Nest Visit 1

The clicking of her heels stopped right at the threshold.

Vanessa swept in—as always, a force of nature composed of groomed self-assurance, an expensive cashmere coat, and a cloud of her heavy, floral perfume. With a practiced motion, she pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, tossed her handbag onto the hallway credenza, and pulled Loona into an embrace with a deep, relieved sigh.

"God, what a trip from hell on the A24," she cooed, easing back from her daughter to fondly smooth a strand from her forehead. "Three construction zones, stop-and-go traffic… but the moment you step inside, it smells like fresh coffee. You two are angels."

Her gaze drifted past. Straight to me.

I stood three paces behind, hands disciplined flat against the seams of my trousers, teeth clamped together. The chino fabric pulled like parchment across the steel ring; the small padlock dug mercilessly into the sensitive skin of my left thigh. Every instinct in my body screamed to relax my legs, to shift my weight—yet Loona’s icy glance in my peripheral vision held me pinned like an invisible vise.

"Hello, Vanessa," I managed to say. My voice sounded remarkably steady, even as cold sweat tracked down my spine. "Good to see you."

"John, my dear boy!" she exclaimed, stepping toward me with open arms to draw me into a hug.

The embrace struck me like an electric shock. She pressed her upper body firmly against mine, and for a fraction of a second, her hip grazed within a hair's breadth of the silent, metallic hardness beneath my trousers. My stomach seized in pure panic. Had she reached just ten centimeters lower or shifted her weight at the wrong angle, the cold surgical steel tube would have been unmistakable through the cloth.

Yet she noticed nothing. She patted me firmly on the back twice, pulled back, and studied my face with an inquisitive, maternal gaze.

"You're looking a little pale, sweetheart," she observed, tilting her head to inspect the dark circles beneath my eyes. "Pulling all-nighters again? The board exams are important, yes, but you mustn't completely run yourself into the ground. Your father is already worried that you do nothing but crouch over your books."

"He was exceptionally diligent all weekend, Mom," Loona chimed in, her voice dripping with honeyed sweetness. Stepping up beside me, she rested a hand on my shoulder, driving her fingernails through the thin shirt fabric with millimeter-precise, cruel force. "I practically had to force him to take a break this morning. He's just… utterly focused. Isn't that right, John?"

"Yes… I'm just trying not to fall behind on the material," I stammered, forcing my lips into a composed smile while Loona’s nails bore painfully deeper.

"A model student," Vanessa nodded approvingly, slipping off her coat and handing it to me offhandedly. "Hang that up, would you, darling? And then let's head into the living room—I desperately need caffeine and some sugar."

She clicked down the hall into the living room with elegant, swaying strides.

The second she rounded the corner, Loona turned to me. Her smile didn't fade, but her eyes hardened into sheets of ice. Reaching forward, she grabbed the shaft of the cylinder firmly right through the trouser fabric and yanked it upward in a short, brutal jerk. The steel ring slammed deep into the battered cords of my pubic bone. A strangled gasp tore from my throat; my knees nearly buckled beneath me.

"A very respectable start," she breathed into my ear with cutting malice. "Now go bring the coffee. If your hands shake while you pour, John, I'll sit down beside you later and reach under the table. Do you understand me?"

"Yes… Loona," I forced out through a parched throat.

She turned away, strolling into the living room after her mother with innocent ease.

I fetched the silver tray from the kitchen. The white porcelain pot was hot, the cups clinking softly as I set them alongside each other. Every step into the living room demanded superhuman focus: the stiff chino fabric rubbed across the edges of the housing with every motion, the padlock ground blisteringly against the tendons, and the dull throb from the night before pulsed in time with my redlined heart.

When I entered the room, it presented the picture of a bourgeois idyll.

Vanessa had settled comfortably onto the sectional sofa, legs crossed with tailored poise, her nylon-sheathed calves catching the warm afternoon light. Loona sat in the armchair opposite, sipping a glass of water and chatting breezily about an exhibition she ostensibly wanted to visit.

"Ah, the savior arrives!" Vanessa called out as I approached with the tray.

I stepped up to the low coffee table. Now came the moment I had dreaded most: bending down.

To set the pot down, I had to lower my knees. Leaning too far forward would stretch the trousers tight over my backside, driving the top rim of the cylinder down with brute force; bending my knees too deeply risked pushing the hard, cylindrical silhouette into plain view like a fist against the front of the chinos.

Clenching my jaw, I kept my spine rod-straight and sank slowly into a crouch. A piercing, tearing pain erupted in my groin as the metal pinched the swollen, chafed patches of skin. My vision blurred for a second, but with sheer iron will, I kept the tray level and set it down soundlessly upon the glass.

"Black with half a spoonful of sugar, right?" I asked, my voice strained under tight control.

"You remember everything, darling," Vanessa smiled, watching as I lifted the pot.

My fingers turned white around the porcelain handle. The hot liquid poured into her cup in a steady, clean stream. No rattling, no spills. Setting the pot back down, I handed her the saucer and remained standing before the table—hands folded, entirely unable to relax.

"Sit down, boy," Vanessa insisted, patting the empty cushion of the sofa right beside her. "You're standing there like a royal footman. Come sit with me, have an almond pastry, and tell me about your professors."

My heart skipped a violent beat.

Across the table, Loona watched me from her armchair. Her brows arched minutely, an icy, triumphant gleam settling into her eyes. She knew full well what the soft, deep sofa meant for me: sinking into those cushions inevitably pulled the knees close to the chest—ramming the cylinder with full body weight directly into the groin.

"I… I can sit on the stool—" I began.

"Nonsense!" Vanessa dismissed briskly, catching my forearm with a firm tug and pulling me down. "Over here with you."

I fell almost uncontrollably into the deep cushions.

The sofa yielded under my weight, my knees lifted—and the cylinder slammed like a hammer blow squarely into my pubic bone. The bars crushed the trapped tissue; the padlock cracked with a dull thud against the bone. A wave of blinding, pristine agony tore through my nervous system, so intense that my vision blacked out for two full seconds.

My eyes snapped wide. Unseen, my fingers dug deep into the upholstery beside my thighs, clamping my lips together until they turned bloodless.

"Everything alright, John?" Vanessa asked with a frown, pausing with her coffee cup at her lips, looking at me sideways. "You just flinched so strangely."

In the armchair opposite, Loona leaned back luxuriously, crossed her legs, and smiled like a viper watching its prey suffocate.

"Yes, John," Loona purred across the table, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness. "Is everything alright with you? You look so… tense sitting there. Is something pinching you?"

My gaze darted to Loona for the fraction of a second. In her eyes danced the unvarnished thrill of seeing me balance on this straight razor.

"No… nothing," I forced out through clenched teeth. Every breath was a high-wire act, the stiff chino waistband digging deeper into the top rim of the cylinder with every expansion of my chest. "I just… I lifted a heavy box the wrong way while cleaning this morning. My back is pulling a bit."

Vanessa let out a low snort, half sympathetic, half amused, taking a sip from her cup. "Typical. Cramming anatomy, but no concept of proper lifting ergonomics. You have to lift from the knees, sweetheart, not your lower back."

She turned fully toward me, setting her saucer on the table, and laid a hand casually over my thigh—mere inches from where the rigid contour pressed against the beige fabric. The warmth of her palm radiated straight through the cotton. My entire lower abdomen turned to stone; my heart hammered with such violence I feared she might feel the vibrations through the cloth.

"Speaking of anatomy," she continued, leaning a fraction closer. Her heavy floral perfume flooded my senses. "Your father mentioned that your dissection course on the internal organs and the pelvis starts next week. How are you holding up with the material? You had that exceptionally strict examiner… what was his name again?"

"Professor… Professor Bergmann," I croaked. I had to force myself not to turn away. My left foot was wedged at an unnatural angle to keep the small brass padlock from knocking against the wooden skirt of the coffee table at the slightest shift. "He… he places great emphasis on vascular supply and nerve pathways."

"Right, Bergmann!" Vanessa exclaimed, her fingers unconsciously pressing a degree firmer into my thigh to emphasize her point. The cylinder canted minutely, a sharp edge biting deep into the bruised tendons at my pubic bone.

A cold bead of sweat broke on my temple and trailed slowly down my cheek. My fingers clawed deeper into the weave of the sofa.

"You absolutely must make an impression on him from day one, John," she lectured with maternal insistence. "Your father had such high hopes for you when you got your placement. You can't afford to show any weakness. Just show him that you have stamina. That you are disciplined."

Across from us, Loona set her glass down. The faint clinking shattered my paralysis.

"Oh, he certainly doesn't lack discipline, Mom," Loona interjected with honeyed, double-edged cruelty. She tilted her head, inspecting me like an anatomical specimen. "John can hold still for an extraordinary amount of time when asked. He yields completely to every bit of pressure. You would be amazed at how resilient he has become over the past few days."

Vanessa laughed brightly, entirely blind to the venom beneath her daughter's words. "Well, I certainly hope so! A doctor who buckles at the first sign of resistance is entirely useless."

Lifting her hand from my leg, she reached for an almond pastry and took a bite. The sudden release of pressure was nearly as agonizing as the weight had been, blood rushing with a scalding throb through pinched pathways.

"You know what strikes me, though?" Vanessa said suddenly, furrowing her brow as she looked me up and down. "This shirt. And the chinos. You look dreadfully proper, darling. Almost a little… stiff."

She shot her daughter an amused glance.

"Do you remember our stroll down Ku’damm a few weeks ago, Loona? When we came out of that lingerie boutique and joked about how his wardrobe desperately needed modernizing?"

My stomach dropped into a bottomless void. The air in the room seemed to freeze on the spot.

"Of course I remember, Mom," Loona answered, her smile sharp as a straight razor. Her eyes bored straight into mine. "I already told him he ought to be a little bolder with his fashion choices. Something… more form-fitting. Something that doesn't leave so much room to move."

Vanessa swallowed the bite of pastry, wiped the crumbs from her fingertips with a delicate cloth napkin, and looked at me with that patronizing maternal fondness that degraded me a thousand times worse than any open strike ever could.

"That's precisely what I mean," she chuckled. "Sweetheart, you're young, you have a great build—you don't have to bury yourself in these stuffy men's clothes. Why not something fresh? Something delicate?"

Leaning forward, she tapped my chest lightly with her index finger and added with a smoky chuckle:

"Loona whispered to me in the hall earlier that you actually kept those things from the boutique. Tell me, John… are you actually wearing those fine little panties underneath today?"