Eyes Like Mine Beheld Such Delights
Day 12
by lilinyx
Mara drummed her fingertips against the metal of the briefing table. Her hand missed the feel of holding Iris’ leash. She worried that keeping her in the kennels was too much, but there were rumblings among the staff. This would quiet them. It also worked to their advantage. Her mind wandered back to earlier this morning as the others around her droned about sorties and logistics.
“You and CrossHound do what you can, okay? It’s fine if it’s not all of them, but…it should help, either way.” She let Iris free of her leash.
Iris nodded. Through the muzzle, Mara saw that cocky grin. She could fuck Iris right here, right now, when she gave Mara that grin. The way Mara would replace it with first a grimace of pain; then contort it into a hazy smile of pleasure; then finally twist it into something that was both, made her struggle to not follow through with the impulse. It was the chime of her access band that brought her back to her senses.
She gave Iris a pat on the head, ignoring the pout Iris gave. She caught CrossHound’s eyes for just a moment as she withdrew. Something sharp there. Doubting. She’d have to correct that before long. It wouldn’t do to leave anyone doubting her. Okay, yeah. She was an addict. So what? A Goddess who’d broken known science didn’t actually need to be bound by such petty mortal restraints.
“Handler-Ensign Faustus.” Even Goddesses had to occasionally sit in on planning meetings, though. Still, Mara took the opportunity to stand and assume parade rest. She didn’t need to. The formality of it would help the others in the room, though. It’d certainly help with Colonel Berrehill. The short woman demanded deference in all things, no matter whether that deference was deserved. She was a severe and exacting person whose fetishism of martial honor was absolute.
Briefly, her eyes flicked to regard the red-haired woman whose eyes had bored holes in Mara’s side all meeting. Their confrontation a few days ago in the hangar bay had been an improv. An ad lib. Mara had just been feeling herself enough to stand up and defend Iris against that…fake. That charlatan. That user. Gods, it made her so mad. Regardless, Mara knew that it would pass.
Xelene Torai would get over it. Not that she’d gotten over what went down between her father and Mara’s. Last Mara heard, Xelene’s father was rotting away in some prison. Death row. Pity. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man who’d leered at Mara when she was twelve.
“Actually, Colonel. I spoke to Warden-Commander Frieze last night. In light of recent achievements related to my breaking of the insurgent pilot of Hook Echo, I’ve been promoted to Handler-Major.”
In her periphery, she saw the way Xelene Torai tensed. It was nothing to the way that Colonel Berrehill bristled.
“I’ve seen no such missive.”
“Yes, sir. The Warden-Commander relayed that it was effective as of this morning.”
“Why the rush?”
“She believed that the Hound program could use…additional oversight.”
Xelene appeared apoplectic. Mara struggled to not laugh.
“Hmph. Very well. Continue, Handler-Major.”
“Thank you, sir. Now, regarding Asset 118…”
Mara spent some time speaking to Iris’ readiness. She spoke of the regimen that Iris used to keep in shape. She stressed that she’d personally evaluated Iris, though she left out the particulars. As she informed those in attendance of her progress, she did her best to not meet Xelene’s gaze. It was murderous. Mara stopped herself from shuddering. At first, she thought it was fear of retribution from Xelene.
Instead, she realized it was anxious excitement. There was something so…enjoyable about the way Xelene squirmed with barely concealed rage and jealousy. Dark thoughts of what she would’ve done if she and Xelene were alone played in her mind. As she spoke about how the object that was her sister could participate in future missions, she ensured to stress her new rank.
“This is all…fascinating, but your Asset’s compliance seems rather abrupt, no? To say nothing of your being her Handler,” Xelene interjected, cutting off Mara as she was about to explain more about Hook Echo’s operational record.
“Not all of us have time for hobbies, Handler-Major,” Mara responded, waving her hand as though Xelene’s question had fouled the air. Mara didn’t bother to look at Xelene as she continued. The seething hatred, the bitten back invectives…all of the things Xelene Torai wasn’t saying screamed themselves into the space.
The moment the meeting adjourned, Xelene bolted up from her seat and stalked out of the room. The action was met with scattered laughter. Even Colonel Berrehill’s eyes gleamed with the glee of what had just transpired. None of these woman would ever consider Xelene one of them. She would never fit.
It dampened the enjoyment, seeing them revel in it for those reasons. Mara felt her smile go the slightest bit hollow around the edges at the realization. She didn’t linger after Berrehill congratulated her for “speaking your truth to that thing”. If she stayed in this room, she’d begin to have regrets. She couldn’t afford the luxury.
Mara strode down the hallway toward the Umbriel Logistics Core. Situated near the ready room, it held one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the whole of SR-21. Despite the permissioning for the core being somewhat laxer, few people interacted with it. The interface was…obtuse at best. Unless you knew it, you avoided it. Still, it required something beyond her being a Handler-Ensign.
She swiped the access band against the panel next to the door. As she did, her heart hitched. Had the Warden-Commander actually followed through? As the lock disengaged with a resounding THUNK, Mara relaxed.
She stepped inside. The room was barely nine feet high and dimly lit. A row of server racks towered above her, abutting the ceiling. Thick cables crisscrossed the floor. It was cramped as Mara negotiated around the space.
Turning the corner, she spotted a lanky man examining the master control console. He sported a mop of black hair and had a long face accentuated by a pronounced asymmetry that, with his lanky build, made it look as though someone had stretched a shorter, more handsome man. He noticed her a moment later. He stifled a yelp.
“Sorry,” Mara said.
“No, no. It’s- I’m just- I’m surprised to have a Handler down here!” the man said, grinning. “I’m Corbin. Corbin Lewis.”
He extended a hand. Mara regarded it like it was radioactive. He took his hand back.
“Um. Anyway, I’m a bit of a fan of yours. I, hah…is this weird? Uh, I’ve always wanted to be a Handler. It’s always seemed so…fun.”
“Oh, thank you! That’s so kind,” Mara said. It was a turn of phrase she’d said so many times that the tone she used was as saccharine and as it was hollow. It sounded nothing like Ravella, not that this guy minded. If this had been Avalost, Corbin Lewis would’ve been a starfucker.
“Yeah. One can dream, right?”
“So…what’re you doing here in the Core?” Mara asked, trying to keep her tone as blushing innocent maiden as possible, but enough ‘Ravella’ as to keep up appearances. If this guy did have some parasocial relationship with her, she’d have to tread carefully.
“Oh! I got a work order from HQ.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I’m supposed to flash the core with a new firmware version.”
“I…guess I better come back, then, huh?”
“Oh, it won’t take long.” He held up a small lancet drive. Mara recognized it. Umbriel designed them. The device used a six inch needle made of tungsten-carbide coated with a gold-zinc alloy. Titus and Astrid’s father had invented it back when Umbriel’s business had little to do with its current crop of military contracts. The patriarch of the Mercer’s corporate empire had promised to use lancet drives as the first stepping stone to sustainable human cloning. The drives could interface “harmlessly” with a human mind.
They became the forerunners to the neural links that Umbriel was now developing. She was thankful that Hook Echo’s rebuild didn’t include one. For all the traipsing around she wanted to do in her sister’s mind, she loathed the notion of something foreign and metallic dictating who Iris was and wasn’t.
Corbin slotted the lancet into a port and began typing.
“Just gotta connect this, spend a few seconds as the core precepts get rewired, and…voila! Brand new firmware.”
He withdrew the lancet from the port and Mara saw the slick red fluid coating it. She must’ve stared too long because Corbin started speaking to her.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s not really blood. It’s a synthetic iron-oxide blend to help with data transmission along the cortical matrices. The things these people come up with. Have you ever heard of Ricky Tobit?”
Mara’s teeth clenched, her smile going brittle.
“He’s the guy at Umbriel. Like, not only does he have his hands in mech design, but this baby? This is his handiwork!”
Mara knew it wasn’t true, but she also knew that Ricky loved to boast about all the ways he was instrumental to the success of Umbriel. A sense memory of Ricky’s cologne mixed with expensive whiskey hit her and she almost gagged.
“And the women he’s been with…”
Mara felt rage twinge through her spine. She could see the way this man was dreaming of all the ways he’d abuse someone like Iris. Her Iris. The things he’d do to Ravella. For a moment, he was Ricky.
“I have to get back to work,” Mara said, trying to go for ‘professional, yet quirky ditz’ - her old standby. Instead, she noticed how her voice came out cold.
“Give Ravella my love,” Corbin said, his lips moving out of sync with his words. She saw the way Corbin - no, Ricky - no, Corbin leered at her. Leered at Ravella. She didn’t even realize she’d slid the lancet drive into Corbin’s neck until she felt how warm and sticky his blood was against her skin. Real blood. Real iron-oxide blend, no longer flowing to Corbin’s cortical matrices.
He gasped and gagged.
She opened the hole wider, let the arteries pump away his life. Warm blood. She wanted warm blood. If she could have, she’d have killed this man twice.
“Y’know what I mean?” Corbin asked, throat unscathed. Mara’s hands felt cold. Give Ravella my love. It was one of the last things Ricky had messaged her before she came here. Mara took a moment to collect herself as she let go of her violent fantasy. There would be no opening up Corbin. Not today.
After a few more words, Corbin departed and Mara got back to work. The update hadn’t changed her plans. She spent the next few minutes coding the exploit. Markham Fitz, the lead developer on the project, had been fond of Mara. Or, “fond” in the way that he coveted her for himself. He’d been transferred from the project shortly after he’d made a drunken confession of loving intent toward Mara.
His body had washed up in a river two weeks after that. One bullet in his head. Robbery gone bad. Damn shame. Titus had been extra attentive with her body that week. Left more bruises. Bought her even more couture. Astrid left the receipt of his purchases on Mara’s desk by accident. Another game of hers. Underneath it was the payroll statement for employees with surnames ‘FE’ through ‘FI’. Titus had outspent a dead man’s yearly salary threefold.
It wasn’t as valuable as the way Markham Fitz had spoken up about the theoretical vulnerability that could be present in a hybrid biocomputational mainframe. Mara’d barely had to lean a bit more forward to show off her cleavage to get him to explain how damaging it would be to catch the machine in a null pointer paradox. It was an exploit so simple that all she needed to do was to give it one command:
Mara turned the corner and moved down the hallway. She was free. She just had to put distance between her and the Core before—
Her collision with something soft, despite the starched smell of military linens, pulled her back to the current moment. She stepped back to see a woman with fiery red hair - dressed in the regalia of a Handler-Major - peering down at her. She did not look pleased. Xelene Torai likely didn’t know the meaning of the goddamn word, if the few things that Mara had picked up from listening to Ravella talk about her were any indication. Rav hadn’t mentioned her by name, she wasn’t stupid enough to, but Mara had an inkling. Between that and the times that Astrid would “forget” classified information on Mara’s desk for Mara to read, she knew who this woman was.
“X- Handler-Major.” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She snapped a salute. Did Handlers salute each other? Fuck. After that conflict in the hangar bay, this was not where she should be. She needed to be desperately elsewhere. Dressing down a superior officer who could mindbreak you into a mutt that longed for various enrichment gourds was not a move she’d intended to make. In her defense, Mara had been riding high and there was something in Xelene’s gaze. A longing to forget. To be put down. To be made lesser.
That look was gone. Instead there was embarrassment, barely contained contempt. Loathing. Mara chanced a glance into the room from which she’d just left. It was a nondescript office space with a secure audio-video feed. Perfect for clandestine discussions.
“What do you want, Ensign?”
“I…” Wanted to apologize for fucking with your mind, please don’t mutt me. Christ, what the fuck could she say? What even were words? She didn’t think. She just said it.
“I was wondering if you’d enjoyed our discussion from a few days ago.” Fuck. FUCK. Why? W H Y? Guess she’d be joining the kennels. Could CrossHound at least look out for her and Iris?
“You…” Xelene’s eyes burned with malevolent retribution. “Are dismissed.” Then she stalked away.
Had that just worked? Wow. She really was good at this. Mara started down the hallway, but then stopped. She didn’t hear the clacking of Xelene’s boots against the ground. Mara turned to catch Xelene staring at her. Caught, Xelene turned and tromped away. She shouldn’t push it. She really shouldn’t. She’d gotten away with it. It was fine. She could go, right now. There was no reason for her not to go.
She hurried to catch up.
Mara strode alongside the Handler-Major in silence, knowing her presence would only goad the woman. Good. She wanted that. She had to know now. Were there really no limits to what she could do? Xelene made an abrupt turn into one of the storage rooms, swiping her access band to open the door.
Mara followed into the room with her. The moment the door closed, Xelene crushed her lips against Mara’s. With a flurry of motion, Xelene loosened Mara’s belt and slid down her pants. Xelene withdrew, dipping down low. Then her tongue found Mara’s clit. She flicked at it through the fabric of Mara’s thong. Mara groaned. Gods, she hated this woman. She was everything wrong with the Empire. Servile and useless, perpetually a victim. Stuck in her own mendacity.
But Gods could she use her tongue. It only took a few minutes before Mara was writhing, gasping as Xelene took control of her. It was the desperate work of a woman who could not reconcile the submissiveness she craved and the authority she held. That suited Mara just fine. As she caught her breath, Xelene cleaned herself off.
“You’re good at that,” Mara huffed between panting breaths.
“This will not happen again,” Xelene said, her voice a lethal hiss.
“Not if I have any say in it,” Mara said.
“You don’t.”
Mara chuckled. “If that were true, you’d have left already.” Her hand grasped between Xelene’s thighs. She felt how hard she was. Xelene’s face flushed, even as she tried her best to hide it. Mara traced a finger upwards to Xelene’s tip. “I bet you’d hate it if I made you cum right now. Made a mess of you where nobody could see. After all, you’re one of those ‘I don’t fuck dogs’ types. Not like you could take it out on them, though - even a Hound would lose respect for the type of quickshot who finishes in her briefs.”
She just couldn’t help it. For all her bluster, here was a woman that needed to be put in her place; to be driven into nothingness and made less than. There was something in her eyes that let Mara know she needed it. The shiver and the strangled moan Xelene let loose were confirmation enough.
Mara gave a slow stroke as she stared at Xelene. It was a dare. Xelene knew things about breaking Hounds that she couldn’t even imagine. At any moment, this woman could bring everything about Mara’s new life crashing down around her. She was the last person that Mara should keep testing. And yet, Mara knew that the feelings Xelene had about getting degraded and humiliated weren’t just shame. There was a dimension to them that she’d read about.
No matter how minute this feeling, its use as a vector for Emotional Engagement, Reconditioning, and Modification can be effective. See Appendix H (“Measurement of Emotional Response”) for more information.
She’d done something like this before. So what if Iris - her precious, wonderful Iris - had harbored profound feelings for her long before she’d decided to break her. Here, now, as Xelene’s face flitted between shame and arousal and hatred, Mara felt preternaturally confident. She was going to break this woman.
Sexual arousal is a potent means of emotional reconditioning, though not the only means. See Appendix C (“Alternative Enrichment Methods”) for techniques.
Xelene shuddered and gasped as Mara moved faster. “How pathetic, to be this sensitive. This wonderfully aroused. I bet it’s because you hate me. And yet somehow, you dropped to your knees for me the moment you could manage it.”
“I- You’re…insane, Ahhhm- oh fuck. Faustus.”
Subjects tend to become combative or otherwise more resistant as the certainty of their defeat begins to mount. As noted in Roth, Bragman, et. al: “There is no more grievous error than to see hostility as a sign of anything other than the prelude docility; therefore, it is prudent and necessary to continue methods that may seem distressing to the subject or to the administrator of treatment” (“On Chemical-Assisted Emotional Reconditioning”, 33 SRE)
“You’re not getting out of it this time, Xelene. You’ve spent days and days eyefucking me. I’ve noticed. This is your penance for being such an abysmal failure. You can’t even bring yourself to pretend to resist me. Why is that? Are you just naturally this pathetic? Do you just love being humiliated and degraded this much?”
Xelene leaned against Mara, her hips canting as she searched for more contact.
“Just as..bad as…As…hhhnnn…” Xelene’s voice was small, far away. Dazed in a way that Mara understood all too keenly.
“You got dosed by something, huh?” Mara giggled. “Did you do it to yourself? I bet you did. That eager to experience what its like to be a good little puppy?”
“Fuck…you…”
“If you’re really lucky.”
“Need to…why’s it…so…?”
“Shhh. Sink into it.”
“You’re not…why…”
“Just focus on how it feels and sink.”
“Nnnnngmm…fiiight…”
“Be pathetic and weak for me and sink. Deeper.”
“Hhhhnnnhhhh.”
“Thaaaaat’s it. Good girl. So good for me. Hehe, I’m surprised they don’t teach you Handlers how to resist this. Seems like the easiest point of vulnerability. Turn one of ‘us’, after all, and who knows how bad things could get. I’m gonna have you betray them all, Xelene. How does that sound?”
Xelene could only whine. Mara picked up the pace. Xelene was so close. Mara had to give it to the woman: she’d misjudged her stamina.
Destruction of the subject’s ego is paramount to instill the correct parameters for compliance.
“After this, I might even take you down to the kennels. You may not fuck dogs, but I bet there’s plenty of them in there that’d be eager to fuck you. Imagine it, Xelene. All the dogs you helped break, using you. Showing you just how savage they can be with you. I fucked mine for hours. She never tired. Never flagged for one second. Just think about how far you could sink into it. The depths you’d drop to until there’s nothing left. Until you are nothing.”
Xelene’s body convulsed and she panted, but it wasn’t enough.
“I know you want to fight this, but it’s okay. It’s too late for you. You are too far gone to fight. It’s okay. Only we need to know. All you need to do is give in. I know better than you. I am better than you. I’ve proved it. Which means that you can stop pretending. It’s okay. Cum for your Superior.”
Xelene let out a guttural moan. Mara could feel as the woman’s cock twitched and spasmed, expending herself fruitlessly.
Based on the target compliance level, it may be preferable to reconstruct or confabulate a preferable identity.
“Good girl. Such a good girl for me. Just for me.”
Mara kept going, on and on, whispering as Xelene broke more and more. It was magical to see. By the end, Mara wasn’t sure how much of the proud authoritarian was even left. Not that it mattered. Whatever shrapnel remained from what she’d blown apart would do just fine. Mutts had their place, after all.
“Now, then. Let me tell you about the Umbriel Logistics Core. You have access, right?”
She shouldn’t push her luck. She should just go back to her room and read. Or do some Sudoku. Astrakhan had just premiered a new line of waterfall silk dresses to marvel at. Couture. Perfect for her, always. There were things Mara could have been doing.
Instead, she was headed to the kennels again. She just had to know. Mara drew close to the double doors, but she stopped short as she heard the yelping crescendo of someone on the other side of the door.
“That’s my girl,” she whispered before opening the door. The smell that greeted her was overpowering. The place reeked of sex, overpowering the ever-present bouquet of perspiration, excrement, and astringent industrial cleaners. Near the door she spotted a pale woman with brunette hair, wearing a flight suit decorated with some piece of hand-stitched material.
“Hey you,” CrossHound said, grinning. She sidled up next to Mara, giving her a side hug as the two walked.
“Hi. You seem…I dunno, pretty chipper for still having to pretend to be a hound.”
“Heh. I told her you wouldn’t get it.”
“Get what?” Mara felt like she was on the outside of a particularly unfunny joke.
CrossHound stopped her.
“You think what you did was some kind’ve liberation. It’s not. And it’s not ‘pretend’. Reintegrating everything that created the Hound in me doesn’t mean she’s gone. She’s there now. All the time. I’m aware of the pain, now, all the time.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds…”
“Like you did something terrible and wanted to call it a blessing?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t. And it’s not. It’s just something new: an adaptation to hostile circumstances.”
They both lapsed into silence for a long moment before CrossHound continued the conversation.
“Your sister tells me you’ve got a brilliant plan to get us all out of here.” She began moving towards the commotion deeper within the kennels. Mara followed.
“Yeah. I don’t know if it’ll be bloodless. I’m gonna try, but—“
“We all knew what we signed up for, long before any of us found our way here. They may not look it, but…these gals are all fighters. Give ‘em a gun or saddle ‘em up and they’ll surprise you.”
They stopped a few feet away from what could only be described as a writhing mass of orgiastic flesh. It took Mara a moment to realize that there were four women, so lost in rutting, lust-fueled rhythm that they’d seemed to be one for a moment. At the center was Iris, laid flat on her back. One woman rode her face as another buried herself deep between Iris’ thighs. A third rode one of Iris’ hands.
“Nothing like this ever happened at the base.”
“This is a normal Tuesday for me.”
“Liar.”
“It’s…not as far off as you’d think. Astrid and Titus hav—“ She caught herself. “—had…lots of needs.”
“Shut up. You fucked the Monster Twins?”
“Is that what they call them?”
“Okay, you gotta tell me. Astrid Mercer, is she as—“
“I really don’t have to tell you.”
“You’re evil,” CrossHound said. “I mean it as affectionate praise.”
Mara would’ve blanched at it before, but…she liked it. When had that happened? She never thought of herself as having much use for morality. Titus and Astrid hadn’t needed…it…
…Except, she wasn’t Astrid. She wasn’t Titus. Even removed from their authority for a few days, Mara felt how strange it felt to be thinking about her future, rather than doing whatever kept her alive. It’s not that she didn’t find “morality” silly. She still did. She’d been raised to believe that the Empire was “good” and those who opposed it harbored the worst, most “evil” intentions. Murder was evil, save for when it benefited someone or fit a political narrative. She’d witnessed enough televised executions to have her doubts.
When Iris defected, though? It shattered her willingness to believe in anyone being anything so binary, so reductive. Even as she ached for Iris, even as she longed for her and wanted to be close to her again, she couldn’t condemn her as “evil”. All she knew was that she missed her. All she wanted was to do whatever she could to making that longing stop. Anyone who pretended it was more complex than that was deluding themselves. People did what felt good, but “good” never much factored into it.
Mostly, people claiming certitude over what made something “just” or “righteous” had an agenda to push, a pill to sell, or a war to win.
What she was doing with Iris was “evil”, too. If Familial Integrity ever learned of what she’d done, she’d be executed. It was wrong to be her. Wrong and sinful to get turned on by the way she was using her sister to mindbreak more to her cause, no matter how much Iris fucking loved it, too.
“How affectionate?”
CrossHound unzipped her flight suit, and stepped toward Mara. It’d be easy, so, so easy to do what she wanted to do; to give in to what every bit of her arousal screamed at her to do. Mara couldn’t, though. She had a reason to be here. And so she stepped back.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not the one you get to fuck tonight.” Mara turned toward the door. “Xelene!”
CrossHound cocked her head to the side. “Uh…gesundheit? What’s a ‘Xelene’?”
“I am,” Xelene said, sauntering past a row of cages and into view.
CrossHound looked at Mara, confused. Then she understood. CrossHound was on her in the following heartbeat. She grabbed Xelene and shoved her up against the cages. Xelene moaned.
“Cross…” The word was affectionate and soft, as was the gaze Xelene gave CrossHound.
“No. No, you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to look at me like that.”
“But, I—“
“No. I remember it all. Every. Goddamn. WORD.” CrossHound punctuated the words with three swift hits in the gut. Mara could tell that she’d pulled the punches, even from here. They were instructive. Almost gentle.
Corrective.
“’You’re mine to do with as I please’!” CrossHound shoved Xelene against an empty cage. The wretched fascist crumbled to the ground. She didn’t move to defend herself. “’You will love and OBEY me’!” she bellowed, breathing hard. Tears streamed down her face.
“I had someone I loved. And you took her from me. You stole every part me of that was good and perverted every part of me that was left. You took my honor and ran it through the mud because it suited you.” And then CrossHound laughed. It was mirthless and dark with vengeful fury. She crouched down low, next to Xelene. The other woman didn’t so much as flinch. “I’m sorry. Really. Whatever happens next, I…I want you to know that Marianna Highcross feels really, truly bad about this. She wants us to be better. As much as she loathes everything that you are, she believes in treating you better than you treated us. But I’m not just her now. Don’t you get that? In all your attempts to make me something less, you made me more than her.”
CrossHound grasped Xelene by the throat, snarling. “Haven’t you ever wanted to meet us?”
“Cross,” Mara said, watching impassively.
“I want to kill her. Hound wants to kill her, but Marianna does, too. She’s scared and I exist to protect her. I was made to protect her. I know you don’t want me to, but…you don’t understand, Mara. You can’t understand.”
“You know you can’t. Not yet.”
“Why? Why can’t it be now? Why can’t I just wrap my hands around her throat and choke my justice free from her wretched corpse?”
Mara shrugged. “Do it.”
CrossHound stared at her, then at Xelene. For a moment, her grip tightened. Then—
“FUCK!” CrossHound pounded her fists against a cage, startling the mutt within. She stepped away and paced back and forth.
“Cross,” Mara said again. This time, she was met with a rebuking glare.
CrossHound pulled Xelene up by her cape and stared her in her eyes. “Despite everything inside of me that hates you, there’s this part of me that…god, why do I want to help you?” Xelene’s eyes were glassy, far away. Rage battled sorrow, plain to see as CrossHound’s face contorted. Mara wasn’t sure which would win, but she understood better, now, the creature she’d had a hand in making. She’d torn down the defenses of a person who’d have needed far more than a few days to really grapple with pain of what had happened…and then put her in a room with the person who caused it. Guilt burned in her gut as she watched.
“Tell me it’s real. It has to be real…” CrossHound whimpered.
Something about it brought Xelene back to the moment. Not fully, just enough to answer with lucid, purposeful, non-verbal thought. Xelene’s hands touched to a embroidered piece of CrossHound’s suit, fingers resting on a pair of crimson-pink, cordate flowers.
CrossHound brought Xelene in close and embraced her. “I’m sorry,” CrossHound said, her voice tender and cracking. “I can’t save you. No matter what happens, I can’t save you.”
Something like acceptance washed over Xelene’s face. Then Xelene sobbed, too.
“Shhh. It’ll be okay. I promise,” CrossHound said.
She pressed her forehead against Xelene’s. “But we can have tonight. If you want. If it suits you. If you need it like I think you might.”
Xelene nodded, her lamentations muted against CrossHound’s powerful frame. CrossHound ran a hand through her hair. “I know you must feel lost. So lost, right now, Xelene. But I need you to come back to yourself. It has to be you. You know yourself, no matter what she did to you, okay?”
CrossHound looked to Mara. “What, exactly, did you do to her?”
“I just…kept telling her she didn’t matter. That she was mine to do with as I pleased.”
As Mara said the words, she could see how Xelene shivered. At first, Mara thought it was fear or shame. Then, still sniffling, Xelene started to disrobe. Yeah. Being evil suited Amaranth Thelxinoe Faustus just fine. She didn’t hate herself at all.
“Do you want it rough?” CrossHound asked Xelene.
“Yes, thank you,” Xelene responded, speaking again.
“Do you want just me?”
“No, I want them all.”
“Do you regret what you did to all of us?”
“No, I did as I was told.”
CrossHound’s nostrils flared at the admission, teeth baring. She surged forward and bit at Xelene’s neck, just hard enough that Mara was worried she’d truly tear the redhead apart.
“We’ll work on that, you fascist piece of trash,” CrossHound growled.
“I’d like to see you try, you pathetic insurgent mongrel,” Xelene shot back, her eyes once again glittering with a convincing simulacrum of authentic personality for the first time in hours.
“You’re intent on making me hate you, huh?” CrossHound grasped at one of Xelene’s breasts, the grip rough.
“Yeah,” sighed Xelene.
“It won’t save you,” CrossHound said.
“I can’t be saved, Marianna,” Xelene said. “I need you to understand. Just use me.”
“Cross,” Mara said again.
“It’s okay. We’re good,” CrossHound said, giving Mara a dismissive wave. “Like I said…you wouldn’t get it. It’s different being on this side.”
It was another thing to compartmentalize. Something for Mara to file away in her mind. Another person who thought they knew her just because of the woman she had to be to survive. As CrossHound went to retrieve a strap-on from a nearby shelf of ‘enrichment’ supplies, Mara demanded the Hounds enjoying Iris’ body leave to do something else. She wasn’t surprised when they went to join in welcoming Xelene as the newest member of the kennels.
“You okay?” Iris asked, body slick with exertion as much as with the work of her enjoyment.
Mara let her focus linger on the loving ways in which the Hounds treated Xelene for just moment longer before she returned to Iris. Surely the atrocities she’d committed were no worse than Xelene’s. Surely any who’d stand in judgment of her would understand that she’d acted out of love. True and real love.
“Can you…stay the night with me?” Mara knew Iris would say yes. Just like she knew it was selfish to do what she was doing.
She did it anyway.
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