You and I Are Violence and Lust

Sarah Hall

You wonder how we come to be as we are, how we come to do the work we do. It is all his doing, his personal calling in this world. Let me tell you the story of how he breaks through the barriers you construct in your life, how he takes over the things you think you have under control, how he draws you in and shows you what it is you really want. How he turns you to his purpose and makes you see that it's your purpose, too. How, in the end, it's no choice at all.

She didn't know how long the strange looks had been there before she noticed them. After she did, she couldn't not see them. They were everywhere.

Everyone knew.

The first time wasn't so unbelievable, didn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination. There was this guy she worked with. She didn't know his name, but he was sexy enough to be worthy of daydreams, a decent distraction to make it through the work day. They'd never spoken. He did something with the computers, fixing things when people broke them. So he was around, he and his strong jaw and disarming grin.

Her computer was broken that day, so broken that she had no choice but to call the tech guys. Of course, they would send him. She was happy at first--you know, close contact, a thrill she could ride for the rest of the day. But that was before he flashed that mischievous grin at her and said something he should never have known to say.

"Didn't know you felt like that about me. I'm flattered, but... sorry to say, I'm married."

She was suddenly paying attention.

"What? What do you mean?"

"You know... you have a thing for me..."

"What makes you think that?"

"Heard it from someone... can't remember who... but yeah, someone told me." He leaned close to her ear, and a pleasant shiver went through her body at the feel of his breath on her skin. "Maybe you should keep your secrets to yourself until you find out who's not keeping them for you."

But that was the funny thing. She hadn't told anyone about her little workplace crush. Not anyone. She had no one to tell. So who could have told him?

That time, she could brush it off. An office is a small and crowded place, filled with bored people. Maybe someone had noticed her watching him, or just started an unfounded but lucky rumor. There were possibilities. The next day, she wasn't so sure.

She thought of her fantasies like a stack of index cards. She would lay in her bed at night, naked, and flip through them in her mind. Some were old and worn, favorites that she'd used over and over for years. Some were bright and shiny, new faces. Some were hidden way in the back, the ones she didn't like to think about during the daylight hours. The ones she would never, ever admit were there, no matter how many times she was asked. Every night (and sometimes during the day, depending), she would flip through the cards and pick one. Some nights she would go to bed knowing which one she'd choose. Most of the time she didn't. Often, she went through several cards, switching from one to the next, searching for which one was going to work, which one was going to get her there tonight. Sometimes she flipped through the whole stack and still ended up frustrated, sweating and exhausted, and she just had to give up.

That night, she couldn't fantasize about her workplace guy, whose name she still hadn't gotten. Every time she thought of him, instead of being filled with excitement, she was instead overcome with embarrassment. She had never meant him to know. Time to pick something new.

She lay in bed and ran her hands over her bare skin as she pondered the choices. Faces, faces--movie stars, rock gods, high school crushes. Some were more ethereal, less rooted in reality--fictional characters, whose faces she could imagine in whatever fashion suited her best. She had such control, such power here! She could take anyone she wanted and make them do anything, anything at all that she could imagine. For whatever reason (for who knows how the body decides what it wants?), that night she was drawn toward the dark cards, the ones hidden at the back of the deck. Everything here was taboo, was wrong to someone in some way. She found herself tarrying here more and more as her mind grew bored with more common scenarios.

She hadn't started out thinking about these things. She was disgusted by them like everyone else, at first. But she just got bored. Novelty is so exciting, and there were only so many times she could get off on the sweet, romantic, oh-so-vanilla fantasies of her teen years. She started looking for something else. And she found that even the most repulsive things start to look normal if you only look at them enough. She never stopped to think about whether this was a good thing or not.

That night, she was doing a little bit of genre-mixing, throwing some incest in with some S&M play. She was a little girl again, in a pink frilly dress her grandparents had given her when she was nine years old. She had done something bad and her daddy had had enough, and he had thrown her over his lap and started spanking her. Now, this should be made clear--she didn't imagine her father in this fantasy. He was a fantasy father, nothing at all to do with real life. She was always careful to keep reality and fantasy separate, always so careful, because she knew that when you mixed them up, things started to get dangerous. She closed her eyes and set herself to the task, and soon enough she was entirely lost in the scene, throwing in details here and there as it suited her: a rough voice intermingled with girlish cries, large, calloused hands on smooth, virginal skin that was beginning to take on a pinkish hue to match the dress, hands that eventually began to wander away from buttocks to more interesting areas....

She didn't remember it until later, but the dark man was there, watching them from the corner. He smirked at her just before she came, just before everything was washed away in brightness.

She was feeling self-conscious the next day at work. Not about the little father-daughter spanking scene--that had been just part of the routine. She was still embarrassed about the confrontation with tech support guy the day before. If he knew, she had to assume that the rest of the office knew, and her cheeks flushed red as she walked to her desk. That was the first day she was really paying attention to the people around her, and it was a good thing, because there were things to notice. People saw her and looked away quickly, as if embarrassed themselves. Others nudged their friends and giggled behind their hands. She could hear the whispers through the silence, and it was maddening, knowing the words were there and not knowing what they were. This was about more than an office crush. There was more going on here.

She was lucky enough (so to speak) to get a chance to find out just what was so interesting about her that very afternoon. She was in the bathroom, just happy to get a moment of privacy, when two other women entered the room. Looking below the stall door, she could see their sensible business heels clicking across the floor on the way to the mirror. They were talking about her. She promptly shut up the monologue in her head and listened as hard as she could.

"...about being spanked by her father. Can you believe that?"

"I wonder if she was molested as a child."

"I wouldn't be surprised. She's always seemed weird to me."

"Now where did you hear this again?"

"Someone told me... god, who was that? I don't know, but it's all over the office."

"Pretty fucked up."

"Yeah, well, aren't we all?"

Their conversation turned to other things, and she sat in her stall with her mouth hanging open and tears welling up in her eyes. They couldn't know this--they couldn't. But they did, they fucking did!

She resolved to end the fantasies that very night.

Well, you can guess how long that lasted. She tried, she really did. But it all just built up in her body. She could feel it twisting and turning within her, a constant pressure that was just begging to be released. But there was more to it than her body missing her nightly routine. She'd stopped before, while she was on her period, while she was sick, or while she was sharing sleeping quarters with someone else, and she'd never felt like this. It was almost like it was coming from the outside, from someone else. She didn't know then how right she was.

The night she gave in, one of her favorite--and one of her darker--fantasies took over almost immediately. Again, it was a bit of a mix. More of the pain, punishment, power play stuff thrown in there this time, combined with a certain fictional authority figure from a popular novel. He happened to be a teacher. When she closed her eyes, she was lashed to the desk. He was fully dressed in his teaching regalia, striding around her with that dignified posture he was always so careful to keep, and lecturing, as if they were in class. Looking over toward the desks, she saw to her horror that they were in class--every chair was occupied by a wide-eyed and gaping figure. This wasn't part of her fantasy--she'd never been able to get into the exhibitionism thing--so where had it come from? She struggled against her restraints, not play struggling, but really trying to get free. Her eyes wouldn't open--really wouldn't open. She couldn't tell anymore what was the fantasy and what was reality, and suddenly she was terrified. The familiar face of the teacher morphed into another face, one she could only remember seeing once before--the dark man who had watched her live out another fantasy, the last one before she tried to quit. The one who had smirked as she came. He bent over her and, with the barest touch, ran his fingertips down her cheek, and he was staring into her fantasy eyes, and she couldn't stop the frenzied movement of her fingers any more than she could open her real eyes. The final brightness was blinding when it came, such a contrast to the blackness of his gaze.

It took some time for the memory to come back to her in the morning. It wasn't until she made her way into the bathroom to take a shower that it all came rushing back. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, and something about her reflection was very, very wrong. All thoughts of showering forgotten, she leaned over the sink and stared at her reflection. Red marks twisted their way around her wrists--rope burns. She had matching marks on both ankles. And where his fingers had so gently touched her face, there were five long, narrow bruises, not dark, but noticeably there.

She didn't go to work that day.

Looking back, there was nothing else she could have done. She had no options. No use going to any kind of authority--she'd be committed for sure. And it certainly wasn't the sort of problem she could go to family with: Hi, Mom. Yeah, so I've been seeing this weird guy in my fantasies when I masturbate. What should I do? In any case, they were on the other side of the country, and she was already pushing it to miss work just for a day. She had no friends there.

She had no one to go to. She was alone with the dark man of her fantasies, and, as enjoyable as that sounds, she wasn't having fun. Every night, she tried to resist him. She actually considered binding her hands to force them into control, but she was all alone. She would be taking the risk of never being able to get out again. Every night, she gave in to the urge. Every time she did, she seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the fantasy world and have more and more trouble getting back to reality. The dark man was in every one, always there. He smirked at her and touched her chastely, but he never spoke and he never touched her in a sexual way. He was waiting for something, and because he was in charge, that was all she could do. So she waited.

He saw them all. He saw the one with her and the pretty actress, watched their kisses and caresses, sweeter than any of her male fantasies. He watched as she was tied up on a stage, legs spread, while a line of all the men she knew formed before her to wait their turn. He gazed on, unsurprised, when she turned into a man and fucked women and other men and sometimes both. The blood play one, with the faceless vampire armed with not just fangs but knives as well. The endless versions of bondage, sadism and masochism, dominance and submission--whatever you prefer to call it, she must have covered them all. She started to verge more and more toward the abnormal than she'd ever dared before. There were always cocks and balls and cunts and tits and him, standing there and watching and touching, and always his smirk.

She went back to work, because she had to. People there avoided her at all costs, no longer interested, just revolted. But what could they have done? What crime had she committed that warranted any action? Nothing--nothing at all. And they could never have given concrete evidence, anyway. They'd all heard it from someone, but no one could remember who. They didn't know.

But she did. She knew exactly who it was. And the two of them were heading toward a climax of their own.

She knew, when it finally came. She was utterly exhausted, mentally and physically. Everything was blurred. If she was hurt in the fantasy, it came back with her into reality. She didn't die, though. Some of those injuries should by all rights have killed her, but they always seemed to have healed enough by morning for her to be able to take care of them, on her own and without a doctor. He was saving her for something, and she had a strong feeling that tonight was the night she was going to find out what it was.

She felt no urge that night, no desperately building pressure originating from someone not her. But she got in bed anyway and closed her eyes. That was the night she threw all the cards in her head away--all but one, the last blank one she had. She didn't put anything on it. She didn't have to. He pulled her into the fantasy world like he had endless times before, and this wasn't a scene of her creating. This was his.

He was waiting for her, in the center of a huge dark room. It was the first time she'd seen him anywhere but in corners, and it frightened her--he was going to be more than an observer this time. She stood in the doorway, naked but for the designs painted on her flesh, circling her breasts and weaving their way down her body in endless knots. She walked toward him, bare feet cold on the stone floor, the rest of her body flushed and heated in anticipation. His long cloak swirled around him, the blackness of the cloth seeming only gray next to the void that was his eyes.

When she was within ten paces, those eyes flicked to the ground for a moment before returning to her. She had played the submissive enough that she knew how to interpret this, and she fell to her knees, bowing her head, a strange sense of calm coming over her as she did so. She saw his feet coming toward her, and she was oddly reminded of the women in the bathroom back when this had all started, those gossiping women in their sensible business heels.

"You have given in."

His voice was impossibly deep, impossibly commanding. He already knew every answer she would give.

"Yes, master."

The title came out of its own volition, her responses more automatic than consciously worded, and those simple words were all he needed. He held out a pale hand and raised her from the floor, pulling her close with his other arm, bruises trailing their way across her skin wherever he touched, a deep pain blooming below them. One hand grasped a handful of hair and pulled back hard, exposing her neck and forcing her to meet his solid black eyes. She could see her reflection in them, and she stared, captivated.

"Do you know why you were chosen?"

A question. That, she was not expecting. A deep part of her brain began to panic. Should she know the answer? She was absolutely certain that she did not want to be punished by this man.

"No, master." Her voice trembled.

"Be easy, child. You will know in time, when you begin to see others like you. The Watchers." She did not understand, but it would have been impertinence to ask. She held her tongue.

They were closer now, so close, the folds of his cloak pressing deep marks into her bare skin. He held her there for a long moment, and then moved. Kissing is not the right word for what it was that he did, such a sweet, cute sort of word. He did not kiss. He devoured. It was then that she recognized something in him, something that she had been looking for her whole life. He took all the parts she had desired in all the men she had fantasized about and rolled them into one. No one of them had ever been enough--but he would be, enough and more.

"Come. Let me show you the work you were created to do."

He held out a hand and helped her to her feet, leading her away. They approached a door, freestanding in the room, mirrored on either side, reflecting only blackness and their figures. He waved a hand and the door swung open from the middle, and within she saw a familiar face. A man she knew, with a strong jaw and a disarming grin. He was in bed, his eyes closed, his mouth open and panting, deep into fantasy. And she could see his fantasy, layered oh-so-closely over reality, and she found that she could somehow adjust her vision to see one or the other. She looked at the fantasy, and the pretty little pop star that he was fucking became clearer as reality faded away. She stepped to the doorframe and looked back, once, at the dark man, who said nothing to her, merely stared back. Then she was through, and she took up residence in a corner, watching the scene before her. For the first time, she felt the immense flow of power coming from the man who was generating this fantasy, the power that was fueling this dream-world. And she felt what she was supposed to do. She watched, and took the power within herself, and stored it, and when she got back to the dark man in his dark room, she would give her stolen power to him and his dark purposes, as the endless numbers of others like her did every night. What he did with that power was none of her concern. She was meant to watch, and the thrill of it was enough for her.

Just before the fantasy disappeared in a climactic wave, she saw a look of shocked recognition flicker in the man's eyes. He had seen her, just for a moment, just for one fleeting instant.

And she looked back, and smirked.