Chapter 10 #2
I mean, is she a beautiful woman? I’m not blind. Is her twisted mind attractive? Abso-fucking-lutely not. She is the prime example why my relationship with any vagina-holder should remain strictly at a physical level. The girl is nuts.
Maybe once I’m done with her, once she is nothing but a shell of what she used to be, I’ll release my tension, just once. Or maybe I will make her beg for it, allowing her a brief second of pleasure in the entirety of the pain I will inflict. Yes, this is what I will do.
“Stay the fuck away from them,” she snaps venomously, pulling me back from my thoughts.
“What did I tell you?” I lean in, my mouth closer to hers this time. “Control the variables to control the outcome.”
Her hands clench into fists, and I see the rage in her stance. She is ready to fight me. Another stupid mistake. But maybe a short, useless physical lesson is exactly what she needs to finally understand who is in charge here.
“And you?” I continue. “You didn’t even control yourself. Move in front of the mirror.”
But can she do what she’s told? No. She has to fight me.
The punch lands on my left cheek, and motherfucking lord, what is she eating?
Her body needs a reminder that she’s more than a foot closer to the ground than me and one hundred pounds easier to throw into the wall.
My little subject knows how to fight, that’s for sure.
Luckily, so do I, and I play just as dirty as she does.
One hand is on her throat, and I pick her up off the ground.
I’m sure she has it in her to fight more, but even she can see it’s a waste of time, so she stops after kicking me a few times and just exhales while rolling her eyes.
“Stop being a brat,” I say as I place her back on the ground. “And stand right here.”
The old mirror is cracked at the top, distorting the reflection.
In reality, she is the image of pure perfection: five-foot-three tops, slim, the marks from our little show visible on her neck and an expression that should make you fear her.
She is beautiful, but not the soft type of way.
There is nothing delicate in the way she moves her body, nothing docile in the way she looks at me.
She is the embodiment of someone too strong for their own good.
But in the mirror? She looks like a broken woman, one who will lose it if you scream loud enough in her ear.
I step behind her, every extra inch of my height dwarfing hers. She looks small, a fragile thing in front of me. It makes me wonder how many bones those hands have broken before, how many times she’s wrapped them around someone’s neck.
Neck…her neck, my hands wrapped around it, feeling her pulse under my fingers, touching her skin, so soft. It felt so good.
Fuck.
“You walked into this building pretending you were in control,” I whisper, regaining some composure. My lips are so close to her ear that I breathe in her perfume—another mistake. I decide to completely ignore what is happening in my pants. “Now look at yourself. Look how insignificant you are.”
She flinches but gives nothing away—almost nothing, besides that burning stare.
“You picked your outfit thinking it would make you look like the strongest person in the room. Didn’t I just prove you wrong?”
She might be, but now is not the time nor the place to praise her. It’s time to play with her and her mind.
My eyes move from top to bottom: black everywhere—leather jacket, blouse underneath, jeans, and heeled boots.
Everything black. Even her black hair is let down, reaching her waist. In all that sea of darkness, the only drop of color are her icy-blue eyes, and now, those eyes are looking at me like they are trying to penetrate my skull.
“You are not strong,” I add. “You’re just a pathetic, useless girl in a costume—pretending to be in control, and hoping no one notices how bad you’re trembling under it. And at the first sign of things not going as you planned? You lost it.”
She tries to turn around—defiance kicking in—but I keep her in position with one of my hands holding her shoulder while the other catches her jaw with two fingers.
“Eyes forward.”
The mirror takes her in again. She is stripped of poise, of posture, of whatever mask she tried to tape on this morning.
Victoria opens her mouth, but all that comes out is silence and the sound of her own breath catching on humiliation. She straightens her spine like the last act of bravery of a queen about to be crowned in ash.
I hook a finger beneath her leather jacket and drag it down off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. If she’s surprised by this act, she doesn’t show it.
“Layer by layer, I will strip you of everything that protects your body and your brain until I’m done playing. Remember, you asked for it.”
Her blouse is next. Thin, black, skintight. I peel it off, over her head. Piece by piece, I am removing everything that she thinks makes her strong until nothing remains.
Her bra is simple. Black. Boring. Practical. It is on the floor the next second.
Without it, her breasts are fully on display; perfectly formed, pale and soft in the harsh light. I can’t help but notice how her nipples harden in the cold—because there is no way she’s getting turned on from everything that’s happened, right?
This only causes a spike of an involuntary craving. I could have her now. All I need to do is push her against the wall, remove the last pieces of unnecessary clothing and… No, don’t go there again.
“You don’t even know what part of you will die tonight. Pants,” I continue, stepping back.
She doesn’t move, so I kneel. If she thinks resisting my orders is the best course of action, she is in for a big surprise.
I unhook her belt and unzip her pants, letting them fall to the floor next to the other clothes I’ve already removed. This feels too easy. She probably thinks I will fuck her. Will I? I mean, I could test the sucking theory. No, you will not. Right.
All that’s left covering her is a pair of black panties. She has the perfect body. Which is not helping, considering the circumstances.
I stand behind her before I do something I’ll regret later, looking her in the eyes through the mirror.
“You still think this is about you?” I ask. “You said you wanted me, thinking you’d be the one controlling the marionette.”
She doesn’t reply, so I continue.
“You fantasized so many times, completely oblivious that this will not be about you or what you want. This will only be about me and what I want.”
She doesn’t look away, staring at her reflection like if she breaks eye contact, she’ll lose the last inch of spine she has left.
“Say it. Say what you see.”
She won’t, so I help her.
“You know what I see? A woman who walked into my game thinking she is better at playing it than I am. And now? She’s just a girl in her underwear, almost shaking, praying I don’t remove the last piece of control she has and reduce her to nothing. Say it.”
She clenches her jaw, not letting a word out, but her eyes locked onto mine in the mirror are almost empty. That infuriates me more. She already lost; she should know it by now. Why is she acting brave?
“You came here thinking you’d impress me. You’re here because you wanted to be ruined by someone who doesn’t give a fuck about your image. Someone who knows who you are underneath it.”
The mirror reflects it all: her slightly trembling fingers, the way she’s folding in on herself, the fact that she doesn’t stop me—or doesn’t have the strength to.
“I own this version of you now,” I say. “You thought I’d give you some physical restraint. Something you could survive.”
I gestured to the recording light. “You’ll watch this later. You’ll replay the moment you started to disappear. And remember, you will not survive this,” I add, ending my self-imposed monologue, while moving toward the door.
“This was just a taste of what’s about to happen. You’ll die at the end of this, Victoria,” I shout as I am stepping out of the building.
I hear the crash of the chair smashing the mirror behind me.
She stepped into this game without knowing the rules. That’s how you trap someone like her. You let them think they can win, and then you destroy every piece of their pride. Humans and their useless pride.
But she will come back. They always do after this phase.