Throw Me Away
By Poe
Chapter Three
Author's Note: Yeah, this is short, but I hope the fans will appreciate some kind of update. To make up for it, the next chapter should come out sooner, and be longer. For encouragement, please review. Thanks!
Pan was almost done scrubbing when she flinched. She always seemed to flinch when someone was coming, it was like she just knew if they were near, like she could feel their presence. Expecting Vegeta, she turned around and dropped her scrubbing cloth at the bottom of the well.
It wasn't Vegeta.
Instead, Se Aila loomed over her, her pretty face heavy with an angry disposition.
"You!" she snapped at Pan, grabbing her by the ear like an unruly child.
"Huh? Let go! What did I do now?" Pan responded, trying to pull out of Aila's reach.
"You know perfectly well what you did, now come with me!"
"What's going on? Let go! I can walk by myself!" Pan said, thoroughly confused.
"You're to receive severe punishment for what you did! Three days in the Discipline Chamber for you!" Aila said, her voice thick with scornfulness.
Pan cringed. She couldn't be serious, could she? The Discipline Chamber was a place where bad servants went, it was a narrow hole just large enough to fit in, with the faintest light coming out of the top of the hole. Servants would be crammed against rough, dungeon-like walls and not be fed for days. Water would be poured into the hole, and servants would be reduced to licking it off the walls. The air would grow humid, and it would become harder and harder to breath. Pan had never been in there before, and the idea was so frightening that she could hardly believe it.
"What did I do? At least tell me!" Pan argued, still being dragged by the ear.
"The very thought sickens me. If there was a place worse than the Discipline Chamber, I would put you there!"
"You're not really going to put me there, are you?"
Aila stopped once Pan said this, and let go of Pan's ear. She grabbed her by the shoulders with a strong grip and forced Pan to face her.
"What you did was inexcusable. I'm doing you a favor by letting you stay here, a big favor! I should have you killed, no, thrown out on the streets!" Aila said, gravely serious.
"Why?" Pan pleaded, "What did I do?"
"Don't play dumb with me! You're going to the Chamber at once!"
Pan flinched. Someone was coming, but who? "I don't know what you're punishing me for, honestly!"
"You'll have plenty of time to think about it in the Chamber. Not a word out of you!"
"Aila, I told you to leave the disciplining up to me," a familiar voice said. Both turned to see Vegeta, standing sternly in his evening uniform.
"Master Vegeta!" Aila said, startled, "I only meant to save you some time."
"Yes, well, I have a better idea than the Discipline Chamber," Vegeta said, looking at Pan with a cold glare. So this is why he wanted to meet me, she thought, to punish me.
"Of course, your way is best," Aila said. Vegeta ignored her and approached her.
"I am here to insure that no one will do what you did ever again. You will serve as an example to the others," he said with a murderous gaze.
"What have I done?"
"Here at the temple, we do not waste time with explanations." Vegeta said, brusque as ever, and grabbed Pan's arm. Pan could sense a look of approval spread over Aila's face.
"This is unjust! I have done nothing!" Pan said, with anger, confusion, and fear accumulating until she could feel her cheeks flush and her heart race.
"Silence!" Vegeta said, yanking Pan along with no delicacy.
"I trust your majesty will not waste sympathy on the brat, as I have all these years," Aila said, smug that Pan was receiving punishment.
Vegeta continued without so much as a glance at Aila, and dragged Pan along with him. The grip on Pan's arm was as cruel and unforgiving as the tone of his voice and the expression of his face. She knew he would leave marks on her arm, and she was beginning to think he would bruise her.
They came up to a hedge which Vegeta swiftly rounded, making Se Aila conveniently out of sight. As soon as this was so, he let go of Pan's arm and she stumbled a bit at the sudden chance.
"You believed all that bullshit, didn't you?" Vegeta said immediately. Pan was instantly confused all over again.
"Bullshit? What are you talking about now?"
"Do you think I am ignorant enough to accuse someone falsely? Do you entrust me with such faulty intuition that I would suspect you a criminal of a capital crime?"
Pan felt dazed. "Ignorant? Faulty intuition? What are you saying?"
"Are you missing your brain as well as your memory? I told that whore of a concubine you had committed that crime she suspected you of!"
"You lied to Aila so I could get punished? Why would you do that?"
His eyes widened. Vegeta looked genuinely shocked at her question, and Pan had no idea why.
"You don't remember?" Vegeta questioned fiercely, as though trying to draw out a correct answer with anger.
"Don't remember what?"
"Don't play games with me, you had better not be lying!" he yelled, grabbing her sore arm and giving her an accusing shake.
"Ouch! I don't know what you're asking me! Remember what?" she exclaimed. Vegeta examined her closely, skeptical about the earnest answer.
"If you continue lying this way I'll be forced to find a way for you to confess." There was a murderous glint in his eye as he hauled Pan over to a small, rather short building nearby, one Pan had noticed but had never been to. Once they were at its entrance, he opened the main door, and with no delicacy shoved her inside, and then followed in, slamming the door behind him.
"You don't remember? Not a thing?" he said in a mocking, sarcastic tone. He began to remove his gloves, tugging slowly at each finger until it slid off. Pan eyed him carefully.
"What are you up to?" she wondered aloud, not too enthusiastically. Vegeta tossed his gloves carelessly behind him and then approached Pan, his eyes narrowing with a hint of what was to come. Pan's breath caught in her throat as he neared and her curiosity welled up inside.
"I hated that damn ship, but you were always a good lay."
"Good lay? Are you crazy? How would you know that?"
"Oh, so you think you're a virgin?" he taunted, nearing her.
"Well of course!"
"Is this, then, the mark of a virgin?" In a swift movement, he grabbed a piece of her slave's tunic near her inner thigh and yanked at it until it tore. On the skin he had revealed was a scar across the top of the inside of her leg. Her eyes widened at his audacity.
"How did you know about that?" she stuttered, her eyes fixated on him, but in a reluctant sort of way.
"I gave it to you, my whore," Vegeta whispered in her ear.
"How? When? I don't understand." Her voice was so soft Vegeta could barely make it out. He began to run his finger over the scar and Pan shivered.
"Vegeta," she said louder, "If they catch us…"
Now his hand was on the inside of her thigh. He moved it up and down and the movement was so erotic it was almost soothing. Pan's lids grew heavy and she found it difficult to stand. The confusion in her spun out of control, but she ignored it, and she even had the strength to ignore everything in her that screamed for her to push him away.
She realized he was kissing her, there was a numbness in her that was now receding. As she felt his kiss she realized she had been longing for him for so long, and she wished with all of her that the moment would never end. She wanted time to ignore her, to leave her like a dissatisfied lover, and she never wanted to think about her old life again.
Vegeta pulled away from her and she noticed her breathing had increased significantly.
"My whore," he said, his voice thick and dark, running over her like a smooth liquid, "they already have."
The words did not hold meaning for her until later. Far later.