Chapter 9
Torn

He lay on the bed in the hotel room waiting for Ann to arrive, preoccupied with memories of Kathryn naked, underneath him as he fucked her as hard and as deep as he could. Or Kathryn taking his cock, all of it, into her mouth, her green eyes searing into his as she held it there for an impossibly long time. He gasped at the memory, his body reacting of its own accord. He knew it was a fucked up thing to do, thinking about Kathryn while waiting for Ann. The whole situation was fucked up, and he no longer knew what the hell he was doing. Was he in love with Ann and just trying to get Kathryn out of his system? Was he angry with Kathryn for her treatment of him and out for revenge? Or was all that an excuse? A useful subterfuge so that he wouldn't have to admit that he simply wanted her. He hadn't left before she woke up like he'd planned to. He couldn't. All he wanted was to be next to her. She looked so happy that she glowed, even in her sleep.

He had no doubt that he loved Ann, but he had wanted Kathryn longer. There was something else too, beyond the raw desire he had for her. He wasn't sure if it was love or just some deep-seated need he seemed to have that refused to go away. He did know that what he had with Kathryn was built on a mutual understanding that he knew he would never have with Ann. On the other hand, his relationship with Kathryn was toxic – unstable, volatile, dangerous. It had already nearly killed him once. He felt as if staying with Kathryn would end up destroying him.

Part of him was still angry, still wanted to reduce her to a conquest, the way she had reduced him to a toy. Wanted to make her give up everything for him, to strip her completely and then humiliate her for it. Just like she had stripped and humiliated him. But that hadn't been what he was thinking about this morning, when he was inside of her, was it? His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

He got up and let Ann in. He immediately pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He smiled down at her, feeling disloyal. He didn't like the fact that he felt like he was betraying Kathryn now with Ann, when he hadn't even thought of Ann while he was with Kathryn. He didn't want to think about that right now.

After they'd made love he lay on his back, his arms around her, staring at the ceiling.

"I love you, baby."

"Love isn't what you feel. It's what you do." He turned his head to look at her and felt like her blue eyes were piercing into his soul, seeing the rottenness there. He recoiled from her slightly.

"Where'd you get that from," he asked irritably, feeling suddenly unnerved.

"It's just something I used to say. Something I used to believe."

He looked over at her. She was staring off into the distance. He was suddenly afraid that he was losing her. Ann wasn't a stupid woman. That was one of the things that he loved about her. She wasn't innocent, not the way people thought she was... she was genuinely good, but she was no babe in the woods. She had to know that he'd been lying to her, perhaps even that he'd been fucking around. She had to notice that occasionally his mind kept drifting off to something else. Someone else. He'd been able to justify it all as necessary evils, things he needed to do to win the game. But now he saw how unfair he'd been to her, how selfish his actions were.

"I think you were right," he said after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"About what?"

"I should just forget all about Kathryn. It's not worth it." It's not worth losing this, losing Ann, he thought as he held her tightly. He knew with a frightening certainty that he would lose her if he kept playing this game with Kathryn. He looked over at Ann. He really did love her. If he had half a brain, he would just forget about Kathryn and concentrate on her, building a life with her.


"What the fuck crawled up your ass and died?" They were sitting in Blaine's living room, drinking beer. Sebastian had been bad tempered and snippy the entire time he'd been there and Blaine finally seemed to have had enough.

"I'm completely fucked, Tuttle."

"Why?"

"Kathryn and I…" He paused and looked away. He didn't know what to call what they'd done last night and this morning. He would normally have said they fucked, but that seemed completely inadequate to describe it. The things that woman could do with her mouth… He shuddered involuntarily at the memory.

"Finally," Blaine said, obviously figuring out that the two had fucked and completely unfazed by it. In fact, he seemed relieved.

"Finally? That's all you have to say?"

Blaine shrugged. "What? I was getting tired of watching the two of you during your three and a half year mating dance. You belong together, like Lucy and Rickie. Like Fred and Ginger. Like Faye Ray and King Kong. Like Bert and Ernie. I tried to tell you, but you didn't listen."

Sebastian stared at Blaine, momentarily speechless. "Burt and fucking Ernie? The Muppets, Tuttle?"

"Yeah, who else would I be talking about?" When they were kids, Blaine had been obsessed with Sesame Street, especially Burt and Ernie.

"They weren't a couple. They were fucking Muppets!" Sebastian fought a smile. This was an old ritual. They would pick some stupid random thing and argue over it. He knew this was Tuttle's way of trying to cheer him up a little.

"Don't piss on my fantasies," he hissed dramatically and Sebastian almost laughed.

"They didn't have cocks, Tuttle. And they were like seven year olds."

"How do you know they didn't have cocks? You ever see them undressed? Besides, their love transcended the physical."

"I really don't know what to say at this point. I fucking give up," he laughed.

"Seriously, the two of you are like an epic couple. Bigger than life."

"And all this time, I thought you wanted me for yourself."

"True, but the only person I could ever stand losing you to is Kathryn. I bet it was really good," Blaine said with a dreamy look in his eyes and sounding more than a little envious. "Was it really good?"

"Good?" Sebastian laughed again. "My friend, fucking is almost always good. At least for a man. How good it is for a woman depends on the skill of her lover. All we need is something tight and well lubricated, and we have good. What Kathryn and I did was in a whole different category. There should be a whole fucking new word or phrase coined for it."

"You mean like 'make love?'"

Sebastian glared at Blaine, who was looking at him with a knowing smirk. He was angry, not with Tuttle, but because he knew Tuttle was right. Both he and Kathryn had mocked the idea of 'making love,' and had stubbornly refused to use the term except to deride other people; people they thought were beneath them. That's why they had always purposely used words like 'fuck,' 'cock,' and 'cunt.' To them sex wasn't something they ever saw as romantic or beautiful. It was something to use as a weapon against the ordinary people. Their bodies were just tools to get what they wanted and romanticizing a tool was just foolish. They had been above anything as pedestrian and weak as love, and far too smart to fall for the lie that there could ever be anything special about sex. Or so he had thought. Until he met Ann.

With Ann, he had to suppress many of his natural impulses in order to make her happy. There was no such problem with Kathryn. But while Kathryn might be in love with him, she still hadn't admitted it to herself, and would likely mock him if he even hinted at what he felt for her. "You know, I thought if I just fucked her once, I could get her out of my system and finally, finally, be able to move on. But I just made it worse."

"No gorgeous," Tuttle said sympathetically, "you just see the truth now. Having your head buried in the sand isn't necessarily better."

Sebastian's lips twisted in a bitter smirk. "Yes, oh wise one," he said sarcastically.

"Go ahead and mock me. I haven't been wrong yet."

He was angry with himself for lapsing into sentimentality. There couldn't be any future with Kathryn, who would never admit that she felt anything for him and would never consent to really be with him because their parents were stupid enough to marry each other. What he felt didn't fucking matter. "You are wrong. The truth is that I love Ann. Kathryn is just… is just like some fucking malignant tumor that just keeps getting bigger, destroying every fucking thing in its path."

Tuttle rolled his eyes and frowned at him. "Damn, and they call me a drama queen."


He found Kathryn in her bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She was wearing nothing but a green silk robe. He stopped there, in the middle of her bedroom, watching her through the door. It completely escaped his mind that he had come in here to give her one of his break up speeches, the nasty one that said, 'You were pretty decent fuck, but I'm really not into you. Been there once – or twice – and I'm so over it now. Have a nice life.'

A slow smile spread across her face. "I know you're there, watching me," she said softly. "Fucking pervert." She still didn't move, never took her eyes off her reflection, and he wondered why she was looking at herself so attentively. He walked in and stood staring down at her. The strength of his desire for her surprised him. His body was literally aching for her. He thought back to the sight of her on her bed, her dress bunched around her waist and precious little left to the imagination. Anyone else would have looked like a cheap slut, but not Kathryn. She was seduction personified and nothing could reduce her to being cheap, much less a slut.

"Are you high?"

"No. I'm crashing."

"Is that why you aren't dressed," he asked as he tugged at the belt holding her robe closed, pulling the slip knot loose and allowing the robe to fall open. He put his hand on her stomach and slid it around her waist, pulling her against him. She was like a fucking drug. The more he had of her, the more he wanted.

"You want me to dress now," she asked as he kissed the side of her face and she leaned into him.

"If it were up to me," he said, "I'd never let you get dressed again. I'd burn all your damn clothes. You could keep your lingerie. The bikinis too. I like how you look in bikinis. The fucking robe would have to go too. Covers too much up."

"And keep me here for your amusement?" She finally looked at him.

He leaned away and met her eyes. "I had something more equal in mind. Like us amusing each other. You can even burn all my clothes if it would make you feel better."

"Even your precious Armani suits?"

"Yes." He stroked her face.

"You still want to fuck me, Sebastian?"

That was his opening, but he laughed instead of launching into his speech. "Is that a trick question? Of course I do. Is that what's wrong with you? You're worried that I'm tired of you now and ready to move on?"

She slid her robe off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. "Isn't that usually how it works?"

"Yes. But not with you." He let her slide his jacket off.

She slipped her hands underneath his mock turtleneck and stroked his skin. He closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath before pulling the shirt off. "I bet you said that to Annette too."

He felt her tremble as he cupped her breasts. "And I meant it. If I hadn't been for you…" She squeezed his balls though his pants and he inhaled sharply. "Fuck, Kathryn!"

"Does that mean you want me more?" She licked his bottom lip.

"I want you more than anything I've ever wanted or had in my entire life." He didn't know what had possessed him to admit that. It was never a good idea to show weakness to Kathryn. She may be vulnerable to him right now, but she was still a very dangerous woman. A dangerous woman who was every bit as skilled a lover as he was, and too damn good at getting someone to give a candid answer in the heat of the moment. Which was why he had to be careful every minute he was with her.

She smiled up at him as she undid his pants, yanking his belt out of the loops in one well-practiced movement and dropping it next to his jacket. "Did you really mean it that day when you said I was a goddess?"

His pants fell to the floor and he kicked them away. "You're my Venus," he said as he lifted her onto the counter next to the sink. "You always have been." All he wanted was to be inside her, to feel her hot, wet cunt wrapped tightly around his cock again. He shuddered at the memory of what she felt like as he spread her legs so he could feel her again.


Kathryn was screwing the bottom off her crucifix, preparing to take a hit of cocaine. They were sitting in the upstairs livingroom fully dressed - which was a rarity for them these days. They were talking about the new play that she wanted to go see. Before he knew that he was going to do it, Sebastian put his hand over hers. "Don't."

She glared up at him. "Just because we're fucking now doesn't mean you get to tell me what to do," her voice was hard, like steel.

"I'm not telling you. I'm asking."

"That didn't sound like asking to me. It sounded like you doing the guy thing and trying to act like lord and master."

He wanted to scream in frustration. How the hell did she always end up making him want to break her neck? He was worried about what she was doing to herself, and she's accusing him of being a chauvinist. This is why they always got into screaming fights. "Okay. Will you please lay off that shit?"

She had been taking much less in the few days since they'd started screwing each other's brains out on or against every flat surface in the house that they could find, but she hadn't completely stopped. She was searching his eyes as if to figure out his angle. "Why?"

"Because it's not good for you. You know that. I'll help you. I read about this outpatient clinic –"

"I can stop whenever I want," she snapped. "I don't need help."

"Prove it," he challenged. He knew that the one thing that Kathryn Merteuil could never pass up was a challenge.

"I don't need to prove anything to you."

"So you are just another drug addicted slut."

She slapped him so quickly he hadn't even seen it coming until it was too late. They sat glaring at each other for a few long seconds before she tried to hit him again, this time with her fists. He grabbed her wrists and forced her back on the couch, holding her down with is weight. He could see the tears in her eyes and knew that his words had hurt her. He hadn't meant to hurt her… it just made him so damn angry to see her putting that poison in her body. "Get the fuck off me!"

"No."

"Let me go now, you son of a bitch!"

"You're better than this," he said quietly as he looked down at her. She stopped struggling and blinked up at him, but said nothing.

"You're fucking better than this shit, Kathryn," he said with more conviction as he snatched the crucifix from her hand and held it over her face. "It makes you so much less then what you are. Don't let it own you. Nothing should ever own you. Not me, and for damn sure not this."

He let her push him away and sit up. He watched her warily as she stared at the crucifix in his hand, just in case she started swinging again. "It makes me less afraid," she said softly, her voice trembling slightly.

He blinked at her. He hadn't expected her to be honest. Kathryn never admitted weakness. "What are you afraid of?"

She looked away and for a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer. "Failing."

He knew that was only the beginning of truth – it was just the only part she could actually admit to herself. He knew that she was really afraid of being abandoned, the way her father had abandoned her when he left, the way her mother abandoned her when she withheld her affection. If she failed, if she appeared to be anything less than perfect, she was afraid that everyone else would abandon her too. After all, if her own parents didn't really give a fuck, why would anyone else? That's why she obsessed over her image, did anything to build it and protect it. He also knew that somewhere in the back of her mind she still had the hope that if she did a good enough job, if she were perfect enough, if she kept her grades high enough, if she were loved enough, one day that cruel, self-involved bitch, Tiffany Mertueil Valmont would finally love her too.

Suddenly he felt like the biggest bastard on the planet. He knew that about her, and what was he planning on doing with that knowledge? Completely destroy her. That's what he had set out to do because she hadn't loved him the way he wanted her to, she had refused to give herself to him. He had long since come to accept that the accident wasn't really anybody's fault. Nobody could have foreseen that chain of events. Besides, wouldn't he have struck out at her if she had been the one who fell in love with someone else? Wouldn't he have tried to destroy them both? He took her hand in his and kissed it, feeling tears in stinging his own eyes.

"I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere. No matter what," he said softly, and it was the first time in a long time that he completely meant it.

She gave him a small sad smile when she saw the tears in his eyes. "You're such a fucking pussy, Valmont."


Sebastian awoke to screams. He sat up in alarm, his heart pounding in his throat. Kathryn was laying next to him, screaming his name, sounding…it was hard to put a name to how she sounded. He just knew that it scared the hell out of him. He grabbed her, tried to wake her. "Baby, it's okay. I'm right here."

She finally looked up at him, realizing that it had just been a dream, tears streaming down her face, breathing hard. "I dreamed you were dead," she sobbed, throwing her arms around him. "I dreamed you didn't survive the accident. It was all my fault. You were so cold. And they buried you. I begged them not to, but they did it anyway."

She was almost hysterical, and he could feel her trembling in his arms as she wept. She was holding him so tightly that he could barely breathe. He knew that nightmares were a symptom of her withdrawal from the coke, but she'd had so few of the other symptoms that he had hoped that she would be spared more. "I'm fine. I'm right here. I'm not dead."

Finally, she calmed down and was more or less herself again. She kept touching him, as if to reassure herself that he was really there, still alive and warm.

"Kathryn?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why didn't you want them to bury me?"

She stiffened for an instant, and then relaxed again. "I didn't want the worms to have you."

He shivered at the thought. "Well, I'd have to agree with you on that." He had come so close to dying. He didn't think about how close he came, he didn't like to think about it. It had never occurred to him how his death would have effected Kathryn. He would have been gone from her life forever. He would have died for another woman and she would have been left thinking that he didn't love her, didn't want her anymore.

"I'm putting you in a crypt," she said, matter-of-factly, almost conversationally.

"What?"

"If you die first, I'm putting you in a crypt. Surrounded by lots of concrete and marble. Maybe I'll have a mausoleum built. But you can't die until I'm at least 90."

He laughed. "Okay… then you have to promise live at least that long. I'm hopeless without you. You can't ever leave me." She was quiet for a while and he thought she had begun to fall asleep.

"Sebastian?"

"Yes?"

"You know that l sometimes… that I can't always show that I care, right?"

She sounded almost like a little girl and he smiled. He kissed her eye and than her lips. "I know. It's okay."

Soon, he heard her breathing become even. She was asleep. He listened to her breathing until sleep finally closed his eyes.


Thanks for the great reviews fab84, Kaila (the question with these two is always who they're lying to most - each other or themselves), and DSMelody! I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations.