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They’ve been sparring for hours, and Yoshihide hates to admit that she doesn’t hate it.
Her tutor has flaws aplenty, but his ability to fight is not one of them. Yoshihide pants as she matches him blow for blow, her sheathed odachi against his gunblade, and Lei Heng barely seems like he’s broken a sweat. He grins at her through the flurry of their blades. His cigar hasn’t even gone out, the end still smouldering red.
The round ends abruptly after she missteps, foolishly mistaking a feint for an opening. Lei Heng parries her odachi, puts a foot between hers, and shoulderchecks her hard enough to send her sprawling onto the mat beneath her. Before Yoshihide can stand, he’s got his boot on her chest, and the tip of his gunblade beneath her chin, pointed directly at the soft flesh of her throat.
“Check an’ mate,” he says. He pulls his cigar out of his mouth with his free hand, exhaling a cloud of thick smoke. He’s unbearably smug. “Looks like I take this one. Good show, though. Yer definitely gettin’ better.”
Yoshihide glares at him. Presently, his boot comes off of her sternum, and she pulls herself to her feet, ignoring his offering of a hand to help her up. She brushes herself off as casually as she can manage. The adrenaline and endorphins of a good fight are dulling the pain, but the sting to her pride isn’t nothing. It’s a good day, at least, which means she’s taken a few rounds off of him.
“Again,” she says, gripping the hilt of her sword.
Lei Heng gives her a look that might have come across as concern from anyone who wasn’t him. “Sure ya don’t wanna take a rest? We’ve been at it pretty damn hard.”
“Again.”
Her tutor shrugs, twirling his blade. The cigar finds its way back between his teeth, and he drops into a ready stance.
Yoshihide doesn’t warn him before she springs at him again, but it doesn’t matter. The first strike he deflects easily, and the followups he parries with a sinuous, fluid series of motions, knocking her sheath away time after time. But he’s on the defensive, ceding ground to her furious flurry of blows, and for a minute Yoshihide thinks she has him on the ropes. She might take this last bout, end the day with her pride intact.
“How’s that kid of yers doing?”
Clang. Her swing goes wild and wide, and Lei Heng’s followup nearly knocks the odachi out of her grip. Yoshihide just barely manages to hold on, and sidesteps a blow that would have sliced off a limb if Lei Heng hadn’t been using the gunsword’s dull end.
Her vision blurs and goes red. She knows as much as she knows anything that she’s being provoked. While she doesn’t find herself rising to bait as easily as she did when she was first under his tutelage, Lei Heng has always had an uncanny knack for getting under her skin. Knowing this does not make her less furious, nor does it prevent her from swinging savagely at his head the moment she sees an opening.
An obvious, telegraphed opening that were she thinking straight, she would have immediately known was a trap.
The flat of his blade hits her forearm with a crack, and Yoshihide loses her grip. The knee to her stomach sends her to the floor again, wheezing, her eyes watering with pain. She tastes blood in her mouth; she must have bit her lip, or cheek, or something. She’s furiously angry, and everything hurts, and she can barely breathe, and–
Lei Heng crouches down beside her. He looks actually concerned now, frowning where his smug smile was just moments ago. Yoshihide glares balefully at him, and spits out a mouthful of blood that doesn’t manage to actually get anywhere near him.
“Hey, none of that. Just checkin’ to see if yer okay.”
Yoshihide closes her eyes. If she has to look at him another moment she’s going to do something she’ll deeply regret. “Fuck you.”
“That’s alright. Just take deep breaths, sit up when ya feel like it.”
She’s been through enough pain that this won’t slow her long– but it’s not just the pain, really. It’s not the bruises or the bleeding that’s making the alarm bells go off in her head. No, what’s upsetting her is…
Yoshihide sits up, and wipes the bloody drool off her face. Lei Heng rises to his feet. He hangs his gunblade from a loop on his belt, and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You really care about her, huh?” He asks. Yoshihide hawks up one last gob of pinkish phlegm and spits it on the floor. She glares at him, trying to resist the urge to lunge again.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” she warns.
Lei Heng raises his hands in mock surrender. “Easy now. I’m not interested in kiddos like her. No bite in her. Not like you, Yoshihide.” He grins and reaches a hand out to tousle her hair. Yoshihide bats it away, seething. “Well. Not yet, anyways.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her tutor’s eyes crinkle around the edges. “Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, ya know? Kid's all nice an’ sweet now, now, but I can see her bein’ a real firecracker of her own soon enough. When didja first kill someone, Yoshihide?”
She doesn’t say anything, although she knows the answer well. Too well.
“I’m just sayin’. Time flies, an’ in a few years she might come knockin’ on her dear ole uncle’s door, asking me if I can help her, just like I helped her sweet ma.”
Yoshihide swears again, and struggles to her feet. She wants to throttle Lei Heng’s shit-eating grin off his face.
“If you so much as think about her–” She starts. Lei Heng raises a hand again, arresting her threats.
“Hold on a tick,” he says. “What’s she worth to you?”
The question takes her aback. “Huh?”
“Ya ever heard of quid pro quo, Yoshihide?”
Q.P.Q. The part of her brain that’s begun to speak the way Araya has been teaching her truncates it on instinct. She shakes her head. Lei Heng nods, knowingly.
“It ain’t that complicated, really. You name somethin’ ya want– in this case, it’s yours truly going out of his way not to harm a single hair on yer precious tyke’s head– an’ I name somethin’ I want in return. Tit fer tat. Fair exchange. Magnanimous as I am, I ain’t runnin’ a charity organization over here.” He blows a smoke ring, and grins. “And before ya ask, the offer’s final. No negotiation, no lowballing me. Capiche?”
Something claws uncomfortably at the inside of her throat. It’s just like his earlier feint– an opening that’s an insultingly obvious trap. Yoshihide bites at the inside of her mouth.
She thinks of Araya– small, fragile still, precious. It will be impossible to protect her from everything. Yoshihide isn’t naive enough to think that anyone can pass through life unscathed. But she’s her mother. She has responsibilities. If there’s some way she can protect Araya, some harm that the girl can avoid because Yoshihide shielded her from it, she has to at least try it. She can’t afford to say no.
“What do you want, then? Spit it out.”
Lei Heng’s smile is wide, genteel, and offers absolutely no warmth. “One weekend over at my place. Just the two of us. You play nice and let me do whatever I want– permanent damage excluded, naturally– and I promise to never ever go near yer baby girl. How’s that sound? A lifetime of noninterference, for the low, low price of two days. Give or take a few hours.”
Yoshihide’s stomach churns.
“You fucking pervert,” she mutters. It’s obvious from the way he’d said it, from the gleam in his eye and the smug smile on his face, what whatever I want entails.
“Can’t help my damn self.” He leers at her, eyes dragging up and down her body. Vile. Yoshihide shivers, a feeling she can only describe as curdling settling in along her spine. “What’s it gonna be, Yoshihide? Acceptable terms?”
It is just as simple as he made it sound. Her dignity for Araya’s safety. Put in such terms, it’s a trade she would make any number of times. Her body is already a tool; a weapon, something to be used. What difference is there really, if that use is pleasure rather than death?
“Acceptable,” she says, and means it. It’s a small, insignificant price to pay for the only thing in the world that matters.
–
She has a vague idea of what to expect out of Lei Heng’s place from years spent around Valencina, though Yoshihide has to admit that his is a little nicer. His condominium is about the size she’d expect from someone of his rank, and he has a lot of the same taste in decoration– warm lighting, warm colors, expensive liquor and cigars shelved in full view as if he’s bragging about them. There’s a lived-in feeling to his abode, however. A few more personal touches. A rack by the door that he hangs his silk overcoat on when he enters. A well-tended bonsai plant growing in a pot near the big window that looks out over the City. A conspicuous absence of broken glass on the nice carpet.
“Make yerself at home,” Lei Heng says as she enters, gesturing grandiosely. There’s what looks like a parlor or living room off to the side of the spacious foyer, a sofa and loveseat ringing a coffee table made out of a rich reddish wood, and a television. A neck-high partition separates the kitchen and dining area from the rest of the open floor.
Yoshihide, dressed in her tracksuit and trainers and carrying a beat-up dufflebag, feels bizarrely out of place. As she’s looking around, Lei Heng crosses over to an impressively-stocked liquor cabinet.
“You drink?” He asks.
“No.”
“Really?” He seems genuinely surprised. “Smokin’ enough of a vice for ya?”
“You have to hold your father’s hair back one too many times while she’s vomiting the morning after she’s gone on a binge, and the appeal begins to dwindle,” Yoshihide says, her candidness surprising even her. She shrugs off the duffel, putting it on the floor next to the coat rack. Lei Heng chuckles.
“Figures. An’ Valencina’d probably beat ya bloody for going near her stash without her permission, too.” He runs his hand over a few bottles of almost identical-looking amber liquid before deciding on one. With ease that speaks of experience, he pulls the cork out, and pours a finger of whatever’s inside it into a clear lowball glass. “Well. If you change yer mind, just let me know. What’s mine is yours, within reason.”
Right. Yoshihide stands with an awkwardness she’s not felt since she was a teenager. Her palms sweat; she shoves them in her pockets, trying to play off her nerves as aloofness.
It’s Friday evening. 8pm. He has her for the next sixty hours of her life.
Yoshihide breathes deep, trying to calm herself, but it’s impossible to stay completely steady. It’s ridiculous– she’s spent most of her life training to keep a level head and clear vision in situations where her life is at risk, to kill without fear or remorse, and this is what unnerves her.
Lei Heng polishes off his drink with a loud aah, and wipes his mouth. He puts the lowball glass down on a coaster.
“Picked up somethin’ fer ya to wear,” he says. “Just a lil’ gift from me. It’s on the couch– why don’t ya go put it on?”
He points his chin in the direction of the parlor, and after a moment of hesitation, Yoshihide trudges over. She sees the red giftbag after a moment, nestled innocently among the similarly colored upholstery, white tissue paper sticking out of it at haphazard angles. It’s understated– small, compared to some of the more ostentatious gifts Matthias had gotten her before. Whatever’s inside it she has enough sense to dread.
“Where’s the bathroom?” She asks, picking it up by the paper handles.
Lei Heng looks at her for a moment, then barks out a belly laugh. “Down the hall, the second door to the left’s the one for guests.”
Yoshihide can feel his eyes on her back as she walks stiffly down the hall. No doubt amused by her reticence to change in front of him, as if whatever’s in the bag isn’t going to be more humiliating by half. She closes the door behind her, locking it with a click, and slumps against the wall.
“Fuck,” she says to herself, pressing a hand to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Shit. G.D.I.”
She lapses into the odd, truncated way of speaking Araya has been trying to teach her without thinking about it. It’s oddly calming; like rubbing her thumb against a worry stone. Araya is home, safe. Happy. Playing with her dolls or maybe doodling in the sketchbook Yoshihide had gotten her. Scrawling images of the two of them, of the night sky, of whatever her imagination has conjured up that day.
She’d caught Yoshihide by the sleeve before she’d left that evening, after they’d finished washing up dinner.
Where are you going, mommy? She’d asked, her big eyes oozing with innocent curiosity. Yoshihide had swallowed, and rested a hand on her head.
Mommy is visiting a friend. I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.
She takes another deep breath, tempering herself. She knows what she’s doing. She’s handled worse than this by far. Whatever sick shit Lei Heng has planned for her, she’ll handle it too.
Abruptly, she turns the giftbag upside-down, dumping the contents out onto the sink counter. What comes tumbling out is so absurdly juvenile that she laughs before she can stop herself.
This is what he’s into? She thinks, lips twisting into grim amusement.
It’s… well, there’s no two ways about it. It’s a schoolgirl uniform, albeit one that wouldn’t be found on any actual student outside of wet dreams. The pleated, plaid skirt is absurdly short, and the white button-up blouse is almost translucent. Packaged alongside it are a pair of unassuming white socks, a leather collar with a rubber o-ring, and… what looks to be a plastic headband with fuzzy, fabric dog ears attached to it.
“So which is it,” Yoshihide mutters to herself. “The schoolgirl fantasy, or the dog one?” They’re both equally trite, as far as she’s concerned.
The clothing gets somewhat less amusing when she has to put it on. She strips out of her tracksuit, and abruptly realizes it doesn’t include any undergarments. That is itself probably meant as tacit instructions not to wear any. Yoshihide grimaces.
She buttons the shirt up braless, tucking it into the skirt. It’s been… over a decade since she last wore a skirt, she thinks. Not since she was little, and she’d never worn one so short. They’d come down to her mid-calves at least. This one barely comes down to mid-thigh, and the breeze between her legs makes her want to pull it down further. She tries to ignore it as she affixes the collar and ears and slips into the socks.
As she’s finishing up, she catches herself in the mirror. Her grimace deepens. She looks frankly ridiculous– someone’s sweaty, overwrought fetish come to life. At least the dog ears match her hair color. It’s a nice touch, one with a certain aesthetic sensibility to it.
She exits the bathroom with as much confidence as she can manage, marching back out into the living room. Lei Heng’s moved himself to the loveseat in the parlor area. The TV is on, hissing something that Yoshihide can’t quite make out. He’s swapped a beer bottle out for his cigar, which smoulders softly in the ashtray on the side table. When he sees Yoshihide, he whistles.
“Hot damn,” he says, his toothy grin splitting his face. “I was worried I got yer size wrong. C’mere.”
He crooks one finger in her direction, and Yoshihide feels her lips twitch with the urge to snarl at him. She doesn’t; instead, she marches closer, trying not to stiffen up under his gaze. She stands between him and the television set, and looks pointedly at the ground.
“Gimme a twirl,” Lei Heng tells her, and she moves in an awkward circle, letting him see the front and back of the outfit. “Ya look good. Real good. It’s just missing one or two things.”
“This was all that was in the bag,” Yoshihide mutters.
“I know, I know. Wanted to add the finishing touches myself.” He stands. “Turn around.”
Yoshihide faces away from him, feeling her hackles rise instinctively at the thought of showing a predator her back. The wariness does not diminish as Lei Heng steps closer, close enough that she can feel the heat of his body radiating from him. His arms reach around her, ghosting over her midriff and chest and landing on her neck, and she feels another pulse of that prey instinct for a moment until he clips something to the o-ring of her collar.
A leash.
Of course.
It occurs to her that this outfit is probably less because Lei Heng has a thing for schoolgirls, and more because he had good enough instincts to know it was bound to make her deeply uncomfortable.
“And one final thing. Be a sweetheart and bend over fer me, will ya?” His presence at her back diminishes ever so slightly. Yoshihide bites her tongue, and bends at the waist until her head is about level with her hips. “Lower, Yoshihide. Hands on the floor.”
Fuck you, she thinks. Fuck you. Fuck you. Scumbag.
She does it anyway, putting her palms flat against the carpet. She can feel a light breeze on her backside, her skirt not enough to even pretend at keeping her modest.
“Good girl.” Lei Heng palms her ass, big hand groping her shamelessly. “Take a deep breath, now.”
“Wha–”
The squeak she makes when something cold and wet breaches her asshole without warning is a sound that she sincerely hopes never comes out of her ever again. It’s not his cock– it’s blunt like a penis, but slick and unyielding, boring inside of her slowly even as her body tries to bar its entry. Yoshihide tries to relax, squeezing her eyes shut.
She can hear Lei Heng chuckle. “There ya go,” he croons, as bit by bit, the toy forces entry. It’s big– not absurdly so, enough to be uncomfortable. His thumb brushes the spread rim of her hole. “Nice an’ easy. Don’t wanna ruin you just yet.”
By the time the base presses up against her, Yoshihide is gasping. Lei Heng backs up, and she pulls herself upright, trying to correct the burn in her cheeks, trying not to clench down around the thick plug in her ass. She turns back around, biting the inside of her mouth. His grin hasn’t left his face.
“You make a cute dog, Yoshihide,” he says– smug and easy, though there’s a rough note to his voice now. The bulge in his silk trousers is appallingly obvious. Even clothed, she can tell he’s… substantial. “Hey, just so ya know– speakin’ yer mind’s still allowed. I don’t get offended by name-callin’.”
“I hope I get to watch you die one day, and when it happens, I hope it’s slow and painful,” Yoshihide tells him immediately.
“Damn,” Lei Heng whistles. “And we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.” He sits down, spreading his thighs. “C’mere, puppy. Get on yer knees and crawl.”
The carpet is soft. At least there’s that. The carpet is soft on her knees and palms as she crawls her way over to him, face burning, thighs brushing against each other and against the fluffy length of the tail attached to the plug in her ass. Yoshihide tries to ignore the way it shifts in her, pulling at her every time her hips sway a little too far. She’s between Lei Heng’s knees too soon, glaring up at him.
One big hand pets her, scratching behind her ears— human and not. The other reaches for his belt. As he pulls himself out, Yoshihide realizes this might be a little more difficult than she’d anticipated.
Lei Heng sees her staring, and gives her a grin that’s somehow smug and sheepish at once, and doubly obnoxious for managing to somehow be both. “Yeah, I know. No need to congratulate me.”
His fingers wind in her hair, pulling her upwards. She tries to move with it, wincing sourly even still. It doesn’t truly hurt, but it does sting her pride, the scraps of dignity she’s still clinging on to. And it’s a bastard thing to do.
“Game’s on for another hour or so. I’m gonna watch it, and yer gonna suck my cock while I do. Simple enough, right?” He tugs on her hair again. “Right?”
“I heard you, shithead,” Yoshihide snaps at him.
“Good girl.”
He lets go of her, leaving her to faceplant into his lap, chin hitting his thigh. He’s warm, firm beneath the suit fabric. Yoshihide has the somewhat disarming thought that he might be comfortable to lie against, if she’d actually had a choice in the matter. She scowls, and directs her attention to his cock.
Of course he’d be stupidly fucking huge. Yoshihide flexes her jaw on instinct, and starts the way she’s been taught, mouthing at the base of the shaft near his heavy balls and working her way up. As she’s sucking the head into her throat, she hears the click of the television turning on, and the low hum of color commentary.
It’s not her most enthusiastic blowjob, but her enthusiasm doesn’t seem to matter. Lei Heng murmurs out something that sounds like praise, words she can’t quite parse, and strokes her hair at intermittent intervals. His cock tastes mostly the same as every other cock she’s sucked, the musky, mildly salty taste of skin and sweat and precome. The only difference is the ache in her jaw as she struggles to take it all, the burn in her lungs when it blocks her throat. Even that she gets used to bit by bit. She’s always been a quick study.
Lei Heng pays surprisingly little attention to her while she’s sucking him off. Aside from occasionally guiding her movement, he seems focused on the game he’s watching. Yoshihide wouldn’t have pegged him for a sports fan, but she supposes Capos have hobbies too, outside of “day drinking” and “mutilating people for looking at them without permission”. She can’t hear well enough to know who’s playing or even what sport it is, but the white noise is surprisingly nice. It helps her take her mind off of what’s happening; right up until Lei Heng’s grip on her skull suddenly tightens. It’s the only warning she gets before he groans and floods her mouth and throat with his cum.
“Shit,” he says. His cum is as bitter and salty as any she’s ever tasted, and there’s so much. Enough that she can’t swallow it all, a thin trickle dribbling out from between her lips and down her chin. She makes to pull back, but Lei Heng keeps her in place. “Mmm, don’t move just yet. Pretty little mouth of yers feels too good.”
He pinches her ear affectionately, a gesture that makes her hiss and shiver. His cock slowly goes soft in her mouth, and somehow not having to actively blow him is worse. It’s worse to be hyperaware of her own body– her arms hovering at her sides, her feet starting to go numb from too long spent kneeling, the steady ache of her jaw. The aftertaste of his semen coating her tongue. The plug in her ass, making itself known again every time she shifts her weight even slightly.
Lei Heng slaps the loveseat armrest, and Yoshihide’s hackles rise again, but when she glances up his attention is focused on the TV set.
“Fuckin’ shit refs,” he snaps. “Couldn’t tell yer goddamn head from a hole in the ground.” He picks his beer up and takes a gulp of it, using the half-empty bottle to gesticulate in the direction of the television. “Yoshihide, never get into sports, I’m tellin’ ya. I swear, ever since one of our subsidiaries got their greedy little fingers knuckle-deep in the sports gambling pie, one out of every four of these games is fuckin’ fixed. God damn disgrace, if you ask me.”
He reclines in his seat. His hand strokes agitatedly through her hair. Yoshihide doesn’t say anything, or even make an attempt to; not that she could talk with his soft dick holding her tongue down. She can feel herself drooling around it, not out of desire but merely because swallowing is difficult in her current state. Lei Heng drinks his beer and occasionally swears at the TV about the state of the game. It isn’t until she’s almost lost feeling in her legs that his dick twitches again.
On reflex, she swallows around it. Lei Heng groans, rubs her temple with a thumb. As his cock begins to fill out in her mouth again, his hips roll— minutely at first, then less so, thrusting up into her while his hand pushes her down. Yoshihide feels her eyes start watering as the thick, blunt head of his cock assaults her soft palate. Her hands on instinct grasp his pantlegs, fingers winding in the fine silk, desperate for something to hold onto while he fucks her face.
It’s rougher this time, more in line with what she’d expected out of him, and Yoshihide tries her best to stay still and just take it. She knows with terrible certainty that struggling will only make it worse. For the first and possibly last time in her life, she thanks the tutelage she received when she was younger for training the gag reflex mostly out of her, because if it hadn’t, she’s fairly sure she would have already vomited in Lei Heng’s lap.
She feels his orgasm coming on a second before it happens; his bone-deep shudder as he forces her down to the base of his shaft, squashing her nose into his thick thatch of wiry pubic hair. He holds her head there, immobile, and groans as he comes down her throat, cock twitching and pulsing. Yoshihide’s vision swims; she can hold her breath for a long time, but it’s much harder when the need to do so comes on as suddenly and violently as just has.
Luckily– or perhaps not– Lei Heng pulls her off of him before it can become truly worrisome. Yoshihide coughs, and thick gobs of saliva and cum ooze out of her slack mouth, making a mess of her mouth and chin and the front of her thin blouse. She struggles for her first uninhibited breath of air in over an hour, shoulders shaking with relief, eyes watering.
“Easy, easy.” Lei Heng pats her on the shoulder. Yoshihide tries to shrug off the touch, and coughs again. She feels a stinging in her sinuses, and much to her dismay realizes there’s a bit of his semen leaking out of her nose. Everything tastes and smells overwhelmingly like his dick. “Hey. Calm down. Yer makin’ a fuckin’ mess.”
She sputters out a laugh. “I’m making a mess,” she replies, making no effort to keep the scathing tone out of her voice.
Before she can stop him, he’s produced a handkerchief out of some pocket of his, and is wiping at her face with it. Yoshihide tolerates it with minimal complaint only because the other option is to spitefully let his cum dry on her chin. Still, she bares her teeth at him as he goes through the motions of cleaning her up. Lei Heng doesn’t seem to mind, smiling easily at her before crumpling up the handkerchief and putting it to the side.
“You got a real talent for that,” he croons, his own teeth baring as his lips curl back. “I think a performance like that deserves a reward. C’mere.” He spreads his legs a little further and pats himself on the thigh. “Come sit on uncle’s lap, Yoshihide.”
She can think of few things she’s less inclined to do, but as with everything else she’s painfully aware she has little choice in the matter. She rises shakily to her feet, wincing at the pins and needle feeling in her calves that leaves her legs numb for a moment. For all the good it won’t do her, she adjusts her skirt so it covers a little more of her before coming to perch on Lei Heng’s thigh, balancing herself as much as possible to avoid touching him more than necessary. It’s another task made more difficult by the tail plug; hard to find a spot to sit in where something isn’t pressing against the base of it.
With another gulp, Lei Heng finishes the beer he’s been nursing. He frowns and looks at the label.
“Tastes like piss,” he admits.
“You know what piss tastes like?” Yoshihide asks, lips pressing into a mirthless smirk.
It’s a transparent attempt to needle him, but Lei Heng nods thoughtfully. “Matter of fact,” he says, shrugging. At her disbelieving stare, he continues unprompted. “Hey, I wasn’t always such a hotshot. Used to be a Soldato myself. You get used to some shit when yer nicest boss still sees a convenient urinal lookin’ at you. Better than an ashtray, at least.”
He snickers. Yoshihide does not. Lei Heng curls an arm around her middle with too much familiarity, playing with the waistline of her skirt, and coughs awkwardly.
“Three times in an hour’s a lil’ much fer me at my big age,” he says, indicating his now quite flaccid dick still hanging out of his unbuttoned trousers. “But I got an idea. Spread yer legs, puppy. Nice an’ wide.”
Yoshihide parts her thighs with reluctance. It makes the balancing act more difficult, impossible to not put weight on her rear and push down on the plug. She hooks an ankle over the loveseat armrest and does her best not to squirm, staring off at an interesting spot on the wall.
Lei Heng shifts, jostling her a little more so she’s leaned back against his broad chest. The hand around her waist curls a little further, winding in the heretofore untouched leash hanging from her collar, and gives it a gentle tug. Yoshihide’s ears heat up; though that’s nothing compared to a moment later, when something smooth and solid is pressed between her legs.
The neck of his beer bottle, still slick with his lingering saliva, pushes up against her pussy. Yoshihide’s first instinct is to clench down, resisting the intrusion– and then to ease up on that instinct. She can feel Lei Heng’s smug grin, and knows it’s going inside of her one way or another.
It’s no wider at the opening than two of her own fingers would be. Yoshihide tries to relax as the rim slides into her cunt, easing the hole open.
“Fuck,” she gasps, eyes squeezing shut. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s uncomfortable– unyielding, lubricated just enough to make it possible but not enough to really ease the way.
“Breathe with it, sweetheart,” Lei Heng tells her, unhelpfully.
“It’s dry, you shit-eating bastard,” she snarls. “Breathing isn’t going to help. Hah–”
Another inch of brown glass disappears inside of her. The bottle’s flare is spreading her wider, and despite everything, it doesn’t feel all bad. Especially when he rocks it side to side, pressing it against her inner walls.
“See? Yer gettin’ used to it already. Can protest all ya want, but that hungry lil’ snatch of yers knows what it needs.” He tugs on her leash, and Yoshihide’s head flops forwards. “Probably disappointed it’s not the real deal, but we’ll get around to that.”
Much to her chagrin, she can feel it getting easier the more of the bottle he pushes inside her, her body recognizing the shape and feel of it as close enough to a dick to start getting wet. It isn’t arousal as much as it is a simple, natural response to stimulation, but when Lei Heng pulls the bottle out near all the way and thrusts it back in, it’s easier than it was before by half. He fucks her with it almost lazily, drinking in the micro-changes in her baleful glare, the flush of her face, the increasingly embarrassing sounds her cunt makes when the bottle enters it.
“Slut,” he says, affectionately.
“P.D.P.F.”
He pauses, neck of the bottle halfway inside her.
“What does that mean?” Lei Heng asks, his confusion quite genuine. Yoshihide’s lips twitch, suppressing a laugh.
He lets go of her leash in favor of using that hand to lazily rub her clit. His thick, callused fingers move in tandem with the thrusts of the bottle, until she’s clenching down on it every time it’s inside her, unable to stop herself. Heat builds in her gut, slowly and unavoidably; Yoshihide’s fingers dig into the seat’s armrest as she tries to forestall an orgasm she knows is all but inevitable. It would be better to just get it out and over with, but she doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want him to make her cum, doesn’t want to get off on being raped with a bottle while sitting in the lap of a man she despises. She had accepted his bargain, this deal of theirs, knowing she would have to pleasure him, and the idea that the opposite might have been true as well hadn’t truly crossed her mind.
Lei Heng is murmuring in her ear now, chest rumbling with it. “Good puppy. Feels nice, don’t it? Go on, don’t hold back on my account.”
His thumb presses down on her clit again, and she comes with a sound she can’t keep herself from making, gasping as her cunt squeezes down around the beer bottle. Her ass clenches too, and the feeling of the toy inside her pulls another low keen from her, pleasure making her toes curl and eyes flutter shut. Her pussy dribbles over everything beneath it, leaving a wet spot on his nice silk pants.
Slowly, teasingly, he pulls the bottle out of her, bringing it up to her eyeline. The neck drips with her juices, glistening in the home’s warm light. There’s a little liquid sloshing in the bottom. Lei Heng brings it closer to her face, and Yoshihide turns away from it, face twisting in disgust.
“C’mon, Yoshihide. Drink up.”
He grabs her by the face, digging fingers into the soft meat of her jaw, forcing her mouth open, and she tastes her own cunt as he shoves the bottle between her lips. The last dregs of it sluice over her tongue and down her throat, and though she has demonstrably less experience with the flavor than Lei Heng does, she has to agree that it does indeed taste like piss.
She sputters when he pulls the bottle away, wiping her mouth and tongue off. Lei Heng laughs and the sound of it sends vibrations through her entire body.
“Yeah, don’t think I’ll be buyin’ that label again,” he says. “Least I got some use outta it.”
He gives her pussy an open-handed smack, before gently pushing her off of him. Yoshihide gets to her feet unsteadily. On instinct she straightens her skirt, pulling it down again. Her dog ears are askew, plastic headband digging uncomfortably into her temple, but she can’t bring herself to care about that nearly as much.
With a sigh and a put-on groan of effort, Lei Heng gets to his feet as well. He tucks his cock back into his pants, and gives her a pat on the head.
“It’s gettin’ late,” he says, glancing at a clock on the wall. Yoshihide follows his gaze. It’s not that late– 10p.m., if the readout is correct– but she can’t say she’s surprised Lei Heng is the kind to sleep early and wake up equally early. He pulls his chin in the direction of the corridor beyond the parlor. “C’mon.”
Yoshihide takes a step forwards, only to be forestalled by him raising a hand. Her brows furrow.
“You want me to teleport or something?” She asks.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Yoshihide.” Smiling, Lei Heng reaches for her leash, and gives it a tug. “Good dogs walk on all fours.”
Her fury must be immediately apparent, because his lips pull back in a full grin once again. Fuming, she drops to her hands and knees. The texture of the carpet is becoming woefully familiar.
Lei Heng tugs on her leash, and she entertains a vision of garroting him with it. It’s made of sturdy-seeming material– it would be easy enough to do so. Wrap it around his neck and pull until she hears a crack.
She thinks of her daughter again. Killing a Capo of the Thumb isn’t as terrible a crime to the rest of the Finger as killing a Brother of the Middle would be, but it’s still not something they’re liable to take lying down. And that’s if she succeeds, which– and she hates to admit this more than maybe anything– there’s no guarantee that she will. She can’t risk it. There’s too much on the line, satisfying as it would be to see the life leave his eyes.
So when he tugs her leash again, she snarls and crawls along obediently after him. It’s not too hard– physically, at least. The carpet turns to hardwood as they leave the parlor, but it’s only a short walk to the bedroom. Lei Heng cracks the door open and leads her inside.
His room– as much of it as she can see from her limited perspective– is no more ostentatious than anything else in the condo. It’s spacious; one wall is a large window that looks out at a stunning view of the Nest, and the other is lined with glass cabinets and display cases that hold various knicknacks that Yoshihide genuinely does not give a shit about. Medals, ornate swords, little sculptures. There’s a standing mirror next to a wardrobe and walk-in closet, and a shut door that she assumes leads to the master bathroom. The bed is huge, made up with red silk sheets, neatly tucked in hospital-style.
Lei Heng tugs her over to the foot of the bed before letting go of the leash. Yoshihide curls into a seated position, and watches as he undresses without much interest. Lei Heng folds the stripped layers of his outfits neatly, placing them in a pile on one of the nearby cabinets. His body beneath his clothing is broad, thick, covered in hair and scars. Pockmarked entry wounds from bullets, jagged pale lines from blades.
Were he not a pig of the highest degree, Yoshihide thinks she might respect the story his flesh tells. She’s enough scars of her own to recognize the difference between a posturing weakling and an actual warrior.
Her lips curl. That ship had sailed long before she agreed to buy her daughter’s safety with her body.
He strips down to his boxers. They’re also fine silk, embroidered with–
Yoshihide squints.
Tigers. Little silk tigers.
She snorts out a laugh. Lei Heng turns to her, eyebrows raised.
“What?” He asks, before looking down. “Ah. You like ‘em? Had ‘em made custom. I can getcha the name of the tailor if they suit yer fancy.”
Yoshihide shakes her head, miffed by her own outburst. “I’m fine.”
“Suit yerself.” The boxers hit the floor as well, leaving him completely bare. “Undress. That ain’t gonna be comfy to wear to bed.”
It’s tacit permission to stand again. Yoshihide gets up, toes her socks off and hesitates with her fingers on her blouse buttons before sighing and beginning to unbutton them anyways. The uniform barely covers her anyways– it isn’t like it’s going to protect her from him doing whatever he wants when they get in bed together. She pulls off the blouse and skirt, and tugs the dog ears out of her hair.
Her hands hesitate on the collar. Lei Heng sees her stop, and waves a hand.
“Go ahead. Don’t want ya chokin’ in yer sleep.”
It’s more of a relief to get it off than she would have cared to admit. With the collar unbuckled, the only thing she’s left “wearing” is the tail plug.
“You can keep that in, if you want.” Lei Heng leers at her. His eyes rake lasciviously up and down her bare body. Yoshihide’s not particularly self-conscious, but his pointed stare still makes her want to cover up.
“Pervert.” She reaches behind herself, eyes closing as she carefully extricates the plug from her ass. It slides out with surprisingly little resistance. She drops it on the ground, where the metal thuds loudly against the carpet.
Lei Heng raises his hands in faux-surrender, grinning. “Got me.”
He crosses over to the bed, pulling the sheets aside and sliding between them with a lazy, languid grace. Once he’s reclined, he pats the bed next to him. Reluctantly Yoshihide follows, crawling up on the bedspread. The mattress is comfortably firm underneath her, the sheets pleasantly cool. It would be no trouble to sleep in a bed like this, were it not for the man sharing it.
The man in question pulls her closer, under the sheets, wrapping a thick arm around her midriff. His body is huge and hot where it presses against her back; his breath tickles her ear. The intimacy of it is disquieting, but he doesn’t touch her any further than that, and she feels not unlike a stuffie. Like the big plush teddy bear Matthias had gotten her that one time, despite her protestations that she really didn’t need it.
“Night-night, Yoshihide,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to her shoulder. She shudders.
There’s an electric clock on his nightstand, the numbers glowing in the dark. The LEDs read 10:30. Two and a half hours have passed; only fifty-seven more to go.
–
Yoshihide sleeps like shit, which is still better than she expected. Her animal brain, the survival instinct hardwired into her amygdala, refused to let her rest easy. Terrified of the predator it knew was nearby.
And Lei Heng had snored. Loudly.
Still, she’d managed to get an hour or so in at some point, and when she wakes to sunlight streaming through the window she’s more refreshed than she really should be, given the circumstances.
She’s not ungrateful for it. Something tells her she’ll need the energy.
She’s up before Lei Heng is; the clock on his nightstand says 6:30. Some time during the night he’d rolled over and off of her, starfishing out atop his mattress in a space-hogging mess of tangled limbs and sheets. He’s still snoring loud enough to wake the dead, his bare back rising and falling with every deafening breath, his mouth hanging open, drooling onto his pillow. His hair is a mess.
Yoshihide watches him, and thinks again about how easy it would be to kill him. She could smother him with his pillow; she imagines getting on his back and holding one down over his face, watching his kicks and bucks get weaker and weaker until he finally stopped moving. It would be satisfying to watch.
The urge is powerful. She resists it again, wriggling back beneath the sheets. At least the bed is comfy. Her futon at home is comfortable too, but this is luxury. Luxury she’d never sought or particularly wanted, but luxury all the same. At least he hadn’t made her sleep in a dog bed.
It’s another half an hour before he stirs. Yoshihide registers the shift in his breathing and tenses up on instinct, but Lei Heng just rolls onto his side and slow-blinks at her with bleary, unfocused eyes.
“Mngh,” he mumbles, rubbing at his face. His voice is thick from sleep. “What time’s it?”
“Seven.”
“Ya been up long?”
“Not really.”
“Good.” Lei Heng yawns, mouth stretching wider than Yoshihide would have genuinely thought possible, and scratches his chin. A lazy grin slides over his face. “C’mere.”
He takes hold of her waist, dragging her closer with ease. He’s warm like a furnace still, belly and chest hair tickling when he presses them together, and his dick is rock solid against her backside. Yoshihide squirms when she feels it.
“You could just take a piss,” she points out.
“Mm. Not as fun, though.” Her thighs are pressed together under the sheets, and she feels his cock poking at them. “Stay right there. Perrrrfect.”
The head of his cock slides between her legs, shaft brushing her almost politely. For a moment, she thinks he just missed, but then he pulls back and rolls his hips slowly forwards again, making no effort to penetrate whatsoever. He drapes a hand over her chest, pinching and rolling a nipple, and mouths at her neck.
He’s mostly quiet this go around, occasionally groaning or making a muffled noise of pleasure as he humps her thighs. Lazy and slow, like he has no better place to be and nothing better to do. On one hand, it’s not as terrible as it could be– on the other, Yoshihide balks at the implicit intimacy of it. Slow morning sex is the domain of lovers. Or at the very least, people who actually want to have sex with one another. This is too gentle, too… polite.
“Surprised you haven’t put it in yet,” she mutters between thrusts. Lei Heng slows his pace a moment, as if considering.
“Savin’ that for later. I wanna see ya when I do it. I know yer face’ll be priceless when I split you in half.” His voice, still rough from sleep, is more like a growl than a purr. “But if yer really cravin’ it…”
He adjusts them both slightly, reaching beneath the sheets to take himself in hand. The blunt head of his cock presses upwards, between her legs, kissing her lower lips. It rubs silkily against the folds of her labia, and then–
With a grunt, he pushes it inside of her. Yoshihide hisses; the stretch is more than she’d expected. He doesn’t move any further. Instead, he rocks himself side to side, rutting against Yoshihide’s legs while his cockhead grinds shallowly in her cunt.
“Just the tip fer now. You’ll get the rest later.”
This is worse, actually. It’s still slow and devastatingly intimate, but now he’s teasing her too. Yoshihide feels her arousal build despite herself, and bites down on the inside of her cheek in an effort to not push back against him. She wants him out of her. She wants him deeper. She wants–
Lei Heng bites her shoulder, and abruptly comes to a stop, cockhead throbbing inside her. A throaty groan leaves him. Something warm and wet trickles between her legs.
“Mmh. That’s the stuff.” He plants another kiss on her jawline, his stubble scratching her face, and gently extricates the two of them. His softening cock slides out of her, leaving behind a mess of sticky cum and a pussy that Yoshihide can only describe as “frustratingly unfucked”.
It’s stupid. She doesn’t want to fuck him. It’s a purely physical reaction to being wound up and then left out to dry, and she’s not going to give him the satisfaction of begging him for something she never asked for in the first place. She squeezes her thighs together and looks around for a tissue to mop his mess up with, before deciding that propriety can go fuck itself and wiping herself off with one of his nice sheets.
Lei Heng’s propped himself up on an elbow, and is watching her with a smile as nauseatingly sleazy as any he’s ever given her before.
“Hungry?” He asks.
Seemingly on cue, Yoshihide’s stomach rumbles. She’d last eaten over twelve hours ago, the dinner she’d had with Araya before leaving, and she’d been torn up enough then that she’d barely eaten even the small portion she’d given herself. Araya had noticed, and had fixed her with a comically over-serious pout until Yoshihide had managed to swallow down the last few sips of her soup.
“I could eat, I guess.”
“Ya like pancakes? I make a meeean pancake.” Lei Heng waggles his eyebrows, and pushes himself upwards, out of bed.
Completely nude, he crosses over to the wardrobe next to the standing mirror. The long plane of his back is marked with as many scars as his front; Yoshihide sees a particularly ugly one inches from his spine, a knife wound that probably would have severed a vertebrae if it had come any closer to them. She feels a momentary stab of anger towards the unknown assailant for not trying hard enough.
Lei Heng tosses something at her, something that flutters towards her in a shower of dark burgundy. Yoshihide picks it up– it’s a robe, a size or two too big for her. Definitely too small for Lei Heng, though, whose own robe is a much gaudier shade of gold.
“Old girlfriend’s,” he says, answering her unasked question. “Don’t worry, I had it cleaned since that cheatin’ bitch last wore it. Figured someone’d get use out of it some day.”
Yoshihide slips into it, grateful for the modesty if nothing else. She ties the belt tight around her waist, and follows Lei Heng when he beckons. He lets her walk on her feet this time, which Yoshihide is also bizarrely grateful for, and then angry at herself for feeling grateful for. As if walking like a human being is a privilege.
He leads her to the kitchen, off to the side of the main foyer area. Lei Heng grabs an apron from where it’s magneted to the side of the fridge, and Yoshihide sits at the head of the dining table nearby, resting her head on her chin. Idly, she watches him; he’s whistling as he bustles around, grabbing things from the fridge and various cabinets. When he turns around she briefly catches sight of his apron. The heavy cotton has text printed on it that says, in big cursive letters, “KISS THE COOK”.
“Chocolate chips?” He calls as he whisks away at the mixing bowl in his hand.
“I’m not a kid,” Yoshihide grumbles back.
“Hey, I’m twice yer age and I still like ‘em.”
“... Fine, I guess.” She might as well indulge a little. It isn’t more likely to hurt her than anything else this weekend. And she does like chocolate– she prefers the dark stuff, though she’s not gotten much of it more recently. As it turned out, small children preferred their treats with high volumes of sugar.
His whistling returns, a jaunty tune that Yoshihide is unfamiliar with. The smell of the cakes cooking wafts over to her, sweet and pleasant, and her mouth waters. Her stomach rumbles again, a pang of hunger making itself known.
“Almost done,” Lei Heng says, as if he’d heard the gurgling of her belly from across the room. “Syrup? Butter? Both?”
“Butter.”
“Ya want coffee? I got… instant. Good instant, though.”
Yoshihide snorts. “I pegged you as an espresso man.”
“Broke my press a while ago. Ain’t got it fixed yet.” He scratches his head. “I’ll put ya down for ‘no’ on that, then.”
It’s disgustingly domestic. Sitting at his table while he makes her breakfast. She can’t remember the last time someone made her breakfast. Was it Rien, on a day his pager had put the idea in his head? Matthias? Certainly not any of the others; one of them wouldn’t ever have bothered, one of them she’s pretty certain barely remembers normal humans have to eat, and Valencina’s idea of breakfast was a slice of toast with her morning bourbon.
She’ll enjoy the food, at least. It takes a genuinely terrible chef to ruin pancakes. Even she can make them.
Yoshihide hears the stove click off, and after a moment Lei Heng bustles out from the kitchen area sans apron, pancakes in hand.
Her stomach drops.
Balanced on one of his large palms is a plate, stacked with fluffy cakes drizzled with golden syrup. Melting brown chips dot them, oozing chocolate onto the ceramic. Balanced on his other is much the same, with two crucial differences– the pat of butter atop the stack, and the dog bowl they’re stacked in.
“On the ground, then,” he says, cheerily.
Yoshihide hesitates a moment, then sinks out of the chair. Her knees hit the floor– hardwood this time, less forgiving than the carpet. Her face burns as Lei Heng sets the bowl down in front of her. He pulls the chair she was sitting in out a little further and takes a seat in it himself; Yoshihide hears the clink of silverware on his plate as he begins his meal.
Much as she’d like to turn down the meal now out of pure spite, her stomach chooses that moment to growl again. She really is hungry, and she has a sinking suspicion that refusing to eat this one will not actually net her more dignified treatment for the next few meals she has to share with him.
Glowering at nothing in particular, Yoshihide lowers her head and begins the humiliating ordeal of eating her pancakes.
They taste good, at least. They’re light, fluffy, cooked through near-perfectly. The chocolate melts in her mouth, the morsels sweet but not cloyingly so, and the butter adds a pleasant salty contrast. It’s a horrendous mess, though. Every other bite gets butter and chocolate smeared over her cheeks, her nose.
She eats steadily, though. Even knowing she was hungry, she’s unprepared for how hungry she was. The nerves had really done a number on her appetite the night before.
Halfway through her meal, Lei Heng reaches down to scratch her behind the ears again. She shrinks away from the touch with a growl.
“Easy, girl. I hear ya.” He withdraws his hand, surprisingly. “Take yer time. When yer done I’m gonna fuck you on the table.”
Yoshihide freezes around a mouthful of pancake. She swallows it too quickly, and the solid lump burns as it crawls down her throat.
It was an inevitability, but knowing exactly when it’s coming is so much worse than not knowing. She can only chew so slowly. If Lei Heng suspects she’s stalling— and she has a feeling he does, that the bastard wants her to dread it— he doesn’t say anything about it, even long after the clinking of his cutlery has gone silent.
Her pancakes are cold by the time she’s finished. She sits back on her knees and absently wipes a streak of chocolate from her chin. In her chest cavity, her heart beats out a painful staccato.
It’s ridiculous. She’s not afraid of him. And yet…
His hand winds in her hair, and yanks. Yoshihide hisses, wincing as he pulls her, gripping at his wrist. Before she can stop herself she’s lashing out at him with a closed-fist punch to the stomach.
All her strength is behind it. It would have shattered a weaker man’s floating ribs, possibly ruptured an organ or two. Lei Heng grunts in surprise, and lets go of her hair.
The ensuing struggle is brief and violent both. Yoshihide clambers to her feet and aims another blow at his face, an open-palmed hit designed to break his nose, one that misses by a hair’s breadth. He’s stupidly fast for his size. It’s a trait of his Yoshihide has learned not to underestimate from years under his tutelage, but she’d been truly hoping the element of surprise and her advantageous position over him would pay dividends. Her hand whistles by his cheek, and Lei Heng grabs her by the wrist.
He’s smiling.
“Got some fight in ya still,” he croons, bending her hand backwards until Yoshihide feels her legs start to wobble from the pain of it. “Good.”
She grits her teeth, and stomps down on his insole. That connects– she feels something give beneath her heel, sees Lei Heng wince, but the obstinate bastard doesn’t let go.
“Fuck, that one really hurt.”
“Don’t– touch me–” She gasps out between gritted teeth. He’s definitely dislocated something in her wrist; she can feel the telltale numbness tingling down her metacarpals, her fingers twitching uselessly. She tries to get in close, drive her other elbow into his kidneys or wherever else she can reach. “Fucking– bastard–”
“I like a girl who fights back. Keeps things interestin’.”
Using her arm as leverage, he half-shoves, half-throws her backwards. Yoshihide loses her balance and topples, landing heavily on the table back-first. Her shoulders take most of the force, but the back of her head cracks against the solid wood next; her vision blurs and swims. She tastes blood in her mouth, and knows she must have bitten her tongue.
Lei Heng swims into view, staring down at her. His eyes are dark, pupils blown with sickening arousal, teeth gleaming pearlescent white. His hand finds the neckline of her robe and tears the modesty away from her with one drawn-out rrrip, shredding the silk into burgundy scrap.
She has the absurd urge to cover herself, as if that will do her any good. Lei Heng grabs the undersides of her thighs, pulling her closer, hooking her ankles over his shoulders. Leering at her exposed body, he pinches and pulls at her nipples, dragging a humiliating whimper out of her against her will.
“Yer a fuckin’ treat, Yoshihide. I thought you’d go quietly, since yer so afraid of what I might do to that precious girl of yours, but lucky for me you’ve still got enough pride left to try an’ make things difficult. Goddamn, puppy.” He unties the knot of his own robe, taking his dick in hand. “You get me so fuckin’ hard I can’t think straight. ‘M gonna fuckin’ wreck you.”
In his enthusiasm, it takes him three times to line up properly, thick head of his cock sliding at a wildly incorrect angle off of Yoshihide’s cunt twice before he manages to anchor it where her hole is. There’s a staticky feeling in her head that only settles itself when she feels it pressing insistently at her, and she remembers how it had felt taking just part of it earlier that morning.
“It’s not going to–” She starts, painfully aware of how she sounds; like a blushing virgin bride from a cheesy porn flick. Self-awareness on that front cannot change the truth of the matter, however, cannot remedy the fundamental problem that is their difference in size. Still, Lei Heng pushes himself forwards inexorably, forcing the issue inch by inch. “S-shit–”
It burns; the awful ache of being stretched beyond what should reasonably be her limit. She’s been stabbed before, and it feels not unlike that– a wound, rending her flesh apart. A weapon piercing her core. She writhes and pants and screams at him, swiping at his face with the hand that isn’t busted, and he grins down at her the whole time.
At last, after what feels like an eternity, he bottoms out, his pelvis pressed up against her ass. Yoshihide’s eyes are shut tight, her jaw a rictus grimace. She doesn’t want to risk moving, lest she tear something delicate.
Lei Heng whistles. “Shit. Knew I was right.” She feels him bear down on her, bending her at the waist, pressing her knees closer to her chest. The shift makes him rock inside her, and she– does not whimper. “Knew the face you’d make would be too cute to miss out on.”
His mouth is a sudden pressure on hers, his lips warm and slightly chapped and tasting of chocolate and the residue of strong tobacco. Yoshihide recoils away, baring her teeth, biting whenever he gets close, but it doesn’t deter him, even when she catches him and breaks skin. Forcing her into a kiss, he pulls his hips back a few inches, and thrusts forwards again.
She’s felt no shortage of pain in her life– so much pain, pain delivered by friends and family and strangers alike, beatings, stabbings, slicings, pain of the heart and the head– but few quite as intimate as this one. Her cunt clings to him when he pulls out, because it can do little else, and when he rolls himself smoothly back inside of her it’s like taking a saw to her guts. She sputters and chokes against his mouth, and on instinct grabs at his arm with her non-wounded hand. Not out of hope for comfort, but out of need for something to hold onto.
Pinned under him as he starts to well and truly fuck, she can do little more than take it. It’s a cacophony of sensation– she can feel his breath on her face, stubble scratching her, the slap of his heavy balls against her ass. The unyielding table beneath her, bruising her tailbone with every brutal thrust. Yoshihide pants, gasps, uttering broken profanity in between other pained noises. Her cunt aches, intermittently clenching down as if doing so will expel what’s so brutally violating it.
“So fuckin’ good,” Lei Heng growls against her mouth. The smile on his face is all teeth, wildly excited. “Hey, puppy, tell me how it feels. Tell me how much you love my fat dick inside you, ruinin’ yer twat for everyone else. Mmh, oh shit, shoulda done this years ago. Cooze a man’d die for.”
How he’s still able to run his mouth is beyond Yoshihide’s ability to comprehend. She feels like she’s losing her mind.
It aches, right until it doesn’t. Lei Heng angles himself just so and something sparks deep in her gut. A little flicker of something that definitely isn’t pain. Pure animal instinct makes her cling to it, tilting her hips forwards just a little further to chase that scrap of feeling. Her body sparks again, and again, cascading jolts of something far more pleasurable, a warmth that builds in her stomach and between her legs.
Lei Heng’s hips slap against her, and she moans, unable to stop herself.
It’s the only thing that gives him pause for a second. “Feelin’ it now, huh?” He asks, low and breathy, and licks her neck.
Her nails leave bloody gouges in his shoulder, and he grabs her dislocated wrist, squeezing the injury until she’s yelping again.
“God damn wild animal in bed.”
Like he’s one to talk. Yoshihide’s back arches as another roll of his hips drives his dick against a spot in her that makes her see stars. The more pleasure she feels the easier it becomes, her cunt resisting it less and less with every thrust. Her toes, waving in the air somewhere around the vicinity of Lei Heng’s neck, curl in a further abominable parody of the worst porn she’s ever seen. He’s heavy on top of her, overwhelming– his weight and heat, the smell of his sweat and arousal, the vile pressure of his leer as he watches her come undone.
“I hate you,” she wheezes, surprised at how articulate her words come out. “I.R.R.H.Y.”
In lieu of a response, he presses her knees closer to her chest, folding her in half, panting and driving himself deeper.
She screams when she comes. It sounds like she’s being murdered, and feels close enough to it. Yoshihide has the vague, spurious thought that in a building mostly occupied by the Thumb, people probably wouldn’t give a shit even if he was killing her, and definitely don’t care about a little rape. Her cunt gushes, spurting messily over the both of them. Lei Heng wheezes out a laugh that turns into a loud, sickeningly satisfied groan, and collapses on top of her.
His dick twitches inside of her. His weight pins her to the table. Yoshihide stares up at the ceiling, blinking away blurry stars. Pain and pleasure mingles uncomfortably. Her dislocated wrist throbs, as does the back of her skull. The man lying on top of her is making breathing difficult.
The man in question groans by her ear.
“Takes a lot outta ya, don’t it.”
Understatement of the year, possibly. Yoshihide’s eyes slide shut.
“Get off of me,” she mumbles.
“Mm. Just a moment.” Lei Heng sighs, resettling himself atop her in a position that’s marginally more workable. He’s still inside her, though his dick is almost fully soft now. “Comfy.”
“I’m not. Shithead.”
She closes her eyes, slow blinking, and when she opens them he’s peeling off of her, leaving her splayed on top of his dining room table. Spread eagle, clothing torn open. When he pulls out Yoshihide can feel his cum dripping down the inside of her thighs in a slow sluice. She must look as well-used as she feels. Her anger is a bitter, dry thing.
Whistling low and slow, Lei Heng pinches her on the chin. Yoshihide turns her head away, and struggles to sit up, wincing as she accidentally puts weight on her fucked hand. She lifts her wrist, grimacing at the unnatural bend of it. It’s not the worst injury she’s received, or even the worst to this particular bit of her anatomy, and she has the sinking feeling that the fact that it’s merely dislocated and not broken was also on purpose.
Biting her lower lip, she presses a thumb against her metacarpals. There are two she can feel out of place. She takes a deep breath and pushes. For just a moment, the pain is agonizing– then the bones pop back into their sockets, and her breath explodes out of her like a shotgun blast.
Relief comes almost immediately. She’s still sore and bruised, her wrist terribly swollen, but she can move her fingers again. Time will heal this particular injury, at least.
Lei Heng watches her perform her self-maintenance in silence, only speaking up towards the end.
“I coulda helped.”
“You’ve helped enough,” she snaps back at him.
He shrugs nonchalantly, accepting her judgement as fair. “Let’s get you a change of clothes and some ice fer that. I got some stuff I need doin’ after.”
Much as she’d like to spit on his offer, the compression icepack he fetches from his freezer is another species of relief when he fastens it in place around her wrist. Treated well, the swelling shouldn’t last more than a few days, and the bruises should heal even sooner. In that time, should anyone see it, it’ll be impossible to distinguish from any other injury Yoshihide could have sustained in her line of work.
“No need to thank me,” Lei Heng says, lifting her hand so he can press a kiss to the back of it. His stubble scratches, and Yoshihide yanks herself away from him as quickly as she can.
The change of clothing is somewhat less generous. Yoshihide will concede that it’s somewhat less revealing than the previous day’s attire, but the pencil skirt and sheer stockings make her feel uncomfortable in a different, more bone-deep way. The crisp white button-up is at least adjacent to something she might wear, if she had to.
She’s not surprised when the leash and collar make their return, or when he bends her over again, unzipping her skirt so he can push the tailplug up into her ass. It’s a different one this time– silicone rather than metal, though the fuzzy attachment that sticks out of her skirt waistband is still a black to match her hair. It goes easier, too, well-lubricated in a way nothing else he’s put in her has been.
She’s significantly more surprised when he tugs her by the leash into a small room off the main hallway that, at first glance, resembles a cramped office space. There’s a nice desk with a pull-out swivel chair, with a laptop and multiple stacks of documents spread out on it. A ceiling fan, spinning lazily. A paper shredder. It is a cramped office space.
At Yoshihide’s stunned silence, Lei Heng gestures vaguely to the mess. He’s redressed himself in casual sweatpants, grey socks, and flip-flops. A far cry from the well-groomed, put-together image of a Capo of the Thumb. He’s limping a little, Yoshihide notes with a small, bitter note of pride. Maybe she’d broken something. She hopes she did.
“It’s technically my day off, but I got work to do anyways,” Lei Heng says– sourly, like a petulant child. “You ever hear the expression, ‘if ya want somethin’ done right, do it yourself’? Turns out it’s doubly true when the chumps meant to be handlin’ the boring shit can’t take a piss without yer say-so.” He shakes his head. “Soldatos nowadays, they’ve got no damn initiative.”
Can’t blame them, Yoshihide thinks, smiling thinly and humorlessly. That’s the Thumb in a nutshell, as far as she’s concerned. Passing the buck because it was better to be thought of as a harmless, bootlicking incompetent than to risk having your tongue ripped out for some minor toe-stepping.
“Anyways. ‘M gonna get some work done. Yer gonna sit by me an’ look pretty while I do it. Think you can manage?”
“I’ll try my best,” she replies, voice dripping with contempt.
“Good girl.” He sits down at the desk, and gestures towards a spot on the floor by his feet.
Face burning, Yoshihide takes a seat on the hardwood, back curled against the desk drawers. Lei Heng pats her head, fingers running through her hair absentmindedly. She hears the familiar click of a lighter, and smells the rich scent of fine tobacco after a moment.
What she wouldn’t do for a smoke. She’d quit a while back, but craved them more often than she would have been comfortable with admitting. A nice hit of nicotine always went a long way to easing her frayed nerves, and pig bastard though he might have been, Lei Heng had an admittedly decent taste in cigars. Yoshihide had always gotten comfort from her specific brand of cigarettes above anything else, but she’d take what she could get.
Her eyes close as she remembers why she quit in the first place. The sweet little girl she’d done it for. The sweet little girl she’s here for.
Matthias had always talked big about sacrificing for family. Yoshihide had eventually come to the informed conclusion that while her father was entirely full of shit, she did agree with the principle of the matter.
Lei Heng tugs at her gently but insistently, moving her slightly so she has to rest her head against his thigh. Once she’s there he pets her again, almost absentmindedly, before withdrawing his hand.
They spend the next several hours like that. Yoshihide on the floor, head cushioned by his thigh, occasionally shifting when her legs threaten to go numb. Lei Heng at his desk, intermittently typing or scratching away at some document or another. Occasionally he mutters something to himself. He curses a few times, words Yoshihide has only ever heard Valencina use either when she’s pissed off or piss-drunk. His fingers caress Yoshihide’s hair as if she’s some kind of stress toy.
At around the two hour mark, he lights another cigar. Despite nerves and discomfort both, Yoshihide feels her eyes slipping shut. The shit night’s sleep, rigorous fucking, and general boredom is catching up with her.
She’ll only close them for a second. Just to rest them.
When she opens her eyes again she’s airborne. Yoshihide blinks twice, then jolts– writhing midair with the instinctive panic of someone who’s just realized their dream of falling was not a dream at all.
“Easy! Easy.” Ah– she’s not airborne, or at least not entirely so. There’s an arm under her knees, another under her back, and something solid pressed against her side. Lei Heng stares down at her with what looks like genuine concern. The cigar burned down to its shoulder in his mouth helpfully informs Yoshihide she’d slept for what was probably another good two hours.
She’s disoriented, not least because she’s currently being bridal-carried by a man she loathes.
“Fuck,” she mutters, rubbing at her eyes.
“Sorry fer startlin’. I didn’t wanna wake ya.”
He has the audacity to sound genuinely contrite about it. Yoshihide scowls.
“P.M.D.”
“Just a moment, sweetheart.”
Clearly, the meaning of that one had been obvious enough that even he could understand it.
Lei Heng shoulderchecks a door open, and Yoshihide vaguely recognizes it as the one that she’d assumed connected to the master bathroom. She’d been right in that assumption as it turned out– she sees a shower and a tub, white marble and gold faucets. Tiled floor and carved mouldings. A toilet and a sink. She squints and spots a toothbrush, razor, comb.
The reminders that he’s a person and not just a font of her misery itch like picking at a scab. She looks away, frowning.
He eventually deposits her on her feet, the tile surprisingly warm beneath her toes. Yoshihide sways for a moment, disorientation and the feeling of suddenly being righted threatening her with dizziness, before she shakes her head to clear it.
“Ordered dinner for us. Didn’t feel like cookin’. I figured a clean-up was due before that, though.” Lei Heng leans in closer to her, sniffs near her neck, and pulls a comically disgusted face.
Yoshihide frowns; not at the ribbing, though she doesn’t appreciate it. She can sense where this is going. She’s not stupid.
“And you wanted to fuck in the shower,” she says, flatly. She doesn’t bother to phrase it as a question.
“Aren’t you an astute one, puppy.” A wide grin splits Lei Heng’s face. He puts a hand on her sternum, thumb fiddling with the first button of her blouse. “What I wouldn’t have given to rip this off of ya too…”
She pulls away from his touch, frowning as she goes for the buttons herself. If she’s going to be naked in front of him again, she’d like to at least pretend it’s on her own terms. Damn clothes fit like shit anyways– too tight around the hips, far too loose around the chest. Most likely not clothes from the “ex-girlfriend” Lei Heng had mentioned, who seemed to be a taller woman than Yoshihide was by a good few inches. Maybe he thought she’d been wearing compression bras under the tracksuits.
The hiss of water hitting tile drags her off of that particular train of thought. Yoshihide pulls the blouse off, then the stockings, then the skirt. Lei Heng comes over to her and unclips her leash, though he leaves the collar in place. He sticks his finger under it, wiggling it between the leather and her bare skin in a way that he probably thinks is playful, but which Yoshihide just finds annoying. She glares at him and unfastens her compression wrist-sleeve, shaking her hand experimentally. The icepack melted hours ago, but the swelling’s not gotten any worse since then.
She reaches behind her for the tail plug. Lei Heng stops her, grabbing her by the arm.
“Let me,” he says.
Though she can think of few things she’d rather do less, Yoshihide nods stiffly. Stepping closer, he reaches an arm around her, palming the small of her back and tracing down her vertebrae. His thumb rubs her tailbone. Standing like they are, her head is level with just below the swell of his pectorals, and she stares at a jagged scar that pockmarks his flesh just south of his left nipple. A knife wound; too imprecise to be from anyone particularly good at using one.
He eases the plug out slowly, sliding the widest part past the rim of her hole, then slides it back in. Yoshihide tenses. Steam is beginning to hang in the air as the shower water heats, the ceiling vents not filtering it quickly enough. She focuses on that, on the scar, tries not to focus on the feeling of him casually fucking her with a sex toy in the shape of a dog tail. Tries especially to not focus on the fact that her body quite enjoys it.
When he eventually wiggles it out, she feels oddly empty. Perhaps it’s to be expected, since it had been inside her for the better part of the last five hours. Yoshihide is not altogether fond of the idea that she’d gotten used to it.
Lei Heng gives her ass a light smack, more jocular than suggestive, gesturing in the direction of the shower. She can’t deny the appeal of it; her body still aches from earlier, is stiff from falling asleep in an awkward position, and… she’s tried not to acknowledge it, but there’s cum dried on her thighs. His shower seems nice, too. Were it not for the company, she’s sure she could enjoy it.
The water pressure is just about perfect when she steps under it. As is the temperature. A good shower should properly, in Yoshihide’s mind, be cold enough to numb or hot enough to boil. This one is the latter. Steam rises, fogging the glass door and condensing on the tile wall. She lets the spray hit her back and sighs.
“It’s not bad,” she admits. Her shower back in the House is fine. Serviceable. It’s a little cramped, especially on the occasions where Araya gets messier than is within a seven-year-old’s capacity to handle and Yoshihide has to scrub off whatever nonsense she’s somehow managed to get on her back, but she’s never had cause to complain.
Lei Heng shuts the glass door behind him and shrugs. “High praise, considerin’.”
Nude sans even the coverage of his bathrobe, Yoshihide can see for the first time the angry red gouges she’d left in his arm and shoulder. It looks like she’d broken skin in several places. She wishes it’d been something a little more important– his face, his eye. She feels herself give a grim smile. Gouge it out, make him a match for Valencina.
He notices her stare and grins sheepishly. “That stung.”
“Good.”
He makes a twirling gesture with his finger. “Turn around. I’ll wash yer hair.”
She does as she’s told with token resistance, turning from him to face the shower’s glass wall. After a moment, she feels his fingers in her hair– more purposeful than they’d been while petting her, massaging something gently into her scalp. He’s not half bad at it; surprising considering how much he’d yanked her around by it earlier, but he barely pulls at all as he lathers the shampoo. It smells sweet, fruity. Like coconut.
Curiosity, in that moment, gets the better of her. “Is this your soap?”
“Nah. Ex’s. She left a buncha stuff behind I ain’t got rid of yet.”
“You miss her or something?”
“Like a hole in my damn head.” He barks out a bitter laugh. “Love’s more trouble than it’s fuckin’ worth. I ain’t gotta tell you that, though.”
Yoshihide frowns, misliking the implication. “Fuck you.”
“Hey, you asked.”
Unfortunately he isn’t wrong. She makes a mental note to not do that again.
Lei Heng finishes soaping up her hair and tugs her back directly under the spray. Suds rinse out of the long, wet sheet of it, down her legs and down the drain. Her hair always feels so heavy when it’s wet, to the point where she’s considered cutting it just to make maintenance easier. Not today, though.
Conditioner follows shampoo. She’s surprised when he takes a brush to it, combing the product through her long locks with a gentleness that sets her teeth on edge.
“Yer awful tense,” he remarks as the comb scrapes another strand of her hair back. She doesn’t respond, biting her lip.
It’s almost a relief when he pushes her closer towards the wall. Almost. She braces her uninjured forearm against it, muttering a curse as he kicks her ankles apart. Putting her back to him is bad enough; sticking her ass out for him is worse.
At least when his fingers brush up against her asshole they’ve got some kind of lubricant on them. Yoshihide’s not certain where he pulled it from– the shelf of hair and skin products must have also had it there, somewhere. It’s not as chilly as she might have expected, just… slippery. Wet. He pushes a thick finger inside, and it’s not as uncomfortable as she might have expected, either. She’s already loosened up a little from wearing the plug, and his finger, while large, is still smaller than that had been.
He takes his time with one finger before pushing in another one. It’s slow, methodic; getting her used to the stretch of it. Leaning in closer, he murmurs by her ear.
“You take it up the ass much?” He asks. Even facing the opposite direction she can feel his shit-eating grin.
Her honest answer would have to be no. She’s hardly virginal, it’s just not a frequent experience. It's not even one she dislikes on principle.
She shrugs. The fingers inside her scissor apart, and his thumb plays with the rim of her hole. In contrast to the fucking she’d been on the receiving end of earlier, it’s practically considerate. As if her pleasure and comfort is something he gives a shit about in the slightest. Which– Yoshihide grinds her teeth at the thought– maybe he does, so long as he knows it’s unwanted.
“Enough,” she answers, voice clipped. It does feel good, which is the worst part. His fingers are huge, callused from a life spent holding weapons, strong, and he seems to know just where to put them to make her squirm. Her cunt throbs, and though it’s hard to be certain with the shower spray still aimed at her lower back, she’s sure she’s wet despite him not touching that part of her once.
He’s got her half-caged against the glass, the solid weight of him bearing down on her despite them only barely touching. More lubricant dribbles down her ass– she can feel it, a different temperature than the shower water– and another finger pushes inside of her. Yoshihide grunts, eyes shutting momentarily. The pressure of it is sudden.
“Try an’ relax,” Lei Heng offers, unhelpfully. “I don’t want it to hurt, but every time ya get cagey it squeezes like a motherfucker.” His cock prods against her thigh; not rubbing deliberately, merely making its presence known.
She doesn’t want to make it easy for him, but she also doesn’t particularly enjoy the thought of his dick quite literally tearing her open. Spite in this instance would get her nowhere; worse than nowhere.
He spends more time than strictly necessary fucking her with his fingers alone, stretching her until they can slide in and out of her hole easily. Yoshihide tamps down as best she can on the little groans and gasps that come out of her unbidden. Her forehead presses against the glass, the cool feeling pleasant against her burning face.
When Lei Heng pulls his fingers out, she’s ashamed at her own disappointment; and further ashamed at the way her stomach flutters when she feels something larger and heavier nudge between her asscheeks. His dick is wet with lube also, slippery enough that it glances fully off her hole the first time he tries to guide it in. He mutters a sheepish apology that makes Yoshihide want to either laugh or rip his head off his shoulders, and gets it on the second try, the head slowly easing into her.
It still feels different when he’s fucking her like this– a slow, teasing slide rather than a careless shove. His fingers had gotten her ready, but his dick is almost overwhelming, filling her inch by inch while Yoshihide tries to keep herself calm enough to just take it. Her untouched cunt is drooling, and she breathes as steadily as she can manage, leaving foggy splotches on the glass. Lei Heng grabs her by the waist and grunts as he pushes the last bit in, until his pelvis is pressed against her backside. His thighs against hers, slick from the shower spray.
Unlike the fucking earlier which had been categorically unpleasant at first– for most of it, really– this feels good. She shivers, her good hand flexing, hating how much she doesn’t hate it. As with most everything else he’s done to her, the pleasure she ekes out of it is ten times more humiliating than the pain ever could be.
Lei Heng’s hand slides underneath her, fingers caressing her stomach, prodding at her as if searching for something. He chuckles.
“I can feel myself inside you,” he says. He pokes the same spot again, and she can feel it this time too; the blunt tip distending her belly even so slightly through skin and muscle both.
“Self-congratulatory bastard,” she mutters, sourly. He rocks himself just barely, and the bump in her stomach shifts. The barest bit of friction against her hole makes her shudder. Her face is warm, and she can’t truly tell if it’s due to the steam or because against her will, she’s turned on.
He fucks her almost agonizingly slowly, with shallow, grinding strokes that demonstrate a level of self-control that had been utterly absent earlier. His hands grip her waist; firmly enough to disallow movement without a struggle, but not too firm as to be painful.
Yoshihide wishes it hurt more. Heat builds in her gut, getting worse as he steadily increases the pace of it. She grunts as his hips slap against hers, solid weight pushing her forwards with every thrust. The sound of it is audible over the shower spray, the unmistakable noise of skin on skin.
“Tell me how it feels.”
“Awful,” she lies. “Artless. You think because of your endowment, you can get away with being— hmgh— a shit lay. Size isn’t everything.”
His hips move faster, a driving pace, water and excess lube spattering down the backs of her thighs. The arm bracing her against the wall is the only thing stopping Yoshihide from being slammed face-first into it. She tamps down on the sounds threatening to spill free of her.
“You hate it?” Lei Heng asks, voice gruff– aroused, not angry.
“Yes.”
“You hate me?”
“Yes.” His fingers dig into her waist, and he pistons himself forwards, as if he’s determined to get his cock all the way up into her stomach.
“If ya had the chance, you’d kill me?”
“Yes. Yes.” She moans, now, unable to stop herself. Her cunt clenches down on nothing.
“Good, sweetheart. That’s real good. Wouldn’t be the same without it.” His words come out harsh, uneven. One hand pulls off her wrist, and bears down in an open-palm slap against her asscheek. It doesn’t hurt, but it catches her by surprise enough that she tenses up– which given his subsequent filthy groan of pleasure, was almost certainly intentional. “Hold on to that. You hate me enough to kill me, and you’re still gonna come with my cock up yer ass. Fuck.”
Yoshihide grits her teeth. She raises her injured wrist, pressing it against the wall, hoping that aggravating the dull throb of pain will forestall the inevitable. It’s laughably ineffectual: she can feel the orgasm coming like the tide rolling in. Lei Heng’s hand slides up her flank and pinches her nipple, just the wrong side of too rough, just enough to add a different, sharper frisson of pain, and she comes with a full-body shudder and a sound that she wouldn’t admit to making even under the most dire of circumstances. The heat of the shower and the way the blood in her body seems to be largely concentrated in the vicinity of her pussy is making her almost dizzy, her vision swimming and breath coming in shuddering gasps. Half-draped on top of her, Lei Heng curses. His hips hitch, quiver, and then go still.
For a long moment, the only noise is the spattering of the showerhead, and the sound of both of them catching their breath.
Yoshihide swallows and blinks away the blackness in her vision. Her legs feel unsteady. It is not a sensation she particularly enjoys. Neither is how horridly loose she feels when Lei Heng pulls out. Before she can right herself, he grabs her ass, pushing a thumb past her rim and whistling.
“Sloppy,” he says.
She would laugh, if she had the breath for it. “Take responsibility for your own messes,” she says.
“Oh, don’t you worry about that.”
Before Yoshihide can ask what he means by that, there’s another loud splash as Lei Heng drops to his knees and unceremoniously buries his face in her backside. She hisses– more out of surprise than anything else– when his tongue snakes out, the flat of it dragging over her abused asshole before pushing inside.
It’s filthy. Her legs tremble, toes curling, trying to keep her steady as he takes his time licking and sucking at an already overstimulated part of her, fucking her with his tongue, rubbing her rim with his fingers. She’d been hypersensitive and raw already, and this just makes it worse, and he doesn’t seem to have any shame about it whatsoever; not a shred of self-consciousness to slow him down as he licks his own come out of her ass. His hands spread her cheeks apart, letting him get deeper. His beard stubble scratches, tickles.
When he finally pulls away, he does so with a long, lingering kiss, lips smacking noisily against her hole. He slaps her ass again when he stands, and when she finally turns around he’s making a show of wiping his mouth off, grinning ear to ear. He’s altogether too pleased with himself.
Her lip curls in disgust.
“Don’t look at me like that, Yoshihide,” he croons. His wet hair sticks to his face, the odd blonde highlight he favors darkened to almost the same shade as the rest of it. “Yer gonna get me hard again.”
Despite that lingering threat, they finish showering with no further incidents, save Lei Heng using scrubbing her off as a predictable excuse to grope her chest a few more times. Yoshihide steps out of the shower feeling marginally cleaner than she went in; less sweaty, more violated. Lei Heng hands her a fluffy red towel from a nearby linen closet, which she notes– with no small amount of contempt– is monogrammed with what she assumes is his name. She’s unfamiliar with the character, but there’s no way the stitched-in silver thread could spell anything but.
Puerile, she thinks. Tacky. Getting your own name on something you own? Are you worried you’ll forget it or something?
She towels off her hair, wordlessly accepting the fine-toothed comb he hands her to brush out a few stray knots. When she’s dry, Lei Heng hands her another bundle of clothes– which, much to her surprise, are a plain t-shirt and pair of dark grey sweats instead of further fetishwear. He doesn’t provide underwear, but that’s a sacrifice Yoshihide is willing to make on this occasion. She doesn’t wear it much beneath her tracksuits anyways.
Not for the first time that day, her stomach rumbles.
Lei Heng glances at the clock over the bathroom door. It reads around six-thirty.
“Dinner should be here soon,” he says.
Yoshihide picks a loose bit of cotton fluff off her shirtsleeve. These clothes fit significantly better than the previous set she’d been given, although the pantlegs are long enough she has to fold the waistband over to keep herself from stepping on the hems.
“What’s on the menu?” She asks.
“Body sushi.”
Her head snaps up, teeth baring. Lei Heng grins at her, then guffaws.
“Relax. I’m just fuckin’ with ya,” he says, through wheezes. “God damn, Yoshihide. How’s it that you take my dick easier than you take a joke? We’re havin’ sandwiches.”
He shakes his head and saunters out of the bathroom. He’s got on another pair of silk boxer shorts, with the same ridiculous tiger embroidery as the ones he’d been wearing the previous day, and a fluffy bathrobe. Yoshihide follows him, fuming.
After all the time she’s spent under his tutelage, she would have thought she’d get better at not rising to Lei Heng’s most obvious attempts to bait her. His talent for it has always been a singular one. She wonders, on occasion, why exactly her fathers thought he would be a good fit. What he had to teach her that couldn’t have been taught by anyone else. He’s monstrously strong, but there are stronger. In theory, going by their respective ranks– or previously held ranks, at the least– Valencina solidly beats him in terms of martial talent.
And more pertinently, he’s fucking annoying.
What the House of Spiders saw in a loud-mouthed, aggravating, middle-managing Thumb rapist is beyond Yoshihide’s ability to comprehend. She supposes that the labels of “Thumb” and “rapist” are fairly redundant, but even so, her fathers needn’t have picked a tutor so inclined to grate on her nerves.
She flops on the couch without asking permission, stretching her legs out across the length of it. Lei Heng crosses over to the humidor box by the liquor cabinet, fingers dancing over the array of cigars inside until he settles on the one he wants. He pulls it out and snips the end off, striking a match and lighting it smoothly. The wash of smoke settles comfortably around the room.
At least Yoshihide doesn’t mind that. She might have quit, but the scent of tobacco doesn’t bother her, even if it isn’t her brand. Outside of making her itch for a smoke.
“If there’s somethin’ ya wanna watch, feel free an’ put it on,” Lei Heng tells her, gesturing with the lit end of his cigar towards the TV set. “No game tonight.”
There’s no point in being spiteful about the offer. The last thing she wants to do is have to sit there and eat in silence with him. She turns the TV on, flipping through channels until she espies the beginning of a film that has an interesting enough looking description. College girl slasher, huh?
She knows enough of the language it’s in to keep up without subtitles, thanks to Valencina. Lei Heng doesn’t say anything, but she can feel him watching silently from across the room along with her. After around ten minutes, the doorbell rings. Yoshihide is too engrossed in watching to listen to Lei Heng’s brief conversation with the delivery person, though she does scoot her legs off the couch when he comes to sit down beside her, brown paper bag in tow. He hands her a sandwich wrapped in thick white parchment paper, which Yoshihide tucks into with more enthusiasm than she’d been expecting. It’s not bad; mildly spicy deli meat, peppers, a thick helping of cheese.
Lei Heng eats quietly next to her. Yoshihide is half-expecting him to make another pass at her, but when she glances at him she’s surprised to find that his attention is wholly devoted to the film as well.
When the credits roll, he leans back and sighs. “I’ve seen better.”
Yoshihide shrugs. “I thought it was acceptable.”
“Thought you’d find showy gore like that tacky.” Lei Heng turns and looks at her, raising an eyebrow. “It ain’t nothin’ compared to what sick shit those Ring fellas cook up.”
“It has an aesthetic appeal of its own,” Yoshihide says, aware in a moment how absurd it is that she feels the need to justify enjoying anything to him. “It isn’t simply about the blood. Mm. It’s about capturing that feeling of fear, too. The attempt to make the audience feel as helpless as the victim, even if they’re not. I appreciate it.”
Lei Heng sighs again, waving his cigar in the air. He taps the end of it in the side table ashtray.
“I guess. Not much of a movie guy myself.”
They watch another one after that. It’s one Yoshihide has seen before. She pays less attention than she might have otherwise, allowing herself a moment or two to relax. Lei Heng, despite self-describing as unfamiliar with the medium, is practically glued to the TV and consequentially pays her very little attention.
She’s tired, she realizes. It doesn’t come as much surprise. She’s spent a large part of the day getting rigorously fucked against her will by a man who could reasonably give someone a CTE with his penis. Physically, she’s exhausted. Mentally, she’s run down from trying her absolute hardest not to give an inch more than she absolutely has to. Her stamina is, under normal circumstances, near-boundless; but under stress that she’s unaccustomed to, that she can’t fight her way out of, it begins to wear thin.
Not for the first time, she thinks of Araya. Of her smile, of the joy in her little voice, her innocence not yet lost despite the circumstances of the world she was born into. It washes over Yoshihide like a balm, settling into some of the hairline fractures in her armor and sealing them shut.
Nearly ten o’clock, Saturday night. One more day before her side of the bargain is paid in full. Yoshihide’s eyes slide shut, and she breathes out. The TV flickers behind her lids.
Whatever will come will come. She’ll handle it like she’s handled everything else.
They go to bed after the movie wraps up. Lei Heng stands, stretching and yawning in a way that seems almost feline, and extends a hand to help her off the couch. Yoshihide makes a point of getting up under her own power. She follows him back to his bedroom, rubbing at her own eyes without thinking about it.
The bed’s as messy as they’d left it that morning, which gives Yoshihide a brief pause, considering how neat it had been the previous night.
Probably didn’t have time to straighten it. Too much to do; pancakes to cook, girls half his age to rape… She smiles to herself, thin and humorless. Whatever. Not like I care if he’s a slob or not.
Like the previous night, she’s made to strip down before she gets under the sheets. It’s alarming how much she’s beginning to not care whether he sees her naked or not. Some of the looks he gives her when she’s fully clothed are dirtier.
Besides, all he seems to want to do with her when they go to bed is cuddle. Yoshihide can’t say she likes it, the enforced intimacy making her want to crawl out of her own skin or kill him or both, but it could be worse. Lei Heng’s arm curls around her stomach, pressing her back to his bare chest. His legs casually tangle with hers. The difference in their sizes makes it a little suffocating, but not unbearable.
He falls asleep alarmingly quickly. Yoshihide can hear the minute his measured breathing gets heavier, and then turns to snores. She rolls her eyes.
She dreams that night. Mostly of nothing; flashes of color and sound, vague feelings. Anxiety. Pain. Joy, accompanied by a burst of laughter and a flash of dark blue. Then something prickly scraping against her like fine-grain sandpaper on her legs. The scene of the dream is hazy, and she has the abstract thought that she might be walking through a field of tall grass. Tall enough to tickle at her midriff. Glistening with morning dew. Soaking her as she walks through them. Her bare feet pad across the ground, mud sluicing between her toes. Everything sticky and damp, and–
Her heart pounds as she’s catapulted awake, eyes flying open.
Someone’s head is between her legs.
In the disorienting moment between sleep and wakefulness, she very nearly crushes his skull. Or very nearly tries, at least– she’s uncertain if she could have actually done it. Her breath comes out of her in a long, rattling wheeze that cuts off when she feels his tongue lave over her cunt.
“Fuck–” She swears, more out of shock than anything.
Lei Heng looks up, resting his chin on the flat bit of her pelvis. He grins; his lips are swollen red and shiny.
“Mornin’, sweetheart,” he says.
Yoshihide barely restrains herself from breaking his nose. Not out of anger, even; her chest thrums a wild staccato of nerves, suddenly on high alert from what it perceives as a threat. She’s wired in an instant, every instinct telling her go, go, go, fight-or-flight engaged beyond her ability to easily disengage.
Lei Heng watches her, expression halfway between amused and conciliatory. “Damn. Didn’t think that’d freak ya out so bad.”
“You didn’t think,” Yoshihide starts, and has to stop to wheeze out a laugh. Liar.
His hands squeeze her thighs, and he ducks his head again, kissing her cunt in a way he probably assumes comes across as apologetic. His tongue slides over her, then delves deeper, through the folds of her labia that, contrary to her feelings on the matter, are already blood-swollen and wet. He’d clearly been working on her for a while before she’d woken up; as the panic fades, she becomes aware of how painfully aroused her body is. Her clit is stiff, twitching, and her breathing spikes when he drags his tongue under its hood. His face, as much of it as Yoshihide can see, is wet with her juices.
She grabs at the sheets beneath her, face screwing up, trying to keep from writhing. Trying to focus on anything but him mouthing steadily at her, purring in a way that makes his lips vibrate against her. Trying not to listen to the sloppy, wet noises he makes as he eats her out with atrocious, vile enthusiasm. As if there’s nothing he’d rather be doing.
At the very least, her orgasm takes him by surprise as much as it does her. The sudden spurt of fluid spatters his cheek, and he blinks in a rare expression of genuine shock. Yoshihide looks away, breath finally steadying.
“Sorry to scare ya,” Lei Heng says, though he doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest. “Woke up early. Was gonna get you up, but I got… distracted.” He sits up, planting an arm on either side of her waist, leering at her nude body. Before she can say anything, he leans down to tongue at one of her nipples, rolling it around in his mouth. He tugs once with his teeth before letting go. “You want breakfast? I’ll make somethin’.”
“Will I have to eat it out of a bowl again?” Yoshihide asks. Her panic has mostly faded, and with that comes embarrassment that she allowed Lei Heng to see it, even by accident. Like with many of the other things he’s done, she can’t help but feel that that had been his intent; to get her to lay bare some vulnerability. She buries it under a layer of aggravation.
Lei Heng considers it a moment. “You’ve been such a good girl,” he purrs. “I suppose sittin’ at the table’s not out of the question.”
He manages to make even that sound scummy. Yoshihide glowers at him as he pulls himself upwards, sliding jauntily out of bed. He pulls on a pair of silken slacks, fastening them at the waist with a thin leather belt. A pair of fuzzy slippers she hasn’t seen before go on his feet. They’re violently orange; tacky even by his standards. Lei Heng notices her stare and scratches his neck.
“They were a gift,” he explains.
“I don’t care.”
Lei Heng’s lips press together, just slightly. “Gimme twenty. I’ll fix us up a meal.”
He leaves her alone in the bedroom, surprisingly enough. Yoshihide’s head hits the pillow again; she stares up at the ceiling for a long moment, before glancing at the clock.
It’s nearly nine. She’d slept almost twelve entire hours, exhaustion finally catching up with her despite her body’s adrenaline-fueled attempts to keep her awake and attentive. She feels… better than she did the previous morning. Experimentally, she rolls her wrist; it’s a little sore, but the swelling has gone down immensely, and the mobility is mostly back. It barely hurts.
The same is true of most of her. A little sore, but not in as much pain as she feels she rightfully should be, given all that’s transpired. There are bruises that ache when she digs her fingers in, but…
It should hurt. It should hurt. What does it mean, if it doesn’t? That he was gentle with her? That she submitted to whatever he did to her willingly, as to avoid pain?
Both answers rankle her. Bitterly, she sits up, and goes about the business of finding something to wear. She picks the crumpled sweatpants she’d been given off the floor, and after a moment’s consideration, opens up Lei Heng’s standing wardrobe and chooses one of the silken bathrobes that’s obviously his. It smells like him, which is unfortunate, but she ties the belt around her waist anyways and marches out of his bedroom.
He’s at the stove again, whistling as he putters over something in a pan. It smells like fried meat. Yoshihide sits at the dining room table, propping her bare feet up against the tabletop. She pushes the front legs of the chair a few inches off the ground, teetering back in it.
“You strike me as a hot sauce kinda gal,” Lei Heng says. He’s too focused on cooking to look at her, making casual conversation as he flips over what Yoshihide can now see is a large, fluffy-looking omelette. “I got a few kinds. Ya like habañero? Chili? Gochujang? Hotter the better, I’m guessin’.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she says.
There’s an audible pause. “Alright, then.”
Eggs take far less time to cook than pancakes, and in a minute or two he turns around, a plate of omelette in each hand. Seeing Yoshihide at his table, feet up and dressed in his robe, he pauses again.
The look on his face is inscrutable. Yoshihide looks right back at him, eyes narrowed. He doesn’t say anything more as he puts her plate down in front of her, alongside a knife and fork. He’s drawn a smiley face on her omelette in something slightly too red to be ketchup.
“Eat up,” he says.
Yoshihide ungently extricates her legs from atop the table, pushing in her chair with a loud scraaape and picking up the cutlery. The omelette isn’t bad; perhaps a little denser than it should be, full of sausage chunks, onion, green peppers and tomatoes. The hot sauce is hot enough to burn pleasantly on her tongue. She chews on it slowly, only looking up once mid-meal to see Lei Heng staring at her from across the table. He’s got a bit of egg on his fork, and as she watches, he eats it slowly and consideringly.
“You know,” he says, after he’s swallowed the bite in his mouth. “I think I’ve been pretty lenient with you, all things considered.”
“Lenient,” she repeats, eyebrows raising.
“Well, yes. You think yer pa’s beatin’ ya like a dirty rug just fer the love of the game, Yoshihide?” He frowns ever so slightly, looking her up and down. Less lecherous, more critical. “That’s how discipline works in the Thumb. A smart Soldato learns not to show their superiors disrespect before they lose too many fingers to fire a gun.”
Yoshihide bites back a scoff. She knows this already. She also fairly considers it bullshit– a borderline fetishistic obsession with hierarchy that’s just an excuse to dominate others. It explains a lot about Lei Heng himself, if she’s being frank.
“S.W.? I’m not Thumb.”
“Don’t let yer pa hear you say that,” Lei Heng chides, before turning serious again. “An’ the reason it matters is that I think you should show yer uncle a little more gratitude for bein’ as nice as he is, when someone else in yer place would’ve lost their pretty little tongue already.”
She doesn’t respond to that at first, eating more of her omelette instead. When she’s gone through a few bites, she puts her fork and spoon down on the table, and belches as loudly as she can.
“Self-righteous pig,” she says, making sure to look him directly in the eye when she does. “Don’t threaten me and tell me it’s you being nice.”
Lei Heng smiles, and his eyes crinkle around the edges. It is not a warm look. She can imagine it’s the type of look that makes his underlings piss themselves in terror, if they’re stupid enough to catch his gaze. It’s the look of a predator animal seeing something small, weak.
She resents what the look implies.
“Give ‘em an inch and they’ll drag you a mile,” Lei Heng mutters. He pushes his chair away from the table, spreads his knees apart, and gestures to his lap. “Come over here, Yoshihide.”
She takes another bite of her omelette.
“No.”
His smile widens into a leer. “It’s adorable that you think you get a choice.”
“N–”
Faster almost than she can register, he stands, takes a step towards her, and backhands her across the face hard enough to rattle her jaw. Yoshihide’s head snaps to the side. She tastes blood in her mouth; the inside of her cheek cut against her teeth. It doesn’t hurt as much as when Valencina does it, but she can still hear that tell-tale ringing in her ears. She knows on instinct that it was hard enough to leave a mark.
Better. That’s better.
“Come over here, Yoshihide.”
She staggers closer, before he decides dragging her by her hair’s the better option. She’s half-expecting to be asked to sit on his lap again, so it comes to her surprise when he pulls her over it, laying her over his thighs. Her arms dangle awkwardly.
“Spanking?” She half-sneers. She must have been five when the last of her fathers stopped trying it as a form of discipline. It’s an old, tired cliche. “You can’t be serious.”
“I surely am.” Lei Heng’s hands none-too-gently strip the robe off of her, bending her arms at an awkward, painful angle to get them out of the sleeves. He yanks down her sweats; not completely, just enough to get them around her knees.
She hears the clink of his belt buckle just moments before she realizes what he’s about to do.
The leather hisses through the air, like a snake, or her father’s scythe. A whistling slice before the flat of the belt lands solidly on her ass.
It’s like a brand; stinging, burning, a long stripe of pain across soft flesh. She can’t tell if it’s hard enough to break skin, but if not, it certainly gets close. Her jaw tightens, swallowing down on any vocalization threatening to break free. Before she can get used to the feeling, he hits her again, leaving another swathe of her ass throbbing from the impact. Yoshihide’s breath hitches, eyes squeezing shut.
“Do you think–” she starts, before her words are muffled by him shoving two fingers in her mouth, far enough back that if she’d still had a gag reflex it probably would have sent her into convulsions.
“Shh. Dogs don’t talk, now, do they?” He squeezes her jaw hard enough to grind her teeth together. “‘Course, occasionally you get an unruly bitch that needs to be reminded of its place.” He brings the belt down again; Yoshihide bites on instinct on the fingers in her mouth as the blow connects with her thighs. “Mind the teeth if you wanna keep ‘em, puppy.”
Asshole, she tries to say around his hand; it comes out garbled into nothing. Drool oozes between his thick digits and down his palm, though he hardly seems to care. Another blow, lower this time, the belt positioned just so to glance off her cunt. Deliberate, she’s certain. Swelling arises immediately– a horrid, blistering feeling, like she’d been held over an open flame.
Good. Good.
It’s better if it hurts. It’s better if it’s unpleasant. She doesn’t want him to think that she wants him, that she’s doing this for any reason other than that there’s no other choice. And she doesn’t want to forget it either. How much she hates him, hates this, hates what’s being done to her. No matter how he might try to make it feel good, no matter his tendency to roleplay domesticity.
She can feel him hard under her stomach. He strikes her ass again with the belt and his cock twitches. His fingers caress her tongue.
“Brings me no pleasure, havin’ to discipline an unruly mutt,” Lei Heng sighs. His clothed dick digs into her belly somewhere under her ribcage. “And you were doin’ so good, too. It’s enough to break yer damn heart. Ah, well.”
Another two blows. Her entire backside feels like a throbbing welt. It isn’t the worst pain she’s ever felt, but the where and why of it are more humiliating than any broken bone has ever been. She tries not to squirm, something she knows would do little but rub her against his erection. It’s good that it hurts. It’s good that she hates it. His belt catches her pussy again, and she moans around his hand, unable to stop herself.
Lei Heng pauses briefly to run his knuckles over her ass. His skin, usually warm as a furnace to the touch, is pleasantly cool on her burning flesh.
“What the fuck’re you playin’ at, Yoshihide?” He murmurs, low and silky. “A little pain ain’t a thing fer people like us. Yer too fucked in the head to not like it.”
His thumb presses between her legs, sliding into her cunt. The swollen lips protest, thrumming with agony, but she’s wet enough to make it easy. Yoshihide bites the fingers in her mouth, closing her eyes. Lei Heng’s thumb wriggles inside of her a little before he pulls it out and takes up the belt again.
“Just a few more, and then I’ll give ya what you really need.”
The leather comes down again, and the sting of it washes over her like a revelation. Fuck him; fuck this whole situation, fuck the upbringing that drilled into her the merits of pain, feeling and inflicting both.
Her legs are trembling by the time he finishes. When he pushes her off his lap she tumbles to the floor, tangled in the sweatpants she’s still half-wearing. She’s breathing like she does after a workout, sweat caking her forehead and running down her back. Lei Heng’s hands go for her throat, sliding his belt around her neck, fastening the makeshift leash. It’s just a shade too tight; getting air through it is a struggle. He drags her by it up onto her knees, pushing her face down into the hardwood.
“Good dog,” he purrs.
Yoshihide is wet enough when he pushes inside that the penetration itself barely even pinches. Instead it’s the skin-on-skin that aches, his body pressing and rubbing up against the agonized mess of her ass, the weltlines and cuts and bruises already beginning to form. He’s squatted over her, one palm flat by her head and the other keeping a firm grip on her leash. Mounting her, like an animal, or like she’s one. Yoshihide thinks they very well might both be.
There’s no finesse to it, no real technique. He drives his cock into her, and her body absorbs the brutal force of it as best it can. It stings with every thrust, the swollen lips of her pussy throbbing more from the pain than from anything close to arousal, and she pushes her hips back into it, against it.
“That’s it. Take it like a nice little fucktoy.” At least Lei Heng sounds out of breath too, drunk on it. She would laugh, if she could. Call him a whore, if she had the oxygen to spare. It’s far from an unfitting epithet, for the man who’d gone through all this trouble just to get his prick wet. “All I’ve done to ya, and yer snatch’s still tight like a virgin. You drive me fuckin’ crazy.”
Yoshihide grunts and gasps, unable to get anything but the smallest of sounds out through the leather constricting her throat. Her knees are starting to hurt too, and her neck, from the position she’s been forced into; but it burns so horribly good, lactic acid and the sweet ache of being pushed too far.
Her face slides several inches forwards on the hardwood at a particularly insistent piston of his hips. Lei Heng tugs on her leash, constricting her throat again, forcing her attention back to him. Yoshihide coughs out a curse, back arching.
“Hey. Eyes on the prize, sweetheart.”
“Prize,” Yoshihide wheezes out, even as she spreads her knees just a little wider. She’s wet enough that she can feel it dripping down her thighs So turned on it’s hard to see straight, though that might in part be the oxygen deprivation.
He doesn’t reply to the implicit insult, his hips slapping against hers as if he’s trying to fuck the breath entirely out of her. Yoshihide’s fingers scrape against the floor, her toes curling. All the hate, all the anger, all the pain, and she still can’t keep her body from wanting it, responding to the hurt and the abuse the way her entire life up to this point has conditioned it to.
She inhales as deeply as she can. “Harder. Fucking– bastard.”
“If you insist.”
He hardly sounds teasing anymore; his voice is a low growl, rubbed raw by need. In control of the situation, but not of himself. Yoshihide’s bark of laughter is muffled by her moan. She doesn’t think he could stop now, even if he’d wanted to. She doesn’t think she wants him to.
There’s a puddle already under her, their sweat and bodily fluids making yet another mess. Lei Heng finishes first, much to her satisfaction, breath going unsteady, half-draping himself over her back as he sheathes himself in her cunt. She can hear his growl, his panting, and laughs again. The gall to call her the dog.
She’s not laughing for long. His hand curls around her, finding her clit and assaulting it mercilessly, pinching and rolling it between his fingers. If Yoshihide is being honest with herself, it’s hardly necessary– but it does accelerate the orgasm that’s been building slowly but steadily. His hips roll, dragging his pelvis against the brand-marks on her ass, and she makes a wounded animal noise as climax hits her like a truck.
Pulling out leaves cum trickling down her thighs. Lei Heng stands, yanks her collar.
“Get up,” he snaps. Not angry, just impatient. Horny. Yoshihide clambers to her feet, standing on shaking legs. The belt threatens to choke her again as Lei Heng pulls her by it out of the kitchen, into the living room. When they near the couch, he gives her a shove, sending her crashing against the armrest. Bent at the waist over it.
“Wasn’t enough for you, slut?” Yoshihide half-laughs, half-snarls back at him. He slides his cock, half-hard again already, against the lips of her pussy. “Useless, cunt-drunk bitch. Fuck—“
He penetrates again without warning, spearing her in one fluid, brutal movement, stuffing her full to the brim. She aches, her body sore from the abuse from the belting, the choking, the fucking, aches with pain that melds distressingly seamlessly with pleasure. She hates it and needs it and hates that she needs it.
He wrings another three orgasms out of her before they’re finished, and another two out of himself. One he makes sure to pull out so he can spatter her face with it, roaring with something like triumph while Yoshihide curses at him. The other is dry, eked out near the end when they’re both collapsed in a quivering heap on the carpet. His dick gives a good twitch, balls tightening, but nothing comes out.
Yoshihide is too exhausted to taunt him about it. Her body feels like it’s been pulled out like taffy, her limbs heavy and sore. Between her legs is a sticky mess; cum, sweat, blood drying tacky. Staring up at the ceiling, she covers her eyes with her forearm. Sweat cools her skin, sending a few disparate shivers through her. Her entire backside is a gigantic bruise; it hurts to lay down and put pressure on it, but she has no energy to do otherwise.
Lei Heng rolls off of her, breathing a sigh of his own. He’s about as disheveled as she’s ever seen him, though slightly more mobile. It’s still gratifying to watch him struggle to stand, to see the slight limp in his step as he hobbles off towards the kitchen. When he returns, it’s with an ice pack in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. He slumps to the ground again, presses the ice pack to his crotch.
“Fuckin’ wore me out,” he grumbles.
Yoshihide moves her arm so she can give him a slow, baleful blink.
“Go to hell,” she mutters, voice hoarse.
He offers her his cigar. Yoshihide turns away from him, curling in on herself. Even that small movement hurts, thrumming down her overworked muscles and nerves. She could use a smoke, but like hell she’s going to accept anything more from him.
“Suit yerself,” he says.
The sun’s setting outside the window. Yoshihide doesn’t know what time it is, but if it’s getting late it can only mean one thing. The weekend is nearly over. Tomorrow morning she’ll be home. She’ll be free. She’ll have done all she can for her daughter.
It lights a little ember in her belly, where naught but cold ash had been mere moments before. Yoshihide curls up further, around that heat, refusing to let it go out.
She resists enough to not damage her pride any further when Lei Heng helps support her wobbling body on the way to the bathroom, and hisses at him when he offers to help run her a bath. Raising both hands in resignation, he instead gets her a washcloth, and Yoshihide spends a good thirty or so minutes scrubbing herself until she’s pink and raw. Even so, she still feels dirty. Violated. Used. She supposes it’s appropriate. The welts on her ass and thighs make sitting uncomfortable at best.
She wants little more than to leave her body behind for a while.
Lei Heng brings her a bowl of soup while she’s scrubbing his cum off her face. It doesn’t taste half bad, quashing some of her growing nausea.
When they crawl into bed that evening, Yoshihide knows that despite her exhaustion, she’s almost certainly not going to get any sleep. The slide of the silken sheets against her is agonizing, tormenting her burning, mistreated flesh. She kicks them off of herself as best she can, but she’s still stuck trapped in Lei Heng’s arms, which curl around her like a straitjacket. His presence and weight is near suffocating.
Closing her eyes, she wills the morning to come just a little faster.
After what feels like an eternity of lying there, sunlight begins to filter in through the curtains. Lei Heng is still snoring, though at some point in the night he’d flopped over onto his back and ceased entirely suffocating Yoshihide with his body mass. It had made things slightly more bearable. Yoshihide opens her eyes, blinking the sudden brightness away.
She does not feel rested in the slightest, but her heart quickens just a little.
I can go home today, she thinks. Referring to the House of Spiders by such quaint terms as home is laughable, but it is more true of that place than it is of the condo she’s spent the past near-sixty hours of her life in. At least there’s something waiting for her there.
She sits up in the bed, and her body complains at the motion. Rotating her shoulders and neck, she tries to stretch some life back into her abused musculature. She tries to ignore the heavy weight of the man lying next to her, which is easy enough until he stops his steady snoring to mutter something incomprehensible in his sleep. His lips move oddly, face twitching. Yoshihide stares for a moment, and thinks about how vulnerable his throat looks, and then does her damndest to suppress that thought.
Almost over. Almost over.
It’s the mantra that keeps her calm as Lei Heng stirs awake, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning. He blinks, smacks his lips, looks at her. His eyes linger on her bare chest; she hadn’t bothered to cover herself.
“Mornin’,” he says, a sleepy grin on his face. It is clearly meant to disarm, and Yoshihide scowls. “Aw, c’mon. Don’t be like that. I just woke up.”
She looks away. Lei Heng studies her, pensive for a minute.
“Gonna miss ya,” he says.
Yoshihide scoffs. “You’ll still have your hand.”
“True, but a hand ain’t the same as the real thing, and even the real thing ain’t much compared to you.” He slides a little closer, putting a big palm on her leg, and snickers. “We cooould make this a more permanent arrangement. I know you ain’t gettin’ much of the good stuff back at home.”
“Never in your wildest dreams.”
“Shame. Damn shame.” His hand slides upwards, landing on the flat of Yoshihide’s stomach. “Then again, never say never. Maybe you got one of my brats in ya. Maybe in nine months’re so you’ll be back here, beggin’ yer most generous uncle not to tell ‘em they’re his.”
His grin widens. Cold horror washes through Yoshihide at the thought. She tries not to let it show on her face. Even the suggestion is enough to make her slightly nauseous. Lei Heng touches her belly again, brushing his knuckles over the flat of it. He tuts.
“Can’t imagine you keepin’ it,” he concedes. “An’ to be honest, Yoshihide, you make a better cat than a dog anyways.”
It sounds for all the world like he’s trying to compliment her. Yoshihide’s lips press into a thin line.
Out of bed, she changes with no small degree of relief back into familiar clothes; a spare tracksuit, socks, trainers that she’d brought with her in her beat up duffel. The normalcy of it is like a balm, both physical and mental. Breakfast is nothing fancy. Toast, cereal, instant coffee that Yoshihide drinks three cups of black to try and keep her eyes open.
Lei Heng reads from a tablet while he’s eating. He’s got a pair of cheaters on that make him look like someone’s father. Yoshihide chews at her cereal and stares at him.
“What?” He says, after a while.
“I want to hear you say it again,” Yoshihide tells him. Her fingers tap insistently on the tabletop. “Promise you won’t go near my daughter.”
“God damn, Yoshihide. You think I’d go back on my word so easy?” When she doesn’t stop staring at him, he sighs. “I promise I won’t go near yer sweet little girl. We made a deal, and I take that shit quite seriously. If people can’t trust my word, they won’t respect me. You understand?”
“Besides,” he adds after a moment, mouth full of toast. “Even if I was that kinda duplicitous, disrespectful scumbag who would walk back somethin’ like that, I wouldn’t wanna.”
Yoshihide frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I told ya, Yoshihide. That kid of yers is cute an’ all, but yer raisin’ her soft. I like a girl with some fight in her. Preyin’ on civvies is fer the Index.” He gives a loud belly-laugh. “That’s why I like you. Yer tough and you don’t take bullshit. All that defiance an’ anger… All that hatred in yer eyes when ya can’t stop yerself from moaning on my dick…”
He whistles, low and slow, leering at her.
“Fuck me, there ain’t nothin’ like it. And there ain’t none of that in that girl of yers. She’s a sweet little thing, an’ yer doing yer best to keep her sweet. Good on you, Yoshihide.”
Lei Heng toasts her with his coffee mug and goes back to his breakfast, and Yoshihide feels a curious emptiness in her stomach where relief should be.
There’s a question she wants to ask, but doesn’t. She’s not certain she can handle the answer.
Finally, finally, it’s time to go. She picks up her duffel and heads for the door.
“Wait up,” Lei Heng calls after her.
Yoshihide turns on her heel, glaring.
“What the fuck now,” she snaps.
Before she can stop him, he leans down and kisses her. Open-mouthed, his tongue swiping wet and filthy across her lips. His stubble prickles. Yoshihide tears herself away as quickly as she can, snarling.
“Just a little somethin’ to remember me by,” he says, cheerily.
Yoshihide slams the door in his face. She can still hear him laughing behind the solid wood as she storms away.
The morning is sunny, but the light as it filters down is cold. The Door that will take her home isn’t far. Yoshihide walks briskly through the City streets, wiping her face furiously with the sleeve of her tracksuit.
And then–
She’s back in the House. The black stone walls and harsh lighting of the Index Corridor are more comforting than they’ve been since she was a very little girl. Yoshihide’s breath comes out in a hard, shuddering gasp. Her legs feel wobbly again.
“You’re back.”
Rien is, unsurprisingly, seated on the armchair near one of the bookshelves. Legs crossed delicately at the ankles, the calm smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes as he looks her over. She’s not sure what he was doing before she’d returned. Possibly nothing; probably nothing. Waiting for instructions from his pager.
“Yes,” she says, declining to elaborate. She’s sure at the very least that he knows where she was. Or at least has a faint idea. A little something like anger prickles in her gut.
If their places had been changed, would he have done this for her? Willingly subjected himself to the kind of hurt she had, without being told to?
Yoshihide walks by him without another word.
It isn’t until she reaches her own room that real relief comes. She shuts the door behind her and collapses against the wall. Slowly, she slides to the floor, her legs splayed haphazardly around her. She breathes in, and out. In and out. Buries her face in her hands.
While she’s sitting, she hears the soft sound of socked footsteps.
“Mommy…?” A quiet, sleepy voice. It’s still early for her, especially without someone to wake her up on time.
Yoshihide pulls her head out of her hands, and for the first time in two days, smiles without a trace of irony. Araya is looking down at her, worry etched in her childish pout. She falls to her knees, scoots forwards, and wraps her little arms around Yoshihide’s neck, pulling her into a hug.
Without a second’s hesitation, Yoshihide hugs her back, arms around her daughter’s waist. For not the first time in her life, she marvels at the way something so small can undo her so entirely.
“Mommy, are you crying?” Araya asks. Yoshihide pulls an arm back, touching a hand to her face. She is, just a little. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just got something in my eye. It’s gotten a little dusty.” She pulls a face. “I’m gone for two days and it becomes A.P.S. in here.”
Araya’s face crinkles. “‘A pigsty’…?” She mutters, and shakes her head rapidly, hair flying from side to side. “I promise I cleaned! I just probably… missed some spots.”
She seems genuinely contrite. Yoshihide leans forwards to kiss her forehead gently, pushing her bangs back.
“Well, we’ll just have to do it again together. Make sure you D.M.A.E.”
“Mommy.”
Her daughter’s lips purse again indignantly, and a weight lifts from Yoshihide’s heart that she hadn’t even realized was there. She can feel the ache of her body, the soreness and bruising throbbing slow and sickly, but she can breathe again. Bruises will heal, soreness will fade, and even the lasting damage to her pride will vanish with time and distance. She would do it again, do it a hundred times over, to keep safe the one thing that truly matters.