Masochism Tango | Alastor & Lucifer & Vox

chapter 20

The more skin that you removed from his arm, the more tense silence that stretched thin across the cell, the more time Alastor had to ponder over how he really thought about you. Maybe it was simply because you were a woman. Alastor had far more respect for the female sex because of his past experiences with men. Men were unreasonable, emotional, angry, and manipulative. While women could be those things too, Alastor found them far more intelligent beings than males, at least able to recognize their negative traits and fix them rather than look their bad parts in the eye stupidly, unaware of how to repair their own broken selves. Women all carried a maternal instinct to coddle, soothe, and protect, and that motherly instinct revealed itself sooner or later sometime in their lives.

And you were no exception. Alastor saw that potential underneath the psychotic, sadistic, demented persona you put on to cover it. Maybe Alastor was interested in bringing the good out in you... But why?

His eyes narrowed, his gaze gradually befalling you and studying your focused features, your lips pursed as you skillfully removed his skin, every now and then glancing up at Alastor to see if he has any reaction depending on how fast or slow or deep or shallow that you go. Every time you would look up at him, he would look away, afraid he would find something in those eyes of yours.

Alastor thought intensely about it, trying to draw a reasonable conclusion for his interest to bring out the good in you... It didn't quite make sense, why he was so interested in that bit. He didn't care about you, did he? He simply wanted out of his deal, and his goal was to befriend and manipulate you to get some information for Lucifer and then he'd be free. But his interest in you went beyond that, he realized, and that was what he was trying to figure out right now.

Then he realized, and his breath was caught in his throat, and he almost choked on his own saliva. How did you look, act? Tall, confident, beautiful, a working woman... These were simple attributes, attributes any woman could have — but the icing on the cake was the power you held over him, the kind of power only a mother could hold over her own son, the power a fallen female archangel held over a wayward male Sinner such as himself.

You reminded him of his mother, both in appearance and personality along with power imbalance, and he was attracted to you because of that, and additionally interested. And that was why he wanted to get to know you better beyond just getting out of his soul-binding deal with you. He wanted to provoke the kindness buried within you to comfort his own broken, bartered, motherless soul.

He felt sick. Bile rose up his throat. Was he truly that desperate for the feeling of his mother's love again that he was willing to seek it out in the Duchess of Hell? He shut his eyes tightly. And the fact that you were the only woman he had ever met to spark a sort of carnal sexual desire within him, a need to consume and submit and to know... He scoffed under his breath. Alastor guessed Freud was right.

"Something wrong?" you mused, disappointment lacing your words as you waved your hand over Alastor's arm, reconstructing his skin and healing him in the midst of golden and pink light. You soon became bored of removing his skin and wanted to move on to the next method of breaking him, seeing as skinning didn't provoke much of reaction out of him.

"Whatever are you talking about, my dear?" Alastor replied smoothly, though you could hear his voice waver with a sort of hidden anxiety. You quirked a brow. Something was wrong. Something was on his mind. But you honestly couldn't get yourself to care, too preoccupied with the next task at hand. You produced your notepad and a pen and jotted down some notes on the paper.

Still, you decided to play with him a bit as you took notes. "I mean, something seems to be on your mind." You muttered a bit, and with a swift swipe of your pen, you placed the notepad down and strolled over to stand in front of Alastor again. You smiled gently, folding your hands over your front expectantly. "Care to share?"