interlude

The days following the appointment at the Neukölln courtyard slipped by in a peculiar, paralyzing limbo. My entire existence had contracted to a two-week reprieve—fourteen days in which the provisional stainless-steel casing knocked against my thighs with every stride, relentlessly reminding me that the last remnants of my freedom were running out.

At the Charité, I sat beside Mira in the brightly lit seminar room at Campus Mitte. On the screen before us, pelvic MRI scans glowed: stark white contours of bone, tendon, and soft tissue set against pitch-black backgrounds. Mira, with her rumpled brown bun and rimless glasses, typed concentratedly on her keyboard, sipped from her travel mug, and slid a handout across to me.

"Take a look at the cross-section on slice eight, John," she remarked casually, tapping the cap of her pen against the display. "The topographical alignment of the erectile bodies relative to the pubic symphysis… If you don't have that mapped to the millimeter for the anatomy exam, the examiner will tear you to pieces. Do you recall the exact resting dimensions of the corpora cavernosa?"

A shiver crept up the nape of my neck, scalding and freezing all at once. I sat bolt upright on the hard wooden chair. With every minute shift of weight, the clumsy padlock bumped dully against the cylinder, and the steel base ring clamped mercilessly into the already raw perineal raphe. In my mind's eye, I saw neither textbook nor diagram; I saw Carola's chilled vernier caliper beneath the harsh neon of the fitting room. I saw her gloved fingers and heard her dry, dispassionate cadence: *Flaccid length: five and a half centimeters. Sleeve: thirty-five millimeters.*

Thirty-five millimeters. And laser-engraved across the top: *Loona's Property*.

"Right… sure," I forced out through a dry throat, clearing it with effort. "Five to seven centimeters on average… depending on… individual variance."

Mira let out a brief laugh without looking up. "Exactly. And clinically speaking, anything under five qualifies as severe atrophy. Still, thankfully that's just theory we need to memorize."

I nodded mechanically, jaw clenched tight. My gaze drifted downward. Beneath the heavy denim of my jeans lay nothing but a lifeless, cool void. Mira hadn't the faintest inkling that the man grinding through diagnostics beside her was, a few inches lower, already compressed to the dimensions of a thumb stump—and that in under two weeks, he would receive an anatomical clamp of surgical steel designed to penalize every physiological stir with sharp pain.

Back at the flat, there was no escaping reality. Loona kept the reins taut. I moved through the high-ceilinged pre-war rooms like a shadow: doing her laundry, buffing the parquet, placing fresh coffee and sliced fruit at her seat every morning on the dot, and clearing the table without letting a single syllable pass my lips. She paid me little heed, yet that casual matter-of-factness cut deeper than overt severity. When she sat at the kitchen table scrolling through her phone, a brief snap of her manicured fingernails was all it took for me to kneel beside her chair and slip the mules from her bare feet.

Midway through the second week, a curt text appeared on my screen: *"4 PM. Café Einstein on Kurfürstenstraße. Pick us up. Don't be late."*

Stepping into the salon of the traditional coffeehouse, my eyes immediately found the corner table by the window. Loona was seated there in a dark green silk blazer, legs elegantly crossed. Across from her sat Nadja. Nadja's asymmetrical, platinum-blonde bob stood out sharply against her black leather jacket; her nails were lacquered jet-black, and despite the house ban, she took leisurely drags from a slim vape, letting her gaze sweep through the room with cool, mocking arrogance.

As I approached the table, neither of them broke off their conversation—they simply ignored me, exactly as they would an approaching busboy.

"…so I'm telling you, the guy at KitKat genuinely thought he had a shot," Nadja laughed hoarsely, tucking a strand behind her pierced ear. "Didn't even realize he was on a leash ten minutes in."

"Some simply need to be shown their place through proper craftsmanship," Loona replied smoothly, sipping her espresso before glancing up at me offhandedly. Her emerald-green eyes flickered with amusement. "Ah, John. Take the bags. We're leaving."

Beside the banquette stood four high-end paper shopping bags from boutiques along the Ku'damm. Bending down obediently, I gathered the handles, feeling the old padlock drive sharply into my pubic bone with the forward bend. A faint, metallic clatter carried beneath my trousers.

Nadja's gaze drifted down my frame. An eyebrow arched upward, a faint, knowing smirk settling on her lips.

"Tell me, Loona… does your roommate always rattle like that when he walks?" Nadja asked with cutting derision, blowing a thin plume of vapor in my direction. "Sounds like a rusty wheelbarrow."

Loona rose, smoothing down her coat, casting me a glance heavy with cool anticipation.

"Not for much longer, Nadja," she replied casually, resting a hand on my shoulder, her nails pressing in slightly. "We'll be done with the old hardware soon enough. The workshop is reaching out in the next few days. After that, everything will sit so seamlessly that you won't hear a sound—you'll only feel it."

Nadja let out a low laugh, looking me over like an oddity at an auction, shaking her head in amusement. "Sounds sensible. Precision above all else."

I walked two paces behind them through the drizzle toward the car, heavily laden with their purchases, powerless to do anything but keep my eyes fixed silently on the wet pavement. The knowledge that Nadja—this icy regular of the club scene who barely deigned to look at me—knew precisely what was being done to me drove a burning flush up past my collar.

The true trial, however, arrived on Friday evening.

My headset crackled as I settled into the desk chair in my room. The Discord window opened on my monitor, and Timo's familiar, booming laugh burst through the drivers.

"Bro! Finally!" Timo roared enthusiastically, the clatter of his gamepad unmistakable over the line. "I thought you were going to be buried under those damn anatomy atlases until midnight again! Jump into the lobby, the match is starting!"

"Already in," I replied, forcing my voice into an easy, rough-edged bro tone.

I sat before the screen in loose grey sweatpants. Every shift against the cushion was an ordeal; the crude import model pinched the tissue mercilessly. My hands rested on keyboard and mouse while Timo reeled off a continuous stream of chatter.

"Man, I'm telling you, the week back here at university was pure torture after that weekend in Berlin," he bragged openly as our virtual avatars sprinted across the terrain. "I'm still living off it. Loona is an absolute force of nature, John. Never met a girl who's that… that uninhibited. Already told the guys in the department what a lucky bastard you are, sharing a flat with a woman like that."

"Yeah… she's… something else," I muttered, fighting to keep my crosshairs steady. My pulse was racing.

"'Something else' doesn't even begin to cover it, man!" Timo laughed loudly. "And you're seriously the most relaxed bro on the planet. Do you know how many guys would have gone on a total jealousy trip? But you… you're making us fried eggs the next morning! I swear, John, next time I'm bringing a case of proper Franconian beer, and we're going to tear the town up!"

At that exact moment, the handle of my bedroom door turned.

The door glided open soundlessly. Loona stood in the frame. She was wearing a simple, form-fitting black dress, arms crossed over her chest. Her green eyes locked onto me through the dim light of the room.

She knew precisely who I was speaking with. A cruel, amused smile touched her lips. She glided across the floorboards toward my desk without making a sound.

"…Hey, John? You still there? Cover the flank, someone's pushing!" Timo's voice boomed through the earcups.

"On… on it," I forced out.

Loona halted directly beside my swivel chair. Leaning down slowly until her mouth hovered inches from my ear, right by the headset's boom mic, her warm, familiar scent enveloped me. Yet instead of uttering a sound, her hand glided down my inner thigh. Her fingers closed around the heavy padlock beneath the fleece of my sweatpants and gave it a sharp, sudden jerk.

The violent pull drove the steel ring deep into sensitized flesh. A sharp, brutal pain lanced through my pelvis.

I bit down on my lower lip with all my strength until I tasted the metallic salt of my own blood. My fingers locked around the mouse, knuckles turning stark white—yet I was forbidden from making a sound. No groan, no gasp. Nothing that could pierce Timo's naive reality.

"Everything good, bro? Your aim is completely cooked right now!" Timo called through the voice chat, thoroughly amused.

"All… good. Just slipped," I managed, my voice strained but held under tight control.

Loona's lips brushed lightly against my temple.

"Carola just phoned," she breathed into my ear with velvety chill, pitched so low the microphone's noise gate filtered out every syllable. "The piece is polished and ready. Monday morning at nine sharp. Prepare yourself, my servant. Your grace period is over."

Releasing the lock, she gave my cheek a patronizing pat and strode from the room with fluid, springy steps. The door latched shut without a sound.

I remained there, gaze pinned to the flickering display, while on the other end of the line Timo chattered on about his coursework for next semester. My entire groin throbbed with ache and a dizzying, perverse anticipation. The provisional gear's days were numbered. Come Monday, there would be no turning back.