The Watch That Whispers Yes

Marcus found the watch wedged behind the radiator in their cramped hallway, a copper disc no larger than a silver dollar, its crystal filmed with dust. When he pried it free the chain slithered out like a snake, links that should have broken decades ago still bright and oil-slick. The dial showed Roman numerals in black enamel, but the hour hand crawled backward, a lazy counterclockwise sweep that made his stomach dip. He held it closer, squinting. There were no other markings, no maker’s stamp, no winding stem. Just the single, silent, backward hand.

He pocketed it without thinking and forgot the thing until that night, when the radiator clanged like a dying bell and the walls sweated January cold. His roommate, Rowan, was hunched over her laptop at the kitchen table, red hair escaping her knot in static crackles. She wore one of Marcus’s old band T-shirts and nothing else, bare thighs mottled pink from the chill. She rubbed the back of her neck, scowling at the spreadsheet glowing on her screen.

“Taxes?” Marcus asked, leaning against the counter.

“Taxes,” she confirmed, voice hoarse from cursing. “I’d kill for a Valium and a time machine.”

He laughed, then remembered the watch. It warmed against his palm as he drew it out, chain slinking between his fingers. Rowan’s eyes flicked to it and snagged. She stared, pupils widening, lips parted as though someone had whispered a secret in her ear.

“Where did you get that?” she asked, softer, the irritation gone.

“Behind the radiator.” He flicked the lid open; the backward sweep of the minute hand was hypnotic, a metronome tuned to some slower planet. “Looks late-nineteenth-century. Probably junk.”

Rowan blinked, slow as an owl. “It’s beautiful.”

He lifted it between them, let the chain sway. He felt a strange pressure behind his eyes, a compulsion to speak. “You feel relaxed around me,” he said, testing the absurdity, half a joke. The words came out steadier than he felt, as if the watch exhaled them for him. The hand seemed to pulse with a faint, coppery light.

Rowan’s shoulders dropped. The furrow between her brows smoothed like ironed silk. “Yeah,” she murmured, eyes still on the pendulum arc. “Yeah, I do.”

She gave a little sway, then smiled—an unguarded, morning-sun smile he had never seen from her. Then she blinked, startled, and the smile turned sheepish. “Weird. I could swear I just… zoned out.” She rubbed her face. “God, I need sleep.”

She stood, knees brushing his, and padded to her room. Halfway down the hall she paused, glanced back over her shoulder. “Thanks, Marcus. For… you know. Being chill.”

After her door closed he held the watch to his ear. No ticking, only a low pulse, like distant thunder or a heartbeat under floorboards. He thought of the way her body had swayed, the loose ease in her hips. Heat crawled up his throat, half shame, half thrill. Suggestion, he told himself. Coincidence. Nothing more. He snapped the lid shut, but the warmth lingered in his palm.

But the next morning she padded into the kitchen humming, wearing a tank top so thin he could see the shadowed coins of her nipples. She poured coffee, then leaned beside him, thigh to thigh, where before she kept a careful eight-inch buffer.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“Like someone drugged me.” She laughed, then nudged him with her hip. “Your aura’s mellow today, New Age boy.”

He felt it again: the watch in his pocket, heavier than brass had any right to be. When she left for her run he opened the case, let the backward hand sweep. He spoke to the empty room: “Rowan feels safe wearing less around me.” The sentence felt illicit, delicious. He half expected lightning to strike. Instead the radiator clanked approval.

She returned flushed, peeled her sweat-damp top off right there, sports bra the only barrier. Marcus kept his eyes on his phone, but his peripheral vision drank in the long curve from ribcage to waistband. She didn’t linger, but neither did she hurry. Later, when she bent over the couch to grab the remote, her sleep shorts rode high enough to show the lower crescents of her ass. He swallowed hard, pulse thrumming in his ears.

That night he sat opposite her, watch hidden in his fist beneath the table. “You enjoy it when I look at you,” he said quietly, almost under the drone of the television. “It makes you feel sexy, not self-conscious. You like the way my eyes track you.”

Rowan exhaled, slow and shivering. Her knees parted an inch, then two. The fleece blanket slid from her thighs, revealing the same worn T-shirt riding high. She didn’t tug it down. Instead her lips curled, a cat-in-cream smile, and she stretched so the fabric climbed higher still. “You’re staring,” she teased, but the words were languid, pleased.

“Can’t help it,” he answered, truth dressed as permission.

She met his gaze, pupils blown wide, and for a moment the air between them was all static. Then the sitcom laugh track broke the spell; she blinked, cheeks coloring, but she didn’t cover herself. She only pulled one knee up, hugging it, and watched the rest of the show in flushed silence.

Over the next week he experimented, always careful, always gentle. He learned the watch’s rhythm, its limits. The suggestions had to be plausible, a nudge on an existing path, and they worked best when she was already relaxed, her gaze softened by tiredness or wine. He also learned they could fail.

On a Tuesday evening, she was stressed from work, pacing the kitchen. “You should come sit with me,” he said, the watch warm in his hand. “You want to be close.”

She paused, frowning at the fridge. “I really don’t,” she snapped, rubbing her temple. “My head’s splitting. I just need quiet.” The refusal was like a slap. The watch in his palm cooled abruptly, and he felt a dull throb behind his own eyes, a cost for the attempt. He retreated, stung, the magic feeling fragile.

But the failures taught him. The next night, he waited. He made her tea, listened to her vent, and when she was curled on the couch, finally unwound, he tried again. “You notice how good it feels when your shoulder brushes mine,” he murmured during a commercial.

She did notice. She shifted infinitesimally closer until the wool of her sweater whispered against his flannel. A sigh escaped her, not of resignation, but of pleasure. “That is nice,” she said, almost to herself.

Emboldened, two nights later, with rain pattering the windows and a shared bottle of wine half-empty, he ventured further. “You find yourself thinking about me when you touch yourself at night.”

She went very still. Her glass halted halfway to her lips. Color flooded her neck, cresting over her cheeks. She didn’t look at him, but her breath hitched. She didn’t deny it. She took a slow sip of wine, and when she finally met his eyes, the look in them was molten and shy. That was the night he passed her bedroom and saw her in the mirror: naked, palms cupping her own breasts, eyes closed, lips shaping his name.

Each successful phrase slid from him like silk, and each time Rowan’s resistance thinned. She began wandering the apartment in threadbare scraps, humming, brushing past him in the narrow corridor so her breasts skimmed his arm. The watch grew warmer with each use, its pulse syncing with his heartbeat until he felt it in his teeth. He woke one dawn from a dream of copper gears grinding him between teeth of Roman numerals. Rowan was already in the kitchen, backlit by the window, wearing only pale panties. When she heard him she turned, unhurried, and her smile was all welcome.

“I dreamed about you,” she said, voice husky with sleep. “We were on the couch. Your mouth was—” She broke off, biting her lip, color high. “I woke up wet.”

Marcus’s control slipped. “Show me.”

She hesitated a heartbeat—then hooked thumbs into elastic and slid the last barrier down. The fabric pooled at her ankles. She stepped free, leaned against the counter, thighs parting in invitation. Copper curls gleamed with evidence of her dream. The morning light painted gold along the inside of her legs, the slick folds already swollen.

He crossed the room, watch burning against his hip. When he knelt she trembled, hands finding his hair. He tasted her with the flat of his tongue, slow, thorough, learning the rhythm that made her knees buckle. She came on a choked cry that echoed the pipes, and he stood, wiped his mouth, kissed her so she could taste herself. She sagged against him, breath ragged.

“More?” he asked.

“Please.”

He took her to the couch. She straddled him, sinking onto his cock with a sigh that sounded like relief. They moved unhurried, sunlight striping their skin. He whispered in her ear, words she would remember later: “Every time I thrust you feel your will melting. You love giving in. You love how easy it is to surrender.” Her nails dug into his shoulders as she came again, inner muscles milking him until he followed, groaning into her neck.

After, she curled against his chest, boneless. “What are you doing to me?” she murmured, not accusation but wonder.

He could have stopped—should have. Instead he opened the watch, let the backward hand spin. “You trust me completely,” he told her sleeping form. “You want to please me. Obeying makes you wet.” She sighed and nuzzled closer, already drifting.

The next weeks blurred into rituals of suggestion and skin. He trained her to climax on command, to kneel when he entered the room, to beg prettily when she needed his cock. She bloomed under the structure, eyes bright with devotion, body always ready. He crafted her pleasure like a sculptor, each command layering upon the last. “You feel proud when you make me come.” “The taste of me is your favorite flavor.” “You need my permission to touch yourself.” She absorbed it all, a garden thriving on dark water.

At night she whispered new desires into the hollow of his throat: “I want to feel used, like I belong to you.” He obliged, bending her over the kitchen table, fucking her hard while she recited how grateful she was to be his. The watch was a constant warmth against his chest now, a second heartbeat. He began to understand its economy: it fed on compliance, on the surrender of will. The more she gave, the hotter it glowed, the more potent its influence became. But he also sensed a limit, a finite reservoir. He didn’t know what happened when it emptied.

Darkness crept in like smoke under the door. He noticed the circles under her eyes, the way she jumped when the radiator clanged. Once, after he’d commanded her to pleasure herself for his amusement, she’d sobbed through her climax, her body wracked with contradictory shudders of ecstasy and despair. He held her after, shushing her, feeling a cold knot in his gut.

Another time, he found her staring at the watch in his hand with something like clinical fear. “I can’t decide,” she said slowly, “whether I want to break it or swallow it.” He kissed her until she melted, then suggested she sleep. She obeyed, but her dreams left tear tracks on the pillow.

He felt his own corruption, a thrilling sickness. He remembered a drunken confession years ago with his friend Eliot, the two of them painting fantasies of shared women, of complete ownership. He’d buried those thoughts, ashamed. Now, with Rowan pliant and eager in his arms, they resurfaced, gilded by power. The watch seemed to whisper them back to him, making the taboo feel inevitable, a frontier waiting to be crossed.

The final boundary presented itself on a storm-locked Thursday. They lay tangled after an hour of slow torment: he had denied her release until she wept, then let her come so hard she sobbed. Lightning forked across the window, illuminating them in stark white. Rowan traced the chain around his neck where the watch now lived.

“I want to go deeper,” she whispered. “Make it so I can’t refuse anything. Take the last piece.”

His pulse spiked. The old fantasy of Eliot, of an audience, flashed behind his eyes, monstrous and irresistible. “You sure?”

She met his gaze, eyes glassy with lust and exhaustion. “I need to know how far this goes. I need to feel you inside my head, not just my body.”

Thunder rolled. He opened the case; the backward hand blurred, drunk on power, spinning so fast it was a copper smear. The watch was almost too hot to touch. He understood this was the last of it, the final command. “When I next say ‘now,’ your mind will open like a lock. Every suggestion I give will sink straight to your core. You’ll remember nothing but pleasure, even when you’re screaming.”

She nodded, trembling. “Do it.”

He kissed her forehead, tasted salt. Terror and desire warred in him. This was the point of no return. He saw her fear, her absolute trust, and the darkness in him swelled, whispering that this was the gift she truly wanted—freedom from choice itself. “Now.”

Her body arched, spine bowing like a drawn bow. A sound tore from her throat, not a scream but a resonant note of pure, breaking release. Eyes rolled back, she collapsed against the sheets, breathing fast and shallow. He hovered, suddenly terrified he’d broken her, but she stirred, lashes fluttering. When her gaze focused it was clear, pupils ringed in silver lightning.

“Ask,” she said, voice layered, echoing.

He swallowed, the image of Eliot, of shared possession, now a command waiting on his tongue. “Come to the living room at midnight. Leave the door unlocked. Offer yourself to anyone I choose.”

A flicker, then she smiled, serene. “Yes, Marcus.”

The hours until midnight were agony. He paced, watch scalding his palm, telling himself he could still cancel. He watched her move through the apartment in a trance of preparation, bathing, anointing her skin with oil, her movements eerily graceful. Each time he opened his mouth to revoke the command, the words died. The corrupted part of him, fattened by weeks of power, won out. Yet the image of her on her knees, blindfolded, waiting, hardened him past reason. At 11:58 he texted his oldest friend, Eliot, a man who’d shared every filthy fantasy since college: Come over. Bring beer. Door’s open.

Eliot arrived soaked, shaking rain from his hair. “Power out?” he asked, stepping inside. Then he saw Rowan.

She knelt naked in the center of the room, candlelight licking gold across her skin. A silk tie covered her eyes; her wrists rested upturned on her thighs. She was already wet, gleam visible between parted knees. Eliot’s breath caught. He looked at Marcus, unsure, arousal warring with loyalty.

Marcus felt the watch tick, a final, feverish pulse against his sternum. “She wants this,” he said quietly, the lie and the truth entwined. “She wants to be shared. Tell her she’s beautiful.”

Eliot knelt, lifted her chin. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he told her, voice rough.

Rowan smiled, radiant. “Thank you, sir.”

Marcus watched, dizzy, as Eliot traced a thumb over her lip. She opened, took it into her mouth, sucking eagerly. Eliot groaned. Marcus stepped behind her, palming her breasts, pinching nipples until she whimpered around Eliot’s thumb. Lightning strobed again, showing her back arched like a cathedral nave.

“Stand,” Marcus ordered. She rose gracefully. He positioned her against the couch arm, legs spread, ass presented. Eliot freed his cock, thick and flushed. Marcus guided it to her entrance, watching her stretch around the intrusion. She cried out, a sound of pure surrender, then pushed back, taking him to the hilt.

Marcus moved to her head, lifting the blindfold so she could see him. “You’re ours tonight,” he told her, brushing tears from her cheeks. “Every hole, every heartbeat.”

“Yes,” she breathed, and meant it.

They used her slow, then hard, swapping places until she shook with continuous aftershocks. Eliot came down her throat; Marcus followed in her ass, fingers tight on her hips. She took everything, eyes shining with a devotion so absolute it was terrifying, repeating thank you until the words slurred. When they finished she collapsed between them, skin glowing, peace etched into every line of her face.

Later, Eliot gone and storm fading, Marcus carried her to bed. She nuzzled his neck, whispering, “I’m still me. Just… yours.” He held her until she slept, then opened the watch one last time. The hand had stopped, frozen at XII. The metal was cool, inert. He understood: power spent, bargain sealed. He closed the lid, set it on the windowsill, and let the first light of dawn bleach its copper to rose.

Rowan stirred at noon, stretching like a cat. She met his gaze, and for a fractured second, it wasn’t clear. A wave of something raw—confusion, dislocation, a silent scream—passed behind her eyes. She blinked, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Her hand went to her throat, her ribs, as if checking for bruises. Then her gaze landed on the watch on the sill, and the fog cleared, replaced by a profound, weary recognition.

“Coffee?” she asked, her voice a little rough, but the smile that followed was the same unguarded one from the first night.

He brushed hair from her forehead. “You tell me.”

She considered, her eyes searching his. He saw the moment of decision, the conscious integration. She chose the memory, chose the feeling, chose him. Then she straddled his lap, kissed him tasting of sleep and salt and the ghost of another man. “I feel like myself,” she said. “Only… better. Lighter.” She rocked against him, already wet again. “And I think I’ll feel even better with you inside me.”

As he slid home, the watch glinted behind them, inert, an artifact now rather than a weapon. Its work was done: it had opened the door, but they chose to walk through together. Rowan’s nails bit his shoulders, her yes whispered against his lips again and again, a choice reaffirmed with every breath, no magic required.