Author's Notes: Written for the second Archery assignment for Camp Potter – write a 2K or longer fic about death.
Yes, well, perhaps this interpretation of the prompt was a touch liberal, but…
Warnings: Sadism, misogyny, and sexual fantasies involving murder.
)O(
The Dark Lord found Bellatrix's particular fondness for torture most peculiar.
He became acquainted with it quite quickly after she began her work for him, and was not used to her brand of rather sexualized sadism. He was familiar with the rather enjoyable feeling of superiority that went with causing pain, naturally, but never before he met Bellatrix had he thought of taking physical pleasure from it.
The Dark Lord was not sadistic – not in the way that Bellatrix was, at any rate – but he did harbour a certain intellectual appreciation for pain. There was no reason to induce pain while in circumstances that required immediate action, of course, but in more leisurely moments, he enjoyed taking a few moments to watch someone writhe and scream. He watched their movements, observing every twist and curve with the precision of an artist, and he memorized the looks of agony they wore on their faces, but the pleasure he received from it was never visceral. Never sexual.
Bellatrix, unwilling to think of any matter as one in which sex was irrelevant, freely indulged in physical pleasures as a complement to torture. More than once, the Dark Lord found her in a dungeon, torturing a prisoner while she had one hand between her legs. He did not reprimand her, but he stood and watched while she clutched her wand in her right hand, hissing out streams of torture spells – not just the Cruciatus curse, but other, less popular ones, some – he suspected – of her own creation – and touching herself while her prisoners screamed. The Dark Lord was faintly amused by her overzealous sexuality, but he did not understand it. How could pleasure so base and visceral be derived from something as pure and intellectual as the art of torture?
She represented so many things about women that he had grown to loathe over his years. She was deceitful and manipulative in that coy way that only women could achieve – even a man for whom every word was a lie did not reach the same zenith of untruth as a woman, for a man, at least, lied with motive, instead of to appease the paradoxes that seemed to exist in women's minds and their perceptions of the world. Bellatrix was lustful, even as she was unwilling to speak openly about sex, even when asked directly, as though she would at any moment be accused of being a harlot.
Thoughts of Bellatrix – and of women, and of the things he found distasteful about them – made it quite impossible to devote attention to any of the more important matters he had at hand. He sat in his study for hours upon hours, trying to settle his mind and focus on the books in front of him, books with important notes about Horcruxes and immortality, and about the Ministry of Magic and its inner workings, and about any dozen other things that he needed to be familiar with, and yet his mind always went back to Bellatrix.
It was undisciplined of him.
The Dark Lord closed his books at last, when the sun had long-since set and he had still been unable to absorb any sort of pertinent information from his reading. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the fireplace, crackling in the grate, watching the little points of flame leap and dance, for he could at least do that while mulling over his thoughts on women.
Bellatrix would be well-served to be reminded thoroughly of her place. He had given her far too much liberty for far too long, and it had gone to her head and made her think that she was worth more to him than she was. He ought to refuse to allow her to attend meetings or do work for the Death Eaters until she was contrite.
Perhaps that would not be enough. His lips turned up into a small sneer as he considered other possibilities. Perhaps he ought to have her, give her what she wanted so much – but he would be unkind. He could make her scream and cry – teach her a thorough lesson about what it meant to defy him or speak to him as anything less than a profound superior.
His cock twitched beneath his trousers, and he shifted a little, almost unconsciously.
Perhaps he could torture her while he had her, just as she tortured those prisoners while she touched herself. That was her intent, he was sure, when she said that she would need to be treated like a lover for him to know what it was like to derive pleasure from torture – that he should torture her and it should please him. He doubted that it would please him much, but if he were particularly cruel, it might do a fine enough job of teaching her not to be presumptuous with him.
He closed his eyes and rested his head back, conjuring the scene in his mind. Bellatrix would have to be undressed, of course, but he would be clothed – he would not compromise his modesty for her sake. She would be on her knees even at the beginning - submissive and weak for him. He wouldn't want her to have any sort of sense of power, even that afforded by such simple things as clothing or being able to stand up.
They would be in a bedroom, of course - even as a means of humiliating her, the Dark Lord would never lower himself to be intimate in dungeons or public rooms or anywhere else so filthy and uncontrollable. A dungeon was a place only for those who were of low blood and lower morals, and a public room such as a ballroom would never do; he could not have stood the humiliation or anger if someone were to catch a glimpse of him. So a bedroom it would be, with the door closed and locked and silencing spells placed upon it, and heavy curtains drawn so that no one passing by outside might happen to glance up.
He could see it so perfectly. Bellatrix would have her hands clasped in her lap, covering herself as though she had an ounce of modesty, and even with her head bowed and her dark hair shielding her face, he would be able to tell from the way she carried herself that she still thought it a reward that she had been brought to the Dark Lord's chambers for his use. She would love the thought that he had some interest in her beyond her use as a servant - it had been always on her mind; he had known. He could hear her thoughts during meetings, and it had been those thoughts that had ultimately convinced him that she was as lustful as any other woman, not her fondness for torturing prisoners. If that had been her only uncalled-for sexual act, he might have been willing to forgive her. But no, she sat in the meetings, face turned boldly to him, and he knew what she was thinking of.
He could fulfill all her fantasies if that was what he wished to do...
But he did not wish to. It was his own fantasy that would be fulfilled, not hers.
He could string her along for a time, pretending as though it was all for her pleasure as much as his. He might kiss her or speak soft words to her, might take her into the bed and touch her, but he would not take her - not quickly. He would wait until she was flushed and begging for him, until she had cast off the mantle of false purity that she insisted upon wearing, however unconvincing it was. He would wait until she was moaning like a whore.
And then he would have her. He would mount her and ride her and let her take pleasure in it, still carrying on as if it was for her that he was doing it. But then he would put his hand to her neck.
Bellatrix, knowing the sort of woman she was, would probably enjoy that as well. He had spoken privately and discreetly with Rodolphus about her, and he had revealed that her sadism was not confined to the dungeons, nor to prisoners. Rodolphus had said that she often insisted that he should be bound to the bed before she would take him, or that she should be bound and he should take her. He thought it peculiar that she might want her husband - a weak-willed and over-romantic man, and one who was not devoted to her, despite his outward appearances - to have power over her in that way, but he was sure that if she enjoyed it from Rodolphus, she would love it a dozen times more if he was the one who was restraining her movements and making her feel helpless. She would probably moan for him when his hand first closed around her throat.
His cock was beginning to harden, he was aware, and he put one hand down lightly to rest upon it. There was no use in denying the pleasure that the whole matter gave him - pleasure that was, perhaps, not unlike that which Bellatrix felt when she tortured her prisoners. But oh, so very much more refined, because he would never need to cause her pain. No, it was the idea of her fear that aroused him so - and something else, something even more dangerously erotic than fear...
He would tighten his hand on her throat and relax it, steadily and rhythmically, cutting off her breath for a few seconds before allowing her to gasp again. She would arch and writhe for him every time he tightened his hand, but she would not think herself in any danger. Her mind would be focussed more on sex than on any danger she might be in. She would smile up at him with those lovely lips and look at him challengingly. She would think that she wanted more from him.
And then he would hold her throat for a little longer, and a little longer still.
He was quite hard at the thought now, and he undid his trousers to take himself in his hand, then closed his eyes and relaxed back in the chair to fully enjoy the situation that he had created for himself.
He would keep his hand on her throat until she feared that he would not let go, and then he would let go, and watch the relief wash over her, and then he would hold her windpipe closed again until once more, she feared that he would not let go, and then he would, and he would do that over and over until she was secure in her belief that he would not really stop her breathing.
And then he would not let go.
He stifled a small moan.
He could hold tightly to her throat and slowly, so slowly that she would not know what he was doing at first, he would choke the life out of her. That would be perfect, yes – and while he did it, while he was killing her, he could have her on her back, be in between her legs and take her while she couldn't draw breath to moan.
And oh, how much more beautiful she would look then than she did when she was free and safe. Tears would begin to come to her bulging eyes, and he could already imagine her wasting her final shreds of breaths on begging. She might struggle, might kick at him, and that would only quicken her end, waste what oxygen her body could have.
And then she would finally stop kicking…
He had seen so many murders that it was easy to picture. He could imagine perfectly the way that her jaw would slacken and her muscles relax, her body going lip beneath him, and the light going out of her eyes while her limbs were still tangled about him. He let out a long, low groan, and enjoyed the brief moment of ecstasy while he spilled onto his hand.
Murder – murder was so profound an expression of power, and brought one so close to the forces of the universe without putting oneself in harm's way – who could fail to find that to be an aphrodisiac? Even the words were intertwined – the French, after all, had that phrase, le petit mort, to describe release.
He sat for a time, limp and breathless from pleasure, watching the fire and thinking.
He still could not understand why Bellatrix so favoured torture as a means of arousal when murder was so clearly the more pleasurable act.
)O(
Fin
