CHAPTER FOUR: The Wall

The laughter grew louder as the hour wore on. Voices mellowed by brandy and cigar smoke, the scent of them lacing through the air with something else, spice, warmth, a subtle, animal dominance that made the room feel smaller.

Carl was glowing.

He stood among a circle of men at the far end of the hall, glass in hand, nodding, grinning, laughing at just the right moments. His tie was loosened. His stance wide. Comfortable. Home.

I hovered near the edge of the room, breathless every time a man ordered something.

Then my tray was gone.

I didn’t remember setting it down.

Clara passed by me, whispering something to another woman I didn’t know, tall, pale, blank-eyed. They exchanged no expressions. Just a gesture, and then they walked together across the room, skirts swaying in unison like pendulums.

A man stepped forward from the circle around Carl.

Not Harrow.

Taller.

Older.

His face stern. Mouth a pale line.

He clapped Carl on the shoulder, said something I couldn’t hear, and then raised his voice, not loud, but enough:

“Put them away.”

The air shifted.

Women stopped moving.

Like marionettes whose strings had just been tugged, every gray-clad figure turned.

Clara looked at me. Her eyes flicked once to the side.

A signal.

Movement began.

All at once, the women crossed the floor, toward a heavy side door I hadn’t noticed before, partly concealed behind a thick burgundy curtain. They moved without resistance. Without question.

Like this was expected.

Normal.

Clara passed me and placed a soft hand on my back.

“This way,” she whispered.

“Wait,” I murmured, casting a glance toward Carl. “Aren’t we… staying?”

The question felt naïve as I said it.

She didn’t answer.

Just kept walking.

I followed.

Behind me, Carl’s voice rang again, deeper now, richer.

A man had asked him something.

Carl laughed. “I think she’s taken to it. Quick learner.”

The door opened.

A chill hit me.

Stone.

The floor changed underfoot, from warm, waxed wood to cold, pale stone that bit at the soles of my slippers.

The room was large and dim, lit only by a single bulb overhead.

I froze in the doorway.

Seven other women stood already inside. Each one dressed like me. Their dresses clung damply to thighs and hips, wrinkled and darkened from moisture and heat. Their cheeks were flushed. Hair slightly mussed.

They didn’t speak.

Didn’t seem to blink.

Clara stepped to the side.

I stayed frozen.

Then he entered.

The man who’d told them to put us away.

He stepped into the room like he belonged to it.

Boots loud on stone.

He scanned us, one slow pass. His gaze touched each face like a weight.

Then he spoke:

“Kneel. Face the wall. Smush your face. Lift your ass.”

No inflection. No cruelty. Just instruction.

I stared at him.

That’s not,

Why? Why are we,

My body moved.

Before the question could finish in my mind, my knees bent.

I sank.

The stone was hard. Unforgiving. My hands reached for the wall, palms splaying against it. My cheek pressed to the cold surface. My nose bent. My mouth mashed sideways.

I wanted to fight it.

Wanted to scream.

But my hips lifted.

Automatically.

My skirt rode up.

My panties clung, sticky and soaked from earlier.

Behind me, I heard seven other bodies mirror mine, knees on stone, dresses sliding, cheeks pressing.

The wall was rough beneath my skin. My knees ached instantly.

But I didn’t move.

The man paced behind us.

Slow. Even.

There was no speech. No explanation.

Just the thud of boots.

And the low, distant hum of male voices from the other room.

Carl was out there.

Laughing.

Talking.

Being welcomed.

And I was here.

Pressed against cold stone.

Knees spread. Ass lifted. Pussy exposed beneath thin cotton.

Waiting.

I blinked.

Why am I not part of it?

Why am I,

“Closer,” the man said.

I obeyed.

My forehead thudded softly against the stone as I pushed harder into it.

“Higher.”

I whimpered.

My hips lifted.

The hem of my dress bunched at my waist.

The air hit my thighs, cool against damp skin.

I heard a drip.

Soft.

Mine.

Oh God.

What’s happening to me?

The silence in the room was louder than any scream.

I could hear every breath, every shuffle.

“Be still,” he said.

And my body locked.

Everything in me wanted to move.

To adjust. To escape the ache building in my knees. The fire blooming between my legs.

But the order stood.

And obeying it… felt good.

Worse, it felt right.

Even now, disoriented, aching, humiliated, I didn’t move.

Not because I couldn’t.

Because the idea of disobeying made my chest tighten with guilt.

Shame.

Fear.

I stayed.

The voices from the other room grew louder. I heard Carl again. Someone called him “brother.”

Another said, “She’ll do nicely.”

Laughter followed.

The women beside me didn’t react.

Neither did I.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to cum.

I didn’t know which was worse.

Minutes passed.

I could feel the wetness soaking into my panties again. The throb of my clit against the fabric. The raw, shivering ache of arousal that had no release.

I was stuck in it.

Suspended.

Programmed to want.

Too conditioned to reach for it.

I whimpered softly.

The stone smelled of polish and dust and something deeper, musk and sex and years of women pressing their faces to it.

And I stayed.

Because a man had told me to.

And the part of me that still remembered who I was?

Could only scream inside.