In Which Viktor Is Considerate
I expected Viktor to simply go to the door and tell Steff to come back in. Instead, he opened it, snorted almost inaudibly, and then went out, closing and locking the door behind him.
Apparently, he didn’t let a little thing like a lack of clothing stop him from roaming the halls when something lit a fire underneath him. While I worried about Steff, I found the fact that he’d ran out naked a little encouraging, as it suggested he didn’t intend to be gone for long. I wondered what I would do if he didn’t come back, but only a few minutes passed before I heard the key in the lock.
I forgot not to look as he came into the room, dragging Steff by the arm. I watched him give a jerk and let go, slamming her into one of the padded walls. From the look of it, the black drapes muffled impact a bit as well as sound, but it was still pretty brutal looking.
Viktor’s eyes locked with mine. They were almost paralyzing in their fiery intensity. He lunged at me and I cringed, then yelped as he squeezed the sides of my head between his palms and wrenched my head back up and faced me forwards again.
I could feel my heart trying to escape from my chest and was whimpering even after he let me go. Half-human or not, angry Viktor was scary.
“I told you what I’d do,” he said to Steff, reaching past me to pick up the skull from the desk. “I told you what I’d do if you went back there.”
“I didn’t!” Steff wailed. “I was just looking for Ronnie.”
“The whole third floor is off limits,” Viktor said.
“You said… you said,” Steff hiccupped. “You said if I went back to Fin. I didn’t… I didn’t.”
“Gah!” Viktor said. He slammed the skull back down on the desk, prompting an anxious gasp from Steff. Then, with surprising speed, he grabbed the chair and tipped it sideways, dumping me off.
“Hey!” I protested, forgetting myself… or maybe forgetting my lack of self. I started to get up, but Viktor planted a foot on my stomach and put his weight on it. Ow.
“Sit,” he said to Steff, still standing on me.
I couldn’t breathe. I could have rolled over, thrown him off… but I didn’t want to make the situation worse than it was. I went as limp and still as I could. He lifted his weight off that foot, but kept it in place.
“I was not precise enough in my instructions,” Viktor said when Steff had sat down. “If you break any of the rulings I have given you today, I will take your skull away.”
“I was just looking for Ronnie,” Steff repeated. She’d lost all the subtle modulation of her voice… she was almost screeching now. “I was…”
“Silence,” Viktor said. “It still remains for you to be punished.”
He stepped off of me. I would have relaxed, except I had no desire whatsoever to see or hear Steff’s punishment. Viktor stooped down and grabbed me by the seat and the back of my neck, lifting me upright and setting me on my feet. I hoped he was going to direct me by the door, but instead he dragged me to the closet.
He slid open the door. Inside the closet was a big, black box standing up on its end, sort of like a wooden locker. The shelf had been removed to make room for it. He opened the box to reveal a somewhat plump human girl in satin panties and stockings.
Her eyes went from wild with excitement when the door opened to wild with confusion when she saw Viktor’s face and me.
“Out!” Viktor bellowed at her.
She stared at me in confusion and maybe a little anger.
“Out,” Viktor repeated, yanking her out of the box with his free hand and then shoving me in it.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I said as the door slammed shut. I tried to push it open, but it didn’t budge. It wasn’t even a matter of being latched or locked. It didn’t move at all. There was a handle, but it didn’t turn from the inside.
So, I was stuck inside Viktor’s magic bondage box.
Okay.
It occurred to me that he might actually have been showing me consideration, of a kind he felt was appropriate for my “level.” Instead of giving Steff what was no doubt a severe punishment in front of me, he’d put me away first where I couldn’t see or hear anything.
How long had the other girl been stuck inside? She’d seemed surprised, but she hadn’t been complaining. Maybe Viktor had ordered her inside when we arrived… Steff had knocked and then waited before coming in. There hadn’t been that long a delay, though… not enough time for argument or explanation. That meant she’d been there completely willingly. She’d been expecting to be ordered or placed inside the box, if she hadn’t simply been there already.
I felt a little bit better having worked that out. Not a lot, but a little bit. It was hard to imagine even a submissive putting up with this kind of treatment: being put away in a box in the closet, like a toy you never play with any more. It was hard to imagine anything more demeaning.
Though, it was a little bit arousing.
I wasn’t in the box of my own free will, of course, but I was willing to stay there for the time being. The opening had some kind of holding charm on it, but the wood was probably just wood. That meant I could batter my way out of it eventually if I had to. If it wasn’t fireproof, I had that as an option of last resort.
The box seemed to be sealed up pretty tight, but there was enough light at least for me to see myself and the sides. They were painted black, so there wasn’t a lot to see. I had room to turn around, barely.
After I’d been in there for maybe fifteen minutes, dimly glowing blue lines started to form on the door. I thought my vision was just swimming, but the lines formed a word and then disappeared
“Panic?” I read, and the door clicked open, hitting the inside of the closet door. Whoops. I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut, feeling a little guilty.
It had been a reminder to the bondee, apparently, of the device’s safe word or emergency escape clause or whatever. I hadn’t actually been in a panic or an emergency.
The word appeared another time before the door was opened again. I wondered in an idle sort of way if it did it at regular intervals, or just once for every time the door was opened and closed? I could see the pros and cons either way.
If you were seriously into the treatment enough to enjoy being locked away for an hour, it might wreck the experience to have your prison keep reminding you that it’s all just make-believe. On the other hand, if for some reason you didn’t know the code word and you missed it, you’d be out of luck… unless there were other safety features. Like a maximum duration of incarceration, or spells to detect physical comfort and safety.
Maybe the reminder could be disabled, for couples who used it regularly? Of course, that would be easy to abuse. The best way to do it would be to have a counter word that only worked from inside with the door closed. If you wanted to go all-out, it would have to be confirmed by the safe word.
Before, I never would have conceived of an enchanted box for storing sex partners in. Now, I was wondering what the state of the art was for such things, and whether I could improve on it.
Well, enchantment was my major.
It hadn’t occurred to me until just then that I could have poked around a bit to find how the spells were weaved, but that felt like it would be… cheating. I’d been put in the box under the assumption that I would be a passive object. Poking around to see how the box worked didn’t mesh with that. Also, it would have been like the flashing reminder: another way of saying “this isn’t real.”
I knew it wasn’t, but… I felt kind of safe locked in the box. Nobody could see me. Nobody could attack me. Nobody could judge me.
Nobody could touch me.
I’d never been a claustrophobe. The basement I’d spent so much time in had been a good deal bigger than a box, but it hadn’t exactly been expansive, and it had been dark and underground. It had also been my private place, even though it would always be tinged with feelings of shame.
When my grandmother had made noises about getting rid of my Mecknights, I’d hidden them down there, in the old well that had been covered over. Not only had that kept them safe, it gave me something to do during the long empty hours.
Not that they were particularly boring, even without the toys. I’d always been able to entertain myself, when left alone and with no other options. It had been down in the basement that I’d come up with my ideas for stories. I’d never really thought about it, but as I’d grown older and been sent downstairs less and less, I’d written less and less, too.
When the door finally opened from the outside, it took me by surprise. I’d almost forgotten there was a door, much less a whole room outside it. Viktor grabbed me and yanked me out. He let go of me just outside the closet. I stayed where I was, not just meek but… content. I felt almost as though I’d had a really good nap.
Was that a property of the box, or of me?
“Put on your underwear,” Viktor said to Steff. “Take her back. I will see you again after dinner… and stay away from the third floor.”
I can only assume Steff signaled her assent in some way. She came over and took me by the arm. She was pale and trembling, her eyes bleary and her cheeks wet. I led her to the door as much as the other way around.
The girl in the panties was waiting right outside the door, standing stock still with her arms at her side, as if she were still in a box. I noticed now that she had the word “Viktor” cut in big angry lines on her arm. When we came out, she slipped back into the room without a word.
“Are you okay?” I asked Steff when she’d locked the door behind the girl.
She nodded, then shook her head.
“He took my skull,” she said in the sort of small, meek voice I more commonly associated with myself than with Steff.. “He’s keeping it for now.”
I thought about telling her there were other skulls, but frankly, the whole “keeping parts of people’s bodies” thing creeped me out. Maybe it was hypocritical, given the fact that I’d eaten parts of somebody’s body not too long ago. Then again, that creeped me out, too.
“Is it special?” I asked. I’d almost asked, “What’s so special about it?” Yeah, I’m sensitive like that.
She nodded.
“He gave it to me,” she said.
I thought that I could almost understand what was going on. Though it might have seemed like he was being petty for taking a toy away in anger and she was being petty for crying over it, the, um… item in question had been a token of love between them. For Viktor to take it away was a very serious thing.
“I’m pretty sure he loves you,” I said.
“I know,” Steff said. She started to turn away, then turned back to me and collapsed against me. There was no embrace. Her arms were limp at her side. If I hadn’t hugged her quickly, she probably would have fallen. “I love him so much, Mack,” she said, bursting into tears.
“I know,” I said. Lamest answer ever.
“I-I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him,” she said.
“Why would you?” I asked. “He loves you.”
“I can’t… I can’t handle it,” she said. “What he wants. I need… I can’t do it.”
Ordinarily, this probably would have been a good clue that there was something very wrong with the relationship. If she was talking about staying away from mind-altering potions, though, I think Viktor had the right idea. On the other hand, if she really lacked the strength to follow through on his order, that right idea wouldn’t take them very far.
I could do my best to support her… and if we did move into the dating phase, maybe Viktor’s “hostage” idea would help tip the scales. In the end, though, I was way out of my depths. I was not prepared to handle Steff’s problems, whatever they were.
I was simply not qualified.
Then I realized that there were people who were.
“Steff,” I said, in the gentlest tone I could manage. It was pretty gentle. As much as I felt for Steff, I was still pretty relaxed from my little time-out. “Have you ever considered mental healing sessions?”
She pulled back from me. I saw a twinge in her face, as if the idea disturbed her. I expected her to protest, or laugh off the suggestion, or even slap me. I remembered how vigorously Puddy had put down the idea of any kind of counseling for me after the first time Barley had attacked me. I failed to repress a shudder at that. Of course she would have. That made me all the more determined to defend the idea with Steff.
Then, her face softened.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I really do.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, rocking on her feet a little. She hiccupped.
“Okay then,” she said.
It is interesting that Viktor uses elves and humans for his pleasures. And not one of the Ogre women attending the school. Probably a momma issue?
woman:”Nothing is ever a mans fault!”
man:”Not while our mother’s are available to blame.”
Well, we don’t know anything about any others, but I suspect that Belinda would bore him. Victor is a prince among ogres, an artist, and above all a thinker. Our only other example so far is a pure brute, a bully with little self esteem who takes comfort in raw strength and violence instead of trying to better herself or really accomplish anything. She’s beneath his notice.
As for his momma, I got the impression that he hated her for a little while for how she treated his father, but once he learned about masochism and such he understood their relationship and accepted it. I haven’t seen any hints of other “issues”.
I… am not sure i like how much of her life Mack is willing to sacrifice how quickly for her fetishes. I understand it’s kinda normal for things to be rushed and extreme when one is immersed into a restrictive environement where people forced down your throat alternate version of normal, especially when the ones your learned prior were the other extreme, but i am worried Mack, while seeing that they are as inexperienced as herself, in their own ways, is not going to be able to truly find herself.
We’ll see.