Hours passed. Hours of heels digging into flesh, biting deep, burning. Hours of watching others—servants, slaves—press their bodies to her, offer their tongues, their lips, their devotion, while I stood frozen in exile. Hours of nothing but eyes—eyes stripping me, devouring what little dignity I had left. I couldn’t. The silence of the quarters shattered.
A sob broke free, raw and unwilling, slipping past my lips before I could stop it. I shifted—not thinking, not caring, not fearing the punishment that would surely come. And then, I fell. Knees to stone. Heels clicking against the floor. Hands trembling as they caught my weight, fingers pressing into the heat of the ground. And then there was nothing but sobbing. Humiliation. Agony. My feet were on fire, searing pain radiating up my legs, my thighs trembling. My cheeks burned—not just from the heat, but from shame. And still, they watched.
They came and went—demons, mistresses, servants—their laughter a quiet, cruel hum beneath it all. Each glance cast my way carried the same amusement as hers. As if I had never been anything more than this—a pathetic, sobbing thing crumpled at their feet. My head shook, soft, slow—a silent no, though I made no attempt to resist. My sobs were quiet, controlled, no more than breathy whimpers against the warm stone beneath me. This was where I had fallen. This was where I belonged. Silence.
A suffocating, crushing silence. I knelt there, broken, breath trembling, waiting—for her voice, for her gaze, for anything. But Mistress gave me nothing. The others still watched. I felt them, their amusement pressing against my skin like a second layer of heat. My sobs had not gone unnoticed—no, they had been absorbed, devoured, feeding the quiet laughter I heard behind me. But Mistress? She did not laugh. She did not move. Instead, the faintest sound—a sip of port. A slow, exhaled breath. A subtle shift in her chair, as if my collapse wasn’t even worth a reaction. As if my humiliation was no more significant than a change in the room’s temperature. Then, finally—
"Oh, now you kneel?" Her voice was soft, almost bored, yet it cut through me sharper than any lash ever could. I swallowed hard. My nails curled against the stone, pressing into the warmth beneath me as if it could ground me, as if it could save me. It couldn’t. I blinked through tears, forcing my head up just enough to look at her—only to regret it instantly. Her smirk was lazy, indifferent, as if my suffering barely registered—as if I were merely a spectacle, a pet that had forgotten its place.
"Pathetic."
The word sent a fresh shudder down my spine.
I clenched my teeth, willing myself to be still, to be quiet. I had no right to speak, not now. And yet, I ached for her. For even a hint of warmth, a flicker of possession, a reminder that I had once been closer—better. She leaned forward. Just slightly. Enough to let the candlelight flicker over her skin, enough for her gaze to feel heavier—like it had weight, like it was pressing me further into the ground where I belonged.
"Are you crying for me, pet? Or for yourself?"
I gasped softly, the question cutting into me. Because I knew the answer. She knew the answer. And yet, she waited. Mocking me with silence, forcing me to feel the emptiness between us, the distance she had placed between my body and the space at her feet that had once been mine. Tears slipped down my cheeks, hot and shameful, pooling at the corners of my lips as I swallowed my pride. "F-for you, Mistress… always for you." It was a whisper, a confession, a prayer. And still—nothing. No praise. No touch. No relief. She simply leaned back again, settling comfortably, turning her gaze away as if I were nothing but background noise. And I remained. Kneeling. Sobbing. The ache of punishment was not the pain in my legs, not the humiliation of watching others take my place—it was the absence of her attention. It was knowing that I had been hers… and that, for now, she would let me suffer for the privilege of earning my way back.