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“Wear it on your left pocket,” the man instructed, his eyes lingering on my frame as he waited for me to comply. I did as I was told, feeling like I was being branded.

Another man entered behind me. He eyed me with a predatory smirk before turning to the host. “Ironclad Hand,” he said, his voice a low gravel.

The host didn't offer him a rose. Instead, he handed over a pin with a heavy metal glove engraved on it. “Wear it on your right pocket,” the host said.

I watched as the man pinned it on, feeling a surge of unease. Other men in the dimly lit hallway were eyeing me like a piece of meat.

“Hey, handsome,” a couple of guys murmured as I passed, but I kept my head down, ignoring them. I pushed through the crowd toward what looked like a balcony overlooking a main arena. The sound reached me first, the thud of impact and the roar of a crowd. Was this a fucking fight club? I needed to find Sig, get the confession, and get the hell out of here before I was swallowed by this place.

I finally reached the balcony that circled the main entertainment ring. Staying in the shadows of the mezzanine, I scanned the crowd of men of all sizes, my eyes searching for a familiar silhouette.

"You’re late, submissive," a voice boomed, amplified by microphones that made the words vibrate in my chest.

"I’m sorry, Master."

My eyes snapped toward the source of the voice. I knew that tone, though it was whispered now, devoid of the sharp bite he’d used to dismantle my life. I watched in total disbelief.

Down in the ring, Sig was kneeling. His back was bare, glowing pale under the spotlights, and his head was bowed in a posture of total surrender. His delicate neck was covered under spiked collar, his wrists were knotted tight in the leather band attached to a metal chain.

MY HAND TIGHTENED AROUND the railing, the cold iron biting into my palm. The view from the mezzanine felt like a fever dream.

"You've been a very busy boy today, haven't you, my pet?” the Master’s voice boomed through the speakers.

The Santiago I knew was a surgical architect of chaos; a man who moved through the world with a razor-edged sense of superiority. But the person kneeling in that ring, stripped of his highlighter and his smirk, looked terrifyingly small.

Sig’s shoulders trembled, but his voice was a steady, rhythmic rasp. "I did what I had to do, Master. I wanted to balance the scales. I wanted revenge."

He was talking about me. He was confessing.

The man standing over Sig was a mountain of a human, the "Ironclad" pin gleaming on his right pocket. He held a heavy leather crop in one hand, tapping it rhythmically against his thigh. “And did you balance them?”

This was my moment. I could record this, humiliate him in front of the entire world just as he had humiliated me. I took out my phone and hit record, but as one of the guards glared at me, I placed the phone back into my pocket still keeping the lens of the camera out for the recording. When the guard moved on, I looked back at Santiago and my hands froze when I noticed a tear roll down his warm cheek.

“He called me pathetic," Sig choked out. "He told me I was nothing—useless, obsessed, with nothing to show for except for the chaos he gave me.”

“So, that’s what you were, obsessed with your revenge. You let an outsider into your head. You let someone else control your emotions.”

Sig raised his beautiful golden eyes to look at the man. “I don’t want to be obsessed with him. I wanted to punish him. But, his words are haunting me, Master, reminding me I’m still that weak boy who cried for help instead of fighting for himself. Because that’s what I did today. Instead of fighting with my head high, I played the victim.”

“You’ve been a bad boy,” the Master barked.

Sig let out a sharp, choked sound; half-sob, half-laugh, and my heart dropped, my limbs screamed at me to reach for his rescue. But I was the one he needed rescue from, I was the one hurting him. "I have. I wanted to see him as broken as I was. I wanted to be the one to decide when his world ended. But all I did was cry. I played a victim.”

My blood ran cold. Looking down from eight feet up, Sig looked like a broken doll. Part of me wanted to roar, to leap over the railing and demand he look at me while he admitted his sins. And part of me wanted to hold him in my embrace, shield him from all these perverted eyes on his naked flesh.

But as the Master raised the crop, I pushed against the crowd, rushing towards the stage; a security guard stopped me, and then I witnessed the first slap of the leather on Sig’s naked, fragile flesh. A soft sigh escaped Sig, but he didn't flinch, as he braced himself for the next strike.

“You need to stop this!” I said to the guard.

“He wants this,” the guard told me, and I looked at Sig as he leaned into the anticipation. “I deserve to be punished for being so weak.” The grip around his wrist restrained his movement, making him look like a trapped bird trying to flap his wings and failing as he tried to hold onto the iron rod of the ring and his hand slipped.

I realized then that Sig wasn't just my tormentor. He was a person so hollowed out by what had happened in high school that he had to come to a place like this just to feel the weight of his own existence. He had spent the day destroying me, and now he was spending the night being destroyed.

As the next strikes rained down on Sig’s back, my heart dropped. He let out a gasp of what looked like pure, agonizing relief. I stayed frozen in the shadows, my heart hammering against my ribs. I watched the Master’s hands land on him, watched Sig cry, and the look of pleasure on his beautiful, tear-streaked face made me almost topple over. Through the thin fabric of his shorts, his arousal was visible to everyone; a stark, physical testament to his need.

“More!” his voice rasped, begging to be punished for his perceived weakness.

Suddenly, the roar of the crowd faded into a dull hum. It felt like it was just Sig and me in that arena. In my mind, I was the one giving him what he wanted, but not for being weak. I would have given it to him for being brave enough to take it.