by Renard, Loki
It is an hour before she speaks.
“You’re going to kill me. You should do it now.”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“But I deserve it.” She’s not even looking at me. She’s staring out into forever.
“Chloe. I am not going to kill you. I am not going to hurt you.”
“But you should. I killed a man.”
“I know.”
There is another very long silence. Words are all we have, but they are not enough. It takes her time to find the ones she needs.
“I thought...” Her bottom lip quivers and she pulls the blanket I wrap around her shoulders up to hide it. “I thought if I killed them, I’d feel strong. I thought I would have avenged him. But...”
“But you just feel sick and weak.”
She looks at me. “You’ve killed people, haven’t you.”
“It was war,” I say. “It is different.”
“What I did was murder. I belong in prison.”
“You belong here, with me.”
“But...”
“No buts,” I say. “Frank should have taken precautions. He knew you were loose. The entire Order did. The fact that he had no security and no means of stopping you was his fault.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Actually, I do. We play high-stakes games in the Order. Life and death. We know what we forfeit if we make a mistake. You were pushed to your limits. You were mad with grief, hunted by everyone. I warned him that you would be dangerous. He didn’t listen.”
* * *
Chloe
Darko is so calm, so collected as he paces back and forth in front of me. It helps me to be calm too.
“Did you really tell him that? Did you believe it?”
“That you are dangerous? Of course.”
“I... I didn’t know I was.”
“All people are dangerous when pushed to their limits. I wanted to capture you quietly. The others decided on the road blocks and the television campaigns. They wanted to put pressure on you, and look where it got them. You came out fighting, Chloe. You had nothing left to lose.”
“I didn’t even...” Tears threaten to choke me. “I didn’t even fully mean to shoot him. The gun... it just...”
“They tend to fire when stressed people hold them,” he says. “What is done is done. You cannot undo your actions any more than I can undo mine, or the Order can undo theirs. We all make mistakes. Repeatedly.”
“They’re going to want my blood, aren’t they?”
“No.”
“No?” That doesn’t make any sense to me. I killed one of their allies.
“Do you know what happens when pigs are slaughtered?”
I am taken aback by the question. “No...”
“Pigs, if they are kept in a group, will panic and defend one another if the butcher comes for them. If they sense death, they will scream and fight and bite, but if they cannot get to the butcher, they bite each other instead. And if one of them is killed before the others, they will fall on him and consume him in minutes.”
“That’s disturbing, but I don’t see how...”
“The Order is like a group of swine. They are already dividing Frank’s assets and interests. They don’t care about you, Chloe. If anything, you’ve proved yourself.”
“I have? What about justice?”
“Justice is something infants and idiots believe in,” Darko says, his lip curling disdainfully. “There is no justice in this world. There is no right, and there is no wrong. There is only power. Those who wield it and those who do not.”
If I had heard him say that a week ago, I would have called him an asshole and said that he was wrong. I used to believe in justice, a natural order of right and wrong, but now I am not so sure. If I think back over the events of these past few days, and even over my life as a whole, what true justice or fairness has there been in it? I was born into more wealth than most of the world can imagine. I did not earn it. I was just given it. And then, later, my father was taken from me, and that was not fair either, but what claim do I have to fairness? After all I have been given?
I mourn his death. I am furious at those who killed him, but that is not justice. That is vengeance. I do not apologize for that. I am not sorry that man is dead. I would not kill again, but that is not because they do not deserve it. It is because I do not like the way it made me feel.
I have been brought up hard against the bedrock of reality. All the pretty lies and notions of culture and society have been stripped away and I see the world as Darko does. There are only the things one can do, and the things one cannot do. Everything else is just a lie designed to placate the people who are farmed by those in power, milked for their resources and their labor.
“You’re right,” I agree softly. “You’re absolutely right.”
He crosses over to me and crouches down in front of me. My barbarian in a suit puts one arm on either side of me and gazes deep into my eyes. “There is no justice,” he says. “But there is law. My law. And you fall under it. You will not run from me again, Chloe. I will not allow it. And you will be punished for running in the first place, for your disobedience. Do you understand?”
“You’re going to punish me for running away, but not for killing a man?”
“Precisely.”
This is fucked up. Then again, so am I.
Chapter Twelve
Darko
I give Chloe a few days to settle in and become re-accustomed to me. I am not concerned about her leaving again. She has nowhere to go except the great wide forest, and even if she did, she’s no longer nearly as afraid of the Order as she is of herself.
She wants to be punished. She’s craving it. But I am in no hurry. I want her mind to settle. I want her body to finish processing the adrenaline of her escape and the act of killing. That does not happen right away. It can take many days for a body to return to baseline after that much action and death. Hell, it can take a lifetime.
But Chloe is resilient. I already knew that about her. From the moment I took her, she has been proving her strength. As I watch and wait, she begins to come back to herself. I know how it will be for her. First, the memory of the killing will fade. It will begin to seem like something somebody else did, not something she was responsible for. It will seem as though the gun had a life of its own. She may even start to believe that the whole thing was an accident. She didn’t mean to kill him. She just meant to scare him. The mind finds myriad defenses when a good person does something so dark they cannot reconcile it with their sense of self.
Our relationship began with my taking her captive. Now it has transformed into something else. Now I must walk her through the dark pathways of what it is to have taken life, and how it is to live with yourself in the aftermath of it.
Some days she cries, and I hold her. Other days she rages against me, and I am impassive to it, taking all that anger. This will not last forever. Her punishment is coming and she knows it. Sometimes she begs for it. Clings to me and whispers for me to make it better.
“Just hit me. Tie me up and take a cane to me. Make me hurt, Darko.”
“Soon,” I say to the girl curled up in my lap, her eyes lit with the desire of the deeply guilty.
“Why are you making me wait?” She lets out a little sob.
“You’re not ready.”
“How could you know? I need it, Darko. I need the pain.”
I am not going to lift a finger to her now. She needs to feel what her own mind is inflicting on her first, and second, she needs to be more recovered before my punishment begins. If I do it now, she will be too welcoming of pain. She will let me hurt her, badly, and not make a sound. I do not trust her reactions. Every look, every word, every breath is another lie she tells herself.
* * *
A week later...
“I’m bored.”
I lift a brow as Chloe walks into the lounge that looks out over one of the most beautiful wild fore
st vistas in the United States. There’s a pout on her face, and even the way she walks is petulant.
“Bored?”
“Bored,” she confirms.
“Oh, now, I can’t have you being bored, Chloe. Can I?”
Bored is good. Bored means the storm has settled and she has found her equilibrium. Now it is time to do what must be done. It has been far too long since I had Chloe. I have missed her tender flesh, the way she cries out in pain and in pleasure. I have missed her tight little holes, the surrender of her body. I have missed it all, but I will not miss any of it for much longer.
* * *
Chloe
He looks at me with that malevolent yet sexy stare. “Do you want me to un-bore you?”
I want to feel something. Since being saved from my own fucked-up actions, I have felt strangely flat. My despair melted into nothing and left me empty. I’ve been waiting to feel better, but right now, I would settle for feeling anything at all. I can no longer tell if Darko is my enemy or my friend. I can’t tell if I hate him, or if I love him. This twilight state of affairs needs some kind of direction. I can’t ask him to love me, but I can always ask for his pain.
“Please,” I say. “Hurt me.”
“Oh, you ask for it so nicely,” he purrs. “You know how much punishment awaits, don’t you. You know I have stored up everything you have earned from hitching a ride on that helicopter, refusing to do as you were told when I called you, and finally, the act you actually feel sorrow for. You have pain coming, Chloe, do not worry about that for a single second.”
Good. I am glad for it. I need it.
He stands up from the chair, his tall, powerful body casting a shadow over mine as he turns to leave.
“Follow me.”
This place is not as expansive as the island, but it is still larger than I have explored. He leads me down stairs that seem to be carved into the rock of the mountain itself, to a room lit by electric light. There are no windows. No natural sun reaches this deep. I find myself in a chamber that is a cross between a bunker and a dungeon.
Darko keeps his toys down here, and there are all manner of them. The walls drip with leather and chains. There are chairs and stands and benches and contraptions, too much for me to take in at a single glance.
“I’ll use every single one of these on you at some point,” he says casually, his hand lightly on my elbow as he guides me around to a simple piece of equipment that unlike some of the contraptions needs no explanation, because it’s a dildo on a seat.
“You disobeyed me. I could have kept you safe. I could have given you a modicum of freedom. I could have prevented you from experiencing the misery you now live in,” he lectures, his fingers on my blouse, loosing the buttons. It falls open to reveal my bare belly and breasts. His hands then dip to the skirt at my waist and similarly it falls, leaving me nude.
His gaze is hungry as it travels my body, but more than that, it is determined. He wants me. He needs me. He is going to consume me, and I need him to. I don’t want to be me anymore. I want to be an extension of him. I want him to take me and fill me, not just with his body, but with his soul.
Darko points to the dildo and looks at me. “Are you ready to obey?”
I nod.
“You’re going to wrap your disobedient cunt around that, and you’re going to fuck yourself as I punish you.”
A month ago, that would have shocked me. Today, nothing does.
That does not mean obedience is any easier. Wanting to absolve myself and doing his bidding is one thing, but his order is crude and it makes me blush. I wish I could become accustomed to his way of handling me, but I am counting on that never happening. The heat of the blush, the humiliation of his blunt words, they are breaking through the numbness that has consumed me lately. They are making me feel.
I spread my legs and straddle the stool. The tip of the dildo makes contact with my bare slit. Some part of me wishes it was his cock. I need him. I need to be fucked. I need to be made complete and given the chance to forget everything. But he’s not going to take mercy on me. He’s going to punish me thoroughly, just like he always does.
“I need lube.”
“Oh, you’re going to make your own, Chloe,” he says, reaching out and pinching my nipples. “You’re going to get nice and wet until you slide up and down on that big toy with ease.”
His hands play over my body, caressing me, pinching my nipples now and then. His touch is gentle, hypnotic. Too soft, until his hand lands on my ass with a hard swat.
“Don’t move!” he barks as I tip forward. “You stay over that toy. The only way you go is down. I want that cunt on that dick right now.” He reaches up, grabs my hair, pulls my head back and gives me the full benefit of his gaze. I see the brutality in his soul. I feel it echoed in mine. His other hand clasps my ass and pulls me down. The tip of the toy breaches my sex and this time there is less resistance because I am already starting to get wet. The simple act of being grabbed and held, made to feel the full force of his presence makes my body react. I feel my pussy start to open around it. I feel the walls of my sex squeezing the firm rubber. With every fraction it moves inside me, I feel my body responding all the more. It is like coming alive one inch at a time.
This is just the beginning. There is more to come, I know it. More punishment. More heat. More delicious orgasm.
“Keep working yourself on it,” he orders, retrieving a fresh toy. This one, I recognize, but not in the context it is about to be used. It’s a paddle with electric mesh across the sides. When it makes stinging contact with my ass, it zaps my bottom with a small current, making the muscle contract with a little jolt.
“Down on that dick,” he orders, tapping the paddle against my ass and then between my inner thighs. The little zaps of electricity make my muscles leap and twitch. It’s hard to maintain physical control when sharp pain keeps stinging me, but Darko is still keeping a grip on me and he will not let me escape any of it.
“You didn’t listen to me and things went wrong,” he says. “You disobeyed me and you paid the price. Don’t ever do that again.”
My thighs are starting to burn as I work my pussy down, getting closer to the bottom of the dildo. I am pushing myself as much as I can, wanting to please him. It would be a relief to put my ass on the seat, but to do that I have to take all of it, and it is big and thick and long, at least ten inches by my estimation.
“Get your cunt down on that. I want you filled up.”
Darko makes my flesh quiver and sting and ache. He is merciless in all the right ways. He swaps from the fly swatter to a cane, tapping it over my breasts, stinging the tips of my nipples, then finding my clit. The tip of the cane is like a little burst of fire above that sensitive bud, landing over and over like a hornet, urging me to follow his orders.
I let out a cry, which only makes him smile. As I sink further down, he seems taller still, standing there in front of me, wielding discipline with a practiced touch. I finally reach the bottom of the dildo, sit on the stool. Now I am impaled and he has free range of my body, the tip of that cane landing above my clit, then coming around the back to cane my ass too, hot red stripes blazing across my skin, making me cry out with pain, which makes my pussy clench against the hard rubber.
“You’re mine, Chloe,” he growls. “You’ve always been mine. Don’t ever forget that again. Don’t ever run again. Not ever.”
The cane lands hard enough to make me shriek, emphasizing his words. This is real pain, but trapped on this dildo, there’s no escape. The jiggling motions my ass makes as he canes me cause the dildo to shift inside me. I’m fucking myself in front of him, my pussy gripping the dildo, my clit throbbing with the pain of the cane, and I am losing control in the heat of it all.
As I lose control, Darko gains it. I can feel it leaving me with every stroke that lands. In exchange, I am absolved of some of my sins. Is he taking them from me? Or is pain the only way I can begin to forgive myself?
Org
asm comes in a rush, tearing through me, making me scream and come and writhe. The cane keeps landing regardless, prolonging the twisted pleasure and making me scream, tears running down my cheeks as I fuck myself for forgiveness, jabbing the toy in and out of my pussy time and time again.
Darko stands over me and in this moment of pure release, I see the truth in his eyes. In spite of his softness over the past few days, we are not in a relationship. He is still my captor. He is the man who will punish me for failing to be all I could be, and for all that I allowed myself to become. For that, I hate him, and for that, I am grateful.
* * *
Darko
She’s fucking beautiful right now, her pale body marked all over with the little red lines from the tip of the cane. I can smell her arousal as her bottom bounces on the stool and I work the cane so the length of it catches the fullness of her cheeks as she rises, that pussy relinquishing the toy long enough for her ass to be caned.
This isn’t enough punishment. Not yet. Not by a long shot. But now I need something. My cock is throbbing in my pants, demanding the pussy that is occupied by my toy. With a growl, I lift her free of the stool and I walk her a few paces over to a spanking bench, bending her over the padded surface, her hips high, her cane-marked ass on display.
“Open your legs. Wider!” I order, pulling my cock free of my fly. No time to get naked. She’s the one who needs to be naked and punished and used. I just need to fuck her.
She stays in that pretty position, her pussy flowering open for me, her juices making her swollen lower lips gleam. For a second, I just look at her on display, and then I surge forward, pushing my cock deep inside her, reclaiming that cunt of hers for my own.
I fuck Chloe without mercy, slamming in and out of her tight little hole, feeling the way her walls grip me, listening to the grunts and cries that escape her as I give her what we both need. Hard, rough fucking. My grip on her hair lets me pull her head up, forces her to arch her back, makes that cunt clench me with ever more desperation as I rail her as hard as I can.