Content note:
Brief non-consensual undressing / clothes being torn. Please read with care.
I sat on the edge of the bed with my arms wrapped around my middle, staring at the door.
She might not come. Why would she? She had locked me in here and left. Whatever happened to me now was probably beneath her notice. I knocked again, weaker than before. The sound was small and useless. My arms felt heavy. The urgency in my bladder had become a constant, grinding pressure that made it hard to think about anything else.
I was close to giving up when the key turned.
The door opened.
Seraphine stood there, already looking at me. Her expression was calm, almost mild, as if she had simply been waiting for the right moment to appear.
“You’ve been busy,” she said.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. The sight of her, composed and close after a full day of silence, locked the words in my throat. I pressed one hand harder against my stomach, trying to hold everything in, trying not to give her another reason to look at me like something already owned.
She took in the way I stood, the tension in my shoulders, the faint tremor in my hands. Something shifted in her eyes. Without another word she stepped forward, drew a length of dark cloth from her sleeve, and settled it over my eyes. The world went black. Before I could raise my hands she had already lifted me. One arm under my knees, the other supporting my back. The chains clinked as she carried me out of the room.
I could feel the change in the air first. Cooler. Cleaner. Then the sound of a door, the shift of her grip, and the cloth was pulled away.
A bathroom. Simple, but larger than the room I had been kept in. A wooden tub sat against the far wall. She set me down near it and stepped back.
“Go,” she said. “Call when you are finished.”
She left. The door shut.
The relief was so sharp it almost hurt. I barely managed to arrange my nightdress before my body gave in. For a few long moments there was only the physical release and the strange, almost dizzying freedom of being in a different space. When it was over I washed my hands with the water left in a small basin and tried the door.
It did not open.
“Are you done?” Her voice came through the wood, even and close.
“Yes.”
The key turned. She entered and closed the door behind her. For a moment she only looked at me, still in the wrinkled nightdress, chains trailing from my wrists. Then she said, quietly,
“Take it off.”
Heat rushed up my neck. “What?”
“The dress. Remove it.”
“I can wash myself. You don’t need to-”
She stepped closer. When I tried to turn away her hands were already on the fabric. There was no raised voice, no visible anger. Only the clean sound of cloth giving way as she tore the nightdress from the neckline downward. Cool air touched my skin in a sudden rush. I shoved at her shoulders, twisted, tried to keep the ruined material against me. She was stronger. In a few efficient movements the rest of it was gone, left in torn pieces on the floor. The blindfold returned, tied firmly enough that I could see nothing.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “Are you going to leave me like this?”
“You smell like a closed room,” she said. Her tone was almost practical. “I won’t have what’s mine neglected.”
“I can do it myself.”
“I didn’t ask.”
I stood there naked, the stone floor cold under my feet, the blindfold turning every small sound into something larger. Water began to pour into the tub. I could hear her moving, the soft rustle of her sleeves, the occasional clink of the chains when I shifted. Shame burned under my skin, mixed with a sharp, helpless anger and something older that I did not want to name. The girl who had once sat with me through a storm was the same person filling a bath for me now, and the contradiction made my stomach turn.
She did not speak again while the tub filled. When the sound of water stopped, her hand closed around my upper arm and guided me forward.
“Step in.”
I hesitated. Her grip tightened just enough to make the choice clear. I stepped over the rim. Warm water rose around my calves, then my knees. She kept one hand on me until I was sitting, the chains resting against the side of the tub.
I could not see her face. I could only hear the quiet shift of her clothing as she settled beside the tub.
I sat very still in the warm water and waited for whatever came next.