She struggled to speak but the palm of his large hand kept her mouth firmly shut. It was probably for the best - there wasn't much she could say to belay his anger anyway.
The doctor pulled her body tight against his, one arm snaked around her waist, his breath hot in her ear.
"What did I tell you, Marilyn?" he whispered. "I told you to listen to me, and what did you do?" She wasn't sure how to respond, seeing as she couldn't, but Oliver didn't seem interested in her answers at the moment. Marilyn felt the arm around her waist relax as his hand passed slowly over her flat stomach.
"Were you trying to escape?" Thredson murmured, his low voice sending shivers down her spine. The words were heavy with an unspoken threat; was this finally it? Had she gone too far at last?
Maybe it was for the better. She could barely recognize herself these days.
Marilyn shook her head as much as his grip would allow.
"No, perhaps not." He drew his palm along her midsection then down her right thigh, past the hem of her short red dress. The asylum's cool brick walls echoed back nothing but the labored sounds of their breathing as the doctor thrust his hand between her legs and drove two fingers deep into her warm, wet center.
She bucked against him but he had her where he wanted her. There was simply no leverage for her to break away - she was trapped in his arms.
"You disobeyed me," Oliver said, beginning a slow tortuous pump of the lithe fingers she both craved and feared. "I can't allow transgressions, Marilyn, you know that."
She whined quietly into his palm. It took no time at all for his skilled hands to drive her wild.
His thumb kept brushing the tiny bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs as he stimulated her to the very core. The doctor's ministrations were leisurely and deliberate; he had no interest in making her come any time soon. This was a punishment.
Oliver leaned his nose against the nape of her neck and inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of shampoo in her hair. Marilyn could feel him growing hard in the small of her back.
"What am I going to do with you?" he said thoughtfully into her skin.
A chill began to spread through her body like ice in the veins. Had he asked the same question of the women who'd been found flayed and headless? Was she really special after all, or was Lana right to laugh in her face?
No. It wasn't over. She wasn't going to end up like them.
Marilyn reached swiftly behind her and grasped the doctor's rigid erection in her left hand, rolling it in her palm with slow careful squeezes.
It took the doctor so by surprise he loosened his grip on her mouth; she seized this opportunity and jerked her chin up, wrestling her face free to look at him over her shoulder.
"Two can play that game, Oliver," she whispered huskily, and a fire ignited in his eyes that nearly overwhelmed her.
Thredson's body tensed and twitched as she massaged the tight bulge at his groin. His fingers kept working between her legs. For one long wicked moment they remained in a sexual standoff.
He licked his lips then placed them next to her ear again.
"Miss Jackson, I need to see you in my office," he growled. She felt a nudge at her back as he urged her to move forward, towards a door with his name etched on the glass.
And speaking of names, how exactly had he known hers? The strange fleeting sense of being stalked like prey crossed her mind once more but she barely had time to consider this as the doctor walked her slowly across the hall, the two of them entangled at their most private of places.
When they reached the door he grasped the knob, turned, and all but threw her inside. He moved quickly across the threshold and with a flick of his wrist the door slammed behind them like a gunshot.
Oliver came at her like a warrior in battle; he forced her against the wall of his impeccably clean office and went straight for her mouth, mashing their lips together in a rough passionate kiss. Marilyn wrapped her arms around his neck and met his tongue with hers, welcoming it, craving it.
He forced the hem of her dress past her hips and placed his hands on her bare behind, lifting her off her feet. Using the wall as leverage the doctor released his straining cock from his pants and drove into her with one swift motion.
She pulled her mouth from his to groan softly. Gravity was working in their favor - it felt like he was thrusting deeper and deeper into her hot slick center with each movement of his slender hips.
One of her black pumps slipped from her foot and fell to the floor with a quiet thud. She flipped the other off effortlessly and wrapped her legs around him, drawing him even closer, creating delicious friction between them.
Oliver's brows were twisted with fierce concentration as he pumped into her, his fingernails digging into the tender flesh of her bottom. Her hands grasped at his white button-up shirt, knocking loose a pen from the breast pocket, until they found the thin black tie hanging at his neck. She seized him by it and pulled his face close to hers; their eyes locked and for the first time in her captivity, Marilyn felt like a wolf too.
"I hate her," she said breathlessly.
Oliver's lips spread into a sly, sinister grin.
"I knew you would," he huffed, and lifted her into his arms, still buried deep between her legs. The doctor spun her in a half-circle until they were over his desk; with a sweep of his arm he cleared away papers and pencils and psychology books, which scattered haphazardly across the office floor.
Thredson slammed her against the smooth wooden desktop and continued pumping his hips ravenously. The new position allowed him to hit a tender spot deep inside her wet, wanting sex, and a fresh burst of pleasure exploded within her.
"Oliver," Marilyn moaned, perhaps too loudly. He pressed two long fingers to her lips in a brisk shushing gesture but she saw the effect hearing his name had on him; he was on the edge of ecstasy and trying desperately to hold on.
She was nearly there herself but something inside relished pushing him over the brink. Giving him a seductive little smile, she opened her mouth and began to suck gently on one of the fingers he'd used to quiet the sounds of her lust.
The doctor let out a groan that she was sure the inmates heard all the way downstairs but then it didn't matter because he was hitting that sinfully sweet spot deep in her core and Marilyn was coming, she was awash in a sea of pleasure and raking her nails down the dark hair along his forearms.
The warmth she'd grown to welcome spread slowly in the secret place between her legs as Thredson thrust his hips hard once, twice, and then came to a full stop, struggling to catch his stolen breath.
He began to withdraw but Marilyn hooked a leg around his waist and pulled him close again, savoring the way he felt inside. Chest heaving, Oliver looked down at her with an unnamable expression of desire and darkness.
He placed the palm of one long-fingered hand on the exposed skin of her midsection. The image of Lana, pale and furious and gripping her own stomach as a warning, flashed through her brain like lightning in an unlit room.
Marilyn let her leg fall so he could pull away. He hesitated, staring at the soft milky skin above her navel, then took a step backwards and set to composing himself in silence.
When they left his office the hallway was still deserted. No one had heard them after all.
With one strong hand at her lower back, Oliver guided her carefully down the spiral staircase. Marilyn tried to keep her gaze straight ahead but at their descent she couldn't help searching for the reporter amongst the shuffling, drooling inmates.
She was in the doorway of what appeared to be a common room. The look in her eyes as they approached could've set fire to kindling.
Marilyn met her glare for one brief moment and smiled.
Then they marched through the asylum doors and into the outside world, a place Lana was no longer free to go.
When they were finally in the dull, brown expanse of his living room, the question that had been smoldering in the pit of her stomach finally surfaced.
"Is Lana pregnant?" Marilyn asked quietly.
The doctor focused on releasing his neck from the constraints of his black tie. He licked his lips. He refused to meet her eyes with his.
"She was," Oliver murmured at last.
She nodded, turning the words over in her brain like worry stones.
"Am I pregnant?" she said, her voice flat and unreadable. Thredson froze in position, breathing heavily, and finally tossed the necktie to the ground.
"I don't know. It's too early to tell." He paused for a moment as his dark eyes ran up and down her body like the small sticky hands of pickpockets. "I hope so."
Marilyn considered this. She picked absently at the fuzzed material of the couch cushion.
When a long moment of silence passed Thredson fished a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and placed it between his lips. Fetching a matchbook from the coffee table, he struck one against the black outer strip. She watched as it flamed to life.
Oliver lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, the cherry glowing bright in the early evening gloom.
"Well," he said, the word producing a large puff of smoke, "it's time to go back downstairs."
Her head snapped up to look at him in surprise.
"What?"
He took another deep breath, sucking hard on his cigarette, then placed it gingerly in the ashtray on the coffee table.
"You disobeyed me, Marilyn. You've broken my trust. There must be consequences."
Before she could react properly he was already moving towards her, one strong hand seizing her by the wrist. Marilyn tried to bolt but he was too quick; he turned the force of her struggles against her and soon she was slung over his shoulder like nothing more than a sack of flour.
"Oliver, please, no," she begged, immediately in tears at the idea of going back into that dark lonesome place. "Please don't take me there, baby, I'll be good, I swear, please don't, please don't –"
"Don't make this harder than it is for me," Oliver grunted as they descended the stairs.
There were sobs and murmured words of warning but ultimately she ended where she'd began, in the same lonely bed with the same heavy chain around her ankle, and once again he left her there.
But this time was different.
This time, she had a plan.