Punishment and Ice

“It’s easy to play a goddess—until your own altar starts to crack.”

The mask felt heavier than usual.

It clung to her skin like guilt, pressing across her cheekbones with a weight that couldn’t be blamed on leather. Dominique adjusted the strap behind her head with fingers that trembled—not from fear, but from the absence of feeling at all.

She stood before her mirror in full Domica attire.

Corset cinched to perfection. Thigh-high boots polished to a sinful sheen. Riding crop in hand. Eyes hollow behind red velvet.

She looked like power.

She felt like static.

Her laptop glowed behind her. In The Velvet Room, the world was waiting.

She logged in.

Two clients tonight. Regulars.

She chose them for a reason.

Nathan—screenname GutterPrince—was a masochist with a mouth. He liked to be slapped into obedience.

And Milo—ObeyMePls—was a silent pain lover. Shy. Quick to bruise. Faster to whimper.

Domica had brought both of them to tears before.

She needed that again. The rhythm. The ritual.

To remind herself that she was still Her.

They entered the session together, already naked, already kneeling. They called her Mistress in stereo, heads bowed, arms behind their backs.

She smiled.

It felt like borrowed muscle memory.

“You’ve both been very, very disobedient,” she said coolly.

“I’m sorry, Mistress,” Milo whispered.

“Beg for your punishment,” she snapped.

“Please use me, Mistress,” Nathan grinned, too eager. “Break me.”

Good. Familiar.

She stepped into the rhythm.

The session began with nipple clamps. Easy. Predictable. She applied them with slow ceremony, dragging her voice across their nerves like silk and fire.

“You’re not allowed to come tonight,” she told them.

They nodded. Obedient. Perfect.

She lifted her crop and cracked it against Nathan’s thigh. He grunted.

Crack.

Milo whimpered.

Crack. Crack.

Pain bloomed. She saw it. Felt it through the screen.

But something was wrong.

Her breath didn’t hitch. Her blood didn’t sing.

They were breaking.

But she wasn’t rising.

Then it happened.

Nathan moved before she gave the command.

Just a flicker—his hand shifted, adjusting his own clamp.

She froze.

A breath passed.

Two.

Her voice faltered.

“Did I give you permission to move?”

“No, Mistress.”

“Then why did you?”

Silence.

Nathan smiled—just slightly. Enough.

“Because you didn’t sound like Her.”

The words slammed into her like icewater down her spine.

She stepped back.

On screen, Milo looked up, confused.

In the chat box, an anonymous message appeared:

“She’s bleeding.”

No username. No timestamp. Just that.

The other members watching went quiet.

Domica snapped.

“Face down. Now.”

She barked orders. Loud. Brutal. Unrelenting. She grabbed her electro-wand and turned it on full setting, threatening. Her voice hitched. She whipped hard.

Too hard.

Milo cried out—not from pleasure.

And Nathan?

He laughed.

“You’re not Her tonight.”

He disconnected.

Milo followed.

The screen went dark.

Domica sat still for ten full minutes.

Then she tore off the mask and threw it across the room.

Her corset followed. Then her boots.

She stood there in her panties and smudged lipstick, shaking.

Alone.

In bed, she wore only her robe.

Silk. Black. The one she used to lounge in after a good session.

Tonight it felt like a funeral shroud.

Her journal sat on her nightstand. The leather one. The one with the word Mistress embossed on the front in gold.

She flipped it open to a random page.

“Power is only beautiful when you don’t need it to feel worthy.”

She remembered writing that. Drunk off the thrill of her first big session. The one where the client had cried and thanked her between sobs and pleasure.

She’d felt invincible.

She didn’t feel that now.

Now she felt like she was clawing at a stage that no longer existed beneath her feet.

Her fingers hovered over her laptop.

She didn’t open it.

She didn’t check messages.

She didn’t ask WolfEyes89 where the hell he was.

She just lay down.

Face turned to the ceiling.

Tears drying before they ever made it out.

She whispered to herself, just once:

“I’m still Her.”

But her body didn’t believe it.

And neither did her soul.

The next morning, Dominique arrived at Saint Madeleine’s ten minutes early, uniform pristine and expression unreadable.

But inside, she was rotting.

She’d barely slept. The session failure echoed in her chest like footsteps down a corridor she could no longer walk with confidence. Every glance in the mirror felt like an interrogation. Her mascara had run the night before. She didn’t wipe it off until dawn.

Today she’d be perfect.

Again.

She had to be.

But Saint Madeleine’s had blood in the water.

And girls like Priscilla Vaughn could smell it.

Priscilla was everything Dominique was on paper: rich, refined, intelligent, and ruthless in her ambitions. But unlike Dominique, Priscilla didn’t wear a mask—she wore a mirror. She reflected whatever people wanted from her, whether that was sweetness, sarcasm, or the ability to drop someone’s social standing with a single fake rumor.

She’d always respected Dominique. Even feared her a little.

Until now.

“Rough night?” Priscilla asked as they crossed paths in the hallway, her voice honeyed with venom.

Dominique didn’t flinch.

“I don’t dream, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Priscilla smiled sweetly. “That explains the dead eyes.”

There was a pause.

Girls nearby turned slightly. The tension was thick enough to spread with a knife.

Dominique tilted her head, lips curling slowly.

“Tell me, Priss. How does it feel knowing you’ll always be my understudy?”

Priscilla’s smile didn’t waver. But her pupils twitched.

“I don’t mind being behind,” she said, stepping closer, voice low. “Not when the Queen’s crown is slipping.”

The bell rang. Dominique walked away without a word.

But she felt it.

Her control was no longer sacred.

And Priscilla was ready to carve her out of her own kingdom.

By mid-morning, Dominique was unraveling again.

She fumbled her French presentation—twice. She forgot her blazer in the locker room. And during fencing practice, her hand slipped, leaving her opponent’s blade pressed to her chest.

“You okay?” the coach asked.

She nodded.

Lied.

The final straw came during the last class of the day—when her phone buzzed with a message from an unlisted number:

You’re leaking. —W

Her blood went cold.

Not bleeding.

Leaking.

Power. Presence. Identity.

He knows.

Her grip on the phone tightened until her nails left half-moons in her palm.

She didn’t mean to storm out of the building.

She didn’t mean to knock shoulders with someone in the hallway, nearly dropping her bag.

But when she looked up—snarling, ready to snap—

It was Damien.

He looked down at her with those unreadable storm-colored eyes.

Same dark clothes.

Same presence that sucked the air out of the room.

But this time, she wasn’t intrigued.

She was furious.

Because he knew something. And she didn’t know how much.

“Watch it,” she snapped.

He blinked once. Calm. Unbothered.

Then—barely a movement—his mouth lifted into a smirk.

Not arrogant.

Mocking.

And he kept walking.

Dominique stood frozen in the hallway, fists clenched at her sides, pulse pounding in her throat.

She was Domica.

She ruled men.

She broke them.

So why did she feel like he was walking away with her crown?