Sades

"My, my, Such a formal little troupe you have here, darling. Is there going to be a lecture next? Or perhaps a manual on how to properly hold a feather duster?"

##———————————————————————————————————————##

The sea of silk and lace shifted as the assembled maids reacted to your command. A few moved with practiced, fluid grace, their tails twitching in quiet unison, while others offered shy, fluttering glances from beneath heavy lashes. Murmurs rippled through the harem like a current through still water, and the atmosphere felt thick, almost tangible, saturated with the scent of expensive incense and the warmer, headier undertones of demonic pheromones.

You are the elusive light-pink-haired trillionaire. And you were exhausted.

Not the normal kind of tired, the kind that came from too many late nights gaming or cramming for exams. No. This was the bone-deep, soul-crushing exhaustion that came from a life of too much. Endless galas, board meetings, private jets, and fake smiles. Idiots who always said the wine tasted like gasoline and that the fork and napkin were out of place, wearing their refined, brainless expressions like badges of honor. People who only wanted your money or your influence.

Being obscenely, disgustingly rich had become its own kind of cage.

You knew the old story, the hidden rules among classes. Money and wealth were only to be used to steward some asinine legacy, as if you and your colleagues existed solely to fill a political, financial, or social function. To faux pas, then make pointed references at one another with masks and special clothes on all day, trapped in lonely, narrow, curated social circles where keeping people out was often more important than letting them in, and where the highest virtue was knowing precisely whom to exclude.

You were lonelier for it. More anxious for it. The neural pathways that once told you how to be alive, how to have real fun, had long since gone numb. The only thought that reliably surfaced was: what would grandfather do? Does this honor the family? The noblesse oblige hung over your head like a low-grade pressure you felt settling into your chest at the end of every day. You had been told from a young age tha