The Hell You Choose

"Take off your clothes."

Madeleine's breath catches and her eyelids flutter, but she keeps them open and trained resolutely on his face. Is that wise? She can't tell. If he had been her patient in truth, she might know; might know what buttons to avoid pressing, what safewords would diffuse the manic light that burns him from within. But she doesn't know anything, though all her diagnostic knowledge and experienced gleaned from sitting opposite disturbed and violent minds tell her there is no safety to be found here, in him. Any appeal to reason or mercy is useless. He will not be swayed.

Still, she tries. "Why should I?"

He doesn't answer; any answer is redundant, unnecessary. This is what she is here for, this is what he has always intended. Hadn't he told her as much, on their first—rather second—meeting? She owed him. He saved her body, but he saved it for himself. A simple favor was never going to be enough to repay him, no.

Nor is this particular form of payment much of a surprise. Logically, a man who doesn't flinch at the thought of killing millions—who sees genocide, in fact, as a good and desirable legacy—wouldn't flinch from this either.

He reaches for her, for the buttons on her cardigan, and she thinks for an instant of fighting him. In her mind, she lashes his face with her nails—leaving a few more scars in the pitted skin of his face for his trouble—and bolts for the door, sneaks past the guards, and leaps into the ocean. There her imagination fails. Miles and miles of sea lie between her and anything like safety, and if she doesn't die from exposure or thirst, what then? He has her any time he wants her, down to her molecules, trapped in his poison, held captive in the vials of death carried in the ravenous belly of the ship's hold.

For herself, she wouldn't mind death. She's been living on borrowed time for decades. But for James, and for Mathilde...

He parts the buttons, one at a time, scarred fingers and shallow breaths catching on each in turn. He might do that, but Madeleine takes it further, opening the sweater and shrugging it off her shoulders, balling it in her trembling hands and throwing it into a shadowy corner.

He swallows, and for the first time, she sees him blink.

"The rest."

Her skin crawls, intensely aware of how steadily he observes, studies every inch of it as she bares herself to his gaze. When she is down to her underwear, with pants, shoes, and camisole lying in a timid puddle around her ankles, she hesitates. So fast is her heart beating that she can't hear anything else in the room, not his breathing or her own, and her fingers shudder so that she can't—

"You have nothing to fear," he steps closer to her and she braces herself not to recoil. His hand, uncertain as hers, gently brushes the skin of her stomach, just above her navel. She breathes out and can't inhale. "I will not hurt you. This will not be a painful thing to do, to ensure your survival. And your daughter's."

Always that twist of the knife! Fury burns away her fear, and perhaps this is what he has intended, that the rotten-tooth hurt of remembering Mathilde will give her the strength she needs to endure. To survive, as she'd told him her only goal had long been. Does he know her as well as he thinks? Or does he just enjoy watching her, the girl who shot him and the woman who refused him, bend to his will at last?

Irrelevant. She will survive, because that is what she does and that is what she must continue to do. Madeleine drags in a breath and unhooks her bra, letting it slide down her arms and to the floor. Though the room offers some respite from the cold sea air outside, it is not warm. Her nipples are stiff, and when he brushes a finger over one, her whole body shudders. Now it is her turn to swallow, swallow down the bitter dregs of her terror and rage. Survival. She can allow this to be done to her; others have done worse, before.

He has done worse, before.

It is a strange thing, so strange her mind reels, to see him—a man who visited such utter and absolute violence upon her—now bend to her, one hand wrapping around her bare back to pull her to him, close his mouth around her nipple, and suckle.

It is important to remember that none of this is happening to her. Not the essence of her, who she is. No matter what agony he visits on her body, he cannot touch her mind, or heart, or soul. But Madeleine thinks, wildly, that she would still prefer torture to this. He promised there would be no pain. He did not also warn her there would be pleasure.

She hardens herself as much as possible, trying to drive a wedge between her cold, clinical mind and the immediate, inescapable fact of what he is doing to her. No, not her. She is not her body; it alone is responsible for translating the desperate grip of his fingers on her back and hot slide of his tongue on her breast as erotic. It is a purely physical sensation that has no bearing on how disgusting this is. How disgusted she is.

The edge of his teeth graze her areola, and Madeleine flinches at last, jerking herself backwards as her arms reflexively close over her chest. Cold air stings a skim of saliva he's left behind; she can feel the still colder bone of his teeth where they touched her. Her heart stutters as his eyes—he hasn't closed them, not once—flick upwards to her face. But he is not angry. There is a smile on those roughened lips, a faint but sure one, the same one he'd worn as she'd given him her only child.

He repeats. "The rest."

There is nothing else to do. But as Madeleine slides her underwear down her legs, for the first time she cannot look at him for shame. That is perhaps the most damnable thing, that she is the one ashamed, when it is his unwelcome finger insinuating itself, snakelike, between her thighs. Tears build in the darkness behind her closed eyes, but when she opens them again they do not fall. They will never fall again.

There is an ice in her he never broke when he pulled her out of that lake. There is a part of her that is still frozen, all these years later.

But perhaps she is not as frigid as she thought. There is a spot of wetness on his fingertip as he pulls it back. They both stare.

"Lie down."

Sitting on the edge of the bed is easy, for it puts her beyond the reach of those staring, deep-set eyes. Lying is harder; it would be easier, she thinks, if he forced her down, struck her, did anything to take away her agency in this. As it is, he is making her take one voluntary step after another, down and down into a hell of his own meticulous design. Part of that design is the illusion of her choice—for it is an illusion, and she could no more refuse him this than take a pistol, set it to Mathilde's temple, and pull the trigger—but he will not take it from her, though he takes everything else.

After a moment, Madeleine sets her palms into the soft duvet and begins to pull herself back towards the headboard, when—

"No," he has gone to his knees before her, gripping the bed to either side of her knees, "just here. Lie back."

She exhales and inhales, out through her mouth and in through her mouth. Once, then again. And lies back, in one straight, rigid line from shoulders, to thighs, to knees. She might as well be carved from stone, from wood...from ice.

But she offers no resistance when he pulls her knees apart, nor when his hands fasten behind them and pull her closer to the edge of the bed. It's not her, not her, none of this is happening to her. Think of something else, of anything else. He cannot control your mind.

Madeleine drifts away, a will 'o the wisp with only one object in mind. Somewhere out there, Mathilde is safe and smiling, her enormous sapphire eyes alight and cheerful. No, no. It is too hard to think of her that way, not when the last time Madeleine had seen her she had been wailing and afraid, those beautiful eyes flooded with tears. No. Instead, Mathilde is tucked in bed, warm and safe, and outside her door James is standing, James who will never let anything happen to their daughter, and James who may one day find her and bring them all back together again. A happy family, such as neither of them have ever had.

And when he does, oh! Five years offer many restless, lonely nights, and Madeleine has dreamed about what she could do, what she would do, if James Bond ever darkened her door again. Dreams are no defense against reality; in her dreams, she has never blamed him, not really, so she has no use for the recriminations her conscious mind wishes to lay at his feet. At night, in darkness, she hasn't blamed either of them for keeping their secrets. Love cannot undo years of distrust in the world.

Without blame, there is no need for any bitter accusations. No need to remember the loneliness of the past. There can be just that ecstatic reunion, that coming together of two hearts, and two minds, and two bodies—

Her lips shatter, crack open on a moan. For a wild instant, it is James' hands grasping her inner thighs and pinning her open like a butterfly, it is his tongue lapping at her, and then his lips closing over her clit and—

She cries out, horror at herself and him—him, not James—and struggles for the first time. But she has misjudged his strength, for though he stands only a few centimeters above her he is thick with muscle and she cannot escape him, not when she has nothing to hold, no leverage to exert. She can only lie there, legs shaking as he digs in with his fingers, the core of her open, exposed, and vulnerable, and wait as he draws her ever higher, ever nearer to a peak she has no desire to reach. Madeleine's head thrashes against the duvet, but her dream has dissolved in the heat of his mouth and she cannot hide herself in what remains before—

She comes, with a groan as though he's stabbed her, and it might as well be blood oozing onto the bed, sticky on her legs, on the blanket. And he does not leave her there, no. He pushes her through it, sucking at her clit until she groans again and a broken plea leaps off her tongue:

"Please," she gasps, "please stop."

He rises, eyes wide, lips shining and wet. Madeleine pushes herself up the bed, pressing her back against the carven headboard, pressing so hard its harsh edges cut her like knives.

His hand catches her ankle, thumb stroking its fine bones. "You," he breathes, "are not in control here, Madeleine."

"It," she stammers, lies, "It was too—it hurt."

"Did it? Forgive me," and now he's smiling as much as she's ever seen; it makes her shudder with cold revulsion, "it sounded as though you were rather enjoying yourself."

Note: There's definitely more to this story, if anyone wants it. Just let me know. This is a bit out of my wheelhouse, since I'm not much of a smut writer and have never touched the James Bond franchise, but Rami Malek and Safin's villainous crush have been working on me since seeing NTTD, and I had to do something with that. Please tell me if you enjoyed and if you'd like to read on.