No Safe Word

The silence in Dominique’s room wasn’t peace. It was a prelude.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop glowing like an altar, the “Mother May I?” page still taunting her. The password field pulsed faintly, like it wanted to be guessed. Like it expected her to remember.

She thought back—tried to trace the earliest memories of being watched. Of her grandmother’s stories. Her mother’s control. Her father’s cold, suspicious glances when she'd disappeared for hours with her old ballet coach. There was always someone monitoring her. Someone shaping her. Now someone was using it against her.

She didn’t know whether the Fox was a stranger... or someone who had always been there.

But tonight, she’d tear the mask off.

By midnight, Dominique was in her car—hood up, coat zipped, gloves on. She left the Domica gear behind. No corset, no heels. Only her mind, her plan, and a hard drive full of encrypted messages she’d extracted from the Fox’s deleted trail.

Marco had taught her how to mask her IP, how to reroute through abandoned school servers and decommissioned military nodes. She activated her firewall and slipped on her headset. The Fox liked theatrics. So tonight, she'd give him a play of his own.

Her screen flickered as she initiated a private stream—invite-only.

She called it:

“The Cage.”

There was no face. Just her voice. Low. Controlled. Icy.

“Tonight, there’s no playroom. No safe word. No mercy.”

She uploaded the digital fingerprints she had traced earlier—photoshopped glimpses of the Fox’s own messages. Edited timestamps. A few twisted details.

A honeytrap.

If the Fox joined... he’d want to correct her. That was the kind of ego she was counting on.

And he did.

Thirty minutes in, a new username appeared in the stream:

MadBastard_

“You’re wrong. I never said that at 12:09. Your metadata is fake.”

Bingo.

Dominique grinned.

She traced his IP. Bogus, of course. But not perfect. It rerouted through three nodes, the last one a university campus.

She started recording.

“Oh, darling,” she purred into the mic, voice slipping into Domica’s cadence. “So eager to be seen.”

“You think this is sight?” the Fox replied. “This is nothing.”

She tilted her head, brows lifting. “Then show me something real.”

There was a pause in the chat. Then a file drop.

Untitled.mp4

She hesitated—then clicked.

The screen played a static-ridden clip. It was grainy, badly lit, but she recognized the voice instantly.

Her mother.

“You think this family runs on your lies, Dominique? Do you know what I gave up to keep your name clean? You want to play pretend in shadows, go ahead. But when you drag us down, don’t expect me to catch you.”

The video was old. Hidden camera footage. It must’ve been taken from one of the few blowouts she’d had with her mother at home.

That wasn’t just a threat.

It was blackmail.

Dominique’s hand hovered over her keyboard. A thousand thoughts buzzed through her mind, but only one mattered:

This wasn’t just personal anymore. It was intimate.

Whoever this was had been inside her life, her mind, her pain. And they were turning it into performance art.

So she’d do the same.

Her next move? A trap so personal, so emotionally charged, that only someone truly obsessed would take the bait.

She ended the stream and walked into the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. Her reflection stared back—calm, perfect, controlled. But the tightness in her chest was real.

She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a necklace: black velvet, the same one she'd worn in her first Domica video.

Then she slipped it on.

One more role to play.

One more lie to weaponize.

Tonight, the Fox had shown her a ghost from her past.

Tomorrow, she’d return the favor.

And there’d be no safe word when it started to burn.

The air in the bathroom was still. Too still.

The kind of silence you get right before glass shatters.

Dominique gripped the porcelain sink, her knuckles white. The weight of that old footage—her mother’s voice crackling through the computer—still rang in her ears like a wound refusing to close. That video wasn't just a violation. It was a declaration.

The Fox wasn’t hunting for her secrets.

He was recreating them.

He didn’t want to ruin her.

He wanted to be her.

She stared at herself in the mirror—hair tucked back, neck bare except for the velvet collar. Her breathing was shallow, chest rising and falling in tight intervals, like she was being watched even now.

Because she was.

Of course she was.

Her mind darted back to the day that footage must have been recorded. She’d just turned fifteen. A full-blown screaming match with her mother after Dominique had refused to go to a gala. She hadn’t wanted to smile for cameras, pretend to be perfect, pretend not to notice how many men looked at her too long.

That fight had ended with broken glass, a broken curfew, and her father blaming her for the fallout. And now it was digitized. Weaponized.

Who the hell had been there? Who was watching them all that time?

She shook the thought away.

Panic was poison.

Focus was the cure.

Dominique stepped out of the bathroom and crossed to her desk. With practiced fingers, she pulled open her hidden drawer and retrieved a black leather-bound journal. The one she hadn’t opened since freshman year. It was where Domica was born—in messy ink, wild sketches, quotes she used to cling to like armor.

She flipped to a page in the center.

“You can’t burn a girl who lives in flame.”

Her own handwriting stared back at her like a prophecy.

She exhaled and began writing again. A plan. A confession. A script.

One the Fox would never expect.

The next morning, Dominique walked through the courtyard of school with surgical precision. Her stride was clean, face blank, expression unreadable. She wore her signature cream cashmere sweater and pleated skirt—but her mind was still dressed in shadows.

She wasn’t here for classes.

She was here for confirmation.

She scanned the crowd. Most kids laughed in their usual cliques, unaware of how close she was to snapping. But a few pairs of eyes lingered a little too long. A few whispers were just a little too quiet. The news was spreading.

About Domica.

About the voice on the stream.

She heard a faint hiss behind her. “Mistress in the flesh.”

She didn’t turn.

Not yet.

But her pulse spiked.

By lunch, she had what she needed.

Three notes. Two from lockers. One slipped inside her thermos.

All unsigned.

Velvet suits blood.

You don’t need your crown to beg.

Catch me, kitten.

She crushed the last one in her hand.

The Fox was already inside the walls.

Back home that night, she didn’t shower.

She didn’t cry.

She dressed.

Fully.

Leather gloves. Thigh-high boots. And the collar.

She turned on the lights, arranged the camera, and opened a new folder on her laptop.

Title: Control.exe

She was done playing defense.

She hit record.

“Let’s raise the stakes,” she whispered to the camera.

Then she smiled, wide and dangerous, like the wolf she had once feared.

But now?

Now she was hunting him.