Breaking The Chain

I had just left from Skadhi’s Winter Forest (from her very cabin, in fact). Stepping through her door, I entered my room and sat down on the empty bed. I knew I was still dreaming, so I was planning to leave the dream-room and wake up. I noted the lingering effects of the spiked mead had left me the moment I jumped between worlds. This is information I need to remember. I stretched out on the bed and relaxed.

Suddenly, I felt a shift around me, and saw I was in the lair I shared with Snake. Of course. This is “home” in the Dreaming, after all. A reptilian tongue licked at the air around me. I turned to see Snake in a new anthropomorphic form. This new shape resembles Egyptian depictions. I’m hoping he doesn’t have an ego to match.

“You’ve been with someone.” It wasn’t a statement. It was an accusation. Snake? Jealous? Of unresolved sexual tension? What the fuck is this shit?

“Kinda. Been on another adventure. Skadhi is quite the predator. Why? Is something wrong? I did have a drink… of mead and… something. Dunno what the something*” Without warning a hand gripped me and threw me down onto the pallet. Before I could react, Snake had shifted to fully humanoid form and was holding me down to the bedding pawing at my breasts.

I panicked.

The room exploded into flame. Everything that could burn, was alight. He slapped me, viciously. “Make it stop.” Silently I obeyed and the blaze ceased at once.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t do anything but feel him pulling at my clothes while holding on to my neck with one hand. As long as he held that grip, I couldn’t do anything.

“Why?” It took me a moment to register he was speaking to me. “Why are you submitting without even a mockery of a fight? I do not own you. You are not sworn to me. Yet, here you are, made defenseless. Why?”

I felt my jaw move. But I couldn’t speak. I mustn’t speak. He hadn’t given me permission to speak.

Snake lowers himself so his whole body weight is on me. I feel drugged at once. “This is a psychological response, my friend. Someone taught you to respond to this. Someone trained you to obey without question. Look at me. Look at what I am. Why are you submitting to me? I should be tied in neat little knots and thrown in the corner by now. Who did this to you? Who is he?”

I look at him, but nothing registers. The lair shimmers. For a moment, I was somewhere else, somewhen else. Another room, that held a fishtank in the corner. “Did I tell you to open your eyes?” The slap that followed made me close my eyes in reflex. I take a breath to scream. “Make a noise, and I gut you.” Yes, Master. I will be silent.

The room shimmers and disappears. I’m in the lair. Snake is across the space from me. In naga form, with rivulets of dark hair reaching down to his waist. He is fully naked, and fully erect. “Hate me when I’m done, my friend. But I’m tired of watching you get jerked around by a chain unlawfully made.” I try to catch my bearings. I’m confused. “You’re not all here, but you’re here enough to understand my words. Break the chain, Weaver, or I will mount you and take the chain for myself.”

I didn’t make a noise. The sudden pouring of tears from my face said it all for me. He is the very last I would expect to say such a thing. I got up from the pallet, and quietly turned to leave. This is a nightmare. And a very good one at that. Maybe, if I just leave, if I can wake up…

He grabs me and throws me back onto the pallet. He’s moving slower than I expected. I know he is giving me a multitude of chances to fight back. But he grabs me that certain way, that just shuts down all will to resist. My eyes are open, but I can’t see.

… a psychological response …

… trained you to obey …

I feel something sharp in my vagina. I tense to try and kick free. “Do it, and I’ll gut you from the inside.” I force myself to remain still. “Did you know you can take eight inches? That’s how much blade is in you. If you panic, you’ll bear down on the blade and cut yourself. If I withdraw this blade, and there is blood on it, I will fuck you until the bleeding stops. My servant will be strong.”

No. This… This isn’t…

A weight on my neck. The hair on his arm tickles. But if I move… I won’t move. I’ll lay here perfectly still. The tickling is too much and I sneeze. There is a blade at my throat. “Learn not to sneeze. I don’t even want to hear you breathing. The only thing keeping me from killing you, is my weight on you.” I close my eyes in willful submission.

“Who is he, Keri?”

I open my eyes to find I’m holding a blade at Snake’s neck. My knee is pushed against his genitals, and is barely held back by one of his hands. His other hand is holding my wrist. I don’t feel like myself. A part of me wants to let Snake do what he wants to me. Another part is willing to set fire to all the worlds to stop him.

“Who did you see? What is his name? Who taught you to submit?”

I remember.

I remember most of it.

I remember how he promised safety. He said he would teach me how to be strong and independent. He said I had to learn my place in a tribe. He said he had to be the one to teach me.

I remember his name.

“M****** C******.”

“And what did he teach you, Keri?”

“He taught me how to be quiet. How to serve. How to take pain without a reaction.” Neither one of us had moved from our positions.

“That’s not all, though. Is it, T******.” At the sound of that name, my arms buckled. For a moment, I lost my will to resist. How does he know that name? How does he know that name!

Snake is quick to take the advantage. He shoves my knee out of the way and begins his thrust. But I recover fast. Before he touches me, I bring up the blades sharply, meaning to eviscerate my trusted friend. The blades touch skin and Snake flinches back, hissing. He is bruised, but not cut.

“Did you defend yourself, or did you defend your Master’s property?”

That… is a good question. “How did you know that name?”

He only smiles. “You found one chain. Find the other, or I’ll take you.” He lunges at me again, but is stopped by the fireblade.

“I know the other. You won’t take me, Snake. Enough. I remember.” I open my hand, recalling the blades. He smiles and bows, acknowledging my victory.

In his fashion, he is not going to allow me to mull things over in silence. “Tell me. How did the name T****** come to bind you?”

“Because he and the guy that was master over us both, used that name, as my witch-name. Because C****** made the taking of my virginity into a rite of binding. He broke my hymen, and made me his property, under that name.”

“Are you his property, now?”

“Fuck no.”

“There is another battle you’ve been facing. Do you see how you’ve been sandbagging yourself?”

“Yea.” But some things can not be salvaged. I sigh, then remember that snakes are mythological know-it-alls. “Hey, Snake.”

“Hmm?”

“How do I de-program myself? How do I undo the training?”

“You started today.”

Snake changes form to humanoid. Still naked. Still erect. He comes to me, and I find I have no fear of him. He grabs me by the neck, in that particular way, and I have no response. “See, Keri. You’ve already started.” He embraces me in a tight hug, naked flesh sweating against naked flesh. I have no fear.

A sudden exhaustion comes over me. My knees buckle and I collapse into his arms. I can’t stay awake. “I will not harm you now, Keri. But I had to push you past your limit or you would never break that chain.” His words, whispered in my ear, chase me into deeper sleep.