on display

The cool, soft jersey of the grey sweatpants glided over my thighs and settled like a second skin around my hips.

Without the protective support of underwear, there was no buffer, no barrier. The massive weight of the stainless-steel housing dragged the thin fabric down mercilessly. At the slightest movement, the cylinder swung sluggishly, and the rigid, circular impression of the tube, as well as the angular outline of the brass padlock, printed through the light-grey melange weave with unforgiving clarity.

With hitching breath, I stepped out of the bedroom and back into the living room.

Loona was still sitting at the table, coffee mug in hand. When she saw me, a dark, relish-filled gleam slipped into her eyes.

"Take a few steps," she ordered quietly. "Over to the wall. And back again."

I obeyed. Every step was sheer torture. With each footfall, the cylinder bumped against the inside of my thigh, the fabric stretching taut over it, forming a silhouette that even a blind person couldn't miss.

"Hold still," she said, rising and slowly circling around me. She crouched down, her cool fingers resting on the thin cloth directly over the cylinder, tracing the outline with slow deliberation. A sharp hiss escaped my teeth. "It's perfect, John. Every edge shows. Every curve. Sit on that chair over there and spread your legs."

I lowered myself onto the wooden chair and parted my knees. The thin jersey immediately pulled taut across my groin. The steel shaft pressed so brazenly against the cloth it was as if it lay entirely exposed.

Loona smiled coolly. "Just like that. Remember who you belong to. You leave now."

Just taking that first step from the apartment hallway out onto the pavement felt like throwing myself onto a naked blade. The late-summer Berlin wind swept down the street, flattening the lightweight fabric relentlessly against my legs, mercilessly detailing every curve, every metallic ridge.

I hurried down into the U-Bahn station, eyes glued to the dirty tiles, hands buried deep inside the pockets of my short parka. Desperately, I tried tugging the hem forward to shield at least the front of my groin—yet every evasive movement only made me look more tense, more conspicuous, more suspicious.

On the crowded platform, the air seemed to shimmer with heat. A few steps ahead of me stood three young women, stylishly dressed, sunglasses propped in their hair, paper cups in hand. One of them, a brunette in a long beige coat, glanced over at me as she walked past. Her eyes flicked down casually—and snagged for a fraction of a second right between my legs.

Everything inside me clenched in a vise. My stomach plummeted, as if dropping into a bottomless pit. Had she seen the metallic rigidity? Did she realize that beneath the fabric lay no yielding flesh, but a cylinder of cold surgical steel?

When the train finally pulled in with an ear-splitting screech, I squeezed through the sliding doors. There were no empty seats left. I was forced to cling to a handrail in the center of the aisle, served up on a silver platter. With every lurch of the carriage, the cylinder swung against my knee, and the sharp contours of the padlock pushed cleanly through the grey jersey.

Directly on the flip-seats beside me, a group of teenage girls were giggling. One held up her smartphone, the other leaned in, whispered something, and burst into loud, spiteful laughter. Her eyes darted in my direction for the space of a heartbeat.

*They see it.*

The thought hammered like a white-hot nail through my temples. The shame was so absolute, so obliterating, that I wanted nothing more than to drop to my knees and sink into the filthy linoleum floor of the carriage. Every beautiful, untouchable woman in this train seemed to see right through me, seemed to smell the perverse, conditioned defect I was parading under this thin scrap of cloth.

Yet right in that moment of suffocating dread, the poison surged through my veins once more: the terror devoured me—and transmuted into an arousal so dark, so scalding hot that my vision blurred. The caged flesh inside the cylinder reared up greedily against the steel bars, throbbing painfully against the lock, searching desperately for give. I was the ultimate laughingstock of Berlin, a walking, locked-away secret—and my own body celebrated that naked humiliation with every single heartbeat.

When the train pulled up at Schönhauser Allee, I stumbled out into the open air on trembling knees. The crisp draft against my burning cheeks brought no relief. My entire body hummed with high voltage.

A few minutes later, I stood in the stucco-lined, echoing stairwell of an old apartment building in Prenzlauer Berg. My hand shook so violently I nearly missed the brass buzzer.

*Ding-dong.*

The chime faded. Behind the heavy timber, light footsteps approached, followed by the latch turning. The door swung open.

Nadja stood before me. She wore tight black leggings that accentuated her long legs, paired with an oversized, cream-knit sweater slipping loosely off one shoulder. Her blonde hair was pinned up in a messy bun, a few loose strands framing her face, her sea-blue eyes flashing bright.

"Hey there, my little escape artist," she said, a velvety mockery playing upon her lips.