Watch Me smoke now, HERE!
Episode I : Air becomes permission
The chamber was silent before She entered, as if the walls themselves were fearful.
The Mistress took Her place without announcement. The soft echo of Her movement was enough to make anyone still. In Her raised hand, the cigar glowed faintly, its presence immediately reshaping the room. Smoke did not yet move. It waited. Just like the slaves.
They knelt where they had been instructed, arranged in spacing, each aware that proximity was neither random, nor guaranteed. The Mistress observed them through the slow lift of Her gaze, Her light blue eyes were calm and unreadable.
When She finally exhaled, the smoke drifted outward in a measured arc. It did not reach everyone.
One slave shifted, just barely, instinctively leaning toward the air She had altered. The movement stopped halfway, frozen by the knowledge of risk.
“Don’t move,” She said quietly.
The word carried no anger. It carried law.
The slaves understood: the smoke was more precious than the air itself To breathe it without permission was presumption. To crave it openly required courage.
One voice spoke, low and controlled.
“Mistress, may I remain where Your smoke reaches?”
She turned Her head slightly. The smoke followed Her movement, obeying Her without question.
“We will see,” She replied.
And already, the ritual had begun.
Episode II : Testing patience in the sanctum of smoke
Time stretched under Her watch.
The Mistress smoked slowly, intentionally, the pause between each exhale becoming its own test. The slaves were aware of their breathing now: each inhale was a decision, each exhale a risk of sound. The smoke gathered low, hovering like a boundary no one dared cross.
She rose from Her seat without warning.
Several slaves tensed, then corrected themselves, forcing their bodies back into compliance. She noticed everything.
As She paced before them, the smoke shifted with Her, favoring no one. A slave at the far end swallowed too hard. Another blinked too often.
She stopped.
Her gaze settled on one kneeling figure, perfectly still, eyes lowered, hands placed exactly as instructed. The Mistress exhaled toward him, not close, not generously, but on purpose.
The effect was immediate. Shoulders straightened. Breath steadied. He had been seen.
Others felt it like a withdrawal.
A quiet request followed, carefully spoken.
“Mistress, may I remain in the circle?”
She did not answer immediately. Instead, She took another draw from the cigar.
“Mistakes are not punished here,” She said at last. “They are removed.”
Her eyes flicked to the slave who had shifted earlier.
“You may leave.”
No raised voice. No gesture.
The space he left behind felt colder than absence.
Episode III : The weight of exclusion
The door closed softly behind the dismissed slave.
Inside the chamber, the remaining kneeling figures felt the consequence settle into them. Exclusion was not dramatic. It was final. The ritual continued without pause, as if the room itself rejected interruption.
The Mistress resumed Her place, crossing Her posture with unhurried confidence. Smoke curled upward again, reshaping the atmosphere She governed.
Another slave spoke, voice steady but strained.
“Mistress, may I stay closer?”
She studied him for a long moment. The smoke thinned between them, as if awaiting instruction.
“Why,” She asked, “should I allow it?”
“Because I will not move,” he answered. “And because I understand what it means to remain.”
She exhaled toward the floor.
The smoke spread wide this time, brushing against several kneeling forms. Gratitude showed not in sound, but in posture: backs straightening, heads lowering further, discipline tightening rather than loosening.
The Mistress watched the transformation with detached approval.
“Remember,” She said, “even air is conditional here.”
They remembered. They would remember.
Episode IV : The ones that remained
The session neared its close.
The Mistress stood once more, smoke dissipating slowly as if reluctant to leave Her presence. One slave, trembling despite his effort, steadied himself at the last possible moment.
She noticed.
Instead of dismissal, She stepped closer.
Her exhale was brief, precise, directed toward him and no one else.
The meaning was unmistakable.
It was not kindness.
It was permission to remain.
When the cigar was finally extinguished, the chamber felt suddenly vast. The slaves remained kneeling, unsure whether to breathe freely yet.
The Mistress regarded them one final time.
“You may rise,” She said. “Those who stayed learned something tonight.”
She turned and left without looking back.
Behind Her, the air slowly returned to normal, but none of them forgot what it felt like when it belonged entirely to Her.
Shiny hugs and love,
Diana
