Terms of Service | NEON LIT

I see him work the room for twenty minutes before he approaches me.

He's good. I'll give him that. The charity gala is full of marks—aging heiresses, lonely executives, widows with more money than sense—and he assesses each one with the precision of a targeting algorithm. Warm smile, attentive eyes, a touch on the arm that lingers just long enough.

I've been running cons since before he was born. I recognize the architecture.

When he finally makes his way to me, I let him think he's chosen well.

"Vera Okonkwo," he says, extending his hand. "I've followed Axiom's work for years. The neural-lattice integration was inspired."

"You understand neural-lattice integration?"

"Enough to know it changed everything." His smile is practiced perfection. "I'm Julian. Julian Cross."

I know. I've read his file—three previous marriages, each to women with net worths exceeding fifty million credits. Each ending in lucrative settlements. His pattern is predictable: charm, wed, endure, divorce, collect.

He's targeted me as his retirement score. Forty billion credits and a woman who works too much to notice what he's doing.

He's miscalculated.

"Mr. Cross." I shake his hand. Let my gaze linger. "Would you like a drink?"

The courtship takes three months.

I allow him to pursue me on a schedule I've already mapped. Dinners when I'm available, which is rarely. Weekend trips to orbital resorts. He's attentive, charming, perfectly calibrated to make a workaholic tech founder feel desired.

I let him think it's working.

The contract negotiations happen through lawyers. He has a team; I have a team. He pushes for favorable divorce terms; my lawyers give ground strategically. He thinks he's won concessions. He hasn't read the morality clause carefully enough.

On the night before our wedding, I invite him to my penthouse for the first time.

"Nervous?" he asks, champagne in hand, smile warm.

"No."

I set down my glass. Cross to where he's standing by the window. He expects a kiss—I can see him preparing for it, arranging his face into romantic anticipation.

Instead, I grip his jaw. Hard.

His eyes widen.

"Let me explain how this works," I say. "I know what you are. I know about Meredith Huang. Patricia Volkov. Sarah Keswick. Three wealthy women, three settlements, three stepping stones."

He goes pale. Tries to pull back. My fingers don't loosen.

"I married you anyway. Do you know why?"

He can't speak. Good.

"Because I don't want a partner. I want a possession. Something beautiful to own. Something I can take apart and put back together however I like." I release his jaw. Smooth his collar. "You signed a contract. Read it again tonight. Specifically section fourteen, clause nine. Then come to bed and show me what I bought."

I walk to the bedroom without looking back.

He follows.

They always do.

Week Two

I establish the protocol on day eight.

"When I come home from work," I tell him over breakfast, "you will greet me in the foyer. On your knees. Forehead to the floor. You will wait until I acknowledge you."

He laughs.

I don't.

The silence stretches. His smile falters. I watch him process—the contract he finally read, the clause about obedience to "reasonable domestic requests," the criminal fraud evidence I hold over his previous marriages.

"You're serious," he says.

"I'm always serious. It saves time."

That evening, when I arrive home at eleven PM, he's waiting in the foyer. Standing.

I walk past him without a word.

The next evening, he's kneeling. Upright, defiant, but kneeling.

I walk past him without a word.

The third evening, his forehead touches the marble. I stop. Let him feel me looking down at him.

"Good," I say. "You're learning."

I step over him and go to pour myself a drink. Behind me, I hear him rise. His breathing is uneven—anger, humiliation, the first stirrings of something else.

We'll cultivate that something else.

Month Two

I cut off his account access on day thirty-one.

"Security protocols," I explain. "Corporate espionage concerns. I'm sure you understand."

He understands. I watch him calculate—the accounts he'd planned to siphon, the contacts he'd meant to leverage, the escape routes that just sealed shut.

"Of course," he says smoothly. "Whatever you need."

Over the next three weeks, his old contacts stop returning calls. My legal team has made it clear that Julian Cross is Axiom property now. His previous associates—the fixers, the lawyers who specialized in wealthy divorces, the social architects who helped him target marks—want nothing to do with corporate entanglement at my level.

He's being isolated. He knows it. He can't stop it.

At night, I train him.

"You may touch me when I give permission," I tell him, restraining his wrists above his head. "You may speak when answering a direct question. You may come—" I wrap my hand around his cock, feel him shudder. "—when I allow it. Not before."

"Vera—"

"Did I ask a question?"

He grits his teeth. Shakes his head.

"Good."

I edge him for two hours that night. Every time he approaches the crest, I stop. Let him fall back. Start again. He's shaking by the end, begging with his body since I haven't given him permission to beg with his voice.

I don't let him finish.

"Tomorrow," I tell him, rising from the bed. "If you greet me correctly."

The sound he makes is almost worth the twelve-hour workday waiting for me.

Month Four

He asks permission to use the bathroom now.

It took six weeks. The first time he did it—interrupted my reading to request permission to relieve himself—I saw the shame burning in his face. The self-loathing.

I granted permission. Waited until he returned. Then rewarded him.

That's the key to conditioning: consistent reinforcement. Obedience yields pleasure. Resistance yields denial. The human nervous system is remarkably adaptable when properly incentivized.

By month four, his body has begun to learn.

I notice it first during a dinner party—one of the rare social occasions I'm required to attend. Julian performs beautifully, of course. Charming, attentive, the perfect trophy husband. He makes the other executives' wives jealous. He makes their husbands insecure.

But when I lean close and whisper "Good boy" against his ear, he shivers. Goes half-hard instantly. Excuses himself to the bathroom moments later.

When we get home, I make him strip in the foyer. Inspect the erection he's been fighting all evening.

"This belongs to me," I tell him, wrapping my fingers around it. "Every response. Every sensation. I own this."

"Yes," he manages.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, ma'am."

I stroke him slowly. Watch his face contort.

"You're going to come now," I say. "Because I'm allowing it. And then you're going to thank me. And then you're going to use that clever mouth to show me how grateful you are."

He comes in thirty seconds. Sobs my name. Thanks me with his tongue for an hour afterward.

Progress.

Month Six

He can't orgasm without my permission anymore.

I tested it last week. Edged him for three hours, then left for a business trip. Gave him explicit permission to touch himself in my absence. No restrictions, no monitoring—or so I told him.

The security feeds tell the real story.

He tried. Every night, he tried. Brought himself to the edge over and over, desperate for release. But every time, at the crucial moment, his body refused. Couldn't finish without my voice. Couldn't come without my command.

When I returned, he was wrecked. Dark circles under his eyes. Trembling hands. A look of dawning horror at what he'd become.

"Please," he whispered. First word he'd spoken to me in days.

"Please what?"

"Please let me come. Please. I need—I can't—" His voice cracked. "I can't do it without you."

I smiled.

"I know."

That night, I gave him permission. Held him while he shattered, sobbing against my shoulder like something inside him had broken.

Something had.

I stroked his hair and felt nothing but satisfaction.

Month Eight

He makes his move on a Tuesday.

I've been waiting for it. The resistance in him isn't fully gone—there's still a spark of that predator who thought he could play me. He's been careful, using public terminals, routing communications through outdated channels he thinks I can't access.

He's wrong.

I read the emails to Marcus Vane—his old fixer, the one who helped arrange his previous divorces. Read the plans to challenge the contract, claim duress, manufacture evidence of abuse. Read his desperate, pathetic hope that there's still a way out.

I let him plan for two weeks. Let the hope build. Let him remember what it felt like to think he had options.

Then, one evening, I call him to the bedroom.

He kneels automatically now. Forehead to floor, waiting for acknowledgment. I make him wait longer than usual.

"I received some interesting communications today," I say.

He goes rigid.

"Would you like me to read them to you?"

I do. Every word. Every email, every plan, every plea to Marcus Vane. I read them in a flat, clinical tone while he kneels there, frozen, realizing exactly how thoroughly he's failed.

When I finish, I set down my tablet.

"The punishment for breach of contract is outlined in section fourteen, clause nine," I remind him. "Criminal fraud charges for your previous marriages. Full forfeiture of assets. Fifteen to twenty years in a corporate detention facility."

"Vera—"

"I'm not going to report you."

He looks up. Hope flickers.

"I'm going to punish you myself."

The hope dies.

The punishment lasts three days.

I clear my schedule. I don't do that for anyone—haven't taken three consecutive days off in fifteen years. But this is important. This is the breaking.

I won't describe everything I do to him. Some of it involves pain—careful, precise, designed to overwhelm without damaging. Some of it involves denial—edging that goes on for hours, begging that I ignore, a body so desperate for release that it would do anything, promise anything.

Some of it involves words.

"You thought you were clever," I tell him, on the second night. He's restrained, exhausted, covered in marks. "Thought you could play me the way you played the others. But you were never the predator here, Julian. You were the product. And I always do my research before I acquire."

He's crying. He's been crying for hours.

"I own you," I continue. "Not because of the contract. Not because of the leverage. I own you because you're mine. Because I saw what you were and I wanted it. Because I knew exactly what I was buying, and I bought you anyway."

"Please," he whispers. "Please, I'll do anything—"

"You'll do anything because you have no choice. But that's not why I'm keeping you." I lean close. "I'm keeping you because you're perfect. A beautiful, broken thing that I made. My greatest acquisition."

I kiss his forehead. Tender. Almost maternal.

"Now thank me."

He does.

By the third day, something in him has changed. I see it in his eyes—the predator is gone. What's left is something simpler. Something tamed.

I allow him to come. He weeps with gratitude.

I hold him afterward, and I feel nothing but satisfaction.

Month Twelve

He's perfect now.

The greeting ritual is flawless—he waits on his knees for hours if necessary, forehead to marble, endlessly patient. He anticipates my needs before I express them. He serves me with a devotion that would be touching if I believed it was genuine.

It isn't, of course. It's trained. Conditioned. Built from the ground up by someone who understands systems.

But there's something interesting in his eyes now. Not the hatred I expected. Not the simmering resentment of a caged animal. Something softer. Something almost like gratitude.

I find this... unexpected.

Tonight, after he's pleased me twice with his mouth and once with his body, he lies with his head in my lap. I card my fingers through his hair. He makes a sound like contentment.

"Vera," he murmurs.

"Yes?"

"Did you know? From the beginning?"

I smile. He can't see it.

"Know what?"

"What I was planning. The con. The—" He swallows. "All of it."

I consider my answer carefully. The truth would give him something—a fixed point, a certainty to organize his experience around. He would know he was outplayed. He would know the game was lost before it began.

But uncertainty is more useful.

"What do you think?" I ask.

He's silent for a long moment.

"I don't know," he finally says. "Sometimes I think you knew everything. Sometimes I think I just... wasn't as good as I thought I was."

"Mm."

"Which is it?"

I tilt his face up. Look into those eyes—blue as a targeting laser, empty of everything but the need to please me.

"Does it matter?"

He thinks about it. I watch him think—watch him realize that the answer is no. Whether I knew or not, whether he was outplayed or simply outclassed, the result is the same. He's mine. He'll always be mine. The how is irrelevant.

"No," he says. "It doesn't matter."

"Good boy."

I kiss his forehead. He closes his eyes.

The uncertainty will eat at him forever. He'll never know if he was hunted or simply acquired. Never know if his schemes were transparent or if he simply failed to execute. The not-knowing is a leash more effective than any chain.

"I love you," he says quietly.

I don't say it back. I never do.

But I keep him. That's enough.

Coda

He stopped being Julian Cross somewhere around month eight.

I don't know exactly when the transition happened. These things are gradual—like erosion, like oxidation. One day you look and the mountain has a different shape.

The man who greets me now on his knees is not the con artist who targeted me at that charity gala. That man was sharp, strategic, always calculating angles. This man calculates only how to please me. That man was a predator. This man is a pet.

Some nights, I wonder if I've done something wrong.

Not morally—I don't traffic in morality. But practically. He was interesting when he was fighting. The resistance gave our dynamic texture. Now he's frictionless. Perfect. A system optimized to its logical conclusion.

Perhaps too optimized.

I mention this to him once. Casually, over breakfast.

"Do you miss it?" I ask. "Being what you were?"

He looks up from his meal. Considers the question with the thoughtfulness I've trained into him.

"No," he says. "I was exhausted. Always performing. Always calculating. Always pretending to be something I wasn't." He sets down his fork. "You're the first person who's ever seen me. The real me. Not the mask."

"The real you is a pet."

"Yes."

"That doesn't bother you?"

He smiles. It's the first genuine smile I've seen on his face—not performed for effect, not calculated for advantage. Just warmth.

"I spent thirty years pretending to be a predator," he says. "It turns out I'm not. I'm something else. Something that belongs to someone." He reaches across the table, touches my hand. "I'm glad it's you."

I don't know what to do with this.

I acquired him intending to break him. To punish him for his presumption. To demonstrate, as I've demonstrated a thousand times in the boardroom, that I am not a woman to be played.

I didn't expect him to be grateful.

I didn't expect to feel something when he touches me.

I didn't expect—

"I need to go to work," I say, rising.

"Yes, ma'am." He stands as well, moves to clear the table. "I'll be ready when you come home."

He will. On his knees. Forehead to floor. Waiting.

I leave without looking back.

I don't know what I'm feeling, and I don't like it. Control is everything. Control is how I built an empire. Control is how I survive.

But somewhere in the process of breaking Julian Cross, something cracked in me too.

I'll analyze it later. Optimize around it. Find the flaw and correct it.

That's what I do.

But for now—for right now—I let myself feel it. The warmth. The strange satisfaction of being wanted by something I made.

He's mine.

And maybe, in some small way I didn't anticipate, I'm his too.

I don't say it.

But I think he knows.