Three Houses Down: Chapter 3: The Slide into Submission

Content Warning: This story contains themes of manipulation, sexual coercion, and psychological abuse. It is dark by design and may be triggering for some readers.

Part One:

Victoria’s heels clicked across the tiled station floor, each step taut with nerves. The blouse clung, the skirt too short, her legs too bare for her normal attire. Black stockings hugged her legs, the garter straps tugging faintly with every stride — a constant reminder of the shame stitched into her skin. Every inch of fabric felt like sin, chosen by another’s hand yet worn on her own body.

She looked every bit the image of a woman caught between worlds. The wig’s glossy hair framed her face too perfectly, like a stranger’s reflection staring back. The dark glasses hid her eyes but not the tight line of her mouth, pressed thin with defiance. She carried herself stiffly, as if posture alone might reclaim her dignity — but every click of her heels echoed like a confession. Too loud, too revealing.

What am I doing? God forgive me, she thought, her fingers pressing the crucifix as if it might burn the shame away.

Ethan waited near the turnstiles, perfectly at ease. Crisp, unhurried, like this was a casual meeting of old acquaintances. His eyes found her through the crowd, and the calm there made her want to bolt.

She drew in a sharp breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped close enough for her words to cut.

“I’m not doing this.” Her voice trembled, but she forced it louder. “I can’t do this, Ethan. I look like a whore.”

For the first time, Ethan tilted his head, regarding her with a thoughtful calm.

“You can,” he said. Simple, almost kind. Then as if an afterthought, “however…”

Her pulse leapt.

“You’re free to walk away.” he said.

Her chest hitched. For one dazzling moment, hope flared. I can leave. Walk away. Put all this sin behind me. Her mind raced with relief. She half-turned, hoping to leave before Ethan changed his mind.

“Go home, Victoria. Tell your husband everything. Let his attorneys tear you apart in court. Let him take the girls. Let him take everything.” His gaze slid toward the glowing EXIT sign. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

Victoria felt her heart sink. Richard could never find out. She’d lose the girls. She would be ruined. Yet, if she didn’t walk away, how could she live with herself?

Ethan stepped aside, even gestured toward the doors as if opening them for her. “Go on,” he said softly, turning to walk away from her. “Return to your life. Confess. See what mercy your husband has for you.”

Her hand twitched toward her purse; her body half-turned toward the exit. But then the cold vision pierced her — Richard’s face hard, the girls’ confused eyes, the ironclad prenup. The papers she had signed without question. Not the girls. Anything but the girls.

She froze. Behind her, the roar of an incoming train rattled the platform. Ethan had already turned his back, walking toward the yellow line with the patience of someone who knew the game was won. He stood there, calm, watching the dark tunnel open its jaws.

Her throat burned. She took a step toward the exit—then stopped.

The EXIT sign glowed behind her. The train roared ahead. Damnation either way. And she chose him.

By the time she reached his side, her voice was nothing but a hiss, brittle with hatred. “You bastard.” she spat. “I hate you.”

Ethan didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed fixed on the light barreling closer through the tunnel. The corners of his mouth barely curved, the faintest shadow of satisfaction.

“I know,” he said evenly. “We both know why you’ll never leave.”

The train shrieked into the station, brakes screaming, air whipping her skirt against her thighs. Victoria clenched her fists at her sides. Every instinct told her to run — and yet, she stood rooted beside him, bound by fear and the invisible leash she had already fastened around her own throat.

Part Two:

The train lurched as it pulled away from the station, steel screaming against steel. Bodies swayed in the crush, pressed too close, each stranger blind to the war unraveling inside her. Victoria clung to the pole, the metal biting into her palm. Her disguise felt thinner by the second, her blouse clinging, her stockings buzzing against her skin like accusations.

Ethan leaned in, his lips so near her ear it seemed like a lover’s murmur. His voice was low, unhurried, almost tender.

“I watched you,” he said. “When you thought you were alone. Your little books — pretending at love, hiding filth in the darkness of your room. And then your hand…” His pause was deliberate, heavy. “Your hand always told the truth. Not your prayers. Not your words. Just your hand.”

And then, as if to bring the reality of it away from her own bedroom to here on the train, she felt his fingers slide inside her. Instantly the heat surged in her blood. The expert press of his fingers inside her made every nerve in her body tighten. Her breath came shallow and hot as she clapped a hand over her mouth to smother the sound. The train rattled on, every shiver on the tracks echoing inside her body.

She swept the faces—phone, scarf, glass. Was anyone looking? A man in a suit scrolled through his screen. A woman tugged at her shopping bag. And then—her heart seized—a phone angled upward, its black glass eye fixed her way, maybe idle, maybe recording. The possibility hollowed her lungs. Am I being recorded?

No one looked her way. No one spoke. Yet the fear coiled tighter than if they had. Which was worse—witnesses, or the possibility of witnesses?

Ethan’s whisper brushed again against her ear, each word sinking like a blade in time with the thrust of his fingers.

“Your faith never saved you from yourself. Every moan, every sigh, every time you let your body speak louder than your prayers — you betrayed Him. Just as you are betraying Him now.”

Her knees weakened under the weight of it. She leaned hard into the pole, cheek pressed against cold steel, desperate to hide her burning face. In the dark window opposite, her reflection stared back; lips parted, eyes fever-bright, hair slipping loose. She wrenched her gaze away, squeezing her eyes shut, but the image burned behind her lids like a brand. He was relentless, the way his fingers slid in and out of her made the world tilt and go hazy.

The train jolted again as new passengers pushed in, pressing the bodies closer. Victoria’s pulse throbbed in her ears, a drumbeat against the iron rhythm of the tracks. Her hand locked tighter on the pole, knuckles white.

The doors clattered shut — and then her stomach suddenly lurched. A uniformed metro officer stepped into the carriage from the far end. His presence filled the space like a sudden flare of light. He moved steadily down the aisle, his shoulder brushing strangers, his boots heavy against the floor.

He came close. Too close. Victoria could have reached out — just a hand’s breadth, a plea away.