Black Cat Security by Katerina Ross (1)

BLACK CAT SECURITY

 

 

Katerina Ross

 

Copyright © 2018

 

 

“There’s a curse on you.”

Her voice startled Dragomir out of his grim reverie. At this very moment, he’d been deciding between getting hopelessly drunk or moderately drunk. He liked the first option better, but his finances weren’t exactly blooming.

“Yeah, thanks, I know,” he muttered in Czech, suppressing a vicious desire to snap and say something rude. Of course he fucking knew.

The girl lingered beside him by the bar counter. A petite brunette with a gaze surprisingly sharp for such a nice face. High heels, but no make-up. Casually dressed, certainly not for picking up strangers in a bar, more like for relaxing with friends on a Friday evening. Normally, she would be a type to interest him, but he was far from normal now. He wished she would go away already, turned off by his surly, indifferent countenance.

“Is it easier for you to speak Latin?” she asked instead, tilting her head curiously.

Yes, his Czech wasn’t ideal, and it became clear just from a single short phrase. Those who said all Slavic languages sounded the same should have tried learning them instead of simply listening. But nothing indicated he knew Latin at all. It was international, but mostly for scholars and well-educated people. He didn’t look like one of them, and he knew it perfectly well. Nor did anything in his appearance betray his former occupation. He seemed more of a rough and rowdy biker type, clad in an old leather jacket, jeans, and heavy, thick-soled boots.

“How do you know?” he asked, curious, though he hadn’t been in the mood for a nice friendly chat. He rarely was nowadays.

“It’s a complex curse, very intricate, very skillfully done,” she said, like she marveled at it. “You must have been an important person for someone to put this spell on you. Also, I see there have been attempts to remove it. Unsuccessful but insistent. Only very strong mages would even try to do it, and only in a joint effort. Why would they care? My guess is you were one of them.”

“Not anymore.”

He emptied the contents of his glass in one large gulp. Uh. Nasty stuff.

“Are you a witch or a mage?” he asked and waved to the bartender to get a refill.

He wondered how other magicians saw his curse, invisible for common people. As a sigil burnt into the flesh of his shoulder where the wicked hand had touched him? Was it all the more ugly, scarred and disfigured, because of the messy endeavors to get rid of it? He decided he didn’t really want to know.

“Just a witch, nothing high class,” the girl said with a small smile as she watched the bartender pouring more slivovice into Dragomir’s glass. “A bit of fortunetelling, a bit of herbal potion-making, a bit of coaching. I keep a small family business. Want to see my license?” she suggested almost playfully.

“Nope,” Dragomir said briskly and took another sip from his glass.

Unlike her, he’d been a magician, having finished the famous Scholomance school in the Carpathians. Also unlike her, he had no license at the moment and didn’t intend to apply for one.

“Does alcohol reduce the effect of the curse to some degree?” she asked, not flirtingly this time, but with what seemed like genuine sympathy.

“Nope.”

More importantly, alcohol reduced him to nothingness. Numbed him. But not enough. Not yet.

He already regretted starting a conversation, annoyance building up slowly but steadily. Why would she ask? Why would she care?

“I’m Ida, by the way,” the witch said, as if she hadn’t noticed his obvious displeasure. Or maybe she didn’t want to notice. Stupid, stupid girl.

Mild irritation was starting to evolve into anger, both at her for being so amiably intrusive and at himself for wishing it could lead to something. He willed himself not to look at her, not to answer. It would only be worse. It would end up badly, just like it had the last time.

He hadn’t been with a woman for quite a while, and it took him all his resolve to feign indifference.

“Nobody will be able to take off your curse, except for the one who made it,” she said as if he wasn’t well aware of it. But then she added, “Maybe I could be of some help though.”

Sure. A witch from a seedy bar for tourists and local drunkards would do more than a bunch of highly skilled magicians from the Scholomance school. He would laugh her in the face if he felt like facing her now.

“When you’ll be in the mood, call me,” she said and slipped a business card along the counter, towards him, until it stopped at his glass. A simple white rectangle with her name and address. And a small silhouette of a black cat on top.

After that, thank God for small mercies, she left. He didn’t watch her go, but in a few moments, he heard the squeaky front door opening and closing.

He crumpled her business card in his fist, crushed it like a fucked-up origami, and tossed it to the floor.

Having emptied his glass, he caught his grumpy reflection in the large mirror behind the liquor bottles and automatically reached to smooth his hair. He trimmed it short, out of an old habit, but when it grew just a little, it always stood up in wild spikes and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like almost anything of late.

Behind his back, three men marched to the door. He wouldn’t have paid attention to them if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of a familiar tattoo in the mirror. One of the guys had a studded mallet smashing through a pentagram tattooed on his forearm. Malleus Maleficarum. The hammer of witches. Uh-huh. It didn’t look good, not for the girl who had just left.

Witchbashers, that was who they were.

It had been long since women were allowed to practice magic freely and enter magic schools along with men. It had been even longer since magicians of whatever gender had acquired any problems with state or church authorities for what they did, having settled a mutually satisfying deal centuries ago. But there were always some douchebags who had their own thoughts on the matter, always eager to see evil outside of themselves.

For a moment, Dragomir wavered. Maybe they weren’t after her. Maybe she was long gone.

But then he bounced off his barstool and took after them. He’d had a shitty day. He’d had a shitty week and an equally shitty month. He could temporarily forget about it by getting drunk again … or he could do something else, just as foolish. For a change.

****

It was springtime. Wherever there was a public garden, Prague smelled heavily of bird cherries and apple blossoms. A perfect time to walk under the streetlights with a beloved, hand in hand, and to whisper someone else’s poetry into the pungent air. If you were romantic of course.

Dragomir certainly wasn’t.

He almost missed the three men disappearing into a small side street and walked faster to catch up.

“Don’t be shy, little witch,” he heard as he turned around the corner. “Why not have some fun with us?”

A blank wall to one side, dirty yellow in the light of a distant lantern. Dark windows of some historical building to the other. The narrow alley was an ideal place for an assault. Classic, almost. The girl and the three men blocking her way looked like figures in a picture illustrating the dangers of walking alone at night.

“Hey, guys,” Dragomir said most pleasantly. “I think your attentions are unwanted.”

It was reckless to announce his presence right away, but he didn’t care. It was better than entering a boxing ring to spar, for no rules would apply here and it was fine. Energy rose within him, ready to boil over the top. An eagerness to hurt, to draw blood, to crush bones. He could let it loose without any remorse, finally. An indulgence. A treat.

Predictably, he received an inelegant string of cussing in response. His Czech really wasn’t good, but the general idea was clear enough. He was offered to fuck off and go his own way.

No, I don’t think so, he thought.

Two men moved towards him, intimidating but uncoordinated, while the third one still blocked Ida’s way. Dragomir didn’t wait for the witchbashers to decide what they wanted to do about him. He wasn’t here to avoid trouble or talk them out of it. The first rule of a dirty street brawl—if you are going to fight at all, hit first, and hit hard.

He launched forward and landed a brutal punch to the closest target’s throat, making him gag for breath. A start back, in a deceptive retreat, and then his heavy boot crushed the second’s man kneecap. A howl. This one was out, down on the ground. The advantage of surprise was lost on the third guy, and Dragomir missed a few blows but didn’t even register the pain as he pummeled his adversary, making him stagger back and go into defensive mode.

“Behind you!”

Ida’s cry was a bit too late. The first fighter had recovered surprisingly fast and tried to grab him by the elbows. Dragomir stomped on his foot, viciously, and headbutted him backwards. Something crunched, and it got him free, but he failed to block a nasty jab to his solar plexus from the man in front of him. Pain exploded there. He missed one more punch, struggling to breathe, and it made him do what he didn’t intend to, what he’d sworn not to. Out of pure survival instinct, he put all the rage that wanted to be unbound into a single hit, and it knocked his enemy off like a blast, literally, and sent him flying against the nearest wall. He crashed hard against it and slumped to the ground like a broken doll.

It was over fast, like a car wreck. All three men were down now. Dealt with.

The uncontrolled surge of energy concussed Dragomir as well, but not too badly. Staggering on his feet, drained, emptied, he told himself it had been a dirty fight anyway. How much dirty was too much?

He turned to Ida, wiping blood from a split eyebrow. The girl just stood there all the time, watching them!

“Why the fuck didn’t you run?” he growled at her, his voice menacingly glottal. He knew he looked terrible. He knew he sounded even worse.

“It was interesting to watch you,” she said, surprisingly calm. “Besides, I wanted to thank you afterwards. By the way, Prague isn’t usually dangerous. Don’t get the wrong impression. These are random scum.”

She waved dismissively at the three beaten up thugs. One of them was unconscious, and the other two were writhing on the cobblestones in different stages of agony, temporarily rendered unfit for combat. They had been lucky Dragomir didn’t have a switchblade on him, but not too lucky.

He could kick them now as long as he liked, break more bones, make them cry and beg. He wanted to.

“I wonder why you didn’t used a spell or two right from the start,” Ida continued, snapping him back from a bloodthirsty dream. “You obviously could, but chose not to until it was unavoidable. I’m intrigued.”

She talked to him like he wasn’t a danger himself. Like they could continue chatting. And maybe walk away together, her arm slung around his.

She was so close. She smelled of roses and leather.

“Don’t go near me,” he said huskily.

He felt like a cannon that had just fired, all grimy and burnt-out inside, but ready for another shot, for someone else to destroy.

He took a step back, then another, and then he turned and walked away fast like a coward he was.

But being a coward sometimes wasn’t the worst option.

****

That night, he lay awake on his rickety cot, dismally sober. The window was open, and a draught crept into the small attic room. A dog tag pendant with an amulet of St. Cyprian, the patron of sorcerers, felt cool on Dragomir’s skin. Wearing it now, a bitter reminder of what he had been once, was utterly ridiculous, but he wore it still.

Naked over the crumpled, slightly stale sheets, he touched himself, slid a hand down the trail of hair on his chest and abdomen. He needed a distraction. What distraction could he have if not alcohol?

He palmed his cock, coaxing it to stiffness. Maybe the little witch wouldn’t have been against it if he’d taken her right there and then, as his victory prize. She had flirted with him. She had continued to flirt after she had watched him beating the three men in front of her. She had seen him sinking into the frenzy of fighting and liked it.

So. If he stayed…

…he would cross the distance between them in one rapid lurch and pin her against a wall, roughly. She would gasp, half in surprise, half in terror.

His cock twitched and hardened, and he stroked himself, his eyes closed.

Oh yes, she would be frightened now, like she should have been. He would grind his hips against her, so she would feel his erection, a bulge still trapped in his jeans. She would tremble, pressed to the wall, unable to break free, knowing he’d take her and nothing could stop him—certainly not her hitching whisper, “D-don’t. Please.”

His grin would certainly scare her even more. He wouldn’t be in the mood for talking. Or for gentleness either.

His pace picked up. Each time his hand ran up the length of his cock, he thumbed the head before sliding back down, smearing pre-cum generously along the shaft.

He would squeeze her ass with a feral groan, eager to get into her jeans…

Oh wait. It was a fantasy, so she could wear anything he wanted.

A skirt then. He would rummage his way under it and yank her panties down.

“Please stop it,” she would beg. Like hell he would. She had been teasing him, luring him.

His hand over her mouth. “Shut up, witch.”

A stifled scream into his palm as he…

No.

No, no, no.

He didn’t want it like this.

He didn’t. He couldn’t.

Oh hell.

Dragomir slammed his fist into the wall, hard, and did it three times more, and breathed through the pain and anger and self-loathing that filled him.

Muffled shouting came from the apartment next to his, an elaborate framework of curses around a justified question why the heck someone would bang nails into a wall this late.

Dragomir pressed his bloodied knuckles to his mouth and laughed unhappily. Why indeed. His erection had wilted, and a damp sheen on his body felt unpleasantly cold.

How could have he turned into a man who’d want such a thing, nothing better than the witchbashers he’d fought tonight?

It was unfair. All of this was so much unfair.

He never had nightmares about what had happened to him, but he often played it all out in his head when he was awake. The same scene, the same words, over and over, on repeat.

…His body was a mess, all broken and battered, but he was still conscious, and it was the worst. He knew he’d been betrayed. He knew he would most likely die, and soon.

He tried to prop himself up, desperate to know what had happened to his teammates and wishing to see one of them dead—for some reason it still seemed to be important—but the movement sent a bolt of pain through him, lances of fire shooting in all directions, and he sank back with a stifled cry. A moment to recover—and he made another attempt, but with the same results.

A young man crouched beside him as he lay there, helpless and pathetically weak.

“Oh, you’re a stubborn type,” he said with a gleam of approval in his eyes. “That’s exactly what I need. Go back to Scholomance. Go and tell your masters I don’t work for them anymore. Tell it with all the anger I feel for them. For you to deliver my message properly, I think I’ll give you this.”

He touched Dragomir’s shoulder, pressed a palm onto it, and something happened. It felt as if tendrils of lava burrowed into Dragomir’s skin, forming an ornament underneath it. It hurt, it hurt, even worse than before, and the young man was smiling like he was pleased with his work. He was fucking smiling!

Dragomir wanted to snarl at him, desperately, hate welling up like scorching hot, boiling water, but only a barely audible growl escaped his lips.

It earned him a laugh. “That’s a good boy. It’s exactly what you need to be for me, an angel of wrath. Did you know the word angel actually means a messenger?”

****

The fight he’d had the other night had left him with unpleasant consequences. His ribs were still sore, and other small aches were evenly spread here and there, slight sprains and bruises. Nothing major, nothing life-threatening, but it was obnoxious nevertheless.

Also, punching the wall out of sheer frustration hadn’t been his brightest idea.

Especially because he was to participate in one more fight tonight, and this time he was paid for it. He had to make a living somehow, and as it had turned out, he wasn’t good around people in his current state of mind. Mingling with them was torturous, even for the sake of money. Hurting them was another matter altogether. That he could do, and all the better if they wanted to reciprocate. It was only fair.

The match was set up in a building that looked like an abandoned brick storehouse littered with amateurish graffiti. Inside, it wasn’t much better, but it was more like a gym, with locker rooms, a poor selection of fitness equipment, and a boxing ring. During daytime, local jocks came here to train and spar. In the evenings, the public was more varied, and the interior underwent some changes. Tables were put around the ring where refined guests could sit and dine while watching bare-knuckle boxers beating each other to a pulp. There was buzz that the events were hosted by one of Prague’s hottest restaurant groups. Sometimes Dragomir felt like the fighters, him included, were the main course, steaks to be pounded properly for the guests’ enjoyment.

But it was better than poorly organized matches in empty parking lots, with jeering, bloodthirsty spectators crowding the traffic barricades that served as the boundary of a ring. Dragomir had started like that and found his present situation to be preferable at least because there was an actual doctor on the premises to patch people up after the bouts. It was a luxury.

The owner of the establishment, scrawny, dark, and fast-eyed, always in a suit, but with a loose tie, was said to be a gypsy. He spoke such a mess of Latin, Czech, and German that it was hard to trace his true origins. Fighters were a motley crew, too. Dragomir’s current adversary was a power puncher from Regensburg, a burly guy tattooed all over, all bulging muscles and self-confidence.

In a dingy locker room, Dragomir did a bit of shadowboxing to warm up, listening to the murmurs of the crowd through the thin wall. He still felt sore, but anticipation started to build up, heat rising. He was going to nail the bastard.

He didn’t have anything against his opponent, personally, but psyching himself up was easy. Aggression came effortlessly and predictably like a tide. The problem was not to drown in it completely. Dragomir had a suspicion the host wouldn’t mind if some night a fight would end with an enhanced punch—there were no rules after all, except for not hitting those who went down, so no one said using magic was forbidden. The public would be excited. But Dragomir would rather refrain from it. Even with no regulations to obey, there had to be some fairness. Besides, he had a small unpleasant fear deep down in his gut that he might not be able to control what he would let loose. Magic was a burst of energy, and he could accidentally drain himself, incapable to stop, and it would kill him as well as people who’d happen to be around.

Back in Scholomance, he’d been an enforcer, of a sort. Other magicians—more talented, more capable—commanded him and used his power, directed it. He’d been fine with it. He’d been a good soldier. But when something dark had been implanted into him, a sigil of constant anger, he’d become an uncontrollable liability. It had turned out to be easier to cast him out than to fix him.

His powers had stayed with him and he could probably get a license to work as a mage on his own, but what exactly would he do? All the energy he had at his disposal was highly aggressive now, aimed at destruction. He could easily master making deadly curses, illegally or maybe even quite lawfully, for the military. But it felt unjust, harming people when they couldn’t respond. Fighting in a boxing ring was better. And it kept the fury in him sated.

Fights usually left him feeling emptied, but it was good. He spent a few days in a numbed if not completely peaceful state, and when an urge to tear at somebody or something started to grow inside of him again, there was always another match. His life was spinning dumbly in a circle, round and round and round. Fuck.

Dragomir’s fist stopped too close to hitting a wall once more. Yeah, just great. It would be so wise to ruin his knuckles right before he was called to the ring. He wished they would begin already. He couldn’t hold himself back much longer.

When he finally entered the gym transformed into a posh garage style venue, he was practically bursting with the need to land a punch at something less unyielding than bricks. No boxing gloves for him or his adversary, just hand-wraps. They both were encouraged to draw blood. Guests liked it—tuxedoed men, women in designer dresses.

He saw two visitors in classy black suits approaching his rival, formally to wish him good luck, but in truth, just to take a closer look at him and his fascinating tattoos. When they walked away and thought he wouldn’t hear, Dragomir caught them laughing quietly, “What a Neanderthal.”

He might have wished to beat the guy, but these two he would have pummeled more eagerly. Unfortunately, no one would pay for that.

A brass bell clanged, and the fight began. Dragomir’s adversary roared, working the crowd, and launched at him viciously, skipping the usual courtesy of exchanging cautious blows and testing each other at first. A damn show-off. Dragomir knew he had to move a lot to avoid heavy punches that might knock him out, so he tried to dance around, waiting for an opportunity to strike fast and hard. The goal was to tire the man out and then attack. But this strategy didn’t seem to work. The guy was too much of an aggressive swarmer. Dragomir had no time to think, to probe at his defenses. All he could do was to duck and dive out of reach and fire back now and then, hoping he wouldn’t be the first one to get tired. The only good thing was that it made him more and more wound up.

His array of dirty combat tricks was becoming impressively varied, but to be honest, it was just an inelegant mash-up of fighting styles. It got him by, but he knew he wasn’t a pro. Yet he had something to counterbalance his more skilled and experienced opponents. Searing hot, blinding rage.

They called him a berserk. The difference was, berserks went into a raging mode of their own volition during battles while he used what was inside him all the time. He just needed to open up and let it show.

He took a glancing blow to his ribs, a painful reminder of the last night’s brawl, and plunged forward with a growl to take away his rival’s punching space. A few short-arm jabs … and the round was over.

In the course of the next one, Dragomir started reckless counterattacks, even though they meant he was to turn himself into a punching bag. He could take it; he just needed to watch for a slightest mistake on the enemy’s part while being hit at. Dragomir managed to land two satisfying shots to his opponent’s jaw, but carelessly opened up for a nasty uppercut. He nearly fell and had to draw back, trying not to show it took the wind out of him.

“Hit him in the pussy!” someone yelled, though it was hard to tell whom the drunk enthusiast addressed. Asshole.

Dragomir’s next combo was better. A jab to the head, then a right cross as a diversion, then a left hook to the body—just a teensy bit miscalculated, but certainly painful nevertheless.

The public roared, and he was misfortunate to catch a glimpse of it: contorted features, clenched fists, all finesse gone. And there was a familiar face among it all, with a calm and only slightly interested expression.

It was her. The witch.

A moment’s lapse in concentration brought him a well-deserved punishment—the mean bastard went for his already split eyebrow. Dragomir stumbled backwards, snarled like a dog, and answered with a series of fast, hard punches. He could feel blood dripping down the side of his face from the reopened cut.

The advantage he had earned himself was lost and his vision blurred, but he wasn’t going to give in. Keep fighting, damn, keep fighting, you still can…

A well-placed body shot, a mean hook to the liver, sent him to the ground. He stubbornly tried to clamber up to his feet, writhing most unattractively on the canvas. But paralyzing pain kept him down, though he was still conscious and willing to fight. Bugger. Someone in the crowd inquired loudly if he was faking.

For a moment, it was an agonizingly vivid déjà vu, him unable to move, to break through the restraints of pain, and another man looming over him…

Then the fight referee stepped in. And the show was over, at least for Dragomir Vucović.

****

Losing was always unpleasant, but for some reason, losing in front of her was even worse. Was it a coincidence she had come here? If so, had she recognized him? He hoped not. It was humiliating, to go down in the second round.

After having had his eyebrow stitched, Dragomir showered in a tiny cubicle, still slightly dizzy and very glad he was alone in the locker room. His opponent was probably taking congratulations this very moment. There would be people gathering around him. As for the loser, he could only expect a few jeers when he’d walk out. Maybe a drunk or two would try to goad him into a fight at the parking lot. Dragomir would try to avoid it, not much for the sake of his sore ribs, but because the owner of the venue would be extremely displeased if one of the guests got hurt, no matter what an idiot he was. Dragomir didn’t want to be banned from the next fights.

Water came bloody when he splashed it into his face, and his red and abraded knuckles hurt. He tried not to move much, just stood under the spray. Every wrong turn reminded him of his mistakes.

When he toweled off, carefully patted dry his sore hands, and went out, the locker room was still empty … except for one visitor.

Ida.

She was wearing a dark green dress with a fitted waist and a flared A-line skirt this time, and high heels. Her dark hair was coiled and pinned into an elaborate coiffure.

“It’s actually a men’s locker room,” he said dumbly.

He felt very self-conscious, standing there with only a towel around his hips, and very annoyed with himself for that.

“I know,” she said with a smile, like she was amused at his discomfort. “I tipped a bouncer so he wouldn’t let anyone else in for a while. I thought you’d win. You’ve dealt with three men so easily. Just one should have been a child’s play to defeat.”

“How did you find me?” Dragomir asked, ignoring her attempt at teasing. She clearly enjoyed rubbing salt into his wounded pride.

And the thought of her rubbing something had been most certainly an unfortunate one.

“I put a tracking spell on a sleeve of your jacket,” she admitted smugly, and her cheeky confession distracted him from inappropriate images before his mind’s eye.

So yes, not a coincidence. She had been looking for him. But a tracking spell, for God’s sake?

“Do you know it’s kind of illegal, like using spying software?”

“No more than the fights you take part in,” she retorted nonchalantly. “Or using magic in a street brawl to concuss your opponent, even in self-defense.”

“Why did you find me?”

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you properly. Besides, maybe I have a weakness for bad boys.”

“Hasn’t your mother told you bad boys might be dangerous?”

She tilted her head. “What if I don’t mind danger from time to time?”

“I’m always dangerous,” he said heavily. “I can’t turn it on and off, you know.”

“Maybe I could,” she said, her voice ingratiatingly soft.

That was what she had told him that first night. Maybe I could be of some help.

A clearly false promise made him wince like a poke into a bruise would. “Nah, it won’t work.”

She didn’t seem to be spooked off by his dismissive tone. “Why don’t you get dressed and tell me more about your curse? And then we’ll see.”

He didn’t move.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you shy of me?”

Fuck no. Or at least he wasn’t going to admit it. Irritated, he tossed the towel away and went for his clothes. He knew she watched him, and his cock gave a treacherous lurch as he put on his briefs.

“Were you cursed during a fight?” she asked.

He nodded, not turning to her.

“How did you feel right before it happened?”

Hurt. Broken. Betrayed.

Frightened.

He was honest enough to admit that yeah, he’d been fucking frightened, but he hated himself for this all the same.

“Helpless,” he said. It very much summed everything up. The memory of lying there, unable to move, to fight back, still made him nauseous.

She hummed pensively.

“Look,” he said. “I’d like to be realistic. Nothing is going to work. They tried to remove it in Scholomance. It was…”

…painful. He told them about the invisible sigil on his shoulder, and they poked and probed at it, struggling to dig it out of him. It felt like they were stubbing up obstinate roots that had spurted deep down into his flesh, cutting them out one after another, but these tentacles grew back into him almost immediately.

They made several attempts. He cried a lot.

“…unsuccessful,” he finished, hoping she hadn’t noticed a slight shift in his voice. He didn’t want her to know how weak he had been, despite all his initial resolve to tough it out like a man. He wanted to still have some dignity, or pretend he had it.

The funny thing was he’d let them torture him for as long as they needed, willingly, but they had given up on him pretty soon.

And what was even funnier if you had a taste for black humor: his fellow magicians must have had other reasons for toying with the sigil rather than simply trying to help him, as he had come to understand much later. Every spell left a trace of the one who had created it, so studying the curse could potentially lead to its author—the young man Dragomir’s team had been sent to capture. And Dragomir’s superiors most certainly had been interested in tracking him down. What was his fault? Dragomir had no idea. No one had cared to share this information with mere enforcers. But clearly, the guy had been pissed at Scholomance, and the feeling had seemed to be very much mutual.

Anyway, Dragomir must have been considered useful for the search, hence all the poking and probing. But all these manipulations with him had proven to be ineffective, and Dragomir had become of no value to Scholomance.

“The only thing they could do in the end was to cast me out. You know how magic schools work. All the magicians share their energy, but mine was poisoned, in a way. I was planted among them like a ticking bomb, sort of, ready to explode any moment, and even I myself couldn’t predict the timing and the consequences. And they cut me off from the congregation, so I would use only my own power when making spells. Fortunately, I don’t have much of it, or I could be a real trouble for everyone.”

“But you avoid casting spells at all.”

Dragomir shrugged. “It’s a risk. They are ugly. They always hurt someone, on purpose or not.”

He wrestled himself into his leather jacket, carelessly fast, and every bruise and sprain he had sustained immediately protested against it.

Ida tapped her manicured nails against her thigh, looking at him contemplatively.

“It’s a tough case, I must admit. But not entirely hopeless. You’re not the first person with PTSD I’ve seen.”

He huffed. “Posttraumatic stress disorder is a different thing from a curse.”

“Not much. Besides, everyone needs an individual treatment anyway.”

“I don’t believe in psychological stuff,” he warned her.

He’d tried reading about anger management. All those breathing exercises, trying to ease tension with humor, sticking with I statements when describing a problem to avoid placing blame or criticizing … blah blah blah. It never helped, and it made him even more frustrated.

The smile she gave him was somewhat sinister. “Oh no. What we’re going to do is very much physical.”

****

And that was how they ended up in a taxi heading for her place, instead of him waiting for a bus under a dim streetlight and returning to his sorry excuse for an apartment all alone.

He was confused about what Ida wanted of him and why she was so determined to help him, so he ventured to ask directly if physical meant sex or what.

“Among other things, if you don’t mind,” she said without any hint of blushing. “Or maybe you don’t want it?”

He couldn’t help a laugh. “Oh, I do. But … accidents happen when I get overwhelmed. I might be rough. Too rough. Or even hit you. Really hurt you. I’d rather not.”

He cringed at the memory. His last attempts to have sex had been a disaster. Fortunately, not of a criminal kind, but who knew what might happen next. Being celibate wasn’t his preference, but a quick wank in the shower seemed to be the safest option at the moment.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that,” Ida promised vaguely.

He was also a bit apprehensive his performance might be not one of his brightest after he’d taken a beating. But it was an even more embarrassing thing to talk about with a girl, so he skipped mentioning about it.

The question why exactly she had decided to find him remained open. Why had she offered to help him in the first place, before he’d defended her against the witchbashers? Was it because she was … um … interested in fucking him, as it had turned out? Or did she want money for her services? He didn’t have much, and his finances were unlikely to improve since he’d lost today, so she might be disappointed. Dragomir pondered if he should warn her. Would it cancel her offer to have sex or not?

He decided to wait and see how it went.

They arrived on a small cobbled street in the so-called Little Quarter, Malá Strana. During the day, it was probably a very picturesque place, with souvenir shops, stucco reliefs along every eave, and brass door handles. But now, with all the stores closed and showcases dark, it looked uncanny.

The front door to the house where Ida lived was framed with plaques advertising practical alchemy courses for beginners, fortunetelling, and other things of the kind. Ida’s neighbors seemed to be peculiar folks. Also, over the entrance, there was a sign of a black cat licking its paw. So that was where the silhouette on Ida’s business card came from.

They went up the steep stairs in silence. As Ida rattled her keys, opening the door, high-pitched barking came from an apartment across the landing where a fortuneteller lived, according to one of the advertisements.

“I don’t like small dogs,” Dragomir muttered, just to say something. “Or big ones, come to think of it.”

“It’s not actually a dog,” Ida said. “It’s a chimera, but the poor stray had spent too much time in an animal shelter before she was adopted, and picked up a few wrong habits. I think she considers herself to be a terrier. At least she’s very loyal.”

Dragomir wasn’t sure he liked chimeras either.

He’d expected Ida’s apartment to be more … witch-like. Maybe not over-spun with cobwebs, but there could be herbs hanging from the ceiling or something. As far as he knew, witches liked showing off, so you would know you came to the right place the moment you entered their abode. Maybe it was a psychological trick, setting the mood for clients.

Ida’s place was nothing like that. Very modern, spotlessly clean, with minimum of furniture, at least in the hallway.

“Leave the jacket here,” Ida ordered. “And take your shoes off. Socks, too.”

He did. The parquet floor felt strangely comfortable against his bare feet as he followed her. Through the door to the right, he caught a glimpse of what looked like an office with a desk and a few filing cabinets, but Ida led him further, into a cozier, if sparsely furnished room, though it also seemed more of a lounge for guests and clients than a lived-in space.

She gestured at a leather couch.

“Sit. I’m not offering you alcohol, for I need you to be absolutely sober, but if you want something else to drink, feel free to ask.”

Dragomir shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Fine then.” She sat opposite, in a leather chair. “Let’s clear some things first.”

During their taxi ride, with small questions now and then, she’d fished out more information about him and his curse than he would have been comfortable to give if he had to tell his entire story in a monologue. Now she knew the basics. Betrayal. Pain. Death, but not for him.

What else would she want to poke into?

“Do you know the difference between magicians and witches?” she asked him rather unexpectedly.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Yep. Everybody knows that.”

Magicians either used only their own energy, which was reckless because everyone’s strength had its limits and there was always the danger of using too much of it, or formed congregations to cast spells with each other’s assistance. Witches and warlocks were people with the sight, so to speak, but devoid of the ability to perform what most people still called miracles.

They could cast small spells, but only with the help of amulets that accumulated energy, charged by someone else, or with the aid of natural forces—the powers of the Earth and its creatures and plants—and sometimes supernatural ones. Such alliances were a rare thing though, because demons were highly unreliable colleagues, even when bound by legal contracts.

On the whole, witches were less efficient and less influential than magicians. But more abundant. Low-class workers.

They could curse, too, if it weren’t against the law. But with them, it was almost always more of a mindfuck trick than any real transformation done to a body.

Ida nodded, as if he’d given her a satisfactory, detailed answer. “Yes, exactly. We heal, we connect, we improve. Tie loose ends. But it’s nothing extraordinary. Most often, it’s mundane work, something a doctor or a psychologist would do, only we see through things much better. Our covens are not like magic schools. We don’t share power. We share knowledge and experience.”

Dragomir huffed. He was becoming moderately annoyed by talking of things seemingly unrelated to his own problems. “Sounds like a perfect propaganda speech. Witches are humans, too, only better.”

As soon as the words slipped out, he wished to take them back. But Ida suddenly giggled, though she should have felt offended, not amused. People didn’t usually give such a reaction when he snapped at them like the rabid dog he was now, and guilt mixed with embarrassment made him even more cross.

“I’m not implying we are better than others,” Ida said, “but nor are magicians. Or people of others professions. What I’m saying is—I’m not going to make your curse disappear. I have no means for that. But those who might … they have already failed. You know the curse stays.”

“You said you would help,” he protested almost accusingly, though not so long ago he’d been sure she couldn’t. He hated this note of betrayed hope in his voice. He should have stuck to pessimism. So far, it hadn’t brought him any disappointments.

“I said so, and I will do what I promised to. But it won’t be about getting rid of your curse. It will be about turning it into your strength.”

The sound he made wasn’t exactly a laugh, but bitter humor was certainly there.

“Strength? Are you kidding me?”

“Do you know an old fairytale about the three sons of a king, young idiots who played a practical joke on an old warlock?” she asked, instead of answering a rhetorical question. “It’s a rather long story, but I want you to listen to it. You’ll find it relevant. It doesn’t even matter what the lads did, but predictably, the warlock reacted very poorly to their jest. He cursed the first one of them that he would become a murderer, never letting a knife out of his hands. He cursed the second one that he would turn into a robber, and by robbery ever live. He cursed the third one that he would be a beggar, and in beggary live and die. After that, three black ravens appeared in the king’s castle. They were to follow the princes everywhere they went until their ill fortune was fulfilled.

“The king was heartbroken, for he loved his idiot boys. All the wise men at the court just shook their heads miserably, unable to do anything about the triple curse, despite the generous reward that was offered to them. But there was a humble, poor man known for his great wisdom who lived in a little hut in a remote corner of the country. Sadness overcame him when he heard of the king’s grief, so he set his feet on the road that led to the royal castle.

“When he knocked at the gates and announced he might be of help, everyone laughed at him, but not the king, who would listen to anyone at this point. ‘I heard your eldest son was cursed to become a murderer,’ the poor man said. ‘Send him to the best school of medicine. If he learns to be a surgeon and a patient dies by his hand, nobody will blame him.’ As he said these words, one of the ugly ravens gave a loud croak, spread its black wings, and flew away. ‘Was your second son cursed to be a robber?’ the man asked. ‘Send him to the best school of law, so he would become a judge and nobody else would judge him.’ After that, the second raven gave a fearsome croak and left, too! ‘As for your youngest son who is to be a beggar,’ the man continued, ‘send him to a seminary, so he would become a priest and live by the means people would give him willingly.’ The last crow made a shrill cry as if it were stabbed with a dagger, and disappeared in an instant. And thus the prophecy was fulfilled, but not in the way the warlock had hoped it would be.”

Dragomir listened more or less patiently, lulled by Ida’s low hypnotic voice. Fortunately, the fairytale was not as long as he feared it could be. Perhaps the definition of long varied.

“Well, it’s all very clever and funny,” he said when Ida was finished. “But what does it have to do with me?”

“There are several ways to deal with your curse. One of them you already know. It’s to burn out the aggression that builds up in you. To fight, to do something violent, something intense. We’ll probably need to increase your physical activity. Do you work out?”

“Not much.”

Sometimes he clobbered a makeshift stack of bald tires in the backyard as it was a much cheaper training option than a punching bag, and he watched tutorials on fighting tricks, but that was it. He’d used to jog, but stopped this winter because it had brought ridiculous amounts of wet snow and it had been no fun splashing through icy slush. He’d never resumed the habit. Why bother? To put up a good fight, he didn’t have to be stronger than he already was.

“Well, it’s to be changed,” Ida declared resolutely. “But it’s only a superficial decision. Even after a most satisfying fight, the effect is always short-lived, until your energy is restored, isn’t it? How long does it last? A few days? Or even less?”

He shrugged, not looking her in the face. Her legs, crossed elegantly, were a good distraction from the unpleasant truth—his numbing post-battle fatigue was never long-term, and his anger resurfaced pretty quickly.

She wore silky dark stockings and ankle strap shoes, vintage pin-up style. Enough to divert a man.

“Besides,” she went on as if his gesture was telling enough and if she didn’t mind him ogling her feet, “while this method works for now, you are injured repeatedly, and what if one day you won’t be able to take part in a boxing match or a street fight? What about the time when you grow old?”

Dragomir shrugged again. He didn’t think much of getting old. He wasn’t sure he would.

He’d been an average magician, not valuable enough for Scholomance to keep him. Now he was a lousy fighter, not entirely hopeless only because of his desperate rage that made him into a wound-up punching machine. He was always a good spectacle. Fury incarnate. But to be honest, he lost too often, so he didn’t have illusions about having a career in boxing, illegal or not. What would he do when he’d be kicked out, most likely after a crippling injury? He had no idea. He didn’t know how to be anything else.

“So let’s dig deeper,” Ida suggested almost cheerfully. “Let’s not only burn off your energy on a daily basis, but try to redirect it. And to do it, we need to know where it is directed now. What triggers your aggression.”

Dragomir laughed huskily, amused enough to look up at her again. “Pretty much anything.”

She canted her head to the side, amused, too. “We’ll see. I’ll tell you of an exercise you’ll need later. Don’t try it now, just remember it. At some point, you’ll have to formulate: what exactly makes you angry this very moment. A person? A situation? What do you hate the most? Put it into words. You don’t have to say them, simply imagine you write these words on a chalkboard. And then … I’ll tell you what’s next in a while. For now, we are to decide how far you’ll go in order to find … well, maybe not a cure, but a helpful medicine.”

“Very far,” he said, and she nodded at him approvingly like his answer was the right one. The only possible choice.

****

A hushed female voice. Soft, ingratiating. Words in Latin. “…and when I say one, you’re going to open your eyes. Five … four … three … two … one.”

When he came to, the first thing he understood: he couldn’t see. A moment of panic—and then another realization: there was a blindfold of some kind over his eyes. He was standing with his arms up above him … and wait, were his hands bound? What the hell? He tried to reach up, rotating his wrists, and clutched at the chains he was hanging from. Yes, fucking chains. And leather handcuffs, buckled very tight. And he couldn’t feel any clothes upon himself, just something around his neck in addition to his dog tag.

Then he remembered. Ida. Her apartment. Talking about his curse. She said they had to negotiate…

And after that—nothing.

He jerked at the chains, hard. And again, and a few times more. They didn’t give. There was some slack, so at least his arms weren’t pulled up too tautly, but he couldn’t break free.

“You must be wondering what happened to you,” Ida said somewhere to his left. “You agreed to an experiment, remember? And here you are. A fine specimen for a very interesting test.”

Her hand touched his chest lightly, out of nowhere, and he jolted at the contact as if she had prodded him with a stun baton.

She chuckled quietly. “So skittish. But it’s understandable. Everyone would be jumpy in your place.” Her hand wandered across his pecs, brushed his nipple, and disappeared. “I’ll let you adjust. Try tugging at the chains again if you want to check whether they will break or not. I allow you. But here’s a spoiler: they won’t. They’re not some rusty old shackles. They are good and new, very sturdy, and secured to an eyehook in the ceiling. There was a large chandelier hanging from it once, so it’s quite reliable. I redecorated the room long ago, but I always thought the hook would come in handy one day. It’s a mild nuisance the handcuffs have to be hanging so high—I’m not that tall. But a bit of hypnosis, and you helped me to restrain you most eagerly.”

What the hell was going on?

As if through a fog, Dragomir remembered saying yes to some kind of experiment and even filling and signing a yes/no negotiation form, but it was a vague memory, distant and dream-like. Everything else—a boxing match, a fight before that—seemed even more surreal.

Ida’s hand slipped along his flank, ticklishly, up to his neck, and tugged at what he realized was a collar.

“And this is to ensure you wouldn’t break free using magic. Quite a special thing. Leather, silver, and a security spell. Meant especially for wayward mages, something of the kind they use in prisons when incarcerating a person with enhanced abilities.” She slipped a finger under the band around his throat, making it too tight, almost choking him. “So you will behave, no matter whether you want it or not. A bad boy will be a good boy for a change.”

“What are you doing?” he rasped out.

“Just making you harmless. Wasn’t it what you wanted, to cause no harm to me?”

Was she mocking him?

He stood there, wearing nothing but a collar, a dog tag, and a blindfold. It was ridiculous. Laughable. Humiliating.

And scary.

Rationally, he knew he probably had nothing to worry about. Or did he? But anyway, all rational thoughts gave way to a primitive bodily reaction—discomfort at being tied up, helpless. It felt like he was itching all over under his skin with uneasiness bordering on unwanted panic, too exposed, deprived of sight. He tried to wriggle his wrists out of the handcuffs instead of jerking at the chains, but to no avail.

“Nope, the handcuffs will hold, too,” Ida warned him. “I checked, and not just once. As I might have said, I do a bit of coaching now and then, but of an unusual kind. I call it expanding boundaries. Experiencing new sensations. It doesn’t normally include sex, but for you, I might make an exception.”

A peck of a kiss between his shoulder blades. Hands running up and down his sides, in a comforting manner, but at the same time, it was unnerving. He tried to twist away from her touch, stubbornly, but she squeezed his hips, adding a hint of nails.

“Sshh, don’t twitch, hold still,” she said, “or I’ll pull up the chains. They say it’s extremely painful to hang from your wrists. Excruciating.”

“Oh yeah?” he managed. “Someone else complained?”

“And very loudly. Good thing this room is soundproof. As I said, it had been redecorated.”

Her arms went ‘round him. She was still clothed, but he could feel her little perky breasts pressing against his back. His cock, already half-hard, immediately went into a very interested mode. It didn’t seem to mind the strangeness of the situation.

Dragomir thought he might reconcile with it, too, when Ida’s palms came to rest on his hipbones, teasingly close to where he wanted them, though he still felt very self-conscious. Down there, he was more on the average side than gigantic, but then again, the definition of long varied. Besides, Ida didn’t seem to dislike him.

“Ever tried anal sex?” she whispered into his neck. Almost an open-mouthed kiss, but not quite.

“Well, yes, once…” he began hoarsely, but then she backed off and her hand skimmed along his spine down to the crease between his buttocks. “Wait—you mean on the receiving end? Hell no!”

“Why so emphatic?” she asked, her index finger probing at his ass crack inquisitively.

“Because I didn’t want to. Stop it. Now.”

He tried to writhe from her touch again, still half-hoping she would listen.

“Hmm. So having anal sex is okay when you’re on top, but suddenly isn’t when you’re the one on the receiving end, as you put it?” she sing-songed, dangerously slow. “Is it about the fear of not being in control? You have a problem then. Because you’re very much not in control now. Don’t you still get it? I can do whatever I wish to you. Whatever pleases me. And you have no say in the matter.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” he muttered, though come of think of it, he knew nothing of her. A nice girl in vintage pin-up shoes could turn out to be a not-so-nice mass murderer. He couldn’t even see if she had or hadn’t an array of knives and bone saws laid out next to him.

“Maybe not quite afraid. Yet,” Ida said, not reassuringly at all. “But certainly apprehensive. You should have seen yourself sitting on that couch. All tense, arms crossed, head down… Such a posture might look aggressive, but it’s defensive-aggressive. You see the whole world as potentially unsafe, full of threats.”

Dragomir sighed. At least they were back to shrink-talking instead of discussing him being a bad boy.  “Well yes, it is unsafe. Paranoia is actually a helpful survival instinct. Maybe I’m not paranoid enough though if I ended up like this.”

If he’d thought of his own safety instead of blindly following someone else’s orders, maybe things would have turned different for him. But it had been easier, following orders. It felt lonely now, caring for himself instead. But it was probably better.

“You want to take control, in an aggressive way, because you had been stripped of it,” Ida said almost sympathetically. “There are two ways to handle it. The first is to get your control back by force, violently, just to prove you can. That’s what you’ve been doing so far. But it’s never back for good. The other way is to give in and let your control be taken without struggle.”

He scowled, not getting what she was up to. “Why would I want to do that?”

“To see what might happen next. Will it be as bad again as you imagine? Or could it be something else entirely?”

The last time, it had brought him nothing but trouble. He suspected this time would be no different.

“It’s not my idea of a pleasantly spent evening. Will you unbind me?” he suggested. As they were back to being reasonable, maybe she would.

No such luck.

“You’ve been much more cooperative under hypnosis,” she chided him. “Yet less fun, I must admit. So I’m not going to hypnotize you again. Instead, I’ll show you the consequences of contradicting me.”

****

The first blow didn’t actually feel like a blow. Just a dull smack across the meaty part of his ass, right in the middle. Something flat and hard, applied with not too much force. Not enough to hurt. But of course he wasn’t going to tell Ida.

“It’s just a warm-up, in case you’re wondering,” she said as if reading his thoughts. “First a paddle, and then we’ll see how it goes.”

The next swing came a bit harder, across his right buttock, and she kept going steadily, alternating sides, until it became not a warm-up at all. Dragomir counted in his mind at first, for no reason, but the tenth stroke landed forceful enough to rock him forward and draw an unwanted stifled grunt out of him … and then concentrating on numbers became rather difficult.

He’d been through worse. Hell, tonight’s punch to the liver had been more painful, definitely. But it wasn’t only the pain itself. He didn’t know how long it would last. He couldn’t understand why this was happening, if not just for Ida’s sadistic entertainment, and if so, why would she stop until he was bruised raw, just a sack of beaten up meat? Why would she stop after that? Jumbled thoughts were racing through his head, each smack making them more and more panicked.

Eighteen? Or was it twenty already? One more burning-hot imprint on his flesh… And one more…

When she finally stopped, he was biting into his bicep to stop himself from making undignified sounds. Should he beg her to stop? Was it what she wanted, to humiliate him? Vaguely, he considered the idea.

“A breather,” she said. “I have to let my arm rest. But don’t worry, we’ll continue soon. I want to check if I can make you cry out loud. Don’t be shy, be vocal all you want. You have a perfect voice for groaning and cursing.”

No, he thought. Begging wouldn’t work. Why would she release him at all and risk a violent outburst? Cold crept down his spine, a contrast to the shameful burning in his ass.

“While we both take a break, you have a short time to decide: what makes you most angry now? This very moment? Do it fast because when I resume, coherent thinking might become a problem, believe me.”

And yes, there was nothing left for him but to think, as he was powerless now to do anything else. He’d been a fool hoping anybody would want to help him. Everyone had their own reasons to mess with him the way they wanted, and he always caught up too damn late.

“So what is it? What do you hate?” Ida inquired. Was she done resting?

“You,” he snarled. “Any doubts about it?”

“Actually, yes. I suspect you haven’t tried hard enough to find an answer. Next time do better.”

Next time?

“Meanwhile, I think we should pay attention to your back and legs, not just your ass, however pleasing it might be to see it practically glowing. It’s scarlet now, a very becoming color.” Ida gave him a light slap with her bare hand, and he almost yelped. “I guess I’ll have to change the implement.” Her voice migrated farther away. “I need something more flexible. Hmm. Maybe this.” A sound like she was testing something against her hand, an unpleasantly loud crack. “Oh yes, it will do just fine.”

It was something like a leather strap, more flexible indeed, and thinner than the paddle. When it landed across his shoulders, he thought it wasn’t too bad. He could tough through this without making any sounds at all, but like the first time, it turned out to be just a warm-up. By the fifth blow he bit through his lip. Fuck. Fuck. Damn her, he wasn’t going to show how wrecked he already was, no matter what she wanted from him.

With the taste of blood in his mouth and rage boiling through him, he managed to stay quiet for a while as measured, precise snaps rained down his body. Cutting bites instead of dull thuds. Ida avoided his lower back—maybe saving the pleasure of hitting his kidneys for later?—but before a funny thought of being grateful for small mercies formed in his mind, a searing stripe crossed the punished flesh of his buttocks, and he choked on a full-voice howl. Nope, no mercies for him.

Ida blistered his thighs, just as meticulously, and the back of his calves, and when he decided the ordeal was finally over, at least for a short while, the strap went up again. Oh God. He found himself whimpering through gritted teeth, fingers clenched convulsively around the chains that held him. He always shattered sooner or later, didn’t he, like when they methodically dissected him in Scholomance.

Maybe it would be better if he were what others thought of him. A message. A tracking device. A punching machine. Not a human being. But he was hurt flesh and raw nerves, and it made him so appallingly weak. So disgusting.

So very much not in control, as the damn witch said.

“Now one more break,” Ida announced, a little breathy herself, after having delivered the final wallop to the tender crease where the backside met his thighs. “Once again, think carefully, what makes you angry?”

The sound of her heels against the wooden floor. She hadn’t gone far, but he had no idea where she was, what she was doing, what implement she might choose next. Fear and panic melted into his anger like wax, and died there in agony, and he felt nothing now but all-consuming hatred.

He’d always been such an idiot. Unable to defend himself when it mattered the most and losing himself in meaningless fights when it didn’t change anything. Not strong enough. Not smart enough.

Face pressed into his upturned arm, he breathed hard, enveloped in this hate. Not for Ida, not for Scholomance, not for the mage whose name he never knew.

“Done with your homework?” Ida’s voice nudged him. “So what would you write on that imaginary chalkboard? What are you angry at? Who are you angry at?”

Myself.

Maybe he said it out loud.

And it was more painful than a beating, this wave of self-loathing that rose like acid bile within him. He was disposable trash, always had been, and no one would miss him if he disappeared. And honestly, it was unsurprising. He couldn’t fathom why anybody should.

A hand suddenly came to rest on his nape, cool and delicate. “My, my. So I guessed right. I thought I’d have to push harder to dig it out, but it’s never far down from the surface, this feeling, is it?”

His breaths came out shaky like silent sobs, and he knew it degraded him most pathetically, but at some point, he must have stopped caring. What did it matter? Hot, angry tears were wetting his cheeks, escaping from the sides of the blindfold, and he couldn’t do anything about it. The pain radiated through him, and the gentle hand carding through his hair felt just as surreal as anything else.

For a few strange moments, Dragomir seemed to have forgotten it was the same hand that had hurt him. And would probably hurt him again, in even worse ways.

“Hush now.” Ida’s voice came like a peaceful tidal wave. “It’s almost over. I’m sorry I had to disorient you, but strong men like yourself don’t open up easily.”

A laugh came out like another muffled sob. Strong? Was she mocking him again?

“Seriously, you should have seen yourself muscling through pain,” she said almost fondly, not stopping to pet him. “It was a gorgeous sight, believe me. A captive warrior. A tortured rebel. Though our session had a practical purpose, it was most pleasing in itself, from an aesthetic point of view.”

She confessed she’d disoriented him. And yeah, he felt fuzzy and clueless, with only the flames of his anger holding him up, as if there were a furnace inside of him to feed a barely working—but still working—mechanism of his battered body with sizzling-hot steam.

“Everyone breaks eventually,” Ida told him in a patronizing tone, but not without puzzling kindness, or maybe even affection. “Everyone does, but you never stop fighting, even when you are broken. When you are bound and hurt. You’re so stubborn … fierce … unconquered… It’s fascinating. I think you deserve a reward for being so tough.”

Her hands slid down his tense arms, outlining the bulging muscles, and this time he didn’t even try to back off. He knew he couldn’t. Ida carded her fingers through his thick chest hair, down to the belly, and lower, to the tuft of his pubes. Ran a nail along the length of his cock, circled its tip.

“This kind of reward, as you might have guessed.”

The stirring of arousal could have been embarrassing, but Ida squeezed his sore ass with both hands, kneaded it none too gently before palming his cock again—and aligned with pain, it became just another physical sensation. Something devoid of meaning. Dragomir felt his heart thump, his lungs work, his welts burn, and his cock respond to Ida’s touch, all at once. Inside of him, there was hate and rage and need, all mixed together, too. He couldn’t separate them. He didn’t know anymore if he should.

Ida’s skirt kept brushing against his thigh as she coaxed an erection out of him, smearing the first profuse drops of his pre-cum all over the straining shaft.

“Remember what you wrote on that imaginary chalkboard?” she asked in a hushed voice, her mouth so close to his collarbone he could feel her warm breath. “Look at it once again. Look closely. Do you see it? Now feel all the anger it stirs in you, all the hatred… Feel that sensation pulsing … enveloping your whole being… And wipe the word you’ve written. Let only the sensation remain. Let it spread through your body, the heat, the energy. It’s pure power. So raw. So primal. Strong.”

And he did feel it, burning brighter and brighter, but not consuming him now. It was his and not his, and every nerve was buzzing with it. Strong, she said. Had he the presence of mind, he would probably doubt it, like he usually did, like he had all the reasons to do. But he wasn’t very rational at the moment, so yes, he felt strong. A strange, heady feeling embraced him.

“Do you want the wrist cuffs off?” Ida asked suddenly, but didn’t stop, so he wasn’t able to process her question at first and she had to repeat it.

He nodded, too far gone for words. Of course he wanted them off. Surely he did?

And then Ida stopped. Even though he hadn’t begged her when she had been beating him, he was on the verge of begging her now. To go on, this time.

****

 “I must tell you a secret first,” she whispered, so close but unreachable. “A very dangerous secret, so treat it carefully. You could snap your handcuffs open any time you tried. This?” She touched the leather collar, trailed a finger along its rim. “I lied. There’s no spell on it. It’s just leather.”

She paused, as if waiting for him to act on the information immediately.

And yes, he should have made an attempt to break free right away.

“Why?” he asked instead, his voice husky. “All this? Why?”

“When I said you weren’t in control, I lied, too. This collar doesn’t restrain you from using magic, so not using it—it was your choice, even if it was made because of my lie. Just one outburst of energy, and you’d be free—I’ve seen you in action, I know you could do it, and yet you didn’t. It’s…”

“Foolish?”

“Impressive, I’d say.” Her fingers encircled his erection again, as if she were talking about it. “You might not have control over the circumstances, but you have control over yourself. You didn’t try out your magic on a panicked impulse. You might be restrained, you might be beaten up, but you are strong enough to master your energy. Not everyone is capable of it, I assure you.”

Dragomir gasped when she slowly and firmly ran her palms up and down his shaft. Just once, damn it! He was achingly hard and leaking.

“You’re not … you’re not afraid I’ll break out now?”

“I’m quite capable of defending myself in case of emergency, so not really, no. And besides, are you absolutely certain you want to? Why hurry? I’m very, very pleased with the results of our experiment.” One more leisurely up and down caress, along the underside of his cock. “You did so well. And as I said, you deserve a reward. For being so resilient. For not breaking out. Do you want to still get it, or to free yourself?”

“The first option,” he croaked out, maddened by her lingering, not sure if he was angry anymore—or just heated with lust, fuming, burning. And oh God yes, she finally took mercy on him and resumed tugging and squeezing and pumping, rhythmically, expertly. It didn’t take long before he started thrusting into her fist with abandon, and the darkness of the blindfold made him forget to care whether it looked undignified or not.

When he cried out his release, there was no shame in it. In that instant he forgot who he was, where he’d come from. He was pure, pulsating energy. But at the same time, strangely, still himself, the way he truly was.

Still alive. No matter what.

He didn’t know how long he hung there afterwards, slumped against his wrist cuffs, his legs barely supporting him and his mind blank.

“Can you stand on your own?” He finally heard Ida’s voice. “I’m going to release you.”

He considered her question for a moment. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Maybe hold onto the chains anyway, just in case,” she told him. “You’re huge, so it would be hard to catch you. And it would be rather inconvenient if you fell.”

Judging by the sound, Ida must have moved something like a small stepstool for herself to climb onto it and unbuckle Dragomir’s cuffs. His legs felt wobbly and his hands slightly numb, but he did his best to stay upright and held onto the chains as she had told him to.

“Fine, you may let go now.”

He had to lean on her heavily as she led him somewhere, but surprisingly, she was strong enough to help him.

“Just a few steps,” she encouraged him. “That’s it.”

She eased him onto a bed, nudged him to lie down on his front, unbuckled his collar and finally took off the blindfold. The light of a bedside lamp was dim and soft, but Dragomir squinted anyway. Blinking, he propped up on his elbows to take a look around.

Not a dungeon. Just a bedroom, if one didn’t pay attention to the shackles hanging from the center of the ceiling. Dark, waxed parquet floor and moss green walls. A wooden wardrobe with brass handles and panels of stamped leather. Curtains with the same runic pattern. A simple and elegant table with a looking glass in a gilded frame, a matching chair with a footstool. And the tall double bed Dragomir was lying on. No pictures, no rugs, or other adornments. Everything seemed to be very functional, albeit vintage-looking. Minimalist, but with a personal touch, unlike the immaculate living-room where they had discussed their further … collaboration.

Dragomir took all this in blearily. All he wanted to do was to sink back to the pillows, close his eyes and fall asleep, not thinking of what had happened. He was never good at thinking. But he probably should?

Ida brought a mug of water and held it to his lips. He drank in messy gulps. He hadn’t realized he was so thirsty. His numbed hands started tingling as the blood rushed back, and he wasn’t sure the mug wouldn’t have slipped out of his grasp if Ida hadn’t helped him. Was it humiliating? He couldn’t tell anymore.

Then Ida disappeared from his sight again, and he tried to sit up, strangely anxious to see where she had gone, but his whole body declared it was a very, very bad idea.

“Stay down, don’t fidget,” Ida ordered somewhere behind his back. “I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

Dragomir listened to her rummaging through the drawers of the wardrobe and wondered if she was looking for something she might hurt him with. Again. But he wasn’t concerned enough to get up and check it out. He was free now. He could relax. There was no need to worry about anything… Most likely.

The mattress shifted slightly as Ida climbed onto the bed beside him. The first touch along his shoulder was pleasantly cool and slippery. Some kind of cream?

“That’s for your welts.”

Okay then. He didn’t mind. He still felt the burning in his back and legs, but not as fierce as it had been, more like an itch, and the ointment seemed to make it better, take the stinging away. If he didn’t move, it was almost like an aftermath of an intense massage.

“Did you like it?” Ida asked as her cream-slicked hands traveled down to his buttocks. “Nope, wrong question,” she corrected herself before he could answer. “You don’t seem to be a masochist, you don’t enjoy pain. But what we did—do you feel better after that?”

“Yes,” he said without thinking, surprising himself, but not Ida.

“Good,” she approved curtly, as if she had expected nothing else.

“What about you?” Dragomir asked drowsily. “I mean I came, but you didn’t.”

A warm laugh. More feather-like, soothing strokes along his thighs. “Oh, you’re such a gentleman, it’s adorable. After taking a beating from me you’re still concerned about such a thing. But why do you think I haven’t? Just watching you was enough to make a girl very excited.”

Was it?

“Don’t worry, tonight is all about you,” Ida assured him. “But you will be allowed to please me later. Now, just lie still. Let me take care of you.”

His welts were gently throbbing, and he unwound into her touches, let her do what she thought necessary. It could have been arousing, had he not been so spent and worn out. But she didn’t seem to want anything from him, to expect or demand anything from him, so just lying there and doing nothing was fine. He took the last vestiges of pain and the comforting caresses with equal acceptance, as if floating on the verge of unconsciousness, empty-minded and careless.

“That’s what I meant about giving up control once in a while,” Ida murmured and leaned in to plant a chaste kiss on his shoulder blade. “Not on an impulse, but willingly. You don’t need to claim it back through violence. You know you already have it. But control might be a huge burden, especially if you’ve been grasping at it too tightly for a long time. You need to let go of it, like now.”

He had no intention to dispute with her, not at the moment. Surely, there must have been arguments against the dubious things she said, but her voice was lulling him to sleep, and he gave in.

****

When Dragomir woke up, it was morning. Probably late morning, judging by the light seeping in between the drawn curtains. He’d slept without dreams. Not like the dead, no. Dead surely didn’t feel so refreshed and so … alive, despite a considerable number of aches here and there. Or maybe this feeling came thanks to these aches, actually, like they were a reminder he still had a body. Living was messy after all.

“Hi, handsome.”

Ida was sitting by his side, in what looked like ordinary home clothes—a washed out pink t-shirt, a tad too large for her, and denim shorts … um, definitely not too large. She could pass for a perfectly nice girl if not for a somewhat predatory smile and an asserting gaze.

“I like these wild spikes,” she said, ruffling his hair. “Some men put product in their hair to achieve such an effect.”

Her gesture caught him unawares, or he would have protested. But he didn’t have time to: Ida pulled her hand away before he could make up his mind if he’d really disliked it.

Maybe not. The brief touch was strangely erotic. Or maybe anything would seem erotic at the moment, considering his morning hard-on. Oh yes, he’d definitely recovered since the last night. And he was stark naked under the duvet. Would Ida care to join him?

He didn’t get a chance to initiate something unambiguously sexual, though. Ida stood up.

“Take a shower and get dressed.” She pointed at his neatly folded clothes at the foot of the bed. “The bathroom is to the right. Join me in the kitchen afterwards.”

And with that, she left.

Just great, he told himself grimly. Marvelous. She’s giving you commands now.

Yet he trudged to the bathroom with the pile of clothes in his hands because it was a sensible thing to do. He felt dry spots of cum on his belly and thighs—he’d been too exhausted to pay attention to such minor details—and he needed to empty his bladder, though he suspected it would be challenging given his persistent erection.

The water turned out to be lukewarm and barely dribbling. There were always plumbing problems in old houses. But maybe it was for the best because the welts on his back were still raw, despite Ida’s ointment, and he couldn’t even bear a thought of hot water beating against his shoulders.

Waking up with this soreness, an echo of the pain he’d endured, had been surprisingly okay, but now it was a constant reminder of what he’d let Ida do to him, only half willingly, or maybe even less than a half, and it felt not so great. Clearly, she was into some mindfuck games. She had tricked him into taking a thrashing, and now what? Did she expect he’d bend to her will, just because she said it was for his own good?

Dragomir considered leaving without a fuck off speech—just taking his jacket and shoes and slipping out of Ida’s apartment. But it felt more like cowardice than a strategic retreat.

Besides … something strange had happened yesterday. For a short time, he’d felt like someone cared for him. Yeah, maybe it had been a part of a play. Maybe it had made him pathetically needy in the end, which of course wasn’t the way he’d want to appear to anyone, let alone a woman he barely knew. And yet … it had been a nice feeling, and remembering it made him waver.

Dragomir toweled off gingerly, careful not to rub his back much. He was trying to figure out what Ida’s plans about him might be. Also, he kept wondering whether Ida had slept beside him tonight. He’d been so zoned out that he didn’t remember, but the bed was wide enough for them both. The thought of Ida without that baggy t-shirt and shorts made his dick vote for staying, very resolutely.

Well, he could hang around for a while, see how it went. It didn’t mean he was following Ida’s commands.

As it turned out, Ida had given him only his black t-shirt and jeans. No underwear. Did she decide to keep his briefs as a souvenir? That would be funny.

Dragomir put on his meager clothes and went to have a talk with Ida—indecisive, slightly apprehensive, and thus inevitably irritated. He had no idea what he should say. Also, he was half-hard again, an uncomfortable bulge sensitive against the rough denim. He should have taken care of it in the shower, but duh, someone was hopeful.

When he came into the kitchen, there was a plate of fried eggs and bacon on the table, along with a mug of something hot and steamy, and Ida was tapping on her phone.

“That’s for you. Eat. Then we’ll talk,” she told him briskly and returned to whatever she was doing, ignoring him completely. In her oversized t-shirt, she should have looked so very different from the night before when she’d been a seductive pin-up beauty. But the same air of self-confidence stayed, and it was disconcerting.

Dragomir stood in the doorway for a few seconds. The thought of leaving crossed his mind again. But it had been long since somebody cooked him breakfast, and it seemed a waste not to eat it. He’d been living mostly on takeout for quite some time, and of the cheapest kind. He didn’t see the point in cooking for himself.

Ida walked around the kitchen as she continued to fiddle with her phone, and he was too engrossed in wolfing down his meal to notice when she stopped right behind him. He tensed for a moment when she touched his nape, but nothing happened, and he took another forkful and chewed, almost moaning at how surprisingly awesome such simple food felt, just because it was hot and homemade. Ida’s fingers started threading through his hair, and he let her, as if he were a stray dog allowing a human to feed and pet him. Maybe that was what he looked like indeed, a big, dangerous animal that had learned not to trust anyone but was stupidly eager to forget the hard-won knowledge whenever a hand reached to scratch it behind the ears. Even if the other hand held a whip.

“If you’re staying, we need to discuss safety once more, since you don’t remember much of our talk last night,” Ida said, massaging his scalp soothingly.

Dragomir huffed, his mouth full with the last slice of bacon.

“You find it amusing?” Her grip in his hair tightened slightly.

“Well, yeah.” He looked at the empty plate with regret. “You tie me up, lie to me, and now you’re all about safety?”

Even to his own ears, it sounded like whining—not the best start to a conversation. He winced, mortified, but Ida resumed massaging his head, with both hands now, having put her phone aside on the kitchen counter and seemingly unperturbed. It felt good. It felt distracting.

“It’s fine to voice out what’s bothering you,” Ida assured him. “When I’m asking, of course. I explained why it had been necessary to catch you unawares, but now I think you are ready to go through new experiences conscientiously. Hence a prep talk. We agreed I should have a safeword in case you acted up and attempted something violent. You were very insistent you might. And by safeword I mean a word that would stop you. An agreed-upon spell, made with your own help. You might be curious about it, but I wouldn’t want to try it out without reason—it’s nothing lethal, but you definitely won’t like the consequences.”

Yup, how very unsurprising he had willingly given her a weapon against himself.

“Pity I don’t get to have a safeword, too,” Dragomir muttered and tried out the contents of the mug. It turned out to be some kind of herbal tea. Not entirely unpleasant, though coffee would be more welcome.

“Why, you do,” Ida declared. “Sort of. Only it’s not a word.” She fingered the chain of Dragomir’s dog tag, the way she’d toyed with the collar. “If you are sure something is too much for you and you won’t be able to endure it further, the chain will break, and I’ll know I need to stop. It’s a precaution in case you won’t be able to articulate your … distress.”

“Huh.”

He couldn’t think of a more coherent response, a problem with articulation indeed. So there hadn’t been a spell on the collar, but his own dog tag was fucking enchanted. Unsurprising, too, come to think of it.

“The chain didn’t break last night, so now we both know you were perfectly able to endure the pain I gave you.” Ida’s hands slid down to his shoulders, and he had to let go of the mug and grip at the table, hard, as she started driving lines across the fresh welts through the cotton of his t-shirt. With her fingernails. Just like a cat clawing at furniture. “You might not like it, but it helped you, didn’t it? As for me, I took pleasure in your suffering, but I also enjoyed giving you comfort. I might be a tiny bit sadistic, but I’m a very considerate sadist.”

“Yes, I noticed,” he murmured.

“What you might like about the hurting part—in my eyes, agony makes you more desirable. The way you struggle through it? It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. So virile. Nobody wants to be a victim, especially not strong and brave men like you. They think it makes them less masculine, less tough. But think of it like this. You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. The one who put this curse on you must have seen you for what you are. A fighter. And unfortunately, it made his curse stronger.”

“How so?”

Her palms stilled on his shoulders, just pressing slightly, as if giving him a reminder she might continue. And he sat still, uncertain if he was glad she had stopped. He hadn’t enjoyed it, but … combined with Ida’s talking, it felt almost like an achievement, enduring discomfort for her.

 “This curse is so deep-rooted because it fell into fertile ground, at the moment of what you considered to be helplessness, weakness,” she said softly. “The moment when you were unhappy with yourself, so to speak. So the curse is directed onto you in the first place. Of course, out of sheer self-preservation, you unconsciously project it onto the outside world because it’s unbearable, to hate yourself all the time. But you don’t really want it, you try to stop … and despise yourself all the more when you can’t. There’s an old saying—holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else, but you are the only one who gets burned. It’s somewhat different with you. You don’t want to throw it at others, you struggle to avoid it. So the anger is always clasped tight in your blistered hands—of your own free will. You only allow it to slip when you know you’ll get the aggression back, as otherwise you feel bad about it.”

“So what are you saying? I should lash out at others?”

“No, but you have to let your negative energy out sometimes. To shout and cry, to thrash and curse, to be furious, rebellious. Otherwise you’ll burst and hurt yourself and others, which you clearly don’t want. You could have it within a safe environment. Within boundaries. As a play. You will get hurt in the process, but not as badly as you tend to do now. Not injured. Not damaged. I can take care of that.”

Dragomir couldn’t help but turn back and raise a brow at her. “You mean you’ll beat me?”

“Among other things, yes,” she confirmed nonchalantly. “I told you we’d have to redirect your anger, but it would be more accurate to say you’d eventually learn not to direct it anywhere. To let it flow. To bask in it. Anger is energy, and energy is neither good nor bad. But to feel it as it is, I think you need physical sensations to anchor you. In the end, you’ll learn to enjoy it.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dragomir grumbled.

“Well, you managed just fine last night. So, you know it’s possible, though it might seem difficult at first. How about we try again?”

****

He couldn’t believe he’d agreed. Or more like hadn’t disagreed. Yet here he was, in Ida’s bedroom again, eying her apprehensively.

“You want to tie me up?”

“Actually, yes, I suppose it might be of help. Simply as symbolic restraints. Something you can focus on.”

His body protested most fervently against any use of chains. And against standing upright for an unknown period of time. He wasn’t in his best form at the moment.

Why was he even considering this? Just because his cock was so eager it would probably tear through his jeans soon? Oh yeah, this treacherous part of his anatomy felt just fine and demanded action, but since when did it rule him?

Ida seemed to have read his mind before he snapped, before he bolted. “We don’t have to chain you up in a standing position. I’ll think of something less straining. Now, take your jeans and t-shirt off.”

Dragomir felt foolishly grateful for an instant, before a more reasonable thought caught up with him: why hadn’t he told her straightforwardly what he didn’t want to do?

But Ida didn’t let him wallow in embarrassment. “Come on, move,” she hurried him. “Tick-tock. Place your things onto the chair. Neatly folded, please.”

Freed from the denim confines, his cock immediately sprang to full mast. He’d been willing before, but now he was almost shaking with desire and anticipation. Was that herbal tea a special blend? Would Ida tell him if he asked?

The t-shirt followed, and now he was naked in front of her, with only his dog tag on. Ida looked him up and down, and he barely held back a reflex to cover himself with both hands under her scrutiny, silly as it was. Strangely, it felt more obscene than if they both were undressed. Ida had already seen him without clothes, sure. But the first time, it had been just a few moments in the locker room, and the second time, he’d been blindfolded and then not clear-headed enough to care what she thought of him. Now it was different. He knew she was studying him, appraising him, and it made him uncomfortably self-conscious, nervousness building up with each second. It was as if he were a slave evaluated before purchase, and what would happen if she didn’t deem him worthy?

It was a relief to hear her say, “Hmm, a very nice view. Now, onto the bed. On your back. Hold on to the headboard with both hands.”

It was mildly uncomfortable, lying on his back, but fine, he could do this. In his mind, the heated voice of reason wouldn’t shut up: it’s insane, utterly insane, what the fuck are you doing? Yet he reached back to hold at the cold metal of the vintage-style headboard, just as he’d been told, and what did it make of him?

Steel handcuffs clicked around Dragomir’s wrists. The short chain went around one of the wrought-iron slats and dangled against it as he tested the range of movement. Predictably limited.

If he tried a spell, he would probably snap the handcuffs open. Maybe injure his wrists as well—he wasn’t sure how controlled his spell would be, but he’d break free. The last resort then.

In the meantime, Ida got rid of her shorts and straddled his thighs, too far from his cock, but surely, she was planning to make a use of it? Unfortunately, her damn t-shirt was too long to get a good view, and she didn’t seem inclined to take it off, but Dragomir felt the warm flesh of her buttocks against his skin and could well imagine the rest. Also, he suspected she wasn’t wearing a bra under the t-shirt, though he’d rather he could check.

“I like that you have lots of hair,” Ida said, squirming a little against his legs, furry indeed. “Lots and lots. It’s so very masculine.” She sneaked out a hand to pet the line of dark curls leading to his groin. Uh. He made a frustrated growl in his throat when she backed off, and it made her smile. “But we’d need to trim you at some places. It will be more suitable for things I’d like to try on you.”

“What things?” There was more tension in his voice than he would have liked to betray.

She reached back to where her shorts lay and took something from her pocket.

“Things like this, for example.”

She dangled a short band before his eyes—a black leather strap with what looked like snap buttons—and then…

“Hey, what the—”

But Ida had already popped it around his shaft, right at the base, very snugly. Maybe too snugly.

“It’s a cock strap. It traps blood in here.” She squeezed his package in demonstration. “Makes your cock engorged. Helps to remain rock solid. So you last longer.”

“I have no problem with lasting long,” he protested indignantly.

Ida slapped his penis lightly. “Don’t interrupt me. I said longer. I’ve got a whole bunch of plans for you. This,” she tapped at the strap with her fingernail, which sent a maddening vibration to his cock, “will ensure you stay hard even if you don’t like some of them.”

That sounded sinister, but he wasn’t sure if he cared at the moment. Why wouldn’t she start with what she wanted to do already?

“I hope your untrimmed hair wouldn’t snag,” she added cheerfully, not hurrying in the least, “but oh well, it was either this or getting you flaccid to put a metal ring on you. Because as you might imagine, squeezing an erection into a firm object is very, very painful. Now, one more thing.”

She fetched a condom and rolled it onto him, none too gently, but he didn’t object. Especially not when she slowly eased herself onto his cock after that and squirmed around, getting comfortable. He just made a growl deep in his throat, keen for her to rock against him more actively, to ride him.

She sniggered. “Patience, big boy. Don’t worry. I’m going to make a good use of you, just wait and see.”

She started unhurriedly, but soon the rhythm increased. She was moving her hips in circles while making hops, clearly enjoying herself.

“Oh, that’s good,” she sighed out. “So good.”

She rode him hard now. He could feel her vaginal muscles flexing. It was as if she were fucking her orgasm out of him—and all he could do was to lie there and let her use his cock as a dildo. He’d never been passive in sex before. Moreover, he’d been aggressive and demanding, to the point that it frightened him. But it wasn’t an option while he was handcuffed, was it, and it made him indefinitely irritated because, come on, she had him turned into a life-size fucktoy, nothing more, and how unmanly was that!

But also, it felt … safe. He could do no harm like this, and his hurt pride was a small price to pay for it. Or so he told himself bitterly while Ida had her way with him.

It was all so mixed up, humiliation and anger and helplessness. Immobilized, he was powerless just like when…

Ida pinched his nipple cruelly. “Eyes on me. Don’t divert. Watch me. Watch how I use you. How I enjoy you. How I like you.”

Strangely, her harsh commands made his irritation deflate. Because this was personal, or at least seemed like it. Because it meant she saw him, wanted him, not just anyone. Maybe just as a means for her own satisfaction at the moment, but that he didn’t mind.

He could imagine he was her captive, as she called him yesterday. A trapped and chained beast, and wasn’t it true, to some degree?

Ida took her time building up the pleasure for herself, rolling her hips, digging her nails into Dragomir’s flanks, and when an orgasm swept over her, he watched hungrily and mesmerized how flushed and bright-eyed she was, shivering with bliss…

And then she just dismounted him, leaving Dragomir painfully hard and not even close to coming.

“You can’t leave me like that!” he burst out, almost with horror.

“I most certainly can.” Her voice was a little breathy, deep and filled with lust. “But maybe I won’t if you behave. As you might remember, I said I have a lot of plans for you.”

“What are you going to do?”

Without answering, she slipped from the bed, quick and graceful like a small creature that seemed to be harmless, but had claws and sharp teeth. He could see her searching for something in the wardrobe where she seemed to keep most interesting and intimidating things, apart from clothes. What intrigued him the most, though, was the view of her buttocks, mostly obscured by the infuriating t-shirt, but partially visible when she leaned down.

Ida finally retrieved the object she was looking for. When she turned back to Dragomir, he suddenly felt his mouth go dry. It was a penis-shaped thing with leather straps.

Oh well. That was what she’d meant when she’d asked him about anal sex yesterday.

****

“I’m not…” he began after a moment of unpleasant shock. “I told you, I’m not into it. Such kind of things.”

“Oh, but I am,” Ida reassured him, unashamedly putting on the harness—one strap around her waist and two around her thighs. The dildo was now curving obscenely outwards from under the hem of her t-shirt as if it were an erect cock, with an enlarged head, very realistic.

His anger flared again.

“I said…”

She cut him off. “I heard you. And you heard me. I told you some things I would do might be disturbing. You might not like them, not at first. Many men find anal stimulation enjoyable, and it has nothing to do with their gender preferences, I assure you. Some feel like it’s degrading them, making them submissive, not in control. Some don’t. I suppose you’ll be among the first. But I want you to try to give in and find pleasure in it. For now, imagine you don’t have a choice. Imagine I force you to do it.”

A captive, right.

“It might be easier if you don’t watch. Turn around, stand on your knees and hold on to the headboard.”

It was easier said than done, with his wrists still handcuffed. Yet Dragomir struggled to follow her order, a bit clumsily, both wound up and confused, and not quite believing he was doing it. What was the point in this? What was she going to achieve, except to humiliate him?

The twisted chain of his handcuffs became uncomfortably short. If he didn’t grip the headboard for leverage, they would dig into his flesh painfully. But this discomfort gave him something to focus on. Something else rather than his neglected erection and unwanted doubts.

The silence stretched uncomfortably. He waited. And waited.

The fuck it was going to help! She was just messing with his head again, not working on his anger issues. It must be so amusing for her, compelling him to perform all the tricks she demanded of him. So entertaining, so…

A sharp smack across his buttock—and he choked on his rage.

“You’re thinking too much,” Ida said reproachfully. “We can’t have that. You are here to feel.”

Another smack, this time not with a hand. Not a paddle. Not a strap either.

She didn’t give him time to guess what it was, renewing the fiery burn in his ass. He grasped at the headboard hard, knuckles white. Only ten wallops, but when he stopped, he was a mess again, biting on his already puffed lower lip to keep any sounds down.

The mattress dipped a little under Ida’s weight, and she threw her beating implement onto the sheets by his side. A riding crop. She liked diversity, it seemed.

“That’s better,” she said, kneading his abused flesh, spreading his buttocks and pressing onto his opening with both thumbs. “Stay still, or I’ll use my crop on your hole as well. And then take you without a good preparation, rough and fast.” She dug into the tender orifice a little harder, not enough to hurt yet, but giving him a clear impression it could. “It’s nice that you seem to have no problems with self-hygiene. Next time I’ll give you an enema for a deeper cleansing, but today I didn’t want to spoil a surprise. No worries though, I’ll just put a condom on my strap-on.”

A click, like of a bottle being uncapped. Dragomir shuddered when Ida started massaging something cool and slippery into him, slowly easing a single finger past the clenching ring of muscles.

“That’s some lube for you. As I might have said, I don’t want to damage you. At least not badly.”

Well, that was reassuring.

“You can’t imagine how much I like this,” she continued as she kept stretching him open. “You, so strong, all muscles and raw power, and on your knees for me. Offering your ass.”

He jerked at his handcuffs with a snarl—it was too much, enough of that!—but she crooked her finger in the slick warmth within him, stroked and … oh, it was…

Ida chuckled at his grunt. “Your prostate. Never had it massaged?”

And she did it again.

He was all worked up by the time she managed to shove the third finger into him, and only then she decided he was ready and finally aligned her strap-on dildo to his hole. Dragomir felt the bulbous head pushing inside of him—and no, he couldn’t take it, definitely not, it was too wide…

“Bear down on it,” Ida instructed him. “Yeah, like that. Yield.”

There was so much intensity in her voice that his body relaxed before his mind even registered the command. The tip of the dildo was now inside of him, and she paused, stroking the small off his back in circles as if soothing a frightened animal, giving him some time to adjust or maybe just prolonging the torment. He was painfully aware of the huge plastic thing up his ass, the solid girth expanding his rectum, and the rigidness of his cock, trapped in its hardened state and bobbing under him lewdly.

With her hands on Dragomir’s hips, Ida began pushing forward again, steadily and relentlessly, until the dildo was lodged in his butt up to the root. Another pause, but not for long, before she pulled part way out, slowly. His breathing hitched as she pressed the sensitive spot on the outstroke—and again as she thrust back in. And out. And in. And out. Rhythmically. With short, rapid movements. It was … oh fuck, fuck! He couldn’t last for long like this!

The uncomfortable burning was still there, along with the humiliating feeling of being a passive fucktoy again, but the heat was building up in him, making his limbs weak and his cock ache with unsatisfied need. If not for the condom, there would have been a pool of pre-cum on the sheet beneath him.

“I want to come,” he croaked out, another dart of sensation shuddering through him.

“Not yet.”

“Please,” he tried, helpless anger bubbling in him. He didn’t want to beg, and yet here he was, doing just that. “Ida, take … take this strap off … I really can’t … please!”

“No, not yet. Imagine you are my vassal—and this is your badge of servitude.”

His constricted, engorged cock throbbed in response to her voice.

Her captive. Her vassal. Someone who mattered.

Yes, he could hold on to that a little longer.

His dog tag was dangling from his neck, the chain still unbroken. Did it mean he could take it, this pressure building and building up without any hope of release? Or was it just another mindfuck?

Ida continued pounding into him with shallow thrusts, driving him mad—and past this madness into something else, into a state where flickers of anger were blending together with lust, dying there, transforming, like sparks consumed by a greater fire.

Yes, he was angry. Yes, he was ashamed. And in this shame and anger he found peace because they became too large, too vast for him to comprehend. It was easier simply to feel them, the way he felt pain and pleasure, meaningless and transient.

When Ida stopped, he groaned in abandon, devoid of the now familiar sensations.

The dildo was still inside of him, but she unbuckled the leather straps of the harness, and now they were dangling against his thighs.

“Turn onto your back again.”

He tried to, but his muscles were like jelly, and loosening his grip on the headboard seemed risky.

“Come on, you can do it.”

She guided him firmly, helped him to scoot down the bed, so his arms were stretched, and straddled him, facing away from the headboard, her knees on either side of his head. He knew what was expected of him. It was uncomfortable because he couldn’t steady her hips, and his handcuffed arms were straining, but he licked and sucked obediently, even eagerly as she was grinding down on his face, riding him to another orgasm. And another one. And only after that she relented and unclasped the strap from his cock. It took only a few strokes—and his release tore through him, wrecked him completely, intense and overwhelming.

He barely registered how she uncuffed him and eased the dildo out, very carefully. He only made a tiny noise of discomfort, not lucid enough to care if it was undignified. His lips and his chin were marked with her juices and his ass hurt.

Ida disappeared to get rid of the spent condom and returned with a warm washcloth—wearing her shorts again, what a shame. She wiped his face first, then his cock and his belly. He felt too weak to protest that he could do it himself. He didn’t want to do anything right now. When she started massaging his cramped arms, he let her do it, too. It was nice. Maybe too nice.

In his floaty post-orgasmic state of bliss and exhaustion, Dragomir felt a weird constricting sensation in his chest, making it hard to breathe. It was as if he were on the verge of crying, but he didn’t intend to cry. He had no reason to, did he? Everything was fine. He was fine.

He just didn’t want Ida to stop pampering him, though it was an uncalled-for indulgence. It was pleasant to be the sole focus of her attention. But it wasn’t something to last, like anything else. He’d have to get up, take a shower. He’d have to decide if he would leave or not if Ida suggested he could stay for a while longer. He’d have to go back to his everyday life, eventually…

And these thoughts were oddly distressing. He tried to swallow down the strange, pathetic sorrow that accompanied them, but his chest felt tighter and tighter.

Ida must have noticed something. When she had finished with the massage, she didn’t move away. She sat so he could put his head in her lap, and shushed at him when he hesitated. So he settled like she wanted him to and let himself go limp with a shuddery sigh. She started petting his hair again, as if she were consoling him, but what for? He couldn’t get it, yet there it was, the need to be comforted, the need…

“It’s fine,” Ida whispered. “It’s fine. Cry if you want to. Strong men need to cry sometimes, too. It doesn’t mean you’re defeated. It means you feel safe enough to unwind. So cry now, tough boy.”

And so he did. There was no more shame in it than in anything else he’d done today.

****

Of course, he felt awkward afterwards, though afterwards came surprisingly late. He let himself bask in Ida’s sympathy for quite a while after he had calmed down. Maybe because deep down inside he was afraid of what would come next, so he delayed the inevitability of dealing with the aftermath for as long as he could.

But sooner or later he had to come down from this giddy feeling of unasked-for comfort.

What next? Would she usher him out? She had her own life, she had a job, and no matter how much she enjoyed having her strange version of sex with him—though it was obvious she enjoyed it a lot—surely, she wouldn’t want to spend all of her time with a man she hardly knew. A damaged and dangerous man. A feral beast on a short leash, worse than a chimera from an animal shelter—the wretched thing, no matter how weird, probably was of no threat to anyone, or they wouldn’t have let it out to be someone’s pet. He clearly was a threat. Ida had declared she was safe from him, but it didn’t mean she would relish his company on a 24/7 basis.

Maybe she’d make another appointment, tell him when to come to her again if she was still interested in working on his issues. The same thing as seeing a shrink, only with an addition of kinky activities, that was what it would be. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Or was it a one-time consultation? Was it over, now that she had shown him the ways he could deal with his anger? She’d had her fun, but had he been entertaining enough for her to want more? He wasn’t sure.

She had used him, but he didn’t mind. He was even grateful to her. She had brought him through all these degrading and weird things … and she didn’t seem to treat him differently afterwards. She still thought him strong and worthy of her attention. It was nice, but Dragomir didn’t expect it to last. It was easier not to.

It was very much like a déjà vu, showering and putting his clothes on again, and a rather sad one. Would things have been less complicated if he’d left in the morning, before adding more confusion to his last night experience? Wouldn’t it be better if he hadn’t met Ida at all? Dragomir had no illusion the battle with his anger was over. And fighting it on his own might be even harder now. No matter how unconventional Ida’s therapy had been, it had almost felt like she cared about him, and going back to being alone made him want to howl like a lost and frightened dog.

Dragomir found Ida in the living-room, sitting cross-legged with a laptop in the leather armchair.

“Kneel,” she said casually.

He stood there blinking at her.

“I said kneel,” she repeated. “Here, by my side. I would have kept you naked, too, but you’d be distracting me.”

“Are we still…”

He couldn’t find a name for what they were doing.

“You mean—am I done with you? No, of course not. You’re a work in progress. So be a good boy and do as you are told. I have a few appointments to reschedule and some letters to answer, and then I’ll think what to do about you.”

She pointed at the floor, firmly, and he knelt without further arguing. Probably because her promise had hit him on the raw. She was going to think what to do about him. So she hadn’t decided yet if she wanted him out?

Kneeling wasn’t much worse than sitting on his beaten-up ass. Not at first. But the wooden floor was hard under his knees, his ass hurt anyway as his heels were digging into it, and Ida wasn’t paying any attention to him, none at all…

“You’re fidgeting. Do I have to tie you up?” Ida asked, not turning to Dragomir from her laptop, right when this thought started setting tiny prickles of irritation all over him.

Funnily enough, he genuinely considered her offer. “Maybe,” he said cautiously, and that made her look up, with a sparkle of amused surprise in her gaze.

“Actually, I’m sure you’ll be strong enough for me to endure this without restraints. You will be bored. You will be sore. I know it. But you’ll hold your spine straight, and your head up, all the time, until I tell you otherwise. Put your hands behind your back and spread your shoulders. Yes, like that.”

She reached out to smooth a hand along the defined muscles of his upper arm. It looked like she took pleasure in what she saw, and it made him want to hold this pose for her, for as long as she wished. Rolling his shoulders had renewed a slow burn from the last night’s thrashing, and Dragomir held on to it. Surely pushing through a little discomfort wasn’t harder than undergoing something like that?

He didn’t know how much time had passed until he started shaking with the strain of holding still. Behind his back, he was clasping one wrist with the opposite hand, and it helped, but not much. Exhaustion settled in, taking over the occasional rebellious flashes of common sense that were spelling one and the same question for him in burning letters—why was he doing this?

At first, it seemed important to find the answer, but in a while the question itself became awfully boring, like a TV advertisement on repeat. Dragomir felt he was drifting, all of his energy concentrated on not breaking his pose. He knew he couldn’t take it anymore, but he had to, he had to… Second after second, and another second more…

“You’re so resilient. I’m pleased you lasted so long,” Ida said gently. Her hand cupped his stubble-dotted chin, stroked it gently, and only then he realized that his eyes had been squeezed shut. He’d missed it when she had closed her laptop. How could it have happened that he’d spaced out so completely?

“How about you lie down and rest, and we’ll talk some more?” Ida suggested. She got up, took a cushion from the couch, and placed it onto the floor beside him. “Put it under your head and stretch out. You’ve deserved it.”

It was painful to uncoil his cramped, sore muscles, but lying unfolded, the cushion beneath his head, felt so much better compared to his previous position that it didn’t occur to him to ask why exactly he was to lie down there, on the floor, instead of the couch.

“So, what are you going to do about me?” he muttered.

Ida sat back into the armchair, right above him, cross-legged again. Her toenails were perfectly pedicured, painted in pink, and her soles looked smooth like marble. Dragomir suddenly wondered if she’d make him kiss her feet, and the thought of it felt strange but not revolting.

She smiled at him. “As I said, I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to help you. It doesn’t mean you’ll always like it. Sometimes you’ll fight it. But it’s all right, it’s supposed to be like that. Remember I told you about turning your curse into your strength. Now you know how it might feel when this anger of yours is just powerful energy, nothing more. How about making you feel like this all the time?”

Dragomir stared at her incredulously. “Is it possible?”

“Quite so. Your curse is like a chronic disease. It will always lurk, but you can live with it. It will take a lot of work, though, to make this life bearable and even not devoid of happiness. I’m sure you didn’t think much of being happy when you wanted to get rid of your curse. You just cared about not being angry. But it’s all connected, I’m afraid.”

“By work you mean…”

“I’ll have to train you, make some new habits into routine. It won’t be easy. I’m taking a few days off work because it’s always the hardest in the beginning and I’ll need to watch for your reactions, but then it will be just everyday life, with some adjustments. I suppose it will be easier if you move in here. I’m sure you don’t have much to pack, do you? If we don’t count sex, it’s going to be very much like your life at Scholomance. Lots of discipline. Correction when you step out of line. You magicians are all not unlike each other. I mean—not high-ranked magicians but common soldiers. Scholomance, as any other school of magic, is very much militarized, isn’t it? That’s why they gladly accept orphans or young people with no ties to their family. So their loyalty and dedication would be undivided. You’re used to being a part of a huge, well-functioning system, used to taking orders, used to someone else knowing your purpose—how your life should be spent and what you’re going to live and die for. Now that you’re on your own … it must be very lonely and disconcerting. Good that you are a stubborn fighter, otherwise you’d be lost irretrievably. But you know what? You still can have a sense of belonging. If you’re brave enough to trust someone else like you trusted your fellow mages.”

He choked out a laugh. “Oh yeah? Will it end the same way?”

He expected her to mock his doubts, question his courage, but she said seriously, almost sadly, “Not necessarily. But you can never tell unless a time comes when this trust will be put to a test. It might never come, though. And then you’ll never know how things could have turned out.”

This was honest if not exactly optimistic.

“You think it will be difficult for you,” she continued quietly. “But you are wrong. You want to confide in someone, you crave it. Letting me do everything I wanted to you—wasn’t it trust already?”

“Or idiocy, like it often is with me.”

“I think we should start a tally,” Ida suggested thoughtfully. Maybe even dreamily. “For berating yourself, you’ll add a score to it, every time you do it. And at the end of the day we’ll see how many swats you have earned.”

Dragomir suddenly had a vision of himself bent over the couch, humiliatingly bare-assed. He should have been appalled. He found he wasn’t. Maybe because the idea of someone forcibly putting an end to his self-loathing wasn’t so bad.

“Of course I’ll have to trust you that you don’t reprimand yourself silently and that you will tell me if you do,” Ida said. “Because from now on, I’ll be the one to scold you. And I will decide whether you deserve it or not. Understood?”

She didn’t ask him if he agreed to it. Maybe she knew he would. So he nodded. Hesitantly, but still.

“So I’ll be—what? Your plaything?”

“You’ll be … you. Don’t you think I might like that?”

“No,” he said honestly. “I’m not very likeable.”

“Hmm. It should be the first demerit. You’re debasing yourself again. But I’ll be generous, this once, because of your sincerity. Tell me—why do you think I’m doing all this? Why I suggested to help you in the first place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I liked you,” she said without any coyness. “Isn’t ‘I want to help you’ a perfect pick-up line? I don’t usually seek company in bars, but you looked really good, I must admit. And haunted, at the same time. I was intrigued. I’m still intrigued.”

Dragomir didn’t quite believe there was something intriguing about him, apart from the masterfully woven curse. Fucked up, yes. Maybe frightening, too. But the notion that Ida found him fascinating was pleasant. Flattering.

“And getting to know you better,” she went on, “only adds to the impression you’re someone worth keeping. You might have your doubts about it, a fair share of them, but I’d rather you simply take my word for it.”

She dangled her leg from the armchair and stroked along his thigh with her bare foot. It made his cock throb hopefully, and he wasn’t surprised at that anymore. The surprising thing was that she looked at him fondly. Like she really meant what she’d said. Like he was more to her than a one-night conquest. More than an experiment.

 “You must realize something,” she told him. “What we’re going to do—it’s not demeaning to want this. It doesn’t make you less of a fighter, less of a man. It’s power exchange, just like magic is. And it means you have this power to share.”

The fact that she kept playing footsie with him certainly made her reasoning more appealing. Or at least made all the possible counterarguments vanish from Dragomir’s mind. There was one more thing he wanted to know, though, before he turned into a melted puddle at her feet.

 “You’ve hypnotized me. So you could have done something like that to those thugs who tried to harass you?”

“Mmm. I’m not entirely sure I could have handled all three of them, but quite possibly yes.”

“That’s why you were so calm. Stupid me, spoiling the fun for you.”

“Oh no, you were fun. I don’t think anybody ever tried to save me before, and certainly not in such a spectacular way. It was pleasant to watch you. An angel of wrath.”

He tensed when Ida called him that, but she kept stroking his thigh up and down, soothingly, in a hypnotically repetitive way, and he slowly relaxed into her touch. In this case, it hadn’t been such a bad thing, being an angel of wrath, had it?

“And by the way, that’s one for berating yourself again,” Ida said and pressed her toe against his crotch.

****

Some things became routine easily, like long workouts that made him both focused and empty-minded, or counting demerits. He enjoyed the former; the latter—not so much, but both helped to ground him.

Some things were never routine. Ida turned out to be very inventive when it came to thrashing and fucking bad thoughts out of him.

But anyway, his life was rotating around one and the same center now, sometimes smoothly, sometimes in a wild, tire-tearing race, but never completely spinning out of Ida’s control. She organized it not always according to his wishes, oh no. But she was persuasive enough to make him doubt what his actual wishes had been, like when she prohibited him to take part in illegal boxing fights.

“What else am I supposed to do?” he grumbled. “You know I’m not good at interacting with people.”

“How about obtaining a license for working as a freelance magician? Under my supervision of course. I could vouch for you.”

“What spells will I be selling? I could manage only aggressive ones,” he retorted bitterly. “But I don’t want to work with curses. Besides that it’s illegal, I’m just … I’m bad enough as I am. I don’t want to be worse.”

“How about guarding spells?” Ida proposed. “It’s hostile magic as well, meant to drive intruders and attackers off. And it’s three for today, for calling yourself bad. It counts, too.”

Dragomir rubbed his chin thoughtfully, distracted by a promise of another swat to land on his backside in the evening. “Yeah, maybe this guarding thing could do. But who would employ me?”

 “My grandfather owns an antiquarian shop. He’d be very grateful if you help him to set up a really scary security system. And then he might recommend your services to someone else. He’s got lots of wealthy clients who are afraid of losing what they have. We could use my black cat logo for these security services as well. I think it would look catchy.”

Dragomir eyed her with doubt, but didn’t argue anymore. It seemed like everything was decided, and Ida wasn’t going to give him time to get his head around it, as always. Maybe it was for the better. She tended to choose what was best for him.

Just like Ida had said, there was no miraculous recovery. His anger still fumed within him, ready to boil over on any pretext, but it was all right because Ida knew what to do. Sometimes, when Dragomir felt he was going to snap, he just said, “Ida, I think I need—” and she didn’t even require him to finish the sentence. She always got it. If they were alone in their apartment, she ordered him to lower his pants and bend over the nearest surface while she fetched one of her paddles. She wouldn’t stop until his ass was glowing red. Then she ordered him to sit, his pants still pooling around his ankles, and straddled his cock—it was always ready for her to use by then. Dragomir wriggled on his burning ass while Ida fucked him, and held his hands dutifully behind his back, not allowed to touch her.

Or it was bondage instead, itchy knots of rope all over his body, including most interesting places. Or vicious nipple clamps and clothespins. Or drops of hot wax forming intricate patterns on his skin. Points of focus, things that brought him into his body and made the raw energy of his rage flow through it like electric current.

Dealing with his outbursts in public places was more embarrassing, but still manageable. That was what toilets were for. And back alleys. One would think it must be hard to get creative there, but Ida seemed to like challenges.

If there would have been a crow guarding his curse, like in the story Ida had told him, surely it should have flown away by now, scared off by the loud smacks of her riding crop and the dangerous lilt of her voice.

Dragomir often wondered whether he would have longed for something similar to what he had now if it weren’t for the spell. Probably not. But only because he wouldn’t know what to want for himself.

So the curse he hated so much hadn’t brought him only trouble, ultimately.

What was he like before it? Strong, but not in an extraordinary way. Averagely gifted as a mage, with not much energy to spend. Loyal. Yes, he’d been loyal until they had thrown him out. His whole life had been built around Scholomance, as it was with most young magicians, and it felt safe and predictable, his future defined.

Maybe that was what he’d always been looking for. Someone to pledge his loyalty to, but not just anyone. Someone who deserved it. Someone who would care. Someone secure.

And that was what Ida had become to him. How could it have occurred? He barely knew her, and only from what she told him, but … oh well, some things just happened, without any logical explanations, like in good old fairytales. They were frightening and fascinating, those things, and there was no use in thinking them over.

His soul became glued to her, following the lead of his body. Did it really matter why?

One of the pastimes he’d learned to enjoy the most was spending nights in bondage, in Ida’s bed. It was a privilege. When he was deprived of it, he slept on a mattress on the floor. At first, he’d thought it would be uncomfortable, being shackled to the headboard until morning, but Ida used soft leather wrist cuffs and a fairly loose chain. Besides, she never locked it—he could simply unclip it in case of emergency, so it was more of a symbolic reminder of where he was and what he was. A safety anchor for him, unexpectedly soothing.

Tonight, Ida had decided he would need more than that to calm down because the day had been pretty nervous. Dragomir tried his best to lie still because every movement made a large butt plug shift and wiggle around inside of him. It rubbed against his oversensitized prostate relentlessly, and it was too much, too soon, given that Ida seemed to have stroked every last drop of cum out of him earlier, while fingering him and then inserting this thing. A perfect remedy against restlessness, as she had called it. And yeah, it certainly helped to stop him from fidgeting too much.

Taking advantage of his stillness, Ida rested her head on Dragomir’s shoulder, habitually combing through his curly chest hair with her fingers. Pulling them out was a huge entertainment for her, too, but now she was contented with caresses, and it was another physical sensation to focus on, in addition to the restraints and the plastic hunk expanding his overworked hole. Where the flame of anger roared a few hours ago, was now a sense of resigned peace over the still-hot embers, a sense of a well-earned surrender after a fight.

Dragomir didn’t want to spoil it, but Ida demanded he had to tell her of whatever bad thoughts that bothered him, so he finally mustered the courage to ask, “What if one day I do something horrible? Like, really horrible, in the heat of the moment. You say you feel safe around me, but how can you? I’m still a beast sometimes, aren’t I? I know it probably earns me another demerit for tomorrow, but it’s true.”

She twirled a strand of his chest hair around her finger and tugged gently. “You’d be surprised, but many people do horrible things, and sometimes they don’t even suspect they might. At least you are forewarned. And so am I. So we can prevent this. Actually, I could have asked you the same—how can you feel safe around me? To someone else, I might seem evil as well. A mistress too wicked even for a beast.”

He made an indignant noise. “Huh! You never do anything I can’t handle.”

She playfully poked him in the ribs with her thumb. “So very arrogant. You’re not always that sure in the process. How about tickling?”

“Please not now,” he immediately begged, in a sudden fit of panic. If she made him squirm and twist, with the damn butt plug up his ass, it might be too close to torture. Would the chain of his dog tag break then or not?

“Fine, fine,” she relented with some regret in her voice. “Back to your question… Isn’t it what happens to so many girls? They meet someone who thinks himself to be a bad boy and fall for him, and then the risk seems worth it. I guess I’m no different.”

“You are different.” Embarrassed with the words of awe that slipped unguarded from his tongue, he added awkwardly, “You’re a witch after all.”

She laughed into his shoulder, a warm gust of breath. “True. And that’s what all these girls want to hear, too, that they are special, not like the others. But maybe I’m unlike most of them indeed because in the end, they usually want to transform their bad boys into good ones against their will. And it doesn’t usually work out. Even magic can’t do that.”

“But it works for us, what you do. I might have doubts sometimes, but I should hope so.”

“That’s because you want it, too, not just me. Besides … the thing is, I might have changed your life, your attitude to it, but I haven’t changed you, not really. As I said, I like you the way you are, as difficult as you might be. You can be a beast, and still be nice.”

Dragomir never considered himself to be a nice person, but if she said he was, he wouldn’t argue. She always knew better.

Being a beast was unpleasant. But being someone’s beast was another matter entirely.

 

The End

 

 

 

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