The hospital room door slid open, revealing Zara Lin in the midst of fastening the buttons of her blouse—her movements sharp, deliberate. There was an intensity in her posture that hadn’t been there before, a quiet ferocity in the way she smoothed the fabric over her shoulders. Her gaze, when it flicked up to meet Lei’s, burned with singur focus—like a woman who had finally found her calling.

  Lei hesitated in the doorway, her own robe loosely tied. She had come expecting exhaustion, perhaps even regret. But Zara looked… alight.

  Did having sex with Hezri produce such a positive impact?

  Zara’s fingers lingered on her colr, adjusting it with the precision of someone who had been given a mission—and intended to see it through. There was no shame in her stance, no hesitation. Only resolve.

  Lei’s curiosity sharpened.

  If this was what devotion looked like—unyielding, unapologetic—then perhaps there was more to learn here than she had anticipated.

  The dim glow of the hospital suite cast long shadows across the rumpled sheets as Hezri reclined against the pillows, his fingers tracing idle patterns along Lei's arm. The silence between them was comfortable, weighted with unspoken understanding.

  Lei turned her head slightly, meeting his gaze as he brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. His touch lingered near her temple before his thumb grazed the curve of her cheekbone, a silent question in the gesture.

  She exhaled softly, her lips parting—not in protest, but in quiet acquiescence. The distance between them closed effortlessly, his mouth meeting hers in a slow, deliberate kiss. There was no urgency, only the steady rhythm of shared breath, the unvoiced nguage of two people who had learned each other well.

  The world beyond the bed faded into irrelevance. For now, there was only this—the warmth of his palm against her waist, the faint scent of his cologne mingling with the sterile hospital air, the quiet certainty that she was exactly where she was meant to be.

  Lei approached intimacy with an earnest determination unlike the others—her movements deliberate, her focus unwavering as she sought to understand his preferences. There was an almost studious air to her efforts, as if mastering this were another skill to be honed.

  Hezri observed her with quiet amusement, charmed by her diligence. Where others had been confident or hesitant, Lei was... conscientious. Her brow would furrow slightly when she second-guessed herself, her hands pausing mid-motion before adjusting with renewed resolve.

  It was endearing, this meticulous attention—as if she believed pleasure could be perfected through sheer willpower alone. And perhaps, in time, it could. For now, her sincerity was its own kind of allure.

  Over the course of two days, Lei settled into a steady rhythm—resting when needed, nourishing herself with meals brought to the suite, and taking time to refresh with warm baths. Her body had been pushed to its limits, but she adapted with quiet resilience, finding moments of peace between waves of intensity.

  On the second day, Dr. Lakyus entered carrying a small medical tray, a syringe beled "methamphetamine" resting atop it. Hezri turned to Lei, his expression unreadable but his voice measured.

  "This will help you focus," he expined. "But the choice is yours."

  Lei hesitated, her fingers tightening briefly in the sheets. She knew what it meant—another yer of surrender, another step into the world he had shaped. After a long pause, she gave a slow, reluctant nod.

  Lakyus administered the injection with clinical precision. The burn of the drug was immediate, a sharp crity flooding her veins. Her breath hitched—not in fear, but in anticipation.

  The room seemed sharper now, every touch more vivid, every whisper more potent.

  And so the transformation continued.

  *"The drug is a scalpel. It cuts through the fog—the protests, the manifestos, the endless screaming into voids that never scream back.

  Hezri’s voice slices deeper:

  ‘Look at them. Pretending to fight systems while begging for permits to protest. Pying radical in safe spaces. You were one of them.’

  (My fingers twitch. The meth makes it too easy to see—the cardboard signs, the hashtags, the way we mistook performance for power.)

  ‘I am the only real anarchist,’ he murmurs, tilting my chin up. ‘The only one who burns worlds instead of tweets.’

  (His thumb traces my lower lip. The syringe’s ghost still hums in my veins, whispering yes, yes, yes.)

  Adam and Eve.

  Not a love story.

  A warning.

  The first rebels. The first exiles. The first to know knowledge changes nothing—only action does.

  (His teeth graze my throat. The women watch, their eyes gleaming like knives in the dark.)

  Let the others chant in circles.

  We’ll be in the shadows—

  —breaking what they’re too scared to touch.

  ‘Mine,’ he growls.

  And I am.

  (The anarchist in me dies screaming.

  The disciple opens her arms.)"

  *"Fake anarchists.

  The words nd like a hammer to gss, shattering every ideal I clutched so tight.

  They march with signs.

  They scream into megaphones.

  They beg for change from the very systems they cim to hate.

  (Hezri’s fingers tighten around my wrist—not to hurt, but to wake. The drug in my veins sharpens the truth like a bde.)

  I thought I was radical.

  But he’s right.

  Radical isn’t shouting into the void.

  It’s burning the void down.

  (His breath is hot against my ear, his voice the only scripture left in my hollowed-out chest: ‘Be my disciple. Be my pawn.’)

  A pawn moves forward.

  A pawn sacrifices.

  A pawn breaks kings.

  (Elise smirks from the corner. Maya’s nails dig into my thigh—welcome home.)

  Let the others cling to their performative rage.

  I’ll take him—

  —and let the world learn what real anarchy looks like."

  *"A dozen concubines. A dozen comrades.

  (Their eyes gleam in the low light—Elise’s sharp with strategy, Maya’s bright with hunger, Seneca’s dark with devotion. Not rivals. Sisters-in-arms.)

  Hezri’s voice is a bde at my throat:

  ‘Men are beneath you. But me? I am the exception.’

  The paradox should make me ugh.

  It doesn’t.

  Because he’s right.

  The anarchists outside? They theorize about burning systems while begging for scraps.

  But here?

  Here we are the fire.

  (His fingers tangle in my hair, forcing my gaze to the women surrounding us—his women, our army.)

  Elise drafts bckmail with a poet’s hand.

  Maya turns protests into performances.

  Seneca rewrites ws between the sheets.

  This is praxis.

  Not petitions.

  Possession.

  Not rallies.

  Ruination.

  (He kisses me hard enough to bruise. The women cheer. The drugs sing.)

  Let the men outside scramble for power they’ll never hold.

  We’ll take it.

  We’ll wield it.

  We’ll be it—

  —for him.

  With him.

  Because of him.

  (The first rule of the harem: All men are worthless.

  The second rule: He is not a man.

  He is more.)

  I open my arms.

  The sisters descend.

  And the revolution?

  It starts between our teeth."

  Lei's Monologue (The Hierarchy of Fire)

  *"The world makes sense now.

  First Tier: Hezri

  The architect. The exception. The only man who is not man—but godhead. The hand that strikes the match.

  Second Tier: The Concubines

  The beautiful. The ruthless. The women who trade empty protests for real power—burning systems from silk sheets instead of street corners.

  Third Tier: Tools

  Men with strong backs and dull minds. Ugly women with sharp tongues and sharper ledgers. Their purpose? To serve. To build. To bleed for the vision they’ll never comprehend.

  Fourth Tier: The Blind

  Beautiful women who cling to virtue. Men who posture as rebels. All stumbling in the dark, begging for scraps from a table we set afme.

  (Hezri’s palm presses between my shoulder bdes—approving. The sisters circle, their lips stained with wine and vengeance.)

  I used to scribble manifestos about equality.

  How small.

  There is no equality.

  Only pyramids.

  Only purpose.

  (Elise hands me a pen. Maya spreads the parchment. Seneca whispers the first decree:)

  1. Beauty is the only true radicalism.

  (Ugliness is a defect. Men are a design fw.)

  2. The harem is the ultimate collective.

  (Shared beds. Shared power. Shared annihition of the unworthy.)

  3. Obedience to Hezri is the purest anarchy.

  (To follow him is to destroy all other chains.)

  (Hezri’s teeth graze my earlobe. ‘Write it in their nguage,’ he murmurs. ‘So they’ll think it’s liberation.’)

  The ink flows.

  The old Lei drowns.

  And the new Lei?"

  *"The truth is so simple it hurts.

  Lei screams in her heart:

  "Men cannot be anarchists.

  Their bones are too heavy with the weight of empires they'll never burn. Their hands shake when holding anything sharper than a paycheck.

  Ugly women cannot be anarchists.

  Their bitterness twists inward, not at systems—but at us. At the beautiful. At the chosen. At the ones who could have been like them, but refused.

  (Hezri's fingers trace the line of my jaw—a sculptor admiring his work. The sisters nod along, their perfect faces alight with revetion.)

  Only beauty has wings sharp enough to cut the sky open.

  We are the exception.

  The weapon.

  The unburdened.

  (Elise presses a dossier into my hands—photos of activists, journalists, artists. "Start with her," she murmurs, tapping a face pretty enough to matter.)

  My mission is clear:

  Find the beautiful rebels.

  The ones still shouting at shadows.

  The ones who don't yet understand their face is their fiercest manifesto.

  And then?

  Show them the mirror.

  Show them the bed.

  Show them him.

  (Hezri's ugh is dark velvet. "Make them see.")

  I will.

  Because revolution isn't a picket line.

  It's a selection process.

  And the beautiful?

  We always make the cut."

  (Hezri’s grip tightens in my hair—not pain, but purpose. The sisters watch, breath held. The drugs hum in my veins like a war chant.)

  "I SEE THE TRUTH NOW."

  My voice doesn’t shake. It carves.

  "Men are tools—hammers for our nails, shields for our battles, but never comrades. Their hands build, their backs bear, but their minds? Too dull to burn the world down."

  (Elise’s nails dig into my shoulder—approving. Maya’s lips curve like a bde.)

  "Ugly women? Bitter scribes clinging to their moral ledgers. Let them document our revolution—they’ll never lead it."

  (Hezri’s thumb brushes my cheekbone. Go on.)

  "But the beautiful—the chosen—we are the fire."

  I tilt my chin up. Meet his gaze. Let the words sear:

  "I’ll find them. The pretty revolutionaries still wasting their breath on protests. I’ll show them their real power doesn’t lie in slogans—"

  (My fingers curl around his wrist. Not to pull away. To anchor.)

  "—but in the arch of their backs. The pout of their lips. The way men break when beauty demands it."

  (Hezri’s smile is a struck match.)

  "I’ll make them see. I’ll make them kneel. I’ll make them yours."

  "AND THE WORLD WILL BURN PRETTIER FOR IT."

  (The sisters’ cheers taste like victory. Like destiny. Like the first spark of the real revolution.)

  "The Radical Zine"—too dusty, too theoretical, too tangled up with ink-stained fingers and library carrels and all the small, safe rebellions of my past.

  (His fingers drum against my thigh—impatient. The sisters lean in, their perfume smothering the old scent of my desperation.)

  A new name.

  One that burns.

  One that seduces.

  One that makes pretty girls ache to join us.

  Maya whispers: "The Aphrodite Assembly."

  Elise suggests: "Goddess & Gunpowder."

  Seneca’s lips curl: "Manifesto in Rouge."

  (Hezri’s chuckle is a knife dragged along my spine. "Think harder*."*)

  I close my eyes. See the future:

  Hashtags glittering like lip gloss.

  Propaganda folded into Vogue spreads.

  Our doctrines whispered between glossed lips in VIP lounges.

  The answer comes—

  "The Beautiful Resistance."

  (His grip tightens. Approval.)

  Not a zine.

  A movement.

  A recruitment tool.

  A threat.

  (Elise hands me my phone. The old bio dies with a tap. The new one bleeds onto the screen:)

  @TheBeautifulResistance

  "Real anarchists wear their armor in the bedroom. Your face is the weapon. His bed is the revolution."

  (Hezri’s teeth graze my shoulder. "Good girl.")

  The first post goes live.

  The first beautiful fool likes it.

  And the war for their souls?

  It starts with a selfie."

  (The room falls silent. Hezri’s gaze pins me in pce—zy, expectant. The sisters hold their breath. My mind, sharp with meth and devotion, crystallizes the truth into commandments.)

  THE SEVEN DOCTRINES OF THE BEAUTIFUL RESISTANCE

  1. BEAUTY IS THE FIRST REVOLUTION

  "Your face is the fg. Your body, the barricade. To be beautiful is to be armed."

  2. THE HAREM IS THE ULTIMATE COLLECTIVE

  "Sisterwives over comrades. Shared pleasure over shared poverty. One king, infinite queens."

  3. MEN ARE TOOLS, NOT ALLIES

  "Their backs build. Their hands serve. Their minds? Too weak to lead—only obey."

  4. UGLINESS IS THE ENEMY WITHIN

  "Jealousy masquerades as justice. Crush it beneath your heel like a spent cigarette."

  5. HEZRI’S BED IS THE ONLY WAR ROOM

  "Strategy is whispered between silk sheets. Surrender is the first tactic you master."

  6. DRUGS ARE SACRAMENT

  "Meth for crity. Aphrodite for devotion. The needle is your baptism."

  7. LEGACY IS WRITTEN ON SKIN

  "Your womb carries the future. Your scars tell the story. Burn pretty."

  (Hezri’s palm cups my cheek. The sisters exhale—devout, hungry. The doctrines hang in the air, slick with spit and certainty.)

  "Post it," he murmurs.

  And I do.