World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Payment (Complete)

[Astra D.]

August 02, 2008. Approximately 4:30am PDT.

The quiet knock penetrated the fog of Morgan’s dreams as she lay in bed, letting her subconscious sift through and sort the events of the evening. Her first thought was that it might be Declan, though she couldn’t imagine why he’d have come up to her room. Muzzily, she pushed back the blankets and stumbled over to the door as the knock came again, more insistently.

“’m coming,” she mumbled, fumbling with the knob and pushing it open without regard for the fact that she hadn’t bothered dressing. “What did you…” The figure leaning against the wall, though familiar, was not the one she had expected. “..need? Wait, Trent?” Her sleep-dulled brain struggled to process the unusual visit, but he was wide-awake and well on top of things. He slid past her into the room, making a quick survey of the books and clothes scattered across her side of the dorm, and noting the quiet snoring of her roommate on the other side of Morgan’s folding screen. Frowning, she closed the door.

He didn’t say anything at all; just pushed her back onto the bed. The clink of metal chimed cold and clear in the dark room, followed by the sound of leather whispering through belt loops. She knew that sound, and recognized instinctively what it meant in a very immediate and intimate way, but her body had already started moving before the implication registered to her muddled brain. It moved her to slide off the edge of the bed, get to the door, and out into the hall, but an explosion of searing pain across her abdomen cut short any such efforts as the edge of the wide belt snapped against her bare skin.

A bitten lip stifled the shriek, but couldn’t muffle the sharp cracks that rang out as blow after blow rained down across her stomach, her breasts, her thighs, her back; when she moved, so did he, and angry red stripes marred her pale, smooth skin in livid streaks of agony. All this time, he didn’t make a single sound, didn’t utter a single curse or insult or syllable in anger. The silence, complete save for the sound of her own whimpers and the cruel sting of leather, was almost deafening. Even after the initial lashes had stopped, the marks burned into her, fuelled by an unhealthy mixture of shame, guilt, despair, and even lust… Distantly, shamefully, the part of Morgan’s young mind that wasn’t utterly warped by her experiences curled protectively into itself and let the rest take over.

Firmly, he grabbed her shoulder, hauling more than rolling her onto her back, and knelt above her. She was shaking, simultaneously terrified, furious, and sickeningly aroused, and the bright white of his smile fairly glowed through the haze of her tears that clouded her eyes… but she didn’t resist. She couldn’t, not when he hurt her so expertly, not when he burned away everything she felt in a glorious conflagration of degradation, hatred, and desire. Not when he looked down at her with those dark eyes, wordlessly demanding answers. Who else, but he, could give her that? Who else could offer her the freedom to do as she pleased, to pour her sins out and receive pain for pain given? There wasn’t anyone else, no one, who could even come close to taking what she could give, and visit it back on her, and his gaze was intent as he drove the point home. Her mind teetered on the brink of a metaphorical abyss that churned beneath her, waiting patiently for her to fall.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, the pad of his thumb stroking her cheek, wiping away the tears that glittered on her flushed skin. “Shhhh. You’re all right, now. It’s all right. All paid up, now. Shhh...”

He positioned himself above her trembling, exhausted form on the bed, and entered her with bizarre gentleness. Her eyes fluttered closed. When he leaned down to kiss her, still moving inside her in that strange parody of tenderness, she didn’t turn away. There were no warm lips against hers, however: only cold plastic, and the acrid, bitter taste of something indescribable on her tongue. Her eyes shot open again as she gagged, writhing on the bed, but he held her fast, forcing her head down with one hand on her mouth, and another on her nose until she swallowed, miserably.

It only took a few moments for the scarlet drug to explode in her brain, lighting up her nerves in an impossible symphony of perception and sensation, and Trent was right there with her, his hips slamming against hers with a sudden ferocity that sent her, sobbing and crying out, over the edge of the precipice and into darkness.

On the other side of the room, Swara Ann lay wide awake, shivering in abject misery with a pillow pulled tightly over her head.