Retribution

Her hands are fisted in his hair. ‘I don’t give a flying fuck what you want today, boy,’ she tells him in a low snarl.

There is real anger there, backed by a pain that gnaws relentlessly at her heart, at her pride, at her faith in herself. A pain he put there.   

A pain she will make him pay for.   

Her hands are fast, cruel, relentless, driving into his skin, finding every painful, tender spot until he writhes beneath her. 

He is not bound: she warned him at the beginning that she wasn’t going to bother. ‘Just fucking stay still. You can do that, can’t you boy?’  

She knows better, knows he will move, knows he will flail and strike out. She wants him to fail. Wants him to understand the pain of failure as she punishes every movement with something like glee.   

The sharp end of an evil stick on every twitching piece of skin. The rubber loop paddle on every limb that spasms. Her fingernails in every sensitive spot he exposes.   

This is not love. This is not friendship, or meeting one another’s needs. This is retribution, and she wants him to feel every jagged piece of it sticking in his craw as his words stick in hers. She wants to hurt him, to leave scars on his skin as he has on her heart.   

There is the snick of the knife now, and he goes still. This has always been something loving between them, this knife. It has always been something intimate, but she wants to destroy something tonight and if it can’t be him then it will be a piece of them, together.   

It’s at his throat now, and he’s gone still. She laughs, a jagged sound nothing like her usual throaty chuckle, feeling the tension in him. Feeling the knowledge that he’s finally getting it, finally understanding that the love for him that’s always held her sociopathy back will not do so today. Feeling his throat working against the blade, her rationale, her love, they’re all subsumed by the single desire, the single need to cut. The carotid, with it’s beautiful, spurting blood that feeds the brain. The jugular, which takes it back, recycling it in the heart. They are bare under her blade now, and her hand is trembling with the need to plunge it in.   

Slow, deep breaths now. Collecting herself. Gently drawing herself back from the edge… a little. Following the path of the subclavian with the tip of the blade, teasing herself with the knowledge that a single good wound there would bleed him out within 6 minutes- probably less time, given the subclavian’s proximity to the heart. 

As though the very thought had drawn her attention to that organ, pressing the tip of the knife just under his sternum, angling a little up.

‘What’s the fastest way to man’s heart, boy?’ she asks him, and lets him see the insanity in her eyes. His own are a little wild, and she laughs. The sound of it is still jagged and raw, more like a sob than a chuckle, and he begins to understand. Seeing the dawning comprehension in his eyes, she leans into him, smiling. 

‘It’s under the breastbone and up,’ she whispers, shoving the knife home. 

 

(The slightly saner ending)

It’s been reversed at the last moment, and with more than a little reluctance, but she knows it will leave a bruise he won’t soon forget. 

Any more than she will. 

And she draws him up to her, pressing his face tightly into her shoulder so that he won’t see her silent tears. 

‘I love you, puppy.’