He had also lost track of the changes underway inside his mind and body. He reacted to light strangely, as if it brought the comfort of food or a warm touch even when it was simply the removal of the blindfold. He became accustomed to the loss of control of his body as he was shackled to his bed at night, no longer pissed when he wanted, no longer held his own penis to do so, no longer even shat without someone in attendance. He ate like an animal off the plate they placed on the floor, food that was unrecognizable although flavorful and evidently nourishing.

There were daily parades into rooms where people waited, all of them masked. He stood with other naked submissives as the masked people chatted, drank, nibbled on hors d’oeuvres, occasionally casting their eyes in his direction, occasionally stroking his body and the cock that strained in front of him. After a first few times of shivering humiliation and terror, he took their glances, their touching, as comfort. His worry that they might know him, recognize, spread gossip about what they had seen, slowly subsided into the greater submissive state of mind that fed his constant arousal.

No longer questioning his decision to come here, his thoughts now focused on the current situation, the moment in which he existed, whether his attention was captured by the lash or the ever larger plug in his anus, or the engorgement that plagued his genitals. The people who serviced him had become objects of his affection—he wanted to kiss Sal who nightly administered to his fracturing body, the woman who slipped her hand over his cock each morning to help him piss.

Everything excited his senses. He’d never felt so alive. Yet for all the arousal, he had not been allowed to have another ejaculation. The need to release had slipped to the background, no less urgent, no less achingly painful, but one of those things he endured like he endured the beatings. He felt like a stringed instrument, increasingly tuned to a finer and finer tightness, waiting for the right moment, the right hand, that would turn him into a beautiful song.