The Power of Guilt PG-17 (PG-17)

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 2nd December 2006

Characters: V'lorn, Maurgen
Description: V'lorn wears down Maurgen's arguments by reminding her of the secrets she knows about his past.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 1, day 3 of Turn 4
Notes: Follows "The Edge of Sanity" and gain, PG-17 for general disturbingness.
Rating: PG-17

Maurgen lay on her side, staring blankly at the wall as she tried to summon the energy to move. It wasn't surprise that it was difficult, not after the evening she'd had. By the end of the night she'd rewarded V'lorn with the sort of desperate surrender he loved so much, leaving her feeling sated in body and tortured in soul. Just the way he liked her best.

She wanted to leave. To get up and find her clothing and pull together whatever shreds of dignity she could find and just leave. Instead she stared at the wall and listened to V'lorn breathe behind her and wondered again why she was so twisted and wrong inside. Why she not only let him do whatever he wanted to her, but somehow enjoyed it.

"Shards, we hadn't done _that_ in a long time," V'lorn purred smugly as he rolled over to drape a lazy arm across her middle. "You remembered though."

"I did my best not to," she replied tiredly, letting her eyes drift shut. "Haven't you hurt me enough for the evening yet? Even you must get tired of it eventually."

He frowned. "Hurt you? I thought you enjoyed it."

Maurgen's laugh was tired. "Now you're going to play dumb with me?"

"You always do this," the bluerider growled as he rolled away from her.
"You always blame _me_. You just think you are are so morally right, don't you. You think you are so sharding _superior_ to me don't you!
You have your fun and then you can justify it because _I'm_ the one who's dirty and wrong, not you. You pull me down to you, you scream my name so all the Weyr can hear, you reach your peak more times than probably with any other man, and you still have the gall to blame _me_?!"

She rolled over, her mouth falling open. "Of course I _blame_ you," she retorted, forcing him to look at her. "Don't you _remember_ how I got here? You all but threatened me!"

"How else could I get you to come, Maurgen? And don't give me that wherry dung that you didn't _want_ to come. You don't save garments I gave you for no reason when I _know_ you would be too sharding ashamed to wear them for anyone else. Don't tell me you don't miss the way I can make you feel, because when it comes down to it, you _want_ the excuse to come to me. You _need_ the excuse to justify how much you just want to let go and do the things you really want to do. All those things that are so dirty and filthy with other men, but suitable for a man like me."

Guilt slashed through her, the memory of the first time he'd told her about his life before he'd been Searched. The way he'd been treated, the suffering he'd been through. There'd been a time when she'd been willing to forgive him any crime out of pity for the life he'd had to endure.

But he'd played her for a fool with her pity so many times now. She steeled herself against it. "Shouldn't I get to decide what I need and when I need it?"

"No," he said shaking his head angrily. "It's my payment. You won't let anyone other man see this side of you. Why? You could be free of me if you'd just do that? But no. No one else can know. This is something you share with only me. You _have_ to come to me, because I will keep your dirty little secret. The men in my Hold gave me a sixteenth mark to keep their dirty little secrets. I used to get paid to be their sex toy. What else can I get from you but your right to choose the time and place?"

The guilt stabbed at her again, but she struggled against it, feeling the edge of tears. "I wouldn't _have_ any dirty secrets if you hadn't made me like this!"

"I didn't _make_ you Maurgen! I didn't _twist_ you! There is nothing _wrong_ with feeling good! It's your sharding Hold mentality that keeps telling you that you're wrong for liking it, and that I'm sharding _evil_ for showing it to you in the first place! Well, I have known evil men, Maurgen, and I am not like them. Evil men are the ones who enjoy pitting their children against each other. Evil men take little boys in the back of storerooms and make them gratify them and then threaten to kill them or their mother if they ever tell! I have never, _never_ forced you. I always gave you the choice. You accuse me of stealing your innocence, but I _know_ what it means to have your innocence stolen, and I did nothing like that to you! You gave it to me willingly and that was your _choice_! Stop blaming me if you now think you chose wrong!"

All of her wary knowledge of him couldn't stop the memory of their first kiss. The sweet, gentle man who had been endlessly patient with her nervousness and reservations and had spent nearly a month coaxing that first kiss from her. He'd always let her tell him 'no' as many times as she needed to while she struggled to overcome her fear.

Guilt rose up again as she compared his slow, gentle seduction with the image of a terrified little boy gripping a sixteenth mark in his hand and trying not to cry in fear. Shards, she _knew_ he was manipulating her. Knew he was throwing her knowledge of his past at her like a weapon.

But it was a weapon that would never go dull. Swallowing her frustration, she reached out a tentative hand to brush the side of his cheek. "I don't mean it like that. You know I don't, V'lorn."

"No, Maurgen," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "I don't know that.
Sometimes you're very convincing."

If he'd stayed angry, or confrontational, or even smug--but he didn't.
He looked sad and lonely and hurt, and the little voice whispering that she knew better was silenced. She rested her head on his shoulder, one hand settling on his chest. "I don't think you're dirty," she said quietly. "It's not you at all. You know it."

He leaned into her slightly, covering her hand with his. "I'm not like them, Maurgen," he whispered, almost as if he were trying to convince himself of the truth of it. "I'm not."

Maurgen shivered in spite of herself. "You're _nothing_ like them." Not really. At least V'lorn had a _reason_ for the way he was.

"Then stop treating me like I am."

She sighed. "I told you, it's not _about_ you. It's about me. And how I feel about myself. And how those--those things make me feel about myself." Her face flushed, turning her cheek warm against his arm.

He reached around her and pulled her close. "You're not in the Hold anymore, Maurgen. No one will get you here."

**Except you,** whispered that tired voice in her head, the one that warned her that relaxing into his arms and letting him hold her was giving him the power to hurt her again.

Last updated on the December 7th 2006

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The Power of Guilt **PG-17** (PG-17)

The Power of Guilt PG-17 (PG-17)