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“I want to fight back.”
Root tilts her head to one side, staring down at Sameen: Root’s fingers encircling Shaw’s wrists, the ghost of Root’s nails lingering on Shaw’s chest. Shaw doesn’t talk a lot during sex, so Root feels a kind of urgency at the sudden request. In her ear, the Machine lists Shaw’s possible meanings, and Root supplies the accompanying visuals in her mind, a decision tree of connotations matched to probabilities.
The two of them must take too long to parse the phrase, however, because Shaw clarifies. “I mean now. With you. Against you. I want you to win, but I want to fight back, act like I don’t want it. I want you to make me.” There’s some hint of attempted seduction in her voice, but all Root hears is the need beneath it, deep and vast as the night sky.
Root’s bodily reaction is immediate, the thought of Shaw acting out some futile resistance prompting a rush of wet need between her legs. Root wishes she could say her excitement was caused by the prospect of the trust Shaw wants to place in her, or the way she could take care of her, or the way she could bring them both pleasure, but truth be told, Root’s cunt is throbbing to a darker rhythm, one of danger, and power, and greed. She trusts that she wouldn’t truly enjoy fucking Shaw against her will, but the pleasure she feels at the fantasy is closer to the surface than she thinks it should be, overwhelming, insistent, burning hot. Bad code.
If they were other people, they would talk about this. There is something in both of them that could take this too far, and Root knows it, and Shaw knows it, and the Machine knows it. It tastes like blood and possibility in Root’s mouth.
Root can’t bring herself to question it.
The Machine will stop them, if She sees that it is necessary. She will know.
Root grins at Shaw, wide and giddy. “OK,” she says. This is what trust means to them, and them alone.
Root’s hand is at Shaw’s throat in an instant, but in another instant Shaw’s twisted it back, Root’s wrist at a painfully awkward angle, back slammed against the mattress. Shaw’s lips are parted when she stares down at Root, and both of them are panting already, challenge gleaming between them.
No one said anything about not fighting dirty, so Root brings her free hand between Shaw’s legs and pinches hard on her clit. When that elicits only a groan and a tightening of the hand around Root’s wrist, Root lunches upwards, catching Shaw’s shoulder in her teeth and bearing down. She rubs Shaw’s clit now, and Shaw falters, giving Root the moment she needs to flip them and settle firmly on Shaw’s chest, her legs pinning down Shaw’s arms.
Shaw’s chest is heaving, her hard nipples rising and falling with each breath, her ponytail loose and wispy, everything about her gorgeous, a punch in the gut. Root wants her with a single-minded intensity, wants to mark her, claim her, take her.
Root has no illusions as to who is the better fighter of the two of them, and she feels Shaw’s trust in her ability to give Shaw what she wants weighing heavily on her comparatively smaller muscles and slower reflexes. But Root is used to sacred obligations, and used to having something to help her fulfill them. She nods minutely at the Machine’s instruction, and when Shaw attempts a headbutt only moments later, Root is ready, using Shaw’s own momentum to twist Shaw onto her stomach underneath her and bring one of Shaw’s arms up behind her back.
Root uses her free hand to pull Shaw’s hair free of her hair tie and yank her head to one side. “This was easier than I thought,” she says in Shaw’s ear, enjoying the movement of Shaw’s jaw as she grits her teeth. Root pulls Shaw’s arm up further behind her, and feels a jolt of arousal at Shaw’s sharp gasp of pain. People are so satisfying to play with like this, with their infinite yet predictable library of responses to painful stimuli.
Shaw is more than people, of course, usually. Always. But tonight Root lets herself detach just enough that Shaw is a body beneath her, a body to be hurt in a million cold precisions, just the way they both want it. Shaw’s struggles beneath her are beginning to feel more straightforwardly sexual, her body grinding against the mattress even as it still searches for escape, and Root allows herself to grind down as well, enjoying the press of Shaw’s wriggling body against her thighs and cunt.
Root’s indulgence is cut short, however, when Shaw twists her body out of Root’s hold, growling through clenched teeth as Root’s hand continues its grip on Shaw’s hair. It’s Root’s turn on her stomach, but the Machine guides her into flipping Shaw onto her back before she can pull off the same submission hold Root just used.
One hand firmly on Shaw’s throat, Root reaches for the zip ties she knows are in her purse. She tightens her grip on the sides of Shaw’s neck, hard enough that she feels her fingertips painting bruises into Shaw’s skin. Even so, Shaw struggles as Root fastens first one, then the other of Shaw’s arms to the headboard. Root can tell Shaw let Root win this part, and probably the part before this as well, but Root knows better than to comment. Better to focus on what she can do now that she has Shaw at her mercy.
Root runs her hands along Shaw’s bound arms, feeling the muscles rippling under her fingers. Shaw seems to be allowing herself to fight harder now that she’s at a comfortable disadvantage. She yanks her arms away from the bars she’s fastened to, the plastic of the zip ties digging into her wrists. The sight of Shaw struggling pounds in Root’s ears, the illusion of doing this against Shaw’s will electrifying Root’s every nerve ending. Is she supposed to feel bad about that? What if she doesn’t?
“Stop overthinking this,” says Shaw, cold read abilities as uncanny as ever. Root nods.
Shaw bucks her hips, kicks her legs, and Root slaps her, holding her jaw steady as she brings the flat of her palm down on her cheek. Root moves her face closer to Shaw’s, close enough to just brush their lips against one another’s, but instead of straining up to reach Root’s mouth with her own, Shaw spits in Root’s face, and Root feels a rush of gleeful rage.
Root slaps her again, and then begins hitting Shaw’s chest with her fists, enjoying the deep thud of each connecting blow. Shaw’s eyes are wide, her nostrils blown out, pleasure and anger warring beautifully on her face.
She’s still straining against the ties, and Root hopes they’ll break skin with a fervency she tries not to feel these days, at least not when it comes to violence that isn’t for the mission. The Machine is silent for the moment, but Root feels the comfort of her watching. Both she and Shaw are ceding their will to another, although Root’s submission is both more complete and less material.
Root wants to attack with more precision. She switches from punches to pressing her thumbs hard into Shaw’s skin, pinching and twisting but mostly just applying pressure to where she knows it will cause the most pain. It would hurt Shaw less if Shaw gave in, let herself breathe the sensation into her body the way she usually does, soaking up the pain Root gives her. The fact that she doesn’t makes Root press even harder, her cunt throbbing at the raw power in the air around them.
“Wait right here, sweetie,” says Root, her normal term of endearment imbued with more condescension than she’d allow under other circumstances when applied to Shaw. Shaw says nothing. Root hops off the bed to peer into a closet. She knew she saw some neckties in here somewhere, and Shaw is too short to have her ankles directly ziptied to the foot of the bed, although she doesn’t say this out loud, just as Shaw doesn’t make a comment about Root using a stranger’s neckties from a house she’s squatting in for sex games. That’s not the headspace they’re in tonight.
Root returns with the ties and a couple other items that caught her eye: a wide leather belt, and a small drawstring bag. She motions for Shaw to give her one of her ankles, but Shaw kicks instead, and Root feels a rush of arousal at Shaw’s continued resistance. It takes all Root’s power to subdue first one leg, then the other. She ties her sturdiest knots, and takes a moment to admire her handiwork, running her palm up and down Shaw’s spread-eagled legs possessively.
Shaw’s already naked, but Root uses this moment, now that Shaw is significantly more restrained, to slip out of her jeans and underwear. She considers for a few seconds, then parts Shaw’s lips roughly with both hands, narrowly avoiding being bitten hard, and shoves her panties into Shaw’s mouth. Shaw spits them out, and Root shoves them in harder. Shaw knows her safe signal.
Root doubles up the belt in her hand as she approaches the bed. Shaw is still now, her eyes fixed on Root’s with much the same look Root remembers seeing the very first time they met. The thought makes Root buck her hips, and she lets herself enjoy the memory in a way she usually doesn’t allow herself: the taser against Shaw’s neck, the hiss of the heating iron, the thrill of ripping open Shaw’s carefully put-together outfit. Root taps her palm with the belt, staring down at Shaw. She’s never been so turned on by the concept of possibility.
It occurs to Root that she can speak if she wants. She can do all sorts of things, if she wants. “Look at you,” she says, running the belt over Shaw’s breasts, teasing her nipples with the leather. “Lying here, at my mercy.” She’s trying for glee, but it comes out more like reverence. She slaps Shaw’s left nipple with the doubled-over belt. “And you know what, Sameen? Tonight I’m not feeling very merciful.”
Shaw says something through the gag that sounds like it could be fuck you. Root hopes it is. She raises the belt and taps Shaw’s other nipple a couple of times, warming up, before she brings it down hard. She grins in what is now a lot less reverence and more pure sadism, and Shaw stares back in overjoyed insubordination.
Root gives the rest of Shaw’s tits the same treatment, returning again and again to her nipples until they are hard and reddened and until brushing against them lightly elicits a growl from Shaw. Root bends down, then, and lathes them with her tongue, then hits each now-wet nipple once more. Then, she climbs on the bed and settles between Shaw’s legs, reaching for the bag she found in the closet of whatever family’s apartment the Machine is probably regretting having directed her to for the night.
Root dumps the clothespins from the bag onto the bed and picks one up. She pinches it between her fingers and grins at Shaw. She’s going for menacing, but Shaw laughs, more affectionately than defiantly, and for a moment Root’s worried the spell will be broken, but then she laughs too, and then slaps Shaw’s cunt hard until Shaw’s laughter fades into a moan.
Shaw is soaking wet, even more so than usual. Root takes the clothespin and clips it onto one of Shaw’s labia, and Shaw’s hips rise up to meet her hand, forgetting for a moment that she wants to fight.
The Machine buzzes in Root’s ear, listing statistics. “Don’t worry,” says Root, “I’ll just throw these out. I’ll buy them new ones, just tell me where they shop.” The Machine seems satisfied with this answer, or at least she falls silent once again, and Root grabs a second clothespin and gives Shaw’s other labia the same treatment.
Root clips three more clothespins to each of Shaw’s labia, then clips one to her clit, which does make Shaw twist away. Root watches her hand for a moment for the three tap pattern of their safe signal but Shaw does nothing, so Root lets herself fill up with the heady excitement she feels at Shaw’s moment of helpless protest.
Root grabs the belt once again and taps at Shaw’s right thigh before delivering three hard, precise blows to the same spot. Shaw’s skin doesn’t mark dramatically, but Root can see the slight reddening of the spot regardless, and she runs her nails over it before repeating the pattern on Shaw’s other thigh. She alternates, moving from three consecutive blows in the same place to six, painting a row of stripes up Shaw’s inner thighs to the bobbing clothespins attached to her quivering cunt.
Root always liked this part of torturing people--likes, who is she kidding, she’s lying to herself if she thinks that part of her is only past tense. She always likes the part where you just let loose, the bit before you have to stop to re-issue you demands and give your victim some time for reflection. It’s not that you lose yourself in it, because you should never do that, even though sometimes it’s hard to stop yourself from just one moment of pure violence, although she will in this case, of course. It’s more like the feeling of stepping over some kind of line of agreed-upon human conduct, and Root is pleased to learn she can have this feeling in a way the other person will enjoy as well.
Shaw is panting beneath her, flushed with sweat and arousal and the marks of Root’s borrowed belt. Root reaches between her legs and begins touching herself, because why shouldn’t she? Shaw’s eyes follow Root’s hand as she circles her clit. Root, on the other hand, lets her eyes wander over Shaw’s bound and struggling body.
Root brings the belt up between Shaw’s legs as she continues touching herself, and taps Shaw’s cunt with the leather. She’ll have to replace the belt too, now, or maybe the Machine will calculate that the owners of the house aren’t likely to miss it, or anyway to pin its disappearance on a mysterious home intruder. Root hopes for the latter. She rubs herself, still lightly but increasing in speed, as she bring the belt down on Shaw’s slit, catching Shaw’s clothespin-pinched clit with the belt’s tip as it falls.
Shaw’s wide-eyed growl as the belt makes contact with her sensitive flesh pushes Root over the edge, and she taps Shaw’s invitingly defenceless cunt with the belt a few more times as she rides out her orgasm, coming twice in quick succession at the way Shaw’s body twists under the torment.
Root tosses the belt aside and replaces it with her fingers, spreading Shaw’s wetness up to her clamped clit and back to her opening. She slides one finger slowly inside, then pulls back, wiping it on one of the welts that is beginning to emerge on Shaw’s leg.
Root shakes her head exaggeratedly, then brings her finger back to her own cunt, pressing more lightly than before. She puts on more of a show this time, arching her back and running her free hand over her breasts as she rubs her clit.
“Fuck you,” says Shaw, finally managing to dislodge the panties from her mouth. They fall to her chest, a wet lump of black cotton.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, sweetie,” says Root.
Shaw rolls her eyes, and Root reaches for Shaw’s nipple, twisting it hard between her fingers and coming once again at Shaw’s clear excitement ramping up each second that the pain lasts. When she finishes, she gives Shaw her finger to lick.
She probably should have expected that Shaw would bite it.
Root yanks her finger out of Shaw’s mouth and both of them bare their teeth in smiles that are more aggression than anything. Root moves her hand back to Shaw’s cunt and slips three fingers in without preamble, Shaw’s wet heat soothing the bite. She fucks Shaw fast and hard, adding a fourth finger as she moves her other hand to twist and flick at the clothespins still decorating Shaw’s cunt.
Shaw’s just moaning now, wordless, making sounds that could mean pain or pleasure and probably mean both. Her hips rising to meet Root’s breakneck rhythm assure Root of Shaw’s continued enjoyment, and as Shaw’s moans rise in pitch to become more like whimpers, Root begins pulling off the clothespins.
If she were feeling nice, Root would open up each pin before easing it off Shaw’s tender flesh. But she’s not feeling nice, and just as importantly, Shaw doesn’t want her nice, not right now. Root yanks each pin off roughly, catching strands of Sameen’s pubic hair as she goes. Last off is the clothespin on Shaw’s clit, and at that one’s removal Shaw twists and jerks wildly. Root puts a firm had on her stomach, forcing her back down.
Root replaces the clothespin with her thumb, finally rubbing Shaw’s clit as she fucks her. Shaw’s muscles are clenching down on Root’s fingers, and Root leans down and bites Shaw’s left breast, digging her teeth in as Shaw comes on Root’s hand. Shaw’s head rolls back, her body stiffens, and she seems to come forever, jerking against her bonds as though prolonging her orgasm through some reminder of her captivity.
Root can’t keep the reverence off of her face now. She withdraws her hand slowly and sits back on her heels. Shaw’s body twists like the moment after an electric shock. Root isn’t sure how long she watches.
Finally, Shaw opens her eyes. Root smiles. “Water?” Shaw nods. Root gets up, unsteady on her feet. She looks out the window. It’s darker than when they began.