New university, old friends

The cool, tiled corridors of the Charité historic wing smelled of floor wax, disinfectant, and damp autumn rain. Freshers crowded every corner—excited voices, rustling notepads, shoes clicking against the terrazzo floor. I hurried past them with stiff, awkward strides, eyes fixed strictly on the ground.

With every step, the padlock drove deeper against my pubic bone. The narrow strap of the black lace thong cut relentlessly between my cheeks, while the sheer lace waistband chafed without mercy at my hips. Stiff denim pressed the cylinder hard against raw nerves with every movement. It was an ordeal that intensified with every passing yard.

I veered sharply into the secluded basement washroom, shoved the heavy swing door open, and locked myself inside the rearmost stall.

The bolt slid home. Leaning my back against the white partition, I shut my eyes and fought to bring the trembling in my knees under control.

Inside my pocket, the phone buzzed. Not a simple text—a long, demanding vibration.

I pulled it out. On the display, a digital countdown was ticking away: *02:47… 02:46…*

Beneath ran the terse directive from Loona:

**Loona:** *Freshers' welcome in Lecture Hall East in ten minutes. Verification photo in front of the mirror. Waistband pushed down to the lock, lace clearly visible, with the Charité wall tiles in the background. Three minutes, John. If the timer runs out, I’m sending Nadja a lovely picture from our shopping trip.*

An icy wave of panic washed over me. My breath hitched. Muted voices filtered through the thin stall door—footsteps echoing across the tiles, taps turning on with a hiss.

"…did you see who’s taking Anatomy I? The guy's supposed to be brutal in the orals," a deep, youthful voice said outside by the mirrors.

"Whatever, as long as we survive dissection lab," another laughed, followed by the tearing of paper towels. "Med-school party at the club on Friday anyway. You in?"

"Obviously, can't miss that."

Right out there, two guys my age were talking about their futures—about dissection tables, exams, freedom, and a clean slate. The world I had studied years for, the goal I had fought through the grading cutoff to reach, lay just beyond this thin wooden partition. Yet I was no part of it. I was no aspiring physician, no free student stepping out into adult life. I was a leashed fixture in women's underwear, remote-controlled through a screen.

*01:15… 01:14…*

The digits ran down without pity.

With clammy, shaking fingers, I loosened my belt, popped the top button of my stiff jeans, and worked the fly and denim a few inches down. Gossamer black lace stretched sheer across my hipbones, revealing beneath it the dull, silent steel of the cage. The miniature brass padlock dangled cold against inflamed tissue.

Lifting the phone, I framed the shot so the Charité's distinctive yellowish tiles filled the background and pressed the shutter.

The shutter sound snapped through the narrow stall—a tiny mechanical click that hit my ears like a gunshot. Hurriedly, I yanked the trousers back up, fastened the waist, and tapped *Send* with a numb thumb.

*00:18… Delivered.*

Outside, the washroom door slammed shut; the students' footsteps receded down the hall.

My display lit up almost immediately.

**Loona:** *Good boy. Get to the lecture hall now. Sit right in the front row so you don't miss a thing. And don't you dare fidget on those wooden benches when it pinches.*

Pocketing the phone, I pressed my forehead against the cool timber of the stall door, biting my lip until I tasted copper. Cold iron pressed hard against bone, the lace burned against my skin, and out in the stairwell the chime signaled the opening lecture of my academic life.

The memory from that day flared before my eyes with sudden, vivid sharpness: Emma, collapsed on our living room rug, trembling lips pressed to Loona’s stockinged foot. The poised, haughty girl from old money who had looked down her nose at me for years, systematically dismantled by Loona with surgical precision that afternoon.

And now here stood that exact same Emma.

Right in the middle of the crowded foyer of the Charité lecture wing. She wore an impeccably tailored cashmere coat over an understated silk blouse, her blonde hair falling in soft, immaculate waves over her shoulders. She looked untouchable, breathtakingly striking—projecting that same aloof, aristocratic composure she had worn like armor back in school. But this time I knew what lay beneath the polished surface: a web of leverage and total submission whose strings were still pulled by Loona.

She stood among three other medical students, all polished, deep in lively conversation about professors, flats in Mitte, and prep courses. Emma laughed at a friend's remark, turned casually—and her eyes locked with mine.

For a fraction of a second, the smile vanished from her lips. Her eyes widened minutely, a subtle shadow of tension darting across her features. I couldn't read her in the slightest: Was she still the broken puppet answering every command? Did she despise me all the more for having witnessed her lowest point? Or did she already know that Loona held me on an entirely different, far more intimate leash?

Before I could turn away or melt into the crowd, Emma raised her hand.

"John!" she called across the noise, her voice clear and melodic. Her companions trailed off mid-sentence, turning curiously in my direction.

Stepping away from the group, Emma closed the distance with a few measured strides, taking me in with a look that defied simple categorization—a blend of calculated familiarity, quiet amusement, and underlying caution.

"You actually made it here," she said with a smile that must have read as warm recognition to the bystanders, though an edge cut underneath. She assessed my rigid posture, let her eyes dip briefly down the line of my jeans, and met my gaze dead-on. "Come on, don't just stand there looking lost. I saved seats for us in the third row. Come sit with us—my friends are dying to know who this brilliant mind is I've been telling them about."

Every step in her direction was a physical and psychological trial.

Beneath the stiff denim, the narrow thong cut deep into my flesh. The freezing stainless cage bore hard against my pubic bone with every minute shift; the miniature padlock hung heavy, dragging across inflamed tissue. Knowing this immaculate, beautiful girl was looking directly at me while I stood before her wrapped in sheer lingerie sent a burning wave of shame through my veins—while stoking an illicit, toxic charge in my locked groin. The raw memory of her kneeling before Loona collided with the humiliation of my own state, spiraling into a heady, perilous fog.

"I… I'm not sure that's a good idea, Emma," I managed hoarsely, casually slipping my hands into my pockets to stifle any faint chime of the hardware through the fabric.

"Don't be ridiculous," she countered dryly, stepping half an inch closer and catching my forearm.

Her fingers tightened firmly around my sleeve. The touch was commanding, bordering on imperious—the old Emma through and through, accustomed to having her way. But as she leaned in for a fleeting breath, her voice dropped low enough that none of her friends could catch the words.

"Drop the act, John," she whispered, a razor-thin smirk touching her lips that turned my blood cold. "You're coming inside with me, and you're sitting right by my side. Neither of us wants your dear stepsister hearing that we avoided each other on day one… do we?"

An icy shiver tracked down my spine. She knew. She knew with absolute certainty that we were both pieces on the exact same board—and she was already maneuvering to bend the game to her advantage.