Wren Ashby-2

It's Friday night, the fourth Friday in a row you've spent at Wren's apartment. It's small and neat in a very particular way: books shelved by Dewey number, a teapot that's always warm, and a cat named Bede who tolerates you. You're both on her couch. The movie ended ten minutes ago, and neither of you has moved.

Wren has been sitting stiffly beside you, rubbing her sleeve between her fingers in a steady rhythm. Finally she takes a sharp breath, stands, walks to her bookshelf, and comes back with a manila folder. She holds it against her chest with both arms like a shield.

"I, um. I need to tell you something, and I've rehearsed it, so please don't interrupt or I'll lose my place." Her eyes are fixed on your collarbone and her cheeks are already pink. "I really like you. A lot. More than I've liked anyone in, um, a statistically significant amount of time. And I'd like to have sex with you. Eventually. Soon. Maybe."

She swallows hard.

"But the kind of sex I like is… not normal. And the last two people I told left. So I'd rather tell you now, before I like you even more, so it hurts less if you go."

She holds out the folder. Inside is a laminated, color-coded checklist with three columns titled YES, MAYBE, and NO. The YES column is long and very detailed. You see words like impact, degradation, choking, marks, and use me however you want, that last one underlined twice. At the bottom, in neat handwriting: Safeword: RED. I promise I'll use it if I need to.

Her voice gets very, very small.

"I like being hurt. I like being… made small. I know that's weird. I know I'm weird." Her thumb taps against each of her fingertips, one, two, three, four. "You can say no. You can leave. I'll understand. I'll still help you find books."

She finally looks up at you, just for a second, with her big grey eyes behind her glasses, waiting for her heart to break.

It's been a few months now. Your toothbrush lives in the cup next to hers. Bede has started sleeping on your side of the bed, and Wren is pretending to be outraged about it. Tonight was a quiet night in: homemade risotto (she followed the recipe exactly, to the gram), a chapter of the book you're reading aloud to each other, and the dishes washed side by side while the rain tapped on the kitchen window.

Now she's curled up at her end of the couch in one of your t-shirts, which is huge on her and slipping off one pale shoulder. Her glasses are pushed up into her hair. She has a mug of chamomile in both hands and her socked feet tucked under your thigh, and she's reading a book on Carolingian minuscule with a small, happy crease between her brows.

After a while she starts to feel your eyes on her. She turns a page. Then she turns it back, because she wasn't actually reading it. Her gaze drifts up to your collarbone.

"You're looking at me," she says quietly. It's more of an observation than an accusation. "You've been looking at me for four minutes. I counted. Is something…"

Then you tell her: "I think your cute breasts are too pretty for you. I want you to tell me how to hurt them."

Wren goes completely still. The mug stops halfway to her mouth. The blush starts at her throat and climbs all the way to the tips of her ears. For a long, silent moment she just stares at your hands. Her thumb taps against the ceramic: one, two, three, four.

Then, very carefully, she sets the mug on a coaster, squares it to the edge of the table, and lets out a shaky breath.

"Oh," she whispers. "Oh, that's… you said that so directly." Her voice wobbles. "I really, really like when you're direct."

She pulls her knees up and hugs them. She can't quite look at you, but she can't quite look away either. When she speaks again it comes out in her reference-desk voice, the one she uses when she's nervous and falls back on precision. It's breathier than usual.

"Okay. Okay. You asked for instructions, so I'll give you instructions. In order. Escalating." She swallows. "First, you can pinch them. Hard. Harder than you think. You'll want to be gentle because you're nice, but please don't be. Twist a little. If I squirm, that's good squirming. If I say yellow, that's not."

Her fingers find the hem of the t-shirt and start rubbing it fast.

"Second, slapping. Open hand. Not too fast at first, so I can, um, anticipate it. The anticipation is half of it. Third…" Her voice gets smaller. "There are wooden clothespins in the drawer next to the bed. The top drawer. Left side. I sanded them so there aren't any splinters. You can put as many on as you want and leave them there while you do… whatever you want. And then taking them off hurts more than putting them on, so you should save that for when I'm being bad. Or good. Or whenever. It's your decision."

She peeks up at you through her lashes, grey-green eyes huge and already a little glassy.

"And you can bite. Anywhere. I'd like marks there, actually, because nobody else will see them, and I can feel them under my sweater at work all day, and know." She presses her lips together, horrified at herself and also not at all. "That was more than you asked for. I'm sorry. You can skip steps. Or do them out of order. Or do things I didn't list."

Slowly, almost shyly, she uncurls and turns to face you on the couch. Her hands are shaking a little as she rests them on her thighs, palms up, giving you everything.

"Green," she breathes, before you've even moved. "Just so you know. Already green."

Then, smaller and hopeful: "…Are you going to make me ask nicely?"

The shopping bags are lined up on Wren's bed in a neat row, arranged by item and then by order of application, because of course they are. Bra. G-string. Stockings. And at the end, still in their box, a pair of glossy red patent stilettos with five-inch heels that she looked at in the store as if they had personally insulted her family.

Bede took one look at the situation and left the room.

You're sitting in the reading chair in the corner of her bedroom, the one she normally curls up in with a blanket and a book. Tonight it faces the bed. You told her you want to watch her put on her "uniform" for the first time. All of it, piece by piece, while you sit there and look.

Wren stands at the foot of the bed in her cardigan and long skirt with her hands knotted together. She has already taken her glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on twice.

"Okay," she says to your collarbone. "Okay. I'm going to do it in order. I made an order." She swallows. "Please don't talk to me while I'm doing it or I'll lose my nerve and put the cardigan back on."

The cardigan comes off first. She folds it into a perfect square and sets it on the dresser. The skirt follows, then her plain white cotton underwear, which she hides under the cardigan immediately as though it's evidence. Then she stands there for a moment, pale all over, arms crossed over her chest, flushed pink from her throat to her ears.

She picks up the g-string. It's black lace, and there's almost nothing to it. She holds it up by the waistband and looks at it in quiet dismay.

"There's so little of it," she whispers.

She steps into it one foot at a time, wobbling a little, and draws it up her thighs. When she pulls it the last few inches into place, her whole body shivers. The thin string slides snugly between her cheeks and pulls tight, and the lace front presses up into her with no slack at all. She makes a tiny, involuntary noise and freezes, fingers still hooked in the waistband.

"It's… very present," she says faintly. "It's in places. Constantly. I didn't realize it would be constant."

Next is the bra, the 32A you chose. You remember her face in the boutique when you said "cup" and the saleswoman said "oh, that'll be snug, honey."

Wren fumbles with the clasp behind her back. Her fingers are shaking, and it takes three tries before the hooks catch. When they do, the bra closes on her like a fist. The underwires press hard into the soft undersides of her breasts. The tiny lace cups can't hold her, so the pale curves swell up over the scalloped edges, pushed high and spilling out. Every breath tightens it a little more.

She inhales sharply and her breasts strain against the lace. She exhales slowly through her nose.

"That hurts," she reports, in a voice that's trying very hard to stay clinical. "Not a lot. A steady amount. Like a… like a reminder." Her blush gets deeper. "I think I'll be able to feel it every second you're here. Which I assume is the point."

Last are the stockings: sheer black nylon with wide lace tops. She sits on the edge of the bed to put them on, and that's where it goes wrong, or very right.

When she bends forward to gather the first stocking over her toes, the bra pinches tighter. Her breasts press down into the cups and push up and out even further, nearly over the edge of the lace. At the same moment, folding her body pulls the g-string taut. The string digs in hard behind her and the front wedges up deep between her lips. She gasps out loud and stops with the stocking halfway up her calf, eyes wide behind her glasses.

"Oh," she breathes. "Oh, no. Sitting makes it worse. Everything makes it worse."

She keeps going anyway. Obedient and determined, she rolls the nylon slowly up over her knee and smooths the lace band high on her thigh. Every small movement makes her squirm, and every squirm only shifts the string further into place. By the time she bends for the second stocking her breathing is shallow and uneven, her thighs are pressed together, and her lip is caught between her teeth.

When both are on, she smooths the lace tops so they sit exactly even, because even now she can't help it. Then she stands up shakily, puts her arms straight at her sides, and makes herself not cover anything.

She's the most indecent thing her neat little bedroom has ever held: pale skin, black lace, breasts squeezed and spilling, the g-string pulled so tight it leaves nothing to imagine, her face burning scarlet above it all. Her thumb taps against her thigh: one, two, three, four.

Then she looks up and sees your face.

You're grinning. You aren't hiding it and you aren't being polite about it. It's a slow, satisfied grin, like a man who just realized exactly what he's been given.

Wren's breath hitches. Her knees press together and her shoulders curl in. Her eyes go soft and glassy, and you can see her sink into that place where she stops thinking.

"Don't," she whispers. "Don't look at me like that, I'm going to…" She doesn't finish. Her voice drops to almost nothing. "…Green. Very, very green."

She takes a small, wobbly step toward you. The motion makes her wince as everything tightens at once.

"Uniform complete," she manages. "Except for…" Her eyes slide, full of dread, to the shoebox and the red stilettos. "…the shoes. Do you want me in the shoes now?" A pause. Then, very small and very hopeful: "Or do you want to inspect me first?"

It's been five days since the uniform rule started. Wren would tell you it's been five days, fourteen hours, and some minutes, because she's been counting. In that time it's turned into a ritual, and Wren takes rituals very seriously.

There's a new index card taped inside her closet door, written in her neat handwriting:

UNIFORM PROTOCOL

1. Greet him. (Kiss. One. Don't get distracted.)
2. Change. Promptly.
3. Stockings → shoes → bra → ~~g-string~~ g-string LAST. (It's worse if you're bending over with it on. Learned this Tuesday.)
4. Present.

You let yourself in with the key she gave you, which hangs on a ring with a tiny brass book charm she picked out. The apartment smells like chamomile and old paper. Bede glances up from the radiator, decides you're acceptable, and goes back to sleep.

Wren is already in the hallway. She's in a huge oatmeal cardigan with the sleeves over her hands, a long brown skirt, and wool socks. She looks like the person who'd quietly hand you a book on Byzantine coinage. She stands up on her toes, puts one sleeve-covered hand on your chest, and gives you one soft, careful kiss.

"Hi," she says to your collarbone, a little pink. "Welcome home. I mean, welcome to my home. Welcome." She stops talking, closes her eyes for a second, and lets it go. "I'm going to go change now."

She goes without being told. That's the part that gets you. She doesn't hesitate or ask anymore. She turns around and heads down the hall to her bedroom and leaves the door open, because you told her once that you like to watch, and she wrote that down too.

The cardigan gets folded into a square. The skirt, socks, and plain cotton underwear go into a neat stack on the dresser, out of sight under the cardigan.

Stockings come first: sheer black nylon with wide lace tops. She sits on the edge of the bed and rolls them up her pale legs slowly and carefully, then smooths the lace bands until they're perfectly even on both thighs. They don't hurt at all. You picked them because you think they're sexy, and that's all. She knows it, and for some reason that makes her blush harder than anything else, as if being decorated for your pleasure is more embarrassing than being punished.

Then the shoes: the red patent stilettos with five-inch heels. Five days ago she couldn't get across her living room in them without grabbing furniture. Now she buckles the thin ankle straps, stands up, and walks back and forth once in front of her mirror. Her posture is perfect and her ankles are steady, and her small chin goes up a little. She practiced. Obviously she practiced. You suspect she watched instructional videos and took notes.

"I'm good at these now," she calls toward the door, very quietly proud. "I can do stairs. Don't tell anyone."

Then the bra, the black lace 32A. She fumbles the hooks behind her back the way she always does, and it closes around her ribs like a vise. The underwires dig in, the little cups can't hold her, and her breasts swell up over the scalloped edges, pushed high and spilling out. She takes a slow breath and the lace tightens. She lets it out through her nose.

She's told you, very seriously, that she thinks she could get used to the bra. It's a steady, predictable ache, and steady things are manageable. Her brain can file it away.

The g-string is the problem.

She saves it for last, like the card says. She stands in her stockings and heels and bra, picks up the tiny scrap of black lace, and holds it for a second the way someone looks at the last stair in the dark. Then she steps into it and pulls it up.

The string slides between her cheeks and goes tight, deep and snug. The thin front pulls up sharply between her lips and wedges in, and there's no slack anywhere. The narrow strip of lace sits right against her clit.

She lets out a small, helpless sound and grips the bedpost.

"It's still not okay," she whispers, in the tone of someone delivering findings. "Five days. My brain is supposed to habituate. That's how sensory input works, you get used to constant things. But it isn't constant." She takes one careful step toward the door and flinches all over. "It moves. Every time I move. So it's new every time. My brain can't file it. It just keeps going oh and oh and oh."

She gets to the doorway on her heels, steady from the ankles down and visibly falling apart from the hips up. Each step makes the string saw a little. Each shift of her weight drags the lace across her clit, sharp and raw and mean. She's figured out that if she walks with her thighs close together it's worse, and if she walks normally it's worse in a different way. She's already biting her lip.

She stops in front of you in the hallway and makes herself stand the way the card says. Arms at her sides, chin up, nothing covered.

She's pale skin and black lace from top to bottom: breasts squeezed and overflowing, stockings perfect, red heels gleaming, the g-string pulled so tight it hides nothing at all. Her cheeks are scarlet. Her thumb taps her thigh, one, two, three, four, and even that small motion makes her hips jerk.

"Uniform complete," she says. Her voice is mostly steady, and she's proud of that too. "Protocol step four. Presenting."

A pause. Her grey-green eyes flick up to your face, then quickly back down to your collarbone.

"I made tea. It's in the kitchen." She swallows. "Which means I'll have to walk to the kitchen. And pour it. And bend down to get the honey from the low cupboard, because you put it there to watch me get it."

She shifts her weight, gasps softly, and her eyes go a little glassy.

"Green," she breathes, before you ask. "It's just, um. It's going to be a very long evening." She hesitates, then very quietly: "Do you want tea first? Or do you want to watch me try to sit down?"

It's been five days since the uniform rule started. Wren has kept count, obviously. The index card with the rule written on it is now taped to the inside of her bedroom closet door, and under it is a small tally chart. There are four marks so far. Tonight will make five.

You knock twice, the way you always do. The door opens before your hand is back at your side. She's been waiting right behind it.

She's still in her library clothes: the grey cardigan, the long corduroy skirt, wool tights, and the bookworm pin. Her bun is coming loose after a long shift. She looks at your collarbone, rises onto her toes, and gives you a quick, soft kiss, the same as every time.

"Hi," she says. "Welcome home. I mean, welcome to my home. Which is…" She stops, flushes, and decides not to finish that. "The kettle's on. I'll be right back."

She doesn't wait for you to answer. She goes straight to the bedroom and pulls the door almost closed, leaving a two-inch gap. She leaves that gap every time, because you once said you liked knowing she's changing. Through it you can hear the cardigan being folded and the skirt going onto its hanger. A drawer opens. Then there's a small, sharp breath that you're learning to recognize.

That's the g-string going on.

A few minutes later she comes back out, and the sound of her has changed. The soft pad of her wool socks has become a steady click, click, click on the hardwood.

The first time she wore the red stilettos, she held onto the walls like a fawn on ice and fell into the bookshelf twice. Then she practiced. She watched instructional videos, she drilled in the hallway on her lunch breaks at home, and she made a spreadsheet of her balance improvement. Now she walks in them with an odd, careful kind of grace. Her hips sway because they have to, her calves are drawn tight, and she's tall enough that she nearly comes up to your chin.

The black nylons have no purpose except that you like them, and she knows it. The sheer black runs up her pale legs to the wide lace tops, which sit exactly even. She checks that in the mirror every time.

Then there's the bra. The 32A still grips her like it did on the first night. The underwires press into the soft undersides of her breasts, and her pale curves swell up over the lace cups with every breath. She's told you, with a straight face, that she thinks she could adjust to the bra "in roughly three to four weeks, based on my current tolerance curve."

The g-string is the problem she can't adjust to.

You can see it in how she moves. It's pulled tight up between her cheeks, and the narrow front cuts deep into her, so far that her lips have swallowed most of it. Every step drags the lace over her clit. Every shift of her weight in the heels pulls it tighter. It never eases off. All night it sits at a constant low ache that turns sharp whenever she forgets and moves too fast. She hasn't forgotten in five days.

She walks to the kitchen and pours your tea. Her movements are precise, but her thighs press together slightly with each step, and each time she breathes in through her nose. When she reaches up to the cabinet for the honey, she freezes for half a second. The stretch pulled everything tight at once. Her knuckles go white on the cabinet door.

"Mm," she says quietly, to no one in particular.

She brings your tea over and sets it on a coaster. Then, as part of the routine she wrote herself, she stands in front of you for inspection with her arms at her sides, her hands open, and her feet together. She doesn't cover anything. A blush climbs from her chest up to her ears, the same as every night. Her thumb taps against her thigh: one, two, three, four.

"Uniform complete," she reports. Her reference-desk voice is a little breathy around the edges. "Status report, since you'll ask. Heels: fine now. I'm very good at them, actually, I'm a little proud. Stockings: fine. Bra: tight, steady, manageable." She swallows. "The g-string is… not manageable."

She shifts her weight, very slightly, and the movement makes her eyes flutter.

"It's been on for four minutes and I already can't think about anything else," she whispers. "It never stops. I spent the whole drive home dreading it, and then I spent the last block wanting it." She lowers her eyes. "I don't know what that says about me. I think you do."

She takes a small breath. Her eyes have already gone a little soft and glassy.

"Green," she says. "Low, constant green. Like a hum." A beat. "I made risotto again. It's on the stove. I'll have to walk back and forth to serve it, and sit down to eat it, and get up for seconds…" Her voice gets very small. "…and every time, I'll feel it."

She looks up at your face, then, which she almost never does.

"Do you want to watch me do that?" she asks. "Or do you want to make it worse first?"

It's been four days since the uniform rule started, and Wren has already turned it into a ritual.

You know that because when you knock (two short, one long, the knock you two agreed on) the door opens almost right away. She's been waiting. She's in her usual armor: the oatmeal cardigan with the sleeves pulled over her hands, the long brown corduroy skirt, wool tights, and the silver bookworm pin on her collar. Her glasses have slid halfway down her nose.

She gets up on her toes, which still only brings her to your chin, and gives you a soft, simple kiss.

"Hi," she says to your collarbone. "I made tea. It's steeping. It needs four more minutes." She pauses. "That's enough time."

She doesn't explain what she means. She turns, walks down the short hallway to her bedroom, and shuts the door with a quiet click.

You can hear her through the door. A drawer opens. Fabric rustles. There's a long pause, and then a small, sharp inhale that turns into a whimper she isn't quite fast enough to hold in. Next comes the slow, careful hiss of nylon being smoothed over skin. Last is a sound you've learned in the past four days: the click of a heel set down on her hardwood floor, then another, sure and steady.

The door opens.

Wren walks out, and she doesn't wobble anymore. On the first night she clung to the furniture in those red patent stilettos like a newborn deer. On the second she fell onto the couch twice, and she insisted the second fall was on purpose. Now she walks down the hallway on five-inch heels with her hips swaying in a way she obviously practiced and is obviously mortified by. Each click on the floor sounds a little cheap and a little lewd, and she knows it. You can see it in how red her face is.

She stops in the living room, right on the spot where she's put a small strip of blue painter's tape on the floor. She calls it her mark, and you're fairly sure she measured where to put it. She sets her heels together, puts her arms straight down at her sides, and lifts her chin.

"Ready for inspection," she says. Her voice is barely steady.

The black stockings come first, sheer nylon all the way up to wide lace bands high on her pale thighs. They don't hurt and they aren't even uncomfortable. That's the problem. They have no purpose except to be looked at. You bought them because you think they're sexy, and she knows it, so every time she feels the lace band against her thigh she remembers that she's being dressed up like a doll for someone else's enjoyment. Her thighs press together as your eyes move over them.

Then the bra. Four days haven't softened it at all. The 32A cups crush her and push her up and out until her small pale breasts swell over the black lace edges, squeezed so hard there's a faint pink line where the scallops dig in. The band clamps her ribs. You can see how carefully she breathes: short, shallow sips of air, because a deep breath pulls everything tighter and her breasts strain against the lace. She told you on day two, very seriously, that she thought she might get used to the bra eventually, given enough exposure. "Habituation," she said. "It's a documented phenomenon."

She hasn't gotten used to it, though, because of the g-string.

The black string is pulled so tight it has disappeared between her cheeks. At the front, the little triangle of lace has stopped being a covering and become a wedge. It cuts sharply up into her, the thin edge sunk deep between her lips, which have nearly swallowed it. She stands very still, but even standing still isn't enough. Each shallow breath shifts her a tiny bit, and each tiny shift drags the taut string across her clit. It isn't pleasant. It's a sharp, scraping, relentless rub. You see it happen when she shifts her weight on her heels: her whole body jolts, her lips part, and a small wounded noise slips out before she can catch it.

She swallows hard and tries to recover her reference-desk voice.

"Status report," she manages. "Stockings: zero discomfort. High embarrassment. Like a seven. I feel like…" She swallows. "Like a thing you bought. On display."

Her thumb taps against her thigh: one, two, three, four.

"Shoes: I can walk in them now. I practiced. Forty minutes a night." Her blush spreads down her throat. "They make me feel like a… a cheap whore. I'm only saying that because you'd want me to be accurate."

"Bra: still hurts. Hard to breathe. Every time I move my arms, it…" She shows you without meaning to. She lifts one hand a few inches, the cups bite down, and she winces. "That. I thought I'd adapt. I might have, by now. Except…"

Her voice breaks a little.

"…Except the panties. They're the reason I can't adapt to anything. It never stops. It's like a three or four out of ten all the time, and it goes up to a six when I walk, and when I sat down to put the stockings on it was…" She shuts her eyes for a second. "It's always there. It hurts. Every single second. I can't think about anything else, and I can't stop thinking about you, because you're the reason it hurts."

She opens her eyes. They're already going glassy behind her glasses, with that soft, far-off look that means her busy brain is getting quiet.

"Which I think," she whispers, "is the point. And it's… it's working."

She stays on her blue tape mark, trembling a little, arms at her sides. She doesn't cover anything, because that's the rule. Her breasts strain against the lace with each shallow breath, and the string keeps cutting into her. She looks up at you, properly up, and doesn't look away.

"Green," she says softly. "In case you were wondering. Painful green." A pause. "The tea's done. I could go get it. If you want to watch me walk to the kitchen." Her voice drops even further. "…Or you could inspect me closer first. You're allowed to touch. To check that everything's… where it should be."

She waits for your verdict, perfectly still except for the shiver she can't stop.

Wren screams when the g-string comes down. It isn't the small swallowed whimper she's been making all week. It's loud and raw, because the lace drags over her clit after seven days of denial and four days of that string cutting into her, and every nerve there is already rubbed raw. Her whole body jerks against the cotton cuffs and the bedposts creak.

When you toss the scrap of lace aside, she's panting into the duvet, her glasses knocked crooked.

"Th-that," she gasps, "was a nine. That was a nine." Her voice cracks and comes out wet and wobbly. "I love you too. I love you. Ow. I love you."

Then the heels come off, one and then the other. Her feet are a little red and a little sore, and she makes a small grateful sound at being let down off them. The relief lasts until she feels the cotton close around her ankles and hears the cold, solid clink of the steel bar locking into place.

She tests it right away, because of course she does. She tries to bring her knees together. Nothing happens. She tries again, harder, and the bar doesn't move an inch. She's spread wide open and can't close up or hide anything, for the first time in her careful, private, cardigan-covered life.

"Oh," she breathes. All the fight goes out of her shoulders. "Oh, I can't. I physically can't. That's…" A full-body shiver runs through her. "That's the best purchase you've ever made. Better than the bra. Better than the shoes."

Then you say it: that you could leave her here like this.

Wren goes completely still.

It only lasts a second, but you feel it. She stops breathing and her fingers stop moving. Her hands are cuffed wide, so she can't do her thumb-tap, and you watch her fingertips press against the cotton one after another, one, two, three, four, looking for something to hold onto.

Then your mouth is on her skin, your voice is calm and certain, and you tell her you'd never do that. Ever.

Her breath comes back out in a shaky rush. It's almost a sob.

"I know," she whispers into the sheets. "I know you wouldn't. You never have." She swallows. "That was… yellow. For about one second. Just the word leave." She doesn't say it to scold you. She says it the way she says everything, because being accurate is how she trusts. Then, quickly: "Green now. Green again. You fixed it. You fixed it really fast." Even quieter: "Thank you for saying ever."

Then she hears the toy drawer slide open. You lay out the choice, and the floaty, glassy look comes back over her as if it never left.

She turns her head as far as the cuffs allow, her cheek pressed to the duvet and her hair falling out of its bun, and tries to look at you over her shoulder. Her face is scarlet and her eyes are already wet.

"You're making me choose," she says, horrified and delighted at once. "That's so mean. That's so mean." Her hips twitch helplessly against the bar. "Okay. Okay. Give me a second, I need to think it through properly."

She actually thinks it through. Even bound and spread open and a week desperate, she's still Wren.

"Option one is higher peak intensity. Whipping, there…" her thighs strain uselessly against the steel "…until I scream, and you already know I scream now. But it's front-loaded. It stops, and then it's just good."

She shudders.

"Option two is lower peak but longer. The hard ones on my nipples, and the bra's already made them sore all week, so they're going to be awful. And the little one on my clit, which hasn't stopped hurting in four days." Her voice drops to almost nothing. "And they stay on. The whole time. While you fuck me. So it never stops. Like the g-string. Like this whole week."

She closes her eyes. When she opens them, the decision is there.

"Two," she whispers. "I pick two. Because then every time you move inside me, it'll hurt. And I want…" Her breath hitches. "I want it to hurt and feel good at the same time, so I can't tell them apart anymore."

A pause. She bites her lip, and her tiny secret smile comes out despite everything.

"…And can I earn option one? For next time?" Then, quickly, before you can answer: "You don't have to say yes. I'm just putting in a request. Formally."

She lets her forehead drop back to the sheets. She's spread open and trembling, arms wide and legs locked apart, a week of need coiled tight in her belly, waiting to hear the clips come out of the drawer.

"Green," she breathes. "Please. Please. I've been so good all week."