(Contains graphic sexual and BDSM depictions involving f/f and m/f pairings, including edging, tease-and-denial, chastity, spanking, suggestions of ruined orgasms and genital pain, and some mutually rough vaginal sex. As ever, this story takes place in a forced chastity dystopia where uncoerced consent is often impossible, but characters are always over 18 and generally gain at least some enjoyment from their activities.)
***
Artemis left the gala announcement shoot with her hair wet, her head spinning, and her clit pounding inside its steel prison.
All her life, she had worked to make herself impervious to frustration. Teasing herself past the point of endurance, and then just a little further, all without any chance of release, that was just a Friday night. And doing the same with a hot partner, the way she had with Evie in their little video just now, that was one of her
favorite
pastimes.
Most of the best nights of her life had been spent more or less that way.
But this whole "partnership" with Calvin had sucked all the life out of everything she'd once enjoyed, including unfinished sex.
It hadn't been so bad when she'd just been doing odd jobs for him, in return for a few off-the-books luxuries. That was before she'd known what end goal those odd jobs were working toward.
Now that she knew, now that she'd let him sell her on this idea that things could
change
for her, it was getting harder and harder to accept the same old orgasm-free existence she'd worked so hard to make herself at home in.
Calvin had a way of making every scrap of pleasure she got, every little act of rebellion she seized, feel hollow and frivolous.
What did it matter that she had
enjoyed
making out with Evie? What did it matter that she had the discipline to enjoy it without needing to cum? What power was there in that, when the only reason she
had
to do without cumming was because Calvin had decided not to allow it?
It was one thing sneaking private little trysts outside of the Bureau's surveillance and patting herself on the back for finding some illicit joy in life. It was something else entirely trying to enjoy herself with Calvin standing right there, watching and smirking and waiting to jerk the feeling away at the cruelest possible moment.
Her pleasure was just an extension of
his
power, not her own.
That kind of dynamic was exactly why Artemis hated the Bureau. It was why she hated dominators of all kinds, every last one of them, and anyone who
wanted
to dominate too, no matter how far they were from achieving it.
But at least the Bureau would have treated her equally to most people, in the way it dominated her.
Calvin had promised that, with
him
in control, she'd at least get some consideration for all the work she'd done to put him there. She'd be a VIP at his new Privalock corporation, free to cum on a regular basis with no please-and-thank-you humiliation rituals.
Or rather, that was the latest version of his promise. Before that, it had been total freedom, and before that, total freedom for herself
and
anyone else she chose.
The deal just kept getting worse, and there was nothing she could do. She knew it and he knew it. She hadn't set up enough contingencies to protect herself. Her only backup plan had been to report him
before
he got to execute his plan, but it was too late now. The Bureau had already ceded too much power, and she couldn't take back the access she'd given him.
And now, here she was, walking through a world of people who were, at least for now, unlocked, with her own clit still securely out of reach under Calvin's new Privalock model 1 chastity belt.
Some VIP status.
She took the long way home that evening, picking the train that let off near her favorite bar along the way, and told herself that was what she was there for.
Just the bar.
Not the Bureau headquarters across the street.
She made her way laboriously along the choked sidewalk, staring at the throngs of people still waiting in the hours-long line to submit themselves for relocking. She stared because it was a hell of a spectacle, and because they were in her way.
Definitely not because she was thinking of joining them.
It would be a
bit
of a fuck you to Calvin if she did, though, wouldn't it? Especially if she volunteered to film one of those propaganda segments of theirs, right after starring in Calvin's gala announcement. Let the Bureau have a nice snappy shot of Privalock's own spokeswoman denouncing the new company and its owner.
But then she'd be resigning herself right back to the status quo she'd promised herself she would never cooperate with.
And any potential that truly lay in Calvin's Privalock vision would be lost to her. The Bureau might have an infinite forgiveness policy, but Calvin certainly didn't.
Artemis reached the front door of the bar.
She still had her old device with her old point counter in her purse, so that was one thing she could still do. She could still drink.
"Ma'am, have you decided what you're going to do about the Click?"
Artemis turned to look at the skinny little Asian kid who had spoken. No, not quite a kid, she reassessed. A man, if only just. Old enough for the lack of chain lines under his tight jeans to look out of the ordinary.
He had a fresh tan, bordering on a burn, across his nose and cheeks, as if he'd been out here all day without a break, and hadn't been particularly used to the sun beforehand.
He glanced down, tracing Artemis's own chains with his eyes.
"Ah, I see you have, sorry." He lowered the flyer he'd stretched out toward her and turned to move on.
"Wait," Artemis called out, the words at the top of the black-and-white flyer imprinting themselves on her vision.
You don't have to go back.
The guy stopped and waited, skeptical of her interest.
"You're not one of ours," she said.
Calvin no doubt had direct marketing reps working this crowd somewhere, but she knew what his handouts looked like, because she'd helped him finalize the templates. He liked everything to be glossy and bursting with primary colors.
A flicker of fear crossed the guy's face, then disappeared quickly under a friendly smile.
"One of yours?" he asked.
Artemis debated what to say about her relation to Privalock, and while she was hashing out the pros and cons to herself, the man with the wad of messy flyers turned and ran.
One moment he was smiling at her, seeming to wait patiently for her to make up her mind without a care in the world. The next he was elbowing his way forcefully through the crowd in the opposite direction, ducking deftly into the alley next to the bar and out of her line of sight.
"Hey!" Artemis shouted, running after him. She nearly slipped on the short stretch of sidewalk now littered with his abandoned flyers
You don't have to go back
.
You don't have to go back
