Tea didn't know how long they lay there. She felt that she might have blacked out. Kaiba's breathing was now slow and even, his stomach moving against her in a steady rhythm. She thought about springing out of the bed and running, but now her blouse was open, and the throbbing between her legs was draining her of all her energy. She felt empty.
It was Kaiba who sat up first. Tea didn't move. She didn't have the will to move. He turned on the light over the bed. She closed her eyes, but not before they made glancing eye contact. She couldn't pretend to be asleep.
Kaiba stood up. Tea couldn't tell if he was walking away, or standing by the bed and staring down at her. All she heard was the hum of the dirigible. She felt that once Kaiba left, time would start again. She had no idea what she would do after she left. She knew she had to get up; she had to get to Mai. She had to be there for Yugi and Joey. Right then, though, she couldn't imagine over facing the world again.
The smears of sperm on her belly had crusted over, except for a thick ribbon by her navel, which felt congealed. She imagined standing up, and the semen rolling down her belly, over her mons, and working its way inside of her. She imagined herself swelling with a lanky, steely eyed, cold-hearted child, and shuddered.
She heard the water burbling into the faucet. Kaiba was still there, and he was washing up. Tea's mind drifted back to the pen. Nobody would have known you did it, a voice inside her said. Everybody would have thought it was Marik or Bakura.
Warmth dripped onto her stomach before she felt a washcloth being rubbed in circles on her torso. She opened her eyes.
Kaiba wasn't looking at her. He looked at her stomach as he gently moved the washcloth over her, scrubbing himself off of her.
He went back to the sink and took another washcloth out of the cabinet. He ran the water over it, turning it in his hands, before wringing it out. His eyes were on the floor as he walked back to her. He sat next to her on the bed.
"You were hurt," he whispered. "I'm going to make you feel better."
In one quick, careful motion, her pulled her panties down slightly and pressed the washcloth to her crotch. It was cold. It took Tea's breath away. He held it there, gently lifting it away, and then placing it back on her skin. Tea trembled. Every time he turned the washcloth, the cold shocked her overheated flesh.
He took her wrist and put the washcloth in her hand, then guided her hand between her legs, holding the washcloth there with his hand on top of hers. "There," he said. "Just hold it there. "
The washcloth did help take the pain away. Tea felt the way she did after the first time in the closet. She felt drowsy, and her face felt numb. Everything felt numb except for the cold soothing the burning between her legs and the dryness of her throat. Nothing was real, except for that.
Kaiba sat back down next to her, placing a bottle of water on the bed stand. He put a hand behind her neck, and, with another washcloth, began to wipe her face. Tea didn't even know she was crying until she felt the difference between the damp coolness of the cloth and the flushing of her cheeks and the stinging of her eyes. Kaiba gently dabbed at her eyes and rubbed her cheeks. He held the cloth to first one side of her neck, and then the other.
It was too strange. It couldn't be happening. Kaiba couldn't be offering her the bottle of water, and lifting her slightly so she could hold it.
When she was finished, he took the bottle and put it on the bed stand again, then turned slowly back to her, his eyes downcast.
"You were hurt," his voice was quiet, but steady. He raised his eyes to hers. "That will never happen again."
Tea didn't look away. She found herself looking at a ghost, a stranger. As she gazed at him, she tried to figure out how to feel. She didn't feel anything, or maybe, she thought, she felt so much her brain was shorted out. His ashen skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones. His eyes were shiny, the whites pinkish, with the shooting vines of blood vessels seeming to sprout from the pockets of bruised skin under his eye sockets. She noticed that one of his lower eyelids was rapidly twitching, the tiny muscle tugging and jerking under the skin. The blue of his eyes was different. It was softer and deeper, the almost-violet of blueberries, a mournful, quiet color.
He put his hand on her cheek. His fingers curved around her face.
"I don't…I can't…" He looked down into his lap, his face cast in shadows. Tea began to wake up a little. Kaiba stumbling over his words? Kaiba not knowing what to say? This couldn't be reality.
He looked back at her. He placed his hand along the side of her neck, and his grip tightened. He leaned forward, staring intently into her eyes, before he spoke.
"This is making me insane," he said.
Tea believed him. She also, for a second, almost said she was sorry.
Kaiba leaned closer then, closer, closer, and pressed his lips against the skin below her cheekbone.
Tea held her breath. This was her first kiss.
A flash of lightning bathed the room in a weird lavender light, followed by a crash of thunder.
His mouth was tense, but soft. He didn't move, just held his lips to her skin.
She wanted to ask him why. She wanted to know what she did to make him do these things. She wanted to know why he was so violent one minute and tender the next. It would be easier if he were just full of volcanic lust. It would be less confusing.
He exhaled through his nose. His breath fluttered against Tea's temple, giving her chills. He smelled like lime-scented deodorant.
He pulled his lips away from her cheek and moved to place them on her forehead. Tea looked at his neck. She could see his artery pulse, moving as jerkily as his eyelid. His skin looked soft and pale as sweet dough. He arched over her like a dome, covering her.
He sat back up, replacing his lips with the washcloth. Then he stood up and walked away, closing the door behind him.
As Tea lay there, a washcloth on her forehead and another balled in her fist at her crotch, she felt rage boiling inside of her. She began to tremble with it. Tears ran silently down her cheeks and seemed to sizzle on her skin.
She flung herself upward, snatching the washcloth off her forehead. She tossed the washcloths, one in each hand, away from her. Twin slaps followed, one after the other, as they splattered onto the walls.
She stared at the door Kaiba had just exited and realized she was hyperventilating. Gasping and dizzy, her ribs aching from the force of her diaphragm heaving, she curled up on herself, her knees bending to her forehead and her forehead dropping to her knees. She pressed her fingertips into her temples, trying to get her breathing and her heartbeat under control.
She thought of his face when he looked down at her, and his timid lips. Did he have an evil inside him, a literal evil, like Marik or Bakura?
Her breath slowed but still hissing slightly, she stood up slowly on wobbly knees and began redressing, her fingers shaking and clumsy with anger. No, there was no Yami Kaiba. The cruel, sarcastic Kaiba; the groping, grabbing, hurting Kaiba; and the gentle, timid, remorseful Kaiba, were all the same. Kaiba was going insane.
She stopped from buttoning her blouse and stared out the window at the lurid purple clouds rolling and throwing lightning outside. Something big was happening. Yugi and his Yami couldn't help her now. They had too much to do that was too important.
It occurred to Tea that she might not need their help.
She thought of Kaiba looking down at her, looking sick and stumbling over his words. She thought about what he said.
This is making me insane….This is making me insane….
With a sinking feeling, she realized that he didn't mean "this." He meant to say "you." You are making me insane. She was driving Kaiba crazy. He had been pleading with her.
Did she really have that much power over Seto Kaiba? The thought overwhelmed her. She didn't know what she had down to deserve that much power over someone, if "deserve" was the right word. Being accused of having that much power frightened her. At the same time, however, she felt less afraid of Seto Kaiba.
If she could make him feel that way, if he believed that she made him feel that way, than that meant she could make him stop.
Didn't it?
The thought was revolutionary, after these weeks, and after the encounters with Kaiba. It also made her angry. He was accusing her of making him crazy? He thought this was her fault?
The rage was acid pain. It made her jaw clench and her temples ache. Her stomach churned. Her breath quickened. She forced it to slow and deepen.
She couldn't focus on the injustice of it. She had to focus on the power, he had given her, no matter how misguided he had been. She had to believe she could do something with it.
Tea could hope. If nothing else, she could hope.
Fully dressed, cleaned, and feeling a tentative, budding sense of strength, she went back to Mai's bedside.