An Unexpected Stipulation

It had promised to be a perfectly ordinary day up until this point.

Kyo's weekday began as it usually did: he woke up, made himself a hearty breakfast (grilled salmon with a side of rice and seaweed, plus a nice tea), and streamed the morning's anime-- he had just started on Dr Stone and found it was surprisingly good so far (although he never let on that he was an anime fan-- it would distract from his public image as a stern, serious warrior after all). Then, once he was done breakfast, he quickly transitioned into some exercises, followed by meditation. He was just finishing up, and was taking a swig from his water bottle and preparing for a quick shower when his smartphone beeped. An email from general management, apparently, no doubt setting up his next match.

At least, that was what Kyo had suspected at the time. It ended up being something entirely different altogether.

Dear Mr. Akamatsu,
due to an unfortunate technical hiccup, the conditions and stipulations of your recent match vs. Ms. La Rocca were not recorded and stated earlier in their entirety. This letter is to inform you, that the match actually included a POW stipulation, one that I'm sure an experienced veteran like you is familiar with.
Since Ms. La Rocca achieved the victory, this means that you, Mr. Akamatsu, as the loser of the match, are required to serve as Ms. La Rocca's prisoner for a night as she pleases. We look forward to you fulfilling this task on Wednesday evening at 10pm, in the room B237 on the Tension campus.
See you soon, Erica Fairchild, Tension GM" wrote:

*PFFFFFFFFFT!* Kyo spewed water as he read the emai. "N-NANI?!!" He re-read the email, to make sure that he was reading it correctly. True enough, there was Erica Fairchild's signature, in PDF, at the bottom of the email. He was being ordered to carry out a stipulation. A POW stipulation. With Giulia la Rocca.

He broke into a cold sweat as his face turned a deep shade of red. In all of his career here in Tension, he had added to avoid hentai matches: he considered them undignified and crude, and didn't want to abase himself (especially in front of an audience!) by participating in one. The fact that he had faced several female opponents in the past-- many of whom had even managed to get under his guard and distract him with flirting-- didn't change this fact. He was a wrestler, first and foremost...and the fact that he was in a primarily intergender division that occasionally did hentai matches didn't change that. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.

But now, here, in black and white, was an email ordering him to take part in a POW stipulation. He remembered Giulia la Rocca well, remembered how the two of them had knocked the hell out of one another twice in the ring, and how there seemed to be no love lost between them. He also, at that point, remembered also her shapely legs that had got him in a scissor, that one time, or the curve of her back as she was stretched against the ropes, or how she had stood with her back to him as she faced the crowd, giving a good look at her--

No, no, no, I'm not thinking of that, Kyo thought furiously to himself, trying to quell the erection that was already threatening to manifest. He took a deep breath, and allowed his inner peace to return. Makie wasn't around, so he couldn't ask her advice (though she would no doubt laugh in his face), and he couldn't very well refuse to do this: Fairchild would simply demote him from the ranks, deny him any future championship opportunities-- his career would take a dive if he refused to do what the GM asked.

And so it was a question of his career versus his dignity, and which mattered more to him-- and it was a choice he would have to make before 10 pm tonight.

****

Later that night, Kyo found himself standing in front of the door of the room the email had directed him to. It was a chilly night, and so he had come wearing a grey and yellow hoodie, black t-shirt underneath and black jeans. It was an oddly quiet-looking apartment, and he didn't see any camera crews or anything like that around here. No doubt it would be a private affair...and from what little he had heard about Giulia and her POW escapades, she seemed to prefer it that way.

He shuddered as he imagined what kind of diabolical humiliations she might decide to inflict on him. He had an enduring mental image of himself stripped naked, a ball gag forced in his mouth as Giulia...well...and that was where his imagination had run out. If he was honest with himself, he was terrified of what was going to happen in here. Terrified...and maybe, perhaps, a little excited. He didn't know which bothered him more.

He took a deep breath. Let Giulia do her worst then, he decided. No matter what, he would try to endure it with stoic dignity. And then, afterwards, he would try to forget this ever happened...no matter how much sake that required.

And with that, he knocked on the door, and waited.

For Giulia, this whole scheme was a big risk.

But one that could potentially reward her greatly.

The risks were plentiful, including the following questions... Had it been a good idea to falsify Erica Fairchild's signature on the PDF letter she had spent a considerable amount of time crafting herself? Had she been careful enough with creating the fake e-mail account for the Tension management to make it look like a genuine one? Was Kyo actually going to believe that a stipulation could have been "accidentally" left out? What was going to happen, if he'd manage to call her bluff?

And was it foolishly risky of her to include a hint of her own deceit with the "see you soon" -greetings?

There was only one way and one time to find out about it. And it was due in two minutes.

The odds Giulia had given to the success had been about 60 to 40. Granted, she had crafted her plan very carefully, trying to take care of every little detail as diligently as possible, not to cause any suspicion on Kyo's part. Meaning, the odds of success she had given herself were conservative at best... But as the day had progressed, and no word of any suspicion had leaked out to her, right now they were standing already at 80 to 20.

But why take the risk? Well, obviously, there were the potential rewards... And there were at least three major ones.

One. Giulia had won indeed their last battle, but after a very insatisfactory performance from her own part. Kyo had performed strong, too strong, and her thirst for punishing the guy, and displaying him her superiority had gotten far from quenched. She needed to fix it...

Then, two. Kyo had indeed performed strong, and he had done it purely, honestly, and respectably. Just like he had behaved in their first encounter. It wasn't like he had been acting all heelish, trying to snatch the victory by all means. Giulia respected that. She had to admit being on some level impressed by his performance. And she also had to admit that Kyo seemed like a nice guy, potentially worthwhile of getting to know even better...

Finally, three. Getting a guy to her apartment to play with for a night never hurt. Well, never hurt her, that was.

Giulia's attire, covered by a white robe for now.:

The Japanese were famous of their punctuality, unlike the Italians, and the knock on the door at exactly 10pm came as no surprise for Giulia. Well, the timing of it didn't, but it still was a huge relief for Giulia. Apparently, her plan had worked... And then again, not necessarily? Maybe the guy had arrived there just to call her bluff?

Hastily shoving a couple of items from her bed to the bedside drawer, in an Italian last-minute style, Giulia quickly re-checked her hair from the mirror before taking a deep breath and walking to the door, clad in a white satin night robe. She didn't want to make the situation look at all like she had been waiting for him. In fact, the Italian's plan was to act all surprised by Kyo's appearance at her door... Just for fun.

Taking a few deep breaths before opening the door, Giulia wanted to ensure her act would go down well, and to keep a straight face, not wanting Kyo to suspect anything. The tricky part was that she could not guess at all any of his thoughts, or how he would be reacting.

Opening the door, Giulia adopted a surprised look, looking at the guy from his head to his toes. Obviously, the way he was dressed was telling of not wanting to attract any attention, and definitely one not telling for arriving to complete a kinky stipulation. Obviously, that helped with the Italian's faking.

"Oh... Mr. Akamatsu... What a surprise!" Giulia began in a surprised and confused tone. "What brings you here? At this hour?"

In the moments before the door opened, Kyo's mind was brimming with questions. For starters, wasn't Erica Fairchild supposed to be here? She had said "see you soon" in the email. He shuddered at the thought that she might be....watching...as the stipulation went down. More to the point, was he supposed to bring anything, or...do anything, in advance of this? Kyo had pointedly avoided things like these all throughout his time in Tension, and now that it was finally happening, he was horribly confused.

The biggest question he wondered, though, is exactly what Giulia would have in store waiting for him behind this door....

A second later, the door opened, and Giulia greeted him, clad in a white satin robe.

For a few brief seconds, Kyo blinked in surprise. True, Giulia's ring gear had hugged her muscular form and had left little to the imagination, but...here, with her wearing just a satin robe, he was painfully conscious of how little she was wearing underneath. Despite his best efforts, his was eye drawn, for just a few seconds, to the curve of her breasts disappearing under that robe...and was about to whirl around and look away from Giulia in embarassed modesty, when Giulia's question immediately threw him off and snapped him back into focus.

"Eh? Wh-what?!" he stammered, red-faced. "You...you mean you don't know?" He tried to compose himself, especially in the face of his negligee-clad former opponent, and immediately looked away in embarassment. "I...I didn't mean to intrude like this. I just....well, didn't you get the email from Ms. Fairchild?"

Oh, this was so enjoyable. She had obviously managed to fool him. And she had a distinct feeling that she could keep on fooling him as long as she wanted to. If she was just going to be able to keep her poker face...

The fact that he had obviously already been daydreaming of her was not making it any easier. Giulia could tell it. He tried to hide it the best he could, and admittedly, he did it quite well, but the Italian could tell that the Samurai was curious to face his fate.

"What? I don't know what, Mr. Akamatsu?" There was a distinct hint of amusement in Giulia's tone now, especially as the guy looking away in embarrassment was insanely hilarious to see. "What e-mail? I haven't seen any e-mail? Could you perhaps, show me then? Come on, step inside! And, don't worry, you're not intruding now..."

Finishing up her act with almost a motherly guiding tone, Giulia wanted to quickly ensure that the guy would step inside her apartment. She was expecting him to start then pulling off the e-mail from his phone... And while he'd be doing that, Giulia would make sure to subtly close the door, and lock it up so that no one could exit the apartment without her handing out the key.

To Kyo's complete and utter surprise, Giulia seemed to know nothing about the letter. Could the management have not informed either of them? Or maybe Giulia could be deceiving him...could she have faked the letter somehow, just to get him in her snare? Panicked thoughts were racing through Kyo's head, and the fact that Giulia was standing in front of him, wearing only negligee, did NOT help his state of mind at all.

To make matters even more awkward, she took him by the hand and pulled him inside. Not wanting to be distracted, he started going through his phone to find the email. He was so engrossed in it that he completely failed to notice Giulia locking the door behind him.

"There!" He pulled up the email and showed it to Giulia, passing his phone to her. "I got that this morning. Don't tell me you didn't get anything similar?"

Having made sure that Kyo was now safely locked up in her apartment, Giulia made her way to the guy desparately seeking the e-mail from his phone. And sure enough, he was fast to find it, generously offering the girl to take a look at it as well. Naturally, the Italian was all-too-happy to take up the offer.

While Giulia knew exactly what was written in the e-mail, she still took the moment to admire her choices of words, the way they were displayed on the screen, and having a double take on the falsified signature of Erica Fairchild. It was all just so clever, so beautiful, and something that had fulfilled its purpose perfectly, as was evidenced by the guy now standing in her room.

"Oh, well Kyo... I don't know what to say..." the Italian began her words in a markedly confused tone. "This is quite...a surprise. But I mean... It appears genuine. There's even a signature, and all!" Raising her eyes from the phone, Giulia turned her sights to Kyo again, letting her eyes to size him up from his head to toes for a moment. Biting her lip a bit, she then continued. "I must say, that you're a very honorable guy, Kyo... You fight fair, and are ready to fulfill any duties assigned to you... That's why I really appreciate you coming over here tonight... And I certainly don't have any suspicions that you would be faking all this just to get into my bed..."

Oh, playing mind games was so fun.

Giulia seemed as genuinely confused as Kyo had as she looked over the message. For a minute, this gave Kyo a glimmer of hope. After all, Veronica Fairchild couldnt force both of them into a hentai stipulation like this without their knowledge or consent, could she? If the two of them complained to the GM about this, then maybe Kyo wouldn't have to compromise his dignity and they could both forget this ever happened.

Kyo's Hope's were dashed, however, when Giulia's response (and the way she was looking at him) made it clear she was looking forward to this. His face went best red when Giulia suggested he had contrived this to get into her bed. "W-WHAT?"! he sputtered. "I...I would never...." He stopped at that moment when he realized he was inadvertently insulting Giulia. "I mean, that's not quite true, you're a very attractive woman and all, but--" Idiot, you just admitted you find her attractive! he mentally berated himself. He broke into a cold sweat. "I swear, I had nothing to do with this!"

The situation was getting worse and worse, and no matter what he said or did, he just seemed to dig himself into a deeper hole.

Oh, it was so hard to constrain the chuckle and giggles Kyo's panicked reaction was eliciting. But Giulia had to. She had to still keep her bluff on. Otherwise all of her clever work would have gone down the drain...

Besides, it was easy to turn those constraining efforts into an astonished expression, one that suited very well Kyo's initial words of never wanting to get into her bed.

In reality, Giulia would not have minded. Not much, at least... She knew she could get plenty of guys if she wanted. But then again, there was something about Kyo, something that made her very curious about him, that would have made her at least a tad disappointed if he would not have been into her at all.

Or if she would not have gotten him into her at all.

Besides, POW stipulations were handy in the regard that the prisoner did not really have a say. Like Kyo tonight.

"OK, I believe you..." the Italian turned her astonished face into saying words in a rather disbeliefed tone, before turning her back on the guy and making her way beside her bed and turning to face the guy again.

"Well, if there's a POW stipulation that you need to fulfill, I'm most certainly not going to complain..." the girl began, before opening up the two buttons of her robe, letting it drop down onto the floor before seating herself on the edge of her bed. "But if I recall correctly, for some..-..funny reason, you did win our first match together. So, if you've been ordered to carry out a POW stipulation for your loss..." she paused for a moment to let the guy guess what was going to follow, "I guess someone would say it would be only fair to offer you the chance to have the same first?"

Now this was going to be interesting. How was he going to react? Would he be ready to take up Giulia's offer on such a short notice, and mentally totally unprepared, or would he be too much of a gentleman to accept the Italian as her prisoner?

Giulia's guess went for the latter option, well, at least before he'd learn about her sneaky plot behind all this...

Kyo saw a look of astonishment...and more than a little mirth...light up Giulia's face, and he had realized that he had just made a complete and utter ass of himself with his sudden admission that he found her attractive. He went beet red, and suddenly found himself wishing that some force out there would grant him the gift of swift and immediate obliteration. To his surprise, however (and this was, he found, increasingly becoming a night of surprises) Giulia responded by slowly and deliberately unbuttoning her robe and letting it fall discarded to the floor. She was now wearing only her satin white bra and panties, which barely covered her body-- a body that, despite its noticeable muscle, was also slender and curvy in all the right ways.

What she said next pretty much confirmed it. She was propositioning him.

A thousand conflicted thoughts erupted all at once in Kyo's mind (including one thought that resignedly realized that "erupted" was an appropriate term, given his feelings of arousal). On the one hand, he felt panic at being thrust into a situation where a woman was now expecting him to take advantage of her. Another, guiltier part of him felt thrilled at being given such an offer in the first place, while another part of him simply shouted "What the hell do I do" over and over again in the back of his skull. All of these combined in that instant to inflict poor Kyo with a seconds-long paralysis that felt like an eternity to him.

Either way, the red shade to his face became even redder. "I...don't...know what to say!" he stammered, honestly in a (failing) effort to maintain his composure. "I mean...me? Take advantage of you and...make you my prisoner for the night? Why Giulia, I...couldn't possibly impose myself upon you like that!" Unless you really want me to, he mentally added...before stopping and realizing to his surprise that he had just thought that.

Each and every single word Kyo Akamatsu was saying right now was making Giulia La Rocca a devilishly happier person. His hesitation, his uncertainty, his confusion, his utter surprise... Gosh, if he'd just been acting this same way all along in the ring, things would have always been so much easier!

Then again, Giulia had the distinct feeling that if she herself had always acted like this, things for sure would not have been any easier at all for the Japanese gentleman.

And that only dictated that she had good prospects for tonight. Prospects of playing, that was.

But Giulia liked to gamble. Just a little bit. What if he had forgotten his insecurities? What if he had forgotten about being a gentleman? What if he had suddenly received a message from his instincts to just take advantage of the situation, and enslave Giulia as his prisoner?

"Impose myself upon you?" Yeah, not a chance.

Giulia adopted an astonishingly disappointed appearance for a woman who in fact wasn't disappointed at all. Grabbing the nearest blanket to cover up some of her body, she turned her eyes downwards away from Kyo, making sure to have a hint of martyr audible in her voice with her following words.

"I know. You're too much of a gentleman for that. It's OK. I forgive you..." Knowing full well that her words weren't actually relieving at all, the Italian decided to quickly continue to eliminate any chance of a mood swing. "So, let's just go with what's been ordered, then... So, can you just.... Can you just come here and... And... Kneel right in front of me?" Trying to sound as hesitant as she could, Giulia looked down all along as she was saying her words, only directing her eyes back to Kyo's as she was saying her last few words.