"He can't breathe," she responded. "You don't want him to pass out before I torture him, do you?"
She peeled off the tape and he opened his mouth eagerly, letting her fish out the cloth that had been wedged between his teeth. He coughed, and gagged a little, then said, quickly, "Please let me say something first, please."
Tanya lost her virginity that night with Jay.
Maybe deep down, she planned it that way. He wordlessly did not question, resist, or hesitate when she led him down the long corridor of her room to the indoor heated sunken tub, and he held his shackled wrists up and out of the way when she reached down to undo the buttons of his shirt.
He’d gotten quite used to the crawling, actually, and being led by her with a finger under the leather collar around his neck.
“Into the water,” she ordered.
He precariously stepped in, lowering his naked body into the blue colored water. It was much warmer, luckily, and this time his teeth didn’t chatter wildly and his body didn’t shake.
She’d unlocked the shackles on his wrists long enough to remove the shirt then locked them back in place, then positioned him in the water, on his back, so she could climb on top of him.
It was her intent only to kiss, to feel his wet hair against her skin and to share underwater intimacy with him, for him to trust her enough to let himself be half-drowned, should it please her.
But one thing led to another, and even though she kept pushing his bound hands away as they grappled to touch her, hold her, she found herself pinning them over his head with one hand and positioning her body over his, staring down at his eyes.
“Are you still afraid of me?” she asked him, holding his eyes with much more ease, realizing, for the first time, that the surge of sexual energy actually made her gift more powerful.
“No,” he whispered, eyes on hers, looking up at her in awe, awe of her beauty, the sheer strength of her tiny, feminine body.
For some reason, this angered her. She liked him better when he was afraid, and vulnerable. He seemed so much more endearing to her when he was that way. So she didn’t even consciously do it, it was just the frown that she gave him, the frown that communicated something dark to him, that made him start visibly trembling.
It was the mere thought in her head, “I could drown you with one hand right now,” that somehow made it through the non-verbal communication and sunk right into his soul, terrifying him. The clear, succinct, pre-meditated nature of her thought terrified him, because it was as if she played out in her head, then downloaded it to his as if to say, “This is what I am capable of,”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his lips trembling. “What did I do..how did I upset you.”
“You don’t take me seriously,” she said softly, still glaring at him. His eyes, now, seemed to want to escape. He swallowed, arched his back, and she felt his sex between her legs, not rigid anymore. He was trying to snap away from her gaze. How futile, she thought.
In fact, he was so helpless to the look, he was the type that couldn’t even blink, let alone look away, so it made his eyes burn, and water. She found herself wiping the tears out from under his eyes again.
“Blink,” she ordered. “Wet those eyes of yours. Then we’ll continue this talk.”
He probably thought blinking would give him a chance to escape her look, but it didn’t. He blinked two times then found himself looking right back at her.
“Kiss my fingers,” she ordered. And he did so, when she placed them on his lips. She smiled, and her smiled seemed to soothe him, it seemed like it was peace for him, peace and safety. He kissed her fingers and watched her eyes for more warmth.
“See, I’m not always so evil,” she said. “Am I pretty?”
“You are pretty and terrifying,” he said softly. “Like a poisonous flower.”
Tanya liked that. In fact, she had never been romanced before, but she always imagined what it must feel like. She smiled down at him again, and once again, her warmth poured over him and comforted him, and he visibly relaxed a tiny bit more.
She leaned down and kissed him, and that broke the gaze so he let out his breath in relief just as her mouth found his. The kiss was warm and deep, and she pushed his head down in the water. He struggled when he was submerged.
She let him up to breathe, then did it again. Repeating this cycle a few times, she found herself holding him tightly by the neck, controlling just when and how much he could breathe, all the while her body sliding closer and closer to his, until finally he was pressing into her, threatening to enter her.
It was strangely vulnerable to her. She didn’t like the feeling. But she wanted it badly, her body wanted it so bad it burned in her. So she gripped his neck harder, pushed his face under water and held it there while she slid him into her, gasping.
He struggled, but her eyes were closed, and she was lost in the feeling. When she let him up he choked some water and she kissed him. He was half trying to regain composure, half fumbling with chained wrists and all the while trying to position his body to somehow control the penetration.
But she would not let him. She found a position that pleased her immensely, holding him by the neck at a just water level so his head was barely above water, then thrusting into him forward in deep, steady motion so the water shifted back and forth with each thrust, making waves that covered his face again and again.
This was beautiful. But as she neared climax, she tightened her grip inadvertently around his neck until he gasped for freedom, opened his eyes wide and pleaded, wordlessly, for her to ease up.
She came, and she let go, and he gasped for air.
Then she collapsed on top of him, holding him tightly, shaking herself.
It was all he could do to keep his head above water.
**
Jay slept next to her bed that night. She opted to sleep out of the water to be close to him, and she made him kneel next to the bed with his bound hands up next to her. Holding his clasped hands in her own, she fell asleep while watching the outline of his face, his chin resting on the bed side.
She’d asked him if it was too uncomfortable to sleep; he’d weakly smiled and said it was worlds better than the cold dirt floor of the prison cell. He’d even reached up to stroke the hair out of her face affectionately, fumbling slightly as he had to do it with two hands.
Tanya slept better than she had in a long time. She woke up a few times to see his face there, sleeping with it resting on her bed, worn from the day’s activities.
In the morning she was startled awake by a distinct “click” and she opened her eyes to find him missing.
**
She sat up slowly in bed, blinking and looking around, then reaching over to turn on the light. She saw his shadow in the hall, moving slowly. He was standing; even his shadow looked taller.
“Jay?” she called. “What are you doing?”
He did not reply. The shadow moved a little. She rolled over and reached into the drawer for her gun.
It was gone.
Her heart was pounding in her chest. She turned back to the shadow and traced it with her eyes. He was holding the gun. She reached over again to the bedside table and hit the silent alarm, her soul burning from betrayal.
Her eyes stung, and she felt the tears coming on. She cursed herself, shut them tightly, and willed them to stay back. Tears meant she wouldn’t be able to use her eyes. Tears were not good. She took a breath. She hated him. Hatred never caused tears, so she clung to it. Hate.
But for some reason, hatred brought tears in this case.
“Tanya,” his voice came from the hall. It was cautious. “I’m going to come out, I have your gun…I want you to put your hands over your eyes.”
She scoffed, shaking her head, sniffling. “Fuck you. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m crying. I can’t use them when I’m crying. You bastard, I hate you.”
He peered out from the hall, looking at her carefully, but turning his head when she lifted her eyes. Looking away, he shakily revealed the gun. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just need to get out of here. I need to find my mates, and I want to go home. You have to help me.”
Tanya stared forward, shook her head slowly, and cursed herself for ever trusting this man. For falling for it.
It was the moment that he took eye contact with her, lowering the hand with the gun because he could not believe what he saw, the way the tears turned her eyes from glowing green to near black, when the door flew open and a band of guards appeared, guns drawn.
His eyes were still on her, mouth slightly open, a look of bewilderment, confusion, sympathy, until he blinked, saw what he was up against, raised his weapon weakly and realized he was outnumbered.
“Take him to his cell,” Tanya sniffed, arms folded tightly over his chest. “Tell Katrina to have him executed, I’m finished debriefing him.”
His eyes widened and he lunged toward her, to his knees, when they grabbed him and shackled his wrists. “Tanya, PLEASE, I didn’t hurt you, I was just trying to save my friends!”
Her eyes burned so painfully she covered them with her hands. “Get him out of my sight. Torture him. Put him through the worst of it. Record his screams for me. I hate him. I HATE YOU!”
“Wait,” he howled, digging his ankles into the ground and fighting desperately to not be led away. “I was just asking for your HELP, Tanya, PLEASE.”
She heard him yelling her name all the way down the hall until it finally faded to nothingness.
Then her intercom rang, and she pushed the button, to be met with Katrina’s voice.
“Well, well well, ” Katrina mocked. “I heard your little boytoy already revolted on you.”
Tanya bit her lips, kept her eyes down. She breathed deep, trying to regain her composure.
“Is it true you want the boy terminated?”
“Yes,” she said solemnly.
“You don’t want to go one more round with him before ending his life? Sometimes when they fuck like they think it might save their life, they do a half way decent job.”
“I don’t want him near me.”
There was a silence. Tanya could hear the creaking of Katrina’s chair as she reclined in it, thinking. “As you wish, little one. I do hate to see your heart broken though. Trust me, you’ll carry that pain around with you a long time unless you take care of it.”
Tanya felt that pain. She felt unthinkable pain. A pain she had never felt before. “Take are of it how?” she asked.
Katrina’s chair creaked again. “Meet me in cell block 17 in an hour. I’ll show you how.”
Tanya turned off the intercom and curled up in a ball. The stinging in her eyes returned.
It was a pain unlike anything she had ever felt.
**
Katrina sat there, looking at Jay with a half smirk. He was bound to the interrogation chair wearing nothing but his trousers this time, and he kept his mouth shut, refusing to acknowledge or look at her.
“You know, it’s not a good idea to break young girl’s hearts, Jay,” she lectured. “Tanya is a unique creature. She deals with and expresses hatred in a very unique..very colorful way.”
He was breathing hard through his nose, trying to level his emotions.
“She’s going to look into those pretty brown eyes of yours and shut your body down from the inside out. It won’t be pretty.”
“She loves me,” he finally spat out. “What happened was a misunderstanding. She cares deeply for me. I can see it in her eyes. She’ll understand me when I explain it to her. She’s not the coldhearted bitch you are, Katrina.”
Katrina laughed, pacing in her boots, her hands behind her back militaristically. “Oh Jay. You know so little. I raised that little girl since she was a toddler. I trained her myself. Her little bout with puppy love was a fluke, and she sees now you were using her, and were a threat to her, and undermined her. You used her like garbage, manipulated her, and broke her little heart.”
Jay continued to breathe through his nose, thinking. He tested the bonds again but found no slack.
Katrina leaned over close to the chair and he turned, glaring at her, eye to eye.
“She’ll forgive me when I explain,” he hissed. “You fill her head with lies.”
Katrina raised her eyebrows, lifting up a black scarf. “You’ll explain nothing, Jay. Not that your words would make a difference, but just to be sure…”
When Katrina went to gag him, he fought ruthlessly. He knew words were his only hope with Tanya, but Katrina was strong, and he was restrained, and it was only a matter of minutes before the cloth was shoved painfully into his mouth and a piece of building tape was placed firmly over his lips.
He hissed breath through his nose, arched his back against the chair and fought what he could, his moans muffled.
The sweat started to come over him, and he felt panic.
Then she arrived. Back in uniform, her hair tied back once again, her eyes, again, glowing green and on fire, this time, with hatred.
***
Jay was in a hopeless situation, and Katrina knew it. Not being able to speak meant he could only plead with his eyes, and looking into those venom-eyes would be certain death for him.
He had his eyes squeezed shut so tight, was whimpering slightly, making fists with his hands, struggling, trying desperately to figure a way out, all the while having to listen to the two of them.
“He’s afraid to look at you now, Tanya,” Katrina said. “After betraying you like that. He did it knowingly, and he knows the consequences will be harsh.”
He listened to the pairs of boots walking around the room. Finally, Tanya’s voice, but it was solemn, still laced with hurt.
“Do you have the clamps for his eyes,” she asked, softly. It was obvious she didn’t even want to go through with it.
He tried helplessly to twist his arms up and lean his head over to reach for that tape that prevented him from talking, but Katrina gave his chest a shove back then gripped his head painfully by the hair, holding it back.
“Open your eyes, Jay. You deserve to give her that respect after what you did to her. If you don’t, I’ll have them fetch the clamps and brace, and you won’t have a choice.”
Again, he twisted his hands up toward his body as best he could, groaning.
“I think he wants to say something,” Tanya observed softly.
He shot his eyes open and looked at her, and he nodded, he nodded and looked right at her, at her eyes.
She didn’t take him that time, just shook her head and looked away. “See what he has to say Katrina. I need to put some eyedrops in, anyway.” Tanya stepped into the next room and Katrina looked at him, smirking.
He blinked at her expectantly.
She shook her head. “Not going to happen. Say goodbye, loverboy.”
**
Tanya returned, drying her eyes with a towel. She walked slowly over and he looked at her, again trying his best to lift his hands, but she seemed to have totally forgotten about removing the gag. Instead she leaned down just a little, put hand on his forehead to hold his hair back and keep his head still, and said softly, “I was stupid for ever trusting you.”
He pleaded with her using his eyes, he showed such begging that he thought for sure she would see it, and he so willingly looked right at her, ready to endure anything, that he figured she must see it, see something in him.
But she was immune to it all. She seemed to be having some trouble, though, looking at his eyes, and she kept blinking, her eyes burning from the eyedrops apparently. She sniffled, pushed some loose strands of hair out of her face, then took eye contact with him again.
This time, though, it shot through him like electricity. And it hurt.
Katrina was pacing behind her. “Think of what he did to you, Tanya. Think of how he betrayed you.”
She inhaled, and it seemed to give her strength, and the strength caused him more pain, and he let out an audible whimper, slinking back into the chair, turning his head but not his eyes, helplessly trying to get away.
“Oh come on, Tanya, you are going easy on him. After you gave him your virginity, he betrays you?”
This time, somehow, he managed to pry his gaze away, let out his breath, then shut his eyes tightly, terrified.
Tanya blinked and shook her head, rubbing her eyes. “My concentration is all fucked up Katrina. I need to go rest, I need to swim. I can’t do this now. Just …just execute him.”
“You need closure.”
“I need sleep.”
They argued, and he listened, his eyes shut so tightly they burned. He felt her hands on his face turning his head back. He tried to curl up his body under the restraints, he tried to turn his head away. He even tried leaning closer to her, burying his face against her arm and shoulder.
She could hear muffled, but audible pleading, he was saying, “No, no, please…PLEASE.”
“Get the clamps,” Tanya said solemnly to Katrina. He heard the door open and close.
He opened his eyes and looked at her pleadingly. They were alone now. He begged with his eyes, he tried desperately to communicate his desire to speak, to say one thing to her.
She emotionlessly reached up with a cloth and dabbed at the tears under his eyes, these ones, though, were real, and not just a reaction to the lights. Strangely, she had always been able to tell the difference between real tears and reactionary tears. But, to be sure, she touched one with her index finger and brought it to her lips to taste it, the real way to find out.
It was, indeed, a tear from emotion.
She observed him for a moment, now his eyes wide open and giving to her, tears flowing pretty steadily.
The door slid open. Katrina approached, and Jay turned his head the other way.
“Oh dear, what did you do to him?” Katrina asked, turning his chin toward her and looking at his tear-stained face.
“I just looked at him,” Tanya said solemnly, staring forward. “And didn’t do anything.”
Katrina scoffed, reaching up and lowering the head harness down to lock it in place, the device that would eventually pin his face in position and be fitted with clamps to keep his eyes open. He struggled with her and whimpered. “He’s crying because he is afraid then, and he knows you’re going to hurt him for what he did to you.”
Tanya continued to daze a little, thinking.
Katrina locked the device to the chair, then tightened the clamps to hold his head still. His whole body started to shake.
Tanya finally turned, as Katrina was leaning over with the tiny steel clamps for his eyes. “Wait,” she said. “I want to hear what he has to say.”
“Don’t be silly,” Katrina snapped.
Tanya felt his hand, suddenly, digging into her jacket. He had caught hold of it and was using his fingers to pull her closer and closer, because he could not lift his head again to look at her, it was locked in place.
He was tugging hard.
Tanya pushed Katrina to the side a bit, saying, “hold off on the clamps for now, let me see for a second.”
She reached for the tape. The tears were causing him to choke back on his breathing.
“Don’t do it, Tanya. You’re acting weak,” Katrina snapped.
“He can’t breathe,” she responded. “You don’t want him to pass out before I torture him, do you?”
She peeled off the tape and he opened his mouth eagerly, letting her fish out the cloth that had been wedged between his teeth. He coughed, and gagged a little, then said, quickly, “Please let me say something first, please.”
“Go ahead,” she said, solemn again, just standing there, moving into his line of view. He looked up at her, into her eyes, and blinked the tears away.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said.
“He’s lying,” Katrina snapped.
Tanya just looked at him. He swallowed, fumbling for words, blinking, stuttering a little. “I..I could’ve, I could’ve done anything, y-yknow, I just wanted to ask you for your help, and I was afraid..you’d..I was scared, I…”
“He’s stalling, Tanya.”
She again ignored Katrina, and just looked at him, searched his eyes for truth.
“I’m sorry, Tanya, I am so sorry..” he finally said, and he shut his eyes tight, and sobbed.
“Oh please,” Katrina grumbled, and she leaned over took the cloth, and started to shove it back into his mouth.
This time, though, he didn’t resist, he opened his mouth to take it, apparently having said all he thought he could, and he choked his tears back into it and kept his eyes shut tight.
“Let’s get this over with,” Tanya muttered, positioning his chair under her so she could have a direct line of sight down to his eyes, with Katrina hovering over her like a pleased queen bee.
He opened his eyes willingly, blinking to get the remainder of the tears away, and then looked at Tanya, his eyes red. She reached down with a cloth to dab the wetness away from his lashes, and when she took eye contact with him to start she felt his hand find hers, against the chair, and he squeezed it.
His eyes communicated the rest to her at that moment; that he was wrong, and deserved it, and that’s why he wasn’t going to fight. While his hand, in hers, communicated the need for comfort, safety, and warmth from her.
There was a long, painful silence in the room.
Tanya felt her body weaken under her, when she took a breath, his fingers dug painfully into her palm, fearing the start of his torture, and then she saw droplets on his face. One on his cheek, then his eye.
He blinked and looked at her, searched her face, then she was only aware of his breathing, but acutely aware of fire in her own eyes.
“I don’t fucking believe this,” Katrina hissed.
Tanya looked up at her, and then felt the tears running down her cheeks. She lost focus as the tears clouded her vision, and her ability to use her eyes was shot for another ten or fifteen minutes, at least.
“What the hell is the matter with you? Why do you feel sympathy for this man? Are you losing your edge? Go back to your quarters, you’re pathetic!”
Tanya was angry now, and hurt. She pried her hand out of Jay’s and grabbed her jacket, heading out the door.
When it shut, Katrina turned back to Jay, who was strapped down, helpless, but visually appeared relieved to escape Tanya’s wrath.
But he hadn’t escaped Katrina. And she was furious.
