Beyblade Fan Fiction ❯ Intoxication ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Intoxication

Chapter 2

Wow, took me longer to get this part done. Does it say anything about me that I was watching Oz while writing both this chapter and Chapter 2? From here on, there's going to be mentions of different paintings and artists throughout the fic. I urge you, even if you're not an art lover, to look them up. Most of my favourite pieces will be included in context. Here we go.

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When Rei woke up, his mouth felt as though it was full of cotton wool dipped in vinegar. The ragged breaths he took in through his teeth let him know, at the very least, that he wasn't gagged. The ceiling loomed in front of his barely opened eyes, black and vast as outer space. But wait, there was no such thing as true black, was there? The colour black was really just an incredibly dark shade of blue. Rei couldn't figure out why this was important, but at that moment it felt like the one unifying truth that brought balance and harmony to all.

Slowly and painfully, his mind began to clear. The one unifying truth was lost to him when he started to realise what was going on around him. There was a dull ache in the back of his head, and what felt like a bruise forming on a spot near his elbow. He was lying on his side, his right leg lying on top of his left, and his hair was loose. The left side of his face was buried in his hair, blocking his nose so he had to breathe through his mouth. Then, suddenly, Rei came right out of his stupor with frightening clarity. He shot up into a sitting position, and only then discovered that he was naked. A cold sense of terror gripped him as he clutched at the only item of cloth in the vicinity.

It was a thin sheet of white silk, almost transparent and too small to cover him decently. If he brought it to his chest, it exposed most of his thighs. If he fixed it around his thighs, his chest was too bare for comfort. When Rei finally had it in a position he was somewhat comfortable with, he relaxed on what he guessed was a bed (he feared that he'd panic if he looked at it) and took a good look at the room he found himself in.

It was less a room than a cell. The door was made of steel that glinted menacingly with a dull shine, three thick bolted locks jutted out like teeth, ready to tear him to pieces. Rei tore his gaze away from the door, but the rest of the room was built from the same cold steel. The only other thing of note about the place was that it was covered with paintings. Ordinarily, this might have been some sort of comfort to him, but not these paintings. The common subject of the pictures chilled Rei even more than the cold metal cell.

The recurring theme in various forms scattered across the room appeared to by abduction. Rei actually recognised one of the paintings as Titian's The Rape of Europa, painted when rape meant an encounter under false pretences, rather than the myriad of meanings that the little word invoked in modern times. Rei remembered thinking that Europa didn't seem to mind being carried away by Zeus in the shape of a bull. He had come across the work before in one of the galleries the Bladebreakers visited during a stay in Italy. He had found many works in several galleries that echoed the sentiment portrayed in the Titian painting. And, looking around, he saw reproductions of those images that had so captured him back then.

Jupiter and Io by Correggio, a painting of a young girl being seduced by a wisp of cloud, hung near the door. Apollo and Daphne by Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo, an image of a girl changing into a tree to escape the amorous attentions of the God Apollo, was placed at the head of the bed. Deianira Abducted by the Centaur Nessus by Guido Reni showed a woman being carried off by a half-man, half-horse. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and her face contorted into an expression of fear. It had pride of place, crowning the door frame. There were other works Rei had never seen before, but the theme remained the same. An androgynous young boy carried away by an eagle, a nymph attempting in vain to shield her nudity from a winged youth, another Europa and Zeus scenario, three scenes of naked girls chained to rocks being rescued by a man on horseback… what really had Rei alarmed was the use of a thin sheet to try and conceal the subject's modesty that never quite worked, and how much it mirrored his own current situation.

" I was wondering when you would wake up."

Rei wheeled around at the sound of that voice. He hadn't even heard the door open, or close for that matter. It wasn't possible for the owner of that voice to have been there the whole time… was it? However he got there, he was there. Rei clasped the sheet closer to his body, his eyes catching the painting of the nymph trying to do the same thing. The voice spoke again, quiet as the hiss of a snake and coated with as much poison.

" You are incomparably beautiful when in slumber, but I desired to see your eyes in a suitable light. There is no need to conceal yourself, I have seen you naked. It was very satisfying."

Rei was afraid to speak, but felt he needed to.

" Where am I?"

His voice was soft and shaky, like he imagined the nymph in the painting would sound like if she had a voice. He was disgusted with himself. The voice spoke, and Rei could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

" You are here. I am also here. We are here together. But that isn't important, not yet, anyhow. Don't you want to know why you are here?"

Rei nodded, swallowing. He had kept his eyes on the painting of the nymph during their exchange, but when the owner of the voice moved forward he had to look at him.

He had no face, or at least that was how it appeared. He was wearing a mask that obscured his face, made of porcelain and decorated with feathers around the sides so that if he had hair, it wasn't visible. The porcelain was lacquered black and white in the shape of a butterfly spread over the eyes, and under the glow of the tiny individual light fixtures above the paintings, it shined as malevolently as the steel walls of the cell. He wore black, skin-tight breeches and a white dress shirt, covered by a dark blue knee-length coat embroidered with flowers of some exotic breed. He appeared to be well built, exceptionally tall and thin around the waist but strong around the calves and shoulders. What scared Rei the most was His eyes. The sockets of the porcelain mask where just wide enough to see His irises. They were pitch black, no light could penetrate them and there was no doubt in Rei's mind that they would never dilute to blue, no matter how you treated them. It was like looking into the eyes of a shark just before it attacks. He strode forward with purpose and stood in front of Rei. His hand, even colder than the steel Rei's feet were resting on, caressed Rei's unbound hair delicately. His voice filled the room like a toxic gas.

" You are so very lovely. I've never seen one like you before, so I had to have you."

He lifted several tendrils of mellifluous black hair and closed His fist around them, bringing them to the nose cut into His mask, he inhaled deeply. Rei's whole body stiffened, and he closed his eyes. All of his senses were screaming at him not to show any signs of weakness in front of this man. But the cell, the paintings, his nudity, and now this man was smelling his hair… it was all Rei could do to hold himself together.

" But, you're not quite ready yet."

Rei opened his eyes. There was hope here, he could feel it. He already knew there was no point in begging for mercy or trying to fight. This guy was a bona fide psychopath, and such things would most likely get him killed. But if he was patient and kept his wits about him, maybe he could emerge relatively unharmed.

* Better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, right, Rei? That philosophy's worked for you before, and it may work now. And let's face it, sugah, you ain't got to many options. You're stuck here bare-assed whether you like it or not. And in any situation where you're bare-assed, the most important thing is to tread carefully. Remember that.*

His internal monologue was a voice of reason in a ludicrous situation, and Rei had never been so grateful for it. He listened intently to what He was saying.

" You have many flaws, small ones, but flaws nonetheless. We will have to take care of them before you are ready for me. And we will start right away."

Ready for me? Rei was almost thankful that He was so incredibly crazy. If this had happened with anyone else, he would have already been raped and killed.

* Great. You were kidnapped by a rapist who doesn't think you're good enough to be raped by him, so he's not going to touch you until you meet his high standards. Hi Ho silver lining, right?*

" I'm having clothes made up for you. I think red is your colour, and it wouldn't be proper to let you remain nude. You will get three sets, and put one out for washing every night. Your bathroom is through the door beside Apollo and Daphne. I insist that you bathe every day, and any time I deem necessary. Your meals will arrive through a slot in the door three times a day, unless I tell you otherwise."

He finally dropped Rei's hair. His voice took on a sinister tone.

" You will always obey if I give you an instruction. You will not raise your voice to me, or use foul language in my presence. You will not attempt to physically overpower me, and under no circumstances are you to attempt to run away from here. Is that understood?"

Rei nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. The man stroked his face gently. Then He removed a bottle from his coat pocket. He pressed it into Rei's hands.

" There is shampoo and conditioner for your hair type in the bathroom, but first use this. It should take care of those split ends. We will continue from there. I'll see you later."

He cradled Rei's face in his hand and pressed a kiss to his lips with His cold porcelain mouth. The steel door opened, and He left, taking the air He polluted with His very presence with him.

For a while, Rei just sat on the edge of the bed, numbly going over what had happened in his head. For a while, it didn't register. Then, all of a sudden, something inside of him broke. In the cold metal cell, surrounded by artist's impressions of rape and abduction, Rei lay on the bed and cried.