At some point I remember wondering if the night would ever end – luckily, eventually, it did. This I concluded when I first came to, confused in both time and space. A soft light stole in through the vapid layers of the curtains, announcing morning. How late, I couldn't tell.
I shielded my eyes with my hand and contemplated the brightness the glass window ushered in. The Bedroom – his bedroom – looked livelier, not half like a sunless prison cell as when I'd seen it last night, not nearly as impregnable: My nerves must have overreacted and imagined the whole thing. But no: The dark panel that blocked the outside had been lifted, light had been allowed in, but the windows were still just as thick, just as oppressive as the owner intended them to be. Unexpectedly, the mess the room found itself in also served to blow new life into it: The sheets were untidy, there were pillows scattered everywhere, and my bag had collapsed to the floor, spilling clothes and other personal belongings. The rugs were out of place, and torn shreds of silk littered the floor, too. All of it gave Sycamore's abode a more natural air, it resembled something closer to a house, one people actually did inhabit. 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭 people. But I should make no such mistake - the room was still the same: No gurgling sound of busy Lumiose life reached me in there, no morning fletching basking in the sun seemed to sing – silence heralded the prison I was in.
And how had I even fallen asleep last night? How had it ended? I recollected very little, but ventured to assume my nerves gave out eventually, overthrown by the stress of embarrassment and all those other feelings I would have thought myself incapable of experiencing simultaneously. I needed not go very far to remember, though: the signs were everywhere, they branded me blue. I self-consciously covered the bruise on my thigh as I noticed it, as if someone was there to see it… There was no one, of course, and the purple mark was sensitive to the touch – it hurt… and it reminded me of the strange sensation of having his fingers buried in my flesh. Nauseating, really, to connect one to the other… nauseating to feel my stomach swirl so.
As I moved to get up, another pain foretelling of my blurred memories: my insides hurt. I embraced myself to solace my throbbing lower belly, and isolated images of his lips stretching, laughing and drinking cruelly of my suffering as he taunted me slipped back to mind. My skin recreated random strokes here and there, crawling with intensity. I stretched my legs to jump out of bed, and when I did, another throb – a very particular one, like something I had felt last night – last night, it was a brand new feeling, a shock: Sycamore held me down, I gasped, voiceless, frozen in place by the strangeness of a finger thrusting into me, revealing a space I wasn't aware existed – a hypersensitive space he now delicately explored, allowing me little time to recover as he probed, forcing the discovery of a thousand nerve endings, each responding differently, all very loud, all very scary… It was an unwelcome feeling at first – of invasion, utter vulnerability, and even the strange sensation that if I dared move away I'd hurt myself, so I laid very still, my eyes wide, my breath struggling with grunts and cries whenever a particular sensation was pinched to existence… And all the while, Sycamore looked down at me, watching, smiling from his superiority while he mortified me. He held me down so I wouldn't move more than he intended, and thus he studied my face as if I was an interesting research to be conducted. When it seemed my body had begun adjusting to the strange new feeling, when it seemed I could begin experiencing it myself with some degree of ease, then another finger was thrust into me and I cried out. Sycamore gasped, smirked: I would be allowed no breaks, so his avid eyes told me. His fingers thrust deeper, more decidedly, more mercilessly. My stern torturer seemed to be measuring how far my spine could arch as he poked my insides.
They finally relented, leaving my otherwise unfeeling interior now overly sensitive and shocked. He'd give me no break from those little invasions though: he kissed me fast, shoving his tongue inside my mouth, as if he could not play nice anymore. He squeezed my lips against his, bit them against his appetite, explored my mouth and stole my breath away. And by the way he moved, by the way he panted and rocked over me, I knew the time had come. I felt it as one of his hands let go of their grip over me, just to slide down over his torso - I felt it move around, I saw his towel being pulled away and I experienced a cold chill climb my spine.
Sycamore smirked when he saw me look away, the color certainly coming to my face. Of course the fear I displayed must have amused him, but at least this once he resisted the urge of forcing me to face my fears only to take pleasure in them.
"You can close your eyes if you want to" he instructed me, whispering his hot, amused breath into my ear. "You will feel it regardless." and his chest shook over me as he chuckled lightly,
Yes… I'd feel it. The whole extent of it. In fact, my closed eyes made my skin all the more sensitive as it didn't know where to expect his touch. I felt his hands on my back, then down my legs… they stopped under my thighs, moving them apart, and I squeezed my eyes tighter still, tensing, fighting the urge to spring my legs back together.
"Now, be very still… and relax…" he tutored, his voice alone making my heartbeat skyrocket with fear. Then I received it, and I gasped, choked, the air leaving my lungs completely as I felt that tight space being completely overwhelmed by a slow, yet steadfast invasion. A moist, short, exhilarated moan was exhaled by Sycamore, and deeper he thrust himself inside me. I remembered all of it now: his sweaty skin, his quiet moaning, his fresh breath… the sting of pain that drew blood, that stretched my insides insufferably, squeezing inside, moving, moistening, maddening! I thought I was unable to move when he was deep inside, I thought I could break if I so much as stirred against the hard member that filled me so strangely, occupying a space I could swear wasn't there before, as if he had created it for himself... but he would prove me wrong: I would not break, I would not be left still. Having entered me, he gathered me in his arms and rocked and pulled me to him, rhythmically thrusting inside.
When the torturing memory effaced, I caught myself experiencing those strange sensations again, as if I relived them. My body burned strangely, it made me embarrassed even though I was completely alone under his sheets – sheets tainted with drops of my blood, like he said they would be.
Disturbed, I picked up his robe from the floor, put it around myself and got up at once. My first steps were no easy task, as my legs were numb and wobbly. I took the time to regain control over them, to brave the odd responses my body gave of bruise and urge; then, when sufficiently composed, I went into the living room. It was empty… And so was the kitchen, with the exception of a scribbled note that waited on top of the cabinet. I picked it up, being reminded of how beautiful Sycamore's handwriting was:
"Gone to the grocery store, I'll be back shortly", and a small heart scrawled in the form of a signature. I glanced at it for too long, then I stuffed it into the pocket of the robe, meaning to treasure it later.
Exploring the kitchen, I found an open cook-book sprinkled with flour, next to an interrupted mix inside a blender and a few eggshells tossed into the sink: The page was a recipe for waffles, but apparently Sycamore was short of some ingredient. I couldn't help but smile, picturing him diligently working on preparing us breakfast before I could wake up only to endure the frustration of an interruption. It brought a commotion to my chest - a unique sort of warmth, one that made my smile come undone. I turned away from the cookbook, from the image of a nice, harmless Professor making me waffles in the morning.
I walked around the house in an autistic distraction: I hovered a finger over every surface, on each corner, tracing their outline in the air while letting my thoughts come and go, until my mind was flooded with memories from last night. I could not chase them away… And once they starter, nor did I want to.
"It hurts you…" His voice echoed, its sound little changed by memory's distortion. It wasn't a question, but still it sounded slightly like one. No trace of apprehention or fear moved his voice, either: Professor Sycamore calmly speculated, studying me still.
"Yes…" I grunted shakily from that confuse vortex where I could hear my heart beating violently inside my ears, my own breathing a prelude of panic. I saw his smile stretch despite of himself… it made me dizzy: It felt like I was falling from terribly high, Professor Sycamore held me, but threatened to let go, the sadistic game amusing him. "It hurts, but…" I gasped, grunted and cried as the sensations shifted – a whole array of them, torturing and confusing me most ardently.: "…but you like it… Don't you?" My voice was shaky, it faltered, breathless, as I confronted him with that small, coward resentment.
He took a deep breath, his smile widened as his eyes narrowed, fascinated:
"Don't 𝘺𝘰𝘶?" He implied, most vexingly.
Anger now joined the vortex of strangeness. It made my body hot, made me ache with the uninflicted violence of revenge, and it made me all the more sensitive to what he did. I cried loudly as he inflicted it upon me, then: As he did what he did and watched for my response - a reponse much different from the one I meant to give, a sound contrary to the words I'd use if given the opportunity - I was subject to a humiliating crosscheck.
"No…" I gathered the strength to reply in between gasps… "I don't like it..." I couldn't tell if that last part made it out of my mouth, made it through my wet huffs.
"You're lying." He declared most composedly, and moved so that I felt it again: pain! …Or was it so? In an instant I could no longer tell! An inflamed, restless feeling traveled up my body like electricity, it morphed into whatever Sycamore wanted me to feel, it seems - and he was aware it would be so. His evil smirk watched me closely as he did it again… I cried out, no longer knowing what it was I felt as he played with me. It was a long night…
Standing in his living room, I stopped my fingers from hovering the shelves as a small something brought me back to the present: The scented candles from the first time I entered his house – They were still there, only half-burned, the perfume oozing faintly now that I stood near. They had not been used before then, and clearly they had not been used since, either. Despite his clear intentions of holding me in, I still remembered that day with affection: the mood the Professor went out of his way to create, how attentively he listened to my anguish, the excessive care he displayed... but then I also remembered the outcome: Calem alone, my friends looking at me with nothing to say, not a kind word, judging eyes... I shunned the thought, recalled instead the thrill of first seeing Sycamore's house, of being in his couch, the chill of his suggestive advances, not unlike the fears I still experienced last night. And now that I was here, on the other side of the great unknown of letting Sycamore have his way, what was it I feared so much in the first place, and did that fear ever come to fruition? I couldn't put my finger on it... Was it the pain, perhaps? No... I never thought of it much before last night. And much as it pained me to admit, he was right when he said I'd remember little of it. Then, perhaps, was it shame of undressing before him, and of seeing him undress? He had given me no choice in that matter, he had made me bare and not even allowed me to hide under my own hands, it was a torture in itself to be so utterly exposed… but that wasn't it either. If I feared not the pain, nor the embarassment… then what was it? And most importantly, was that fear gone? Would I feel it no longer if Sycamore was here, intent on repeating his deeds from last night? The answer came very easily: NO! I'd fear it still... I'd fear it alright! Was it the pleasure then?
Yes... that was it.
I feared what those thick windows suggested. That cold house, the locked doors, my body throbbing and burning beneath him: I feared he would steal something from me I could never take back - my independent thoughts, my hability to live and breathe a different air than the one he breathed, the free will to come and go as I pleased... the will to go, really.
Yes, that was the root of my fear – past, present and future: that if I allowed it, Sycamore would take over my mind, and I'd be completely his. Just now I missed him: I missed the warmth of his arms around me, his provoking words, his unrelenting caresses… as I longed, a small piece of my heart bled, a portion of my thoughts pulled, spiralled, twined around pictures of him with an obsessive potential. Part of me desperately longed for his return, wishing I'd never have to be separated from him again. His eyes beckoned a strange devotion from deep inside of me, one I never gave consent to rise… And that was the scariest thing I could possibly feel!
Sycamore had not been a rough lover to me. He had not wounded or used me with brutality, or against my will. Instead, he had imparted his own will into me somehow, stolen my very will to impart or revoke consent. He had trained me to feel him as he wanted me to feel him, he steered my feelings to whichever direction he pleased, all with a conniving, silent skill; teaching me to like – to beg for – whatever he wanted to give me, in whatever way he wanted… And only then, only when he knew I could not shun it, he drank from my torment, letting it excite him. He made it so that by the end of that long night of pain, fear and pleasure, my heart throbbed hopelessly for him, filled with the agonizing thrill of life. I felt it in my sensitive insides, felt it in every bruise pressed into my flesh, felt it in my bitten lip: how hopelessly I adored him!
And that was terrifying.
Part of me must have secretly hoped that, in sleeping with him, I would put an end to the helplessness I experienced in his presence. I guess I truly hoped I would be free from that oppressive infatuation once I had allowed it to consume me… instead, I was only enthralled by heavier chains.
I went for a quick shower while reviewing those thoughts – changed into my casual clothes while coexisting with them, then I sat on the couch in the living room and let my demons abound. I was little surprised in finding there, next to me, a small chest with all my Pokeballs inside. Funny how it shocked me no more… how I had grown used to it, numb: It was not surprising that the Professor had retrieved my Pokémon for me. Not surprising that he had no trouble hacking into my account, no scruples against invading my computer and pulling my companions out. I can't say, however, that his long reach didn't at least slightly intimidate me: the easily attained control he had over my feelings, my whereabouts and now even over my storage! With or without this new piece of realization, I felt it was high time to leave. I picked up my bag, the rest of my stuff and went through the front door. The day was bright, warm, not too sunny... I was headed to a city called Laverre where I could gain my next gym badge and forget I ever slept with him. It felt right...
It felt suitably coward.