The alarm buzzed at 6:03 AM, same as every Tuesday. Kathy rolled onto her stomach, stretching her arms above her head with a satisfied groan. Her silk sheets clung to her bare legs as she reached for her phone, scrolling past notifications from three different submissives begging for her attention. She deleted them without reading. Too easy. Too predictable.

Downstairs, the coffee machine gurgled to life on schedule. The house smelled like expensive beans and leather polish. Kathy traced a fingertip along the edge of her bedside table, where a coiled riding crop lay beside a set of polished steel cuffs. She’d bought them last week on impulse, still unused. Nothing excited her lately—not the whimpering finance bro in her downtown apartment, not the lawyer who paid her to step on his bespoke suits. They all folded too fast.

A clatter came from the hallway. Kathy tilted her head, listening. Mark was up early. Her kid brother’s shuffling footsteps paused outside her door, then retreated toward the kitchen. She smirked. Twenty-two years old and still jumped at his own shadow. Last night’s takeout containers would be neatly stacked in the fridge by now, chopsticks parallel. She’d bet her favorite flogger on it.

Padding barefoot down the stairs, she caught sight of him hunched over the counter, frantically wiping at a coffee stain on his shirt. His glasses slipped down his nose as he muttered under his breath. Kathy leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “You’re gonna be late,” she said. Mark flinched so hard he knocked over the sugar jar.

“Jesus, Kathy.” He scrambled to right it, grains scattering across the granite like tiny betrayals. His fingers trembled—adorable. “Do you have to sneak up on people?”

She plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and took a slow, deliberate bite. “I didn’t sneak.” Juice dribbled down her chin; she let it. “You just weren’t paying attention.” His eyes flicked to the sticky trail on her skin before darting away. Interesting.

“You should text first,” he mumbled, adjusting his backpack straps. The way he avoided looking at her bare legs, the way his throat bobbed when she licked the juice off her thumb—oh, this was going to be fun. Kathy tossed the apple core into the trash with a wet thump.

“Text my own brother?” She laughed, stepping closer. The scent of his cheap shampoo mixed with the sharp tang of his nervous sweat. “What’s next, permission slips?” Her fingertip grazed his shoulder as she reached past him for a coffee mug. He froze like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow.

She poured herself a cup, black, watching him over the rim. “Relax. I don’t bite.” A lie. His shoulders tensed further. Good. He wasn’t completely oblivious then.

Mark finally grabbed his keys, practically bolting for the door. “I have class.”

“Mm.” Kathy sipped her coffee. “Say hi to Professor Kendrick for me.” His hand slipped on the doorknob—she’d remembered his crush on that Lit professor last semester. His ears turned pink. “Maybe wear a different shirt,” she called as the door slammed.

Alone, Kathy tapped her nails against the mug. Too easy? Maybe not. That little flicker in his eyes when she’d invaded his space ... not fear. Anger. He’d balled his fists at his sides for a second there. She grinned into her coffee. Oh, she’d have to try harder.

Upstairs, she rummaged through Mark’s room—neat, predictably, textbooks aligned by height. But then her fingers brushed something unexpected under his pillow: a dog-eared copy of The Art of Surrender by some BDSM philosopher. Kathy’s eyebrows shot up. She flipped it open to a heavily underlined passage: “True dominance begins with the submissive’s uncoerced consent.”

The door creaked downstairs. Kathy slid the book back just as footsteps climbed the stairs. Mark paused in the doorway, his grip tight on his backpack straps. “You’re in my room.”

“Lost my earring.” She held up a meaningless stud between her fingers.

His gaze darted to the pillow. “Bullshit.”

Kathy blinked. First curse she’d ever heard from him. She leaned back on his desk, deliberately knocking over a pencil cup. “Language, Markie.”

He didn’t flinch. Just stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The click of the latch was louder than it should’ve been. “You want to play games?” His voice was low, steady. Not the stammering boy from this morning. “Fine. But I’m not kneeling.”

Kathy’s pulse jumped. Finally. She crossed her arms, sizing him up—the set of his jaw, the way his fingers flexed like he was itching to grab something. Or someone. “Oh?” She pushed off the desk, invading his space again. “What exactly are you going to do, little brother?”

Mark caught her wrist before she could touch him. His grip was firm, not painful, but unshakable. “Read the footnotes next time,” he said, and nodded to the pillow. “Chapter six.”

Kathy yanked her arm back—or tried to. He held on just long enough for her to feel the heat of his palm against her pulse point before releasing her. Then he shouldered past her to grab a notebook, calm as if they’d discussed the weather.

She stared at his back, her skin tingling where he’d touched her. Chapter six. She’d look it up. But first ... Kathy licked her lips. First, she’d see how far this new Mark would bend before he broke.

“You’ve got spine today,” she mused, trailing a finger along the edge of his bookshelf. “Cute.” Her nail caught on the spine of a philosophy textbook—Nietzsche. She snorted. “Still trying to impress Kendrick?”

Mark didn’t rise to the bait. He zipped his backpack methodically, the sound grating in the thick silence. When he turned, his glasses caught the morning light, obscuring his eyes. “You should go.”

Kathy scoffed. “Or what?” She stepped closer, close enough to smell the faint hint of his aftershave, something woodsy and cheap. Close enough to see the way his nostrils flared when she tilted her head, exposing her throat. “You’ll make me?”

His hand shot out, fingers tangling in the hem of her silk robe. Not pushing, not pulling—just holding. A warning. “Try me.”

Her breath hitched. The fabric tightened against her hips, his knuckles brushing bare skin. For a heartbeat, she wondered if he’d actually do it—shove her against the wall, turn the tables completely. The thought sent a jolt through her, hot and unexpected.

Then his grip loosened. He let go, adjusting his glasses like nothing had happened. “Class,” he repeated, and walked out.

Kathy stayed rooted to the spot, her robe slipping off one shoulder. The air felt charged, thick with something she couldn’t name. Downstairs, the front door shut with finality. She exhaled, shaking out her hands.

Back in her room, she snatched The Art of Surrender from under his pillow and flipped to chapter six. The footnotes were scribbled over with Mark’s cramped handwriting: “Dominance isn’t taken—it’s surrendered. Find the crack in their armor. Then wait.”

A slow smile spread across her face. So that’s how he wanted to play. Fine. She’d let him think he had the upper hand—for now. Kathy traced the underlined words, her pulse humming.

The game was on.

Mark jiggled his knee under the lecture hall desk, fingers drumming against the cover of his notebook. Professor Kendrick droned on about post-structuralism, but all Mark could think about was the way Kathy’s pulse had jumped under his grip. That split second of hesitation—like she hadn’t expected him to fight back. Like she hadn’t expected him at all.

Behind him, someone coughed. A girl whispered to her friend, too loud, about Kendrick’s sweater vest. Normally, Mark would’ve hunched deeper into his seat, willing himself invisible. Today, he sat up straighter. He knew exactly what Kathy saw when she looked at him: the nervous twitch of his fingers, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he lied. But she hadn’t seen the hours he’d spent watching her through cracked doors, studying the way she tilted her chin when a submissive begged. She hadn’t seen the notes he’d scribbled in the margins of his philosophy texts, diagrams of power dynamics disguised as Kierkegaard annotations.

Kendrick paused to adjust his glasses. Sunlight glinted off the lenses, and for a wild moment, Mark imagined them shattered on the floor—his sister kneeling amidst the shards, looking up at him with something other than amusement for once. His pen dug into the paper, tearing a small hole. Not submissive. Never submissive. He wanted to see her unravel instead.

The bell rang. Students shuffled out, but Mark lingered, tracing the jagged edge of his torn notebook page. He’d spent years folding himself into smaller shapes—for Kathy, for professors, for the world. Now, finally, he had a blueprint. Chapter six wasn’t just theory; it was a map. Domination didn’t start with force. It started with patience. With watching. With knowing exactly where to press.

His phone buzzed. A text from Kathy: Miss me already? Attached was a photo of his copy of The Art of Surrender, strategically placed on her nightstand beside the unused riding crop. Mark’s thumb hovered over the screen. Then he typed, deliberate: Keep it. You’ll need it more than I will.

He hit send before he could second-guess. Outside, the quad was bustling with students tossing frisbees, laughing. Mark adjusted his backpack straps and walked straight through the chaos, shoulders squared. He had research to do. And a sister to outplay.

Back in his dorm, he knelt by his bed and pulled out a locked metal box—the one Kathy didn’t know about. Inside, nestled between old concert tickets, lay a single black leather glove. He ran his fingers along the seams, imagining the way it would look wrapped around Kathy’s throat. Not squeezing. Just ... holding. A promise.

The glove went back into hiding. Mark stretched out on his bed, lacing his hands behind his head. Let Kathy think she was the hunter. He could wait.

Class had been useless—all that academic noise, and all he could hear was the phantom creak of Kathy’s leather boots pacing outside his door. He wondered if she was crouched there now, ear pressed to the wood like he used to do when their parents fought. He almost hoped so. Let her listen to him breathing slow and even, utterly unafraid.

Mark rolled onto his stomach and reached under the mattress, pulling out a second book—Dominance & Desire: Advanced Techniques. Kathy would’ve laughed at the cover, with its tacky Gothic font. But she wouldn’t be laughing at chapter twelve, where he’d dog-eared the page on psychological warfare. Make them anticipate your next move, the text advised. Then do nothing. The mind fills voids with its own terror.

A floorboard groaned in the hallway. Mark smiled against his pillow. Right on cue. He let the book drop open, spine-up, pages splayed like wings. The illustration was obvious from the door: a kneeling figure bound in intricate ropework, head bowed at their dominator’s feet.

Silence. Then the faintest exhale—disappointed? Curious? Mark resisted the urge to turn. Let her look. Let her wonder why her trembling little brother had bookmarked this page specifically. The rope pattern wasn’t for subs. It was for riggers.

The faucet dripped in the communal bathroom down the hall. Mark counted each plink like a metronome. On the seventeenth drop, Kathy’s shadow finally slid away from his door.

He waited five full minutes before rising. The book went back under the mattress, but not before he tore out chapter twelve’s final page—a diagram of nerve clusters, pressure points that could make even seasoned players beg. He tucked it into his sock drawer beneath a pile of mismatched athletic tape. Kathy would find the book eventually. He wanted her to find it incomplete.

His phone buzzed. Another photo from Kathy—this time, the riding crop balanced suggestively between her thighs. Missing something? she’d captioned it. Mark zoomed in. Her fingers were white-knuckled around the crop’s handle. Good. She was rattled.

He texted back a single emoji: 🧩. Then he pocketed the phone and knelt by his dresser. Inside, beneath folded sweaters, lay his real weapon: a voice recorder loaded with hours of Kathy’s drunken confessions, her desperate midnight whispers to ex-lovers. Dommes hated exposure more than pain.

Mark smoothed the sweaters shut. Checkmate was coming. Let her send a hundred filthy photos. He held the one thing she couldn’t dominate: the truth.

Kathy’s boots hit the stairs with deliberate thuds. He could picture her pausing outside his door, adjusting her robe—left side slightly open, the hollow of her throat exposed. Predictable. She’d enter with that slow, hip-swaying walk, drop some innuendo about crop maintenance, and expect him to blush. But when the door swung open, Mark didn’t look up from his desk. Just tapped his pen against Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, where he’d underlined “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.”

The robe rustled as she leaned over his shoulder. “Aren’t you adorable,” she murmured, breath warm against his ear. Her hand slid toward his thigh—only to freeze when Mark casually flipped the book shut, trapping her fingers beneath the cover.

“You’re in my light,” he said flatly.

Kathy recoiled like he’d brandished a knife. Her robe gaped, revealing the riding crop tucked into her waistband. Pathetic. As if she needed props.

Mark swiveled his chair to face her. “Problem?”

Her lips parted—no clever retort ready. His fingers itched to grab that riding crop, snap it over his knee, and watch her pupils dilate at the sound. Instead, he rolled his shoulders back, stretching lazily. “Unless you’re here to apologize for snooping...”

“Apologize?” Kathy’s laugh sounded brittle. She yanked the crop free, smacking it against her palm. The sharp crack should’ve made him flinch. It didn’t.

Mark stood in one fluid motion, forcing her to tilt her head up. “You’re boring me.” He plucked the crop from her grip, examining the braided handle. “Cheap materials. No wonder you’re stuck terrorizing interns.”

Kathy’s nostrils flared. She lunged—not for the crop, but for his wrist. Mark let her catch it. Let her dig her nails in. Then he twisted, using her momentum to spin her against the desk. Her hip hit the edge with a satisfying thud.

“Careful,” he murmured, leaning in until his lips grazed her earlobe. “Dominance isn’t about who hits harder.” He pressed the crop back into her trembling hand. “It’s about who walks away.”