Heart of Steel Ch. 02

"I can't!" he exclaimed, shrugging her off sharply. "Just let it go, okay?!"

"O-okay." she stammered, her eyes going wide with shock and hurt. "I'm sorry. I was just being silly."

She backed off, moving to the other side of the couch and fixing her gaze on the stereo. / Did I really shout that loud?/ Tristan thought. / Yeah, yeah I did. That was too /much./ He sat there in silence for a while, the stereo having brought the album to its end and paused itself, having reached the end of the CD changer. Only the faint clicking of a wall-mounted clock behind the couch gave any sound to the room. It clicked out a dull rhythm to the stillness. / It's like the slowest doom metal song ever./

Guilt welled up inside him. She was so kind, and a newly made friend who'd brought him such a nice gift. / Why did I react like that? It was just a /hug./ But something in the situation had just struck him so vividly, so strongly, that he couldn't hold back the fear that had so quickly rushed to fill him. It was like a river that sprang up out of nowhere, with villagers hastening to build a dam to halt it. They could work as fast as they wanted, but you just can't stop nature when it catches you off guard.

"Maul." Tristan spoke at last.

Maul was looking away from him, and when she turned back to him her face was tight with some strong emotion. Anger perhaps. But the few tears welling in the corners of her eyes suggested something far deeper. / Did that one shout really upset her so much? Was I really that /bad?!/

"Maul I didn't mean to yell." Tristan apologized. "I can't explain it, but I just got really uncomfortable just then."

"You're not mad at me?" she asked, her voice now quiet.

"Mad at you?" Tristan asked, taken aback. "No, no! Gods no I'm not mad at you, it was just a... a weird reaction I can't explain."

"I have a hard time making friends." Maul suddenly confided in him. "I've never really fit in well with other people, I've never found myself surrounded by others who understand me, who get what I like and the weird way I act."

She moved a little closer and Tristan did not back away from her, letting her drunkenly rant, listening to her let out the pressure that she'd probably held in for so long, pressure that the drinks and friendly atmosphere had helped to release.

"When I met you," she explained, "I was just so happy to meet someone else who was into the same music, and I thought maybe we'd become friends. I have plenty of friends online, but I can't hang out with my online friends in person, I can't lean on them for support or be with them... today."

"Today?"

Maul took a deep breath. Reaching up, she stretched down the collar of her shirt just enough to reveal the beginning of a long but faint scar on her torso, an angular line against her ivory flesh.

"When I'm not in college, living at the dorms," she explained, "I live with my grandparents. When I was younger, much younger, I was in the car with my parents. Neither of them had been drinking, it wasn't their fault, but the man in the truck had been drinking, a lot. We were in a small car, I was in the backseat, sitting in the middle, leaning forward between the seats to talk to my parents."

Tristan listened intently.

"The truck swerved into our lane," she continued, "my father tried to avoid it, my mother pushed me back into my seat when the truck hit, at full speed. The doctors said my parents died instantly from the impact, but I remember them screaming after the truck hit. The doctors said that was just an auditory hallucination, that the sound of the crash was so loud I was hearing ringing in my ears, not screaming."

Maul tightened her expression, fighting back tears, and failing slightly.

"I avoided a lot of the broken glass," she went on, "but a big piece of something, glass or metal or whatever, slashed across my chest. It cut me deep and left that scar. Tonight was the anniversary of the day it all happened, and I didn't want to be alone. So when you yelled at me, I thought you were going to ask me to leave, and I'd have to be alone tonight, and that I'd lose my only real-world friend."

"Oh Maul."

"My grandparents just don't get me at all," she carried on, her voice rising in anger, "they don't get what I like or why I like it. They think it's all a problem, like I'm sick or mentally damaged because of the car crash and that's why I wear black and like metal and all that stuff. They don't like me to hang out with people who encourage my "dark tendencies," so I never had many friends over when I was young and I was never allowed to hang out with people that my grandparents didn't meet and approve of."

"Maul."

"They're not my fucking parents!" she cried, now openly weeping. "I just wanted to have some friends. And I didn't want to have already lost you, so quickly, just because I was being weird."

Tristan wanted to tell her everything, to tell her she wasn't being weird, that it was all his fault, or the fault of those who'd done him harm. He wanted to ride the wave of emotions she'd just let loose, to open up to her and tell her of everything so they could both just sit there together and listen to each other, know each other. / This is all happening just too fast,/ he mentally exclaimed. So he settled on reaching out and drawing Maul into a hug. A firm embrace that let her snuggle against him, burying her face against his chest.

"You know there's a reasonable metalhead community around here, right?" he soothed. "You don't have to resort to only making friends online."

"I know," she said, hiccuping slightly, "but I've not been free from my grandparents' influence for very long now, and I've had such little experience making friends with people I actually like, you know?"

"Yeah, that would be hard, I bet." Tristan replied. "But you haven't lost me as a friend already. I think you're great. Funny, clever, knowledgeable about metal, outgoing..."

"And little?"

"Oh yeah and little." he laughed. "I just don't get how someone so out-going couldn't have made so many friends already."

"It's the damned grandparents." she replied, cheering up a bit. "I can be as crazy and out-going as I want, but it's hard to maintain friendships when my grandparents try to govern who I hang out with, how I dress, and even how I act. They say I'm too loud, too weird, and that I need to "get normal" to meet more people."

"Poor Maul." Tristan said gently, enjoying his comforting role in this situation.

It felt good to hold her, to gently pet her soft hair, to listen to her rant about how her grandparents "totally suck," and to truly feel like he had the power to comfort her, to make her feel good. She had opened up so readily to him, like she already trusted him somehow. It was amazing. / Can I ever trust someone like that, so easily, so completely?/ Tristan didn't know the answer to that. But Maul trusted him, and he loved that, sudden as it may have been.

Eventually she calmed down, sitting up but still leaning on Tristan, who no longer felt discomfort in her proximity. They both apologized profusely, Tristan for overreacting and yelling at her for reasons upon which he did not elaborate, and Maul for spilling her guts like that, as if they'd been close friends for years. Eventually, mutual apologies turned to them both blaming the rum, pointing at the bottle accusingly and chastising it for its devious mental manipulation. Then they were laughing, joking, and listening to another good metal album on the stereo. An album by Misery's Omen. Gone was that dark passage of the evening from only a short while before. Now, once again, they were happy together, cracking jokes, telling stories, and comparing music and film preferences. And then, out of nowhere, Maul kissed him.

It must have been the rum motivating her, or influencing her judgment. / Surely it must be the rum./ They were just talking about whether or not Darkthrone was genuinely enjoyable music (the consensus being a resounding YES), when Maul turned so they were properly facing. It was a quick movement, sudden, too sudden for Tristan to react to effectively. Her face moved closer to his and then her soft lips were pressed against his, her arms wrapping around his neck, and they were leaning back on the couch, Maul on top of him, the kiss unbroken. And then, she pulled away from it, a drunken smile on her face as she leaned on Tristan.

"Maul... I... wasn't expecting that." Tristan murmured, a whirlwind of emotions mingling in his gut. "I don't know what I did to make you think I uh... wanted that..."

"Oh," she murmured, noticeably crestfallen, "I'm sorry, Tristan. I'm really drunk. Didn't mean to gross you out."

"No! No it's not that." he exclaimed. "I wasn't grossed out, I'm just not really into that, right now."

"Oh." now she was confused. "Oh okay. Hey, I guess I should get going."

Tristan sat up, as did Maul, who began to rise from the couch. / Great, now I have offended her. This is all just too fucking /confusing!/

"Maul," Tristan insisted, "don't be mad at me, I'm sorry. I just wasn't expecting that."

"It's okay," Maul assured him, giving Tristan a gentle hug, "I understand. I mean, I don't mother-and, but I respect your boundaries."

"Thanks."

"I do need to get going though," continued Maul, "it's getting really late. Can I come hang out more often? This was a lot of fun."

"Of course," Tristan replied excitedly, "and we can always meet up elsewhere too. Just call me, or email me, any time, okay?"

"Rock on!"

Maul gave Tristan the Devil Horns, accompanied by that devious smile of her's, before departing from his apartment, leaving him alone. Tristan sat there for a moment, thinking about what had happened, how he'd been so startled by an offer for a hug, how he'd listened to Maul share her sorrowful story with him, how he'd felt comfortable enough to finally give her that hug, and then the kiss, out of nowhere. / And how did that make you feel?/ Tristan's internal psychologist asked of him.

Quite frankly, he didn't know. Startled at first, then excited by the sensation. Then, as it continued, uncomfortable as recent memories dragged themselves to the surface of his mind. That was when he'd had the chance to tell her to stop, and he did, just as his memories were flooding his perception with vivid recollections of Mai, Crystal, and Hilja, and how each of them had kissed him. He could still recall how each of them kissed differently, could still almost feel it. And that prolonged kiss with Maul had dredged up these memories, so strong as they were. Yet he still found himself thinking of it as he wiped a smudge of her lipstick from his mouth, and not all of his thoughts were of painful memories and fear. Did part of him want that kiss to happen? /Maybe.../

Chapter 9: Pain Redefined

Maul and Tristan hung out more over the weekend and during the next week. Regularly they met for lunch, at the record store while Tristan worked, or at his home. He of course told his counselor everything. About meeting Maul, spending time with her, the openness she had with him, even the kiss.

"And how did that make you feel?" Amy asked him.

"I don't know," he admitted, "confused, I guess. I mean, I liked it, but it also gave me strong memories of the girls, you know, from before."

"Of course." Amy replied. "You must understand Tristan, what those girls did to you was profoundly damaging on a deep level. For a full month you were deprived of your will and your sexuality became their plaything."

"Yeah." Tristan dumbly answered, not knowing what he could possibly say to that.

"Don't you think," she asked him, "that after a month of non-mop torture, you may have become somewhat distressed with your own sexuality."

"Distressed?"

"Well tentative, shy, hard to trust people, of course," she explained, "that's the obvious outcome, and I think that's evident in how you reacted to this Maul girl's advance. But have you thought about how this may effect your sexuality as far as your own desires?"

In all honesty, Tristan had thought about it, ever since that last Friday night.

On that night, when Maul left, Tristan drunkenly flopped into bed and lay there, thinking about the kiss. He was perhaps too drunk to be fearful of it right now, his inebriation temporarily anchoring him in the moment, rather than drawing up the past as it had done before. / My mind is such a strange thing,/ Tristan noted. But his strange mind did not stop at the kiss. He couldn't help but imagining Maul taking their encounter further. He imagined her pale little body, slender yet shapely, the thin scar, a jagged little line on her chest. He imagined her breasts, firm and warm as the naked Maul lay upon him.

But even then his mind did not stop with its imaginative rambling. He was then, inexplicably naked under Maul, and they were on the bed in his room. He was shackled once again, spread-eagle on the bed as Maul smiled evilly down at him with that little smirk of her's that he found so alluring. Yet, bound and naked though he was, he was not in the least afraid, only unbelievably aroused, even as Imaginary Maul appeared to spontaneously don an outfit of tight black leather and wield a short whip that cracked across his skin.

"Maul." he moaned over and over again in reality as his fantasy played out.

Tristan relayed this fantasy to his counselor, blushing as he did so, along with the fact that it was far from his only fantasy about Maul that delved into that sort of sexual preference. Amy Morales listened intently as he told her of them, and then she spoke.

"You see, that is what I meant about what this could do to your sexuality."

"So, it's a bad thing?" Tristan asked.

"No, not necessarily," she was quick to clarify, "your sexuality is never inherently bad, and no person can change what is naturally in your brain. That is, your environment won't shape your sexual preference. But, what those girls did to you may very well have opened the door, subconsciously, to something that was always there, under the surface."

"Yeah," Tristan mused, "that makes sense. I mean, I always did find that kinky stuff kind of interesting. But what those girls did to me..."

"What those girls did has nothing to do with proper, healthy sexuality of any orientation." Amy informed him gently but firmly. "But tell me, how do you feel after you have these fantasies now that you've endured such torture in a non-consensual setting."

Tristan thought about that for a long while. He felt so many strong sensations. He had, for a long time, been aroused by the "darker" side of sexuality: S & M and such. And that had not changed. But until now, or recently, he'd not really thought about much in the way of sexuality. / Maul reopened that door within me,/ he realized. But how could he possibly still like that sort of interaction after what had happened? Wasn't that sick? Disturbing? Did it invalidate what had happened to him? Did it mean he should have enjoyed it? Tristan relayed these concerns to Amy.

"Like I said," she replied, "these sorts of events can be devastating to your sexuality, in that they will make you feel damaged for still having a sexuality, make it feel dirty to you to think as you do."

"Yeah," Tristan agreed, "that is how I feel, after I uh... have those fantasies now. I feel ashamed, like I shouldn't think like that after what happened."

"Just remember," Amy encouraged, as their session drew to a close, "a fantasy is something that only truly involves you, it is something to which you consent. And any consensual sex, of whatever sort, you have is just that, consensual. You should never feel ashamed for being as you are, it is perfectly healthy to explore your sexuality, Tristan."

"Thank you." he said, and truly he meant it.

Tristan took that to heart, but in a direction even he'd not anticipated. Upon returning to his apartment, in the break he had between counseling and work, he sat down at his computer and ran a search online, locally. More specifically, he ran a search for a local S & M dungeon, or a local dominatrix. / I have felt these urges for a long time, and Amy is right, that I do need to explore them. But I can't trust... anyone, right now. At least in this situation, it would be safe, I could get away from this if it goes bad, /right?/

Honestly, he wasn't sure what made him think it was a good idea. Perhaps the "professional" aspect made it seem non-sexual, sterile, just a way to get this out of his system so he could have "normal" thoughts about Maul, not thoughts that confused him when coupled with his past. That very well may have been the reason that he found Lady Jane's Dominion on the internet. It was a nearby dungeon, only a short bus-ride southward out of town. Tristan couldn't explain why he did it, but he called them, and he made an appointment with their receptionist for later that night.

After work, Tristan got on the south-bound bus, sitting quietly on one of the long, inward-facing bench seats, surrounded by others, mostly people returning home from work. / This feels so weird, so sudden, but I should explore this and I have to be safe./ He was deep in thought the entire ride. / I can't just let Maul tie me up, even if she would agree to it. I don't know her, don't know what she'd do. This place is a business, a place of work, they can't do anything I don't /want./ And with those thoughts rocketing around his mind, the confused young man dismounted the bus and took a short westward walk to the building with the simple sign: Lady Jane's Dominion.

"Can I help you sir?" asked the plump receptionist who sat behind a small desk in the pleasantly lit entry room.

"Yes," Tristan said, "I made an appointment for 7:30, with Lady Jane. My name is Tristan."

"Oh yes," the woman replied sweetly, "she's waiting for you just through that door. That will be $100."

"Okay, thanks." Tristan grimaced at the price, but this was all worth it, all for the sake of experiment, exploration.

The door was unadorned, unassuming. / What were you expecting, a heavy bronze door with chains and the haunting sound of screaming victims? ... Well, /yes./ Tristan opened the door and stepped into a little room with two chairs at its center, lit by a single florescent bulb.

"Tristan," came the pleasant voice of the blonde woman sitting in one of the chairs, "hi there, nice to meet you. I'm Jane. Please, sit down."

Tristan walked in, surprised by her kindness, her gentle tone, her politeness. He sat down, staring at her tight leather outfit, revealing much of her light skin, and the stiletto-heeled boots she wore on her feet.

"You're first time, huh?" she asked with a smile.

"How could you tell?"

"You have that confused look," she explained, "like you're wondering why I haven't pinned you to the ground and made you kiss my boots yet."

"Well, yeah." admitted Tristan awkwardly.

"This is just an introduction," she explained, "just tell me what you want, then we'll go into the other room and I'll become your worst nightmare."

"No," Tristan said, somewhat tensely, "I don't want my worst nightmare, trust me."

"That's fine," she gently responded, "we'll find exactly what you want."

Ten minutes later, they entered a dimly lit room lined with different equipment. Lady Jane firmly led Tristan by the wrist, pushing him forward over a bench with heavy shackles affixed to it. In moments, she had him immobilized on the bench, his shirt having been cast off and left in the adjacent room.

"You're mine," she purred, "my little slave, Tristan, my little slut."

"Please don't call me that." he said, quite seriously, instantly recalling Hilja and her fondness for that word.

"My little slave," she corrected, "my plaything. And I know just what to do with you."

The crack of the riding crop across his back sent a jolt through his body. His back smarted horribly, his heart raced, and his manhood came to an erection almost instantly. / This really IS different, I feel safe with this,/ Tristan exclaimed mentally as Lady Jane continued to whip him all up and down his back, before unshackling him and letting him fall to the floor. The leather-clad vixen strode over to a high seat, her heels clicking on the floor in an ominous rhythm until she seated herself. Then, perched in the chair, she slipped her feet out of the boots.