house servant

The first pale light of Saturday filtered through the cracks in the curtains, slicing in a dull grey across the bedroom.

Waking up was no gentle drifting toward consciousness, but an abrupt collision with the physical reality of my body. The moment I opened my eyes, the skin of my face pulled taut without mercy. The dried traces of Nadja’s and Loona’s saliva felt like a rigid plaster cast across my cheeks, temples, and chin; the slightest movement of my lips tugged painfully at the cool, encrusted layer.

My groin made itself known even more sharply. The cylinder sat freezing and unyielding against my flesh. After hours of forced stillness at the foot of the bed, the dried fluid inside the tube had thoroughly fused skin to metal. Every pulse, every minute shift of my hips burned like sandpaper against raw nerve endings.

I didn't move. My hands remained curled protectively around Loona’s ankles. Overnight, her skin had grown warm and soft in my palms; the tips of her toes rested lightly against my forearm.

I listened to her breathing. It was deep, measured, and calm.

Half an hour passed in absolute stillness. My body ached, my knees were stiff from being bent, yet obedience weighed far heavier than exhaustion. I counted each breath, fixed my eyes on the weave of the bedsheet, and kept her feet warm until a faint rustle of the down duvet drifted from above.

Loona stretched slowly. Her toes stirred in my hands, brushing lightly across my palms before she drew her legs in slightly.

Blinking against the pale morning light, she turned her head on the pillow and looked down. Her eyes found me at the foot of the bed—naked, hunched, the dried mask unchanged across my face, the cylinder gleaming dully between my thighs.

No smile, no sleepy yawn. Only the calm, matter-of-fact certainty of a woman finding her property exactly where she had left it.

"Good morning, John," she said softly, her voice still husky from sleep.

"Good morning, Loona," I forced out hoarsely against the hem of the sheet.

Propping herself up on one elbow, she studied me closely. Her eyes tracked across my cheeks, checking the integrity of the dried marks, before drifting down to the steel casing resting heavy on the linen.

"You haven't moved," she observed. A faint trace of approval colored her tone, as detached as the confirmation of a well-oiled machine. "Good boy. The mask is still intact."

Throwing the covers back, she swung her legs over the side of the mattress and brushed the hair from her brow.

"Kitchen," she commanded evenly, slipping into her house shoes. "Coffee for me, freshly ground. Put the kettle on. Not a drop of water touches your face, not a drop touches your body. You move on your knees."

"Yes, Loona," I replied, sliding carefully off the mattress onto the cold floorboards.

The impact of my bare kneecaps against the wood banished the last remnants of sleep. The metal swung down, yanking sharply at the glued tissue and pulling a dull gasp into my throat, which I swallowed in the same instant.

I crawled down the long corridor. The parquet was swept clean, the apartment dead quiet. Once in the kitchen, I reached for the coffee beans, weighed them out, and ran the grinder. The hum of the motor buzzed inside my skull. Balancing the mug, the pot, and the small milk pitcher on a narrow wooden tray, I pushed it ahead of me across the kitchen floor and crawled back into the living room, where Loona was already seated on the sofa.

Her legs were drawn up, wrapped in her loose robe, her smartphone in hand.

I eased the tray onto the coffee table, crawled on all fours right up to her feet, and lowered my head until my forehead nearly touched the carpet.

"Here is your coffee, Loona."

She took the mug, inhaled the steam, and took a sip. "Perfect."

As she set the mug down, a short, double vibration from her phone cut through the morning silence.

Loona glanced down at the display. A faint, amused twitch played at the corner of her lips. Tapping the screen once, she turned the volume up and laid the device flat on the table, right in front of my face.

A husky, slightly sleepy laugh tumbled from the speaker—Nadja.

"Morning, Loona… Well, how did the little chore-boy sleep? Is the seal still holding? I hope you didn't let him off the hook too early. I'm just having my first espresso and couldn't help thinking about what his face looked like yesterday when we were standing over him. Send me a photo of the wreck for proof—I want to see if he's still wearing my little gift around."

The click signaling the end of the voice note echoed in the room.

My stomach dropped. Adrenaline surged through my veins; shame flooded my face like boiling lead, making the dried streaks on my cheeks burn even hotter. Nadja wasn't physically here, yet she filled the room—her mocking gaze bore into me right through the glass.

Loona leaned forward slowly. Her cool fingers caught beneath my chin and lifted my head, forcing me to stare straight into the lens of her smartphone camera.

"She wants to see how disciplined you are, John," Loona whispered softly against my cheek. Her other hand drifted down to my thighs, settling heavy, cold, and possessive over the steel casing. "And we certainly don't want to disappoint Nadja. Hold still."

She raised the phone, framing the shot so that my crusted, disgraced face and the ruthlessly sealed steel below were captured cleanly in the bright morning light.

The shutter clicked.

The crawl to the study felt endless. Every meter of parquet ground into my knees, and with each forward slide, the cylinder scraped against raw, glued flesh. The dried residue inside the tube gave no quarter, keeping the tissue under a constant, dull strain.

Reaching the bottom shelf, I pulled out the heavy, cloth-bound volume of Sobotta’s Atlas and wedged it under my arm. Back onto all fours. The corners of the thick book dug hard into my ribs as I pushed myself step by step back into the living room.

Loona was already seated at the dining table. Her laptop was open, flanked by neatly stacked lecture notes for her business module. She had poured herself a fresh cup of tea and now wore narrow reading glasses that lent her features an almost academic severity.

I crawled right up to her chair, laid the atlas on the floor, and opened the spread covering the innervation of the pelvis.

"At my feet," she directed without looking up from the screen. "Hips up, chest straight. The book stays on the floor. You do not look at it. If you have to check, it counts as an error."

I rose onto my knees, hands flat on my thighs, the heavy cylinder hanging mercilessly in the room's cool draft. Beneath the hard layer on my cheeks, my skin pulled tight as I drew a breath.

"Begin with the roots of the lumbar plexus," she commanded in a flat tone.

"T12 to L4," I began hoarsely, fixing my gaze on the edge of the table. "The lumbar plexus lies within the psoas major muscle… dividing into the iliohypogastric nerve, the ilioinguinal nerve…"

"Innervation of the ilioinguinal?" she cut in coolly, her fingers typing steadily across the keyboard.

"Sensory to the skin of the mons pubis, the anterior scrotal skin… motor fibers to parts of the internal oblique and transversus abdominis muscles, Loona."

"Continue. Genitofemoral nerve."

"Genital and femoral branches… the genital branch traverses the inguinal canal… innervates the cremaster muscle…"

"The reflex you currently have zero control over," she noted dryly.

A subtle, merciless edge flickered through her tone. Slipping her right foot from her house shoe, she slid her bare toes slowly up over my kneecap, along the inner contour of my thigh, until the cool sole of her foot rested flat against the lower edge of the steel ring.

My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs in a single, violent jolt.

"Don't pause, John," she warned softly, her foot applying a smooth, firm upward pressure that tilted the cylinder minutely against my pubic bone. "Femoral nerve. Course and branches."

"F-Femoral nerve… passes beneath the inguinal ligament through the muscular lacuna… divides into muscular branches for the quadriceps femoris… and the sensory saphenous nerve… Loona."

My voice shook. The proximity of her foot, the bite of the metal against trapped, hypersensitive tissue, and the sheer focus required not to lose the anatomical Latin drove beads of sweat to my forehead. Yet I wasn't allowed to wipe them away; the sweat mingled with the crusted marks on my cheeks, making the skin sting.

"Obturator nerve," she demanded, unbothered. Her foot shifted an inch to the side, her toes brushing across the cool outer wall of the cylinder, tracing the lines of the open slots.

"Through the obturator canal… supplies the adductors… pectineus, adductor longus, brevis… magnus… and sensory to the distal medial thigh… Loona."

"And what happens in a lesion?"

"Loss of adduction… the affected leg cannot be crossed over the other… unstable gait… Loona."

She paused. The typing ceased.

Leaning back, Loona removed her reading glasses and looked directly down at me. Her foot remained heavy and possessive on the steel, a constant, physical reminder of her authority over every single nerve pathway I had just recited.

"You function when kept on a short leash," she remarked, almost offhandedly. "Not a single misstep. Your mind knows precisely what to do—it's only your flesh that imagines it gets to have desires of its own."

She withdrew her foot slowly, trailing her toes once more across my knee before sliding back into her shoe.

"You stay kneeling right there. I have two more chapters to read for my seminar. When I am finished, you may put the atlas away."

"Yes, Loona," I breathed.

She turned back to her screen, and the steady, rhythmic clatter of keys resumed. I stayed on my knees, rigid, the cylinder cold and heavy between my thighs, trapped in the room's silence as the minutes ticked by without a sound.

When the rhythmic clicking finally tapered off, Loona pushed her laptop aside. Leaning back, she studied me coolly and picked up her smartphone.

"Close the atlas, John. Look up at me."

I closed the heavy volume soundlessly, edged it aside with unsteady fingers, and straightened my posture. My knees felt completely numb, the dried traces stretched relentlessly across my skin, and the cylinder sat like a burning clamp between my thighs.

Unlocking the phone, Loona opened the X app and laid the device flat on the front edge of the table, directly before my face. The dark interface displayed her direct message inbox—a long queue of men pleading for her attention, sending payment receipts, begging for her contempt.

I recognized the screen. It was far from the first time she had placed me before this inbox. I knew exactly what she required of me: to be her voice, to mirror her coldness, and to dismiss the men who fantasized from afar about the very dynamic that was physically breaking me down here on the floor.

"You know what to do," she said in a quiet, casual voice, leaning back comfortably. "Clear the first five. Hands stay behind your back; you type with your right index finger. I'll be reading along."

"Yes, Loona," I murmured.

Leaning forward, I focused on the display and opened the top conversation. A faceless account had sent a screenshot of a fifty-euro tribute, accompanied by a request to be put in his place.

Without hesitation, my index finger moved across the keyboard. I knew her tone; I had felt it on my own skin often enough:

"Fifty euros doesn't even cover the electricity for the screen I'm reading this on. Be grateful my chore-boy is even typing this out for you. Double it next week, or you end up on the block list."

Loona scanned the text over my shoulder. A barely perceptible, approving nod was all the clearance I needed. I tapped send.

The second chat was an inquiry regarding her worn socks. My finger glided across the keys:

"You don't negotiate prices. You transfer one-fifty and hope I feel generous enough to drop them off at the post office. Link is in the bio. Pay or disappear."

It was a strange, biting humiliation. As I composed those arrogant, merciless lines, I was kneeling stark naked on hard parquet. My own flesh was locked inside surgical steel, glued shut from the day before, my face marked by Nadja’s and Loona’s derision. I was the slave wielding the whip on behalf of his mistress—yet I was the only one in the room feeling the physical burn of the leash.

Just as I moved to open the fourth conversation, Loona rested her bare foot across my thighs.

Her toes glided forward slowly, brushing the inside of my leg before wedging beneath the cylinder from below. The cold steel lifted by a millimeter, pinching into hypersensitive tissue and pulling a muffled gasp from my throat.

"Don't lose your focus, John," she purred from above, her foot maintaining the pressure, answering any false move with pain. "The next one is waiting."

With trembling fingers and a thudding pulse, I kept typing. The urge to strain against the metal surged uselessly in my groin; the cylinder yielded nothing. I was her perfectly calibrated instrument—conditioned to execute her will while my own body remained completely at her mercy.

After the fifth message, she drew her foot back slowly and lifted the phone from the table.

"Very good," she noted casually, skimming the replies before sliding the phone into the pocket of her robe. "You haven't lost your edge. You know precisely where these men belong—and where you belong."

She stood up and looked down at me.

"Put the atlas away. Then wait for me on your knees in the hallway."

The thick, cloth-bound volume was back in its place on the lowest shelf of the bookcase. The faint creak of the floorboards under my kneecaps echoed softly through the hall as I backed against the wall, levering myself upright and resting back onto my heels. Hands flat on my thighs, shoulders back, eyes glued to the floor.

The cylinder hung heavy and uncompromising between my legs. The metal felt like a permanent fixture of my anatomy by now—a freezing, rigid prosthesis snuffing out any involuntary response at the root.

From the living room came the muffled clink of porcelain, followed by the soft scuff of Loona’s slippers. She stepped into the hallway, stopping two paces short of me, looking down.

At that moment, her phone buzzed.

Not a standard ring—a sharp, three-tone chime. A video call.

Pulling the device from her pocket, Loona glanced at the screen, a faint, mocking smile touching her lips.

"Well, look at that," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to me. "She's curious."

My stomach tightened hard. My heart skipped, hammering straight into my temples. Nadja.

Tapping the screen, Loona accepted the call, initially holding the phone at head height so only her own face was visible in the frame.

"Hey, Nadja," she greeted her in a calm, offhand voice.

Through the speaker came Nadja’s smoky, bright laugh, backed by the low thrum of a bustling coffee shop.

"Finally, you pick up! I'm sitting in a café on Ku’damm and I've looked at that photo three times already. Loona, no joke—that face! He looks like a beaten dog that can't decide whether to whimper or say thank you."

My face burned as though held to an open flame. The dried mask across my cheeks pulled painfully, tugging at the fine hairs on my skin.

"He tried very hard this morning," Loona replied with mock gentleness, her cold gaze resting on me. "He scrubbed the floors properly, served my coffee on his knees, and then dutifully handled my inbox on X. He knows exactly how to make himself useful now."

A scornful snort came through the line.

"Oh, are you domesticating him already? Show him to me. I want to see what he looks like right now. You haven't let him wash, have you?"

"Of course not," Loona said. "Rules are rules."

Stepping to the side, she crouched slowly in front of me and flipped the camera.

The screen laid out my state in unforgiving detail: kneeling on my heels in the hallway, bare-chested, head slightly raised, eyes full of shame. In the upper corner inset, Nadja was visible—sunglasses perched on her head, beige trench coat, a latte macchiato cup held in perfectly manicured fingers. A broad, amused smirk played across her lips.

"Oh God…,"* Nadja giggled, her voice thick with open malice. *"He's still wearing it. Every bit of it. Even my little greeting on his cheek."

She leaned closer to her own camera, as if inspecting every pore of my face.

"Look at me, John,"* she ordered through the phone, the cutting edge in her voice striking like a whip. *"Look into the lens. Go on."

I forced my eyes to lock onto the tiny black dot of the camera.

"Hello… Nadja," I managed hoarsely.

"What was that? 'Hello, Mistress Nadja,' if you please. Did you leave your manners on my rug yesterday along with your self-control?"

"Hello… Mistress Nadja," I corrected immediately, shame rushing hotter than boiling water through my veins.

"Much better,"* she purred with satisfaction. *"Tell me, how does that actually feel? Sitting there in the hallway, naked and marked, while Loona enjoys her Saturday and I'm out in the sun living my life? Do you ever think back to how you begged yesterday?"

"Yes… Mistress Nadja," I whispered.

Loona reached down with her free hand. Her fingers closed around the cool metal of the cylinder, twisting it a single millimeter to the right—a sharp tug that tore at the glued tissue within, pulling a strangled gasp from my throat. At the same time, she angled the phone lower, ensuring Nadja had a clear view of the entire scene: Loona’s hand firmly claiming the cage.

"Ooh, look at him twitch," Nadja laughed, sounding entirely intoxicated by it. "Divine. Loona, he's practically bursting. You know what? I'm coming over tonight. I just bought a new pair of boots—they need a good polish anyway. And who better to do it than your little chore-boy?"

Loona smiled with amusement into the camera, keeping her grip steady on my cage.

"A splendid idea," Loona said calmly. "He certainly hasn't atoned enough today. Seven o'clock?"

"Perfect. Keep him nice and hungry until then. And John?"* Nadja’s face filled the display, her sea-blue eyes flashing cold and triumphant. *"Start looking forward to it. Once I'm there, I'll show you just how low you can really sink."

With a brief chime, the call disconnected.

The hallway sank back into silence.

Loona slipped the smartphone away, released my hip, and slowly straightened to her full height. She looked down at me—at my trembling, marked face and the steel prison throbbing relentlessly between my thighs.