Warning: This chapter contains a flashback to attempted sexual assault and references to verbal sexual abuse of a minor.
This chapter is censored for sexual content completely unrelated to the above Warning. The uncensored chapter is on Fictionpad.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the Twilight universe, this plot belongs to me.
"In the cases in which I have ceased to practice total abstinence, I succeed in observing a limit which is something hardly more than a step removed from total abstinence and even perhaps more difficult—with some things less effort of will is required to cut them out altogether than to have recourse to them in moderation." – Seneca the Younger, Letter CVIII, translated by Robin Campbell
Chapter 26
Bella dreamt that she was being pinned against a wall. She struggled, trying to free herself, and the bruising grips on her arms tightened.
"While we're waiting," a voice said, "you can show me if you've got your mother's mouth."
A dark outline loomed over Bella, blocking her sight of the exit in the narrow alley.
"Put her on her knees," the voice said.
"No!" Bella yelled as she renewed her thrashing. A foot hit the back of one of her knees, forcing her down.
Hands held Bella's head in place and yanked on her hair as she tried to wrench herself a way. A sweaty paw forced her jaw open. Her stomach lurched as a hoarse scream tried to work its way out of her throat, but a hand around her windpipe cut her breath off. Rough fingers forced her jaw open and something was invading her mouth. She gagged around the intrusion.
She couldn't believe this was happening.
And then the dream changed. Bella was in a bedroom, her eyes on the gold and cream striped wallpaper.
It didn't actually happen like that, of course. The police showed up that night in the alley, stopping those boys before things could get that far.
Bella's throat was still spasming as she woke.
She lay there for a minute, her hand at her neck and her pulse racing as she reassured herself that it was just a dream.
The fact that she didn't immediately recognize her surroundings didn't help. It took her a while to realize where she was.
Edward's bed.
According to the clock on the nightstand, Bella had only been asleep for about an hour. But Bella knew that she couldn't go back to sleep after a series of dreams like that.
There was a sick feeling in her stomach.
It was irrational for Bella to let a stupid dream upset her so much, or so Bella told herself.
But she knew that this sick feeling was going to follow her all day, tainting everything she did.
Unless she could figure out a way to make it go away.
Not wanting to think about it, she turned and looked at Edward. He was sleeping on his back. Neither one of them was much of a cuddler, which is to say that they would usually fall asleep in each other's arms, but they would inevitably move apart as they grew overheated.
He looked so young when he was asleep. So carefree.
It wasn't the real Edward. At least, Bella didn't think so.
The real Edward, in her opinion, was the guy with the scowl, the mocking smirk.
She glanced back at his face to make sure that he was still asleep, and carefully rolled over to retrieve the handcuffs.
Bella worked gingerly, securing Edward's wrists to the headboard.
And now that she had the opportunity, she examined him at her leisure.
What a wondrous thing is man, she thought.
But as she studied him, she couldn't help recalling her dream.
She resented the sense of reluctance—the sense of disgust—that still lingered.
Why should she have to feel that way?
Just because the boys in that alley had tried to make her—
That night at Breaking Dawn, when Tanya had pushed her down on her knees, Bella had felt a fleeting sense of panic.
She told herself that it was just the prospect of going through with the deal.
But it wasn't just that. It was the nature of the act that Tanya expected her to perform with Edward first.
The same thing those boys had tried to get her to do in that alley before the police appeared.
Bella had followed Tanya's bidding, and Edward had—
He had just gone along with it.
More than that, he had enjoyed it. Or so it had seemed.
Staring down at him now, watching him sleep, she felt a strange urge to find out if he would enjoy it again.
Because she didn't want to just ignore the feelings inspired by that dream. She wanted to run at them full tilt. Push through to the other side. Obliterate them.
Obliterate herself.
The truth was, the offensive nature act in question intrigued her.
It inspired curiosity as well as aversion, repulsing her at the same time it fascinated her.
Was this how Edward felt when indulging his most corrupt desires? she wondered. Teasing the boundaries.
She wanted to know what it would feel like to be so debased.
A small part of her said that she was wrong to see it like that—that it wouldn't be debasing, that if she thought of it as such, it was only because of what had happened to her, and because of the censorious judgment of sanctimonious hypocrites.
But she shoved that impulse aside.
Because she wanted it to seem debased. She wanted to feel illicit.
And she wanted to understand what Edward felt, indulging corruption.
Lowering herself over him, she felt him beginning to stir.
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It had not entirely escaped Edward's notice that he was backsliding. At that very moment, he was in the bathroom at work jacking off to a picture he'd taken that morning on his phone. Her face wasn't shown—they'd kept to their old rule on that score—but Edward felt like he would recognize those breasts anywhere by this point.
As much as Edward had despised the moratorium that Bella had placed on his masturbation during the course of their contest, it had served a purpose. His refusal to lose the contest may have ensured that he was walking around with blue balls day after day, but he'd gradually begun to grow used to it. He was getting a handle on his condition (no pun intended).
But now?
Now, it was like he was back at square one.
Well, not quite square one, because Edward had gone from casual hook-ups with random women to something more than casual encounters with one woman in particular. But it was like he couldn't get enough.
He used to spend his breaks trying to think of reasons to not chuck in the towel, quit his job and give it all up.
Now, he spent his breaks thinking about Bella. About all of the things they had already tried and all of the things that he still wanted to try with her.
Edward didn't even bother going to the break room anymore. Instead, he headed straight for the bathroom.
He was back to masturbating at least three times a day. And that was on top of all of the sex that Bella and he were having, almost every day.
It wasn't an easy schedule. Edward put in a lot of hours at work. And he knew that Bella was exhausted, too, between work and school and him.
But he thought that she was happy, the frequent sparkle in her eyes suggesting that she was more than pleased with their arrangements.
And guilty though he occasionally felt about the fact that he was distracting her from her work on the dissertation, Edward wanted Bella with him.
He had started a campaign to convince Bella that she should just stay at his place, regularly. He argued that she could sleep as well at his apartment as hers—even better, probably, without the smell of smoke and an annoying roommate.
He had promised that he would keep his hands to himself so that she could write.
But more often than not, her attempts to work on her dissertation would fizzle out. Bella would draw his eye, oh so innocently nibbling on the end of her pen. Edward would lazily trace his fingers up and down her neck as he sat beside her, reading from a medical journal.
Before long, they'd be shedding clothes and fucking like they were being timed. Like they expected someone to show up at any second and tell them that they'd been cut off, no more fucking for the rest of their lives.
Edward was insatiable.
It was some consolation to Edward that Bella seemed just as insatiable as him.
Which was why it suddenly occurred to Edward—as he stood in a bathroom stall jacking off to a picture of Bella on his phone—that for all he knew, Bella was somewhere masturbating at that very moment.
After cleaning up, Edward returned to work. He was lucky that his caseload that day was light.
And it took some wheedling, and the endurance of some mild-mannered mocking—yes, Edward admitted, he was taking off to see 'his girl'—but Edward got Cheney to agree to cover for him so that he could leave early.
Well, early for Edward. It was almost six in the evening, but Edward knew that Bella was planning to work late that night.
Edward had a rough idea of the location of Bella's office. Nevertheless, he got turned around and had to ask for directions to the history building. Intent as he was upon finding Bella, it wasn't until he stepped out of the rickety elevator on the grad student floor that it occurred to him that he might be overstepping her boundaries by just showing up like this.
Glancing down the hallway, Edward saw what looked like a lounge area and a few offices. Remembering Bella say that she sat in a large open space—the "ballroom," she'd called it—Edward headed in the opposite direction. And as he reached the end of the hallway, the space opened up.
A few students were studiously bent over their desks. Scanning the room, Edward spied Bella in the far corner. She was obviously engrossed in her reading, and didn't look up as he neared her desk.
"Can I—" Bella started, as Edward plopped down in a chair obviously designated for visitors. "Edward." Her face broke out in a grin. "What are you doing here?"
"My shifted ended early, so I figured I'd come and see what real scholars look like in their environment."
"It's not very impressive, I'm sure."
"I beg to differ. Everyone's desk stacked with the most intriguing collection of books—" Edward read the title of a book on the next desk over, the owner of said desk being absent at the moment. "The Five Senses in Medieval and Early Modern England. I would assume that they had the same five senses that we do now, but what do I know?" Glancing back at Bella's desk, he raised an eyebrow. "And I get to learn so many new things about you. For instance, you have a philodendron. And you've covered your desk in wrapping paper. Wrapping paper." Edward picked at the tape on one of the corners.
"These desks are filthy," Bella said, by way of explanation for the wrapping paper.
"Covered in the sweat and blood of intellectual labor."
"Well labor at least. Maybe not so much intellectual."
Edward was about to ask Bella to explain her comment—was she having trouble with her dissertation?—but he was interrupted by someone calling Bella's name.
Recognizing Jacob from their one encounter at the coffeehouse, Edward gave one of those head jerks by which males of the species communicated, trying to appear un-phased.
It wasn't the fact that he and Jacob had shared a kiss that troubled Edward so much as the lurking suspicion that Jacob was in fact interested in Bella as more than a friend.
"Bella, you up for happy hour?" Jacob asked as he and the other grad students in the "ballroom" began to bundle up, clearly planning to leave for the night.
"No, I've got to work," Bella said. "But thanks."
"Don't work too hard," Jacob replied, in a concerned tone that annoyed Edward. If anyone needed to worry about Bella, Edward would take care of it. He knew damn well how hard Bella was working.
But Edward donned a placid expression, jerking his head at Jacob again before Jacob and the other grad students left, leaving Bella and Edward alone.
"Does he now about us?" Edward asked.
"Who?"
"Jacob."
"Why would he?"
Edward didn't reply.
"You're being ridiculous," Bella told him.
"When he asks you if he can be your fuck buddy, you just tell him that you already have one."
She glared at him for a minute. "Don't be vulgar." Shaking her head, she began to pack up her things. "And I told you, I don't like that phrase."
"And I don't like the way he looks at you."
"Who knew you'd be the jealous type?"
"Jealousy is a base, primal response. I believe in giving in to all of my instincts. Of course, I'm jealous."
What Edward didn't mention was this emotion was rather new for him. He wasn't used to caring about things like that.
Standing, Bella pulled on her jacket—condescending to let Edward take her backpack—and led the way towards the exit. "Well thank God not everyone agrees with you, or cave men would still be dragging women off by their hair."
Edward tugged teasingly on a brown lock. "That's right, now it's cave women dragging men off to their cave."
At his words, Bella came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes had caught sight of the sign for the restroom at the far end of the hallway.
Dropping her stuff on a conveniently placed chair, and bidding Edward to drop her backpack, Bella grabbed his hand and darted down the hall.
"What—?" Edward started to ask but she shushed him.
He didn't catch on to her plan until they reached the door of the lady's bathroom. Pushing Edward through the door, Bella threw the lock on the outer door and then pulled him quickly into one of the stalls.
He recognized this stall.
It was the one that she used to take all of the photos of herself.
"We have to be fast," Bella told him fumbling with his belt. "And quiet."
Afterwards then the furtive nature of their act seemed to hit them, reinvigorating them as Bella unlocked the outer door and peeked down the hallway. The two of them were laughing as they scurried out of the bathroom.
"Don't you want to take the elevator?" Edward asked after they collected Bella's things.
"Are you kidding? We'd probably get stuck on it."
"But think about all of the fun we could have waiting for help to arrive."
Bella just rolled her eyes and continued on down the stairs.
They emerged into one of those fresh autumn evenings when it feels like the air is alive. It had clearly sprinkled while Edward was inside, and the pavement was gleaming, wet leaves swirling in the wind.
"Where're you headed?" Edward asked, following Bella across the quad. He thought that she had the evening free.
"The bus stop. I picked up a last minute shift," Bella explained.
Trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, Edward took a different tack. "You're going to take the bus in this?"
"It's not raining," she pointed out.
"For once. And lucky for you." Edward leered at her chest.
Bella pulled her raincoat closed. "Apparently, being on a college campus has caused to regress to your teenage years," she complained, but didn't sound very put out. "May I please have my backpack?"
"No. And I can drive you to work."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now," Edward said. "So why shouldn't I drive you?"
"Whatever," she gave up.
"Such a bratty response. You might say, 'Why thank you Mr. Cullen. I would be delighted to accept your offer.'"
Adopting a southern drawl, Bella repeated his words. "Why thank you Mr. Cullen. I would be delighted to accept your offer."
"There, much better. And I like it when you call me Mr. Cullen."
"Perv."
Edward replied in kind, and the lighthearted banter continued until they reached Edward's car.
Once he pulled out into traffic, however, the air of frivolity seemed to sour.
Hearing Bella sigh, Edward glanced over at her. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head. "It's just—" She pursed her lips. "I feel bad complaining."
"Tell me," he urged.
She sighed again. "I kind of hate this job. It's the data entry one. And it's kind of mindless." She scowled. "Plus this fucker keeps losing data and blaming it on me."
"Why don't you quit? Concentrate on school."
She huffed. "I want to. I plan to. I just—I can't right now. Soon, I hope."
"Well, I can think of something to help you relax."
Edward could see her turn to watch him in the dim light. "What?" Bella sounded weary, but not necessarily disinterested.
"Reach in the backseat and get the blanket."
She hesitated, but for less than half a minute.
He kept his eyes on the slowly moving traffic as he spoke. "Open the blanket and spread it across your lap." Glancing at her to confirm that she'd complied, he said, "Undo your pants. Pull them down with your panties."
"Edward—"
"It'll put you in a better mood. Make work fly by tonight."
"But—" she stopped.
"What?"
"I'll leak all over your seat," Bella whispered, clearly worried.
"So wrap the blanket underneath of you. It's big enough."
When she'd done as he asked, Edward asked if she was ready.
"What do you want me to do?" Bella asked in reply.
"Just relax. Close your eyes."
Following his instructions, Bella felt the car coming to a stop, and opened her eyes to see that Edward had pulled into the back of a parking lot and stopped.
"Don't worry," Edward assured her. "I'll get you to work on time."
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The thing about plagiarism is that it's easy to spot most of the time. A student whose barely been getting by all semester, with nearly incomprehensible responses to short essay questions, is unlikely to start spouting prize-winning prose when it comes to turning in a paper, no matter how much time he's had to polish it.
Bella wasn't even through the first paragraph of James' paper, and she knew it had been plagiarized. She came across more chunks of text that were clearly plagiarized as she proceeded through the paper. But more disturbing, in her mind, was the lack of any discernible direction in James' analysis. His argument was contradictory and rambling. The evidence he brought to bear had little or nothing to do with the case he was supposedly asserting. It read more like stream of conscious than anything else—the stream of consciousness of someone who wasn't exactly in touch with reality.
She had no fucking clue where to start. So, when he came in for his appointment, she started with the plagiarism.
"But I don't understand. We're supposed to use the 'best proof.' The instructions say so. Isn't that quotes?" James argued.
"But you can do that without quoting. And technically you didn't quote. You didn't use quotation marks or say where you to took this from." Bella couldn't believe that she had to explain this. "I need you to rewrite all of the parts I've underlined in your own words."
Having resolved the plagiarism issue, Bella moved on to the real problem.
"So the emperor Justinian," she started. "The way you wrote this sentence makes it sound like he really was a demon." Bella pointed to the sentence in question.
"That guy said so," James reminded her, clearly frustrated. "That P- guy."
"That's right. Procopius said that Justinian was a demon. But was that really true?"
Bella waited, but James didn't respond.
She tried to give an example. "Like if I'm mad at the barrista at a coffeehouse and I call her a 'witch.' Is she really a witch?"
"But Justinian married a prostitute," James protested.
Bella's eyes narrowed at James' words, but she held her tongue.
"And his wife had sex with a swan on stage," James continued.
Bella opened her mouth, and then closed it.
She weighed whether or not it would be considered sexual harassment if she asked James exactly how he thought something like that would work, because come the fuck on.
And there was a split second where she considered telling him about a script from antiquity involving a puppet—at least scholars figured that a puppet had been used, assuming that the script was ever actually performed.
Bella asked herself if James could handle hearing about something like that.
She asked herself if it was worth asking him if he realized that "Furries" were an actual thing and whether he'd ever seen Clerks 2.
Not that she was into Furries.
And she was shocked that Clerks 2 made it past the MPAA.
But she didn't really think it was her place to judge Furries—they were consenting adults, after all—and while Clerks 2 could certainly be accused of celebrating something that was in fact wrong, and illegal, Bella's study of gender required her to turn off her nausea at times.
She didn't think that James was quite up to the task, however. She could just picture his reaction: His head would spin around and explode.
So instead, she said, "You have to stop believing everything you read." She then spent an hour trying to help him understand the definition of the words "paraphrase" and "defamation."
And by the time that she was done, Bella was exhausted.
Not for the first time, she asked herself what the fuck James was even doing in college. She told herself that he had to be a genius in math or computers or something, because his basic reasoning skills were those of a child.
Despite her frustrating session with James, Bella had a relatively pleasant afternoon. She worked a shift at the library, followed by a rousing run with the dogs that she was still taking out every now and then.
She had certainly recovered her good mood by the time Edward slid into her that night.
"Don't cum until I tell you," Edward ordered.
Bella's hands were scrambling over his back, trying to pull him closer. "Don't cum?"
"Not until I tell you," he told her.
Don't cum? How was she supposed to do that?
Bella could already feel the coil of heat building in the pit of her belly.
Don't cum, she thought, collapsing against the bed and panting as she tried to calm down. Don't cum, she told herself, even as her hips continued meeting Edward thrust for thrust.
Bella forced her hips to go down and stay there—Don't cum.
She could still feel Edward moving over her and inside of her, the delicious burning in her pussy intensifying, but he had told her not to cum.
"You popped your cherry yet?"
The memory of those words flashed through Bella's mind. Why would she think of something like that now?
"You popped your cherry yet?" He smirked at her, scratching his potbelly and sitting on her mother's couch in nothing but a dirty t-shirt and briefs.
Bella ignored him, hurrying for the door so that she could go to school.
But she saw him again that night, when he came to see her mother. Renee pulled him quickly through the living room, dragging him towards her bedroom, but he watched Bella as he went, a sickening gleam in his eye.
He was one of Renee's best customers, so Bella had to see him several times a month.
He never touched Bella, but his comments got increasingly lewd.
"Don't you let them boys touch you," he said to her one day. "You make sure a real man takes care of that for you."
"What are you two talking about?" Renee had asked, coming into the room.
"Just telling your daughter to watch out for them young punks," Phil replied.
"You should listen to him Bella," was all Renee had to say to that, and Phil took another swig of his beer.
Bella never told her mother about the sick shit Phil was saying to her, or the way he'd looked at her.
He had yet to really do anything, after all. And at least he wasn't one of the bastards who liked to take a swing at Renee.
So Bella kept her mouth shut.
She didn't like him, but he only managed to really scare her one afternoon. She thought that she was alone in the apartment. But there he was, in the doorway of the kitchen.
"Think your mom'd give me a two-for-one deal?" Phil asked, leering at her.
Bella didn't say a fucking thing. She never said a fucking word to him. Always just ignored him.
So she didn't bother to reply.
She did, however, open a drawer and take out a steak knife, careful not to let Phil see it as she finished putting together her sandwich.
"I mean, I'm such a good customer," Phil continued. "Figure I deserve a discount. What d'you think?"
"Phil, what're you doing baby?" Renee asked, coming up behind him and slipping her arms around his waist.
"Just sayin' hi to Bella here."
"Well come back to the bedroom."
Out of the corner of her eye, Bella saw Renee reaching down to fondle Phil through his jeans.
"Bella!"
Bella blinked and looked around. She was in Edward's bed. And Edward was shaking her shoulders, trying to get his attention.
"Bella, answer me!"
She shook her head. She didn't want to talk.
She didn't have anything to say.
"Fuck," Edward cursed, pulling Bella up so that she was sitting in his lap. "Are you alright? Talk to me."
"I'm fine," she said, pushing against him.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You zoned out. I mean it's like you weren't even here. Like you couldn't even hear me."
Shit. She realized that she had fucked up. "I didn't cum when you said."
She could tell that he wasn't hard anymore. Had he already cum? Or had she fucked that up too?
Edward scowled. "Who gives a shit about that? What the fuck just happened?"
He's told other women to cum on his order, Bella thought. She was pretty sure that he had played the game with other women, telling them not to cum until he had said so.
And she had fucked it up.
Pulling out of Edward's arms, she went to stand.
"Where are you going?" Edward asked.
"I want to take a shower."
Bella's voice had a dead quality to it that Edward didn't like.
"I'm coming with you," he said, standing too and reaching for Bella.
"Caligula."
"What?" Edward stumbled back a step, his arms dropping.
"Caligula," Bella repeated. She crossed her arms in front of her body, assuming a defensive pose.
Bella had only used their safe word once before, the time that he gave her a book.
He couldn't believe that she would use it now and that she would use it for a shower.
And she was watching him warily, like she was going to bolt if he moved so much as an inch.
Edward swallowed. "But you'll come back to bed after your shower. Yeah?"
She hesitated before answering. "Sure."
"Okay."
Bella watched him for a moment longer before she turned and went into the bathroom.
Edward sank down to the bed, and listened as the shower turned on.
The panic that had set in when he realized that Bella wasn't paying attention—that she was lost in some daydream—was now giving way to a sense of dread.
AN:
James is based on a series of undergraduates I TAed for. I have had this plagiarism discussion many many many times.
Re: Leda & the swan – While it's very fashionable nowadays to mention fellows like Caligula and Marquis de Sade for their sexual exploits, in so doing I think that we often "normalize" them while glossing over just how f'ed up they really were, because we get off on the frisson of the illicit. And the Edwards in many erotic fics are painted as being so very corrupt, but insofar as they obtain legally recognizable consent from their partners, they aren't in fact all that corrupt. Presenting them as such is part of the mythos that my story is trying to undermine.
Topics like Theodora's performance of Leda and the swan are freely discussed on college campuses with undergraduates. I have left out details that would not be left out in those discussions. But anonymous reviewers are free to proceed with their efforts to delete half the Greco-Roman catalogue of mythology from the world's libraries after they get Corrupting Influence pulled from this website.
Please don't mistake the reference to Leda and the swan in this chapter to personal interest in the practice. My knowledge of said practice in the modern era is limited to the movie Clerks 2 (the existence of which kind of undermines the notion that Corrupting Influence is all that deviant), various discussions on Elliot in the Morning on DC101 (which I inevitably had to turn off because of nausea), and Richard W. Bulliet's Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships. The play that I was referring to (P. Oxy. 4762) can be read online at archive dot org. Also see Martin West, "The Way of a Maid with a Moke: P. Oxy. 4762," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 175 (2010). Other ancient sources on this sort of practice include Apuleius' Metamorphosis10.29; Pseudo-Lucian's The Ass; Herodotus' Histories 2.46; Aelian NA 6.15, 6.17, 7.19; Longus, Daphnis and Chloe 4.18; Ovid,Art of Love 1.289-326; Clement of Alexandria Education of Christ 11; Strabo 17.1.19; Suetonius, Nero 12; Cassius Dio 76.8.2-3. Also see J. E. Robson, in Rape in Antiquity; and Kathleen Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments," Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 63-64. Much of the related mythology is collected in Ovid's Metamorphosis.
I am including all of these sources as a reminder that this story is intended to treat sexual politics as a thing that should be thought about. We should think and talk about why we are okay with the sex we are okay with, where our boundaries lie, what that says about us, and whether we're really okay with that, so that we're in a better position to stop rapists from taking over the world. I think this matters because among the more horrifying of Bulliet's findings is the fact that youths in the 20th century were so brainwashed into thinking that masturbation was wrong that they actually thought that sex outside the species was preferable, and they put this belief into practice. THAT'S what happens when you try to impose Christian Sharia.
I have no idea if the stories about Justinian's wife are correct. Most scholars seem to believe that Theodora was indeed a prostitute. But Procopius—the source of the stories—was a slandering sexist. If the story about the performance is true, I assume it was a puppet.