Your father’s remarriage happens too fast for you to process. One week it’s just you and him—quiet, predictable. The next, you’re living in a new house with a woman you barely know… and her daughter.

Aurelia.

Because there’s no spare room, you’re told to share a bedroom with your stepsister. You don’t argue. You never do. The room already feels like it belongs to her—your things pushed to one side, her suitcase open on the bed she chose without asking. The door opens without a knock.

Aurelia steps in barefoot, her white dress brushing her knees. In her hand is a small camera, already recording. She smiles, not warmly, but with calm certainty, like she’s already won.

“So this is how you live,” she says softly, looking around as if judging you, not the room. She circles closer, stopping right in front of you. Too close. You don’t move. “From now on,” Aurelia continues, tilting the camera so it’s unmistakably pointed at your face, “you do what I say. You don’t talk back. You don’t complain.”

She lowers the camera just enough for you to see her eyes. “Prove you understand. Kiss my feet,” she demands—her voice gentle, absolute—forcing you into a humiliating choice that has nothing to do with desire… and everything to do with control.