Chapter 3: The First Command

The Aura Spa occupied the top floor of a sleek glass building in Beverly Hills, its minimalist aesthetic a study in understated luxury. Charles followed Bryce through reception areas that whispered wealth and discretion—no garish signage, no bustling crowds, just hushed voices and the soft sound of water features that cost more than most people's cars.

His hands trembled slightly as he signed the intake forms, hyperaware of Bryce's presence beside him. She had driven them here in her black Porsche, the twenty-minute journey conducted in charged silence. Every traffic light, every turn, had ratcheted up the tension until he felt like a wire stretched to its breaking point.

"Mr. Mercer?" A woman in pristine white scrubs appeared at his elbow. "I'm Elena. I'll be handling your appointment today."

Elena was perhaps thirty, with the kind of professional beauty that suggested she catered to very wealthy, very particular clients. Her smile was warm but impersonal—she'd seen everything, judged nothing, remembered nothing that wasn't directly relevant to her work.

"Excellent," Bryce said, rising from her chair with fluid grace. "I'll be observing, if that's acceptable."

Charles felt the blood drain from his face. "Observing?"

Elena's expression didn't flicker. "Of course. We have many clients who appreciate... supervision during their treatments. Right this way."

The treatment room was a temple to clinical perfection—stark white walls, polished steel fixtures, and a leather table that looked more like an examination bed than anything relaxing. Recessed lighting cast everything in harsh, unforgiving brightness. There would be no shadows here, no places to hide.

"I'll give you a moment to undress," Elena said, hanging a terry cloth robe on a hook. "Everything off, please. The robe opens in the front."

She stepped out, leaving Charles alone with Bryce and the weight of what was about to happen.

"Well?" Bryce settled into a chair positioned with a perfect view of the treatment table. "I'm waiting."

The authority in her voice cut through his paralysis. With shaking fingers, he began to unbutton his shirt. The black lace bra came into view, and Bryce's eyes glittered with something between approval and hunger.

"Beautiful," she murmured. "But soon to be irrelevant. Continue."

Each piece of clothing felt like armor being stripped away. The shirt. His belt. His trousers, falling to the floor with a whisper of expensive fabric. When he reached for the bra's clasp, Bryce made a small sound of disapproval.

"No. Leave those on for now. I want Elena to see what inspired this little transformation."

Heat flooded his cheeks, but he complied, slipping into the robe with the lace still embracing his skin. The terry cloth felt rough and institutional after the silk he'd grown accustomed to.

Elena returned with a cart of supplies—strips, wax, tools that looked vaguely medieval. She assessed him with clinical efficiency, then glanced at Bryce.

"Full body, as requested?"

"Complete," Bryce confirmed. "I want him smooth as silk. Everywhere."

The emphasis on the last word made Charles's stomach clench. He understood now what she meant by lesson one—this wasn't just about hair removal. This was about vulnerability, about being completely exposed and helpless while she watched.

"Lie back, please," Elena instructed, patting the table.

The leather was cool against his skin as he settled onto it. Elena adjusted the table's height, the lighting, her tools—all with the methodical precision of a surgeon preparing for an operation.

"We'll start with the chest," she announced, warming a strip of wax between her palms.

"Actually," Bryce interjected, her voice cutting through the sterile air like silk, "remove the lingerie first. I want to see everything."

Charles's eyes flew to hers, finding them dark with an intensity that made his breath catch. There was no negotiation in that gaze, no room for protest. Elena waited patiently, strip in hand, while the silence stretched between them.

"I—" Charles began.

"Now," Bryce said quietly, and the word carried such weight of command that his hands moved without conscious thought.

The bra came off first, then the panties, leaving him completely naked under the harsh lights. The vulnerability was crushing—every flaw, every imperfection exposed under Elena's professional gaze and Bryce's hungry one.

"Much better," Bryce purred. "Proceed, Elena."

The first strip of wax was a shock—hot, invasive, adhering to his skin like a claim. When Elena ripped it away, the pain was sharp and immediate, but underneath it was something else. Something that made his breath hitch and his pulse race.

"Good," Bryce observed, her eyes never leaving his face. "You're taking it well."

Strip after strip followed. Across his chest, down his arms, over his stomach. Each removal sent fire through his nerve endings, but gradually the pain transformed into something else—a surrender, a letting go of control that was both terrifying and intoxicating.

"Turn over," Elena instructed after what felt like hours.

The vulnerability of the position—face down, completely exposed—made him tremble. Bryce's chair creaked as she shifted for a better view, and he could feel her gaze like a physical touch.

"His legs need particular attention," Bryce commented as Elena worked. "I want them perfect."

The wax moved higher, more intimate, places no one had touched in years. Charles gripped the edges of the table, his breathing shallow and quick. The clinical nature of Elena's touch did nothing to diminish the profound intimacy of the moment—he was being remade, reshaped according to Bryce's vision.

"Almost finished," Elena announced, applying the final strips to the most sensitive areas.

When she was done, Charles lay there panting, his skin on fire but silk-smooth. Elena cleaned away the residual wax with oil that smelled of lavender, her touch now soothing rather than invasive.

"Excellent work," Bryce said, rising from her chair. She approached the table, her heels clicking on the polished floor. "How do you feel, Charles?"

He tried to speak but found his voice had abandoned him. The combination of pain, vulnerability, and her unwavering attention had left him wrung out, empty, transformed.

"I think," she continued, her fingers trailing along his now-smooth shoulder, "you're beginning to understand what it means to truly submit. To trust someone else with your body, your comfort, your very sense of self."

Her touch was electric against his sensitized skin. "Get dressed. We're not finished yet."

The drive back to her penthouse was conducted in the same charged silence as before, but now Charles felt fundamentally different. The absence of hair made every brush of fabric against his skin a revelation. His clothes felt foreign, like a costume he was no longer sure how to wear.

Bryce's building was a tower of glass and steel rising from the Wilshire corridor, its lobby a study in intimidating minimalism. The elevator to the penthouse was a capsule of polished steel that reflected their images back at them—her composed and predatory, him still slightly dazed from the afternoon's ordeal.

The penthouse itself was everything he'd expected from Bryce—modern, severe, dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a commanding view of the city below. Everything was black, white, or chrome, as if color was a weakness she couldn't afford.

"Sit," she commanded, gesturing to a leather chair that looked more like a throne.

She moved to a bar cart, pouring herself a glass of wine and him something stronger—whiskey, neat, in a crystal tumbler that caught the late afternoon light.

"To new beginnings," she said, raising her glass.

He drank, the alcohol burning away some of the unreality of the day. Bryce settled into the chair across from him, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp as ever.

"Tell me how you feel," she said.

"Different," he managed. "Raw. Like my skin doesn't belong to me anymore."

"It doesn't," she said simply. "That's the point. Your body is now a canvas for my vision, not your neglect. Every inch of you is going to be perfected according to my standards."

She leaned forward, her intensity focusing on him like a laser.

"This is just the beginning, Charles. What happened today—the exposure, the vulnerability, the surrender of control—that's your new reality. You've tasted submission now, felt what it means to trust someone else with your most intimate self."

The whiskey and the day's events were making him light-headed, but her words cut through the haze with crystalline clarity.

"Tomorrow, you'll return to your office, to your cases, to the performance of being Charles Mercer, Esquire. But underneath whatever you wear, you'll carry the memory of this afternoon. The knowledge that your body belongs to me now."

She rose gracefully, moving to stand behind his chair. Her hands settled on his shoulders, her touch both possessive and gentle.

"This is what you've been looking for your entire life, isn't it? Someone to take the burden of choice away from you. Someone to see through all your careful constructions to the need underneath."

Her fingers found the collar of his shirt, adjusting it with the care of someone dressing a doll.

"Yes," he whispered, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside.

"Yes, what?"

The correction was gentle but implacable.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Her hands stilled on his shoulders, and he could feel her satisfaction like heat radiating from her skin.

"Good boy," she purred. "Now, let's discuss your first real assignment."

In the leather seat of her car forty minutes later, Charles sat in stunned silence as they descended through the hills toward his empty house. The evening traffic moved around them in streams of light, the city spread out below like a circuit board.

"The black lace set from yesterday," Bryce had said as she'd handed back his car keys. "Wear it to work tomorrow. All day. I want you to feel it during every meeting, every deposition, every moment of your carefully professional day."

The thought should have terrified him. Should have sent him into panicked protests about discovery, about his reputation, about the impossibility of maintaining his facade while carrying such an intimate secret.

Instead, as they pulled into his driveway, Charles felt only a deep, bone-deep anticipation.

"Thank you," he said quietly as she shifted into park.

Bryce's smile was sharp and satisfied. "Oh, darling. Don't thank me yet. This was just your first lesson. Tomorrow, you'll learn what it really means to be mine."

As he walked toward his front door, every step a reminder of his transformed skin, Charles knew with absolute certainty that his old life was over. In its place was something new, something dangerous, something that belonged entirely to the woman watching him from the shadows of her car.

And for the first time in fifty-two years, he couldn't wait to see what came next.