What Remains of a Man

Violet dragged herself up the basement stairs on hands and knees at first. Her legs would not hold her. Every step sent fresh echoes of the assault through her body even though her skin was clean and her clothes were dry. The single tear had dried on her cheek. The sobs had quieted into hitching, exhausted breaths.

The kitchen light was still on.

Ben remained in the same chair.

He had not moved. His upper body was slumped forward over the table, cheek pressed to the wood, arms hanging limp at his sides. His face was gray. A thin line of spit connected the corner of his mouth to the tabletop. His eyes were open but empty, fixed on nothing. The careful, pained posture from earlier in the day was gone. In its place was the stillness of something that had been used past the point of reaction.

Violet’s stomach clenched.

She forced herself the rest of the way across the floor and touched his shoulder. The muscle under her hand was slack. For one long second she thought the House had taken everything and left her with a corpse.

Then Ben drew a thin, shuddering breath.

Not dead.

Just broken.

His eyes shifted a fraction toward her hand but did not focus. A small, continuous tremor ran through him. Beneath the table the rigid shape of the chastity cage was still visible against his trousers, and every so often his thighs twitched as if the sealed pressure inside it continued to pulse even now. Whatever the House had done to him while it ruined her had left him emptied out. The man who had once controlled rooms full of patients was gone. What sat in the chair was only the shell that remained.

Violet sank into the chair opposite him. Her own body still thrummed with the phantom stretch of being airtight, with the memory of the dildo’s contour moving in her throat and chest. Shame and residual heat twisted together until she could not tell them apart.

Ben breathed again, shallow and wet.

Alive.

Ruined.

The Murder House settled around them both, quiet and thoroughly satisfied with its work.