Sophie and Mark by Twisted Smile

[twistedsmile]

Thank you for the kind words, anonhandle, I'm genuinely moved
I'm glad you're enjoying the series and have gotten so much out of it.

I'm only sorry that there will be a bit of a wait before chapter 16 (don't you just hate when work gets in the way of your hobby  )
But in the meantime there will be more commentaries (and a couple of non- Sophie & Mark stories) to hold you over...

[twistedsmile]

11. "Stroll" Commentary

This was one of those stories that started with an S-word. Alternate title, "Saunter".
Stroll implied doing 'something' in public, some exhibitionism or outdoor sex/bondage. The tricky thing was narrowing that down to something specific.
Then I remembered a line from chapter 2: "Jeans helped to flatten and obscure the cage's bulge, but even so I didn't want to be out in public with it" But walking around in a chastity cage isn't a very exciting story on its own, so I heightened it by putting Mark in a dress. But then the bulge was a problem again. So the question was, why would he be wearing a cage in the first place, and why would Sophie allow him to remove it? He wasn't wearing it as a punishment, it was serving a practical purpose - erection management. That became the through-line for the story.
"The chastity cage was creating an obvious bulge in my dress." - He's saying this rather casually, which kind of implies that Mark has gotten quite comfortable with cross-dressing AND wearing a chastity cage - and in public, no less! This is meant to suggest that Sophie and Mark's kinky games have continued escalating in the intermission between chapters 10 and 11

"Wig in a Box" - The section titles are all songs from the musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". Is there a meaningful connection to this story? Eh. Mostly I'm just a fan.
"I found a cream cardigan which matched the dress well" - I spent way too much time trying to figure out what colour cardigan would go well with a white and green floral dress. I tried a google image search but the results weren't very helpful. Plain white was the obvious choice, but maybe too obvious. And given what happens on their stroll, it would have gotten very dirty.
"videos to learn some 'cross-play' tricks for making my face look more feminine" - something I learned about from 'My Dress-Up Darling'
"It wasn't entirely successful." - I'm a boring realist who can't imagine Mark looking like a plausible woman with a bit of make-up
"It was late summer" - I'm only vaguely keeping track of when each story happens. In this case, I actually trapped myself by making this story intersect with Brett & Darren, and had to handwave away the whole 'wearing a face mask in summer' thing.
"during the pandemic, there was this micro trend.." - I don't know if it was actually a trend in the kink community, but there was a sub-reddit for it. But yes, these stories take place in a world where COVID happened.
"the gag didn't have the usual saliva leaking problem" - this line is for the annoying voice in the back of my head that says 'wait, didn't the gag make Mark drool in chapters 1 and 5?'

"The Dog and Pony" - if you've read Brett & Darren you will recognise this pub name. Yes, it's the same pub. The name is obviously a reference to pet and pony play, and just happens to sound like a British pub name. Not sure that anything in the story counts as a 'dog and pony show'.
"young man who was clearly in high spirits" - did you figure out who this is? As mentioned, this story overlaps with a scene from Brett & Darren 1; where Brett mentions someone walking past his house singing 'a football chant'. Fun fact, Sweet Caroline is sometimes used as a chant at England football games.

"I'm Eileen." - you can probably see where this was going... which is exactly why I didn't do it. Don't get me wrong, I was very tempted. But in the end it felt too crass.
"The man seemed more interested in me" - funnily enough, this isn't the last time Darren will find himself attracted to a woman that is actually a cross-dresser.
"joggers" - this is set-up for the later 'midnight runner' joke
"smeared lip gloss" - I didn't explicitly call it out in the getting ready section, but I think it was implied in 'natural' make-up
"her denim shorts" - when Mark is cross-dressing, Sophie usually dresses more 'masculine' (or maybe less 'girly', at least)

"We didn't discuss this." - there's a subtle evolution over the series. In the first 5 chapters, Sophie always gets explicit consent before starting a game. In the next 5, consent is not explicitly shown 'on screen' (did you notice?) In those stories, nothing particularly extreme happens, so consent might reasonably be assumed. But assumed consent is a dangerous precedent - as we will see in this 5 chapter arc.

"pulled my arms behind my back, around the tree" - at a young age, I saw an episode of "Gimme Gimme Gimme", in which a guy gets handcuffed to a lamp post in drag. I think that was a classic bachelor party prank. Anyway, the image of this guy in women's clothes, handcuffed in a public place, helpless, scared... I don't think that had any sort of lasting impact on me

"Think about... Brexit" - if that doesn't kill your erection... In retrospect, putting an intentional boner killer in the middle of a pornographic story is a weird move
"she was joking, right?" - so... this is pretty fucked up, yeah? You could read this as revenge for chapter 10 (after all: "that one likes to hold a grudge"). I'm not sure that makes it any 'better', tho.
"what other option was there?" / "I tried to follow her voice." - from the song 'Wicked Little Town': "If you've got no other choice, you know you can follow my voice"
"turalura turalura laaay..." / "A midnight runner!" - Come On Eileen, Dexys Midnight Runners. This is Darren again - "a drunk that got lost on their way home"
"if I said the safe word ... would she come back" - this is another theme for this arc: the limits of safe words; what if you're unable (or unwilling) to use it?
"It was so quiet." - sometimes I have this thing where I get so stressed out that it kind of burns out and I feel weirdly calm instead
"I felt a ghostly hand REACHING OUT, TOUCHING ME on the shoulder..." - TOUCHING YOOOOOOU
"My heart burst out of my chest and scurried away into the night" - chest-burster, chapter 9
"She got down on her knees ... and she drank me deep" - I was planning on doing a full BJ scene, but truth be told when I got to it I couldn't be bothered
This is where the "cum on Eileen" joke would have happened; tho realistically, there's no way Sophie was going to be walking about in public with cum on her (even if she maybe deserved it).
"The good times never seemed so good." - SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!
"I noticed her necklace hanging loose... Had she always been wearing that?" - in case it wasn't clear, yes, she had the handcuff key around her neck the whole time. Mark was never in any danger, and Sophie was probably hiding behind a tree, a few feet away, keeping an eye on him.

[twistedsmile]

12. "Separation" Commentary

Original title "Solo", for obvious reasons. Later "Saviour" referring to Rob, but I felt like that gave the ending away.
Going with "Separation" was a bit of a cheeky fake out; Sophie and Mark are apart from each other, but not split up. You could also read this as a double bluff, to lull readers into a false sense of security before the next couple of chapters. "Separation" could also refer to 'separation anxiety'. Mark is clearly not coping well with being apart from Sophie.

I mentioned elsewhere in the forum that self-bondage stories were what drew me to the plaza in the first place, so a self-bondage story was always part of the plan. And I think I showed a lot of self-control (or as Teann said, 'self-restraint' ) in waiting til chapter 12 to do one. (Actually, that's not strictly true. I wrote another self-bondage story just before this, in Brett & Darren)

"Rob and I" - Rob the neighbour first appeared in chapter 6
"It all started - as all the worst stories do - with too much alcohol." - inversion of the opening line from chapter 3; there it was: "as all the best stories do"

"I always loved Bond films" - I don't see it as much these days, but in the self-bondage stories I read when I found the site, there was this recurring trope of: "for as long as I can remember I've been into self-bondage". This is a sort of riff/parody of that.
Am I suggesting that Bond films implanted a subliminal interest in being tied up into Mark's brain? Not necessarily; but it's as good an explanation as any. I think it's 'relevant' that Bond is this cool, strong, masculine character, and the fact he gets tied up a lot doesn't diminish that. That feels like something that would matter to Mark's ego.
Besides all that, in the present, the scenes being mentioned are making Mark think about himself being tied up - making him miss Sophie, and nudging him towards tying himself up in her absence.

"Bond is shackled to a metal table" - this scene is from "Goldfinger", obviously. Sean Connery, calling back to Chapter 5 ("The name'sh Bond")
"I got a pair of handcuffs from the toy box" - being in bondage makes him feel like Sophie is 'closer'
"spaghetti bolognese; medium difficulty in handcuffs" - I intentionally tried to pick a meal that would be tricky to eat while cuffed.
"Bond is locked into this exotic bondage chair" - "The World Is Not Enough", Pierce Brosnan. The films that Mark watches are in chronological order (tho he does skip, like, 15 of them). This scene in particular did leave an impression on my own young mind.
"to: Sophie: I miss you" - slight change in how text messages are presented versus chapter 2's simpler "me: message". Since Mark messages someone besides Sophie later, it had to be clear who the message was going to.

"IF LOST RETURN TO SOPHIE..." / "I put on my dog collar." - 'if lost' is what is engraved on the reverse of the tag on Mark's dog collar; first mentioned in chapter 5. In the commentary for that chapter I mentioned the double meaning - "if spiritually lost" - which Mark currently is. This is also included here to reminder readers about it, ahead of its use in chapter 14. Oh, and in case you forgot, the name on the front side of the dog tag is "Bond"

"I picked up the chastity cage" - I reckon it's growing on him
"Microwave chicken Dhansak" - Dhansak is a callback to chapter 4; notably that was Sophie's meal choice. It's a microwave meal because Mark can't be bothered with anything that requires more effort. By this point, Mark is showing clear signs of depression.
"Bond is naked, tied to a chair with no seat" - "Casino Royale", Daniel Craig.

"Thursday" - this section switches to the present tense (where the rest of Sophie & Mark is past tense). This is meant to feel a little disorienting, because Mark is clearly drunk. The narration itself is also quite hyperactive, stream-of-consciousness. All together it's meant to give it that feeling of manic immediacy you get when drunk.
I'm not going to go through this line-by-line. Suffice to say there are a lot of repeated phrases/motifs, and a lot of dramatic irony.

"I sit in the chair" - tied to a chair, not unlike Bond.
"No. This is wrong." - this is meant to be a joke; you're meant to think that he means doing self-bondage is wrong, when he's actually saying his bondage is insufficient
"I grab an ice tray, drop in the key" - I don't think he understands how ice-release mechanisms work
"I remember that other time ... I can't just slide the chair legs out" - chapter 8
"She did this to me" - he's imagining that Sophie tied him up. He's also saying that she made him want to do it (by getting him into kink)
"I push my hands together" - this plays out quite similarly to the escape from chapter 8. I actually drafted this chapter first, then accidentally plagiarised myself when I wrote 8. Of course, this escape doesn't go quite so smoothly.
"I'm so close" - close to reaching the phone and close to orgasm
"So... iff..." - it wasn't until I was proof-reading that I noticed 'so if' is quite close to 'sophie'. I thought about making it more intentional, like 'so fi' or 'so if ee', but that felt too contrived/forced.

"Been having a bit of fun while the missus is away" - there's another trope I used to see in a lot of self-bondage stories, where the discoverer is like "Oh my god, are you okay? Who did this to you?! I'm calling the police!" It always made me roll my eyes, like, do you really think someone broke in, stripped the person naked, tied and gagged and stuck a vibrator in them, and left without stealing anything?
Rob's aloof/open-minded reaction to seeing Mark in this state is lowering the bar of plausibility for the next chapter.

"He pulls out his phone." - foreshadowing
"or did you invite me over for a different reason?" - foreshadowing
"drop in the ice cube containing the frozen chastity key" - the implication being he's still wearing the chastity cage; as a sort of self-imposed punishment for his misadventure
"How long does it take for scars to fade?" - he's not just talking about physical scars
"Like, there was this one time in uni..." - FORESHADOWING!
The 'experimented in college' cliche, juxtaposed with the scene where Bond implies he's had sex with men before. Again, making Rob's involvement in chapter 13 more plausible.
"Bond is tied to a chair (again)" - "Skyfall", Daniel Craig (again). Mark chose to tie himself up on Thursday rather than watch "Quantum of Solace", which is entirely reasonable.

---

A new story by me went up last week - "The Queen's Trial"
Quite different to Sophie & Mark, but you might still enjoy it

[twistedsmile]

13. "Seeing" Commentary

Lucky chapter 13. Where nothing bad happens. Strap in, kids, there's a lot to say about this one.

"Seeing" was one of the 'S' word ideas. Two possible interpretation - voyeurism (but of whom?) or the type of cucking where you watch your partner having sex with someone else. There's also the metaphorical sense of "seeing someone for who they really are" (that might be a bit of a stretch).

I always knew this story was going to be controversial. I'll go into WHY I decided to break up Sophie and Mark in the commentary for chapter 14. For now I'll just talk about why I did it in this specific way.
So here was the problem - it was always going to be a temporary break; the series is called "Sophie & Mark", after all. So I needed a plausible reason for them to break up, which could also be undone/resolved in a way that didn't feel cheap.
A threesome was already on the story idea list, and it felt like a natural fit as a relationship disruptor.

The original idea was that they have this threesome with Rob, then realise that maybe Mark enjoyed having sex with another man more that either of them expected. Framed this way, it's not so much a break up as, Mark needs to spend a little time exploring his sexuality - which Sophie suggests. Ultimately, Mark decides that while he may be a little queer, it's still Sophie he wants to be with. If you look back over the series, you'll see I was seeding the idea of Mark being bi all along.
But when I actually sat down and wrote this chapter, it didn't play out that way - it's hard to say that Mark came away from his first M/m experience with a desire to try more. I wanted to keep to the original plan, but in the end it felt like I was forcing it.

But there was a fallback plan - something else that's been bubbling below the surface of the series, right from the ending of chapter 1. I talked about it in the commentary to chapter 11, and Mark lays it out at the start of chapter 14 - all along, Sophie has been toeing the line of Mark's consent. It was inevitable that she would eventually cross that line.
I'll go into the rest later. The important thing is this ticks both the boxes - it's a legitimate relationship concern, and it's an issue that can be resolved with sincerity; and can even make the relationship stronger in the end. But in the meantime, I had to really hurt Mark.

In another thread I said I didn't 'enjoy' writing this chapter. By that, I partly mean I didn't enjoy blowing up Sophie and Mark's relationship. But also, since the story is written from first person pov, I had to get into Mark's negative headspace. Suffice to say, I much prefer writing the silly, romantic stories


"Wanna see some photos?" - I think of this like when a parent tries to embarrass their kid by showing old baby photos. It's all in good fun. The photos are a callback to chapters 4 and 5, and likely other photos were taken 'off screen' (Sophie would surely want a photos of cross-dressed Mark).
"I thought you'd want to see how I found him the other night" - Rob wasn't just using his phone for a torch in chapter 12 :O
"she had been a little upset about my self-bondage adventure" - a very early idea was Sophie feeling betrayed by Mark's self-bondage, leading to the break up. But that felt like a massive over-reaction, and not true to Sophie's character. I mean, why wouldn't she approve of Mark tying himself up? And if I had gone that way, there's really no way to resolve the issue beside "actually I've decided to forgive you".
"We'd already smashed through so many social barriers" - hand-waving. I didn't have the patience for slow-building up to the threesome over multiple chapters.

"Indecent" - the section titles are all partial titles of erotic thrillers: Indecent (Proposal), Wild (Things), Cruel (Intentions), (Body) Double, Fatal (Attraction)

"Bor-ring!" - there are some people who are normal and sweet when its just you and them, but when they get in front of (certain) other people, they start acting out, putting on a performance. It can be quite unsettling.
"I dare you... to kiss Rob" - when I was a teen, a girl who would later become my girlfriend dared me to kiss another guy (with tongue). And this was before she and I had even kissed! Funnily enough, the name of the guy I kissed was Mark. I wouldn't read anything into that
"Sophie was on the settee, Rob and I were on the floor" - it's over Mark, she has the high ground
"Wow... that was so hot!" - as established in chapter 5, Sophie is a fan of BL (male-on-male), so this was all just an excuse to satisfy her sick perversion (complimentary)
"If only I could come up with something juicy" - listen, writing is hard
"send [the photo] to me first" - I mean, let's not kid ourselves, she already has it. She's just winding Mark up.
"Alright, Soph" - Rob is being very familiar
"Truth." / "Oh, come on!" - did you really expect Sophie to play fair?

"have you ever... had a threesome?" - in the original draft, Sophie is the one that proposes the threesome ("there's something I always wanted to try"), and Mark and Rob agree because... reasons? It felt rather forced/lazy, to say the least. The game of Truth or Dare has a softer entry, and feels like it evolves more naturally.

"Robert, you cad! That's no way to talk to a lady." - there's a comic creator I like called John Allison. He writes (wholesome) stories with a very British sense of humour. I'd highly recommend the 'Giant Days' series (or any of his stuff really). Anyway, this is the sort of line one of his characters would say.

"like she was embarrassed to admit that she hadn't [had a threesome]" - ego's a dangerous thing
"Do you want to have one?" - who dares wins
"Sophie looked at me" / "I tilted my head" / "She sighed" - Sophie is looking at Mark as if to say "should we do this?". Mark doesn't understand, but Sophie (mis)reads his response as him saying "why not?"
"She left without waiting for our answer." - easier to walk away than face a possible rejection (and in her underwear, no less). If they hadn't followed her she could have played it off as a joke.

"Would I really feel okay sharing Sophie?" - cucking found its way on to the story ideas list early on. What I wasn't sure about was whether it would be something Mark was into. There was a part of me that wanted to be more sex-positive - after all, there are plenty of people who do enjoy such things. But ultimately I was working towards a particular ending (breakup). Perhaps, in another world, the three of them had a grand old time and formed a happy polycule instead.

"he slowly stood." - Rob's motivation for this is he's attracted to Sophie, and he's willing to 'tolerate' Mark since this is likely his only opportunity to sleep with her.
"He stayed there... waiting for me to respond" - he at least respects Mark enough not to try and go ahead without his approval/participation (such as it is).
"whether I was going to let him go alone" - it should hopefully be self-evident that, if Mark had decided not to go along, Sophie would not have had sex with Rob on his own.
"I gave Rob a nod." - lots of non-verbal communication going on. I'm sure that won't be a problem.

In the original draft, Mark was going to be cross-dressing - in his 'Caroline' persona from chapter 11 - to sort of make smooth over why Rob would be okay with having his dick sucked by Mark. But then I stole that idea for Brett & Darren. Anyway, the way the story plays out, having Mark do a full costume change would have felt incongruous.

"buckling the ankle strap of her black high heels... changed into her leather corset." - same outfit as chapter 8; very Domme-coded
"Maybe it was the way Sophie was looking at us; sizing us up. Comparing us?" - this is Mark's insecurity talking. Given his remarks about Rob's muscles, clearly Mark himself is comparing.

"Are you both happy to continue?" - this is what I was talking about in a prior commentary, Mark is given the opportunity to stop, there's nothing forcing him to continue. So why doesn't he say no?
* "I didn't want to be the killjoy" - peer pressure
* "We'd already come this far." - foot in the door
* "And she was looking so stunning." - horniness
* "Would it really be so bad?" - optimism
* "This could be one of those stories you tell" - rationalisation (FOMO?)
"Okay" - not what you'd call 'enthusiastic' consent

"Did this really all start with a game of Scrabble  all those months ago" - chapter 3. I said in the last commentary I was only vaguely keeping track of the timeline. Chapter 1 takes place in the spring, chapter 11 also takes place late summer of the following year, so probably about 1.5-2 years for things to escalate to this point.

"Show Mark how it's done." - okay, let's talk about what Sophie is doing/why she's doing it. I think it would be dishonest to say she doesn't find Rob attractive, but she isn't attracted to him 'like that'. She has no desire to replace Mark. Her goal is to make Mark jealous, because jealousy is an intense (albeit toxic) form of desire. In that sense, she views Rob as just a 'prop' - not a person so much as a sex toy, no more meaningful than a dildo.

"She never took her eyes off me." / "I could feel myself growing" / "Good boy." - it's intentionally ambiguous, but she IS saying 'good boy' to Mark in response to him getting aroused. This was the 'desire' she was after.
"moving his mouth close to hers" / "Nuh-uh" - Sophie very intentionally won't allow Rob to kiss her (see also: Pretty Woman)
"She pulled a condom out" - the series hasn't mentioned condoms prior to this point, and Mark has referenced ejaculating inside of Sophie more than once. So we can assume that Sophie is on the pill. Making Rob wear a condom is symbolic distancing, similar to the no-kissing. (Also, possible STIs, I guess). As for why they even have condoms to hand, I dunno, maybe for when they want to ride the crimson tide.
"Mmm, so big ... Can't wait to have it inside me." - I read once that when people are lying, they tend to avoid saying 'I'. In any case, true to the section title, this is an incredibly cruel thing to say. I feel uncomfortable just reading it back.
"When she slid down onto his cock" - I chose the phrasing of this very carefully. Rob doesn't 'enter' or 'penetrate' Sophie. She is the one doing the action on him. Similarly, Mark described her as "fucking someone else" not 'being fucked by'
"Eyes on me, baby." - I said the thing about her doing it to make Mark jealous, but I'm not going to pretend like she doesn't take it too far.
"Her gaze stayed fixed on me" - again, she has no interest in Rob beyond him acting as a prop; this is all about Mark.
"I pulled at my cuffs, reopening old wounds." - from the self-bondage in chapter 12, the wounds were referenced earlier in this chapter
"Ooh, Rob... you've got really great abs." - I (the writer) might have gotten carried away. This is getting pretty nasty.
"Rob had been mostly still up to that point" - a problem I had with this story was keeping track of what everyone was doing. So at any given time one of the characters tends to fade into the background.

"Not so tough now, eh?" - The line itself is meant to be read as playful rather than malicious, but he clearly hasn't 'read the room'. I said in the commentary to chapter 2, BDSM is a game - the Domme only has power for as long as the sub agrees to play along. Rob doesn't respect Sophie's role as Domme enough to play the game, and has the strength to physically over-power her.
"'No,'Sophie commanded, 'bad boy!'" - I wanted to make it clear that Sophie is not in distress. The story isn't trying to frame this like a sexual assault, Sophie is just annoyed and trying (in vein) to reassert her dominance
"A deep, guttural roar, 'ET OFF ER!'" - he says "get off her" not "let her go". Mark's not (just) trying to rescue Sophie, he also wants Rob to stop fucking her. This is very much his emotions boiling over.
"Sophie took a pair of handcuffs ... wrenched his arms behind his back" - safer (for her) than having his hands cuffed in front

"I didn't need you to rescue me" - she means this sincerely, she really believed she could have 'rescued' herself.
But why was she upset with Mark? Well... did Rob stop when Sophie told him to stop, or when Mark told him to stop? To quote Game of Thrones, "power resides where men believe it resides". By trying to 'save' Sophie, Mark undermined her authority as Domme.
So now both Rob and Mark have challenged Sophie's power, and she has to put them in their place - ushering the arrival of 'Dark Sophie', the true sadist.

"Any upset she'd had for us had melted away" - I didn't want what follows to be motivated by anger. That would be quite unpleasant. She knows she now has complete power over both Mark and Rob, and she's going to enjoy it.
"Good boy." - in chapter 5 this was said affectionately, here it's condescending.
"kissing me with a competitive passion" - the jealousy cuts both ways
"..hand between my legs, grabbing Rob's cock... An image entered my mind" - did it enter your mind too?
"my mouth pulling to form an 'R'" - R for Red
"You really think I'd let anyone else fuck you like that before I do?" - I had some trouble with the phrasing of this; I'm still not entirely happy with it. She wants to be the one to take his ass-virginity is the point. Considering Mark already declined Sophie's attempt in Chapter 7, someone else claiming him first would feel especially 'hurtful' to Sophie.
"'Relieved' isn't the word, but it's the one that came to mind." - I think I stole this from Chuck Palahniuk. I forget which book, possibly 'Choke'.

"I could taste traces of Sophie on him" - how romantic
"why was it so arousing?" - as mentioned near the top, this was the original plan. The story would have ended with Rob cumming on Mark, then Mark orgasming and realising he'd been jerking himself off the whole time - causing Sophie and Mark to have an existential crisis over Mark's sexuality. Ultimately that felt a little weird/contrived for an ending.
Second issue, Mark's hands are cuffed behind his back to match Rob. For Mark to jerk off, his hands would need to be cuffed in front. But it didn't make sense why Sophie would do that within the logic of the story.

"Finish on Mark's face" - I wouldn't say this is her trying to humiliate Mark (exactly). I mean, why are guys aroused by women with cum on their face? It goes back to Sophie's guy-on-guy kink; hence watching with a vibrator. Tho that's not to say Mark doesn't find it humiliating.
"He gave me a look and a shrug" - why does Rob keep going along with this? Probably guilt for what he did to Sophie.
"His eyes were closed" - that also helps
"the final humiliation of the evening" - oh Mark, if only you knew
"But that she was seeing me..." - he said the title of the story!
"when my shame-filled eyes met hers, she let out a climactic scream" - okay, so maybe it is a little bit about humiliating Mark; but for her own pleasure, not to hurt him

"Fatal" - intentionally provocative title
"Meaning BOTH of you." - I could have ended the story without this last section. But it didn't feel right for Mark to be the only person in the threesome to not orgasm. Maybe this was worse
"let's just get this over with." - to be fair, he could have just declined. Though, I guess no one actually told Rob about the safe words.
"His softening cock brushed against my hands .. he pulled his hips back" - weird thing to get uncomfortable about when he's about to grab another guy's dick
"mechanical indifference" - callback to chapter 9... somehow. Maybe the experience was so traumatic it rippled backwards through time to invade Mark's dream.
"Come on, baby ... cum for me" - I think she's sincerely trying to encourage him
"you want to be released, don't you?" - been a while since we've had a pun

"I was done. I'd had enough." - intentionally ambiguous/provocative. Since Sophie & Mark is published serially, readers at the time didn't necessarily know the next chapter was going to be a break, and I figured the reveal would be more impactful if people didn't know (for certain) it was coming.
This is also a very abrupt ending, without the usual "no hard feelings" scene. Meant to leave readers with a feeling of unease.

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On a lighter note, I have another short series currently publishing - Alex & Becca
It has a similar tone to Sophie & Mark (outside of this chapter ), but with a slightly different dynamic: they're both BDSM novices.