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With a bat of a lash, a single heartbeat, and the tick of a clock, Daniil Dankovsky finds himself on the young Kaina’s doorstep. Puzzled, because he doesn’t remember leaving the Stillwater, he presses on the doorknob. It won’t budge. He tries again, harder this time, a little desperate, but who wouldn’t be in his position?
And the said position is: Maria Kaina’s calling, directed at him, powerful enough to make him forget his own aims, her voice in his head blindfolds him and tugs an invisible leash. The thing is, she calls for him when the plague is ravaging The Bridge Square, with The Crucible burning brighter and hotter than ever, accompanied by the sound of someone smashing a bottle — fire nearly licks the side of his coat. Daniil thumps at the door, cough begins to gather in his throat, he is to choke, and then the door opens, just like that. He accepts the invitation and ventures into the dark corridor.
Bent in half, trying to catch his breath, Daniil climbs the seemingly endless stairs. It takes him longer than usual, but he succeeds. A sense of victory, an almost foreign feeling in this place, loosens him up.
Atop the stairs, a reward awaits him. There she stands, barefoot, The Scarlet Mistress, or rather, an heiress to the title. White skin, red mouth, hair so heavy and black that it resembles tar spilling against her back.
“You came,” she says, her voice like a soft thunder. A true daughter of her mother. There’s a triumphant smile stretching her lips, partially naive, as if she’s trying to be certain of the powers she holds.
“You gave me no choice,” replies Daniil. He stands two steps lower than she and patiently endures her cold gaze until she moves, allowing him to finally enter her room.
“You could always deny me. You’re a man of free will.” There is an obvious tint of mockery to these words, yet it does not reverberate in her voice, it doesn’t have to. A foul but effective move that lets her gain confidence, or rather gather it.
He could laugh, no — he should laugh, as bitterly as it would be possible. He doesn’t, though. “You’re right,” says Daniil instead, unexpectedly, as the shadow of doubt crossing Maria’s face doesn’t go unnoticed. She’s quick to recover, tuning into the game they’ve begun to play.
And Daniil, although caught off guard by the sudden invitation, can’t say that he didn’t expect it. On the contrary, one might say that he waited for it. So, instead of delving further into this twisted conversation, he takes off his coat. Next, he kneels on the cold floor. “I would not deny a Mistress. Some of your peculiar town’s customs are still strange to me, but this I understand and this I will follow.”
“Bravo, Bachelor.” Maria’s lips tweak up, once again content. Her gaze is watchful as she circles around him slowly, just to savor the moment, to remember every second of it as if it were to disappear. “You know your role, but it’s hardly surprising as…”
“...I’ve seen it in my dreams,” finishes Daniil.
“We’ve both seen it,” she corrects him with a certain softness. This tone of hers makes him uneasy, till now, Daniil doubted that she was capable of any form of gentleness, and yet. “And we both know what happens next.”
Yes, and it still doesn’t take the excitement out of it. His eyes follow her every movement: how her dress sways as she circles him once again, perhaps for the last time, how its fabric spills against the chaise longue as she takes her place on it. And, finally, how she takes off her underwear and begins to spread her legs.
There is a dose of shyness to what she’s doing, and it’s never like that in the dreams they’re sharing (Daniil is still not sure if it’s a matter of sharing or her projecting something onto him; anyway, the vision is familiar to both of them). Perhaps that is why he trembles, to the sheer unfamiliarity of it.
Maria is determined enough. She raises her scarlet dress, just a bit of it, and for a second, Daniil cannot meet her gaze. The paleness of her skin, the persistence of her will — it all makes him turn his head away. Then, in the big broken mirror, somewhere in the corner of her room, Daniil watches a dozen Mistresses in a dozen broken shards of glass steadily, teasingly raise the fabric further up.
And just like he promised, he won’t deny a Mistress, let alone a dozen of them.
She’s not far away, but outside of his grasp. To reach her, Daniil must crawl on all fours. Must because she wouldn’t let him near her otherwise — a humiliation out of necessity. One week ago, maybe then he would protest and try to stand up, but now, after several days spent in her presence, Daniil knows that if he’d try, Maria would bend his knees with a single torrid glare.
Maria observes him with uttermost curiosity. She does not blink, as if she’s afraid that any rapid movement would make him disappear — and this anxiety of hers is well understood, after all, a blink is all it took for him to arrive at her doorstep.
Her beauty is unnerving; the whiteness of her skin and the blackness of her hair are of fairy-tale heroines but the fog her eyes are shrouded in is of the snow queen. She is, with all of herself, a contrast. Her desire for him is a contradiction of the composure she should hold, but, on the other hand, the desire for possession is not something she or her family is a stranger to.
For a split second, Daniil cannot do anything, as if her gaze has pinned him to the ground. Perhaps it really did. For him to move, Maria yields, though reluctantly, and blinks. Then it all happens fast. He’s between her spread legs already, lifting her dress with shaky hands. When he sees enough, though it’s never enough, he begins to touch her thighs and calves, caressing her skin softly. Second later, as if burned, he removes his leather gloves, ditching them next to him, because touching her through them felt like an act of blasphemy, and this is not why he’s here.
Daniil seems to be completely transfixed by her. She is by him, too — perhaps not entirely transfixed, but fascinated. He’s mad , Maria thinks to herself and smiles under her nose. She sits motionless, feeling his hot breath against her thigh, then wet kisses: his tongue, for the first time, out.
Suddenly, Daniil draws back and looks at her with tired eyes. Maria’s gaze is inscrutable and cold, like a mirror in which he can see a version of himself kneeling before her, small but not meaningless.
“Cut to it, Bachelor.” There’s a sternness in her voice. She is not asking, nor suggesting but instead, she is commanding, and he would be a fool not to listen.
“Of course,” Daniil answers briefly. Again, he places his hands on her thighs, this time sliding them further, observing how they drown under the sea of scarlet. Maria shivers, and to Daniil it feels like a current of electricity flowing beneath his touch.
The further his hands reach, the hotter her skin gets. He finally touches where she burns the most.
Now he knows that this is real: when he coats his fingers in her wetness, when her thigh jerks in response, and when his cock begins to ache in his pants.
He touches her like a doctor would. Cautious and precise, with two fingers. Boring. What Maria wanted, what she dreamt of, what she now desires is a madman, someone who is dying to touch her — someone who would shove his fingers into her at any given chance.
Daniil is not that, not yet, but Maria knows he can be, he proved it to her just moments ago. All he needs is a tug of a leash, a reminder of his place in this game. So she places her feet onto his shoulders and pushes. He drops his hand almost immediately, somehow frustrated with his own obedience, despite the previous declarations.
“I thought that we established that you know why you are here, dear Bachelor? Or perhaps you need a reminder?”
“Perhaps I do.”
“Well then,” she sneers through the gritted teeth. “In our dreams, you’ve proved yourself quite skilled with your mouth. It would be a shame if the real you couldn’t measure to the bachelor Dankovsky that has finally achieved something.”
More to himself than to her, Daniil says, "It was real."
“This is real,” Maria reminds him, her voice like sandpaper. “Come on, Bachelor, show me that I did not make a mistake by deeming you worthy of this position.”
Was it like that in the dream? He doesn’t remember. But the musk of her sex near his face is something that he couldn’t forget, only now it finally feels right. Even though he’s afraid that she’ll fade with any sudden movement, he takes the risk and presses his lips against her.
First, a kiss. Even Daniil is unsure if he’s done it out of respect or mockery. Then, his tongue, hot and harsh, right on her clit. In response, Maria makes a startled noise: a reverberation that causes the walls of her room to envelope them, closer and closer, like a cage.
Just as her legs — she hooks them onto his shoulders and drags him forward so he can bury his face completely against her, to which he doesn’t protest, only groans with a sudden need, which sends a shiver down her spine. He wants her. She wants him too, closer even, but her hair is already in his nose, some must be in his mouth as he opens it wider.
Daniil is confident in what he’s doing. He laps his eager tongue quickly, doesn’t pause, but grabs her by the tights in a firm grip, digging his fingers into her skin, and when he moves his hands up her body, red marks surface on her skin, phantoms of his touch.
This is why Maria chose him, likes him even in her own twisted way. Once he is gentle, the other time he takes her clit between his teeth. Once he obeys, does as he is told, without repetition, the next time he pretends to have a voice of his own. Sometimes he tries to take a step back, out of reason, out of shame, but now he’s kneeling in front of her, dreaming of shoving her onto some silk-draped bed and spreading her legs even wider.
So Maria presses him closer against her, repaying his earlier move. She moves her hips up and down until his nose brushes against her clit. She then tightens her grip on his hair, holding him in place as he obediently flicks his tongue. By now she’s fully riding his face, an act of control to which Daniil does not protest, just lets her use him in whichever way she prefers.
Her using him does not humiliate Daniil, but her casting his dress over him, fabric like hefty curtains, does.
This is when Maria lets herself moan, just once, but sweetly, coated with need that doesn’t seem to end — she wants more, and so does he, even though his jaw begins to ache, his tongue seems to go numb, but not as her clit at which he constantly nips and sucks. But this is when she slowly begins to give up; her thighs jerk, she tries to control it, but fails miserably. A fascinating thing to see, really.
When she’s done, she breathes out last ragged whimper before pushing him away with an abrupt movement of her leg as if she was kicking a dog on the street. Their gazes meet once again, both of their faces flushed, his slick with her wetness, her lips bitten by her own teeth she kept clenching to not give him any more satisfaction than it was needed.
“Come on, take it out,” she says suddenly, her throat clearly hoarse, and nudges with her bare foot at his crotch. “Nothing to be ashamed of, or at least I hope so.”
Daniil scoffs but undoes his pants, and Maria does not take her eyes off him. On the contrary, she looks at him with nearly clinical curiosity. When he pulls his cock out of his underwear and tightens his grip on it, she just sinks her back against the backrest of the chaise longue and stares, the fingers of her hand against her mouth, as if to hide the smile that stretches across her face.
First, she looks at his face, then at his cock, or rather his hand on it. Again — his face; his hand that begins to move faster around his shaft, a bit too desperate. Daniil still attempts to maintain any signs of composure, but his gaze is not at all static, just as hers, it wanders up to her face and down to the floor. Maria curls her feet with excitement she cannot control, and to that Daniil’s breath catches. The sheer thought of Maria’s composed facade shattering like a broken window was enough to set his veins ablaze during the cold, dark nights of the past days, only now it’s real. She is right in front of him, as material, as genuine as she can be, with scorching skin, not to mention her insides, and droplets of sweat clinging her hair to her face. Even if she tries to remain unfazed, though Daniil is not sure anymore, she keeps failing over and over again. Her body betrays her. Physiology wins, as it usually does.
This reminder is enough for Daniil to clench his teeth even harder as the shudder of climax travels from his head to toes. His blood seems to be boiling, his heartbeat uneven and echoing in his own ears.
“Stop,” orders Maria and at first Daniil doesn’t seem to hear her. So she repeats, sturdier and louder this time. Her voice like nails on a chalkboard.
Daniil’s hand drops, his knuckles hit the floor, but the pain doesn’t seem to reach him. Every inch of him is pleading for release, his eyes are overrun by a flood of black and white blots, his thighs tremble, his cock aches.
This is where the dream usually ends. Often, it doesn’t get that far, it hasn't for a while.
Daniil is ready to pinch himself, just like he used to do as a young boy after a nightmare or during it, but surprasses the need. Only blinks, once, yet long. When he opens his eyes, he’s met with Maria’s cold gaze. He swallows, useless sentences like what now? begin to roll onto his tongue, but nothing comes out.
Maria’s stare is focused. She awaits his move, and to Daniil it feels like he’s being studied, observed like a patient. Her pupils do not drop even once, they’re constantly fixed on him. She works with her eyes like she would with needles, precise and determined, one stuck between his fingers, second one, he imagines, would pin him down by his coat, if Maria cared enough to pick it up, fabric spread like wings, and the third one at the nape of his neck, pierced right through it with a force and elegance of someone who has done it before. Next, a dozen more.
She makes him a display of her wonders, but there’s still something real left inside of him. An iron will that forces the heart inside his ribcage to beat, a conviction so strong that when Daniil tries to move his finger, the muscle bends like it’s supposed to, without a prickly pain, without a single droplet of blood. After finding this confidence, he rises from his knees, takes a step, and it is now he who is pinning her to the green chaise longue with a firm grip on her shoulder.
Daniil’s eyes widen in a sudden realization. Maria’s too, perhaps even more.
She is right under him and the world around them is still; the wind doesn’t barge into the room, shattering the windows and pushing him away with an unbearable impact. The mirrors do not break further. Papers scattered on the floor do not begin to dance in unison, even candles don’t flutter, unlike Maria’s eyelashes. She doesn’t say anything, not yet — his move is not finished.
He then kisses her on the corner of her mouth.
Maria lies still for a moment and tightens her grip on the fabric of her dress. Her palm rolls into a fist, her nails dig into her own skin. “Why not on the mouth?” she asks at last.
For a moment, Daniil is taken aback. First of all, he wouldn’t dare, not now, not yet. Second, with a shared cigarette come shared stories, not that Daniil believes any, but Andrey’s eyes have the sharpness of a falcon’s and there’s an edge to his voice as he tells him: She was seen in the infected district yesterday, kissing the houses right where the disease had spread. A mistress in the making, damn me, she’s truly Nina's daughter. I wonder what she tastes like — she’s going to kiss someone soon, I’m sure of it, and with the kiss comes the mold, and with mold comes death.
“I see,” Maria says plainly and the double meaning behind those words makes Daniil’s head go dizzy. “I thought you were immune to such gossips. If true, I’d be wrapped in rags by now.”
“I’d like to believe that you’re smarter than what I’ve been told, but caution is advised in such circumstances,” he tries, though his vocal cords are trembling as she takes off his pin and begins to tug at the cravat around his neck.
“No caution is needed. Trust me and kiss me.” Her hands are now on his vest which she begins to unbutton with lazy movements.
“Not yet,” answers Daniil at last and she freezes, her eyes narrowing. This is a challenge placed in front of her. Maria doesn’t say no to challenges.
So she welcomes his hand cupping her breast through the fabric. She even lets him fumble with her buttons and doesn’t shiver when her skin gets revealed. On the contrary to Daniil who now touches, kneads, and kisses, making her hiss silently when he takes her pink nipple between his teeth.
He wonders if he’s the first one to do such things to her. So he asks, quite bravely. “Are you a virgin?”
“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t it?” she whispers like she’s blessing him with a secret. Daniil is well aware that the only way to know is her telling him, and this is not going to happen, not under these circumstances. He doesn’t bother asking again. This tone of hers, this look of hers — eyes slightly widened, black hair spilling in all directions as she lays beneath him, like branches, one hooked to her moist lips, another to her nipple — it all sets a fire to his abdomen, his cock once again fully hard, his pants still undone.
Daniil draws back and spreads her legs with his own hands, just as he once wanted to, and considers. He considers if he’s foolish enough to fuck her.
There will be consequences, there always are. But she is beautiful, and loneliness is a heavy thing to bear for both of them, he likes to think. That is why he touches her with his fingers once again. Lightly, he presses into her, glad to find that she’s still wet. He’s determined not to think of how much of it is just his own spit. He tries a few times — in and out, in and out — and to that, Maria rolls her eyes, albeit not from pleasure.
“Is this how you used to fuck Eva?” Used to suggests a time period longer than a day, and the memory of the bloody smear against the harsh, cold stone is already woven within every part of him.
Daniil flinches. For a moment, all the wrong words begin to gather at the back of his throat — a set of ugly, vile names he had coined just for her. Even his hand tightens around the red fabric, but in the end, all he says is a silent “No”.
Next, wordlessly, yet with a hitched breath, Daniil takes his cock into one hand, the other one he uses to grasp at her shoulder, just like he did before, hard enough to bruise. He presses her deeper into the chaise longue and pushes into her.
Maria doesn’t close her cold eyes, not once. She just looks — at him, at the shattered mirror. She doesn’t say anything either, instead, a choked moan escapes her lips before she manages to swallow it. She’ll lose this mask at some point, he knows it, and she knows it too.
“Not like this either,” mutters Daniil, more to himself than anyone else, Maria’s earlier question still burning in his head. He’s careful with his movements, too careful for her liking, as if he began to regret the rush, but he isn’t really gentle, considering his previous question. There’s no testing the ground, no checking for her reactions. He buries himself inside of her completely, the heat almost overwhelming.
With a shaky hand, he fumbles at the fabric of her dress, throws it up around her waist and watches. He watches how her hair meets his, how when he slides away, she takes him back completely, and even welcomes him by clenching herself around him. It’s perverse, this spectacle, he understands it, but he cannot stop looking. Eyes are just another tool for penetration.
Daniil releases her shoulder, and now grabs with both hands at her hips, leaving white traces of his touch on her skin. His stare flickers between his cock disappearing into her again and her breasts swaying with each movement.
“Do you like what you see?” Maria says finally, her voice raspy. Daniil stops immediately. Her head is turned sideways, she’s looking at the many versions of herself in the nearby mirror, all equally beautiful. After a moment she takes her eyes off herself and turns to face him once again.
“Yes. Very much so.” There's no point in lying, she’ll know the answer anyway.
“Good.” She begins to play with a strand of her black hair, as if there wasn’t a cock inside of her. “Continue then.”
This indifference stings. Daniil knows that not everyone will scream in pleasure, arch their backs or throw their heads, and he feels how Maria shivers, how her body jerks, he sees the pulse at her throat, but he knows there’s more to her than that.
“You just need to try a little bit harder, dear Bachelor,” she whispers. Her breath is oddly warm and steady against his ear.
So he reaches between her legs. As he begins to touch her, stroking over her clit, his hips begin to pick up the pace. Maria seems to be content with this shift of attention because she wraps her legs around him, almost ordering him closer.
He fucks her fast, grabs her by one breast, the other hand still against her hip, kisses her neck, all in different order. For this, Maria graces him with a low moan, silent one, but directed almost into his ear as his head is hidden into the crook of her shoulder.
His thrusts begin to feel irregular, his breath ragged, and if Maria were kind, she’d lock their bodies together in a tight embrace and let him finish inside, but this is not who she is. “Stop,” she says instead in a cold, cold voice, and Daniil obeys as if enchanted.
She moves her body up, his cock sliding out of her, precum staining the green furniture. “On the floor,” she commands.
Daniil doesn’t know why he’s doing any of it — why he’s listening. He had his fun, his pleasure, all he would have to do is pull his pants up, fasten the belt, get his coat, and leave this suffocating room. But instead, his heart is in his throat, his knees wobble as he’s coming off her. The floor almost feels welcoming, familiar.
Maria waits for a moment, notices his hazy eyes, and smiles to herself; she savors the moment of confusion, the feeling of injustice that begins to grow inside of his chest. There is, however, a faint drop of mercy in this sea of malice inside of hers, because she also rises from the chaise lounge, looks from above at him sitting on the floor just once and, instead of taunting him, she meets his eye-level.
Maria straddles his hips and lowers herself onto him before he’s gone flaccid, to which Daniil’s breath hitches once more. She wants him completely against the stone floor, tries to push him, but for once, Daniil resists.
She rides him so fast that they’re both on the verge of tears, heat surging onto their cheeks. She digs her fingernails into the nape of his neck, the pain almost pleasurable as it serves for a distraction from the ache of his now red cock. Again, a sign of force — her hands pressing against his chest — and what follows, once more, is denial.
What Daniil does instead is grab her by her hips as his whole length is sunk into her body and hold her down as she writhes. Then he looks her in the eyes. With the other hand, he entwines his fingers into the ebony twigs of her hair and tugs her closer until their mouths meet.
He expects teeth sinking into his lower lip, a spilled blood or a hiss. Instead, it’s like a spell being broken.
For a split second, Maria’s body ceases to move, just her chest rises and falls with the calm beating of her heart. The kiss is not crude, she doesn’t force her tongue into his mouth but rather accepts the gentleness he offers. It’s almost like she forgot that there’s a hand in her hair and a man inside her body. Only this kiss, the soft tickling of his tongue against her lips, a closeness foreign even to her.
When Daniil pulls off, she lightly squints her eyes, as if she’s trying to remember something. Odd, Daniil thinks to himself, I could swear her eyes were blue. Now they’re… Daniil’s not sure, warm perhaps, faintly brown, honest.
It’s a matter of a second, maybe two, a single flutter of her lashes, for her to reach his mouth again. Proper this time, with teeth. Daniil winces in sudden realization and lets go of her hair to press a finger against the split skin of his mouth. He knows the taste of blood well, this Town made sure that he’s never to forget it.
Daniil seizes her into his grasp once again and, with a swift movement, pushes her body onto the cold floor. Cold and hard floor. When Maria’s head lands against the stone, she whimpers in abrupt pain. This immediate awareness of his strength — that if he wants, he can toss her like a ragdoll — is not especially pleasurable either. But Daniil is not cruel, even though sometimes he’d like to be, so he stops, his eyes widening in horror as he notices a faint trail of blood on her teeth as she opens her mouth – she must’ve bitten her tongue with the sudden impact. He wants to aid her, even though the rust in his own mouth is still palpable.
“No,” says Maria in a weak voice. “Finish what you started.”
This time Daniil is too petrified to deny, almost afraid of the sheer thought that maybe there is some power to him too. He’s not sure if he wants it anymore, but this role is easy to fit into. He’ll be who she wants him to be. So, wordlessly, he begins to fuck her again, for the last time, at least he hopes so. He even tries to kiss her, which she neither accepts or refuses, only lets their blood meet and mingle. Daniil increases the pace of his hips, takes a last, hungry glimpse at her breasts, and attempts to tuck her hair behind her ear out of guilt, but she strikes his hand away. He tries no more.
He thrusts into her one last time and pulls out right after, his thighs jerking as he spills on her scarlet dress, some lands on the icy floor. Daniil takes a deep breath, but before he gets to buckling his belt he hears her.
“Get out,” Maria’s voice is trembling, though she tries to hide it by clearing her throat. She covers her chest and stares with disgust at her stained dress. “Get out so I can wound up the clock.”
In other words: Get out so I can wound up the clock and never see you again.
Daniil doesn’t have to be told twice, not this time. His hands quiver as he fastens the cravat, buttons up his shirt, the clang of his belt nearly echoes through her room. He takes the coat under his arm and rushes through the stairs, giving her one more look as she grabs at the wooden frame of the clock as if she’s looking for someone to hold her. Next he hears the shuffling of its hands, then nothing more but a scream of a person being burnt alive.
*
With a bat of a lash, a single heartbeat, and the tick of a clock, Daniil Dankovsky finds himself on the young Kaina’s doorstep. Puzzled, because he doesn’t remember leaving the Stillwater, he presses on the doorknob. It won’t budge. He does it again, harder this time, a little desperate.
And again and again and again and again. Each attempt means failure. The doors remain locked.
His mouth begins to taste like rot. The malady reaches his nostrils, irritates his throat, his eyes start to itch, but there’s not a single tear gathering. He takes a step back, then two more, and turns his back on this wretched building.
From above, through a grimy window, looks out a pale face. Maria Kaina fidgets with a strand of her hair until she disappears, merging into the red curtains. She glances briefly at her dress, her jaw tensing as she notices a vague, light stain. Some things just won’t wash away.