✩ ezralia, satoru's star girl ✩

His letter opener cuts through the envelope with ease and he frowns at what it reveals: various pictures of you, mostly candid and innocent. There was a picture of you eating at the cafe, gazing out the window at the ocean wistfully as you nursed your drink. There was one of you, dolled up, arm hooked up around Avery with a smile that Bailey knows is fake, but it still delighted stupid men all the same. There was one of you, returning to the orphanage after a rough night at the brothel, makeup running, dress ripped, expression grim. Various snapshots of your life that Bailey wasn't always privy to. 

Then, there was one picture that he almost crushes when he sees.

You, eyes hazy and half-lidded, looking at something far off from the camera. You had been brought to ruination, your body battered, bruised, and beaten. You were completely naked, wearing nothing but developing bruises and scars. He could see smears of dried blood across your skin and all the lewd liquids spilling out of you.

The last thing in the envelope was a video tape.

The tape comes to life, clearly a camera that ran all day, just waiting to record something juicy. It was positioned directly in view of a lavish bed and door. The brothel. You come in through the door with a man hanging onto you, already undressing you. There is a moment where your expression betrayed your disgust, seen only by the camera and Bailey before you throw on that dazzling smile. You knew how to drive your customers insane, how to make them crawl over each other just for a minute longer with you. You pull the man onto the bed and press his hand right onto the plush swell of your chest, a professional in her zone. "About my payment." You say in the video. The orphan didn't fall far from the orphanage. You were just as opportunistic as Bailey when it came to money. You hold up five fingers, your nails painted a pretty sheen of red. "500 pounds for 30 minutes. Up front." It wasn't that long ago when 500 pounds could have had you for several hours. Your value had only skyrocketed with your growing beauty and allure. "Deal." The man in the video chuckles. His lecherous gaze rakes over your pale, beautiful skin, "And how much to mark you, darling?" You seem to think on that for a moment, clearly holding out for a better deal. "I got more clients than you, ya know." "500 pounds extra." The man offers immediately, one hand roaming your body greedily, the other searching his back pocket clumsily for the bulge of his wallet. That's when you acquiesce, grinning, "Deal."

Bailey leans back in his chair as he watches, the leather groaning under his weight as he shifts. A flicker of something cut through his usual annoyance while he watched you. Five hundred pounds to be touched. Five hundred more to be marked. The ward he’d raised was a shrewd little capitalist. He watches as the man's hands roam, as you press yourself against him with the practiced ease of a seasoned performer.

It's all business, a well-oiled machine of flesh and finance, pumping on and on.

He hands you the money and you count them, the exact same way Bailey does when you hand him rent. The camera catches it but you didn't -- the man popping a pill into his mouth from his sleeve, quick as a breath. The man comes in to kiss you after you set the money into your purse. You meet him halfway, your lips colliding as your eyes fluttering closed. A practiced move. Those very eyes shot wide open with unbridled rage when you realized he was forcing you to swallow something. The ensuing scuffle was short and brutal. You're unexpectedly strong, but the man is stronger, heavier. He pins you down, tanking your attempts to bite and scratch him, until you couldn't stop yourself from gulping down his saliva mixed with his blood, the pill following it down.

Bailey recognizes what the pill was instantly, having been offered it by Quinn at several gatherings. A powerful aphrodisiac that made anyone pliant and yielding and impressionable. Bailey's jaw tightens as the performance shatters completely. The camera watches, an unblinking eye, as the scene began to devolve into the very picture the envelope had promised.

He pauses the video, knuckles bone white where he gripped the armrests of his chair. The audacity to flaunt this to Bailey, to want him to bear witness to damage to his property. He picks up the photograph of your battered form again, his thumb brushing over the image of a dark bruise blooming on your cheek.

He shoves the photos and the tape into a desk drawer, the finality of the sound echoing his decision. He needs to see you, if only to assess the damage to his asset and to issue a warning to you. You clearly needed a reminder who you belong to and how fucking stupid you are. The man in the video would be dead. Bailey would make sure of that. There was no one that he couldn't find so long as they roamed this damned town. It was just a matter of time until Bailey found him. Plenty of room in the squalid depths of the industrial district's landfill for trash. He wouldn't do it over as something as silly and trivial as your "honor." It would be a message, a reminder of what happens to those who tried to revel in destroying Bailey's possessions.

The door to his office slams open and he calls out your name, his voice cutting through the hallway, sharp and devoid of warmth. "My office. Now."

There's a beat, like all the orphans this side of the ward were holding their breath collectively with you. There was no use hiding when you were under his roof and you knew it. You thought you'd take it easy for a bit and just lay in bed and bitch and moan a bit. Sleep all that damage and fatigue off. Your grades were good enough that Leighton didn't come after you if you missed classes. Instead, he'll just visited the brothel twice as often, hoping to have a chance at buying you for the night. 

You don't care about changing clothes or putting on shoes to be presentable for Bailey. He's walked in on you on various states of being undressed and it never bothered him. All he cared about was the money you brought him. You could be naked and he would barely bat an eye at you. He'd just be annoyed that your state of being disrobed meant you wouldn't have anywhere to carry rent on your person. 

You deliver your shaky body down the hall to Bailey with heavy steps, like a woman on death row. You wondered to yourself, limping pathetically down the short stretch of the corridor, What the hell does Bailey want from you now? 

As you approach his open door, you try to glare at him, which was quite difficult to manage with a swelling black eye, colored a spectacular shade of purple. It had no effect on your warden, who leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin. He takes in every detail with a cold, assessing gaze: the bare feet on the grimy linoleum, the oversized pajamas that do little to hide the stiff way you hold yourself, and most importantly, the garish splash of violence painted across your face.

"Close the door," he commands, his voice flat and devoid of any inflection. He waits until the heavy wood thuds shut, plunging the office into a more intimate, oppressive gloom, lit only by his desk lamp. "Have a seat."

You stand for an extra minute longer than you wanted to, your body aching from just holding yourself upright. It was like you were trying to say. No, thanks. I don't have to sit. I'm fine.

You were definitely not fine though. Anyone with eyes and empathy could see that. A few seconds of quiet defiance later, you were sitting in the chair, arms crossed petulantly.

It was then that he pulled his desk drawer open, a loud, metallic scrape echoing in the otherwise quiet room. He slides the photographs out, fanning them across the polished surface of his desk like a hand of cards. They land face up and you stare down at them, blinking, not quite processing until you realize they were all you. Your eyes scan over the macabre slideshow of your life with a frown. This almost looked like the work of Kylar, but Kylar wouldn't send something like this to Bailey. There was the shots of you at your various jobs, of you escorting various men, and finally, a recent one of you in the aftermath of your undoing. When your eyes land on it, there was barely a grimace on your face when you hop right to your feet, red hot rage burning through you at the photo of you, taken against your will. The glossy paper crinkles in your fist. You and Bailey had this in common: pain and anger only seemed to rejuvenate you.

"That fucker took pictures?" You hiss, enraged. It clicked in your mind that this man was going to make a goddamn fortune selling these damn photos of you. 1000 pounds was nothing compared to these photos of Briar's top whore and Bailey's precocious ward, broken.

He lets you clutch the picture of your ruined form, his expression unchanging as he witnesses you rage. Your anger is satisfying. Predictable. You're more angry about the violation of your image than the violation of your body. Good. That's a valuable lesson.

Bailey leans forward, the lamp light carving harsh shadows into his face as he locks eyes with you, "Tell me. Was he not satisfied with the thousand pounds he paid for thirty minutes? Or did you just forget how to keep your clients in line?"

"I have it handled." You lie. Then, you frown deeply at Bailey, not comprehending how he knew this much about last night just from this photo. You scan over the photos one more time to see just which of them betrayed you and you finally see the discarded envelope. It was crumbled, but you could make out "watch me" written on it. You see the VHS Bailey had unearthed from the drawer too and you go still, dots connecting quickly with the realization that you had also been recorded.

You had become so good at hiding your fear from Bailey that this was the first time he saw a crack in you in a long time. "You didn't… you..." Your breath catches. "You saw it?"

The shift in your mood did not go unnoticed on Bailey. The fire in your gut snuffs out, replaced by a cold, creeping dread. It's a subtle change, but he's an expert at reading you. The fear is there, a hairline fracture in the fortress you've built around yourself, and he was holding a hammer and chisel to it, ready to carve you down into nothing.

"Saw it?" Bailey murmurs, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face. He picks up the cassette, the plastic cool in his hand. He turns it over, examining it as if it were a rare artifact. You fucked up. Now he knew there was more to the video that he missed, something that you didn't want him to see. "I thought I saw enough."

Enough to call you in the room, at least. He gestures to the screen on the far wall, a small television he uses for security feeds. "I saw you making a deal. Quite the little entrepreneur." He stands and crosses the room, his movements fluid and predatory. He doesn't put the tape in yet. Instead, he stands between you and the screen, blocking your view. He dangles the tape in front of your face, his eyes gleaming with a sadistic light.

"Don't you want to see the rest? See the part where you stop being a professional and start looking like… this?" He jabs a finger toward the crumpled photo of your ruined form still clutched in your hand, at your body and the patchwork of bruises and marks that currently ruined it.

Without waiting for an answer, he slides the tape into the VCR. The machine whirs to life. The screen flickers for a moment before the image of that brothel room bed fills the screen. He leans against the wall, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on your face, not the screen. He wants to watch you as you watch yourself being broken. "Let's see how well you really 'handled' yourself."

He must not have watched the full video. He couldn't have, if he was this calm about it. Your heart was torn in a flurry of emotions so strong, you knew you were about to come undone.

You could not let Bailey hear the tape.

Fully intent on destroying it, You're scrambling for the VCR as soon as he puts it in. Bailey catches you by the waist without batting an eye. He was already watching your every move so it was all too easy for him to spring onto you once you bolted.

"Fuck. Wait, Bailey," Your breath catches in your throat. There was no sign of the usual brat that dared defy him, "D-don't! Turn it off!"

You don't see the glower on his face as he looks down at you thrashing in his arms. He's never seen you this desperate. Even if you had been beaten black and blue, how could that pathetic bastard ever get this reaction out of you? From just a quick fuck? A quick fight? He intended to find out the solution to this mystery together with you, putting his hand on your chin and holding your head still, towards the screen.

He demands, "Watch."

You grind your teeth together, but you don't fight Bailey in this moment.

Your fate was sealed and you could do nothing but watch.

The VHS flickers back to life and you see yourself, wrestling with the man with all you got, all scratching fingers and gnashing teeth before your limbs start to give away and become weak. He punches you in the face and stomach several times, a grim reminder of where your black eye and bruises had originated.

"Cute thing like you…" The man on screen pulls out a camera once you were so weak you were just pelting him with useless fists. "Gotta make sure I save some souvenirs." The camera snaps pictures of you while he molests and assaults you, its flashes illuminating all the freshly shed blood and sweat on you. You manage a weak punch to his chest, your arms too heavy now for you to do more than that. The man had stopped brutalizing your body with closed fists and instead started wrapping his hands around your neck. You whisper, clearly losing your bearings to the aphrodisiac he forced you to swallow despite your next words, "Fuck you."

Bailey knew the effects of that aphrodisiac pill too well. One of Quinn's favorite. In a way, it was impressive you were still fighting back. Most people had much lower willpower than you. Robin would have been reduced to a mewling mess within seconds if he had taken the same drug.

"What are you going to do, bitch? You gonna sic Bailey on me?" The man chuckles.

You feel Bailey's hands tighten around you in the present. You don't have to look to know he was visibly disgusted to hear his name in this degenerate exchange.

"Hah." You laughed in the video but it was a humorless sound, your consciousness fading and your slurred words coming out disjointed. "He's not… the one you should… be afraid of."

You clearly meant to insinuate it was you he should fear, but those were unconvincing words from a woman who immediately blacked out after muttering them. A flicker of something unreadable crosses Bailey's face at those words, a cousin to both pride and annoyance that is gone as quickly as it appears. You always did have a spine, even when it was being broken.

Your heart twists and turned in your chest. You hiss at Bailey, your fist coming down pathetically on his arm, your plea pulling on raw nerves, "Turn. It. Off."

As pathetic and miserable of a display this already was, the video hadn't even rolled up to the moment you were scared Bailey would bear witness to. His grip is like iron, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your waist as he holds you against him. He feels the tremor that runs through you at the sight of the camera, the quiet desperation in your plea. He watches silently as the man on screen uses your limp, unresponsive form. The wet, smacking sounds and the man's grunts fill the small office, mingling with the harsh sound of your breathing.

His free hand clamps onto your chin, forcing your head forward, ensuring you cannot look away despite your struggling.

"Watch," he growls, his voice a low rumble against your ear as he repeats the command with finality. There's no sympathy to be found, only a cold, clinical curiosity as he observes your reactions. The both of you were standing on some sort of precipice and he could feel it too. You're hiding something you didn't want him to see and Bailey's curiosity was sufficiently piqued. He can feel the thrill of the hunt, the promise of a secret about to be unearthed. He has the distinct feeling that what's coming next will be far more entertaining than what was at the start of the tape, so he lets the tape run its course. He had to see what could make his alleged unbreakable ward so terrified.

Neither of you were all that distressed by the footage of a stranger fucking you like a toy, your body bouncing obscenely on his cock, your head falling to and fro without support. To you, you can think of a handful of times you were treated far worse. To Bailey, this was just wards being broken and clients getting their money's worth. It's sordid, it's base, but it's just business. He feels your body go rigid against his, hears your choked-off sob, but Bailey still doesn't get it. So you were beaten. So you were used. So you were drugged. It's a Tuesday in this damn town. 

His impatience grows, a tight knot in his gut.

The tape keeps playing. 

Then, your eyes flutter open on screen, drugged, delirious. The man was still fucking into you. A pleasured moan tears past your lips on screen, not at all like the strangled noise that came out of you in the present. The man fucks into you and smirks down at you, he's holding you down in case you fight, but you didn't even try. "Morning, sweetheart. Sleep well?" You mumble something incoherent, the speakers unable to pick up your slurred words mixed with soft sobs. You make out yourself saying "fuck off." You impressed even yourself sometimes when you realized how deep your defiance ran. Bailey had ingrained it deep inside you to fight. "You know, I was hired just to break you in. Lucky me." The man slaps you several times across the face as if it might sober you, but you barely react to the slaps. You didn't even defend yourself. You were used to far harsher hits, dealt in the hallways of the orphanage by the back of Bailey's hand. You were simply too lost in the pleasure, the aphrodisiac allowing you to just give in and grind back against your attacker. Even without the aphrodisiac, when you couldn't escape from someone, It was all too easy for you to pretend, to lose yourself in the pleasure. Dr. Harper had called it dissociation. You mumbled something again, a clearer sound than the last jumble of syllables you groaned out. The man leans in, "Hm? What was that?" Slap. "Say it louder." Slap. Slap. The little slut that was you on the screen begged. "C-Choke me again. Please."

You suck in a shuddering breath, feeling Bailey's entire body go rigid. His grip on your waist and chin tightens to the point of pain, a knee-jerk reaction to the impossible sound. He whips his head down to look at you, his red eyes wide with disbelief and fury. You. Begging.

You, Bailey's ward, did not beg.

He has pushed you, hit you, sold you. He has conditioned you to survive, to fight, to endure. But he has never heard you beg of your own violation. It's a surrender so profound, so complete, that it feels like a personal failure. It's an affront to everything he knows about you, everything he's beaten into you. You don't beg. You endure. You fight. You bargain. But you do not beg.

Pathetic tears began to fall from your face, but the video continued, relentless on the path to make you come undone, to ruin every false moment of confidence you put up in front of Bailey.

The man in the video chuckled, clearly pleased. His hands wrapped around your neck as you had pleaded for.  "And they told me Bailey's prized ward was going to be hard." He laughed crudely, pulling you in by the neck he was strangling with both hands. "Tell me, darling. Who's the one who finally broke ya in?" His gloating question hung in the air. It's just silence for a moment when he let's go of your neck. The poor broken little thing on screen's lips tear apart and moan, "I-It's you." The bastard grinned, rutting into you harder as he let's you speak. You gasp for breath, your eyes not quite looking at your captor. "Y-You broke me." Another gasp. "B-Bailey." The man stops.

Time itself seemed to freeze. Bailey's entire body tenses and you feel it. His body, coiled just a moment before with predatory anticipation, had gone rigid. He isn't looking at the screen anymore. His burning red eyes are locked onto your face, searching, dissecting, as if seeing you for the very first time. You avoided his heated gaze. The sound from the tape seems to fade into a dull roar in your ears, replaced by the pounding of your own blood and shame. Bailey let out a short, sharp breath that was almost a laugh, but there was no humor in it.

You fall to pieces then, hanging loosely in Bailey's arm, biting your lip as thick tears fell down your cheeks. They rolled onto his sleeves, his arm remained wrapped tight around you as you feel his frame shake in quiet rage.

You had no fight left in you, in this moment. You had nothing left to hide.

You think, if Bailey killed you here and now, then it'd be fine. You figured this was how this would all end, anyway. You piss off Bailey at the wrong time one final time and he releases you from his never ending debt at last by strangling you to death himself. Ha.

In the background, the man in the video is enraged hearing someone else's name slip off your tongue when he expected to hear his. You clenched your eyes shut, no longer forced to watch. You can't make out the hateful words he spat out apart from bitch and slut, but you can make out the loud sounds of hardened smacks and him biting into your flesh. This must have been when the bulk of the damage had been done to your body, all him pummeling you while you moan for Bailey and more and please.

Nobody had ever seen you like this, begging for abuse. Now there was a tape of you, reduced to a crying, hiccupping mess for people to get off on. Briar would have loved it. He would call it peak cinema -- Bailey's ward, coming undone, the name of her much older caretaker on her lips as she gets fucked by another man. Perfect whore, isn't she? Bailey must have trained her so well.

Except he hadn't. He never laid his hands on you like that. Bailey's physical punishments hadn't sexually excited either of you, not when you were young. When you got older, though, things were no longer as black and white as choosing to love or hate Bailey, as deciding your own fate when dancing in the palms of the town, clutched in his hand.

When did it begin? When did you first begin to overlay him over every customer who went too far, who took when you had nothing left to give. You'd made the mistake of pretending it was Bailey, not Whitney, who dangled you over the school roof, fucking into you and threatening to throw you off if you didn't make him cum in time. You'd pretended it was Bailey holding a knife to your throat, not Kylar, that told you that you were never getting away from him. You pretended it was Bailey at the brothel, laying claim to your body and ravaging you selfishly, all while he had refused to pay. 

What started as a survival tactic became a habit. What started as a habit became a deadly craving.

You just can't remember anymore. When did you start wanting to feel his hand on you, even if it meant devastating pain? When did pain and pleasure mix together into one sensation for you?

In one single brilliant, horrifying moment, you had come fully unraveled and laid bare in front of Bailey. Every fight you put up and battle you survived no longer a testimony to your strength and rebellion, but to your depravity.

If Robin and the other orphans knew what you'd become, would they shatter like you under the realization that there was truly no hope of escaping Bailey and this town unbroken?

Bailey's world narrowed to the grainy image on the screen, your wrecked voice moans for more over the speaker. He hears his name on your lips, a desperate, wrecked prayer. Bailey. Please. Bailey. The sound, a damning confession repeated over and over to the otherwise quiet room.

In this moment, his rage is not the hot, explosive inferno you basked in. It is a cold, absolute zero that freezes the two of you in place. Every muscle in his body coils tight around you like steel, the hand still holding your chin threatening to crush bone.

He is not enraged that you were hurt. He is not even enraged anymore that another man dared to misuse his property.

He is enraged at the revelation, that it had took him this long to realize.

He sees you now with sickening clarity: the way you’d flinch but not break under his punishments, the fire in your eyes that was always just a little too bright, the uncanny way you could endure anything the city threw at you. He thought it was strength. He thought you were unbreakable.

He was wrong. You weren't unbreakable. You were already broken, and he had been the one holding the pieces all along, all this time.

The video mercifully cuts to black at long last, ending around the one hour mark when the man cussed you out and demanded that you shut the fuck up about Bailey and muttering several choice insults about your whorish nature. It didn't matter how he used you, how he hit you, how he tried to goad his own name out of your lips. No matter what he did, you just kept begging Bailey for more through an aphrodisiac haze, a lewd grin on your stupid face. When you see the man give up, throwing your stupid bitch body onto the floor, he approached the camera to turn it off, fury etched into his features. He had not won what he wanted that night. A drugged out, cum drunk girl had somehow rejected him.

Even without the video playing, the echoes of Bailey's name linger in the air still. Quiet, shameful sobs wracked your body. Your tears soaked through the fabric of his shirt, now forming warm, damp stains on his arm.

He looks down at the top of your head, at the pathetic creature who had just moaned his name while being brutalized, who had begged him for it.

He doesn't push you away. Instead, with a gentleness that is more terrifying than any of his usual violence, he releases your chin and slowly, deliberately slides his hand up to cup the nape of your neck, his thumb stroking the skin just below your hairline, one of the few splotches of skin on you that remained unbruised.

"Your client thought he was going to break you." He leans down, his lips brushing against your temple, breath hot against your head. "He's an idiot, just like Avery. He was just a stand-in, wasn't he?" He tightens his grip on the back of your neck, just enough to make you feel the pressure, the threat. His voice drops to a near-inaudible whisper, "It ends now. No more stand-ins."

In this moment, you are completely Bailey's. The last bit of you that you had tried to lock away had been stolen. Confiscated.

Bailey's debt was eternal. You almost always paid in time, but there were times you slipped up. In the few times that you couldn't pay and you also couldn't fight him and his goons off into leaving, he would succeed in capturing you and making arrangements with his highest bidder. Each time, he was certain that you would be broken, captured, and kept at last. Your wings would be finally clipped and he would have done his job as warden in securing you an appropriate owner, his wallet so much heavier for it.

Bailey's conditions were always clear. For the handsome price they paid for you, they could keep you forever if they wanted and use you however they desired. Bailey wasn't going to come knocking and collecting. But, Bailey clarified, it wasn't his problem if you escaped and here's the kicker:

You always fucking came back.

It was Eden who managed to scare you straight. You never missed a payment again after he tied you down for weeks. You had returned to the orphanage half-naked, having stumbled out of the forests and through the alleyways with your wrists still bound together, Eden's collar tight around you neck. Bailey welcomed you at the entrance of the orphanage by removing a missing person's poster of you as you approach, having known where he'd left you all this time. He had seemed somewhat impressed by your escape. Slippery little shit, he had called you. It had genuinely impressed him that Eden hadn't managed to keep you in check. If someone as relentless as him couldn't break you, then maybe no one could.

But here you were now, a bitter and beautiful mess in Bailey's arms, the man you admitted had broken you.

You whisper, "What more do I owe you?"

The question hangs in the air pathetically. It’s a question he’s trained you to ask. The automatic recoil of a ward taught that every comfort comes with a price, every touch is a transaction.

For a moment, he doesn't answer. He just tightens his grip on your neck, the pressure a silent affirmation of his control. This was it. This was the surrender he has been chasing. This was the truth he knew was buried under all your bravado and rebellion.

A low dangerous chuckle rumbles in his chest, he pulls back just enough to look at your tear-streaked face. His thumb brushes away a tear, the gesture deceptively gentle. He was mocking you.

"Owe me?" he repeats softly, tasting the word. Your rent at this point was pocket change, all pittance now to keep you in the game. His red eyes, usually burning with anger or cold with calculation, are now lit with something deeper. Dominance. "You've owed me since the day you walked through my doors and entered my care. It seems," he leans in, "that you've been paying the wrong debt."

His cold, thin smile reminded you that you could no longer hide this from him.

“Every mark on your skin," His hands brushed past some wounds, intentionally firm enough to make it hurt, "Every man you wrapped around your little finger," He tilts your chin up until you have no choice but to surrender to him, as if it could be no other way, "Every rule you fucked with,” He laughed, more mirth behind the sound than you've ever heard from him before. “Earning your independence? Paying off you and Robin's debts? Ha." He laughs in your face, "All this time, you were just paying interest on the fact that you belong to me."

The tape, the pictures… he wasn't mad about them at all anymore. In a night of work, he could have the man killed and every photo and video they took in his hands and only his hands, but none of that was the point. These tapes and pictures were priceless, wonderful proof that even when your mind is gone, your body knew who you belong to.

"You owe me the truth. You owe me everything. And you will pay in obedience." His low voice promises you things that made you shiver. He pulls you tighter against him, his arms encircling you completely. Both warden and cage, your Bailey. "I'll make you accept what you've always known." 

He's searching your eyes for any hint of defiance. You blink at him blankly, tears having gone dry by this point. You're tired. You feel distant. You didn't want to remember exactly when your twisted infatuation had started. Maybe it was the first time he bent you over his knee as an adult, when you poked the bear one too many times just to see how he would react. Maybe you've always been like this, craving Bailey's touch in every hand that hit too hard and every cock that felt too good. 

"No more games. Tell me the truth, or I'll start showing that tape to every brat here. We'll see if Robin can look at you the same way after hearing you beg for me." He asks you the loaded question, "When?"

When did you realize you always belonged to him?

Just like you could always drive Bailey over the edge, he knew how to do the same to you. You blink and you were back, your blank eyes sparking with rage at the mention of threatening Robin. But he had the upper hand here, so the defiance only burns in your eyes while your mouth obeys, "It was the night you won me in a game of cards." You say, whisper quiet. You wondered if Bailey even remembered. When he doesn't say anything in response, you begin to walk him through that night from your point of view, "Avery brought me as a guest to your flat. Neither of us knew he was planning to do that."

You'll never forget the moment you realized it was Bailey opening the door to the flat with the lotus doorknob. You'd been told to stay away from there. Evil lurks there. It made sense the evil was Bailey. He looked at you, his eyes cycling quickly from surprise to fury when he realized that Avery has brought you to his flat. He yielded with a huff that you could accompany Avery but you were not to play.

"Leighton and Quinn were already there and you guys were all chumming it up and schmoozing. You told me to make myself useful and clean up and get you all drinks." You pause, and admit for the first time out loud, cheekily, "I spat in all of them."

Bailey's lips twitched, clearly finding something more amusing about that than upsetting. He remembered sniffing his vodka just to check, but he still shrugged and drank it. His anger at your behavior was tempered by a sweet revelation for him. Avery had thought back then that you were his obedient little doll, a spayed prize poodle for him to parade in front of Bailey. Your story was the validation Bailey wanted to hear, that you had always resented Avery as he has, that you had always been twisting him around your sly, little finger, manipulating him into thinking he had any ownership over you. Good.

That night had been a night of many discoveries for you. You discovered Bailey lived in a cheap, seedy area of town, so unlike his refined caretaker persona and unlike the rich company he kept around. You discover while cleaning, all the history books and pots and antiques he kept. You found out he kept a snake, which had scared the shit out of everyone but you and Bailey when it slithered out from the carpet. It wasn't just your high willpower that left you impassive at its sudden presence. You simply didn't fear snakes because you've already seen the makings of one. There was no snake more frightening than the snake tattoo slithering up Bailey's arm. You didn't think any snake could move faster than it, the way it lashed forward when Bailey lunged for you. It was a gathering of monsters and you had realized since then; somehow, the wrathful Bailey was the most tame of the group. He was also the most poor. For all his greed, Bailey didn't have more money to spare than any one of the three men at the table. It's the reason he accepted dirty dollar after dirty dollar from them. Without money, he couldn't ante up. Not unless he offered you, Quinn had suggested. So Bailey shrugged, looked at you, and does so, "I'll wager the girl for one evening. Deluxe rules." Quinn and Leighton had both leaned forward with interest at the thought of having you on top of winning the jackpot, but Avery had bristled at it all. The tension between Bailey and Avery was palpable with Avery posturing that you were his and Bailey calmly reminding him Avery might be with you but you ultimately belonged to him. What Avery had with you was just an arrangement that Bailey agreed to. "Climb on." Bailey had nodded towards the table, where the money was piling up. He elaborated before you could even wonder what he meant, "It's where the money goes. That means you."  You didn't argue and hopped up on the table, posing with such grace it belied your hidden contempt for every person in that room, all of them ogling you as you posed except for Bailey. His eyes were set on the money Quinn used to adorn you, his blood thrumming with the thrill of the pot he was about to win with your flesh. Value extracted.

"Everyone folded at once and you won." You say, your characteristic smugness was finally returning to your disposition, black eye be damned. "But you wouldn't have won with that shitty hand you had if I didn't distract Leighton. He had a full house, you know."

There was no question it would have trumped Bailey's two of a kind. Bailey knew then, that you had peeked. Despite Bailey insisting that you were not to play, you had been a secret fifth player, manipulating it. You unintentionally swung it in Bailey's favor. You had taken out Bailey's strongest contender after you caught sight of Leighton's brilliant hand while "cleaning." It hadn't been for Bailey's pride or for Avery's contentment, but just for yourself. Out of everyone there, Leighton and his grubby hands were the ones you were least enthusiastic about. At the time, you didn't yet know how much more terrible Quinn could be. 

You had essentially chosen Bailey that night to be the victor, having learned that he was somehow the least evil man at the table that night.

Yet, for all the effort that had gone into winning you, Bailey didn't want a single thing to do with you that night. Ever the courteous host, he bid his monstrous guests goodbye as they depart and then turned to you. You thought then, that Bailey would smack you for your audacity in front of his guests or that he would reveal some a depraved, secret, perverted side of him like everyone in this town seemed to be hiding. But instead, he impassively asked you to help him clean up. If he was thrilled that he made a killing that night, there was no trace of that happiness to be found.

You pause your story there, uncertain, and this was the moment Bailey remembered. He figured it out -- the exact moment he had you.

While driving you back to the orphanage that night, he had received a call for some kind of urgent business. He turned the car hard towards the docks, speeding down while you sat in the passenger seat, snidely commenting that you guys were going the opposite way of the orphanage and if you had known he was going to take a detour, you would have just taken the bus. He ignored you. Before he headed off with his goon towards the so called emergency, he had turned to you, "I'll be five minutes. Keep your head down. Don't touch anything." At first, you lounged in his car while touching all the things, but there was really nothing for you to even really touch in the car, no secret gun hiding in the glovebox, no money tucked in anywhere. He didn't even have an umbrella stowed away somewhere. Bored, you spent the time repeatedly unlocking and relocking the doors while waiting for him the return to be pissed at you. When you were just starting to wonder if five minutes had passed, two thugs popped out from the docks, chattering along until they spot the dingy car. They took cautious steps forward, debating if Bailey would have anything of valuable in his car for them to steal. Bailey would usually never be so stupid as to stow valuables in an unattended car, but this time, there really was something of value in his car -- you. You, who took two deep breaths before you popped the car door open and stepped out the vehicle, your heels clacking against the pavement. It was a sound that seemed to echo around you. "Step forward a bit more," You had said, taking one daunting step forward. "Come on. Into the light. So I can remember your faces." The thugs had seemed taken aback. You were much smaller than they were and while your voice carried weight, your tiny frame was at odds with the fact that you could hold your own in a fight. "You're just a fucking girl," One of the thugs scoffed The other tugged at his friend's arm, fearful, "Yeah! BAILEY'S girl!!" You stepped forward, clearly not intending to back down until fists were thrown, "Bailey's not the one you should be afraid of." Clack. You step forward again, "Now... are you gonna leave, or am I getting my hands dirty?" They tossed insults at both you and Bailey as they absconded, like children running from the boogeyman. Bailey had watched it all, having resolved his urgent business almost as fast as he told you he would. He'd come back to see your spectacle unfold just in time. He'd even been a little impressed. When he comes back to the car, he says two simple words that would rewire you forever. Two words somehow more potent than any drug Quinn could attest for, the only time Bailey had ever praised you and perhaps the truest words he had ever spoken to you --

"Good work." he repeated, the words hanging between the two of you.

Two pathetic little words of praise and that was it. That was all it took.

You've always been his and now you both knew it. 

All this time, his obsession hadn't been with clipping your wings. It had been with the terrifying, thrilling possibility that you might one day learn to fly just like him.

His mouth crashes down on yours, brutal and possessive. There's no gentleness in it. Bailey was never gentle. Not with you. You feel the punishing pressure of his teeth on your lip, the demanding sweep of his tongue claiming every inch of your mouth before his hand claws down and rips open your pajama shirt, buttons flying in every direction, scattering noisily onto the floor. His palm flattens against the skin of your stomach, hot and possessive and painful, before sliding up to cup a bruised breast. He breaks the kiss, red eyes wild as they scan the wreckage of your body. The sight of you like this would make anyone grimace, but not Bailey. Even if it was another man's hand who had inflicted this damage on you, Bailey felt an ownership over you and the marks on your ravaged body. Every single disgusting, beautiful mark, his, even if it hadn't been his teeth doing the biting.

"Look at you," he snarls, his voice ragged as he runs his hands over your mottled torso. "Marked up by a fucking amateur." He leans down, his mouth hovering over a fresh bruise on your breast as if to kiss it. "Let's fix that."

He bites down hard, teeth sinking in with such brutality you cry out, his mark joining the others that adorn your body, a deeper bite than any of the ones already on you. It shocked you that he could still find something to claim from your mangled body. It still didn't feel real, having Bailey finally touching you the way you dreamed, with the intent to claim this time, not to tame. If he had felt lust for you in the past, he had never shown it until this moment. He pushed you onto the floor and you wince from the collision of fresh wounds on your back meeting hard ground. There was no time for you to process the pain, already being overwritten by pleasure when Bailey's rough hand firmly squeezed your clothed inner thigh before moving up. He doesn't wait. He doesn't ask. He simply takes, his rough fingers force their way between your thighs, shoving down into your pajama bottoms and into the slick heat of your cunt. The intrusion is brutal, a possessive claim that answers all your silent prayers. He finds you already wet from the overwhelming, desperate ache he had just unearthed and brough to surface. A harsh, broken chuckle breaks through him, a dark laugh that's all satisfaction and scorn.

"So fucking eager," he growls, his voice a low rumble against your ear as he pins you to the floor with his weight. "Good girl."

Those words fucked you up, just like he knew it would. Two little words that drove you pitifully close to the edge, your climax already approaching with shamefully fast speed.

He's relentless with your body, barely letting you catch your breath before he sticks his fingers into your wet cunt and begins pumping you hard and fast without preparation or preamble. The pain. The pleasure. Bailey. It's all too much for you. It had taken the man in the video drugs and delirium and a whole hour to get you to break, to cum a few times pathetically at the end of the video, spurred on by the aphrodisiac. You revealed a magnificent truth: you had already been broken in. Bailey didn't need drugs or underhanded tricks to claim you like this. He was peeling you apart at your seams in just minutes.

"B-Bailey!" You blurt his name just as he wanted, his fingers having arched into your cunt just right. You thrash from the overwhelming stimulation, but Bailey's frame contains you, locking you in place.

You lean into him, eyes filled with want. It was nothing like the fake lust you brandished at the brothel to survive or the fake admiration you placated Avery with, disdain always thrumming just blow the surface of your skin. This was real, a genuine peek into you that no one but Bailey knew the extent of, that the man on the VHS tape had only gotten a small taste of. 

The sound of his name on your lips, raw and wanting goes straight to his cock. He sees the burning, agonized look in your eyes. This absolute surrender was more than he ever thought he'd be able to extract from you. He's smirking, a predatory toothy thing, as he slows his fingers into a deliberate, agonizing motion. A choked whimper died in your throat.

"That's it," he rasps, his voice thick with satisfaction. He found the key to your complete submission and that door was never going to close again.

He leans down, his face inches from yours, his red eyes branding you. His hands stop moving and it was like your body had been made for him, the way he controlled your pleasure with such expertise, bringing you so close to peak before leaving you on the precipice. You whimper pathetically, you weren't going over the edge without him and the brutal rhythm he originally set. You had been so, so close.

"Well? Whose are you?" he asks, his voice a low, dangerous thrum that vibrates through your very core. "Say it. Let me hear who you belong to."

He begins to pump his fingers again, a maddening slow, deep rhythm.

"Ah, Bailey, ahhh, haah, please, fuck, please. I belong to you." 

Despite your admission and your pleas, he still didn't give you what you clearly wanted, continuing to pump his fingers into you at a pace that had you trying to grind into him for more. Your greed just makes him hold his fingers still, preventing you from grinding and seeking your pleasure without his say so.

"Bailey. Bailey, ahh, pleasepleaseplease."

There it was, the way you had begged at the end of the tape for Bailey, like you could belong to no other man. Bailey, your caretaker. Bailey, the man who has always owned you, your pain, and your pleasure. Bailey, who taught you everything you knew and everything you used to survive his abuse. Bailey, who you hate, who could tear you apart until you were nothing but an obedient bundle of frayed nerves. Bailey, who you love, who could bring you blinding pleasure you hadn't even fathomed possible in this demented town. You strung his name together in a long chain of desperate syllables until you ended with a plea, one of your most honest desires, "Please choke me."

A slow, cruel smile spreads across his face. What kind of prey offers their neck to their predator so willingly?

Your breathy, desperate pleas hang in the air of his office. He slowly withdraws his finger, leaving you achingly empty and you resent the loss. He brings his glistening fingers up to the low light of the desk lamp, examining them with a detached intensity that sends a shiver down your spine. Strings of liquid arousal stretched between his fingers. You had been so, so wet for him.

His clean hand rests on your throat now, not squeezing, the warmth of his palm is hot against your skin, his thumb brushing over the frantic pulse fluttering in your neck. He's clearly amused with you, a realization that makes your hips buck once more with arousal when he murmurs, "Is this what you think about when those other men touched you? My name? My hands? My cock?"

His fingers begin to tighten around your neck, slow, deliberate pressure that steals the air from your lungs in a heady rush. He's watching you, his red eyes alight with outright glee. The world narrows to the feeling of his hand on your throat and the agonizing empty space between your legs.

"Yes." You croak out breathlessly, completely undone, honest in ways Bailey had never known. "It's always been you, Bailey."

The confession, raw and absolute, strikes him with the force of a physical blow. His grip on your throat tightens, a full-body shudder wracking his frame at the wonderful sensation. It’s the final piece falling into place, the confirmation of a truth he’s always known. All your defiance and rebellion extirpated in this moment, never to hold any weight again.

"I know," He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear. He whispers, the words laced with bittersweet revelations, "It was always going to be me."

The pressure on your throat increases, enough to make your head swim, to make every nerve ending in your body sing with a mixture of fear and exquisite pleasure. His other hand moves with purpose, tearing down your pajama bottoms and underwear in one rough motion. You hold your legs up obediently, aiding him in yanking them off of you.

"Look at me," he orders, his voice rough with lust.

When your dazed, half-lidded eyes meet his, he slams into you then, bottoming out inside you in one brutal, possessive thrust. He stretched you wide open, a sharp, broken cry escaping your lips, stifled by his hand still clutched around your throat. He holds still, letting you savor every inch of him buried inside you, stretching you, claiming you. 

Your cunt clenched around his cock with each wave of arousal that washed over you. Just having him inside you, not moving, was unbearable. He could feel the desperate shifts of your hip as you murmur, his hands still curled around your thin neck. The words don't come out, throat now clamped tightly shut by Bailey's hand, but you still mouth it out to him: please please bailey please.

He gives a slow, deep grind into you, choking you harder at the same time. Your vision sparkles, your eyes roll back. Your own name was temporarily lost on you. Through the pleasure and lack of oxygen, all you could remember was Bailey's name.

"Mine." he snarls, the word a final, binding decree. "All of this is mine."

He pulls out almost completely, leaving you wanting for just one second before he's back, slamming into you again with enough force that your back scrapes across the floor. A sound manages to escape your throat, slipping past Bailey's tight grasp. The rough wood floor scrapes your back with every thrust, a sharp, grounding pain that only heightens the searing, confusing pleasure.

"Is this what you wanted all along?" he grunts, his voice a raw, guttural sound as he sets a punishing rhythm. Each thrust is deep and hard, designed to stake his claim, to erase the memory of every other man who has ever touched you, who you had pretended to be Bailey. "You wanted to be reminded who you belong to?"

It was everything you wanted, all this time. His hand moves, sliding up your sweat-slick stomach to pinch and twist a bruised, bitten nipple. The sharp pain makes you cry out and you clench around him. He lets out a hiss of satisfaction, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. He has you completely at his mercy, and the power trip of having you is intoxicating.

"Look at you," he breathes, his red eyes burning into you as he watches you come apart beneath him. He somehow knew everything you wanted to hear. "Taking my cock so well. You were made for me."

Your world shrinks to the sensation of him and his cock, carving a home for itself inside your womb. He was so much larger than you had expected. All your jokes about him acting the way he did because he had a tiny dick no longer held any weight. Between the painful scrape of the floor against your spine and the lack of air reaching your brain, you can't form a coherent thought, let alone formulate a response. All you can do is take the brutal pleasure he's forcing upon you, your body just a lewd toy for him to wrap his arms around and pull and use.

Your desperate whimpers and choked gasps are answer enough. He can feel your orgasm building, your walls clenching around his cock. You were going to cum. You were going to lose consciousness --

He stops so suddenly, letting go of your throat and stilling his hips at the same time. He stayed buried deep inside you hungry cunt, unmoving. You gasp for air but the sound quickly becomes pained whimpers, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing slow, maddening circles onto your clit. Your unbruised eye flies open, wide with disbelief. A tortured sound escapes your lips, a wordless plea for him not to do this, not to leave you hanging like this.

Bailey smirked against your skin, "Did you think it would be that easy? That I'd just let you come?" He pulls out so slowly that you can feel each inch leaving you, "You don't get to come until I let you." He commands, "Beg."

You were so close, ruined from the masterful way Bailey toyed with your clit and cunt. Your hips bucked wildly in pleasure, trying to grind onto his cock for more, for release. Of course he doesn't let you. He could do this all day, teasing you with his cock, denying you of what you wanted until you were a well-trained, well-disciplined ward.

"Please Bailey, ahhh.. Mmm… Please don't stop. Ah… Please fuck me and don't stop. I need… I need your cock..." You moaned between his thrusts, him hanging on every word, seeming to reward each sentence with another pleasurable thrust. "Need..."  Thrust. "Need you to fuck me--" Thrust, "Aaa, pleeease." Thrust. "Dont stop until--"  Thrust. "Ah… until..." The last thrust goes right to your head and you scream, "Use me until you're done with me. "

That honest, raw desperation would be rewarded.

"Good girl," he snarls, the praise like a whip cracking through the air before he releases you neck. Both of his hands clamp onto the sides of your hips, gripping your already bruised skin hard. He withdraws almost completely, leaving you feeling achingly, terrifyingly empty for a fraction of a second, before slamming back into you with a terrible force. He fucks you with a brutal, unrestrained rhythm. Each thrust is a claim, designed to rewrite your body's history until the only memory it holds is of him. The sound of his hips meeting yours echoes obscenely, falling in tandem with your blissful moans.

He watches you, his crimson eyes burning with triumph and ownership as your body writhes beneath his, desperate, broken whimpers coming out of trembling lips.

"That's it. Take it." Bailey was starting to mumble to himself, all heady and hungry words that betrayed his true pleasure. These were words that could only have been pulled out in this desperate moment, shared only by the two of you. "You've always been mine."

He drives into you harder, faster, chasing his own release as you surrender, the pressure inside you builds to an impossible peak, tearing you apart.

Your body tenses, a bowstring drawn to its breaking point, every muscle screams as you arch, the pleasure blinding you as you cum at last. You could hear yourself moan, distantly, yours, yours, yours. Your fingers clawed at floor as you cum, finding no purchase on the dirty floor. A pleasured scream tears from your lungs as your body seizes, your back lifting off the floor as you clench. Your quivers around him, a desperate, rhythmic pulsing that pulls a guttural groan from deep within his chest out. He doesn't stop. Your desperate, spasming climax only spurs him on. His rhythm turns erratic, brutal, his thrusts becoming short and sharp. He chases his own end, burying his face into the crook of your neck as he pants hot breaths over your sweat-slick skin. With a final, deep, possessive thrust, he stills, a low, guttural snarl ripped from his throat as he spills himself inside you.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the office are both of you gasping for air, the thunderous pounding of his heart against your back. He remains slumped over you, breathing hard, his cock still twitching inside you in the aftermath. He slowly lifts his head, his red eyes scanning your face, your body.

You are truly and completely his.

Bailey's.

The tremors of your wonderful orgasm are still rolling over you when you feel him shift. A spark of panic and pleasure flares in your chest when he gives you an experimental thrust, still hard. He rocks his hips into you again, a slow, deep, agonizing motion. The overstimulation is immediate and intense. It was painful and it was perfect.

"I'm not done with you yet." he rasps, his voice a low, cruel purr. He pulls back just enough to look at your face. You see the dark, proprietary smile he wore. "He only had you for thirty minutes. I've had you for years. You'll make up the lost time to me."

He pulls out, and for a moment, you thought he was going to show you mercy. But then he flips you over, rough and impatient, not caring if you bitched about your wounds. Your hands barely have time to brace against the floor before he's behind you, nudging your legs apart with his knee. He pushes down on the arch of your back, your ass and cunt lifting into the air, prepared and posed for him. He'll take every last thing you own from you. He'll take it all, and you'll thank him.

"W-Wait--hGHK--" You barely manage before he enters you in one hard thrust, somehow reaching deeper than ever before. The new angle has you crying out, your face pressed against the cool wood of the floor as he sets a brutal, demanding pace. One of his hands slides up the slick line of your back, tangling in your hair, and he pulls, just enough that your ear was next to his breath.

"That's it," he grunts, his rhythm never faltering. "You'll take what I give you."

His other hand snakes around your hip, greedy fingers finding your swollen, sensitive clit. He doesn't tease you, immediately rubbing tight, harsh circles that push you toward another peak when you had barely processed the first, his way of ensuring that even in your overwhelmed state, it's his name you'll scream and his pleasure you'll seek. You cum, again, screaming his name. While other men had to drug you to get you half as complaint, all Bailey had to do was be himself, cruel and unrelenting, taking and taking and taking.

There is this moment between your agonizing orgasms and screams when you finally remember to feel shame, when Bailey's name comes out half-choked after a thrust. You remember that the other orphans could certainly hear your shattered bliss. Bailey's office wasn't soundproof. You knew this from the many times you walked by and heard him dealing out punishments. Your rebellion against Bailey had inspired others at the orphanage to rise up against him. You didn't want to think yet, what would happen to that developing vein of hope in this orphanage now that their figurehead was broken in. How would they react to you, like this? The name of their tyrant spilling out your mouth like you were pledging allegiance to him, your face pressed into the floor, on top of a puddle of your own drool. How would Robin react?

Bailey chuckles, like he can hear each and every thought.

"Good girl." He's growling, voice low and heavy as his own sense of control begins to loosen. "Let them hear who owns you."

Your body convulses, a violent, shuddering cry tearing from your throat again as yet another orgasm crashes through you, even more intense than the first, then the second, then the third. You're a limp, trembling mess, your limbs giving out beneath you as pleasure whites out your vision. He follows you over the edge a moment later, burying himself to the hilt as he cums inside you. He moans when he cums, all low rumbles of his throat and heavy pants of breath you'd never dreamed of hearing from Bailey. They were the most alluring sounds you had ever heard.

You laid together there for a moment, breathless. The air in the office was thick and stale with the scent of sex and sweat. The silence that follows is heavy, broken only by the ragged sound of both of you breathing hard and catching your breath. Bailey's weight felt heavy on your back. There was a quiet understanding now that things between the two of you would never be the same.

Bailey’s breath hitches as he moves, the sound raw as it cuts straight through the palpable silence of the room. He pulls out of you, a slow, slick withdrawal that leaves you feeling achingly empty. For a moment, he just stays there, kneeling on the floor, his arms on both sides of you, hovering over you.

"Shit." Bailey hissed, the word that hung in the air was indicative of failure, of fundamental beliefs coming undone. He runs a hand through his disheveled black hair, usually slicked back with gel but now slicked back with sweat. He pushes himself to his feet, off of you, his movements stiff, and snatches his discarded trousers from the ground. He doesn't look at you as he pulls them on, his back a rigid line of tension.

You’re still on the floor, a face down heap of aching limbs and fucked up senses. Without Bailey's oppressive presence on top of you, you felt cold.

When his voice cuts through the haze. it’s devoid of its earlier heat, replaced with the calculating, cold tone that you knew Bailey best for, "Get up."

You wordlessly sit up, pulling your pajama pants back up. Your look down at your shirt and how it was barely covering you. You spotted two of its buttons scattered underneath Bailey's desk from when Bailey had torn it off you.

He takes in the same sight of you, his property, his fastest growing asset, his most studious ward, and sees something he didn’t expect to see: his own reflection. He sees the proof that he broke you long ago, groomed you into this creature that bit at the hand that fed you, hoping it would drop the food and choke you instead. The tattoo on his neck pulses and you recognize rage building, but nothing happens.

"The client..." He starts, as he saunters up to the TV. It's stuck on a blue screen, trying to play a tape that was now running empty. "I'll take care of it."

You stare at him, wordlessly. What do you say? What can you say? You just ask, "What about the video? What about copies?"

"I'll take care of it too." He muttered. He looked like he could barely stomach the sight of you after fucking you. Many brothel visitors acted like this after they fucked you. You chalk it up to post-nut clarity. But you knew that Bailey wasn't regretting something as mundane as a messy one night stand. Tonight, he had laid waste to the very foundations of his being, of his relationship with you.

When he finally looks at you, you knew from his glare what was coming next before he even says it, "Get out." And even more typical of him, "Rent's due in 2 days."

There is a coil of rage that twists inside you. You felt angry. Used. You had to recognize this as a mercy, though. You should be grateful not to be dissected and scrutinized any further tonight. You were in such pain and fatigue from the last two nights combined that trying to fight Bailey when he's this pissed off would likely just end up with you tied up on Eden's front door, a gift basket in your lap.

You only walk two steps down hall, trying to cover yourself with the halves of your shredded shirt, when you jump at the sound of something shattering in Bailey's room, the unmistakable sound of him raging. You turn to look at the door like you expected it to open, like he was going to grab you and pull you right back in. It doesn't open. You stand there for a moment, listening, but you don't hear any more sounds.

You walk away, shameful feet carrying you back to your room as you try not to think how many people heard you.

-

After you left, Bailey stood alone in his office, staring at the paused frame on the screen that he had rewound the tape to. It was the clearest frame of the man's face and he was memorizing every detail -- the tattoo creeping up from his collar, the shape of his jaw, that fucking grin. 

He sees the man's cock buried deep in you. He sees your face, caught somewhere between pleasure and pain, Bailey's name about to tumble out your lips.

His fist went through the screen before he registered the movement.

The TV imploded with a shriek of dying electronics, glass and sparks spraying across the office. The image shattered -- the man's face, your face, all of it reduced to jagged black fragments. The room plunged into near-darkness, lit only by the weak desk lamp and the smoldering edges of the destroyed screen.

Bailey stood there, breathing hard, his knuckles split open and bleeding. He didn't move to clean the blood dripping down his forearm. If it hurt, he didn't acknowledge it. He glared at the wreckage, at the VCR still whirring uselessly in its cradle.

He ripped the VCR out and stomped it into pieces. Once. Twice. Again and again until it was nothing but shattered plastic and twisted metal, until the only sound left in the room was his own ragged breathing.

The acrid smell of burnt electronics filled the air.

Bailey straightened his shirt. Stepped over the wreckage. Sat back down at his desk smoking a cigarette like he hadn't just shredded his knuckles raw, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened tonight.

A button from your pajamas lay on the floor near his desk, small and white against a spray of his blood.

He left it there.

The night you had stood up to the goons, Bailey had seen through you.

In that moment, he hadn't seen you as his ward, his commodity, or his nuisance. He'd seen himself. The only way for a sheep to survive surrounded by wolves is to wear their skin. You had to blend in with monsters far more depraved and far more powerful than you just to have a chance to survive. You threatened, manipulated, stole, pretended, fought, rebelled because it was all you knew how to do. It was all this town had taught you, and all that Bailey had prepared you for.

He sees you for what you really are to him, an extension of himself. You were a fellow serpent-- freshly molting, shedding old skin too small to contain you, only for you to reveal that the scales you hid underneath held his pattern, that your fangs bit down to inject his venom.

But two snakes trapped in the same pit could only survive by devouring each other's tails, and the two of you slithered ever forward, mouth consuming greedily.