#eep!

It had really been Zander's idea, really, a concept that had pleasantly surprised Vienna. It stoked that warm little glow in her heart that Zander so often seemed to bring out — she knew there was no world in which he'd do this with someone else, and the idea of being trusted and chosen and special seemed to fill her her chest with warmth.

They were both fairly glow-y when he'd brought it up, to be fair. Both their faces were still a little flushed and Vienna was laying on Zander's bare chest, face tilted up to look at him as they lay in bed. She loved the easy, slightly lopsided smile that came out when they were together. He was talking about something, gesturing a bit with his hand before letting it rest again on her back, but all Vienna was focused on was the warmth between them and the happy thrum still going through her body. She'd never felt closer to anyone.

And then he'd brought it up — you know…..a good way to ring in sophomore year…. — and she'd lit up with excitement like a Christmas tree and he'd done the same and that was that.

And so here they were, looking out at the moonlight shimmering across the lake. Vienna felt a happy fluttering in her chest: she was here with her favorite person, in one of her favorite places, doing something that felt just the right amount of spontaneous and bold and fun. But when she looked back at Zander, she saw a rather familiar look of unease on his face. His blue eyes were scanning the waterline like he expected a campus security officer to rise up out of the weeds right then and there.

"Hey." She gently lay a hand on his wrist, trying to bring him back to earth. "Do you actually not want to? I'd be happy to just go sit on the pier, if you want."

Just the question, all earnestness and care, seemed to smooth the apprehension in Zander's expression. He looked at her, eyes crinkling in a smile.

"Nah. This'll be fun. Worst case scenario, I just drown and come back to haunt you as a ghost. Very manageable."

And is if to prove it, he started to lift his shirt over his head with a mischievous smile. Vienna's heart leapt. Before she lost her nerve, she lifted her sundress over her head and let it crumple on the leaves scattered beneath them. She took a deep breath and ran past the trees, bare feet slapping the wooden planks of the pier before she jumped off the end into the lake.

The cool water hit like an electric shock, invigorating her entire body. Vienna let it envelope her for a minute before she rose back up, smoothing her hair back and looking towards where she'd ran from. Zander was lingering by the trees, folding his clothes up, looking at her with an expression torn between awe and exasperation.

In a stage whisper, he called over, "You didn't even hesitate!"

"You can't! Come on!"

His eyes sparkled and Vienna could tell he'd taken it just as she'd meant it, as a challenge to be conquered. A split second later he was bounding towards her, flinging himself off the edge of the pier with a whoop!

Vienna laughed as he landed with a huge splash, looking around quickly to make sure he hadn't been too loud and alerted anyone. But all was still, as if they were in their own little universe. And Zander — he was being, well, Zander, anxious but pushing through it, taking the moment and making it fun and exciting. There was something about the way he went from hesitant to fully committed in half a second that always made Vienna want to follow him anywhere.

Zander popped up from underwater, flicking his wet hair out of his eyes.

"Christ, that's cold."

"I guess there's a reason people normally just swim when the sun's out."

Zander huffed a laugh, looking around.

"Yeah. It is really beautiful, though."

"Right?"

Vienna reached for him in that way that felt like second nature now, wrapping her arms around his neck while he put a steadying arm across the small of her back. For a moment, they just soaked in the moment.

Then Zander said, "I love that we get to do this together."

Vienna looked at him, eyebrow quirked up. "Skinny dipping? Yeah, you would."

"No!" Zander laughed. "Well — don't get me wrong. Definitely not complaining. But I mean just….life."

He looked at her with those eyes and Vienna smiled so hard her nose scrunched up. "You can't just say something like that and not kiss me."

Zander laughed and she could feel the smile on his lips as he kissed her. She closed her eyes, trying to take in the moment, the cool water swirling around them, Zander's lips on hers, both their hearts beating in double time. He pulled back before she'd had a chance to really feel it all.

Vienna tilted her head and looked at him playfully, eyes sparkling. "Like you mean it."

Zander gave a surprised laugh and rolled his eyes. "You drive me crazy."

But it was all affection, and his smile was even wider than hers as he leaned back in. Zander let her choose when to pull away this time, and she cupped his cheek in one hand.

"I love you."

The words still felt new and exciting on her tongue, warm and grounding, everything she'd ever wanted all at once. It made Zander practically melt.

"I love you t—"

But Zander was cut off by the crunch of tires on gravel, headlights cutting through the trees.

"Oh, shit."

All the buoyancy and ease vanished from Zander's face, replaced by a familiar expression of near-panic.

Vienna's own heart skipped a beat and she couldn't help but whisper, "Do you think it's campus security?!"

"I don't know and I don't want to find out. Come on — we've gotta hide."

He started leading her by hand towards the pier, and it was Vienna's turn to balk.

"But — but there could be spiders under there!"

"Better spiders than suspended," Zander said grimly, and Vienna reluctantly swam behind him into the dark, grimy space beneath the wooden platform. Zander's face was white, and Vienna felt a flash of guilt for leading him into this situation, knowing all too well about his fear of failure and the weight of expectations he carried on his back. Even just getting told off by a police officer would wreck him, leave him beating himself up for weeks. Vienna had spent enough time talking him down from imagined catastrophes to recognize the look immediately.

"We've gotta be quiet," he barely dared to breathe to her, eyes wide.

"I can barely stand here —" she whispered back, feet kicking underwater.

"I've got you." Zander drew her close with an arm around her waist and Vienna wrapped her legs around his. They both held their breath, foreheads practically touching, Zander having to duck his head slightly to avoid bumping it on the wooden planks above.

The car seemed to roll to a stop mere feet from the pier. Zander was mouthing fuck, fuck, fuck, eyes squeezed shut, and Vienna ran her fingers through his hair, trying uselessly to calm him.

Then, the car started up again. Vienna could see the headlights shift across the water as it turned away. Zander's eyes popped open, so cartoonishly large and relieved that Vienna held back a giggle.

"Shut up," he whispered, but was starting to smile too. "They're leaving?"

Vienna nodded, pointing to the reflection of the lights on the water. Just a minute later, it was dark and quiet again.

"That was scary," Vienna whispered. "Close one."

"Well, thank God they're gone," Zander said. "There's been a massive spider behind your head this whole time."

"Shut up!" Vienna squealed, holding onto him for dear life and ducking her head.

Zander stifled a laugh and gently pushed forward until they were both out from under the pier. "Can we call that good enough? Check it off the bucket list?"

Vienna readily agreed and they clambered out of the water, wrapping themselves in the towels they'd brought along with their clothes. They sat in under the shelter of the trees for a while while they dried off, trying to find constellations in the clear night sky.

As Vienna ran her fingers through her hair for the thousandth time, afraid to find a spider or a leech or something equally gross and creepy, Zander told her, "I promise there's nothing in there. I was just messing with you."

"Well, you know. Better spiders than suspended," Vienna teased him, and he laughed.

"I thought that was a pretty good one! It's good life advice."

Vienna laughed with him. "Yeah, that's gonna be my new motto. Very relevant to everyday life."

And after that night it had become an inside joke between them, almost a shorthand for choosing the lesser of two evils. If Vienna had to work with an annoying classmate to get a project done, or Zander had to drag himself out of bed at the crack of dawn to make it to practice, one of them would inevitably pull the phrase out. Well, you know what they say….

It barely made sense. But something about it felt like a precious and private souvenir from that night, a secret language that only the two of them got to speak. A little reminder of the heart-stopping moment that they got through together. And there was a certain kind of magic in that.

Vienna tried to hold onto it now. She tried to hold onto everything from her old life, really, but that night was one she kept coming back to. The impulsive, silly, stupid fun of it, like they were doing something unbelievably daring and illicit. The easy way they'd bared their skin to each other, touching and holding without pain or discomfort or shame. The pure trust and intimacy that felt irreparably tainted from where she was standing now.

And that phrase. Better spiders than suspended. It would come back to her when she least expected.

Sitting and listening quietly to Alec while he spoke, about his day, about his thoughts, about her, even when his voice made her want to tear her own ears off.

Dragging herself upright when Alec demanded, knowing he'd just as quickly force her in a bruising grip.

Letting apologies spill from her lips that Alec in no way deserved, forcing contrition until his fists started to uncurl.

It was the same philosophy that kept Vienna from running or shrieking or fighting every single time the basement door opened. At first, it went against every instinct she had: every nerve in her body positively screamed to run, to fight, to shriek whenever she was in Alec's presence. But she eventually learned a new rhythm. Because what good would it do? It would just make him mad. It would just get her hurt. And it wouldn't stop a single thing.

So when the footsteps sounded overhead that evening, her stomach dropped. When she heard them start to descend the staircase, her heart began to hammer in her chest. And when the lock beeped and the door clicked open, her hands began to tremble. And all she did — all she could do — was sit there and wait for whatever Alec had planned for today.

Vienna had been sitting on the bed trying to do a puzzle book when he'd come in. She'd stopped avoiding that, just another avenue that felt pointless. After the incident where she'd asked to go home, spoke defiantly to him, Alec had had a couple weeks of frenzied visits to the basement. He'd burst into her room all times of the day or night and grab her immediately, forcing her onto the table, shoving her to the floor of the shower, bending her over the sink in the bathroom to look in the mirror while he took what he wanted. The message was clear: nowhere was safe. Not from him. At least the bed was comfortable for those precious moments he wasn't there.

He was in a bad mood. Trial and error had taught her how to read his moods, pick up on the weight of his footsteps or the tension in his jaw or the tone in his voice within seconds of him walking in the door. And what she saw today did not bode well. His face was already in a scowl, muscles tight, hands twitching like he was itching to take his anger out on the only person — the only thing — sitting in front of him.

"The fuck is this?" Alec snapped. Vienna blinked and followed his gaze to the table, and her heart dropped. She'd left a scattering of crumbs there from the sandwich she'd eaten at lunch. You know better than that.

"I-I'm sorry," she began, closing the puzzle book and setting it aside. "I'll clean it up right now, I wasn't thinking —"

"Nevermind." Alec let out a long breath through his nose, as if the crumbs were a personal offense. "Get up. Get undressed."

Every time. Every single time, it felt like a knife to a heart, like she'd stepped off some invisible cliff and was plummeting down, down, down to her doom.

And yet….

Vienna obeyed, sliding off the bed. She pulled at her clothes mechanically, wondering vaguely if today would be a lucky instance in which her mind floated away. He pulled her back in.

"Had the fucking longest day at work today. People are such morons. But then I remembered I have the perfect little stress toy chained up in my basement."

The words made all the blood drain from Vienna's face, and when Alec fully opened the door behind him it only made it worse. The main room. It was going to be one of those days — not quick, not routine, not simple enough that Alec could get what he wanted from her within the bedroom.

She forced one foot in front of the other until she crossed through the doorway. Alec planted a hand between her shoulders and shoved, and Vienna almost stumbled to the floor before righting herself.

"Over here."

A chair he liked to use for certain torments — just a regular, wooden kitchen chair, almost nauseating in its banality — was sitting in the middle of the room. There were pairs of handcuffs attached to each of its front legs, and Vienna's mind immediately began to supply all the potential reasons he might want to restrain her ankles while she sat.

So it was a shock to her system when Alec instead forced her to her knees in front of the chair and reached to restrain her wrists in the cuffs. The familiar panic of being restrained reared up, even stronger now because she had no clue what he was planning.

“Stop — you don’t have to —"

“Shut up,” Alec said firmly, and Vienna stopped at once, pressing her lips together. “I don’t want to hear your voice. The only reason I haven’t gagged you yet is I need that sweet mouth open.”

So that's it. Vienna swallowed, tried to breathe evenly, already preparing for her breathing to be constricted as each wrist was locked in the cuffs, keeping her essentially tied to the legs of the chair. Alec looked at her with an approving smirk for a moment before striding across the room.

Vienna held her breath as he rummaged through the wardrobe. Images flashed in her mind of implements stored in Alec's "torture closet" — sex toys and gags, whips and electrical rods, things she'd grown intimately familiar with over the last several months. Things meant to intensify her suffering.

And, sure enough, he pulled out a riding crop and started back towards her. Vienna could almost feel the sting already. Her heart skipped a beat and she couldn’t help but cry, “Wait — no, please, I’ll —"

“Shut your mouth before I do it for you.”

Vienna cut herself off with a whimper, instantly feeling like a prey animal — eyes wide and frightened, posture hunched and cowering. Alec was pointing the crop at her threateningly.

“I told you — today, you’re my stress toy. That’s all you are. I don’t want another word out of you. Is that understood?”

Vienna nodded silently, her eyes on the riding crop, and Alec relaxed somewhat.

“Good. Good. You're going to help me feel so much better, aren't you?"

Vienna swallowed the bile in her throat and let her gaze flick down in front of her so she was staring at the seat of the chair she was chained to. She had to suppress a shudder as she heard Alec undo his pants and let them drop to the floor.

"Show me how much you can move. Pull."

Without looking up, Vienna tugged her wrists in the cuffs. There was almost no give in them at all — she could move maybe six inches back from the chair at most.

"Aw. Are you going to be able to get away?"

"No." Her answer was almost inaudible, and she heard Alec chuckle under his breath.

“There we go…” Alec slid into the chair, letting his legs come down right around Vienna's restrained arms so her face was more or less in his lap. Her stomach lurched at the sudden closeness, the heat, the way he was already starting to get hard.

Alec stroked the crop suggestively and grinned at the look on her face, somewhere between terror and disgust. “Well — get to work.”

When Vienna hesitated, he slapped the crop onto the palm of his hand with a sharp THWACK noise. The memory the noise invoked made Vienna jump and survival instinct drove her forward more than anything. She gingerly opened her mouth and wrapped it around him, hands curling into fists beneath the chair. Alec hummed contentedly.

“That’s what I thought, slut. Remember how I like it.”

I don't want to! I don't want to! Vienna screamed in her mind as she trailed her tongue down the side of his shaft. She could sense more tension seeping out of his body, and was at once relieved and disgusted at herself for her role in it.

“That’s it…you keep being this good, maybe I won’t even have to whip you…”

He chuckled as Vienna instantly doubled her efforts, starting to move her head up and down, taking more and more of him into her mouth. Anything to avoid the bite of the crop, to finish this as quickly as possible….

“Mhmmm….”

Vienna let herself get into a rhythm, enough that she just might be able to float away. She though of….the moon. Yes, the moon, set among a scattering of brilliant stars, and she and Daniela were dancing among them, glittering and luminescent and —

THWACK.

A sharp sting exploded across her back. Vienna let out a cry of pain and immediately pulled back from Alec's lap, though the cuffs only allowed her a few inches of leeway. Alec laughed at the look of betrayal on her face.

“What can I say? I can’t help myself.”

THWACK. THWACK. The chains rattled as Vienna flinched with each strike. What hurt almost worse than the whip was the small hope she'd had that he wouldn't actually hit her. That maybe she'd please him enough. As if hurting her wasn't his goal all along.

“Keep going, bitch.”

Vienna slowly returned to the forced blowjob, her body tensed as it waited for the next blow. After a moment of feeling the crop lightly trace against her skin, it came — Alec hit her further down her body this time, letting the leather smack against soft skin. Vienna jerked away again and looked up at him with pleading eyes. Against her better judgment, she tried to speak again.

“I-I’m trying to —“

“And you’re making me feel great, little girl. I just want to hit you, too.”

He punctuated his sentence with another couple slaps against her reddening flesh.

“Ow!”

He smiled and continued using the crop all over the back of Vienna's body, hard enough that she could feel angry welts starting to form. Vienna let out continuous cries of pain, and he thrust his hips forward a bit to return her attention to the task at hand.

“Take breaks if you need to, but I’m not going to stop until you make me cum.”

Vienna sucked in a shaky breath and forced herself to lean back in. All of her focus went into blocking out the pain and just making him finish, which seemed to be the only escape from this particular torment. But she could feel Alec's eyes on her — dark, soulless, like a shark — taking in every movement like it was a performance just for him. His hand ran through her hair in an odiously affectionate gesture.

“Fuck, I needed this.”

The noises were the worst. Clear, obscene, impossible to ignore or block out. Every slap of the crop ripped a pained cry from Vienna's throat, which in turn made Alec groan appreciatively as the sound vibrated against his skin. Even her attempts to gasp for breath just prompted the wet, intimate noises of her mouth on his body. Vienna's mind conjured up an image of biting down, of blood spurting, of a different voice screaming in pain this time, but then dismissed it as quickly as it came. It was as good as a death sentence.

Alec used the hand in Vienna’s hair to brush it to the side, seemingly wanting to admire the collage of pain he'd beaten into her skin.

“What a nice view,” he purred, and smiled as she grimaced at his words. For one terrible moment, it was almost as if she was floating above the scene, seeing herself from his perspective: chained at his feet like an animal, lips obediently wrapped around him, silent tears streaking down her face, the back of her body covered in bright red splotches. Then Alec's hand fisted in her hair and he shoved her down further, making her gag.

A thrill of panic shot through Vienna, disgust and claustrophobia and alarm. There was nowhere to go, and the air between his sweaty thighs felt thick and heavy. She could vaguely hear him gritting out words above her.

Mmm, yes….just like that….such a good little cocksucker….it's gonna be coming out your fucking eyes…..fuck….fuck….

Don't throw up don't throw up don't throw up — Vienna had to instruct herself silently, nauseating warmth flooding her mouth as a flurry of slaps rained down on her back. Her hands spasmed in the cuffs as Alec kept his grip tight on her hair, not letting her pull back no matter how much she choked and teared up. When he finally did release her, he slumped back in the chair, looking dazed and happy.

Over. Over. Finally. Vienna sat back the few inches that the cuffs would allow her, gasping for air, and the tears hit as soon as her lungs filled back up. She tucked her head to her shoulder — the only snatch of privacy she had right now — and choked out soft sobs. Her body trembled but felt strangely numb at the same time, as if it wasn't hers at all. As it it weren't even a body, just some inanimate thing.

He was calm now, at least. She'd served her purpose. The bizarre calm that sometimes followed assaults stretched for a couple minutes until Alec spoke.

“Hey, little girl, look at me for a second.”

Vienna's head rose almost of its own volition, every muscle in her body trained to obey first and ask questions later. The sight was as if he'd hit her again, and Vienna flinched violently backwards: he was holding his phone to her face.

"W-what are you doing?!"

"What does it look like?" Alec replied calmly. "Stay still."

He'd taken her picture before. Or recorded…..things. She'd seen the phone propped up at deliberate angles, watched Alec scroll through his library with a smirk on his face before. She assumed they were just trophies for him. If he posted them, anywhere at all….well, half of her almost hoped he did, leave evidence somewhere someone might find it. The other half of her wanted to fade into nothing at the very idea of it. She'd have to ask him one day after he'd been drinking.

“This really is a fun position. We’ll definitely be doing this again.” Alec leaned down to undo Vienna’s restraints, continuing, “But now we need to go shower.”

The implication hit like a lightning bolt down her back. “B-but — that will really hurt with my back,” Vienna whimpered. “I showered this morning, please, can I…?”

“You did this morning? You sure?”

Vienna nodded fervently. Her eyes widened imploringly, born of pure desperation and the sickening knowledge of how much Alec loved that expression on her. Sure enough, his lips twitched.

"Alright, alright. But you're cleaning yourself up at some point between tonight and when I come back to fuck you in the morning."

“O-okay.”

“I’m doing you a favor, what do you say?”

“Thank you,” Vienna said tonelessly, and Alec smirked.

"Good girl. Up."

She didn't need to be told twice — Vienna scrambled to her feet immediately, already turning around towards the bedroom. She often imagined in some distant corner of her mind that there was another Vienna, perhaps in some alternate universe, who would take off running in these moments. Who would shove Alec to the floor, take the stairs two at a time, and burst out screaming back into the world. But this world's Vienna traipsed her way back into the small room that had become her entire universe, body throbbing with each step.

When the door blessedly closed between her and Alec, Vienna braced a hand on the dresser, letting out a long breath through her mouth. It had worked. Truthfully, she was less concerned about the water hitting the wounds on her back than the fact that Alec had said "we need to shower." She knew what that would inevitably lead to.

So she'd invented another excuse. And….it had worked. He'd believed her. Or at least seemed to. Vienna had a feeling he enjoyed her begging enough that he sometimes gave into it as an indulgence, encouraging her to keep it up in the long run.

But. Still. She'd been able to exhibit the smallest bit of agency, make the nightmare just a little less horrific today. And in this place, that felt like a win.

What it was was a scrap. The tiniest, faintest light in the dark that she clung to as if it were the sun itself. But if she didn't — if she didn't try to fan that little spark into something bigger — Vienna was sure that the shadow of humiliation and despair and dehumanization would swallow her whole.

She floated to the bathroom, wanting to at least brush her teeth. With her gaze trained to the floor, hoping to avoid her reflection in the mirror, she spotted the tiniest movement in the space between the sink and the toilet.

A spider. Small, brown, skittering into the corner with its many legs.

Usually she would grab a piece of tissue and snatch it up, flush it down the toilet. But today she just stared at it. It had gone still now, trying to be smaller, trying not to be noticed. Vienna felt a strange tightening sensation in her chest, like her heart was being physically squeezed. She couldn't stand to add one more moment of fear or pain to this place, no matter how minuscule.

"You're okay," she whispered without entirely meaning to.

It reminded her, ridiculously, of Zander. Of their saying, that night at the lake. Better spiders….

And it made her stomach lurch. How could she be thinking of him in this moment? Right after she'd….participated. Moved. Complied. Performed. How could those two memories even exist in the same body?

Better spiders than suspended.

She'd had chosen — if choice was even a word she had access to anymore — the least harmful option. What got her through the day in one piece. What helped her survive in a moment where every option was terrible.