Date in the Cage 3

"Do you know what you're doing now?" she purred, withdrawing the key and taking a step back. She let the silk ribbon circle slowly around her wrist so the piece of brass glinted in the light. "Loona told me to see how far you could be pushed. And knowing her, she disciplines you with leather, ice, and cold words. Clean. Predictable. According to her immaculate rules."

She laughed softly, a low, smoky chuckle that made the blood run cold in my veins.

"Well, I'm not Loona. I like getting my hands dirty."

Turning away, she walked with slow, deliberate steps over to the massive sideboard beneath the large window. Several thick, heavy pillar candles stood on a brass tray there, burning since the afternoon—the wax within completely liquefied into a deep, amber lake of molten heat. Next to them rested a small bowl of ice cubes she had set out earlier for the wine.

She lifted the brass tray with the burning candle and turned back to face me.

"Turn around, John," she ordered with calm, unyielding severity. "Away from the wall. Center of the room. On your knees, torso upright, arms crossed behind your back."

Swallowing dryly, I turned away from the cool plaster and stepped into the center of the room. My bare knees sank onto the hard parquet. I crossed my wrists behind my lower back, thrust my chest forward, and kept my head bowed. Between my parted thighs hung the cold housing, the flesh inside utterly overstimulated, throbbing, trapped.

Nadja stepped up before me. She set the tray onto the coffee table right next to her smartphone, took the thick candle in her right hand, and reached into the bowl with her left to pluck out one of the ice cubes.

The contrast stood directly before me: ice in one hand, the trembling flame with its molten, scalding wax in the other.

"Loona cools you down to lock you back up," Nadja murmured, stepping right against my knees. "I want to see what happens when your body is thrown into absolute chaos. When your senses are scorched while this steel keeps you from bursting."

She leaned down. Without a second's warning, she pressed the sharp-edged ice cube directly onto my left nipple.

A ragged sound tore from my throat, my muscles locking in a violent spasm as the arctic cold froze the flesh numb and rock-hard in a fraction of a second.

And while the shock was still tearing through my nervous system, she tipped the candle.

*Splatter.*

A thick, searing bead of liquid wax landed with pinpoint accuracy on my right nipple.

The pain struck like the crack of a whip. My head snapped back, a sharp cry strangled in my throat as my teeth clamped shut. The scalding heat seared into the sensitive skin like liquid fire, instantly fusing to the surface and sending the pulse in my temples into overdrive. Cold on one side, burning embers on the other—my brain lost all bearing in an instant.

"Hold still!" Nadja hissed, her sea-blue eyes dark and intoxicated with absolute control. "Not a muscle, John. Chest out!"

I clenched my fists behind my back, shivering from head to toe as she angled the candle further.

Drop by drop, the hot wax fell. It struck my collarbone, ran in burning trails down my sternum, and dripped across my abdomen—right where the red wine stains from earlier still clung sticky and damp to my skin. The sharp, piercing sting of every single droplet brought tears of raw overwhelm to my eyes.

And the worst, most twisted part of it all was: my caged body answered with a surge of such bottomless, dark arousal that my vision nearly went black. The flesh inside the cylinder searched desperately for release, hammering hard against the front bars, only to be crushed without mercy by the steel rings.

Nadja saw the desperate twitch of my pelvis. A thin, fascinated smile curled her lips.

"Well, look at that…," she breathed, lowering the candle and taking a half-step closer until her bare toes brushed against my thighs. She reached down, wrapping her hand around the freezing alloy while meltwater still clung to her fingertips.

With her other hand, she raised the candle over my groin.

"Let's see just how much pain that discipline of yours can take before you beg," she whispered right against my face.

She tilted the wick directly over my pubic bone—right where the silicone ring sat and the raw, reddened flesh jutted out unprotected. A heavy, molten drop formed, broke away, and fell directly onto the sensitive threshold between skin and steel. It struck home.

A sharp, white jolt ripped through my pubic bone, right at the seam where flesh met silicone. I clamped my jaw shut, arms still pinned behind my back, but a sound tore free anyway—short, raspy, stripped of all dignity. The wax solidified instantly into a hard shell over the raw tissue. Beneath it, the flesh inside the cylinder hammered against the steel, as though straining toward the pain with nowhere to expand.

Nadja held the candle over me for another heartbeat, watching the tremor run through me, before setting it back onto the brass tray. The ice in her other hand was already half-melted. She dragged it once across the fresh crust of wax—cold against scalding heat—and I flinched again.

"Good," she murmured. "You held still. So you've earned the next part."

Releasing the cylinder, she stepped back and pulled the cream-colored knit sweater over her head. She wore nothing underneath. The leggings followed, slow and unhurried, until she stood bare before me, the wine still dark on her lips, her hair messy from the bun. She looked down at me for a moment the way someone looks at a thing they have claimed and now intend to use.

"On your back," she said. "Center of the rug. Keep your arms behind you. Legs open. Mouth open."

I slid backward, the floorboards hard beneath my shoulder blades, the bound posture of my arms making the movement clumsy. The cage jutted upward, the wax on my pubic bone pulling tight with every shift. Nadja picked the candle back up, set the bowl of ice beside it on the floor, and straddled my chest.

Then she turned around.

Her thighs clamped around my ears, the heat of her body descended, and before I could form a coherent thought, she sat down on my face. Not lightly. Not playfully. She let her full weight settle, pressing her damp center firmly over my mouth and nose until there was nothing left to breathe but her—skin, wine, vanilla, and the salt of her arousal.

"Tongue out," she commanded from above, her voice already tightening. "Flat. Slow. You don't stop until I come. And if your teeth come anywhere near me, I'm calling Timo while you're still lying under me."

I licked.

The taste was warm and distinct and unmistakably hers. I had no room to pull away; every roll of her hips ground her against my lips and chin, and I matched the rhythm she demanded while above me the wax was set in motion again.

I heard the slight tilt of the candle before the next drop fell.

It landed on my chest, right beside the hardened trail from before. The pain cut through the suffocating seal of her weight, a muffled groan buried against her flesh. Nadja let out a low moan—not out of pity, but because my shudder drove her deeper onto my mouth.

"Keep going," she breathed. "Just like that."

A second drop. Lower this time, above my navel. A third, closer to the silicone ring. Between them came the ice: she dragged the cube across my other nipple, holding it there until the skin went numb, and immediately let hot wax drop in its place. Heat and frost chased each other across my torso while I worked beneath her, tongue flat, breath starved, the cage straining against empty air.

Her thighs began to tremble—faintly at first, then harder. She didn't grip my hair through my pinned arms; instead, she braced her hands against my chest, her fingers digging into the cooling layer of wax, grinding down over my mouth in short, commanding thrusts.

"Don't you move," she forced out. "Right there. Stay."

I stayed. I sucked, licked, letting her find the exact angle she needed. Another drop struck the border of my pubic bone where the first crust lay; the pain fused with the weight of her body on my face into a single, blinding line. Trapped in the alloy, the flesh bucked uselessly against the bars. I was denied release. I was permitted only to give.

Nadja came with a long, strangled cry, her thighs clamping tight around my head, her hips driving hard forward. Warm. Wet. Flooding across my tongue and chin. She stayed seated, exhaling heavily, and only when the trembling subsided did she lift herself slightly—just enough for me to draw air, and close enough that I was forced to look at her.

One final drop of wax fell, deliberate, on the inside of my thigh.

Brushing a strand of hair from her face, she looked down at the cage, at the hardened gold on my skin, at my wet mouth.

"Swallow," she said simply. "Then stay like that. I'm not done with you yet."

I swallowed. The taste on my tongue was rich, warm, and unmistakable—a humiliation that slid down my throat and clouded my mind entirely. I remained flat on my back, arms pinned numbly behind me, while the cooled wax pulled like a rigid, yellow shell across my chest, my stomach, and right against the edge of the silicone ring.

Nadja rose slowly, her thighs trembling slightly as she stepped over me. She stood completely naked, slick with sweat, hair spilling wild over her shoulders. She didn't look down at me with regret or shame, but with the sated, arrogant gaze of a predator that had just finished dissecting its prey.

Walking over to the coffee table, she picked up her smartphone and returned.

"Don't move," she ordered quietly. "Not a millimeter."

She straddled me, planting her feet flat on either side of my ribs. From below, I looked up past her bare legs, straight into the lens of her camera. The small red indicator on the screen lit up.

Recording.

Nadja tracked the camera slowly down her own bare body—over her flushed neck, her breasts, her flat stomach—before angling the lens mercilessly down at me.

In the viewfinder, everything was laid bare: my face, slick with sweat and marked with her release, my trembling lips. Then she panned lower. The hardened trails of wax running through the red stains of wine. And finally the steel cylinder, locked hard and angling upward, the brass shackle of the padlock, and the thick crust of wax sealing the seam between flesh and metal.

"Do you see this, Loona?" Nadja spoke into the microphone, her voice husky and satisfied. She crouched slowly, bringing her face into frame right beside my pelvis. With two fingers, she tapped mockingly against the steel casing. A sharp, hollow *clink* echoed through the room. "He didn't flinch once. He begged, he served, and he swallowed every last drop."

She smiled darkly into the camera, stroked her thumb across the silicone ring, and stopped the video.

A quick swipe across the glass. The upload progress bar filled. The video was on its way to Loona.

A minute passed in dead silence. Nothing sounded except my own ragged breathing and the ticking of the radiator. The ache at my pubic bone throbbed dull, the dried wax stinging like small burns across my skin. I was trapped like that—exposed, marked, completely unable to lift myself up.

Then the phone in Nadja’s hand vibrated.

A single, long buzz. A message.

Tapping the screen, Nadja scanned the lines, and her triumphant smirk shifted. A flicker of respect—almost reverence—settled over her features.

She didn't turn the screen toward me. Instead, she read it aloud in a calm, cutting voice:

"Good work, Nadja. You brought him right where I wanted him. But his time with you is up."

Nadja paused briefly, glancing down at me before reading the rest of the text with a faint edge of pity:

"He is not permitted to scrape the wax off. He is not permitted to wash. Give him his trousers and his jacket. You keep the key—you hand it to me personally at the office tomorrow morning. Send him onto the U-Bahn back home to me now. I want to see every single one of your marks on him when he walks through the door."

The oxygen in the room seemed to vanish in an instant.

No key. No release. I was to travel across Berlin in this exact state—crusted in wax, stained with dried wine, covered in her scent, and locked rock-hard inside the steel. Through the U-Bahn, among strangers, straight to Loona’s doorstep.

Slipping the phone away, Nadja bent down and grabbed my upper arm to haul me up from the rug.

"You heard her, John," she whispered close to my ear, tossing the grey sweatpants down at my bare feet. "Get dressed. Your mistress is waiting, and she wants to inspect my artwork."