[ i see. two words, and shame crawls up his throat. what answer did he expect, after a story like this? why did he even tell her? because she’s seen him on tv? seen him at lyonesse? because he’s seen her in a cage, flushed and wet and wanting? there is no good side to the story. no part of it that makes it okay, no world in which he deserves forgiveness for what he’s done. maybe there was a moment in which he slipped, got too comfortable, like the shroud between himself and happiness was thinning, but confessing to mark trevena’s bride put everything back to rights. you’re selfish and you hurt people and no one should love you, not now, not ever.
he releases a breath when more words appear on the screen. ]
That’s a big assumption after I bared my soul to you. I told you because you’re Mark Trevena’s bride.
[ silence, before his next message pops up. ]
I told you because pain kept getting you off. You came so many times and so fucking hard because I hurt you. You were drenched. You couldn’t get enough. So you know what it’s like. To need that. And not always from someone that loves you.
[ read: it’s you he’s talking to. not anyone else. ]
( why is her greatest moment of shame, the cracking of her eggshell chest and letting mark not only see her but have her, just to hurt and leave her, still the center, raw aching pain of so much of her fantasies? she tells herself it's sexual, that logically it makes sense to have some kind of barbed wire obsession with the man who taught you how to fuck, like shoving your fingers on cactus spines just to make sure they still bite. it is not, she tells herself, because she loves him. because loving someone after they humiliate and break and abandon you is — well. on second thought, maybe it's exactly what isolde deserves. she is one of god's holiest soldiers, and was meant to be tested. she was meant to suffer.
is it a boon or a curse that she enjoys it? gets off on it, like embry said? thinking about how mark left her, innocence stripped away, cold words in his mouth — it makes her chest feel empty, her cunt feel wet. it makes her feel like exactly what she is: a vessel. a tool. left in the shed when it no longer serves a purpose. )
mark doesn't love me. i shouldn't tell you that, but there it is. the whole marriage is a contract. when he hurts me, it's duty and image that move his hand. i know he'd never hurt me to excess, but i also know he'll never care for me beyond what he'd expect from any dom in his position.
that's why i take it into my own hands, sometimes. do you need me to take you into mine, too?
( she doesn't actually have any clue what she's doing — jittery, a little uncomfortable with the offering. embry was good to her once, in the same way mark was, always with a degree of disconnect that made the suffering that much brighter, more brilliant, under stars. isolde wishes she took more notes on how mark acted on those training nights in manhattan, to know how to do it better. )
[ for a moment, the serrated edge of his own guilt fades. not gone, just out of focus enough that he can think again. mark doesn't love me. he wants to say of course he doesn't, he's mark fucking trevena. mark doesn't love anything but hoarding the secrets of the rich and famous like a dragon sleeping on gold. that, and fucking like dionysus himself in front of his sea of adoring sexual deviants. embry has no shame about the kind of sex he likes to have, but he also doesn't feel the need to perform these acts on a stage.
if isolde is betrothed to him with a neatly inked contract, what is she giving up that mark wants? surely it's not just her family's banking empire. not when mark is sitting on the kind of blackmail that can destabilize governments themselves. ]
If it's any consolation, Isolde, it's not you, it's him. Do you love him?
[ it feels outrageously off color to ask. but she knows him as president moore, which means she saw ash die, she saw his reaction in tandem to greer's, and she saw his acceptance speech. in a way, she's seen more of him than most of the people here.
case in point: the speed at which she arrives to her conclusion. the guilt is back, though now he's fucking humiliated, too. a heady combination. ]
I'm good for it. [ yes. please. ] I don't think there's a lot of people that understand. But you do. Your terms. However you want it to go.
( he embarrassed her, the unfun kind of humiliation. he degraded her and didn't pick up the pieces afterwards, just left her shattered on her father's desk, in her childhood bed. he took something from her that she hoarded as a valuable resource, a physical description of her commitment to god, virgin, and then abandoned her, and told her it was her fault. you don't love a man like that. and yet — it's been years and isolde still knows she'd crawl to him. she'd act like it was an act. she'd pretend, and the pretending would be that she doesn't want to do the things she would do, if he asked.
of course she loves him. of course he'll never return it. some people are born to be pawns — at least isolde is one with a knife. )
okay.
( here's the part where you say, i haven't actually done this before. i'm not a dom. i'm not mark, i'm not maxen — i'm isolde, knives and ice and shadows, and i only know how to suffer.
on the other hand, if the president says he wants a rough hand, what's a knife in his pocket to deny him? )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
he releases a breath when more words appear on the screen. ]
That’s a big assumption after I bared my soul to you.
I told you because you’re Mark Trevena’s bride.
[ silence, before his next message pops up. ]
I told you because pain kept getting you off. You came so many times and so fucking hard because I hurt you. You were drenched. You couldn’t get enough.
So you know what it’s like. To need that. And not always from someone that loves you.
[ read: it’s you he’s talking to. not anyone else. ]
no subject
( why is her greatest moment of shame, the cracking of her eggshell chest and letting mark not only see her but have her, just to hurt and leave her, still the center, raw aching pain of so much of her fantasies? she tells herself it's sexual, that logically it makes sense to have some kind of barbed wire obsession with the man who taught you how to fuck, like shoving your fingers on cactus spines just to make sure they still bite. it is not, she tells herself, because she loves him. because loving someone after they humiliate and break and abandon you is — well. on second thought, maybe it's exactly what isolde deserves. she is one of god's holiest soldiers, and was meant to be tested. she was meant to suffer.
is it a boon or a curse that she enjoys it? gets off on it, like embry said? thinking about how mark left her, innocence stripped away, cold words in his mouth — it makes her chest feel empty, her cunt feel wet. it makes her feel like exactly what she is: a vessel. a tool. left in the shed when it no longer serves a purpose. )
mark doesn't love me. i shouldn't tell you that, but there it is. the whole marriage is a contract.
when he hurts me, it's duty and image that move his hand. i know he'd never hurt me to excess, but i also know he'll never care for me beyond what he'd expect from any dom in his position.
that's why i take it into my own hands, sometimes.
do you need me to take you into mine, too?
( she doesn't actually have any clue what she's doing — jittery, a little uncomfortable with the offering. embry was good to her once, in the same way mark was, always with a degree of disconnect that made the suffering that much brighter, more brilliant, under stars. isolde wishes she took more notes on how mark acted on those training nights in manhattan, to know how to do it better. )
no subject
if isolde is betrothed to him with a neatly inked contract, what is she giving up that mark wants? surely it's not just her family's banking empire. not when mark is sitting on the kind of blackmail that can destabilize governments themselves. ]
If it's any consolation, Isolde, it's not you, it's him.
Do you love him?
[ it feels outrageously off color to ask. but she knows him as president moore, which means she saw ash die, she saw his reaction in tandem to greer's, and she saw his acceptance speech. in a way, she's seen more of him than most of the people here.
case in point: the speed at which she arrives to her conclusion. the guilt is back, though now he's fucking humiliated, too. a heady combination. ]
I'm good for it. [ yes. please. ] I don't think there's a lot of people that understand. But you do.
Your terms. However you want it to go.
no subject
i shouldn't.
( he embarrassed her, the unfun kind of humiliation. he degraded her and didn't pick up the pieces afterwards, just left her shattered on her father's desk, in her childhood bed. he took something from her that she hoarded as a valuable resource, a physical description of her commitment to god, virgin, and then abandoned her, and told her it was her fault. you don't love a man like that. and yet — it's been years and isolde still knows she'd crawl to him. she'd act like it was an act. she'd pretend, and the pretending would be that she doesn't want to do the things she would do, if he asked.
of course she loves him. of course he'll never return it. some people are born to be pawns — at least isolde is one with a knife. )
okay.
( here's the part where you say, i haven't actually done this before. i'm not a dom. i'm not mark, i'm not maxen — i'm isolde, knives and ice and shadows, and i only know how to suffer.
on the other hand, if the president says he wants a rough hand, what's a knife in his pocket to deny him? )
hard limits?