“We are wed, and you are bathed,” her groom observed. He was even more resplendent today than he’d been the first time she saw him, a glittering jewel in his wedding finery. Her clothes, too, were fine: a bell shaped skirt and a woven top with sleeves down to her knees. They’d pinned up her hair with sticks of shining gold, covered it with a crown adorned with peacock feathers. Everyone but her seemed to have hair that weighed as much as she did, as long as she was tall.
Nadine ignored her husband and gazed around the suite that was theirs. That was his. That she wanted nothing to do with. There was a notable overabundance of mirrors. “You’re very vain, aren’t you?” she deflected, observing the tapestries and glass and plants with a detached fascination. Oddly familiar, all of it, and yet all of it wrong.
“Wouldn’t you be?” he preened, and as he came close he ripped the crown from her head and tossed it aside like so much nothing. “Come, now – we are alone, let us see that whore’s hair of yours.” She made a note, as he pulled out the pins, to find out whether he meant the curls or the length. If she was going to look like a lady of ill-repute, she might as well know why.
“Your father seems nice,” she observed mildly, deflecting again, not looking up from the weaving over his sternum.
“He will be dead soon,” Prince Sado said bluntly, “and then I may do as I please. Princess Nadine Atahualpa, the tiny future Queen with a mouth too big for talking. Do you think there will be rumors? Do you think they will make up stories about the filthy things you do?” He ran a finger over the round shell of her ear, perhaps exotic compared to his long points.
“Do you not already get to do as you please?” She was being formal, too formal, and it felt like falling into a trap, a spider’s web.
“He lets them out of the dungeons,” and she did not plan to ask who they were, “and he will not let me lay a stern hand on his subjects. But you are not his subject. You are mine, and mine alone.”
“That must be awful for you,” she said all monotone, and she did not specify to which hardship she was referring. He pulled at her hair idly, the way one might pull the chain on a ceiling fan, and her heart beat ever-so-slightly harder. She thought then of Slim, who she hadn’t thought of in years, of how he’d tried to teach her to fight. They’d only ended up beating the shit out of each other in the junkyard, and whoever lost had to be on the bottom. She’d rarely won. Nadine had played that game with Billy, sometimes, but not very often. Not like with Slim, where beating the shit out of each other had been an integral part of the relationship. But Slim had been slim, and where Sado did not look large beside the other peoples of Ala Ma, beside her he was so very large.
“It is,” he agreed seriously, not the slightest hint of irony. “But there are ways around it.” He bent down and smiled sweetly, in that way that made his eyes gleam with malice, and she refused to recoil. “The pakala does not count, you see, not on common flesh.” She chose not to ask what the fuck that was, because she thought she wouldn’t like the answer and because she refused to admit to ignorance. His perfectly-manicured index finger traced the jutting curvature of her aquiline nose, slid back up to slide the spectacles off her head. “Your eyes might be pretty, if they weren’t defective,” he decided, and it annoyed her that she could still see his face.
“Your face might be pretty, if it weren’t yours.” Oh my god I did not just fight back with ‘your face’ what the fuck is wrong with me. But the stupid little jibe made annoyance flicker in his eyes, and that pleased her greatly.
“Strip,” he ordered suddenly, standing to full height, and the frisson of pleasure that traveled up her spine frustrated her.
Now is not the time to be fetishizing heteronormative gender role bullshit.
“I don’t know how,” she said instead, spreading her arms wide to convey helplessness, and it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. He made a high-pitched noise, a sort of nnn, and it was off-putting and strange in a way she couldn’t articulate.
“Useless little savage,” he scolded, taking her suddenly by the wrists. His grip was tight and painful and unexpected, and it was more unexpected when he held them above her head, lifted her in the air so that gravity pulled at her arms and threatened her shoulders. “So small!” he declared gleefully, and shook her, and it didn’t seem fair when he wasn’t even that big – not really. I’ve fucked orcs bigger than you, she might have said, but she didn’t. A stray curl fell before her eyes, and she realized her mouth was cutting an unhappy line across her face. She wished she could rip his throat out with her teeth.
“I don’t think that this is how undressing works,” she said instead, realizing too late that she was talking through gritted teeth. He set her down, but instead of – well, whatever she’d thought he might do – he knocked her to the ground, grabbed her and lifted her in the air by her ankles. She could not help the indignant, strangled noise that escaped her as her skirt went inside out and covered her face.
This is fucking humiliating caveman bullshit and it is beyond the fucking pale you awful piece of shit, you awful fucking thing.
She ground her teeth and kept her thoughts to herself as she swayed, as he carried her, humming high and tuneless. Then she swung harder, and he tossed her, and she swallowed her scream as she landed somewhere soft. “Try not to tire yourself out,” she snarled, attempting to sit upright and pull the cloth from her face.
“You wouldn’t be worth it,” he assured her, which was not reassuring so much as it was insulting. She supposed that was the point. Goddamn misogynist bullshit, hateful piece of shit. She realized she was turning flush with indignation as she felt his weight on the bed, and she got her skirt off of her face just in time to watch him begin ripping her clothes off. She wished her vision was worse, because it was a very pleasing sort of a thing to watch. He was literally ripping them off, no regard for the fine nature of them, but she supposed he wouldn’t care. Sado was a prince. Sado was a thoughtless, inconsiderate, selfish asshole.
Nadine hadn’t had sex in so, so long.
He pulled the bracelets from her wrists so carelessly that he hurt the knuckles of her thumbs. She thought her heart might pound its way out of her ribcage like a cartoon.
The last time I had sex, she realized with a sudden and awful clarity, it was barely satisfactory with a boy I probably killed.
Nadine was laid bare, no clothes or jewelry or even glasses, and he hadn’t even let his hair down. He was awful. His scrutiny was awful. It made her feel loathsome and the fact that it aroused her made her feel even more loathsome. “You’ve been marked,” he said, and one of his fingernails traced the bite-shaped scar on her left hipbone, dug into the skin to scratch.
“I didn’t like him, either.” She didn’t know why she told him that, but his hands wrapped around her throat in response. He is going to fucking kill me. He did not. His hands only waited, there, did nothing but rest against her skin. She stayed very, very still – except for her heart, which continued to attempt its escape.
“You don’t know your place in this world,” he said finally, quiet and deceptively calm.
“Of course I do,” she countered, because she had to say something. “I’ve always known where my place is supposed to be. I just don’t care.”
He slapped her, suddenly, hard across her face, and she was so surprised that she didn’t even make a sound. Almost didn’t register what had happened, until there was nothing left but the stinging in her cheek. “Heresy,” he hissed, and when she would have spit in his face he covered her body with his to kiss her.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Why do you have to feel so fucking good, you unbelievable throwback?
Sado’s weight pressed her into the mattress and his clothes felt hot and strange against her skin. His mouth tasted like rice wine and his teeth felt sharp against her tongue, sharper still when he bit down, when her mouth filled with warm copper. Any noise she might have made was lost in him, his hands still wrapped around her throat, and some kind of madness made her bring her hands to his. Hers were too small to be any threat, but it was the thought that counted, as her blood filled their mouths and rushed in her ears.
When his lips left hers it was with the smuggest sort of sneer she thought she’d ever seen. “You taste like filth,” he told her, “like crude metal and dirt.” She tried to headbutt him, then, but he choked the notion out of her and left her struggling beneath him. Nadine wanted to make him bleed, wanted in a way she never had even with Slim, wanted to lay him low and use him and make him feel used.
She pretended that she didn’t feel cold and bereft when he rolled off of her, off of the bed. Pretended that she didn’t want to cover herself so that he couldn’t see. She lounged, languorous, stretched out along the bed as if it were comfortable to do so. “Finished already?” she teased, because it didn’t matter what planet she was on: men did not like to be accused of premature ejaculation.
“When I’ve finished with you,” he replied, voice slightly high with annoyance, “you will know it, because you’ll wish that I wasn’t.” When he came back he was holding something, though she couldn’t make out what.
“Brought reinforcements?” she asked, as if it were a silly thing, as if it were not a potential threat. He was close enough to see, if only barely, and his eyes raked over the length of her.
“Brazen little beast,” and whatever was in his hand glowed blue at one end briefly. “All bones and useless little limbs. Barely even breasts, hips.”
“And you’re a space elf caveman that doesn’t know how kissing works,” she struck back. She could see now that the thing in his hand looked like his scepter from before, writ small. Such a harmless looking little thing. Her gaze lingered too long, and when it returned to his face he was smiling.
“Do they have the pakala, your people? I don’t suppose they do, if you are this savage. If you do not care about your place.” She stayed very still as he climbed back into bed, because the alternative was that she would flee. “Perhaps I can civilize you,” he offered, as if to do so would be a gift.
“I doubt your abilities,” she said quietly, and she didn’t mean to be quiet except that she was looking at the little golden talisman as if it were a cobra. His free hand took one of hers, held her hand all sweet and gentle and smiling, and pressed the end of the pakala into her wrist. For a moment there was nothing, and then it lit up blue.
It was an ache, a soreness, an awful pain that made her jaw clench as she tried uselessly to rip her hand away. As if the veins there had shrunk or the blood had gone thick, as if the joint of her wrist had gone arthritic, as if the muscles were torn and worn and her bones turned hollow. When the light dimmed, when the pain disappeared, her relief was immense and immediate. “What do you think?” he purred, and she realized that he had a knee between her legs and an erection pressed against her thigh.
“Better than being slapped,” she lied, because at least that pain was fleeting, at least that pain could feasibly be sexy. It was making her angry, now, angry because he’d found a way to hurt her that could not even appeal to the occasional masochistic tendency. Just hit me, goddamn it, why can’t you just fucking hit me.
“I wouldn’t want to spoil you.” His clothes were sliding off, and she thought he might be posing as he stripped; it seemed the kind of thing that his vanity would require. Part of her thought it might be justified, because she wanted to run her tongue along every contour of his body. She imagined it, so vividly that it was almost real, having him tied down and at her mercy such that no amount of struggling would set him free. Chained to the headboard while she fucked him with a disproportionately large strap-on, and he’d squirm and squirm and squirm. She flushed at the thought, practically quivered, but he misinterpreted this as his own doing and smiled like black silk. “You’re a needy, pathetic little thing, aren’t you?”
Sado only barely stopped Nadine from hitting him in the balls with her knee, and secretly she was grateful. He wouldn’t be much use if his dick didn’t work. She resisted the urge to admire his genitals, even if they did seem quite nice.
He spread her legs and slid between them, fire and rage in his eyes. She braced herself, the pakala still in his hand, but his fingers ran over her ribcage instead. He toyed with her nipples and teased her with the head of his cock, until she found herself moaning and throbbing and arching her back. Close, so close – and then pain. She quieted immediately, froze as if she’d turned to stone, because the pakala was pressed against her side and made her feel as if her organs were turning inside out. Her hands gripped the blankets and she forgot all about enjoying herself, because suddenly it seemed like a much better idea to vomit and then die. Nonetheless, she did neither.
When it stopped this time, she went limp, and realized with revulsion that he’d entered her while she was paralyzed with agony. It was her turn to slap him, although she didn’t realize she was going to do it until it was already done. He didn’t stop her, didn’t turn away, only smiled placidly. He hadn’t bothered to remove his crown, to let his hair down. That bothered her, somehow, even while he was thrusting into her.
“So small,” he sang, and she hated that the observation pleased her this time, in this context. “So stupid,” he added, taking her chin in one hand, “that it didn’t learn its lesson the first time.”
“Any time,” she corrected, and she did indeed feel stupid. Trapped beneath his body as he moved, as his hands wandered again, she tried to brace herself. Tried to think about the pain, but it was difficult when it was gone and his body lingered. Her clever solution was to slap him, again, harder this time. This backfired immediately as the sting in her hand and the angry set of his jaw stoked fires previously unexplored, and she wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and ask for more and harder – except that this might please him, and she couldn’t possibly have that.
Then the pakala was between her breasts and it felt like it was giving her a heart attack. Frozen again, because even though the rational part of her knew that moving would not make it worse, the fire in her nerve endings wouldn’t listen to reason. She wished that she’d slapped him more, slapped him harder, wished she’d broken his nose with her fist. He was still moving, but she couldn’t focus on anything but the effective distraction of feeling like dying.
I will fucking end you. I will watch you bleed. I will shove your stupid little stick up your fucking urethra and your sobs will be so fucking perfect. You will regret ever touching me, you will regret ever doubting that I could make you feel regret. You will suffer and I won’t even bother to laugh because you will be so utterly beneath me, so thoroughly contemptible. I will make Hell real so that you can burn there for all time goddammit why won’t it stop make it stop you fucking fuck.
Sado stopped the pain just in time for Nadine to feel his final thrusts, just in time for him to be buried deep inside her and twitching. Heat spread through her insides, the pleasure she couldn’t seem to help at a job well done, and suddenly she wished that he’d kept the little blue light glowing. At least then he would have ended on a low note. At least then she wouldn’t feel the frustration, the dissatisfaction, of a job half-done.
“Acceptable,” he declared, as he pulled himself out of bed, and she thought that she might murder him.
“I beg to differ.”
He smiled, and the smile came into sharper focus as he slid her glasses back on her nose. He wanted her to see him, all sweaty and slick and pleased with himself, while she was left tired and wanting. The little pain stick had been set aside, and he took her chin between two fingers. “You will beg for many things,” he promised, bringing his face close to her own. “With your words, instead of just your eager body. You will beg even though you will know it won’t work, it will never work because – and pay attention, little heathen, because this lesson is important – it doesn’t matter what you want.”
“It’s so cute,” she replied, “that silly face you make when you finish. Makes the whole thing worth it, really.” There was a flicker of an expression across his face, and he made that noise again, that nnn. He stood, turned, swept out of the bedroom like a man with a mission. For a moment, she worried that he was going to get the larger scepter that she’d seen before. But then he returned, and lifted her out of bed properly – not by the ankle, this time. Which was almost pleasing, until he carried her into the bathroom and dropped her unceremoniously into the full tub.
“I am going to shower,” he announced, as she sputtered and tried to recover her bearings, “to wash your filth from my skin. You may bathe while I do so, that your presence might be slightly less offensive to me while I sleep.”
She would have rather had the shower. She would have rather had a waterproof vibrator. She would have rather shoved his head beneath the water so that he could pleasure her or die, and make her happy either way. She smiled, bared her teeth, feigned sweetness. “You’re so considerate, Sado dear. Whatever would I do without you?”
“Wallow in your own foul wretchedness.”
“… of course.”
He patted her on the head patronizingly, an insincere reward for insincere behavior. “Good girl.” Sado disappeared into a shower the size of some studio apartments, and Nadine attempted to scrub her skin and think of England. Of baseball. Of other things that did not involve cute accents and balls and wood. She did not want to sleep next to her husband.
Maybe if I fall asleep in the tub, he’ll just leave me here.
As it turned out, he did not.
Nadine Pascal-Said 