The Game

THE GAME

That luscious, smooth mouth upturns once again, flashing its presence in her direction. Blatantly, rudely, those lips pucker as he looks back at her over his shoulder, his eyes glittering, ostentatiously telling her, You are mine, my bittersweet, my toy, and you own nothing, no one. Nothing. Not even a kiss.

Angrily she turns around and abruptly walks in the other direction, chin held high to show that he cannot defeat her so easily. They played this game every day. She knew his tactics, his desires, his goals. Someday she would be able to use how well she knew him to her advantage. Maybe today would be that day.

Flash her a smile, she returns it with a glare. Brush against her, she uses her teeth next time. Speak to her, he is ignored. Appear unexpectedly, she won't touch him. And yet he owns her, sinks her deep into the depths of despair every time he defeats her.

She hates him. He is a control-freak, a bastard, a manipulative wretch. And yet he still manages to grab her strings every time, to make her dangle helplessly, a puppet in his arms, as that mouth, those hands, render her drowned. He is the only person who can put out her fire, and she is the only flame he wants to swallow.

Daily she silently shows him her fury, and yet in the dark of night with nought but a ray of moonlight for comfort, he brands her once again, makes sure that she cannot escape him in any way. His arms wrap around her, skin brushing against hers, and yet she only shivers each night, for his every breath, his every touch, is too cold not to hate.

She wants to burn, to stand up tall and flare her flame, to glow with radiance and strength in the eyes of everyone. But he wrenches that ability from her, whispers words of reprimand in the hallways, locks his gaze with hers to a point where she has to freeze, and can't melt him no matter how hard she tries.

Soon, dark comes, and once again her feet lead her to meet him once more. It has become routine, and yet she bites her lip, wanting to do anything but take one step forward. Anything that brings her closer to him, she hates. So thus she hates herself. She is tainted, hardened by the difficulty of being one sinned and damned inside a fragile, virgin body. He revels in the taste of her impurity, licking up her heat so that, even as he freezes her with his touch, his tongue on her skin burns her. She hates when he burns her, for he is drowning her in hatred for him, wrenching her strength from her, and using it to defeat her. He uses her fire to burn her. She is the cause of her own defeats, and he is her only weakness.

There he is. There is no moonlight to greet her, to glow with false kindness and soften his angles and the black solidity of darkness encased in her every curve. His eyes fall upon her in a withering glare, even as his hands, fingers so soft and elegant, yet sometimes harsh, brush through her crimson locks. He leads her into the room, and her eyes close as she falls to twist underneath the familiar green sheets, grateful for even that thin separation of his body from hers.

His hands are all over her, anywhere and everywhere, pressing and scratching, bruising and fondling. Those lips, moist, whisper words of victory and of cold affection. He needs her, wants her, yet doesn't feel towards her anything that slightly resembles love. He confuses her. She hates him, the very core of her tainted self bleeding all the more at the very sight of him. And yet she wants to drink in the sweet nectar of his lips, for he has branded her. There is no way to escape him, for the more she struggles, the more she hates him, the more he wants her, needs her, uses her and makes her want what she hates. She always comes to his beckoning; Draco Malfoy always gets what he wants.

And yet she loves him, too, for what either kind of caress, what either kind of person, could possibly accept her for who she is? Those who she shields herself from, pretends to be someone else towards, their love is sweet, is soft, is calm and gentle and dull. But his affectionate, cold, callous, unforgiving, rough, and yet so real and needful and harsh, intense, she likes that. She can't stand him, and yet she succumbs to the taste of his kisses, and the strange love that accompanies them, that soothes her and confuses her and makes her feel like he knows her better than she knows herself. She sacrifices everything for him, everything for the sake of knowing that there is someone out there who is more disturbed, dark, sinful, tainted, angry, and desirous than her.

Once again those lips are pressing against her skin, hands shedding her of her covering and baring her body, the body that is nought but a spotted disguise for the deepest and darkest desires of her yearning soul. He finds this body delicious, so succulent and ruined that he almost howls with joy of knowing that this body, that she, every part of her, is his property, his to own and to use, to pillage and to hurt, to make suffer again and again before giving her his lips to make her love him again.

She is so strong. No matter how many times he breaks her, she is always repairable, the damage never permanent. As long as she is unbreakable, then he is satisfied, and that is all that she needs to feed her soul and paint her heart all the blacker. Soft moans tear from her throat as he forces her to surrender, panting as he ravages her with his tongue, takes her obedient hands and sweeps them over his pale, milk-white skin. Even as he uses her, his steely grey eyes lock with her dark ones, and with a nod of agreement he is giving her the ultimate mix of pain with pleasure.

Each thrust causes gasps and moans, the sounds sending shivers up his spine as lovingly, dedicatedly, he scatters light kisses across her chest and collarbone. The tempo increases, and both spin in a chaotic whirl, an explosion that, for a moment, is almost colored different from their solid hearts of black and minds of gray. Then, with sighs, it is over, and retrieving the cover for otherwise bare skin and sweaty, nude bodies, they part their ways, without a single glance or kiss.

But as he walks past, his arm bumps against her, and before disappearing from sight, he turns to flash her a glimpse of that luscious mouth again, lips upturned. Foreplay before the real thing; the game would go on. The next day, they would begin it all over again.

Perhaps, a few hours past that new dawn, she would have a chance. Certainly she would try her best. This time, she thinks with a smile, she just might win the game.