Ties That Bind
in
you I see dirty
in you I count stars
in you I feel so pretty
in you I taste god
in you I feel so hungry
in you I crash
cars
we must never be apart
- "Ava Adore"; the
Smashing Pumpkins
Anthy wears red, because she has always worn red. Red chafes around her wrists, red runs down her dark legs, and red stains the hollow between her breasts.
She is unnecessarily restrained; she would not try to leave. She does not want to leave. But this-- her arms tied high, her legs stippled with fading finger-print bruises and rusty streaks from last time-- is what he likes, and he is her prince. He must do with her what he will. It is what she wanted. These are the things she tells herself constantly-- in the morning as an incentive and at night as her lullaby. These are the thoughts that stave off the feelings of desertion, when it's been longer than usual.
But her prince will always come for her. He smiles to see her so displayed; her body bound taut as a bowstring, fairly humming from the tense two day wait. "Is this what you wanted, princess? Is this what you wanted from your brother?" he hisses into the red crush of her bitten lips, his voice hoarse from desire. "Is this the thing that you just had to have?"
She nods, and smiles vacantly, and wonders when he learned to read her mind.
Some small part of him that is still Dios tries to hate her. She has made him dirty. She has made him want.
The rest of him likes it. He likes the heady power he can taste in her sweat, on her lips, inside that secret slick place where only he has been. To him, her splayed limbs and prostrations look like the world stretched out, stretched open, expanding, extending, waiting just for him. The rest of him craves more.
Leaving hones his desire to a diamond-sharp point-- but leaving is becoming harder to do. He thinks she does not sense this.
She does. She knows someday very soon, when all that is Dios has burned away, he will cease leaving entirely.
On that day Anthy will wear something else red. The dress will be a present from her brother: just the color of fresh blood, with wristlets like manacles for sleeves, as a reminder. We must never be apart.
