The Upper Room Pt. 03

The atrium is a cathedral tonight.

Not of God--of her. Of us. Of what I've become.

Light bleeds through a hundred candles, their flames molten tongues licking at mirrored panels, throwing back visions of silk and sin. Crimson carpets swallow my bare feet; incense--citrus, smoke, myrrh--threads through air so heavy it feels holy.

I walk.

I don't breathe so much as sip the dark, knees threatening collapse with every step. Pink panties cling damp between my thighs. Everything else--the slip, the last tatters of shame--gone. My skin smells of oil Betty massaged in herself, each touch a quiet violence.

At the far end: the throne. Not a throne by name, but in nature--a velvet seat crouched at the top of three black marble steps. She's draped across it like a sin disguised as sacrament: white silk robe edged in black, hair slicked into a glossed severity that makes her cheekbones cut glass. Her bare feet rest on the first step.

To her left: Rita, a wound of red silk on a chaise, legs scissored, a glass sweating gin against her palm. Her smile isn't a smile. It's a blade between lips lacquered like spilled blood.

To her right: James. Bare chest, obsidian eyes. Stillness so taut it hums. The only betrayal is his fists--unclenching, clenching--slow as a clock counting down to detonation.

And me--my knees buckle. I hit the carpet like gravity's whore.

Head down. Hands flat. My pulse crawls in my throat, begging for permission to live.

"Look at me."

Her voice is a low bell rung in silk.

My chin lifts.

Betty extends one hand--long, pale, nails black as verdicts.

"Come."

I crawl. Every inch is a prayer I don't remember learning. My palms glide over crimson nap. My breath fogs mirrored glass to either side, smearing me into ghosts.

When I reach the first step, I freeze. The slit in her robe has fallen open just enough to reveal the architecture of her thighs--ivory arcs cut from worship and winter.

My mouth floods with want.

"Up."

The word folds my spine. I kneel on the step below hers, throat tight, cunt throbbing in its pink shroud.

She tips her head, studies me like a sculptor eyeing raw marble. Then--without looking away--she lifts a cut-glass vial from the tray at her side. Unstoppers it with a click soft as a gun cocked behind cotton.

The scent rises--sandalwood, amber, resin. A sacrament in liquid form.

"Hold still."

The first drop hits my shoulder like a sun dripping fire. It rolls slow, a molten thread curving down my clavicle, splitting between my breasts. Her fingers follow.

Cold rings, warm skin. A glide that redraws me.

"You see this?" Her voice fans out, slow, deliberate--aimed not at me but at them. "Every inch of her--mine."

Her palm cups my breast, not squeezing, just weighing it like a claim of flesh. My nipple hardens to a diamond. She flicks it once--precise, almost bored. My breath tears free on a hiss.

James doesn't move. But I feel his stare scorch.

Betty smirks--small, surgical--and tips more oil into the hollow of my belly. It sluices down, vanishes into pink elastic, turns cotton into a wet flag of surrender.

She bends--her breath a frost bloom at my ear.

"Doctrine," she whispers, voice threading through the gathered crowd of mansionites.

"You don't speak unless I say. You don't come unless I name you. You don't breathe for yourself--you breathe for me. Whose breath are you?"

"Y-yours."

A smile grazes my jaw. "Good girl."

Good girl. Oh God. The words land like nails of sugar hammered through my cunt.

"Kneel lower," she purrs.

I sink until my mouth hovers over her bare foot. She doesn't offer it. Not yet. She gestures beyond me, her tone casual as murder in moonlight.

"James."

The air moves. Heat looms. I smell him--salt, male skin, something bitter like rage rage caramelised,

.

Then--fingers. Two. Thick. Sliding past my lips before thought can barricade.

My throat chokes a sob. I swallow it. He pushes deeper, curling slow like a question mark carved from bone.

"Breathe around him," Betty murmurs, her palm stroking the nape of my neck as if I'm a harp and she knows the strings. "Slow. Yes. Like that."

My lips stretch. Saliva ladders my chin. My cunt pulses, traitor muscle beating its drum: take-take-take.

"Enough."

The fingers leave. A slick rope of spit clings to my lip, snaps.

Betty tilts my face, wipes my mouth with her thumb like smudging war paint.

"Rita," she says.

The name splits the hush.

Rita rises in a rustle of crimson, the glass abandoned like an afterthought. She moves like molten glass--slow, liquid, dangerous.

She stops in front of me. Hooks two fingers in my hair. Jerks my head back until my spine bows like a bowstring.

"Open wider," she purrs--and crushes her mouth on mine.

Teeth. Tongue. Blood bloom as she bites my lip until copper floods my gums.

Her thigh wedges between mine. Hot. Bare. She grinds up once, obscene and slow, and my hips betray me--rolling like a tide dragged by a black moon.

"Feel that?" she hisses, lips grazing my cheek as her nails spear my scalp. "That's the edge. I could tip you over it. Right here. Right now."

A whimper splinters my throat.

"Don't," Betty says. Soft. Lethal.

Rita freezes. Breath ragged. A laugh like glass cracking slips out of her.

"Not yet," Betty adds--and Rita shoves my head forward, releasing me like trash, retreating in a shimmer of scarlet rage. The silence yawns. My pulse throbs against my ribs like fists. Betty lifts something from the tray. Black. Gleaming. The collar.

Wide leather lined in blush-pink suede, its D-ring polished to a holy gleam. At the centre, engraved in steel: CHATTE.

My breath shreds.

She holds it high--ceremonial, obscene--and for a flicker I swear the candles bow.

"Bow lower," she murmurs.

I fold until my forehead kisses marble.

The leather closes around my throat in a hush of inevitability. The buckle snicks. The ring dangles like a verdict.

"Look at me."

I lift.

Her face is a white eclipse. Her smile is scripture.

"Circuit," she says.

The word falls like a blade.

"Show them."

I crawl.

First to James. His thighs sprawl wide on the velvet ottoman like thrones of muscle. His cock swells under charcoal cotton, a blunt monolith. His hand descends--two fingers hooking my chin, prying my mouth like a chalice.

"Suck," he orders.

I do. I take him deep, throat clutching, spit pearling down to my collar. He drags out slow, leaves me gasping. His smile is a snarl carved from sex and spite.

"Next," Betty croons.

Rita waits coiled on silk. Her hand spears my hair, jerks me between her thighs where the robe's fallen open to bare slick heat.

"Eat," she says, voice frayed raw.

I dive. Tongue stabbing, sucking salt and gin from her folds as her hips saw against my face. Her moans splinter the dark--high, bright, broken. She yanks me off mid-climax, says "ohhh mmnm!" she slaps me hard enough to spin stars.

"Back," Betty says.

I crawl. Slick-faced. Spit-strung. Knees burning silk to heat.

Betty pats her lap.

"Climb."

I straddle her thigh. The robe parts. Her skin is marble gone fever-hot.

"Ride."

The word detonates in my skull.

I grind. Helpless. My cunt floods pink cotton to translucence. Betty fists the back of my hair, jerks my head until my mouth blooms open like a wound.

"Look at me," she hisses--and the mask cracks.

"You're mine," she snarls. "Mine, you sweet little chatte--fuck, yes, come for me--"

Language dies. I gush. Violent. A hot storm sluicing over her thigh, down marble, baptizing the altar in salt and lemons.

And through the white roar in my head, another voice unfurls--thin, silver, crawling from marrow: Oeuvre, ma belle... je suis à toi... Willow...

Yes. Yes, I'm--

"Who are you?" Betty's whisper scalps my ear.

"... Willow."

The name falls like glass into still water.

Betty exhales. Laughs once--low, feral, triumphant. Then her voice ices back to law: "She is mine. Look well. You may want her. You may touch her. But you will never own her."

The candles gutter. The air congeals to silence.

I collapse against her thigh, collar biting my throat, breath dragging like chains.

And in that hush, through lips wet with prayer and sin, I whisper again--soft as a grave opening, into her cunt: "Willow."