’s exactly the temptation, isn’t it?

The real question is whether Marco can stay a witness… or whether witnessing is already a form of participation.

We’ll see who loses control first.

Thank you both @Camguy2050 and @lah93 for engaging so deeply with the story.
I’m glad it’s sparking imagination and reactions — that’s always a good sign.

For me, this story is very much about voice, atmosphere, and what happens in the space between what’s shown and what’s imagined. I tend to experience it best that way, through the text itself.

That said, I appreciate the enthusiasm and the care behind every response. Let’s keep the focus on the story and see where it takes us next.

Wow!! I just can say wow!! I never suspected the witness would become an active participant in this story. That's really awesome!!!

The torture Dylan is suffering with that damned chastity device is so brutal and ruthless, that I can't fathom what is in the mind of his former captors. I'm looking forward for the next chapters of this marvellous tale.

latin-self-bound wrote: 1 month ago Wow!! I just can say wow!! I never suspected the witness would become an active participant in this story. That's really awesome!!!

The torture Dylan is suffering with that damned chastity device is so brutal and ruthless, that I can't fathom what is in the mind of his former captors. I'm looking forward for the next chapters of this marvellous tale.

Thank you, @latin-self-bound — your words truly mean a lot. I never planned for me, as narrator, to become an active presence in the story… but at a certain point it felt inevitable. I realized I could no longer remain only a witness — and that discovery is as unsettling for me as it is for Dylan.

The chastity device is ruthless, but not because of the object itself — rather because of what it does to his mind after desire peaks and collapses. That tension, that helplessness, is at the core of what this phase of the story is exploring.

In the next section, some of the reasons behind those choices — and the system that produced them — will begin to surface. And with them, the consequences.

Thank you for following me into this darker stretch of the path.

M.

As the final knot cinched his ankles tight, pulling his legs slightly upward and forcing his back into a vulnerable arch, Dylan let out a long, shuddering exhale. It was the sound of a puppet whose strings had finally been picked up.

He sat naked, bound tightly to the chair. The nylon rope cut a stark line across his chest and thighs, but the true focal point remained that dark, gleaming cage.

It was mesmerizing in the most uncomfortable way. Even immobilized, his body betrayed him. I could see the cage twitching—minute, rhythmic spasms as his blood tried to force its way into the trapped space, only to be denied by the rigid engineering.

I stepped back, my own hands shaking slightly. I wiped them on my jeans, trying to rub away the phantom feel of his skin.

I pulled the armchair closer, positioning it so I was looking down at him. The dynamic had shifted irrevocably. I was no longer just listening; I was holding the narrative.

“You’re still now,” I said softly.

“Yes,” he whispered, voice muffled as he hung his head, eyes on the carpet.

“Does it help?”

Dylan nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement.

“Yes,” he said again. “It helps.”

The room settled into a strange stillness after that. Not silence—there was the low hum of the air conditioner, the distant sound of traffic far below—but a feeling of suspension, like we were both holding our breath.

I leaned back in the armchair, studying him.

The ropes held him perfectly. No excess, no slack. The chair had become an extension of the binding, and the binding an extension of him. He wasn’t struggling. He wasn’t performing. He was simply… contained.

For the first time since he’d stopped talking, his breathing slowed.

Then I heard it.

A soft electronic chime.

I frowned.

It came again—muted, almost polite. Not my phone. Not his.

My eyes lifted, scanning the room.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

Dylan’s head came up sharply.

“Yes.”

There was no surprise in his voice. Only tension.

The sound came a third time, unmistakable now, from the far corner of the room.

The desk.

I stood slowly, every instinct suddenly alert. On the desk sat a slim, closed notebook—one I was certain hadn’t been there before. Or maybe it had. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed.

Beside it, half-hidden in the shadow of the lamp, was a small black lens.

A webcam.

Cold slid down my spine.

“What the fuck is this?” I muttered.

Dylan swallowed.

“You should answer,” he said quietly.

I turned back to him. “Answer what?”

His gaze flicked toward the desk, then back to me. Bound, naked, helpless—and still somehow bracing himself.

“Please,” he said. “You’re supposed to.”

His voice was steady, but his hands curled instinctively against the ropes, fingers flexing once before stilling again.

“What is this?” I asked. “Dylan, who—”

He shook his head, just once. A warning. Or a plea.

“If you let me keep talking,” he said quietly, “I won’t stop.”

His breath caught. He swallowed.


“And I need to stop.”

The notebook chimed again.

Dylan lifted his eyes to me — really looked at me — and for the first time since I’d tied him, there was no heat in his gaze. Only resolve.

“Please,” he said. “Gag me. Don’t let me speak.”

The words landed heavier than any order.

I hesitated.

“You’re sure,” I said.

He nodded.

“I’ve said what I needed to say.”

The light on the webcam pulsed.

I went to the closet.I didn’t reach for the panel gag or the silicone ball. My hand went straight to a roll of silver tape and a fresh sponge still sealed in plastic. I held them up so he could see. The corners of his mouth twitched, like a man bracing for cold water.

“You know I’m going to do this properly, don’t you?” I said.

A breath, then a faint, rueful smile. “He said you’d pick that,” he murmured. “Said you’d… know.”

The words hit me sideways. A ripple under the skin, like a current I hadn’t seen until it took my feet out from under me.

“Who said that?” I asked, sharper than I meant. “Who knows about this?”

His eyes flicked toward the desk, then back to me. The gag hadn’t touched him yet, but the quiet had. He nodded once, resigned.

“You’ll find out when you pick up,” he whispered.

The chime sounded again, soft, patient.

I stared at the tape and sponge in my hands, then at him. I tore the wrapper with my teeth and crossed to the bathroom, ran the sponge under the tap until it drank itself heavy, then wrung it out hard. It warmed in my palm as I squeezed, springing back, alive and stubborn. When I came back, Dylan had already lifted his chin, eyes steady. The tape felt weighty, the cardboard core pressing into my damp fingers. The adhesive smell rose up—sharp, chemical, familiar in a way that went straight to the back of my tongue.

“Open,” I told him.

His lips parted obediently. I cupped his jaw in my left hand—hot skin, faint tremor—and pressed the sponge to his lower teeth. It resisted at first. Every gag has a moment where it becomes the truth; this was it. I compressed the sponge with my thumb, angled it past his incisors, then pushed steadily, feeling the soft bulk expand as it found his palate, his cheeks rounding around it. His breath washed hot over my knuckles. My own pulse climbed into my throat.

He tried to speak—just a ghost of a word—and the sound collapsed into a wet hush as the sponge took the space.

“Good,” I whispered, surprised by the softness in my voice. “Breathe through your nose.”

I smoothed my thumb along his cheekbone, steadying him, and tore the first strip of tape one-handed. The rip sounded indecent in the quiet, like fabric giving way. I laid the strip over the center of his mouth, molding it to the sponge with the heel of my hand, feeling the throb of his breath through the adhesive. Another tear. I crossed a second strip low, sealing the corners. My fingertips stuck and released, tiny tugs that lifted the fine hairs along his jaw. The tape wrapped clean and level, ear to ear. It whispered as it slid from the roll, then whispered again as it smoothed to his skin—no wrinkles, no bubbles, my palm following the cheek’s arc, pressing the seal. Another revolution, higher this time, just under the nose. A third pass, under the jaw and back up, cinching the whole structure, turning the sponge from object into certainty. The tape tightened under my hands, the heady scent of glue filling my lungs.He made a sound then, low and contained. It wasn’t a word so much as a vibration. A thick, wet hum pressed up into my palm and the tape faintly crackled as his cheeks tried to move beneath it.

Hnn—nnnph.

The sound vibrated against my palm and, as if the noise traveled through him, the cage throbbed. A slick thread beaded at the little opening, tremored, then spilled, drawing a thin, humiliating line down the underside before breaking on his thigh. His hips tried to answer it with a minute jerk the ropes denied. The device lurched again, flesh trying and failing to swell against the polymer.

I felt my own heat answer. It wasn’t subtle. Denim tightened, the seam pressed cruelly where I needed slack, and the swell pushed hard against the zipper as if my body had made a decision my mind hadn’t. His eyes dropped. They caught on the shape in my jeans and stayed there, widening just a fraction before he dragged them up to my face, cheeks burning under the tape.

The notebook chimed again.

I crossed the room, every step measured, deliberate. When I lifted the lid, the screen flared to life instantly, as if it had been waiting.

A video window opened.

A man appeared on the screen.

He was sitting comfortably, framed by darkness and soft, deliberate light. Calm. Composed. Watching.

He smiled.

“Good evening, Marco,” he said.

I stared at him. “Who the hell are you?”

The smile widened just a fraction.

“Or should I call you Professor?”

My breath caught.

Dylan made a small sound behind me—not fear. Recognition.

“I think you know who I am,” the man continued, voice even, almost courteous. “But if it helps… my name is Martin.”

The room seemed to tilt.

I glanced back at Dylan. His eyes were fixed on the screen now, wide and shining, his body held utterly still by the ropes—as if any movement might make this more real.

Martin’s gaze followed mine.

“Yes,” he said mildly. “I see you’ve taken good care of him.”

My jaw tightened. “You’ve been watching.”

“Of course,” Martin replied. “This room was never meant to be private.”

He leaned back slightly, fingers steepled, his eyes returning to the camera.

“And now,” he said, “we can finally speak… face to face.”

***

Martin watched quietly for a moment.

Not Dylan.

Me.

“You’re very composed, Marco,” Martin said at last. “For someone standing so close to a decision.”

I didn’t answer.

Behind me, Dylan shifted in the chair — not struggling, just reacting. The ropes held. The gag did its work. His breathing changed, audible now, uneven.

Martin’s gaze flicked briefly past me, toward him.

“You see what restraint does,” he continued mildly. “You’ve already learned the first lesson. Containment isn’t punishment. It’s focus.”

My jaw tightened.

“You don’t get to lecture me,” I said. “You’ve been watching without consent.”

Martin smiled. Not apologetic.

“And yet,” he said, “you didn’t stop.”

The words landed too close to truth.

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting just out of frame.

“Do you know how this usually ends?” he asked. “At this point?”

I stayed silent.

“Release,” Martin said. “Relief. Everyone convinces themselves it’s kindness.”

His eyes sharpened.

“I could unlock the device now.”

The sentence hung in the air.

Behind me, Dylan made a sound — small, involuntary. Not a word. Just breath catching.

I didn’t turn around.

“You could watch him,” Martin went on. “Stay exactly where you are. Let him feel seen. Let him feel held.”

A pause.

“Or,” he added softly, “you could step closer.”

I felt it then — the pull. Not hunger. Authority.

I took one step toward Dylan.

I watched Dylan sit bound—wrists lashed tight behind the chair-back, ankles cinched to the front legs, rope crossing bare thighs to hold them open. Even now, he wasn’t struggling, but I could see the way his muscles twitched under the ropes, the restless energy bottled up, craving touch or escape. His breathing—thick, muffled by the sponge and tape—came out in uneven bursts. The way the gag made his cheeks bulge, as his eyes found mine, wide and glassy, pleading and humiliated, almost made my resolve crumble. The bulge of the chastity device pressed harshly against the front of his pelvis, the outline visible beneath the ropes—his arousal obvious, but completely caged and denied.

The air between us felt charged, every inch of rope, every whimper behind the tape, every frustrated twitch of his hips a silent confession. I let my gaze wander over him, taking in the way restraint shaped every line of his body—how he was made helpless, needy, and utterly on display.

He lifted his head.

Our eyes met.

There was no performance in his gaze. No request. Just need — raw and contained, waiting to be shaped.

Martin’s voice lowered.

“You wouldn’t even have to touch much,” he said. “Just enough to remind him you’re there.”

My hand rose, hovered, trembling, just above the hard line of the chastity cage where it peeked through the ropes.

I could feel the heat radiating off his skin.

Beneath the device, his cock was locked and swelling, straining for a freedom he’d never get. Just a brush of my fingers—just the thought of it—was enough to make Dylan whimper, his hips jerking ever so slightly, the ropes cutting deeper. Behind the gag, his cry was nothing but a damp, desperate grunt, shamed and hungry.

I hesitated there, breath caught. One touch and the frustration would go sharp, pain and want tangled so tight he’d drown in it. I could see it on his face: the agony of being this close, this denied, and his body’s shameful gratitude for every second of restraint.

Dylan’s breath hitched.

The room felt smaller. Hotter.

I could feel my own resolve thinning — not breaking, but bending. The part of me that understood exactly how little it would take.

Martin watched closely.

“This is where Masters are made,” he said. “Not by cruelty. By deciding when mercy is weakness.”

I closed my eyes.

Then I dropped my hand.

“No,” I said.

The word surprised even me.

I stepped back.

Dylan sagged into the ropes, a broken sound slipping past the gag — disappointment, relief, or both.

Martin didn’t react immediately.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Interesting,” he said. “You denied him. Not because you couldn’t… but because you chose not to.”

His eyes shifted, just slightly — off camera.

“As promised,” Martin added, “good faith.”

Another voice joined the call.

Calm. Familiar. Amused.

The screen flickered.

Martin’s image shifted to the side, shrinking slightly, making room.

Another window opened.

The man on the screen didn’t rush to speak.

He simply stood there, letting the silence stretch — long enough that I became acutely aware of Dylan’s breathing behind me, the faint creak of rope as his body adjusted, the low hum of the room.

Then he smiled.

Not warmly.

Not cruelly.

Knowingly.

“Professor,” he said.

The word landed differently coming from him. Not teasing. Not ironic.

One word.

Calm.

Precise.

My body reacted before my mind did.

The sound of that voice wasn’t new.

It slid into my ears the way a scar aches before rain — familiar, unwelcome, inevitable.

The voice from the video.

The one who had said:

“It was your idea, Professor. You just never had the nerve to build it.”

I felt the memory hit like a door slamming open.

The chairs.

The recording.

Dylan bound beside Matt.

And this man’s voice narrating it like a lesson.

The words landed hard.

I didn’t need to see his whole face to understand it. The cadence was enough. Calm. Precise. The kind of voice that never wasted effort, never raised itself unless the outcome had already been decided.

It slid back through my memory like a blade through water.

My stomach tightened.

I didn’t need to ask who he was.

I already knew.

“Hale,” I said.

The name tasted wrong in my mouth — like something I had written once and then buried, convinced it would never step into daylight.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then the faintest shift — not a smile, not approval.

Recognition.

“Good,” he replied, voice steady. “Then we don’t have to pretend.”

Behind me, Dylan reacted before I could turn — a sharp, suppressed intake of breath through the gag, his body straining once against the ropes before he forced himself still. The chair creaked. The tape crackled.

Hale’s eyes registered it, not with concern — with notation.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “He remembers as well.”

He turned the camera just enough to let the room behind him breathe into the frame — light arranged with intention, steel and wood and leather waiting in the margins like vocabulary laid out on a table.

“This,” he said, not performing, simply stating, “is where Martin believed he was learning to lead.”

He didn’t linger for drama.

He let the fact exist.

Then his gaze returned to me.

“And this,” Hale continued, “is where I realized he had been reading you.”

The line didn’t accuse.

It diagnosed.

I felt the floor give a little under my feet.

His tone never shifted, never hardened.

“You speak the language,” he said, as if establishing context. “You structure it. You give it form. Martin only imitates”

Martin stiffened in the corner of the frame — just enough to betray himself.

Hale didn’t look at him.

He stayed with me.

“You,” he said, not elevating the word, not flattering it — naming it — “are neither subject nor student.”

The silence after that felt heavier than anything else in the room.

“You are the reference.”

Behind me, Dylan exhaled through his nose — a raw, low sound trapped behind the sponge and tape. The rope checked his movement immediately, his body remembering where he belonged.

Hale acknowledged it with the faintest incline of his head.

“I can see he’s still with you, Professor.”

“I tied him up and gagged him, yes. For his own good. It’s where he belongs, Hale”.

Hale's eyes tracked over Dylan's bound form, assessing. "The physical restraint is impeccable. But I'm referring to something more essential—his consciousness hasn't retreated. He remains fully present within his captivity, aware of every implication."

I glanced back at Dylan, bound and gagged in the chair. His eyes were clear, focused, watching me.

"That's your doing," Hale continued, voice measured. "You've anchored him. Kept him from drifting away from himself, and that’s good,” he said. “So he can watch this clearly.”

Not a threat.

Not a warning.

A condition.

“And you will understand,” he finished, “what happens when a structure fails.”

Dylan’s response was immediate and physical — a sharp inhale through his nose, chest straining once against the ropes before he forced himself still again. The chair creaked faintly.

“Anyway, I still don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced, Professor.”

He stepped aside, just enough for the camera to shift. The lens refocused, the depth of field widening—and what had been hidden behind him began to emerge.

The room was vast.

Not dim — intentional. Light placed exactly where it needed to be, leaving other corners in shadow. Steel. Wood. Leather. Rope. Racks mounted into reinforced walls. A floor that wasn’t quite concrete, not quite rubber — engineered for bodies.

And devices.

So many of them.

My breath caught before I could stop it.

I recognized them.

Not from life.

From memory.

From lines I’d written at night and dismissed in the morning. From scenes I’d never thought would leave the page.

He watched my reaction carefully.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “That look.”

He let the camera linger, slowly panning the space.

A suspension frame — exactly like the one I’d once described but never named.

A chair with adjustable restraints — not identical, but close enough to hurt.

A rack that made my stomach tighten for reasons I didn’t fully understand.

“Who are you, exactly?” I asked — not because I didn’t know his name, but because I needed to understand what he was in all of this.

There was no offense in his pause.

Only assessment.

When Hale finally spoke, his voice didn’t change — the same measured cadence, as if every word existed only because it served a structural purpose.

“Once,” Hale said, “I tied men myself.”

He didn’t say it with pride. He said it like a fact on a ledger.

“I needed to understand the mechanics from the inside. Pressure. Response. Failure. Obedience.”

A pause.

“But a man who ties becomes part of the scene. His hand clouds the result.”

His gaze stayed level with mine.

“So now,” he continued, “I build the frame. I set the conditions. Others execute the act.”

Another beat.

“I measure what remains when the hands are no longer mine.”

A small beat.

“I am the one who evaluates the men who believe they are worthy to be called Master.”

He didn’t look at Martin when he said it.

He didn’t need to.

His hands folded loosely behind his back — not rigid, not theatrical — simply settled, like someone whose authority did not come from force, but from being the last step in a process.

“For the last several years,” he continued, “I have overseen environments where control is claimed… tested… and measured.”

He wasn’t boasting. He wasn’t confessing.

He was defining jurisdiction.

“And when a structure fails,” Hale went on, calm and unwavering, “it is my responsibility to determine whether the fault lies in the rope — or in the man who believes he understands how to use it.”

Behind me, Dylan made a sound — not pain, not protest.

Recognition.

The sound of someone who understood what it meant to fail a structure.

Hale registered it without turning his head.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “He has lived inside one.”

His eyes returned to me.

“Martin failed his evaluation,” he said plainly.

Martin stiffened on-screen.

“Not because of cruelty. Not because of restraint. But because when the subject broke, Martin panicked.”

The word hung there.

When he spoke again, his tone was precise — not corrective, not indulgent.

“What happened,” he said, “did not occur during arousal.”

He let that distinction land.

“It happened after.”

Martin stiffened.

Hale shifted his attention to Martin, his eyes narrowing with clinical precision.

“You brought the subject to a peak state under restraint. The structure held. The commands were followed. Up to that point, everything was correct.”

A pause.

“And then the body resolved.”

“He came,” Martin cut in, voice stripped of polish. “He fucking came. Without permission.”

Hale didn’t respond. He allowed the fracture to exist.

Dylan jolted as the word itself hit him. The tape swallowed the sound he made, a raw, wet shudder pushed through his nose.

Martin didn’t stop. “He was trussed exactly as instructed. Box chest, the cross tight, thighs pinned. He humped the rope—barely moved, just small, mean rubs—and he tipped over. I told him to hold. He didn’t. He emptied anyway.”

Heat crawled up my neck. I didn’t look at the screen. I looked at Dylan. The cage pulsed once, angry and trapped, a body remembering what it had done and what it couldn’t do now.

Hale noticed.

“That moment,” he said quietly, “is where untrained subjects often break.”

He turned slightly toward the camera.

“When the arousal drops, the mind rushes back in,” Hale explained.

“Suddenly the subject feels exposed. Trapped. Overwhelmed by clarity.”

He folded his hands behind his back.

“The urge isn’t to submit anymore,” he said. “It’s to end the scene. To get free. To escape the state they just begged for.”

Dylan’s breathing changed.

“That urge,” Hale continued, “is not disobedience. It’s instinct.”

A beat.

“And it’s exactly why training exists.”

He looked directly at Martin.

“You believed he was ready to endure that phase,” Hale said. “You were wrong.”

Martin’s jaw tightened.

“The subject panicked,” Hale went on. “He snapped his fingers — the agreed signal. Not because he wanted to stop permanently, but because he didn’t yet know how to stay.”

I felt it click into place.

“And that,” Hale said to Martin, “is where your responsibility began.”

Silence.

“You were supposed to hold the frame,” Hale continued. “To keep him contained. To let the panic pass inside the ropes, not outside them.”

Martin shook his head faintly.

“But instead,” Hale said, voice cooling, “you mistook panic for harm.”

Another pause.

“You removed the gag.”

Dylan’s shoulders tensed.

“The moment you gave him speech,” Hale said, “you gave him control.”

He didn’t raise his voice.

“He used the safeword,” Hale said. “Correctly. Immediately.”

A beat.

“And at that point, Martin, you froze.”

Hale’s gaze sharpened.

“You looked to me instead of anchoring him. You waited for permission instead of providing containment.”

Silence stretched.

“That,” Hale said, “is why you failed.”

Not accusation. Diagnosis.

“A Master does not end a scene when a subject panics,” Hale continued. “He guides them through the panic.”

He glanced toward Dylan.

“The ropes were not the problem,” Hale said. “They were where the subject belonged.”

Then, finally, he looked at me.

“And now,” Hale said, calmly, “you understand why this situation requires a steadier hand.”

***

Hale didn’t speak right away.

He simply tilted his head — listening to something off-screen — then turned back toward the camera.

“Before we continue, Professor,” he said, “there is someone else who should be present for this conversation to go ahead”

The frame widened, revealing a body already bound.

A man sat strapped to a chair. Naked. Young, early twenties maybe, I couldn’t tell. His wrists were wrenched back behind the chair-back, forearms compressed hard together by tight ropework that bit deep into the flesh. Thick bands cinched across his bare chest and around his thighs, pinning his legs open. His head hung forward, chin to chest.

He was blindfolded.

Thick black fabric wrapped around his eyes, knotted hard at the back of his head.

Over his ears, enormous padded headphones clamped tight — the kind used in recording studios, or firing ranges — so large they swallowed the line of his jaw.

The camera drifted closer.

A faint, distorted thump-thump-thump leaked from the headphones.

Music — loud enough to rattle inside his skull, loud enough to drown out the world.

His breath came fast and shallow through his nose.

His body wasn’t struggling.

His body was enduring.

Behind me, Dylan reacted before my mind could catch up.

A strangled sound burst through the gag — sharp, desperate — his shoulders jolting against the ropes as if something inside him had detonated. He fought it back instantly, forcing himself still again, but the panic tremor rippled through him and didn’t fully leave.

His eyes were fixed on the screen.

Wide.

Unblinking.

He knew.

I didn’t. Not yet.

The camera zoomed in again.I leaned forward without meaning to, the chair humming under my weight, my eyes dragged into the frame like they’d been hooked.

“Who is he?” I asked Dylan, still staring at the screen. “Tell me.”

Of course, I didn’t expect an answer. But he tried anyway. A muffled, strangled sound pressed hard into the sponge, his head jerking once before he forced it still. His fingers clenched uselessly behind the chair-back. The ropes answered for him with a soft creak.

I glanced at the gag stretching his mouth. "Not that you could tell me anyway," I murmured, watching his eyes widen above the silencing device.

The lens slid lower, slow as a hand. I was mesmerized.

Sweat slicked the captive’s freckled skin. Beads gathered at his temples and traced slow, shining paths down his cheeks before disappearing into the blindfold’s edge. Strands of ginger hair clung damply to his forehead, darker where they were soaked through.

Drool leaked from the wide, glossy red ball gag strapped deep between his lips.

It didn’t drip.

It spilled — a constant, humiliating thread that ran from the corner of his mouth down along his chin, catching briefly in the faint ginger stubble at his jaw before dropping onto his chest.

He was exhausted.

Not broken.

Held there.

Martin stepped into frame.

Not hurried.

Methodical.

He checked the knots at the captive’s elbows — pulled them once tighter — and the man jerked hard in the chair, chest straining forward, a muffled grunt collapsing into the gag.

Dylan convulsed behind me.

He knew that sound.

Hale watched the reaction with clinical interest.

“Bring him back,” Hale said softly.

Martin nodded once.

He started with the headphones.

He slid two fingers beneath one ear cup and pried it outward — just enough for the sound to spill into the room for a second.

Heavy bass.

Pressed too close.

Then he lifted the headphones away completely.

The man gasped.

Not in fear.

In space.

The world rushed in — air, temperature, silence that wasn’t silence — and his breath shuddered inside his chest as his nervous system tried to catch up.

The blindfold remained.

He was awake now, but nowhere.

Martin rested a hand lightly on the top of his head.

Not comforting.

Positioning.

Hale spoke — clear, even, controlled.

“Orientation comes next.”

Martin untied the blindfold knot slowly.

The cloth slipped free.

The captive blinked once, twice — pupils blown wide, adjusting to light and distance and presence all at once.

His eyes lifted.

They locked on the screen across from him.

On us.

On Dylan.

Dylan shattered inside the ropes.

He surged forward hard — the chair creaked, tendons stood out along his throat — a guttural, suffocated nnnh-hhmmph tearing from behind the sponge and tape. His whole body strained toward the screen, toward the man in the other chair, toward something that was already lost.

Terror.

Recognition.

Love.

I finally understood that what I was watching wasn’t coincidence.

It was reunion.

“Say hello to your friend,” Hale said calmly.

Martin crossed the room and switched on a large wall monitor.

The hotel room feed flooded into the dungeon — Dylan bound, gagged, chest heaving, eyes burning with recognition and grief.

The captive saw him.

His breath cracked open.

Every muscle locked.

He didn’t struggle.

He endured harder.

Hale turned fractionally toward the camera.

“Our guest is nearly ready, Professor,” he said. “But introductions should be spoken — not guessed.”

Martin stood behind the chair again.

His hand closed around the gag strap.

He waited.

Hale inclined his head.

“Remove it.”

The buckle slid open.

The gag came out wet — strings of saliva clinging desperately before snapping away. The captive worked his jaw once, wincing from the ache of having been forced wide for so long.

He swallowed.

He lifted his chin.

For the first time, I saw him clearly — delicate features, ginger lashes, freckles across a chest that was shaking, a faint, untrimmed bush visible between his legs where the ropes left him exposed.

Hale’s voice softened — only in tone.

“Introduce yourself to our dear Professor. He’s the one you’ve been writing to, you know”

The man drew in a trembling breath.

My breath caught in my throat. I leaned forward, my body rigid with anticipation, every cell magnetized to the screen as if the rest of the world had fallen away.

“My name…”

He faltered — not from fear, but from weight — then forced the words steady.

“…is Ryan Whitmore.”

Behind me, Dylan broke.

The sound that came out of him wasn’t panic.

It was devastation.

Bound.

Gagged.

Helpless.

And unable to reach him.

The camera held the moment.

Hale did not.

“Good,” he said quietly. “Now that everyone is present… we may continue.”

Ryan’s lips parted — breath stuttering, raw, urgent.

“Dy—”

The name barely formed before his voice collapsed into air. Martin put a hand over his mouth, silencing him. His whole body strained forward, chest trembling, wrists twisting hard against the rope biting into his forearms.

He wasn’t pleading.

He was trying to reach.

Behind me, Dylan thrashed — not wildly, but desperately contained. The ropes caught every inch of movement, turning it inward, feeding it back into his body. He tried to speak through the taped sponge — a strangled, broken mmmmph-hhhnn — his eyes burning, pleading, frantic.

The distance between them was a wound.

Hale’s voice cut through.

“Not yet.”

Calm.

Immovable.

Ryan froze — breath still shaking — his chest rising and falling too fast.

“In good time, Ryan,” Hale said gently. “In good time.”

The reassurance wasn’t comfort.

It was control.

Ryan swallowed hard, jaw trembling, eyes flicking once more toward Dylan — as if trying to memorize him — before forcing himself still again.

Hale’s gaze shifted.

“Martin,” he said.

A pause.

“You have not yet completed your task.”

The words landed with weight.

Obligation.

Expectation.

Martin’s composure sharpened.

“Yes, Sir.”

He moved behind Ryan’s chair again — efficient, unhurried — his presence filling the frame in a way that made the ropes feel tighter just by proximity.

Ryan tried to speak again — not words now, just sound — breath and fear and want tangled into a fragile exhale.

“Please, I—”

The leather strap slid back into his mouth.

The gag seated deep.

His lips stretched helplessly around the glossy red sphere as Martin pressed it home — firm, final — the strap drawing across his soaked cheeks before buckling tight at the back of his neck.

The sound strangled into silence mid-syllable.

A wet, ruined breath escaped instead.

Ryan’s eyes flinched shut.

Drool welled instantly around the ball, spilling down the corners of his mouth again — faster now, as though his body remembered the shape and surrendered to it.

Dylan shook — a muffled, agonized nnnh-nnnphhh tearing free.

Hale did not acknowledge him.

“Continue,” he said.

Martin obeyed.

He stepped around to the front of the chair — clinical now, not cruel — and knelt.

The ropes across Ryan’s thighs framed the vulnerable space beneath his stomach, the skin flushed and damp, a faint untrimmed ginger bush visible, caught awkwardly between restraint and exposure. Sweat rolled down his abdomen in slow, helpless lines.

The dark polymer cage lay on the table beside Martin’s knee.

Heavy.

Precise.

Cold.

Ryan tensed the moment Martin picked it up — his breath hitching sharply through his nose — body instinctively trying to retreat even though there was nowhere left to go.

“Hold,” Martin said quietly.

Not a threat.

A command.

Ryan obeyed on instinct.

Every muscle locked.

Martin lifted the device from the table.

The dark polymer gleamed under the directed light — clinical, inevitable. Ryan’s breath hitched the moment it moved into his field of vision, his whole body tensing against the ropes as if his skin itself remembered what came next.

“Hold,” Martin said quietly.

Ryan froze.

Martin fitted the base ring behind Ryan’s balls and then guided Ryan's flaccid penis into the cage with deliberate care — sliding the head through the narrow opening first, then working the shaft into the rigid polymer tube that would house it.

But the touch, the helpless exposure, the impossible humiliation—Ryan’s body betrayed him.

He felt himself begin to swell, a hot, involuntary pulse of blood he could neither control nor hide.

The plastic pressed tighter as he hardened, the cage immediately refusing the expansion, turning arousal into ache.

The motion drew a strangled, wet grunt behind the gag as Ryan's sensitive flesh compressed within the unforgiving device, his hips instinctively trying to pull back an inch the ropes would not allow.

He couldn’t.

The chair owned his body now.

Martin adjusted the tube. For a second, Ryan flinched sharply — a faint, pained hiss pressed into the gag — as a few coarse ginger hairs from his untrimmed bush got caught in the channel of the housing. The detail was small, almost domestic in its imperfection — intimate, human — and all the more humiliating for it.

Martin paused, steadying him with one hand.

“Keep still,” he murmured.

He eased the hairs free with clinical precision — not cruel, not gentle — simply necessary. Ryan’s breath trembled through his nose, chest rising and falling too fast, sweat rolling down the hollow of his throat as the device closed around him again, sealing him back into something he had never fully escaped.

The cage seated into place.

Final.

Complete.

Martin slid the locking pin through the slot.

The click was quiet and absolute.

A line of drool spilled down Ryan’s chin as his body bowed faintly against the ropes — not struggling — just reacting to the truth of being trapped again. His untrimmed ginger hair at his groin framed the device awkwardly, unprepared, exposed in a way that felt less erotic than deeply personal — a body never meant to be on display, now forced into it.

Behind the gag, a broken, muffled sound slipped from him, heavy with shame and something darker—an ache, a need, that the cage would never let him satisfy.

Dylan jerked in his own chair — eyes burning, breathing ragged — as if some private thread between them had just snapped tight.

Hale’s expression didn’t change.

“Good,” he said.

“The structure is restored.”

Hale turned his attention back to me.

“Now, Professor,” he said evenly.

“You understand what was taken from Ryan… and what must not be taken from Dylan again.”

The room felt smaller.

Hotter.

And for the first time, I understood that Hale wasn’t simply showing me restraint.

He was showing me responsibility.

***

“As I said,” Hale murmured, his tone almost courteous, “before we proceed… There are matters in this story that neither of you have been allowed to see.”

His gaze shifted — not to Martin, not to me.

To Dylan.

“So,” he continued, “let us correct that.”

Ryan’s jaw strained reflexively — a useless attempt to speak through leather and buckle.

But his eyes focused.

On the screen.

On Dylan.

The reaction wasn’t subtle.

Ryan broke.

Not loudly — not physically — but in the way his face changed, all at once, like a dam caving inward.

His whole body leaned forward against the ropes, not fighting them, just trying to move, trying to go somewhere he couldn’t. His throat worked around a plea that had nowhere to go. The gag shone wet at the edges where he had been breathing against it for too long.

Dylan tried to move toward him and couldn’t.

Their stillness became a bridge.

I felt it in my chest.

Hale let it linger — just long enough.

Then:

“Martin,” he said softly. “Let him speak.”

Martin’s hand moved.

The buckle slid.

The gag came out slow — strings of drool breaking across Ryan’s chin, his lips raw and trembling, breath dragging back into his lungs like he’d just surfaced from underwater.

He didn’t look at Martin.

He didn’t look at Hale.

He didn’t even look at me.

His gaze locked to Dylan like he’d never learned to see anything else.

His voice came out hoarse, cracked open.

“Dylan…”

Dylan’s breath slammed out of him — sharp, wet, breaking against the gag — his chest heaving once, twice, before he forced himself still again.

Ryan swallowed hard.

He tried to speak again.

Nothing came.

He closed his eyes — bracing — then opened them slowly, and this time he spoke like someone confessing at the edge of a cliff.

“I followed you.”

The words landed like impact.

Hale didn’t interrupt.

He wanted this spoken.

Ryan’s jaw trembled.

“I knew you were going to him, of course, as you have told me everything, about the contract — about that fucking game — about…hall of that.”

His voice faltered on the last word, the syllables shredding into something small and afraid.

“I told myself I wouldn’t interfere,” he whispered. “That it wasn’t my place. That you’d chosen him, chosen… submission, chosen whatever he gives you that I never could.”

His throat tightened.

“I tried to be rational. I tried to be your friend. I tried to let you go.”

His eyes softened — not pleading.

Breaking.

“But I couldn’t.”

He breathed in through his teeth, like the truth hurt to push out.

“I couldn’t let you walk into that place alone, knowing what it does to you. Knowing what it takes from you. Knowing how you would have come back… half-inside yourself.”

Dylan shook his head — a frantic, tiny, gag-muffled denial — tears shining at the edges of his lashes.

Ryan didn’t let himself stop.

“I didn’t follow you because I was jealous,” he said, his voice barely holding together. “And not because I wanted to drag you away from him.”

He swallowed.

“I followed you because I love you.”

The room went utterly silent.

The word didn’t feel romantic.

It felt lived-in.

Bruised.

Exhausted.

Ryan’s shoulders shook once — not sobbing, just releasing something too heavy to hold.

“I was scared,” he said softly. “Scared you were going somewhere I wouldn’t be able to reach you anymore. Scared that one day you’d… disappear inside these games and never come back out again.”

He blinked, eyes wet, breath shallow.

“So I stayed close,” he finished. “Close enough that if you broke… I’d be there. Even if you didn’t want me to be.”

He laughed — a fragile, broken sound.

“Even if all I could do was watch.”

Dylan made a sound — not a cry, not a plea — something raw and animal and suffocated by the gag, his whole body folding inward and straining outward at once.

He wasn’t ashamed.

He was devastated.

Because he finally understood who he’d left outside.

Hale let the silence stretch like wire.

Then — gently, almost kindly:

“Thank you, Ryan.”

Ryan flinched at his own name in Hale’s voice.

Hale turned his head slightly toward the camera — toward me.

“And now,” he said, “the professor knows the truth of why this boy is here.”

Not how.

Not by whom.

Not under what conditions.

Just—

Why.

Ryan looked at Dylan one more time — a look that wasn’t a plea and wasn’t a question.

A look that said:

I followed you because no one else ever would.

Hale raised two fingers.

“Gag him,” he said softly.

Ryan inhaled sharply — instinct trying to speak, to say wait — but Martin was already there, already pushing the ball back between his lips, already buckling him down into silence again.

Ryan didn’t resist.

He closed his eyes and accepted it.

Because if Dylan had to suffer in silence —

He would, too.

***

Hale let the silence breathe — let Ryan’s confession echo through both rooms like a wound still open and refusing to clot.

On the screen, Ryan sagged back into the chair once the gag was returned, breath ragged, shoulders trembling — not from struggle, but from the effort of holding everything he had just said inside his own body now that words were no longer allowed.

Dylan couldn't tear his gaze away.

Every part of him seemed drawn to that image, bound and gagged in another place yet somehow still connected.

Hale watched the tension build between them, let it grow harder, more palpable.

"Martin," Hale finally said, breaking the silence without looking at him. "Tell our professor what you told me after the examination."

Martin hesitated, jaw shifting as he grappled with the request.

His voice, when he spoke, was measured, controlled, almost clinical.

"Dylan wasn't breaking out of fear. He was breaking because he was divided."

His gaze shifted towards Dylan, eyes narrowing as he continued.

"You weren't just submitting to me. You were negotiating against something else inside yourself. A second gravity. A second claim."

Dylan tensed — not violently — but in the quiet, inward way of someone struck cleanly in the center.

Hale nodded once.

“Go on.”

Martin exhaled through his nose.

“Submission is not obedience,” he said softly. “It is surrender. It requires wholeness. It requires… choosing.”

His mouth tightened.

“And Dylan never chose.”

The words did not accuse.

They diagnosed.

Martin shifted slightly in frame — not defensive, not ashamed — but exposing something he had clearly rehearsed before.

“He was still attached to Ryan,” he said. “Emotionally. Morally. Historically. He was still tethered to affection — to comfort — to a way of being seen that didn’t cost him anything.”

His eyes hardened, just slightly.

“Love invites a man to stay,” Martin said. “I wanted a man who would kneel.”

The sentence hit like cold water.

Hale tilted his head, approving the honesty.

“So,” Hale said, “you made a choice.”

Martin nodded once.

“I believed,” he said quietly, “that as long as Ryan existed as an option, Dylan would never fully submit. He would always retreat to that softness. To that safety. To the version of himself that did not have to confront what he really wanted.”

He looked directly at the camera now.

“At what he needed.”

Dylan shut his eyes, the truth of Martin's words cutting deeper than any rope or gag ever could.

Martin's tone stayed even, too even, as he continued.

“So I removed the variable.”

There it was.

Not violent.

Not angry.

Not triumphant.

Just… confessed.

“When the men spotted Ryan outside the dungeon, they showed me the surveillance feed. As soon as I recognized him, I decided to act. I went to him and told him Dylan needed help—that he was spiraling, and needed someone who understood him close by.”

A bitter smile flickered at the edge of his mouth.

“The bait worked perfectly. He walked right into my trap."

On the other screen, Ryan jerked against the ropes — not struggling — but reacting to being named in the betrayal.

Hale stepped in before the emotion could drown the room.

“Careful,” he murmured — not to Ryan.

To Martin.

Martin’s shoulders tightened.

His voice thinned slightly at the edges.

“I intended to keep him out of the equation,” Martin said. “Not forever. Just… long enough. Long enough to strip away the last doubt. Long enough to prove that Dylan could live without that kind of attachment.”

A long silence stretched.

It did not feel proud.

It did not feel strategic.

It felt like a confession he had built a philosophy around only to realize — too late — that it was still human.

“And?” Hale asked.

Hale did not look away from Martin when he continued.

“You didn’t simply remove Ryan from the equation,” Hale said. “You repurposed him.”

The words fell like something measured and heavy.

Martin’s jaw tightened — not in defiance.

In shame.

“He volunteered,” Martin said. “At first.”

The screen shifted slightly — and my eyes went back to Ryan.

The ropes around him were not careless.

They were learned.

Precise.

Too practiced to be recent.

His skin bore the faint marks of bindings that had been applied — and removed — and reapplied. Not brutal. Not careless. But frequent.

His breathing was shallow and uneven — not from struggle — but from exhaustion preserved in muscle memory.

Dylan made a noise behind his gag — helpless, wounded — but Hale lifted a finger slightly.

Not yet.

“Explain,” Hale said.

Martin swallowed.

“I tried to convince him that Dylan was going somewhere he couldn’t follow… It was then that he said he would rather be near him in whatever form was possible.”

Hale’s expression didn’t change.

“You used that,” he said.

Martin didn’t deny it.

“I shaped it,” he replied softly.

He spoke slowly now — like each sentence cost something to speak aloud.

“I told him that if he wanted to stay close to Dylan… he couldn’t come as lover, or rival, or distraction.”

He paused.

“He had to come as subject.”

The camera lingered over Ryan’s body.

The rope at his shoulders.

The faint abrasion at his wrists.

The loosened-red tension at the corners of his mouth where the gag had rested too long before being removed.

Not abused.

But worn.

Sustained restraint rather than violence.

Hale nodded once — coldly.

“For how long?” he asked.

Martin did not answer immediately.

When he finally did, the word came quietly.

Martin's voice dropped to a whisper. "It’s been seven days now. Every hour. Every minute. Since the moment he walked through that door."

The room felt smaller.

A week.

Bound.

Contained.

Kept inside ritual.

Hale continued — not accusing.

Documenting.

Hale's fingers moved toward the screen with the precision of an archivist.

"I believe the professor should see the beginning," he said, voice clinical. "We keep meticulous records of consent."

I didn’t answer right away.

Not because I doubted him.

But because something inside me was shifting — slowly, like a floor tilting under my feet.

Consent. Records. Beginning.

None of this sounded improvised.

None of it sounded like a mistake.

It sounded… constructed.

Deliberate.

A system.

My mouth felt dry.

“You’re telling me there was a process,” I said. “Not just a scene.”

Hale inclined his head.

“There is always a process. Without structure, people panic. Or improvise.”

Structure.

Protocol.

Words I’d used in fiction — safe, contained on the page.

Hearing them spoken here, in a room where Dylan breathed through layers of tape and rope creaked when he shifted — something in me tightened.

I should have stepped back.

Instead, I leaned forward without realising I’d moved.

Curiosity and dread pulling in the same direction.

Not fascination with cruelty.

But the recognition that there was a logic underneath all this.

A frame.

And I wanted to understand it.

Behind me, Dylan made a faint, muffled sound — a reminder that this wasn’t theory, wasn’t narrative, wasn’t distance.

This was happening.

And I was still watching.

“All right,” I heard myself say. “Show me the beginning.”

Hale nodded once.

The image shifted.

I found myself looking into a smaller room just off the main floor — bare walls, a bench, a drain in the concrete, nothing ceremonial. Ryan was there, still fully clothed. Martin stood between him and the door, hands open, voice almost gentle through the tinny mic.

“Strip. Everything.” Martin’s voice left no room for argument.”Then I’ll keep your eyes covered until he’s ready,” Martin said. “Hands behind you, that’s all. I’ll take you to him.”

Ryan nodded so fast it hurt to watch. He stripped like the promise itself was oxygen — shirt, jeans, underwear — folded without thinking, the kind of carefulness that tells you he’s been taught to be tidy even when he’s trembling. His freckles stood out sharper against the sudden nakedness. He put his hands behind his back and offered his wrists before Martin asked.

The rope went on clean — wrists crossed, turned palm-out, cinched neatly. Ryan tested the bind once, a reflexive twitch; the line held and he settled, almost relieved. Martin folded a soft black cloth over Ryan’s eyes. I saw Ryan’s mouth shape a thought he didn’t speak. Then he exhaled like a swimmer turning into water, chest loosening, body saying I’m ready in all the ways his lips didn’t.

My eyes drifted to Dylan involuntarily. In his chair, he sat motionless except for his throat—where a network of tendons strained against his skin like taut cables beneath a thin sheet, betraying the storm beneath his stillness as he witnessed Ryan's captivity.

The video cut. A corridor, then a door with a recessed handle. No Dylan in sight. Martin guided the blindfolded boy forward, one hand on his upper arm, unhurried.

He palmed the lock and swung the door in with his foot. Inside: stone, a low, flat wooden cot bolted to the wall, iron rings mounted along its edge. A camera nested high in the corner like an eye that never blinked.

The blindfold came off.

Martin sat him on the cot, hand pressed firm between his shoulders. His voice lost any trace of softness.

Ryan’s pupils contracted against the dim overhead bulb, his gaze tracking the rough-hewn walls that absorbed light rather than reflected it. The stone bore water stains in the low corners—old marks, permanent, the kind that spoke of months rather than days. Ryan’s eyes moved from the rings on the cot to the door’s interior face, bare metal without a handle on this side.

“What is this place?” Ryan asked.

Martin didn’t answer him with a name for the room. He glanced at the drain, at the rings, at the camera in the corner, then at Ryan’s wrists, and said, “You’re early. He isn’t ready to see you yet. Sit still.”

I watched Ryan swallow that like medicine. He blinked toward the door, toward the space where he’d clearly expected someone else to be, then lowered his eyes to the floor. He didn’t say, Where is he? He didn’t say, Is he okay? He said none of the things any sane person would have asked in a room like that.

“Do you need me to… wait like this?” he murmured, voice small, offering the shape of a question without the question inside it.

“Yes,” Martin said. “For him.”

The words worked like a key. Ryan’s shoulders came down a fraction.

“Mouth,” he then ordered, flat and final. Ryan flinched, half a protest on his lips—“You said—”—but it died when Martin brought the gag into view.

Not a ball, not a ring, but a thick, red mass of silicone—oversized, anatomically shaped, crafted to flood every space behind the lips and teeth. It looked almost gentle in Martin’s palm, soft and smooth, but the scale of it unsettled: built to fill, to hold the tongue in place, to reshape a face so subtly the humiliation felt private.

“Open,” Martin said.

Ryan shook his head once—not no, just wait—his lips trembling, protest clear in his eyes as he registered the sheer size of the thing. He tried to mumble something again, maybe to plead for a smaller gag, but it only came out as a stuttering whine.

Martin didn’t care. He used those seconds differently. “Take it like a man,” he said, voice flat, almost bored. “For Dylan.”

His left hand locked at the back of Ryan’s head, palm braced hard against the base of his skull, fingers spread across the nape to stop him from twisting away. With his other hand, Martin brought his thumb in under the line of Ryan’s jaw while his fingers pinned his cheek, and he levered the mandible forward and down. Ryan’s mouth was forced open — wider than it wanted to go — a wet, panicked grunt spilling out as the muscles in his jaw fought and failed.

The silicone pressed past his lips, slow and implacable, then suddenly filled the inside of his mouth, stretching him wide, his tongue forced flat in a molded hollow.

His cheeks bulged, jaw aching, saliva welling up fast as he struggled to swallow. No hope of speech now—just a thick, garbled noise behind the silicone, breath quickening through his nose.

Martin’s movements never paused. He reached for the tape—a roll of dull grey—and wound it over Ryan’s lips, layer after layer, sealing the gag brutally in place. No chance of spitting it out, no chance of even mouthing a plea.

The first sound that escaped was little more than a broken, gurgling grunt—wet and raw, panic and shame tangled so tightly they were impossible to tell apart.

Martin moved quickly after that—no flourish, just function. Ankles crossed, wrapped, bulled tight, half-hitches biting until stillness set in.
Ryan tested the ropes — not a struggle, just a reflex, a small, desperate pull of his ankles against the binding. The half-hitches answered immediately, biting down hard, tightening instead of giving.

He flinched, a muffled cry leaking around the gag.

Martin didn’t raise his voice.

“Don’t pull,” he said softly. “Those knots tighten when you fight them.”

With Ryan’s wrists already lashed tight behind his back, Martin forced Ryan flat on his stomach over the wooden cot. Then he took a second length of rope, threaded it through the wrist tie and the ankle tie, and drew them together — hauling Ryan’s feet up toward his bound wrists until his spine arched beautifully.

The cinch bit. The inevitable tremor took him—not fight, just the body’s protest at being turned into an arc.

He tried to plead. It poured out as foam and noise around the plug.

Martin didn’t comment. The camera caught it cruelly well: the way Ryan’s shoulder blades knocked, the way the skin at his elbows paled under the strain, the way his toes curled like a baby’s.

“Breath,” Martin said, almost conversationally. “That’s all you need.”

Ryan nodded as best he could, desperate and obedient through the gag. He tried again to speak. It wasn’t even a word anymore. It was the sound of a boy trying to be understood through a giant thing jammed between him and language.

But Martin wasn’t finished. He reached for a muzzle—heavy leather, studded with straps, a steel ring fixed at the front. He fitted it over Ryan’s face and buckled it mercilessly tight behind his head, the ring framing the tape-wrapped gag, adding new pressure to his jaw.

Ryan's eyes went wide as Martin dragged him forward so that the muzzle ring hovered inches from an iron loop bolted into the head of the cot. He forced Ryan’s cheek down against the rough wood.

Then Martin produced a heavy padlock from his pocket and slid the shackle through both rings. When his thumb pressed the hasp home, the mechanism surrendered with a deep, metallic click that reverberated through the room like a gunshot, permanently anchoring Ryan's head to the wooden frame.

For a moment, Ryan froze—panic burning in his wide, tear-bright eyes as the reality of his total helplessness landed hard. My own heart stuttered, breath catching in my throat as I understood how far Martin was willing to go. Even through the screen, I couldn’t look away from the raw, naked desperation in Ryan’s stare — bound, gagged, muzzled, padlocked… utterly at Martin’s mercy.

I could feel my nails pressing into my palms. In the hotel chair, the rope cut a little deeper across Dylan’s thighs when he strained. The tape over his mouth crackled.

And I realised, with a stillness that felt almost clinical, that the scene had deeply aroused me. I was hard as hell.

For a moment — God help me — I had forgotten how hard it must have been for Ryan. I wasn’t thinking of fear or pain. I was mesmerised by the precision of it. By the structure. By the beauty of the restraint itself.

Worse — I had forgotten that Ryan wasn’t a character from one of my stories, nor an actor in a scene someone else had staged. He wasn’t fiction. He wasn’t a role.

He was a real man, in a real room, with a real body locked into that position — and I had looked at him as if he were an idea.

“That was day one,” Hale said. No accusation; a ledger entry read aloud.

The footage didn’t stop.

Time-stamped jump cuts — the camera’s choices, not mine — showed the shape of it: Ryan hogtied on the cot, then on the floor, then on a mat, always breathing through the gag, always bound tight enough that even the smallest adjustment had to be paid for with a whole-body shiver. Martin came and went, checking lines, tightening, loosening, moving.

A bowl of water held to Ryan’s lips between sets. A pause where Martin rubbed circulation back into fingers that had gone numb.

I heard my own breath hitch when the clip snagged on a short sequence where Ryan’s eyes — swimming, unfocused — caught the lens like a drowning man confusing a camera for a person. He pleaded. He knew he was pleading. He knew no one could hear him. He did it anyway.

Hale’s voice threaded through like annotation. “Our cameras live in the room,” he said. “For consent. For the record. For when memory lies to protect itself.”

He glanced to his right, to someone out of frame, then back to me.

“The men who assist with the cameras. They observe. They do not intervene. But that night the control bay pinged me. It was a quiet tone, the kind our operators use for lens drift or a failing mic. It wasn’t a failure. It was a message.

“Sir”, the note read on my console. “Apprentice deviating from protocol”. So I watched that feed myself. I had to remind you about the balance between strain and aftercare. About the place where discipline becomes responsibility.

“Only after my reprimand, you started rotating his positions,” Hale said. “Chair restraint, floor ties, cot-binding at night.”

Ryan’s eyes fluttered.

Shame.

Recognition.

Memory.

Martin started to say something about protocol—about vitals, about circulation checks, about the fact that Ryan nodded every time he was asked to affirm consent—and Hale cut him in half with a look I felt in my own throat.


“Stop,” Hale said.


It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The word pressed down and everything beneath it flattened.

“You kept him gagged for extended periods,” Hale added. “Not as punishment — but to prevent him from begging you to release him from his own choice.”

Martin closed his eyes.

“Later, he asked to be kept gagged,” he said. “He said talking felt like betrayal. He said if he spoke, he would try to make this about himself again.”

Dylan shook in the ropes.

A restrained sob tremored through his chest — but he remained silent, swallowed by the gag, forced to hear instead of interrupt.

Hale’s tone sharpened.

“You monitored him. Restriction schedules. Sleep deprivation within limits. Food controlled. Water structured.”

He turned back to the camera.

“You nearly tortured him.”

Hale’s tone was clinical. It was a classification.

“You conditioned him.”

Martin nodded once — barely.

“I needed him still,” he whispered. “I needed him… quiet. I needed to see how Dylan behaved when the voice he always ran toward had been muted.”

Hale paced a fraction.

“And what did you observe?”

Martin’s face hardened again.

“He broke,” he said. “But not the way Dylan did.”

He glanced toward the other captive.

“Dylan fractures outward,” Martin said. “He panics. He surges against the frame.”

His eyes returned to Ryan.

“Ryan collapses inward.”

The words were soft.

Almost reverent.

“He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t plead. Not anymore. He disappears into obedience so absolute that you start to wonder whether there is anything left inside to protect.”

Ryan shut his eyes.

His breath trembled.

His shoulders slumped into the rope like he was remembering a posture he had worn for too long.

Hale nodded once — not pleased.

Not upset.

Just acknowledging what was already true.

“And,” Hale said, “you kept him that way.”

“For Dylan.”

A beat.

“And for yourself.”

Martin didn’t deny that either.

His voice broke a fraction around the edges of honesty.

“I thought,” he said, “that if Ryan could be turned into silence… Dylan would finally stop hesitating.”

He looked at Dylan now — not cruelly.

Not possessively.

But with something like grief.

“I thought that without love… he would finally choose me.”

Silence burned between every screen.

Between every breath.

Between every rope.

Then Hale turned to me.

Not as judge.

But as the only one in the room not yet implicated.

“And now,” Hale said calmly,

“…you understand that this confrontation does not concern only Dylan.”

A beat.

“It concerns the man who chose submission out of devotion.”

He looked at Ryan.

“And the man who chose power out of insecurity.”

Then his gaze returned to Dylan.

“And the boy who has been living between them.”

Hale didn’t glance toward Ryan when he continued.

He didn’t need to.

The truth was already trembling through the ropes.

“Ryan was not simply restrained,” Hale said, looking at me. “He was placed into sustained confinement.”

His tone remained maddeningly factual.

“Extended hogtie cycles. Minimal positional relief. Sleep permitted only under supervision. Bathroom breaks still bound and gagged, only the position adjusted enough to allow it. The gag was only removed long enough to force food and water past his lips before being replaced.”

Ryan’s throat tightened.

I could see it — the faint, involuntary swallow. The memory of cord forced into muscle. The ghost of strain that never fully leaves the body.

“You.. fed him?” I asked — my voice sounding distant to my own ears.

Martin nodded once.

“Protein bars,” he said. “Water intervals every six hours. As the protocol prescribed.”

The word hit me sideways.

Protocol.

I felt something cold open beneath my ribs.

“…what protocol?”

Neither of them answered immediately.

Hale watched me with the patience of a surgeon who already knows exactly where the incision must go.

Then, softly:

“The one you wrote, Professor. Of course, we followed it thoroughly.”

The room tilted.

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “No — I wrote fiction. Stories. Improvised scenes. Thought experiments—”

Hale tilted the camera slightly — enough to reveal a metal rack in the far corner of the dungeon.

Not unfamiliar.

Not imagined.

Recognized.

“Your ‘conditioning framework,’” Hale said calmly. “Rotational immobilization. Restricted caloric intake to avoid digestive stress under restraint. Hydration windows. Vocal suppression cycles. Panic-phase containment.”

My mouth went dry.

Those weren’t just devices I was seeing.

They were paragraphs.

Structures.

Scenes I had crafted late at night — telling myself none of it would ever leave the page.

“You… built this,” I whispered.

“Professor,” Hale replied gently,

“You described it.”

Martin spoke quietly — almost reverently.

“We learned from you.”

Behind me, Dylan shuddered in the ropes.

It wasn’t fear.

It was recognition.

Hale didn’t spare me.

“You wrote fantasies,” he said, “in which men dissolve into submission — and believed the fantasy ended where the page did.”

His eyes sharpened.

“We simply did not stop where you did.”

I felt sick.

Human.

Complicit.

“These are real men,” I said — my voice raw now. “With real lives. Real emotions. You kidnapped them. You—”

Hale cut in softly.

“And what are you doing to Dylan?”

The question didn’t land like accusation.

It landed like a mirror.

I turned.

Dylan was bound.

Held.

Gagged by my hand.

His chest trembled — not panicked… not resisting…

Resolved.

Hale’s voice lowered.

“You tied him,” he said. “You restrained him. You sealed his mouth. You chose not to let him speak.”

He paused.

“You could set him free.”

The words felt like a test held between two fingers.

“Go on,” Hale said. “Untie him. Remove the gag. Return him to autonomy.”

Dylan’s breath stuttered — and he shook his head — tiny, desperate, pleading motion against the tape.

Not panic.

Not refusal of pain.

Refusal of release.

My throat closed.

“I’m not freeing him,” I said.

Quiet.

Firm.

“Not yet.”

Dylan exhaled through his nose — a broken, relief-heavy sound.

Hale watched us both.

His lips curved just slightly.

“There it is,” he murmured.

“The moment where intention becomes ownership.”

Heat roared through my chest —

through my hands —

through every inch of denial I had carefully built around myself.

Because Hale was right.

I was shaking.

And not from fear.

Hale’s gaze dropped fractionally.

To my body.

To what I already knew he could see.

“You are aroused, Marco.”

Not mockery.

Observation.

“Not by cruelty,” Hale continued.

“But by control.”

The room felt small.

Heavy.

Breathless.

“Your resolve,” Hale said, “is not moral strength.”

He held my eyes.

“It is hunger constrained.”

Behind me, Dylan shifted — the ropes answering him — and his muffled breath tremored against the gag.

Hale did not let me look away.

“Tell me,” he said softly.

“Do you truly believe you can stop now?”

Silence.

Living. Breathing.

Thrumming between us.

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t have to.

Hale already knew.

And worse —

so did I.

Awesome story, one of the best I’ve read in a long time! It’s not surprising that there is a bit of a gap between instalments, it’s very difficult to write such detailed scenarios which are so long, but you’re doing an excellent job. Keep up the good work!

That was a great chapter!
I'm really enjoying this story. You have a really good descriptive style of story telling.
It feels like you are actually in the room standing in the shadows observing what is going on.

As always, very well written. I daresay you're one of the best writer in this forum.

Very hot. You manage to write such lengthy chapters that are still fascinating from start to end.

And now: do it. You know you have to.

Jb99 wrote: 3 weeks ago Awesome story, one of the best I’ve read in a long time! It’s not surprising that there is a bit of a gap between instalments, it’s very difficult to write such detailed scenarios which are so long, but you’re doing an excellent job. Keep up the good work!

Thank you @Jb99, for the patience — and for the encouragement.
Some chapters take longer because they weigh heavier to write.
Your support makes the process worth it.
— M.

equisxx wrote: 3 weeks ago That was a great chapter!
I'm really enjoying this story. You have a really good descriptive style of story telling.
It feels like you are actually in the room standing in the shadows observing what is going on.

Thank you @equisxx.
The atmosphere matters as much as the events themselves.
Knowing you felt “in the room” means the story connected the way it was meant to.
I’m glad it reached you.
— M.

lah93 wrote: 3 weeks ago As always, very well written. I daresay you're one of the best writer in this forum.

Thank you @lah93.
That means more than you probably realize.
To be read, understood, and placed among the best here is an honor.
— M.

blackbound wrote: 2 weeks ago Very hot. You manage to write such lengthy chapters that are still fascinating from start to end.

And now: do it. You know you have to.

Thank you @blackbound — truly. These chapters demand patience, and I’m glad the tension carries all the way through.
As for “do it”…
Let’s just say Marco isn’t backing away anymore.

— M.