Monday morning arrived with the cruel indifference of a ticking clock. After forty-eight hours of drifting in and out of a feverish sleep, my body felt like a collection of bruised echoes. The simple act of dressing was a choreographed struggle; sliding into my tailored slacks felt like pulling sandpaper over raw nerves. Every time the fabric brushed against the lower quadrants of my seat, a jolt of electricity shot up my spine.

​By the time I reached my office, the adrenaline of the commute was wearing off, leaving only the throbbing reality of what Elena and Mara had done to me.

​I stood at my desk for as long as I could, pretending to be deeply engrossed in a stack of reports. But eventually, my manager walked by. "Morning! You look a bit stiff today. Long weekend?"

​"Just a bit of a back tweak," I lied, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears. "Too much yard work."

​He nodded and moved on, but the social expectation was set: I had to sit. I looked at my ergonomic office chair—usually the pinnacle of comfort—and it looked like an instrument of torture. I reached out, gripped the armrests until my knuckles turned white, and began the slow descent.

​The moment my weight made contact with the cushion, the air left my lungs in a silent wheeze.

​The two knots—the "hard knots" Elena had predicted—were exactly where the 14-gauge needles had delivered the Vitamin C. It felt like I was sitting on two red-hot marbles embedded deep within my muscle. The pressure forced the residual soreness to flare into a localized fire. I didn't just sit; I hovered, my triceps shaking as I tried to support my own weight so my buttocks wouldn't have to bear the full brunt.The worst part wasn't the initial contact; it was the micro-movements. Every time I reached for the mouse or turned to look at a second monitor, my muscles shifted. The phantom sensation of Elena’s firm voice telling me to "hold still if you want less pain."

​I found myself biting the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning out loud. My eyes started to water, a pale imitation of the "baby-like" wailing I had done in that motel room. I was a grown man in a professional setting, surrounded by spreadsheets and coffee mugs, yet internally, I was right back on that floral comforter, begging for mercy. ​

By 11:00 AM, the physical pain had birthed a strange, distracting euphoria. The soreness was so pervasive that I couldn't focus on my emails. Instead, I found myself tracing the timeline of the injections in my head.

​Why did I like it? I asked myself, even as a fresh wave of throbbing heat pulsed through my hip. It was unbearable. I screamed. I was humiliated.

​But as I sat there, gingerly adjusting my position for the hundredth time, I realized that the pain was a secret I was carrying. No one in this office knew that under these professional trousers were two meticulously bandaged marks from the thickest needles I’d ever seen. No one knew I had been pinned down and broken by two "mean bit(hes)" who didn't care about my pleas.

​The "cure" was supposed to make me fear the needle. Instead, the persistent, week-long ache was acting as a tether, pulling my thoughts back to Elena and Mara every few seconds. By the time lunch rolled around, I wasn't thinking about how to make the pain stop. I was wondering how much 12-gauge needles would cost, and if the women would be willing to use them.

​I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing my phone. I knew I should delete their numbers. I knew I should be "cured."

​Instead, I gingerly stood up—hissing as the blood rushed back into the bruised tissue—and walked toward the breakroom with a pronounced limp, already drafting the next message in my mind.