“Uh, no, it fucking won’t be.”
“Metal and faces do not mix, human. You look as though you have been attacked by a small and inefficient metal porcupine.”
“I don’t care what you think about what I look like. I look like this for me. I like my hair blue because it matches my eyes and I like my piercings because they match my soul.”
“In what way does cheap metal running through your flesh conducting bacteria represent your soul, if such a thing were to exist?” The nonsense which she babbles is almost completely unbearable, but I need to comprehend her point of view. You cannot control that which you do not understand.
“It’s like, I want people to know they can’t fuck with me, you know?”
“So these metal pieces are intended to communicate that you will be aggressive if confronted.”
“I guess?”
“You guess. You do not know why you had cheap steel driven through sensitive parts of your anatomy?”
“Does everything have to have a reason?”
“When it comes to your species, the reason tends to follow the action. But I wanted to see if you had perhaps thought about it after all.”
She curses beneath her breath, though not quietly enough to avoid me hearing it — which I do not believe was an oversight. She wants me to hear, and yet she wants me to think she doesn’t want me to hear, and yet she says it in such a way as to ensure I hear. This is humanity all over. It would give me a headache, if I had the physiology for such a thing.
What I do know is that she is being both disrespectful, and declining to provide me any useful information whatsoever. It is time for my agenda to begin.
“What the fuck is happening?”
She may well ask the question. Her limbs have suddenly been grasped by extensions coming from the walls and floor, generated at my behest.
“How the hell did you do that?”
“The matter in this room complies with my will. Unlike you.”
“Dude. You have got to let me go. Being tied up freaks me out. Emmet…”
I get in her face. Very, very close to her nose. “You need to learn one thing today, human. Just one thing. Everything that happens from here on out is because I want it to happen. What you want could not be less relevant. The world you knew and understood is gone. It has been replaced with one where my will is law. The only law.”
She stares at me with those human eyes, two big, watery orbs of fright and offense. I know she wants to swear and curse and tell me to go fuck myself or some other delightful human terminology.
I don’t want to hear it.
So I gag her.
The red leather material appears in her mouth, parting her teeth and making her tongue silent. It is so satisfying to see her restrained and silenced. I do not think the room has been quiet since I stepped into it. She makes almost constant noise, be it her huffing, or her sighs, or some other variant of noise which may or may not carry a semblance of meaning.
“You’ve said more than enough. Now it is time to listen. And to feel. There will be pain, but no more than you have managed to earn in the short time you and I have known one another.”
She makes what is probably a rude gesture. Typical human, making things worse for herself unnecessarily.
I employ a kind of punishment system which I believe will self-calibrate to the human’s own need and capacity for pain. I have been thinking about this too, knowing that all humans are rebellious and must be broken to the will of their masters. This ship harbors many secrets. While she remains physically bound, there is a charge passing through the air at my will. From her perspective, she is being whipped without being touched. What is happening to her is happening unseen.
She tosses her head and her blue hair flies as she wrenches at the bonds holding her, attempting to escape her very well deserved punishment.
“You asked me what would happen if you didn’t respect me. Now you know. There is not a part of you I do not own, there is not a thought you can have, or an act you can undertake that will go unnoticed. I will break you to my will, human, and You. Will. Obey. Me.”
With each of those words, I make the flashing punishment whip across her ass with ever more strength. Her face contorts in rage and perhaps even a little fear. I know she hates me, but I do not care. I did not get a human because I wanted her to love me. She is mine to command — and she will bend to my will.
Lucky
I don’t know what I thought he’d do to me if I kept pushing him.