Chapters tagged keyholder

by Levantin

Chapter 29

The soft click of the bedroom door snapped Vanessa out of her daze for a fraction of a second, but her gaze remained burned onto my crotch. The shame choked the air from my lungs so ruthlessly that I couldn't even blink. “What’s going on here?” Loona’s voice rang out. She strol...

by Levantin

Chapter 30

Three days. Three damn nights where every careless turn in my sleep woke me to the unyielding chill of metal. At first, it had been sheer horror: my body's morning reflexes ended every time in a dull, agonizing throb, as the edges of the cage mercilessly choked off the slightest...

by Levantin

Chapter 33

The second the bedroom door clicked shut behind John, I let myself fall backward onto the mattress. My legs were still parted slightly, and the room's cool air brushed across the damp fabric of my sweatpants. I took a deep breath through my nose. My entire body was still humming...

by Levantin

Chapter 38

The heavy apartment door clicked shut with a solid sound. The deadbolt slid home, and in an instant, an absolute, suffocating silence settled over the hallway. I remained kneeling like a broken mess on the hardwood, pants pooled around my ankles, my thighs trembling uncontrollab...

by Levantin

Chapter 86

Loona pressed the buzzer without taking her eyes off me. The shrill hum of the door latch died away, followed by the dull thud of the building’s heavy front door echoing from the stairwell below. "Stay exactly like that," she said quietly, her voice brooking no movement. "Not a...

by Levantin

Chapter 99

The muted mid-morning light filtered through the slats of the blinds, casting slender amber ribbons across the white duvet. For the first time in weeks, waking up did not feel like a precipitous drop into sheer panic. My body felt rested. The dressing over my groin held firmly,...

by Levantin

Chapter 106

The air between us seemed to thicken, charged with the quiet murmur of the canal, the clink of cutlery from inside the bistro, and the low, persistent thrum of my own trapped pulse. Her thumb traced slow, deliberate circles over the back of my hand, each sweep sending a warm spa...

by Levantin

Chapter 113

"Come in," she said with a welcoming smile, stepping aside to clear the way into the hall. "Go ahead and leave your jacket on the coat rack. I just put a fresh pot of coffee on." I slipped past her, taking meticulous care to keep my upper body hunched slightly forward. In the na...

by Levantin

Chapter 117

The autumn wind struck my face with full as I emerged from the subway entrance into the open air. My body was a single field of high voltage: the dried layers of wax pulled at the fine hairs across my chest, the dried wine clung with a sweet, tart stickiness to my skin, and...

by Levantin

Chapter 118

The smell of formalin and disinfectant hung heavy in the cool air of the dissecting hall. All around me hummed the brisk, clinical murmur of dozens of medical students. White coats, latex gloves, the crisp clatter of scalpels and forceps against stainless-steel trays. It was a st...

by Levantin

Chapter 119

Nadja looked down at me for another lingering beat. A slow, sated smile spread across her features—the expression of someone who had enjoyed an amusing piece of theater and now decided the performance was over for the day. Picking her handbag up from the sofa, she smoothed her d...

by Levantin

Chapter 126

The trek from the hallway into the kitchen felt like walking across shattered glass. My knees still trembled from holding the rigid posture on the rug, the heavy cylinder swung sluggishly between my thighs with every stride, and my lips still burned with the taste of the precedin...

by Levantin

Chapter 159

Tuesday began with the shrill blare of my alarm and the pitiless reminder of my reality. On my knees before the bathroom mirror right on time, smartphone trembling in both hands, I took the verification photograph for \*Kidslox\*. The lens captured the smooth, shaved skin, the un...