Skewed fic! - Dreamweaver
Title: Dreamweaver
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Summary: How will she escape the Jack in her dreams so that she may deal with the Jack who invades her present?
Warnings: Angst! Some non-con, ambivalent consent, explicit sexual relations, sado-masochism. In trying to be *fairly* realistic, I realise this may squick some people, and I apologise.
She opened her mouth before she opened her eyes, and uttered a brief, trembling moan before swallowing a gag. Her whole body was shaking, her hands and feet were cold, and the blankets suffocated her. She kicked them off without thinking, and then as an afterthought checked, dazed, if Chloe was in the bed with her. But there was no Chloe, and no Tom.
She thought of the wetness between her legs and gagged again, then looked over at the clock and checked the time. Too early. Too late. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and took some deep breaths. Surely there was some provision in her notes and in her training for this? A sick sort of transference?
Jack, with his gentle voice and his cruel hands that had pulled triggers, thrust knives and tortured her. Jack, who had not taken her hand when she had screamed at him. ‘Take my hand!’’ Who was most likely impotent, aversive to touch, avoidant of women.
A master in her dreams.
With questing fingers, and a soft laugh, and a willing, wet mouth.
She tasted bile and walked out into the kitchen, and took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. Hops and bubbles, a bitter narcotic for her very cynical soul. Halfway through the third bottle she felt sleepy again, she wiped the wetness off her cheeks and stumbled back to bed.
*
The next night she just stared at him as he sat on the edge of her bed and rested a hand lightly on her foot. He watched her, his face was in shadow but his eyes seemed to glitter. The room smelt lightly of roses, a soft bouquet, and she could feel them crowding at the edges of her thought. As she watched him, heat seemed to shift inside of her and she felt death on the edges of her arousal.
As he ran his hand up her leg, his palm curved to the inside of her calf, and then the underside of her knee, sending shivers along her nerves, and then up her inner thigh, slowly.
‘Samantha.’ He purred.
She sat bolt upright, sweating. Chloe stirred next to her and blinked like a small owl.
‘Mommy, is it morning?’
Sam swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, then placed on the mask of reassurance that she wore for so many in her life.
‘Oh sweetie, no, Mommy just thought of something that’s all. Come on, back to sleep.’
Chloe was pacified with the simple explanation.
But Sam lay awake until morning.
*
She had briefly considered telling Bailey, but it was difficult opening up to him in general, let alone about something like this, which disturbed her more than the photographs of children who were missing eyes and fingers, or partners who were murdered and posed, or the sight of roses on a bed. This invasion in her dreams was like a virus, and it plagued her during the day. She galvanised herself by working harder, and slipping more easily into the minds of other killers, because at least then she would not be drifting in her own mind.
It was becoming harder to detach.
Years of her life entwined in Jack’s sick dance, and now her subconscious had taken a choice out of her hands.
Because now, even now, the voice was a sultry purr dancing across the back of her eyes, making red sparks pool and shimmer. And even now, she felt heavier, more aware of her body.
And at night time, she wondered if she would tell him.
She even wondered if she would kill him, just to be done with this feeling that hadn’t been stirred inside of her since the early whirlwind romance with Tom.
She had told Coop to go home.
‘Just while I get myself sorted out, but…I’ll call you.’
‘Yeah, sure, just…make sure you do.’
*
A week later, Samantha found herself sitting on a sandy shore, feeling small grains trickle and grind between her toes as she pushed her feet into the sand. The waves rhythmically crashed, hypnotically receding and then coming back again. Creeping towards her. She watched clouds on the horizon as they effortlessly shifted and merged, and gulls screamed at each other in the sky, and they screamed at the sea, and they screamed at the sky.
Strong, languid strokes fell across her shoulders, as rhythmic as the waves. They traced patterns from behind her ears, down the tight coils of her neck, stretching the muscles across her shoulder blade. Over, and over again. Slight variations each time, and Sam was sighing deeply, feeling something sinking away from her, even as she leaned back into that touch and let her eyes drift shut.
The waves said shhhhh.
Shallow breaths ghosted across her skin, and shifted her hair. A face rested against the back of her head, and nuzzled her gently and worshipfully. The hands grasped her shoulders, like a comrade might grasp the shoulders of a fellow comrade, and then slowly they rubbed her arms. It was comforting, and even when those knowing fingers teased the side of her breasts, Sam did not jump in shock, only turned her head to softly nuzzle back.
‘Doesn’t it make you crazy?’ He whispered. His hands curling around the soft flesh of her belly, and then feathering upwards to cup her breasts.
‘What?’ She said, her voice was hoarse.
‘Don’t I make you crazy?’
‘Jack…’ She said.
‘Think about Tom, Samantha. What are you doing?’
The waves tumbled over her, the gulls screamed condemnation, and she woke up, nipples erect and shaking so violently that it felt like her skin was rippling like an ocean.
*
Sam quelled her reflexive shivers with beer and blankets, and she stared at the surveillance cameras. She knew they couldn’t see that her hand was resting lightly between her legs. She was tempted to finish the fantasy that lingered, but she restrained herself. There was a smell of sea spray and roses.
Even now, when she felt her hair shift on her shoulders, she was beginning to imagine that someone else was doing it for her.
This is sick. She reprimanded herself.
This is Stockholm Syndrome, sexualised. This is just an aftermath.
Do I ignore it, and hope it goes away?
She pressed her hand into herself and grimaced at the eager spark of wanting between her legs.
What good has hope ever done me?
*
‘Angel?’
‘What’s up, Sam? Everything alright?’
‘I think I’m having uh, dreams about Jack. Not nightmares. Sex…dreams.’ She finished lamely. There had been professional terms and emotional detachment when she had imagined saying this out loud. And she had been in control and simply stating a symptom of a condition that would go away. Angel’s eyes had widened, and she had that look on her face. The ‘what is the right thing to say’ look; the ‘is there a right thing to say’ look.
‘For about two weeks. Since Robin and…’
‘Well, is that normal? Maybe just your body trying to get it out of your system in…sex dreams?’ Angel winced at her own phrasing. ‘Do you like them?’
‘It’s not, I mean I wake up and I’m sick, I feel sick. But Angel, I don’t hate them when they’re happening. He’s different. But when I wake up, I feel like I’m losing it.’
‘Have you told Bailey?’ Angel read her friend like a book and then nodded. ‘Yeah no I don’t think I could tell Bailey something like that either.’
‘Maybe I’m trying to justify all his cruelties somehow, in my mind. I’m trying to make up for it. In the dreams, he’s not evil. He’s…disturbing. But he’s not evil.’
‘But he’s killed people, look what he did to our lives, to your life.’ Angel amended.
‘I know! You think I don’t, you want to hear something crazy? In my dream last night, he reminded me about Tom. He said ‘what are you doing?’ And I woke up, and I don’t know if I was more upset at the reminder of all of that, or if I was upset because the dream didn’t reach it’s natural, it’s natural conclusion.’
Sam hid behind her beer for a moment. Angel looked at her unfinished sculpture and sighed.
‘Well, I think that if you let yourself get too close to the dreams, you’re going to become less realistic about what Jack is. And what he’s capable of. I think you know that too. So it comes down to a choice, do you want to keep your senses honed so you can catch him? Or do you want to have some subconscious sexual fling with the person who kil-’
‘Angel.’ Sam warned abruptly, and Angel had the good grace to look apologetic.
Sam left, feeling more confused.
*
Sam took an uncharacteristic day off work and on Monday morning took Chloe to the zoo as she had been promising for some time, and together they laughed at the monkeys and then stared in wonder at the jewel-coloured birds that watched them, and cried. The toucan sounded mournful, Chloe said;
‘It sounds like he’s saying ‘away, away.’ Is he sad to be in a cage?’
Sam stared at the cage and wondered if she felt sad.
‘Yes, Chloe, he’s probably sad to be in the cage. But everyone looks after him there, and he has other bird friends around, so he’s probably happy sometimes too.’
It felt like a lie even as she said it.
As she shifted to turn, she felt wetness between her thighs and bit her lip. She had been touched so intimately in her dreams that she felt like she was walking around under a haze of adolescent pheromones. She was also due her period, and wondered if she should check just to be on the safe side. She looked around for a sign that pointed to nearby toilets and then bent down to Chloe.
‘You wait here, okay? Mommy just needs to go to the bathroom.’
Chloe smiled. Sam knew that the barely noticeable guards would watch the little girl like a hawk, and she walked briskly to the brick building and entered. Small amounts of graffiti met her eyes, and one of the three stalls was closed. Sam walked into one of the open ones and closed the door behind her. She put the toilet seat down and sat on it, then pressed a finger to herself. She shivered and bit her lip, and then raised a wet, glistening finger to check. She had not started her period.
This isn’t normal.
She sighed, and pressed her fingers to her clitoris through her skirt and bit off a moan. A sound came out, choked and high, and she blushed to think that the woman in the stall next to her had heard. Two minutes later she felt as composed as she was going to feel, and stood and flushed the toilet. The woman flushed the toilet next to her and as Sam moved towards the sink, she turned to see who it was that had shared her quelled sound of desire.
She felt her heart beat once, hard, a violent thump.
She knew him. Him.
She cried out in alarm but he was already stalking towards her, a grim expression on his face.
*
He was wearing his latex mask, and Sam blinked at it, because she realised then that he was always faceless in her dreams. There was a gleam of an eye, a quirk of a smile, but she never was rewarded with seeing the naked whole. In seconds she was against the brick wall, and he was standing, pinning her with his whole body. She pretended she didn’t notice he was hard, but even as he pressed a gun up into her ribcage, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he said and did in his dreams.
She felt sick.
This is Jack, this is Jack. Dammit, Sam, pull yourself together.
‘Samantha,’ he paused, sniffed the air delicately, and Sam felt herself flush all the way down to her belly. ‘I can smell you.’ He whispered, turning his head to the side and looking at the empty stall that she had emerged from. He turned his head again and checked the entrance, then with deliberate proddings of his gun pushed her back into the stall and closed it awkwardly.
There was hardly enough room for both of them.
‘So who were you thinking of?’ He said, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. ‘Tom? Or the boringly aggressive ‘Coop. Who was it, hmm?’
Sam whimpered, that voice that had haunted her dreams, both terrified her and made her feel like grinding into the wall to satiate an urge that had already started some weeks before.
This can’t be happening.
‘Jack, you won’t get aw-’
The gun was twisted into her ribs, like a screw trying to work its way into her heart. She leaned away from the gun, and further into the steel grip that met her on the other side. He was strong. She felt dirty, his face - bearded and old - made him look older than he really was. She swallowed convulsively.
‘Who were you thinking of?’ He pressed, and Sam whimpered.
Don’t say it.
‘You.’ She whispered.
Dammit.
‘I was thinking of you.’
Jack had frozen, she could almost hear his heartbeat, she could smell a faint aroma of sweat and musk, she wondered how stifled he felt under the latex mask. The gun was still pressing a bruise into her ribs, his hand slackened only slightly.
‘I can’t stop. And I hate it.’
You idiot.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear his triumphant glance, or perhaps his laugh of disdain or contempt. Surely one of the reasons he liked her was because of how pure she was? He always hated it when she had sexual relations with other people. The idea that she was some carnal being, unable to block him out of her head, might disgust him. Her heart leapt, he might even start leaving her alone. But even as she thought it, she saw images of murder and her dreams come together in her head and she felt the tears welling behind her eyes.
What nightmare is this?
The gun moved away, Sam still couldn’t open her eyes, she stood, frozen, trying to hold her breath and pretend this wasn’t happening. It was a pathetic reaction, but right now she couldn’t stand herself.
She jerked in shock as she felt a warm hand move deftly under her skirt, and up her thighs. Her eyes flew open even as his skilled, knowing fingers rested at her underwear, pressing at the wet junction there. He exhaled once, hard. Sam went to twist away, half-heartedly, but he pressed his body in closer and leaned his face in so that his lips were by her ear.
‘This is for me?’ He purred, as his fingers snaked under the skin of cloth and stroked inwards, teasing her between her folds, moving up and circling around her swollen clitoris, and back down to rest at her entrance. Sam knew this was dangerous territory, it was worse than a dream, visceral and real. The smell of urine in the toilets, his sweat tantalising her senses, his calloused fingers brushing against her clitoris, the hard wall against her and the toilet just there.
Sam’s mouth dropped open and a groan escaped her as he pressed one long finger up and inside of her. It stilled, and didn’t move, and Sam was paralysed from the feeling of being touched in this way. Still she expected him to be impotent, despite her dreams, despite the waves of arousal and curiosity she could feel from him. Surely he would kill her instead?
His finger bent, curled, rubbed gently, and Sam dropped her lips into the curve of his neck to muffle the sounds she was making. He was breathing intently. Long, slow, measured breaths that belied the erection that brushed against her hip when he shifted against her to press in more deeply. Sam bit at his shoulder without thinking, let her teeth crush the skin there, and he chuckled in delighted surprise.
He added a second finger, and stretched his fingers inside of her, and she shivered and rolled her hips into him.
So far gone, he thought, my Samantha is so far gone.
He withdrew his fingers and moved them up to her clitoris and paused. He looked at her intently. He had to do this, if only for himself. He had to know.
She cried out in pain when he pinched her clitoris hard, with no preamble. It shocked her out of her arousal enough that she said;
‘Stop.’
He snarled.
‘No.’ He said, and pinched again, so that she pressed her hips back into the wall to escape his seeking fingers. As he reached forward again, she dry-sobbed, and then realised as the pain burst through her once more, that there was a sly burn curdling in its place, deep in her gut. She tried to hold back her quickening breaths, but once more he pressed two fingers into her and then rubbed against her inner walls with a rhythmic persistence.
Sam’s knees failed her, and in response he slammed forwards and pinned her with his entire body. Another finger, and now she did feel stretched, she arched her head back and clenched her teeth together as she felt her walls being stretched, at times gently, and at other times with a bit of roughness that caused twinges of pain to bloom on the corners of her mind.
‘Jack…’ She said, intending to warn him, and instead surprised at the throatiness of her own voice.
He removed his fingers once more, and Sam whimpered. He hushed her and then stroked his wet fingers towards her ass and her eyes opened in disbelief.
‘Jack, no.’ She said, straining unsuccessfully away as the three fingers sailed towards the puckered opening. ‘Jack…’
One fingertip eased into the opening, which had never been breached before by anyone. She felt her eyes could not open any wider, discomfort made her squirm away, but he followed her movements and pressed deeper, harder. He felt impossibly deep when he hit the second knuckle, and Sam was taking laboured gasps.
‘I’ll call someone.’ She warned him fearfully, when she felt the second finger tickle the opening. He looked at her, and winked.
‘Call someone.’ He dared her, and then swallowed her cry of pain when he pushed the second finger tip mercilessly inwards. His lips sealed hers and his tongue thrust inside, and Sam almost blacked out from feeling so overwhelmed. Her dreams had not been this raw, they had not scraped so many edges of pain and pleasure that she didn’t know where she stopped and he began.
She didn’t like the pain, but it caused other reactions inside of her that burnt and twisted and demanded to be noticed. He tore his lips away from hers, and kissed a trail to his ear as he pushed the two fingers deeper into her ass and she quivered and made soft, staccato whimpers of pain.
‘My Samantha is a masochist.’ She felt his delighted grin, and opened her mouth to reply when he stretched his fingers wide and the pain made the space behind her eyes turn a blinding white.
‘Stop,’ she gasped, ‘just…stop. Hurts.’ She thought he would take mercy on her when he paused, but instead he just moved his fingers back and forth, letting the friction burn inside of her. She sobbed again and shook her head, it was too much, she didn’t want this after all.
Jack sensed her tipping over into fear and only fear and moved his other hand down between her legs. He would overwhelm her with sensation, slowly, and deliberately. With his second hand he pressed two fingers deep into her vagina, and felt his other fingers through the thin wall. Sam shook her head back and forth, being drawn back to the place where pain triggered pleasure, and pleasure triggered pain. Her mouth was open and her eyes closed and screwed up in a kind of ecstatic dismay.
He loved her like this.
‘Please…’ Sam begged.
It made his cock twitch in his jeans. He groaned hungrily.
‘Please what?’ He asked.
‘Please…’ She looked confused. ‘More.’ She added, weakly. Jack spread both of his fingers inside of her, and she sobbed into his shoulder. ‘No.’ She corrected. ‘I need…’
Don’t say it. She thought.
‘I need you…’
Don’t.
‘Inside of me.’
Dammit.
Jack pressed his erection hard against her and ground it into her skin, shuddering as he did so. He gently traced the shell-curves of her ear even as he withdrew his fingers and then stabbed them back into her again, an irresistible violence. She said something that was coloured with pain, but then moaned and bore down onto his hands.
‘Samantha, I am already inside of you.’
‘Please, you know…you know what…’
He nodded, withdrew his fingers and undid his jeans even as he hoped fervently that no one came into check on her. His cock sprung free and bobbed, swollen and hungry. He turned her around, pulling her hips out, even as he tore her underwear away. He toyed a little with the idea of thrusting into her ass, pulling her into that realm of pain and power, and even spread her ass cheeks roughly, making her hiss. He looked at her face, tilted to the side, and saw tears drift from underneath her closed lids. He smiled ruefully.
Not today, though he would have that pleasure one day.
He pressed his cock against her ass and pressed, once, before moving down and then finding her, wet and slick for him. He kept her ass cheeks spread even as he held her hips and moved into her. She was tight around him, and he wondered briefly at how endowed her previous lovers had been. The thought made him angry, and he thrust once - hard - against her, burying almost all of himself inside of her.
‘Oh god.’ Sam cried, as one hand snaked under her blouse and pinched an erect nipple hard through her bra. He felt her tighten around him as he did it, and he pinched again, ruthlessly.
‘Oh god,’ she said again, ‘you’re too…too much.’
‘Oh Samantha. You don’t know too much.’ He whispered, though the comment warmed him all the same. He withdrew, and thrust in again, delighting at the friction and the tightness, overwhelmed with sensation. She hissed when he pushed in, tightened when he withdrew, and it drove him mad.
Soon he moved in punishing thrusts that made him pause just at her entrance before thrusting all the way in, claiming her, knowing that she would be sore after this. She had her head turned to the side, gasping into her own palm, even as he resisted pulling that hand away and hearing her. It would be too much. As it was, he hadn’t planned to be doing anything like this. No. The gun useless, back in its holster.
And he ploughed into her. She was seeing stars. They increased in size as a burning started below her. And then he was reaching around, touching her clitoris again, slowing that he could give that most sensitive part of her proper attention. She coiled, almost in on herself, and then leant back into him. It was such an involuntary, trusting gesture, that Jack found himself chuckling in delight.
You’re mine, Samantha.
The sensations were becoming too much, her breath was catching on her impending orgasm, and it seemed that none of her intense dreams held a candle to this moment, rushing towards an edge that she had often seen played out in his victims. His finger increased its speed against her clitoris, and then everything seemed to narrow down. The friction, the fullness, the depth, the sharpness of that finger pressing against her swollen, tender centre.
‘Jack!’
Her orgasm railed into her with as much force as a tsunami. Her knees collapsed, her eyes fell shut, and she could barely breathe. She surrendered in that moment. Or had she surrendered before? It didn’t matter, for still he continued against her, holding her up now, the contractions rushing him towards his own climax. And she was still shuddering against him, experiencing warm, dulling aftershocks that made her ripple against him.
She was barely aware when he climaxed, she felt the warmth inside of her, the way he clutched at her body. There was some solace offered in that moment, and she took that small consolation even as, a minute later, he withdrew and was buttoning the fly on his jeans.
Suddenly his face seemed crass and crude. That fake face, so out of touch with the voice that whispered in her dreams. That knew her. She slowly turned and faced him, semen running down her legs. They made eye contact, and the gravity of the situation struck her. She would swear, in the future, that something shattered right then. Her ethic, her moral upbringing, her passion to fight against him, her passion to try and make things better for herself. She didn’t know what broke, but it broke in that moment, as they gazed at each other.
‘Samantha.’ He said, adoringly, and then without the ghost of a touch or goodbye, slipped past her out into the world where they wouldn’t recognise him yet again. Where he would be at large once more, to inflict his tortures as he always did.
She staggered over to the dirty bathroom mirror and looked at herself.
‘Wake up.’ She whispered to her reflection, the tears already falling down her cheeks.
Don’t let this be real.
‘Please wake up.’
In the distance, monkeys shrieked and she heard Chloe calling for her. The cold of the tiles pressed across the back as she wrapped her arms around herself and the reality of what had happened struck her. Angel’s warning, her own fears, and the horror. It tasted like steel, and settled like hundreds of ball bearings in her stomach.
She sobbed once.
‘Please wake up…’
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Summary: How will she escape the Jack in her dreams so that she may deal with the Jack who invades her present?
Warnings: Angst! Some non-con, ambivalent consent, explicit sexual relations, sado-masochism. In trying to be *fairly* realistic, I realise this may squick some people, and I apologise.
She opened her mouth before she opened her eyes, and uttered a brief, trembling moan before swallowing a gag. Her whole body was shaking, her hands and feet were cold, and the blankets suffocated her. She kicked them off without thinking, and then as an afterthought checked, dazed, if Chloe was in the bed with her. But there was no Chloe, and no Tom.
She thought of the wetness between her legs and gagged again, then looked over at the clock and checked the time. Too early. Too late. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and took some deep breaths. Surely there was some provision in her notes and in her training for this? A sick sort of transference?
Jack, with his gentle voice and his cruel hands that had pulled triggers, thrust knives and tortured her. Jack, who had not taken her hand when she had screamed at him. ‘Take my hand!’’ Who was most likely impotent, aversive to touch, avoidant of women.
A master in her dreams.
With questing fingers, and a soft laugh, and a willing, wet mouth.
She tasted bile and walked out into the kitchen, and took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. Hops and bubbles, a bitter narcotic for her very cynical soul. Halfway through the third bottle she felt sleepy again, she wiped the wetness off her cheeks and stumbled back to bed.
*
The next night she just stared at him as he sat on the edge of her bed and rested a hand lightly on her foot. He watched her, his face was in shadow but his eyes seemed to glitter. The room smelt lightly of roses, a soft bouquet, and she could feel them crowding at the edges of her thought. As she watched him, heat seemed to shift inside of her and she felt death on the edges of her arousal.
As he ran his hand up her leg, his palm curved to the inside of her calf, and then the underside of her knee, sending shivers along her nerves, and then up her inner thigh, slowly.
‘Samantha.’ He purred.
She sat bolt upright, sweating. Chloe stirred next to her and blinked like a small owl.
‘Mommy, is it morning?’
Sam swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, then placed on the mask of reassurance that she wore for so many in her life.
‘Oh sweetie, no, Mommy just thought of something that’s all. Come on, back to sleep.’
Chloe was pacified with the simple explanation.
But Sam lay awake until morning.
*
She had briefly considered telling Bailey, but it was difficult opening up to him in general, let alone about something like this, which disturbed her more than the photographs of children who were missing eyes and fingers, or partners who were murdered and posed, or the sight of roses on a bed. This invasion in her dreams was like a virus, and it plagued her during the day. She galvanised herself by working harder, and slipping more easily into the minds of other killers, because at least then she would not be drifting in her own mind.
It was becoming harder to detach.
Years of her life entwined in Jack’s sick dance, and now her subconscious had taken a choice out of her hands.
Because now, even now, the voice was a sultry purr dancing across the back of her eyes, making red sparks pool and shimmer. And even now, she felt heavier, more aware of her body.
And at night time, she wondered if she would tell him.
She even wondered if she would kill him, just to be done with this feeling that hadn’t been stirred inside of her since the early whirlwind romance with Tom.
She had told Coop to go home.
‘Just while I get myself sorted out, but…I’ll call you.’
‘Yeah, sure, just…make sure you do.’
*
A week later, Samantha found herself sitting on a sandy shore, feeling small grains trickle and grind between her toes as she pushed her feet into the sand. The waves rhythmically crashed, hypnotically receding and then coming back again. Creeping towards her. She watched clouds on the horizon as they effortlessly shifted and merged, and gulls screamed at each other in the sky, and they screamed at the sea, and they screamed at the sky.
Strong, languid strokes fell across her shoulders, as rhythmic as the waves. They traced patterns from behind her ears, down the tight coils of her neck, stretching the muscles across her shoulder blade. Over, and over again. Slight variations each time, and Sam was sighing deeply, feeling something sinking away from her, even as she leaned back into that touch and let her eyes drift shut.
The waves said shhhhh.
Shallow breaths ghosted across her skin, and shifted her hair. A face rested against the back of her head, and nuzzled her gently and worshipfully. The hands grasped her shoulders, like a comrade might grasp the shoulders of a fellow comrade, and then slowly they rubbed her arms. It was comforting, and even when those knowing fingers teased the side of her breasts, Sam did not jump in shock, only turned her head to softly nuzzle back.
‘Doesn’t it make you crazy?’ He whispered. His hands curling around the soft flesh of her belly, and then feathering upwards to cup her breasts.
‘What?’ She said, her voice was hoarse.
‘Don’t I make you crazy?’
‘Jack…’ She said.
‘Think about Tom, Samantha. What are you doing?’
The waves tumbled over her, the gulls screamed condemnation, and she woke up, nipples erect and shaking so violently that it felt like her skin was rippling like an ocean.
*
Sam quelled her reflexive shivers with beer and blankets, and she stared at the surveillance cameras. She knew they couldn’t see that her hand was resting lightly between her legs. She was tempted to finish the fantasy that lingered, but she restrained herself. There was a smell of sea spray and roses.
Even now, when she felt her hair shift on her shoulders, she was beginning to imagine that someone else was doing it for her.
This is sick. She reprimanded herself.
This is Stockholm Syndrome, sexualised. This is just an aftermath.
Do I ignore it, and hope it goes away?
She pressed her hand into herself and grimaced at the eager spark of wanting between her legs.
What good has hope ever done me?
*
‘Angel?’
‘What’s up, Sam? Everything alright?’
‘I think I’m having uh, dreams about Jack. Not nightmares. Sex…dreams.’ She finished lamely. There had been professional terms and emotional detachment when she had imagined saying this out loud. And she had been in control and simply stating a symptom of a condition that would go away. Angel’s eyes had widened, and she had that look on her face. The ‘what is the right thing to say’ look; the ‘is there a right thing to say’ look.
‘For about two weeks. Since Robin and…’
‘Well, is that normal? Maybe just your body trying to get it out of your system in…sex dreams?’ Angel winced at her own phrasing. ‘Do you like them?’
‘It’s not, I mean I wake up and I’m sick, I feel sick. But Angel, I don’t hate them when they’re happening. He’s different. But when I wake up, I feel like I’m losing it.’
‘Have you told Bailey?’ Angel read her friend like a book and then nodded. ‘Yeah no I don’t think I could tell Bailey something like that either.’
‘Maybe I’m trying to justify all his cruelties somehow, in my mind. I’m trying to make up for it. In the dreams, he’s not evil. He’s…disturbing. But he’s not evil.’
‘But he’s killed people, look what he did to our lives, to your life.’ Angel amended.
‘I know! You think I don’t, you want to hear something crazy? In my dream last night, he reminded me about Tom. He said ‘what are you doing?’ And I woke up, and I don’t know if I was more upset at the reminder of all of that, or if I was upset because the dream didn’t reach it’s natural, it’s natural conclusion.’
Sam hid behind her beer for a moment. Angel looked at her unfinished sculpture and sighed.
‘Well, I think that if you let yourself get too close to the dreams, you’re going to become less realistic about what Jack is. And what he’s capable of. I think you know that too. So it comes down to a choice, do you want to keep your senses honed so you can catch him? Or do you want to have some subconscious sexual fling with the person who kil-’
‘Angel.’ Sam warned abruptly, and Angel had the good grace to look apologetic.
Sam left, feeling more confused.
*
Sam took an uncharacteristic day off work and on Monday morning took Chloe to the zoo as she had been promising for some time, and together they laughed at the monkeys and then stared in wonder at the jewel-coloured birds that watched them, and cried. The toucan sounded mournful, Chloe said;
‘It sounds like he’s saying ‘away, away.’ Is he sad to be in a cage?’
Sam stared at the cage and wondered if she felt sad.
‘Yes, Chloe, he’s probably sad to be in the cage. But everyone looks after him there, and he has other bird friends around, so he’s probably happy sometimes too.’
It felt like a lie even as she said it.
As she shifted to turn, she felt wetness between her thighs and bit her lip. She had been touched so intimately in her dreams that she felt like she was walking around under a haze of adolescent pheromones. She was also due her period, and wondered if she should check just to be on the safe side. She looked around for a sign that pointed to nearby toilets and then bent down to Chloe.
‘You wait here, okay? Mommy just needs to go to the bathroom.’
Chloe smiled. Sam knew that the barely noticeable guards would watch the little girl like a hawk, and she walked briskly to the brick building and entered. Small amounts of graffiti met her eyes, and one of the three stalls was closed. Sam walked into one of the open ones and closed the door behind her. She put the toilet seat down and sat on it, then pressed a finger to herself. She shivered and bit her lip, and then raised a wet, glistening finger to check. She had not started her period.
This isn’t normal.
She sighed, and pressed her fingers to her clitoris through her skirt and bit off a moan. A sound came out, choked and high, and she blushed to think that the woman in the stall next to her had heard. Two minutes later she felt as composed as she was going to feel, and stood and flushed the toilet. The woman flushed the toilet next to her and as Sam moved towards the sink, she turned to see who it was that had shared her quelled sound of desire.
She felt her heart beat once, hard, a violent thump.
She knew him. Him.
She cried out in alarm but he was already stalking towards her, a grim expression on his face.
*
He was wearing his latex mask, and Sam blinked at it, because she realised then that he was always faceless in her dreams. There was a gleam of an eye, a quirk of a smile, but she never was rewarded with seeing the naked whole. In seconds she was against the brick wall, and he was standing, pinning her with his whole body. She pretended she didn’t notice he was hard, but even as he pressed a gun up into her ribcage, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he said and did in his dreams.
She felt sick.
This is Jack, this is Jack. Dammit, Sam, pull yourself together.
‘Samantha,’ he paused, sniffed the air delicately, and Sam felt herself flush all the way down to her belly. ‘I can smell you.’ He whispered, turning his head to the side and looking at the empty stall that she had emerged from. He turned his head again and checked the entrance, then with deliberate proddings of his gun pushed her back into the stall and closed it awkwardly.
There was hardly enough room for both of them.
‘So who were you thinking of?’ He said, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. ‘Tom? Or the boringly aggressive ‘Coop. Who was it, hmm?’
Sam whimpered, that voice that had haunted her dreams, both terrified her and made her feel like grinding into the wall to satiate an urge that had already started some weeks before.
This can’t be happening.
‘Jack, you won’t get aw-’
The gun was twisted into her ribs, like a screw trying to work its way into her heart. She leaned away from the gun, and further into the steel grip that met her on the other side. He was strong. She felt dirty, his face - bearded and old - made him look older than he really was. She swallowed convulsively.
‘Who were you thinking of?’ He pressed, and Sam whimpered.
Don’t say it.
‘You.’ She whispered.
Dammit.
‘I was thinking of you.’
Jack had frozen, she could almost hear his heartbeat, she could smell a faint aroma of sweat and musk, she wondered how stifled he felt under the latex mask. The gun was still pressing a bruise into her ribs, his hand slackened only slightly.
‘I can’t stop. And I hate it.’
You idiot.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear his triumphant glance, or perhaps his laugh of disdain or contempt. Surely one of the reasons he liked her was because of how pure she was? He always hated it when she had sexual relations with other people. The idea that she was some carnal being, unable to block him out of her head, might disgust him. Her heart leapt, he might even start leaving her alone. But even as she thought it, she saw images of murder and her dreams come together in her head and she felt the tears welling behind her eyes.
What nightmare is this?
The gun moved away, Sam still couldn’t open her eyes, she stood, frozen, trying to hold her breath and pretend this wasn’t happening. It was a pathetic reaction, but right now she couldn’t stand herself.
She jerked in shock as she felt a warm hand move deftly under her skirt, and up her thighs. Her eyes flew open even as his skilled, knowing fingers rested at her underwear, pressing at the wet junction there. He exhaled once, hard. Sam went to twist away, half-heartedly, but he pressed his body in closer and leaned his face in so that his lips were by her ear.
‘This is for me?’ He purred, as his fingers snaked under the skin of cloth and stroked inwards, teasing her between her folds, moving up and circling around her swollen clitoris, and back down to rest at her entrance. Sam knew this was dangerous territory, it was worse than a dream, visceral and real. The smell of urine in the toilets, his sweat tantalising her senses, his calloused fingers brushing against her clitoris, the hard wall against her and the toilet just there.
Sam’s mouth dropped open and a groan escaped her as he pressed one long finger up and inside of her. It stilled, and didn’t move, and Sam was paralysed from the feeling of being touched in this way. Still she expected him to be impotent, despite her dreams, despite the waves of arousal and curiosity she could feel from him. Surely he would kill her instead?
His finger bent, curled, rubbed gently, and Sam dropped her lips into the curve of his neck to muffle the sounds she was making. He was breathing intently. Long, slow, measured breaths that belied the erection that brushed against her hip when he shifted against her to press in more deeply. Sam bit at his shoulder without thinking, let her teeth crush the skin there, and he chuckled in delighted surprise.
He added a second finger, and stretched his fingers inside of her, and she shivered and rolled her hips into him.
So far gone, he thought, my Samantha is so far gone.
He withdrew his fingers and moved them up to her clitoris and paused. He looked at her intently. He had to do this, if only for himself. He had to know.
She cried out in pain when he pinched her clitoris hard, with no preamble. It shocked her out of her arousal enough that she said;
‘Stop.’
He snarled.
‘No.’ He said, and pinched again, so that she pressed her hips back into the wall to escape his seeking fingers. As he reached forward again, she dry-sobbed, and then realised as the pain burst through her once more, that there was a sly burn curdling in its place, deep in her gut. She tried to hold back her quickening breaths, but once more he pressed two fingers into her and then rubbed against her inner walls with a rhythmic persistence.
Sam’s knees failed her, and in response he slammed forwards and pinned her with his entire body. Another finger, and now she did feel stretched, she arched her head back and clenched her teeth together as she felt her walls being stretched, at times gently, and at other times with a bit of roughness that caused twinges of pain to bloom on the corners of her mind.
‘Jack…’ She said, intending to warn him, and instead surprised at the throatiness of her own voice.
He removed his fingers once more, and Sam whimpered. He hushed her and then stroked his wet fingers towards her ass and her eyes opened in disbelief.
‘Jack, no.’ She said, straining unsuccessfully away as the three fingers sailed towards the puckered opening. ‘Jack…’
One fingertip eased into the opening, which had never been breached before by anyone. She felt her eyes could not open any wider, discomfort made her squirm away, but he followed her movements and pressed deeper, harder. He felt impossibly deep when he hit the second knuckle, and Sam was taking laboured gasps.
‘I’ll call someone.’ She warned him fearfully, when she felt the second finger tickle the opening. He looked at her, and winked.
‘Call someone.’ He dared her, and then swallowed her cry of pain when he pushed the second finger tip mercilessly inwards. His lips sealed hers and his tongue thrust inside, and Sam almost blacked out from feeling so overwhelmed. Her dreams had not been this raw, they had not scraped so many edges of pain and pleasure that she didn’t know where she stopped and he began.
She didn’t like the pain, but it caused other reactions inside of her that burnt and twisted and demanded to be noticed. He tore his lips away from hers, and kissed a trail to his ear as he pushed the two fingers deeper into her ass and she quivered and made soft, staccato whimpers of pain.
‘My Samantha is a masochist.’ She felt his delighted grin, and opened her mouth to reply when he stretched his fingers wide and the pain made the space behind her eyes turn a blinding white.
‘Stop,’ she gasped, ‘just…stop. Hurts.’ She thought he would take mercy on her when he paused, but instead he just moved his fingers back and forth, letting the friction burn inside of her. She sobbed again and shook her head, it was too much, she didn’t want this after all.
Jack sensed her tipping over into fear and only fear and moved his other hand down between her legs. He would overwhelm her with sensation, slowly, and deliberately. With his second hand he pressed two fingers deep into her vagina, and felt his other fingers through the thin wall. Sam shook her head back and forth, being drawn back to the place where pain triggered pleasure, and pleasure triggered pain. Her mouth was open and her eyes closed and screwed up in a kind of ecstatic dismay.
He loved her like this.
‘Please…’ Sam begged.
It made his cock twitch in his jeans. He groaned hungrily.
‘Please what?’ He asked.
‘Please…’ She looked confused. ‘More.’ She added, weakly. Jack spread both of his fingers inside of her, and she sobbed into his shoulder. ‘No.’ She corrected. ‘I need…’
Don’t say it. She thought.
‘I need you…’
Don’t.
‘Inside of me.’
Dammit.
Jack pressed his erection hard against her and ground it into her skin, shuddering as he did so. He gently traced the shell-curves of her ear even as he withdrew his fingers and then stabbed them back into her again, an irresistible violence. She said something that was coloured with pain, but then moaned and bore down onto his hands.
‘Samantha, I am already inside of you.’
‘Please, you know…you know what…’
He nodded, withdrew his fingers and undid his jeans even as he hoped fervently that no one came into check on her. His cock sprung free and bobbed, swollen and hungry. He turned her around, pulling her hips out, even as he tore her underwear away. He toyed a little with the idea of thrusting into her ass, pulling her into that realm of pain and power, and even spread her ass cheeks roughly, making her hiss. He looked at her face, tilted to the side, and saw tears drift from underneath her closed lids. He smiled ruefully.
Not today, though he would have that pleasure one day.
He pressed his cock against her ass and pressed, once, before moving down and then finding her, wet and slick for him. He kept her ass cheeks spread even as he held her hips and moved into her. She was tight around him, and he wondered briefly at how endowed her previous lovers had been. The thought made him angry, and he thrust once - hard - against her, burying almost all of himself inside of her.
‘Oh god.’ Sam cried, as one hand snaked under her blouse and pinched an erect nipple hard through her bra. He felt her tighten around him as he did it, and he pinched again, ruthlessly.
‘Oh god,’ she said again, ‘you’re too…too much.’
‘Oh Samantha. You don’t know too much.’ He whispered, though the comment warmed him all the same. He withdrew, and thrust in again, delighting at the friction and the tightness, overwhelmed with sensation. She hissed when he pushed in, tightened when he withdrew, and it drove him mad.
Soon he moved in punishing thrusts that made him pause just at her entrance before thrusting all the way in, claiming her, knowing that she would be sore after this. She had her head turned to the side, gasping into her own palm, even as he resisted pulling that hand away and hearing her. It would be too much. As it was, he hadn’t planned to be doing anything like this. No. The gun useless, back in its holster.
And he ploughed into her. She was seeing stars. They increased in size as a burning started below her. And then he was reaching around, touching her clitoris again, slowing that he could give that most sensitive part of her proper attention. She coiled, almost in on herself, and then leant back into him. It was such an involuntary, trusting gesture, that Jack found himself chuckling in delight.
You’re mine, Samantha.
The sensations were becoming too much, her breath was catching on her impending orgasm, and it seemed that none of her intense dreams held a candle to this moment, rushing towards an edge that she had often seen played out in his victims. His finger increased its speed against her clitoris, and then everything seemed to narrow down. The friction, the fullness, the depth, the sharpness of that finger pressing against her swollen, tender centre.
‘Jack!’
Her orgasm railed into her with as much force as a tsunami. Her knees collapsed, her eyes fell shut, and she could barely breathe. She surrendered in that moment. Or had she surrendered before? It didn’t matter, for still he continued against her, holding her up now, the contractions rushing him towards his own climax. And she was still shuddering against him, experiencing warm, dulling aftershocks that made her ripple against him.
She was barely aware when he climaxed, she felt the warmth inside of her, the way he clutched at her body. There was some solace offered in that moment, and she took that small consolation even as, a minute later, he withdrew and was buttoning the fly on his jeans.
Suddenly his face seemed crass and crude. That fake face, so out of touch with the voice that whispered in her dreams. That knew her. She slowly turned and faced him, semen running down her legs. They made eye contact, and the gravity of the situation struck her. She would swear, in the future, that something shattered right then. Her ethic, her moral upbringing, her passion to fight against him, her passion to try and make things better for herself. She didn’t know what broke, but it broke in that moment, as they gazed at each other.
‘Samantha.’ He said, adoringly, and then without the ghost of a touch or goodbye, slipped past her out into the world where they wouldn’t recognise him yet again. Where he would be at large once more, to inflict his tortures as he always did.
She staggered over to the dirty bathroom mirror and looked at herself.
‘Wake up.’ She whispered to her reflection, the tears already falling down her cheeks.
Don’t let this be real.
‘Please wake up.’
In the distance, monkeys shrieked and she heard Chloe calling for her. The cold of the tiles pressed across the back as she wrapped her arms around herself and the reality of what had happened struck her. Angel’s warning, her own fears, and the horror. It tasted like steel, and settled like hundreds of ball bearings in her stomach.
She sobbed once.
‘Please wake up…’