The second strike was slower.
She pressed her hand to his chest, grounding him, before slamming her palm upward with mechanical precision.
The cage dug inward. Flesh compressed. He thought he might vomit — but didn’t. She wouldn’t let him.
Pain became focus. Breath became counting. He clung to the numbers like a drowning man clings to driftwood.
“One… Two… Three…”
She paused between each.
“Tell me what you are,” she said.
“I… I am subject.”
“What else?”
“I am not Elias.”
“Better. Again.”
Another hit — this time from her boot. Sideways. Sharp. His body bucked in the restraints, and his vision went white for a second. But the chastity cage didn’t crack. Neither did she.
“You are learning,” she said. “Pain reveals the truth.”
He sobbed once — not from weakness. From clarity.
The restraints weren’t punishment. They were scaffolding.
She was carving a cathedral into his psyche, and every act of humiliation was another sacred stone.
After the final strike — he lost count around nine — she untied him. Not gently.
He collapsed to the floor, body twitching, breath ragged. Mistress Seraphine knelt beside him, her gloved hand stroking his cheek. A moment of softness, but not affection — more like admiration for a sculpture halfway complete.
“You did not break,” she said. “But you did shatter.”
He trembled.
She leaned in close. Her breath touched his ear.
“Now we begin to rebuild.”