I felt woozy.

Blood trickled down my arms, legs, and back, in small gashes.

The pain was overwhelming.

“Yes… your senses are sharp, aren’t they?”

He looked down at my pitiful, kneeling form, smiling and massaging a razor blade. It was coated in blood. My blood.

I let out a moan. Not one of pleasure, but of agony.

I felt him make another small cut, just above my breast. I yelped.

“You’re probably getting anemic, losing all this blood,” they said with an unsettling calmness. “Take deeper breaths. Gulp, don’t sip.”

I hyperventilated, trying not to let panic overtake this pain-trance I was now in. This torturous subspace.

He knelt down in front of me.

“Color,” he demanded.

“Guh…” I was running out of energy, but I didn’t want this to stop.

“Be honest.”

“Y-yellow. Just one more. Please… just one more.”

He held up my chin with the dull side of the razor’s edge.

“Just one.”

He lowered it quickly and carefully; enough for a small cut down the middle of my breasts.

“Nngh…"

Another stab of pain, just after the cut.

"Ah!”

It wasn’t the razor this time; it was an alcoholic swab brushing against the newest cut.

He chuckled. “Safety first. While I disinfect these cuts, you can just focus on that pain until it dulls…”

With enough time, and enough swabs, the pain from the cuts did just that, and my trance began to subside. He bandaged up anything that was still bleeding.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

It was difficult, and I wobbled a little, but I stood. He walked me over to his bed, where I collapsed.

I felt a sudden chill at my lips.

“Drink.”

Water. It was a bottle of water. I needed water.

I gulped; didn’t sip.

He left me for just a moment, and I lay dazed.

What an odd fixation point for hypnotic induction, pain. Hypnotees typically associate trance with relaxation and abandonment of worry. But a knife can sharpen someone’s attention all the same, and my partner proved that with aplomb.

Ngh… if only I could direct that attention of my own volition again. The cuts still stung a little. They’ll sting for a while. How am I going to sleep like this?

My partner returned with a bag of jerky, handing me a piece. I scarfed it down without a word.

They lay down next to me, caressing one of my new scars. “I can’t wait to see these marks age.”