“Faster!”

In a world where Ken rules, the consequence of being slow is pain. Right now he has a long cane in his hand, one he whips across my ass when I miss the timer. There are six points on the floor, each of them three feet apart. Every few seconds, one of them will light up. I need to be on it within a fraction of a second, or he whips the cane against my bare ass. Because I’m naked. Of course.

This probably isn’t in any official training manual, but I can already feel what it’s doing. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that I’m being programmed to follow his cues, react to his voice, do precisely what he says, when he says it, regardless of how outwardly pointless it is.

“Again!”

“Ow!”

It’s been weeks of this, and Ken has proved himself a harsh taskmaster. No sex. No intimacy. Just me bending to his will in a hundred different ways. Learning at his knee, but not over it. God I wish he’d just spank me, but he knows I want that. This cane is the closest thing he’s given me to it, and I hate it because it’s so distant from him.

I want his hands on my body. I want to feel like I’ve earned his forgiveness and his trust. I don’t know if I’ll ever earn either of them. I was a liar for too long.

“Too slow.”

“OW!” The cane lands again, biting the soft skin of my ass with a painful welting stroke.

“Keep going!” He barks the order at me harshly.

I shoot him an angry look. He stares back, so fucking handsome, so commanding, so utterly in control. And then the lights change again, and the cane cuts down across my ass again, another thick welt of pain lighting my nervous system on fire.

This is inhumane, but I’m not human to anyone here. I’m an animal to be trained. All stick, no carrot.

I think it’s over between us. I think I might have lost him forever. The only thing left to lose is myself.

I stop moving. I stand stock still. The lights flash. The cane comes down. I ignore it. I can block out pain. I still feel it, but it doesn’t touch me the way it should.

Ken gives me two more whacks and then comes to stand over me, looming tall and imposing above me.

“What are you doing, Brown?”

“Giving up. It’s what you want me to do. Right.”

“Sort of,” he says. “Not like this though.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means do as you’re told,” he growls. “You’ve missed the sequence.”

“I don’t give a shit about the sequence.”

His eyes flash. I can feel the intensity of his displeasure. I know he’s angry. Before he found out about my secret, he’d do something about this. He’d throw me over his knee. He’d bend me over and fuck me. He’d do something to show me who is boss.

But he won’t do that now. Because he doesn’t care about me anymore. Because I’m a job.

“You want to spend the next twenty-four hours locked down in your cell, Brown?”

“Make it forty-two,” I snap back. “Hell, make it forever.”

A cold smirk passes over his lips. “Goddamn, Brown, you’re one tough little girl, aren’t you.”

I’m exactly as tough as I need to be. I don’t want to be tough. I want to be soft. I want to be small again and curl up with him and Tom and be held between them. But I’m losing hope of that ever happening again.

“Start the sequence again,” he says, pointing toward the flashing lights.

“Or what?”

“There is no or what, Brown. There’s just doing what I say. Start the sequence again.”

He’s utterly immovable. I barely recognize him right now. Is this really the man who used to kiss me so thoroughly I felt it all the way to my toes? Or am I just seeing the real Ken now, not the charade of the man he presented to me?

I don’t know what’s real or what’s not. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix my many mistakes.

He points to the lights. I move back toward them. Not because I want to. Not because I think it will please him. Just because there’s nothing else to do.

Half an exhausting hour later, he’s finally satisfied.

“Okay, you’re done. Go grab a shower, Brown.”

I wipe the sweat off my brow and try a smile. “You want to join me?”

Something flashes in his eyes. Is it desire? Is it irritation? Both?

“Don’t test me,” he growls. His face is like granite. His bearing is so fucking staunch it genuinely looks like he has a stick up his ass. Pointing that out would not go well for me.

“How am I testing you? I’m just asking if you want to get naked with me and stand under hot water?”

I know I’m pushing my luck. I don’t really care. Having him so close to me and yet refusing to be intimate with me is killing me. I want a sign he still wants me. I want to know he’s still mine.

He’s impossible to read now. I don’t know if he’s doing this because it’s his professional facade, or because he doesn’t like me anymore, but whatever the reason is, it hurts like hell.

“Do you love me anymore, Ken?”

“You have two minutes to have a shower,” he says blankly. “Every second you stand here is a second less you have to get clean. I’d get going if I were you.”