Behemoth

The respite he gives me is short-lived.

With a groan, I turn my head to the side and unglue my tongue from my palate, swiping it hesitantly across cracked, bitter lips. They instantly feel better, but moving my head was a mistake.

I find, too late, that the pounding sounds I thought were meant to awaken me are entirely constructs of my own mind. Now they throb in conjunction with the pain I've unwittingly roused.

I wish, for a moment, that I had not woken up.

Don't you dare give in, Lu

.

You need to fight.

I take a moment to remind myself of all the things in life that I will lose forever, if I allow myself to lose to him now.

You can't put your mother through losing someone again.

The suggestion that I'd ever hurt her, even incidentally, is enough to push me to open my eyes and force myself to contemplate my surroundings.

Deep shadows pervade the room around me. I don't dare move my head to look up, but the uneven visibility means there must be recessed lights above. Infrequent and dim, they're enough for me to see that four unexceptional walls surround me.

I had expected darkness, but the disappointment of my expectations is a gift. If I can see, I can plan.

I can fight.

Can I win?

That is the million-dollar question.

Losing to him earlier was peaceful, in a way; I had given it my best shot, and when that wasn't enough he granted me the oblivion of a drugged unconsciousness.

But looking at the walls that confine me now forces me to accept the fact that the most exhausting struggle of my life--a one-sided battle on that wooden hallway floor, halfway between an unconscious friend and an unreachable bastion of safety, beneath the body of a man whose indomitable strength is matched only by his ruthless dedication to violence (

depressing details much, Lu?)

--was not the climax of this fucked-up trial for whatever sins I've inadvertently committed.

It was only the beginning.

A single, hot tear slides down the curve of my cheek and I make no effort to wipe it away. More follow, a stream of regret melding into the fabric beneath my head.

Fabric?

For the first time I realize that I am on something soft, flexible, bed-like.

Curious, I push my hand downwards and am rewarded with the springy feeling that is inherent to a mattress.

It IS a bed.

Ignoring the pain in my neck, I gingerly push my cheek against the semi-wet fabric below it.

And a pillow?

I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, but his gesture suggests there's a slight chance that my comfort is important. Derisiveness seems like a petty reaction to what could be a tool for getting out of here--if he cares about me at all, maybe I can exploit that to my advantage.

The chance to find out comes too soon.

If I had paid better attention to my surroundings instead of my mental state, I might have noticed that there's a door in the wall directly across from my bed.

I notice it now, when it opens and he walks through.

"You're awake." He closes the door behind him, then turns to face the bed. His face is steeped in shadow.

It seems he has a talent for stating the obvious.

Do I respond? Or stay silent?

I push an arm down into the mattress, a messy attempt to sit up before making my decision.

Don't want him to think of all the things he could do to you on the bed

.

He could do those things anywhere, I tell myself in aggravation.

Yes, but do you want him to?

There's a trite response on the tip of my tongue but it's cut short by a harsh tug on my ankle as I drop it to the floor.

I look down. A metal chain is neatly threaded through the tracking bracelet I tried so hard to get rid of. It trails off into the darkness of the room.

Oh.

My belief that he might have a soft spot for my comfort is immediately set on fire and discarded.

I'm so screwed.

"Why?" The word comes, unbidden, to my lips.

It means so many thing: Why am I here? Why am I chained? Why kidnap me?

Why me.

He takes a step forward, and I instinctively flinch.

But I don't look away. I'm too invested in getting an answer to my question.

His face is still shadowed, but my eyes follow black slacks to shined leather shoes in the circle of light that skims his lower half.

Does he ever dress down?

Blue jeans and t-shirts would make him seem less...imposing.

He hasn't answered my question in the time it's taken me to pull myself upright on the bed. I try to look him in the eye, to bully an answer out of him, and fail.

Where his eyes ought to be there is only darkness.

"Is that how you waste your chance to speak?" He asks the question like a teacher asking an errant student for an answer ought to have been obvious, but wasn't.

I'm that errant student. And it seems I've failed his test, before I even knew there was one.

"Let me go." I bite my tongue and purposely hold back the "please."

He doesn't deserve my manners

.

He exhales slowly and the sound reminds me of a bull readying itself for a charge.

Am I the red flag?

"No." He speaks the word lazily, and walks toward me in a path meant to purposely avoid the light. I see a glimpse of olive skin when it skims his hand, and knuckles that look like they've seen too many fights.

A few feet in front of me he comes to a stop, and I've exercised more willpower in the past few seconds than I ever have in my life. Running away would be futile because I'm chained. Curling myself into a ball would probably make him more smug--

if that's even possible

--and make me more of a target.

I sit patiently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

It arrives.

With a fury I didn't know I possessed, I barrel off the bed and slam into him. To my surprise, it forces him backwards.

I follow relentlessly.

Is my attack doomed from the start? Absolutely.

But I am tired of being acted upon by him. Just once, I want

him

to be wary of

me

.

And so while I've got momentum and surprise on my side, I forget the atrocious pain in my injured ankle or the inevitability of my failure. Instead, I dig my nails into the skin of neck and gain satisfaction from the disgusting feeling of his flesh packing itself beneath my nail beds.

But it's not enough to satisfy my rage, and in a moment of inspiration I rear back my knee and slam it into the one place my mother always told me to aim if a man ever gave me trouble.

My bloodlust is insatiable and his grunt of pain is gasoline to my spark.

Am I mad? Does it matter? My success is measured by the number of seconds he allows me to remain on my feet.

If I have to guess, it's around five before there's a thick arm around my neck and a hard chest to my back and the lights above me suddenly dim and my legs become dead weight beneath me.

Stars dance in my vision, and they're the only beautiful thing about this disaster of my own making.

The fact that he can choke me into unconsciousness so quickly isn't nearly as infuriating as the fact that the last time this happened he took his time about it.

With my neck in the crook of his arm and a hand around my waist, he drops me to the floor--wood, maybe? It hurts--and throws my upper half on top of the bed.

My legs fold beneath me, knees against the floor. It's like the prayer position, but the words rushing through my mind aren't the sort of thing you would ever say to God.

He lowers himself right behind me and tangles a massive hand in my hair, using the promise of pain to eliminate any chance of rebellion.

Brutal lips set free words of displeasure. "That wasn't smart, Lu." But the way he says it suggests otherwise. I think I gave him what he wanted all along.

Checkmate. Everything he lets you do is on purpose.

And now I know he knows my name--the name I prefer, not the name I was given. That's not the sort of thing you find out from stealing someone's mail or doing a background check.

I shiver at how close to my life he must have gotten to learn about that intimacy. What else does he know? How deeply has he exploited me during the weeks--months?--that I've spent going through the motions of ordinary life? He's obviously planned this out. Why wasn't

I

given time to prepare?

The answers won't make a difference now, and even if they would he's not the type to share.

But maybe--...

With no warning, my backside explodes into fiery pain. The thwack of his hand against my flesh follows it, like the boom that chases a too-close strike of lightning. I yelp in astonishment and pull away.

But I can't. His fingers are tangled in my hair make sure of that.

Before I can come up with a way to escape, his hand, hard and massive, rears back again, and he slaps the right side of my ass with the force and relentlessness of an uncharted meteor barreling into the earth.

That motherfucker

. My ass is on fire. His hand might be gone, but the pain remains.

In my head I am enraged, but a howl is the only thing that escapes my lips. One hit was enough to make his point--don't fight back. But twice is just too much.

He rests his hand on the swell of my hip; a heavy, inert reminder of his control over me.

Tears threaten against my eyelashes, and I struggle to hold them back.

Don't let him see you cry, Lu

.

Tense and terrified, I wait to feel his arm rear back again, but it remains a harmless weight on top of my hip.

I am safe. For now.

He leans forward, and I can't see it but I know his lips are inches from my ear. "I'm going to let go of your hair." He strokes it with his fingers as he speaks.

Do I have any left after that struggle?

I almost huff, and then stop myself, remembering what happened last time.

"

If you move, you will regret it." His voice is ice wrapped in velvet, and I can't help but shiver.

That must not count as moving, though, because he lets go of his grip on my hair. I turn my neck hesitantly, and find that it still moves.

"I like you like this." His words are pensive and slow, and his hand strokes my hip in rhythm with his monosyllabic pronouncement. I'd call him a mouthbreather, but that'd be untrue; he's outwitted me in every step of this game.

And you're afraid.

That's true. I don't know how he'd punish me for the insult, but I imagine I wouldn't like it.

Pavlov would be proud of my learning curve.

"L-...like what?" My voice isn't supposed to tremble, but it does.

"Submissive. Quiet. On your knees."

I hate the haughty way he says it. Even more, I hate that it's true. "Why am I here?"

"Are we back to that again?" His deep voice dips and climbs over the syllables in amusement. "You are here because I want you to be. That is the only thing that matters."

His narcissism is unparalleled, and for a moment it leaves me speechless. He begins to rise behind me, but I turn around. I'm not done.

Not yet. Not by a long shot.

That is when I get my first glimpse of his face. If I was speechless before, I am dumbstruck now.

Maybe it is a blessing that I didn't fully see him before he tied me to the ceiling or drugged me and assaulted me. If I hadn't experienced his cruelty firsthand, I might have willingly followed this man off a cliff of aesthetic perfection and to my own unexpected, watery grave.

Not because of his beauty--which is substantial--but because he exudes the rough grace of a fallen angel. One that asks you to follow him anywhere, only to lead you to perdition.

"You..." My words trail off as my eyes take him in, traveling down the hard edges of his cheeks and the smooth cruelty of slightly upturned lips; they look as if they've been sculpted from pink coral by Neptune himself.

The ireful god of the sea isn't the only one to have left a mark upon my captor; his skin is olive by birth, but sun-kissed by circumstance. Whoever conspired against me in their creation of this man wasn't solely thalassic; the gods of dry land had a hand in creating this tool for my undoing as well.

Is fate truly that against me?

I shelve the question for another time, too lost in exploring the uncharted territory before me.

There might be dimples that disturb the symmetry of his strong lower jaw, but stubble undermines my certainty of them. I'm a little overwhelmed and unreliable right now.

His eyes I glimpsed once before

(after he unchained you--unchained you!--from the ceiling),

and now they work their magic again, living sapphires that cut me down when I probe their depths with my gaze.

Everything else--this situation, his actions, my future--becomes an afterthought while I'm caught in the look that he's giving me now.

Ire and thrill and vengeance and appetite, all for wrongs I've never committed and tastes I will never be able satisfy, are written across his face and underscored by the one language we both share: fear.

He as its creator; I as its recipient.

The time that he allows me to view him is cut short as he steps back into the darkness. But I refuse to face the bed again. "When will you do it?"

"Do what?" There's idle curiosity in his voice. Is it real? Or is he playing me?

Either way, he hasn't attempted to undermine my question or shut me up. Yet.

"You know what I mean." If he's trying to get me to say that vulgar word for the thing he's been threatening to do since we first met, I won't. I may have lost my freedom but I won't lose my dignity too. I'm still a person.

Can I make him see that?

It's a thought that bears contemplation.

"I

do

a lot of things." He makes sure to stress the key word. With that, he turns to leave.

"Yeah, I'll bet." My internal voice once again slips free.

A sinister chuckle is the last thing I hear before he opens the door and closes it with untempered harshness behind him, entombing me in shadows once again.

*

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