A Hard Habit To Break
My name is Alex Vause, and I have an addiction.
Her name is Piper, Piper Chapman from Connecticut; uptight, narcissistic and all mine. Our story is one of epic romance, with dark themes and drama mixed in to create an intoxicating cocktail that keeps me coming back for more. The feeling of her lips on my skin is akin to the feeling of a needle inserting in the crook of my arm, sending complete bliss erupting through my veins. My hands always grasp for her with an urgency that I've never felt before and I always, always want more, no matter how many times I lay her over every available surface; it is never enough.
I love her with all of my being and hate her with every last molecule. She can set my nerves on fire, pandemonium beneath my skin with one simple touch, and she can rip my heart to shreds, leaving me strewn across the floor like a broken doll in our Paris apartment with only a few words. My body aches for her constantly, and yet, sometimes just looking at her can make me feel sick to my stomach. She has more power over me than any one person should hold and it both excites and terrifies me.
I remember the first time that I saw her, all sweet and innocent, and I remember thinking that I would have her eating out of the palm of my hand by the end of the night. It was stupid and naïve mistake to underestimate her and I had paid for it dearly over the years. There was no hesitance in her touch that night, only desire as she pushed me down onto the bed; a confidence that I hadn't expected from someone so young and seemingly inexperienced. It was like a breath of fresh air, finally finding a woman that had no qualms about taking control, and it was one of the reasons that our one night stand multiplied. The sex was phenomenal, like nothing I had ever experienced, and in the end, it was Piper that had me wrapped around her talented fingers.
I took her with me all over the world, showered her with gifts and priceless memories; I gave her everything to keep her by my side. We were not perfect together, or even remotely good for each other; our connection was chemical and to begin with, completely physical. I got hooked on the high that she could give me, but I knew in the back of my mind even then that this girl could be the one to break me, but I had hope that maybe she wouldn't.
But on one sunny morning in Paris, I watched as the door closed behind her, and I felt that hope shatter in my chest, leaving my heart unrecognizable. It wasn't until she was gone that I realized the true depths of my feelings for her; knew that I loved her by the emptiness her absence left in my heart.
I still looked for her, for years after she was gone, in the face of every woman that I slid on top of, in the corner of every bookshop that I wandered past, but found only desolation. The first slightest bit of resemblance to Piper I found was in the purse of a mule in the VIP section of a club in Berlin. The feeling of heroin coursing through my veins was the closest I had come to feeling her in my arms since the day she left, and I drowned myself in it. But the bliss that heroin brought only lasted for so long, and the come down was familiar to the pain of watching Piper leave and I tried to break the habit and failed miserably. It was the closest thing I could find to her, and I found myself gravitating back to it again and again, as I had with her in the first few weeks after our initial meeting, until I was strung out on the bathroom floor with the feds pounding relentlessly on my door.
My search for Piper brought my downfall, but it also gave me the opportunity to see her again, and I grabbed for it with hands that sought revenge for the state she left me in and a body that searched for the fix that only she could give me. My need for her body, her company and her love was too strong to resist, and I gave her up without a moment's hesitation.
It took months before she finally walked through the prison doors, looking incomparably different from the young woman I had known, and yet exactly the same. I avoided her at first, feeling the first prickles of guilt for putting her here since I gave her name to the feds, but the magnetic pull was too strong to resist. Her reaction to my appearance was not unexpected, but it stung all the same, and her anger kept me at bay for weeks on end. All I needed was the perfect moment to pull her back into my web, and it presented itself in the form of a broken dryer named Myra and a religious meth head hell-bent on revenge.
I sowed the seeds in her mind from behind the thick pane of plastic and watched as my words buried themselves in her head and then I waited. It took weeks of casual conversation, innocent touches and a forty eight hour stint in solitary, but when Piper strode into White Suburbia and took my hand, I knew I was about to reap the rewards of my patience.
"What are we doing here?" The words were a mere smokescreen, because we both knew exactly why we were there. When her lips crashed into mine, I felt as if every nerve in my body exploded, my heart pounded against my chest so hard, I swore that Piper could feel it from where she was pressed against me. I met her grasping hands with an urgency that I hadn't felt in years and felt a tingle of anticipation run down my spine as she ripped off my shirt and her teeth sunk into my bottom lip. It was like the first night we slept together all over again, with the confidence and desire practically seeping from Piper's every pore, and I gave her everything she wanted.
She fucked me, as I later told her fiancé in the visitation room, though I left out the embarrassing fact of how very willing I was beneath her competent hands. She continued to fuck me, long after my clit was so sensitive that her touch was almost painful, and I was absolutely useless to stop her. I wanted more, and I would be completely content if she never stopped, more than willing to give her this power over me, in hopes that I would finally satisfy my craving for her.
But as all addicts know, the craving never truly goes away, and you're always left wanting more. Every time you go back, you always say that this will surely be the last time, you promise yourself, and sometimes you manage to kick the habit, but you never stop wanting it. I never stopped wanting her, and even after she chose her stupid fiancé, I still found myself wanting to pull her into every empty janitorial closet in the building.
She was locked up in the SHU for three months after her altercation with Doggett, and I was almost relieved that I didn't have to see her anymore. I thought that maybe I could use this time to detox her from my skin, but every attempt failed as I knew it would. I fucked Nicky in the chapel, buried myself in books and laundry and even took to jogging on the track, but could not forget the way her body felt when it tangled with mine.
She walks around the prison like a zombie these days; the only signs of life are the constant clenching and unclenching of her hands. I pretend that I don't look over at her every five seconds, as she sits at her table alone, chewing absently on her beef tips as she stares out into space. Her hair is a tangled mess and her blue eyes are dull and hollow, and when she tightens her fingers around her spork, I can see the faint scars that now mar her otherwise perfect hands, but I still think she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
She gets five years added to her sentence, and we don't talk for the first two, and I swear I should get a medal for keeping my distance. For days on end I don't see her at all and it is torture, but not as excruciating as when I walk unknowingly into the bathrooms as she's exiting the shower. I cannot tear my eyes away from her toned thighs or the flexing muscles on her shoulders, and is it almost impossible not to push her back into the shower stall and fuck her senseless, fungus be damned. It's like a constant battle inside my body, my brain warring with my heart and for the first few years, my logical side triumphs.
Until one night, she walks into the laundry room with her bag of dirty khaki's, long after everyone else has left. She stares at the ground as she walks towards my table, and I have to compliment her on that fact that she's been doing a much better job than I at ignoring the connection that still lingers between us. She places her bag almost tentatively on the table before me and I reach out to take it, a second too early because her hand hasn't yet let go and our fingers brush and it's only such a small amount of contact, but more than enough to light a fire inside of me.
She doesn't move away and neither do I, and when she finally looks up and meets my gaze, I know I am lost, because that familiar fire is blazing in her blue eyes, matching the one in my own. I am satisfied by the way her hands reach for me first, though admittedly, I am not far behind. Our lips meet and in moments, she in on top of the table that dared to separate us, her feet hooked around my legs and her hands gripping the front of my shirt. I hold her face in my hands, crushing her lips to mine so hard that I can feel them bruising, but I couldn't care less. A bruise from her lips is one that I would display with pride, unlike the marks left by needles, which were hidden beneath long sleeved shirts, hiding my weakness.
It was crazy to think that I had ever compared Piper to heroin in this very moment, as I felt her warm hands slip beneath my shirt, raising goose bumps on my skin. Heroin was a brief pin prick and sunshine shining through the window, while touching Piper was like touching the sun itself. This feeling, her touch, her mouth, was so much more addictive and had much more power over me than any drug ever could.
With one hand between my legs, and one covering my mouth to muffle my whimpers and moans, she brought me to the edge with hard and fast thrusts. There was no foreplay, no teasing touches or dragging it out; she sensed my need and brought me the ecstasy that I required. When she finally pulled her hand away, I was a shaking mess in her arms, and her embrace was much warmer than the cold bathroom floors I used to frequent after a fix.
"It is inevitable, isn't it?" I heard her whisper in my ear as she ran her fingers through my sweat soaked hair. "I can't stay away from you."
I replied to her words with a kiss, full of heat and passion, love and desire, and felt her return it with equal measure. She was putty in my hands, bending to my will without protest, wanting the high that only I had ever been able to give her and it made me smile into our kisses. I was thrilling to know that she needed this as badly as I did, to know that I wasn't alone in my addiction for her lips and skin.
My name is Alex Vause, and I have an addiction; her name is Piper Chapman and she's addicted to me.