"...the soul immediately, as if struck directly by good or evil, unrestrained in its opinion that this object is very important to it, believes it for this reason to be worthy of all its attention; it directs all its faculties to its consideration; forgetting in this contemplation, in this desire or fear nearly all other objects: so it is in the case of a man struck down by an acute illness; he is not at liberty to think about anything unrelated to his pain. It is also in this sense that passions are the diseases of the soul."
Denis Diderot
December 21, 1997.
Jill hurriedly dug through the unfolded laundry, elbow-deep, searching for her lucky panties.
She emptied the basket on her bed, thinking they might be stuck in the leg of her jeans, or bunched up in a shirt. She spread the clothes around on top of the comforter, the scent of the flowery fabric softener wafting up into the cold air of her bedroom. She plucked out a few wrinkled dryer sheets and then stood back, her hands on her hips.
No lucky panties anywhere.
She knew she'd just washed them. She'd worn them last weekend. And she really, really wanted to wear them again tonight...they practically guaranteed good sex. The scalloped black lace around the leg that somehow didn't itch, the perfect v just above her pussy, the fit across her round ass...the way she felt when she stripped down and stood before whoever the fortunate bastard was for the first time.
They just worked.
"Where are they?" she mumbled, staring at the mess of clothes.
The doorbell rang downstairs. She froze, her eyes wide. She glanced at the clock. It was only 5:14 - he wasn't supposed to pick her up until 6:30. Panicked, she unwound the heavy towel from her head, ripping her fingers through her tangled, wet hair. She pulled on a pair of flannel pants, stumbled and hopped on one leg and then the other. Her hands shaking, she yanked an inside-out t-shirt over her head, down over her bare breasts. She tugged on the hem, feeling the embroidered graphic on the wrong side of the shirt, scratching her hardened nipples.
The doorbell rang again.
"Be right there!" she snapped, looking at herself once more in the smudged dresser mirror.
"Sir?" She couldn't hide the shock in her voice when she opened the front door.
He removed his officer's hat as he stood on her front stoop. Snowflakes floated down from the night sky, landing on his shoulders, his face, melting. "Valentine," he replied in a cloud of his own breath.
She hesitated, staring at him incredulously for a moment. "Oh wow… uh, come in," she finally smiled, moving aside.
He stepped across the threshold, the bitter air rushing in behind him. She closed the door as he stomped in place on her welcome mat. And then he turned to her, his cheeks flushed pink from the cold.
She watched him, unsure...perplexed by his visit. He had never dropped by like this before. He'd never been to her home at all. She pushed her hair out of her face, tucking the bob behind a delicate ear. His impassive, unreadable gaze fell to her chest, and then quickly averted.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, remembering that she had come to the door without a bra. She cursed herself, but the last person she'd expected to see was the Captain.
"I apologize for turning up unannounced," he began in his usual monotone. He unzipped his uniform coat halfway and reached in. He produced an evidence bag - the letter. She felt her brows knit together as he spoke. "Nothing popped for this. Your prints, Kevin's…my own, of course."
She nodded seriously.
"I thought perhaps you'd like it back…in case you receive any other suspicious correspondence." He held out the bag.
Jill raised her eyebrows, taking it from him and quickly wrapping her arm around herself again. "To compare," she agreed.
"Exactly. Although I'm certain it's an isolated incident." He zipped up his coat and adjusted the collar. "That sort of passion is...unsustainable."
"I hope," she sighed. "You on patrol tonight?"
"I am. Unfortunately." He flexed his hands and pulled at the cuff of his leather gloves.
She frowned, looking out the window at the dark sky and the swirling snow. "Do you want something to drink? Something hot?"
He glanced up at her.
"Unless you've gotta get back…on the road...right away," she continued in the strange silence.
"I don't," he said.
The coffee maker dribbled into the carafe at a snail's pace. Jill watched it. Focused on it. Forced herself to stare at it, as if it was the most fascinating process she'd ever seen.
She could feel him behind her, horribly out of place at her sad little kitchen table...and kitchen table was a generous description. It wasn't anything but an old, worn card table, the padded green top torn in the corner, stained in the center. Her mother had decided to toss it when she'd left her Bridge Club after a fall out with a friend. Another hand-me-down that Jill, fresh out of the service, had taken when she moved into her townhome in Raccoon.
Everything around her was a hand-me-down. Everything was old. Broken.
Embarrassing.
She'd found a clean mug in the very back of a cabinet. One with a chipped rim and a silhouette of the Seattle skyline on it.
She'd never been to Seattle.
And that had been fine, until he had shown up. Now she was in her own kitchen praying her boss wouldn't ask when she'd visited the Pacific Northwest, so that she wouldn't have to stammer over an awkward answer about how she hadn't been there, she hadn't been anywhere the military hadn't sent her actually, she was living with everyone's cast-offs because she'd spent all of her money on the baby grand piano in the tiny guest room, would he like to see it, of course he wouldn't, and the rest of her pathetic public service paycheck went to the roof over her head and keeping the goddamn electric on and -
The coffee maker spluttered, near the end of brewing. She heard the toe of his boot tapping on her linoleum floor, as he rocked back in the chair. The one from her sister. Which didn't match the other two.
He was unnervingly quiet.
And the kitchen was unnervingly small, with him in it.
"What do you take?" she asked, her voice cracking. "In your coffee."
"Nothing," he said, as the machine mercifully dinged.
She breathed a sigh of relief, her hand unsteady as she poured him a cup of plain...black…acrid coffee. "How long is your shift, sir?" she asked, trying desperately to fill the silence.
"Until two." He crossed his impossibly long legs at the ankle. "You don't have to keep calling me that, Jill."
He took the coffee from her hands and sipped carefully, the steam from it obscuring his face. She watched him.
"I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?" he asked, setting the mug down on the tabletop next to his cap.
"Oh no," she said, leaning back against the cabinets. "I'm going out…but that's…later."
Wesker nodded slowly. He seemed to stare through her, his eyes narrowed and icy. "A date?"
"Don't say it like that." She licked her lips and laughed. She blushed, feeling the rush of blood creeping up her throat. "Yeah, kind of a date," she admitted after a beat.
"Kind of...a date," he repeated, his thin lips threatening his trademark smirk.
"Do you have any big plans this weekend?" she asked.
"None." He picked up the coffee and took another sip.
"No exciting dates of your own?" She smiled and joked, trying too hard, and then realized how it sounded, as soon as the words left her mouth. She held the smile, though...there was nothing else she could do. It felt like paste on her lips.
He smiled back; it didn't reach his frozen eyes. "Never," he said, without a hint of sarcasm.
She shifted her weight, her fingers busily picking at a torn cuticle. "I'm sorry…I shouldn't have asked. You might be married…I wouldn't know."
He sighed and rose from the chair, the chipped Seattle mug in his hands. He moved across the kitchen, soundlessly.
Her spine was rigid as she watched him walk towards her, her jaw tensing. She swallowed and braced herself against the countertop.
He came to stand directly in front of her, barely a foot of space between them. He paused there, and the air was electric. Her eyes darted to his taciturn face.
"I feel married," he said softly. He reached around to set the mug down in the sink…and then he turned away from her, retrieved his hat from the table, pulled it on and adjusted it by the brim. "More often than not…I feel very much married."
She exhaled, her muscles releasing as the tension dissipated. "To the job?" she asked.
He stopped in the archway of the kitchen, thoughtful. "To…some element of the job, yes." He looked her over once more. "Thank you, for the coffee. I'll see myself out. Do be safe on your date tonight, Officer."
"Yes, sir," she replied, tucking her hair behind her ear again. "You too."
"Always," his voice carried back to her.
The front door opened and closed.
She left the letter on the counter, next to the coffee maker, and headed upstairs to finish getting ready.
Twenty steps.
Nineteen steps.
Eighteen steps.
He counted every step back to his car. The ice crunched beneath his boots. He held his breath.
Keep it together.
Do not.
Not here.
Five steps.
Four steps.
He jammed his hand into his coat pocket and yanked out his keys, his fingers already numb inside the glove. The air was bitterly cold.
The keys rattled as he searched for the right one. Rounded. Silver. Ford.
Three.
The cold stung his face. His breath curled like fog before him. The coffee had been bitter and cheap. It stuck to his tongue. He would taste it for hours to come.
Two.
Heavy bronze office keys clattered together. Ice cracked on the dead grass. She'd smelled like fresh laundry. Her house had smelled like old furniture, old wood, dust. Her hair had been damp. Dark. It had caught the light when she moved.
One.
Unlock the car. Open the door. Get inside...
The key slipped. Scratched against the car. Fell from his hands, landing on the edge of the frosted lawn. A dull thud.
A wild sound tore at his throat.
He swallowed it.
He wouldn't.
He would not.
He looked up then, and stood very still. He stared at his reflection in the driver's window. What did she see, when she looked at him?
Did she see anything at all?
A man? A superior? An idea…of a man who was her superior, who signed her checks, who told her what to do? Another man. Another man in a string of men she did not love.
More likely than any of that, she saw…nothing, when she looked at him. Nothing at all.
He crouched down and picked the cold metal keys out of the grass. The snow had stopped falling, leaving nothing but bleak, numbing cold.
Start again.
Unlock the car. Open the door. Get in the car.
The key slipped into the lock. The lock clicked as he twisted. He pulled the key free. His fingers curled around the handle. He pulled.
The door opened.
Inside. Get inside.
He tugged the key loose, ducked into the vehicle. Snow from his boots fell to the rubber floor mat. He leaned back against the seat, every muscle too tense, and too limp.
Close the door.
He reached for it blindly. His hand found the handle, his knuckles scraping down the plastic of the door well, probably bruising despite the glove. He would feel it and remember later. He gave it an angry tug.
The door slammed shut, sweeping a burst of cold air into the car.
The world outside was dark and quiet. The world inside was dark and quiet. He could see her house lights from the corner of his eye, warm and gold. Still on while she got ready. While she undressed and dressed again and got ready for-
Start the car.
He fumbled for the ignition. The key shook in his hand.
Goddamnit. Not here.
Not here.
The dark, quiet world felt too tight. It wrapped around his chest and throat. The edges of it bled together, bled to a blur. Bled and bled…
Start the car.
The key slipped into place. He turned it. The vehicle clicked and hummed, roaring to life, all light and noise. "Dispatch," a disembodied voice, full of static, came through the radio. "...there's an abandoned vehicle on North Ennersdale. Civilian says white Mitsubishi, been there for a week. Over."
He glared at the dash, breathing deeply through his nose.
Drive.
"Anyone copy? Over."
Static again. Humming. Buzzing. He stared at the monitor.
"Copy that dis-"
Another voice, another one, more voices, voices voices voices. He slammed his fist against the console. It shook, bolted firmly in place. The monitor flickered. The voice crackled, but kept talking, still talking, always talking…
He grabbed it with both hands, ripping it away from the dash. The monitor broke free, a tangled mess of wires trailing from it. The noise died. He tossed it to the passenger seat, turning back, looking out the windshield.
No more voices.
He ground his jaw. His fingers were like claws around the head of the gear shift. He yanked it out of park, and placed his hands on the wheel, and found the gas pedal.
Drive.
Leave.
Go.
He did.
He drove.
He left her house behind, with its gentle gold lights and its warm smells and the coffee cup in the sink. She wouldn't have washed it yet. She wouldn't wash it until later tonight. Tomorrow morning.
Streetlights glinted off the snow. They blurred together as the car passed, bright splotches in the dark, growing sparser as he drove further and further. The yellow lines on the pavement snaked before him, guiding him down the twisting back road, away from the grating tranquility of the suburbs.
Tomorrow morning. She'd wash the mug then. After her date. After a man - another man, a stranger to him, maybe not a stranger to him, someone else - had seen her, kissed her, touched her, tasted her. She'd come home with him all over her, inside her, bright morning light and melting snow and a mark on her neck from his lips and his teeth and -
He peeled off the road, onto the shoulder, slamming on the breaks. The town flickered in his rearview mirror. Before him, nothing - the sprawling forest, the Arklay mountains rising in the distance, their dull peaks hidden by the grey clouds, the slow-rising moon.
He gasped then, inexplicably short of breath. He grabbed at his chest, panting, tearing at the collar of his coat. It was too hot. It was so fucking hot in the car. He found the window crank on the door, violently wound it until it caught and stopped. Biting wind swelled in, flooding the cab, freezing his flushed face… anesthetizing him.
He sat very still as the December evening poured over him. And yet his body trembled, shook, quivered in its fever.
Slowly, he unzipped his coat, tooth by metal tooth.
He looked up as a semi-truck passed by, momentarily blinding in the mirror, the oversized engine deafening him in its wake. Red tail lights trailed behind in the darkness, reflecting off the wet black road until the truck disappeared completely.
He stripped the glove from his right hand, finger by leather finger, his eyes fixed on some invisible point outside the car, outside in space. He laid the glove on the dashboard, his every movement measured and deliberate. The air around him felt thick, rippling like chilly, murky water.
He undid the tight buttons at the collar of his shirt, his expression serene, his eyes absent. He slipped his bare hand inside, under the kevlar vest, under the fabric of his uniform. He didn't flinch as his cold fingers met and explored his warm flesh. He took a halting breath as he touched it… hardened, the skin so tight as it stretched, attempting to heal. Long and jagged and terribly painful. In his mind's eye, he could see it - the black thread, the angry puckered line.
It had been one of the deepest wounds he'd ever sustained.
Inflicted. One of the deepest wounds he'd ever inflicted.
His combat knife. A sloppy cut, hastily done in the men's room at the office. He'd been out of his mind in that moment, barely conscious of his own actions…only acutely, intensely aware of his humiliation, his rage.
His heart began to pound. He could hear it in his head, feel the throb of it in his temples. There was only one way to handle this. He was very afraid. But he had to. He must.
Do it.
Do it.
He grunted, pulling hard on the stiffened little knot where the sutures were tied closed. He tugged, wincing at the sharp twinge of deep pain. And then he pried…and he ripped...feeling each stitch pop through his skin, tear through his skin, undoing every bit progress the wound had made.
Do it.
He finally cried aloud as the last stitch was pulled free of his chest, his mournful howl echoing around the car, floating out the open window. He yanked his hand out from his shirt, staring at it. In the moonlight, in the glow of his headlights, he could see his fingertips, coated in blood. Blood he felt leaking beneath the bulletproof vest, a steady, profuse flow. The newly-opened wound raged and stung and burned.
Taking deep, shaking breaths, he reached across the passenger seat and punched the glove compartment until it fell open, spilling business cards and plastic utensils and blank traffic tickets. He dug through the mess, his other hand pressing down on his chest, trying to staunch the flow of blood. He grabbed a fistful of fast food napkins and shoved them down his shirt, hissing, tossing his head against the seat as the paper rasped his wound.
He remained there, panting and bleeding, his mind mercifully blank as the nerves fired out their wonderous synapses, crying in agony to his listless, euphoric brain.
And when the pain finally subsided...when his shirt had dried to his chest, and his pulse had steadied, and the air felt sharp and cold on him again...he thought of her.
Alabaster skin like marble. Crystalline eyes closing as she let her head fall back. Chestnut hair sticking to her throat. Someone's name in her full, wet mouth.
No. There wasn't enough pain in the world to forget Jill Valentine.
December 17, 1997.
It was far too easy to pick the front door lock.
She, of all people, should have known to be more careful. A girl who spent her youth learning all about driver pins and tension wrenches, and her own home - tucked away at the end of a quiet, lonely street - was open in a matter of moments.
She would be on duty for at least another hour. Maybe two. And her home was like a beacon, like a lamp drawing him in from the dark. Inviting him over the threshold.
The door shut softly behind him.
There was a kind of stillness to the house...a kind of breathlessness...that made him feel as if he'd stepped into a sacred place. Just a simple townhome, with off-white carpet and eggshell walls, with scuffed wood trim and threadbare curtains. But it was all exactly how it should be.
Exactly as he'd imagined it. Simple and pure and perfect.
He passed through the small living room, fingertips skimming over surfaces as he walked. The sweater hanging beside the door, its fabric rough and pilled. The little end table with its faded wood polish, a simple ceramic dish on top. The back of the worn leather sofa, sunbleached, seams cracking.
He stroked the curved back. And tried not to imagine how many men had fucked her there.
How many had pressed her down against the leather. Spread her beautiful thighs. Seen the perfect pout of her cunt, the creamy blush-pink skin. How many men had taken her, rutting into her like animals.
He tried not to imagine her gripping the cushion. Arching. Mewling.
He passed through to the main hall. To his left, a little kitchen - linoleum tile, a clean stove with old coil burners. To the right, a room swallowed by an elegant baby grand piano. Before him, a set of stairs, leading up into shadows.
He walked forward. Each step creaked beneath his boots. The stairs ended at the top of a tight hall, with three open doors, leading to three dim rooms.
He pushed open the door to his right. It led to her bathroom...small and unassuming. He crossed it in three strides, walking towards the tub.
He pulled back the vinyl shower curtain. A metal basket clung to the tile wall with suction cups, overstuffed with bottles and bars of soap. A dark blue bath sponge hung from the rusted faucet. He reached for it, and found it disappointingly dry.
Still, he pressed it close to his face, breathing in deeply. The smell - her smell - clung to it faintly. A scent he couldn't name. Ripe fruit and warm herbs and fresh green things.
He thought of her in the shower. Slick damp skin. Soft, sweet fragrances. Rivulets of warm water running down her face. Her throat. The generous swell of her breasts.
His blood stirred. His groin tightened.
He reluctantly hung the sponge back on the spigot, reaching for the mismatched bottles in the wire basket. One by one, he opened the caps, inhaling deeply. Blackberry, vanilla, freesia, lavender...something he couldn't name, the label faded and smudged. All mingling to form the intangible perfume he caught each morning as he passed her in the hall at work...but missing something. Some essential, indescribable layer. Missing the true heat of her scent.
He pulled the curtain closed, turning back to the rest of the bathroom.
The toilet sat beside the sink. He walked towards it, delicately lifting the lid, and then the seat, inspecting the basin. Clean. Nearly spotless, save for the faintest brown water stain streaked down the bowl. No splashes of pale yellow on the back of the seat, no evidence at all that she'd used it. He was sorry for it.
The bathroom counter was small, the sink white and simple. A dispenser of soap sat in the corner, full of glistening amber-colored liquid. Opposite it was her toothbrush, perched in a blue cup with a nearly empty tube of toothpaste.
He picked up the brush, examining it. It was a light shade of periwinkle. Everything she owned seemed to be blue - cobalt and navy and piercing, bright sky blue, and all the shades in between.
A calming color, psychology said. Serene and stable. An escape from the rancid, stinking foulness of the world. From the maddening chaos.
He couldn't blame her.
He stared down at the bristles - fraying and faded. Her teeth were lovely, neat and even and pearl-white. He rarely saw them. Her smile was tightly contained. Her smile was a secret. Nothing but softly curled lips.
But whenever he did see them...whenever she laughed, grinned, said anything that pulled the perfect cupid's bow of her lip up and away...he ached to feel her stinging bite against his skin. To run his tongue across the chiseled edges of her incisors, the sharp points of her cuspids. To taste, to learn every inch of her mouth.
He placed the brush back in the cup, running his fingertip across the soft, faded bristles. And then he stepped out of the bathroom, crossing the hall.
Through the cracked door, he could see the outline of her bed. The moonlight spilling through her window. He fingered the door knob - plain round brass, worn from years of use - before he slipped into the room.
The carpet here was wonderfully plush, compared to the rest of her home. It swallowed the sound of his footsteps. A kind of hush settled all across the room, as if time froze here. As if the very universe converged here, and hung suspended, inanimate.
His every muscle trembled as he crossed the floor.
The bed was small - a full, at most. No headboard. Neatly made with three pillows, and a cotton duvet, and a throw tossed casually across one corner. Practical. Uncomplicated.
His chest clenched as he reached out, fingers stroking the fabric of the cover.
Practical. Uncomplicated. The place where she slept...naked, perhaps, with her long, lovely legs twisted in the sheets, with her breath slow and even, with her lips parted in a dream...where she woke, her body morning-soft, morning-wet, stretching against the sun that filtered through the curtains and painted her skin with a gentle halo of gold...
The clenching grew tighter. Unbearably tight. He gripped the duvet, prepared to draw it closer to his body, to wrap himself in it...and instead, he found himself leaning forward, crawling onto the bed, on his hands and on his knees, the tightness in his chest digging deeper, spreading further, until the whole of him quivered with barely-bridled desperation.
He took a shaking breath as he reached the pillows. He thought of her hair...her rich brown hair, the color of late autumn, brushing her shoulders, tangled across the pillow as she turned in her sleep…
He lowered his face to the pillows, breathing deeply. The same scent. The same scent everywhere. Every inch of her home, every inch of her body. He filled his lungs with it, held it inside him. Craved more of it. Coveted it.
His body - a weak, perverse thing - writhed atop the bed as he gathered the pillow closer, burying his nose in the soft, worn cotton. His cock twitched and throbbed as he thought of her here, in this bed, beneath him, above him.
Thought of her alone. Touching herself. Fingers parting the velvet flesh between her legs, grazing the beautiful swollen pearl at the crest of her sex. Whispering his name into the dark, again and again.
As lost in him as he was in her.
He bared his teeth at the image, growling into the pillow. He arched sharply up, reveling in the frustrating friction of the bed against his groin. The sheets bunched beneath him.
He needed more of her. More than fleeting images and fading scents. More than dark rooms full of shadows and specters. He needed so much more. He needed her gaze. He needed her voice. He needed her breath and her skin and her bones. He needed her heart, red and raw, beating in his hand.
He needed all of her.
He was ravenous, delirious with the thought of her - of touching her, taking her, staring into her lovely blue eyes as he devoured her. As he broke her into a million shards, so no one else might ever look at her again.
With a great, painful effort, he tore himself from the pillow, pushing off of the bed. There wasn't enough of her here...not enough to sate him. His blood thrummed with a prowling, predatory instinct, wild in his veins.
It drove him to cross the room. To stand before her dresser, and yank the drawers open one by one, the contents rattling with the force of his movements. The mirror above the bureau shook with his frenetic searching, the reflection of the bed vibrating.
He rifled through each drawer - half-used tubes of chapstick, sunglasses, hair ties, socks, folded pajamas. He didn't know what he was searching for, but he felt as if a kind of possession had settled over him, driving him towards something...something that would call to him when he found it, and make him feel as if he held the slightest measure of her soul in his palm…
In the bottom drawer, he found something that made his blood freeze. He held his breath, his nostrils flaring, his teeth grinding, near to the point of pain.
An opened box of condoms. Okamoto Crown, reservoir-tipped, unlubricated.
The color drained from his face. It was a brand he knew well. They were rare stateside; she would have had to search for them. The thought…the very thought of her seeking out Crowns for someone...
He grabbed the box, crushing it in his fist, several of the gold foil packets falling out. He bent down, furiously snatching the stray condoms off the floor. He jammed all of them in his pocket, punching them down so that none would escape. He wouldn't allow her to… defile herself with another man. This would give her pause, at least, when there was someone else in her bed, waiting for her. She would think twice, he knew. She was careful and even-tempered, and she would surely reconsider intercourse, if he only helped her see the truth.
He would protect her from herself when she was too blind to her own foolish decisions.
He would protect her, when no one else would.
He felt his skin pricking, itching, crawling. He should count them. He should count the condoms, and see how many she had used, determine how many times she had lain with someone who wasn't him, allowed someone who wasn't him to climax in her, on the bed that didn't belong to him.
But he was running out of time.
He continued to dig through the drawer, pushing aside plain padded bras, parting a tangled pile of panties and camisoles. Mattes and neutrals, some black. Nothing particularly flashy or elaborate. Her lingerie was as understated as the rest of her, beautiful in its simplicity, revealing to him their mutual appreciation for both form and function.
Under the mound of intimates, he discovered a half-used bottle of KY. He ran his fingertips over the plastic, feeling the slickness of dribbled liquid. Shivering at the knowledge that she had used the lubricant - recently.
He moved a satiny tank top, and his eyes immediately spied something flesh-colored. He yanked his hand back, startled.
A toy.
His stomach in his throat, he reached down, slowly brushing a pair of grey panties out of the way. It was a rather large dildo - all one tone of pink-peach, with a very flared corona and wide head. The girth was impressive, but realistic; the length was comparative to his own cock, when erect.
Steeling himself, he picked it up.
It was heavy in his hand, bending under its own weight, the tip drooping almost sadly toward the floor. He rubbed the shaft, feeling the life-like texture of the silicone. It was deceptively real.
He remembered the KY. The messy drizzle over the side of the bottle.
She'd used this, not long ago. Perhaps the night before. He recalled her schedule - she'd gotten off work around one in the morning. Certainly too late in the evening for someone as responsible as Jill to engage with a partner. No…no, she would have found comfort in her own touch last night.
He was certain that the dildo in his hand had been inside of her. A muscle in his cheek twitched, as he played out every excruciating detail of the scene.
She would have knelt on her bed, dripping the lubricant over the the thick head of the toy first…given the length a few slippery strokes, just before massaging it between the petals of her wholly unprepared sex. Certainly, she was the type of woman who enjoyed a bit of resistance, preferring penetration she was not quite ready for, relishing the sensation of her flesh yielding with the weakest of burns…she would have trembled and cried at the painful insertion she'd forced on herself, her walls pushed open and fluttering around the unrelenting silicone…
She would have watched her own agony in the mirror over her dresser, her thighs spread obscenely in want of firm hands to pry them open, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth set in a perfect, tormented o.
Incoherent, aberrant, unreachable, he brought the toy under his nose and inhaled deeply. Blood pumped savagely through him, straight to his restrained cock.
Oh, if he only had the time…
Disheartened, he sighed and replaced the dildo in the drawer, concealing it with her undergarments, exactly as he had found it.
Quietly, he closed every drawer in the dresser. He slowly straightened the bed where he'd ground himself against her sheets and pillows.
Moving back to the center of her bedroom, he stood, his hands on his hips, his poor erection aching against the biting zipper of his fly. He looked around once more, the feeling that he was missing something still nagging at him.
His gaze fell upon a heap of fragrant laundry in a deep, rubber basket.
A pair of whorish black lace panties lay on top of the pile...as if by fate.
2006.
Jill.
The world was black. Nothing existed…except the voice. Her head rolled between her shoulders, her neck weak. Her hands clenched and unclenched, restrained…by something, to something.
Jill.
She moaned, leaning forward. Everything moved in dreamtime.
Open your eyes, angel.
She tried. She tried very hard. Her eyelids seemed to be leaden, lethargic - even to lift them a fraction of an inch was an impossibility. She whined, her lashes fluttering on her cheeks.
Keep trying.
She wanted to sleep. She wanted silence. She felt numb and heavy, her body strangely untethered.
No, Jill. Keep trying…
The voice was persistent. It was clear and low, familiar and strange. She pried one eye open, the thinnest sliver of light creeping through her wet eyelashes.
She winced.
Shh. I know...try again…one more time...
She opened them slowly. Carefully. She thought she must be trembling with the effort.
There you go.
She blinked. Everything was a dull, hazy blur. A shapeless world with strange lights and colors. Her wrists flexed, ached and pulled against the resistance of something.
My sweet girl.
She squinted and forced herself to sit up straighter. A bright orange flickering cracked and popped to her right - a fire. She could feel the heat of it on her side. She swallowed, and her own saliva rasped her throat raw.
You can hear me. I know you can.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Help," she wheezed. "Help me."
I have helped you. Don't be afraid.
Her fingers twisted and weakly clawed at whatever her arms were bound to. Smooth padding…cold metal. She jerked in her bondage, and the entire contraption that held her lurched.
You're almost fixed, Jill. You will be so much better once the final surgery is complete. Nearer to me than any living thing on earth...
The voice was resolute - deep and full, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. It rang in her head. She leaned forward, feeling the world around her shift.
Suddenly, she was moving. She felt wheels bump over the edge of something, the edge of a rug, perhaps, and the heat of the fire faded away, leaving her skin to chill and goosebump. The place, the room, the dream - wherever she was - blurred around her, her vision still too slow to catch up. She was dizzy. Nauseous.
"Please," she whispered.
Shh.
The movement stopped. She balled her hands into small, impotent fists, testing the strength of her restraints again.
Warm fingers, painfully gentle, stroked her jaw, trailed under her chin and guided her towards a source of dim light.
Look.
Her stomach had stopped flipping. She opened her eyes.
Her own face stared back at her.
Pale. Gaunt. An undead thing.
She gasped, her throat closing, her breath stuttering, choking her.
Her hands had been cuffed to the arms of the wheelchair where she slumped. Panicked, she fought against her bindings again, to no avail. She cried out, her voice hoarse and gravelly.
Her body was naked, the whole of her flesh sickly and ashen, nearly translucent. She could see the web of her blue-green veins, a messy network pumping blood through her, and she could see the ivory ridges of her bones protruding beneath her skin. Something red glimmered in the warped surface of the mirror. A kind of gem nestled in the middle of her chest, attached with tubes and coils that disappeared under and into. Staring at it, she could feel it. She could feel the metal conduits, the rubber lines that tangled and weaved around and through her ribs. Her heart seized, throbbing painfully as her pulse rocketed.
Her head had been shaved - a long, swollen gash split down her skull like lightning, stapled back together carefully, evenly. The strange, dim light of the room caught on the metal, glinting in the reflection. Her hair was only beginning to grow in, her head fuzzy and eerily white.
Long fingers trailed down her throat, and caressed her frail shoulder.
They've done such painstaking work on you. They've put you back together so neatly. You are almost…new.
She breathed in hard, nostrils flaring. Her hands shook in the restraints.
She had fallen. She had thrown herself from the window, and felt the ground shatter her body to a thousand pieces. She had felt the world crack, felt it fade, all black and empty.
She had died.
She had died, but she hadn't been alone.
Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she stared into the mirror. At her face. At her body.
At the fingers.
They rested against the dip of her clavicle. They rose and fell with each trembling, halting breath she took. Her unsteady gaze traveled up… up the wrist, the arm, as pale as her own. The curve of a sloping bicep in the firelight,. The defined shoulder. The pronounced Adam's apple in the throat.
She stared into Albert Wesker's luminous reptilian eyes.
Silent, stunned, a tear trailed down her cheek. It caught against her quivering lip. She tasted salt.
She had died.
She had died.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She had thrown herself at him, her arms wrapped around his waist, wind rushing past them. The rocks had broken her fall, splintered her bones and ripped her muscles. They were supposed to find her mangled body at the bottom of the cliff, they were supposed to bury what was left of her, and she wasn't supposed to be here...not with him...not with his hand on her...
Oh no, no…don't cry. Is it your hair? I know it's a shock. His fingers trailed back up her neck, her jaw, her cheek, brushing the fine hairs at her temple. But it will all grow back after the next surgery. Full and soft and lovely...you'll see. You will be more beautiful than ever before.
A raw, feral sob erupted from her throat. She tried to jerk away from him, and the chair rattled beneath her.
Don't strain yourself. He knelt very close to her. He was hotter than the flickering fire had been. You're still quite delicate.
In the great golden mirror, her wide, terrified eyes followed his every slow move. Her chest heaved with each of her frantic breaths, her exposed breasts quivering at the edge of her vision. Her stare darted to his bare foot, to the bend of his knee, to his taut, hairless thigh. She could just make out the thick curve of his erect member through the dark fabric of whatever he wore.
An unearthly scream tore through her. Her body seized, shook. "Help!" Her throat collapsed with the force of her plea. "Help me!" She screamed for her life, for someone, anyone, to hear her.
He stood then. "Now Jill…that's unnecessary," he said, his voice as flat and commanding as she remembered it the night she…the night they...
His voice.
His voice. His mouth, moving.
She sank into the wheelchair, gaping at his reflection. He hadn't been speaking to her. He hadn't said a word, until now. His lips hadn't...he hadn't…
You can hear me, can't you?
His voice…was in her head. He was inside of her. His voice was coming from inside of her.
Inside.
Gutted, trembling, she could only fold in on herself. She didn't scream again - she couldn't have if she'd wanted to. Her breathing had all but ceased.
I was concerned that Alex's device was faulty. My sister, though devious and cunning, is no engineer. But she outdid herself this time. Truly.
She blinked at him, completely still. He continued to speak to her, from within.
The link…is from here —
One of his fingers traced an invisible path from the top of her skull…
To here.
His finger tapped the red jewel set in her sternum like a crowning solitaire stone, the very finest Marquis-cut ruby.
It's poetic, don't you think? Head and heart. You and I. Finally united.
She stared at the glowing crystal, her labored breaths hollowing her cheeks. In the mirror, she saw him shift his weight, stand beside her wheelchair; she looked up. His skin was preternaturally pale - pearlescent and smooth in the firelight. Diaphanous black lace hugged the cruel, twitching bulge between his muscles thighs. The edge of his underwear was scalloped and elegant.
Scalloped on the leg.
Scalloped on the leg.
Her cracked lips parted. They trembled.
Do you recognize these? he asked, in her head, in her addled brain.
She began to cry in earnest then, yanking and struggling at her chained wrists, the entire chair rocking with her sorry efforts.
You do, don't you? I had to take them from you, all those years ago. I couldn't stand the thought of you wearing them...for...
He couldn't seem to finish the thought. She finally screamed, her vocal chords tearing in her agony.
For anyone else.
She watched in paralyzing horror as he leaned over her. The shackles clicked as he unlocked the left wrist. The right.
You should never worry…about being unattractive to me. That notion should never cross your mind. Even as you lay clinging to life...it saddens me so to recall…but even then, you were the most ethereal creature I had ever seen.
The tension in her wrists loosened. They dropped to the armrests.
She was free.
She stared at him in the mirror. His eyes held hers as he spoke - as he thought. He traced an idle pattern on her right arm, looping, spiraling.
For a month...perhaps a little more...I could not even bring myself to lay a hand on you. You were so removed, so peaceful...my perfect fallen angel.
She slowly pulled her arm away from his touch. He didn't flinch. Didn't reach for the restraints. He turned away from the mirror, looking up at her face. She watched his movements in the old, wavering glass.
She stared at the reflection of the door behind them.
Rest assured, I took care to start slowly. Gently. Touching you first...a necessary part of your procedures, of course...but I found myself eager to learn more about you, and explore the places we never felt free enough to share with each other...
She shivered in the chair. The air stung her bare skin. He gripped the armrest, staring up at her with something like...adoration.
She could run now. She was free. She could push herself away from the chair, and break for the door...there had to be something she could grab as a weapon...something she could...
...explore all of you, with my fingers. My lips. My tongue. It was surprising, how easily I could stimulate your sexual response, given your state.
Her thoughts crashed to a halt.
Her stomach churned.
She turned away from the mirror. Turned slowly...very slowly...to meet his gaze. His eyes burned like coals in the dim room.
His lips turned up in a lazy, contented smile. He reached for her again, his fingertips tracing delicate bones of her hand.
As still as a statue...as still as unblemished marble...but you opened beneath my hands. You flooded my mouth. Your body answered my call, Jill. Even so far away, you answered me.
The room pitched. Reeled. Her eyes flickered away from his, down to his hand. The way it moved back and forth across her bones, across the dark, snaking veins...eerily focused on them like he was reading braille. Finding the secret meaning in their pattern.
You bloomed for me, without even knowing. And when I saw that...when I saw how much you craved me...How could I deny you?
Something sharp and ice-cold twisted through her, clutching her chest, knocking the breath from her lungs. A jolt of pure, unbridled terror.
She gripped the armrests. Her knuckles turned a still-paler shade of white.
He reached up, his hand moving towards her face.
And she sprang from the chair.
She launched forward, desperate to get away...to run towards the door, to claw her way past whatever blocked her exit. But as soon as her weight shifted from her arms, her legs buckled beneath her, crumpling like crepe paper. She knocked against the wheelchair, sending it tumbling to the ground with a great clatter of metal.
Oh, Jill...no, you can't walk yet...not yet…
She heard him moving behind her. Heard him righting the wheelchair. She scrambled onto her stomach, teeth clenched against the raging pain that shot through her upper body, and the deadness that settled in the lower half. Her legs wouldn't move. Her hips wouldn't move. She twisted her torso, nails digging into the rug, crawling on her elbows. Forward. Forward towards the door.
My poor, determined little angel…
The exit was a few yards away. Just a few yards. She pulled her leaden body, inch by agonizing inch, towards it. One arm after the other. Everything trembling, everything protesting. The carpet scratched her breasts and stomach. Her face, her lungs, burned with the effort.
She heard the soft padding of his feet as he walked around her...the floorboards creaking as he bent down…
His palm settled somewhere on her shoulder, searing her skin like a brand. She cried out, a wailing, wounded animal, arching away from his hand.
I know. It's awful...but you've been so brave, and you're so close now…
Her screams fractured the air as he gathered her in his arms. As he shushed her gently, cradling her against his feverish, naked chest. As he nuzzled the crown of her head.
Let me take care of you. His breath fanned across her naked scalp, down the back of her neck, as he carried her across the room. Away from the door.
Towards the magnificent four poster bed.
She pushed against him, feeble movements, her voice cracking pitifully with no and please and no again. With inarticulate things. With tears on her lips, and thick, wet mucus on her tongue.
Shh...I'll fix you. You'll be able to feel me very soon. He held her tighter as she writhed, her sweating skin slipping against his. Her vision blurred with tears. She was certain her ribs would crack with the pounding of her heart.
Until then...I'll tell you how you feel around me…
...how you feel inside…
...I'll tell you everything...
December 19, 1997.
"I have ruined…and destroyed…other women…" Kevin read from the letter slowly, wiping tears from his eyes. "In an effort…to ruin and destroy you."
Chris's high-pitched laughter rang through the little office, setting the rest of them off into a fit of hysterics. Jill smiled, shaking her head.
"This guy hasn't ruined anything but a bottle of fuckin' lube and a box of kleenex," Richard interjected.
"No, wait. Listen." Kevin cleared his throat, collected himself so he could continue. "But you-" He pointed at Jill. She touched a hand to her heart, feigning indignation. "But you continue to exist-"
There was another round of riotous laughter as Jill siddled up to Kevin and peered over his shoulder as he read, mouthing the words along with him.
"Oblivious… and cruel!"
"What the fuck…" Chris wheezed, nearly choking on a sip of his Pepsi. "What did you do to this guy?"
"Well, for starters, I was oblivious and cruel," Jill said, matter-of-fact.
"Duh," Kevin added. He straightened his shoulders, preparing to launch into the next sentence.
"You're all having far too much fun for a Monday morning."
At the sound of Captain Wesker's voice, Richard slid off the edge of the desk he was sitting on, standing sheepishly. Chris stood too, and slipped a cigarette from behind his ear into his pocket.
Jill plucked the letter from Kevin's hands, frantically folding it.
"What's this?" Wesker asked, lifting his sunglasses. He smiled, false and horrible.
"Nothing, sir," Jill started. "I just got this…letter. By mistake."
"It's a love letter," Chris grinned.
"Well, let's see it, hmm?" He stared at Jill expectantly, his eyes as cold and blank as always.
Reluctant, she opened the letter back up and handed it to him. He took it from her, his devious smile still solidly in place.
The group watched, collectively holding their breath, as he scanned the page.
"It was Redfield," Enrico blurted out.
Everyone but the Captain erupted in choked laughter. Jill guffawed, turning away from them as her face blushed red.
"Redfield can't spell his own name," Wesker argued quietly, still reading. "Let alone write-"
"Hey!" Chris stammered, crossing his arms. Kevin punched him in the arm. "Dude, that's not-"
"Define ruminate," Wesker deadpanned, finally looking up from the letter.
Chris snorted in disbelief, his lips moving but never quite forming words.
Wesker sighed as the group laughed again. He held up the letter, turning his attention back to Jill. "Officer Valentine, I don't find this funny at all. In fact, I think it's alarming."
"It was a mistake, sir. It has to be. No one…would send that to me," she said dismissively.
"It was mailed to your home?" Wesker asked.
"It was...uh…" She gestured. "It was on my doorstep. Saturday night. It's gotta be a joke."
"A joke?" Wesker frowned at her.
"She does date a lot of clowns…" Enrico raised his eyebrows.
"You find humor in this?" Wesker shot a glare at him. He looked down at the letter again. "I imagine slicing you open, from cunt to throat," he read without any inflection. "That's funny to you, Enrico?"
The group was silenced for a moment.
"It's awful, I agree, but I really think it wasn't -" Jill tried once more.
"Thankfully, Officer Valentine, I do care about your welfare. This is a serious threat, and I won't tolerate it." He folded the letter.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. "It's typed. Like typewriter-typed."
"I know all of you idiots-" he looked pointedly at his rag-tag team. "Have covered this in your prints, but I'll see if forensics can't pick something up."
"You don't have to do that, sir," she said. "Really."
"I do, actually. And if I were you, I'd invest in a new set of locks. Immediately." He paused as he stuffed the letter in the breast pocket of his uniform. "Now, all of you, get to work."
2007.
She stared at the spigot.
It was shaped like a swan, its neck a smooth golden curve, warm water bubbling from its open beak. She watched it splash into the intricate garden tub, pouring over her feet and surging around her buttocks and thighs like a deluge. As the water rose, tepid and pleasant, so too did the fragrance of jasmine - his favorite bath crystals swirling and dissolving, the sedative scent carrying up on winding spirals of steam.
She pressed her back to the cool sloping side, reclining, listening to the way her wrist cuffs clanged and chimed against the porcelain tub. He'd restrained her there, looping her chain through a great stainless steel arch, soldered to the floor.
This was the way he bathed her.
Strange, fleeting thoughts passed through her mind, drifting like clouds. Odd remembrances, her brain reaching, trying to remind itself of the last time she had washed her own body…or brushed her own hair, now such a lustrous silvery white…or wiped herself after emptying her bladder. She couldn't remember the last time she had done any of those things on her own; she only knew that it had been nearly a year.
Would she know how to lift a fork to her mouth with the kind of sensual ease as he had when he fed her from his hand? Would she be able to collect her hair into a smooth, high ponytail as effortlessly as he did? Would she dress herself as gently as he dressed her in the early, grey mornings?
If he left one day, set off on some fatal mission…if he died, and left her, would she be able to do anything for herself? Or would she languish and starve, chained to a beautiful bathtub in his apartment in -
The thought stopped.
If he died…nothing would matter.
She would be dead too.
The door opened. She sat up, swallowing, her eyes darting to the mirror.
He came to the side of the tub, rolling up his sleeves. He knelt and smiled at her softly, dipping his fingers into the water.
"Is it warm enough for you?" he asked, his voice hushed, as if he was afraid to break the serenity.
She nodded, her wrists flexing in their bondage.
He took her hands in his own, turning them, stroking her palms, looking at the skin under the cuffs. He would apply lotion to her arms, she knew, to prevent calusing. He did so every night.
Let me see your breasts.
She pressed her shoulders back for him, presenting her chest for his routine inspection. He studied her, lifting one breast and then the other.
You're very swollen and hard. Such lovely veins though, and your nipples are growing so thick - have you seen them?
She shook her head - she hadn't bothered to look at herself in over a month. She worried at the inside of her cheek when he squeezed her breasts, kneaded them in his palms. It was uncomfortable and foreign; she could barely stand them being touched anymore. He finished his exam by stroking her painful, puffy nipples.
I felt them ache all day. Perhaps we should pump more frequently…once every two hours. I think we're going to induce your milk very soon.
He reached into the water, up to his elbow, his tanned forearm disappearing in the ripples and steam. He ran his fingers over her calf, her ankle.
We'll shave tomorrow evening.
She nodded again, letting her cheek rest on the curved edge of the tub.
How about here?
His hand trailed up the inside of her leg…to her secret cleft. Instinctively, she opened her thighs for him.
You were very compliant today. I didn't feel you become angry…not at all. We deserve a reward, don't you agree?
She closed her eyes and her hips rolled against the barest touch of his fingers.
Would you like me to shave here? Your soft little girl place? And then lick you clean?
She sighed, and the water rose over her buoyant breasts.
He was silent for a minute, perhaps two, his fingers still languidly exploring her beneath the surface, in the jasmine heat.
"Look at me," he whispered aloud.
She opened her eyes.
She saw his face, her gaze drifting calmly over his alien beauty.
"Do you see me? Do you look at me?" he asked, his voice hesitant, nearly weak.
"Yes," she answered. "But it's too late, isn't it?"
Dear Heart -
I'm writing to you because I am very lonely. I am desperate and afraid. My life spirals out of control… and yet, all I am capable of thinking about is you.
I ruminate endlessly on your body and your sound and your smell. I touch myself, and I feel your hands on me. I speak, and I hear your voice instead of my own. I have spent a thousand dollars on women's magazines - only to tear open the perfume samples within, desperate to pinpoint the exact nature of your unidentifiable, invasive, addictive scent.
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to exorcise myself of your persistent demon. I have attempted, many times, to cut you from my breast, to bleed you out. I have ruined and destroyed other women, too innumerable to count, in an effort to ruin and destroy you.
But you continue to exist. Oblivious and cruel.
There are days when I think of killing you. I imagine slicing you open, from cunt to throat, and crawling inside. I would live fully, I believe. I would wear you and I would be complete.
Other days, I think of killing myself. It would be simple. I would be doing the world such a favor. But then… I am terrified of you having to go on without me.
Most days, I think of killing us both.
I fear I will lose control, and do just that.
Do you think we'll escape each other in death?
We could avoid all this suffering, if you would only see me. Just look at me.
If you looked at me, truly saw me, even once… I think I could right myself, like a ship that's come out of a storm.
Will you look at me?
Do not be a tyrant. Look at me. Please.
In Perpetuity,
your slave