It All Comes Out In The Wash

Amelia's reign was one of cold, blinding efficiency and public humiliation. She streamlined the office with the precision of a surgeon excising a tumor. Staff who had been loyal to Jonathan were fired on flimsy pretexts, their positions filled by a couple of Amelia's dominant friends and a select few of her pets—men who looked at their new boss with knowing, predatory smirks. The culture of the company shifted overnight from aggressive corporate ambition to a simmering, sadistic obedience.

She took over Jonathan's corner office, its panoramic windows of Rochester now a backdrop to her power. Jonathan himself was generally kneeling in the corner, a chained accessory to her authority. A thick, polished metal post had been installed, and his collar was often locked to it, forcing him to watch as his queen ran the company he had built. Every now and then, she would need his specific expertise on a technical or logistical matter. She would permit him to crawl to the desk and sit in a chair beside her, his fingers trembling as he operated his own computer. But these moments of relevance were always followed by some kind of public, humiliating punishment. He had to call everybody in the office 'sir' or 'miss', his erstwhile colleagues now casually addressed as his superiors.

When he was punished, it was a spectacle. Amelia would call an emergency meeting in the boardroom. Jonathan, usually stripped to the waist, would be strapped down, spreadeagled to the polished oak table or bent over a high-backed chair. The punishment was a performance designed to erode his will completely. It ranged from a sharp, thorough caning that left angry red lines across his back, to her methodical, stinging bare-hand slaps that rocked his head from side to side, his face burning with shame.

At the end of the public punishment, the other members of the office would applaud, a sound that was more damning than any cane. They were no longer his employees; they were witnesses to his destruction, participants in it.

The day she broke him completely was the day she brought in her three pet boys. Jonathan had made an error on a report, a minor mistake that merited an extreme response in Amelia's new world. He was strapped face-down over the boardroom table, his trousers around his ankles. She addressed her pets. "He hasn't been a good boy. He needs reminding of his place. Fuck him."

They descended on him without hesitation, their hands rough as they held him down. One by one, they took him, their grunts and his choked sobs the only sounds in the room. When they were finished, Amelia didn't untie him. She left him there, bent over the table, their seed dripping down his legs, a public monument to his absolute degradation for the rest of the day. When she finally let him go, his eyes were empty, a hollowed-out shell of the man who had walked into the laundrette seeking a release he could never have imagined would cost him his soul.