The Horse’s Ass
Chapter 3: The Audit
Jennifer sat on the edge of the bed with her hands pressed tightly over her ears.
The video had been playing for a long time.
At first she had tried to fight it. She had covered her ears, hummed, cursed, screamed over herself until her throat went raw. None of it changed anything. The recording always returned to the beginning. The same title. The same frozen image. The same voice filling the white room with a version of herself she could not interrupt.
By the time the door opened, she knew the rhythm of it too well. She knew the small pause before she corrected the barista. She knew the exact moment the room went quiet around her. She knew the expression on the girl’s face before the lid slipped from her hand.
That was what she hated most.
Not that John had trapped her with the recording.
That it had begun to work.
When he stepped inside and closed the door, the screen went silent mid-sentence. The sudden quiet felt almost violent.
Jennifer did not lower her hands right away.
John waited.
Only when she finally looked up did he speak.
“You don’t seem particularly troubled by any of it.”
Jennifer slowly lowered her hands. Her face was flushed and her breathing uneven. She kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she looked at him.
“I think she was incompetent,” she said. “I was just making sure she did her job right.”
John made a note on his clipboard.
“You called her stupid,” he said. “You told her she was wasting your time. You laughed when she tried to apologize.”
Jennifer’s jaw tightened.
“She was wasting my time,” she muttered. “People like that need to be told how to do things properly. It’s not my fault she couldn’t handle being corrected.”
John was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone had changed — colder, more precise.
“I went back inside after you left,” he said. “She was still shaking so badly she could barely stand.”
Jennifer met his eyes. There was still defiance in her gaze, though it looked thinner now.
“Why should I feel bad?” she asked. “She was bad at her job. People like that should be corrected.”
John didn’t respond right away.
He simply looked at her, and in that silence, something settled.
You’re right, he thought. People like that do need to be corrected.
He set the clipboard down on the table with deliberate care. Then he stood and crossed the room.
Jennifer saw him coming and took half a step back.
“What are you doing?” she said.
John did not answer immediately. He stopped in front of her, close enough that she had to look up at him, and waited until she understood that the conversation had ended.
Then he took hold of the front of her silk blouse.
Jennifer’s eyes widened.
“Don’t—”
He tore it open in one hard, efficient motion.
The sound of the fabric giving way was loud in the sterile room. Buttons struck the floor and scattered across the white epoxy like small dropped teeth. Jennifer gasped and crossed her arms over herself, more from shock than modesty at first. The ruined blouse hung from her shoulders for a second before sliding down and falling at her feet.
John stepped back.
“I’m correcting you,” he said.
Jennifer stared at him, breathing fast. Until that moment, some part of her had still believed his restraint meant a boundary existed. Now she understood that his restraint had only meant he was choosing the order in which things would be taken.
“You can’t do this,” she said, but the words sounded thinner than they had before.
John picked up the clipboard again and made a note.
“Subject continues to confuse preference with limit,” he said.
Jennifer’s face flushed with anger and fear.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
John looked at the torn blouse on the floor, then at the pants still clinging to the last outline of the woman who had walked into the coffee shop. His expression did not change.
“The pants,” he said.
Jennifer stared at him, her face flushed with shock and anger. She didn’t move at first, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest.
“You’re not serious,” she said. “You think I’m just going to stand here and take my pants off for you? After you just attacked me?”
John took one slow step closer. Without another word, he reached forward and took hold of the waistband of her pants.
Jennifer flinched and quickly stepped back.
“Alright—stop,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll do it.”
She looked away, her face burning with humiliation. After a brief hesitation, she turned her back to him. With shaking hands, she reached down and unbuttoned her pants. She pushed them down her legs quickly, as if trying to get it over with, and stepped out of them.
She was left in only her bra and thong. The smallness of what remained seemed worse than nudity, as if even her last privacy had been reduced to something decorative and useless. She left the pants on the floor and crossed her arms over herself again.
John lowered his hand. He picked up the clipboard and made another note, as if nothing unusual had happened. He did not touch the torn blouse or the pants. He simply left them lying on the floor between them — the last pieces of the woman who had walked into the coffee shop.
He turned and walked back toward the door.
“You will remain like this until I return,” he said. “Think about how you treated that poor girl.”
Jennifer’s eyes flicked down to her clothes on the floor. The sight of her expensive silk blouse ripped and discarded, along with her pants crumpled beside it, made something twist in her stomach. Only then did she fully how exposed she was — standing there in nothing but her bra and thong. She had the sudden, humiliating thought that she wasn’t supposed to pick them up — that doing so would be seen as defiance. She wasn’t even sure if she was allowed to sit down. Everything felt uncertain.
John opened the door and stepped out without another word, closing it firmly behind him.
The moment the door shut, the video on the screen restarted at full volume. Jennifer flinched hard at the sudden blast of her own voice booming through the room.
A new title card appeared first, white text on a black background:
“Horse’s Ass” Correction in Progress
She stood frozen for a moment, arms still crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes darted between the torn silk blouse and crumpled pants lying pathetically on the floor, the muddy poster leaning against the wall, and the large screen where her own angry face continued to scream. She was standing in nothing but her bra and thong — exposed, barefoot, and completely at this stranger’s mercy.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. She sat there in silence, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring down at her discarded clothes. Then she raised both hands and pressed them over her ears, trying desperately to make the sound disappear. It didn’t work. Her own voice continued to boom from the ceiling speaker, loud and merciless.
Beneath it, steady and rhythmic, came the clop… clop… clop of shod hooves on concrete.
Just outside the door, John pressed record.